CH88 (452), Vacation (2)

After we returned from that rather nice tour, we ate our dinner at the hotel restaurant before enjoying the great evening program the hotel had organized. I naturally made sure to pass on the sound and visuals to Utopia so that my Pokemon could enjoy it as well.

The whole thing began at 8 p.m. and went on until 11 p.m. There were two dance performances, some singing, and a fire show. Once it was over, we went up to our rooms and I spent another hour or so inside Utopia to hang out with my excited Pokemon, who told me that they really enjoyed the show.

Throughout the rest of the week, we visited the major places we listed on the first day. Each trip took up nearly the whole day, with us leaving around 10 a.m., and coming back around 6 p.m., but it was certainly worth it.

Brooklet Hill was the first one we visited, right the next day. The site was a breathtaking one, and I would definitely recommend everyone to visit the place at least once in their life. In fact, I took photos and recommended just that in our friend chat group. There were two that agreed with me since they also visited the place in the past, and the others all said that the place looked cool/beautiful.

The cascading chain of mini waterfalls was an incredible sight, and thanks to the pact the alolans had with the Chief of this area, it was safe for us and other tourists to explore and observe the area up close.

Still, we were warned that our safety was only guaranteed inside and around the lowest three water bodies/levels since that was the area covered by the pact.

If we went outside of that zone, our safety was no longer assured and we were practically free game. Well, not that extreme, but our safety was no longer guaranteed. The borders/area was sufficiently marked as well, so it was not possible to accidentally step outside the safety zone.

In such a situation, one really had no right to complain if one got hurt, and I did see a few people step outside the marked areas despite the warnings, so it was not explicitly forbidden either for those confident in their capabilities or stupid enough to disregard the warnings despite lacking said capabilities.

Surprisingly, from what I learned from the alolans around the place, the Chief in charge of the Brooklet Hill area was an Araquanid, which was close to 4 meters in size, so more than double that of an average Araquanid.

Unfortunately, the Chief was not around, so I could not check it out, but from what I heard the Chief was supposedly at the (high) platinum stage, so it would be been questionable if I could have checked its status even if it had bothered showing up. Still, it seemed like the boss did not like or care for being gawked at by everyone. Who would have thought?

Well, my parents and I also joined the brave and stupid to check the area outside the safety zone for a bit, but even then I failed to spot the chief. Still, it was definitely an awesome trip and after I displayed the chain inside Utopia, my water types asked me to replicate it for them in smaller dimensions inside Utopia.

I thought about it and realized that, yes, I could replicate the Brooklet Hill mini-waterfall chain inside Utopia with the control I had over the space, so I promised them to do it in the outer zones.

That night, after I returned to my hotel room, I went inside Utopia and spent more than an hour recreating the mini-waterfall chain on the outskirts of the main space. Everyone was watching and enjoying the process immensely. I knew that because they were beside me while I was working on it and I was live-streaming the creation process for them.

We spent most of Giratiday at the hotel and Heahea Beach. During the stop in our tour on the first day, we did not spend as much time at the beach as we wanted and we missed out on the surfing that was being offered there by the Surf Club of Alola. We rectified that during this visit and spent a few hours Mantine Surfing.

It was pretty cool, and my parents enjoyed it a lot. Well, they definitely enjoyed it a lot more than I did, but I think the reason for that was that I could fly freely in the sky, so that might have taken a bit of the fun from gliding on the water and doing stunts with the Mantine. Yet, it was still quite a fun experience and I made sure to take a few photos for my chat group.

Another good thing that happened that day was Gible finishing his second round of limit-breaking. I noticed it that evening while checking everyone's status screens. Anyway, we visited Pikachu Valley on Palkiday and spent most of the day there.

While the place was called Pikachu Valley, that did not mean that there were only Pikachu in the place. No, it was just that the vast majority of the Pokemon there were Pikachu. In fact, there were also some Pichu and Raichu around.

Still, I had to say that one had to agree not to attempt to catch any of the Pikachu line members during one's visit since catching them was forbidden without approval, which one could only get if one was doing the official alliance/league challenge.

That was quite unfortunate since I ended up coming across my first "chief" Pokemon during our visit. Well, it was not the Chief of the area/Pikachu Valley, but the Pikachu had whatever modifier was responsible for the size increase.

I knew that the Pikachu was not the real chief since we had been told that the real chief was an Alolan Raichu and that it was also the reason no one ever managed to break the rules since it was a psychic type, so trying to catch a Pokemon under its "mental" watch was basically impossible since it seemed to be at the (high) platinum stage as well.

However, just because I could not catch it did not mean that I could not play with it/touch it. I also made sure to call out Thor/Raichu, knowing that he would enjoy the place immensely and his presence certainly helped me endear myself to all inhabitants.

Well, I managed to check the "chief" Pikachu's status screen and found out what the modifier was.

'Species: Pikachu

Gender: Male

Type: Electric

Potential: Blue

Stage: Silver-Stage (mid)

Genetic variation: Alpha

Abilities: Static, Lightning Rod

Talents: Natural Leader

Affinities: Electric, Psychic'

The modifier/gene was called the Alpha gene, and it did not belong to the royal gene group even though one could get that idea due to the meaning of the word Alpha.

Instead, the gene seemed to be a separate one that had characteristics of the giant gene and the royal gene but ultimately belonged to neither group. The bonus it provided was certainly respectable at 35%, which actually raised Pikachu's base stat/racial value to 432.

Moreover, Pokemon with the alpha gene were 2 to 3 times the size of an average member of their species, and the same was true for this Pikachu. At 1 meter, he was the size of an average Alolan Raichu, despite the average Pikachu being only 0.5 meters tall.

The last interesting bit, was that all alphas had the Natural Leader talent, which made them just that, natural leaders. Honestly, the talent was pretty self-explanatory. The psychic affinity was something all Pikachu and Pichu in the valley seemed to have, though for most it was a "weak" one. Obviously, that was because the "alolan" gene was dominant in them.

I would be lying if I said that I had not been a bit tempted to catch him, but I adhered to the rules and left him be. I decided to be satisfied with taking and uploading a picture of me being surrounded by hundreds of adorable Pikachu while hugging a meter long one in one hand and Thor in the other to our group chat. That picture caused a lot of jealousy.

Anyway, the next day we made a trip to Hano Beach, which thankfully was not the private beach of the Hano Grand Resort, which did exist here as well. Though I did not hear anything about Kahili, so I had no idea if the grand resort belonged to her family or not.

Still, just like in canon, the resort was extremely popular, so Dad was unable to book a room in it on short notice which is why we were staying at our current hotel and not at the grand resort. Regardless, it was an enjoyable day out at the beach which Mom especially enjoyed.

We spent Kyoday enjoying the facilities and programs available at/offered by our hotel, so we spent the whole day at the hotel without leaving the premise. It was on Grouday that we finally ended up visiting the Wela Volcano, or rather the foot of the volcano since the tour started at the foot and only lead up to a platform around a third of the way to the mouth of the volcano.

Still, I did not mind and was just excited to finally visit one of the reasons why I had been excited about our trip to Alola in the first place. The tour guide explained some facts about the volcano while leading us along the path we were moving on.

One of those facts was that the last time the Wela Volcano exploded was 427 years ago. Another one was about the Pokemon in charge of this area. Apparently, two chiefs shared the volcano since it was a rather large zone. The Salazzle Chief controlled the left/western half of the volcano, while an "Alolan" Marowak Chief controlled the right/eastern half of the Volcano.

Just like with Brooklet Hill, the alolans had an agreement with the chiefs, so the first/lower third of the Volcano was a "safe" area for humans and Pokemon unless one went around provoking trouble, but the rest of the volcano was considered a wild/danger zone. Once more, just as it has been at Brooklet Hill, anyone going past the first third/marked area of the Wela Volcano was on his or her own.

Anyway, I naturally closely listened to any tidbit the guide shared on the volcano and the Pokemon that lived here. Any information regarding the Salandit line was extra precious, but sadly he mentioned nothing I did not already know as far as Salandit were concerned.

Though he did mention that there was hearsay that a male evolution supposedly existed but that no one had seen any around the volcano, at least not during the last 400 or more years.

We went back to the foot of the volcano at around lunchtime and the guide brought us to a nearby village that had a few restaurants, which were obviously mainly for tourists like us to eat in, as well as shops that sold Wela Volcano memorabilia, also obviously targeted at tourists.

Still, I was quite happy that we had come over to the village because the guide shared that it was one of the oldest settlements on Akala Island and that it had only remained a village because of tradition as well as its extreme proximity to the volcano.

He even mentioned that great parts of it had to be rebuilt after the outbreak 470 years ago, but that the village survived like it did many times since it had been established close to 3000 years ago.

I was really happy to hear just how old the village was since that meant the people here should have a lot of tales and legends about the island and at least a few about the Salandit line seeing how they were living at the foot of the volcano.

I decided that I would definitely come back here, to the village and volcano, a few times to do some digging in hopes of finding some information regarding the male evolution I was seeking.

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