I read through all the pages and saw nothing that should not be there, so I signed the two areas I had to sign before handing the thin stack back to the female assistant. "With that out of the way, let me bring you to the reserve field where we keep the Larvitar that are participating in ongoing projects or are due for a check-up," Professor Serizawa said while rising from his seat.
"There are seven 5-star Larvitar among them, along with quite a few 4 and 3-star ones. If you can find a Larvitar you like among those, great. If you can't that's fine as well, it just means that you'll have to walk around and search for the Larvitar you want one by one," Professor Serizawa said. "I'll have someone accompany you if that happens to ensure that the Tyranitar and the others know that you're not an intruder," he added while making a follow-me gesture with his hand.
We left the lobby and headed somewhere, presumably the field the professor mentioned. I saw the male assistants splitting off from our group and heading somewhere else, while the female assistant continued to follow along. There was a moment of silence that was interrupted by Professor Serizawa clearing his throat.
"So, word got around that you have a variety of Rattata variants that you keep in your registered research field. First of all, congratulations on establishing viable breeding groups for those variants. Nurturing enough variants to establish those groups could not have been easy. Did you use a similar method to attain the Magikarp variants in your possession? Would you be interested in sharing how you've managed to do that, or in a collaboration project with the aim of nurturing Magikarp variants?" Professor Serizawa asked calmly, though I could feel his eagerness and some subdued zeal when he asked about my method as well as the chance for collaboration.
"Well, I can tell you that the basic principle between the two projects is similar, though one can not directly apply one to the other. As for how exactly I have done that. I'm sorry, but I do not plan to share that for now," I said with an apologetic shrug. *sigh* "Alas, I can't say I'm surprised to hear that," the professor commented, and I just gave a polite smile at his words while noticing out of the corner of my eye that the assistant had a wry smile on her face that quickly made way for a neutral look.
"As far as any collaboration projects are concerned, I'll have to apologize, but I do not have the time for that. As you no doubt know, I have just started my journey and I'm not planning to do any extra research during this time," I continued as if his interruption did not happen. "That's quite unfortunate," the professor commented. "But I'm sure we will have plenty of time for collaboration projects in the future," he let out but I kept quiet not seeing any reason to confirm anything in that direction at the moment.
A short period of silence hung in the air after that until we stepped out into the open. "Alright, this is it," the professor said before turning towards his female assistant. "Alice, could you please show Professor Geo the Larvitar that temporarily reside around the reserve field," he asked, or more like instructed. "Certainly, professor," Alice responded before turning to me. "If you would please follow me," she addressed me and I nodded in consent.
"Inform me if Professor Geo needs to go out in search of a Larvitar so that I can send someone to accompany him. I expect that to take a while, so you can leave after that. If that happens, that is. Maybe he'll go for one of the little ones we have here," he said before stepping back inside the facility. After he left, Alice led me further out, and we quickly came across the first Larvitar group. They perked up when they saw Alice, though I got some distrustful looks along with a few curious ones.
Respect to Alice since she seemed to be able to recognize and differentiate all of the Larvitar. I could not help but wonder if that was true for all the Larvitar they had at this place. If that was the case, I had to take off my hat to Alice's dedication. I mean, there were 13 Larvitar in this group alone, and around 60 Larvitar in total according to what she told me before we met this group. Being able to tell apart 60 Pokemon of the same species was not easy. I knew that firsthand, so my respect for this female assistant of Professor Serizawa went up a notch.
Anyway, after greeting each Larvitar and asking them how they were, Alice finally introduced me to them before finally addressing me. "All Larvitar in this group have 3-star potential," she informed me. "Would you like to check them out, or do you want to move on?" she followed up and I naturally decided to check them out first.
I considered simply doing that through my psychic abilities without telling her, but I decided against it since I suspected that they had the means to detect psychic activity on their property. There was no reason to do something that would appear shady if I could simply check them out the regular way. Hence my answer to her was "I'll take a look if that's okay". "Naturally," she replied with a nod, "go ahead".
I naturally had no real interest in getting a 3-star Larvitar, but I still chose to check them out just in case one of them had a one-in-a-million talent, ability, or an inconspicuous modifier that made the Larvitar worthy of discarding a 5-star Larvitar for it. Ultimately, there was no such Larvitar among the 13 in this group, but interestingly enough, I did find two that stood out among them.
One had a decent talent, though being able to shed a layer of skin on demand was nothing that would make me choose it with its current potential, even if it synergized pretty well with Guts. The other Larvitar had an extra affinity, specifically a poison affinity, which might be due to having a Nido-line member as a recent ancestor, maybe a parent, grandparent, or great-grandparent.
Well, it could have also been a Venusaur line member, but unlike the Nido line, they generally did not appear on/around mountains since they preferred forests, meadows, and fields. Still, the affinity naturally did not necessarily have to be due to its family's species. Its poison affinity could also have been due to a simple coincidence. Something that happened to its parents or its egg.
Oh well, I ended up going off tangent there considering possibilities and whatnot. Ultimately, I saw no Larvitar in this group that was able to move me, so I told Alice as much and we moved on after she said her goodbyes to the Larvitar who seemed disappointed to see her go so quickly. They correctly guessed that I was the reason for that, and some of them glared at me, which looked quite cute, and I had to stop myself from laughing, though I did not bother suppressing the smile that appeared on my face.
We resumed walking and the next group that Alice led me to was a bit bigger than the previous one. This group contained a mix of 3-star and 4-star Larvitar. Unfortunately, none of them stood out, so we moved on to the next group as soon as Alice finished saying her goodbyes. According to Alice the group after this third one was the last. As for this group, it had 14 Larvitar with 2 of them having 5-star potential.
The female of that 5-star pair actually had blue potential, but nothing else that stood out other than that, and I was pretty sure that I would be able to find at least one Larvitar with deep blue somewhere on this mountain, so I chose to ignore the female, especially since I was aiming for a male that I could name Godzilla. It would require a pretty darn impressive female Larvitar for me to give up on Godzilla and go with a female instead of a male. Either way, I asked Alice to lead me to the final group here at the reserve field.
This final group had the other five 5-star Larvitar that stayed at the reserve, and as luck would have it one of them actually had deep blue potential. This Larvitar also happened to be a male, and despite him having no other distinctive traits, I chose to keep him in mind as a last resort kind of option in case I truly ended up finding no better Larvitar out there in the "wild".
"So, that was it," Alice opened after I stood up after checking the final Larvitar. "Did you find a Lavitar that you would like to choose for the exchange?" she inquired while teasing a Larvitar that was vying for her attention. "Not really," I denied with a shake of my head. "I'd like to go out and see if I'll find one that will be able to pique my interest among those Larvitar".
"That's fine," Alice replied. "Just give me a moment to inform Professor Serizawa of your decision," she finished before pulling out her phone and moving a bit away to make a call. She then talked with someone, presumably the professor, and after sharing my decision with the other party she came back to tell me that the individual who would accompany me during my excursion would be joining us shortly.
I noted that she said individual instead of person and thinking back to what the professor said I noticed that he didn't use the word person as well, so there was a not inconsiderable chance that my escort was a Pokemon and not a human as I had initially believed. It was only a minute later that my assumption was confirmed by the sudden appearance of a Mr.Mime through teleportation.
'Alice, you may go,' he said through open telepathy. 'I'll take things from here,' he added with a freaking mental nod. "Thank you, Mime," Alice responded to the Mr.Mime before turning to me. "I wish you the best Professor Geo. Good luck with your search," she said before saying her goodbyes to the Larvitar after which she left towards the direction of the facility entrance.
'Well, met, young professor,' Mr.Mime addressed me and I could once again feel the mental nod while his actual head remained stationary. 'I assume you'll likely want to inspect as many Larvitar as you can before making your decision,' he began to which I nodded. 'Which means that we have a considerable area to cover, so the earlier we start the better. Let's not waste any more time,' he finished and before I could tell him that he was right in his assumption, I felt the telltale sign of a teleportation.
The next moment our surroundings had changed and I could no longer see the facility building. 'We are roughly in the center of the first area used by the Tyranitar and their colonies. As long as you methodically search this place, you should be able to stumble upon some Larvitar. You don't have to worry about the Tyranitar attacking you with me present,' Mr.Mime clarified and I just acknowledged his words.
I did not bother mentioning the forced teleportation and focused on my senses instead to see if I could detect some Pokemon in my immediate surroundings. I noticed signs of life just 20 meters to my left, behind a bush, so I made my way there, but sadly it turned out to be a Caterpie that was lounging beside the bush and occasionally nibbling on a leaf. After that first attempt, I continued using my senses to look out for any signs of life, while I simultaneously began to walk around to cover a wider area.
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