Welcome back! Last time, I left off on Route 4. Today, I continued through it, battling a handful of trainers along the way. One of the trainers used the mysterious blob Pokemon I’ve seen around, which I now know to be called Milcery. Maybe this is the pre-evolution for Alcremie?

Eventually, I got close to Turffield, where the first Gym was! Here’s a nice glimpse of the town from the hillside.

There isn’t much to do at Turffield, but their key attraction is the geoglyph carved into the hill.

Also, one girl let me know that there was a treasure hidden somewhere in Turffield. Each stone was labeled with a type and the girl gave a hint that the first stone was Grass. It took a while, but I realized she wanted me to go from Grass to Water to Fire, in order of type-effectiveness. I ended up finding the treasure, which was an Expert Belt!

Finally, it was time to enter the Gym! Each Gym has a little mission that must be completed before challenging the Gym Leader. This one required me to herd a bunch of Wooloo into a group.

Inside the Gym were plenty of trainers. So far, I’ve catered my team completely for this Gym, so my team was able to defeat their Grass-types with ease.

After defeating Gym Trainer Samuel, Dusseldorf reached Lv. 20 and evolved into a Diggersby! Maybe now he can hold his own in battle! His offensive stats are still lower than Dublin the Vanillite’s, but at least he can now take a hit.

The Gym mission turned out to be a LOT harder than expected. For the last section, there was one Wooloo that just REFUSED to go into the pen. It took a while, but I eventually herded it in.

Finally, it was time to face off against Milo. His team is the only one I know, since I saw it before I decided to go “blind”. I had four viable contenders for this battle:

Geneva: She’s probably the most powerful of the 4, but she is a bit frail.

Munich: He’s got a quad resistance to Grass, which could be EXTREMELY useful.

Copenhagen: He’s extremely bulky and has some great set-up moves, like Reflect and Light Screen.

Dublin: His stats may be a bit low, but he makes up for it in his powerful moves like Icy Wind and Avalanche.

I eventually decided that I would lead with Copenhagen and ideally use Munich against his ace. Outside the Gym, Hop let me know that he had earned the badge. If Hop and his team of underleveled weaklings could win, there was a 100% chance that I could too.

Finally, it was time for the battle to begin!

Milo lead with his Gossifleur, while I sent out Copenhagen. After a Struggle Bug and Light Screen, Gossifleur’s attacks did practically nothing!

Gossifleur easily went down and Milo sent out his ace: Eldegoss, the evolution of Gossifleur! I originally planned on sending in Munich immediately, but I decided to would be wise to keep Copenhagen in for another turn and go for a Struggle Bug. Milo surprised me by immediately Dynamaxing Eldegoss… I’ve gotta say, I was definitely terrified for what was to come next.

Immediately, Eldegoss unleashed one of its ultra powerful Max Moves… and it did 6 damage. Maybe I didn’t need to be afraid after all!

Next, I switched into Munich. I never really established any rules about whether I would allow Dynamaxing or not, but for now, I will allow it. I decided to give Dynamaxing my first try with Munich!

Munich landed his first attack on Eldegoss and he continued to take Eldegoss’s attacks with ease. Right afterwards, Eldegoss downgraded into its regular form and Munich took it out with one of its Max-Moves and the battle was over!

Milo was impressed and rewarded me with the Grass Badge! What a unique name! I also received the TM for Magical Leaf, which is brand new!

After that amazing battle, I decided to call it a night! Here are my positive and negative thoughts for the day.