Part 37: Phenac City

Phenac City

Picking up where we left off, after heading out of Team Snagem Hideout, Silverclaw comes onto the team in place of MJR. MAGMA.

Bizarrely, instead of being silver with gold X and claws, it is a dull, desaturated red with a silver X and claws (thus my choice of nickname).


Having defeated Verde, Rosso is the only one lucky enough to have escaped Phenac City without their Shadow Pokémon being Snagged. Fortunately, the Kids Grid found someone to have come across the whereabouts of someone else who knows.


Disappointingly, none of the NPCs have any new dialogue, save for those involved with these little storylines. Not even Nett's PC.


NETT: There's a guy in front of the JUNK SHOP named GURKS. He apparently saw this SHADOW POKéMON in a battle. The quickest way to find out is to ask GURKS himself. [NAME], can you check it out?

So, we go to check it out.

GURKS: How about we battle first? If you win, I'll happily tell you about that SHADOW POKéMON's trainer.
CHASER GURKS, P$1,120
Wailord (Lv.56)
Wailord (Lv.56)
GURKS: Wroooooaaaar! Nothing worked at all!

So, Silverclaw's shading in battle is a bit reflective of the environment it's in, thanks to its metallic surface. Also, whales! Two big whales! Another trainer to have become surprisingly stronger than their first battle, assuming you haven't been battling them for the fun of it as the story progressed.

GURKS: All right. I promised that I'd tell you about that SHADOW POKéMON. The trainer was this guy named ROSSO in a flashy red outfit. He had a SHADOW QUILAVA with him.
Unsurprisingly, the last person we need to battle for the remaining Johto starter evolution is the one that we haven't battled either time. As you can guess, this would have been Croconaw had we chosen Bayleef, or Bayleef if we had chosen Quilava.


Making route to another location will bring up another e-mail, so, being omniscient, I'll be heading to the location it states before it even arrives.

Shadow Pokémon Lab, Part Two

In short, we can cruise through the lab this time, unlike our first trip through. Everything is unlocked, so the only trainers to battle us are those that do the "fall from ceiling" ambush on our path to where Ein was, at the end of the first trip. The alarm also does not come or stay on, thank goodness.

Cole is the only optional drop-down trainer in this area, assuming you Snagged his Shadow Pokémon the first time. He is located by the elevator near the lockers, which you don't need to go through during this trip.

CIPHER PEON COLE, P$2,320 (Optional)
Wigglytuff (Lv.58)
Furret (Lv.57)
Castform (Lv.58)
Octillery (Lv.58)
COLE: Graaah! I got knocked out again!
Espeon grew to Lv.62!


CIPHER PEON LARE, P$2,280
Houndour (Lv.58)
Sharpedo (Lv.58)
Nuzleaf (Lv.57)
Sneasel (Lv.57)
LARE: You know, you really are strong!
Silverclaw grew to Lv.51!
Commodore grew to Lv.58!


CIPHER PEON VANA, P$2,320
Golbat (Lv.58)
Swablu (Lv.58)
Pupitar (Lv.58)
Mawile (Lv.57)
VANA: You're gonna get it for this!


CIPHER PEON LESAR, P$2,280
Rhyhorn (Lv.57)
Grovyle (Lv.58)
Masquerain (Lv.57)
LESAR: Even tougher than before!
Silverclaw grew to Lv.52!


CIPHER PEON TANIE, P$1,760
Linoone (Lv.42)
Delcatty (Lv.43)
Vigoroth (Lv.43)
TANIE: I hate mischievous little imps!
Aww... but Sableye is awesome!


CIPHER PEON REMIL, P$2,320
Kadabra (Lv.57)
Swellow (Lv.58)
Kecleon (Lv.58)
Quagsire (Lv.58)
REMIL: Little boy, you're a toughie!

So, what is the third Shadow Johto-starter trainer doing here?

>: Huh? Don't I know you from somewhere? Like at the MAYOR's home in PHENAC? You've been spoiling CIPHER's plans all over, haven't you? You're not going to mess my plan up!
Well, whatever his plans were, they aren't going to work out too well, since the Data ROM is in the possession of the Kids Grid, and the computer was wiped.
CIPHER PEON ROSSO, P$2,520
Breloom (Lv.61)
Grumpig (Lv.62)
Muk (Lv.63)
Quilava (Lv.30, M, Repeat Ball)
ROSSO: Arrrrgh! There goes my hope of becoming an ADMIN!
Surprisingly, this trainer's other Pokémon have grown to be even stronger than those of the Mt. Battle Master himself! The key to success is to target only one Pokémon at a time; Quilava poses no threat to your high-leveled Pokémon, though you should have a weak Pokémon in your party, just to weaken Quilava without fainting it.

Not-So-Spiffy Point: Accidents happen. You can manage to faint the second or third starter. Guess what your reward is? That's right, a second trip through the area, after leaving it. Lovely. My recommendation is to save right before going down the stairs to the third Johto-starter trainer, which means backtracking through the whole lab, then going through it again by resetting if you fail to Snag.

With that, the three "starters" are finally ours! All three of them are also not in Poké Balls, which is more than you can say for any other starter Pokémon in Gen 3. (Unless you want to count Pikachu, the starter of Pokémon Yellow, but now we're just getting into semantics.) As we leave the lab, another e-mail comes:


Heading out from the now-deserted desert lab, another e-mail comes to us:

Uh-oh. If Snagem has the Snag Machine working, they could start stealing Pokémon again! Even more, if Cipher fragments are still holding out, as they seem to be from the Shadow Pokémon Lab, it's possible they could start turning Pokémon into Shadow Pokémon again. That's no good; as much fun as it is to Snag even more Shadow Pokémon for ourselves, I don't think anyone likes the process of Purifying them. We'll be looking into the validity of this rumor next time.

__________________

I'm not planning on switching the team up much at this point. We're surprisingly near the end of the game, and swapping Pokémon of a level lower than our team's average does nothing to help us.

I don't want to give too much away, but  nope, sorry .