I am Not a Cat Person

Some day, I'll have to come back and case the underground path for hidden items. I know they're there, it's just a lot of ground to cover and I'm lazy. All of a sudden, I'm back up on the surface, and route 6 awaits. I've got a full party, plus my backup rattata, so although I'm not as desperately in need of more pokemon, I am excited to be able to actually choose who to keep and level up. Odds in the grass here aren't bad... 35% shot at another meowth, but otherwise its a pidgey or a bellsprout. I really want a bellsprout now, but I also love the flying type. Good thing it'll choose for me.

Screw you game. Screw you. I was gonna take a crack at how, having said I want anything but the meowth, I was clearly going to get another meowth. Seriously, 3 pokemon, and it gives me the worst choice twice in a row?! UGH. I'll catch it, but I'm not very motivated to even train the one I've got... what route am I hitting next? Well, 7 has a small shot at a vulpix as well as the pidgey/bellsprout, which is really cool. But, it's meowth odds go up 5% to 40%. We all know how that's going to turn out.

Turns out my meowth is the jealous type. The wild one is L10, mine is L15, and my next weakest are all L20, so I figure the safest way to slowly work it down is to have my meowth scratch it a couple times. Training back on route 4 showed me how weak his attack stat is, so I'm thinking two scratches should be a good enough set up. Nope. Opening attack crits, one hit KO. On the plus side, my meowth leveled on the kill, so there's that. No huge loss.

So you can use teleport whenever you want outside battle to warp back to the last "healing spot" you used? Yes please! Even when there's a safe path back, this is a whole lot more convenient. But first, a L20 butterfree has just confused, then slept, my geodude. No one else really has any type advantages, but will he still be confused after he wakes up? I know you can't be poisoned and asleep, but confusion is listed as a "volatile" status ailment (i.e. gone after battle) and sleep is non-volatile, so maybe they can stack... well, time to pop an awakening and see. Well, the opponent tried to supersonic me immediately after I woke up, but geodude is already confused. So yeah. They stack. Balls.

Aaaand now he's paralyzed too. Ugh. Still, rock throw is x4 effective, and we're equal level. I only need one to get through. Boom goes the dynamite! I'm both very proud of geodude, and very disappointed that a butterfree spamming (and always hitting) with all of its status moves still can't win. Sleep powder, supersonic, stun spore... they really are as bad as I think they are. Ah well, good thing I only really use sleep, and they don't all have awakenings lying around like I do.

Geodude leveled up! And he's trying to learn selfdestruct? As dramatic as a sacrificial kill would be in some climatic battle, it really isn't worth a slot. I'll think about explosion when it comes up though. It would really be the best way to finish off BOWSA at the very end XD