June 18th: Mushroom!

- More grinding on Route 114 and Route 113.
- Gary picked up a Full Heal.
- Encountered a Skarmory on Route 113. I made an attempt to catch it but it didn't work out.
- Gary picked up a Revive.
- Went to the glass-making guy. I now had enough ashes, so I decided to get a Blue Flute.
- Gary picked up a Rare Candy. I feel like this is a sign that I should have more of these and use them if I want to save time. I might do that. Thanks, Gary! You're the best.
- Decided to take the Exp. Share from Billy to focus on getting Annie leveled up.
- Annie hit level 23 and finally evolved.
> ANNIE: Shroomish -> Breloom
- She also learned Mach Punch. I replaced Stun Spore since it likes to miss most of the time anyway.
- The first wild Pokemon I found after this was a level 15 Lotad. Annie threw a critical-hit Mach Punch that instantly killed the Lotad. This was the right move.
- A level 16 Lotad came along next and the same thing happened.
- Holy shit, Breloom is really, really good.
- For the first time that I've seen, a Lotad used Nature Power, turned it into Stun Spore, then missed the attack. I just thought they always hit, but no, they just tend to be very lucky with it.
- Gary picked up a PP Up.
- Levels are now: Slapkins (30), Finger (26), Annie and Sredsa (24), Billy (17), Gary ( :) ).

My plan now is to get Sredsa and Annie to level 27. I think Finger will probably get to 27 when I switch him into battles that the other two aren't as good at. If not, I'll spend some time getting him to 27 also. I'll give Billy the Exp. Share back once I've raised my current four main Pokemon up to the levels I'm aiming for.

Actually, my plan for Billy may change. Slapkins is great against Fire-type moves while my other three are all weak against it. While Billy wouldn't have a weakness to them, he also wouldn't have a resistance to them. I might decide to go with Claire instead and hope that a Sandslash rounds out my team better than an Altaria does. I'm not entirely convinced that this is the best move for me to make. Mostly, I see this as a good way to round out the team better if Fire is going to be a big problem for me in the future.

I heard good things about Breloom before starting this playthrough. Shroomish was doing okay, but I didn't expect such a drastic uplift from the evolution to Breloom. Apparently, it's a Grass and Fighting dual-type. That's really cool. Even cooler, Annie is now able to destroy shit with Mach Punches and Headbutts while still maintaining the Leech Seed and Mega Drain combo that enemies will just love to fight against.