Chapitre 778: CH158 (772), A Good Haul (2)
The reason I left the northern route for last was not only because it only had two Trapinch points and that it headed deeper into the Hoenn Desert; It also had one of the suspected ruin spots located between the first and second Trapinch spots and I was planning to visit it even if it prolonged the travel time between the two T-spots by a lot. Still, that would have to wait until after I dealt with the first spot. I put away Graveler's PokeBall once the capture process was finally complete. We then continued to head for our first destination.
I could not help but stop for a moment barely a minute later due to what my second thought stream was seeing. Graveler somehow managed to be uber-lucky and not only had its potential raised to light purple during Utopia's optimization process, but also ended up unlocking the Shiny gene, which cost him nothing since it happened during Utopia's optimization. A Shiny silver stage Graveler with light purple potential was quite a bit more appealing than a "simple" silver stage Graveler with light purple potential, which was already very appealing by itself, so I decided to add him to the reserve team instead of letting him live as a simple Utopia citizen as I had initially been planning on doing.
When Seb asked me why I stopped I shared what had happened, and they were impressed with Graveler's luck with the Shiny modifier. None of them were really fazed by the light purple potential since they had at this point become kinda numb to that kind of normally incredible potential. Nearly all of my Pokemon paid more attention to someone having or unlocking some kind of modifier or great talent than they did to them having blue or purple potential, which was usually kinda arguably more important for the Pokemon in question. Yet, things just ended up spiraling a bit out of control on that front.
I was not the only one whose standards and expectations had been distorted due to the huge number of Pokemon with absurdly high potential I had gathered; My Pokemon were obviously affected as well. While I managed to keep things under control, at least mostly, thanks to the many colonies I started inside Utopia and Vendrak/Eggy/Salandit as well as Hypno, they ended up becoming desensitized to mentions of high potential alone.
Mothra/Butterfree, Thor/Raichu, Horus/Xatu, Nyx/Umbreon, and Hades/Gengar were the least affected by that because they actually got to witness how rare Pokemon with high potential like that actually were since they accompanied me many times while I had to check out hundreds, thousands, or even tens of thousands of wild Pokemon before I met one with blueish potential that could if I was lucky enough turn purpleish after Utopia was done with it.
Despite the fact that it was them who put in all the sweat, blood, and tears, they seem to forget/overlook that, in many cases, it took them extreme amounts of effort and multiple breakthroughs to achieve the potential they had, and I decided that it was time for another reminder of how they started. While that would be less useful for those that actually had blue or deep blue, or even light purple potential when I got them, it could maybe help the ones that had humbler beginnings.
Anyway, counseling plans aside, I once again resumed sandsurfing and it took us about 15 more minutes to arrive at our first destination. I saw multiple Trapinch lounging on the sand, and when we closed in on them the sand beneath our feet, or the sandboard in my case, gave away. The sand began to move toward the center where the Trapinch were chilling, and it was clear that they had set up a trap, though it did not affect us. I was already used to others messing with me while I was sand surfing, so I simply rode the wave so to speak, while Seb and Gaia continued to follow me as if they were walking on regular sand/ground.
The Trapinch began to move when they noticed that we were not affected, and more than half of them submerged, so when we stopped in front of them, there were only 4 Trapinch from the initial 8. Still, I could feel many Pokemon observing us from beneath the sand, so I told the 4 before us that we had a request/offer for them. I released all 29 Trapinch I had caught so far when I said we; The sudden appearance of so many Trapinch startled the other side, causing 3 of the 4 Trapinch to subconsciously retreat halfway into the sand before they noticed what they did and resurfaced. They were not the only ones as many more Trapinch burrowed out of the sand after the sole calm Trapinch tapped the ground three times, raising their number to 34 with 27 more still hidden beneath the sand.
We silently watched their appearance, and they just stared at us which led to a short stare-off that seemed to have unnerved some of the Trapinch since they began to get restless, which ended with 3 Trapinch in the back shouting that the damn human, aka me, should speak up already. Seb took exception to their tone and momentarily flexed his aura to warn/intimidate the trio, which caused an unexpected chain reaction. The moment Seb flexed his aura, the leading Trapinch erupted in a bright white light, attracting our attention. While we focused on the evolving Trapinch, all 33 Trapinch on the other side dove into the ground, which caught my attention out of the corner of my eye.
Consequently, I turned my focus away from the evolution that was taking place and saw that all other Trapinch had gone underground. Moreover, I could feel the Trapinch under the sand burrowing deeper, making it abundantly clear that Trapinch's evolution had been a signal for the Trapinch to hide away. This was a clear-cut case of one Hero covering the retreat of the others, and in this case, the "sacrifice" happened to be the suspected leading Trapinch. That all this was not truly necessary was a whole different matter, but I had to admit that the fact that they already had an evacuation plan like this ready was pretty impressive.
Trapinch first distracted the other side with its evolution, and I was sure that the original plan was for it to fly away once the evolution was complete ensuring that it was able to escape as well. That that bit wouldn't work against us did not take away from the fact that it would most likely work against nearly everyone else living in the Hoenn Desert or at least this part of the desert. Anyway, I did not bother with the fleeing Trapinch, and seeing me being unconcerned about the whole thing the others left them alone as well. Seb did give me an apologetic look, but I waved it off and told him that it wasn't his fault since he couldn't have known that his little warning would cause all this.
I then released my aura, radiating a calming as well as friendly ambiance, while we silently waited for the evolution to finish. I noticed from the way its feet tensed up and its wings twitched, that Vibrava's first impulse, once the evolution was over, was to jump up and presumably fly away. However, after that moment passed, Vibrava settled down and relaxed a bit before staring straight at me. I first congratulated it before apologizing in Seb's name for startling them so much with his warning that we triggered their final escape card, causing it to evolve when it had obviously been suppressing said evolution.
Seb himself apologized as well when he heard me speak up like that but surprisingly Vibrava seemed pretty unconcerned with the whole thing; It waved it off and told us not to mind that since it at least showed that it worked before finally asking us what we wanted from them. That was a surprisingly open/generous mindset and my good impression of Vibrava could not help but deepen when it acted like that. Anyway, with Vibrava opening the topic, I told it what I wanted and it showed a pensive look before it agreed to let us do so if I was willing to, on top of the underground farm, add a recently shed thorn or scale from both Seb and Gaia/Nidoqueen that still had their aura and scent on it. Vibrava calmly shared that they could use it to scare off others if necessary.
I turned to Seb as well as Gaia to get their opinion on the request, and the two nodded/agreed before I even posed the question, so I told Vibrava who was watching/waiting that we agreed to its request. Vibrava nodded at that before resolutely adding that it was not included in the deal since it would/could not leave its colony alone and that I could not take more than 5 of them since any more would weaken them too much. Only after I told it that I was fine with that did Vibrava stomp the ground a few times in succession before releasing three loud cries. A few moments following that, I felt the Trapinch appear on my radar again and I felt them close in on Vibrava while rushing to the surface of the sand.
Each one flinched for a moment when they saw that we were still here, but despite that, they still gathered around Vibrava/their leader, which showed that they had an impressive amount of trust in their leader. Once all 60 Trapinch had grouped up, Vibrava told them about my request and none of them refused, so once Vibrava told me to go ahead, I began to check out all Trapinch. Funnily enough, I ended up with 8 Trapinch that qualified for the elite colony, which I had honestly not expected due to the experience I had at the previous Trapinch points, so I turned to Vibrava to see if I could persuade it into letting me take all 8 of them.
Vibrava told me that I could do that if I made the farm bigger, which I naturally agreed to since I preferred that over leaving 3 of the deep yellow Trapinch behind. Once Vibrava heard my agreement Vibrava asked me which ones I selected, so I levitated the Trapinch to the front, which caused a slight commotion when the Trapinch suddenly got lifted into the air. Vibrava watched the levitating Trapinch seemingly unfazed, and once they stopped beside us, it directly told them that they were going to join me and that they should from now on listen to me. After it did that, Vibrava told me that I could go ahead and capture them, apparently not worried about me breaking my word and simply leaving once I had balled the Trapinch.
I once again could not help but be really impressed with this Vibrava, and I actually felt the need to thank it for its trust in my word. Still, I told it that I would capture them after we had set up their underground/open-hole farm. I then proceeded to set up said farm together with Seb as well as Gaia, and a few minutes later, Vibrava and its group were the proud owners of an Oran Berry farm containing 30 Oran Berry trees that should be fertile for at least 5 decades since I added a few more water/leaf stone chips into the soil because of the good impression I had of Vibrava.
Once the farm was complete I went ahead and captured the Trapinch I chose before handing two spine thorns belonging to Seb and Gaia each to Vibrava. I told Vibrava that it could plant a thorn at each of the corners of the farm's hole if it wanted, and after it thanked me for the thorns we wished them all the best before moving on. Our next destination was the suspected ruin site, which was located roughly an hour to our northwest. While we were surfing/walking there, the Trapinch I caught were undergoing Utopia's optimization, and interestingly enough none of them ended up with light green potential. The lowest one ended up with green potential at 2.4%, while the best one had his potential raised to blue at 13.8%.
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