CH128 (742), Sceptile Sighted

I saw no reason to go out again after Tyson's party since it had gotten way too late by then, so we resumed our journey the next morning, right after breakfast. I chose to leave the morning training session to an Earth Clone, which was still practically me since it was my second thought stream that controlled it, but everyone saw it as a second-class me, which was kinda fair but at the same time not. Anyway, I did not want to have a whole mind-over-matter debate inside my head right now, so I pushed that to the side and told Phantump to lead the way the classic way.

When he began rushing ahead at close to his top speed, I told him to take it easy since we were going to be walking for hours, and we all knew he couldn't keep up at that speed for so long. Phantump slowed down to roughly 20 km/h, which translated to us just walking fast; This naturally meant that we could properly enjoy/check out our surroundings and everything it had to offer while we were walking since we were not just blurring/rushing past everything. Consequently, we once again got to meet/interact with wild Pokemon and the random/rare trainer we came across.

My Pokemon, especially the ones at and below the gold stage definitely appreciated those encounters since it allowed them to enjoy a battle or two against strangers. Unfortunately for my dark gold group, we came across no challengers for them so far and I honestly was not expecting that to change. Once it was time for lunch, I called for a stop, and due to the events during the last two days, I decided to have lunch inside Utopia with the not-so-slight expectation that someone might come up to me to ask me to check their status sheet.

Unfortunately, that did not happen, but seeing how Luna/Clefable, Thor/Raichu, and Kun/Azuraid were only missing a final parameter increase to complete their limit-breaking phase, I was not wrong for thinking like that. Anubis/Lucario and Tyson/Machamp had set the precedent with their back-to-back breakthroughs, and these three had seen quite a bit of action during the last few days so it was possible that they could continue to the chain the other two started. That they were still training very hard in hopes of inducing that final push, at least for Luna and Kun who were not keeping me company outside Utopia, also contributed to my raised expectations.

Still, even though it did not happen during lunch, did not mean that it would not happen during/after dinner. Well, it was what I wished would happen, just like the dark gold group that hoped for a chance for at least one of them to stretch their muscles; At least that was what I/we thought as we left Utopia for our second trip outside. Yet, by the time it was 9 p.m., and I decided to head back inside Utopia for a late dinner, all the dark gold group had been able to do was relax, hang out, watch the live stream I was projecting into the sky, or simply train; Outside our usual two daily training sessions, obviously.

Nonetheless, just because that was the case for them, did not mean that I would be disappointed as well. Well, the day ended without any status check requests after all, but that was fine I guess. I had just been a bit overeager because a breakthrough happened two days in a row. 

The next day began a new week, and after the way yesterday went, I went about the day with a "It happens when it happens" attitude. Arcday and Mewday passed by without anything interesting happening if we discounted the usual wild battles and the five trainer battles that took place within that period. The biggest news as far as I was concerned was that I finally completed the massage session at the end of Mewday, but frankly, that only had me consider if I should start an even more demanding undertaking.

While I was massaging everyone, I noticed that some of them could do with a body care/grooming session, and after thinking things over before I went to sleep that night I decided to do just it. I made the announcement the next evening after dinner, and the news was very well received by everyone. Since I was starting this session on Giratiday, I was expecting to be done sometime around Mewday or Giratiday next week. Actually, I probably had to extend that by a day or two since we had gotten really close to our goal, and I was not sure if that would delay the evening sessions by a day or two or not.

As expected, when we stopped for the day/night on Palkiday, Phantump announced that the Sceptile habitat was likely less than four hours away from our current location, which meant that we would probably make it there before lunch tomorrow. It was close to 2 days later than initially planned, but that was still much better than the 20 or so days it would have taken us if we had traveled purely at Phantump's speed. Anyway, despite the anticipation and excitement that the news caused, I still did not let it distract me from continuing the grooming session I had started. I did, however,  bring breakfast forward by an hour, and left Utopia as soon as we had cleaned up.

Less than 3.5 hours later Phantump stopped in place and declared that we had arrived. He asked me how we wanted to go about the next step. Would we try to be sneaky, or would we be waltzing in like we owned the place? Everyone laughed we he said the latter bit, Phantump included; I eventually shook my head once I stopped laughing, and told him that we would do neither. We were going to be frank and head into their place at a slow/sedated pace without hiding so that they could notice our entry. Our next step would depend on their reaction.

We did just that; Well, I did recall Phantump first after I thanked him for leading me here. It was just that I thought that it would be better if we started with a blank slate first, which was why I recalled him just in case they remembered Phantump from his last visit. Still, once Phantump had been moved to Utopia, Mothra/Butterfree, who was still hanging out atop of my head, Thor, Nyx, Hades/Gengar who was inside my shadow, and I openly walked in the direction of the Sceptile territory. Actually, Hades was still inside my shadow, but the rest of us were in the open.

Just a minute or so into our walk, Nyx released a "random" yip, that warned us that we were being followed. A few moments later Mothra tapped my head to signal that she had noticed them as well, and before Thor got the brilliant idea to tap/hit my shin with his tail I opened up a mental channel for them to speak mentally. Thor sounded a tad disappointed when he reported that he had noticed our tail as well, and that alone was enough to tell me that I had established the channel just in time. He said he noticed 3 followers at first but then it turned into 4.

Mothra chimed in and said that as far as she could tell we had 3 large and 2 medium-sized Pokemon, presumably 3 Sceptile and 2 Grovyle, following us right now. She also added that it had been 3 medium-sized Pokemon, but one of them rushed ahead, probably to warn the rest of their tribe. When Thor grumbled about not noticing the others, Nyx chimed up and told him not to worry about it since Mothra had missed two more Sceptile that had joined the other 3 not long after the Grovyle left. Mothra just laughed and praised Nyx for noticing that; I joined in as well and admitted that I had noticed the two new arrivals only after she mentioned them since they kept a larger distance from us compared to the others.

Anyway, while walking for another 10 minutes or so, we noticed our "tail" growing to 9, with the two Grovyle being replaced by Sceptile, and once that happened, they stopped hiding and approached us directly; Or rather 3 of them approached us openly while the other 6 followed hidden from sight in a fan formation. We naturally stopped walking when they showed themselves and let them come over. They halted right across from us, and one of the Sceptile asked us why we were heading straight towards their settlement. I could have denied that and said that we were just walking in that direction without having any knowledge of their home being somewhere there, but I didn't.

Instead, I told them that I had heard that a bunch of Sceptile along with their prevolutions had settled around these parts, so I came over to see if I could get a Treecko or two and maybe a Grovyle or Sceptile as well to join my family. That wasn't even a lie since I just told the truth and simply withheld the exact source of my information. I did that because I felt that going with the truth in this situation would be for the best. Going by the surprise and astonishment I was feeling from all Sceptile, they had not expected me to be this straightforward, or maybe they expected me to beat around the bush.

To take it a step further I released my aura to show off that I was being honest and to declare that I was an aura user. I could feel that that earned me some goodwill from the Sceptile, and the one in the lead admitted that they had been tailing us for a while. It said that they chose to reveal themselves when I continued heading for their settlement. Sceptile followed that up by saying that we could roam around the area to see if I got lucky enough to come across a Treecko that I liked, or that I could follow them to the settlement and try to earn the right to choose a Treecko.

Naturally, things couldn't be this simple, and Sceptile added that I would have to pass a test to prove my competence before I could negotiate the handover of a youngling with them. The fact that the first option was even a thing was rather generous on their part, though nothing stopped them from keeping all or at least a majority of the Treeko from leaving their settlement during my search, I guess. Yet, that didn't really matter since I was going with option two anyway; I was confident in passing any test they put forth and I was not worried about this being a trap due to my confidence in escaping any trap they could set.

Besides, I was pretty sure that Option 2 would raise my chances of finding a talented Treecko by a lot. Well, that was assuming the Sceptile did not hide the Treecko with great potential away even after I passed their test(s). Still, I would have to pass that hurdle at that point; For now, I told Sceptile that I was interested in option 2. The Sceptile nodded at that, and the leading one gave a signal which had three more Sceptile come out of hiding to join the trio in the open. Once they did that, the leader motioned/told us to follow them before heading in the direction of their settlement. All of us, as in our group, noticed that the three Sceptile who were still hiding followed us as well.

Just 5 minutes later we were able to see the enormous tree that Phantump had mentioned and a minute after that we arrived at their settlement. We were met by what felt like a greeting committee at the entrance of the place, made up of even more Sceptile, and the Sceptile that led us there acted as the intermediary who introduced us to the leaders of the greeting committee and vice versa. I was not surprised that those Sceptile ended up being tribe elders, and I was pretty tempted to add an "as usual" at the end of that. Nonetheless, I still greeted them politely, as it should be, and they returned the gesture before asking me to follow them further inside.

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