131 CH69 (130), Stroll Along The Coast (2)

Just as I was about to enter the water something extremely surprising happened. It looked like it sensed my approach because a Milotic surfaced in front of me.

Thankfully, it did not seem to have a shot first ask later approach. I knew that because it was just studying me carefully. Additionally, Milotic are known to be a peaceful and gentle species.

Still, seeing the situation I naturally used my charm *cough* *cough* aura, I meant aura, to express my peaceful intent. Better safe than sorry after all.

I was not planning to harm any of the Feebas which was 100% true. So, I tried to give off a friendly impression. I relaxed my body and stretched my arms out showing Milotic my open palms.

"I mean no harm to you or any of the Feebas. I swear." I said while still trying to give off a feeling of friendliness and I received trilling laughter when I said that.

I had no idea how strong it was, so provoking the gorgeous Pokemon was the furthest thing on my mind. Even if I was stronger, which I kind of doubted seeing my luck with meeting overpowered Pokemon lately, I had no plan to harm it.

At most I would try to catch it if its potential was good enough. You know the globally respected rule of challenging it to a battle for the right to have it as an underling/catch it and all that.

"Mi, lo, Mil, Milotic," was returned, which meant something along the line of I'm the one who's going to decide that. She sounded feminine but I was not too sure if my guess was right or not. So, I decided to wait before deciding on anything.

My PokeSpeech had not progressed enough for me to understand every species, and since I could not just initiate a telepathic link with Milotic I had to try it old school. I mean, I could send out a message but if I tried to read its mind that would most likely be seen negatively.

Thankfully, my rough mastery over PokeSpeech combined with my emotion sense allowed me to get a pretty accurate understanding of what Milotic said.

It looked me over a bit more before telling me to come closer. I began to assess the situation I found myself in. All the knowledge I had on the species, its behavior until now, and what I could feel from Milotic with my aura as well as psychic abilities told me that it did not intend to harm me.

It did not seem like it wanted to hurt me in any way and decided to trust my observation as well as abilities. So, I moved forward, stepping into the water.

Thankfully I had changed out of my regular attire inside my space since I was planning to go into the water anyway. I was wearing swimming trunks, my respirator ready and I was wearing my waterproof bag.

Once I was close enough Milotic moved one of its antennae towards me and I definitely didn't flinch at the sudden move from Milotic. *Ahem* Nonetheless, I definitely did make use of the moment the antennae came in contact with me to check Milotic's status.

What I saw made me nearly curse. I could practically hear the "emotional damage" announcement.

'Species: Milotic

Gender: Female

Type: Water

Potential: ?

Stage: ?

Genetic variation: ?

Abilities: ?

Talents: ?

Affinities: ?'

I was starting to wonder if I was really lucky or unlucky to meet so many frankly overpowered Pokemon. I mean Stage 6 and above Pokemon were supposed to be extremely rare in these parts of the continent.

With that I mean the fringe, they were more common deeper inland or in danger zones but not here. Well, to be fair I was near the sea where those rules were not binding since water Pokemon swam wherever they wanted.

However, according to what I learned even for them it was the further away from the mainland or the deeper the stronger they got. At least that was how it was supposed to be.

Yet, here I was having met a Stage 4 or 5 Slowbro, two overpowered Stage 6+ Mantine, followed by the Stage 6+ Lapras leader, and now a Stage 6 or more Milotic.

I mean, most trainers never see such strong wild Pokemon in their lives, and when they do they most of the time die if they are not strong enough. Since meeting inherently gentle and peaceful species was not as easy as it seemed to be the case for me.

All the extremely strong Pokemon I had seen until were luckily all members of such gentle species and I was starting to think my luck was going into making me survive these events.

Like every time I was going to encounter danger, my luck worked to defuse the situation as much as possible. Not really nullifying the event but changing it from deadly to only deadly if you behave like an idiot.

Think about it, had I met less nice species such as Seaking or Mew forbid Sharpedo who knew what would have happened to me, probably nothing pretty. Anyway, after my short crisis, I focused back on the situation at hand.

When I looked back up at Milotic she seemed to be amused by something, probably me and the emotions I went through. Maybe I showed them on my face without noticing.

Probably something I should look into in the future. That was however much better than her being displeased so I had no problem with her being amused by my actions.

"Mi, Milotic." Still, a moment later she asked me what I wanted and I decided to go with the truth.

I doubted that she would attack me because of it since I was not planning to hurt anyone. The worst that would probably happen was her denying my request and sending me away.

"I was searching for a Feebas that could become my partner. As you have no doubt noticed I have aura and my abilities let me feel if I am compatible with a Pokemon, so I was searching for a Feebas."

She nodded when I mentioned my aura showing that she had indeed noticed the use of my aura abilities. I had expected as much and used that fact to hint that I would use that to determine the "compatibility" with Feebas.

Aura was such a good scapegoat to disguise why I wanted certain Pokemon and why I declined others.

"Milotic are one of the strongest and most elegant species in the world, so I wanted one as a partner."

I did not forget to add some flattery to butter her up a bit. Giving compliments rarely went wrong. Generally, they were either ignored or left a favorable impression.

*warble noises*

Since I made her laugh when I said that I succeeded, at least I think I did. Once she stopped laughing she asked me why she should allow me to look at her shoal members.

"I could help them get strong." I began, but before I could continue I got interrupted.

"Milotic. Mi, Milo." She gave me a deadpan stare that screamed "you kidding me" before she said she was able to do that as well and better than me too.

"I am sure you could," I placated her before I resumed my previous sentence.

"Challenges, adventures, friends, delicious food, great care, ample supplies, and the promise to help them get as strong as I could. That's what I can offer the Feebas that joins me."

I told her what I fully believed to be true and by her unhurried nod, she seemed to have felt my sincerity. Thankfully I believed exactly what I promised and was confident in seeing it through as well.

"Mi. Milo, lo, Milotic. Lotic, milo." She tilted her head before she responded.

What she said was something along the lines of "Not bad. Let's say I believe you can do what you promised. Why should SHE allow me to do so?".

So, she believed that I believed I could at least guarantee a good life to any Feebas I chose. Now, she wanted to know what I was willing to offer her for giving me her permission to about her shoal.

I have been pretty lucky that the Lapras leader did not demand anything in return for checking their pod, but it seemed my luck had run out.

I had some pretty good things, but unfortunately, I did not think that they would be that interesting for someone on her level. Nonetheless, they were all I had to offer.

The only thing that might really spark her interest was the Prism Scale I had. While they were only from a gold-stage Milotic they were still useful and might have some other use for her besides being used to increase her strength.

I had two of those, so offering up one of them for a Feebas with great potential would be worth it. As long as I still had one I could always replicate more once the system reached that point.

I briefly looked around the bay. Actually, I think I could also offer a fully grown Passho berry tree. If I took it out with all its roots intact it could be replanted here and Milotic could pick them whenever she wanted.

I offered her a D-class Passho berry tree since I doubted the lower-class ones would interest her. She seemed tempted by the offer, but I could see that it was not attractive enough.

I increased the number of trees to 3, but she just looked a bit more tempted. She showed practically no interest when I offered her the Aquamarine or other such materials.

Seeing no other alternative, I told her that I would give her the 3 berry trees regardless of whether I found a Feebas that was compatible with me or not.

I then told her I would give her the item I was going to take out next only if there was a Feebas that was compatible with me and willing to join me. Once I got her agreement I took out one of the two Prism Scales I had and she instantly zoomed in on it.

Surprisingly, she gained a nostalgic look upon seeing the Prism Scale and asked me where I found it from. I mulled over it for a bit before I decided to go with the truth and told her about the hidden room connected to the pond inside the cave I found at the beach.

She nodded while listening to my explanation and revealed that it was her Prism Scale. It turned out that it was her that stayed there a long time ago when she was much weaker before she left once she noticed her growth had slowed down.

When she said that I was actually tempted to ask how long ago exactly long ago was but decided against asking anything that had to do with her age. Anyway, after that, she became more amiable saying something along the line of fate must have brought me here.

You know since I coincidentally managed to find her old lair as well as her Prism Scale before meeting her in her current home. She agreed to let me look through the members of her shoal and told me I could keep the Prism Scale.

She did however say that she still wanted those three Passho berry trees. After I got her agreement I entered the water and began checking the Feebas one by one. They just curiously observed me when I approached them but did not react otherwise.

I checked 68 of them but all of them had either orange or yellow potential with the best being deep yellow. I had actually only come across 5 red potential ones with all of them being deep red, which was a pretty low number.

Still, deep yellow was still too bad, so I had to keep looking. Number 69 turned out to be a lucky number because the Feebas was a pretty good one.

'Species: Feebas

Gender: Female

Type: Water

Potential: Green

Stage: Iron Stage (mid)

Genetic variation: None

Abilities: Swift Swim, Adaptability

Talents: None

Affinities: Water'

While she did not have the best potential, she was actually worth investing time and resources into. She had the hidden ability and was only at the iron stage, so limit breaking training plus the space optimization should allow her to raise her potential to at least blue at the bronze stage.

I was not sure what the boss lady would say about taking more than one Feebas and there were a lot of Feebas that I had not checked, so I decided to keep her as a candidate for now.

To make sure I could find her among all the Feebas I took out a piece of light purple water-resistant cloth that I coincidentally had inside my space and tired a ribbon with it at Feebas upper-fin.

She did not seem to mind, so that was good. After that, I kept checking out more Feebas and I noticed the marked one occasionally checking up on me, which was cool. It appeared that I got her curious.

Unfortunately, my search for another talented Feebas was not going as nice. I checked roughly another 100 Feebas but the best one among them turned out to be a male at the (low) bronze stage with light green potential.

Which was a lot worse than my first candidate even if he was better somewhat than the others. I was starting to believe I was going to leave with candidate number one, but after checking my watch I saw that I still had a bit less than an hour until I had to leave so I kept looking.

It was about 40 minutes later I think. I was checking the 36th Feebas since I looked at my watch and what I saw was shocking, truly incredible.

'Species: Feebas

Gender: Male

Type: Water

Potential: Light Blue

Stage: Bronze Stage (low)

Genetic variation: None

Abilities: Swift Swim, Oblivious

Talents: None

Affinities: Water'

A light blue Feebas. That meant after the space optimization he would have blue potential at the absolute minimum. Probably more, or even if not he would still be close to deep blue.

That he was at the bronze stage was a bit unfortunate but still okay. While I lost out on the limit-breaking bonus I saved the time it took to do that, which could be used on the limit-breaking at the bronze stage instead.

Now I was debating whether I should keep looking for the last 20 something minutes or if I should stop. I ultimately decided to stop because I did not think I would find someone better and there were not that many left for me to check.

I was not too sure about the last part because the Feebas kept swimming around which made keeping track of them a bit hard. Anyway, I talked to Feebas and gave him the offer to join me.

I explained my offer as well as I could to a non-sapient Pokemon like him. However, he was intelligent enough to understand that I was offering him to get stronger and a lot of tasty food, especially the tasty food part I stressed since that seemed to interest him.

He agreed and I got him without even having to fight. I took a look around for Milotic and once I saw her I swam in her direction with Feebas in tow. I presented him to Milotic and told her we were the most compatible among the Feebas.

She observed us a bit before she gave her approval. I happily nodded and pulled out a Water Ball to catch Feebas, when the Feebas I tied a ribbon to came in front of us.

She conveyed that she wanted to leave with me too, which came as a surprise to me. A very welcome one at that, but I still looked over to Milotic to see what she was going to say.

Milotic began talking with the female Feebas for a bit before she nodded in my direction. I bowed my head in thanks and promptly took out another one of my WaterBalls, then I proceeded to ball them both.

They got caught without any problems and I quickly collected the balls after they had settled down. I swam towards the surface and moved towards the beach. Milotic followed behind me since instill had to do my part of the deal.

I carefully removed 3 Passho berry trees from the soil inside my space and then acted as if I was taking them out of my bag. I helped Milotic plant them at a position that she agreed with that they could actually grow in.

After that, I said goodbye to her and called out Xatu so that he could take me home.

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