It was time to make some progress again.~
REYNOLD's first destination was Lake Acuity, where Galactic Commander Jupiter already defeated our rival, Zane. We did not find a battle here, but we were thorough enough to find a new Psyduck who was willing to join our team.
Her name shall be FLISS, and I hope she's not a captain of any boat if you get the reference.~
Next up, we had a visit to the Veilstone City HQ of Team Galactic on our list. I had assumed I would have gotten there several updates ago, but it's only now that we can finally get in. Inside, I neglected the ZERIA challenge to level up RATHALOS a bit, our team's Rhyhorn. I knew that my goal was to reach the room of the boss, but it took me a while to get there. Halfway towards that goal, I bumped into Looker, who was spying on a secret Team Galactic meeting. There, he had an interesting comment about Cyrus after the meeting ended.
"Oh look, I'm as old as Cyrus!"
"Da heck?! I thought he was like 40."
After that sidetrack, my way was sort of clean towards the final room. (Except that one Scientist guy in front of the television, who I knew would want to fight me. ZERIA was leading in that fight instead of RATHALOS.) In there, it was time for a rematch between REYNOLD and the ever-cunning leader of Team Galactic.~
Second Boss Battle: Galactic Boss Cyrus! His team was good, consisting of Sneasel, Crobat and Honchkrow, but I had a trump card for this match. Long story short, Cyrus passed the ZERIA challenge. Or more like, ZERIA passed the Cyrus challenge. It's the same thing. (The ZERIA challenge is all about ZERIA single-handedly taking care of opponents or entire routes.)
Cyrus acknowledged his temporary defeat, and as a sign of his acknowledgement, he rewarded us with our first (and also last) Master Ball. It's an appreciated token, though I doubt I will ever use it.
Okay, so we defeated Cyrus, but why have we come to Team Galactic's HQ anyway?? Oh, that's right! We came to release the captured legendary pokémon: Mesprit, Azelf and Uxie. Cyrus did not care about letting us release them though, because he had already gotten what he wanted out of them; the power to bind
something. Something big and even more legendary.
Before we could release them though, REYNOLD had to fight through the stubborn Galactic Admin Saturn, who did not approve of the boss letting us in. (Oh, and Charon was there too.)
Boss Battle: Galactic Admin Saturn! I did not take Saturn seriously. I had just defeated Team Galactic's strongest member with only ZERIA, so why should I? I was prepared to complete the ZERIA challenge again, this time on Saturn. However, he started with the only chance he had against me: Chance! And by that, I mean he used Supersonic with a Golbat to quickly confuse ZERIA. His attacks were not strong enough to take down ZERIA, but if ZERIA kept hitting herself, it would add up to a nasty amount of damage.
So that was Saturn's plan to avoid being the next victim of the ZERIA challenge. It worked out well for him in the beginning, bringing ZERIA down to half HP with his Golbat. After that, ZERIA continuously tried to use Roost, but she kept hitting herself in confusion while also getting hit by Air Cutters. After 3 consecutive confusions, I really banked on snapping out of it and using Roost, but once again it failed!
Shit, shit, shit - I was thinking. ZERIA barely had any health left, and another Air Cutter was incoming. And then... ZERIA lived with 7 HP!
To continue the ZERIA challenge and not lose my strongest Pokémon, my only option would have been to not get confused and use Roost. This was a huge risk though, so I cancelled the ZERIA challenge and switched in SONIC, the Luxray. SONIC could handle Golbat with a single Thunder Fang, so things started to look better.
Saturn's second Pokémon was a Bronzor, who my Medicham could easily take out without taking damage.
And then Saturn's last Pokémon was a Toxicroak, who I mistakenly thought would still be unevolved. (I expected a Croagunk to come out.) Since SONIC had taken out Croagunks in the past, I thought he could easily handle this one as well. However, Toxicroak's damage was no joke, so I had to switch out SONIC into Detective SHELLOCK, my Gastrodon. Detective SHELLOCK quickly identified Toxicroak's next move to be Poison Jab, which he concluded to be not very effective against him, thus ensuring a safe switch-in. Nice detective work as always, SHELLOCK!
SHELLOCK was my last bastion against Toxicroak though. ZERIA didn't have enough health to switch-in, my Riolu was seriously underlevelled, SONIC would have gone down in a single hit, RATHALOS was weak to Toxicroak's Fighting-type moves, and at that point, I assumed that Toxicroak resisted all of MYSTERY's moves (MYSTERY is the name of my Medicham). If SHELLOCK was about to lose, my only option would have been making a tough decision to sack a team member, then bringing in ZERIA to start healing by using Roost repeatedly.
I counted my options with SHELLOCK. His damaging moves were Surf, Mud Bomb, Body Slam and Hidden Power Fighting. HP Fighting was our weakest move, plus Toxicroak resisted it, so using that was out of the question. Surf would have been great, but I was afraid that Toxicroak might have the Dry Skin ability, which nullifies all Water-type attacks. If he had that ability, I would have just given him an extra turn, which would have been awful. (With SHELLOCK already damaged, I was certain that Toxicroak can defeat him with 2 attacks. And with SHELLOCK having lower Speed than Toxicroak, an extra turn would have guaranteed SHELLOCK to lose.)
My other options were Mud Bomb and Body Slam. Mud Bomb was sure to one-hit KO Toxicroak if it hit, but if it didn't hit, I would have just given him an extra turn again, which I could not risk with only 85% success rate. So really, my safest option was Body Slam, which was a 2-hit KO at best, and it also had a small chance to paralyze the opponent. With all this in mind, I went for the Body Slam and hoped to get a paralysis. As I expected though, it was not enought for a 1-hit KO. However, it was a good enough attack to make the opponent paralyzed!
That was exactly what I needed. Paralyzed Pokémon have their Speed stat halved, which allowed SHELLOCK to move first next turn. With a second Body Slam, the 2-hit KO was completed and Toxicroak went down. (If Toxicroak would have moved first, SHELLOCK could have died right there.) This time, Detective SHELLOCK saved the day!
After the fight, I realized that MYSTERY did have a neutral move against Toxicroak (Strength), which I could have used in case things got rougher. Luckily, it did not come to that. ^^" REYNOLD proceeded to free the legendary guardians of the lakes, then quickly headed to Mount Coronet, where Galactic Leader Cyrus planned his next big move at Spear Pillar.
That, however, will be part of another episode.~
End of Day party stats:
This team is already prepared to go into Mount Coronet. The necessary Hidden Moves were taught, though I probably should have taught Rock Smash to Riolu instead of Rhyhorn.
| Lv.54 ZERIA, the Crobat (♀) Item: Poison Barb
Fly | Cross Poison | Bite | Roost |
|
| | Lv.49 MYSTERY, the Medicham (♂) Item: Fist Plate (Ability: Pure Power)
Hi Jump Kick | Force Palm | Calm Mind | Strength |
|
|
| Lv.40 RATHALOS, the Rhyhorn (♂) Item: Quick Claw
Rock Blast | Rock Climb | Rock Smash | Horn Drill |
|
| | Lv.22 TENECAC, the Tentacool (♀)
Cut | Acid | Wrap | Bubble Beam |
|
|
| Lv.44 SONIC, the Luxray (♂) Item: Sitrus Berry (Ability: Rivalry)
Thunder Fang | Crunch | Charge | Leer |
|
| | Lv.1 RAIZEN, the Riolu (♂) (Not a final member of the team yet.) Item: Soothe Bell
Quick Attack | Foresight | Endure | |
|
|
Spoiler for PC Pokémon:
TORVIUS, the Togepi (Note: Not a member of my squad yet. I can only choose one Egg Pokémon, and it might not be TORVIUS.)
ROVIUS, the Kirlia
ELZEVION, the Eevee
UDIUS, the Unown
TINCATA, the Tentacruel
WACKX, the Wingull
OXIDIAN, the Onix
RAID BOSS, the Remoraid
TAPPERTON, the Tropius
FROYZZ, the Floatzel
ZEEZY, the Zubat
PERESVIR, the Porygon
PEP, the Raichu
Q, the Quagsire
SNUUUU, the Snover
FLISS, the Psyduck
SHELLOCK, the Gastrodon