So, giant tribute to the greatness of our Lord Lucario aside, there was
really nothing to the Tower of Mastery--it was just a huge room with a spiraling
staircase that I wasn't allowed to ascend.
Time to earn a gym badge!
The Shalour City Gym was a Fighting Gym inside a skate park, and while a fighting gym may have been a huge problem in my Pokemon White playthrough with my massive weakness to Fighting types in my team, I came into this gym with a certain amount of swagger and confidence.
Gymkiller Squad #3: The Punch-Takers
Scraggy - Intimidate coverage to soften the blow of her physical pokemon
Floette - Fairy type resistance against Fighting attacks.
Kirlia - Confusion plus a double resistance to fighting moves.
Flareon - Fire Fang's possibility of Burn is too tempting not to bring in.
Ivysaur - Poison Typing resists fighting attacks, Leech Seed + Sleep Powder are my friend.
Aerodactyl - For cleanup/suicide revenge-killing.
I made note of all of the level 28+ pokemon running around in the gym and I realized just how under-leveled my squad was--which I guess is the tradeoff for being able to rotate more than six members in and out of the team.
After I beat all four trainers in the gym, Gymleader Korrina jumped down from the ceiling to challenge me in the center of the room, announcing her appearence as if she were the special guest star on some weird pokemon sitcom.
Normally I wouldn't make note of this, but Korrina is just so...weird. I have no clue what her personality is--I'm not sure if they're going for "over-the-top" or "thinks she is a movie star" or "flashbacks of her service in the Great War"--but she just comes across as kind of bonkers. And that helmet is definitely not helping her out.
I was sure my strategy of cycling Scraggy in-and-out of battle to continuously intimidate opponents (lowering their attack after each switch-in) while tanking hits with my fighting-resistant pokemon was a winning one. She led with Mienfoo and after lowering her attack with my Scraggy, I switched to Pixie to take hits and use Fairy attacks to whittle it down. This is the point where I was introduced to the attack "Power-Up Punch", which raised Mienfoo's attack with each hit. DAMN, time to change strategies.
I barely took out Mienfoo with Floette and Korrina next sent out a high-level Machoke to clean-up Floette and Scraggy. Scraggy was able to lower the Machoke's attack enough to survive exactly one hit before being taken out by another "Power-Up Punch", and Kirlia was able to cripple the Machoke before falling to yet another Punch. This, of course, prompted Korrina to use a Hyper potion. DOUBLE DAMN.
At this point, I was staring at a Machoke with a +5 boosted Attacking stat (which is the same as if his attacks were at 3.5x strength) with only Flareon, Ivysaur, and Aerodactyl. After Flareon was unable to burn the Machoke with Fire Fang, and Korrina used yet another Hyper Potion, I realized it was Aerodactyl or bust.
In the end, it was Aerodactyl and NOT bust, as Scarydactyl took out the (now fully-powered at +6 Attack) Machoke in two hits. Her final pokemon was Hawlucha--and not Lucario as I expected (since she had Lucario with her both times I saw her in the past).
At the end of the match, she gave me her badge and tried to make what I think was a joke about how she has to re-evaluate her life after her loss to me. I'm not sure if this is a just poor attempt at humor or Nintendo/Gamefreak taking irony to the highest possible level--with their eye-rolling eyes coming right out of their heads due to self-aware camp.
She told me to battle her again at the Tower of Mastery. Since I have already kicked her ass on two separate occasions, I am kind of getting sick of this charade.
Current Squad:
FROGADIER/Froakles/lvl.27
IVYSAUR/Ivy/lvl.26
FLAREON/Hotfoot/lvl.25
FLOETTE/Pixie/lvl.23
SCRAGGY/Scrappy/lvl.24
AERODACTYL/Scarydactyl/lvl.26
On Rotation: Pikachu/Hippopotas/Kirlia
I made my way to the Tower of Lucario to fight her for our re-rematch and the Mega-Evolution Guru--erhm, Steve--told me she was the Mega-Evolution Successor and that she was upstairs. What the hell does that mean? Mega-Evolution Successor? Those words mean nothing together!
So I entered-into a battle against Korrina with her Level 32 Lucario--and I got my first taste of Mega-Evolution. The way it works is if you have the special Livestrong Mega Bracelet on and your pokemon is holding a special stone (in this case it was called Lucarionite), you can choose an option to Mega-Evolve before your attack from the battle screen.
Of course I chose to test this out, evolving Lucario into Mega-Lucario. After transforming, Lucario's stats in Attack, Special Attack, and Speed increased by 1.5x. His ability changed to "Adaptability" which changes the Same Type as Attack Bonus (STAB) from 1.5x to 2.0x (fighting and steel attacks increased in power). Finally, he changed his appearance by changing the color of his paws. It's these big changes that are the ones that count I guess.
