As soon as you step into Eterna Forest, you’ll be greeted by a girl named Cheryl. Seems she’s gotten lost, and she’d like your help to find her way home. She’ll be glad to help you fight – the only pokemon she has is a Chansey, but she’ll also volunteer to heal your poke-party to full after every battle.

If you’ve been looking for a good opportunity to train up your pokemon, this should sound like music to your ears. You can expend all the HP and PP in battle that you want – even faint! – and Cheryl will heal you right up as soon as battle’s ended, making EXP earning pretty painless. You won’t need to leave the forest to heal, but if you want to change your pokemon party members, feel free to head back to Floaroma’s Pokemon Center. Cheryl will be waiting for you again back at the forest entrance.

ETERNA FOREST POKEMON

Wurmple – Levels 10-11 – Common
Silcoon – Levels 10-11 – Common (Diamond only)
Cascoon – Levels 10-11 – Common (Pearl only)
Beautifly – Level 12 – Rare (Diamond only)
Dustox – Level 12 – Rare (Pearl only)
Budew – Levels 10-12 – Common
Buneary – Levels 10-12 – Common
Murkrow – Levels 10-12 – Uncommon, nocturnal (Diamond only)
Misdreavus – Levels 10-12 – Uncommon, nocturnal (Pearl only)

Above: You and Cheryl look so cute when you're massacring the creatures of the forest

All the battles you’ll fight with Cheryl will be 2-on-2. There’s some new pokes here you probably haven’t seen in the wild before – Buneary, Beautifly, Dustox, et cetera. If it’s nighttime and you’re playing the Pearl version, you’ll also have the opportunity to catch Misdreavus, a noteworthy Ghost-type pokemon who can learn many Psychic attacks and is immune to all Ground skills.

In order to catch Pokemon in wild 2-on-2 fights, you’ll need to faint one of the pokes first. This leaves the remaining pokemon vulnerable to thrown Pokeballs. The only big thing to worry about is Cheryl’s Chansey fainting the poke you’re trying to catch by accident, since she’s under CPU control. Fortunately, Chansey has about a 50% chance of using a healing skill, and the Egg Bomb has fairly lousy accuracy, but it’s still something you should be aware of. You may just opt to wait until Cheryl leaves you before you try collecting the forest fauna.

Trainer battles here are also all 2-on-2 fights. Since Cheryl will heal your pokemon completely after each battle, don’t fret too much over losing health or using scarce PPs – just focus on taking these guys down.

Once you reach the exit, Cheryl will thank you and bid farewell – for now. If you go back into Eterna Forest after this, you’ll only fight one-on-one wild pokebattles, and you won’t be healed after combat resolves. Oh well, it was nice while it lasted.

Now, we’re off to Eterna city to earn your second badge! The northern part of Route 205 you’ll need to cross is full of fishermen who’ve got Water-type pokes in abundance. A Grass or Electric types can blow through them all pretty quickly, but considering most of these guys’ rosters consist of pathetic Magikarp, you won’t have any problems taking them on with any of your team.