And now for something completely Emerald

Having blazed through half of Kanto, I got the sudden urge to boot up Emerald and see what the heck I'd been up to in Hoenn.  Which, it turned out, was raising the Marill and the Jigglypuff I'd bred.

I renamed the Marill Freddie, so I'd remember it was supposed to have Sing (for Freddie Mercury, who else?), and finished raising both him and PuffDaddy.  Marill don't learn much that's interesting, but PuffDaddy ended up with Body Slam, Doubleslap, Hyper Voice, and Perish Song. Getting them up to lvl 45 wasn't too hard -- since I hadn't booted the cartridge in a while, practically every trainer was ready for a rematch or two.

Also straightened out Bombadil's moveset, and whoah is that combo of Chlorophyll - Sunny Day - Synthesis - Solarbeam effective.  Got him up to lvl 35.

All this training did good things for my core team.  Jubal's up to lvl 70, Tympany's at 68, and everyone else is at 69.  Since the Pokemon remaining in the 'Dex will need to be hand-raised, the whole team's sure to make it to lvl 70 at some point.

It occurred to me that my 'Dex was still missing a few Pokemon that could be caught.  Lots of running around Mt. Pyre finally nabbed me a Chimecho.   I then went to the back of Granite Cave, and ran around there long enough to inspire this haiku:

All those Pokemon
In the back of Granite Cave.
Yet, not one Nosepass.

Okay, Professor Oak I'm not.  Finally I admitted defeat and looked it up.  Turns out Nosepass only appear by using Rock Smash on the boulders in the lowest part of the cave.  Armed with that knowledge, I went and caught one.

That left only Snorunt.  Them, I looked up straight off, as I've never seen one in-game, and thus the 'Dex wouldn't tell me where they were.  I had to wait for low tide in Shoal Cave, and for some reason had trouble finding the way down, but a little bit of running around that ice chamber at the bottom got me a pair of Snorunt.

From there, there's a few more trades I can do from Sapphire or FireRed (at least, once I complete the islands and fix that infernal machine, AGAIN), and then the rest will have to be hand-raised.  Right now I'm working on a Lairon -- it gets Double-Edge at lvl 53, which will be downright wicked with the Rock Head ability -- but I dunno if I'll have enough patience to get more than that done in the near-term.  Maybe raise that Nincada to get Ninjask and Shedinja, but that might be it for now.

As for the trades -- the Terrell cart has a Latias, Zangoose, and Lunatone that I can get trade-credit for;  I can't catch any of those in Emerald, so that's fair.  Will probably also trade over Huntail and Gorebyss if JD had them among his max evos, since you can only get one of the pair per game.  Good thing I restarted for the other two Hoenn starters.

And what will all this effort of finishing the Hoenn 'Dex get me?  A Jhoto starter, namely a Chikorita, from Prof. Birch.  That's a lot for one little Chikorita.

When I get worn out with raising Pokemon on Emerald, I might go and finish the Islands in FireRed.  Nab the three legendary birds, get that Sludge Bomb TM from the Rocket Warehouse, and try for Mewtwo.  Might as well, right?  Oh, and try for Entei.  Yeah.