[Sage Chow]

A mini update for a Christmas miniscramble, enjoy!

A Pokemon Carroll

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*Starts Game*

Hey, is prof Elm wearing a Christmas Hat? Well, I guess I need a name to begin with. Why not borrow Dickens' Tiny Tim? The rival will make an excellent Scrooge later on. Now, to business: "Prof Elm, fork over my first Christmassy pet!" *Receives a Cyndaquil* Welcome to the team DrummerBoy! He can't use fire moves moves for a while, so I'll have to keep Quick Attack and Leer around for a bit. *Hums while ploughing through the first routes* "Quick Attack, pa rum pum pum pum!"

Finally, Sprout Tower.. But there's an odd Christmas tree: The sages have decorated a large Bellsprout with lights and christmas balls! Hmm.. I guess you'll have to improvise if there aren't any Snover around.. But now I must have one too! I quickly catch Lights the Bellsprout, head to the Pokemart to buy some decorations and solo a bunch of Xmas-Sprouts to prove that mine is the fanciest.

After Cyndaquil kicks Falkners butt, professor Elm calls to inform me that my Christmas present has been delivered to the Violet Pokémart. Awesome! It's an egg that hatches Gold the Togepi, to be delivered to the baby Dragonite. But Scrooge is jealous of my gifts and challenges me to a duel: He leads with the Ghost of Christmas Future who places an evil curse on my Christmas Lights. This isn't going well. But suddenly a bright star shines and Gold the Togepi decides to sacrifice himself for the greater good. I use a potion to heal my X-mas Sprout and he's ready to kick some butt. "Take that, Scrooge! Let's hope that the ghost of christmas past brings you back to my glorious victory for many times to come!"

*More humming while incinerating Bugsy's team with Ember* "tis the season to be jolly, la la la la, la la la!" *Whitney's Miltank is easily soloed with Poison Power* "WeepinBell, VictreeBell, Jingle all the way!"

Aha! Rudolph the Stantler joins the team. And he's quite a boss for this part. After a little grinding, he effortlessly soloes the Ecruteak gym. Morty's army of Christmas Ghosts can only Suckerpunch him with Grannies Eggnog. *hums sleigh ride while tapping Astonish* Those haircuts from the Goldenrod salon finally pay off as Gold evolves into a Togetic (hell, even gifts need to look good for Christmas). I rename him to another christmassy gift: Incense. I guess that makes Tiny Tim a King then.. 0_o

*More singing while Incense soloes Chuck with Extrasensory* "And since we've got gyms to solo, let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!" *Jasmine is soloed by Drummer Boy and his Fire Blast* "I want a Hippopotas for Christmas!" *Pryce is defeated by Lights with some carefully timed Sleep Powders, Intimidates, Flashes and X-items* "Prycey the Snowman, was a jolly happy soul!" *The rockets are taken down under the post christmas dinner belching* "Grandma got run over by a Stantler!" *Incense solo's the Rocket Admins* "All I sooolo for Christmas, is yooouuu!"

Oh-ho! Finally, I've reached the Ice Path! "Welcome to the team Santa!" You have the worldst most evil restrictions, so I'm going to mitigate them a bit: He will solo Clair with only Present and a Status Move but for the rest he will use any move he wants. Screw the rules, it's nearly New Year, I have no time for endless grinding. "Santa! Use Attract on the Gyarados and Dragons!" *5 X-Att and a Dire Hit later* Crap, Present still takes forever to take something out. Stupid healing chance.. *Attracts the Dragonair to dodge Fireblast* "Okay, Santa! Let's make these Presents count! This Dragonair had better been very naughty this year!"

*Fireblast misses, Present kills*

"Yeassh! Santa, you're awesome!"

After 5 resets I finally got it (well, using a revive)! This Delibird is definitely not a medium challange; he would have fit better in my previous challange. After a short gap, I finally have access to my other DS and can trade some items: Incense evolves into Mirre (yes, very strange how my gifts keep morphing like that) and learns Shock Wave as her delayed Gold move. While I'm at it, I'm trading a Leaf Stone for Lights. But before I evolve: Where the hell is TM 11? (Did I wrap it already and put it under the Christmas tree?)

*the singing becomes worse* "Feliz Navidad, Feliz Navidad!" *finishes the final trainers in Johto while Santa is spamming his Presents* "I wanna wish you a merry Christmas.. i wanna wish you a merry christmas!"

Ah, time for the legends: Christmas Turkey Ho-oh Ho resides on the top of Ecruteak Tower while Deep Frosted Lugia has gone cold turkey deep in Whirl Island. Sigh.. Am I really required to do this annoying dungeon again? (hint: yes I am) Well, at least I know the way now. And Rudolph can finally put his Flashy nose to good use by illuminating the cave. *Mirre uses Ancient Power to act as filling before Microwaving the christmas dinner for one with a Shock Wave*

The ghost of Christmas future fastforwards me to the E-4 and the team has miraculously grinded to level 41 all around. Will is first and I decide to lead with my trusted reindeer while Santa is just chillin' in the back of the sled. Xatu manages to confuse Rudolph, but two Calm Minds and a few flashes later I gain the upper hand. A few critical hits in a row (especially that Egg Bomb!!) force me to play on my toes but the power of Calm Mind and Shadow Ball takes out E4 number one.

Next up is the Grinch aka. Koga. I decide to just incinerate him with Drummer Boy *easily does so, while humming more christmas tunes*

Lights shall have his battle with Bruno. Bruno is way too tough to appreciate a christmas tree. His Hitmonlee tries to Swagger all my pokemon to death while Lights runs away from sun boosted Blaze Kicks. He does gain my appreciation when he manages to ninja Onix out of a Sandstorm only smash him the next turn with a well aimed Chlorophyll Solarbeam. Machamp has that handy No Guard and is put to sleep by his own tricks. "Well done, Lights! At least you took down half his team!"

Mirre gets lucky and Ancient Power's boost activates during a crucial moment: Houndoom Nasty Plots and Mirre lives the boosted Flamethrower by one HP. But the boost gives her enough speed to go first and K.O. the dog before it can do any more damage. The rest of the team is simply oblitherated by Metronome and Shockwave. I wasn't aware Karen could go down this easy!

Finally I have reached Lance and the baby Dragonite! Time to deliver my gift so this silly christmas scramble can end: Mirre jumps into action and Charms her way through Lance's pokemon. But Santa has some Presents of his own: He eats my entire supply of X-items like christmas candy and soloes his way through Lance's team. The final Dragonite is served an exploding present as it sets up Safeguard. Huh.. I guess Santa delivered the wrong present to baby Jezu..I mean Dragonite!

Oh, well: Mission Accomplished! Time to fade out with a snowy landscape:
*Santa sends out a Blizzard*

*sings while the challange ends in a broadway dance finale* "Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!"

The Team (From MVP to LVP)

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Mirre (Togekiss) - Level 42
Nature: Sassy, Item: Charti Berry
- Shock Wave (to replace Extrasensory)
- Metronome (he may use it now)
- Ancient Power
- Charm
An Absolute Beast! It soloed Chuck and Karen; When Ancient Power got the speed boosts it was my only hope of taking out Nasty Plot Houndoom. The challange itself was nice too, I liked all the little mini quests that could be completed in a small run (Although I stand by my actions of not doing the pokethlons 7x for this one. Charm ruined Lance's Gyarados, opening the chance for Santa to open his bag of X-items. I rarely used Metronome, but the few times I was allowed to were fun. It wants Airslash for Christmas!

DrummerBoy (Typhlosion) - Level 42
Nature: Jolly, Item: Charcoal
- Lava Plume
- Fire Blast
- Focus Blast
- Headbutt
He soloed Falkner, Jasmine and Koga. Lava Plume was awesome to burn stuff, I only needed Fireblast to OHKO Steelix (I suspected Flamewheel to fail). I guess Choice Scarf Eruption would have been nicer, but Sunny Day Fire Blast was good enough on him.


Rudolph (Stantler) - Level 42
Nature: Gentle, Item: Brightpower
- Shadowball
- Stomp
- Calm Mind
- Flash
Why Stomp? Because it's just that awesome. It always seems to flinch or crit on me, so I'm dead afraid to replace it. I got haxed by way to much Miltank and Rapidash with this crappy move to underestimate its ability to hax. Flash is mandatory and pretty awesome for helping a team mate complete a solo. He was useful soloing Morty and Will using Calm Mind. In his final solo, Flash and Brightpower were actually pretty nice. He was a true boss mid-game, but started to decline once Drummerboy and Mirre evolved. Intimidate made the lead restriction pretty fun, and he lead the team through the Rocket Admins and Rival Battles (I ended up soloing most gyms.. )


Lights (Victreebel) - Level 42
Nature: Bashful, Item: Shell Bell
- Razor Leaf
- Solar Beam
- Sleep Powder
- Sunny Day
Weepinbell even looks like a christmas light. Good choice. He really wants Sludge Bomb and for Christmas, I was too lazy to go and find it. He solo'd Pryce with a whole lot of luck (and a few resets) and horribly failed to solo Bruno. That Hitmonlee with his Blazekick was a real hinderance to my team. It seemed to get 100% confuse rate on Swagger and left me switching around all the time. Unfortunately there wasn't a proper double battle to do with Rudolph. He ninja'd Bruno's onix nicely with his Sunny Day.


Santa (Delibird) - Level 44
Nature: Bashful, Item: A bag with Presents and a fake beard (duh!)
- Present
- Attract
- Blizzard
- Fly
Yeah, I couldn't really be bothered to grind him with Present. Save that sort of thing for my next hard scramble, eh! He did solo two of Clair's pokemon using only Present and Attract. And in the end he even soloed Lance!! This guy is definitely MVP material!! Oh wait, he needed ALL X-Items I had left in my bag to do that :( Meh, he could have been way worse had I stuck with present and might have ended up a glorified HM-slave. So in that respect, good ol' Santa turned out to be quite the asset to the mini-scramble.