I beat the second gym with only a few minor hangups, beat the stuffing out of some Plasma Grunts, then got on board the ship to Castelia City. Could have done without the bit about being forced into the Pokestar Studios; all I wanted was to get out of there. Be glad you couldn't hear me grumbling.
Once I got to Castelia I roamed around finding those pesky clowns, then went down into the sewers after Team Plasma. Spent a couple of hours down there trying to find my way around, kicked their sorry tails, then got into the Relic Cave and caught a Roggenrola. Really wish I'd been able to find a shiny once, since I like the blue and purple better than the blue and red, but it was not to be, and I'll never have a Gigalith until I get either Black or White and can trade it back and forth.
After that, I took on the gym. After nearly getting KO'ed by the first gym trainer I went over to Route 4 and caught a Darumaka at lvl 14, then went back to the gym. Darumaka grew 8 levels in there. In the gym leader battle, it took out Swadloon and Leavanny with one Fire Fang each. Taking down Leavanny alone got it up two levels. The only one of Burgh's pokemon to get a hit in on me was Dwebble, and only because its Sturdy ability prevents one-hit KOs.
Went to the Battle Company building and saved there. Going to use the place to get some of my other team members up in experience before I move on.
My team currently stands at Dewott, Magnemite, Roggenrola, Venipede, Darumaka, and Riolu. Will probably be changing things around as I encounter/catch new pokemon.