The morning was uneventful, but we head to aquarium and head in. Almost immediately, it feels like home. There’s a few aquariums in Washington that blow most others away, and this is one of the few that would stand up to it easily.

Huge, solid chunks of rock, coral, and thick glass form the enclosures, but they’re artistically arranged to look like the glass had simply carved out sections of air for us. Huge, quiet pokemon swim from place to place in the water above and to each side, much of the aquarium being interconnected. In places, I can see floating streams of water, like at the gym, allowing a donut-shaped ring of water to flow endlessly, thin metal supports for hoops generating what I assume is whatever’s suspending the water.

In the first main ‘exhibit’, there’s a cliff-face under the water, caked with coral growths and pokemon. A huge mat of greenery shifts and moves on the rocky wall, shifting forward to ‘jump’ a group of smaller pokemon. I’ve never seen a pokemon like it. Looking carefully, I can spot a Shuckle, covered in drifting seaweed and huge, crusty growths.

I hate to see such a good pokemon just sitting there in the tank with nothing to do but collect more signs of age while it messes with its permanent roommates... it’s just saddening. I doubt they’d let me take it with me though, so I shoot it an apologetic look and move on. I could really use a Shuckle. Or any Bug type for that matter.

The next ‘exhibit’ spot has a fast-moving ‘river’ set up, with a surly-looking Clawitzer at one end, and a Crawdaunt at the other. When I ask an attendant, I’m a bit surprised to learn that they’re trained pokemon, and they’re there to make sure the ‘river’ pokemon don’t wander into the filters. There’s a small school of Goldeen nibbling at underwater edibles, and a Staryu is showing off its adaptability at the bottom of the ‘river’, I just barely mistake the red core as a somewhat brightly-colored rock.

At this point, there’s a bunch of exhibits to go look at, organized by sections. There’s a Dark Depths section, a Shores and Beaches area, an Ancient Seas section, and even a Ponds and Lakes section. Near all of those is an ‘open rest area’, and I can see a bunch of folks out there, even a couple battling.

I decide we should look at the Dark Depths area first as I’m interested in what could live far down below where a Super rod could reach. Of course there are the standard expectations, but Rarity and Twilight seem to be in a trance at a bunch of Lanturn and Chinchou showing off their naturally luminescent bits. I admit, they do look pretty cool with the way they’re moving. It’s as if they put on the lightshow because that’s all they can really do in there.

Then something flickers in the dark, murky water. At first it seems like just a current, but then it happens again and a shape floats up. A loud, annoyed grumble/roar combo and a set of huge fangs come out of nowhere. It scares the heck out of me, and both of the girls have gone totally pale. Guess the Lanturn woke up a Gyarados sleeping at the bottom. Still... yikes.

When the Lanturn and Chinchou scatter, the grumble noise is made again and the Gyarados’ maw disappears as the shrouded body sinks down once more.

Slowly, life returns to the tank with a few flashes of light and color in the dark tank. The faint light of a Lumineon, surrounded by a cloud of tiny Finneon lights, moves deftly around the glowing lure of a Huntail sliding through the dark.

I gape and grin at the fascinating life in here, and even see a completely new pokemon, looking like an angler fish with a bunch of tentacles and patches of shell, tiny strobing lights pulsing down the pokemon’s body as its huge, dark eyes drink in the feeble light in the exhibit.

“So.” I say, watching as color starts to return to the faces of my companions. Seeing human Rarity as paper-white as her pony form is... rather interesting though. Like temporarily she was in halfway between the two species. Twilight just looked like she might have peed herself, but from the looks of it, that seems highly unlikely.

“That was a Gyarados. Remember those fish that guy back in Uphill Port had? The one running that Magikarp game? Yeah, that’s what those red fish-things turn into...”

Rarity gulps visibly. “I- I might’ve ended up with that?”

“Yeah... but you got a Feebas. She won’t look anything like that when she evolves. So, onto the next tank then?” I’m really interested in seeing the ‘ancient’ section. Sure I saw a bunch at the reserve and Basswood had an Omanyte, but I think this will be a bit more special. I figure I’d ask an attendant what that one tentacled thing is on the way out. Getting tired of looking up the Pokedex entries.

The girls nod their head fervently, and we hurry onwards. The Dark Depths exhibit helpfully connects to the Ancient Seas exhibit.

Whatever I was expecting previously, I was not expecting the exhibit at hand, though.

The tank is a storm-wracked nightmare, foot-tall curling waves breaking against the rocky wall of the tank, a small swarm of Kabuto clinging to the simulated seafloor. An Omanyte clutches the shell of what I assume is its parent Omastar, and the two of them are anchored steadfastly to the rock wall as an Anorith snips apart what looks like a Binnacle.

Wait, can they do that? Feed on the other exhibit pokemon? I look around the tank and see a Kabutops fighting a Cradily. I’m not sure who started it, but they’re both intent on finishing it.

I turn to a guy wearing a little vest with the aquarium’s logo on it. “Sooo, do they, like, actually eat each other in there?”

“Well, yeah. We keep the extremely rare or hard to breed ones separate, though. We try to limit their exposure to us; the glass there has a hologram on it on their side, which makes them think it’s just more rocks.”

“Wait, so they just... live in a giant simulated cube and they don’t try to leave? Prehistoric species are weird...”

“Well, they have a basic explanation that they’re here because there’s nowhere else to live right now. And they know about the head aquarium keeper; he’s the only human who visits them. Says he can understand ‘em perfectly, and speak right back. Haven’t seen any evidence he’s cuckoo, so...”

“Wait wait wait, you’re saying this guy is, like, an ‘underwater-living-fossil whisperer’ or something? Geez.”

“Well, Idunno about ‘underwater’ specifically, but he’s a great lover of pokemon. Occasionally, he hands out prizes for bringing pokemon to him. Also, employee of the month gets a special prize, usually a nugget. He’s crazy rich off his old explorations.”

“Crazy or not, sounds like a nice boss. Anyways I doubt they’d be in this tank, but you got any Relicanth?” I’ve always found Rock/Water types interesting, but the fish with stone armor just intrigues me just a little bit more.

“Oh, they’re actually in Dark Depths, back the way you came. They’re pretty hard to see most of the time, though. Lack of lights and all. The whole tank is kept pressurized, so that pokemon like them can live comfortably.”

I think for a minute about what I’d like to see in the aquarium, and then I get an idea. “Gorebyss then?”

“They’re over at the beaches exhibit. There’s also several other simulated beaches, including one with a family of Swampert roughing it out in twenty-four-seven gale force winds and breaker waves. They’ve got quite the sandcastle going in there. Oh, oh, oh! Look, a Seasting is wandering in from the undertank!” The attendant points at a brightly colored, two-foot-long pokemon like a lobster/scorpion hybrid, eyespots running down its back.

“Huh, neat. Does it have a secondary type, or pure Water?”

“Actually, it’s an oceanic pokemon that’s just Rock-and-Poison type. Oh, it’s going after one of the Kabuto.”

I figure this would be interesting to watch. This is more likely to be a fight and not a typical battle. Also, I’ve wanted to see a Kabuto fight in-person since I got one in Silver...

The fight, however, is pretty damned short, as the Seasting simply comes up and, without leaving its shadow on the Kabutos’ back -which would’ve alerted the four-eyed pokemon- it launches its tail up and over its back, slamming an extended spike down and through the rock-type’s shell. The Kabuto twitches twice, leaking blue-green blood, and then is still. The other quickly make a break for it, as the Seasting eats its new kebab straight off the stinger.

“Well, guess hundreds of millions of years doesn’t change everything about nature.” I say flatly, the girls looking rather disturbed once more. “Let’s check out the beaches, shall we?”

Once more, the girls nod and hurry on, and I can’t help but chuckle a bit. We head towards the ‘Beach’ exhibit, and enter a large, completely surrounded viewing area. The tank is shaped like a horseshoe, with an actual beach at one end, sloping down to a huge reef splitting the tank, with a ‘deeper water’ section on the right side of the tank.

On the beach, there are Krabby, a nesting Wingull, and a spot where you can reach in to pet the Mudkip who’s being friendly and cute for food. The actual part where the water is has engineered waves crashing gently on it, with anemones and Binnacle scattered here and there as the sand transitions to rocky coral. The reef looks entirely natural, and has Corsola, Gorebyss, and a few other pokemon. There’s even a large eel-like pokemon with snowflake-patterned fins. In the deep water section, I can see a small shoal of Tynamo, and a horde of Magikarp just derping in a corner. It takes me a moment to realize that they’re crowded around a food output spigot.

Rarity immediately runs to the reef section, and squees at the beautiful pokemon. A Luvdisc floats up and looks right back at her. Rarity seems to be enjoying the reciprocated attention, until she sees the Gorebyss, and gasps in delight.

“So- so elegant, so... enchanting! Oh, it looks so beautiful and graceful!”

I roll my eyes and point my pokedex at the ‘elegant’ creature.

-Although Gorebyss is the very picture of elegance and beauty while swimming, it is also cruel. When it spots prey, this Pokémon inserts its thin mouth into the prey’s body and drains the prey of its bodily fluids.-

“Wait, you mean that- but- oh, why do all the seemingly beautiful things in this world have to be so icky?” Rarity says, looking sadly at the Gorebyss, who happily munches a batch of seaweed.

“Hey, gotta get that protein somehow you know? Not many nuts in the water after all. Besides, nature itself is pretty darn ‘icky’. I recall you owning a walking claw machine that licks itself and hurls soaking balls of old, swallowed hair from it’s mouth like projectile bombardment...”

“You’re just jealous that Opal gets more pampering than you.” Rarity clearly has no better come-back.

“At least I don’t dress her up in crazy sweaters, the only required criteria, for some bizarre reason, is that it fits her.”

“Oh fine, you be that way, Anthony, I’m going to go see what this adorable pokemon is like.” she heads towards the section with the pet-a-Mudkip.

I wonder if I should mention that they’re coated in a thin layer of slime to keep hydrated?

“Oh, eeeewwww!!!”

Nah, that’s totally better.

Still, there’s a huge bed of some kind of seagrass in the middle of the sandy portion of the tank. It’s odd, but I don’t see any pokemon going near it. Why not? Looking around, I see what looks like a dedicated pokedex for the exhibit set up as a stand.

I walk up and, giving a Mudkip a scratching of the chin, grin at Rarity. “So I herd you don’t leik Mudkips...”

Rarity looks at me, holding her hand at arms length as she tries wiping it off on the carpeted floor. The mudkip seems to enjoy my contact, and I’m guessing it’s grown up used to having humans fawn over it.

“I simply don’t like the texture. It felt... slimy.” She shudders.

“Well of course it’s slimy. I mean, they’re amphibious. They gotta stay wet somehow, right? Imagine if you were in the tub for so long that you got pruney all over when you got out, but it was permanent and you had to stay in the water or be wet everywhere you went. It’s like that.” I continue petting the slimy but not-at-all-bad Mudkip before moving onto the little special info pad.

Looking at the description, I see that the ‘seagrass’ is actually a bed of pokemon, a bunch of little diglett-like eels that pretend to be grass so they aren’t noticed by predators. According to this, they basically play chicken with any Krabby that come up, because the crab pokemon won’t care if they’re meat or veggie, they’re hungry for both. They’re called, boringly, ‘Sandeel’, and actually aren’t ground-types.

Oh well. I decide we should move on for now. There’s still a lot to see, after all.