I probably should not have been surprised that the area around the channel's mouth/end was pretty much deserted given that the current here was at its strongest. Anyone wanting to stay in this area would have to exert more effort to avoid getting pushed down the waterfall, though that did actually make it a decent training spot. The only four Pokémon we met after swimming around the first 30ish meters of the channel were, in their own words, there just because of that.
I liked their attitude, so I considered taking them in even after my Observe revealed their subpar potential. However, all four of them actually declined my offer, and I did not insist since neither I nor Utopia were missing yellow potential Goldeen, Seaking, or Barboach. Nonetheless, failed recruitment aside, I still learned some interesting things from those four try-hards.
Apparently, unless it was a Pokémon being swept/dragged away by the current, we would generally not encounter any Pokémon below the bronze stage during our exploration of the water channel. The prevalent current was just too strong for most iron stage or stageless Pokémon, and the only exceptions were areas that had a milder current due to some natural or artificial formation, whether that be by utilizing rocks, corals, other minerals, some tenacious aquatic vegetation, or a combination of them.
Places like that were obviously hotspots for housing and also conflict since everyone wanted to live there. That made sense to me since not living there meant that any stageless offsprings and iron stage fellows would get swept away by the current unless someone stronger permanently stuck around and ensured that they did not get dragged off by weakening the current around them, which I suspected could be the only other way we could encounter weaker Pokemon during our exploration. At least as far as I could bother to think of right now.
They also mentioned that the destruction of those home zones was taboo for everyone. This meant that even if conflicts broke out for them or in general, whether that be inside the home zone or outside of it, the combatants had to ensure that the damage to the natural/artificial formation was kept at a minimum, preferably at zero. Surprisingly even the Overlords, whether that be the Gyarados, Miltotic, or Whiscash, had to follow that restriction. Well, at least the Seaking and Goldeen insisted that that was the case.
I personally felt a bit skeptical when they said that, especially considering what I had witnessed not long ago. Even disregarding that, the general nature of Gyarados and Whiscash had me a bit doubtful that the Overlords HAD to follow that rule, especially since the only ones that could, as far as I was concerned, enforce the rule were the Overlords themselves. In that vein, I was not sure how much the Whiscash Overlord or one of the Gyarados would care about the minimal to no damage rule if they were in a truly bad mood.
Still, it was interesting to hear how the Pokémon had adapted to a high-current environment like the underwater channel. Furthermore, I now knew that I would encounter less wild Pokemon outside those homezones and that at least of the wild Pokemon I was going to enounter outside would be at the silver stage and above since according to my overly diligent four sources, most bronze stage ones were lazy bums that stuck around the safe spots together with the weak ones for the majority of their time since it was less tiring.
Our subsequent advance further into the water channel confirmed what they said. We spent around 4-5 minutes following an S pattern as we swam while heading deeper, and even after we had in my estimation passed the 100-meter point, we barely saw any Pokémon. On top of that, there was not a single home zone within that stretch, which was unfortunate. Maybe 100 meters was still too close to the channel's mouth/waterfall, and the current/environment here was not suitable for the formation of a safe/home zone.
As for the handful of Goldeen as well as Barboach we saw, they fled as soon as they saw us, and I could honestly not be bothered stopping them. I had no interest in keeping a Goldeen or a bunch of them as ornamental fish/Pokemon, so there was no reason for me to bother with them. The less said about my interest in Barboach the better. I felt life/karma slap me across the face before condescendingly patting my cheek when just 2 or so minutes after I thought that I caught sight of an orange-ish/golden Goldeen, which DID pique my interest.
Not minding the phantom pain on my cheek, I told Mothra/Butterfree to knock out the Goldeen worthy of its name, and she gave me a cheery salute before flying/gliding towards the startled Goldeen. I was not sure if it counted as swimming with her actually using her wings to move, (….), fly(?) through the water, but either way it looked weirdly impressive, and it certainly frightened Goldeen enough for it to attempt to escape.
Mothra nipped that in the butt by immobilizing the fish with her psychic powers, which she probably could have done without trying to swim over, but whatever. If she wanted to swim, I saw no reason to spoil her fun by telling her to capture it remotely or to directly Teleport over. Either way, Mothra finished the job, just as she had done right now. I thanked and praised Mothra for doing a good job as I inspected the orange/golden-ish Goldeen floating in front of me, staring at me pleadingly with its eyes wide open.
I had sensed its (high) bronze stage undulations when it attempted to escape, so I knew that there was a possibility that it could actually evolve if it felt desperate enough, and I honestly preferred if it didn't do that, so Goldeen was sent to sleep before I began to Observe the limp goldfish. Seeing how I was planning to capture it simply for its visual/ornamental value (phantom sting on my cheek), I did not truly care if it had bad potential. Yet, I could not help but hope that it was at least not red or deep red.
Thankfully, Goldeen actually ended up giving me a pleasant surprise by possessing not only deep yellow potential, but also a talent on top of that. I had to laugh, causing a lot of bubbles to escape my mouth, when I saw the name/title of Goldeen's talent. I curiously opened the description of Horn(y) Channeler, and I had to say that it had a pretty great effect, despite its very funny name.
Horn(y) Channeler transformed any horn-like protrusions its holder has into a special focus. This not only allowed the holder to release all its energy moves through the horn, but it also boosted the power of the released energy moves by 50%. This bonus also applied to any physical moves that made use of the horn/protrusion. Even more impressive was that this bonus was not additive with the STAB bonus but got stacked on top, leading to an effective 225% power release whenever Goldeen released a water-type move.
Frankly, considering that Utopia was very likely to raise her potential to green, and then adding up the Shiny Gene, this very impressive talent, as well as the Lightning Rod ability that Goldeen also happened to have, propelled Goldeen, or rather Seaking once she evolved, from an ornamental Pokemon to a pretty good potential team member; Well, at least it did for everyone else.
I was still reluctant to add her to even my reserve team, but I genuinely thought that it would be a shame if Goldeen did not get properly utilized, so I made a note to ask my parents if they wanted her. If they declined, I would ask Rose, Jessie, Ace, Weiss, and Misty in that order. Having made my decision, I balled Goldeen with an Ocean Ball before placing her inside Utopia for an upgrade, and my expectations were not disappointed.
Moving the still sleeping Goldeen now sporting green potential to one of the Pokemon-free ponds, I could not help but wonder what a Rampardos with Horn(y) Channeler could do seeing how they had 10 horns sticking out of their body. That was the highest count of horns I could think of, unless the spikes on the back of Sandslash counted. In that case, Sandslash would take the cake, though unfortunately, I won't be able to find out if that was the case or not.
Shaking off the random ideas I was getting, I stopped focusing on Utopia and resumed exploring the (under)water channel. Remembering the little slap earlier, I reaffirmed my belief that Barboach were not worth my time. When the face slapping I was hoping for did not arrive even five minutes after I made that reaffirmation, I had to reluctantly accept that reality had chosen another way to slap my face. No playing/tricking the system with reverse psychology for me I guess.
Unable to bag a second golden fish, I chose to stop entertaining fancy ideas and genuinely focused on resuming my exploration of the channel. We continued heading deeper following an S-pattern, and sometime after we crossed the 300 m point, at least as far as I could tell, we came across a surprise. I spotted a Shellder lodged in the ground/channel bed, which was rather astonishing since I would not have expected them to appear in a place like this.
In the back of my mind a voice could not help but conspiratorily whisper that someone/life was trying to mess with me since Goldeen, Barboach, and Shellder all had golden/orange(ish) shiny colors. Ignoring the distracting/intrusive thoughts, I Observed the Shellder since I thought that Cloyster was a pretty decent mon but sadly while the Shellder herself wasn't orange, her potential was, so I didn't disturb the Shellder any further, and we continued our exploration.
The next few minutes proved that the previous encounter was not a singular event. We came across 5 more Shellder spread across the next 100 meters that we explored, though the number of wild Pokémon was still unexpectedly low considering that we were already over 400 meters or so meters away from the waterfall. Shellder aside, we had seen fewer than 20 other Pokémon in total so far, including the Shiny Goldeen I caught. Well, less than 25 if we added the 4 try-hards at the mouth of the channel.
Not to mention that all those Pokemon were either Barboach, or Goldeen, with just one Seaking in the mix, which was a bit odd in itself since all of them were at the (mid) bronze stage at minimum, and I was pretty sure that at least a third, if not half of the Goldeen could have evolved if they wanted to. The same was probably true for the Barboach, though in their case they probably avoided evolving to prevent themselves from being targeted by others.
Nonetheless, general dislike of Whiscash aside, I could not help but wonder why the vast majority of the Goldeen chose to remain Goldeen instead of evolving. The first possible reason that came to my mind was food. I had noted that the number of aquatic plants around the channel was not all that abundant, and I had yet to see any regular fish, which made sense since even weaker Pokémon got swept away by the current, so regular fish probably stood no chance. Hence, not wanting to increase their food demand might be the reason.
Honestly, instead of trying to come up with explanations by myself, it would be easier and probably more accurate if I asked the Goldeen why they did that. I went for a wild one instead of the Shiny I had because non-shinies were the norm and their conditions might differ for various reasons. I went to multiple Goldeen for cross-reference sake and they all said the same thing. It was as I expected due to a relative scarcity of food in this area.
The Goldeen all shared that home zones had more abundant food available and that they did not know how things were further into the channel since they never went too far from this stretch, but around this stretch, they would likely provoke others by eating too much food to satisfy their larger Seaking appetites. I only asked once why they did not stay at the home zones if that was the case before feeling a bit silly for asking that.
The deadpan look the Goldeen gave me which questioned if I was stupid was probably somewhat deserved. Nonetheless, the Goldeen still admitted that it wasn't that they didn't want to but rather that they couldn't since the closest home zones were already occupied, and they were too weak to challenge the occupants.
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