Recap: Saga attempted to fight Demetri and lost several times. She did help out the Police and Ranger clubs, though, so there’s that.

You’ll be happy to know that this time, I wizened up and made Shawn take out Metagross first so we didn’t have to deal with that asshole. Fire Blast was a OHKO and I breathed a sigh of relief, assuming that this was a good omen. Claydol used Earthquake, which I had anticipated, and Yukio was unharmed. Shawn took a nice hit, so I healed him up.

I welcome as many Earthquakes as you can give, Claydol. All it’s doing is hurting your partner. I have enough Max Potions to keep Shawn alive.

I spoke too soon.

A Critical Hit-Earthquake takes Shawn out of the fight. It’s all good, because Genevieve is prepared to take Shawn’s enemy down with a Crunch. Demetri’s beloved Barbie is next up, but we ignore her for now and focus solely on Renicu-bwehwehweh. Double-teaming one enemy at a time is working a little more smoothly than just going all out on each one separately.

Yukio and Genevieve both level up. Old-man Alakazam tries to one-shot Genevieve in an act of revenge, but fails. She hangs on long enough to Crunch Goth Lady.

Yukio nabs a Max Potion and Genevieve looks at him, nodding his head in understanding. She allows him to use the next move to attack as opposed to healing herself and gets taken out by a Psychic. Barret jumps in. Yukio, with a determined look in his eyes, prepares to use Shadow Wing against the Porcelain Doll… but can’t move his wings because he is paralyzed.

Genevieve sacrifice was for naught.

Try as he might, Yukio cannot avoid the next Thunderbolt. He faints, tagging Zephyr in to take his place. Grandpa-kazam misses his next attack.

Now we’re down to Demetri’s final two Pokemon. Sigilyph pops out and immediately gets burned by the orb she’s holding, giving us a small advantage. A Signal Beam threatens Zephyr’s position in the battle. He shakes it off and sends a Shadow Ball straight for Grandpa-kazam. Barret follows that up with a Crunch and the future looks bright for Saga’s team!

With Barret’s Dark move and Zephyr’s Ghost one, they took out Demetri’s final Pokemon!

Finally, we can get the hell out of here!

Okay. So that’s done. Now we can use Rock Smash.

The next town we reach is Caspian City.

There’s an odd building here that says CARD on it. My very first thought is this is a building to do more card-gaming tournaments.

Actually, it’s something better! You can buy trainer cards here to battle in the Simulation thing. I take advantage of this and buy some YOGSCAST cards so that I can grind off of them later.

We try to check out what’s in all the houses but this guy kicks us out…

…which is the proper response to this situation.

I love this game.

Gym-time!

This one is a Fire Type Gym. After you beat the hikers, you have to step on those white buttons over there to move onto the next one. This particular button made the lava disappear, allowing us to challenge the Leader.

Miranda: Let’s make this battle a quick and fun one, okay? Good luck!

She seems nice. Okay, let’s make this battle quick and fun! I’m getting ansy to get to the Elite Four anyway.

???: No! Wait!

GODDAMNIT JAKE

NO

GET OUT

Miranda: I’m sorry, this person was here before you. You’ll have to wait until tomorrow, I’m done after this battle.

Jake: But… but…

Yeah, you heard her, this is my battle. Leave.

Jake: Saga can’t get all the badges before me! It’s not fair!

Life’s not fair, get used to it.

Miranda: Well… why don’t we have a double battle? The two of you both take me on?

GODDAMNIT MIRANDA

NO

GET OUT

Jake: Ugh. Fine. But you only get this honor once, Saga!

This is going to be worse than Demetri.

Damnit, Miranda, I actually liked you for a second. Making me double battle with Jake…

This was my first attempt at this Gym.

Jake’s Pokemon didn’t last more than two turns a piece. I wound up against Miranda’s two strongest Pokemon all by myself and got destroyed.

This was my second attempt at this Gym.

Jake left me alone again.

Jake is a TERRIBLE Pokemon trainer. I mean… he’s just… awful. How did he even get this far?

After my third failure, I take some drastic measures. First things first, I change the Custom Move to a Water Type and call it Ocean’s Wrath. I override Genevieve’s Dragon Rage for it, thinking if I had a Water move on hand, I’d make it farther without Jake’s help. You know, since he dies instantly.

For my fourth Miranda attempt, I put Shawn up front. I forget my reasoning for that. Regardless, it didn’t work.

I am conflicted about this Gym because on one hand, it’s fucking brilliant to challenge the player by forcing them into a double battle where it’s practically inevitable to wind up in a situation where it’s one against two. On the other, I want to throw my mouse against the wall because I’m so angry that I can’t win thanks to my stupid rival.

FIFTH try.

Looks like it’s time to grind.

The YOGSCAST trainers are my favorite to fight because I can one-shot almost every single one of their Pokemon, making grinding quick and painless. Plus, I get a butt-load of money in the process.

This is when I stopped grinding and went forth to Miranda’s Gym for the sixth time.

As you can clearly tell, I am not an EV trainer. I might attempt to be in the next region.

Fingers crossed that this will be enough, my friends.