After leaving the oasis' boundary behind me I used a map and compass to determine the direction toward Fallabor City and began to trek through the desert in that direction. I would have used my phone's map app to guide my trip, but that one did not work in real-time in the desert so far away from the alliance's technological infrastructure. The wild Pokemon of the desert did not permit the construction of any receiver/transmitter stations, and the alliance saw no need to invest in the project due to the fact that there were no settlements in the Hoeen Desert that would truly necessitate something like that.
We did not walk for long, just a few hours before our group ended up entering Utopia for dinner, where we spent the rest of the evening. Kyoday morning saw us leave again right after breakfast to resume our journey. I decided against sand surfing since it was easier to miss or startle Pokemon while I was doing that due to the movement of the ground and Seb/Nidoking's interference. I was hoping to come across some more Trapinch, Sandile, or Drilbur before I left the desert after all. Yet, after more than three hours of traveling all we saw were the occasional Sandshrew, Sandslash, Cacnea, Geodude, and Diglett.
Among those I could not resist checking out the Cacnea and Sandshrew/Sandslash, but unfortunately, none of the ones we saw had even light yellow potential, so I let them be after checking their status sheets. Sadly, another hour passed with no interesting encounters, but I was unfortunately already used to that. After walking for another 7 to 8 minutes I spotted a large rock that I could use as a platform, so I led us there before I finally called for a stop. I declared that it was time for our lunch break following which I took out a blanket that I then spread out on the ground before we sat down.
Seb and Gaia/Nidoqueen settled down on it along with me, while Hades/Gengar rose from my shadow to join us on the blanket. Only Mothra/Butterfree chose to remain perched on my head, but I did not mind that and simply passed her the berry bar to nibble on after I requested her to not leave a mess in my hair, which had the others chuckle. Mothra released a giggle as she accepted the bar, which was not the most reassuring thing to hear at that moment, but I just sighed and let it be before taking out the rest of our lunch.
We made some small talk as we ate, mostly about the stuff we had seen and my/our expectations for the rest of our journey. It was around 15 minutes into our lunch break that Mothra patted me on the head and drew my attention upward, specifically to the air(space) to our southeast. I had to squint a bit, but I spotted the Gligar flying in our direction, which had me smile. While I was sure that the Gligar were likely only planning to pass through here, probably still unaware of our presence, I had other ideas. I was naturally interested in checking them out, though I had honestly not expected to stumble upon some during the rest of our time in the desert. Yet, luck seemed to favor me this time.
Anyway, I asked Motrha to go ahead and bring those Gligar over for me to check out, and she gave me a cheery salute before she took off into the air in their direction. It took her less than a minute to return to our lunch site with 17 Gligar in tow, levitating right behind her. She proudly levitated the sleeping Gligar in front of me and piled them up beside me before settling back down on my head. I thanked her for her help before focusing on the Gligar pile. Seeing them stacked like that I chose to use my psionic energy to trigger my Observe instead of touching them since it was more convenient.
I was not sure if it counted as me being lucky or not, but 1 of the Gligar happened to have deep yellow potential, which made it eligible for a trip to Utopia. Still, seeing how I doubted that I would meet any more Gligar before we left the desert, I decided to capture a second Gligar with yellow potential as well. Once I released them inside Utopia I saw that fortune was truly in my favor since both Gligar had their potential raised to light green. I was rather happy with that, which was why I left a small pile of berries beside the pile of still-sleeping Gligar as we left the rock to continue our journey. I also made sure to give the strongest two Gligar a mental jolt to wake them up before we left the range of my telepathy to prevent others from taking advantage of their helpless forms.
The hours that followed that little lucky encounter were bereft of any Utopia prospects. It was not that I saw no potential candidates at all since we did stumble upon a group of Drilbur about an hour and a half after our lunch break. However, none of them was any good so I left the 7 Drilbur with a bunch of berries once I checked them out before we resumed our journey. Honestly, the hours that followed were the same, and the only highlight during those hours was the one trainer I met, who challenged me to a battle and ended up using a golden trio composed of only Graveler against me.
At least Hades got to have some fun against the guy's boulder trio. The funny thing was what I learned after I could not help my curiosity and asked why he used three Graveler instead of mixing things up. Apparently, the rest of Hank's team consisted of 2 more Graveler and 2 Golem along with a Geodude he was currently training up. As it turned out, Hank happened to be a super/extreme specialist. Extreme specialists were the kind that went beyond just specializing in a single type of Pokemon, they specialized in a single species/line instead. I honestly did not think that was something I could do no matter of much I loved a certain species/Pokemon lines.
While there were a few positives to focusing solely on one Pokemon line, especially if one made it a familial/generational thing, it was still quite limiting to use only a single line, and I personally did not believe that the advantages outweighed the disadvantages; At least they did not for a line like the Golem one. Maybe I would have thought otherwise if Hank had specialized in the Gyarados line instead since Gyarados were actually versatile enough that even a full team of regular Gyarados could have surprisingly different battle styles along with a diverse situational/type coverage, though Hank would have likely not hung around the Hoenn Desert if that had been the case.
Anyway, I once again entered Utopia sometime after 8 p.m. for dinner and spent the rest of the night with my Pokemon. Grouday saw me stay inside Utopia after breakfast since it was time for our weekly check-up. Going through everyone took a while, and I ended up staying a bit longer once I was done so that I could have an early lunch with everyone before leaving for the desert. The roughly 8 hours the desert group and I then spent traveling through the desert after that ended up being fruitless, despite two encounters with groups I desired.
It was unfortunate that neither the Sandile nor the Trapinch group we met during our travels had any members who qualified for a Utopia membership, which was why I ended up returning to Utopia empty-handed that evening. When I went to sleep that night I could not help but wish that the new week would boost my luck a bit. I honestly considered taking out Fortuna/Togekiss to accompany us through the desert, but I remembered how she mentioned that she did not like the sandy environment after her flight voyage at/around the large oasis.
Regardless, doubts of the previous night aside, I began Arcday morning like every other morning, with a bright smile. As usual, the desert group and I left right after cleaning up after breakfast. The wish I made the previous night seemed to have been granted since only half an hour into our journey we came across a Bisharp escorting two Pawniard. Knowing that they were most likely on a training trip through the desert, I challenged them to a battle. I let Hades face the gold stage Bisharp, while Squirtle faced the iron stage Pawniard and Beldum faced the bronze stage Pawniard. Our side ended up winning all three battles, and I chose to heal up our defeated foes.
I naturally Observed them while I healed them up, and while I would not say that the result was good, it was somewhat okay. None of the three really qualified for Utopia but I still chose to capture the bronze stage Pawniard with light yellow potential since our chances of meeting more of their kind were very low, which had me give the Pawniard a chance. The Bisharp did not interfere since I had beaten all three of them, which in his mind gave me the right to capture them if I wanted to according to the right of combat/conquest. The Pawniard in question naturally did not mind either since she followed the same line of thought.
I placed the PokeBall inside Utopia before leaving the Bisharp and second Pawniard to resume their training journey while we continued heading towards Fallabor City. I kept an eye on Utopia as we left to see how the optimization would go, and luckily, after Utopia was done with it, Pawniard ended up with deep yellow potential. There was a chance for Pawniard to attain light green potential during her future evolution, which would lift the propagation ban Utopia placed on her. I stopped focusing on her after I saw her join the other Pawniard currently living in Utopia.
The next bit of our journey was more along the lines of how the previous days went, but thankfully that did not persist for too long. Less than 1.5 hours after we began our trip through the desert we ran into a group of Sandile, and I was very happy when one of the Sandile happened to have light green potential. I naturally captured it though this time I actually had to beat him up first since it insisted on being beaten first. The funny thing was that Sandile still asked me to leave his now ex-group a bunch of berries, and seeing no reason why I shouldn't, I went along with its request.
That was not the only fortunate encounter we had. Less than an hour after that we noticed or rather heard Skarmory cries, leading to us catching sight of a small flock of Skarmory flying above us. I was naturally interested in them and thus sent Mothra after them. Unfortunately, we ended up empty-handed since Mothra was forced to return without any Skarmory. It turned out that the reason the Skarmory had gathered into a flock like this despite their more usually solitary nature was that they had a strong Skarmory leading them.
According to Mothra, the leader of the flock was at the (high) platinum stage, and while she was able to keep up with it without falling into a real disadvantage, she was unable to focus on the rest of the flock while battling the leader, which allowed them to flee. The leading Skarmory battled Mothra for close to 5 minutes before disengaging and flying after its flock. Mothra could have followed after it but that would have led her away from me/us, so she gave up the chase and returned to my side to report her failure.
She was a bit frustrated during her report, so I assured her that it was fine and that she had done a good job. I was happy to hear that she had been able to match a (high) platinum stage Skarmory without falling into a disadvantage, even if it was clear that Skarmory was more focused on keeping Mothra away from its flock than it was on beating her. The escape of the flock was secondary since it was just a lucky encounter either way.
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