Well, the next morning I was back to work at the lab, it was Arcday after all, and because I was not blind to the possible uses Togetic's talent could have, I made sure to print out the complete list of possible combinations we were working through right now. I needed them on paper for what I was planning, and I chose the whole list instead of only the ones we had yet to test, just as insurance in case we missed something.
Well, my act certainly did raise more than a few eyebrows since printing out 320k combinations took 1600 pieces of paper even though I made sure to fit in 100 combinations per paper while making sure both sides of the paper were imprinted.
Unlike the others who let me be despite their obvious curiosity, James actually came up to me and asked me why I was doing that since that was a lot of ink/paper/noise. I assured him that I was not wasting resources and that I needed the papers for something related to our project.
I did emphasize that I could not go into detail about what exactly I was going to do since it involved personal elements that I was not willing to share, but I was able to convince him that I was serious and that I was doing it in hopes of helping along our research.
I mean, I could hardly say I want to see if my Togetic's luck-related talent could help us determine the correct combination, or at least narrow it down for us. That sounded like superstitious/dubious crap even to me. Honestly, James looked a bit torn since it did not really sound serious, but he decided to trust me, so I got to leave with a big stack of paper after clocking out that evening.
I took that stack with me into Utopia and began spreading each paper out on the ground until each paper had been laid out with around 20 cm distance between them, forming a giant paper circle around me, with enough space to walk between the individual papers.
I managed to attract an audience while I did that, but they kept a respectable distance from me while I was working since they did not want to disturb whatever I was doing. Thankfully Horus/Xatu was the first one to appear, and he made sure that the more rambunctious ones did not mess up my paper trail.
Anyway, once I was done with the groundwork, I asked Togetic to come over. She seemed a bit confused. Yet, she was also really curious what this was all about, so she listened attentively when I began to explain what I wanted her to do, which was for her to move around and see if she could spot a paper that contained a combination that could trigger an evolution in an Eevee.
She quickly agreed, eager to help me. She began walking down the circling path I created starting from the empty spot in the center, but when she made it out of the circle about 20 minutes later, she looked a bit disappointed and shook her head before walking up to where I had been watching her.
Apparently, she felt nothing, so thinking that her talent might trigger if we left it to chance while keeping the desired effect in mind, I asked her to move to the center and randomly release mini Ancient Power Peebles while spinning.
Well, that worked, just not the way I wanted. I mean, it had to have worked. Otherwise, there was no way she could have missed all shots since that was what happened. All Ancient Power Peebles somehow managed to land in a gap area.
Wanting to make sure that it was not simply a coincidence, I asked her to do it again, and the same thing happened. Well, that left me a bit disappointed. Either the test worked as intended, and none of these combinations is a successful one, or Togetic's talent can not be exploited like this for some reason. Regardless of which one was the case, I had reason to be disappointed.
Though I had to admit that the first one was less disappointing than the second. I decided to give it another try, but this time I told her to see whether she could find a page that had materials that could be used to create something that could work as a trigger for Eevee.
To make sure that there's less confusion, I cleaned up the papers I had strewn around and laid out a much smaller paper circle using the pages out of the material catalog we had received at the start of the steel project.
Thankfully this one actually seemed to work since 6 out of 742 papers got hit by a pebble. Naturally, I asked her to repeat the test and the second time 5 papers got tagged. However, two of them were not among the previous 6, so to ensure that this was not just some random thing, we repeated the test a lot of times.
After what had to be 40+ rounds we confirmed that the pebbles kept landing on 1 of 21 papers. Each one of those papers had 15 materials on the front and back, so 30 in total, which meant that they listed a grand total of 620 materials that could potentially be a part of an evolution trigger for Eevee.
In hopes of directly skipping to the solution, I chose the two papers in that I actually had all the listed materials. I asked her to see if she could see which ones exactly could become a part of a trigger, but sadly it seemed the talent refused to answer/work for this. I even restructured the sentence a few times to make it seem like a bet or chance question, but none of them worked.
It seemed I would have to compare the 21 pages with our combination test results to see which items were part of the combination that showed promising energy reactions during the tests. Doing that would allow me to reduce the number of potential trigger components even further.
I considered doing another test to see if she could find out whether 3 item combinations would work or not but decided against it since Togetic conveyed that she had enough, even if she did not say it explicitly. Regardless, she had already helped me quite a bit so I thanked her for her help, which brought back a smile to her face.
I marked and stored the 21 papers until they were needed, and spent the next two hours hanging out with my Pokemon. The next day, I resumed my work at the lab as usual, though the day happened to be the last day of the month.
Giratiday started off the new month, but the start ended up being a bit lackluster since nothing happened throughout the rest of the week. It was only on Mewday the next week that something interesting finally did happen, though it was something that happened on my part. I already knew that nothing really interesting would come out of our 2-item-combination list after all.
Anyway, two hours before my usual clock-out time, Ali/Kirlia began to cheer before showcasing his newly acquired (high) silver stage might. My second thought stream whose job it was to keep an eye on Utopia while I was at the lab, noticed that occurrence which meant that I noticed it as well.
I briefly congratulated Ali, whose action had attracted the attention of some of the others, and told him that we would go through with his evolution once I was back in Utopia before I let them be and focused back on my work, leaving thought stream no.2 to continue keeping an eye on things.
While I resumed my work, I had my third thought stream stop converting my energy and check up on all the supplements as well as items I prepared for Ali's evolution instead. Aside from the B-Class Dawn Crystal, there were quite a few supplements just to ensure that the energy from the crystal did not get wasted or become too much and do more harm than good, which would reduce the potential increase instead of raising it.
Anyway, everything was ready and once I made it back to my dorm room and entered Utopia, I directly made my way to Ali's habitat. Nearly everyone was already there, waiting for me, so after announcing over UtopiaFM that the evolution would commence within the next 5 or so minutes, I greeted them and then got right into applying the supplements.
While I was doing that Togetic skipped over and gave Ali a final hug saying it was for luck before moving back to the circle that the others had already formed. Ali thanked her for that and right after he did, I began stuffing him with the consumable supplements.
Going through everything I prepared both for external and internal use took around six minutes, which was more than enough time for everyone to arrive. I saw the Spinda waving at Ali, cheering him on, and after a last admin look from a bird-eye view to ensure that no one else was coming, I pulled out the Dawn Crystal.
I levitated it in from of Ali while retreating to the circle and he took ahold of it the moment I moved it into his arms. He lit up, shining quite bright, putting on a super light show for us. The whole thing took a bit longer than usual but in the end, it ended.
Where a Kirlia used to be, a Gallade stood, checking out his new body. He had certainly grown a lot, standing at around 180 cm compared to the previous 100 cm. Aside from his above-average height, he looked like a regular Gallade to me.
I went up to him and congratulated him on his successful evolution, making him give me a bright smile. The Guy-kind of a smile, with a complimentary sparkle. Gwen/Gardevior was the first one to join us and she congratulated him as well while inspecting his new form. The others joined in as well, and I began looking through Ali's new status screen.
'Name: Ali
Species: Gallade* {Kirlia}
Gender: Male
Age: 10+ years
-
Type: Psychic, Fighting*
Potential: Purple (39.38%)*
{Light Purple (97.37%) -> (98.19%) -> Purple (39.38%)}
Genetic variation: None
Abilities: Steadfast*, Sharpness*
Talents: Save Point Plus* (Wonder Guard)
Affinities: Psychic, Fairy, Fighting*
-
Bond: Mikail (strong)
Quirks: Faintly Stubborn
----
Parameters:
Stage: Silver Stage (high)
Vitality: C
Strength: D
Endurance: D
Agility: C
Energy Capacity: C
Energy Density: C
----
Immunity:
None*
-
Resistance:
Fighting* (Minor), Rock* (Minor)
-
Weaknesses:
Ghost (Minor), Flying* (Minor), Fairy* (Minor)
----
Condition: Healthy, Happy, Excited
----
Masteries:
Psionic Energy Manipulation (Advanced)
Fairy Energy Manipulation (Proficient)
Fighting Energy Manipulation (Beginner)*
----
Techniques:
-
(Unofficial) Initial:
N/A
-
Novice:
Slash* (new)
-
Beginner:
Growl, Charm (+), Rest (new), Sleep Talk (new), Snore (new)
-
Proficient:
Disarming Voice, Confusion, Protect, Hypnosis, Dream Eater, Draining Kiss, Life Dew, Mega Punch, Safeguard, Swift, Dazzling Gleam, Thunder Wave (+), Thunder Punch (+), Ice Punch (+), Fire Punch (+), Magical Leaf (+), Shadow Ball (new)
-
Advanced:
Double Team, Calm Mind, Psychic, Heal Pulse, Psybeam, Aura Sphere, Zen Headbutt, Future Sight (+), Endure (+)
-
Mastered:
Teleport'
The species change was the most obvious change, so after a brief look, I moved on to the rest of the status. I noted that the fairy typing had been replaced by his new fighting type.
Looking at his new potential, I was slightly surprised by how much it had grown. I was hoping for about 25%, but it had actually increased by 40+%. The Dawn Crystal worked out better than I expected. How lucky of Ali.
I believe that this was actually the first time that I saw both abilities of a Pokemon outside the bug type changing due to evolution, but we had already known that this was coming. This bit had actually caused us quite a bit of stress since we knew that Trace would get replaced and Ali's Save Point talent actually relied on it to change the saved ability.
Losing Trace meant losing the option to change the saved ability, turning it into a permanent "ability" instead. We knew there was no stopping it unless he did not evolve to Gallade, so we began discussing which ability to save before the evolution so that it could become the permanent one.
Obviously, we took his new species and his future fighting style into account and we ended up with two options. The first one was still Wonder Guard, while the second one was Moxie. WG would allow Ali to fight more freely, but Moxie would make him stronger the longer/more he fought, at least to a certain extent.
In the end, Ali liked the protection Wonder Guard gave him more than he liked the idea of getting stronger with each defeated foe, so it ended up staying his saved ability.
Now Trace was gone along with Synchronize and Ali had Steadfast as well as Sharpness instead. Sharpness was not bad and could be useful once Ali learned the moves to make use of it. Steadfast was a bit situational, but not bad as well.
Yet, I could not describe just how relieved I was when I looked a bit down and saw that his Save Point talent had gone through an upgrade. I focused on it to read the description to find out how it had changed, and I could say that it could not have gone through a better upgrade. Save Point Plus was practically two separate talents that got combined since it was practically Save Point with the ability Trace merged into it.
That took care of the only hang-up I had about this evolution, so I was supremely happy about this development, and after I shared the news with Ali/Gallade, he was just as happy. In fact, he was arguably happier than I was. Everyone began to congratulate him anew when they heard the good news, and I resumed the status check.
The additional fighting affinity was complimentary to his new typing, so no surprise there. His parameters were the same and I moved on to the part that had gone through a great change due to the type shift. The type relation section looked quite different compared to before.
First of all, his immunity to dragon energy was gone. Then there was his resistance subsection. His fighting energy resistance had been demoted, and his (minor) psychic resistance got removed. The only positive change was the addition of a (minor) rock resistance.
The weakness section had gone through a change as well. While his ghost weakness remained the same, his (minor) poison and steel energy weaknesses were replaced with (minor) flying and fairy weaknesses, but that swap was actually one I did not mind since I felt those two would be easier for Ali to get rid of.
Moving on, I saw that Fighting energy manipulation was added to his masteries thanks to his new typing and it even began at beginner mastery thanks to Ali's sole fighting move Aura Sphere. Thankfully, he would now be able to learn a lot more fighting moves, so the mastery would be able to grow fast enough.
The next bit was actually the last change that happened as a result of the evolution. Ali learned Slash, which no doubt gave him an intrinsic knowledge of how to use his "arm-blades".
Anyway, that was it as far as his new status was concerned, so I declared the start of his celebration and began to pull out everything we needed for the party.
-----------------------------
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