On the second floor of Dragonspiral Tower, I caught my fifth and final member, Radon the Golett! Who has Klutz
Klutz doesn't stop EXP Share working, thank Arceus, so I trained him up as I went up the tower. He was initially underwhelming, with a pair of unreliable moves (Magnitude and DynamicPunch) and generally poor power. Nonetheless, I got through Dragonspiral Tower, albeit with a close call at the stage where I had to fight four Plasma Grunts in a row, my team being weakened.
I reached the summit, and tried to remember if there was to be a battle with N. Unsure, I healed my Pokemon, pointlessly as it turned out for N just jabbered before flying off on Zekrom.
Then it was a quick flight to Nimbasa, where before heading to the Relic Castle I opted to train Radon up in the sports venues. There, I suffered one of my rare losses, a basketball player's Stoutland critting Helium, then I went through my Pokemon in completely the wrong order before downing it with my weakened Hydrogen, only to realise that Stoutland was not the only Pokemon, and worse, my opponent's second was a Boldore. With Sturdy saving it from the OHKO it took down Hydrogen.
On the rematch, it was my turn to get a timely crit and an easy win.
Relic Castle was a pain in the backside. The battles were not especially difficult, especially once it occurred to me to teach Radon the less powerful but much more reliable Brick Break over DynamicPunch, but they just seem really frequent. The worst case being dropping through quicksand to land on top of an item, getting into a battle upon
turning to face north, and then another one upon taking
one step north
Eventually Radon reached level 42 in the castle, and evolved to Golurk. At which point
this Rare Candy Treatment strip was invoked.
I've now just left the Nacrene Pokemon Centre, having trade-evolved Hydrogen to Gengar. Next stop Opelucid!
UPDATE: The Moor of Icirrus was explored, and then I crossed into Opelucid. Ghetsis was being suspicious and I had a couple of fun rotation battles, then despatched the Gym Trainers. They have decent Pokemon, but mine are stronger than ever and the battles were little trouble.
Now it is the big one. The 8th Gym Badge, and a titanic clash between the two rarest of Elemental Types: Drayden's Dragons, against my Ghosts.
;094; ;200; ;292; ;426; :623: VS :611: :621: :612:
Fluorine was to be my lead. Gym Leaders tend to open with their weakest Pokemon, so I hoped to get a Nasty Plot without taking too much damage. Drayden, however, had other ideas, his Fraxure taking Fluorine down after a Dragon Dance.
I sent Radon in next, for his Iron Defenses to counter Fraxure's Attack boosts. A risky strategy, I'd be very exposed to critical hits, but one that succeeded as I got three Iron Defenses in before taking Fraxure down with Magnitudes 7 and 6.
Next was Druddigon, and despite having wings Unova's oddball dragon is firmly grounded, so a Magnitude 8 dented it before Radon was phased out with Dragon Tail, Dragging Neon in.
Neon. My highest levelled Pokemon, but also one with a record of being my most useless. And Druddigon has rough skin, but can it hurt Neon otherwise? I called for the Endure to scout: sure enough, it has Night Slash. That's going to hit any switch-in super-effectively, although Helium can probably handle it, and perhaps Radon or Fluorine. Nonetheless, it seemed safer to go for the X-Scissor and accept sacrificing Neon.
Drayden's final Pokemon I "knew" would be a Zweillous, so I sent in Radon for his Brick Break. I knew wrong, it's Haxorus! Well, may as well go for the Magnitude, and though it was a 7 it was a critical hit Mag 7. Game, set, and match.
