Canalave City Gym

I put my precious egg away for now. My team for this gym consists of Enki, Hanuman, Apsu, Sekhmet, Nyx, and Articuno. Nyx is substantially lower in level than the rest of my team, but whatever. These trainers are probably chumps anyway and this is an opportunity to train my underused ghost-type.

My first opponent has only a Steelix. Enki's surf ends the battle uneventfully. The next trainer uses only an Onix. I play with him for a bit before having Apsu end things in one hit. So far, so easy. There don't seem to be any more trainers here. Then I find the elevators. This gym has some sort of elevator puzzle. How droll. I ascend and confront my next opponent. He uses Onix, Onix, and Onix. That means one hit with surf, one hit with surf, and one hit with surf. The trainers in this gym have a serious weakness to water-types and it's pretty much unconscionable. I mean, this is a port city. Come on.

I finally run into a trainer that doesn't have 100% of his team weak against water: he uses Skorupi and Steelix. Enki brings down Skorupi in two surfs despite not having a type advantage. I switch to Hanuman for his Steelix. Hanuman fares rather poorly and takes heavy damage from an iron tail and a rock tomb, but ultimately puts the metal worm down with flame wheel. I continue to navigate the stupid elevator maze. Note to self: kill whomever designed this. My next opponent uses the formidable Onix/Onix combination and, of course, surf makes quick work of him.

What's this? Enki is evolving! Now he's a Tentacruel. Excellent. I seek out the next hapless trainer to try out my newly evolved warrior. Oh look, an Onix. One hit with surf as usual. Informative? No. But Enki does look more majestic now. Next is Steelix, so I bring Hanuman out. Flame wheel does unimpressive damage. I switch to Apsu. Steelix uses only screech, so my pokemon take no damage (the effect of screech is to lower the defense of the pokemon that is screeched at).

My next opponent catches me by surprise, I'll admit: she uses a water-type. Azumarill. No matter. I have Sekhmet. I am tempted to try Nyx for this, but she seems to be gaining levels anyway, thanks to the item she is holding. Sekhmet's spark easily defeats Azumarill. I continue a little further and reach the end of the elevator maze. The gym leader is a stern man with purple, spikey hair. How silly.

"Ah! That's Oreburg's Gym Badge! I see, I see! You've defeated my son. But that's no surprise. He still has much to learn. In place of my son Roark, I, Byron, will take your challenge!"

He leads with Bronzor. I switch to Hanuman. Bronzor uses flash cannon, which does paltry damage against Hanuman. Flame wheel devastates Bronzor. The metal disc thing (I don't even know) retaliates with confuse ray. I switch to Nyx. Bronzor puts Nyx to sleep with Hypnosis. Bronzor damages Nyx with flash cannon and extrasensory. I switch Hanuman in on the next flash cannon and score the first knock out with flame wheel. Byron uses an impressive armored pokemon called Bastiodon. I assume flame wheel will damage whatever this thing is. Flame wheel barely hurts Bastiodon, and Hanuman is hurt by its "ancientpower" attack. I switch to Enki. Bastiodon goes to sleep and regains health, then wakes up because of the berry it was holding. Enki's surf scores a critical hit. Bastiodon uses iron defense. Enki strikes with another surf. Bastiodon goes to sleep again, restoring all of its health. This thing has very impressive defensive capabilities. I instruct Enki to keep on surfing. It takes three more hits, but Bastiodon goes down. Byron is down to his last pokemon. I bring out Hanuman against his Steelix, but promptly switch to Apsu because Hanuman is too hurt to win this fight. Apsu enters on a nearly harmless gyro ball, retaliates with surf, takes another puny gyro ball, and surfs a final time. It's over.

Byron is impressed. Of course.

"You were strong enough to take down my prized team of pokemon. In recognition of that power, I give you this: the Mine Badge!"

He keeps talking. Yeah, yeah. I'm so great. We all know. But seriously, why don't you use six pokemon instead of just three? Wait, what?

"And now you have six gym badges. That means all pokemon up to level 70 will obey you without question."

What? Articuno will finally stop being such an impossible brat. Oh glorious day! I snatch my useless free TM and dash to the exit. And for the first time in my life, well, the first time in my memory since I found myself suddenly waking up as a ten-year-old resident of Sinnoh anyway, something happens that I never expected I would live to see. I run right into Slave. He doesn't run into me. No, I mean it. I run into him. And he doesn't even notice. He's too fixated on my new gym badge.

"Hey! That's the Mind Badge! Good going! You're tough enough to consider becoming the Pokemon Champ. Of course, I'm tougher, so it's not going to actually happen."

Oh, you're so funny.

"Anyways, Master, come with me to the library."

Interesting. I return to the Poke Center to heal my team in case Slave is planning some epic ambush. But somehow, I know that's not what this is about. I have a bad feeling about this. It's just a casual invitation to the library from a friend. Nothing wrong with that. Somehow, I feel like something terrible is going on. I try to shake the feeling off. It's irrational. Mostly to prove to myself that I'm not worried, I stroll over to the computer and calmly switch Apsu for the egg. I'm not really going to be in some epic battle at the library and this egg needs to be with me if it's going to hatch into a wonderful, magnificent Lucario. But enough of this. Slave is a good friend. It would be rude to keep him waiting.