Join my Patreon for 60 more chapters and earlier updates of all of my works
patreon.com/Tempest_29
Enigma Berry, one of the rarest tree fruits.
Its effect in battle is to restore stamina when a Pokémon takes super-effective damage.
Outside of combat, consuming it over a long period can enhance a Pokémon's natural recovery ability.
There are rumors that, after prolonged use, a Pokémon's recovery might rival that of holding Leftovers, which is why the Enigma Berry is so highly sought after.
However, the Enigma Berry is rarer than most rare berries—so rare that Chris couldn't find anyone selling it on the Treasure App.
So, when Mia mentioned the Enigma Berry, Chris immediately became alert.
If he could get an Enigma Berry, all of his Pokémon could potentially gain the recovery benefits of holding Leftovers.
Chris knew he didn't need to search for the Enigma Berry's trees. Just finding one single berry would be enough!
After bidding farewell to Mia, Chris returned to his dorm, set out some snacks, picked a movie, and then lay comfortably on the couch. He pulled out his handheld console and got ready to continue the storyline.
But before continuing, Chris wanted to test the effect of Sweet Scent.
If he remembered correctly, in the original version of *Pokémon Emerald*, there wasn't an option to trigger horde battles with Sweet Scent. That feature didn't exist at the time. But the *Emerald* he was playing now wasn't the usual version.
So, Chris decided to test it.
He loaded the game. His character was still standing at Meteor Falls. He opened the Pokémon interface, selected Smeargle, and used "Sweet Scent."
**[Smeargle used Sweet Scent. Many Pokémon were attracted to the scent!]**
The battle screen immediately popped up on his console.
There were indeed five Pokémon on the opposing side!
"It worked!" Chris breathed a sigh of relief. That's what he had hoped for.
He glanced at the opposing Pokémon—four Zubat and one Bagon.
"Bagon!" Chris's eyes lit up.
Bagon had appeared in the horde!
Isn't Bagon supposed to be found only in the cave you can reach after getting Waterfall in Meteor Falls?
Could Sweet Scent have drawn it out of the deeper part of the cave?
Chris wondered.
It was also possible that in this version, Bagon could be found outside of the Waterfall cave, but with a very low encounter rate.
Chris felt like he had to test this further!
He began defeating the four Zubat one by one using Frogadier.
If the Zubat hadn't wasted their time using Mean Look, which doesn't deal damage, Frogadier might have been knocked out from the repeated attacks of four Zubat and a Bagon.
Without any AOE moves, it was a bit tricky.
But that's part of the challenge of catching Pokémon.
After taking down all the Zubat, Chris threw a Poké Ball at Bagon.
**[Bagon (Dragon)]**
**[Level: 25]**
**[Ability: Rock Head (Prevents recoil damage from its own moves.)]**
**[IVs: HP (11), Attack (21), Special Attack (25), Defense (30), Special Defense (24), Speed (31)]**
**[Skills: Ember, Leer, Bite, Dragon Breath, Headbutt, Scary Face, Crunch]**
**[Held item: Dragon Fang]**
Chris sent the single IV Speed Bagon to the computer and continued exploring Meteor Falls without using Sweet Scent, encountering wild Pokémon as usual.
Over the next two hours, Chris ran into more than 200 wild Pokémon, but they were limited to just Solrock, Lunatone, and Zubat.
"It seems horde battles are the only way to get anything interesting!" Chris concluded, then resumed using Sweet Scent to attract more Pokémon.
**First Sweet Scent.** Five Solrock appeared.
**Second Sweet Scent.** Four Lunatone and one Druddigon.
"Hmm... no thanks," Chris muttered, unimpressed with Druddigon, and fled the battle.
After using Sweet Scent ten more times, something unexpected happened—a Deino appeared! Chris was surprised.
"Deino?! I didn't expect this!"
Meteor Falls was truly full of surprises. Chris caught the Deino, but it had no IVs worth noting, so he sent it off to Professor Birch.
After more than two hours of testing, Chris decided it was time for dinner.
Out of 100 uses of Sweet Scent, there were no Shiny Pokémon. Chris encountered Bagon twice, one Deino, and seven Druddigon.
In the group encounters, a four-to-one pattern appeared about once every ten battles. Among those, the chances of encountering Bagon, Deino, or Druddigon were roughly 20%, 10%, and 70%, respectively.
Of course, this distribution seemed a bit off to Chris.
He believed the odds for Bagon and Deino should have been closer, but Druddigon kept showing up more frequently.
"There's no point hunting for Shinies here," Chris concluded.
The odds of finding Bagon and Deino were just too low, and on top of that, his Pokémon didn't have any effective AOE moves to train in this area.
Chris reviewed his Pokémon's moves and saw that his Gabite had Bulldoze, a Ground-type AOE move. But there was a problem—Zubat, Solrock, and Lunatone were immune to Ground-type moves, either because of their Flying type or Levitate ability.
"Who designed this game?" Chris muttered in frustration. "You can't even hit the common Pokémon with Bulldoze!"
He realized that fighting them one by one was a waste of time. After hours of effort, Frogadier hadn't gained any meaningful experience, aside from the few times Chris managed to catch Bagon and Deino. Each time, Combusken had to jump in to finish the job.
It felt like a complete waste of time.
Chris decided that once his Pokémon learned the right AOE moves, he would return to Meteor Falls for proper training and to catch Bagon and Deino.
For now, though, it was more efficient to level up elsewhere using Sweet Scent.
Even with Gabite leading the team and Frogadier holding an Exp. Share, the efficiency would still be 2.5 times better than grinding in Meteor Falls with one-on-one battles.
But once Chris had Surf—a reliable AOE move—he'd be back to train and catch Bagon in earnest.