Poke Fun PlayMudkip and the Missing Tide
The sea is rising, but the beach pools remain strangely empty. Mudkip follows a trail of bubbles beneath the sand to discover where their water has gone.
The sea that went past
Finneon's pool had become a window barely deeper than a leaf. It turned beneath the surface and found the same stone wall on every side. Beyond that wall, the sea glittered blue and perfectly ordinary. The tide was coming in. It simply was not coming here. Finneon gave one impatient flick of its tail, sending a tiny splash over the edge. Mudkip, who had been examining the empty pools nearby, felt the splash land on its front foot.
Yesterday a storm had dragged a broad ridge of sand across the beach. Mudkip had expected the morning tide to smooth it away. Instead, the ridge separated the lower pools from the familiar inlet, and the water approaching from the sea vanished into a narrow gap under the rocks. It was like watching a guest arrive at the right house and disappear through the wrong door. Mudkip touched the pool wall with its fin and frowned at the distant glitter.
Krabby emerged from behind a stone carrying a pebble in one claw. It had spent the morning repairing the entrance to its burrow, which the storm had filled with broken shells. Mudkip pointed at the shallow pool and then at the sea. Krabby waved toward the sand ridge as though the explanation could not be more obvious. Mudkip began scraping a channel through it. Krabby watched for three strokes, set down the pebble, and joined in.
Their first channel filled quickly. Mudkip stood aside, pleased, as a ribbon of water ran toward Finneon's pool. Halfway there, it swirled through a hole and disappeared. They dug wider. More water arrived; more vanished. Finneon watched with an expression that seemed to ask whether this improvement was supposed to be visible from inside the pool. Mudkip looked at its muddy feet. Digging harder was not changing the direction the water preferred to go.
A string of bubbles rose beside the hole. Mudkip listened with its head close to the sand and heard a hollow rush underneath. The storm had shifted more than the surface ridge. Somewhere below the beach, a passage had opened and was taking the tide along a route the pools did not share. Krabby lowered a pebble into the hole. It clicked twice, then splashed much farther down than either Pokémon had expected.
Before investigating, Mudkip moved Finneon into the deepest neighboring pool. It guided a little water between the two, enough for Finneon to swim through without being lifted onto dry rock. Krabby held the temporary channel open with flat stones until the transfer was complete. Finneon circled the deeper water and rested beside a sheltered ledge. The mystery could wait a little longer now. Mudkip returned to the bubbling hole, knowing that the next step should be looking beneath the problem, not making another trench on top.
Under the beach
The hole itself was too small to enter. Mudkip followed the sound along the rocks until it reached a broad crevice near the lower shore. Clear water moved through it in pulses. The roof stayed high enough to see daylight at the far end, and the stone floor rose above the stream in places. Mudkip waited through several pulses before going in. Krabby followed sideways, testing each foothold with a claw. Neither wanted to meet a wave without knowing where to stand.
Inside, the beach had another shape. Stone shelves carried the weight of the sand above, while narrow channels ran between them like lanes through a small hidden town. Pearl-colored light reflected from the water onto the roof. Mudkip could hear the tide but not see the sea. The channel from the bubbling hole joined this larger stream, then curved away from the pools toward a lower opening at the far end. The missing water had been taking a shortcut back out.
Krabby found a mark on the wall where an older channel had flowed. It led uphill toward the pools, but a flat slab had tipped across its entrance during the storm. Mudkip pressed against the slab. It did not move. Krabby fitted a claw underneath, then withdrew when loose grit fell from above. The obvious solution was also the wrong one. Moving the slab might loosen the roof, and the old passage could no longer be trusted just because it had worked yesterday.
Mudkip climbed onto a dry shelf to study the two routes. The old channel stood higher than the new shortcut. Incoming water chose the lower passage before it could rise enough to reach the pools. They could not stop the sea from using a lower path forever. They might, however, guide some of it along a different branch. A shallow side groove ran from the main stream toward the daylight above Finneon's deeper pool. It was blocked only by loose pebbles.
Krabby began carrying pebbles away one at a time, placing them on the dry shelf rather than dropping them into another channel. Mudkip cleared sand around the groove and let a little water through. The test stream ran halfway, paused behind a hump of gravel, then trickled down a crack. A drop landed on Mudkip's nose from the roof. It looked upward. Fine roots hung through a line of daylight. That crack was not a water route; it went toward the sand above.
Mudkip marked the place with a pale shell and backed out to the shore. Krabby came after it with the final pebble, annoyed at leaving the job half finished. But Mudkip had learned enough to stop guessing underground. From above, they could open the rest of the groove where the roof ended, without disturbing the buried shelves. The water had shown them a route. It had not yet shown them how much of that route was ready to use.
One small test
Finneon greeted their return with a quick circle. Its deeper pool was safe, but it had noticed something useful while waiting. A small thread of water was emerging beneath a rock at the pool's western edge. Finneon swam toward it and flashed its fins through the clear patch. Mudkip recognized the direction. The side groove underground had nearly reached this point. Krabby tapped the rock, then the pale shell marking the roof crack. The route between them was only a few body lengths long.
They made a narrow test trench beside the rock, staying clear of the buried roof. Mudkip scooped sand while Krabby shifted the heavier pebbles. Each time water arrived, they stopped to see where it went. A little patience revealed more than the broad trench had. At the first turn, the stream pressed against a steep bank and began eating it away. They flattened that turn. At the second, it slowed around a shell pile. Krabby moved the shells carefully into its growing collection on dry sand.
The water reached Finneon's pool. It entered so gently that Finneon swam into the new current, held position, and let it pass through its fins. Mudkip wanted to celebrate, but the stream was still too thin to refill the surrounding basins. The tide had another hour to rise. If they widened everything now, a stronger current could wash their work apart. Krabby raised both claws toward the empty pools. Mudkip answered by placing one small stone beside the new inlet and waiting.
The stone became their measure. When the water reached its top, Mudkip opened the next stretch of trench. Krabby shaped the banks with flat pieces of rock, making a broad curve rather than a sharp bend. Finneon tested the new depth from inside the pool. It could turn without brushing the bottom now. The little channels began linking one basin to the next. Water spread through the familiar places in an unfamiliar order, and Mudkip followed that order instead of forcing its old memory onto the shore.
A sudden pulse arrived from the main stream. The first bank held. The second softened, but the flat stones kept it from collapsing into the pool. Krabby wedged another stone at the curve and stepped back. Mudkip watched sand drift around it and settle where the current became slower. The sea was helping finish the channel once they stopped asking it to climb a blocked passage. Their work would never be a wall against the tide. It only needed to give a portion of it somewhere useful to go.
By noon, three pools had joined. The smallest remained dry behind a high ridge, and Mudkip left it alone. It would need another tide, perhaps another storm, before the beach decided what to do there. Finneon swam through the new connection into its original pool, which now held water deep enough to cover the sheltered ledge. Its tail flicked once, sending a bright splash onto Mudkip's foot again. This time the splash was not a complaint.
A map for the next tide
The incoming tide reached its height early in the afternoon. Water shone over places that had been bare all morning. Finneon explored each joined pool, returning often enough to show Mudkip that the connections worked. Krabby settled beside its neat pile of rescued shells and pebbles. The burrow entrance still needed repair, but it now had more building material than it could reasonably use. It selected one especially flat shell and offered it to Mudkip, who placed it beside the channel stone.
Mudkip walked the beach from the first crevice to the restored pools. It had thought the sea was missing. In fact, the sea had arrived at exactly the same shore and found a different landscape waiting. The storm had altered a few slabs, a ridge of sand, and the height of one small opening. Those changes were enough to make yesterday's familiar route disappear. The water had not become mysterious. Mudkip's picture of the beach had become out of date.
As the tide began to fall, the channels reversed. Mudkip watched closely. Water left through the broad curves without dragging the banks apart. Finneon chose the deepest pool again before the shallower connections thinned. Krabby moved a loose stone away from an outlet so it would not dam the water on the next tide. The falling sea mattered as much as the rising one. A route that worked in only one direction was not quite the route they needed.
The smallest dry basin collected windblown sand. Mudkip had been tempted to call it a failure. Now it found a patch of warm stone there and stretched out in the sunlight. Every part of the beach did not have to remain exactly what it had been. The fish needed safe water, the channels needed room to flow, and the old pool could become a fine place to rest. Krabby climbed onto the edge and put down its final pebble as though agreeing with the arrangement.
That evening, Finneon's fins glowed softly beneath the pool surface. The water reflected the first stars, giving the beach a second sky among its rocks. Mudkip listened from the warm basin. The underground stream still rushed toward the sea, and the new inlet answered with a lighter gurgle. There were two sounds where yesterday it had expected one. It closed its eyes and tried to remember both, along with the place where each could be found.
The next morning, Mudkip arrived before the tide. Krabby was already at work on its burrow, using the flat shells with great satisfaction. Finneon waited in deep water. When the first silver ribbon reached the new channel, all three watched it turn, spread, and enter the pools. Mudkip did not touch a single stone. The beach could do this part by itself. It sat back on its heels, let the sea come home by its new road, and enjoyed knowing where the road went.
An original fan-created story by the Poke Fun Play editorial team. Illustrations generated for this adventure.
Featured Pokémon
Mudkip
Finneon
KrabbyKeep exploring
Related stories
MysteryGengar and the Midnight Library
When books begin returning to a closed hilltop library, Mara discovers that its midnight visitor is following a different kind of catalog.
Read story →
MysteryJoltik and the Silent Power Station
The station's machines are healthy, but its lights keep going out. Joltik follows a tiny repeated signal into a control room everyone else has stopped noticing.
Read story →
MysteryPhantump’s Paper Forest
A trail of folded leaves leads Phantump to a closed workshop, where a forgotten promise needs a different way home.
Read story →Related retailers
Coloring books on Amazon · Pokémon cards on TCGplayer
Paid links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. We may earn a commission from purchases through our TCGplayer links.