The Road To *checks notes* Eterna City
So, medal in hand, my job in the town was done. I remembered there was a slide thingy that you need a bike to go through north of the city, but I went to check it out anyway. Sure enough, the slide was there, close to a batch of a grass with a visible PokéBall. So I went to get it, and then...
A wild Ponyta has appeared! Go, Turtwig!
*Turtwig noises*
Me: Uh oh. *switches to AshCo*
Ponyta: *spams Tackle*
Me: You...you don't know any Fire moves, do you?
Ponyta:
Me:
Ponyta: *Tackle*
Me: *sigh* c'mere.
Named after Violet because...well, she'd get why.
Violet the Ponyta has joined the team! *carrots* Disappointed that she didn't know a Fire move, but not surprised. Nothing other than Normal types gets STAB until like Lv. 10 in this game, which results in literally everything hitting for some very sad damage. It's not necessarily 'wrong' or 'unhealthy', but I personally like to keep my KOs to 4 hits at most.
After the successful catch, it was time to return to Jubilife and head north, to that one little town with the honey meadow thing. I was just about to head inside the tunnel, when-
THUD
Me: Pls don't fight me
again I just wanna move the plot along
Turtwig: Jeez you're a crybaby. I just wanted to tell you exactly where to go because that's definitely not the only place this tunnel takes to at this point in the game. You need the HM the gym leader gave you, but you'll also need the badge you just got to clear the way.
Me: Thanks?
Turtwig: gotta go fast *runs off*
The game babies me again. This would make more sense if he appeared on a wrong turn or something, but the fact that he appears literally as you're about to head in the right direction seems kind of unnecessary since you already figured out where to go. Anyways, back in Jubilife...
[REDACTED]: Hey, nice seeing you again! I'm happy to announce that after inspecting this whole city, I am absolutely positive there is no criminal activity going on here.
Me: Nice, but who are you again? Let me fix that.
James Bond: See you! *leaves*
Meanwhile, literally 10 steps away...
Grunt 1: Hand over that research, Professor!
Grunt 2: Yeah! *moves aggressively*
Prof. Rowan: Never! Pokémon evolution cannot be controlled. It is something beyond us.
Lucas: Yeah! *moves aggressively*
Me: (entering scene) Did you guys rehearse this?
Prof. Rowan: Ah! Vom, just in time. So, how is your PokéDex? And your mother? And-ohmygodisthatOreburgh'sBadge
Me: *telepathically* Now is not the time to use that!
Grunts: *in unison* give. paper.
Prof. Rowan: *proceeds to roast the absolute crap out of both grunts*
Grunts: *in unison, eyes rolling back* G̸͇͍̼̝̉̿ ̷̜͑̌̆͝ͅI̷͔̊͝ ̸̠̖̈V̴̤̗͋ ̷̡̛̩̕Ě̶̘̘̻̦͊͌ ̷͉̻̀͜ ̸̠́̓̋͐P̷̳̤͚͓̈́̿͆̏ ̸̙̞̰͛̇̉ͅĄ̶͓̕ ̸̞̲̬̪̾͊̈͐P̷͍͈̅ ̶̲̘̥̘̓E̴̪͋̓̾ ̷̥̃̓͝Ṛ̶͊
And so I was dragged into a tag battle with Lucas. I gotta say, Prof. Rowan lecturing these guys has got be the funniest thing I've ever seen in Pokémon. Like, first he doesn't even bother with them and starts asking about my PokéDex, and then he
destroys them? Top 10 epic moments. I also happen to love tag battles, so this was certainly welcome.
After an unsurprisingly easy battle, the grunts left us alone, and Prof. Rowan and Lucas were off. Back en route to Floaroma Town, I finally stumbled upon a Starly! Immediate catch because
fangirl you never know. And of course, named it after Staraptor fan FireLizard!
FireLizard the Starly has joined the team! *seeds*
After quickly healing up at Floaroma, I headed east, as the entrance to the meadow was blocked by yet more Galactic grunts.
Little Girl: Miss! Miss! You've gotta help me please! They have my papa!
Me: No worries! I'm the protagonist.
Little Girl: They have him in the Valley Windworks! It's over there!
And I was on my way to help out this poor guy, when...
A wild Buizel has appeared! Go, Violet! (she was first because I was trying to level her up for the next gym)
Me: I won't bother switching because obviously you don't know a water move.
Buizel: *starts channeling inner Katara*
Me: *sigh* c'mere
I named this one after Jade because I have vague memories of Buizel on the anime always trying to play games with Ash.
Jade the Buizel has joined the team! *confetti*
After the successful catch, I confronted the grunt at the door of the building, swiftly made him swallow his pride, and then...he locked himself in. And then he told me where the spare key was for no apparent reason. I got it, came back, and made my way to the big bad.
???: I, Mars, will tell you everything about why we're here! Mwahaha! Let's make a bet. If I win, you leave, if you win, we leave. Got it? Good.
Can't really fault them for this one, since many many villains do this exact thing, but I literally didn't even ask what was going on. She just, like, straight up told me. Oh well. Purugly was annoying even with AshCo tanking its hits because resistance, but it eventually went down with no losses on our side.
???: We were leaving anyway, we got what we came for. Let's go Mars.
Mars: You will
not give me orders, Charon!
Charon:
Me:
Mars: *leaves with everybody else*
After seeing the only slightly heartwarming reunion between the little girl (who must have seen them all leave or something) and her dad, it was time to continue to Eterna City, home of the second gym.
Unfortunately, the only way was through the Eterna Forest, the obligatory early game dungeon. However, I was able to tag with a really nice girl called Cheryl who healed my Pokémon at every turn, and thanks to the high number of trainers pretty much everywhere,
bbninjas has evolved! That's not to say nobody else gained levels, in fact...
FireLizard has evolved! But that's not all! A bunch of our team members were able to level up and catch up to my higher ups. Besides the insane exp gains, nothing really eventful happened, there were just
a lot of battles.
So after that whole ordeal, we finally found the exit! I got Cheryl's number and then we said goodbye. And then we...went the same way...to Eterna City.
After a quick rest, it was time to find the gym! Except...
THUD
Turtwig: Hey slowpoke! Come check out this dank statue. Wait, what gives? It's that guy from that thing!
Shady blue hair guy that we saw at the lake at the beginning of the game: Pardon me. *leaves*
Turtwig: Well, that was weird. *leaves*
Still a bit confused by that interaction, I went back to my mission of finding the gym.
???: Hey, is that a PokéDex? That really brings me back. My name is Cynthia btw.
Me:
Cynthia: Anways, I must get going. Have an HM just in case!
Me: Thanks?
And so, I finally made it to Eterna City Gym, led by Gardenia. I remember this gym as being way cooler, I guess I was more into the whole clock thing as a kid. This time around however, it dawned on me that it was really only one path and it only looked fancy on the surface. Oh well.
Even after all the levels she got, Violet couldn't quite get the OHKO on Gardenia's Turtwig. All hope was lost, until, for some inexplicable reason, Turtwig used...
Sunny Day. I guess she just wanted to trigger Cherrim's Ability, but it was
so not worth it to power up my fire moves. With that bonus, even her Roserade was burnt to a crisp - she had no choice but to admit defeat and award us our second Badge!
After that, I noticed this gym had some parallels to Erika's gym all the way in Kanto: both grass type gyms, both only had women in them. Hey, at least this one didn't have that old man peeping in from a window.
Yikes.
And that's it! Made some good progress today, had
two evolutions in one episode! Furthermore, with 6 Pokémon in hand, we unlocked the PC! This is where all Pokémon I catch go when they aren't immediately subbed in by popular vote. Throughout this whole time, I've been catching Pokémon that I didn't include in the initial team, and these all went unmentioned because honestly it would take too much space if I just listed them all every time. So be sure to check back often!
But that's on subbing in. What about subbing
out? Well, at some point, some Pokémon might start to fall off (like Ponyta, who evolves at Lv.
40) or I might need to switch things up for whatever reason. When this happens, I'll just ask who you guys want to come on the team and we'll go from there.
Thanks for reading!
