CH62 (123), Lapras

As soon as I saw her status screen I decided to settle on her. So, I dialed my friendliness as well as trustworthiness factor to the max and began enticing her to the dark side *ahem* to my side.

I told her some things about myself like my aura, which was always a plus for nearly everyone. I told her about my Pokemon, and about their training as well as all the things I did to help them get stronger including the supplements, food, and so on.

Lapras got curious about them and talked a bit to Xatu as well as Pidgey. Then she told me she wanted to see the others as well. So, after getting the permission of the pod leader and group leader I first called out all of my water Pokemon.

I had no problem with calling out all of them at once since they could stay inside the water. Once all my Magikarp appeared they attracted not only the attention of Lapras but also a lot of attention of the Lapras around us.

I should have expected as much since nearly all of them were variants. We, my Pokemon and I, all tensed a bit at the attention. Fortunately, they were only curious, so only curious looks got thrown our way instead of attacks.

Once that became apparent to us, I began calling out the others as well. However, since the raft was only so big and the three of us were already occupying some space, I had to call out the others in pairs.

Lapras would talk to them then I would recall them and call out the next pair. During the time I was switching between Pokemon she would talk to those that stayed out and I used that period to explain to the newcomers why I called them out in the first place.

Lapras got to talk with all my Pokemon and they all praised me as well as their situation during the conversations. This made Lapras more receptive to my efforts to get her to join me. We talked for a few more minutes and while we were talking, I took out some Passho berries to feed them to her.

After some more cookies, I meant bribes, *sigh* I meant after we talked some more, I finally got her to agree to join me. Well, actually, she wanted to have a battle first and was willing to join me if we won.

So, we approached the group leader to inform him of her decision to join me if I beat her. Wouldn't want him to think I was randomly attacking her after all. That wouldn't end well for me that is.

The group leader agreed to my request, so the group came to a stop after the group leader informed the big boss. Until now the school had been on the move, even while I was doing my whole recruitment thing.

I mean there was no way the whole school would stop moving forward just for me, that would have made no sense. No, I had asked Xatu to move the raft alongside the Lapras through his telekinesis while I did my search/scouting.

Yet, now that one of them had accepted my offer and wanted to battle, the leader of her group temporarily stopped their group to preside over the event while the rest of the school kept moving.

The group would rejoin them after the result of the battle was out. They just had to swim a bit faster to make up for the distance the other had opened up between them.

The Lapras opened up a large area in the middle for our battle and Xatu moved our raft to one end of the area while Lapras headed to the other end.

I decided to use Xatu for the fight and I already had an idea how to win the fight pretty easily as long as Lapras did a single thing. If she didn't it would take a bit longer to win, but I trusted Xatu to win anyway.

"I'll have Xatu fight against you," I informed her before I looked over to Xatu and gave him a nod.

"I know you got this." I encouraged him and he casually took off the raft. Not gonna lie, that confident take-off looked pretty cool on his part.

Once both competitors were on the "field" the group leader moved to the middle. It seemed like he was planning to give the start signal. He looked at both sides and once he was sure both were ready he shot a Water Gun in the air to signal the start of the battle.

As soon as the fight commenced, Xatu began using Reflect followed by Light Screen. Those two moves formed a second-skin-like layer on Xatu that would reduce the damage he would take for a few hits before dissipating.

During the time Xatu performed his opening moves Lapras used Mist spreading, well mist, around the area obscuring her position and keeping her parameters safe from outside influence for some time.

"Gust!" Xatu followed my instructions blowing most of the Mist away, returning the visibility of most of the area in front of him.

Unfortunately, the area at her last location was still covered, but at least we had returned Xatu's vision, mostly. Ice Shards came flying towards Xatu which he stopped using Psychic.

He could not send them back, despite them having revealed her position since they had a homing function, so he exerted some effort to crush them instead.

Lapras immediately followed up her Ice Shard with an Ice Beam trying to make use of him focusing on Ice Shard. Still, thanks to the swift speed at which he dealt with the Ice Shard Xatu had enough time to Teleport away effectively dodging her Ice Beam.

"Air Slash" I called out and Xatu fired the move at the place the Ice Beam came from.

The attack slashed the mist in that spot apart, but I heard neither a cry from Lapras nor did I see her in the now mist-free space which meant she had managed to dodge Xatu's attack.

Deciding to get rid of the Mist I gave out my next instruction.

"Close in a bit and then Gust. Get rid of that Mist." As soon as I said the first part Xatu teleported a bit closer to the still mist-covered area and used Gust blowing the rest of the Mist away.

Lapras, who was now visible once more, used the time Xatu got rid of the Mist to attack him while he was preoccupied. She fired another Ice Shard at him and immediately followed it with a Water Pulse.

I didn't even have to give a command, seeing both moves approaching Xatu teleported away. While the Ice Shards followed him to his new location, Water Pulse completely missed.

Xatu used the time it took the Ice Shards to reach him to destroy them with a Shadow Ball. He followed the first Shadow Ball with a second one directed at Lapras, which she dodged by diving into the sea.

"Move higher, and keep an eye on the water." We had no choice but to wait for Lapras to resurface.

However, that did not mean we had to sit on our thumbs during that time.

"Cosmic Mind, but stay alert and ready to dodge in case she decides to attack." Cosmic Mind was a combination move of Cosmic Power and Calm Mind.

Both were parameter boosting moves that boost two parameters, and one of those parameters overlapped. We were trying to use that overlap to combine the two, but unfortunately, we had no luck so far.

Still, the meaning remained the same, Xatu knew that I wanted him to use those two moves as often as possible and he began doing just that. Unfortunately, Xatu only got to execute a single round before Lapras surfaced behind him and fired an Ice Beam at his open back.

"Dodge!!!" I cried out and Xatu did his best to follow my command.

He had no time to Teleport since it took a few precious seconds to Teleport, and he knew that since I would have shouted Teleport if he had enough time to do so.

Xatu did his best to dodge the Ice Beam, but he still got grazed causing a small part of his back to slightly freeze. It made him plummet a bit but he caught himself in a matter of seconds. Seconds Lapras used to perform Sing.

'Finally!' Was what I wanted to scream.

I had been waiting for that move all this time. I had a strategy that used moves like Sing against the caster and had been hoping Lapras would use it since I knew she knew the move.

It had taken longer than expected but she finally did. My next command was contrary to what one would expect since I did not tell him to dodge.

"Take it, but prepare a Shift," I instructed instead, and I saw that Xatu immediately understood what I planned.

Xatu sent a bit of his psionic energy to latch onto Lapras and allowed himself to be lulled into sleep. That was when my plan set into motion because the moment Xatu fell asleep the energy he had latched onto Lapras got triggered.

The energy he sent out was the precursor/part of the move Psycho Shift, which transferred any major status condition to the target as long as the target was not already inflicted with said status condition.

So, using the energy he latched onto Lapras as a bridge Xatu transferred his sleeping condition to Lapras instead, causing her to fall asleep while he himself woke up. Just in time to stop himself from falling into the sea.

Taking advantage of her being asleep, I gave Xatu his next instructions.

"Boost and then Stored Power." As soon as he heard me Xatu grinned and began to boost himself with Calm Mind and Cosmic Power.

Once he reached his current maximum boosting capacity he unleashed a Stored Power that had a base power that was three times as strong as a Hyper Beam. The move was pretty broken when one had enough time to prepare for it.

'OP as hell, please don't nerf!' Described my thoughts perfectly in this case.

The move hit its sleeping target and caused quite the bang as it landed. It even succeeded in knocking Lapras out in one hit. Seeing the result Xatu flew back to my side and landed on the raft.

I was about to head towards Lapras to heal and wake her up, but before I could even say or do anything the group leader acted first. He first cast a small Rain Dance just above Lapras, which nearly instantly woke her up thanks to her Hydration ability.

Lapras released a small sound of pain, but then the group leader used three Life Dews to heal most of the damage she took. One could visibly see that Lapras was recovering. I was not sure if her Water Absorb triggered or not because Life Dew did no damage since it was a healing move.

If it did then Lapras got double healing through a single move, which would be pretty cool. Still, the Life Dew was followed by a Water Gun that definitely triggered Water Absorb. He kept up the Water Gun until he was sure Lapras had completely recovered and stopped afterward.

Each of her abilities alone was pretty useful on its own but together they were so much more. Honestly, with the right conditions, her combination of abilities made her extremely hard to take down.

I was lucky that she did not know Rain Dance yet or the fight could have taken much longer. Still, we won and Lapras accepted her loss with dignity. She thanked the group leader before she swam up to us.

She told me that she was ready to join me and I smiled at her. I pulled out one of my primed WaterBalls and lopped the ball at her. She did not resist the capture, so the process was completed pretty quickly.

I promptly released her so that she could say her farewells to her group and family members. She bobbed her head in thanks and went back to her group to say her goodbyes.

While she did that I approached the group leader to inform him that we were going to join them during their return to the main school, since I wanted to ask the pod leader something.

He accepted my "request" and told me to take care of the little one, which was obviously my new Lapras. After our short exchange, he called out to his group and we all started moving toward the directions the others had left.

It took us less than 20 minutes to rejoin the main school and once we did I called over Lapras and we approached the pod leader. She nodded her head seeing my new partner and I conveyed the reason why I came to her again.

I asked her if it was okay with her if I brought my parents over tomorrow as well. Lapras were awesome as well as strong Pokemon and it would be great if my parents got one as well, but I didn't want to arouse her ire by bringing over others without her approval.

It was the right thing to do and had no relation whatsoever with her overwhelming strength. Thankfully, she didn't mind, but she told me that I shouldn't bring over anyone else. I thanked her for fulfilling my request and wished her and her pod a nice day.

Afterward, I asked Xatu to stop moving the raft and we together with Lapras watched them get further and further away until they disappeared behind the horizon. Once they were gone, I turned to Lapras and telepathically told her about my space, before I pulled her inside.

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