CH78 (692), Capture Spree (2)

The Corphish operation turned out harder than the Tentacool one even though the Corphish had only half the Tentacool's number along with weaker leaders. It was simply the terrain that made the whole thing harder for us. While the fact that most Corphish and Crawdaunt had been within the ravines in the ground when we began acting meant that the Gyarados had an easy time surrounding the area, it also meant that our group had to either get inside those tears to handle our targets or get our targets out of them.

Option 1 was definitely out. While all of us aside from Manami/Lapras would have been able to squeeze inside those gaps, Stan/Gyarados and Co were too big to comparable move around, much less fight in there. Only Kun/Azuraid, Tiamat/Milotic, and Abzu were able to fight in there, and even they would have been unable to go all out. Still, just because we could not go in, did not mean that we could not force the Corphish and Crawdaunt out.

For that, we relied on some good old chemical or rather toxic warfare. Neither Corphish nor Cradaunt had the poison type after all, so unlike with the Tentacool, Medusa/Gyarados was able to play a rather big role this time around. Since quite a few poison moves would simply dilute before achieving the goal we wanted due to the fact that we were inside the ocean/water, she focused on gathering a lot of Toxic at once before throwing the Toxic down the ravines.

The Toxic only had to stay together long enough to plunge down the ravine and once it was down there the Toxic's dispersing within the water was actually to our advantage since it meant that it would spread toward the Corphish and Crawdaunt. Medusa simply had to provide a steady supply of Toxic to ensure that the poison concentration in the water was high enough to actually poison the Corphish.

It took a bit since the Corphish tribe proved to be quite stubborn, but they eventually did leave the ravines which at that point had already gained a greenish-purpleish tint due to the amount of Toxic Medusa had thrown down there. Their stubbornness resulted in all Corphish and Crawdaunt being rather heavily poisoned which made the following battle a bit anticlimactic, to put it kindly.

It did not take us long took take down all Corphish as well as Crawdaunt and the Gyarados at the perimeter had nearly nothing to do which meant that those that made it there got taken down as well. Well, I neither wanted to leave the Corphish poisoned after capturing them nor did I want to leave the wild one poisoned in case of complications, which would go against my intentions, so I had Manami use Sing to ensure every Corphish, as well as Crawdaunt, was sleeping.

Once they were asleep, I detoxified them all before capturing a hundred of the Corphish. The golden Crawdaunt woke up as we were leaving, but they did not attempt anything and simply watched us leave, though I was able to feel some frustration mixed with relief from them as they did that. After that, we moved on to the next marked area on my map which belonged to another group of Tentacool, though it was quite a bit smaller than the first one. During this stop, I captured another 60 Tentacool raising the total so far to 260.

It was only after another five capture trips, where I managed to capture an additional 50 Corphish, 70 Tentacool, and 90 Clamperl while adhering to the "only a third" rule, that we finally stopped for the day. It was already slightly past our usual dinner time, so I simply moved us to Utopia without bothering to return to Lilycove City or to look for an island.

Our marine capture group shared their exploits with everyone over dinner, and I could not help but think that we had a pretty good haul for the first day. I captured a total of 330 Tentacool, 150 Corphish, and 90 Clamperl by visiting a total of 8 marked areas on my map.

There was still more than double that number of unvisited marked areas left, so I was confident that I would be able to meet the number I wanted for each species. The Tentacool were nearly there already, so I could ignore their areas after another trip. Anyway, we relaxed for a while after dinner. It didn't take long before the active ones began to play among themselves, and they naturally dragged everyone else into their games as well after playing for a bit.

The next morning I did not immediately set out after breakfast. No, I decided to supervise everyone's morning training first before leaving Utopia since I was not in a particular rush to complete the captures. I also went ahead and arranged a bigger living space for the Pokemon participating in the Pinkan project before relocating all the Pokemon I bought in Lilycove City for that purpose. After that, I made my way to that area with my whole family before releasing all the Pokemon I had caught yesterday there as well.

The Pokemon were naturally surprised at the environment/situation they found themselves in, but that quickly gave way to uneasiness and worry. Before they could start to clamor I had Stan release a roar while Ryujin/Gyarados (dragon) as well as Enji/Arcanine utilized their talents, Alpha Predator and Alpha's Presence. That combination shut them up right away and drew their attention to my Pokmeon and myself. Mothra and the others took that as the cue to briefly release their might, which cowed the nearly 600 Pokemon rather fast.

After all that happened, I told them succinctly that they had all been captured by me and that they would be living in this place from now on. I promised them that they would not have to worry about food as well as safety as long as they were here before listing the advantages that living inside Utopia had. I also straightforwardly told them what I was expecting from them in the future, but I assured them that they were in no danger during the process at all, which was true. 

I even made sure to use my aura to prove that I meant what I said and that along with my Pokemon was enough for them to accept my words. Well, I guess that they could now feel the energy situation inside Utopia after calming down also helped, along with the fact that they could feel their exhaustion recede, while the minor injuries that some of them had suffered during the capture visibly healed before their eyes.

Once I was done settling the new arrivals I thanked my Pokemon for their help before informing the marine squad that we would be continuing where we left off yesterday in a few moments. Following that, I left Utopia together with Manami, and upon settling on the water, I asked her to head in the direction of the next marked area on my map. Once we were only two kilometers away from the supposed Clamperl locale, I asked Manami to stop and called out Kun so that he could scout ahead.

It took him only 10 minutes to come back, and he was empty-handed or empty-winged, I guess. Anyway, he did not bring along knocked-out Clamperl since according to him he saw no need to capture one for interrogation. I brought out the Slytherin Squad as well as the Milotic duo so that they could listen in as well, and from Kun's description, I concluded that we would not need the support of the Gyarados underlings.

There were only a hundred or so Clamperl present, without any Gorebyss and/or Huntail. I was honestly surprised by that since the last one had two pairs overseeing their group. It was possible that they were out on a search for food or some other reason, but regardless of why, it was a fact that there currently were only Clamperl staying in the marked area.

After considering everything and consulting with everyone we decided to not bother splitting up. We directly headed for the Clamperl, and Manami sang them all to sleep while the others blocked the attacks the Clamperl tried to use to interrupt her. Honestly, while their attempt was admirable, it was also futile since the strongest among them was only at the silver stage. 

Still, while their attacks ended up being useless, it did allow me to locate the iron stage ones among them, and after making a proper count of how many Clamperl there were, I caught 36 of them, which made up exactly a third of them. A Gorebyss along with a Huntail did show up just as we were leaving, and looking at their slightly injured state I presumed that my assumption that they either had been chasing after someone or out hunting was correct. 

The duo did try to swim towards us full of aggression when they saw us leaving their place, (mid) gold undulations spreading and all that, but they proverbially tucked their tails between their legs and acted as if we did not exist after Stan flexed his (high) dark gold stage power. I could feel their embarrassment as well as frustration at the situation and had to chuckle which made me swallow some salt water, which in turn caused my Pokemon to laugh at my expense.

'Ha ha, very funny,' I said dryly though I did feel amused by the situation. 'I'll bring you out once we are at the next place,' I added before moving everyone aside from Manami and Kun to Utopia. That might seem petty, but it wasn't since it was what we did after each successful capture operation. Manami and Kun started to laugh again when I put the others away. 

'Yeah, yeah, keep laughing,' I said with fake exasperation. 'Once you're finally done laughing, let's head to the next place. That Huntail is going to get an aneurysm otherwise with the way it is glaring at us,' I added, directing their attention to the Huntail that was indeed glaring at us, which was kind of impressive since Huntail did not have the most expressive eyes.

That calmed them down and we finally left. Over the next 8.5 hours, we visited 12 more marked areas, and I ended up meeting all the goals I set during those visits. I caught another 30 Tentacool bringing the total to 360. I also caught another 220 Clamperl, bringing the total number of Clamperl in Utopia to 361. I naturally also caught more Corphish, and thanks to the extra 190 Corphish I caught, I ended up with a total of 348 Corphish in Utopia.

On top of that, we ended up coming across a pretty big school of Remoraid while heading towards the sixth marked area, and I caught 64 of those after "blitzing" the whole school. I would have liked to catch more, but they ran/swam away as soon as Manami began to Sing. Even releasing the others did not help all that much. While 64 was not a small number, I still felt a bit bad about the missed opportunity since there had been at least six to seven hundred Remoraid in that school.

We also came across a pod of Wailmer and Wailord, but I left them alone even though I wanted some Wailmer since the pod was not all that big, and capturing just 12 or so Wailmer was not enough to justify the effort. Yep, we left the pod alone because there were not enough Wailmer to justify us taking action.

Anyway, I was satisfied with our haul, and through our hard work, we now had 6 large groups ready for the Pinkan project. I would keep an eye out for any Wurmple once I was on the road toward Hardfort City since those were likely the final species that I could easily gather a large amount of while I was on the road. Other than that, the best I could probably manage was to capture a handful of other qualified species if I was lucky enough. 

Regardless, I informed everyone during dinner that we were done with our little sea excursion and that I would be returning to Lilycove City tomorrow morning so that we could start heading towards our next Gym.

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