CH184 (798), Take It Or Don’t, I Don’t Care

After capturing the electric lizards and dogs, I made my way toward the Skorupi next. Less than a minute in I decided that checking all Pokemon living within the oasis' grounds would take me a week or so if I kept taking things slow, so I took off the ground and floated up roughly 10 meters before flying in the direction of the Skorupi. The reason I flew there instead of jogging was that it was easier to spot my targets this way than it would have been on the ground. Speed-wise it certainly made no difference since I was flying at a mere 50 km/h, which was to ensure I did not miss anything.

While I was flying, I spotted some more Zigzagoon and even a few Nincada which was unexpected. Yet, I stopped for none of them deeming it unneeded since I was about to reach the Skorupi. Not even two minutes after I took off, I saw my first Skorupi, so I landed not far from it and told Hades/Gengar to come out of my shadow before approaching it. Pokemon like Skorupi, just like the Trapinch, would not be as accepting of me approaching them even with me radiating my "I'm nice" aura, so Hades was needed to keep it from doing something stupid like attacking me.

Despite my strength, I looked much less threatening than Hades, especially with my aura which was kinda the purpose of it. I was showing that I could be trusted, while Hades showed that I should not be messed with even if I was nice. Anyway, as I came closer, the Skorupi clacked its tail claws together to warn me against approaching any further, which I naturally ignored after telling it that I wanted to talk. Skorupi did not care about that and its tail began to take on a purple shine when it saw me keep coming closer. Once it took that step, Hades flexed his (high) gold stage prowess in warning, causing Skorupi's tail to lose its purple luster due to the shock and fright it felt.

Hades' display of his power also caused the few Skorupi that were rushing over menacingly to freeze in place for a moment before they attempted to escape. I obviously would not let them do that when they had so politely helped me by gathering together like this, so I froze them in place using telekinesis. A few clever ones broke out of my hold by gathering dark energy in their mouths, but a few precisely aimed Shadow Balls landing in front of them courtesy of Hades just as they touched the ground had them disabused from their silly attempt. They directly lay flat down on the ground, their tail limp, to show that they were not going to run.

I had to chuckle at that and gave Hades a thumbs up for his great assist since he had done that without any prompt on my part. Hades returned my thumbs up with his own, along with a "Guy Smile", which I ignored in favor of focusing on the Skorupi in front of me, who stiffened nervously at the attention after witnessing the byplay that just took place. I had to smile at that and crouched down to pat the Skorupi, who did not dare to move with Hades looking at it over my shoulder, on its head placatingly. Ultimately, it did not really matter whether it felt reassured by that or not. The crucial bit was that she did not dare to attack me and that I Observed her status as I patted her head.

Skorupi had light yellow potential with no other outstanding points, which meant that she fell a bit short of my acceptance criteria, so I let her be and directly made my way to the closest Skorupi, leaving a confused Skorupi behind me. I Observed all 8 Skorupi, but none of them managed to make the cut. The first female Skorupi ended up being the one with the best potential out of this bunch. Maybe they were aware of that and that was why they rushed up to help her. Regardless, I had made sure to spread out my senses while I was checking the Skorupi, which was why I was aware of the 12 Skorupi spread around us that were keeping an eye on the situation.

Their behavior was another reason I thought the first female might be someone important to the Skorupi; maybe the daughter of their leader. I would have mentioned wife as well but she was too weak and hence likely too young for that, though I guess it was a bit presumptuous of me to try to force my age standard on the Skorupi, so she could in fact be the wife of the leader, though that was where I was drawing the line since she was without a doubt too weak to be the leader seeing how some of the other Skorupi I had already checked were stronger than her.

There was no case of weaker Pokemon leading a tribe even if they were designated heirs of the leader. In case the leader died, the heir could only take over if he, she, or it was strong enough to do so. Otherwise, they had to hope that they had a supporter/relative who was strong enough to temporarily take over for them until they could do so themselves. If that was not the case, the heir could only hope to be forced away instead of being straight-up killed by the new leadership. The chances of them being allowed to stay despite being deprived of their position were minimal due to the risk they could pose in the future.

The only exception to that was if the new leader was absolutely convinced that the former heir could not pose a threat at any point in the future to them or their progeny. *haaa* I ended up digressing again; I let out Horus/Xatu, Tatsumaki/Alakazam, Gwen/Gardevoir, and Ali/Gallade to let them follow the plan I shared with them when I noticed the watching Skorupi. The four psychics spread out, and not only prevented the onlookers from running but also locked onto the other Skorupi in the area before levitating them all over as well.

Including the 12 watchers, they gathered a total of 37 Skorupi, whom they placed in front of me. A trio of Drapion strode over as well, just as the last Skorupi was placed in front of me, and they were looking very unhappy with us, which I could understand. I also understand why they had slipped past the psychic quartet's senses/powers considering that they were dark types. Still, since the power of our side was revealed while they were levitating the Skorupi over, the Drapion did not attack us straight away despite their obvious irritation at us.

They did flex their own power though, likely to indicate that they were not afraid to fight if it came down to it. Their strength was not bad, with two of them being at the dark gold stage while the third one was at the (high) gold stage, but it was clear that they were at a disadvantage, which was definitely why they were holding back. They watched me for a moment as I went around the Skorupi patting them one by one before they finally lost patience and asked me what I wanted from them. I just turned my head while still crouching before the 20th Skorupi and told them that I was just inspecting the Skorupi to see if any of them would rouse my interest in recruitment.

They did not like that and for one moment it seemed like they would attack me but I told them that I would exchange 1 Skorupi with 1 mature Chesto as well as Wiki Berry tree, or we could fight and I would beat them up before bringing away the Skorupi I wanted for free. They growled angrily at the latter part but still stopped looking like they were going to attack me. Oh, I could feel that they very much wanted to do so, but they did not plan on going through with it, so I ended up peacefully finishing my checkup.

I managed to find two Skorupi worthy of joining Utopia; One had green potential, while the other had deep yellow potential. Once I was done with the last Skorupi, I stood up, pat my backside, and turned toward the Drapion before casually waving my hand, following which two fully grown Chesto, as well as Wiki Berry trees, appeared between us. There was still earth around their roots since I simply brought them out along with a good part of the earth they were planted in since I did not want to uproot them. The Utopian Earth was a bonus from me since I was most definitely underpaying them.

Either way, after taking out the 4 berry trees, I brought out 2 PokeBalls before lobbing them at the 2 Skorupi that had caught my attention. Neither of them dared to resist so the capturing process went smoothly, and as soon as the capture was complete, I levitated the balls into my hands before placing them inside Utopia. Following that, I gave the Drapion a simple nod before I took off into the air, and began to leave to look for more interesting species to check out. Horus, Tatsumaki, Gwen, and Ali naturally followed right after me.

They seemed amused by my cold act and Horus joked that I had looked like I was trying very hard to prevent myself from farting, which had the other laugh, but made me pout, …, fake-pout to play along with his joke. I protested that I did not look like that, and Gwen spoke up in my favor. She said that I looked very cool, which had the others snicker as if implying that she was just saying that to placate me. We continued joking like that for a few moments before we stopped in place because I spotted a bunch of Wooper led by three Quagsire trudging along the ground in the direction of the lake.

I had to stop because they were on the list of species qualified for the Pinkan Project, which meant that they were all qualified for recruitment regardless of their potential. Hence, I was going to capture all 41 Wooper and 3 Quagsire whether they liked it or not. In fact, I did not even bother giving them a warning or anything; I just told my psychic companions to use Hypnosis on the whole group. The Wooper and Quagsire stood no chance and fell asleep before they knew it. I let a PokeBall fall on each of the sleeping Pokemon, and most captures went without a hitch. Only some of the PokeBalls wiggled for a bit before eventually signaling a successful capture.

Ultimately none of the Wooper/Quagsire managed to escape their PokeBalls, and I directly transferred them all to Utopia after wrapping them in my psionic energy. After that unexpected mass capture, I decided to meet up with Mothra/Butterfree and the Nido duo first before I continued to explore the oasis, so I had Horus and co grab onto me before I Teleported back to the place I left those three at. Once we appeared there, I looked up and saw Mothra flying around with Seb/Nidoking and Gaia/Nidoqueen in tow. They noticed our arrival as well, and Mothra flew down to our side.

She happily welcomed me back before focusing on Horus and Co, whom she cheerfully greeted. Seb and Gaia greeted us as well even if they were nowhere near as enthusiastic as Mothra. I asked them if they had fun with Mothra and they gave me satisfied nods and smiles before verbally confirming that they had fun. Gaia then shared that they had flown all over the lake and surveyed it for me while they were having fun. Seb chimed in and began to mention that they spotted more than just Magikarp in there.

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