Starmie accompanied us to each pillar before asking us to follow it, which we did since I was curious about what it wanted. Starmie brought us to an area that was particularly covered in/masked by tall growing aquatic vegetation. I directly noticed a second Starmie lounging at the place, but it took me an extra moment or two to notice that there was also a Staryu not far from the second Starmie.
Seeing it, I could not help but be surprised as well as curious why Boss Starmie had brought us over. Given Starmie's behavior, and that the Staryu in question was a Shiny, I was pretty sure that the Staryu was Starmie's kid, or rather the child of both Starmie. I had a suspicion that the second Starmie was the one that ended up evolving with the help of the scale found 30 or so years ago, and that it might be why their child ended up with the Shiny gene, because even shinies had a hard time having shiny children.
Boss Starmie having the lustrous gene might have had slightly higher chances at having Shiny offsprings, but unless they got super lucky and hit the jackpot in one or a few tries, I would have to assume that the scale evolution of the second Starmie had helped a bit as well genetically even if it failed to unlock the gene for the Starmie itself. I could naturally be wrong and they could have sired hundreds of children before bringing this one to the world, but I seriously doubted that to be the case for two reasons.
Attitude and time. None of the Staryu we had seen during our exploration of the home zone treated Starmie like a parent. They were certainly respectful and polite, but none gave the impression they were seeing their parent. Honestly, the Shellder we saw were just as polite and respectful, so unless they were their children too, I was sure that the two Starmie did not try their hands at Shiny farming/spawning. That actually brought me to the second point, time.
The second Starmie had evolved only 30 or so years ago, and they couldn't have produced more than maybe 40-50 eggs during that time without harming themselves even if they wanted to. I wasn't actually too sure about that, so there was a real possibility that the safe limit was way below that. The parents were fusing and infusing their energy during the egg creation as well as the nurturing process after all.
Doing so repeatedly without giving themselves time to properly recover was not a good idea, and I could imagine that it would get progressively worse for the parents with each swiftly nurtured egg. Hence, why I believed that Staryu's conception involved a bit of luck and the Starmie's own gene level instead of some mass conception, though I could not completely disregard the possibility that the Shiny Staryu was not related to the two Starmie.
Either way, I could not help but be curious about what Starmie wanted. Did it show me Staryu because it was planning to allow me to recruit it, or did Starmie want to get a Water Stone from me for it? Starmie would not have needed to actually show me Staryu for the latter I guess, so I was hopeful that it was the first one, though I could not help but hope that Staryu's potential was at least decent.
Things would be quite awkward if Starmie offered up its child only for me to refuse due to it having bad potential, because I would refuse if that were the case. Hoping it would not come to that I finally decided to directly address the issue and ask Starmie why it had brought us here. At my question, Starmie first introduced the other Starmie as its partner and the Staryu as their child before asking me if its child had caught my attention now that I had seen it.
I felt the other Starmie's surprise when Boss Starmie said that, showing that the current situation caught it off guard, but it appeared that it chose to remain silent. Regardless, for me, the situation had developed in the best fashion, though I was honestly not sure why Starmie seemed to be willing to practically push its precious on me. Not that I minded being gifted Pokémon with potential, though I was not yet sure if that was the case with Staryu.
I just did not understand the motivation behind Starmie's actions, which had me feeling both suspicious and curious. Unwilling to waste any more brain cells on the issue I candidly asked Starmie for the reason, and the answer revealed that I was likely starting to underestimate dark gold stage Pokémon too much. Starmie revealed that it had noted that I not only possessed the psychic abilities I revealed but also an abundance of pure and vigorous life force.
On top of that, I was being accompanied by two Pokémon that gave it a feeling as if they could trouble or even match it, and another one that gave it a feeling of danger the likes of which it only felt when one of the Overlords passed by. To top that off, Starmie admitted that it made the final decision when it felt the slight space manipulation that took place while it had been considering my recruitment offer.
I was quite surprised that it had caught that, but I knew that the line/species had a certain affinity with space, so I could understand how. Starmie had probably noticed the situation with the environment around the portal which along with Mothra's behavior led to it catching the shift in space around the portal. Either way, no matter how Starmie had noticed the space fluctuations, it had no idea what exactly we had been doing, which was good for us and especially good for them.
Now that I knew why it had acted the way it did, I chose to solve the question that would determine our next step, so I asked Starmie for permission to approach and inspect Staryu. Starmie directly told me to go ahead, so I approached the watching Staryu and gave it a friendly pat on the tip of its topmost limb as I greeted Staryu. I directly used Observe on it as I did that, and my interest in the conversation with Staryu became a lot more genuine after I saw its status sheet.
'Species: Staryu
Gender: None
Type: Water
Potential: Light Blue
Stage: Silver-Stage (High)
Modifiers: Shiny
Abilities: Illuminate, Natural Cure
Talents: Camouflage
Affinities: Water, Psychic'
Light Blue potential at the (high) silver stage was pretty good. Utopia's bonus could push that to the top of blue or even deep blue, and attaining light purple upon reaching the gold stage was a sure thing. Its current stage meant that Staryu was ready to evolve at any time, and if we added the bonus I could help it gain during its evolution, Staryu's potential was nearly guaranteed to be purple.
While I was not sure if Staryu's potential could be pushed to light aurora upon reaching the dark gold stage, I was certain that it would be deep purple, with light aurora being practically a guaranteed thing at the platinum stage. This combined with Staryu's Shiny gene, and the possibility, no matter how slim, that its modifier could undergo an upgrade was enough for me to add Staryu to at least the reserve team.
Even joining the main team was not out of the question, depending on how things went with its training. Still, it was the fact that it had a talent that truly caught my attention. While Camouflage had nothing to do with Starmie's talent, Staryu's talent allowed it to essentially attain perfect visual invisibility. It was essentially the perfected version of a Kecleon's natural talent, though unlike theirs, Staryu's talent was not biological/physical but related to light manipulation.
From that alone, it was clear that Camouflage had been derived from Illuminate. While the latter allowed Staryu to release light into its surroundings, the former allowed Staryu to essentially bend the light around it. While it wasn't a powerful ability per se, it was still pretty useful, and it had the potential to become really great in case it underwent a favorable upgrade.
At this point, I was already ready to capture Staryu, and the fact that it already had inherited a psychic affinity was merely the icing on the cake. It was nice but I was planning to let Staryu evolve not long after its capture, and it was bound to gain the psychic typing when that happened.
Anyway, I asked Staryu if it was willing to go with us/me. As soon as it agreed, I took out an Ocean Ball, and touched Staryu with it, initiating the capture process, which settled after a single shake that likely only happened because my sudden action startled Staryu. Once the capture succeeded, I let Staryu out again so that it could say its farewell to its parents, and I told it as much.
After they had done that, we said our goodbyes to the Starmie pair and left the home zone to continue our exploration. I decided to send Staryu to Utopia so that it could undergo the optimization process, and get familiar with Utopia and the others. I told Staryu that I was going to move it to the place where the others of my family were staying, and while I did that I contacted Gwen/Garedvoir, Fortuna/Togekiss, as well as Wartortle to tell them to meet up at my place to greet the new arrival.
The moment Staryu appeared on the porch of my mansion/home, the initiation/optimization began, and while the three I had called along with others that had come along waited for the process to finish, I stored Staryu's Pokeball where the others were kept. Once I had done that, I took a look at the log and saw that the process was nearly done, so I, like the others, waited for the completion of the process.
The moment the initiation ended, I contacted Staryu and introduced it to Gwen as well as the others before leaving the rest of the Utopia introduction/initiation to them. While they did that, I took a look at Staryu's revised status sheet.
'Name: N/A
Species: Staryu
Gender: None
Age: 13+ Years
-
Type: Water
Potential: Deep Blue (12.46%)'
I noticed that Staryu's age as my eyes/mind flitted to its potential, and it was around the same age as most of us, which was nice. Much nicer than that was that its potential had gone from light blue straight to deep blue. I was now confident that the combination of its evolution and limit-breaking breakthrough to the gold stage would push its potential directly to purple, ensuring that Staryu would not lag behind the others by much.
Happy with that, I moved on to the other section, but as I had already noted through the log, there were no changes in Staryu's modifiers, abilities, or talents. Further down, its stage section made me a bit happy since its current parameter meant that Staryu would likely reach the regular ceiling (all As) within 5-8 months depending on how enthusiastically it trained.
The rest of the status sheet was as one would expect, and I only took a moment to check out the moves it had learned and to what level/proficiency it had raised them. It was while I was considering whether to let Staryu focus on raising some of the beginner mastery moves to proficiency first or to let it elevate Cosmic Power and Hydro Pump from their current novice rank instead that I suddenly felt my being's/body's warning signals blare to life.
My body automatically tilted to the side while my second mind immediately activated my aura senses to scan my surroundings to find what caused my body to react like it did. Meanwhile, I was suddenly at full alert, and my first thought stream was scrutinizing what my eyes were seeing of my surroundings even as my body was shifting from its initial position. An abrupt flare of pain caused all of that to freeze momentarily.
---------------------
---------------------
This part is purely to display Staryu's status screen in one piece and does not count toward the word count.
'Name: N/A
Species: Staryu
Gender: None
Age: 13+ Years
-
Type: Water
Potential: Deep Blue (12.46%)
Modifiers: Shiny
Abilities: Illuminate, Natural Cure
Talents: Camouflage
Affinities: Water, Psychic
-
Bond: Mikail (artificial)
Quirks: None
----
Parameters:
Stage: Silver Stage (high)
Vitality: C
Strength: C
Endurance: B
Agility: A
Energy Capacity: B
Energy Density: B
----
Resistance:
Fire (Minor), Water (Minor), Ice (Minor), Steel (Minor)
-
Weaknesses:
Electric (Minor), Grass (Minor)
-
Standardized:
N/A
-
Resistance Training:
N/A
----
Condition: Healthy, Curious
----
Masteries:
Water Energy Manipulation (Proficient)
Psionic Energy Manipulation (Proficient)
----
Techniques:
-
(Unofficial) Initial:
N/A
-
Novice:
Cosmic Power, Hydro Pump
-
Beginner:
Surf, Light Screen, Camouflage
-
Proficient:
Harden, Tackle, Swift, Bubble Beam, Minimize, Power Gem, Psychic, Confuse Ray, Brine, Gyro Ball
-
Advanced:
Water Gun, Recover, Psybeam, Rapid Spin
-
Mastered:
None'
-----------------------------
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