Well, the second term started out pretty good in my opinion. I turned out to be right in my assumption regarding Parvati/Beedrill since the first Weedle evolved to Kakuna on Mewday, while I was suffering through a math lesson.
How they dared to blemish the greatness of Mewday by having us sit through math on such a day I could not understand, but that evolution only signaled the start of many evolutions among the Weedle and Caterpie.
By Grouday of the first week, a fifth of all the Caterpie and Weedle had evolved to Metapod and Kakuna. Mothra/Butterfree and Parvati got really fired up by the whole thing and focused some more of their time on their minions, and as their loyal second-in-commands, Optimus/Butterfree, as well as Prime/Beedrill, naturally spent more time supervising the Caterpie, Metapod, Weedle, and Kakuna as well.
I chose not to interfere since it did not prevent them from completing their daily training. On Giratiday, while I was coaching Sorrel and Marlene, I noticed that Horus/Xatu's Strength reached SSS, which made it his third parameter to be wrapped up. He was officially halfway through with the last round of his limit breaking and I praised him for his hard work.
The third day was pretty calm, with the occasional Caterpie or Weedle evolving under their boss's supervision. At least that was the case until Kyoday because on that day the first Zubat egg hatched. I had noticed the sign beforehand, so I knew that it would have happened that day.
That was why I kept an eye on the nesting area of Moka's habitat. As soon as I noticed that Zubat was about to hatch I found a chance to enter Utopia and made my way to the nest.
I called Luna/Clefable over, and together we waited for Zubat to hatch. Once he did, Luna used Hypnosis on him just like I had told her, and he fell asleep without seeing our faces.
I did not want him to imprint on us after all. That would make giving him away pretty awkward, and I would feel bad about doing that to a Pokemon that saw me as his or her father or family.
While Utopia was putting Zubat through its optimization process I brought out the bottle with Miltank milk that I had spiked with blood from an iron-stage Pokemon. Once the process was done I moved the teat of the bottle to Zubat's mouth, and he subconsciously began to suckle/drink the milk.
I also checked his new status to see what had changed. I have been treating all three Zubat eggs the same, so they all got the full support treatment from me.
However, due to having only been with me for four months, which meant that a major part of his development was already done, I was unsure how helpful the treatment had been.
'Species: Zubat
Gender: Male
Type: Poison, Flying
Potential: Green -> Light Blue
Stage: Stageless
Genetic variation: None
Abilities: Inner Focus, Infiltrator
Talents: None
Affinities: Poison, Flying'
Well, light blue potential was pretty good, and this being the male Zubat would balance out the gender ratio of Rose's Pokemon. Once he had sucked dry the milk bottle I caught him with a BatBall, which I then switched to stasis mode.
I called the BatBall as such, because it was a poison as well as a flying type dual-element ball, and the Zubat line was the only known Pokemon species of that general typing. Variants were obviously not included in this since I was sure that there were some poison/flying variants out there.
Anyway, thanks to the meal I had given him before capturing him, Zubat would be able to stay inside the BatBall for a month or even longer, but I did not plan to make him stay in stasis for that long. In fact, I did not even wait for a day.
Right after breakfast on Grouday, I told my parents that I would make a quick visit to Rose to fulfill a promise and that I would be back for lunch. Well, if one could count a travel time of 90 minutes for a round trip as quick.
Once I arrived at their doorstep, Rose was pretty startled to see me since I decided to surprise her instead of informing her about my visit. When I told her I was here to fulfill my promise she looked lost for a moment before asking curiously if that meant that the Zubat had hatched.
I told her that it happened just yesterday. Anyway, I handed her a recipe for some good Zubat food that she could make and told her that she should burn it after she memorized it. Then I gave her a sack full of Pokepellets that I had made and told her that she could use them to feed Zubat after a week.
However, she had to feed him Miltank milk until then, and I added that it would be better if she added a bit of blood from an iron stage normal type to the milk. After she nodded I handed the BatBall to her and she hugged me while repeatedly thanking me.
I watched her register the ball using her blood, which showed which of the options I proposed to her she chose. I told her to introduce herself to Zubat and that I was going home since I had only come to deliver her gift.
She tried to get me to stay for a bit more, but I told her that my parents were waiting for me and that she had to focus on Zubat anyway. So, after saying goodbye to her parents as well, I made my way back home.
The rest of the day was relaxed if we ignored the call from Aunt Lily after she found out that I had gifted Rose a Zubat, a 5-star one at that. I told her that it happened and that Rose had already registered the ball on top of being the first individual Zubat had seen, so after a bit of back and forth, she relented.
I mean I could understand her reaction since it was a pretty precious and expensive gift, but I managed to calm her down as well as accept that it happened. I might have used the childhood friend card and added the words only one my age on top of it in my persuasion, but it worked so who cares.
The last week of the month gave me a pleasant parting surprise in the form of Stan/Gyarados's Strength reaching SS. That was his third parameter to complete the second round of limit breaking, which meant he was halfway through with the second round.
That seemed to be the signal for the other member of the Slithering Six to take a step forward. Each one of them increased either their Strength or Energy Capacity within the first 10 days of the second month of the term. This was their second parameter at SS, so they were biting at Stan's ankles, or tail, progress-wise.
If that was not a great start into the 27th month of 2180, then I did not know what could constitute as a great start. Ok, well, that was not true, a breakthrough to the next stage definitely counted, but progress on the Gyarados front was great as well.
Before the second week was over another important event happened, but this time it did not happen on my side. On Palkiday after a nice day of battling with some wild Pokemon, I came home only to have dad tell me that his Dratini had reached the (high) bronze stage this morning and that they had been waiting for me for his evolution.
I had obviously known that Dratini's evolution was close, so I had prepared a Dragon Potion for him in advance using a D-class Dragon Scale coming from a (high) silver stage Dragonair, 1 ml of Dragonite Blood from a (high) gold stage Dragonite, which cost me a fortune, considering that it was just a measly milliliter.
Anyway, I had to dilute the good a lot to reduce its potency, but it was the best reagent for the Dragon Scale. Anyway, in the end, I created a potion that was a bit above the absolute limits of what a (high) bronze stage Dratini could withstand, but since it would be used during the evolution that was okay.
The excess potency would be perfectly absorbed during his evolution to Dragonair. Outside of evolution, the ingestion of that potion would have resulted in severe internal injuries that would have taken close to a year to recover from, which would have been a major time loss, and totally not worth it.
Anyway, we all went to our backyard/garden, and I gave Dratini the potion made. Dad did his own thing, but since I told him in advance that Dratini should not ingest anything else, dad focused on external aid.
After dad gave Dratini a final encouragement, he stepped back and joined us as spectators. Dratini lit up in the tell-tale bright white light of evolution and the light began to expand to accommodate his new, larger form. Once the light show died down around half a minute later, in Dratini's place a striking Dragonair stood or laid.
If I had to take a guess, I would place him at 5 meters long, which was pretty much the average length for Dragonair on Terra as far as I knew. Not that one got to see Dragonair's all that often, but from my research into pseudo legendaries, because of course I was going to look into them, the regular length of Dragonair ranged from 4.5 meters to 5.5 meters.
Dad was obviously the first one to go up to Dragonair to congratulate him, followed by his Pokemon, only after that did we plebs get our turn. I used my turn to check his new status on the side, and I had to say his evolution was a total success.
'Species: Dragonair
Gender: Male
Type: Dragon
Potential: Light Purple
Stage: Bronze-stage (high)
Genetic variation: None
Abilities: Shed Skin, Marvel Scale
Talents: None
Affinities: Dragon'
Dragonair's potential rose from deep blue to light purple, which was awesome news. This was dad's second Pokemon with light purple potential, and when I told him that his Dragonair now gave off the same feeling as his Nidoking, he was flabbergasted.
He could not believe that he had two Pokemon with 6-star potential and it triggered another wave of congratulations, this time for both dad and Dragonair. Mom was especially enthusiastic with her congratulations. She hugged him and they kissed, which was something most kids did not want to see, no matter how old they are, mentally or physically.
Mom and dad laughed when I looked away at that moment, but what can I say, I belong to the aforementioned majority. The third week ended with two pleasant events, Manami/Lapras's Energy Density rose to SS on Giratiday, which was her second parameter to do so, and on Kyoday, Ali/Kirlia's Agility reached S, which was his third parameter to do so.
Ali was halfway through with his first round of limit-breaking now. If he had not been set on evolving to Gallade, I would have tried to persuade him to evolve once the first round of limit-breaking was complete, but since Gallade was a trigger evolution that fact was moot.
We had to wait until he reached the (high) silver stage until he could evolve, at least that was the case if we wanted to make the best out of his Kirlia form.
Anyway, the last week of the month did not disappoint either, since Zubat egg number 2 hatched on Mewday. I repeated the same process as I had with Zubat egg number 1 roughly a month ago, but I had to say that egg number 2 certainly gave me a surprise.
'Species: Zubat
Gender: Female
Type: Poison, Flying
Potential: Green -> Light Blue
Stage: Stageless
Genetic variation: Color Swap
Abilities: Inner Focus, Infiltrator
Talents: None
Affinities: Poison, Flying'
Yep, just like no.1, this Zubat also had her potential raised to light blue, which was good, but what surprised me was the genetic modifier Color Swap. I obviously noticed it when I saw the Zubat since a change in colors was hard to overlook if one was not blind or color-blind.
Unfortunately, Color Swap turned out to be a purely optical/cosmetic change. It simply swapped the colors of her skin/fur and wing membranes, so Zubat had an orchid color and her wing membranes were blue. That also meant that she would have turquoise skin/fur once she evolved to Crobat and her wing membranes would be purple.
I was planning to give her to mom as a birthday gift, and since mom's birthday was still close to three weeks away, on Arcday 16.28.2180, I kept the BatBall in stasis mode. That was no problem since Zubat could easily stay for 4 weeks or more in stasis mode after the bottle of bloodied milk I gave her before capturing her.
On the last day of the month which was a Kyoday, Saphira's Agility reached C, which was her third one. She only had to raise another parameter to C before she would reach the (high) bronze stage. It would happen pretty soon I could feel it in my bones.
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