Last time, I investigate splashing for no reason. Today, I continue along and Lana is now pointing me at another splashing bit and without even the argument it’s a strong pokemon – hey, maybe it’s a person, she suggests. Why the hell am I doing this. Also, why can’t I get to the other side of the pond LET ME OFF THE LEASH.

It’s another fishy and the rest of the fishies continue to go further down, so I guess I keep going to the bottom.

Lana: How unfortunate. It wasn’t a strapping young Swimmer after all…

WHY CAN’T YOU LOOK FOR YOUR OWN DATES WHY AM I DOING THIS

She then hears more splashing and continues to not get that it’s the wishiwashi.

Maybe, just maybe, we’ll be lucky enough to find a spry young swimming floundering in the water and in need of saving!

Who’s this “we” you’re babbling about? GET IN THE DAMN WATER AND DO IT YOURSELF.

I then fight the standard idiot fisherman with magikarp.

Continuing, Lana ambushes me midway to the next pool with another cutscene. Apparently, inside the hill everyone’s talking about is a legendary pokemon who’s the embodiment of the sea itself… so new one or the mighty Kyogre ah okay. No. Wait.

What the hell is it doing here???

We just had ORAS, game! That clearly established Kyogre was inside a bunch of rock in a completely different location, and shortly after, inside my pokeball because I am a tiny god.

That’s amazing!/Really?

Oh dear… You won’t be tricked easily, Bonnibel.

HA!

But we are near the sea.

…yes…? Because, like, island?

If that splashing sound is coming from the sea…then I wonder what is causing it. And now it is raining, as well. The rain will boost the power of any Water-type move by half again… Could these splashes be caused by some Pokemon whose moves are now growing ever stronger in the falling rain?

I thought you thought it wasn’t a pokemon and that was why I was being dragged along.

She then tricks me through her trial gates! And now she’s gloating at me! I’m sorry Lana, you’re awesome and I love you, please be my new rival. I did notice they were there but I thought they were those annoying barriers and was just happy they were open.

She then claims the totem pokemon here is the lord of the ocean and tells me that okay but for real go poke the splashes.

And perhaps those Wishiwashi you battled against will also want their revenge…

This was all so clever!

The place is a lot more minimal than the previous trial, but I still love it. We’re actually at sea level with waves cresting over the side of the rocks.

Time to chat with the splashy. Lapras is trembling… And all the fish shadows previously swimming away are now coming together instead.

And yeah, giant fish monster made of fish is pretty cool. But it doesn’t seem like that great of a battler – why does it have soak of all moves, what good is that?

It summons another regular wishiwashi, who is basically free experience, but then it summons an alomomola and things change. She’s got heal pulse and the healer ability…

Yeah, that doesn’t go well for me.

Alright take two! And Lana is so disapproving of me for failing.

This time, I lead with Magnemite, who paralyzes the big wishiwashi and then dies to water gun. I follow it with my formantis as the big one summons a regular wishiwashi, then, rather than razorleaf them both, I swap her out! To my mudbray, as she was the only one to get soak used on her before. And indeed, now my vulnerable ground type is a resistant water. Time to stompflinch the big guy to death.

Oh, it works even better than you’d think, since the little wishiwashi only wants to use helping hand, but when he’s not flinching he’s paralyzed. Eventually, they manage to take down Mudbray, but that just means I switch to my meowth for biteflinch.

And…now the wishiwashi isn’t schooling and looks regular? I’m not sure if that’s because I beat it down or because so much time passed, but either way, I beat the remaining fish easily. Then it’s just a matter of biting the other wishiwashi to death while it keeps trying to heal.

And then I’m yoinked back to shore by Lana’s cutscene power.

Lana: I…I must say that I find myself at an impasse here. All of the wishiwashi that I so diligently trained up were defeated, and that is very frustrating…but of course I cannot let your completion of my trial go uncelebrated, Bonnibel. And then she just hands me the crystal. Yay! I’ll put it in the bag with the other ones I will never, ever use.

Ooh, and a fishing rod! You I will use.

And she explains you don’t just fish anywhere, I’m to check the “pile of rocks” that appear to be manmade ruins but no one ever mentions this. She explains fishing, gives me some dive balls, then tells me she caught a red gyarados once.

You did?!/Did you really?

Pretty sure I did that.

She offers to escort me to the pokecenter but thankfully takes no for an answer. Now, to fish!

I catch a magikarp. And it’s just L11, eh.

Ah, but she summons me a gyarados! L10. And there’s no TR shenanigans to blame the early evolution on this time!

There are people who swear that any place Gyarados appears in is fated for destruction.

Aren’t there a lot of places gyarados appear? Also, they seem pretty mobile on land, I assume they can get where they want for the most part.

It’s not that I don’t get the obvious causal link between gyarados and imminent destruction, it’s just the fated part that’s throwing me, as if this takes a while. Maybe the idea is that one gyarados isn’t necessary going to smash all your puny human structures, but that, like all pokemon, gyarados generally occur as part of an overall biome, and if your area is an okay habitat for gyarados sooner or later it’s doomed.

I then fish again, get another magikarp, and catch it easily, because magikarp.

Its reckless leaps make it easy pickings for predators. On the bright side, many pokemon enjoy longer life spans, thanks to Magikarp.

They seriously needed to proof these better. Also, it’s unclear if they mean the predators get more food or other prey pokemon go uncaught, and either one doesn’t really work with how more food just means the predator population increases.

Oh, if you walk to Lana again the offer to cutscene-teleport to the pokecenter is still open. Guess I’ll go with that, then.

Current soon to be swapped team:
L17 magnemite
L14 eevee
L18 rattata
L19 formantis
L19 meowth