Striaton Gym

As soon as you enter the Gym, the dude that was blocking it earlier will come over to you and introduce himself as the coach. You know, he's that usual "Yo, champ in the making" guy. Anyway, to prep you for the fight, he gives you some Fresh Water, which heals 50 HP when you use it. That very well may come in handy in your fight, because the Gym Leader is pretty tough.

This gym's puzzle is really easy to solve. There's a curtain with a color and a symbol on it that clearly represents an elemental type. Beneath the curtain are three buttons you can step on: one for Fire, one for Water, and one for Grass. It shouldn't take a genius to figure out which is which. In order to drop the curtain, you need to step on the button that beats the type on the curtain.

That's the easy part. The tough part is dealing with the rather strong Waiter and Waitress inside; the Waiter uses a fierce Lillipup L11 which hits pretty hard, while the Waitress uses a Patrat L10 and a Purrloin L10. Beware the Patrat, because it has Bide, which will cause it to wait two turns before attacking you for double the damage you did to it during that time! The best thing to do if it looks like it's getting angry or whatever is to just use moves like Growl, Tail Whip, and Leer, then attack when it is not saving strength. You can also switch to a not-as-often-used Pokemon to take the hit if you accidentally hit it.

After beating them and getting through the easy puzzle (which, granted, is technically harder than any of the other generations first gyms...), you'll be ready to take on the Gym Leader. Before you do, go back to the Pokemon Center to heal up your Pokemon, then save your game when you get near the Gym Leader.

Surprisingly enough, though, this Gym doesn't have just one Gym Leader... it has three! Only one of them will battle you, though, and it's based off of your starting Pokemon. If your starting Pokemon was Snivy, you'll have to fight against the fiery Chili; if your starter was Tepig, you're going up against the cool Cress; and if your starting Pokemon was Oshawott like mine was, you're gonna have to take on the green Cilan.

Each one of the trio's Pokemon have the move Work Up, which raises that Pokemon's Attack and Sp. Atk by one stage, increasing their potential to do damage by a lot. You do not want them to use that move too many times. If you have it available, you should counter with Growl right away, especially against Lillipup and Pansage (Cilan's green monkey), as they only have Physical-based attacks.

Cilan's Pansage is quite a bit tougher. It's really cool how the music changes when you take on the Gym Leader's last Pokemon, though! Really makes it pretty epic. Thankfully, Pansage doesn't have a lot of defenses, so as long as you hit hard and hit often, you should be good. Using the Pansear you picked up in the Dream Ruins can help, although you probably haven't had much time to train it.

As for the other two Gym Leaders (if you didn't start with Oshawott like I did), their strategy is mostly the same, but they don't have a variety of moves, so you only have to worry about the type they're using, making the elemental monkey Pokemon you picked up earlier a great counter to them.

After beating Cilan (or whichever Gym Leader you had to go up against), the trio of Gym Leaders will relinquish the Trio Badge as a symbol of your victory against them, which will enable traded Pokemon up to Level 20 obey you. They'll also give you TM83 (Work Up), which — as you probably saw — raises the user's Attack and Sp. Atk by one stage!