After leaving the Tentacruel home zone, we resumed swimming in an S-pattern, and for around another 100 or so meters, most wild Pokémon were Tentacool, with the occasional Goldeen and Shellder. I kind of understood why they dominated this area since they were most likely those who had left the home zone for a swim or those who did not get to stay there for various reasons.
I was sure that some got exiled due to insufficient strength, development, bad connections or behavior, or any other reason. It honestly depended on what the home boss thought more than any other reason. Regardless, the number of Tentacool went down drastically after we passed the 100-meter line, or at least I thought it was 100 meters.
With the number of Tentacool down, other Pokémon started to appear more, and we noticed that the number of Shellder seemed to be increasing quite a bit. From 2-3 within a hundred meters to more than triple that. Not only that, but after passing the 1 km milestone, we even saw two Staryu, which was another species I had not expected to see here at all.
An interesting point was that both Staryu and Shellder usually needed a Water Stone to evolve. Well, some other water-attuned material that was usually rarer than a Water Stone would work as well, but the important bit was that their evolution depended on being able to access that evolution trigger. I was curious if there were any Water Stones around the channel, because if there weren't any of those or any other equivalent, then all Staryu and Shellder living in the channel were stuck as they were.
I did not want to bash those two Pokémon or anything, but regardless of how some people kept their Staryu or Shellder as they were, if that was truly the case, then I did not think that any members of the two species stood any chance at securing a home zone for themselves. Starmie and Cloyster were strong Pokémon, but their prevolutions by themselves would not be able to establish themselves as leaders in a competitive environment like this.
Also, a curious thing I noticed was that none of the wild Pokémon we had come across so far made any attempt to attack any of us. Granted BossBro/Slowbro and Kun/Azuraid were big fully evolved Pokémon, but every place usually had at least one or two reckless Pokémon that still recklessly charged at larger Pokémon unless they happened to be radiating a much more superior energy to their own, which was not the case with us.
None of my four companions was releasing their might/energy. The case with Tentacruel had been the only occasion where one of them flexed their muscle so to speak, and yet, none of the wild Pokémon had tried anything. To be honest, it was a welcome change of pace even if it felt a bit odd not to get bothered at all. It certainly made for a calmer exploring experience, even if it felt like it was missing a bit of the thrill that came with being challenged.
Anyway, if I had interpreted the Goldeen right, then the second home zone should be coming up soonish since I translated it to be at around the 1 km mark. That ended up being off by about 200 meters, but it was close enough I guess, though seeing how the number of Staryu had risen to match that of the Shellder, Goldeen, and Barboach, I was suspecting that the home zone might belong to either the Staryu line or the Shellder one.
I did not think that it was a Seaking/Goldeen or a Barboach/Whiscash one. The reason for the latter was pretty obvious. If it had been a Whiscash-dominated home zone, there likely would not have been any wild Pokémon aside from Barboach close to the home zone. That was to some milder extent what had happened close to the Tentacruel home zone, with predominantly Tentacool around it, with a few Goldeen and Barboach as well as a handful of Shellder.
It was connected to the degree of territoriality a species exhibited, and it was also because of that that I did not believe that this second home zone was occupied by a Seaking. While Goldeen/Seaking were less territorial than Tentacool/Tentacruel, there was still some of that noticeable in their general conduct, which was why I did not believe that they would have allowed a near balanced state as we were seeing right now.
Shellder and Cloyster on the other hand were more chill Pokémon, or rather they were generally more passive due to their nature/biology. They normally followed a live and let live, or rather leave me be routine. Staryu and Starmie were even more chill than that and the reason for that also stemmed from their biology, though theirs was more of a "I'm nearly immortal so I don't really care" attitude. As long as one did not threaten a Staryu or Starmie's core, one's action rarely bothered them enough for them to act against them.
Well, logical assumptions aside, I was really hoping that it was a Starmie or Cloyster that had occupied the place since that would mean that something capable of triggering their evolution could be found within the (under)water channel. Seeing how we had seen quite a few Staryu and Shellder so far but not a single Starmie or Cloyster I had been worried that there would be no such item around, which would have been really bad for the two species.
We had arrived in front of the home zone while I let my mind go in speculative circles, so we would be getting the answer to my questions in a moment. I told BossBro/Slowbro and Kun/Azuraid to be alert, just in case I was wrong and we were about to encounter a less amiable species. Thankfully, that ended up not being the case; I spotted a Staryu leaning against the first pillar.
While they were roughly the same size, the formation here was a bit different from the first one. There were more rocks jutting out of the ground, though it was just 11 instead of 9. Also, unlike the first formation where the rocks had been close to each other in size, 3 rocks were much shorter but wider, and this "first" pillar was one of the stocky ones.
As it was, I could see a pair of Shellder on top of the rock, which did not help my question of who was in charge. Thankfully my question did not stay unanswered for long because after I let my psychic energy spread out like a sonar, I felt a ping indicating that someone had reacted proactively upon being swept up/through by my psychic energy.
Given how my energy was unable to advance any further, I was not sure if that Pokémon was the only one that could do so but I now knew that there was at least one psychic present. I seriously doubted that I would find a Bruxish in this place, and nothing could make me believe otherwise simply because a Bruxish would not play nice with the Staryu and Shellder since they adhered to the opposite of the "fish are friends, not food" idea. This place would be an open buffet for a Bruxish, so it was out.
I also did not believe that the mystery psychic was a Slowbro or Slowking simply because there had been no indication of their presence at all, though they would actually get along with the Staryu and Shellder since they were just as chill if not more. Nonetheless, unless the world wanted to play a joke on me, the reaction I got meant that there was at least one Starmie in this place, and just as I thought that I could feel/see it coming over.
I felt the astonishment coming from BossBro, Kun, as well as Mothra, and I shared their feelings. How could I not when the Starmie heading to us was so obviously different from a normal Starmie? The Starmie swimming, or maybe gliding was more appropriate here, towards us did not have the usual purple, gold, red color combination. Its coloring wasn't even the one I knew from the usual/standard Shiny Starmie.
Instead of having purple limbs/appendages, this Starmie's limbs were blue. The blue was actually pretty close to the one a Shiny Starmie usually had, but it gave the impression that it was a tad bit lighter. Compared to that, the differences in the casing and gem between this Starmie, a normal one, and a Shiny one were more obvious. The casing of a normal Starmie was gold, while a Shiny one had a reddish-pink casing. Meanwhile, this one had a beige(ish) orange-tinted color.
Still, the most eye-catching difference had to be with the gems. The original was ruby red-like, while the Shiny one was sapphire blue-like. This gem on the other hand was purple. If I had to be honest, I actually liked the regular Shiny colors better than the ones in front of me, but that was just me, and it still looked a bit better than the original, so it wasn't as if it looked bad or anything.
Nonetheless, as Starmie stopped in front of us, I could not help but wonder if it had a Lustrous gene or if it was some other modifier that affected its color. Checking its status had slipped my mind when it pinged on my psychic assessment, so I chose to amend that, though I masked it as establishing a telepathic connection for communication's sake instead of broadcasting my thoughts.
Directly sending out another psychic probe so that I could Observe it would have been rude and could have been seen as a provocation, so this subtle alternative approach felt like an appropriate solution.
'Species: Starmie
Gender: None
Type: Water, Psychic
Potential: Light Blue
Stage: Dark Gold-Stage (High)
Modifiers: Lustrous
Abilities: Illuminate, Natural Cure
Talents: Full Recovery
Affinities: Water, Psychic'
Its potential was pretty good, but considering its strength that was pretty much a given. It could have been Deep green at worst, or Green if we decided to be gracious and included the possibility of a ceiling break. Still, Light Blue was enough for it not to have to worry about being unable to break through to platinum without ungodly amounts of serious/hardcore training.
Regardless, more interesting to me was the modifier section, and it appeared that Starmie had the Lustrous gene after all. The 25% boost that it provided propelled Starmie's racial level straight to the apex tier. In fact, with a racial value (base stat) of 650 it was even superior to the average pseudo-legendary.
Honestly, I could not say that I was not tempted to catch Starmie, but given its suspected, but nearly assured, position as the home zone boss, I would be taking away the protector of the Staryu and Shellder, so I threw that thought out the window before returning to the sheet. I then noticed that the talent section was not empty.
Apparently, Starmie happened to have a talent as well. Full Recovery made me think of the line's ability to quickly recover lost appendages/limbs, so I thought that it might be boosting that, or its natural recovery speed. Reading through the description, I saw that that was indeed the case, but Full Recovery did something much more impressive and important than that, at least for Starmie.
Usually, a cracked gem meant a death sentence to a Staryu or a Starmie, while a broken gem resulted in near-immediate death. However, Full Recovery allowed Starmie to retain full consciousness as long as the gem was not ground to dust, and it also made it possible for the gem to recover even from a broken state. Cracks healed very quickly, while pushing together broken parts of the gem allowed them to mend/fuse, speeding up the recovery process since it needed to regenerate less of the gem that way.
This meant that unless someone ground down all of Starmie's gem in short order, it was functionally immortal since Staryu and Starmie were also among the ageless species. If the Lustrous gene had tempted me, then its Full Recovery talent made the idea of capturing Starmie that I had thrown out earlier scale up to the window and climb back inside. I was sure the problem I considered could be dealt with. I could just take in all its companions along with it. It wasn't as if Utopia was hurting for space.
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