Emotional Introspection

In a short while, you are going to see me talk bout two things that I have never considered doing while going through this play-through.

Let me start off by saying that I'm all in favor of catching Pokemon at higher levels, then releasing the weaker ones.  It saves you a lot of time in the long run and unless you taught the weaker Pokemon a rare TM move, then there's really no reason to hold onto more than one of the same Pokemon...specifically, the weaker one.

That's what happened to my Venonat, Zubat, Mankey, Grimer, Koffing, Rattata, Paras, Psyduck, Gastly, and just recently, my Onix and my Machop.

Sorry, Machop, but we gotta make room for progress and strength.  You'll be happier in Victory Road; there are a lot of other Machops in there who would be friends with you.

I was about to do the same thing to Geodude when I caught a Graveler, but I remembered that Geodude knew Bide, and I wasn't about to let that go back into the wild.  However, Graveler was level 43, knew Earthquake, Explosion, Selfdestruct, and Harden, so he was the perfect candidate to learn Fissure and remove Selfdestruct.  A Golem of that caliber would be very hard to stop, but I couldn't let that Geodude go.  Since I was only halfway through Storage Box #3, I decided to keep both.

An unprecedented move, I'm aware, but I don't want to throw away Bide like that.  That's just irresponsible.

I thought to myself, "Fine.  No big deal.  All you need to do now is catch a Marowak, release Cubone, and you can call Victory Road completed."

Then, when I finally found a Marowak, I brought it down all the way into the red and threw the Ultra-Ball...but for some reason, it wouldn't stay in.  I thought to myself, "Get in the ball, stupid! Who do you think you are?! You're not uncatchable! You're not Cubone's mother--!"

...and that's when it hit me.

It hit me so hard, I needed to put the game down to write this.

In that moment, I was instantly brought back to Lavender Town, inside the Pokemon Tower, where I first heard about what Team Rocket did to Cubone's mother.  Then I saw him...

That cute little bastard was the only Cubone I ran into in that tower, so I told myself that he had to be THE Cubone.  So I caught him and kept him safe for all this time, stored away in Bill's PC.

Now, I'm standing in the middle of Victory Road, facing down an injured Marowak, hoping to catch it to replace that Cubone.  I couldn't go through with it...I just couldn't bring myself to do it.  I defeated the Marowak (because you don't kill Pokemon when you fight them and Alakazam needed the experience) and walked outside around Indigo Plateau to think.

I thought about Lavender Town, about Mr. Fuji and the ghost Marowak, about defeating Team Rocket's leader at every turn, about finally preventing Giovanni from ever resurrecting Team Rocket, and about all of my adventures since Pallet Town and my first defeat at the hands of Fag-Bag.

If I want a Marowak, I am going to take the time and level Cubone up one battle at a time.  No bait-and-switching either.  I will fly to whatever area has Pokemon he can battle on his own and he'll earn his stripes the right way.

But one thing is for certain: no one is replacing this Cubone.

Zapdos, Lvl 55

Articuno, Lvl 51

Moltres, Lvl 50

Alakazam, Lvl 48

Charizard, Lvl 47

Vaporeon, Lvl 45

Pokedex: 92, Badges: 8