Wallace had my number, so I took some time off to level up my Sceptile. I pushed him from level 38 to level 45, and his newfound power plus grass-over-water type superiorty made quick work of Wallace. After such a showing - several one hit kills - my Sceptile earned a nickname: Knifejaw. (Inspired by Animal Crossing.)
So that left me with 8 Gym Badges, the Waterfall HM for Golduck, and vague directions towards Victory Road. Hoenn's Victory Road is an annoying cave labyrinth. Something about caves drives me nuts. I can take overground hedge mazes, but all these underground caves bother me. Perhaps it's the constant attacks from feral Golbats.
But the true pain of Victory Road was the regular smackdowns from fellow trainers. So I retreated to do some more training. And some more berry runs.
I'm also taking the opportunity to persue some of the game's side-goals. Darkling has over 10 contest ribbons now; I've explored the entirety of Meteor Caverns; and I'm trying to fill out my pokedex the old fashioned way, through evolving. My Lileep (the prehistoric pokemon born via the Root Fossil) is currently holding that wonderful EXP.SHARE, and I'm trying to train my own Golbat up into a Crobat. I'll be pretty annoyed if that ends up being one of those stupid triggered evolutions.
Once I get my main battlers into the low 50s, then I'll venture back into Victory Road. So until then, it's more contests and berry harvesting.
Time: 51:41
Badges: 8
Pokedex: 71 (seen: 138)
Party: Darkling (Sableye) lv44, Golduck lv43, Gringo (Mightyena) lv44, Razorbeak (Swellow) lv46, Lileep lv25, Golbat lv43
