Will of Fire; Heart of Stone

In my last post my team was suffering from their first loss to a evil zubat--due to my cockiness, yes--but, we mourned Muhamedali and Naruto stepped in.  Naruto the Vulpix was placed at the front of my party in order to get those levels up.  I found an area of grass that had a lot of raticates in order to get his speed leveled up, too.  We were at the grind again, and it was going along nicely.  I was getting a little bored just fighting wild pokemon, so I decided to head on down to Cianwood City.  I had Naruto the Vulpix in the front, so I did a lot of switching out to Shocker the (now) Ampharos to take out the swimmer's pokemon quickly and safely.  We made it down to the lone city of Cianwood.  Here I wandered around and helped out a fellow trainer by taking his Shuckle for safe keeping.  (Because my darn rival, Dakota, stole his sneasal!)

Let's slow down a bit and say where we are.  I have 4 badges, and am supposed to get the Cianwood Gym badge now, but for some reason I decide I want to take on Olivine City's gym leader Jasmine, the steel type master.  I was thinking about it, and this is why I need Naruto the vulpix.  His fire attacks will be able to handle those steel pokemon well.  I didn't want to put DEVASTATOR the Feraligator in there because I assumed that many of her pokemon would be magnemites or magnetons with a good chance for a Steelix (I am liking that I have forgotten a lot of the game from when I played through it, so I don't remember all the gym leaders' crew).  So, here I am, making my way around.  Naruto the vulpix is getting to be in the upper 20s of level, DEVASTATOR the feraligator is in his 30s with a solid crew surrounding him.  But, for some reason, I decide to wait on going for the gyms yet.  I want to level up Naruto a little more because I realize that Mahogany Town's gym leader has Ice pokemon (perfect for Naruto to take them out, too).  BUT, I think that it is ripe time to venture back to the area where we lost Muhamedali the Beedrill.  SO, we venture up North of Mahogany Town towards the Lake of Rage.  I remember the Red Gyarados and this is enough to spark my interest.  We surf out to the water and to our luck we do not run into any wild pokemon until we face the red gyarados!  We are able to whittle him down as well as paralyze him, and a couple net balls later and voilà! we caught ourselves a red gyarados!  I sent Carnage to bill's pc and then this guy Lance (***Spoiler Alert*** he's the dragon master and pretty much my pokemon idol) shows up and thanks me for helping with the red gyarados but he needs my help again in the "Convenient Store" in Mahogany Town because he is suspicious of it.  Umm, yesss I will help you with whatever you want Lance.  JUST ACKNOWLEDGE ME!

TEAM ROCKET!?!  Yes.  Team Rocket is back, and they are here for, you guessed it, trouble (Make it double).  They are making the pokemon evolve!  So, I help Lance in the basement taking out hordes of Rocket grunts like they are the tops of dandelions and my pokemon are my shoe.  But, let me warn you:  Rocket Executives are not to be taken lightly.  The final boss had a zubat (patooy!), koffing, and a raticate.  I was leaving Naruto the vulpix in because by now he was level 31 and his flamethrower was not to be meddled with.  He took out zubat and koffing easily, but then raticate came in.  He hyper fangs me and takes me down to 2/3rds health.  No biggie.  Flamethrower takes him down into the red.  I decide to use quick attack just in case he crits me and finishes me off.  Naruto does quick attack and...it. does. not. kill. him.  wut.  Well, no biggie, hyper fang will only take out another 1/3rd of my...NOOOoooooo.  Hyper fang finishes off Naruto!  Gah.  DEVASTATOR!  Avenge him!

So now I am down my one good fighting chance for taking on BOTH the ice gym and the steel gym.  Crap.  Mourning takes place, we have a moment of silence, but, like the good Naruto he is, we know that he would want us to keep fighting.  One does not take on the road to being Hokage without knowing that there will be sacrifices, and no one knows that better than Naruto himself.

I then looked at my crew and realized that Krunk the geodude, would be best for taking on the steel type.  So, I leveled him up fast, and headed to Olivine City to take on Jasmine with her steel type.  Krunk was ready.  His rock/ground was perfect for the magnemite that came out.  Magnitude destroyed them.  Then, she sent out Steelix.  I knew it.  Welp, Magnitude it is.  Magnitude 7!  Sweet.  It's super effective.  Not sweet, it only took out 15% of his health.  Uh oh.  Iron tail, one shot, buh-bye Krunk.  Crap.  Go DEVASTATOR!  Avenge him!  And he did.  I was able to use surf which was super effective and take him out.  Then her second magnemite was no match, either.

Now we were 3 down.

Muhamedali the Beedrill, Naruto the vulpix (Will of Fire), and Krunk the geodude (Heart of Stone)

Their sacrifices were not in vain because now we had 5 badges, and we were able to quickly take out Pryce and receive the glacier badge in Mahogany Town with Shocker the Ampharos being a boss.

Now, we are 6 badges in, and off to Cianwood City to get that seventh badge.

We are strong, united, and determined.  We mourn the loss of our comrades but will not let that slow us down because we know they'd want us to keep marching on.  That's what it takes if you want to be the very best.