I thought I should probably start off by recapping back to my very first Wurmple, caught before I started the badge quest, but still contributed to the angst that grew as I kept getting dupes and couldn't find my main target. This guy was my 3rd caught shiny, 4th overall, and was my very first successful RE hunt, appearing after 5,762 encounters on the 4th of May, 2014
[img139]http://i.imgur.com/xX6VOUb.jpg?1[/img139]
After very quickly getting my 1st BQ target, I headed over Eterna Forest to hunt at night times, and I was quickly gifted with a second Wurmple, at 3562 encounters. I wasn't too upset by this - I could evolve Wurmples and not have dupes (at the time, now is a different case) and the hunt was quick and happened just before I went on holiday, but I didn't want to settle too quickly on another Pokemon for my BQ which wasn't my true target. I found him on the 9th of October 2014, and called him Lozenge.
[img139]http://i.imgur.com/REgIVvy.jpg[/img139]
Even quicker after the 'second' Wurmple, Eterna Forest choked up a Beautifly after 842 encounters. With something like a 2% encounter rate, this guy was pretty hard to get, but I still wasn't satisfied and before starting the next phase I restarted Pearl so I could double hunt double encounters (so really, quad hunt) to try and rack up encounters towards my next BQ shiny. I named this guy October, and found him on the 19th of October 2014
[img139]http://i.imgur.com/0MNHvvT.jpg[/img139]
The next hunt was loooooong, and by far my furthest over odds hunt period. It was made easier by the quad hunting, but it still sure did feel long - however, I did get a completely new (but not for long) shiny from it! Also my only shiny I got on Pearl during the time I was quad hunting. After 36,336 encounters, I caught a shiny Budew called Glasshouse on the 26th of November 2014
[img139]http://i.imgur.com/ES5dryv.jpg[/img139]
This was where my hunts started falling into the pattern of 1k+ hunts followed by <1k hunts, as only the next day I got a second shiny Budew and was growing even more impatient for my real target! However, this girl called Alice, only took 430 encounters of quad hunting.
[img139]http://i.imgur.com/F0PnDz6.jpg[/img139]
Then along came Wurmple #3, after 4134 encounters. I was getting quite nice, small hunts - just none were rendering the result I hoped for! I don't seem to have a summary picture of this guy, but I know his name is Ripcord, and I caught him on the 8th of December 2014. He also appeared only a couple of days after I lost my Registeel, which probably explains why I didn't feel too bitter about it!
[img139]http://i.imgur.com/ecofhJG.jpg[/img139]
Aaaaand here's another I don't have a summary picture of, as they both went flying straight to my PC and through a mix of laziness and wanting to hunt I didn't go back to check them out. But once again fitting the pattern, this was Budew #3 who I called Moon, who was found on the 12th December 2014 after only 640 encounters.
[img139]http://i.imgur.com/ROI1i24.jpg[/img139]
Only my second over the odds (and even then, barely) hunt of this charade was Budew #4, and by now my patience was really waning as I had no more use left for any of these guys and Budews are a pain to make evolve anyway. After about 8 hours of having the lid shut on the battlescreen, I finally decided to come around and this girl, who I named Aloe. Of course all that time I spent with the lid shut, the day ticked over and she is listed as being caught a day later than I actually encountered her, which puts me on edge slightly but after the 8568 encounters I did I just let it slide. Found on the 21st/22nd December 2014.
[img139]http://i.imgur.com/jqT1VNL.jpg[/img139]
I began to feel a little more remotivated and up netting myself a shiny Silcoon after 604 encounters the next day. Whereas I'd gotten enough Wurmples for this entire evolution line, it was nice to see something new and refreshing scroll across the screen and sparkle. Currently Unnamed, but I'll give a think to what I can call him.
[img139]http://i.imgur.com/mNMM9Wq.jpg[/img139]
The last shiny before the big break was a 5th Budew, found after 4990 encounters. Of course I didn't need a 5th Budew, but I had a pretty bad Christmas so I still enjoyed seeing him shine. I'm not sure exactly why I stopped hunting - maybe I just burnt out after a while of hunting the same thing - but at least it was only temporary even if it did take a lot from me to coax myself back into trying again! This guy is also unnamed, and he was my first shiny of 2015 found on the 2nd of January.
[img139]http://i.imgur.com/ZuhCbGM.jpg[/img139]
Anyway, back to the present, I picked this hunt back up at a measly 54 REs on Sunday. I forgot when I stopped quad hunting - I think it was around te 3rd or so Wurmple, I'd got distracted and started hunting something else on Pearl, so I was down to double battles on one system. I'd decided what to do on my targets - if I got a Buneary next, I'd carry on for a Murkrow as that's the pokemon I want to take on my BQ with me, however if I got a Murkrow, I'd leave Eterna and carry on with my BQ. And tonight, that got to happen!
[img139]http://i.imgur.com/vUcvB2Q.jpg[/img139]
This guy scrolled straight across my screen. I was super confused - my eyes were only really used to seeing purple Wurmple and lime green Budew, so I didn't really know how to react! When I did, I was estatic, as this is the perfect start to me picking up hunting again. Plus, I can finally, finally sum up this multi-phase hunt and move onto the next part of my BQ (remember that old, old Cranidos that I buffered up to 19k before messing up and saving over the fossil?) I called this guy Virus, and he appeared to complete this hunt at bang on 1,470 encounters.
[img139]http://i.imgur.com/6tWX76M.jpg[/img139]
So to sum up, minus the first Wurmple which wasn't apart of my BQ, there were 10 phases, made of 2 Wurmple, 5 Budew, 1 Beautifly, 1 Silcoon and a Murkrow. The accumulative # of RES for all of these phases was 61,576, meaning each phased averaged at around 6,157 encounters, comfortably below the gen 4 odds. I know I'll have to get that Buneary one day, but that's definitely for the future and probably will end up as a MM hunt.
After 498 eggs, and the 18th egg in the 10th box of 10 boxes gives me a blue nose!
