At last, after all the dealings with the drawbridge and all the time spent chasing Team Plasma, it's finally time to challenge Clay at the Driftveil City Gym!
Ok... after one more cutscene...
Now on to the Gym! Seeing the original layout of this Gym again, I definitely prefer the elevator puzzle here to the confusing mine cart puzzle in Black 2 and White 2.
I figured the easiest way to handle this Gym would be to have Scampi solo the battle with Clay. But in order to do that I needed a way to take care or Clay's... *shudder* Palpitoad, the evolution of the ruthless evil Tympole. Fortunately he could learn Grass Knot, which will be four times super-effective.
Here we go. Let's do this, Scampi!
Scampi easily handles the first round with Water Pulse. No sweat.
Clay decides to bring out his heavy hitter Excadrill for round 2. He proves to be an annoyance for a few turns, but my persistence is rewarded with victory.
Round 3, against... Palpitoad! Scampi uses Grass Knot and with one hit avenges the loss of Guava so long ago.
I had hoped Scampi would reach lv 36 in this battle, but he was just shy of it. Darn.
Now the Quake Badge is mine! But before I could get the TM for Bulldoze, Clay asked me to meet him outside of Chargestone Cave. They sure do like to emphasize the critical path in this game...
To reward Scampi for his great job in the last Gym battle, I took a quick detour back to the Cold Storage and fight one more wild Pokémon to get him to lv 36 so he could evolve into a Samurott!
Now off to Route 6 to continue my adventure! But wait, what's this...?
Bianca, why am I not surprised? Well, that means more fairly easy experience points...
At least at the end of this battle I got something really useful—HM02 Fly. Thanks!
Now to find my encounter on Route 6. I really was hoping to find a Deerling, but...
Eh, that's kind of disappointing, but whatever. I decided to call her "Gummi", because she kind of looks like a gummy candy.
Once I got to Chargestone Cave, Clay arrived to open up the entrance. As a parting gift, he gave me the TM for Bulldoze. It's a potentially useful move, but I'm not sure I'll be needing it right now.
I took about three steps into Chargestone Cave when I was suddenly surrounded by the mysterious Shadow Triad, who took me three more steps to face N. N said a few things like he always does, and then he left for another part of the cave. Ok then, time to explore.
But wait, there's more. Bianca had to arrive and teach me how to move those floating charged stones. I would have found that more useful if I had never played the game before, but that can't be helped. Fortunately Prof. Juniper also arrived and gave me the Lucky Egg! Now this whole ordeal was worthwhile!
Time for my encounter here. My first choice would be to catch a Tynamo, but the odds of finding one are so low that it's not really worth it. Instead I wanted to find a Joltik, and lo and behold I actually found the Pokémon I wanted! I named this adorable little Pokémon "Pineapple".
I didn't get too far after that because Bianca and Juniper found me again, and Juniper proceeded to postulate on the origins of Klink. Ok, that's kind of interesting, but I'd really like to get through this cave now.
Nope! Now I must be surrounded by the Shadow Triad once more. But this time they just show up, take me across a bridge, and then leave. . . .
When I finally reached the end of Chargestone Cave I ran into N again. This time he challenged me to a battle. I won't complain about that!
After I defeated N, he started going on about his desire to win over people to his way of thinking. At this point Bianca and Prof. Juniper showed up again, and N had some choice words for Juniper. Well that was awkward...
I took my first steps out of Chargestone Cave and into Mistralton City and met the other Prof. Juniper, Cedric, aka the father of the female Prof. Juniper. This is getting a bit confusing to type... Anyway, he upgraded my Pokédex to record multiple forms of Pokémon species.
And what do you know, immediately after that I was approached by Mistralton's Gym Leader, Skyla. She wasn't ready for me to challenge the Gym yet, though. First, I needed to meet her at the top of Celestial Tower. Having to complete a side quest before being able to challenge the Gym... what a surprise.
So on the way to Celestial Tower I had to pass through Route 7, where I encountered a wild Zebstrika. I was kind of hoping that my first encounter could be Deerling, but Zebstrika is nice too. I named her "Cupcake", and I don't even know why.
As I continued along, minding my own business, I found myself sucked into an unavoidable triple battle. That is not something you want to happen during a Nuzlocke. Fortunately my Pokémon were well matched against my opponent's in terms of type so they were able to come out unscathed. Whew!
At last I reached Celestial Tower, where my encounter was, of course, a Litwick. He's such a cute little soul-stealing Pokémon! I thought he looked kind of like a big cube of tofu, so I decided to name him "Tofu". Of course, this name won't make any sense if I ever evolve him.
Since Celestial Tower is full of Ghost and Psychic type Pokémon, Shortcake pretty much destroyed everything in her path. By the time I reached the top of the Tower, she got to lv 39 and evolved into Scrafty, becoming the last of my Pokémon to reach their final evolutionary form. Yay, Shortcake!
At the top of Celestial Tower, Skyla asked me to ring the bell. I did so in memory of my dearly departed Guava. After that Skyla was ready to return to the Gym and accept my challenge.
This next Gym battle has me a little nervous, because even though my Pokémon's levels are still pretty high, I don't have a lot in terms of type trumping for Flying types. Cornbread can probably handle Skyla's Swoobat and Unfezant with Rock Slide, but I wouldn't dare risk sending him out against her Swanna. Plus, none of my Pokémon can learn damaging Electric attacks, at least not the ones I currently have the TMs for. I'll probably have to go with Gingersnap because her defenses are pretty solid in addition to the fact that she's a good attacker.
While thinking about it, I had the idea to teach Cornbread Sandstorm. This would increase Rock Slide's power, and if it's still in effect when I send out Gingersnap she'll get a speed boost from her Sand Rush ability. Not to mention that Sandstorm will deal residual damage to Skyla's Pokémon while leaving Cornbread and Gingersnap totally unharmed. I think that strategy is going to work, but you'll have to check out part 10 to find out!
(credit for party sidebar format goes to Marriland)
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