Vs. Nessa

Riding a wave of momentum after my grassy victory, I blasted my way across Route 5. I picked up a slew of new pokemon along my way: so many that I am still sorting through them all in my head.  I got a fighting type Octopus from a raid battle and the bleached Galar variant of Corsola.  I am fully on board with all of the pro-environmental messaging that this game has and if this is how we get people to take human-caused climate change seriously, then so be it.

As soon as I made it to Hulbury City, I came upon Chairman Rose.  I didn't recognize him at first without his fancy outfit and I was honestly a bit put off at seeing an important story character so off-model in basically joggers and a teeshirt. I was instructed to get my Water badge at the gym and to immediately meet him at the seafood restaurant for what I assume will be boiled Krabby Legs.

The task before Nessa's water gym battle was a fairly standard switch maze.  I had to battle trainers and work my way forward whilst shutting off water pumps to open the way. I made it through fine, but Stufful came out of the task with some pretty sizable damage on her.

Nessa had three pokemon like I did. She led with Goldeen against Stuffy. Stufful had already accomplished her job in getting us here, so She gave off one last parting shot to critically damage the Golden before being taken out.

Now Señor Zorro has just recently learned the perfect move for a situation like this.  He's remarkably bulky as a recent evolution and as such, a move such as Nasty Plot is excellent for him. With two Nasty Plot boosts, his Special Attack triples: Golden stood no chance.

Neither did Nessa's second pokemon: Arrocuda (a barracuda pokemon that knew aqua jet).

When Nessa sent in her final pokemon, Chewtle's evolution Dreadnaw, I considered dynamaxing Señor Zorro, but I was unsure if doing so would reset his stat boosts or not. He's fast, though, so he outran the dynamaxed foe and brought its HP all the way down into the yellow. Dreadnaw retaliated with Max Geyser, which Zorro was barely able to hold on through.  However, I must have overlooked something because Max Geyser triggered rains and Dreadnaw must have the ability Swift Swim because he moved first for the remainder of the match.

Despite his speed, though, Dreadnaw was not powerful enough to defeat my Kaiju-sized Thwackey.