CH61 (122), Captain Ahab (2)

I spent the whole week checking the sea for Lapras, even Dialday since all that use of psychic abilities doubled as training as well. Naturally, I did not forget to briefly check the areas we already passed through.

On that end I had Xatu teleport me to some of the "islands" we came across during our search. There I ascended to get a bird's eye view of the area before stopping at the latest stop of our journey.

Since we did not have to waste any time on details and thanks to the vast view from above we managed to cover a considerable area during this week. We even discovered a few truly large islands that looked promising.

Pokemon-wise there was less to talk about. During my stay in the air I occasionally came across some Wingull, Pelliper, or Fearow, and while I stayed on the raft I would see the occasional water type. The coolest encounter was with a school of Mantine we saw on Palkiday.

They had a few Remoraid that were accompanying them and I noticed that each one I checked had at least a budding flying/air type affinity. Overall it was a great moment, especially when we were in the middle of the school and some of the surrounding Mantine jumped in the air.

They practically put on a performance for us and behaved pretty chill as well as friendly. I checked as many as I could and even had two cases where I couldn't even see their potential, which meant they were above the dark gold stage.

I would have never thought I would see my first Stage 6 or above Pokemon like that so I momentarily froze when I processed that I was near two such strong beings.

Thankfully they were just as chill and friendly as the other Mantine, so I had no reason to sh*t bricks. What was surprising for me, at least after that revelation, was that none of the Mantine I could see the potential of had good potential.

The best I saw was light green while most were in the yellow spectrum. The reason this surprised me was that I believed the school members to be descendants of the two super-strong Mantine.

Their potential being so average either meant the potential of the two was average hence that of their descendants was average as well, or the two Mantine had really bad luck as far as the potential of their kids was concerned. I felt a bit bad for them at that thought.

Anyway, the point was that I did not see the Lapras yet. The weekend was spent with the family and something hilarious, at least for me, happened.

I still had the body of the Parasect, without the mushroom, lying around in the storage of my space, so being the awesome son that I am I decided to share it with my parents.

So, on Kyoday I told my parents that I had stored the body of a Pokemon that had to be taken down by us and that I wanted to leave it to them what to do with it. I asked for us to move to the terrace so that I could take it out.

My mother told me to just pull it out in the kitchen and I just laughed a bit before moving outside. *insert slightly ominous laughter*

I moved right back in with an apologetic look since I had left my Silph Co. bag inside my room.

I had already placed the corpse inside before I stressed my parents. I still find it astonishing, how such a big thing fits inside the bag opening. I was pretty sure some space/size manipulation tech was involved.

Anyway, I returned with the bag in hand and looked into the eyes of my waiting parents while slowly opening the bag. I kept looking at them to see their full reaction and proceeded to take out the massive Parasect corpse.

It created a big *thud* when it landed on the ground and I fully got to see how the faces of my parents slowly turned gobsmacked. They just stared for like a minute at the massive body in front of them.

My father then began to look between the body and me trying to understand how such a giant was felled by little old me. All of us knew that in our world size was not everything but the difference in proportions still had a huge visual impact on them.

Unsurprisingly, it was my mother who reacted first, just that her reaction was not what I had expected, even if I should have. She turned her head in a slow slightly mechanical manner from the corpse to me.

Then in a surprising burst of speed, she came before me and began patting me down before she proceeded to hug the stuffing out of me. She didn't say a word, but she didn't have to, her hug told me exactly what she felt.

Still, I used my emotion sense and felt a mix of pride, urgency, fear, worry, relief, as well as concern whirling inside her with concern being the most prominent one.

My father's emotions were calmer than that, but I felt pride, urgency, and worry just not as rampant. I shot him a look to help me out of the death hug, but he just shot me a smile.

I saw him release a sigh that helped him relax some more before he asked me how I came across the Parasect and how strong it had been. I told them about the precautions we took, its strength, our fighting strategy, the retreat options, and how it went down.

By the end of my narration, both had proud looks on their faces and my mother finally let me go. They praised me, especially my cautious behavior.

My mother asked me what I had done with the mushroom on its back and I told her I used it for my bug types. She nodded at that and then we, more like they, began to talk about what to do with it.

The consensus was that my mother would turn it into food. A part would go to us and the rest would be given to our Pokemon. The option of selling it was only briefly considered before it was discarded.

Other than my surprise the rest of the weekend was pretty calm. I resumed my search efforts on Arcday and spend both it as well as Mewday going around trying to spot the Lapras, unfortunately without any success.

The first half of today had been not any different so far. With that in mind, after lunch, I decided to head a bit further south away from the mainland. I ascended as high as I could while being able to make out forms on the sea surface, which thanks to using aura to boost my eyes, was pretty high.

I was starting to write off today as well when I saw no trace of any Lapras after roughly 60 minutes, but I planned to keep up my search during the three hours I still had until I needed to make my way back home.

Around 30 minutes later I began considering if I should switch to my raft instead. Just as I planned to make my way down I heard Xatu's excited call, which was shortly after joined by Pidgey.

When I looked in the direction they were looking at I saw a huge number of silhouettes on the sea. I was too high up to make out their shape, but by Xatu and Pidgey's reaction, it was safe to assume we had found the migrating Lapras.

They had better eyesight than me and I had shown them what a Lapras looked like so I was positive they would know if they saw some or not. We immediately moved towards their direction and I also lowered the height I was running at so that I could actually see their form.

Once I came closer to their position my eyes finally managed to make out their look and I confirmed that they were indeed the Lapras I had been searching for.

I was not sure if it was one school/pod or multiple schools/pods that traveled together during the migration, but there were hundreds of them. At least I believed there to be more than 9000, just kidding but there were definitely more than 600 of them.

I stopped above them and started looking for the leader at the head of the procession. According to what I had learned if I did not want my ass to be put on ice I had to first get the permission of the main leader to even enter the pod, before getting the approval of the group leaders to approach their members.

So, I did exactly that. After I spotted what seemed to be the leader I moved towards the place they were moving to. I pulled out my raft, Xatu, as well as Pidgey, landed on it as well, and we waited for them to come closer.

Then I took out a long piece of wood that I used as a paddle to move the raft closer to the leading Lapras. While I was closing in, the eye of all Lapras in the leading group focused on me.

It was a bit nerve-wracking I was not gonna lie, but Lapras were known to be generally gentle Pokemon and I did my best to express my peaceful intent. Since I was not attacked, I reckoned that I was at least partially successful.

I stopped in front of whom I believed to be the leader and got ready to convince him/her. Just as I was about to open my mouth, the Lapras I stopped in front of moved aside allowing a slightly smaller Lapras to move in front of me.

Apparently, my guess had been wrong. I cleared my throat to hide any embarrassment, which by the laughter the Lapras saw right through. The leader motioned for me to come closer and looked down at me since I was standing on the raft and she/he was much larger than me.

She scrutinized me for a while before she softly nudged me with her head. I naturally instantly used the chance to check her out.

'Species: Lapras

Gender: Female

Type: Water, Ice

Potential: ?

Stage: ?

Genetic variation: ?

Abilities: ?

Talents: ?

Affinities: ?'

I seem to encounter quite a few super-strong Pokemon lately. Turns out she was at or above Stage 6 as well. Anyway, after she nudged me she sent me a telepathic message that conveyed her approval.

I was convinced that she sent the same message to the other Lapras as well since they all nodded at the same moment. These psychic abilities were the reason I did not use my telekinesis to try and check any of their statuses.

I knew that Lapras had some talent in that aspect despite not having the psychic-typing, so I decided to only use it after getting the approval from the leader as well as the group leaders. That way if they noticed it they wouldn't take it as an aggressive action, at least I hoped so.

After I received her approval I moved towards the groups I had noticed from above. Each group seemed to have between 20 and 40 members so there were quite a lot of groups. Once I got close to a group the leader would come to the front and inspect me.

Most of the time I would receive their approval as well, after which I would enter the group and approach some of the Lapras to talk. I used my telekinesis to check the potential of the rest while using direct contact to check the ones I was talking to.

All Lapras I talked to were really friendly and gentle unfortunately the Lapras with the best potential I found after checking the 40 groups I had been allowed to check so far was only green. It had been a (mid) bronze-stage Lapras at that.

There had also been a few Lapras with light green potential, but I decided to keep looking for now. I had only been going at it for less than two hours and still had around an hour before I would risk being late for dinner.

What I noticed during my conversations with the Lapras was that only those below the silver stage were receptive to leaving the school. I had no problem with that, so it did not really affect me all that much.

During the next 40 minutes, I came across 5 more light green or green potential Lapras that were receptive and even saw a Lapras with light blue potential. Unfortunately, that one was at the gold stage and had no plans to leave. So, I could only regretfully keep searching.

Just when I thought that I would find no Lapras with better than green potential that was receptive to the idea of following me, I actually found one.

'Species: Lapras

Gender: Female

Type: Water, Ice

Potential: Deep Green

Stage: Bronze-stage (mid)

Genetic variation: None

Abilities: Water Absorb, Hydration

Talents: None

Affinities: Water, Ice'

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