What Lurks at the Bottom

You find her far from home in cold, dark corners.  Once you have left civilization, once you have left the farthest reaches of the sun--then you are nearly there.  Deep in the ocean depths--far below the waves and secluded from watching eyes--in a world of its own.  That's where Mareanie lurks.
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Having Completed my Fire Trial and taking the Firium-Z as my prize, I was free to move north to greener pastures.

I took that Firium-Z and made my way south to catch a Happiny.

See, I really do like the collection aspect of these games.  It gives me this perverse sense of joy to see my Pokedex fill up with new captures.  The new pokedex completion interfaces introduced in this game only make this compulsion even more strong.  Not only do they give you a completion percentage for the entire pokedex, but completion percentages for each island you visit.  In addition to these, the game shows you a sort of trophy case arrangement of all your catches.  A lot of the presentation in this game reinforces the gameplay tenets.  I know that Gamefreak has long ago abandoned "Gotta Catch 'em All" as the slogan for the franchise (it is currently "Train On"), but I really relish the thought of working to truly snag one of each.

I found Mareanie in the Melemele Sea.  I suppose "found" would be slightly false of me to say: perhaps "tracked" would be more correct.  Truthfully, I knew it was there because my pokedex had guided me to that spot.  Indeed, it had even indicated that I would need to fish for it.

I hooked a Corsola.  While I was trying to capture it, it called allies.  One of these allies turned out to be the Sea Star pokemon "Mareanie"

Turns out, Mareanie was a pretty horrible ally because the very next turn, the pokemon turned on its partner; it used "Bite" on Corsola.

I looked it up and it is a pokemon that is based on the Crown-of-thorns Starfish.  This is a venomous echinoderm that consumes coral as its primary source of food.  I told my students this and then had to continue by explaining that coral is actually a creature related to the jellyfish (they are both cnidarians) which absorbs silicates from its environment and incorporates them into its body structure.

This starfish, like all starfish, has an water circulatory system.  This means that the water it lives in helps with circulation--and also that much of its body's structure is seawater.  If it is ever taken out of its habitat onto dry land, it would deflate.  Even its sharp spines, so stiff that they could make short work of exposed flesh, lose their stiffness when not immersed.

Luckily, Meanie the Mareanie didn't deflate once I brought it back with me onto dry land.  I added her to my team.

She has an ability called "Merciless".  This ability causes all of her moves to cause critical hits on opponents that are already poisoned.  Coupled with her attack "toxic spikes", she is going to be a fun and brutal pokemon to use.

I arrived at the "Lush Jungle".  Who thinks this is going to prove to be a grass trial?


Current Squad:
Brionne/Pako Pako/lvl 22
Crabrawler/Ppunches/lvl 21
Salandit/Sassy Sally/lvl 21
Oricorio/Ori-Chan/lvl 22
Steenee/Bouncee/lvl 21
Sylveon/Sly/lvl 20

On Rotation:
Grimer/Sludj/lvl 20
Misdreavus/Missy/lvl 19
Trumbeak/Pip Pip/lvl 21
Mareanie/Meanie/lvl 17

Pokedex: 89 caught