>>35672319Facing Chuck was interesting this time around. I'd really been counting on Thyme to pull us through with type advantage so I had to wing it somewhat. It ended up with Sunflower constantly healing off of Poliwrath while Mimosa took out the Primeape. Jasmine was a complete cakewalk. She didn't stand a chance against Hickory and Coralbell.
While most Mahogany, the rocket base, and the radio takeover was nothing special the tail end of it caught me completely off guard when an electrode got a critical explosion against Mimosa taking the poor girl from 100 to 0 in an instant. Thankfully the newly caught Birch was there to fill the hole in the team. Pryce went down like the old man he is and isn't getting up any time soon.
After that we made our way to Blackthorn. After grinding a bit in Dark Cave and the surrounding grass we challenged Clair for our eighth gym badge. I was pretty scared of this gym but Coralbell pulled through by being tanky as fuck and eating hyper beams for days. It was around this time that I noticed that Violet just wasn't pulling her own weight and I needed to swap her out for someone that could learn Waterfall anyways. Mantine seemed like a solid choice and I liked having him around so much I decided to train him up with the others. His special bulk and ability to learn blizzard will be a great asset in the fight to come.
These are the levels I'm going to grind too. Our Johto journey, for now at least, is almost nearing its end. Just the Elite four remain.
