#battle tree

first off... pidgeot!

the pokemon i built this team around and maybe the most straightforward set of them all... timid and max speed lets mega pidgeot outspeed mega salamence by a single point and ultimately is just a really fast pokemon that hits really hard. no guard, pidgeot's ability after mega evolving, is a really nice ability to have in the battle tree where so many pokemon are running bright powder/lax incense or straight up have evasion boosting moves. i picked hidden power ice just to hit 4x weak targets a little harder, like a lot of the dragons, though most of the time hurricane is the move being clicked (and instantly killing things...)

the pidgey line isn't native to alola but i used the friend safari in X to catch one and transferred it up. not hard to access at all assuming you have some way to transfer pokemon considering how common pidgey is in this franchise, but it was nice to have it in the friend safari because i was able to start with pidgeys with a couple of perfect IVs in the breeding process. that being said, i just sort of hatched random pidgeys until i got hidden power ice and then hyper trained the thing, so the one perfect special attack IV that passed down didn't end up mattering all that much.

next up... pidgeot's lead partner, infernape!

this infernape probably looks pretty weird. i wanted two main things when looking for a lead partner for pidgeot: fake out, and the ability to nuke opposing rock types that threaten pidgeot in one shot pretty consistently (which also required a usable relatively high speed stat). originally i was planning to use mienshao for this, but mienshao doesn't have close combat, only low kick... which was pretty good into a lot of big heavy rock types, don't get me wrong, but considerably less good into a lot of ice types which pidgeot is also weak to and the fighting type also covers, and the fightinium Z move is less powerful off of low kick, too. with 244 speed EVs, infernape is still fast enough to achieve the speech benchmark i wanted, and it gets a lot more damage with close combat. i put the tiniest bit of investment into special defense so that it would be higher than defense, to prevent the porygon line from getting a special attack boost with download off of it.

you may be wondering why the heck this thing has thunder punch instead of flare blitz or something. the answer is that otherwise this team, as you'll see, is pretty weak into water, especially because a lot of water types have ice coverage that hit pidgeot pretty hard. this is not exactly how pokemon damage math works, but to give an about correct estimation: iron fist boosts thunder punch's base power from 75 to 90. on super effective targets, this doubles to 180. close combat, just on account of being fighting STAB, is also boosted from 120 to 180. the important part is thunder punch doesn't have any defense dropping drawback like close combat does, and some water types resist fighting so thunder punch is more useful in those cases, especially after the fighting Z move is used up (190 base power off of close combat x 1.5 STAB boost = ~285 base power by the way)

protect is infernape's last move because protect is generally good in doubles and as you'll see in a bit, one of my team members has earthquake.

for some reason, until ability patches were introduced on the switch games, the only way to legitimately get chimchar with its hidden ability was through a japanese exclusive entralink event during pokemon black and white. that's it. and until gen 6, you couldn't even breed more, as hidden abilities used to only pass down from females and the event chimchar was always male. it was possible to fully legitimately get HA chimchar in gens 6-7 by trading for a breedject, but wi-fi services are gone and pretendo network isn't updated for pokemon for the common layperson yet... so to get started with breeding my infernape, i set up entralinked, a gamesync server emulator and connected to it with our japanese white and sent myself a chimchar. this is pretty much as close as i could get to legitimate at this point in time

then i just transferred the chimchar up and bred it until it had 5 perfect IVs and HA... which was actually a nightmare and by far took the longest out of all the pokemon i had to breed and train for this, but it was worth it. i got an SOS chain setup going with trevenant (chained in the dexnav in kiki's alpha sapphire, thanks kiki) and mew as my synchronize/false swipe lead, got some 4 IV dittos from SOS chains, and bred the chimchar from there. those SOS chains are where this funny picture from the other day came from:

anyway...

third, krookodile!

as we've been over, pidgeot is weak to rock and ice attacks, which infernape is great into. but pidgeot is also very much weak to electric attacks. and that's where krookodile comes in - pidgeot can bait electric attacks from the opponent and then swap into krookodile which is immune. krookodile gets immediate value too because of its intimidate ability. the "bulk" provided by intimidate plus the assault vest means that even if krookodile swaps in on an electric attack and some other type of attack, it is very unlikely to faint or even take substantial damage on the switch. then it can use its wide coverage for a lot of damage. earthquake is nice because pidgeot and the next team member i'll cover are both immune, and knock off combines large damage with utility, superpower is just nice fighting coverage especially if infernape has gone down, and dragon tail is the least clicked move but it can get rid of a pokemon that has set up in a pinch. i try not to run any low accuracy moves in the tree because introducing more RNG variance is bound to make me lose on a long streak, but there was nothing better than dragon tail, and it's a last resort move anyway.

its EV spread is also straightforward - 180 speed was a benchmark for... something, i'm going to be honest i genuinely don't remember what anymore, but after that i maxed out attack and dumped the rest of the EVs into bulk. obtaining krookodile was also really straightforward, as its line is natively available in alola, though i did end up catching a couple in kiki's friend safari again because the immediate perfect IVs were nice.

last up for the main team, celesteela!

after finishing up the three main pokemon of the team i was a little stuck on my last member. pidgeot's weaknesses were mostly accounted for, so i just needed something to round everything off... i realized that the team didn't hit that hard into fairies despite krookodile's fairy weakness, and also that thunder punch on infernape was not enough to handle water types. i wanted something that was immune to earthquake too. initially i figured a levitate user would probably be best to not double up on flying weaknesses, and i picked bronzong for its fairy killing capabilities, but it was still really weak into water types and was a little too passive. i ended up taking another look at flying types and realized that celesteela was perfect - its steel typing cancelled out the repeat flying weaknesses other than electric moves which were more than handled by krookodile and also allowed for fairy killing, and it had grass coverage for water types!!

the EV spread on this thing looks crazy and that's because i hyper-optimized it for some reason. 212 attack EVs + adamant nature ensures 1HKOs on as many fairy types as possible with heavy slam (252 attack EVs would not ensure any more KOs. yes i checked every single fairy type set in the battle tree). 156 HP EVs brings celesteela to an HP stat of 192, which is divisible by 16, which maximizes recovery from leftovers. the defensive stats are otherwise made equal, except i've once again optimized for porygon line download by making special defense a bit higher than defense. the leftover 4 speed EVs ensure outspeeding a tyranitar set by one point.

thankfully my main game of choice is unsurprisingly ultra moon because celesteela is a version exclusive. i'm playing through ultra sun but i've still only just hit akala island and it would be a long time until i had access to any of the ultra sun exclusive ultra beasts. but it was as easy as doing ultra warp rides for a while until i found the ultra crater. i do still have to hyper train it though, and the picture above is actually before i hyper train it... i've just been doing runs without the hyper training thus far lol q-q

now as i mentioned, this whole team was made because i need ribbons out of the battle tree. this means that on the final battle against blue, i want to have a slot - ideally two - open in the back for pokemon that might contribute nothing to the battle so they can get carried to the ribbon. the issue is unlike previous battle facilities, blue does not have a set team of four, he has a wide pool of possible pokemon sets that are randomly selected each time he's battled.

(screenshot courtesy of bulbapedia)

not only does he have this massive pool of pokemon, but he also has the possibility of mega alakazam or mega aerodactyl, two of the fastest pokemon in the entire game. finding two pokemon that could beat any combination of all of these was going to be really tough.

i don't have as much to say about this part because frankly i built these two while very sleepy and don't remember as much of my thought process, but...

(mega) mawile and (ash) greninja!

i tested out a lot of pokemon before this but ended up landing on these two for pretty straightforward reasons. i needed a pokemon with a strong sucker punch and combined with base mawile's access to intimidate, mega mawile with huge power ended up fitting the bill. iron head does high damage into a lot of things and KOs others, brick break KOs mega tyranitar 100% of the time, and thunder punch KOs non-mega gyarados. mega mawile is slow though, and i needed a strong, fast attacker to back it up. since mawile has sucker punch, it didn't need to be the absolute fastest thing in the game, though. my choice ended up being the event exclusive battle bond "ash greninja" for its insane damage output, high speed, and wide coverage that matches up pretty much perfectly into blue's whole possible team.

choice specs and absolute maximum speed is necessary on greninja because otherwise untransformed base greninja can't consistently outspeed blue's mega pidgeot and 1HKO it. it literally outspeeds mega pidgeot by a single point with timid nature and 252 speed EVs, and the KO with choice specs ice beam is just barely 100% consistent at 244 special attack EVs (i bumped it up to 252 because no reason not to), so it almost feels like greninja was custom built for this purpose. this is really important because one of his possible mega pidgeots has the ability to set up tailwind, which could ruin mawile's careful speed benchmarking. thankfully even though i want to beat blue with two pokemon, even if the two ribbon masters in the back are effectively useless, they can be used as sacrifices to reset the choice lock on greninja (or get two intimidates off with mawile before it megas)

getting mawile was hilariously easy because i already have a mega mawile for the battle royal ribbon and i just bred down that one, but ash greninja... well, it's an event pokemon exclusive to the sun and moon demo. i don't know why i didn't take pictures of me doing this but i booted up the demo (thankfully kiki downloaded it to our 3ds before wi-fi shutdown for this exact reason) and played through it and transferred the ash greninja to her pokemon moon copy that she had played last year. i soft reset for a timid nature and then brought it over to ultra moon. such a weird pokemon... but that's a ramble for another time.

anyway, that's the team, and i don't know if i'd recommend it because of how much effort it takes to build, but i'm having a lot of fun with it and i wanted to document how much thought went into it. it was really rewarding to design my own team instead of just using one other people have had success with. i don't know why i wanted to use mega pidgeot so bad, but the bird just possessed me, i guess... lol

i've been having so much success with this team that i've gotten a 50 streak and beaten blue multiple times already! the previous time i didn't even have calculators open or look up sets and i still got through just fine, so suffice to say the team feels good to use and is pretty consistent. its main issue, despite thunder punch and seed bomb, is still water types - rotom and all its forms in particular are a "high alert" pokemon that i have to prioritize KOing before all else because levitate means i can't hit it with krookodile's earthquake and it threatens so much of my team. but overall it's more than manageable.

“There’s all the Choice stuff down there, too.” Green had been babbling for about half an hour now about the contents of the Battle Point exchange shop down at the Tree’s base, informing Red of its contents with piqued interest as if the two of them weren’t the ones who placed the very orders to stock it a few weeks prior. “I’m thinking of picking up an extra Band for Aerodactyl. He always seems to wear through them as soon as he gets them, the little bastard.”

The Pokémon in question was far from little, and actually one of Green’s favorites, but Red tactfully chose to refrain from correcting that. In fact, he hardly participated in the conversation at all, having mentally checked out of it about twenty minutes ago; he and Green had the rest of their lives to share in their mutual passion for battle strategy, so he was confident that whatever he was missing now would be regurgitated in multiple conversations throughout the next few days anyways. Green liked to talk in circles after all- he did more than enough talking for the both of them, and Red wouldn’t have him any other way. It was a trait of his former rival’s that he’d always found incredibly stupidly endearing, all the way from the moment it first become apparent that Red was a particularly quiet child.

So instead of investing himself into the BP talk, Red focused his attention on the small yellow Pokémon sprawled on its back in his lap, smiling toothily to himself as he flopped the little rodent’s paws up and down in a playful way.

“Kyyaaaa!” His Pikachu cooed, interrupting Green and seemingly jump-starting the spiky haired young man into remembering a point he’d meant to drive the conversation towards.

“Oh!” Green poked his head out from behind the open fridge door, tossing a bottled Roserade Tea at his husband’s head. He hadn’t offered or indicated before throwing it, nor had Red requested it- Green just knew he’d want it. Red loved tea of all kinds, and he caught it from his spot on the couch with surprising ease, as if he knew it was coming. It was a small, unspoken act that really demonstrated just how well they knew each other’s habits, after all the cumulative years shared in company. “Did you get the mail from the P.O. box today?”

Red tore his lips away from the brim of the drink he’d already opened, extending a finger and using the bottle like a prop to gesture over the back of the couch to the corner of their open living space. A plastic container of letters and packages sat there, dutifully retrieved by the silent man while his lover had been busy finishing up his last battle for the day. Green shut the refrigerator with more force than necessary before he hurried over to it, hoisting up the whole bin with an (excessive, Red thought. Overdramatic,) series of grunts. He carried it over to drop unceremoniously on the coffee table with a huff, explaining his sudden interest as he nearly flattened both his precious Eevee and Red’s kicked-up legs by crashing his ass carelessly onto the couch cushion next to him. “I ordered more Ribbons for us to give to victors,” he breathed the words out laboriously, but with an underlying happy tone Red that was able to pick up on despite the exasperation of a long day.

Only the two of them would choose to spearhead and host ambitious and intricate battling competitions during what was supposed to be a celebratory vacation to kick off being newlyweds. Nobody else would be stupid enough to do so. Nobody else would enjoy the tamped exhilaration underneath all the work required in the same way they both did. “I just hope they didn’t fall off the boat somewhere between Akala and Poni.”

Red smiled, and he was grateful for the fact Green was too busy digging through the envelopes looking for the bubble mailer of ribbons to see it, because it was one that let on knowing a bit more than he should. Gingerly dumping Pikachu onto the rug beneath them, Red leaned forward and put his tea down on the table, reaching into the bin and pushing two envelopes in the pile back with his finger before grabbing hold of the thin letter beneath them. It was addressed to Legendary Gym Leader Green, with postage from Malie. Red let out a huff of amusement from his nose as he shoved it into his husband’s point of view, insistent on bringing his attention to it before he’d even gotten the chance to find what he’d been looking for. Impatient as always.

Sitting up a little to see what was pushed into his face, Green quickly and unsurprisingly took the bait. His grin stretched so wide across his cheeks that his eyes drooped to a confident squint, practically gleaming under the written praise. He rolled back his shoulders languidly in the same manner his Pidgeot did when it was freshly preened, and it took everything in Red to not laugh at the predictability of it. Green was never, ever one to pass up being adored, after all.

“More fanmail from the Malie Gym, huh?” His words dripped with cockiness, and he tore into the corner of it with his teeth, ripping it open from the side, entirely just for the sake of being flashy. Red couldn’t help but roll his eyes, but it was full of fondness- although Green’s ego had once been the bane of him, it was now just a part of his life, and a guilty pleasure that he secretly enjoyed indulging.

For this instance in particular, the adoration came from a group of trainers that resided in Malie City over on Ula’Ula: there was a unique training establishment there, a self-proclaimed ‘Kantonian Gym’. They paraded around- pretending to be gym trainers, and even had a stand-in ‘Leader’, who gave out knock-off badges that were clearly supposed to resemble Vermillion’s. So, you can only imagine how crazy that group had gone when they learned a real, actual Kanto Gym Leader was on the archipelago. Ever since the word had spread of the Battle Tree’s Legends to other islands, the letters had been steadily coming in in small bursts, inviting him to the facility, inviting him to dinner, fawning over his expertise and general prestige.

It was nice, honestly. Red liked the fact that for once, strong trainers were seemingly glossing over himself, and instead throwing themselves all over Green, vying for his attention. It was how it should be. It was almost like finally some people saw him for all the wonder, and awe, and respect that Red saw him with. And also felt so relieving, to break the usual burdening tether of comparison for things that happened so many years ago between them. He knew Green liked it too.

He also liked the swell of confidence that burned in his husband’s chest for the rest of the night whenever he saw the fanmail. He loved the permanent full-of-himself smile that he didn’t wipe off until they were ready for sleep, the prideful way he caressed his beloved winner Pokémon after dinner, the impulsive kisses that chased down the burning amber sunsets… So, if Red had maybe started slipping fake letters of his own into the bins when he collected the mail just to puff up the pile even bigger, well, who could blame him?

Deftly weaving his fingers through the miscellaneous mail, he plucked out another, and another, and another, at a rapid and practically frenzied speed, shoving them all into Green’s lap. Photos, free (fake) honorary badges, written out team compositions asking for input or advice on movesets or items to run, and countless scribbled notes of just how much he inspired them all. Green snickered, his eyes shining like a kid in a candy shop as he read the first few, a beaming smile unfurling onto his face.

Red somehow found one on his, too.

“They really love me,” Green breathed, before shooting his spouse a side eye. “Obviously. I mean, I am the best of the Kanto Leaders. It’s just plain fact, not even an arbitrary opinion. Of course they would be obsessed with me, I’m the absolute top of what they’re trying to be.”

Red nodded, placing one of his hands on Green’s knee and giving it an encouraging squeeze. He pointed to the bottom of the letter Green was currently holding, where there was a crudely doodled layout of members from his typical team. Whoever it was seemed to be biased to psychic types, though, as his Alakazam looked most certainly more impressive than all the rest.

“It’s cute,” Green agreed, practically in a whisper, leaning over to take advantage of how close they were sitting to press a kiss to the tip of Red’s nose. Just to see him scrunch it and screw his face back in a huffy fluster- which he did, and that only goaded Green to do it again later. “This one in particular is funny. Look, the handwriting’s so horrible- and actually, I’ve noticed it seems like multiple of them there have this Arceus awful Torchic-scratch.”

He didn’t look up at Red as he feigned interest in the letter, but took great pleasure in watching out of the corner of his eye as his husband sat up a little straighter, his ears wiggling ever so slightly. That was his tell: the one that revealed his attempts to keep an unreadable poker face. He should know better by now. Green would always be able to read him, no matter how stoic he tried.

“I mean, seriously. Who taught these Alolans how to write?” Green huffed out laughter that he could no longer keep back, but not for the reasons he was trying to pretend it was for. “It looks like a grade schooler wrote it. I could probably teach my Pokémon to write better than that.”

Internally, Red was sweating bullets- but none of it showed on his face. Or, at least, none of it showed to anyone who could have tried to discern him except for Green. It wasn't out of offense, either: he didn’t write any of the letters he’d faked- his husband would have recognized his scrawly handwriting in a heartbeat, blowing his cover immediately. He realizes now that he shouldn’t have pointed out the drawings; of course that pompous son of a bitch drew himself sexier than the rest of his teammates. Furling his fingers into a stressed fist, Red simply stared at Green and gaped, praying to every Legendary above that he didn’t see the way his irises constricted at the implication of exactly what happened.

Much to his demise, Green went on. “It’s also wild, too, the messy ones always have these stamps. You know, they sell them down in the Seafolk Village PokéCenter! I’ve seen them on the stands there. I didn’t realize Ula’Ula had them too, I could have sworn it was supposed to be of the Poni Coast…”

Finally, he lifted his eyes to meet those of his best friend on this earth, the one he’d sworn to share his life with, the one he loved. And he relished in the sweet, delicious panicked expression he saw quaking in the twitchy, curt tugs at Red’s mouth in attempt to keep it flat. His own smile grew wide and knowing, and he watched as Red’s facade broke, his shoulders heaving and head dropping from where he’d been so attentively sitting.

The black-haired man raised his hands to sign the sentiment of ‘How’d you know?’ in KSL, but Green didn’t even give him the chance. Before he got the words out, the Viridian Gym Leader reached over and enveloped Red’s hands to hush him by draping one of his own over them, shaking his head with a small snicker. He knew him well enough to know exactly what he’d been about to say, and leaned over to press a taunting kiss to his red-handed husband’s cheek. He lingered there as he answered the unasked question, voice low and full of cockiness of having caught Red, of all people, off guard. This was like a battle, and he won. “Found one of the twisted spoons you bribed him with on the counter yesterday. His mega form does not need any more of them, you know.”

Red’s face was burning in embarrassment from getting caught, and it only amplified tenfold when Green freed the gentle hold on his hands to instead tuck an unruly black streak of hair behind his ear. His voice had grown almost husky, and was sickeningly full of love. And even though they’d well passed the schoolgirl crush stage of feelings ages ago, it still made Red’s heart skip three beats. “You know, I would have preferred if the love letters actually were from you.” Green leered forward just enough to close the gap, catching a real kiss from his beloved before all-but giggling against his lips and sitting more upright again. “You don’t have to go in kahoots with ‘kazam and pay him off to help you pretend to be a buncha Malie City Gym trainers just to stroke my ego.”

‘Not all from me!’ He was quick to clarify and remind the fact, his hand motions fluid and fast. His brow furrowed down deeply in insistence, and Green just laughed, finding him so stupidly adorable in a way only Red could be. It was that same fighting fire within him that made him fall in love with him in the first place.

“So you admit it?” Green teased, shooting him an inquiring look under a singular raised brow as he folded the letter back up. “You know, I could have been baselessly accusing. I bet you could’ve just convinced me Alolans were absolute shit at calligraphy.”

Okay, so it was a lie. He’d had him practically holding the smoking gun. But who was he if not maddeningly infuriating Red back to running circles in his defense of himself? Who was he if not just pissing him off a little, as a treat?

Red’s cheeks darkened, and his eyes darted around as he was backed into the confessional, shaking his head at first just out of instinct to prove Green was wrong, but the movement stopped as quickly as it had came. Instead, Red opted for shoving at his shoulder with a huff, and that was exactly the kind of reaction he’d been looking for. His howling laughter made that much painfully clear.

‘They make you happy!’ Red signed with a strong defensive vigor, and his adamant stance on fighting for something that just made Green smile and feel good about himself was more attractive to him than anything in the world. He loved Red. He really did.

“You like me when I’m all high and mighty. It’s okay. You can admit it.” Green’s tone of voice veered into more of a sing-songy kind of cadence, taunting and teasing and met with a sneer that had no malice behind it in return.

‘Worst.’ He signed, having grown more curt with being flustered- and it wasn’t hard to tell what he was trying to say was the worst. It only made the look on Green’s face even more smug.

“And yet, you love me.” His words were a statement above anything else- he knew it to be true. It had been proven time and time again, and would be proven over and over once more every day until they were senile and in rocking chairs, overlooking whatever great estate they were bound to settle in.