I'm at Indigo Plateau, after hours in Victory Road grinding my pokémon up and up. Eventually, when they all hit level 62, I decide I've had enough and take them back to the League to challenge the Elite Four. Here is that story:
versus Lorelei
<--lolwtfisthat
The battle begins. I send out
Bulbapedia and Lorelei sends out her Dewgong. This shouldn't be a problem. As I command
Bulbapedia to draw in power from the sun, Lorelei asks her Dewgong to use... Rest. At full HP. Either bad prediction or she's thick as two short planks. This has no effect and seconds later Dewgong takes a Solar Beam to the face. First strike, Sarel.
Lorelei's next choice is Cloyster. Despite the probable Aurora Beam (unless of course, she does something really moronic again), I stay in, and
Bulba readies another Solar Beam attack. As I thought, Cloyster uses Aurora Beam, but it only does about 25% despite being a critical hit. Solar Beam immediately defeats Cloyster! 2-0.
Next out for the Elite Four member is Slowbro. I'm a little hesitant about beaming it straight away, so
Bulbapedia uses Sleep Powder, actually for the very first time since learning it as an Ivysaur all that time ago. It misses, and Slowbro is instantly four times as intimidating, using Amnesia to boost its stats four ways. This could be tough. Another Sleep Powder hits, and I have a chance to assess the situation. Staying in with
Bulbapedia would be really stupid if Slowbro had a decent moveset, but Lorelei, despite being the best of her calibre in the entirety of Kanto, has only given Slowbro Water Gun as an attacking move, seemingly passing up the opportunity to teach it Psychic. I remain in, and get ready for another Solar Beam. A critical hit ignores Slowbro's defensive boost and it's another OHKO. Cruising.
Lorelei's next choice is Jynx, and I sense the chance for
Disco Feet to get its first solo of the Elite Four. As it switches in, Jynx opts for the mighty Doubleslap. Fearsome. I respond with Fire Spin, which misses, as is its wont. Jynx's next attack is a little better, a critical hit Thrash, but even that fails to dent
Disco Feet too badly, and two Fire Spins and an Ember (this pokémon's moves are
rly weak ¬_¬) Jynx is also out of the running.
That leaves only Lapras. Before I fought Lorelei, I sort of planned that one risky tactic I'd use against her would be to try and get
Disco Feet's second solo against whatever she sent out after Jynx. I flinch Lapras with Stomp, and then try to do the same again, but fail and it KOs
Disco Feet with Hydro Pump. There's a Revive for that, but I guess it won't count as a solo, so I switch in
Opera to finish the job. Naturally, Sing misses and I take a Blizzard to the face. Body Slam KOs the next turn though.
Lorelei is vanquished! I heal the sores and injuries my pokémon have taken as well as resuscitating
Disco Feet and move on to Bruno, who must be soloed by
Random. That's barely even a challenge. After the battle Lorelei tells me that I ''only got a taste of pokémon league power''. I can only assume she's joking or having an acid flashback.
versus Bruno
Bruno is a joke all over Kanto, and popular opinion has it that the Elite Four selection committee is made up entirely of pickled cauliflowers. Bruno packs two Onix, and it's his first one that
Random defeats first, with a Surf attack.
Next is his Hitmonchan, also absolutely fucking terrible, which perishes to Body Slam. Easy.
Then he sends out Hitmonchan's nearest relative, Hitmonlee, who survives a Body Slam by the skin of his teeth, promptly misses with Mega Kick, and goes down to a second Body Slam.
Rather than send out his only semi-decent pokémon, he goes with his next Onix. A peace offering, perhaps? No chance, I'll use Surf again and TELL YOU TO GET SOME BETTER FUCKING POKEMON. What's wrong with Primeape or Poliwrath?! 4-0, easiest solo ever so far.
Next is Machamp. This is where it would have got slightly interesting, were it not for the fact that after my first Surf did +50%, this example of Kanto's talent commanded his most fearsome warrior to use Leer against me. The mind boggles. Surf again, and that's him down. I literally did not lose a single hit point, and only had to attack 7 times. Bruno is just a complete non-entity of a trainer. After beating him, he asks, "Why? How could I lose?" By using two Onix in a Fighting team meant to be the best the region has to offer. Simple as that. Next is Agatha, who must be soloed by
Forgetful. A lot rests on my dice roll here.
versus Agatha
Agatha spews some bile about Professor Oak before we face off, which is pretty irrelevant on the face of things. If she's asked to investigate my pokédex she'd have noticed that I'd completely ignored his request to catch as many species as possible. Anyway, her first pokémon is Gengar. This is definitely where it gets interesting. My first move is to use Amnesia, in the knowledge that this will cause
Forgetful to forget one of its other moves... but which one? Surf! Wahey! I can't use Surf for the rest of the Pokémon League, but this frees me up to use Psychic against all of Agatha's pokémon. She, inexplicably, uses Dream Eater before even attempting to put
Forgetful to sleep. On her next turn she orders Gengar to use Hypnosis, clearly realising the error of her last move, but it misses, and Psychic gets a OHKO.
Her next pokémon is Golbat, which could deal out some serious hax. Supersonic (
really????!!! When you have Confuse Ray as an option?) misses, and Psychic sends Golbat packing.
Not content with a crap Gengar, Agatha plumps for Haunter. Surely she could organise a tradeback with another member of the E4? Perhaps not. Hypnosis misses again, not that it makes much difference when I have pokéflute, and Psychic is another simple kill.
Her next choice is Arbok, that world famous Ghost type. It lowers my Defence with Screech before falling to Psychic. This would be awful if her next pokémon had any physical moves that weren't Night Shade. (Her final Gengar has Dream Eater, but no way to put me to sleep. Smooth.)
This is that very Gengar, which goes for the only sensible tactic - Confuse Ray. But that misses, and Psychic hits and it's GG Agatha. Another part of the Scramble Challange complete.
versus Lance
I know that I have to solo one of his pokémon with
Disco Feet but it sure as hell ain't going to be Gyarados. I stick
Fly out for the hell of it. First I use Fly, as he uses Hyper Beam and misses. Upon hitting and returning to earth, I try and Mirror Move his Hyper Beam, but miss, and as he recharges I Fly up again. Soon as that Fly hits he uses Hyper Potion. Finally a trainer with some sense of timing. It's downhill from there for Lance though, as he sits about using Leer as
Fly uses Fly until Gyarados is no more.
Next up is Dragonair. Might as well try and see if
Disco Feet can handle it. On the switch he uses Dragon Rage on me, to take me to 140/180 HP. Fire Spin misses, which was a misclick anyway, and he uses DR again. Then I Stomp him to death as he uses Agility three times, seemingly completely giving up. Now all
Disco Feet needs to do is beat Exeggutor.
Lance's next choice is his other Dragonair, so I might as well stay in and repeat the procedure. It's almost exactly the same. After my first Stomp he uses Agility, perhaps to outspeed the chance of a flinch. Then he uses it again, as I Stomp him down to 10% or so of his HP. His Hyper Beam is a little surprising, but it only does 60HP of damage. (And is therefore actually a worse move than Dragon Rage, which would do 80HP over the two turns it takes to use Hyper Beam, lol.) Stomp then defeats that Dragonair too.
I'm definitely switching out against Aerodactyl though, to
Random, who takes a critical hit Bite like it's nothing. It is nothing, of course. He outspeeds me with a really weak Take Down, and then is KO'd by Surf.
Lance's last pokémon is his powerhouse: Dragonite. I've been preparing
Forgetful for this since day one. On the switch I take a Hyper Beam with pleasure, only around 30% of my HP, and as he recharges hit back with Blizzard. Or I would, but I misclick again and go with Psychic. He uses Slam, I miss with Blizzard, he uses Slam again and I KO with Blizzard. Gotta love
Forgetful's bulk. <3
That's the E4 done then, and now I've got to put up with some spiel about me being the most powerful trainer bar one. Rupert Murdoch. I have to go and face him, despite having trounced him in every previous encounter.
versus Murdoch
I have to listen to him bang on awkwardly about how he's the greatest trainer in Kanto. I guess he's right on a technicality, but we both know that I'm going to beat him with ease. I have to use
Random against his first two pokémon, and so the first battle is
Random against Pidgeot. Body Slam, Mirror Move, Body Slam, and that's the end of that chapter.
Having seen me use a strong physical attack, Murdoch's next pokémon is Alakazam. This actually very nearly pays off, as a critical hit Psychic takes me down to a sliver of my hit points. But Body Slam paralyses, and allows me to attack first on the next turn, gaining
Random its second solo, and it's own personal Scramble challange is complete.
Rhydon is next. Surf.
Then we have the moment we've all been waiting for: Disco Feet gets to take on Exeggutor! On the switch I fall asleep to Hypnosis, and use Pokéflute to wake up as Exeggutor uses Stomp. I really love Fire Spin in Gen 1, especially when it a) hits and b) is a critical hit, as then every consecutive hit is critical. Five consecutive critical hits, Eggy's dead, and
Disco Feet reigns victorious, before getting the fuck out of there against Gyarados.
I want
Opera to shine, so switch it in to Gyarados' Leer. It Leers again as I put it to sleep.
Opera then heroically hurls herself against the dragon snake thing with Double-Edge twice to vanquish it.
Finally I face Charizard. Might as well see if
Opera can handle it. It uses Fire Spin and we sit around twiddling thumbs for a while. After that ordeal is done with, Charizard uses Rage and
Opera puts it to sleep. More heroic hurling and Charizard is out for the count.
Boom! We've beaten the pokémon league! Here's the team that did it:
Fly the
Pidgeot
Level 62
-Fly
-Wing Attack
-Agility
-Quick Attack
So pretty much pointless in the end. I used it once in the pokémon league and apart from a few moments earlier in the adventure it really didn't achieve much for me and certainly not anything that any other member of the team couldn't have. LVP.
Disco Feet the
Rapidash
Level 62
-Ember
-Take Down
-Stomp
-Fire Spin
Surprised that this wasn't my LVP, but then I'd forgotten how good Gen 1 Fire Spin is. Now I can see why that move was always awesome in the anime. Did its job fairly easily when it needed to, but nothing more.
Opera the
Wigglytuff
Level 62
-Sing
-Body Slam
-Double-Edge
-Rest
Its hurts me to relegate
Opera to 4th, but this is where the competition gets serious and where her lack of niche really hurts her. She was great at battling when she needed to but it was so often a lot easier to use something with super-effective moves. The thing that really annoyed me was how hard it was to grind in Victory Road. It's so close between
Opera and
Bulbapedia, really is.
Bulbapedia the
Venusaur
Level 62
-Solar Beam
-Sleep Powder
-Leech Seed
-Hyper Beam
Really useful against Lorelei, who might have been trickier without super-effective moves. I'm not sure how true that is so there's no way I'm moving it above third, but I'm also going to take into account how easy it made the first part of the challange. Beating Brock and Misty without breaking a sweat was handy, because
Fly stood no chance as a Pidgey. Then it was handy again in Rock Tunnel, on my way to Cinnabar Island and in Victory Road. These are the things that set it just above
Opera. Also, I never used Hyper Beam, so I could have left my battle style on Switch.
Forgetful the
Slowbro
Level 62
-Surf
-Psychic
-Amnesia
-Blizzard
Absolutely beastly against Agatha and Dragonite. And also whenever else I had to use it. Can't be top because I only had it for the final quarter of the challange, but everything it did it did solidly and it was useful in literally every situation it faced. It could probably also have done
Random's job against Giovanni and Bruno without even having to use Amnesia.
Random the
Gyarados
Level 63
-Surf
-Body Slam
-Leer
-Substitute
The star of the show. Battered everyone it faced. Giovanni was appalling in comparison and I reckon that given some PP Maxes it would have made short work of the entire E4 by itself.