Part1: The start

Read the rules first to see what the challenge is about

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Being hurled into this cruel world, I quickly get asked which pokemon will escort me through the initial stages. As I'm hoping this starter will stay with me till the end of the game, I'll pick the one with the  rarest type, which is the fire breather Cyndaquill. hoping he'll devour many enemies, I'll name him devourer. Unoriginal? Yes. Inspiring? HELL YEAH.

Well, off we go little devourer, to route 1! 

After being halted by some people who just have to tell me their life-stories again, I find out it's known as route 29.. And more importantly, I have no pokeballs at this time, so I can't catch anything on this route..

My meeting with the first sentret is very unnerving, he critical hits me, bringing poor devourer to 6 hp after his second attack. 1 fight and I need to back off again. As I can't run from pokemon, the pidgey that appeared forces me to use one of the precious potions already. A tragic loss.

After running back to heal, I give it another shot. Taking the most efficient grassavoiding  path I find myself in cherrygrove quickly without much problems.

Route 30 is going to end up with no pokemon catches either, very saddening. But luckily, the level 2 pidgeys only manage to bring my devourer to 10 hp thanks to another efficient grass avoiding path. But the heal found in the house at the end is relieving nonetheless.

Running back, I'm now ready to face my rival, but his level 5 totodile commanded by a idiot using leer all the time, is no match for my tackling level 8 devourer. He's such a cheater for not having to release his mons though. And from now on, he'll go through life being referred to as "Cheater", in your face npc! That'll teach ya. 

After this small encounter I finally received some nice balls from that one girl with a white hat. I'm sure I can find some use for those. Route 46, right above 29 has some grass patches, and I haven't been there yet, so it's time to go catch my first mon!  My time manipulating abilities are used to go in the night, because there's some very interesting hoothoot's flapping around then.

The anticipitation grows as I set foot in the grass, growing and growing till that sound of battle was thrown right at me. could it be? It's a..! It's a...! It's a ratata.... meh. Level 2 to boot. 

My tackle only just manages not to kill it, and the pokeball lands giving me a new.. Well I was going to say friend, but it's a ratata.. Is there anything more dull?  He shall be named: "meh" for his ability to leave me completely unimpressed, I bet he'll die in his first trainer fight.

Well, I didn't start this to let it become easy, so I might as well train Meh up so he might in a rare case be useful enough to be used in battle. It's a long, long way to decent levels through using the old switching techniques. I'm going to hate this thing even more when I'm done with it.

Everything I ever learned about loving animals just went straight out upon seeing that whiskered face of him.

Level 7 was as far as I could push myself, our little devourer meanwhile got himself up to 10, which gave him ember, quite nice. Level 10 means I can't really level him up anymore though because the highest I've defeated had been level 5, so I'll just use Meh for now.

Surprsingly, our ratata Meh kicked some epic butt on the way to route 31, although, with double the level of the trainers, that shouldn't really have come as a surprise. 

And the first pokemon on route 31 is... Another ratata! Well, luckily, I put in the rules that  can't catch doubles of a type, this was actually meant as something to make it harder. But in this case, it's very handy. Maybe something good will pop up.

And it did! A hoothoot emerged, a pokemon which I'm a big fan of. And it did get caught on just a single pokeball, ain't that sweet? I'm going to call him: "Second", as I this is the second pokemon on my team. Any vague thoughts about some sort of rat can be safely ignored, as it's subject is going to end up in a bottomless void called "someone's pc" very quickly. 

Up next is the dark cave, even though I can't see enough to tell my hand from my rat, a geodude is still encountered. Some rock is greatly appreciated. The dude shall be known as "The Rock" for obvious reasons. Just look at him and his balls of stone, lifting various random items as if they are light random items. He's got muscles made out of rock on his jaw, what could be more impressive than that?

The team is looking quite strong already, thanks to no casualties so far.

Cyndaquill - Devourer  Level 11

Ratata - Meh    Level 8

Hoothoot - Second   Level 5

Geodude - The rock  Level 3

As I'll definitely need the hoothoot and geodude, leveling them to 8 seems like a good plan.

But, a quick trip to route 32 for another member doesn't sound like a bad idea either,and this decision gave me a very nice mareep at level 6, which I'm quite happy about. Sheeple will be her name.

Now, after some leveling them all to 8 I finally felt comfortable going into bell tower. Now, falkner the gymleader that's going to be fought some time in the future is a flying poke user, so I might as well train my geodude and mareep up while in this tower as they will provide me with the best answer.

The trainers in the tower were proving to me no match for this unstoppable army of mons. Let them all bow before my might! muhahaha..

But something else was very disturbing in the tower tonight, even though there's supposed to be a 85% of getting a ghastly during the night, I only got ratatas. Not just once, twice, or even 5 times. I got 20 ratatas in a row. And I'm sure it''s considered night at this moment. Also, in a previous playthrough I only got ghastlys here., so it's not like that 15% chance is far off.  Now, I may be unlucky, but 20 in a row? Were talking about a once in a universe experience here then. Whatever the cause for this mystery may be, I consider it as some sort of sign that I can;t just keep on chaining ratatas till I find a pokemon which I haven't caught yet. So a rule change is in place:  If the second pokemon I encounter in a place is just like the first one, a pokemon I've already encountered. Then tough luck, I'm not going to alow myself to catch it or any other pokemon on the route.

Pokemon 23 was a ghastly. Well, I'm sorry man, even though you're one of my favorites, I can't ignore signs this obvious.

Well, at least the numerous rats gave plenty of xp for the team, the max I could train to now according to my rules would be level 15, but I think the following team should make mincemeat out of falkner anyway

Cyndaquill - Devourer  Level 11

Ratata - Meh    Level 10

Hoothoot - Second   Level 10

Geodude - The rock  Level 12

Mareep - Sheeple Level 13 

Let the first gym battles commence!

The rock will be my start, as he can both pack a punch and eat some damage from those birds. And Sheeple is there to dish out some damage incase The Rock gets pulverized somehow. 

The first 2 trainers with their sophisticated leer using tactics, managed to dish out a total of 1 damage to geodude combined, which is not even worth a pokecenter visit.

A critical hit on falkners pidgey got a nice oneshot on it. 

I should probably have used defensive curls and such, ah well. The pidgeotto, falkners main, often a fearsome opponent proved to be merely a small bump in the road for The rock, who could even after missing 2 rock throws escape with almost half his health left. So much for needing good tactics.

And that concludes part 1, no casualties, which I'm very happy about.  Next up, the path towards the second badge.