With Kun/Azuraid at my side, I finally jumped into the pond, and Kun slipped in right after me. I had known that the pond was much deeper than the stream, but even then I was surprised when I had to actively continue diving for another 20 or so meters to reach the bottom after my initial plunge brought me roughly 15ish meters down. I had not expected the pond to reach a depth of nearly 40 meters, and that was at what counted as the outermost area.
Usually, those were the shallowest points in a pond, with the center being the deepest part. No wonder a Gyarados made an appearance. Given the pond's surface area along with its depth, the pond's volume was truly enough to support even big guys/gals like Gyarados, though I doubted that there were too many of them since the sea was still a much better place for them.
I suspected that the majority of the Gyarados that managed to evolve within the Meteor Falls' stream/pond used the underwater channel to head for the sea either immediately after evolving or after some time. Anyway, general Gyarados aside, I was interested in a specific one right now, so once I reached the bottom, I adjusted my position until I was sure I would be heading in the direction I saw Gyarados sink before I began to swim there.
It didn't take long, not even 2 minutes, before I saw the Gyarados. Well, more like its carcass along with a bunch of other Pokémon, who were busy gnawing on it. I was not sure if any of the Pokémon present had been the ones to give Gyarados the finishing blow since more than half an hour had passed since we had entered Utopia for lunch.
However, given the state of the body, with nearly three-quarters of it being reduced to bones, I was assuming that those that did the deed had likely already left after having their fill, leaving the rest to others/scavengers like the many Goldeen, Barboach, and Magikarp I was seeing ripping out meat pieces from the parts of Gyarados that still retained its meat. I even saw a handful of Luvdisc joining the "party", and seeing the heart-shaped fish rip meat from a Gyarados carcass made for a rather bizarre picture.
I could not help but wonder if I should take a few photos to share with the group chat so that the girls could see a different side of the "cute" heart-shaped fish they adored. I eventually decided against it since it ultimately felt like a bad idea. Still, since the chance presented itself, I immediately extended my psionic energy and let it brush past one of the Luvdisc so that I could check its status sheet while it ate.
This first Luvdisc ended up having deep orange potential, but I could see 13 more Luvdisc, so I did not let that stop me and extended my psionic tendril to the next Luvdisc. The 2nd check also ended up yielding mediocre results, as did the next one, and the one after that. One Luvdisc after the other continued to disappoint me, and it was probably because of my personal bias, but that did not surprise me all that much.
Maybe because of that fate decided to pull a reverse card, not minding that it honestly only benefited me. Either way, the 11th Luvdisc I checked out, ended up having deep green potential. With a bit of luck, Utopia could raise that to blue, and even if my luck ran out with the lucky find, it would still result in a Luvdisc with light blue potential.
Adding the fact that the Luvdisc was at the (mid) bronze stage, which made it not too weak to be of use in a short period, but not so strong that it would be difficult to handle for either Rose or Jessie, but more so for Rose. It would also allow them to work on a bit of limit-breaking if they wanted to without having missed out too much.
Having been influenced by me, the majority of my friends and family aimed to let their Pokémon complete the first or even second limit-breaking step before they let them break through, which still gave a 40 or 80% boost to their Pokémon depending on which one they managed. There had been some attempts at doing the full program, but everyone agreed that it was just not feasible for them since they felt that the time it would cost them was too much to justify.
It was why many did not even bother with the 2nd round and just focused on the first one. Only those with real/major backing like Weiss as well as Misty, or Kinji, who counted as his own backing, still went for the second round, and even they only did it for a select few of their Pokémon. Even Ace who had Roger backing him only let his Feraligatr and Ninetales go through with the second round.
The feedback from so many of them also made it clear that without my ability to truly monitor the parameters of a Pokémon limit-breaking tended to waste a lot of time and could result in quite a bit of waste depending on whether one allowed their Pokémon to initiate their breakthrough too early or too late. That was why I did a general check for everyone every time we met up.
With how long we have known each other and their trust in me, I was able to establish a brief temporary connection that allowed me to get a full status sheet. *sigh* I got sidetracked again. I stopped letting my thoughts wander and immobilized the deep green Luvdisc with my psychic powers. Me dragging the Luvdisc towards me while she tried to struggle briefly attracted the attention of the many scavengers around her.
However, when they saw that it was just that Luvdisc that was being affected they went back to getting themselves some Gyarados meat. Even the other Luvdisc reacted that way, and I was sure that chilled the captured one's heart. I had to chuckle at that, which cost me some air, but that was a low price to pay for a good joke like that. The joke would have been even better if Luvdisc had truly been frozen instead of just being metaphorically frozen by my telekinesis.
Either way, Luvdisc did not stop her struggle even when she arrived in front of us. Not that it helped her much since it just made Mothra send her to sleep. Once that happened, I took out a Pokeball and captured Luvdisc, before placing the ball back inside Utopia. The Pokeball appeared inside my storage room, and I let my second thought stream release Luvdisc so that she could undergo the Utopia treatment, though we stopped Utopia from healing/waking Luvdisc up in the process.
Once the optimization was complete I/we took a glance at Luvdisc's updated status sheet and saw that her potential grew to blue. Happy with that we recalled the sleeping Luvdisc and switched the PokeBall to stasis mode. Luvdisc had already eaten some of Gyarados' meat, so it would be able to easily endure a month or two in stasis mode before I would have to let it out again to feed it.
I was sure that I would see Jessie and Rose before that. Until then the Pokeball, which we slapped a heart-shaped sticker on, got stored on the shelf, and once the ball found its place, my 2nd thought stream went back to monitoring Utopia. Meanwhile, I continued checking out the final two Luvdisc, but unfortunately, neither was good enough for me to capture them.
Seeing how none of the Magikarp, Barboach, or Goldeen attracted my attention, and I had verified that Gyarados was as dead as can be, I decided to move on since I still had a lot of space to explore. I planned to swim in a Snake-like fashion (The Game), so I first swam towards the closest corner at the bottom of the pond before I began swimming in circles.
I only saw some Magikarp and two Barboach during the outermost circle, and even after moving a few meters toward the center to start the second circle, only a handful of Goldeen got added to our encounters. There were some aquatic plants that I had not added to Utopia before which I amended, but other than that, we saw no other useful items.
It was not long after starting the third circle that we came across a Seaking, but other than watching it a bit for its looks, we ignored it and given Kun's presence it did the same. Halfway through the third round/circle, we once again passed beside the Gyarados carcass, but at this point, there was just a little bit of meat left, while only a few Magikarp, Barboach, as well as Goldeen, were still present. They were fighting each other as they tried to get a bite out of the leftover meat.
Most of the Magikarp, Barboach, and Goldeen had already dispersed, along with all 13 Luvdisc I checked, or 12 I guess since I caught one. I continued swimming after watching the three-way fish brawl for a few moments. We saw three Luvdisc not long after that, but given the recognition I could feel from them, I was sure that they were among the 13 I had already checked.
I still Observed them just to be sure that I was not misinterpreting anything, but their potential was just as bad as before, so I was likely right. Close to completing the third circle, we actually came upon a small batch of corals that could be useful, so I tried to dig up/break off one to add it to Utopia, but a Whiscash rose out of the ground and attacked me for trying to take its possession.
It got slapped around by Kun before it could touch me, and I took the coral while watching Kun smack around the Whiscash. I called for a stop after a few moments, and we moved on leaving the Whiscash with a few scrapes and bumps on its head. We finished the third round shortly after and began the fourth one, which proceeded rather uneventfully if we disregarded the two Seaking we saw. It was close to the end of the fourth circle that we came upon not one but two Luvdisc.
I knew that these Luvdisc were "fresh" ones since I could feel no recognition coming from them, so I was more than happy to check their status sheets to see if their potential was any good. As it happened, that was not the case, so I ignored them and continued swimming my rounds. Unfortunately, aside from coming across more Seaking and a Gyarados, the final two rounds brought no new discoveries.
Upon completing the sixth circle, I was only left with a little core area that did not require any additional swimming, so after looking around for a bit, we swam up roughly 15-ish meters since the bottom layer could be considered fully explored. I had to admit, that because the pond was connected to the sea, I kinda had been expecting to see some Corphish or Krabby down there since those usually stuck to the bottom of water bodies or the beach, but we saw not a single one, so I guess my assumption was off, again.
Regardless, once we had risen high enough, I started another round of snake, but this time we were gradually circling outward. During the first 3 rounds/circles, all we came across were more Goldeen, Magikarp, and Barboach, along with 4 Seaking and another Gyarados.
Well, that was not entirely right, we did see two Luvdisc, but they were among those I already checked so they did not count. It was rather unfortunate that we failed to find any "new" Luvdisc, but there was still quite a bit of the pond to cover, so I was hoping that things would change before we were done.
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