Medic Plays A Real Pokemon Game for the First Time – Part 17

I don’t know why, but it never occurred to me that maybe, just maybe, all the gym leaders would also want a go at challenging Leon the champion. After all, you have to fight an elite four before you face the champion in other Pokemon games, so of course we have something similar here. Well, I say that, I didn’t know the gym leaders were also the elite 4.

I dunno, it’s weird. I’ve just beaten my rivals and now I’m fighting the gym leaders I already beat. Except this time, they are actually trying, and they also want a shot at Leon. We all get thrown into some bracket matches, and whoever comes out on top gets to challenge Leon.

Before all of that happens though, I get challenged by Bede. You know, the guy who borrowed a steel elephant to destroy a mural that happened to be hiding a statue behind it. Poor guy got kicked out of the gym challenge, but now he’s back. And he’s the new leader of the Fairy Gym. I feel really sorry for him, the kid’s an orphan and just wanted to please Chairman Rose, but he was essentially abandoned after the steel elephant incident.

However, I don’t feel sorry for him enough to let him win. Bede seems to dislike specializing in fairy types but he has got a cool job as a gym leader now. Unfortunately for Bede, my most-used Pokemon is a fire/poison type who destroyed all but one of his Pokemon. His giant hat-based fairy type did gigantamax and knock out my Salazzle, but Grohl the Rillaboom stepped up and defeated him via the sheer brute force of being ten levels higher than Bede’s Pokemon. Apparently all Bede wanted to do was defeat me and retire from being a Pokemon trainer, but the crowd egged him on and suggested that he keep on trying, especially since he’s a master of fairy types now.

After that interruption (seems to be a bit mean to call it an interruption when it was more Bede having a mental breakdown), I get to fight one of the gym leaders. My first fight is with Nessa, from the Water Gym. I feel bad because Grohl the Rillaboom defeated her entire party with ease.

Up next, we have Allister. He also won his first round against Melony and now has to fight me. This was a match I was kinda worried about, since I don’t have a Pokemon that properly resists Ghost. So again, Grohl does the heavy work because he has a dark damage move, Knock Off. I didn’t lose any Pokemon though, I just kinda… switched to whatever would counter Allister’s next Pokemon. This fight wasn’t as easy as Nessa’s but I never felt like I was in any danger of losing.

I’ve got one battle left, and that’s with Raihan, the dragon master. Also a master of weather. I genuinely really enjoyed the fight against Raihan, because he actually used some cool mechanics and kept me on my toes. We also somehow went through the majority of weather types. I had hail and rain, while Raihan had rain, sandstorms and sunny weather. Raihan’s match was also actually the first time that I Dynamaxed a Pokemon before the NPCs. Aaby the Lapras, the newest member of my team, was Dynamaxed to help deal with the weather and a very bulky Goodra, Aaby actually went on to survive the battle, but we were constantly swapping between rain and hail.

Unfortunately for Raihan, he actually made the same mistake twice, leaving his Dynamaxed Duraladon until the end, then watching it faint because it can’t react as fast as my Pokemon. Really, with Raihan, having speedy Pokemon helped massively. And, thanks to Charm the Salazzle and her flamethrower, Raihan was knocked out in no time. That was actually a cool battle rather than another steamroll.

Turns out though, these fights are all predetermined! I thought I’d be fighting gym leaders picked at random, but no, it’s the same every time. I genuinely wanted to fight Piers again since he’s my new favorite gym leader. Apparently, over in Pokemon Sword, they have a stone gym, and I would have faced them instead. Thankfully, I have a rather balanced team and was capable of dealing with everything thrown at me. But honestly the whole challenge would have been way harder had they all been randomized.

Anyway, it’s time to fight Leon. And I am going into this battle completely blind. I know nothing about Leon’s team, except for the fact that he has a Charizard. So this one is going to be interesting…

Part 0
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
Part 9
Part 10
Part 11
Part 12
Part 13
Part 14
Part 15
Part 16
Part 17 <- You are here
Part 18
Part 19
Part 20
Part 21