Iron Island

The cave has a sort of entrance chamber with two descending paths. I take the left path. As I suspected, there are trainers here. A boy scout challenges me. His Luxio paralyzes Ninhursag, but does little damage. Unfortunately, the toxic spikes I had Ninhursag set up were a waste of time: my opponent's only other pokemon is a poison-type: Stunky. I win of course, but Inanna and Hanuman are both beaten down and poisoned before it's over. I heal them and continue. The cavern is not particularly large. As I am on my way out, a wild Golbat attacks. For this, I use Sekhmet. The wild Golbat manages to do some damage, thanks to disabling Sekhmet with confuse ray. But my electric cat wins, of course.

The path on the right is more extensive. I am challenged by another trainer. She was out on a picnic? In a cave? Seeing Staravia, I switch from Ninhursag to Inanna right away, but this Staravia nearly defeats Inanna. I manage to put the bird to sleep, then switch to Sekhmet to finish it. My opponent's other pokemon is Cherrim: a grass type. Hanuman deals with that one easily.

A wild Graveler attacks me, and Ninhursag easily defeats it. A wild Golbat attacks me. I switch to Sekhmet, but confuse ray gives her trouble again. I bring Khali in and get the stupid Golbat out of the way with psybeam. A wild Onix attacks. This cave is going to wear my team down. Ninhursag brings that one down in one hit. A Graveller. One hit. Rock-types are no problem if I lead with Ninhursag, but Golbat is considerably more irritating. The next Golbat brings Sekhmet down. Furious, I bring Articuno out. Articuno is feeling disobedient, but eventually attacks.

I revive Sekhmet. I am running low on healing items. In my haste to investigate this island, I neglected to purchase supplies. How foolish of me. I find a super repel lying on the ground. Now seems as good a time as any to use this. Despite the super repel, I encounter another wild Graveler and another wild Golbat. Articuno actually levels up after defeating that last one.

I find, of all things, an elevator. In a cave? Why? At the base of the elevator are two descending paths. I choose left first again. A sharply dressed young man stands in my path. He sees me and addresses me...

"...You are?"
I tell him my name.
"OK, you're Master. I'm Riley. I'm a trainer and yes, it is a bit odd that I would be training here."

Finally, someone who is actually honest about this! He admits that it's a bit odd. Riley, I like you already.

"If you'd like, we could team up. The wild pokemon here are restless."

Excellent. And he offers to heal my pokemon too. It will be just like that time I teamed up with Cheryl. Oh, and then there was that other time that I teamed up with Mira. Well, Cheryl used Chansey and Mira used Kadabra. Maybe Riley, who seems sensible enough, will use more than one pokemon?

We are ambushed by two wild pokemon and I get the answer to my question. Riley only has one pokemon with him. Something called Lucario. It seems to be a steel-type bipedal lupine creature. I want one. Maybe Riley can tell me where I can catch a Lucario of my own. We meet two hikers and battle them. Riley's Lucario strikes with devastating power, bringing down a Graveller and a Zubat, but then the hikers use Machoke, which takes Lucario out with a technique called vital throw. Now I'm on my own. But that's not really a problem: I have Khali. Psybeam brings down the Machoke and a Golbat. Khali is heavily damaged, but all the hikers have left is Onix, so I'm not worried. A pain split, psybeam, and payback knock Onix out.

Together, Riley and I wade our way through hordes of wild pokemon. As always, when I have someone with me, wild pokemon attack in pairs, which means more experience for my team. Riley has a tendency to order his Lucario to metal claw the same pokemon I'm attacking, but it's not like anything down her poses a threat anyway. I even see a wild Steelix. But I don't bother to catch it. I should catch something while I'm down here. What I really want is a Lucario. But there are none to be found. I should ask Riley about that. He mentions that Byron, leader of the Canalave City gym, asked him to become the leader of the Oreburgh City gym, but that Riley let Roark take the position instead. Also, Byron is Roark's father. I'll defeat the whole family if I have to.

Two men in hard hats challenge us. Ninhursag and Lucario must be having a fun time demolishing all these rock-types. We continue fighting our way through wild pokemon. Riley becomes worried. The wild pokemon, he asserts, are unusually restless. This indicates that something must be wrong. I don't want to jump to conclusions, but we are being attacked a lot. Then again, caves seem to have that effect. I mean, I get attacked by wild pokemon a lot when I'm in caves. It happens. I guess we'll see. Riley does seem the sort to know what he's talking about. Well, whatever is going on, this is certainly helping my team to level up.

Two trainers ambush us. Ninhursag uses toxic spikes. She's eliminated by a Floatzel's ice fang. Hanuman comes out, but never has a chance to attack, taking hits from aqua jet (by Floatzel) and wing attack (by Pelipper). Finally, some semblance of a challenge! Well, not really. Khali dominates the rest of the match with confuse ray and psybeam. They do manage to bring Lucario down as well. I'm not happy that some of our pokemon fainted, but it is nice to actually feel like I was in a real battle for once.

We encounter two Team Galactic morons by another elevator. Riley rushes toward them...

"I get it now. You're responsible for agitating the pokemon. I don't care what good reason you may have, but I don't want you bringing any trouble into my mine."

It's his mine? He never mentioned that.

One of the Team Galactic idiots responds. "We're Team Galactic! We'll take all the pokemon we want! Isn't that right, partner?"

The other idiot replies. "You said it, brother! So that's what we're gonna do! We're abducting all the pokemon from this rusted-out Iron Island."

Riley is looking pissed off. "To share in all the joys and all the sorrows. That is how all the trainers and pokemon live in Sinnoh! I won't allow anyone to defy that code of ethics! Come on, Master! this is one battle we can't lose!"

Riley needn't worry. I don't lose against Team Galactic. Well, I don't lose, period. But this will be easy. Very easy. They lead with Glameow and Zubat. Ninhursag sets up two layers of toxic spikes while Lucario metal claws two Zubats down. Then they bring out Golbat. Toxic spikes was apparently a big waste of time. Golbat and Glameow knock Hanuman out. Lucario finally finishes Glameow off with bone rush right before Sekhmet paralyzes Golbat. They send out Croagunk. Poison-type. Immune to toxic spikes. This is infuriating. Golbat confuses Lucario. Sekhmet brings Golbat down. I switch to Khali, who psybeams Croagunk. The Galactic imbeciles send out their last pokemon: Stunky. This confirms that toxic spikes were indeed useless. I have Khali use confuse ray, switch to Ninhursag, and leech seed the skunk. Lucario strikes the final blow.

The Galactic dummies flee in terror. Riley thanks me for my help and offers a pokemon egg. Is it Lucario? I can't carry the egg because I have a full team, so he offers to wait for me. I rush out and, am, of course, attacked by a wild Golbat. I switch Hanuman to the lead. But apparently that doesn't matter right now. I find an exit to the cave. I don't want to keep Riley waiting, so I return to Canalave City immediately. In the Poke Center, I exchange Ninhursag for Enki and put Inanna away, leaving a spot open for the egg. Then it's back to Iron Island. Of course, I have to fight my way through wild pokemon again. Nothing notable though.

Riley gives me the egg. Excellent! Wait, that's wrong. It's too close to "egg-cellent" and that's just stupid. I apologize. Anyway, this egg is totally going to hatch into a Lucario and I will name it, well, I'm not sure yet. Maybe it won't be Lucario. But it had better be Lucario. Riley had the only one I've ever seen and I have no idea how to find another one. But I know that it will take a lot of time for this egg to hatch. I've been there before. Inanna. But it will be worth it.

I return to the first elevator and take the path to the right: the only part of this mine I haven't explored yet. There's a trainer down here. He uses Onix (rock smashed by Hanuman) and Graveler (one hit from Enki's surf). I have to struggle through several more wild pokemon (mostly Graveler, and if it uses selfdestruct on anything but Khali or possibly Articuno, I'm in trouble). Another trainer challenges me, and his Graveler defeats Khali with rock blast. Enki gets revenge for me with surf.

And now I seem to have explored all of Iron Island. I fight my way to the surface and fly to Veilstone City to buy supplies, something which is long overdue.