“Wow…”

Nina’s friends awed as the dark stretch of ocean before them came to life with glowing pulses of blue and red.

“Are these all Tentacool?” Justin asked.

“Tentacool AND Tentacruel.” Nina responded. “The latter is why we’re here; to capture as many as we can and disperse the bloom before they reach the shores of Route 32.”

This was the price of their luxury accommodation in the Ranger Outpost. Because as was always the case, the local Rangers were fairly understaffed and they figured they could outsource some of their seasonal work to the mermaid girl who was unfortunate enough to pass by at just the right time.

Luckily, this wasn’t the first time that Nina had gone on one of these Tentacruel subjugation missions. Back in Cerulean City, there were a couple of times where she tagged along with the girls to watch, since it was all relatively low risk under the supervision of a seasoned mermaid.

“Is this why we had to come out in the middle of the night? Because they’re all glowy like this?” Lucy asked, referring to the sea of bioluminescent lights that stretched on for as far as her eyes could see.

“Yup,” affirmed Nina. The transparent jellyfish Pokemon might as well be invisible under the light of day — it was how they were able to catch their prey unaware.

“Anyways, here, catch!” Nina threw a couple of vibrant red Pokeballs each to Justin, Kerry and Lucy — the Fire and Electric obsessed girl was borrowing her friend’s Sharpedo to participate.

“Those are Red Balls. I’ll give out more if there’s a need for it. And if you miss, make sure to retrieve them. These guys are highly regulated and not something you can keep as souvenirs — the Rangers WILL keep track and you WILL get us in trouble.” Nina warned. “Also, make sure you have enough Antidotes on you, is that clear?”

The trio of teens nodded.

“So do we have to catch ALL of the Tentacruel?” Lucy asked, looking a little despondent at the numbers they were facing.

“No, it’s fine even if there are a few stragglers. A small number of Tentacruel can’t feasibly keep such a large bloom in control, unless there’s an Alpha in play. But if there were, then we’d be able to feel their Aura by now. So don’t worry.”

Nina’s little addendum made Justin wilt in disappointment. The boy really was a trouble magnet.

And so, each of the teens wandered off on their Flyers to search for Tentacruels to battle; Kerry used her Poliwhirl, Justin used Blastoise, while Lucy had Sharpedo.

In all honesty, Nina probably could have done this more efficiently with just her and her Pokemon. But her friends wanted to tag along to see the sights and she figured; “why not?” And this way, she could make use of this opportunity to give Poppy some battle experience.

She didn’t allow the Popplio to dive in unsupervised of course and also released Sir Clodington as a chaperon, while Nitey and Espy kept watch over the pair in the air.

The biggest danger associated with handling such large swathes of the jellyfish Pokemon, aside from getting Poisoned, was the risk of getting surrounded on all sides by their superior numbers. But so long as they remain vigilant in recalling their Pokemon when that happens, it should be fine.

“Alright, Poppy. Let’s show them what you’re made of!”

“Po-po!”

***

“Are you sure you don’t want us to come with you, Nina?” Kerry asked the next morning, ever the worrywart. Her friends were energetic as ever even after a long night of Tentacruel hunting.

“You guys are free to come into the cave with me. But once I start diving, it’ll be hard for any of you to follow.” Nina responded as she adjusted the little waterproof fanny pack atop her utility belt — her Silph co backpack was too bulky for what was to come. The girl also had half her wetsuit on over her swimsuit.

“I’ve got Blastoise and Sharpedo! I can come with!” Justin chimed, eliciting a sigh from the girl.

“Lots of underwater tunnels in Union Cave — narrow ones.” Nina argued. “Your bulky Pokemon are hardly gonna fit. That’s why I’ll only have Poppy and Sir Clodington out with me for safety.” The Popplio was tiny, and the amphibious and Ground Type Clodsire was an absolute blessing when it came to risky cave diving ventures like this.

“And besides, what I’m about to do is very dangerous and I can’t guarantee your safety, Justin. So please, just be good for once and stick with Lucy and Kerry, okay?” Nina concluded, unwilling to entertain anymore of her friend’s childish complaints.

Nina had intentionally booked them a week in the Ranger Outpost, because the girl wanted to go spelunking in Union Cave in an attempt to find the conventionally inaccessible parts of the Ruins of Alph.

“Come on, Justin. Leave Nina alone, she can take care of herself.” Kerry chimed, distracting the whimsical boy on her friend’s behalf. “There are safer parts to explore in the cave and lots of Pokemon to meet as well. I heard one of my cousins here say that you can occasionally hear the echo of a Lapras singing in the caverns, isn’t that exciting?!”

Justin’s eyes sparkled, and the mention of Lapras got Lucy to perk up as well. The girl had been hampering to catch her own Water Pokemon after their little outing amidst the Tentacool bloom the night before.

Nina giggled. “Lapras are cute.” She stated — a universal fact that only the most malevolent of individuals would disagree with.

“Lapras are cute.” her friends echoed.

***

“Okay, Magneton. Can you detect any sort of electromagnetic interference nearby?”

“Bzzzt… beep boop beep.”

The Magnemite belonged to Lucy and was on loan to Nina. And just like her childhood friend, the girl didn’t have the habit of naming her Pokemon either, which made it all the more convenient in addressing them.

This was the plan that Nina conjured to help her find traces of the Ruins of Alph in the cave. Because while the Union Cave in the games was also fairly convoluted in its layout, the real life equivalent was even more so.

Going from Route 32 to 33 was a fairly straightforward affair with clear markers laid out to guide the way. However, beneath all of that was a complex series of tunnels, either underwater or otherwise. And not all of said tunnels were accessible to humans with how narrow they were. Which was where Poppy and Sir Clodington came in handy.

The moment that Magneton pointed them towards a general direction, Nina returned it and dove straight into the water with her Pokemon in tow. With a series of hand gestures, Nina signaled for Poppy to scout ahead to find them a path while Sir Clodington stuck by her side to guard her against any wild Pokemon, of which there were many.

Union Cave, despite its frequent use for travel between Violet City and Azalea Town, had a very diverse ecosystem; Feebas, Magikarp, Shellder and the like roamed freely, likely having wandered in from the nearby ocean.

On the rocky shores of the cave, Nina even encountered a number of Woopers as well as the usual Sandshrew, Geodude, Zubat and so on.

“I heard there’s a small colony of Onix residing deep underground as well. We’ll need to be careful not to accidentally get in their way.” Nina did not look forward to being run over by what was essentially the Pokemon equivalent of a freight train.

“Po!”

Not long after, Poppy came back with a sad pout. It seemed that the first tunnel he picked was a dead end.

Nina giggled and nuzzled against her precious seal baby in encouragement, before sending him out again to seek out another path. But this time, she asked Sir Clodington to help out by using his affinity with Ground to eliminate any dead ends that he could sense. The tunnels that remained in consideration were those that were long enough to escape the amphibious Ground Type’s range or those that were interconnected to one another.

Armed with better bearings that Espy helped to convey, Poppy did a little flip in the water and dove right into another narrow tunnel for further exploration.

It took a few more rounds of trial and error, but Poppy finally came back with a promising route that seemed to lead… somewhere.

So after Sir Clodington moved in to widen the entrance into the tunnel, Nina followed suit with a little flashlight in hand to light the way.

“Calm down Nina… Just breathe. Don’t forget to breathe…” was what the girl had to keep telling herself as she swam through the narrow strip of darkness. All the while she couldn’t help but feel the claustrophobia creeping steadily into the back of her mind.

Some of the tunnels she went through were so narrow that she practically had to crawl her way through despite Clody’s best efforts.

Nina’s vision blurred as her breathing suffered, bubbles spewing violently from the gaps of her mouthpiece. And for a brief moment in time, she was reminded of her ordeal back in Celadon City when Noboru had his fingers around her throat, steadily strangling the air out of her lungs.

Espy, after sensing Nina’s mounting distress, placated her mind with calming thoughts from her Pokeball, eliciting a mental wave of gratitude from Nina.

Even Haunter extended a hand out from the shadows to hold onto Nina’s. The chilling grip of her endearing Ghost girl felt strangely comforting amidst the oppressive silence.

“I’m so blessed to be surrounded by such a loving family…” Nina mused with a little sniffle — an act that the girl soon came to regret as she choked on the water that she inadvertently snorted in.

Eventually though, after Arceus knew how long, Nina and her Pokemon companions soon escaped the narrow network of tunnels to emerge into another underground lake located within a smaller cavern — one that was utterly devoid of human presence and far removed from the main cavern that they came from.

***

Author's note:

You guys are adorable. I'm seeing that Ch 209 had nearly 3 times the number of views as the chapter before it. Are you really that anxious for my return? : P

Anyways, we're back. Although I didn't accumulate as much of a backlog as I would have liked.

To give you an idea, my current writing progress is up to Ch 257, which gives us roughly a 30 chapter backlog from the Patreon release.

That's not too bad, although I was hoping to go on a writing marathon during the past weekend. Ended up spending most of my time sleeping instead...

I managed to recover three chapters that I originally axed, but there's still a couple that I'm not confident enough to fit into the story. One of which is a chapter where Nina goes on a scavenger hunt with Celebi to look for the three Legendary Beast: Suicune, Entei and Raikou.

I really wanna include that chapter just because I quite like my characterisation of those three Legendaries. But unfortunately, it doesn't really flow very well. So if all else fails, I might just release it as a deleted chapter exclusive to Patreon.

Anyways, as promised, we'll go back to a three chapter release for this week. But I might have to take a break again sometime in December depending on how many chapters I can get done before then.

I'm really hoping to finish Part Three first though. We're so close. I'm shooting for between Ch 275-280 for the ending.

Spoiler

For those of you who were wondering, I really don't like Pokemon A-Z. Calling it a subpar product would be an insult to mediocrity.

If this is the new direction that Pokemon is taking then I might just lose my love for the franchise.

It's just inexcusable really, for a media franchise worth billions of dollars, the MOST profitable in the world, to release a shoddy piece of work like this.

All that time and money wasted engaging in frivolous lawsuits with their competitors when they should have focused on actually making a good game instead.

And I'm saying this as a very casual player of the games. I'm one of those people who're just happy to have a new Pokemon game where I get to go around collecting cute Pokemon and filling my Pokedex. But the fact that even I am dissapointed with A-Z is telling.

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