2. Its like some kind of… Hawaiian rollercoaster ride

Listen to this as you read and imagine being carried along the crests and valleys of tropical waves, but instead of the rollercoaster being a surfboard its your emotions.

When we last left our hero, he had just finished his first island trial and was preparing to face the Island Kahuna. On his way back into town I caught Ralph the Spearow and encountered a new pokemon called Oricorio.

I am become death

 This form of oricorio is electric/flying, but can change its typing to psychic, ghost, or fire by visiting other islands. Beneath its dumb exterior lay the heart of a killer. Deadmau5 was unprepared for the onslaught it unleashed and eventually succumbed as the Oricorio broke out of 3 consecutive great balls. Rowlett was able to subdue and capture the beast and evolved into Dartrix after the battle.  As much as I resented the oricorio for taking my third partner from me, that much power needed to be put to use and the newly dubbed Slayer was added to my team. Ralph the briefly relevant spearow was traded for Macho the machop and we were off to the Kahuna.

What a dapper mofo

Unfortunately for him, the Kahuna used fighting types. Slayer continued his warpath unabated all the way through the battle and swept him without breaking a sweat, making me official conqueror of the first island.

After catching brogan the roggenrola my team and I set sail for island number 2.

New routes offered a slew of new encounters which I used to add some much needed variety to my team. I quickly catch Murphey the Mudbray, Candycorn the Grubbin, Tigger the lillipup, and received a mysterious egg.

Nintendo even got the
scary af donkey eyes right

Candycorn is added to the team as I'm pretty sure he evolves into a badass lightning bug. An intense round of grinding gets candycorn up to speed with the rest of the team but disaster strikes when some sloppy battling results in his death via zubat. This loss hurt the most of any so far. A lot of grinding had all been for naught and I'd never get my jet plane insect.

If only he'd had a chance, baddassery on the
 outside would have matched the inside

The egg hatched into Casper the eevee and the grind continues until he evolves into the fairy type sylveon. I opted for the newest eeveelution because I'd never used one and had had my butt kicked by them repeatedly during my x version nuzlocke. During the grind gooby evolves into Gumshoos (see episode 1 for image) and we head off to the first trial of the island. While the first island had only one trial before the kahuna, this one has three. Water, fire, and grass.

Trial 1 had me chasing after fish in tide pools, during which I caught a poliwag. The totem beast is a wishiwashi, a swarm of fish that form a giant whale. Dartrix hasn't had much opportunity to flex his wings since evolving, but he carried us through a long drawn out fight for a victory. This was a win I'd sorely needed. Losing two team members made this island as deadly as the first one before I even hit the first trial and I was feeling more than a little defeated. I still had two more trials and a Kahuna to face and despite the bloodless win things were looking grim.

Wishiwash, swarm and individual

As I climb the sides of a volcano towards the next challenge (I wonder what type it could be??) I catch a ground-steel Alolan diglet and continue to grind away. My next encounter is much more exciting. It's a poison-fire salandit. I don't know much about this one other than its typing and that I want it. Being careful not to finish it off, I whittle it down with meowmers the meowth. Just when I was ready to throw the first ball, the salandit busts out dragon rage and meowmers is dropped from ¾ health to 0 in one fell swoop. My 5th death. Sloan the salandit is added to the team at great cost. (not going to lie though, having something that knows dragon rage this early will be AWESOME).

He would have fit in well when my team was all dark type

The night before the fire trial I sleep uneasily. I'm my dreams I see what looks like an evolved Sloan tearing through my team with gouts of fire and noxious smoke until none remain standing. I awake with a start and breathe a sigh of relief to still have my nuzlocke hopes intact. Good thing that didn't happen and it was all a dream, right?

I enter the fire trial uneasily, but gooby tears through the initial onslaught of ghost-fire Alolan marowak without incident to reach the totem poke. As i feared, the shadowy form of a salazzle reared its ugly head. It wasn't particularly tanky, but it hit hard. If Gooby couldn't take it down fast, nothing in my party could survive more than 1 hit from it. Someone would have to be sacrificed to take it down.  Fortunately, it didn't come to that. Ignoring the summoned salandit, Gooby concentrated all of his fire power on the salazzle like a rebel fleet dismantling an Imperial super star destroyer and dispatched it quickly enough that no lives were lost. After that, the cleanup was quick and I walked away with another trial under my belt.

I want one

[I don't want to add a picture of Salazzle here because the google image search made me uncomfortable. Check it out at your own peril]

With two trials down on island 2 I'm starting to hit a little bit of a stride. If I can keep future deaths at a minimum I hope to keep my team leveled far enough ahead of the rifraf to keep sailing on comfortably.

Quick recap of the team:

Dartrix: Nameless, rock solid starter. The foundation the team is built on.

Gooby the Gumshoos: Newly evolved. Beefy and decently hard hitting. Can always be counted on for a switch in when someone needs saving.

Slayer the Oricorio: Dumb cheerleader bird that refuses to learn any electric moves despite being electric/flying. Hits hard though.

Sloan the salandit: fast and sneaky, will hopefully evolve into a nightmare being soon.

Macho the Machop: displays typical NPC ingenuity with his nickname. Hits really hard with his fancy new fightium z

Casper the Sylveon: Awesome special wall. Already looking forward to pooping on dragons whenever they start to show up.

Deaths: 5

Mulligans: 1