More story stuff. Watching Nebby get SUCC'd by Necrozma was pretty wild. Anyways, first battle against Necrozma in its Dawn Wings form. I tried having Magnemite paralyze it, but it got outsped and KO'd by Moongeist Beam, a move which ignores abilities like Sturdy. I sent out Gastly, and I thought about whether a Shadow Ball (which would be double-super-effective on the Psychic/Ghost-type Dawn Wings) would be enough to knock it out. In the end, I decided to just use Destiny Bond instead, and thankfully Gastly outsped Necrozma without any speed drops being necessary. It got KO'd and took Necrozma down with it.
Next up was the battle against the beefed up Ultra Necrozma, who is level 60 (higher than my whole team) and starts the battle with +1 stage in all of its already massive stats. Like I said, I wanted to try and beat it without resorting to the Zorua Illusion strategy first. I put the Eviolite on Magnemite, I sent it out, I picked Thunder Wave, I prayed that it would survive a Photon Geyser, and it did! Necrozma easily KO'd Magnemite with a second attack, then I sent out Gastly. I picked Destiny Bond, but Necrozma was paralyzed and couldn't move. So I picked Destiny Bond again and...
THE MOVE FAILED!?
https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Destiny_Bond_(move)#Generation_VII
Destiny Bond will always fail if it was successfully executed on the previous turn.
Well, shit. All right, let's reset and try this again. Magnemite paralyzes Necrozma with Thunder Wave and then dies, I send out Gastly, pick Destiny Bond, and...
NECROZMA ATTACKED FIRST THIS TIME!?
Is it a speed tie, or does Necrozma not have set stats and its speed just happened to be slightly higher this time? Either way, I reset, but this time I used the 4 Rare Candies that I've found along the way to level up my Gastly and raise its speed some more. Finally, on the third attempt, the plan worked. Magnemite paralyzed Necrozma, then Gastly took it down with Destiny Bond. This was a bit annoying, but it feels more satisfying taking this big glowing bastard down with my main team than if I had brought out Zorua and cheesed it with Illusion.
Even if the way I took it down with Destiny Bond is admittedly still pretty cheesy.
My current team:
(asterisk = getting boosted experience for being past its evolution level)
Lv55 Popplio*
Lv56 Magnemite*
Lv57 Cutiefly*
Lv59 Gastly*
Lv56 Crabrawler
Lv58 Mudbray*
Next up is Mina's trial, which is a long one. It's basically a gauntlet of trainer battles against previous trial captains, leading up to an annoying battle against a Totem Ribombee. After that, all I have left is the grand trial battle against the last island kahuna, the trip up Mt. Lanakila, and then the Pokemon League.