CH183 (797), Desert Exploration (4)

It ultimately took us until 11 a.m. on the fifth morning to step onto the green grass of the large oasis. It was interesting how I had not met any other humans until recently, but during my journey to this oasis, I ended up meeting four of them, the first pair included. The latter two encounters happened yesterday and what both people had in common was that they were coming from the oasis I was heading to, though seeing how I met them hours apart, they did not travel together.

The first one even told me that he had seen two others around the oasis before he left, so considering that the second person I later met was one of those, I was likely to see the other person pretty soon, which was fine as long as they did not bother me while I attempted to check the oasis inhabitants to see if I could get a good haul. Anyway, I had stopped sand surfing as soon as the ground turned less arid since I did not want to damage the oasis, and I had to walk for nearly 20 minutes slightly above my usual pace to reach the lake in the center of the oasis.

Due to the size of the water body and its effect on its surroundings, the thickness of the greenery as well as its dimensions were quite a bit bigger than the previous oases. That was obvious for the small and mini oasis, but even the medium-sized oasis looked much worse than this one. I briefly floated up to get a better picture of the oasis, and the size of this water body was not that much bigger compared to the medium one; I would place it at probably about 9 times an Olympic pool compared to the medium oasis' 6 times, which meant that the lake here was only a bit more than double the medium one's size.

While floating down and moving right beside the water, I looked into the lake to check its depth. I saw that it was fairly deeper than the pond of the medium-sized oasis, and it appeared that this depth difference had a significant impact. The difference between a depth of 2 to 3 meters and 8 to 9 meters might not seem much but going by the fact that the green area of this oasis was more than 10 times that of the medium one, it had an obviously great effect on its surroundings. I was also pretty sure that this lake has or had a decently sized connection to an underground river or something like that since I spotted a bunch of Magikarp while looking down.

The other oases did not have any water Pokemon inside their water bodies, but this one did, and that was the only explanation I could think of. Actually, let me retract that; It could have also been due to some people thinking that releasing a bunch of water Pokemon into the lake would be a great idea. Either way, this added some marine life to the oasis, which was nice I guess, especially since there might be more than just Magikarp.

Regardless, my attention was drawn to Seb/Nidoking and Gaia/Nidoqueen who had just trotted to my side. Seb complained that I shouldn't have left them behind to float ahead. I apologized for that while Mothra/Butterfree, who was still lounging on my head, and Hades/Gengar, who peeked out of my shadow, laughed at me for that. Gaia added that she would not have minded if I had levitated them along, and I had to be blind as well as dumb to not notice that she would have liked that very much.

The sparkle in her eyes when she mentioned levitating and her feelings at that moment were enough to show that, so I promised to do that the next time, which earned me a radiant smile from Gaia and a happy laugh from Seb, who appeared just as excited at the prospect, though I could understand why. Flying through the air was something nearly all earthbound beings looked forward to after all, so no matter how often they experienced it, they would always look forward to the next time.

Nonetheless, someone decided to take things into their own hand. With a startled yelp, the Nido duo suddenly took off the ground and began to rise into the air. I could feel the psychic energy coming from atop my head, which made it clear that Mothra was the one moving Gaia and Seb. She declared as much when she proudly proclaimed to the happily giggling/laughing Nido duo that there was no need to wait for me to do that and they they could just come to her whenever they wanted to feel as if they were flying. She then patted me on the head and told me to just do what I wanted and leave the two to her.

Hades, who had left my shadow to join in on the fun and flit around Seb as well as Gaia, nodded at that before giving me a thumbs up. He then proudly poked at his own chest before telling me to leave my security to him. Hades even did the whole sparkling teeth thing when he declared that, going all out in his Guy imitation. Heck, he even shouted YOUTH before jumping right back inside my shadow. All he was missing was the jumpsuit, the bowl cut, and the caterpillar eyebrows.

Honestly, I was very glad that he did not go that far since it would have made me question whether telling/showing them the story of the blue beast of Kantoha was a good idea. Still, when Hades peeked his head out a few moments later happily laughing, I had to chuckle as well. I told him that he got a 7 from me for that, and he protested that it had been at least an 8 before looking up to Mothra and thanking her for the 9, which she had projected into the air through a trick shot using Stun Spore.

We all laughed when the Stun Spore then landed on top of Hades, briefly immobilizing him, which had him slip back into my shadow. He came back up nearly instantly, likely thanks to Mothra weakening her move, and admitted with begrudging respect that she got him good with that one before breaking out in a laugh. I just smiled at him before focusing back on the reason why I came here in the first place, which was to explore the oasis to see if I could get my hands on some interesting/good Pokemon. I had seen some Helioptile and Skorupi while I was up in the air, so I chose to head towards the Helioptile first since they were close by.

I first told Mothra that she should stay at this place so that she could let Seb and Gaia fly around for a bit without messing up my plans since they would attract a lot of attention if they joined me which went against my plan to approach the Pokemon calmly. She did not mind that and patted me on the head once before taking off to settle on a large rock to my left. Telling them to have fun I made my way towards the Helioptile. It took me only a few minutes to reach them during which I passed by a Sandshrew and a pair of Zigzagoon, the latter of which was a bit unexpected.

Still, after thinking about it for a bit I decided that Pokemon like Zigzagoon, Rattata, and Co were known to be hardy and resilient enough to survive anywhere that covered the minimum conditions for their survival. While the desert itself did not fall under that category, an oasis of this size definitely did, so if some Zigzagoon somehow managed to make it here, or got thrown here by someone (singular or multiple), they could definitely survive at this place. In fact, Zigzagoon aside, I even spotted a trio of Taillow roosting on a tree not far behind the Helioptile just now.

Anyway, the Helioptile perked up when I closed in on them and they were not alone since I spotted a pair of Heliolisk among them, though that was much less surprising than the Electrike and the lone Manectric that also focused on me. I mean, I understood why they would stick to the Helioptile as well as Heliolisk since those were natural solar generators that would allow the Electrike/Manectric to absorb the electricity they released naturally. What I had not expected was to see some here even if we were at an oasis.

I just could not believe that some Electrike/Manectric would wander through the desert for days or weeks before stumbling on an oasis that had a group of Helioptile/Heliolisk living in it; That seemed way too unlikely/unnatural to be true. It was way more likely that humans were involved or maybe some psychic type, and if that was the case for them, then it was likely true for the water types and Zigzagoon as well, along with any of the other usual non-desert Pokemon I would find at this place. Honestly, I might have thought that the ranger had a hand in this, but that seemed unlikely since they usually did not interfere with the local ecology. At least they did not do so without a good reason.

Hence, it was more likely that it was a combination of people acting on their whims as well as Pokemon wandering over. It could have also been a bunch of coincidences or a psychic type like Xatu or Grumpig. Either way, I radiated my aura to show both the Electrike and Helioptile groups that I meant no harm. I could feel that that curbed their distrust so I decided to go a step further and brought out a handful of small Thunder Shards as well as some Pecha and Wacan Berries since life had taught me that good/tasty food was the answer to nearly all questions, and electric types generally enjoyed Pecha and Wacan berries along with a few other varieties. The shards were more for the Electrike/Manectric since all the Helios needed was the sun.

Anyway, thanks to my gifts and my aura the two groups warmed up to me very quickly and none of them minded me stroking their heads, with many of them even leaning in, showing that they enjoyed a good head rub/scratch. I naturally did not forget to Observe everyone while I was at it, and I was happy that I got some decent results. Out of the 38 Electrike, one had green potential while two had deep yellow potential, so they made it on my recruitment list. I ignored the Manectric despite his light green potential since he was the leader of his group so there was no way that he would leave willingly. I was just happy to have gotten 3 qualified Pokemon out of the relatively small group.

The Helioptile were quite a bit higher in number, though that did not change much for me since only 4 of the 81 Helioptile made it on my list. Of those 1 had light green potential while another had deep yellow potential. The third and fourth ones were exceptions like Cacnea since these two Helioptile had an additional affinity as well. While the Helioptile in question only had light yellow and yellow potential respectively, he/she happened to have a dragon affinity on top of his/her electric and normal affinities. I was not sure which dragon had chosen to sleep with one of the Helioptile's parents or one of their ancestors since all of them were capable of doing so but it seemed that it happened to at least one of them, leading to two Helioptile with a dragon affinity.

Regardless, once I had checked everyone, I naturally began to work on the ones that made it on my list. I pulled out some of the other berries that grew in Utopia that electric types loved and handed them out to everyone present. I also took out some of the food/snack pellets made for electric types living in Utopia and gave them solely to the ones I had marked which made them very happy. I spent roughly half an hour with them just playing with them and feeding them before I gave my targets the offer to join me. Despite their obvious excitement at my offer, they still appeared a bit reluctant even when they heard how they would have unlimited access to berries and regular access to the pellets if they joined me, which was rare but spoke well of them.

Nevertheless, they agreed without hesitation when I told them that I would plant a few berry trees for their fellows/groups in return for their joining me to thank the others for the care they had shown them so far.

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