Chapter 290: Lugia — Little Silver

Beneath a curtain of azure water, Lugia slowly poked its head out.

Its long, silvery-white neck, a beakless mouth reminiscent of a heron, and triangular black fin-plates like a mask — mysterious and magnificent.

Yet upon seeing this fellow, not only Baimu but the other Marine Corps members also wore rather odd expressions.

Izumi even turned her head and asked directly:

"Are all the Lugia in the Ohra region this small?"

"Impossible."

Baimu shook his head without hesitation.

The one before them was clearly less than half the size of a normal Lugia from the anime; its head and neck looked quite "miniature," and its total body length probably wouldn't exceed four meters.

A textbook baby Lugia.

And in the anime's backstory, there was indeed a Lugia chick — Silver, who had once met Ash and his friends, was captured by Team Rocket on the Whirl Islands, and was ultimately rescued.

"A wild, small-framed Lugia?"

Izumi turned her gaze back, her eyes full of disbelief, then grew a little excited and tried to approach.

But Baimu stopped her.

"Hold on — don't you feel the atmosphere is a bit off?"

"The atmosphere is off…" Before Izumi could grasp what he meant, a Marine Corps member's scream suddenly rang out from not far away.

"Ah!"

Everyone looked over quickly, and immediately saw that person pointing at the cave entrance they had come through, their face pale with trembling.

"L-Lugia!"

And in that cave mouth, a massive head had appeared at some unknown moment, a faint silver glow like a bright moon, radiating a cold and lonely aura.

A Lugia that seemed to be an enlarged version of the other one stared down at them with icy eyes, an invisible pressure coiling through the dark cavern.

The Marine Corps members and Baimu all stood rooted to the spot, at a loss.

But the Marine Corps people had, after all, seen their share of the world, and Baimu wasn't the type to be thrown into panic by mere aura alone — their emotions quickly settled.

Izumi stepped forward on her own initiative, raised both hands in an innocent gesture, and said: "We are very sorry for barging into your territory without permission. We mean absolutely no harm, and we will not attack you or your child. Please believe us!"

"Please forgive our intrusion; we have no ill intentions whatsoever!"

Baimu also stepped forward, raised both hands, and spoke.

Although he didn't know whether Lugia could understand this surrendering gesture, as a Psychic-type Pokémon, it should presumably be able to distinguish good from evil.

He kept recalling the plot of Ash's encounter with the Lugia mother and child, and felt relieved that, thanks to Ash's efforts in successfully freeing the Lugia from Team Rocket, it hadn't completely lost its trust in humans.

Lugia going berserk in the anime was still terrifying…

He wasn't sure if it was an illusion, but Baimu suddenly felt that the Lugia before him was far larger than the one in the anime.

Hmm?

Could this be Lugia's father?

His heart skipped a beat.

While he was pondering, the large Lugia before them had already confirmed that the Marine Corps, Baimu, and all the Pokémon were no threat, and the pressure it had been releasing instantly dissipated.

"Chirp—"

Even so, it clearly struck a posture that did not welcome human visitors, shifting its body aside to reveal the cave entrance, unmistakably issuing an unspoken order to leave.

Seeing this, Izumi immediately ordered her subordinates to go check the situation outside, then followed them to the cave mouth but did not step out.

"You ask first or I ask first?"

She glanced at the large Lugia, then at the curious-baby-like small Lugia, and finally turned to look at Baimu.

"…Wait, let me call out to it once first."

Baimu had realized the moment he saw the small Lugia that he had most likely found the wrong one, but for the sake of accuracy, he decided to verify it.

So.

Under Izumi's puzzled gaze, he said softly to the small Lugia: "Silver?"

"Wugh!"

Upon hearing this name, the small Lugia's eyes immediately lit up, and the large Lugia beside it also froze, studying Baimu with some disbelief.

"Is it you, Silver?"

Baimu asked again, and the small Lugia burst straight out of the waterfall curtain, making happy sounds as it drew near him.

The large Lugia also bent its long neck, circling Baimu and peering at him, frequently looking at his face as if comparing it to something in its memory.

"You know them!?" Izumi said in disbelief.

Baimu shook his head. "No, no, no, I don't know them — I only know the people who have interacted with them — ah!"

The small Lugia pounced on him in a rush, turning his face this way and that, sniffing him every so often, and upon discovering it wasn't that familiar face, immediately became disappointed.

"Sorry to disappoint you — I'm neither Shuichi, nor Ash and Takeshi, but I do know them," he said to the Lugia mother and child.

《Martial God of Asura》

Hearing the familiar names, the Lugia mother and child no longer carried any hostility.

It was clear they were still quite innocent — they assumed that since Baimu could name the people who had once rescued them, he must certainly be a friendly presence.

"Sigh…"

Baimu slowly got to his feet, soothing the Galarian Corsola with all its smoke-like tentacles extended, and said to Izumi: "You go ahead and ask — I'm done with my questions."

"…"

Izumi gave him a rather complicated look. As a Marine Corps executive, she herself had only come face-to-face with Kyogre and Groudon — how did a person from the Ohra region know so many Lugia!?

First an escaped Lugia, then Lugia's mother, then Lugia's Silver…

"Please tell me — why are you here, why…"

During the time Ah Quan was making his inquiries.

All Baimu took out his phone and sent a message to Shan Ren confirming failure; naturally, the message couldn't be sent from the seabed where there was no signal, but he just wanted to vent the frustration in his heart.

After much difficulty finding one, he hadn't expected it to be a mother-and-child pair of Lugia.

Where would the Lugia of the Ohra region have run off to? Hopefully not some mountain ravine where not a single person lives.

How about asking this mother-and-child pair?

It's possible that some unknown communication network exists between Lugia — think about it, the design prototype of Lugia is suspected to include the white whale, and whales can transmit messages through their calls…

Boldly speculating, he couldn't help but look toward the mother-and-child Lugia.

By this time Ah Quan had also smoothly finished his questioning; the mother-and-child Lugia were unquestionably forced to leave Spiral Island because of the persecution by Team Rocket earlier, and came to the seas of the Hoenn region to settle down.

But since they had been discovered by humans, they would naturally choose to continue drifting along the ocean currents to other places.

Although essentially avian Pokémon, Lugia are not divided into resident or migratory birds; they can rely on the ocean currents to go anywhere, and can also settle in one place for thousands or tens of thousands of years — purely a matter of will.

Ah Quan obtained the reason and withdrew very satisfied; at this moment, the Aqua Team subordinates also brought news that their companion had merely fainted and the submarine was intact.

All Baimu stepped forward again and asked the mother-and-child Lugia whether they knew of any Lugia located near the Ohra region.

The two looked at each other, clearly not quite understanding what the Ohra region was.

"It's… um… do you know a Lugia that flew in from the north?" All Baimu tried to show the map to the mother-and-child Lugia, but unfortunately they still couldn't understand it.

The curse of knowledge made normal communication between them very difficult.

And when he tried to inquire about the locations of all the Lugia in the world, the mother-and-child Lugia also regretfully shook their heads.

They had hardly ever come into contact or communicated with their own kind; everyone just looked after themselves.

"I see…"

All Baimu's face could hardly conceal his disappointment.