Over Rock and Under Tree

The road to Anistar City, and surely my next disappointingly easy gym battle, took me through an ice cave called the "Frost Cave" and over a snowy mountain that was most likely called "Snowy Mountain".
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I do have to admit that I love exploring all the dungeons in this game--and ice caves are a kind of guilty pleasure of mine.  Of course they all end up having that one predictable sliding-on-the-ice minigame, but I actually like that one (see also: Conveyer Belt minigame.  But fuck you, teleporter game).
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The reason I was rerouted into the Frost Cavern is because the only other way East is through a snowy path in the mountains that can only be crossed by riding on the back of a Mamoswine.  Very Cool.  Apparently the Mamoswine in question was feeling down in the dumps and the only way I could make him feel better was to go through the Frost Cavern.  Very Uncool.

Frost Cavern was full of interesting Ice pokemon, including a new pokemon called Bergmite whom I caught easily--and at the end, the big revelation was that Team Flare was behind the whole mess! >GASP<

Apparently Team Flare was picking on a resident Abomasnow (most likely for being a stupid Sesame Street muppet) and I had to fight them off to make the Abomasnow feel better--and therefore to make the Mamoswine feel better.

After I made the Abomasnow feel better, it gave me "Abomasnowite" (which I assume mega-evolves Abomasnow) and I made my way East on the back of a Mamoswine.  Along the way, "Scrappy" the Scraggy evolved into "Scrappy" the Scrafty.

Current Squad:
GRENINJA/Garcon/lvl.40
VENUSAUR/Venus/lvl.38
FLAERON/Hotfoot/lvl.38
SCRAFTY/Scrappy/lvl.39
HIPPOWDON*/Leviathan/lvl.40
AERODACTYL/Scarydactyl/lvl.41

On Rotation: Gardevoir, Pikachu, Lucario, Skrelp

Scrafty Dealings with Gymleader Iris

I have a big list of things I don't like about Team Plasma, but perhaps the best way to illustrate this is to change numbers 1 and 2 to "nonsensical plans" and to read this over and over while pouring live beetles into your pants. I was so sure that the final battle with Team Plasma was going to happen--I literally have the Pokemon Zekrom in my item pouch (in "dark stone forme") and the legendary Reshiram has been awakened--there should be a final battle I need to be fighting right about now, right?

In typical Team Plasma style, N and Ghestis decided to play the hurry up and wait game and now that side-story has kind of just died out. I'm not sure if its over in the anticlimax of the century (with me getting the "dark stone" as a sort-of nuclear deterrent in the pokemon equivalent of the cold war) or just being held-off for the moment, because when I arrived in Opelucid City, the gymleader Iris and her older boyfriend (or is is uncle?) Drayden--who have been hyped-up to be experts on Dragon pokemon as well as legendaries--told me they had no clue what I should do--and that I should just continue with the whole getting badges thing.

Gymleader Iris was a pushover--and carried a "Haxorus", which the pokedex has identified as the final evolution of my Fraxure. Thanks for the spoilers Iris...

The reason Iris was such a joke was because of my new pokemon. As I was leaving for Opeculid City, Bianca challenged me to a battle which "Scrappy" the Scraggy won all alone--despite being several levels below each pokemon on her team. Afterwards, Scraggy evolved into Scrafty at level 39, who is seriously awesome. He might look a little crazy at first, but let him grow on you--he's really cool--and amazingly powerful.

With the Team Plasma ordeal either solved...or not...it is time to travel north to Victory Road...

Current Squad: