In the end, I decided that adding Fear the Spearow to the team would be best due to its Jolly nature, allowing added speed to the already quick Pokemon. I decided that with my 2-3 hours of free time this afternoon, I would have a grind-fest, not only to put Fear and Lil on the level of the rest of my squad, but also to evolve Blaze, due to him being unable to take many hits, unlike Oddium and Pierce. I hadn't been training long before Blaze learned Flamethrower which instantly added a lot of power to the Fire type, but it still wasn't enough to stop the Poison and Paralysis of Oddish and Venonat on Route 15, because I was switching out to train Fear and Lil.
After about 20 minutes of training, Fear finally evolved into the brute that is Fearow, and hopefully this one would stay alive as opposed to my previous four flying Pokemon, two of which were also Fearow. Due to a level 20 Fearow being superior to a level 24 Meowth, I now switched my focus over to evolving that as well as Charmeleon, who was growing slowly. Fortunately, when Ditto's appeared, I was getting a small fortune due to using Pay Day in the turn they transformed, and with them appearing rather often, I was making $120 every 5-10 battles.
And then, it finally happened. The thing I had been hoping for. The evolution of Blaze. I noticed straight away the massive growth in its Sp. Atk and Speed, and the addition of Wing Attack would prove useful in time. The main thing left was to evolve Lil. After battling the rest of the trainers in the area, I was finally given the chance to use Persian, one of my favourite Normal types in the Pokemon series. I was thinking about challenging the gym, but noticed that I still have 2 Pokemon under level 30 and only one that boasted lv35+ and as a result I decided to head the rest of the way up to Lavender Town, hoping that my team would grow stronger with no losses.
Butterfree reached level 34 while fighting the Bikers on the route, giving me access to Psybeam and after thinking it over, I decided to get rid of Poisonpowder instead of Confusion due to Psybeam's medium PP and I prefer sleep to poison anyway. All of a sudden, Coco, who had been gradually falling from a top team member was refreshed with a new move capable of decent damage, pushing it back to the top with the likes of Oddium, Pierce and the recently updated Blaze, and although it now had the power to topple Poison Pokemon very fast, it lacked the defences to take more than 2-3 hits, even from moves like Acid, which only has a base power of 40.
Unfortunately, Fearow was weaker than the majority of the trainer's Pokemon on this Route, meaning that it could handle one or two Pokemon before its HP got to low to risk it, but this allowed other Pokemon to grow along side it, especially Nidoking due to how many flying type users on Route 14, meaning Coco and Oddium weren't exactly effective here. It wasn't until Fear reached Level 26 that it finally had its breakout performance, managing to take out 4 trainers due to its ability to hit hard and fast, making me realise why I often choose Fearow over Pidgeot.
By the time both Lil and Fear reached Level 30, I realised that the only real advantage Persian had over Fearow was Pay Day, and even that was becoming too weak to use as a main move. Due to its lower Attack, Defence and HP, it was becoming vastly outmatched by almost all of my team, and I realised that I'd need it to learn a better STAB move to become a more effective member of my team, but due to it not learning Slash until level 49 in Fire Red, I decided that the only real option was Secret Power. And what a difference it made. While still not as powerful as the main 4 members of my team, it certainly edged a lot closer to Fearow, whose primary attack was Fly, which I generally disapprove of.
After battling all the trainers on the long route between Lavender and Fuchsia City, I realised that while all my team was at least level 30, they still weren't as strong as I'd like, and decided that 35 was the lowest level I'd want any member on my team for the gym. After about an hour of training my entire team level 35, I was going to end it here today, but decided to take on Koga due to doing so well today.
Clearly, I should've done this training in the first place, seeing as I'm smashing my way through the gym, only being slowed down by status effects. The only problem I had in the gym was Muk's minimize, but after Blaze came out, Koga stood no chance, with Flamethrower tearing Muk to shreds when it hit. And that's now the end of this update, being a very very long one.