I did my usual thing after returning to the border camp, and since the Mankey troop only had 261 members checking them did not take that long. Interestingly enough, this time around the boss of the group/troop actually ended up being one of those with the highest potential.
So far that had not been the case with the Houndour/Houndoom pack or Beedrill swarm. As for Boss Primeape, he was one of the two members of his troop that had deep blue potential, which made him impressive enough. I knew that this was after the troop went through the Utopia special, but he had to have a good base for this, so he was still impressive enough.
Anyway, the monkey tribe liked it inside Zutopia, and the boss monkey struck up a surprisingly fast friendship with Ali/Gallade. Ali was actually hanging around the new monkey habitat when I "came" inside to check up on the group/troop.
Regardless, the other troop member with deep blue potential was the one that actually aroused my interest.
'Species: Mankey
Gender: Male
Type: Fighting
Potential: Deep Blue
Stage: Bronze-Stage (mid)
(Genetic) Modifier: Ability-variant
Abilities: Anger Point, Inner Focus
Talents: None
Affinities: Fighting'
It was one of the bronze stage Mankey, who was apparently an ability-variant. I had no idea if he happened to unlock that modifier during the optimization process he went through upon entering Utopia, or if he already had it beforehand since I did not bother keeping an eye on the notices for the whole troop, but instead of having either Vital Spirit or Defiant, this Mankey had Inner Focus as his second ability.
That alternate ability of his alone was enough to arouse my interest in him, not to mention his great potential. The reason his ability interested me was that I saw a path to master his anger and vigorous energy in it, which was, at least in my opinion, one of, if not the most important step in getting actual control over his species' apparent final evolution Annihilape.
Heck, it could possibly be the key to another more controlled evolution of Primeape. Still, regardless of which one it was, I was pretty happy with that development since I was sure that having Vital Spirit actually had a certain impact on Mankey and Primeape's aggression.
The need for a completely relaxed environment to sleep meant that they did not get to sleep whenever and wherever they wanted or even for however long they wanted, so if the situation was unfavorable it was possible that they were unable to sleep for multiple days, which naturally led to frustration and irritation.
Thankfully, Utopia gave them the best possible environment which meant that even Mankey or Primeape with Vital Spirit could sleep without any problems, so the troop had really lucked out by joining us/me. This did not mean that Vital Spirit was a bad ability per se since the ability was not without merit.
However, I had to admit that if keeping calm and collected was the key to getting control over Annihilape or unlocking a calmer alternative, then the Mankey line had been dealt a really bad hand as far as abilities were concerned.
Even Defiant was more of a liability than being helpful as far as being calm was concerned, though neither Defiant nor Vital Spirit could hold a candle to Anger Point as far as inconveniences in that direction were concerned.
Hopefully, Inner Focus would help mitigate the intrinsic agitation that came with Anger Point. I was definitely going to ask Melinda/Mienshao, Anubis/Lucario, and Gwen/Gardevoir to occasionally visit this Mankey and help him a bit with meditation in preparation for his evolution(s).
All in all, I felt that this Grouday ended up being a pretty great one, and I was definitely not hung up about not finding any Vigoroth or any other members of that line for that matter. Nonetheless, I reaffirmed my decision to give up the search for the Vigoroth and focus on the Quagsire group I had noted down.
I was hopeful that I might be able to track them down during the last few Groudays I had left at the border camp, considering that the next Grouday was the start of my 6th as well as the final month of the military phase of my practical year and hence at the camp as well.
Still, before that, I still had to round out the final week that began on Arcday, so tomorrow. I had already fallen into a form of routine, so the time passed rather quickly, if somewhat dully, at least until Palkiday. That noon, Ali/Gallade delivered a rush of excitement I had not been expecting.
He suddenly called for my attention while I was at the shooting range, which made me nearly mess up my perfect score. Thankfully I managed to protect my record, but I used my other thought streams to look into why Ali was calling for me so excitedly.
I had an optimistic guess which I really hoped was the actual reason, and when he asked me to check his status since he suspected that he might have completed his limit-breaking phase, my guess ended up being confirmed.
I checked his status sheet, but sadly it turned out that his last parameter still had to reach SSS, so it seemed that Ali had a misconception. He looked a bit bummed out when I told him that it appeared that he was not done with his limit-breaking phase.
Still, I made sure to encourage him since he was nearly done so it was truly only a matter of time until it happened. Ali nodded and directly went to find Primeape so that they could beat each other up a bit in hopes of stimulating his endurance so that it could rise to SSS.
The rest of the week after that little "false alarm" passed by normally, and on Grouday, the new month arrived. After the usual morning routine of PT and breakfast, I decided to change things up a bit compared to my usual Grouday routine.
I did not immediately head out into the wild, or rather I did, but not to search for the Quagsire tribe/horde. I decided to leave the "hunt" to the next Grouday, and instead entered Utopia as soon as I was a bit further into the wilderness.
It had been some time until I had been personally inside Utopia, at least with my actual body, and I wanted to spend some time with my Pokemon. I directly informed everyone that I was "home", and that I was waiting in front of my mansion.
Those that could Teleport were the first ones that showed up, followed by the fliers, and they all enthusiastically greeted me, which was why I was lying on the ground, being smothered/hugged by my Pokemon. Once I was able to get back up, I first asked everyone how they were, before I began doing our weekly check-up.
I was happy to see that everyone seemed to be in good form, and I ended up being pleasantly surprised once it became Kimura/Hitmonform's turn. It turned out that his four physical parameters had actually risen to SS, and since this had happened, I was sure that his two energy-related parameters were not too far behind.
Anyway, after that pleasant surprise, I resumed checking the status of those I had yet to check. Everything went normal, which was good since it meant that there were no problems. This calm lasted until Ali's turn came. It appeared that his "sparring" with Primeape had been useful since his Endurance had apparently risen to SSS during the last two/three days.
It had been close to 2 years since his evolution to Gallade, and Ali was finally ready for his breakthrough to the gold stage. He was obviously happy to hear that he was finally done with his limit-breaking phase, and the others were also happy/excited about it.
They congratulated Ali on his upcoming breakthrough, and I asked him to wait a moment so that I could check out the last four Pokemon before we went to his place for his breakthrough. He was naturally fine with that, and once I had confirmed that everything was okay with the final four, we collectively moved to Ali and Gwen/Gardevoir's place.
I made sure to spread the news over UtopiaFM, in case some of the non-main team Pokemon living in Utopia wanted to witness his breakthrough. Through my admin view, I saw Boss Primeape along with some of his troops heading to Ali's place, as well as Hypno, Shedinja, and the Spinda Quartet. The last group usually only attended evolutions, but it seemed they wanted to come over since Ali was a friend of theirs.
Anyway, once everyone who wanted to watch the event had arrived, we formed a circle around Ali, and I wished him the best of luck. Naturally, Fortuna/Togetic went up to him to do the same, and once she rejoined the circle, I gave Ali the signal to go ahead with his breakthrough.
The energy in his surroundings started being funneled into him as soon as he initiated his breakthrough, and it did not take long until we saw one of the rarer breakthrough phenomena take place.
More energy got funneled into Ali, and he began to light up a bit, which usually meant that he was unlocking something. When the light got a bit brighter, I was pretty sure that my boy had actually gotten lucky enough to unlock a modifier of some kind.
To be honest, I was kind of hoping that the modifier he unlocked if he unlocked one, was the Shiny Gene. There was no real reason for that besides the fact that I liked blue and thought that Shiny Gallade looked great.
Admittedly, that was a rather shallow reason to wish for the shiny gene, especially since it was one of the "weaker" modifiers that granted one of the lowest overall bonuses to the Pokemon that possessed the modifier.
I focused back on Ali when the light began to die down, and the breakthrough was successfully completed. The completion was accompanied by the exclamations of pretty much everyone for two reasons.
First, Ali/Gallade was releasing (high) gold stage pressure instead of the expected (mid) gold stage pressure, which was indisputably related to the fact that he unlocked some modified which gave him a bonus that was big enough to push his starting substage by a grade. The second point was what made me use the word indisputable, Ali actually looked different than he had been before the breakthrough.
He was still unmistakably a Gallade, but there were some additional elements, which were almost certainly the result of the modifier he unlocked, that made him look different from the usual Gallade, though it was not the shiny gene since the distinction was not a color change.
I moved closer to Ali to congratulate him and to get a better look at his new look. Ali himself was also checking out his new appearance, which allowed me to pretty much see his body from all directions before I made it in front of him.
The first thing that stood out, was the fact that he now spotted a white cape. The cape he had was of medium-length and went until his lower back. Furthermore, the red horn on his back was gone. I saw that much when he spun around to check out his cape and back.
I was not too sure if it was related to the red horn that vanished, but Ali's arms gained some additions that made me think that they could be related to it.
Rhombus-shaped red crystal appeared in the center of his "blade arms", which was why I thought that the red horn might have somehow been used up to create those. Those two changes were pretty much "all" that changed, and in my opinion, the white cape and red rhombus-shaped arm crystals made Ali/Gallade look like a pretty light version of his mega evolution.
I mean I knew that those parts were present on the mega evolution as well, though the cape of Mega Gallade was much longer and split. Besides, Mega Gallade's arms/blades turned white and looked much more badass, at least as far as I knew. Meanwhile, Ali retained his green coloring.
There were some other differences that I remembered, which was why I said he looked like a light version of the Mega. Still, he looked rather impressive, and the changes were definitely positive, so I congratulated him on his new/cool look, his apparent unlocking of a modifier, as well as his breakthrough to the (high) gold stage.
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