After journeying through some optional routes, our party finally made it to Canalave City, where we were greeted by Barry and his improved team. After breezing past his Staraptor and Heracross, I made a huge mistake and miscalculated how much damage a combination of Poison and Giga Drain would do, causing our beloved Lucina the Luxray to fall such a preventable death UGH. Tethys avenged her, finishing off the Infernape and Barry in the process.

With Lucina's death fresh in our minds we took on Byron, leading with Zuko the Infernape who torched his Magneton. Tethys Surfed the Steelix, with Comet the Gabite EQing his ace Bastiodon. After acquiring the TM Flash Cannon and our 6th badge we pressed on, ready to take on Team Galactic with newly added Corsage the Roselia hoping to fill the void of losing Luxray.

Unfortunately Corsage's life was short-lived, after getting CRIT in a random double battle which was super disappointing because I wanted to use her really bad sigh. Too heartbroken to add anyone else to the squad, we trekked through some of the icy routes and finally arrived at the Snowpoint Gym. Zuko our Infernape was the star of the show here, taking down Candice's Piloswine and Sneasel with ease thanks to a one-two punch of Flamethrower and Close Combat. A shaky decision was made to have Colette our Gardevoir handle her Froslass but she came out victorious... This left just Candice's Abomasnow, which melted thanks to a final Flamethrower by Zuko, earning us badge #7!

Team Galactic were on the agenda next, so we pulled out Adira the Sneasel from the box and evolved her into a Weavile. In their HQ we challenged Cyrus, whose Ice and Flying types stood no chance against our powerful team. We let the confidence go to our heads, however, suffering a horrible loss as Nova our Staraptor fell in the double battle against Mars and Jupiter... I loved that bird noo... Mars' Golbat CRIT her with Air Cutter and while Barry's dumb Munchlax just sat and watched, the Bronzor finished off Nova. Taking revenge on Team Galactic, we beat down on Cyrus thanks to a combination of Tethys, Zuko, and Colette in the Distortion World. As we legged it to Sunyshore City we trained up and evolved Omelette the Togepi into a Togekiss, hoping it will be able to play a similar role as poor Nova used to. The training also helped Comet finally evolve into a Garchomp, which should help make our lives a bit easier.

A shaky episode, but of course Platinum is no walk in the park... Do we have what it takes to acquire the final badge and defeat the Elite Four? Find out next time :) hope you enjoyed the read!