It had been more than a year since Gible joined me as a slightly reticent little guy that managed to pull a few of my heartstrings at the time. It had also been a bit more than a year since Gible reached the (high) iron stage.
Yet, all that felt like yesterday, metaphorically speaking. Nonetheless, here I was standing in the circle formed by the others, watching how Gible was breaking through to the bronze stage. The whole thing went smoothly and as soon as the breakthrough was over, I made my way over to his side.
Still, I was not the only one that moved as soon as the process was over. Togepi rushed over at the same time, excitedly speed-waddling over to her friend to congratulate him. She made it there just a moment after I did and cheerily began to congratulate him just as the words "congratulations" left my lips.
I could not help the smile that made its way onto my face when I saw Togepi excitedly grabbing ahold of Gible's hand/arm before cheerily moving it up and down while chattering happily. Gible's control over his scales and their roughness/sharpness was subconscious by now, which was why Togepi could grab his hands thoughtlessly like that without hurting herself.
Anyway, I crouched down and pat them both on the head before giving Gible a warm smile. I congratulated him once again before I let the others have their turn at congratulating him while I checked his new/updated status screen.
'Name: None
Species: Gible
Gender: Male
Age: 5+ years
-
Type: Dragon, Ground
Potential: Light Aurora (9.47%)*
{Purple (57.86%) -> (58.95%) -> Light Aurora (9.47%)}
Genetic variation: None
Abilities: Sand Veil, Rough Skin, Sand Force*
Talents: Scale Control
Affinities: Dragon, Ground
-
Bond: Mikail (weak)
Quirks: Slightly Attentive
----
Parameters:
Stage: Bronze Stage (mid)*
Vitality: E
Strength: E
Endurance: F
Agility: F
Energy Capacity: F
Energy Density: F
----
Immunity:
Electric
-
Resistance:
Fire (Minor), Poison (Minor), Rock (Minor)
-
Weaknesses:
Ice (Major), Dragon (Minor), Fairy (Minor)
----
Condition: Healthy, Happy, Elated
----
Masteries:
Dragon Energy Manipulation (Beginner) -> (Proficient)
Ground Energy Manipulation (Beginner) -> (Proficient)
----
Techniques:
-
(In-progress) Initial:
N/A
-
Novice:
Double Edge (new)
-
Beginner:
Tackle, Bulldoze, Slash (+), Dragon Claw (+), Take Down (+), Earth Power (new)
-
Proficient:
Dragon Rage, Sand Tomb, Sand Attack (+), Dragon Breath (+), Twister (+), Dig (new), Dragon Pulse (new), Scale Shot (new)
-
Advanced:
Sandstorm (+)
-
Mastered:
N/A'
Well, we had already expected him to attain light aurora potential, so seeing it on his status screen was not a big surprise. However, it was still an incredible thing and I shared the good news with Gible and everyone else. They were naturally happy and cheered upon hearing the confirmation.
Nonetheless, it brought up the topic of his new/third ability, and I quickly took a look to see what it ended up being. Frankly, I was not really surprised to see that Sand Force was his third ability since I had already witnessed a few times that the mega ability usually ended up being the one unlocked if a line had a mega evolution, and I knew that Sand Force was Mega Garchomp's ability in canon.
Regardless, it was a pretty good ability that worked well enough with his build since it boosted the might of his ground, steel, and rock-type moves by 30% during a Sandstorm. Gible liked the move anyway, and it showed since Sandstorm was currently his only move at advanced mastery.
Honestly, Gible now only needed to somehow swap out his Rough Skin for Sand Rush and he would have the perfect Sandstorm/desert ability set. Obviously, the reason I did not mind the loss of Rough Skin was that his Scale Control talent more than covered that aspect already.
Anyway, I shared his new ability with him and he seemed pretty happy with it. In fact, seeing how excited he and his friends were, I was not surprised when the others gave him some room so that he could test out the effect of his new ability right away.
I saw him first use Earth Power to see how strong the move was after his breakthrough before he started a small Sandstorm around himself and used another Earth Power, which was visibly stronger than the previous one.
He looked pretty enthusiastic at the result and then began to test his other ground moves under the cheers of the others. Meanwhile, I resumed checking his status screen while keeping an eye on his performance/test.
The next few sections until his parameters were untouched by his breakthrough. Yet, I could not help but take an extra look at his Quirk section since I was rather proud of the change we managed to achieve there, so I always ended up feeling happy when I saw the "Slightly Attentive" there.
That was him paying extra attention to any possible physical contact but in a somewhat cautious/careful context. Still, our/my care for him had brought him out of his "Slightly Reserved" state and I was sure that we would be able to get Gible to completely let go of his childhood trauma at some point. He was already pretty close, and in my opinion, it was just a matter of time.
Anyway, looking at his parameters I confirmed that Gible was starting at the (mid) bronze stage, even if it was at the lower end of that sub-stage. That meant that it would take him a while to reach the (high) bronze stage, which the two of us were really excited about since that was the point Gible would finally evolve into Gabite.
We had to wait until then since the (high) bronze stage was the first optimal evolution point for pseudo-legendaries. Regardless, I shared the news with Gible, which made him briefly stop his move test to nod in acknowledgment before he resumed his tests.
I watched as he finished testing his ground moves and only after that did I declare the start of his celebration. The next morning I once again went out since it was Group 2's turn to enjoy nature's bounty, and the trip directly bore fruit.
During the routine Grouday status check that evening I saw that Charmander managed to raise his last parameter to A, which meant that the little guy was now officially starting his limit-breaking training. Now he just had to complete the first round of his limit-breaking before he could evolve into Charmeleon.
Hopefully, that would happen within the next term or two. I was semi-confident that we could manage that. Arcday ended up finishing the month, and the new month began on Mewday. The days following that flowed by and before I knew it, two months had passed and I was at the start of another month-long break.
The two months had not been completely uneventful, but there were only a few occasions that truly stood out from my usual routine of working at the lab, passively converting my aura and psionic energy, training as well as spending time with my Pokemon during the weekends, along with the few visits to my parents or meetings with a friend.
The first happened during the 28th month. On Giratiday of the third week, Mom had her birthday and we naturally celebrated it together. I even took the day off on that day. We first went to a family lunch for a private celebration, before throwing a celebration with friends in the evening as a regular birthday party.
I gave Mom two handcrafted glass sculptures as her birthday gift. The first one depicted our family of three and the second one was of Mom and all her Pokemon. I even included Sunny in the second sculpture. She was really happy when I gave her the gifts after the lunch celebration and she showed both statues off to her friends during the evening party.
The second occasion was not a stand-alone event but rather a quartet of good news I learned on Grouday of the fourth week. During the routine status check that day, I saw that all 4 Eevee had finished the second round of their limit breaking. Now obviously, I did not think that they all achieved that on the exact same day, but I noticed it on Grouday, so I ended up receiving a quadruple surprise.
The next event happened on Grouday the week after that, which happened to be the last day of the first week of the new/29th month. I started the last month of the second academic term with Buneary finishing her second round of limit-breaking as well, following the example that the Eevee quartet set.
While nothing major happened at the lab during this final month, I still ended up receiving two more pieces of good news from my Pokemon. The first one actually came from Eggy/Salandit, who ended up starting his limit-breaking training.
When I saw that on Kyoday, after we came back from the outskirts and I did a check up on Group 1, which he was part of, I naturally praised him a lot and he was really happy that he had joined the other iron stage Pokemon in their limit-breaking efforts since he had been the last one among them to do so.
The last occasion that stood out had nothing to do with the newbie group. No, that honor ended up going to Horus/Xatu, who actually ended up completing the first round of his limit-breaking. With that, he came one big step closer to the dark gold stage.
He was also the second one to do so after Mothra/Butterfree, but I was sure that Stan/Gyarados was not too far behind him. Stan had to defend his position among my current Top 3 Pokemon after all.
Anyway, that Dialday was the last day of the month and the term, so when I left the lab that day, I did so knowing I would only be back after a whole month. Since I had a free month I decided that it was time to move on from focusing on the iron group to the bronze and silver group.
For that, I spent the next two weeks in the depths of Mount Moon. I spent those two weeks completely in the wild, but naturally only after calling my parents and telling them that I would be mostly unavailable for the next two weeks. I also sent a similar message to my chat group because the areas in the depth of Mt. Moon had a pretty bad signal at best. Not to mention the times I spent inside the mountain, where the signal was completely cut off.
Honestly, the number of messages I sent during those two weeks could be counted on one hand and I only talked with my parents twice to show them that I was still alive and kicking. The messages served pretty much the same function.
Regardless, the whole thing was definitely worth it since we got into hundreds of battles and everyone got to fight, even the gold members. Though I had to admit that I had to retreat twice, run away thrice, and nope the heck out of there into Utopia once.
The last one happened when I suddenly came too close to a clash between two dark gold stage Rhydon that were seemingly trying to off each other. The reason I formulated it like that was that the proximity was not my fault. The two just suddenly appeared in my part of the tunnel, through a wall that they broke through, while I was moving inside the mountain.
I directly retreated inside Utopia when I saw that they were giving zero sh*ts about any collateral damage. That poor, poor Diglett. I obviously kept an eye on the battle while I was hiding inside Utopia and I streamed the fight for everyone else to watch as well. I only came out after their clash moved on and they were even out of hearing distance.
The other occasions were similar situations where I came across strong Pokemon, but during those times I did not suddenly find myself in the middle of a fight and still had a chance to retreat/run away without resorting to a getaway to Utopia.
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