July 17th: Champion Once More

- Spent about 45 minutes training up Cass, Slapkins, and Finger to level 53. Annie, Sredsa, and Billy remain at level 50.
- Bought many more revives and potions from the store.
- I also need something for restoring PP, but they don't sell those at the Pokemon League building for some reason.
- I checked the Mossdeep store and the Lilycove department store. Neither of them had any PP restoring items. What the fuck.
- While at the department store, I noticed one of the items being sold was a TM of some kind of Fire attack. I bought that and found out it was Fire Blast.
- After taking a look, Cass, Billy, and Finger (for some reason) can learn the move.
- Decided to have Cass learn it, replacing Future Sight. This should help a lot for the Ice-type trainer.
- Alright, time to try the Elite Four again.

Sidney went down without hassle. Slapkins took out the Mightyena in one hit. Once Sidney put out Cacturn, I did the same thing as the first attempt by having Sredsa use Double Team and Swords Dance a bunch while Cacturn kept using Cotton Spore, then taking out the entire rest of his team with Fury Cutter.

Next was Phoebe. Cass took out the first Dusclops in the first turn, but that's only because it used Curse. She took out the first Banette as well. I decided to swap in Slapkins to hopefully avoid having Cass faint. He managed to take out the rest of her team without too much incident, even finishing the final Dusclops with a critical hit.

Time for the scary Ice-type fight against Glacia. I led Cass again and had her use her fancy new Fire Blast against the first Glalie. It did a lot of damage, but I was hoping that it would maybe one-shot. I guess I was asking for too much with that. After it used Hail, it kept hitting Cass with Ice Beams and getting lucky with freezes. Both of us used Full Restores. The second Fire Blast that hit the Glalie didn't do nearly as much damage, but did leave a burn. Cass fainted, but was close to taking it out. Slapkins got switched in and finished it off.

I rolled the dice on a couple of Earthquakes taking out the first Sealeo. It paid off, and then she led her other Sealeo. I tried rolling the dice again, but the second one knew Attract and threw off Slapkins' chance of finishing it off. Finger managed to take it out.

The Walrein was brought out and I switched to Annie to hit it with Leech Seed and as many Sky Uppercuts as she could manage before being taken out. She almost managed to do it, but a Full Restore got used. Another Mach Punch and Sky Uppercut were able to take it out.

The final Glalie was out and I had Annie stay in to Leech Seed it. She managed to do it, then got hit with Ice Beam and fainted immediately. Finger was able to finish the rest.

Now the penultimate challenge of facing Drake. I led Sredsa forgetting that his first Pokemon was Rock type (Shelgon). I was going to have her set up for someone else, but she fainted right after her first move. Annie was switched in and took it out after some struggles with the opponent using Protect.

I had Finger face off against the Flygons. After an Iron Defense was used, the Flygon managed to paralyze Finger with its first Dragonbreath. This didn't stop Finger from taking it out. The second Flygon led with Sand-Attack, which is concerning. Then, it hit Finger with a Flamethrower. This is when I was tipped off to Aggron having been a Steel/Rock dual type that I never noticed or realized until now. Two Iron Tails took out the second Flygon.

Next was that damn Salamence. I kept Finger out and used a Full Restore. Salamence just used Flamethrowers and Finger couldn't do much against it. Slapkins was switched in to hit it with Muddy Waters and Surfs. The first two Muddy Waters both lowered its accuracy, which was going to be extremely helpful. Once its health got low enough, Drake used a Full Restore. I knew this was going to happen and I used a Hyper Potion instead of trying to attack. Two Dragon Claws later and Slapkins was down to three HP. I gambled on a Muddy Water hitting and the Salamence's attack missing, which paid off. Drake used another Full Restore. Slapkins was getting low on PP for moves that would actually work against it. Some more water later and it was finally slain.

Drake's last Pokemon was his Altaria. I switched Cass in for this. I had her use a couple of Swords Dances, then hit it with Slash. The first Slash was a critical hit which, combined with the Swords Dance boosts, took it out in one hit.

This had gone a lot better than the previous attempt, but I knew the champion was going to be a tougher opponent. Probably not as large of a jump as Lance was in SoulSilver but not fun either. My first attempt was not successful and I had a few instances where I chose to reset due to some blunder on my part. I'll regale the events of the attempt that succeeded.

Steven led Skarmory and I led Slapkins. Two Muddy Waters took out the Skarmory, and Slapkins didn't take much damage during the encounter. His Aggron came out next. Slapkins missed the first attack, but the second Muddy Water one-shot the Aggron. I switched in Finger on the Cradily. The first Iron Tail almost took it out. It kept using Giga Drain and taking a lot of Finger's health with it, but he prevailed.

Next was the Claydol, which is where I was really going to make some magic happen. I led Billy and had him use Fly and Dragonbreath, not to deal much damage, but to stall. Once Claydol had used all of its AncientPowers, it was time to get cooking. Since its only other attacking move is Earthquake, it can't hit Billy. It also can't hit Sredsa, who had just been switched in. With no way for it to attack, I just kept using Double Team and Swords Dance to my heart's content. It was also a good opportunity to use some items and heal up some of the other team members. Once I was good and ready, I finished it with Fury Cutter.

Second to last was Armaldo. I forgot the Armaldo had Aerial Ace and tried using Fury Cutter on it. The suspense was real as Sredsa's health drained away. I thought she was a goner, but she held on with one HP. I then immediately used Baton Pass as I was planning to do anyway and switched in Finger. After an Iron Defense, once Iron Tail took out the rest of its health.

To finish this challenge off, Metagross entered the fray. It decided to keep using Earthquake, as this was a move that hurt Finger a lot. Despite not being an effective move against Metagross, Iron Tail was doing serious damage, no doubt due to those Swords Dance boosts. In what I assume to be some kind of accidental miracle, the Metagross was holding a berry that restored its health, so once it got low it restored just enough to trick Steven into not using a healing item. One more Iron Tail finished the job.

- Steven congratulated me on my victory and becoming the new champion.
- As he was doing this, May burst into the room with the intent of giving me helpful advice on how to beat the champion. That was nice of her.
- Professor Birch also entered the room. After some praise, he evaluated my Pokedex progress and wasn't particularly impressed by what he saw. I don't really blame him.
- Steven invited me into the back room to get my achievement recorded.
- May tried to come with and Steven said that only champions could enter the room. May groaned at the comment. She's so real for that.
- My Pokemon were placed in the machine to get their information recorded, my game was saved, and the Hall of Fame sequence played.
- After the Hall of Fame came the credits.
- I like that the credits include some parts to show all the Pokemon that the player has caught.