CH96 (710), Cave Raider; No, Cave Explorer (5)

We appeared at the new haunted Forest, and everyone, except for the Shadinja elders and Shadinja (OF) who already did, went through Utopia's treatment. Once Utopia generated the habitat for the Nincada, I ordered Utopia to integrate it into the haunted forest, increasing its size a bit, and the habitat grew a bit more once all Shadinja as well as Nincada were recorded by Utopia.

While I had checked out all of the Shadinja before, at least I thought I did though that was before the upgrade, the same was not true for the Nincada. Still, since I was going to catch all of them anyway, due to the rule I set that all Pokemon inside the main space had to be caught by me or rather needed to have a bond with me even if it was an artificial one, I could rectify that during the capture process. 

Honestly, it was just a matter of protocol. The balls would not be used and simply stored inside my mansion in a room I set aside for the PokeBalls of all Utiopia inhabitants, so I used regular PokeBalls during the process. I began with one of the elders, who volunteered to show the rest that everything was fine. I first rechecked Shadinja to see the changes caused by Utopia's optimization and then captured him before letting him out again. 

Then I put a stamp of a Shadinja on the PokeBall using a stamp I made moments before. The ink was premade and for the elder's case, I used a golden ink to show his strength. That would make it easier for me to narrow down which PokeBall belonged to him once I stored all the balls inside the mansion in case I needed it at some point after all. I naturally also had white, grey, bronze, and silver colored ink which I would use for those of lower strength than gold.

Anyway, after the first elder, the other elders were up next, followed by the rest of the Shadinja, excluding the father-daughter duo I selected since I would use better balls for them. While I was checking, capturing, and releasing the Shadinja, I came across some who had unlocked a talent, with some of those talents being decent and some being rather mediocre. Sadly, none really stood out as great.

Something interesting that I missed due to there being too many Pokemon that underwent the optimization at once, was that one of the 137 Shadinja had actually unlocked a modifier, the Shiny one to be specific. Frankly, the color difference between the normal and Shiny Shadinja was pretty minor. It was no wonder that I didn't notice it until it was his turn. 

Unfortunately, the Shadinja only had Green potential even after the upgrade, so I saw no reason to single him out for anything special. He would simply have to contribute to the gene pool which was something he would do on his own anyway. Putting that aside, once I was done balling all Shadinja, I moved on to the Nincada, and I naturally checked each one of the 482 Nincada as well during the process.

Similar to the Shadinja, there were also a few Nincada that had unlocked a talent, though none had gotten a modifier. Among the Nincada that unlocked a talent, the best one pretty much functioned like Tough Claws, though it raised the power by 50% instead of 30%. Yet, even that was not enough to make me change my plans. What did have me adjust my plans however was a Nincada that had deep blue potential at 80% while being at the (high) iron stage.

Well, my plans for the father-daughter duo had not changed. I would still send the daughter to Kinji while adding the father to the reserve, but I decided to add the deep blue Nincada to the reserve team as well and order Father Shadinja to take him on as his student. I had seen Father Shadinja's status sheet and he was more than qualified for the role. While Nincada had the potential to surpass his master, that could take a long time if Shadinja did not slack off. 

'Name: N/A 

Species: Shadinja

Gender: Male

Age: 28+ years 

-

Type: Bug, Ghost

Potential: Deep Blue (86.98%)*'

Shadinja was pretty close to having his potential elevated to Light Purple, and as long as he followed through with the limit-breaking training he could even raise his potential to Deep Purple at the Dark Gold and Light Aurora at the Platinum stage. Going by his parameters and the fact that he had yet to break through to the gold stage I was certain that he was not averse to hard work, so I was sure he would go through with it.

'Parameters:

Stage: Silver Stage (High)

Vitality: B

Strength: B

Endurance: C

Agility: A

Energy Capacity: C

Energy Density: C'

Who knew, maybe having to train a talented student would fire him up enough that he would move to the main team instead of his student. I did not mind having one of them in both the reserve and the main team. I mean the type relation section of a Shadinja alone was enough to leave me without a complaint.

'Immunity:

Normal, Water, Electric, Grass, Ice, Fighting, Poison, Ground, Psychic, Bug, Dragon, Steel, Fairy

-

Resistance: 

None

-

Weaknesses: 

Fire (Minor), Flying (Minor), Rock (Minor), Ghost (Minor), Dark (Minor)'

Seeing so many immunities left one speechless, and even the 5 Minor weaknesses could not change that, especially not since he did not have Shedinja's problem of having low vitality. Besides, we should not forget that it was possible to reduce those with time thanks to resistance training. Unlike Shedinja who were very bad prospects for such training due to their rather bad vitality/perseverance, Shadinja could go through resistance training like any other Pokemon. 

Just the thought of a Pokemon with Speed Boost that had 13 immunities and zero weaknesses sent a shiver down my back. Anyway, the part that made me believe that Shadinja could easily serve as Nincada's teacher was his masteries/move section.

'Masteries: 

Bug Energy Manipulation (Advanced)

Ghost Energy Manipulation (Advanced)

----

Techniques: 

-

Novice:

Heal Block

-

Beginner:

None

-

Proficient: 

Sand Attack, Scratch, Harden, Mud-Slap, Absorb, Metal Claw, Fury Swipes, Screech, Bug Bite, Slash, Aerial Ace, False Swipe, Air Slash, Spite, Grudge, Swords Dance, Mind Reader

-

Advanced:

Double Team, Shadow Sneak, Confuse Ray, X-Scissor, Shadow Claw, Leech Life, Phantom Force, Bug Buzz, Shadow Ball

-

Mastered:

Fury Cutter, Agility'

Not only was the number of moves he knew pretty extensive, especially for a wild Pokemon, but their mastery was very impressive as well. The only ones among the wild Pokemon I caught that could come close were Toedscruel and Master Splinter, who had more mastered moves. However, the number of moves Master Splinter knew was much lower than Shadinja, and Toedscruel's were even lower than those of Master Splinter. 

Not to mention that he was nearly 10 times his age or nearly 30 times in Toedscruel's case, so Shadinja's feat was very impressive. Besides, the fact that his daughter knew nearly all his moves, though at a lower mastery, was proof that he was a good teacher.

Anyway, after completing the capture of the last Nincada, I let them settle down in the haunted forest on their own, though I asked two elders to stay back before calling Horus/Xatu over to introduce the two parties. I told the Shadinja to turn to Horus if they had any questions or if anything cropped up, and after I was done with that, I once again left Utopia since I still had a mysterious cave to explore.

Me and my travel group reappeared in the now-empty room, and since I had already explored the place I teleported us back to the tunnel behind the wall. Once there we began to discuss if we should return to the area where we spotted the Shadinja for the first time, or if we should continue our exploration from here. Phantump and Hades/Gengar wanted to continue from here while Thor/Raichu and Mothra/Butterfree suggested returning to the start, leaving me as the tiebreaker.

I briefly thought about it and decided to go back to our last proper exploration point; Mothra, who had been tapping on my head stopped doing that and cheered happily, while Thor just chuckled. The ghost duo grumbled for a moment, but happily told me to teleport us there, changing emotions at the drop of a hat, which startled Thor, causing the ghost duo to laugh.

I could not help but smile at their antics. I then told them to calm down before teleporting us to our destination. Our appearance scared a Diglett that was less than a meter from the place where we appeared, and it released a strong Magnitude as a reflexive response. Some people screamed, some people, farted, and this Diglett triggered a freaking mini-earthquake out of fear.

While its puny attack caused no harm, the slight shaking of the ground caused by this little guy caused a disturbance with big consequences. First of all, the shaking ground woke up a bunch of Geodude, including the one that was pissed at us, along with some Graveler. It also caused some of the stalagmites to crack, causing noise that disturbed the Zubat and Golbat hanging from the ceiling, causing them to become agitated.

The Diglett that caused all this fled underground as soon as it realized the problem it caused, and when I saw Geodude glaring at us as if this was our fault I knew that things were going downhill. I knew that I was not the only one to realize that when I heard Thor whisper "{oh shit}". I hastily sent Geodude a 'don't do it' message but it just grinned evilly before releasing a roar of frustration and hurling a rock at us.

I felt like cursing when it did that. Geodude's actions immediately drew the attention of every Pokemon toward our group and we being the obvious outsiders became the target of their ire. When more than a hundred Pokemon attacked us at once I could not help but release a sigh of frustration. Giving the Geodude that caused this a glare, I addressed Mothra and told her to stop everyone and everything that tried to attack us.

She used Psychic causing all the rocks, the sand, and wind attacks to freeze in place, along with the Zubat as well as the Golbat that flew towards us, and the Geodude and Graveler that were rolling, hopping, or running in our direction. The whole scene was very impressive and the frozen frames of the hundreds of Pokemon showcased the difference in strength between Mothra and this wild mob.

I told Mothra to send them all to sleep, the regular kind, not the eternal one, and she let out a cloud of Sleep Powder that covered everything aside from a circle centered around us. Her powder swiftly forced all wild Pokemon to sleep. Mothra was even so kind as to lower the Zubat as well as Golbat to the ground instead of simply letting go of her Psychic and allowing them to fall into the ground even though they tried to attack us.

I chose to ignore them all and let them sleep. Whatever happened to them after we left was not my problem. I briefly considered if I should check the Zubat to see if some of them were worthy of becoming Bruce and Moka's minions, but eventually decided against it. I would consider it once Bruce caught up with Moka, until then it would be better for them to not get distracted by any minions.

After making that decision we moved on without any hesitation, leaving behind a bunch of sleeping Pokemon. We continued our exploration and it didn't take long before we stumbled upon new Pokemon, or rather before the new Pokemon stumbled over us, quite literally at that. A little Duskull phased through the wall beside us and crashed into Thor. It got sent tumbling through the air which had Hades and Phantump laugh as Duskull spun around a bit before regaining control.

---------------------

---------------------

This part is purely to display Shadinja's status screen in one piece and does not count toward the word count.

'Name: N/A 

Species: Shadinja

Gender: Male

Age: 28+ years 

-

Type: Bug, Ghost

Potential: Deep Blue (86.98%)*

(Genetic) Modifiers: None

Abilities: Speed Boost, Wonder Guard

Talents: None

Affinities: Bug, Ghost

-

Bond: Mikail (artificial)

Quirks: None

----

Parameters:

Stage: Silver Stage (High)

Vitality: B

Strength: B

Endurance: C

Agility: A

Energy Capacity: C

Energy Density: C

----

Immunity:

Normal, Water, Electric, Grass, Ice, Fighting, Poison, Ground, Psychic, Bug, Dragon, Steel, Fairy

-

Resistance: 

None

-

Weaknesses: 

Fire (Minor), Flying (Minor), Rock (Minor), Ghost (Minor), Dark (Minor)

----

Condition: Healthy, Curious, Content

----

Masteries: 

Bug Energy Manipulation (Advanced)

Ghost Energy Manipulation (Advanced)

----

Techniques: 

-

Novice:

Heal Block

-

Beginner:

None

-

Proficient: 

Sand Attack, Scratch, Harden, Mud-Slap, Absorb, Metal Claw, Fury Swipes, Screech, Bug Bite, Slash, Aerial Ace, False Swipe, Air Slash, Spite, Grudge

-

Advanced:

Double Team, Mind Reader, Shadow Sneak, Confuse Ray, Swords Dance, X-Scissor, Shadow Claw, Leech Life, Phantom Force, Bug Buzz, Shadow Ball

-

Mastered:

Fury Cutter, Agility'

-----------------------------

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