CH182 (796), Desert Exploration (3)

When I actually got to see the small oasis mentioned by the Gligar I had the urge to question them if they really thought that this place deserved to be called a small oasis. I mean, the previous small oasis was fine with its pond that was about 1.5 to 2 times the size of an olympic pool, but they really should have called this one a mini oasis instead since its pond looked like it was barely half the size of an olympic pool. Consequently, its green area was quite a bit smaller as well since the water could only support that much vegetation.

I was not surprised that the number of Pokemon living here was also smaller, though unsurprisingly it was still easier for me to find certain species around the place, like the Cacnea line, and I even saw a group of Scraggy led by a pair of Scrafty. Those were probably why the variety of Pokemon living in this place was so small since they could be rather territorial and aggressive, which explained why the only two species aside from the previous two were Numel and Diglett. The former were some of the most, …, chill, I did not want to call them dull or slow, Pokemon around despite their fire typing. Well, at least they were pretty chill as long as they did not go hungry, which was not a problem even in a mini oasis like this.

Diglett on the other hand stayed below the ground most of the time, so the Scraggy and Scrafty couldn't truly bother them even if they wanted to. Even if they attempted to play whack the mole, I doubted they would have much success and the Diglett might even see it as a funny game or a way to tease their feisty neighbors. I was pretty sure that the reason the Diglett chose to settle here in the first place was due to the Numel, or rather their droppings. Diglett loved to live in mineral-rich places, and no matter how gross it might sound to some, Numel and Camerupt droppings were some of the best natural fertilizers in existence.

Anyway, the herd of Numel was relatively small with only 19 members and they did not even bother reacting to me/our presence when I went up to them to check them out. I had to let Seb/Nidoking flex his aura a bit to intimidate the Scraggy and Scrafty to stop them from bothering me, but the Numel did not react even then, though the Diglett fled deeper into the ground when Seb did that. I did not mind since I was honestly fine with not being able to check them if it was impossible. I would do it if I had the chance, but if they ran away like this I did not bother stopping them.

Either way, I ended up finding a Numel with deep yellow potential, so I asked him if he wanted to come with me, which he ignored. I got his attention when I brought out a mix/handful of Cheri, Persim, Leppa, and Figy berries. In fact, that caught the attention of all Numel, but it was the one in front of me that counted. I looked at his suddenly sparkling eyes and began to feed the berries to Numel one by one much to his enjoyment, and the envy of the other Numle, who began to gather around us. I ignored them for a moment in favor of patting Numel's head as I fed him another Persim berry.

Once Numel had swallowed the berry I once again asked him if he wanted to come with me, and I naturally did not forget to mention that he would be able to eat as many berries like these as he wants if he did. Numel folded as easily as a house of cards and enthusiastically nodded at my offer, and I could feel from nearly all the Numel around that they would be willing to join in as well as long as I gave them berries to eat. Unfortunately for them, I was not interested in them, so despite their honestly cute attempts at making baby(-doll) eyes at me, I only left them a little hill of berries to eat once I had balled the Numel in front of me and placed his ball inside Utopia.

They seemed to get the message since they focused on the berries while I walked up to the Scraggy/Scarfty to check them out as well since they were there. I could feel that they were not too happy about me approaching them, but none of them dared to do more than glare due to Seb's presence. Some of them even proved to be clever enough to throw wary glances at the others as well. Either way, no Scraggy dared to act out when I pat them on the head to check their status since I couldn't use my psychic powers to do so due to their typing.

Sadly it turned out that none of the 40+ Scraggy had decent potential, though one of the Scrafty happened to have deep yellow potential. Yet, I did not capture her since she was one of the leaders of her group. That she was already at the silver stage was another reason. Anyway, with the Scraggy done, only the Cacnea and three Cacturne were left, so I headed for the group that was lounging around at the boundary of the oasis to check them out as well. The most they did when they saw us approach was wiggle a bit uneasily, but they did not resist me patting them, no doubt having felt the aura released by Seb when he flexed to deter the Scraggy.

I honestly did not expect much when I decided to check the Cancea and I was proven right until I Observed the second to last Cacnea. While I would have usually ignored him as well since he had light yellow potential, Cacnea happened to have something very interesting listed among his affinities. Instead of having solely grass listed in that section like the others, Cacnea had an additional fire affinity listed there, which was just baffling. Had I recently not read about Scovillian I would have not thought it to be possible but since there was already a grass/fire type Pokemon out there I began to consider the prospect of nurturing this Cacnea or his descendants into a grass/fire variant line.

The question was if the investment would be worth it or if the whole thing would merely satisfy my curiosity, but then as I pondered the issue I realized that satisfying my curiosity was all the reason I needed to do it since my feelings on the matter were the most important factor anyway when it came to my deciding/contemplating something. The cost of resources was the least of my worries after all, so it all came down to whether I found something interesting enough to justify the time I spent on it. In this particular case that was a heck yeah, so I decided to disregard Cacnea's lukewarm potential and ball him anyway.

None of the Cacnea except for my target reacted much when I brought out a jug of Leppa juice as a test to see if that would be something he would like since fire types usually did and it seemed his affinity to the energy had him interested in the juice as well. I offered to let him drink the juice if he went with me and he agreed without any hesitation. Interestingly enough none of the Cacnea or Cacturne reacted to that byplay, and I could sense that they genuinely didn't care. I chose to ignore that and let Cacnea chug his juice while I checked out the last Canea, who ended up having deep orange potential.

With that out of the way, I balled my Cacnea who had already emptied the jug before turning to the three Cacturne. I was curious if one of them would have a fire affinity since Cacnea might have inherited his from one of them. Unfortunately, that ended up not being the case. All three of the Cacturne only had the usual grass as well as dark affinity of their species, and the best potential among them ended up being yellow, which did not arouse my interest either. While I at first wanted to simply leave after checking the last one, I decided to spray all of them with some Rawst berry juice before I left since I had after all taken one of them even if they did not seem to care that I did.

After leaving the mini oasis all that was left of the targets I marked was the large-size oasis mentioned by the Gligar. However, unlike the previous oases and the ruins, this one was not located within the outer area, but in the outer parts of the inner area. It was thankfully not too far from the border between the outer and inner area, so I did not have to head too deep into the inner area to reach it, which was why I had decided to add it to my list. Nonetheless, it would still take me 4 to 5 days to reach it at our usual speed since I had to travel quite a bit along the border first before heading deeper to reach it. Even if I traveled in a straight line from my current position toward the large oasis, I would save a day at most.

Regardless of whether it was 3 days, 4 days, or even 5 days, they were all well within the time I set aside for my exploration of the Hoenn Desert. Hell, even if it took me until day 5 and I made it to the oasis on Giratiday of the following week, I would have only spent 2 weeks in the desert, which was a week less than the maximum I set aside for this. That was why I did not rush things and kept going at my pace. I traveled/sand surfed until 8 p.m., only stopping from time to time to check out and sometimes battle the wild Pokemon we came across, though I did not have much luck potential-wise during those meetings.

Anyway, I resumed our expedition to the oasis at 9 a.m. right after breakfast, and surprisingly I actually managed to come across one of the rarest species in the desert an hour after lunch. This was the first time I managed to stumble upon another human since I stepped into the outer area of the Hoenn Desert, and I actually ended up meeting two at once. Granted, that was more because the two were traveling together more than anything, but it still raised my human encounter count by two. After all those wild encounters, meeting other humans was a welcome change, and I was happy to accept their double battle challenge.

They suggested that we kept it at two Pokemon per person or rather them using two Pokemon each with me being allowed to use 4 in total since they wanted to keep the rest in reserve for safety's sake. I could see the wisdom in their decision and remembered that it was one of the suggestions in the ranger-printed desert guide. While it did not apply to me due to the absurd amount of Pokemon I was carrying around, I was happy to see that people actually seemed to do the smart thing, and I genuinely hoped that all desert travelers followed the pair's example.

Still, to ensure that I would not be sending out someone too strong I asked the two what stage their Pokemon was going to be at so that I could make sure to not send out anything higher than that since I had dark gold stage Pokemon, which Seb underlined by flexing his aura for a moment. I mentioned that to show that it was a legitimate concern and not just some boasting on my part. They were startled at first, both because of my question as well as Seb's flex, but they showed their understanding and shared that both their Pokemon would be at the silver stage.

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