Well, it had been some time since even the youngest addition to our family had reached the (high) iron stage. Not to mention that all the other "newcomers", if they could still be called that, were at least at the (high) iron stage, along with Eggy/Salandit, who currently had the lowest potential among my Pokemon.
Anyway, considering those points I decided that it was time to give those guys and gals some proper fighting experience. Until now, they only got to spar with each other or some of the Pokemon I plucked out of the subspace for them to fight. Yet, even those battles could not really replace some good old wild or trainer battles.
Exactly because of that, I decided to use the weekends to go out into the wild/"wilder" areas around Pallet City to give my Iron Group a chance to battle some of the wild Pokemon around the area along with some of the trainers as long as they did not use anything above the (mid) bronze stage.
I set the boundary above or at the limit of the prowess of my Pokemon since I was fine with them taking an occasional loss against a stronger opponent, and the (mid) bronze stage was the most they stood a chance against without the odds turning impossible.
I currently had 10 iron-stage Pokemon, so I chose to split them into 5 Pokemon per group and swap between the two groups each day. Eggy, Bruce/Zubat, Two Eevee, and Gible were in Group 1, while Togepi, Two Eevee, Charmander, and Buneary were in Group 2.
After two weeks all of them had gone through two days of "battle" since each group got to fight for one day per weekend, and they all said that they enjoyed it, so I decided to go through a second round for them.
Everyone else enjoyed the whole thing as well, since I streamed the battles inside Utopia for them to watch, and they got to then act as wise senpai that pointed out areas that could be improved to their young kohais.
They actually helped them work on those areas throughout the week while I was working at the lab, and I let them be since both sides enjoyed it a lot. It also served to strengthen the team bond, so I only occasionally chimed in since I still thought it was better for me to take part in it even if it was just to add a comment or two.
Regardless, this Kyoday was the start of the second round, meaning that the first batch got to fight. The second group would fight tomorrow. I had just come across a wild Pikachu and I briefly considered sending out Gible but decided to go with Eggy instead since Gible would not have felt challenged at all due to his electric immunity, which left Pikachu with only physical options against "Master Shredder" Gible.
Honestly, I mostly chose (low) bronze opponents for Gible unless I came across a "good" long-range fighter since physical fighters at the (high) iron stage or below were at quite a disadvantage against my boy.
Anyway, once I established that I was not going to capture or kill it, Pikachu agreed to go all out and not try to run away once things looked bad. I even promised him, that I would heal him back up afterward. A major part of the reason he believed me was my aura and the strength I displayed did the rest.
The combination of those two showed the other side that I was telling the truth and that I had no reason to play with them if I wanted to "take care" of them. The last bit was a bit cold but still the truth.
As soon as I gave the starting signal, Eggy released a Sweet Scent, involuntarily relaxing Pikachu's muscles a bit, slightly reducing his reaction speed and mobility.
He immediately followed that up with an Ember which concluded the opening that we trained. Pikachu reacted admirably by using Quick Attack to dodge before using Double Team to confuse us.
'Tinder' I ordered Eggy as soon as Pikachu used Quick Attack, so the first part of the combo was already complete by the time Pikachu's doubles made an appearance.
For the second part, Eggy released an Ember toward the gas he spread around the area where Pikachu and his doubles were, causing a gas explosion that destroyed the doubles, and sent Pikachu flying with a "Pikaaaa".
Eggy made use of the opportunity and fired a Dragon Rage at the flying Pikachu. Honestly, I expected that to finish the battle, but Pikachu ended up surprising me when he managed to block Eggy's Dragon Rage with a Thundershock, while resolutely yelling "Chuuuuuu", for long enough to land on the ground and dodge out of the dragon fire's way.
Eggy had to stop spewing his dragon fire to dodge out of the way of the Swift the panting Pikachu released in retaliation. 'You have to destroy them, use Ember,' I directly reminded him and he turned his head before he fired his small fireballs at the stars that were flying towards his back.
Pikachu used the moment he created to form and release an Electro Ball. 'Side roll,' I quickly order and Eggy unhesitantly rolled to his right barely avoiding the Electro Ball. He did not even bother standing back up and fired another Dragon Rage at Pikachu while still crouching on the ground.
Pikachu, who was slightly panting by now, managed to dodge as well and swiftly followed up with a Thunder Wave. 'Ground yourself,' I warned Eggy, but he was already in the process of sticking his tail into the ground while using Iron Tail.
This maneuver was not faultless, but it was enough to avoid the paralyzing effect of Thunder Wave. Obviously, the wild Pikachu had never come across a maneuver/situation like this, so he was taken by surprise when Eggy was not immobilized and fired another Dragon Rage at it.
Thankfully, the move hit, since I knew that Eggy only had one more shot before it would take a while until he could fire another Dragon Rage, which was currently his strongest (long-range) move.
Anyway, he let up after a few seconds and Pikachu was lying on the ground while releasing painful whining sounds. Pikachu tried to stand up, but it was obvious to all three of us that the fight was over, and that he was forcing himself to even lift his body, so I declared Eggy the winner. As soon as I did that, Pikachu collapsed back onto the ground.
"Good job, Eggy. You've earned that one," I congratulated Eggy before we both moved towards the hurt Pikachu, who was watching us approach. He looked a bit wary despite our previous agreement, but that was only natural, and I did my best to soothe him using my aura/presence.
"Sa, sala," Eggy thanked Pikachu for the great battle, while I crouched down and pulled out one of my potions and an ointment. "Alright, like I promised, I'm going to heal you back up," I declared before I moved the potion to his mouth for him to drink.
He looked a bit hesitant but still gulped it down. While the potion began to heal him and restore his energy, I applied the ointment to his body to speed up the process. The ointment helped the potion, with one working from the outside, while the other worked from the inside. A classical two-pronged approach.
The effect became apparent pretty quickly and half a minute later Pikachu looked much better and sat up. He gave me a grateful nod, probably happy that I kept my word, and I just smiled. Eggy chose to talk a bit with Pikachu, and when Pikachu looked pretty much fine after two minutes, I stood back up and prepared to leave.
"Alright, time to move on," I said out loud for Eggy's sake, who said his goodbyes to Pikachu before I recalled him. Pikachu looked on as Eggy vanished before turning to look at me. "Thanks for the fight," I said with a nod, before taking out three Wakan Berries and a blade of Lightning Grass.
Both were things a wild Pikachu would not be able to get around here, and they would be useful for it. Any more would simply attract trouble for him. Besides, he would not be able to carry around more than that anyway.
"You can have these," I told him while levitating them in front of him. He looked surprised both because of the flying stuff and since I had not mentioned a reward. I just felt like giving it something since it had done a good job during the fight, so I felt he earned it. My fondness for Pikachu and cute Pokemon had nothing to do with it.
"Bye, bye," I said without waiting for a reply before walking away. "Pika, Pi," I heard Pikachu shouting thanks from behind me, and I simply gave a backhand wave before focusing on whom to choose next. I decided to go with Bruce and he got to battle the Pidgey that tried to jump me.
Anyway, the day went by and all five members of group 1 got to fight more than 8 times. Two trainer battles were included in that, and we managed to win both battles, even if Eevee lost one of her fights, which was fine since she had been facing a bronze stage Primeape.
I made my way back to my dorm a few hours before dinner and we went over each battle before relaxing until it was dinner time. The next day group 2 got to their day of fighting, and Gible really got to shine during one of his battles, when he actually managed to narrowly beat a (mid) bronze stage Raticate that actually advanced to the (high) bronze stage in the middle of their battle.
Stuff like that was usually supposed to happen to me and not the other side. Still, against all odds, Gible managed to barely hang in there and even win. There was no doubt that the damage his scales were causing was a, if not the major factor that contributed to Gible's victory.
I believe that this was the first time he actually saw the "real" use his unusually dangerous scale talent could have since it helped him defeat a Pokemon he would have not been able to defeat otherwise. Later that day, after dinner, I did my routine status check for everyone since it was Grouday, and I saw that Gible had actually managed to complete his limit breaking sometime during the day.
I knew that it had happened today since I looked at the status of all 5 Group 2 members at the start of the day. I shared the news with him and everyone else and we were all rather excited about his upcoming breakthrough.
Gible's breakthrough was a bit of personal history since he was going to be the first one to attain light aurora potential upon reaching the bronze stage. Before this Saphira/Altaria had been the "earliest" to attain light aurora potential since she reached that point during her breakthrough to the silver stage.
Though, admittedly, Gible would not remain the only one with light aurora potential at the bronze stage for too long, since I knew that Charmander and Togepi would do the same upon reaching the bronze stage.
Buneary was another possible candidate for that, but in her case, it was only possible if we allowed her to evolve before her breakthrough. Additionally, the potential bonus during that evolution had to be big enough to bring her to 40+%. Otherwise, even her evolution would not be enough to bring her potential up to light aurora.
Nonetheless, I would never do that for multiple reasons. First, there was no guarantee that the supplement bonus was going to raise her potential above 40%, but more importantly, the cost was not worth it. Doing so would mean giving up the optimal evolution point, which would mean giving up the perfect foundation.
Furthermore, even if I chose to accept the price, and Buneary ended up agreeing as well for some reason, we would still have a problem at our hands since we were aiming for the Aura-Variant Evolution, and while I believed that her aura affinity along with a sufficient aura mastery was enough to trigger this variant evolution, I did not want to risk a premature evolution somehow costing us the chance for our desired evolution direction.
I was not worried about the potential cost for the variant evolution since a complete limit break was capable of reducing the potential cost to 0%, or at least really close to 0% from the usual 30% inside Utopia.
Anyway, Buneary's matter aside, everyone was excited and we all made our way to Gible's place for his breakthrough.
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