I began by healing the team since my Swellow fainted during the epic battle against that monster Wattson. The team consists of Earhart the Swellow (level 26), Wilbur the Wingull (level 18), Cloud the Gyarados (level 21), and Luna the Zubat (level 18), and also, I was carrying around two Zigzagoon named Ed and Edd (for Pickup). Sorry, Eddy. Ed already knew Cut, so I taught it Rock Smash, so I could proceed north.
I ran into reporter Gabby and cameraman Ty with their Whismur and Magnemite. I couldn't one-shot them with Swellow and Wingull, but this Magnemite was much easier to deal with in comparison to Wattson's. I'll go ahead and tell you that when I looked at the TV, they said I was "ruthlessly strong," but Gabby didn't deliver her monologue about not being able to launch a single attack, or that she lost confidence in herself as a trainer. I don't remember what other things she can say. I'll look it up on Bulbapedia later.
Luna evolved into Golbat on the north side of Route 112. What was that cave called again? Oh, well. I messed around in Route 113 for quite a while, and it wasn't just because I wanted to collect ash for the Blue Flute, the Yellow Flute, and the Red Flute. Skarmory is a 5% encounter rate on this route (kind of like Pikachu in Viridian Forest). The first time I encountered him, I thought he was a legendary like Articuno. Skarmory kept using "Sand Attack" which had no effect on Wingull thanks to Keen Eye. I eventually caught Skarmory in a Pokeball and named him Hendrix in honor of Jimi Hendrix and his song "Scuze Me While I Kiss the Sky." I was very thankful Skarmory had Sturdy instead of Keen Eye because Steel beats Elite Four Glacia's ice-types. (This was before I realized TM move Facade is better than the Steel Wing strategy by an order of magnitude, but we'll get to that.)
I don't remember when, but I did teach Skarmory "Steel Wing" by means of the TM given to me by Steven Stone instead of teaching it to Swellow and letting Skarmory learn it by level up. It was a tough decision.
I start heading towards Meteor Falls, and my newly acquired Skarmory stared at me like "No rush, Skye, Professor Cozmo is just getting mugged by Team Aqua! [/Sarcasm]" I ran into Lanette who had a very tidy office. I'm absolutely not saying that because she was the saint who told Bill to [hyperlink blocked] himself for making the PC storage system in Kanto such an inconvenience. What was I saying? Oh, right, I caught a Swablu who will one day be a mighty dragon/flying-type Pokemon. I named it "Seto Kaiba" because of it's blue and white color scheme and the dragon typing.
I did eventually make it to Meteor Falls, but Aqua Admin Matt decided it was a bad idea to fight me, and Team Magma Leader Maxie told me something about Land, but I wasn't listening.
I went back down to Rustboro, and... did I mention the Exp. Share from Mr. Stone prior to Route 109 and Slateport? I meant to. Anyway, I wanted to use the Rusturf tunnel, but there was a boulder in the way, so I used Ed's Rock Smash, and this guy in a Karate outfit looked like he was about to cry tears of joy. He was so happy, he gave me HM04 for Strength. Apparently he's dating Wally's cousin, so I went ahead and visited Wally. I also checked on my Golbat's friendship while I was in Verdanturf.
I think this was around the time I did the second challenge from the Trick Master. It was a cop out if I'm being honest; all I did was press some switches in a set order.
I rode the Cable Car to Mt. Chimney and defeated a Team Aqua Grunt, Team Aqua Admin Matt, and Aqua Leader Archie. Archie's Mightyena was tougher than I thought. I eventually scored a Knock-Out with Golbat's Wing Attack, but confusing Mightyena didn't do anything to help. Gosh, this music was good. I sent out Hendrix to defeat his Golbat, and at this point, I was wishing Gyarados had Thunderbolt already. I had to send Wingull out to heal up my other party members. Swellow, now refreshed, finished Golbat with a critical hit, and then Archie sent out Sharpedo, which I defeated with my (also refreshed) Golbat's Wing Attack. Archie retreated and stupidly left me the Meteorite. I took the Meteorite back to Professor Cozmo, and he gave me TM27 Return, which I soon taught to Swellow.
So at this point, I decided "Enough is enough! I've had it with this Game Corner's Tyranny!" So I hacked my 20 coins into 8,000 coins to get the TM24 "Thunderbolt" and TM13 "Ice Beam" for Gyarados. I would give Gyarados the Kaiju moveset of Thunderbolt/Ice Beam/Flamethrower/Surf, but I decided, "Man, Earthquake on a Gyarados sounds rad!" Maybe I'll change my mind later when I actually get Earthquake (which will be a while), but I think I'll do Thunderbolt/Ice Beam/Earthquake/Surf. Now that I'm thinking about it though, maybe I could use the Kaiju moveset until I get Earthquake.
I go through Jagged Pass to Lavaridge, and along the way, my Wingull evolves into Pelipper. Unfortunately, it won't get a lot of action after this because I don't need two Water/Flying-type Pokemon on a team consisting of five Pokemon that can learn Fly and one Pokemon (Gyarados) who can't.
I arrive in Lavaridge, and I get a Charcoal from this nice man in the vitamin store--you know, the store where they sell vitamins so bitter, it makes your Pokemon's friendship go down? Yeah, that's a detriment to my favorite TM move Return (not to mention Golbat's friendship evolution introduced in Generation 2).
So this time at Lavaridge Gym, I actually remember to face the very first Gym Trainer before the Gym Leader. I take out the Fire/Rock-type Slugma with Gyarados's Thunderbolt (because I like to flex that rock-types aren't actually resistant to electric-type attacks unless they're dual rock/ground-type), but the Kecleon are surprisingly hard to kill by comparison. I know how to get super effective damage on them of course by doing stuff like, for example, using Thunderbolt or Ice Beam right after Wing Attack, but I was sticking with Gyarados for most of this. Also, Luna evolved into Crobat in this gym: very nice!
Flannery's first Slugma wasn't much of a challenge, especially after it was paralyzed by Thunderbolt, but Sunny Day did scare me a bit, and it just had to survive long enough to poison my level 26 Gyarados AND receive a Super Potion on top of that. I used Dragon Rage to finish it off. The second Slugma put up more of a fight since it knew a rock-type move for fighting my level 26 Crobat, even though it ... kind of just used Flamethrower? Does poison resist rock? I used Wilbur the Pelipper against Flannery's Torkoal, and it actually pressured me into having to use one of my two Full Restores (because Body Slam paralyzed Wilbur). It used Overheat which would be very strong, but it lowers the user's special attack by two stages, so it's useless, and I ended up scoring the win by using Water Gun one more time. Flannery hands me the Heat Badge and the useless TM for Overheat.'
I walk out of the gym, and now Rival May comes out of ... What the Hell was she doing in the vitamin shop? Come to think of it, her name is never on the Winning Trainers list at the gyms. Has she beaten a single gym leader? Well, anyway, she hands me the Go Goggles for the desert, and I'm finally allowed to challenge Leader Norman.
Now that I can use Strength in the overworld, I go and get the TM for Toxic, which I will teach to Luna the Crobat later.
(I'm going to skip the stuff with the desert cuz it's uneventful. I didn't even bother with any fossils.)
I challenge the Trick Master, and it's switches again, but this time, it's a bit more eventful. Still though, nothing much gets in my way.
So I enter the Petalburg Gym. I go through the speed room, the defense room, and the strength room. I was trying to get Skarmory to a higher level at this point, so I kept him up front for most of it.
After defeating all of the Cool Trainers, I finally challenge Leader Norman. He sends out Slaking the LAZY Pokemon... with 670 base stats. Slaking is too tough to get into the 600 club with the Pseudo Legendaries. I begin the fight with Cloud's Thunderbolt because its worse stat is special defense, but I then realized that Dragon Rage is the way to go. Unfortunately, Norman healed, and I was like, "Damn it, I knew he could heal on TRUANT's "loafing around" turns." What a weasel! So I used a Super Potion on Gyarados, and Norman's Slaking knocked me right back down, so I stupidly forgot about Truant and used my Full Restore instead of just healing with Super Potion twice. The good news is Norman didn't use a second Hyper Potion on Slaking. The bad news is I still gotta be a Vigoroth and ANOTHER SLAKING. Vigoroth and Skarmory were kind of at a stalemate cuz Vigoroth can only deal "not very effective" damage with Faint Attack, Facade, and Slash, and using Skarmory's Swift was taking too long, then Norman used another Hyper Potion, and I healed too. This went on for a while. Looking back on this gym battle footage I recorded is making me want to grab a snack cuz I'm bored. It goes down after quite some time before Skarmory finally defeats Vigoroth. I send out Earhart the Swellow (at level 28, close to level 29) to finish the job. I started spamming Return because I know this Slaking has Focus Punch, which will cause the user to flinch if the user is hit with something. Norman went for this twice, and I managed to defeat Slaking in four uses of Return.
Norman asks me to go next door to Wally's parents, who gift me HM03 Surf. They sure are thankful Wally has a great friend like me.
...Wally ran away, and no one knows where he went...
Whoops.
