CH52 (113), Underwater War

I wouldn't say that there were Tentacool as far as I could see, but seeing a decently sized swarm of them moving in one direction was impressive nonetheless.

I decided to swim up a bit more so that I could get a better view of what was about to happen and to be closer to the surface in case something unexpected happened. Still, to reduce the probability of getting dragged into the conflict, I positioned myself above the Horsea area of the coral field.

Once I was satisfied with my position I focused back on the situation below me. While I knew that a lot of casualties were going to happen, I couldn't stop myself from getting excited at the prospect of witnessing a territory war.

First of all, was the situation of the intruders, the Tentacool. As I previously noted the number of Tentacool was pretty large, if I had to use numbers I would say there were a bit more than 200, maybe 240.

This was the largest group of wild Pokemon moving together I had seen until now, the Magikarp inside my subspace didn't count since they were mine and didn't move like one.

At that thought, I looked over to my 4 Magikarp and saw that they were also observing the event below. I could feel their nervousness as well as excitement and it was good to see that we were on the same page. After a moment of deliberation, I called out the other two as well.

'Alright, we are about to witness a war between some intruders and the dwellers of the coral field below us.' I began saying through telepathy to bring the two newcomers up to date.

They all turned towards me as soon as they heard my voice inside their heads, ignoring the situation below for the moment. Knowing I had their attention I continued.

'I want you to stay alert while we are watching the war. I have positioned us in a way that should be relatively safe, but in case more than three unevolved Pokemon approach us, I want all of you to use Hydro Pump in their direction.'

They all gave their acknowledgment without any hesitation, and I was satisfied with their swift reaction.

The resulting water flow caused by their Hydro Pumps should buy us enough time for me to recall them, cover the last 5 meters to the surface, call out Xatu, and get the f**k out of here. Even a silver stage Pokemon would get delayed long enough by six Hydro Pumps for me to execute my evacuation plan.

In the minuscule chance that there is a gold stage Pokemon amongst the attacking swarm, I would have to hide inside my space instead, which meant I would have to wait until the situation below settled down enough for me to leave my space and run away.

I would prefer it if scenario 2 never happened but it was good to know that it was available if I had no way out. Anyway, back to the Tentacool swarm. Besides the 200 plus Tentacool, there were 4 Tentacruel as well and not 3 as I had previously thought.

Apparently, one had been moving inside or behind the swarm when I looked over them the last time, but it had joined the other 3 while I had not been watching. I had no idea how strong they were but since they had the gall to attack the coral field at least 2 of them should be at the silver stage.

Still, I was pretty sure they had scouted out the place beforehand because the Tentacruel were adjusting their movement in such a way that they were moving towards the Krabby and Remoraid zones. Apparently, their goal was not the whole field, but only the zones of those two.

That made sense since I did not believe they could have taken on the Horsea and Goldeen zone as well. Hell, I was sure they would be hard-pressed with just taking on the Horsea zone on its own.

Still, I was curious if the Seaking or Seadra were going to help out the Krabby/Remoraid zone, or if they were simply going to watch while the Tentacool swarm took over those 2 areas.

Even if they decided to stay out of the conflict, it was uncertain if the Tentacruel would stop at those zones or not. Even if I personally thought that they would stop, since the combined area of those two zones was more than large enough for them.

As one could see from my thoughts I did not believe that the Krabby or Remoraid were going to win this one. As long as they were not hiding some strong members they were pretty much scr*wed.

At that thought, I decided to look over at them and saw that they had noticed the danger coming towards them. The leaders were mobilizing all their members and I finally got to see how many of them there were.

It was a bit surprising that I had missed so many of them, but I honestly had been more focused on being stealthy than trying to find all residents. I had previously only detected 15 Krabby, but from what I could see there were about 50 to 60 Krabby gathering behind the Kingler.

The same was true for the Remoraid as well. I saw about 80 of them gathering behind the two Octillery but what was even more surprising was that I saw another Octillery coming out from somewhere in between their coral area I had not checked.

It directly moved in front of the other two Octillery and from their behavior, I could see that the newcomer was their real boss. Honestly, that made some sense, since I had wondered how they managed to keep their zone with just a (mid) and (high) bronze stage Octillery. Turns out they had someone stronger that I had not seen.

All of this took place pretty fast, less than two minutes actually, and by the time they were ready the Tentacool swarm was close enough for everyone to see their rough number. It looked like seeing the disparity in numbers prompted members of both species to evolve because I could see how multiple Pokemon in both zones started to light up.

I could somewhat understand that their decision, even if it was not the smartest one. They decided to evolve for the boost in strength their new form gave them, but the truth was that they now had to fight in a body they were not used to.

It was a smaller change for the Krabby but a rather big one for the Remoraid, and while their new body came with the instinctive knowledge on how to move, it still took some time to adjust enough to fight as fluid as before the evolution.

As for why they had not evolved before this, that was because all Pokemon normally preferred to delay their evolution by a sub-stage or more to get the most out of their current form.

Krabby and Remoraid could evolve somewhere around the (high) iron stage, so those that did evolve just now were most likely either at the (high) iron stage or (low) bronze stage.

It took less than a minute for their evolution to end and now there were 5 more Octillery as well as 6 more Kingler in the ranks. The leaders did not seem to be happy with that development but did not react besides motioning for the newly evolved ones to get behind them.

The Tentacool had now come close enough that all sides were practically face to face and at that moment the swarm split into two. About 60% of the Tentacool moved towards the Octillery/Remoraid led by two of the Tentacruel, while the rest moved towards the Kingler/Krabby.

As soon as the swarms came close enough, the leaders on the defending side gave the attacking signal. The Krabby and Kingler used Mud Shot to attack their part of the Tentacool and Tentacruel, while the Remoraid and Octillery used Psybeam to attack theirs.

The swarm responded by using Water Pulse, which they followed by using Acid, more to contaminate the water than to attack the defenders I believe. The defenders answered that with a collective Water Gun, which send the Acid back in the direction of the Tentacool and away from them. They simply ignored it and after those opening moves both sides got close enough to finally clash.

The whole thing turned chaotic pretty fast and I had a hard time keeping up with everything that was happening. So, I decided to keep most of my focus on the boss fights.

On a quick side note, while I was looking all over the place trying to keep track of all the fights I noticed some of the Horsea and Goldeen as well as their leaders were keeping an eye on the situation, but they did not interfere with the battle.

Anyways, I tried to keep up with the boss fights, so I was forced to move my head from the left to the right every so often to watch both boss battles.

On the Kingler front, the leader was fighting one of the attacking Tentacruel (K1), while 3 of the newly evolved Kingler were fighting against the second Tentacruel (K2). The last two Kingler were fighting against some of the stronger Tentacool.

On the Octillery front, the leader was fighting a Tentacruel (O1) while the two older Octillery were fighting the second Tentacruel (O2) together. All newly evolved Octillery were being engaged by multiple Tentacool and since their number was higher than that of the defenders they could afford to do so.

The most important and interesting fights were those involving a Tentacruel. I saw the Boss Kingler using Razor Shell on both of its pincers during its fight.

Tentacruel used a Water Pulse swiftly followed by an Acid that blended into the Water Pulse, but Kingler (B) simply cut the Acidic Pulse in half using one of its Razor Shells, which made both halves miss it.

However, splitting the attack was not enough for it, so Kingler used its other Razor Shell to send one of the halves towards the other Tentacruel fighting its underlings.

While Kingler was doing that, Tentacruel attacked with multiple of its tentacles using Poison Jab on each one of them. It was impressive that it could use 4 Poison Jabs simultaneously, and it even moved its tentacles in such a way that it attacked from 4 directions.

Kingler saw Poison Jabs coming at it from the left, right, above, and below, so it tried to block them with its Razor Shells but only succeeded in blocking three of them. Kingler even managed to chop off one of the tentacles, yet it still got hit from above.

The strength behind Tentacruel's attack caused Kingler's feet to buckle and made its body crash into the seafloor, creating a big dust cloud in the process. Still, this did not stop Tentacruel's offensive. It fired Bubble Beam at Kingler's position, which not only served to damage Kingler but also absorbed the dust in its way, passively thinning the dust cloud as well.

I could not see if the Bubble Beam managed to hit Kingler, but I saw that Kingler returned fire with its own Bubble Beam. During their Bubble Beam exchange, the dust settled and I got a clear view once more.

I saw Tentacruel sending a Sludge Wave right behind its Bubble Beam, and while the first was being countered by Kingler it noticed the second a bit too late for an effective counter. I noticed both of its pincers gaining a metallic hue, which meant it was trying to use the steel energy of Metal Claw to defend against the poison move.

Unfortunately, its pincers could only cover so much of its body so it still got partially hit and damaged by Sludge Wave. Tentacruel did not stop and continued with its offensive by sending over Water Pulses one after another.

This forced Kingler to defend itself, so it used Crab Hammer to bat the Water Pulses away. It even managed to block one of them by batting another at it. Still, Kingler seemed to conclude that it would lose if they continued to fight a long-range battle because it used something that looked like Stomp to jump in Tentacruel's direction.

The combination of moves that followed impressed me greatly. Kingler fired a Water Gun from its mouth downward to boost the momentum it gained through its jump. On top of that, it pointed its pincers ahead while using Razor Shell through them.

This combination of Water Gun and Razor Shell turned Kingler into a Water Drill that was heading towards Tentacruel at a fast speed. Seeing Kingler approaching it in such a dangerous fashion Tentacruel reacted in the smartest manner possible.

It used Hydro Pump to attack Kingler head-on, which not only slowed Kingler's momentum but also propelled Tentacruel backward, further away from Kingler opening the distance between them some more. Kingler had to stop its combo eventually since it could keep it up, which was also true for Tentacruel's Hydro Pump.

Nonetheless, the exchange ended with Kingler being unable to close the gap. No, it even widened a bit. This led to a period of cat and mouse where Kingler wanted to get in close range while Tentacruel tried to maintain the distance between them.

While that was happening I observed the situation of the other Kingler/Krabby, and it did not look good. There were still 3 Kingler fighting the Tentacruel (K2), but those were not the original three, since I could see the body of a dead Kingler on the floor.

Two of the fighting Kingler were moderately injured, while the third one seemed relatively unharmed. The Tentacruel, on the other hand, was only slightly injured and from this, we could see that it had the upper hand in this fight.

The three Kingler were trying to box it in by attacking from three directions so that it had to divide its focus, but the difference in their strength only allowed them to keep a tentative stalemate, where they were even a bit disadvantaged.

I also looked at the rest of the area and I could see that there were a large number of casualties. Even though there were more Tentacool bodies among the dead since 2 Kingler were fighting against the Tentacool, the Krabby had already lost half their number, so they were the ones on the losing end.

After getting a brief picture of the current situation I returned my focus on the boss fight.

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