Some time ago I decied to hunt for shiny Ho-oh. I simply love his shiny sprite, it´s my second favourite shiny (after shiny Latias - which I have). As I don´t have Omega ruby, just alpha sapphire, I needed to restart my Heart Gold game. I sped through the game. When I got to the point where I battled Ho-oh, I decided to KO it, as I knew he respawn after I beat the league. I didn´t want my Ho-oh in master ball (which I intended to use as last resort), and my team was quite weak. Not to mention my selection of pokeballs was also rather limited. So I beat him and proceeded to finish the Johto part of the game. And here I made a mistake: I didn´t talk to Elm before finishing the league, which means I skipped the master ball event. Yay me!
So after beating the league (and realizing what mistake I made), I proceeded to make preparations. First on the list was synchronizer. It took quite a lot of eggs to get that freaking adamant Natu, but I managed. Then there were pokeballs. As I didn´t have Master ball (thanks to my own stupidity), I needed the best ones. So I bought 30 Dusk balls (they are the most effective ones at night time). My inventory consisted of 30 Dusk balls, 7 Ultra balls, 5 Heavy balls, 3 Moon balls and 2 Friend and Level balls. Next was to train my pokemon. I knew I needed to put Ho-oh to sleep, if I want any chance of catching, so I chose Noctowl - he is quite bulky and has hypnosis. My team when finished consisted of level 53 Noctowl, level 50 Quagsire, level 43 Ampharos, level 30 Gyarados (the shiny one) and level 1 Natu. The sixth slot was empty so I coud check my Ho-oh immediatelly. With those preparations done, I climbed the Bell tower. The Kimono girls were gone (thankfully, as one thing I don´t like in HGSS is that the Kimono girls are summoning the legendary pokemon), but Ho-oh was there. Ok, pokeballs - check. Synchronize adamant Natu in the first slot - check. Game saved - double check. Let´s go!
Well, I didn´t know that Ho-oh would be such a troll. In the few test captures I did it was either a very close call or I didn´t catch him at all. But I was persistent, hoping against all odds when the bird finally shines I will manage to catch him. It took a very long time, but yesterday it finally happened. Shiny Ho-oh! And it was nighttime, which means Dusk balls would be effective! My heart was racing. My level 1 Natu was of course useless, so I decided to throw a Moon ball. Ho-oh breaks free, kills Natu, I send out Noctowl and proceed to weaken him. Well, first part was ok. I threw a Moon ball, Ho-oh immedeatelly broke free. Ho-oh used Sunny day! Ok, time to waste another ball, this time Dusk ball. I threw it. It shook once. Twice. Thrice. Ding! Ho oh was caught. I was like "Are you kidding me???" It was an incredible luck. I skipped his dex intro and checked his nature. Modest. Welp... I like my pokemon to be good competetively, so I was little dissapointed. Then I checked Ho-oh´s special attack stat. 110. Well, no Sacred fire, but I can work with this. Checked his moveset. So, he has acces to Earth power, Ancient power, Psychic, Calm mind... yep, I can definitely work with this.
I decided to spice up this Ho-oh even more by giving him every available gen 4, 5, 6 and 7 Ribbons. It will be a long journey, but we can do it! Now Ho-oh is training in Slowpoke well his HP stat. Tough I still can´t belive my luck with his capture.
Oh, and about that Latias? Another cool (but shorter, I promise :-D ) story. I was soft reseting the gift Latias for good natured/IVd one. It was tough, because of the battle and dialogue you have to go through every time. I soft reseted and soft reseted, when suddenly... shiny! Wow! Checked her nature. Timid. Double wow! Timid certainly isn´t the worst nature for Latias. She is currently in my Sun game.