With Roxanne's gym badge in my pocket, I headed to the nearest PokéCenter to heal. On my way though, the game stopped me and I heard shouting.
I got worried that a plot battle was coming, because I didn't have time to heal my pokémons yet. Luckily it was just a cutscene, though. A Team Aqua grunt stole some "DEVON goods" from the scientist we met in the forest before. The cutscene included the scientist chasing the thief towards North, hinting where we needed to go next. After I healed, I had to go through Route 116 and Rusturf Tunnel to find that rascal. Those were both new areas, which meant 2 new potential teammates!
I'm gonna now tell you the story of a wild Taillow and a wild Whismur. Did I catch them? Keep reading to find out!
I encountered the wild Taillow on Route 116. He and MYRIONITE had an epic Growl battle, like a battle of Harden between 2 Metapods. After an unnecessarily long stat reduction, I finally threw a Pokéball which caught me a new Taillow. ^^ This Taillow is now a highly valued team member, because so far I had nothing to counter the vast amount of Grass Type pokémons which surrounded me. To reflect his value, I had to give him an epic name.
The Team Aqua grunt I was hunting fled into Rusturf Tunnel, which was foggy as hell. I was 1 tile away from challenging him when I was challenged by a wild Whismur. He was an easy catch, considering that he was only level 6. I haven't heard of this pokémon before, so I had no idea if he evolves, and if he does, what he evolves into. So I just went with a generic male nickname: WILSON. (I almost called him willng3) With WILSON, my team was finally full.
After catching WILSON, it was finally time to beat the Aqua grunt and get on with the plot.
I have to admit, that Team Aqua battle theme song is also kinda catchy, but the Rival theme remains my favorite.
Beating him was easy, he only had a lv.10 Poochyena, which stood no chance against MYRIONITE. After the battle ended, some stuff happened.~
Spoiler for Some stuff~:
MYRIONITE is finally evolving!
YES! \
/
He also wanted to learn Mud Shot, so I had to make him forget Mud-Slap, which I was a bit sad about, because it was his MVP move against Roxanne.
I'd also like to note here that even though my team is full, nobody is able to learn Cut. Which is a shame.
Now back to the plot. After recovering the "DEVON goods", the president of the Devon Company assigned Reynold to a new mission with a (compulsory) side-quest. The mission was to deliver an important package to Slateport City, and the side-quest was to deliver a letter to Dewford Town on my way to Slateport. They warned me that not only Team Aqua, but also Team Magma will try to stop me. This is the first time they mentioned Team Magma in the game, so I was getting curious. They seemed to be sleeping so far. So in order to convince me, the Devon president gave me a PokéNav, which is like a phone, except that it's a map...
"This stuff doesn't even make sense."
On my way out of the facility, I was talking to some scientists. One of them invented a machine that can resurrect fossils to Pokémons, so fossils confirmed!
I was on my way to the nearest PokéCenter when I ran past a familiar character. It was May, my neighbour rival. It looks like the game now gives you a chance to refuse rival battles if you are not prepared, which is kind of a letdown considering that random rival battles are the most thrilling parts of Blind Nuzlockes. I was almost in perfect shape though, so I instantly accepted the challenge!
Second Rival Battle: Pokémon Trainer May!
"The girl had only 2 Pokémons though."
That's right. She only had a buffed Wingull and her unevolved starter, Treecko. I have to admit though, Wingull put up a good fight. The move "Wing Attack" has awesome animations in Emerald compared to the lackluster feather animation in Diamond. I also didn't have anything to counter Flying types at this point, while half of my team was susceptible to Flying type attacks, which added to the challenge a bit. But in the end, it was still an easy fight.
PLOT JUMP again! I finally arrived in Dewford Town, where I received an Old Rod from an unknown fisherman. So I could finally fish in towns!
For the record, usually when I was in a losing position in Diamond, I went back to towns I explored earlier and looked for ponds to fish in, because each town is technically a new area, where one new pokémon can be caught. But since most of the time it's just a Magikarp, I only use this strategy as a last resort.
The local townspeople kept blabbering about a new trend called "AMUSING DIGITAL", but if I have any clue what this might mean, I think it's just a thing I can reply to interviewers. This phrase might also change daily, but I didn't test it yet. My next (and only available) area was Granite Cave.
I wanted to end the episode here and almost did, but then something AMAZING happened!
Well, at least amazing to me. Because I'm the one who's playing, lol.
I didn't really think about what I was doing, I just ran inside the cave to explore it a bit. Little did I know, I encountered a wild Abra. An Abra, from all the possible things. I already got lucky on Route 116 to avoid these guys, because they also spawned there quite often. If you are new to Pokémon, an Abra is a Psychic type pokémon who, if you don't catch or kill it on the first turn, uses Teleport and flees. Killing him would have been pointless, so my only option was to fling my strongest available Pokéball at it and hope for the best. So I did that, threw a Great Ball at him. You might already know how the story ended based on my initial excitement.
Done and done! Wild Abra was caught. 8) This guy will live by the name ARGOR from now on. Once he evolves into Kadabra, there will be no stopping for us. (Kadabra was probably my favorite pokémon to use in Pokémon Diamond. That might change here, considering that this Abra was not received via NPC trade, though. [NPC traded pokémons get boosted experience compared to all other pokémon.] We'll see~)
End of Day party stats:
 | Lv.17 MYRIONITE, the Marshtomp (♂)
 Tackle | Growl |  Mud Shot |  Water Gun |
|
|  | Lv.13 LIPLOP, the Lotad (♀)
 Astonish | Flash |  Absorb | Nature Power |
|
|
 | Lv.11 PANDORA, the Poochyena (♀)
|
|  | Lv.13 SPORE, the Shroomish (♂)
| Absorb | Tackle | | Stun Spore | Leech Seed |
|
|
 | Lv.17 TURBULANCE, the Taillow (♂)
 Wing Attack | Growl | | Focus Energy | Quick Attack |
|
|  | Lv.6 WILSON, the Whismur (♂)
| Pound | Uproar | | |
|
|
ARGOR was transferred to the PC.
