Hey! shouts Failry.

Team Plasma: What do you want?

Gary: Team Plasma! You villains!

Team Plasma: What? Don’t treat us like villains!

Yeah, Nintendo, it’s boring.

And don’t interfere with our plan to liberate Pokemon!

Gary: Liberate? Ha! You’re just ordinary Pokemon thieves!

I really feel like this is just rehashing what we figured out last game. It’s not interesting now.

And what’s more, you use those stolen Pokemon like they’re tools!

Everyone knows you’re only supposed to use legitimately caught Pokemon like they’re tools!

Team Plasma: Shaddup! Hand over your Pokemon!

Gary: Let’s do this, Farla!

And battle, I guess.

I don’t even get to attack. I spend my first turn switching my koffing out, and then his stupid pignite’s taken them both out. Also, it’s eating half MY experience points in the process.

Team Plasma: They’re really tough!

No, you just totally suck! I was going to attack his pokemon first so we could have a proper battle, and you couldn’t even last long enough for me to get a single hit in on his stupid pignite!

But whatever! We’ve got the Pokemon we need! Now, we flee!

arg there’s even an exit behind them but no they run past me AGAIN. And Mr Tool here doesn’t care they still have those poor innocent stolen pokemon.

Gary: Tch! They run away like Patrat! OK! Let’s go farther inside! There might be more in there!

Yes, let’s go let more of them run away, that’s sure a productive use of time.

???: I don’t think that’s necessary, you two.

What? KILLSTEALER! SHOW YOURSELF!

Yeah it’s that artist asshole. I bet he’s beaten the rest already.

Gary: Could you be Gym Leader Burgh?

Shut up, Failry.

Burgh: Yessir! One and the same! I’m Burgh. and there was no one suspicious beyond here!

Well, that’s suspicious.

Gary: Is that…so?

Burgh is secretly a Plasma member!

Burgh: Yes indeedy! I’m concerned about Team Plasma as well.

Definitely not a villain!

More importantly, shall we leave this place? For some reason, the sewer is bugging me.

Gary: Huh… Didn’t you and the other Gym Leaders fight Team Plasma two years ago?

Gary: Thanks for your help. Here, use this!

And I get…strength? But what’s the point of that, I was explicitly told the things blocking my way couldn’t be moved with strength, so I’m no closer to freedom than I was before.

I’ll find those other Team Plasma punks! I… I’ll never forgive Pokemon thieves! No way!

And he runs off.

Burgh: He’s gone…

Seriously, I have eyes.

???: You there!

Please be someone I can actually fight.

Huh, it’s weird hair guy.

That was an excellent demonstration of battling.

The way I recalled one pokemon then ordered another to attack my partner, only for the battle to end?

The way you brought out the power of your Pokemon against an opponent like Team Plasma… Astounding. Simply astounding. Interesting as well. I see…

Aaand he walks off.

Burgh: Who…was that?

Someone who didn’t fight me and is therefore meaningless. Kind of like you, only I don’t yet hate him.

Well. No matter. What are you going to do?

Get a dragon, kill people.

You can stay here and train your Pokemon.

I think I’m overleveled, because seriously, this place sucks.

Or maybe you should come challenge me, the Gym Leader! Be seeing you!

Okay, he’s gone too. Finally.

And now I can at last catch that rattata.

It searches for food all day. It gnaws on hard objects to wear down its fangs, which grow constantly during its lifetime.

Huh, and going upstairs, I find a bunch of tall grass in a ring around a tree… Half is regular, half dark.

A cottonee! I didn’t raise one of those last time. I think it’s a stone evolution, though, and I’ve already got a grass type…

Perhaps because they feel more at ease in a group, they stick to others they find. They end up looking like a cloud.

Buneary! I’m oddly fond of buneary.

By extending its rolled-up ears and striking the ground, it can bound so high it surprises itself.

But the pokedex says there’s still more, so…

EEVEE! It really is here!

Eevee being around is a really nice sign for teambuilding, since it gives you seven different pokemon (eight if you consider normal-type eevee to be valid in its own right). (Though I’m still vaguely bitter that it’s seven and not six, since who didn’t want a perfect eeveelution team?)

Of course the damn thing gets poisoned and faints.

Lopunny.

Extremely cautious
it quickly bounds off
when it senses danger.

Seriously, that’s how it’s formatted. Was it a haiku originally or something? What does it say about the protagonist that they write a haiku about lopunny?

Also, my riolu evolves.

By reading the auras of all things, it can tel how others are feeling from over half a mile away.

This is some good timing. I raised a lucario back when you first got them, but that was in the later game period, so I powerleveled it up past the early levels. Now I’ve raised this one through those early levels and it evolves just as it’s getting into more familiar territory for me.

There’s a guy here who says something about this being where the city began, because apparently in the pokemon world, you make a city by first pointing to a bunch of nature and saying let’s not build in this spot.

Downstairs again, if I go through the hole Team Plasma didn’t escape through, apparently it’s Relic Passage and it’s like, actual caves? I have to say, having your sewer system bleed into an actual cave system sounds horribly bad for everyone involved.

Huh, there’s that woobat. Maybe I should raise one properly?

The heart-shaped mark left on a body after a Woobat has been attached to it is said to bring good fortune.

Well, that’s some aggressively glass-half-full stuff.

Roggenrola. Already raised it.

The hexagonal-shaped hole is its ear. It has a tendency to walk in the direction the sound comes from.

So it’s basically a rock zombie.

Timburr. Still hate it.

Always carrying squared logs, they help out with construction. As they grow, they carry bigger logs.

This intrigues me, though. They’re a species that’s adapted to an entirely urban environment. Do they carry logs in blind mimicry, like insects hiding under a leaf? That’s pretty weird and potentially creepy.

So, current pokemon:

L21 psyduck
L23 lucario
L17 audino
L19 flaaffy
L22 servine
L19 koffing