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.
