It could have been due to Jellicent's end or the fact that our group had grown by a Gyarados and a Milotic, with each of them looking more impressive than even the overlords since our members were variants and/or particularly large members of their species, but our exploration that day was quite smooth. Even when we made it to the home zone belonging to the Gyarados, no one provoked us, though given our strained relationship, we skipped the zone for the Milotic one a bit further down the channel.
The Newlotic and one of the Bosslotic greeted us there. They accompanied us as we checked out the formation, though it seemed they mostly wanted to talk to Tiamat/Milotic. I saw and felt that the Bosslotic was a bit reluctant to part with Tiamat, though my girl did not care at all. Either way, we said our goodbyes and resumed our exploration.
It became more and more apparent that our group had not only scared off any ambush attempts, but also the local Pokémon since all of them were a lot more restrained. They tried to keep their distance as much as possible whenever we passed by, and I chose to respect their choice. I only sent out a psionic feeler to brush past a Pokémon if it roused my interest, which rarely happened. Other than that, we simply regarded them from a few meters away.
By the time we went back to Utopia for lunch, we had closed in on the 4 km line. I made sure to check up on Shino/Yanmega during lunch to see how he was feeling since he had been staying in front of the small portal I opened for him all morning. He said he was fine, and his condition said the same, so I told him to take a flight or two if he needed to stretch his wings/body. He did just that, though not exactly in the way I meant it.
Shino ended up shoveling down his food to take a flight while we were still eating since he, in his words, had to get back to portal duty as soon as we left Utopia. I tried to tell him he didn't have to rush like that, but he was adamant so I let it go, and simply ate a bit slower than usual. Once we had eaten and cleaned up, we left Utopia with a fresh pair of companions. Medusa/Gyarados and Abzu/Milotic took over for Stan/Gyarados and Tiamat, though things remained the same as before encounter and trouble-wise.
If there was one positive, then it was that none of the three home zone owners we had met after the Milotic one, made any kind of fuss. Each of them let us look around their home without a complaint, though all of them made sure to accompany us throughout our inspection. Still, that was something all of the previous home zone bosses had done before as well, so it wasn't surprising that they followed suit.
Bosslotic had already told me about the Gyarados and Whiscash zones that came up around the 5 km mark, so once I recognized them we stayed away from those. The fact that I actually saw some Magikarp swimming around that area accompanied by regular (silver/gold-stage) Gyarados had me grumble that they had the nerve to go ballistic when a Feebas evolved while they had 4-5 "weaker" Gyarados swimming around just this stretch alone.
Nonetheless, I left them alone, though I felt the Gyarados staring at us as we passed through. We got stared at again a few hundred meters later while we passed by the Whiscash home zone, though that stretch had only Barboach in it, along with a single visible Whiscash that stared at us the whole time until we were out of sight. I was pretty sure that it was the Whiscash Overlord since Shino alerted us that he felt his Danger senses tingling the whole time, which was why we remained alert until we had left Whiscash behind and Shino declared that the tingling had calmed down.
It was a bit ironic that Shino's Danger Sense had stayed quiet when we passed through both Gyarados home zones but went off when we passed through Whiscash's place, given that it was supposed to be loosely allied to the Milotic, while we had actually clashed with the Gyarados Overlords before. I had to admit that it made my opinion of Whiscash sink a bit further, but that seemed to be happening rather often ever since we entered the Meteor Falls.
Still, that unpleasant experience aside, we managed to reach the 8 km mark, at least as far as I could tell, before we returned to Utopia for dinner. That was already more than half the distance the alliance's exploration team managed to cover. After we had passed the Whiscash zone, we came across five more home zones, and none of them made a fuss, so we were able to explore all five of them.
Interestingly enough the third of those home zones belonged to a Cloyster, who had apparently evolved through something other than a Water Stone as well, though Cloyster was not sure what exactly that object had been. According to Cloyster, it had looked like a blackish/brownish rock-like lump, and I could not help but wonder if it was another type of water energy-rich mineral. Unfortunately, Cloyster had not come across another of those, which was why she was the only Cloyster in the home zone.
The rest of the inhabitants were Shellder and Clamperl. Even after finding Staryu and Shellder, seeing Clamperl had come as a surprise since those usually stayed in deeper areas of the ocean, seldom appearing in shallow waters, which made their appearance here rather unusual. Either way, their appearance made me wonder if the lump or scale that managed to trigger Cloyster and Starmie's evolution could also trigger the evolution of Clamperl since their evolution condition was much stricter.
Evolution aside, I considered if I should capture them since they could be added to the ones already participating in the Pinkan project, but as with the Tentacool before, I decided to not start a capture spree since I already had more than 350 of them in Utopia, though I still caught the 2 that had light green potential after confirming with Cloyster that she was okay with that.
Greenish Pokémon were uncommon enough that I chose to catch them seeing how I had already come across them. I directly added them to the batch going through the Pinkan project, and left no2 give them the first round of Pinkan supplements. The other 4 home zones aside from the one belonging to a Seaking, were less interesting. The Tentacruel, and two Whiscash, regular ones not the Overlord, were cooperative, but aside from checking the formation, all there was to see were the Tentacool and Barboach, which I was not interested in right now.
The reason the Seaking's zone was a bit more interesting was that we actually spotted 5 Luvdisc living together with the Goldeen and Seaking. I naturally checked all 5 Luvdisc to see if I could find one that could match the Luvdisc I had already caught as a present, but unfortunately, none of them were good enough. Sadly that was not too surprising since I was looking for a Luvdisc with deep green potential or better. Nonetheless, I was happy to stumble upon some Luvdisc since it meant that there could be more, though we had yet to come across any other ones outside that home zone.
Anyway, enough reminiscing; The first thing I did upon returning to Utopia, after greeting everyone, was to check on Shino again. He said he was fine but I saw that he had a mild mental strain listed in his condition section which I could only attribute to him staring at the portal with 100% concentration for over 10 hours. I reminded him that his sense was passive so he did not have to stare at the portal as if his life depended on it for it to trigger, but Shino refused citing that our lives did depend on it.
Seeing him being stubborn like that I could not help but let out a *sigh* before warning him to be more relaxed tomorrow or I would stop opening the portal for him if I saw that his mind was overstressed again. He buzzed a bit before agreeing, though the way he acted it felt as if I was forcing him to clean the loo. Other than that, the rest of the evening was pleasant.
Some were excited that we were closing in on the boundary where the alliance had stopped, while most seemed more interested in the fact that we might finally get into a proper fight if things went the way they did for the alliance's exploration team. It appeared that quite a few of them were starting to get bored without any battles happening, which reminded me that the last action we saw was the ambush, if that counted. If it didn't count, then the Gyarados-Milotic conflict properly didn't either, which meant that the last proper battles we had happened days ago.
The next morning, before we left, I made sure to warn Shino to take things a bit easier. Once we were back outside we lost no time to resume our exploration. Not long after we crossed the 9 km mark, we came across the second Milotic home zone, and surprisingly both Milotic Overlords were there. Milotic had to have moved from the first home to the second while we were in Utopia. I did not think that we could have missed a Milotic passing by.
Regardless, I noticed that there were a lot more Feebas here than in the first zone, which had me think that the Overlords usually stayed here. More importantly, I noticed that one of the Feebas was a shiny. The Milotic directly told me that the Feebas was off limits when they saw me eyeing it. Honestly, considering how I was working on a method to produce unlimited Shiny Feebas, I did not mind being preempted like that.
During the conversation that followed they told me that the Overlords usually teamed up to stop any humans who tried to go any further than the second home zone after the Gyarados one that came next. It seemed they had an agreement with the Tentacruel in charge of that home zone. As soon as a human passed its place, the Tentacruel would send one of its Tentacool to each of the Overlord's home zones to alert them of the human.
The Overlords would then meet up and let a Milotic as well as a Gyarados approach the human. They would intimidate the human(s), preventing them from advancing any further. If that did not work, they would attack. Usually, two of them would suffice, but they shared that they had to fully team up one time to finish things fast enough. I was pretty sure that the case they were mentioning was the alliance team that got attacked and had to abort their exploration, though I still had no idea why they chose that specific spot to stop people from advancing any further.
The Milotic hesitated a bit when I posed that question. They looked at each other before one of them shrugged. Milotic only said that the area after that was the resting place of their boss, and they did not want anyone to disturb the boss. I was naturally surprised that there appeared to be a boss above the known Overlords. Given that Whiscash, the Gyarados, and Milotic were all at the (high) platinum stage, I could only assume that their "boss" had to be stronger than that, I was naturally curious who exactly their boss was, but Milotic refused to share more than that.
All they said was that we would have to see that for ourselves if we managed to get past Whiscash and the Gyarados. I was a bit startled at that, and Milotic explained that while they themselves would not prevent us from going further, that was the most they could do. Favor or not, they could not stop the other Overlords from blocking us, which I understood. While getting through unbothered would have been great, needing to deal with 2 fewer (high) platinum stage Pokémon was already good enough.
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