July 8th: Apocalypse Later

- Decided to Fly back to Fortree and check on my berry plants.
- Most all of them weren't there anymore. Oh well.
- Did a trainer double battle near the Safari Zone entrance that I had skipped before. Annie and Sredsa did a great job getting through it.
- Decided to grind levels for Annie outside Lilycove.
- Gary picked up a Super Potion.
- Got Annie from level 33 to level 36 in about half an hour. She learned Sky Uppercut.
- Decided to try hunting down the diving spot to find Team Aqua.
- Gary picked up another Super Potion.
- Decided to get rid of Astonish from Bertha's move set to teach her Dive instead.
- Diving into the ocean for the first time, I really like the environments down below.
- I managed to find a trench at a spot south of Mossdeep.
- Following along the side of a wall, I found an underwater cave with a submarine in it. This is probably where I'm supposed to be.
- Inspecting the submarine confirms it's the one Team Aqua stole. Time to surface and see what kind of party I can crash this time.
- Seafloor Cavern is the name of the place I'm at now.
- Gary picked up a Full Restore.
- The Team Aqua grunts seem to have Pokemon that have a bit of a level advantage over Annie. However, it's a lot of Poochyenas and Carvanhas, so Annie has the type advantage.
- Pushing further into the cave, I found an area with strong currents that carry me all over the place.
- After working my way through the labyrinth of caves and some puzzles, I made it to another Team Aqua guard. Apparently, Aqua Admin Shelly from the Weather Institute is back.
- Annie, with some luck, swept through her Sharpedo and Mightyena.
- The puzzle immediately after that room took me a few more minutes than I'd like to admit, but I got it.
- Entered a room with a great deal of fog in it. Feels like this is building up to something.
- Found Earthquake (TM26) on the ground.
- Wandering further in, the mysterious outline of an unidentified Kyogre appears to be in a deep pool of water.
- Walking further in, Archie interrupts me and tells me that the Kyogre is the Kyogre.
- Archie decides to fight me over my being here right now, what with trying to get the Kyogre and all.
- Archie's first Pokemon hit Annie with confusion and she never got over it. After she fainted, Slapkins was put in and he did the work without too much hassle.
- The dipshit pulled out the Red Orb and pissed off the giant sleeping fish.
- Kyogre went to the surface and started to make it rain. A lot.
- Maxie and crew from Team Magma swung by... somehow? How would they have gotten down here if they didn't also have some kind of submarine or a bunch of Pokemon that could Surf and Dive?
- Maxie scolded Team Aqua for not considering what would happen if the rain never stopped.
- Maxie said that I needed to get out of there too and used his magical teleportation abilities to instantly bring me outside to a thunderous downpour in what seems like still the middle of the ocean.
- Archie and Maxie decided to go after Kyogre and tell me to run away like I don't already have a plan to deal with this.
- Steven swooped in to get a report on the situation.
- He drops that something is happening over Sootopolis City. Time to head there and see what's going to go down.
- Found some poor random sap stranded on an island that turned out to be a trainer who wanted to battle. Gravesites, oceans, not even a god damn apocalypse is enough to get some of these trainers to chill the fuck out and put battling aside for a while.
- The trainer's name is Ruben. Probably explains why he's out in the middle of a thousand islands.
- After he led a Shiftry, I switched in Sredsa, set up some Swords Dances, and had her Fury Cutter her way through his entire team, despite a level disadvantage and only having a type advantage against that Shiftry.
- Damn, even the wild Tentacools in the water don't have the decency to be somewhere else.
- Circled Sootopolis but didn't see a way to get on the island. Probably have to dive under to find an entrance.
- Ran into a swimmer who was a trainer who wanted to battle. Swimming in the ocean and currently facing apocalyptic rain. If realism was added to Pokemon, at least five percent of the population would be dead within the first day, as the stupid shit they do wouldn't fly anymore.
- Dove down near that swimmer and quickly found a cave entrance. Entering and surfacing brought me within the walls of Sootopolis.
- The Pokemon Center was still open and willing to heal my team. Annie is finally awake again.
- Trying to enter any of the other buildings just says that the door is closed. Guess there are a good number of people who know to take shelter.
- Found Steven and Wallace at the top of the mountain. Wallace explained that he's responsible for the Cave of Origin.
- Noticing I had the Blue Orb, I was asked to follow him.
- After a dramatic buildup to entering the Cave of Origin, I get interrupted a few steps in by some random Zubat.
- Shit, the cave gets dark and I don't have a Pokemon that knows Flash yet.
- Steven and Wallace were cool with me just walking out for a bit.
- Put Bertha back in the box and got out Bunson to teach him Flash.
- Moving further into the dark cave, there was a loud thud. More thuds occurring as I continue.
- Found Waterfall (HM07) unceremoniously on the ground.
- Wait, shit, I'm going to need Bertha back so I can use Waterfall to move up.
- Moving further in... no, it looks like Kyogre is chilling not far from that spot.
- Walking in front of Kyogre caused the Blue Orb to glow.
- It moved toward me in a menacing fashion and the battle began.
- Yup, it's level 45. Fuck this.
- One Master Ball later, the battle is over.
> Caught: GARRET
- Yoink.
- Kyogre is a massive fourteen feet long, but somewhere, there's still a twenty-footer waiting to be caught.
- Walking out of the cave, everything seems to be back in order.
- Put Bunson back in the box and got Billy back out.
- Steven was waiting for me outside Wallace's gym.
- Against my more cautious judgment, with Annie at level 37, I think I might actually have a chance of making it through this gym, especially if Slapkins can cause some damage just in case Annie can't make it through the gauntlet.
- Oh, this is that gym that I saw Aar struggle with the last ice puzzle. I bet I will also struggle with that.
- Immediately fucked up the second puzzle of three.
- Decided to fight all the trainers to get more XP.
- One of them had a Lombre, which I sent Sredsa in on despite her being nine levels lower. She managed to get through it with a couple of Super Potions.
- After fighting all of the trainers in the gym, Annie is now level 40.
- Also, all of the trainers in the gym are kept on the lower level of the gym and all seem to be women who, in some respect, admire Wallace. I don't want to know what kinds of things happen in the basement there when I'm not around.
- Made it up to Wallace after figuring out what to do on the third and final ice block puzzle.
- Why does this gym use ice blocks as a puzzle? Ice is a type, but this is a Water type gym. Ice is just frozen water, but still.
- Annie one-shot the Luvdisc with Sky Uppercut.
- Annie one-shot the Sealeo with Sky Uppercut.
- Annie almost died instantly to Milotic's Ice Beam. Slapkins was put out and managed to take it out with a bunch of Mud Shots.
- I left Slapkins in on the Whiscash. After it used a bunch of Amnesias, Slapkins didn't have a great way to deal damage to it. I let Slapkins faint in order to heal up Annie. She was able to take it out with Sky Uppercut (physical move, so Amnesia's boost doesn't apply).
- The Seaking went down pretty easily.
- Got the gym badge and the ability to use Waterfall outside of battle. I guess the HM being in that cave was never going to be necessary anyway.
- Wallace also gave me Water Pulse (TM03).

I didn't think I would be doing both the Kyogre encounter and the last gym battle in the same sitting, but it was right there and Annie had just enough levels after the half hour of grinding I had done earlier to get the XP from the trainers to level up to be right about where she needed to be. Things got scary when the Milotic showed up, but Slapkins managed to get things back under control.

I thought I remembered Groudon showing up as part of that, but I think I'm either confusing that for something that happens later in the game or, more likely, something that happens in Emerald but not in this game.

Complaining about the trainers and random battles on the way to a place that's part of a story event (especially something like Kyogre's storm) shouldn't be a big deal, but it's annoying. Any big story beats the developers have planned get undermined when random Tentacools and trainers who just happen to be passing by interrupt the flow, as if they've somehow failed to read the room and are disconnected from the events happening around them.

With all eight gyms completed, I've given a look into what I'll be up against in the Elite Four. It looks like I'll need my whole team (or at least the team I plan to use) up to the mid-50's in order to have a good chance of making it through in mostly one piece. Also, I'll need to plan out a team. It'll mostly be the Pokemon I've been using, but I'll need to figure out who will go in place of Gary (I can't risk him getting hurt in something like an Elite Four battle) and if Billy will be the right choice for a fifth member.
Pokemon Ruby & Sapphire - Elite Four - Serebii

Certainties: Slapkins, Annie, Finger, Sredsa
I'll need to put some more time into evaluating my type matchups to determine who would best round these four out.

"Yoink":
Fishingarrett - YouTube