Thanks for the input everyone. i had actually forgotten about emolga lol.
was chinchou removed in ep 12?
i decided to put myself through hell for the first few gyms and went bug. i am actually doing both on separate game saves, but that's another nightmare. currently figuring out how to get past emolga without falling back on a sturdy pineco with self-destruct. i got through it a couple of times with crit hax, but the stupid zebra lol...flame charge for days.
i'll keep an update to let ya'll know how it goes (unless monitor smashing becomes a thing lol)
EDIT: ok so i nearly just smashed my monitor with what just happened. I just took a stab at julia and got past everything except for the Electrode. i took it out with a little luck, but aftermath killed my last guy. ...that should be my win lol
edit #2: just beat julia. currently, my team is butterfree, dustox, kricketune, spinarak, surskit, and beautifly (all lvl 16 except surskit [14]) i fury cuttered my way through the first dude (helioptile), and was gonna fury cutter the first voltorb that came out. it exploded, so it died and the fury cutter hit the next voltorb for a one hit KO. then comes the emolga. i switched into butterfree (i play on Set battle style), so that was a death fodder switch. spinarak came out next and used scary face to slow it down. it survived the acrobatics, so i got a night shade out of it for some damage. Kricketune came out again, and i got a crit hax fury cutter, but didn't take it out (forced a potion though). after the potion, the next fury cutter downed it. blitzle was next, but it got powned in the face by the kricket in one shot, and the electrode got KOed in one hit too by the fury cutter, albeit aftermath took the bug with it...i hate aftermath lol. now that julia has fallen, time to look forward to flobot. oh the joys that await from that cradily