Pokemon XY Tradelocke - 'Linked'

About a year ago, I started a Pokemon XY Tradelocke with a friend of mine known on deviantart as, . Since I'm in Japan and he's in the states, we thought it'd be a cool idea to use a Tradelocke to keep in touch. What is a "Tradelocke", you may ask? A Tradelocke is a Pokemon Nuzlocke challenge that you take on with a friend, where every so often (usually after a gym match), you battle and trade a Pokemon with one another. Some Tradelockes can be somewhat competitive where the winner of the battle decides on the trade, but we decided to be more cooperative with our 'locke, so we would have a better chance at succeeding. Of course this means we were limited to either XY or ORAS versions, since those are the only ones that can trade across countries. We picked XY for the variety of Pokemon available in those games. However, because XY has terrible pacing and puts three gyms practically next to each other, we did tweak the rules a bit, which you will see in "the rules" section of this journal.

In addition to doing this Tradelocke, we decided to turn it into an art project to work on together. has been working on a personal Nuzlocke of his, complete with a Nuzlocke comic. So not only is this project for fun, but it's also to get another awesome artist into the Nuzlocke comic community.  For this Nuzlocke, instead of making a comic, we will be submitting some art pieces to tell our Nuzlocke story. As such, the story will be mostly artsy and loose, and not strictly adhering to exactly what happened in the game. But we will provide some prose and updates on team rosters and trades in the descriptions, to give a better idea of what is going on. Each art piece will be submitted monthly, on the first of each month. With the exception of a few planned collaborative pieces, we will each take turns in submitting artwork. This doesn't necessarily mean you have to go to each of our pages to see the art, since there will be links in the description to the following/preceding artwork (though it would still be nice if you visited our pages ). This is mainly for fun for both of us to work on an art project together with a subject that we both enjoy. I hope you enjoy it as well.
Now for an explanation of the Nuzlocke itself:

The Story:
Renard and Barry are two beginner trainers who decide to go on a journey together across the Kalos region to collect the 8 badges and become Pokemon League Champions. Along the way they decide to trade Pokemon with each other to form a stronger bond in their teamwork, to gain a close connection with each others' Pokemon, and to stay "Linked".

The Rules:
1. Catch only the first Pokemon encounter in an area.
1.1 Encounters before Pokeballs are available don't count.
1.2 Dupes clause
2. Nickname all Pokemon.
3. If a Pokemon faints, it is considered dead and must be perma-boxed or released.
4. Level cap is at no more than 2 levels above current Gym Leader's ace Pokemon.
5. Directly after every Gym Battle, battle each other 3 vs. 3
5.1 You can't run to the next area to grind while you wait for your Tradelocke partner.
5.2 Fainting in battles against your Tradelocke partner does not count as deaths.
5.3 If for some reason 4 Pokemon died in the Gym battle, you can get a replacement Pokemon from the P.C. before battling your partner.
6. After the 3 vs. 3 battle, trade Pokemon.
6.1 Due to pacing issues of XY, after the fourth gym, trade after every other gym. Before taking on the Elite Four, you may trade up to 3 times.
6.2 Starters cannot be picked for trade.
7. You cannot remove the traded Pokemon from your party (unless it dies) until the next gym leader is beaten.
7.1 No purposefully killing off traded Pokemon so you can get a "better" Pokemon in your party.
8. When you run out of room for traded Pokemon in your party, the oldest of the traded must get placed in the PC.
8.1 But when a Pokemon dies, the removed Pokemon gets put back in the party.
9. After every Gym Battle, each of the Pokemon who actively participated can gain one heart in PokeMonAmie.
10. Only one stat increasing O-Power can be used per Gym Battle.
11. Super Training can only be used by a Pokemon who has its EVs already maxed out for getting evolution stones.
12. No using the Exp. Share.
13. Route 7's east and west areas, and Route 8's upper and lower areas are counted as separate routes where one can catch Pokemon.
14. No in-game trades - only trade with each other.
15. Mega Evolutions can only be used during battles against, Gym Leaders, E4, Champion, Rivals, Lysandre, AZ, and each other.
16. Trainers must have one final epic post-E4 battle with all their Pokemon.

The Tradelocke:


One last shout-out to as a thank you for doing this with me!
All of you reading this should really go check him out. He's got some awesome Pokemon, D&D, and RPG related artwork, all drawn in a very distinctive style. Here's some of my personal favorites of his:


Hope you all enjoy both his and my art! And I hope you enjoy this collaborative piece that we will be doing!

Have a great day!