CH68 (682), Searching For The One (2)

I did come across a few more decisively non-Larvitar Pokemon before I finally stumbled upon the first one. Well, it was actually a group of three Larvitar and they all threw me unfriendly looks until they noticed Mr.Mime. I did not know if I should be flattered that my good looks drew their attention so much that it took them a second look to notice Mr.Mime beside me or bummed out that their first reaction upon seeing me was to give me unfriendly looks. I mean I had my "I'm a nice guy" aura on and all that.

Well, I guess that was all secondary to the intense danger I briefly felt upon closing in on the Larvitar. I sensed strong feelings of protectiveness, aggression, and alertness from somewhere on my right as soon as we came in an observable distance from the Larvitar. The feeling cocktail quickly gave way to recognition and settled on simple attentiveness, which I assumed was the hidden or remote protector of the three Larvitar recognizing Mr.Mime.

"Say, Mr.Mime, do these Larvitar simply roam about this area on their own? Is that not dangerous? Poachers aside, what if a wild Pokemon attacks and Mew-forbid kills or cripples them?" I asked Mr.Mime as if I had not felt anything just now.

'Oh, don't worry. Nothing like that has happened in decades. This part of Mt.Silver is the established territory of the Tyranitar so no strong Pokemon dare to enter this stretch unless they have been vetted by its owners, the Tyranitar,' Mr.Mime said, and I could not help but notice a little detail.

"I thought this stretch of the mountain belonged to Professor Serizawa? Would that not make him the owner? Why do you call the Tyranitar the owners?" I questioned and I heard a freaking mental chuckle at my question. Like I literally heard Mr.Mime chuckle inside my mind while his mouth did not move at all.

I mean I got why he talked telepathically, it was faster and quite convenient, especially since it allowed humans to perfectly understand what he was saying, but I really thought that chuckling and laughing should be done normally. It just felt weird and a bit creepy even to me.

'That's because this place belongs to the Tyranitar. In fact, at first, only the facility, and the immediate area around it including the reserve field had been registered as Ishiro's territory since that is what he initially secured with our help. Everything else belonged to the unbound Tyranitar. Only after establishing a rapport with the Tyranitar and coming to an agreement with them did he request the alliance to designate this area as his property. However, that's just for your systems. The Pokemon of Mt.Silver don't think so,' Mr.Mime went into lecture mode. He put his hands behind his back, straightened his posture, and everything.

'In the eyes of the Mt.Silver tribes, this area belongs to the south-western Tyranitar tribe, and Ishiro is just a human that had been adopted by the Tyranitar tribe due to his relation with some of their elders, which gave him an in with the tribe leader. Well, that along with the help Ishiro provided them with their young as well as the other beneficial things he has done and is still doing for the tribe.' Mr. Mime explained and I could feel his amusement when he said that the professor was adopted.

'And to some extent that belief is true,' Mr.Mime admitted which surprised me a bit. 'Only around 20% of the Tyranitar have a bond with Ishiro. The rest have been lured over by the benefits Ishiro promised them through our Tyranitar friends, and over time their working relationship has turned into a proper friendship. One can say that Ishiro and the Tyranitar are in a symbiotic relationship, in which Ishiro helps the Tyranitar with the young and niceties, while they help him in his research,' Mr.Mime continued and that immediately brought one question to my mind.

"If that's the case, then am I really allowed to choose any of the Larvitar that fit the parameter we agreed on? What if the Tyranitar protector(s) disagree?" I raised what I felt was a very reasonable question.

'Don't worry about it, Ishiro has an agreement with the Tyranitar that allows him to refer even the Larvitar that did not descent from our team's Tyranitar to others as long as they are considered outstanding enough, and he has already come to an agreement with the Tyranitar leadership on your matter, so you are free to choose any Larvitar you want as long as it does not exceed the limits set in the agreement,' Mr.Mime answered and I was happy to hear that I would not have to worry about having to persuade some protective Tyranitar that allowing their charge to leave with me was a great thing.

"That's good," I said out loud while pondering how many professors and specialist families followed a similar arrangement. It would make sense for the ones that did not have large families or organizations backing them, and even for those an arrangement like this would make sense if the number of facilities/properties was too big. Personally, I would not like an arrangement like this where I was not the one in charge, and thankfully I doubted that I would ever have to worry about this.

'Yes, so you don't have to worry about being mistaken for an intruder and attacked, especially with me by your side,' Mr.Mime said confidently before motioning towards the Larvitar. 'Go ahead, and inspect them,' he said and I nodded before moving closer to the Larvitar. Thankfully, the Larvitar did not show any negative reactions to my approach, and they even let me check them out without any fuss, which puzzled me at first since I had seen their initial reaction toward my appearance.

After some reflection, I attributed their unbothered attitude to them being used to seeing the facility staff and being checked out by them. Mr.Mime's presence must have made them assume that I was a member of the staff, and I saw no reason to correct them yet. I observed their status sheets while inspecting them, and I was surprised to see that one of the Larvitar actually had 5-star Potential.

'Species: Larvitar

Gender: Female

Type: Rock, Ground

Potential: Light Blue

Stage: Bronze-stage (Low)

(Genetic) Modifiers: None

Abilities: Guts, Sand Veil

Talents: None

Affinities: Rock, Ground'

That was naturally not good enough for me to consider her, especially at the bronze stage, but I felt that stumbling on a 5-star Larvitar right at the start of my Larvitar search was a good omen. I thanked the Larvitar for their cooperation, looked at Mr.Mime, and discreetly shook my head before we continued to roam around the area in search of more Larvitar.

Over the next two hours I managed to inspect slightly more than 120 Larvitar, and while some of them had 5-star potential, roughly an eighth of them, none of those Larvitar were able to really draw my attention. There was not a single one with a modifier, and while some of them had talents, none of those talents were all that impressive. At least they did not have the impact I was hoping/looking for. The best among the Larvitar I checked so far was a female with deep blue potential and a talent that pretty much mirrored her Sand Veil ability.

While that was pretty useless right now, it would become useful once she evolved and "lost" her Sand Veil ability. Still, while Sand Veil was a good ability, especially with Tyranitar having Sand Stream as an ability that could automatically trigger a Sandstorm, I believed that there had to be better Larvitar out there, so I simply made sure to memorize Larvitar's appearance so that I could identify her if necessary before moving on.

Interestingly enough, I only got to see three Tyranitar during these two hours with none of them bothered speaking to me after warning me to be careful while dealing with the little ones. The other protectors did not bother coming out of their resting/observation spot. Another interesting point I noticed was that none of the Larvitar I had observed so far, with a single exception had potential below 3 stars. The one that did have 2-star potential had deep orange potential and from what I saw during the brief period I met his group, he seemed to be treated like everyone else.

That threw the slightly dark theory that inevitably appeared in my mind at the situation at hand out of the window, and made me assume that the Tyranitar had simply managed to raise the potential pool average of all parents high enough that descendants with bad potential usually did not appear. I definitely hoped that it was like that and not the result of something else.

'Right,' Mr.Mime "spoke" up, bringing me out of my musings. 'If I don't remember things wrong, there should still be a last group of Larvitar roaming around this area, so let's check those out as well before we move on to the next place,' he said before giving me a slightly deeper look. 'Let me remind you that you can't choose the distinctly colored Larvitar,' he added and I assured him that I did not forget that Shinies were off limits.

It took us only a few minutes to reach the final group made up of 7 Larvitar with one of them immediately standing out due to its different color compared to the other 6 Larvitar by its side. Our arrival naturally attracted their attention and they simply watched as we were closing in. A Tyranitar also made its approach and it arrived at the group's side at the same time as we did. She did not stop me from inspecting the Larvitar but stuck around to keep an eye on me. She told me as much before allowing me to check out the Larvitar.

Surprisingly, the first two Larvitar I checked both had 5-star/light blue potential. Not that it changed the fact that I had no interest in them, but that did not stop me from being surprised. Anyway, I went up to the Shiny after that. Just because I could not pick it did not mean that I could not check it out after all.

'Species: Larvitar

Gender: Male

Type: Rock, Ground

Potential: Blue

Stage: Iron-stage (High)

(Genetic) Modifiers: Shiny

Abilities: Guts, Sand Veil

Talents: None

Affinities: Rock, Ground'

He was definitely not bad, but to be honest, what I saw did not make me feel like I would definitely need to have him even if I had been allowed to choose him. I still thought that I might stumble upon someone better, and as luck would have it, the fifth Larvitar ended up rousing my interest to a higher degree than the Shiny did.

'Species: Larvitar

Gender: Male

Type: Rock, Ground

Potential: Deep Blue

Stage: Iron-stage (High)

(Genetic) Modifiers: Ability Variant

Abilities: Guts, Solid Rock

Talents: None

Affinities: Rock, Ground'

Not only did Larvitar have deep blue potential, but he was also an ability variant with Solid Rock as an ability instead of Sand Veil, which meant that he would become a Tyranitar with Sand Stream and Solid Rock as his abilities in the future since as far as I knew, Ability Variants tended to retain their altered ability through their evolutions. Replacing Unnerve with Solid Rock was a massive boon for any Tyranitar due to the high number of type weaknesses their species had, so an ability that reduced any weakness by 25% was tremendously helpful to them.

Honestly, the only thing I could think of that explained how Larvitar ended up with Solid Rock, aside from some cosmic-level luck, was one of its parent or grandparents being a Rhyperior along with some pretty good luck. Well, both cases involved good luck, but case two did not need a cosmic miracle that bordered impossible levels, so I was assuming that case two was likely the case here. Either way, this Larvitar shot to the top of my candidate list. Unless a miracle happened and I managed to somehow stumble upon an even better Larvitar, I was going to choose him.

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