Recap: The egg hatched into a Wynaut and Saphire defeated the Petalburg Gym Leader to get her next badge.

Today’s objective is to head to New Mauville, put Wynaut in the daycare, grind to level 40, and catch Snorunt and Feebus.

Both are good suggestions! I think we’ll go with Kyle for this one because Wynaut kind of looks like a Kyle to me.

Okay, first things first, let’s get out of here and head to the daycare!

Wait a minute… where is Mr. Briney and his lovable Pokemon Peeko? How the hell am I supposed to get out of here without them?

Oh yeah… we taught Ninja SURF!

Hah… that’s a Mew Saphire is sitting on… I don’t even know how that works…

While surfing, we run into a lot of Tyrogues and Dratini. Saphire is about to get into a battle here. What could it be trying to fight us?

WHAT THE HELL??? It’s a Paras, but it’s GOLD.

Is… is this a shiny??? I have never, ever, ever encountered a shiny Pokemon. EVER.

I’m positive this is a shiny. It must be caught. Paras are always red/orange, right??? Right???

Shitty name for a possible shiny. EQXDD.

You know what, I need to look this up… I am pretty damn positive this is not what normal Paras look like. To Google!

Oh hell… really?? That can’t be right…

How confusing! Look at the gen 3 sprites. Normal is the gold Paras and shiny is the red/orange one… but if you look at gen 2 sprites, it’s the exact opposite.

For the love of crap… I just wasted a Great Ball on a regular ol’ Paras…

I am a little embarrassed… ahem… moving on, now…

Hmm… I don’t remember this ship…

Let’s go inside and check it out!

Could this door lead to something important?

Boy, this ship is killing me. If you can believe it, this was Tiger and Meadow as soon as I sent them out for this battle. Everyone is fainting to trainers and I’m scared we’re going to white out. The only other Pokemon left are Le Fou and Ninja.

This guy says something about a scanner. Maybe that’s what’s behind the locked door?

Welp, let’s go unlock that door and check it out! Maybe if we help this guy, he’ll give us something nice.

Hmm… no scanner here, just this TM. The trashcan was empty, too, as always.

One of the rooms in this ship had an area where we could DIVE, but we don’t have that HM yet. I bet that’s where the scanner is. My memory fails me, so I don’t remember this part of the game very well.

Looks like that’s all the ship had to offer us, let’s continue surfing.

The swimmer battles took out Tiger and Meadow, leaving only Le Fou and Ninja to fend for themselves. Conveniently, the combination of SURF by Ninja—

—and Eruption by Le Fou makes double battles easy peasy. They make a good team.

Once we finally hit land, Saphire frantically heals her party and then sprints all the way to Mauville, where Wattson is patiently waiting for her.

He tells us of New Mauville and a generator that is running haywire. He says we need to SURF from Route 110 to get there.

Sorry, Wattson, but I’ve got some errands to run first.

We take Kyle out of the PC and tell him all about the two nice old people we are taking him to. We tell him he will have lots of room to run and play with other Pokemon… but we leave out the tiny detail that we may never retrieve him.

I shouldn’t say that. You never know. Saphire may come back for him later. Much… much later.

Jason seems to be having a good time here! He’s grown 12 levels so far, so that means he’s at level 26 now.

Saphire drops off Kyle, waves, then leaves.

Next order of business is catching Snorunt and Feebus. We stock up on Great Balls and head to the desert to find them.

Snorunt was caught with the first throw.

His name is HUWCCB.

We accidentally kill about 10 Feebas before finally just chucking a Great Ball at one with full health. She’s caught immediately.

Her name is EEOW.

Now we’re gonna test out our new recruits. I go ahead and withdraw the not-shiny Paras because, why the hell not, I caught her, so I might as well see if she’s worthwhile.

HUWCCB looks promising with his moveset.

Ha! It says we met at Mirage Tower. That slays me.

Okay, so, here is my assessment of HUWCCB. He’s a tough little guy. Aeroblast is such a great move. I did replace Whirlwind (because I find it pointless) with that Ice Beam we found in the abandoned ship, and that made Snorunt pretty unstoppable. He was one-shotting everyone we came in contact with. I leveled him up to 26 by accident because he is so easy to train. His experience bar just explodes in blue after every battle, it’s crazy.

Here’s his stats after grinding a little. I see he has also caught the Pokerus. Maybe that’s why he was leveling up so fast? I seriously know next to nothing about the virus, only what I briefly skimmed on that webpage earlier.

EEOW is… ugh… just…

She passes out in the middle of just about every fight. Poor little thing probably still hasn’t recovered from living a life in the desert just yet. Nonetheless, my patience grew pretty thin with her pretty quickly. All she knows is Flamethrower and Body Slam, and with the wild Pokemon in her level-range, neither really take the cake. I would like to stick it out with her though, just because when we make PokeBlocks we can turn her into a Milotic and tear up the town. I’m just not sure if I have the patience for that…

Anyway, I couldn’t get her to level up because she rarely finished her battles. I put her aside for now to test out that damn Paras.

You know what move I think is utterly pointless? Barrage. I don’t understand the appeal. Sure, it can hit your enemy a bunch of times, but it doesn’t do enough damage for my taste.

You know what move I suddenly really love? Silver Wind. I’ve had wilds faint my team with that damn move consistently, and now I finally get to dole out the damage myself. EQXDD managed to surprise me with her battle style.

Was she as impressive as Snorunt? No.

Was she as durable as Feebas? Moreso. Paras stuck through every battle like a champ. I felt as though she was trying to prove to me that catching her wasn’t a huge mistake. I mean to tell you, this tiny bug withstood every battle I sent her into. Often times, she wound end the fight with 1 or 2 HP and I felt the urge to applaud. If I were to use her permanently, I would have to find a way to replace some of her moveset. I am not a defensive player, so Focus Energy would have to go, as well as Barrage.

She levels up once and decides to evolve.

WOAH. HOLD UP.

WHAT THE SHIT IS THIS?

Paras is freaking gold when you catch it and THEN decides to switch to the red/orange scheme?? Geez… I just don’t get it…

Here are her stats as a Parasect.

She’s also got the flu.

Okay, that’s enough grinding of the newbies for tonight. Let’s get back the old team and head to New Mauville. I’m sure Wattson is getting tired of standing in the middle of the town waiting for us.

On our way to New Mauville, we see a lonely tree in the middle of the water. Someone has written ‘Team Aqua was here’ on the sign, then crossed it out and replaced it with ‘Team Magma rules’.

This seems as good a place as any for a Secret Base!

Cozy!

Oh my gosh, New Mauville is insane. Every two steps is another encounter with a wild. This part took forever simply because Saphire was ALWAYS in a battle.

Yay! An item waiting on top of a switch!

Aww… it’s a Voltorb… sadness.

Hmm… these two are probably Voltorbs also…

The one on the right was, but this one was an item! Hooray!

Success! Wattson would be so proud of us.

We reward our efforts by picking up this Thunderstone.

See, Meadow? You could have been a Jolteon had you just waited to evolve.

We tell Wattson the good news and he gives us a TM. He leaves us with his infamous laugh and we decide to surf around our Secret Base for awhile to grind the main team to level 40.

There must be something in this water because all of the wilds are weird levels. Some of them are as highly-leveled as 35 while some are only 7.

Awwwwwwwwww shit….. You guys, I have to catch it.

There was an Ultra Ball at New Mauville. It’s like we were destined to catch Celebi.

ZFEJP is our Celebi’s name.

She has an interesting set of moves. Let’s try her out real quick.

HOLY CRAP, you guys, she is freaking amazing.

I put her up against Pokemon who were level 24 and higher. The biggest level she faced was 34. This Celebi will NOT GO DOWN. She leveled up INSANELY fast because of the wilds I kept putting her against. It was spectacular. I was thoroughly impressed.

Eventually, she wanted to learn Hydro Pump, so I replaced Shock Wave (since Le Fou already knew it).

I let her hit 30 before I stopped. Then I took my original team back to get they all up to level 40.

Commando’s stats.

Le Fou’s stats once he hit 40.

Ninja’s.

Edge surprised me when she hit 40 because she started to evolve.

Now we have a Scizor, bitches!!

Tiger’s level 40.

Last but not least, Meadow gets to level 40.

Ohhhh geez, you guys, now I have a dilemma.

I LOVE this team of 6, but I just caught 4 more Pokemon who could really be beneficial to the party. Looks like you’re going to be voting for Saphire’s team again!

Okay, the only decision you guys have to make this time is who you want to see on Saphire’s team. This is a multiple-vote poll, so pick the 6 you are rooting for!

These are the four Pokemon we caught today that need names:

Celebi = ZFEJP

Parasect = EQXDD

Feebas = EEOW

Snorunt = HUWCCB

Click link below to vote for Saphire’s new team —–vvvvv—–

Who should be in Saphire’s new team???

Click link above to vote for Saphire’s new team —–^^^^^—–