At the same time, the fight on the Kingler front was happening sh*t was also going down on the Octillery front. Thanks to my relatively high position I was able to keep track of both fronts simultaneously with just a slight tilt of my head.
The Octillery leader was fighting against Tentacruel (O1) and the fight looked more even than the boss Kingler one. Most likely because Octillery had no problems participating in a long-ranged battle, which Kingler did.
The two older Octillery I had first believed to be bosses were fighting the second Tentacruel (O2) together and sadly, at least for them, they were at a disadvantage despite double-teaming the Tentacruel. They really needed some assistance, because their chances at survival looked bleak at the moment.
Unfortunately, their potential back-up, aka the newly evolved Octillery, were being engaged by multiple Tentacool and unable to aid them. While they were stronger than the Tentacool fighting them, the Tentacool made up the difference with their number.
They could afford to play the numbers game, especially since they only needed to hold on until Tentacruel was done with its opponents. After that, the front would fall like a stack of dominoes.
Anyway, focusing on the boss battle. Tentacruel (O1) did the opening move by sending a Sludge Wave at Octillery (B), which Octillery stopped by freezing it through Ice Beam. It followed that by using what looked like Bullet Seed to break the frozen block into smaller pieces, which were sent back to Tentacruel using Hydro Pump.
All this was nearly perfectly chained by Octillery and happened in a manner of moments. Nonetheless, it had to take a breath after that move chain, which was why it couldn't capitalize on Tentacruel being wide open after having to defend against its counter.
Tentacruel was initiating its follow-up move, but when it saw the chunks of ice being sent its way it was forced to switch to Bubble Beam instead. After releasing 2 Bubble Beams back to back the Tentacruel used Poison Jab to block the ones that got through to it.
When it was finally done destroying the last chunk of ice, it saw the Octillery sending a Psybeam at it, which forced it to swerve to the side as fast as it could to dodge the attack. It sent over a volley of Poison Stings while dodging, which forced the Octillery to stop its Psybeam to dodge as well.
Tentacruel used the brief pause in their exchange to use a Water Pulse which Octillery answered with a Water Pulse of its own. I saw how the two bosses began a fire exchange using Water Pulses. While that was happening, I took a look at my Magikarp and I saw all of them spellbound by what they were witnessing.
Especially Stan, my regular Magikarp, was seriously observing the Water Pulse exchange that was happening. He would occasionally shift his focus to other fights that were happening, but all battles he was keeping an eye on had something in common, a generous amount of Water Pulses were being used in them.
The others on the other hand were simply watching the battles as is. Anyway, I focused back on the happenings below. Tentacruel (O1) decided to use Bubble Beam instead of Water Pulse as its next move and Octillery froze the attack with an Aurora Beam before sending the ice balls back using Water Gun.
Tentacruel used a Hydro Pump to stop the fast-moving ice balls, before gripping them with its tentacles. Then it physically threw them back at Octillery before boosting their speed by pushing them with a Water Gun of its own.
Octillery copied its move chain which led to an ice-ball tennis match that lasted until the frozen balls couldn't withstand the pressure/damage by their moves anymore and broke.
Octillery seemed to have anticipated that because as soon as it happened it used Octazooka, which Tentacruel swiftly blocked with a Bubble Beam. Still, as a result, a big ink cloud was created, which covered Tentacruel blocking its sight but also obscuring its position.
That however did not seem to bother Octillery since it initiated a bloody Hyper Beam, which it promptly fire into the ink cloud. I was briefly wondering why it would do such a wasteful thing before I remembered that Octillery could learn Lock On.
The Octillery looked visibly more tired after that but still swam towards the ink cloud as fast as it could, which kinda made me sure that it did not doubt that its Hyper Beam had hit its target.
It dodged a weak Water Gun coming from the ink cloud before using one of its own to blow the cloud away. Once it did Tentacruel turned visible once more and it was not a pretty sight.
Tentacruel was still alive despite eating a direct surprise hit from one of the most powerful moves on the planet, which showed just how tenacious Pokemon were, but it still got badly hurt as a result. It was bleeding blue blood from its head, especially its forehead, and it looked like it was struggling to stay afloat.
Yet, this was a fight to the death and understandably Octillery did not show any mercy at all. It fired an Ice Beam directly into its open wound freezing the insides of its head.
What it did not notice and couldn't have known was that Tentacruel (O2) had finished off the two Octillery it had been fighting and was approaching Octillery (B) from behind while it was finishing off Tentacruel (O1). I could see the dead bodies of the Octillery lying on the seafloor at the place they had fought.
So, while Octillery was watching its foe sink after it died, Tentacruel (O2) arrived right behind it and prepared as many Poison Jabs as it could. I saw 5 of its tentacles shining in purple and by the time Octillery noticed something was wrong Tentacruel already attacked.
Before Octillery could turn around it got hit by 5 Poison Jabs from 5 directions. The attacks came from the left, right, above, below, and front and as a result, Octillery got launched backward. While the attack was not enough to deliver a critical injury, Octillery still received a decent amount of damage while also being poisoned.
It managed to stabilize itself pretty quickly and I saw how it quickly looked over the battlefield. Once it saw that its two subordinates were dead and that only 4 of the 5 newly evolved Octillery were still fighting it visibly wilted a bit.
Seeing what happened next I was pretty sure it had accepted the inevitable. It knew it was going to die and decided to at least allow some of its kind to escape the situation. It faced the approaching Tentacruel but shouted out a few commands at the leftover Octillery.
Then it went on the offensive to keep the Tentacruel occupied while the other Octillery escaped with the Remoraid. On that end 2 of the 4 Octillery went berserk obstructing a large number of Tentacool by themselves, while the other 2 gathered most of the surviving Remoraid to make a break with them.
Of the initial 80 or so Remoraid less than 50 were still alive and of those about 30 were being led by the 2 Octillery to withdraw from the area. The other 20 were following behind them, but their main purpose was to cover their backs. If they managed to get away as well great, if not they at least had to allow the others to escape.
By the time Tentacruel (O2) had finished Octillery (B), who had started to struggle harder and harder due to being poisoned, the evacuating group had successfully escaped. This was thanks to the 2 Octillery that stayed behind and the 20 Remoraid that covered their retreat.
They had fled in the direction of the beach, which I was using as my temporary base, so I would most likely see a slightly higher number of Remoraid near the beach if they kept fleeing in that direction.
Anyway, from the 20 Remoraid, only 10 managed to follow them, while 10 died covering for the others. The same was true for the 2 Octillery that stayed behind as well, they died a heroic death.
Seeing the situation Tentacruel sent about half of its remaining Tentacool, about 50, after the fleeing Remoraid while it led the other half, also about 50, to the Krabby/Kingler zone to help its brethren finish off the Krabby.
When it arrived at the Krabby zone it saw that the bosses were still relatively even, while the rest of the battles were in their favor. Tentacruel (K2) was fighting against only two battered Kingler while 4 Kingler carcasses were lying around their battlefield.
As for the Krabby, there were only about 20 left from the initial 60, but this had not come without its cost. From the nearly 100 Tentacool that had swarmed the Krabby zone about half had died. Nonetheless, with the reinforcement, the situation quickly turned into a victory for the Tentacool.
Tentacruel (O2) helped Tentacruel (K2) quickly deal with the last 2 Kingler, after which they both aided Tentacruel (K1) in killing Kingler (B). While this was happening the newly arrived 50 or so Tentacool helped the old ones kill off the remaining 20 Krabby resulting in total extermination.
If I didn't miss it, no Krabby escaped the massacre, but the Tentacool/Tentacruel swarm also paid a heavy price for their victory. Out of the 4 Tentacruel, only 3 survived, with one of them being moderately injured.
From the 240 or so Tentacool at the beginning only about 140 survived, those hunting the fleeing Remoraid included, meaning they lost about 100 Tentacool in this attack. Still, they know had a good-sized territory that would support them and then some.
As for their numbers that could be recovered with time. Noting that the war was over and that the Tentacool had no intention of provoking the other 2 zones, which were not reacting aggressively as well, I decided to leave the area.
While no one was seemingly giving a s**t about me and my group I planned to slip away, so I turned towards my Magikarp. I saw that they were all excited by what they had just witnessed except for Stan. He seemed to be in a trance, deeply immersed in his thoughts.
I was wondering if I should rouse him from his trance when his eyes started getting brighter, and I could practically see its enlightenment. *pfft*
I observed in slight awe as he started producing a small ball of water energy in front of his mouth before he let it defuse harmlessly. All I could think was awesome. Stan had managed to partly learn Water Pulse by observing all the Water Pulses being used all around the battlefield.
The sheer number of Water Pulses that had been fired all over the battlefield had been in the thousands, but to grasp the basic idea through simple observation, no matter the high number of pseudo-demonstrations, was more than impressive.
Here his high potential showed its worth, at least I thought so. He had the second-highest potentiality of all of my current Pokemon, so I believed that had to have helped a bit.
Anyway, I checked his status and saw that Water Pulse had been added to his move section as initial, but I was sure he would be able to improve that to novice mastery pretty soon.
I praised him happily before I recalled the two iron stage Magikarp. Then I began to swim away from the coral field towards the beach with my 4 bronze stage Magikarp following beside me. My goal was to see if some stragglers got separated from the fleeing group so that I could check them out.
I was hoping that maybe the child of the leader would be among them if it had one. If it was I was hoping it would have good potential. So, here I was swimming back towards the beach, instead of swimming to the surface so that Xatu could Teleport back, in hopes of encountering some stragglers with good potential.
I did in fact encounter some stragglers both Remoraid and even a Tentacool, but they all had unsatisfactory potential. I began thinking that I would end up empty-handed and decided to just swim back to the beach quickly when I encountered another Remoraid.
Checking its status more out of principle than hope I received a really big surprise.
'Species: Remoraid
Gender: Male
Type: Water
Potential: Green
Stage: Iron-stage (high)
Genetic variation: None
Abilities: Hustle, Sniper
Talents: None
Affinities: Water, Flying (Budding)'
Not only did it have green potential, but it also had an additional flying type affinity. Yes, it was just a budding one, but the first step in making/having the affinity was always the hardest. Since it had a budding flying affinity I would definitely be able to raise it using flying-type supplements.
Anyway, there was no way that I would let that Remoraid slip through my hands so I turned to my strongest Magikarp, which was the one with the dragon typing, and told him with telepathy to knock it out.
He did as asked and used an Aqua Jet boosted Tackle, now dubbed Torpedo since it made him look like one, to attack the Remoraid. The Remoraid not expecting such a swift attack got blown back by the impact.
Yet, Magikarp gave him no time to collect himself. He followed up his attack with a Swift, before knocking Remoraid out with a final Tackle, while Remoraid was getting peppered by stars.
I took out one of my self-made WaterBalls and threw it at the knocked-out Remoraid. While the ball was doing its traditional shaking, I took out another Water Ball in case it managed to break out of the first one.
In the end, it turned out to be unnecessary since it was successfully captured so I put the second ball back before approaching the Water Ball containing my newest catch. I put it away and praised Magikarp for his flawless performance before I began making my way back to the beach once more.
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