Well, I finally finished off a few things I wanted to get done (such as the additional areas I missed because of the lack of an HM, etc.) and progressed through the Sunyshore Gym. It was actually quite entertaining, and for a few laughs, I decided I'd use my Luxray as my last Pokemon, due to the fact that the last Pokemon Volkner sent out was his own Luxray. Though slower, my Luxray triumphed and won me the Beacon Badge!
Finally out of Gyms to challenge, I decided to heal up and progress north towards the Pokemon League. Since I decided to teach Quagsire Waterfall, I didn't need to have an HM Slave on board to get to Victory Road, so for a small while I was able to just use my main team and level them up some more. When I got there, however, I needed to switch one of my party members for my Shiny HM Slave.
Victory Road was as one would expect it; just really long and boring with a few trainers dotting the lengthy paths and a few items at dead ends. Nonetheless, I picked up a few levels because of it, so it wasn't all bad. But I was thankful to be out of there and before the Pokemon League building.
While there, I switched out my HM Slave for the Pokemon I'd left on stand-by; Luxray. At this point, I was now at an even Level 50 with all of my Pokemon. But guess who shows up! My rival darted towards me for a battle, to see who would be worthy to challenge the Elite Four.
I quickly dispatched of each of his Pokemon as they came out, Glaceon surviving a close-call Close Combat and managing to fight back with an Ice Beam on Staraptor, and Infernape taking out a number of his Pokemon with his own Close Combat. But it was Quagsire that dealt the finishing blow to the rival with an Earthquake.
I healed up and went straight in for the Elite Four; first up would naturally be Aaron.
After a bit of consideration as to who he would be starting with, (I knew what Pokemon he'd have, but didn't remember which he started with) I decided to start with Glaceon and progressed from there. Altaria took down his Heracross with a DD'd Fly rather nicely and the finishing blow came from Infernape on his Scizor, OHKOing it with Flame Wheel.
'Big Bertha' was next up, so I decided to switch for Quagsire to start. I popped off a Yawn on Whiscash, but Quagsire wasn't doing enough damage, so I switched in Altaria for the Dragon Dance. After three, Whiscash fell to a Fly. Hippowdon was her last Pokemon (interestingly enough) so I left the end of the battle to Glaceon who, with a nice Ice Beam, finished off Hippowdon with one blow.
Flint was probably the most challenging of the Elite Four for me. Though I took out his Houndoom with a nice Earthquake, he managed to fire off a Sunny Day, which was followed by a Solar Beam. A lot of the battle was trying not to die, but eventually, I found a hole in his Pokemon and pummeled them accordingly. But not until his Magmortar caused a huge hole in my own. Infernape was the finisher with Close Combat.
Lucien wasn't so hard either and I took care of him mostly with my Gardevoir, but his Gallade got a very lucky Crit on my Gardevoir, taking it out and leaving me to revive and heal. Thankfully, I got Gardevoir back up and runnign and managed to get another Calm Mind chain, ultimately meaning that Gardevoir was the Pokemon to net me the win against Lucien.
Cynthis was pretty easy too, but unfortunately, the start wasn't so amazing. Her Spiritomb took out my Altaria, so my Glaceon polished it off. Garchomp got what was coming to it too and faltered to an Ice Beam pretty quickly. Other than that, it was a pretty straight forward battle, with Luxray dealing a Spark for the win.
With that done, I decided to hit a few spots, in particular Sandgem, to get myself a National Dex and the Poke Radar. But I eventually took to the Battle Frontier, where I've currently got the first win over three of the Frontier Brains. ^^
End-Game Team:
Infernape @ Level 51 - Sassy | Mach Punch|Flame Wheel|Close Combat|Taunt
Luxray @ Level 50 - Docile | Thunder Fang|Crunch|Charge|Spark
Glaceon @ Level 51 - Modest | Ice Beam|Icy Wind|Ice Shard|Sand-Attack
Gardevoir @ Level 52 - Bold | Confusion|Psychic|Magical Leaf|Calm Mind
Quagsire @ Level 51 - Relaxed | Surf|Yawn|Earthquake|Waterfall
Altaria @ Level 51 - Careful | Dragon Dance|DragonBreath|Safeguard|Fly