Less for Story, More for Fun

Since I haven't really had the time to breathe much on this game over that whole "end-of-the-world" Team Flare marathon thing, I decided to take a bit of a vacation. No, not a vacation from pokemon, a vacation from story progression.  Dummy.

I spent a day or two trying to figure out the new breeding system and another several days beefing-up my pokedex and training a few interesting pokemon on the side (more on that later). 

My noteworthy misadventures include testing out new nicknames for my squad.  I really wanted to rename Greninja "Jean-Claude Vanne Frog" or "Jean-Frog Vanne Damme" or "Frog-Frog Vanne Frog" but those nicknames are too long for the game to accept, so I switched it back to Froakles. 

In my incessant screwing-around I evolved the Fletchling I caught way at the start of the game.  I have been using this Pokemon to FLY around and it just made it to level 20.  It evolved into a Pokemon called Fletchinder which is a Fire/Flying type.  Holy shoot, did I drop the ball on that one!  A Fire/Flying type would have been incredibly useful this whole time! 

Skrelp still hasn't evolved and its weakness is starting to show.  I know it will evolve eventually (its pokedex entry specifically states that "Skrelp hide themselves while they build up power for their evolution"), but it is currently level 45 and it can't stay alive enough  in battle to defeat any foes.  I'll keep him a little longer because that pokedex entry is very enticing, but if he reaches level 50 and still hasn't evolved, he's out.  I'm not going to screw around with a weak pokemon that I don't really care about all the way up to level 55 (like I do whenever I try to train a Dragonite).

Pikachu similarly has the survivability issue, but it outspeeds almost every pokemon it fights so it always moves first--and it always either KO's in one hit or massively cripples an opponent.  As a matter of fact, Pikachu is probably the strongest pokemon on my squad.  While Venusaur and Hippowdon can shrug off hits like they are nothing, Pikachu kills everything.

I don't know how it happened, but my squad has actually developed from a motley crew of misfits with little synergy to an amazingly strong bunch of competitors--akin to something like a force of nature.  Sure my pokemon die often--but they consistently defeat foes up to ten levels higher than myself.  I think for my next gym, I will only carry-in three of my pokemon...to make it a true challenge...

And then I realized that gym 8 is an Ice gym...

Current Squad:

GRENINJA/Froakles/lvl.45
VENUSAUR/Venus/lvl.44
FLAREON/Hotfoot/lvl.45
SCRAFTY/Scrappy/lvl.44
HIPPOWDON*/Leviathan/lvl.43
AERODACTYL/Scarydactyl/lvl.41

On Rotation: Lucario, Pikachu, Skrelp, Garevoir, Haunter