Now, I get to battle Jess! No, not Jessie from the famous division that all Rocket Grunts should aspire to be like, but rather, the Jess which is the trainer name that KingDedede16 uses.
As usual, Metagross is my lead. Jess sends out Agumon, which really looks like a Flygon, as the lead. I think to myself that I am facing a typical Choice Scarf Flygon, which would use either Fire Blast or Earthquake to damage my Metagross, so I decide to switch to Gyarados who would fare well against either move.
Wait... how can Agumon digivolve if it's already in this state?
Gyarados enters and lowers its opponent's attack stat, even though 0 damage would have occurred anyway from the Earthquake. Okay, so the obvious move for a Choice Scarfed Pokemon who can't do any damage would be to switch out, so I took this opportunity to command Gyarados perform its Dragon Dance. However, Jess bluffed a Scarf, even though any real trainer would have seen that Agumon was not donning a Scarf along its slightly elongated neck. Stone Edge hits for a critical, thus even at 2/3x base damage it was still enough to topple Gyarados. So, Gyarados didn't fare well, but it did say farewell.
Next up was the Pokemon I should have sent out before: Latias. Latias sent out a pulse of the Dragons, and Agumon lost its pulse and fainted. Technically, Latias was the one who lost its pulse by emanating it in a destructive form, but somehow, Latias is still levitating.
Needing to check up on Agumon's condition, Jess sends out Nurse Blissey, but instead sends it out into battle. Interesting. Anyway, Latias needed to regain its pulse, so Metagross returns to the fray.
Blissey used Thunder Wave on the switch, which hits Metagross. Metagross consumes its Lum Berry, and gets ready to attack Blissey.
You would think that Metagross would use Earthquake to take down Blissey, but I do recall that I misclicked and while waiting for Jess to make a move, I wished that the game would give me a chance to cancel my move. When Jess decided to switch Ninetales in, I wished I chose Earthquake instead of Explosion. To make matters worse, Ninetales has a Focus Sash, anyway.
Salamence would be Metagross' replacement, since it seemed unlikely that Ninetales would have anything super effective against the dragon. Intimidate works to lower the physical attack of a special attacker. Ninetales used Extrasensory, a move I never expected. Jess is turning out to be an unpredictable opponent.
Salamence dances, and with increased attack and speed, it Dragon Claws Ninetales to deal 1 point of damage, not really proving much prowess, but at least it got to go first.
Jess sends out Slade, the Scizor. Salamence had Flamethrower on the ready, but Scizor used Bullet Punch and brought Salamence to yellow. No worries. Salamence will still fry Slade in one hit... except, of course, Slade munched on an Occa berry right before catching on fire.
Slade goes with its repeat performance even though I didn't ask for an encore, and slays the dragon.
I decide to send out Lucario with the intention of using Close Combat to eliminate the Scizor, but Jess saw that coming and withdrew Scizor to bring out Gyarados. A good move, seeing as how Lucario is also going to have its attack power weakened through Intimidate. Also, with the side effect of Close Combat, Lucario now has three dropped stats in total.
I predicted that a switch out would not benefit me, since the opposing Gyarados would use Dragon Dance, so instead of giving it a free turn, I decided to just have Lucario use Extremespeed for two turns in a row, making Jess' Gyarados say farewell.
Electivire is the next Pokemon Jess sent out. I guess the Gyavire combo was pretty popular at the time. I suspected that Electivire would use Earthquake, so I had my remaining Ground-immune Pokemon switch in. However, it was not the typical Thunderbolt/Ice Punch/Cross Chop/Earthquake Electivire, as Latias felt a Fire Punch.
Anticipating a Dragon Pulse, Jess brought in one best qualified to take a pulse, Nurse Blissey. Blissey considers the pulse weak, but wants to take another one, just to be sure. After seeing that it's still weak, the nurse decides a defibrillator is needed, and uses it... or rather, a slight electrical shock in the form of a Thunder Wave. How thoughtful. Now Latias is paralyzed. Perhaps a malpractice lawsuit will come later.
Blissey uses Ice Beam, as if to numb the sensations further, while Latias' pulse is still as weak as ever. The nurse is still eating at work, and then adds some softboiled egg to the leftovers. Latias is paralyzed upon seeing the lack of professionalism.
I decide that Latias should return, and that Scizor would have a better chance at defeating Blissey, but Blissey successfully freezes Scizor, and then calls on Electivire to perform the surgical removal.
However, just like Goku in the Dragon Ball Z opening, Scizor uses its Superpower to bust out of the ice (okay, Scizor thawed out first and then used Superpower, but it's more dramatic the way I described it).
Electivire takes the blunt end of the attack and falls. Jess is left with Slade the Scizor and Nurse Blissey, and Jess selects the latter to take the next hit, even though it would be super effective. Even with a reduced attack stat, Scizor still defeats the Nurse.
Slade, already in the yellow, could not withstand the reduced Superpower, and falls to its doppelganger.
There goes the battle. Good game, Jess.
So, until next time, Team Rocket, blast off at the speed of light!
My attempt for the next gym badge was about four days later. The gym was named Waterfall. Odd that T-Flare would name the Water gym Waterfall but the Flying gym something other than Fly.
Anyway...
Water types would resist Scizor's, Metagross', and Lucario's Bullet Punches, but since Zerro10's team would not be made with six Water Pokemon, I thought the match would be relatively fair.
I took the Celebi from my balanced team and tried it out for this match. Looking at my team, I decided to punish Gyarados for its role in the previous battle give Gyarados a break, as I already had Salamence who could Intimidate and perform Dragon Dance. Then, I thought that Zapdos should also be a part of the team instead of Salamence. I suppose I was worried about Ice Beam that most Water Pokemon carry for coverage. Logically, this swap does not get rid of the Ice weakness, but I guess I was anticipating a lot of Roosts.
Metagross takes the lead yet again, and Zerro10 sends out another common lead, Swampert. Okay, so that's one Water Pokemon so far. I thought that Swampert would use Stealth Rock on the first turn, so I should be safe from Earthquakes for at least this turn. I kept thinking to myself that Metagross outsped Swampert, so even if Swampert attacked, it would be after Metagross threw the pointed stones. Swampert, though, went first and used Earthquake.
This time, though, Metagross did not munch on a Lum Berry, but a Shuca Berry. Still functioning, Metagross used Stealth Rock to make the fight against potential Water/Ice Pokemon or Water/Flying Pokemon easier.
I thought about this turn for a moment. I knew that Metagross' base speed was higher than Swampert's, so that must mean that Swampert had to be EV trained in Speed to at least tie with the base 70s who 0 Speed EVs. Of course, that also means that those EVs had to be taken from another stat, and I deduced from the damage output that it was not from Attack, but from HP or Defense. Therefore, I chose my next move with more confidence.
Swampert used Stealth Rock on the next turn. Perhaps Zerro10 thought I would switch, knowing that the next Earthquake could defeat a Shuca-less Metagross at roughly 2/3 remaining HP. It makes sense, now that I think about it several years later, but at the time, my thought process was "Explosion!" which was what I had Metagross do. How I managed to keep its happiness up is still a mystery.
I suppose I was lucky that Swampert did not use Protect, although you would think that would be a natural reaction to witnessing a mechanical monster explode near you.
Now that both Pokemon were down, Zerro10 and I had to choose Pokemon without knowing what the other side would pick. For me, Celebi would be a good choice. If Zerro10 sent out a Water Pokemon, I had a Grass-type move to use. If Zerro10 did not, U-Turn could would for me.
Zerro10 sent out Snorlax, which I guess could kind of count as a Water Pokemon, considering how much water retention it may have. Regardless, Celebi enters the fray and then makes a U-Turn to avoid a potential Crunch which many Snorlax may have as a coverage attack. Some Snorlax may use Fire Punch, but for some reason I still switched into Lucario because I really wanted to use Close Combat.
Lucario takes Snorlax's Crunch with a double resistance. Zerro10 knew the Close Combat was coming, so he recalled Snorlax and sent out Gengar. Lucario punches some air, but even though his proximity to Gengar was close, Lucario's defenses do not lower. That's kind of odd how that occurs.
Since Gengar are known to be fast, Lucario unleashes a Bullet Punch to get some priority and somehow manages to hit, even though these were the same fists that were used to execute Close Combat. Gengar falls to the yellow, and Zerro10 orders Destiny Bond. I am guessing that Zerro10 did not want Lucario to have an easy fight.
Well, since Destiny Bond was in play, I didn't want to KO Gengar on the next turn, so I opted to use a non-attacking move. Gengar used Shadow Ball, and despite the resistance, Lucario still lost a large portion of its HP. Lucario then used Swords Dance, and knowing that the effect of Destiny Bond was gone, I went for the Bullet Punch on the next turn. Gengar is now gone.
Knowing that I had Bullet Punch, Zerro10 sent out Infernape. Infernape outspeeds my Lucario and resists Bullet Punch, so Infernape was a good choice. However, my Lucario also had Extremespeed, and used that to dispatch the Infernape whose Focus Sash was broken by some floating rocks.
Zerro10 sends out his second Water Pokemon, Starmie, which also falls to ExtremeSpeed. However, the recoil from Life Orb was exactly enough to also knock out Lucario, bringing Zerro10 and me back to the situation of who to send out again. However, since it was later in the match, I figured it would be Snorlax, or the last Water Pokemon. Scizor could be a good choice this time, because it had Superpower to defeat Snorlax, but if the Water Pokemon came out, I could U-Turn to Celebi or Zapdos.
Snorlax reappears, and gets Superpowered by Scizor. I always imagine this scenario to be the most painful, and not just because it is a farfetched re-enactment of the Ash vs. Gary fight. I mean, Snorlax looks like a big target that is hard to miss, and it gets a super powerful gut punch.
Snorlax faints, and Zerro10 is left with Kingdra. I kept Scizor in to do as much damage as it could with a Choice Banded Superpower which would continually weaken.
Surf, Superpower, Surf. Scizor succumbs swiftly and I immediately chose Latias to take its place. Latias uses Dragon Pulse and ends the battle, as well as giving me just the right amount of time to make the gym battle BGM work without any weird loop cuts.
So, now that I had earned the badge from the Waterfall gym from defeating Zerro10's female Water Pokemon team (well, all female, bar the gender-neutral Starmie), I set my sights on the next gym battle. According to the list, that would be the Shining Steel gym. Hmm. My usual team has Steel and Dragons. This is already looking to be a tough fight. Oh well, I guess I have to listen to myself when I say...
At some point, I knew I would have to challenge the Normal Gym again, so I figured I may as well do that instead of trying to rethink my strategy for other gyms. I do recall going to a party right after Battle 013 and instead of partying, I spent a lot of time contemplating my avoidable errors in the match.
You can read all about that in that blog post, but in this blog post, I will discuss my second attempt at the Normal Gym. D2theM has returned as the gym leader, so any mental strategy games I would have had with Lina would be irrelevant, which puts my mind at ease, but at the same time, gives me less to work with regarding D2theM's strategy.
I cannot remember if I ever figured out what D2theM stood for, but then again, a lot of people do not know what JMTL stands for, so I suppose this is even. Whether the Pokemon gym battle is even, though, remained to be seen. D2theM has had several challengers against his team, while I only had very few battles against a competitive Normal-type gym team.
As usual, I send Metagross out as a lead. I was hoping that Metagross would be able to stop whoever D2theM sends out first, so that I would be able to gain the early advantage. For some reason, I recall that I wanted this battle to end as quickly as possible. D2theM sends out Froslass, and knowing my Metagross' moveset, I figured I had the upper hand. Instead of setting up Stealth Rock, I had Metagross use Bullet Punch. I figured that Froslass would have Focus Sash, so I needed to deal some damage now, and preferably defeat it in two turns, instead of having it come back later and cause problems for my mixed sweeper, Salamence.
After the Bullet Punch, Froslass did not go down to the red level, which kind of made me wonder about the scenario... a giant robot cannot knock down a bunch of ice in one hit. One day, when giant robots attack, I'll find an igloo to hide in, or at least cover the fact that there is a secret passageway under said igloo.
Anyway, Froslass sets up its first and only layer of spikes before being recalled by its trainer. I knew that D2theM would not want to keep in Froslass knowing that it would be defeated by the next Bullet Punch, so I opted to use Pursuit to knock out the Ice/Ghost Pokemon during its retreat.
Celebi appears next. A giant robot versus some floating-yet-still-affected-by-ground-attacks cabbage does not seem like a fair fight, especially when the cabbage can inflict paralysis. Thunder Wave hits Metagross, who luckily does not short circuit from the added electricity. Metagross, being the psychic mechanical monster that it is, decides to become biological for one moment so that it can eat its Lum Berry.
The only super-effective move that Metagross has is Pursuit, and that takes off roughly 1/6th of Celebi's HP bar, and the Leftovers recovery means that the net damage is barely anything for D2theM to be concerned about.
To add to the recovery plan, D2theM decides to use Leech Seed. To this day, I still have no idea how Steel-type Pokemon are affected by this. However, the next move makes sense. Metagross thought about how its previous attack did barely anything, and thus used Explosion. Celebi falls to a critical hit, and the score is now 5-4. Not too bad, I thought.
I was not sure who D2theM was going to send out next, but there was a three out of four chance that it would be a Normal-type, so I decided to send in Gyarados. I was hoping that Gyarados could set up the sweep while D2theM sent in something like Snorlax, who would not be able to do much after it got Intimidated. However, D2theM did not send out something like Snorlax, who uses physical attacks. D2theM sends out Togekiss, and proceeds to cripple Gyarados with more paralysis-inducing waves of thunder... which by definition would be sound waves.
Gyarados still uses Taunt, but alas, it was not able to stop Thunder Wave in time to save itself. At least it would stop it from using Thunder Wave for a few more turns, so at least the action was not in vain.
Togekiss uses its Air Slash, and lands a critical hit on a paralyzed foe. Despite being paralyzed, Gyarados still manages to dance in a manner that raises some stats. Next, Gyarados munches on some Leftovers, which apparently consist of Sitrus Berry, not Lum Berry. It would have been nice to have had a smorgasbord of berries the evening before, but nooooo.... everyone just has leftover Sitrus or Oran Berry.
Togekiss flinches Gyarados with the next Air Slash, and the Taunt wears off. Great. After another attack by the opponent, Gyarados falls. Gyarados' role in this battle mimicked that of its pre-evolved form, except possibly making Togekiss hurt itself less during confusion. If I were Ash, I wonder if I would say "Take a good rest, Gyarados. You deserve it."
I sent in Lucario, only to have it suffer the same status ailment as my Pokemon sent out before it. Like Gyarados, Lucario is able to dance despite its condition to boost its attack. Right away, Lucario attempts to use Extremespeed, but finds it cannot move. Togekiss used Encore, perhaps trying to keep Lucario dancing, but since Extremespeed was the last move attempted, but not executed, Encore fails. However, Lucario does give an encore of its inability to move, while Togekiss hits with an Air Slash. Lucario has figured out how to move on the next turn and uses its Extremespeed to finally put a dent in Togekiss, but Togekiss still manages to knock out its opponent.
Now, I'm not really sure why I brought out Salamence next. It makes no sense. I could have saved Salamence to face off against a physical sweeper, and when there was less of a chance to see a Salamence counter. In any case, Salamence exhales flame as any mythical dragon would, and defeats the troublesome Togekiss.
Clefable enters the ring, smiling as it knows it is able to defeat the dragon towering over it. Salamence uses its Dragon Claw to deal some damage to the bulky fairy, while Clefable uses Ice Beam and defeats my chance of a Salamence sweep.
If a dragon cannot defeat Clefable, then perhaps a bug can. I send out Scizor, and immediately choose Superpower to deal massive damage to cause the Clefable to faint.
D2theM suspects correctly that my Scizor is Choice Banded, so the best choice for him now, between his two remaining Pokemon, is Gengar.
Now, normally, I would have switched out Scizor. However, in this instance, I wanted to see what Gengar would do. It would be too obvious to switch out, but by the same token, I would not be doing any damage to Gengar. Gengar used Will-o-Wisp... and missed. Knowing that Gengar may attempt to use WoW again, I waited until Scizor used Superpower needlessly, and then I switched out to Latias. Even if Latias were to be hit by WoW, it would not be as consequential. If anything, it would block any possible attempts at paralysis.
Latias switches into a WoW, and this time the move connects. On the next turn, Latias used Dragon Pulse. I guess I did not teach Latias Psychic, so this was the next best thing (other than Draco Meteor). Gengar survived the Dragon Pulse, and proceeds to use Shadow Ball. Latias survived the Shadow Ball, and I was beginning to think that Latias would be able to finish off Gengar, but alas, Latias succumbed to its burn.
I am down to my last Pokemon, while D2theM has two. So much for staying ahead. Still, Gengar was in revenge range, so Scizor fired off its popular priority move to defeat the ghost. There's only one Pokemon left for D2theM. If it was the Normal/Water type Bibarel, I would be quite upset since Scizor is now locked in to Bullet Punch for the remainder of the battle. Luckily, D2theM sent out Blissey, and it was unable to withstand Bullet Punch.
With the score at 1-0, D2theM mentioned afterward that if Blissey survived the assault, I would have lost the battle. I'm guessing it was because Blissey had Flamethrower. Still... the other thing that could have cost me the match was if Gengar hit Scizor with Will-o-Wisp. Scizor's attack may not have been enough to handle Blissey in one hit.
Through luck, I obtained my first gym badge in that current run of gym matches. Only seven more until I could challenge the Elite Four! Ah, it would be easy if I could tell the each gym leader to surrender now, but I think they'd prepare to fight.
I guess I was feeling a little down after my gym battle so I was reviewing my strategy for about five days before reentering the battle scene. Even though I could rechallenge a gym after 48 hours, sometimes it just works to have a bit of extra time anyway.
Still, practice makes perfect, so to get to know my team a bit better, I had to continue battling with others. My next battle is against Tuxio.
Gengar is Tuxio's lead to my Metagross. I surmised that this lead is used for Hypnosis, so I thought I may as well get in a lot of damage while I can, as I didn't really have a status absorber, bar my Lum Berry Metagross which was already in battle. Bullet Punch, while predictable, works to reduce Gengar's HP by a bit more than half, while Gengar uses Shadow Ball to almost halves my Metagross' HP. Another Bullet Punch from Metagross would KO Gengar, but I was wondering if I should have used Earthquake in case Tuxio decided to switch to save his speedy Gengar for later. After a coin flip, I used Bullet Punch anyway.
Electivire is sent out, and it promptly uses Brick Break for neutral damage. Maybe Tuxio thought I would switch into something that would resist Earthquake, but not Brick Break. I'm guessing Tuxio was anticipating a Grass-type to resist both Earthquake and the electric move of choice, because if he was anticipating a Flying-type, he would have used Thunderbolt or Thunderpunch. Metagross survives the Brick Break and then KOs Electivire with a super-effective Earthquake.
A Shiny Weavile appears. Easy target for Bullet Punch, but I know most Weavile hold a Focus Sash. I haven't set up Stealth Rock yet since I was more focused on quickly removing the threats to Metagross this time. I figured Metagross would two hit KO Weavile no matter what, and the prevalence of Low Kick could have defeated Metagross, and since I would be slower if I used Stealth Rock, I wanted Metagross to deal some damage before going down and having either Scizor or Lucario come in and revenge kill. Or, I guess in this case, Weavile did not have a Focus Sash and is promptly defeated via a critical hit.
Tuxio brings in Yanmega. I was kind of hoping I already had Stealth Rock up before it came in, but as you can see, I didn't find much of an opportunity to use it safely. Bullet Punch deals about 33%, and Yanmega uses Ancient Power. Bug Buzz would have definitely KO'd Metagross, but I suppose Tuxio was anticipating a switch. After a few more exchanges of Bullet Punches and AncientPowers, Yanmega is down, and Metagross is in pain. Well, I'm guessing it's in pain because it's a Pokemon, and not some mechanical robot with Psychic powers. I guess that's debatable, but if Pain Split works on Metagross, that's a strong point.
Uxie comes in to finish off Metagross, who was probably trying to set up Stealth Rock. I was anticipating that Uxie had Reflect or Light Screen, but I guess Tuxio just wanted to get rid of the Pokemon that caused his team a lot of trouble up to this point.
What Pokemon do I have that can scare away Uxie? I figured Scizor's U-Turn could be enough of a threat, so I selected it to replace Metagross. Even if Uxie doesn't retreat, Scizor should be able to handle a Thunderbolt... and most definitely a Psychic. Wait... why is Tuxio using Psychic on Scizor? Perhaps Tuxio was hoping for the special defense drop. In any case, U-Turn surprisingly deals a lot of damage. Scizor is replaced with Lucario, the third Steel-type and priority user of the team.
At this time, I used Bullet Punch. This is actually important to note, because before this battle, I kept on thinking that Bullet Punch would deal more damage than Extremespeed on neutral targets, although mathematically I should have known that 40 * 1.5 < 80. In future battles, you will not see me use the incorrect priority move intentionally.
Since Uxie barely survived the hit, it U-Turns away from danger. Tuxio sends in the Steel Trapper, Magnezone. Okay, so Lucario's next move is Close Combat. Well, technically, anything Lucario will use now is going to be in close quarters since Magnezone is magnetically pulling Lucario towards it. Anyway, Close Combat deals with Magnezone handily.
Tuxio brings in Uxie again, and this time Lucario uses Extremespeed to send Uxie through the ground... even though its ability is Levitate.
This concludes this battle, and I was feeling a bit more confident now. I feel like I can aim for the gym badge again, but this time, D2theM is back, so I challenged him shortly afterward. However, that is a story for another time. Probably next time.
This would be the start of my second league journey attempt on T-Flare, as when I first joined T-Flare, the gyms were nearly about to expire, as it were. I had only reached the fourth gym leader before the overhaul. Once again, the gym battles had to be done in order, so the normal gym was the first one up. D2theM was the gym leader but during a brief absence, Lina was the substitute gym leader. It was really generous of her to do this, seeing as how everyone will have to challenge this gym first.
To keep track of my progress, I decided to make a specialized intro screen for the gym battles. Okay, so it's not really all that original, but at least it distinguished itself slightly from other battles.
I distinctly recall heading to a party later that evening but I can't remember if I actually compiled the intro right after the battle, or the day after the party.
Anyway, the battle begins. I had a feeling that Ambipom would be the lead Pokemon, but I had somehow forgotten its lead role. Fake Out flinches Metagross, and Taunt stops Stealth Rock. A very basic idea, but I had somehow overlooked it. There wasn't much I could do about the flinching, but I should have used an attack on the second turn. Keep that in mind.
Ambipom uses U-Turn to get away from Metagross' attack. Lina may have anticipated Explosion, or maybe she just needed a bulky Pokemon. Either way, Spiritomb takes the Earthquake, which happened to be a critical hit.
Earthquake is used again, and Spiritomb goes ahead and tries to burn Metagross, but the mechanical beast is able to eat a berry to cure it. Not sure how that works, though. Another Earthquake faints the Spiritomb, and Lina is now down to two wildcards. The effects of Taunt have also worn off.
Ambipom returns for a repeat performance, with Fake Out and Taunt. Metagross decided to attack this time, though, and makes a mark on Ambipom. Knowing that Ambipom would try to U-Turn out again, Metagross decides to make the first move and Bullet Punch to inflict more damage, although an extra 2 HP of damage wouldn't hurt (well, except to Ambipom).
Flygon, Lina's second wildcard, is next to appear. I was fearing an Earthquake from Flygon, but rather than trying to outpredict what Flygon would do, I decided to just go for a Bullet Punch. If my guess was correct, Flygon was holding the ever popular Choice Scarf, which would make the prediction much more easier after the move had been performed.
Metagross fainted, which also meant that I had no way of laying down hazards. It's okay, though, I thought. It's not like I was facing the Bug, Fire, Flying or Ice gym at the time, anyway. I brought in Salamence, knowing that I would be able use Dragon Dance without having to worry about being hit by Earthquake. Lina, though, switched out to Porygon2 which promptly traces Salamence's Intimidate and uses it, meaning that DD will really just boost Salamence's speed.
Knowing that Ice Beam was coming, I probably should have switched it out for Scizor, who could take the hit, but instead, I just decide to use Dragon Claw. Porygon2 is extremely bulky, and still survives with more than half of its HP remaining. Salamence's training in Snowpoint Temple didn't really help nullify the weakness to Ice, and it falls.
I bring out my Lucario a little earlier than I wanted to. I wanted to save the Fighting STAB for when all of the wildcards were defeated, but Porygon2 would still be a threat to my Gyarados if it decided to switch in again later, Scizor was meant to be a bulkier backup to Lucario, and Latias was being held back to attack Flygon later on.
Lucario used Close Combat right away, and takes out the first evolved form of the Pokemon in that infamous episode. The score is now tied, with Lina having the advantage of choosing a check or counter for Lucario.
Flygon appears again, and I do recall thinking a lot about what to do this turn. I mean, I know Flygon has Earthquake, and that would be such an obvious move. What if Flygon decided to use Fire Blast or Dragon Claw or Outrage? What if it had U-Turn? I had to take a chance and hope that Gyarados could assist, with its Intimidate and resistance/immunity to Fire, Bug, and Ground attacks.
Gyarados enters the fray and Intimidates Flygon into using an Earthquake which misses the flying serpentine fish. Flygon retreats, and once again, Ambipom takes the stage, smiling with its 2 HP, while Gyarados takes the time to boost its Attack and Speed.
As anticipated, the two hands appear again and cause a flinch. I was ready to attack Ambipom. Even though it had 2 HP left, I don't know why I decided to choose Gyarados' STAB move instead of Return. I know I had actually took some time wondering what Lina's last wildcard would be, but I still picked the predicted Waterfall as the move. As predicted, though, Lina would not be using U-Turn since Ambipom appeared slower than Gyarados now (but in actuality, it wasn't), and it was manually switched out... for Suicune. Suicune takes the +1 Waterfall like a legendary beast.
Since it was likely that Suicune knew Calm Mind, I decided to stop that move from happening for a few turns. Gyarados Taunts just in time. However, looking back, I probably should have used Return. I mean, on the next turn, Return brings Suicune down to the yellow, so imagine what could have happened if I were able to use TWO Returns. Or better yet, three, had I done that instead of Waterfall. The Hidden Power of Suicune will put a stop to the theorymon, though.
Lucario comes in and uses Extremespeed to KO Suicune. I probably could have used Close Combat just in case Lina decided to switch out, but I wasn't entirely sure of Suicune's speed in heat of the battle. So, it appears that I have the advantage of knowing that even if Lucario were to fall, I would still have Latias to take care of Flygon, and Scizor to take care of the remaining Normal types. It was looking good.
Flygon appears again. I was thinking that Lina might be thinking that I would switch out to another Pokemon to avoid the Earthquake that she was trying to use so many times, so she probably wouldn't be using Earthquake this turn. Maybe something like Outrage. So, I decided to just stay in and use Close Combat, but alas, Lina was probably predicting that I would predict that she wouldn't use Earthquake, and thus used Earthquake. The "A critical hit!" message may have more meaning than doing a lot of damage to a Pokemon. I probably should have commanded Lucario to do some damage with Extremespeed. That way, if Lucario falls, it would make Flygon easier to deal with later on, and if Lucario survives, that could mean that the move wasn't super effective and Flygon would have switched out (assuming it did less than 50%) to a Normal type, which would be promptly hit by Close Combat on the switch in. Ah, hindsight. But like I said before, even if Lucario were to fall, the other Pokemon could pick up the slack.
Latias comes in, and in the interest of Flygon's survival, Lina brings out a special wall, Clefable. The Dragon Pulse hits for some damage, and Clefable gets a burn from the Flame Orb. I wasn't really sure what that was supposed to accomplish at that moment. Perhaps it was a defensive measure to protect against Sleep, Freeze, or Paralysis hax.
Latias probably wouldn't like to take an Ice Beam, so Scizor is switched in to take it. However, instead of taking the bone-chillingness of a concentrated focused beam of low kelvinness, Scizor took a sphere with half of the heat of a sun a few kilometers away... the Flame Orb. Losing the Choice Band meant that the attacks were weaker, and being burned also didn't help much. At least Superpower hit for super effective damage, and the critical hit really helped. I'm guessing Lina kept Clefable in so that it could Trick back the Choice Band to Scizor, but it really didn't matter now.
Okay, so all Lina has left is her Flygon and her Ambipom. I have Scizor and Latias. Easy win, I thought. Flygon returns, and predicting that Flygon would use Earthquake again, I hastily made the switch to Latias. I guess I kind of forgot that Scizor is slower and has U-Turn available, thanks to losing its Choice Band. And that oversight, which I will remember the most out of all the battling gaffes I have done to the present day for years to come, was punished by an Outrage hitting Latias. Had Scizor U-Turned, it could have taken the Outrage, switched with my Scarf Latias, and given the once-uber dragon free reign over Flygon. Ambipom would have used Fake Out, but Latias would have survived and Dragon Pulsed my way to victory.
But, instead, a burned Scizor is all I have left. I would ask Scizor to make a comeback, but it may have thought that it was going to come back to its Pokeball, and make it confused since it was the last Pokemon. After a series of Bullet Punches, Flygon is handily defeated. Of course, there was still the matter of Lina still having Ambipom left, so the battle wasn't over, and burn damage had to be calculated. And, still living in a Pokeball was an Ambipom laughing away with its 2 HP which Metagross should have taken care of had it used an attack instead of attempting Stealth Rock.
What was my weakness in this battle? Being too hasty? Not being able to adapt to new situations caused by items? In any case, I would not have a chance to rematch Lina for a gym battle any time soon, and D2theM would be returning later that week, bringing in a different dynamic.
This is another battle with Aroma_Of_Cat, and seeing as how he had recently battled my offense team, I decided to go back to using my balance team which I had created before I had started my YouTube account. It should be interesting what Dale will be bringing this time.
The opening move the same for Swampert and Bronzong, so there was no real advantage gained there. My Swampert could not do any significant damage to Bronzong with the moves in its arsenal, so I opted to phaze the Bronzong away and hope that I could save my Heatran or Zapdos to deal with it. I chose Roar instead of switching out, because I was thinking that Swampert would be able to handle an Earthquake from Bronzong. Bronzong used Reflect, though.
Swampert's Roar allowed me to see another Pokemon on the team. This time, it was a Machamp, and it was quickly revealed that it was holding Leftovers, leaving me to think this was a bulky variant. On the next turn, when it used Substitute, it made me think that even more. It's odd that after seeing that my Swampert had Roar, Machamp would decide to use a setup move instead of attacking. I guess Dale knew my thought process there, as I had indeed decided to use an attack.
On the next turn, DynamicPunch gives Swampert a confused state of mind. Maybe Swampert is wondering how a 50% accurate move could hit him, and he let out a Roar, not realizing that the Machamp has the No Guard ability. Machamp, despite its muscular appearance, decides to not anger the fully evolved Mudkip, and does a different kind of substitute by letting some random Pokemon come in... in this case, Exeggutor.
Anyway, thinking that Exeggutor would be using a Grass move, I decided to switch Swampert out for Celebi. However, Dale had the Exeggutor use Trick Room, which I had not really suspected after only seeing Bronzong and Machamp.
On the next turn, Celebi gets hit with a super effective Hidden Power. I'm guessing it was Fire, so when Celebi used U-Turn, I had thought about bringing in Heatran. However, I needed to take Trick Room into account, so I figured I would bring in my priority attack user.
The Reflect wore off right after Scizor came in, and Scizor wasted no time showing how well it could punch two-legged trees. As the tree was falling, my Pokemon yelled "SCIZOR!!" because it wasn't a Timburr.
Machamp makes a return to the battlefield and uses the Trick Room to its advantage. DynamicPunch makes it mark, and Scizor, though confused, manages to use Brick Break to bring Machamp's HP to yellow. Meanwhile, Life Orb damage brings Scizor to black, and is automatically recalled and never to be used for the remainder of the battle. Without a priority user, it would be tricky to work around Trick Room.
Swampert was still my slowest Pokemon, but its Base 60 speed still outspeeds, in non-Trick Room situations, Machamp's Base 55, and both would probably not have speed EVs invested. And yet, Dale still wanted to recall Machamp. It was a good prediction, seeing as how Swampert used Earthquake against the levitating Bronzong.
The Trick Room wore off, but Bronzong still moved first since Swampert would be using a lower priority move. Another Reflect appears while Swampert uses Avalanche... and effectively does nothing to Bronzong by the time the turn is over.
Thinking that Bronzong would be using Earthquake or Gyro Ball next, I swapped Swampert for Zapdos. Bronzong, though, took the opportunity to set up Trick Room. I was thinking that Bronzong would probably switch out into something that could take a predicted Heat Wave, so I opted to use Thunderbolt. However, Bronzong, feeling its job was done, used Explosion in an attempt to take down Zapdos. That didn't quite work, though, with Zapdos still hanging on in the red.
I obviously wished I had commanded Zapdos to use Roost that turn, but hey, Zapdos attempting to hit microscopic Pokemon could be feasible. I guess Zapdos has really awesome eyesight, although the game decides to tell me that there was no target.
A Gastrodon from the west is sent out next. It was a good move for Dale, since most Zapdos attack with Electric, Fire, and Ice. Gastrodon begins buffing with its Stockpile, while Zapdos uses its Hidden Power Grass. Despite being doubly super effective, Gastrodon survives, possibly due to the Stockpile. Gastrodon uses Ice Beam to defeat the legendary Zapdos on the next turn.
My next Pokemon to enter the fray is Gengar. Gastrodon, with Trick Room obviously to its advantage, uses Stockpile again, making it tough for my special sweeper Gengar to deal significant damage. This Gengar has gone through many move changes since I have had it on my team, and at this point, it was knowledgeable in the art of Energy Ball. It did a decent amount of damage, and another Energy Ball would have been enough.
The Trick Room wore off, so I wouldn't have to worry about having another Stockpile come up if I could KO the Gastrodon. I was predicting that Dale would switch Gastrodon out for something else, so I decided to use Shadow Ball instead. I do recall lamenting to Dale after that match that I shouldn't have done that, but he said that it would have been a good move if he decided to switch to another of his Pokemon.
Gastodon survives the Shadow Ball, and is able to use Recover. This could be an issue, so Gengar uses Taunt to prevent any more Stockpiles and Recovers for a few turns. Unfortunately for me, Gastrodon wasn't given the message that it couldn't use its move this turn, since it used Ice Beam.
Energy Ball, Ice Beam, and Energy Ball are the next moves, and Gengar is in the red by the time Gastrodon fainted. Dusknoir comes in, which is an odd choice considering that Gengar is faster and can use a super effective Shadow Ball. This must be some sort of trick, I thought. I realized that Dusknoir could be carrying Shadow Sneak, which would have defeated my weakened Gengar, so I switched out. I figure that Gengar has enough HP to survive another Stealth Rock, anyway. Heatran would be able to handle a Shadow Sneak, so it was my choice.
I was tricked, all right. Trick Room, to be exact. Heatran, despite weighing about four times the amount of Dusknoir, was still able to be Seismic Tossed. I guess Dusknoir has a really good grip. Anyway, Heatran used its Substitute this turn, in order to bring itself down to the berry... the Salac berry, which increases speed. Why would I be doing this, anyway? I knew there was Trick Room which was used on the turn before. Could I really survive the remainder of the turns of the twisted dimensions?
After Dusknoir broke the Substitute, Heatran used Flamethrower and didn't really do as much as I had hoped. Still, it was something. Looking at the amount of HP my Heatran had, I didn't feel a need to use Substitute again, so I chose to attack. Dusknoir indeed used Seismic Toss, and effectively activated Heatran's Salac Berry. Flamethrower hits Dusknoir and brings it down to the high yellow.
The next move seemed odd to me, but I'm sure Dale had a reason for doing it. He switched out Dusknoir, even though another Seismic Toss would have defeated Heatran. Machamp comes in, just in time to take some Stealth Rock damage and a Flamethrower. The twisted dimensions returned to normal right after that, and my super speedy Heatran could now go first.
Dusknoir returns, and gets hit by Flamethrower. Dale mentioned that if Flamethrower did not do maximum damage, Dusknoir would have survived.
Rampardos, known as a glass cannon, is Dale's last Pokemon in this battle. I am told that it has Mold Breaker, and then I commanded my Heatran to harness the ability of a Planeteer to finish the battle.
This was a pretty nice battle. I had to use every Pokemon on my team to achieve victory, so I really felt like I had used my balanced team well. I felt a bit more confident, though, and the gyms were about to reopen. My next battle will be the first gym battle I would be recording for YouTube, so until next time, protect the world from devastation.
