Xisode 8: The light at the end of the tunnel.

So, after trouncing the final gym leader, Habberdash sets his sight on victory road. Before we commit ourselves to the perilous depths of the cave though, we have a couple last locales to check for new teammates. We still have an open spot. The final route of the map yields a Spinda that is at too low of a level for me to weaken enough to catch without being a total headache so I end up just slaying it. A spinda killed my prized Altaria in my emerald nuzlocke back in the day and I have little appreciation for the cretins. The last first encounter excites me though, victory road itself. I enter the cave with bated breath, whoever I encounter here has a good chance of being my 6th teammate for the elite four. The battle music plays and I square off against the mysterious outline... A druddigon! Pretty cool, Goomba is my resident dragon, but it wouldnt hurt too much to have a second I suppose. Lorraine the aggron should be able to handle this one without too much trou-
WHY DOES IT KNOW SUPERPOWER.
The 4x effective fighting move from the high leveled dragon drops Lorraine like a sack of steel potatoes. She was missing MAYBE 4 hp from her encounter with the spinda, but thats more than enough to keep her sturdy ability from keeping her alive at 1 hp. Frig. I'm pretty sure this is my first loss to a wild pokemon. The rest of the team rallies magnificently and captures the fiend, whom I dub WHYYYYYY??? and dump on the bench. I blame spinda. I may have a vendetta on my hands now.

WHYYYYYY???

Too intimidated to start traversing the cave, I scour the map for other locations I may have missed using for an encounter yet. I find one on the north west side of the region. A quick fly and romp through the bushes yields my next teammate, Bellatrix the Inkay. (My first encounter was actually a slowpoke, but I got to reencounter due to my no doubles clause. RIP Qwop. This was my first time using this addendum the entire game. After 30+ catches I never encountered the same pokemon first on a route. Crazy).

Bellatrix

Evolved Bellatrix

Inkay is a weird pokemon. Everything about it is supposed to be backwards I guess. Its a squid that lives on land, its a psychic/dark type (which is cool) but is a physical attack for some reason, and you have to hold the ds upside down to get it to evolve. The best backwards thing about it though is its ability is contrary(!). This reverses every stat change made to it. And it learns superpower. So essentially, it has an attack with 120 base power that increases her attack and defense every time she uses it. We're going to be pulling some crazy pokemon showdown junk now.

My 6th slot I fill with Trevan the Trevanent and begin some serious grinding on him and Bellatrix. Once they're near competitive levels we set off to tackle victory road. Despite his intensive training regimen, Trevan was felled by an aurorus's ice beam that I was not expecting. His replacement, Garfunkle the Klefki, who had been an on again-off again member of the team for some time now, was slain by a heracross's earthquake. This game teaches crazy moves to pokemon I just am not prepared for. Despite these further setbacks, we beat the cave, our rival, and a horde of wild druddigon to stumble out into the pokemon league. Only one last hurdle stands between me and ultimate victory.

We have some serious training to do before then. I only have 4 trained dudes on the team, and based off of victory road, I'm not sure any of them are a high enough level. The existing trained team is as follows.

Bellatrix the Malamar, level 65
Colby the Chesnaught, level 65
Goomba the Goodra, level 66
Smithers the blastoise, level 67

Here's a shot of my bench. I'm really interested in who you guys think I should bring along as my last two

Including:
Holmes the ledyba, 13.
 Squiggle the Sandile, 16.
Chopsuey the machop, 16 (I'd probably just take grover if I want a fighting type due to him already being trained).
Lapras the Lapras, 30 (gift pokemon, not crazy about using).
Howie the Clawitzer, 35 (badass crab cannon, considering using despite being a second water type).
Xerneas (legendary, meh).
 Leverne the carnivine, 33.
 Elmer the psyduck, 13.
Grover the sawk, 52.
Eddie the Noctowl, 50.
WHYYYYYY??? the Druddigon, 58.

In addition, here's a shot of the graveyard I have been steadily filling up this whole time.

RIP Cornroll, Magpie, Fetch, Chalmers, Trungle, Qwop, Woofy, Bunkle, Heartattack, Felix, Gullbee, Betty, Westley, Sid, Scooter, Grumble, Lorraine, Trevan, and Garfunkle. Your sacrifice will not be in vain.

Thank you all for your input and putting up with these long updates. And congrats to Ry on getting gold!

Badges: all
Deaths: 19
Cheats: 3