17
Time for a bit more phone-baiting. After obtaining Arnie's number, I mess with the clock a bit and battle him twice before he finally calls to inform me that
Yanma is swarming. Thank you kindly. Once I've caught one I delete his number in favour of Ralph's and - oh, wait. Qwilfish is a 10% encounter with the Super Rod. I'd assumed it was 1% like Yanma. Simpler to just keep fishing than trying to force a swarm, then. After many Magikarp and Tentacool a
Qwilfish finally appears. By this game's standards it's pretty straightforward.
Seel is so, so close to level 34 - might as well grind a bit while I look for the next Pokemon. It's another 5% species so I have plenty of opportunity to do so - it evolves into a
Dewgong long before I find a Tauros. I accidentally KO the first one I find - doesn't take
too long to find another.
And that's that! Pretty sure
Tauros was the last wild species I needed. Everything from now on is evolve, hatch, or static.
I've set the clock to a day the Bug-Catching Contest is on, because I need one more Sun Stone. If I can get into a contest in which Cooltrainer Nick isn't present (he's extremely difficult to beat, so best avoided) and catch a Scyther without damaging it, I should be very likely to win. Jumpluff, truly the crutch mon of this run, is ideally-suited for this, as it can outspeed and reliably inflict sleep on Scyther without having to damage it. I'm prepared to soft reset a couple of times, but win with 337 points. Presumably quite narrowly, as Camper Barry also plays and gets a Venonat, which should get him 329 points plus the chance of a 7-point bonus. Be cool if he got it and I won by a single point. Anyway! Ego-stroking aside, I find the Gloom I caught earlier and evolve it into
Bellossom. Nifty.
I still have two eggs that need hatching, so I head to the long path in National Park and get going until they pop. Excellent. That hatched Chansey will be the one I eventually evolve, since eggs hatch with higher friendship. For the same reason, I made sure that the Eevee received from Bill was one of the trio that got a stone evolution. I nip over to Kanto and perform the trade with the NPC on Route 14, at last getting the elusive
Aerodactyl.
Which brings us neatly on to the evolutions I've been dreading... friendship evolutions. Nah, "dreading" is over-egging it, but they're just going to take a lot of resources. Togepi is up first. I kept it in my party for pretty much the entirety of my time in Johto and was careful never to let it faint, but it still doesn't seem to be where it needs to be. Luckily, I've been saving all the X Items I picked up throughout my travels, and find a weak wild Pidgey I can sit in front of and use them all without worrying about getting knocked out. Seems to do the trick - I level it up once and yep, it evolves into
Togetic.
I've got Golbat, Chansey, and Eevee (x2) to evolve as well. Looks like it's time to buy a truckload of X Items, then. Luckily, my frequent bouts with the Elite Four have swelled my moneybag considerably, and that's before you take into account all the valuable items and vitamins I've picked up. I sell all these (yes I could use the vitamins - but it's more cost-effective to sell, especially since there's one other major expense still waiting after this) and buy about 50 each of X Speed, X Defend, and X Special; why does X Attack cost more...?
Cheap and dirty though it be, it's certainly effective. But it's
slow. So slow that I decide there's no point in doing this with the Golbat I have; better to catch a fresh one in a Friend Ball. Should have thought of that earlier.
Ugh, but I can't do that until I've got the Celebi event over and done with. Let's focus on the others for now, then.
Pokedex count:
199.