Vs. Kahuna Hala

Prepared with the knowledge that I would be battling a Fighting Pokemon master, I assembled my most reliable squamates for the task.

Battle Team 2: The Fighting Frenzies

Vs. Kahuna Hala

...and apparently I also brought Slowpoke along for some reason.

I was unsure of whether or not the team I had selected would be over or under leveled.  I prefer to keep the game on the challenging side, so I didn’t want to take in, for example, my level 17 Oricorio with Air Cutter.  Or-chan is a little bit too strong for what I anticipated the Kahuna’s pokemon would be—somewhere in the 16-17 range.

I approached him back at Route 1 on the Melemele outskirts.  As a matter of fact, our battle arena was the very same stage where I had fought his grandson Hau and his Litten at the festival of our Lord and Savior the Kamen Rider Space blah blah Tapu Koko.  Indeed, it was the very stage where I had met and befriended Pako Pako.

With a weird sort of nostalgia coursing through my thoughts, I started the match.

Trumbeak vs. Mankey is the sort of battle that normally wouldn’t get even a footnote in any battling tactics analysis.  Even if Mankey is the same level as Trumbeak, level 14 in this case, it just plain can’t compete.  Trumbeak took one hard Karate Chop critical hit, but held on to defeat both Mankey and Hala’s second Pokemon Makuhita.

The Makuhita was able to weaken my lead, Pip Pip, to identically 1 HP, but Kahuna Hala now only had one pokemon left compared to my five remaining healthy switch-ins.  For the future, I need to remember to only bring in three pokemon per gym match to make it a fairer fight.

His third pokemon was a Crabrawler.  It knew the Fighting Z-Move “All Out Pummeling”.  Unfortunately for the Kahuna, Crabrawler wasted this move immediately against my 1 HP Trumbeak in the most spectacular sort of overkill that I have ever seen.  The animation for this move is insane and over the top and to see it strip off exactly one point of health made me make a ridiculous squeaking noise.

After I lost Trumbeak, I sent in Pokey for an admittedly boring exchange of Yawns and Confusions.  I won the match four turns later.

The Red Card Trainer

I'm on my way towards my first Grand Trial.  This will be my first major certification.  With the Verdant Cave Challenge completed, I will be allowed to battle the Melemele Island Kahuna, Kahuna Hala.  This is the very same person who gave me my Popplio at the start of the adventure.  Apparently he uses Fighting Pokemon: I've already started considering the team that I will be bringing into battle with him.

I couldn't get very far down the Seaward Cave path (it was full of Zubat and Diglett anyways), so I resigned myself to recovering Nebby as I was originally asked to do about two thousand hours of playtime ago.  Along the way, I caught another new favorite pokemon of mine, Crabrawler.
_________________
I knew from the first time I saw him that this pokemon would make my short list of new "bests".  It's obviously based on the coconut crab--one of the largest currently extant terrestrial arthropods.

As a matter of fact, I just looked it up: it is the largest.

This is a creature known for its huge size and tough shell; it lives its entire life on land.  Indeed, it would be at risk of drowning if it were ever completely immersed in sea water.  While the creature varies in colour and size, it is often identified by its deep hues of blue and purple.  It's easily one of my favorite animals.  Well, one of my favorites that isn't a bird...because I have a weird thing for birds.

Crabrawler is a pure Fighting-type pokemon.  I'm glad that it isn't Fighting/Water.  I can already hear the legions of kids that are right now encountering this pokemon and thinking "Hey it's a crab, why isn't it a water pokemon?"

Hopefully (and this is a stretch) these same kids will look up this critter and learn a little something along the way.  And then they all become Biologists and grow up supporting the sciences.

Sorry, lost my train of thought.  At any rate, I let Rattata retire to that great dusty box slot in the sky in order to welcome my new friend.
______________
On my way back to the Kahuna, I fought my rival, Hau.  This time he had Pikachu and Litten.  After the match, I allowed Rai Rai to evolve into Pikachu and Pip Pip into Trumbeak.  I really like Trumbeak.  Yes, the design is cute, but the real reason I like it is because it does this silly cartoon thing in one of its idle animations wherein it purses its lips and makes like it's blowing a raspberry.  Fucking hilarious.

In Pokemon Sun and Moon, there are Ace Trainers scattered around the Alola Region who specialize in using specific items from the competitive scene.  Once I had defeated all the trainers on Route 3, the Ace Trainer there agreed to battle me.  He used Rockruff and Slowpoke and they each held an item called Red Card.  I have battled competitively in the recent past, but I haven't actually ever come across this item, so this was a pretty good learning experience for me.  Red Card apparently forces your opponent to switch out their pokemon for a random replacement if they target you with a super-effective move.

And I fell for it every clit-rubbing time.

I did manage to defeat the Ace Trainer in the end (his Slowpoke actually made this a fairly tough match with all the yawn-ing it was doing) and got, as my reward, my own Red Card.

File that under "save for later".

Current Squad:
Popplio/Pako Pako/lvl 16
Crabrawler/Ppunches/lvl 13
Trumbeak/Pip Pip/lvl 14
Pikachu/Rai Rai/lvl 14
Misdreavus/Missy/lvl 14
Growlithe/Growlie/lvl 14

On Rotation:
Oricorio/Ori-Chan/lvl 17
Grimer/Sludj/lvl 13
Slowpoke/Pokey/lvl 14
Yungoos/Chompy/lvl 13

Pokedex: 40 caught