novelraw Chapter 788: Teacher Lu, could you perform a "lying on the sand" pose?
Chapter 788: Teacher Lu, could you perform a "lying on the sand" pose?
Chapter 788 Teacher Lu, Could You Demonstrate a Sand-Lie? 16
“The so-called tide foraging refers to going to the mudflats or rocks along the shore during low tide to collect marine produce.”
The next morning, right at low tide, Teacher Lu led Lillie and the rest to the famous Kandtai Beach on Akala Island.
Teacher Lu explained, “The most important part is knowing how to identify the Pokémon in the ocean… Today’s field class is tide foraging.”
“Sounds like fun!” Sophocles laughed.
“When I was little…” Lana recalled, “my dad often took my sisters and me to the beach to forage.”
“I remember Kiawe’s home is on Akala Island, right?” Mallow asked.
“Yes, come to my place at noon. I’ll invite you all to try some Fresh Moomoo Milk,” Kiawe said with a smile.
“Beep beep… Today’s Pokémon quiz question~ Loto!”
The Rotom Pokédex flapped its mechanical arms and flew out from behind Teacher Lu, “The emblem color and island guardian of Akala Island are—”“Pink, and Tapu Bulu,” Lillie answered. “Its scale powder is said to heal wounds.”
“Ding ding, perfect answer, Loto~~” Rotom proclaimed loudly.
Lillie smiled shyly and looked a bit uneasy;
after all, today’s field course was extremely challenging for her.
“All right, Little Rotom, switch to livestream mode.”
Lu Ye rolled up his pants and sleeves and said, “Today’s science segment—Akala Tide Foraging!”
…
Kanto, Pallet Town.
“Ash~”
Aunt Delia hung clothes downstairs and called up, “If you don’t get up soon, you’ll miss the ship to Alola.”
On the second floor, Ash and Pikachu suddenly jolted awake, then unleashed a Thunderbolt that crackled through the window.
“This kid…” Aunt Delia sighed with a helpless smile.
Ash shook his head, enduring the shock of a Thunderbolt to clear the cobwebs, and opened his phone refreshed.
“We’ll be in Alola tomorrow,” Ash muttered to himself. “I should contact Teacher Lu ahead of time…”
Suddenly, Ash’s attention was drawn by a livestream notification he hadn’t seen in a while.
The channel was “Has Teacher Lu Served Today's Meal,” subtitle: “Akala Tide Foraging! Identifying Ocean Pokémon!”
“Teacher Lu’s science video?”
Ash scratched his head in surprise. Isn’t this Professor Oak’s job?
Then he realized Teacher Lu was also a Pokémon scholar, and relaxed. Curiosity got the better of him, and he clicked into the stream.
The chat was flooding, viewer count topping ten million, while gifts and flashy effects flew back and forth.
This was Teacher Lu’s first broadcast since the Barren City incident. He’d been quiet for half a year and now returned as a “tide-foraging science vlogger.”
“Teacher Lu, you always come up with something new!”
“Last time you taught tactics for Shiftry and now you’re finally going to target Shiftry on site?”
“Teacher Lu, can you demonstrate a sand-lie for me?”
“Fast-forward to you throwing the sand-lie’s Tentacool back to the sea!”
On screen, the handsome dark-haired young man addressed the camera in third person, with Lillie and the students behind him.
Lu Ye smiled and said:
“Today I brought everyone to Kandtai Beach to introduce Akala’s ocean Pokémon.”
The perspective switched to first-person;
Teacher Lu held the Rotom Pokédex and stepped onto the golden, soft sand.
At low tide, the beach was full of small sand mounds, some with half-buried red shovels sticking out.
Lu Ye: “That red shovel… from the size, it’s a Sandygast. Pulling out a Sand Shovel will let it mentally control you, and it’ll keep building sandcastles on the beach.”
Kiawe remembered being controlled by a Sandygast as a child, spending an entire night building sandcastles, and his face went pale.
“Teacher Lu, what should we do?” Lana asked, looking up.
“If you leave them alone, they’ll wander off by themselves… Once their life energy disperses, they become ordinary sand shovels.”
Lu Ye glanced at the chat and, taken aback, asked, “You all want to see one pulled out?”
“Fair enough… hands-on learning.”
Lu Ye rubbed his chin and said, “This shovel’s too small. I’ll find a bigger one later—dig up a Shiftry for you to see.”
The chat filled with a string of “hhhhh”.
“Shiftry: Don’t come over here!!”
“It’s well-known that pulling sand shovels is the only standard for tide-foraging bloggers.”
“Pupitar is ecstatic!”
The camera continued to move as Teacher Lu explained while half-squatting:
“Beach Pokémon usually have a sand-lie habit… this should be a Tentacool;
sure enough, the sand’s so shallow it’s been sun-squashed… Lana, toss it back to the sea.”
“Okay~” Lana picked up the Tentacool and threw it hard, then shook her sticky hands and crouched to wash them in a puddle.
“Tentacool secretes mucus that ruins tourists’ experience. In Alola there’s a day job called ‘Tentacool Thrower’ whose job is to throw them back into the sea.”
Teacher Lu continued, “Also, Tentacool mucus can be made into very popular beauty products… once it spits out all the mucus, what comes after is actually Toxic.”
“That sand mound is a Corsola… Little spikes have poked holes in the mound. It likes to eat Sun Coral and carries paralyzing poison;
better not provoke it.”
Lu Ye called, “Haunter, send it back to the sea!”
“Gengarrr~” Haunter grinned, scooped up a big handful of sand, and tossed the Corsola with its mound back into the ocean.
The chat produced a string of question marks.
“Corsola: Are you polite?”
“How dare you disturb my sand-lie;
in anger I become a super Corsola!”
Lu Ye scanned the beach, eyes falling on a shallow puddle where a Wimpod was trembling and flicking its tail.
“Wimpod is even weaker than Magikarp on its own, but if it returns to its school, it can gather into a huge form fishermen call a ‘sea monster’.”
Lu Ye remarked, “Unity is strength… This one’s too small, toss it back.”
“This is a Qwilfish with the Intimidate trait… When angry, it puffs its cheeks. Come on, get mad.”
Lu Ye held the Qwilfish and waved it in front of the camera.
Insulted beyond endurance, the Qwilfish puffed its cheeks in rage, turning into a round, swollen puffer.
Because Qwilfish aren’t good swimmers, lying on the beach usually means Pelipper will carry them away.
Teacher Lu wiped his shoe with the puffer-like fish and sent it back into the ocean.
“On Akala’s coast, watch out for this Pokémon called Drapula… It lives in the sea but comes ashore to hunt.”
“There’s also an ugly fish called the Tuskfish;
the grinding sound it makes causes mental attacks and even scares off Garchomp.”
“Of course, there are human-friendly Pokémon too, like Miltank nannies and Lapras… they heal wounds and protect those who fall into the water.”
Near noon, the group continued walking the beach and came upon a new sand mound.
Lu Ye flipped through the sand, his expression shifting slightly, “This Pokémon that looks like two footprints is called Krabbyfoot…”
Its prototype is the barnacle among seafood—its appearance is hard to describe;
its evolution, the Turtle Armor, is one of Teacher Lu’s least favorite-looking Pokémon.
Bored, he kicked Krabbyfoot aside and stood up, preparing to lead the students to lunch.
Out of the corner of his eye he noticed a tipped-over shovel and a massive sand dune.
For an instant, Lu Ye’s eyes lit up and he said:
“This shovel is big, probably a giant Shiftry!”
The chat erupted with “ohhhhh”.
“The viewers’ favorite tide-foraging segment—pulling the sand shovel!”
“Holy crap, that shovel’s huge, it must’ve lived for decades!”
“Last time you explained how dangerous Shiftry can be and many didn’t believe it, saying Shiftry looks so cute… Today we’ll prove it to you in person.”
Lu Ye walked slowly toward the red shovel stuck in the dune. His palm bathed in the blue glow of Aura, and he said, “The following is a dangerous move. The best way to deal with Shiftry is actually to control your hands…
“But this Shiftry is too big. It’s dangerous to tourists if it stays here, so I’ll break up some of its sand.”
Lu Ye looked behind him and shouted, “Lana, get everyone back!”
Lana was the child of fishermen and knew Shiftry’s threat well. Besides, that shovel was buried deep in the dune—its body might be over ten meters tall, truly a boss-level Pokémon!
She nervously pressed her lips together and put a protective arm around Lillie. Mallow and Kiawe stared wide-eyed, “The sand shovel was pulled out!”
A curse-like Ghost-type energy tried to take control from his palm but was easily dispelled by Aura.
Holding the shovel, Lu Ye looked up at the towering Shiftry rising up and blotting out the sun, and sighed:
“King of the sand, top-tier for sure!”
The Pokédex lists Shiftry at only one meter tall;
the Shiftry before them was over ten meters, because Shiftry’s “Gather Sand” move increases its size and threat level with age.
The Shiftry from the anime nearly destroyed Professor Kukui’s lab and was about this size.
On screen, a giant sand fortress with windows as eyes and a city gate as a mouth angrily waved its arms, trying to seize the shovel back!
Viewers, stunned, couldn’t help commenting.
“The shovel was pulled;
it looks a bit pitiful…”
“This thing absorbs life energy. If you don’t break up some of its sand, it’s too dangerous.”
“Wow, Teacher Lu pulled a bigger shovel than other tide-foraging vloggers!”
Rumble!!
Shiftry’s huge body blocked the sky, sand streaming into it, and a red aura of wrath made the beach tremble.
The island guardian Tapu Bulu rushed over from the life ruins and hovered above the sea.
Its colors were mostly pink, with a black upper body and a pink cocoon-like lower half. Its scale powder both heals and robs resistance.
Tapu Bulu’s gaze reflected Lu Ye and the group on the beach, and it was slightly shocked.
There was a very peculiar Aura about him…
And this trainer was trying to deal with a boss-level Shiftry alone?
“Go, Pupitar!”
Lu Ye threw a Dark Ball and shouted, “Use Crunch!!”
A red flash burst forth. Pupitar slammed down, striding forward with a ferocious glint in its eyes.
“Bangii!! (✪ω✪)”
With Dark-type double-effectiveness and Predatory suppression, Shiftry shuddered.
“Roar…”
That shovel—don’t I get a say in this?
Pupitar clamped its jaws on the base of Shiftry and a flood of sand poured out, like biting into a molten cream sand cake.
This sand wasn’t Shiftry’s true body, but sand gathered by its “Gather Sand” move.
“Wail~! (ㄒoㄒ)”
Shiftry visibly shrank, whipping up a sandstorm and trying to use it to attack Lu Ye and the others.
“Sirfetch’d, use Defog.” Lu Ye instructed.
“Gah! (｡・`ω´･)”
A red light shot from the Commemorative Poké Ball, and Sirfetch’d leapt out wielding its leek and shield, swinging the leek to form an invisible wind wall that blocked the sandstorm.
“Pupitar, use Spite!” Lu Ye shouted.
Pupitar roared and slammed into Shiftry’s form. Then it stomped the sand, and a black, inky Dark-type wave surged and exploded!
The chat was flooded with “teary-eyed” emojis.
“Shif-try—”
“Who guards this beach? Shiftry!”
“Teacher Lu single-handedly raised tide-foraging trainers’ combat standards.”
Sand blew everywhere as a large amount of sand spilled from Shiftry’s body.
Lu Ye looked at his palm;
the sand shovel in his hand was shrinking too.
As the flying sand cleared, Shiftry had returned to its one-meter base form, so Lu Ye calmly stuck the shovel back onto its head.
“Roar~~(-^O^-)”
Shovel’s back, it’s gone~
With the shovel atop its head, Shiftry dove into the sand and quickly moved away from the area.
Ding-dang.
Lana let out a soft “oh” as her eyes caught a shallow hollow glinting with a purple Z-Crystal.
“Teacher Lu.” Lana picked up the purple crystal and held it out, “This looks like what Shiftry dropped!”
“Let me see… Ghost Z.”
Lu Ye pondered and nodded, “No wonder this Shiftry’s size was so exaggerated. It must’ve been influenced by the Z-Crystal.”
None of the students had captured a Ghost-type Pokémon. The Ghost Z, known for eerie states and curses, would actually suit Teacher Lu well.
Lu Ye glanced at the camera and said:
“If we take this Ghost Z… let’s keep walking and see if we can find Crabrawler or Krabby!”
…
At dusk, Teacher Lu and Professor Kukui led the students to the home of Akala’s Island Kahuna, Lillie’s host, for a feast.
Lillie is a straightforward woman, well-proportioned and dark-skinned. She smiled and said:
“I’ve already been informed about this morning… Teacher Lu, thank you for clearing such a big hazard from Kandtai Beach.”
“I just brought students for an outdoor practical class and made a little science video on the side.”
Lu Ye mentioned he’d obtained a Ghost Z from Shiftry and asked if it should be returned to the island kahuna.
“Of course it belongs to you,” Lillie smiled. “Ghost Z suits you and your partner Haunter very well.”
“That said…” Lu Ye replied, “I’m still more inclined toward using Dark Z.”
Even without the same type boosting it, Haunter’s Dark Z, “Dark Void,” is Haunter’s strongest move now.
The Ghost Z “Shadow Ball” also packs a punch, but it’s ultimately inferior to the unofficial Dark Void.
Professor Kukui sipped his Moomoo Milk juice and joked half-seriously:
“You could try inventing a full-force pose to form a unique Z-Move just for Haunter.”
Lu Ye blinked in slight surprise as Kukui continued:
“Although no Haunter Z has been discovered yet… Haunter is a Pokémon of infinite potential—Mega Evolution, Gigantamax…”
“With the two of you’ bond, and your strength as a ‘battle legend,’ you might just create a one-of-a-kind Z-Move,” Kukui chuckled.
“Haunter Z…”
Like Pikachu Z and Electric Z combining, Pikachu Z’s “10,000,000 Volt Thunderbolt.”
Lu Ye looked at the Ghost Z and Dark Z in his palm, lost in thought.
The prerequisite for a Z-Move is first constructing a full-force pose, which amounts to an awkward dance…
Ash and Pikachu’s “10,000,000 Volt Thunderbolt” full-force pose is Pikachu wearing Ash’s hat.
If a Haunter Z were possible…
Would my and Haunter’s full-force pose be… a shoulder pat?!
Teacher Lu muttered, “Sounds doable…”
…