CH94 (708), Cave Raider; No, Cave Explorer (3)

"Seeing how happy you are, you must have managed to capture that special Ninjask," I said after Hades/Gengar and Phantump stopped in front of us. "{Nope, we don't have it}," Hades replied, sounding smug despite coming back empty-handed. "{But, we've found something just as good or even better}," Phantump chimed in sounding pretty proud. "Ooo, let's hear it," I said, curious what they had found and I was not the only one. Thor/Raichu and Mothra/Butterfree were just as interested.

"{Well, we tried to go after that Ninjask as you asked}," Hades began to explain, "{and we even managed to track it down since it had stopped to munch on some tasty-smelling plants not far from here}" he continued, and I made a note to check out that flower he mentioned. If even Hades found the plant appetizing and it served as food/snack for the suspected ghost Ninjask, then the plant had to either contain a good amount of spectral energy or possess some pure/refined spectral energy. 

"{Un, we watched it for a bit and followed it secretly when it moved on}," Phantump spoke up, before pulling out a bunch of light purple nettle-looking plants. "{I made sure to grab some of the plants before we left after it}," Phantump declared happily. "{I want to add them to my forest}," he announced before zooming in on me. "{Can we plant them there please?}" he requested and I nodded quite happy at his initiative. I wouldn't have to search for them now.

"I'll transplant them right now," I promised while motioning him to hand them over, which he happily did. I did a quick check before transferring them inside Utopia, and looking at its description I understood why ghosts like it.

'Name: Phantom Nettle

Type: Ghost, Grass

Class: E

Description: This kind of Nettle is capable of growing inside caves or other places with minimal to no sunlight, though the latter requires the Nettle to be paired with Luminous Moss. Continued exposure to spectral energy over multiple generations has caused this particular variety to mutate, transforming it into a plant capable of absorbing ambient spectral energy to grow. As a consequence, the Phantom Nettle contains both spectral and grass-type energy, the proportion depending on its environment. A Phantom Nettle if old enough will possess a drop of refined spectral energy, which makes it a favorite snack of many ghost-type Pokemon.'

Utopia successfully analyzed it and was now capable of growing Phantom Nettles as well. In fact, it could grow up to B-class Phantom Nettles now, so I instructed Utopia to plant clusters of all classes across Phantump's forest. Naturally, I had Utopia plant them as seeds instead of having Utopia produce grown ones since growing seeds did not take up its production capacity as much with the first batch not taking up any capacity at all thanks to the Phantom Nettles Phantump provided.

Anyway, after putting away the Phantom Nettles, I motioned for the ghost duo to continue with their report. "{Ehm}," Hades faked clearing his throat before he picked up where Phantump left off. "{We followed the Ninjask for a while. It did not bother following the tunnels going straight through the walls if necessary, and after once again phasing through yet another wall we actually ended up in another chamber, though that one was smaller than this one}," Hades shared until Phantump interrupted him.

"{Guess what we found there}," Phantump challenged enthusiastically. "{There were lots of Ninjask like the one we followed there along with a lot of Nincada}," he directly announced without giving us the chance to say anything. "{Yep, the chamber was full of Ninjask and Nincada. I saw no other Pokemon}," Hades gave a nod before corroborating Phantump's statement. "{I think we managed to stumble upon their settlement}," he followed up and I had to smile.

I was quite happy to hear that the ghost "Ninjask" was not a singular case but a variation that happened due to the atmosphere here in the cave system. The way the two were describing the situation of the chamber it really did sound like it was their territory and most likely their nursery. There was no doubt that we were going to head there to check things out and I was planning to capture some of them, though how many that was going to be depended on the number of Ninjask and Nincada we would find there.

"That's great. Good job," I praised the duo which had them laugh happily. "Alright, lead the way," I instructed them and they saluted before asking us/me to follow them. We walked for around a minute before Hades and Phantump stopped before a wall. "{We have to go through 5 or 6 meters of rock to reach the other side}," Hades, explained why we came to a halt. "{You guys obviously can't phase through the wall, so should we blast or dig our way through?}" he asked and I shook my head.

"There's no need to destroy parts of the cave system. If it's really just 5 to 6 meters, you can just phase through to the other side and we'll lock onto you before teleporting over," I explained and he nodded his head before giving a thumbs up along with a wide smile. "{Great idea}," Phantump praised and I just chuckled. "Just make sure that there's enough free space around you for us to appear in. A clear 2-meter radius around you should be enough," I followed up and they nosed before phasing through the wall.

I followed them with my senses, and once they stopped and remained in the same position for 10 seconds, I teleported us to their side. After that, we continued on our way to the Ninjask chamber and we had to walk for nearly 20 minutes and go through 4 more walls before Hades declared that the Ninjask space was behind the wall we were currently standing in front of. We could have made the trip much quicker if we had run or at least jogged over, but I wanted to check out the areas we passed, so we walked at regular speeds instead.

Interestingly enough, we finally started to come across more ghosts though the number was still lower than I expected it to be. We stumbled upon some Shuppet, Duskull, Gastly, Haunter, Misdreavus, and even a Sableye during our trip to the Ninjask chamber. Whether that was because we were heading deeper into the cave system or because of our new way of traveling, I did not know, but I was happy to see them regardless.

Still, because the reaction of most of them was to run/fly away when they saw us I was only able to check out some of them, out of which only a Misdreavus had good enough potential to interest me. Since we were still going to spend more time in the cave system I decided to go for the nicer capture alternative instead of battling and subduing Misdreavus just in case someone came looking for it.

After offering her some items containing spectral energy and sharing with her the prospect of living in a place even better suited for her than this cave system. That was met with disbelief and only reluctantly accepted with the help/persuasion from Hades and Phantump. I was not sure if it was because she was a ghost or because I had gotten used to being able to quickly bribe Wurmple into joining with some food, but I was not really happy with how long it took us to persuade Misdreavus.

5 minutes to sway Misdreavus into agreeing to be caught when I could have beaten and simply captured her within seconds felt like way too much, even if she was guaranteed to turn into a 5-star Misdreavus after going through Utopia's care. Nonetheless, aside from that less-than-satisfactory capture experience, we also came upon a Cubone wandering one of the tunnels, which meant that there was a chance for me to see if the environment of this cave system was truly capable of allowing Cubone to evolve into Alolan Marowak or not, though that depended on how many Cubone there were really since I had only seen one so far.

Anyway, now that we were in front of the Ninjask habitat, with only a final wall separating us from it, I addressed the others. "If possible I want to see if I can get a batch of Ninjask as well as Nincada to join Utopia, and I'm really interested in checking out the place to see if there is a special reason they chose to settle here instead of another chamber, so let's not provoke or attack them unless they attack us first alright," I shared, looking a Phantump, Hades, as well as Thor into the eyes to convey that I wanted to see no pranks and they all promised to behave.

I was happy with their promise and just as I was about to tell Hades to head inside so that I could teleport after him, a "Ninjask" phased through the wall directly beside us. It seemed just as surprised as us and froze mid-air. Deciding not to let this sudden gift slip by I immobilized the "Ninjask" and brought it closer so that I could properly check it out before entering their chamber/territory.

The "Ninjask" initially struggled a bit, but it stopped doing that once it noticed that it was severely outmatched and that we did not seem to plan to hurt it, allowing me to properly observe it without its wriggling. I had to say that Hades and Phantump's description had been spot on. It really looked like a nice blend between Ninjask and Shedinja with Ninjask serving as the basis. Once I was done observing its body, I moved on to its status sheet, and due to its relatively weak strength, there were no secrets.

'Species: Shadinja

Gender: Female

Type: Bug, Ghost

Potential: Deep Yellow

Stage: Bronze-Stage (Mid)

(Genetic) Modifiers: None

Abilities: Speed Boost

Talents: None

Affinities: Bug, Ghost'

Well, the species section answered the question of whether it was a Ninjask variant or a third/alternate evolution without leaving room for any doubt. Apparently, this new evolution of Nincada was called Shadinja, which was a bit funny since that sounded closer to Shedinja than it did to Ninjask, who by the looks of the female definitely served as the foundation for Shadinja's physique.

It was possible that the fact that Shadinja was a bug/ghost type caused its name to resemble Shedinja more, or maybe it was nature's compensation for using Ninjask as the base even though Shedinja actually had the same typing as Shadinja. Still, I was not surprised that Shadinja's body was closer in looks to Ninjask rather than Shedinja simply because of the difference between the two species. Ninjask was a comprehensive/true evolution of Nincada while Shedinja no matter how pitiful it sounded was more of a "fortunate" waste recycling development that took place during evolution, at least the standard creation of Shedinja was like that.

I was not discounting the possibility that an environment like this one could cause a Nincada to properly evolve into Shedinja without the inclusion/involvement of a Ninjask, though looking at the current situation it was likely that Shadinja was the result of exactly that, which got my brain churning.

It was possible that Nincada actually only had two "proper" evolutions, namely Ninjask and Shadinja. Shedinja simply came about when a Nincada partly fulfilled the conditions for a Shadinja evolution, which would make the waste recyclement comparison I used earlier quite apt.  Maybe the ghostly energy in Nincada's body took hold/possessed the carapace during the molding that happened when Nincada evolved leading to a transformation of the carapace, with it becoming alive and adapting its Shedinja form by making use of some of the evolution energy. This was definitely an interesting idea and could become a separate paper once I went public with Shadinja's discovery.

Anyway, I noted that this Shadinja had Speed Boost as her ability which was definitely a great ability. Still, I could not help but wonder if Wonder Guard was also in Shadinja's ability pool. If that were the case, then Shadinja would be a very strong species on the virtue of its two abilities alone as long as its RV/BS was as high as Ninjask's RV/BS or higher, and I believed that it could only be higher, not lower, so I was really looking forward to seeing if other Shadinja had Wonder Guard or not.

Well, at least I could check straight away how high its RV/BS was by looking deeper into its species section, and I ended up being more than right. Apparently, Shadinja had an RV/BS of 515 which put it at least on the same level as Dusknoir and Chandelure at the top level of the ghost type. In fact, if its second species ability ended up being Wonder Guard on top of Speed Boost, then I would place Shadinja ahead of Dusknoir, Chandelure, or Decidueye.

I was not sure if I would place Shadinja past Dragapult or even on the same level as that apex species, even with a possible Wonder Guard Speed Boost combination, but honestly, I felt that its prowess was probably not far behind that of the ghost-dragon if Shadinja truly had that Wonder Guard as well.

Anyway, I could not help but notice that Shadinja's RV of 515 could be reached if we added a fourth of Shedinja's RV of 236 on top of Ninjask's RV of 456, which could be seen as support for my earlier theory. Either way, Shadinja having an RV of 515 meant that it was the superior evolution for the Nincada line.

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