There it was in all its watery glory, the pond, and it took us 15 minutes to reach it due to checking our surroundings while walking there. Otherwise, we could have reached it in less than 5 minutes.
Still, it was good we did bother examining the surrounding area since we managed to find 3 coins that way, two 1-point ones, and a 3-pointer. Enji/Growlithe found the first 1-pointer due to a scent trace he perceived.
Thor/Pikachu spotted human prints that led to the second 1-pointer which led us to conclude that the teachers made finding 1-pointers not that hard. As long as one was somewhat attentive it was possible to find clues.
3-pointers were harder to find. Yu's Sandshrew noticed a burrow in which a family of Pikachu lived. I used my roguish charms, *cough* aura *cough*, to approach and ask if they had a coin, which they did.
I then bargained with them for the coin and got it in exchange for a few Oran- and Cheri Berries. Thor might have helped a bit as well.
"Okay, there's the pond. Now, what? Do we just ask your Xatu to scan for the coin?" Yu asked tearing me out of my musing.
"That won't work. Horus told me he can't sense the coins using his psychic abilities. It seems like our teachers didn't want us to find them that way." I admitted with a bit of frustration, wondering once more if that had been like that from the beginning or if they did it because of me.
That was actually one of the first things I had Horus/Xatu try before and after we found our first coin. After he came up empty-handed, I concluded that they had used some dark-type material while making those coins.
That was also the only reason I was unsure if it was targeted at me or not, because if it was due to me then they did a fast job finishing/adjusting all those coins.
*sigh*
I was wondering why Yu released such a defeated sigh after my answer when he spoke up again.
"So, the only way to see if there is a coin or not is to get inside and look around. Do we do it ourselves, or" he hesitated a bit before continuing, "or do we have your Gyarados check for us?" Yu finished the last bit a bit hesitantly.
So, he was worried about Dilong/Stan/Gyarados. That explained the sigh at the beginning at least.
"I think leaving it to Dilong would be faster and safer." I returned without hesitation and I saw him pause a bit before speaking again.
"You have your Gyarados under control, right? I heard they are really hard to use due to their aggressiveness and if he massacres everything inside the pond we'll be penalized. I also don't want to be attacked by one, so how sure are you none of those will happen?" He asked in a cautious tone, and I couldn't really take offense at the question since those were genuine concerns as far as the Gyarados species as a whole were concerned.
"100%," I directly said. "My boy is the definition of obedience and tenderness."
*snort*
He couldn't fully suppress his laughter when I said that, which made him relax a bit. The idea of an aggressive Gyarados had made him a bit tense, so him relaxing slightly was good.
"Jokes aside, Dilong has a full grip on his aggressiveness and is perfectly calm as long as he is not forced to let go. I can guarantee that he won't attack you as long as you don't attack him or me." I finished and he nodded.
"Alright, call him out then, I guess," Yu said and I could hear as well as feel that he was still not thrilled by the whole thing.
Oh, I wished I could take a photo of the moment he saw Dilong, but that would be too offensive and he would probably complain to the teachers about it. No one wanted evidence of their fear/cowardice, after all.
"My boy Dilong is a bit larger than the average, so don't be surprised when you see him," I said before releasing him in the pond.
I kept an eye on Yu as well as his Pokemon, and as soon as Dilong was out he froze. Zebstrika took a step back in surprise, Sandshrew just rolled into a ball, and Staraptor jumped back in shock while flapping its wings. I saw Sandshrew peeking out of its ball and had to suppress a chuckle.
"H, h, holy Mew!" Yu stuttered out a moment later. "You call that a bit larger." He asked in a breathless tone.
"That's near twice the size I read and heard about," Yu said in a simultaneously awed and worried tone.
"Yep, just a bit," I answered in amusement and he shook his head in helplessness at my behavior.
"Dilong, I need you to check out the pond and look for a coin like this one," I told him showing him one of the coins we had already found.
"If you spot one and there is no Pokemon around it, then bring it over. If a Pokemon is claiming it, then come and tell me about it. Oh, and don't maim or kill anyone if you don't have to." I explained to him what I wanted him to do while adding the last part to tease Yu.
"Ok, boss," Dilong answered in Pokespeech before he went underwater.
We waited around 5 minutes before he returned, and he came back open-mouthed. You know, since that was what he would have to carry the coin with due to lack of hands.
"So, did you find anything?" I asked him hoping that he simply found a coin guarded by a Pokemon or even a group. Yet, he shook his head.
"Sorry, boss. I looked around the whole floor and couldn't find anything. I even consulted a group of Goldeen and Seaking if they had seen either a coin or a human entering the pond, but they said that they didn't." He replied in Pokespeech with a downhearted tone.
"That's alright. It's not your fault that there was none in the pond. You did a good job. We were just unlucky, that's all." I consoled my obviously disappointed sea dragon.
"As you have no doubt inferred there seems to be no coin inside the pond." I turned to Yu and told him.
He just shrugged it off.
"We can't always be lucky,' Yu simply said before looking at his watch. "Alright, we still have a little more than 7 hours so let's get going," was what he said afterward, and I agreed.
I recalled Dilong after once more telling him that he did a good job. We decided to move towards a hill the air squad had spotted and just as we were heading out Staraptor released a cry to stop us.
Apparently, it noticed a glint on one of the trees while taking off and upon checking it out we saw that one of the trees near the pond had a hole in it with a coin hidden inside of it.
The hole was near the end of its trunk, so it was pretty hard to spot. Not to mention that whoever came here would focus on the pond and neglect the ground as well as trees around it after a cursory glance.
The coin was a 5-pointer, which was probably due to the clever way it was hidden. We all did another quick search through the place that took us a few minutes but did not manage to find a second coin, so we continued on our way.
Over the next 3 hours, we managed to find another 14 coins with only one of them being a 10-pointer. Of the other 13 coins, 4 were 5-pointers, 2 were 3-pointers, and the last 7 coins were 1-pointers.
We noticed the pattern behind the hiding places during this time, or rather we thought we did. 1-pointers had no Pokemon guards and the teachers did not really bother hiding their tracks so finding them was not that hard if one was attentive enough.
3-pointers were trickier. If the coin was safeguarded by a Pokemon then finding it was only a bit harder than a 1-pointer, most likely due to Pokemon counting towards the difficulty.
If there was no Pokemon guarding the coin, the finding it was much harder since the teachers actually somewhat bothered covering their tracks.
5-pointers had a pretty strong Pokemon guarding it or a small group with a strong leader. If there was no Pokemon then the teachers actually tried to be covert and found tricky places to hide the coins. They actually tried even if there was a guardian, but if there was none then they tried harder.
Both 10-pointers so far had large groups with pretty strong leaders guarding it, so we assumed that it was the case for all of them since we did not think we would be able to find the coins if they tried even harder to hide them.
The second one had a really big swarm of the Rattata line, as in a few hundred of them. Thankfully, 90% of them were at the iron stage so we did not get overwhelmed by them due to Luna's Gravity.
We managed to deal with the 20-ish leftover Ratata at the bronze stage and the 4 silver-stage Raticate. Mothra/Butterfree, Thor, and Yu's Sandshrew took care of the Rattata. Obviously, my crew did nearly all the work, but we didn't want Sandy to feel useless.
Meanwhile, the rest took care of the Raticate. Yu actually lauded my group saying that we made group fights much easier. Anyway, now that it was 2 p.m we decided to take a break and have lunch.
"So, we've got like 60-ish points until now, I think? To be honest, that doesn't sound like much. I think we've got to speed up a bit." Yu said after finishing an Oran berry.
"67 points, actually." I corrected him before agreeing with him.
"Still, you're right that it does not sound like much. We've got like 4 hours left, and I'd like to have about 200 points by the end. That much should let us enter the Top 5 at least. I'd obviously like to win but not entering the top 5 would be a bit humiliating." I admitted more to myself than to him.
While there was no real necessity to get first place, I just did not like the idea of not being first.
"Yeah, let's hurry up and finish eating so that we can keep going," Yu replied before he began urging his Pokemon to speed up, and scarfing down another Oran berry.
"Sure." I agreed and told the others to quickly finish their berries as well.
They were not eating the food I specially made for them since I was not supposed to have it with me, so regular berries had to suffice for now. Just 2 minutes later everyone was done with their share and we resumed our search for coins.
The air squad was leading us towards another pond, our third one so far. A few short minutes, like 2 or 3, into our trek we actually noticed signs of Scyther which made us halt.
If one came across a lone Scyther that was within one's capacity great but coming across a congregation was potentially dangerous depending on the size and strength of the congregation/swarm.
Still, a Scyther habitat sounded like a place a 10-pointer coin would be in. The question was whether they should risk it or not? I was not alone in this and I did not plan to drag Yu into something he deemed too dangerous.
"So, I'm sure you came to the same conclusion as me. What do we do? Do we follow the tracks and check if there is a coin at the end, or do we ignore it?" I inquired of Yu and he seemed unsure what to choose.
He took a look at me and my Pokemon, before looking at his own Pokemon as well. Afterward, he looked contemplative for a bit but seemed to come to a decision.
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