The Rock Jock Jostle

I don't think that there is a Rock Gym in existence that cannot be conquered with a combination of tenacity and Super potions, but Grant made me pause.  Most Rock Gyms are a defensive slog and are not so much difficult as they are drawn-out.  When I played Red version, I remembered I would spend the whole match debuffing Onix with growl, tail whip, and string shot before letting Leech Seed slowly whittle it down (Bulbasaur hadn't learned Vine Whip yet) and in Sapphire version,
things weren't any different.  The pokemon were  never tough or hard-hitting, but they were always a pain in the ass to deal with, the Rock Gym basically designed to remind you, the player, that you won't be able to kill EVERYTHING out there with one Thundershock attack and that there are some types that your pokemon just plain will not be able to match-up against.  It's more of a reality check than a straight-up fight, and the gymleader is meant to yield to you only if you GET the lesson it is trying to teach you.

That's why the Rock Gym is typically first.

Grant opened the match with Amaura, the pokemon I got from my fossil, and after struggling to remember what types it was and finally deciding it was something like Rock and Ice (it is, by the way), I opened in my typical way of Rock-gym fighting strategy with Aerodactyl's "Scary Face" attack.  Then, I was immediately KO-ed with a super-effective takedown.  It was then that I realized that Take-Down is a normal attack, so I was obviously overlooking something, but it wasn't until Kirlia and Floette were both similarly One-Hit-KOed that I smartened-up and realized that I needed to change tactics.  This Grant is clearly not a typical "make-you-defeat-me-(rather than me defeating you) Rock Gymleader".

I was able to finally defeat Amaura with Scrappy (after finally recalling that Ice/Rock was twice weak against Fighting), but Grant's next pokemon, Tyrunt (who is most likely the resurrected Jaw Fossil) took both him and Ivysaur out handily (but not before Ivy Leech-Seeded him).  Along the way I found that Tyrunt was NOT weak against neither grass, nor water attacks (meaning he must have a dual typing as either rock/grass or rock/dragon) and ultimately, it came down to the very end where a barely alive Froakles took Tyrunt out with a Quick Attack that I was not sure would even do enough damage (Froakles was paralyzed and was low enough-leveled to Speed-tie the Tyrunt, so I couldn't leave it to a 50-50 Water Pulse in the final hit of the match).

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And so I was awarded the Cliff Badge and the ability to use Strength.  I withdrew my Hippopotas and Flareon from the PC for the next leg of my journey and promptly went to sleep because it is best to end a session with a smile on your face.

Current Squad:

FROGADIER/Froakles/lvl.21
IVYSAUR/Ivy/lvl.21
FLAREON/Hotfoot/lvl.20
FLOETTE/Pixie/lvl.20
SCRAGGY/Scrappy/lvl.20
AERODACTYL/Scarydactyl/lvl.20

On Rotation: Pikachu, Kirlia, Hippopotas

Rocky Road...Heh Heh

On my way back through Ambrette Town I resurrected my two fossil pokemon from the Sail Fossil and the Old Amber to get Amaura and Aerodactyl.  Normally I would take the adorable Amaura over Aerodactyl because I am a five-year-old girl at heart, but I always wanted a team with an Aerodactyl since Red version, plus I wanted a flier.  So I tearfully (or not so tearfully) condemned Amaura (along with Doduo) to join the legions of pokemon in my PC, never to see the light of day again.

Route 8 to Cyllage City was a cliff-side beach, and the only pokemon I were able to find were from fishing (Luvdisc, damn) and from using Rock Smash (Dwebble, also damn).  I finally got Ralts to evolve into Kirlia, and, not to be outdone, Flabebe evolved into Floette.  This is fortunate because they were both really starting to fall behind in terms of reliability, but tough on me because I was THIS CLOSE to cutting my team down by one.

After screwing around with the Item-Finder looking for buried treasure (of which, I was surprised, I found TONS) in the sand, I finally found the city--a city built into the side of the cliff overlooking the shallow seas (and I apologize for that absolute monster of a sentence).  I have to applaud the geography of this game--as Nintendo is DEFINITELY taking advantage of the 3DS' unique ability to put images discernibly into either the foreground or the background of the screen.

But enough of that nerd talk, let's fight some pokemon.

Exploring ahead I caught a Golett and of course I caught an Eevee, forcing me to make yet another ridiculously hard team decision.  It's a good thing you gain exp by catching pokemon in this game cause I don't think I've defeated a wild pokemon since Viridian--erhm--Santalune Forest.

In the end, I chose Flareon and promised myself that this would be the last pokemon I would put into my squad without taking someone else out first.

The advantage to having nine pokemon on rotation in my squad (ten if you count my HM slave/pickup whore: Zigzagoon) is that as soon as I found out that Cyllage sported a Rock-Type Gym, I immediately deposited Hippopotas, Pikachu, and Flareon in preparation for the upcoming match.  Pikachu is historically bad against Rock types (technically Ground types, but I'm not taking any chances), Flareon is outright weak against rock attacks, and Hippopotas' ability to generate Sandstorms strengthens all Rock pokemon on the field (ouch).

And with my team of Rock-destroyers handy, I set off to challenge the Gymleader Grant, the Rock Jock.

Rock-Destroyer Squad:

FROGADIER/Froakles/lvl.19
IVYSAUR/Ivy/lvl.20
KIRLIA/Empath/lvl.20
FLOETTE/Pixie/lvl.20
SCRAGGY/Scrappy/lvl.18
AERODACTYL/Dactyl/lvl.20

On Rotation: Flareon, Pikachu, Hippopotas