016 Water 1, Water 2, and Water 3 are not the most creative egg group names

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...

Prepare for trouble!