237. Mudkip

"I've kept you guys waiting for long enough. It's time for us to finally go the long unknown expedition and pursue the incredible mysteries of the world!" May said confidently.

"This time we are going to explore that unknown river on Dewford Island!"

After her Wurmple evolved into a Silcoon, May was always very excited the last few days. She seemed to have already seen her future beautiful Beautifly dancing around her.

In order to celebrate Silcoon's evolution, and for Ash because he had caught a Corphish and an Aron, the group decided to go out on an another adventure.

Because she was in such a good mood, May even used her hands to pose as if she was live broadcasting to who knows how many people.

"That's right, if you go upstream of this river, we might be able to encounter new rare Pokémon!" Max had always been looking forward to meeting all sorts of new Pokémon's.

"The May Expedition Team is now carefully walking along the river on an unknown route. What is the mysterious phenomenon waiting for them ahead?"

As they were walking, what appeared in front of the group was a huge waterfall, which was around three stories high and looked very beautiful. They didn't expect to find such a huge waterfall on the middle of the island.

"Can anyone believe that what's stopping the May Expedition Team from moving forward is a huge waterfall!"

Indeed, if they could not climb over this waterfall, their adventure tracing to the upper reaches of the river would probably end right here.

"However, the more out of reach a place is, the more likely there are more rare and unknown Pokémon's living there!" Brock was also infected by May's and Max's enthusiasm and also wanted to find some kind of rare Pokémon here.

Recently, the group had been very keen on looking for some of the Pokémon's living in the island. Ash had already caught three new Pokémon's, and Brock and May are also a little bit ready to catch a new Pokémon for themselves.

"Everyone should try according to their abilities." Ash suddenly suggested.

Except for Max, everyone here was a Trainer. Ash wanted to see if his group could use their Pokémon's ability to climb over this waterfall safely.

"Okay, let me try it first!" Brock took the lead, "Come on out, Lotad!"

Brock's always slow Lotad has become much smarter recently under the careful care of him, and their Bond Value was also very high, not to mention it was already good to begin with.

They saw that Brock holding a rope, tying a stone to one end, and throwing it to the big tree above the waterfall. It was difficult to throw it directly up with such a high degree of manpower, but Brock was assisted by his Lotad's Water Gun to make sure that the rope could tie itself to the tree.

"I'm taking the first step!" Brock slowly climbed up with his trusty Lotad.

"Next is me!" May had it easier. She pulled herself up with the her Silcoon using its String Shot, which was much faster and safer than Brock's method.

Max stood next to Ash, "Big Bro, what should we do?"

Ash looked at him, a pink light shining in his eyes. He was just relying on his Psychic to make himself and Max float over the waterfall easily.

As much as Ash wanted to use Teleport, it was very taxing on his energy. He was practicing hard, but it's been going pretty slow.

"Wow, that's so cool!" Seeing that everyone successfully climbed over the waterfall, May cheered. This was the first time she realized how powerful a Pokémon Trainer could be.

After climbing over the waterfall, everyone suddenly felt like they had entered another world, surrounded by mist and lush water plants everywhere they set their sight on.

"The water flow here is so slow." May first noticed that the water flow here was much slower than anywhere else in the area, which may be why this place had such a pleasant environment.

"That's because this side is a tributary, and the other side seems to be much more fast-flowing mainstream because it is connected to a different route." Max explained while flipping through his PokéNav.

Walking further, the soil began to become much more softer, and the fog was also beginning it clear away.

In front of them, a group of very cute Pokémon appeared slowly from the fog.

"Look, those are all Mudkips!" Max immediately recognized the Pokémon in front of him.

It was Mudkip, the Water-type Royal Starter of the Hoenn Region.

It was also the first Pokémon that May came into contact or rather unsuccessfully commanded with at the beginning of her journey.

She still remembers that Water Gun attack when it hit her face.

Mudkips are known to like to bury their body in the mud at the bottom of the river to rest and heal form any injures. The soft soil here is indeed very suitable to be their natural habitat.

"They are still very small, I think they are just some of the newly hatched ones!" Brock made an accurate judgment from what he could see.

Such immature Pokémon have almost no fighting power. Just like the Ralts lying on Ash's head, they cannot be trained at this stage at all.

Ralts will just have to stay on Ash's head for some more time before she can start training. In the meantime, she absorbs some of Ash's Psychic energy to boost her own reserves.

Before that, Ash had done this process with all of his Pokémon's that hatched from Eggs.

"Baby Mudkips are so cute!" May thought about these babies and wanted to capture one to expand her team. "This is a good opportunity, I definitely need to capture one of them!"

Unexpectedly, as soon as she walked a few steps forward, a bigger adult Mudkip suddenly jumped out of the grass from the side and hit her with a Water Gun, just like her first time.

May calmed down this time, "No, this Pokémon really does hate me…"

At this time, while several little Mudkip were playing around, a baby Mudkip accidentally fell into the river. Originally, the water here was very slow and not dangerous, but at such a young age, they did not have enough strength to swim back to the shore and it began to slowly drift away to the waterfall they climbed up from.

"No, that's the main stream ahead!" Max suddenly panicked. In that fast-flowing main stream, this little Mudkip would be in a lot of danger.

The bigger Mudkip was very decisive and immediately jumped into the river and quickly came to the smaller Mudkip that was being taken away by the current.

But even though it was relatively large compared to all the other Mudkips, it was still carrying the little Mudkip with it in the increasingly turbulent current, so it couldn't return to the shore easily. It could only try to take the little Mudkip back to the land.

With a flash of pink light in Ash's eyes, he picked up the two Mudkips from the water and brought them to him. Brock went up to check them immediately and found that they were all safe, just the smaller Mudkip being a little scared of them.

Everyone breathed a sigh of relief after hearing Brock's words.

Max and May looked at Ash with stars in their eyes, "Your Psychic is so convenient!"

However, looking at the little Mudkip who was back playing together with his friends again, and the adult Mudkip who glanced at him a little longer and then walked away into the grass again, Ash just smiled bitterly and said, "Everyone, we seem to have entered a restricted area."

"A restricted area?"

Sure enough, as soon as Ash finished speaking, an old man with a hairstyle that looked that of a Mudkip fin appeared from the grass nearby.

But May was back to her usual self. "What appeared in front of May's Expedition Team might be the legendary Mudkip monster that grew old and became a spirit to hunt everyone that comes near it!"

Ash, Brock and Max looked very embarrassed by May's actions, "May, be quiet!"

"How did you get in here? This is a forbidden area of the league, you can't enter here! Didn't you see there are railings at the entrance to the swamp?" The old man asked, but he could have never thought that Ash and his party had climbed over the waterfall from the back.

"Sorry, we came upstream without realizing that this was an off limit area!" Max was a very honest child and quickly explained their situations to him, "We really didn't know that this place is forbidden to enter!"

"No way? Did you kids really climb over that waterfall?" The old man exclaimed.

The group of people introduced themselves. The old man's name was Mr. Swampy, and he was the Pokémon Breeder responsible for taking care of all of these baby Mudkips. Finding out that Ash also rescued one of his little Mudkips, he didn't care about them coming here unintentionally and invited the group to his home.

"Mr. Swampy, what are those?" In Mr. Swampys cabin, Max noticed there were a lot of Pokémon Eggs in the incubator at first sight.

"Those are all of my Mudkip Eggs!"

The color scheme of these Pokémon eggs was very similar to that of Mudkip, with a blue shell and some orange circular markings throughout the Egg, which looked very cute.

It turns out that this is one of the few secret base of the Hoenn Pokémon League to Breed members of the three Royal Starters. And Mr. Swampy here was a Pokémon Breeder that specialized in Mudkips, then he entrusted them to the League to distribute them to the Rookie Trainers around the Hoenn Region.

Pokémon like Mudkip are very difficult to encounter in the wild. Only with Ash's incredible luck was he able to catch all of the Royal Starters from his two previous regions.

And now, there was a whole Mudkip group that appeared in front of him, so how can he miss this opportunity?