Going back to Lapis, still no badge to be seen. I encountered some gangs that I wasn't so sure about "joining". Hence, I stayed out of their territory. For now. Instead, I had to focus on Shelly. In-game TV claimed she was a Illumise/Volbeat Rain Bug Team with a double battle.
Oh boy.
Single battle, I could probably take her on. But double battle? With rain? Shenanigans were afoot. Fire would be fucked. Sunny Day would a bitch to breed. Grass? Dicey thanks to Bug and probably Poison as well. Flying? Bets on Shelly having a Joltik?
Rock would be my first guess, but Rain could fuck that up. Stealth Rock, on the other hand... Tempting, but I would need a Geodude/Graveler for that. Luckily, I caught two.
And their stats utterly sucked. Rock bottom IVs. RNG giveth and RNG taketh away. Curse you!
So, it had come to this. It was time to breed.
Unfortunately, breeding would be expensive, and El Capitan the Meowth was already working two jobs. Pay Day had to be on the horizon though. So I leveled her up, denying evolution until she finally learned Pay Day. Nice. Now you could evolve.
And a big mistake that was. El Capitan, now the Persian, had traded her Pickup ability for Limber. Fuuuuuck.
Thus it began, the hunt for new Meowth
slaves trash collectors. I would have a Pickup/Pay Day team, godsdammit. I figured I could run breeding at the same time; Opal Ward had plenty of low-level 'mons, and Day Care was nextdoor in Obsidia Ward.
A few days later, I finally had a team of Meowths. No shiny Meowths, strangely enough, though I caught a few other shinies while I was at it. After buying some Power Items, a Destiny Knot, and an Everstone, I continued on with the breeding.
And eventually, waiting for the goddamn Defense IV to roll, I got greedy. After building a hill of Geodude corpses, I got what I wanted. A perfect IV, Relaxed Geodude with Sturdy. Oh, and two not-so-shabby shinies.
I cleared the boxes, grabbed G280, EV trained him, and christened him as The Mountain.
With The Mountain, I would create the ultimate hazard play. Stealth Rock + Toxic Spikes. To the Gym!
I brought with me The Mountain the Graveler, Hiacynth the Trubbish, Hela the Shiny Beautifly, Mothra the Dustox, An-Rek the Noibat, and Stolas the Noctowl Prince.
...
Shelly wouldn't come out and play? She was traumatized? Fine, I'd fetch a psychologist from the totally-not-evil orphanage/asylum.
Wiped the floor with a totally-not-torturing-kids orderly, thanks to The Mountain. Eelektross? Not on my watch. Smack Down!
In any case, I was given some advice to take to Shelly. To the Gym! Again!
With Shelly on the mend, maybe, and after solving a puzzle, I faced down the Bug Gym Leader.
This couldn't go wrong.
...
We got wiped out.
It turned out that I hated Struggle Bug. Oh I got the hazard play out, alright, but got absolutely decimated by Struggle Bug. Except for the Mountain, who would only last long enough to setup Stealth Rock thanks to Sturdy, the rest of my team relied heavily on Special Attack.
Struggle Bug lowered Special Attack.
Forest terrain boosted Struggle Bug power.
Her leading with Intimidate Masquerain meant physical attacks were fucked.
What glimpses I got out of her team relied heavily on Special Defense.
Fuck.
Plan B was to switch out The Mountain and Hiacynth earlier and start sweeping with Hela and An-Rek. Didn't work, of course, thanks to Icy Wind and Energy ball from Masquerain, Rock Slide and Aqua Jet from Anorith, and Air Cutter from Yanmega.
So then I figured, I needed to switch to a more physical team. One that didn't rely on Special Attack. Harder said than done and would involve a lot of breeding.
Plan C:
I would start with Unfeazant and The Mountain. The Mountain would setup Stealth Rock, and Unfeazant with superior Attack and priority Aerial Ace would murder Masquerain. White Herb from Silph Co would neutralize Intimidate. I would keep Illumise in to maintain the Rain Dance, and I figured her Struggle Bug wouldn't be too damaging.
I figured next up would be either Anorith or Yanmega. If the latter, I would switch in Trash Cloak Wormadam for The Mountain. The Bug/Steel typing would survive any Air Cutter or Rock Slide if Unfeazant can't OHKO Yanmega.
If instead Shelly sent in Anorith, I would switch in Seaking. Swift Swim and superior Attack would mean at most Anorith would be able to deliver an Aqua Jet. Waterfall, however, would kill Anorith.
And then all that would be left would be Illumise, Volbeat, and some other 'mon. Eventually I would switch over to Wormadam/Seaking or, failing that, Growlithe/Furret. Furret would bring in the Sunny Day and provide Growlithe with cover using Follow Me. If possible, Helping Hand would boost Growlithe. Fire Fang would make short work of Shelly's Pokémons.
This, however, would require
a lot of breeding, and I would certainly only aim for two 31 IVs followed by 16+ for the rest, along with correct nature and ability.
So since I had the time, I opted to try Plan D: Retrain Octavia the Dartrix to have more Special Defense and Speed EVs, and level her up to obedience level cap. She evolved in the process to a Decidueye and gained Spirit Shackle. The kicker? Her moves were all physical.
I swapped out Hiacynth the Trubbish and Stolas the Noctowl Prince for Octavia the Decidueye and Pacha the Pachirisu. Then I loaded up on White Herbs, and went up against Shelly one more time.
I opened up with Octavia and The Mountain. The Mountain got Stealth Rock off and Octavia Plucked at Masquerain. Despite using a White Herb to stave off Intimidate, Masquerain barely survived, but would perish the next turn. I took the same time to heal up The Mountain.
Shelly then sent out Yanmega to replace Masquerain. Yanmega's HP got cut in half by Stealth Rock but she regained part of it with Giga Drain, which took out the Mountain. Pluck reduced Yanmega's HP even further.
To replace The Mountain, I sent out Mothra who, armed with Light Clay, put up a Light Screen. This turned out to be crucial. Octavia and Mothra weathered the Air Cutter/Struggle Bug combo. Mothra was more or less stuck on healing duty while Octavia handed out non-STAB Plucks.
Yanmega went down, and so did Anorith, though not before killing Mothra with a Rock Slide. Mothra was replaced with Pacha the Pachirisu. Shelly would then reveal her hitherto unknown Pokémon, her Araquanid.
I figured Araquanid was part Water, so Octavia sent out a STAB Razor Leaf. Araquanid survived, but only one turn thanks to Quick Attack from Pacha.
Shelly's last two Pokémon were Illumise and Volbeat.
Plucks and Spirit Shackles were sent out. Pacha sacrificed herself to heal Octavia. Hela the Shiny Beautifly came out and delivered the Air Cutters. Volbeat got treated with some Hyper Potions and Moonlight, but it eventually fell to STAB Spirit Shackle. Illumise got to watch her teammates fall one by one until she eventually was slain by Air Cutter.
Turned out, Plan C overcomplicated things. Plan D was all I needed!
And now, I finally had my badge.