January 5th: Two For One!

- Received an item from the Mystery Gift. I don't know what it is because I don't recognize it and the card is in Japanese.
- Took a photo at Celadon.
- Got the "Route Map, Rally!"
- Went to Power Plant and spotted Zapdos.
- Took a photo at Saffron.
- Talked to Copycat to get the magnet train pass.
- Found it and got the encounter with Steven from Hoenn.
- Caught a Pidgey to trade to Aar.
> Received: ARCEUS (OT: TRU/11079)
- Flew to the Ruins of Alph.
- Took a photo at the Ruins.
- Did the Arceus event and chose Giratina. Recorded it with commentary while Aar was playing HeartGold.
> Received(?): PRETZEL
- Flew to get Pokeballs from Kurt.
- Flew to talk to Mr. Pokemon and get the Red Orb.
- Flew to Mt. Moon to catch a Paras/Parasect
> Caught: FRANCES [F] (Clefairy)
> Caught: JABETTE [F]
- Flew to Azalea to train up Jabette in the grass just to the east.
- Went from Level 12 to 14.
- Going too slow, so went to Victory Road to have Super! defeat things and have the XP Share take care of getting Jabette levels.
- Went from Level 14 to 24 and evolved. Then got to 26.
- Went to the base of Mt. Silver to get levels using Sync III instead.
- Took a photo outside the Pokemon Center.
- 60:52; Got Jabette to Lv. 40.
- Flew to Cianwood City and headed toward the Safari Zone.
- Was stopped by Chuck and told that there was a secret tower.
- Headed to the secret tower to do the Groudon event.
- Made it there without too much trouble.
- Recorded the Groudon event with commentary from Aar and myself.
- Caught the Groudon after throwing one Heavy Ball, which was totally unexpected.
> Caught: J
- Traded the Groudon for Kyogre to get the item needed for the Rayquaza encounter.
- We didn't look this up in advance and apparently you need to have both of them at the same time to get Oak to let you have it.
- More trading, I got the Jade Orb, then Aar. I got my pick of the two and chose Kyogre.
> Received: Watermelon

- YouTube Screen Recordings -

Wow, both the Arceus event and the Groudon battle in one night! I think I had seen the Arceus cutscene at some point in the past, but it was quite a sight. Shortly after witnessing it, I described it as "weird, but strangely compelling." I think I am still of that opinion. As hilarious as Aar's idea to name the Giratina "Fluffy" was, I had already thought of the name "Pretzel" while I was doing the event. I think it's a funny nickname and I have no regrets about it.

I caught and trained up Jabette the Parasect as something I had seen on a few videos I watched by "Lyra made a website". The goal was to get a living dex and Lyra's Parasect, "Sir Ender", was used to Spore and False Swipe the Pokemon into a state that gave the best odds for capture. I did my own version of this in the hopes that it would help with the Groudon encounter.
YouTube Link to Lyra Made a Website Video

Apparently that was all completely unnesessary. After a lot of fussing around with trying to make my Plan A work, I managed to have Super! get Groudon into the red and caught it with the first Heavy Ball I threw at it. Aar was watching me do this since I was screen sharing it to the Discord channel we were in and we were both amazed by the first attempt actually working. We then sorted out the trading debocle that needs to be done before the game decides you can do the Rayquaza encounter. It's such a huge steaming pile of shit, but I guess they need to encourage sharing, teamwork, or extra sales somehow.