While Osiris went through with his breakthrough, I, in my main body, continued my patrol with Ranger Elisabeth. Nothing too interesting happened that day, but the same was not true for Giratiday. The day started out as usual with us eating an early breakfast before starting our patrol.
It was roughly an hour after lunch that things took a slightly sad but interesting turn. We actually came across an abandoned, or rather a lone egg, and after analyzing the area we concluded that the parents did not leave the egg willingly. There were traces of a confrontation close to the nest, but from what we could see, they were nearly a week old, which meant that the egg had been unattended for precisely that long.
Elisabeth pulled out an incubator and placed the egg inside before sharing that Rangers did on occasion stumble on either abandoned or "lost" eggs. The regulation in such a situation was to secure the egg and hand it to the headquarters if one did not plan to take care of it oneself with the aim to add the Pokemon that hatched to one's party.
While not really common, lone eggs were not that uncommon either, and as previously mentioned, they did not necessarily have to be abandoned ones. Like in this particular case, the parents might have met an "accident", leaving the egg alone. Most, or more like 95+% of the Pokemon species did not touch Pokemon Eggs as long as they were not about to die from hunger, which is why most hunters did not touch the eggs even if they noticed them after "dealing" with the parents.
This area had some of the species that did eat eggs, but it appeared the egg had been somewhat lucky enough to not get spotted by any Ekans, Paras, Spinarak, or Pinsir. None must have passed by this place during the last few days.
The reason I called it only somewhat lucky was that the egg had not been lucky enough to get picked up by either a member of its species or one of the friendly species that actually took care of abandoned eggs until they hatched such as Wigglytuff, Azumarill, Tangela, or Kangaskhan, though admittedly the last one did not seem to live around here.
Nonetheless, I asked Elisabeth if I could check the egg's condition and she directly passed over the incubator. I took the egg from the incubator and inspected it carefully while using my "observe" ability to check its status.
'Species: Lotad
Gender: Male
Type: Water, Grass
Potential: Light Yellow
Stage: None, PokeEgg
(Genetic) Modifiers: None
Abilities: Rain Dish
Talents: None
Affinities: Water, Grass'
This told me what species was inside the egg, and I also learned Lotad's potential, but the status sheet did not tell me anything about the egg's, or rather the baby's state. My aura and actual egg care knowledge took care of that.
Unfortunately, the egg's condition was less than optimal. My aura senses told me that the life signal coming from the egg was weaker than it should have been. The state of the eggshell was enough to clue me in that this was the result of the egg being exposed to the whim of nature and a lack of "warmth", which was a combination of body heat and the energy living bodies lost naturally.
The incubator was enough to take care of the warmth part, but the egg would need some treatment to return to a good state. Elisabeth assured me that the headquarters had specialists who would take care of that, though she still stuck a note with my analysis on it onto the incubator. She also asked me if I was interested in taking in the egg, but I declined.
Just as I was wondering if we would be going back to Rose City with the egg or if we would keep it with us until the break, Elisabeth pulled out her phone and called the HQ. She gave them our location and told them we had an egg that required special attention.
Following that, she said "And now we wait" and less than 10 minutes later another Ranger showed up with a Medicham. Elisabeth introduced the man as Harvey before handing him the incubator. He just told me that it was nice to meet me before saying goodbye and nodding to his Medicham, who teleported the two away.
After that little interlude, we resumed our patrol but nothing else of interest happened. The rest of the week passed by and while there were no problems during our patrols, I was sad to say that it was marked by failure on my part. We came across two elderly Pokemon during these 4 days, but both elders refused my invitation.
One of them, an elderly Murkrow, refused to believe me even though I used my aura and swore on it that I was telling the truth, while the other one, an old Stantler, simply wanted to be left alone. Honestly, to me, it seemed like something was wrong with these loner-type old Pokemon. Either that or I was just on an unlucky streak, which was something I was definitely not used to. At least someone seemed to find my repeated failures amusing, and I was not talking about Hades/Gengar.
Thankfully, I was granted some hope on Mewday of week 3 of the month. The elderly Sandslash I approached a few hours before dinner, actually agreed to my proposal, adding a (mid) gold stage guardian to my project. This bout of luck, so early into the week, made me hopeful for my chance during our second week of patrol.
Sadly, I had to face some disappointment on Dialday when the elderly Furret I wanted to recruit got swallowed right before my eyes by a freaking Pinsir. We had arrived in the middle of the fight and Ranger Elisabeth just shook her head to signal that I could not interfere. We stayed until the end since I had a slight hope that the old Furret would be able to escape, and yet Furret fought until the bitter end without showing any intent to escape even though he might have managed to do so if he truly tried.
Elisabeth gave me a sorry look, and I just shook my head. We did not stay any longer and left the Pinsir alone so that it could enjoy its meal in peace. I was a bit down for the next few hours but shrugged it off soon enough. Thankfully, I ended up with some good news right the next day, with a successful persuasion of a (low) gold Noctowl, who brought along two Hoothoot.
That success was enough to make me happy for the rest of the week, which was not much since tomorrow was Grouday. Still, my happiness persisted for a good part of the next week as well, which was our third patrol week and the final one before our break.
On Giratiday of said week, we finally saw some action which we were allowed to interfere with since the two fighters were causing too much damage to the environment. Still, they were not all that strong, just at the (high) gold stage, so Hades alone was enough to pacify the two and separate them.
According to Elisabeth the Venomoth was a local while the Lickitung was an outsider, so we left the Venomoth there, knowing that it would wake up less than a minute later, while we, or rather Hades carried/levitated the Lickitung along as we left the area. Once we were sufficiently far away from the Venemoth, Elisabeth had us wake up the Lickitung before she interrogated it with the plan to return it to its previous home.
That fell through when Licktung shared that it had been driven away by a family of Tangela, so she offered Lickitung an alternative, which was to relocate it to an area she knew belonged to a bunch of Lickitung. The idea seemed to appeal to the Lickitung so it agreed, which led to Elisabeth making a call. Shortly after her call, Harvey and his Medicham showed up again before leaving with Lickiting in tow.
Anyway, there were only 4 more days left before we would leave for Rose City, but somehow we did not come across a single appropriate target for my guardian project. We actually saw a lot of Pokemon during these 4 days, but none of them were about to run out of time. Ultimately, I returned to Rose City on Arcday with two additional "goldies" for my guardian plan, which was not bad all things considered.
On Palkiday the 16th month would begin and with it my sixth as well as final month with the Ranger Corps. Unlike this month, the 16th would be another 4-week-long patrol, and I was expected to stick to it until Grouday of week 4 even though the 17th would start on Kyoday.
Nonetheless, there was nothing I could do but accept the situation, so I threw the thought to the back of my mind and focused on enjoying my break instead. That naturally meant entering Utopia and spending time with my Pokemon.
As luck would have it, I got some very good news the very next day from none other than Ryujin/Gyarados, who advanced to the (high) dark gold stage after our post-lunch training session. We naturally celebrated the happy occasion, and surprisingly, that was not the only happy occasion that week. On Palkiday, the first day of the new month I got some long-awaited good news from the one and only Eggy/Salandit.
After our one-on-one training session an hour before lunch, I checked up on Vendrak/Eggy to see how his condition was, and I ended up pleasantly surprised when I saw that his potential had finally risen to light green. It seemed that the training session had managed to squeeze out some juice from the supplemental residues stored in his body, filling in the final 0.1% he had been missing.
'Name: Vendrak (Eggy)
Species: Salandit
Gender: Male
Age: 5+ Years
-
Type: Poison, Fire
Potential: Light Green (00.00%)*
{Deep Yellow (68.98%) -> Light Green (00.00%)}'
I had been hoping we would reach this milestone before his 6th birthday, and considering that his birthday was still 5 months away, I'd say we had been successful with that.
'(Genetic) Modifiers: None
Abilities: Oblivious, Corrosion*
Talents: None
Affinities: Poison, Fire, Dragon (budding)'
Vendrak achieving light green potential meant that he finally got his second ability, and Corrosion was a pretty good one. Eggy himself was naturally absolutely thrilled when I told him about his new potential as well as ability. He began to laugh uproariously, attracting the attention of those close by, who broke out in cheers upon hearing the good news and they all congratulated him on his upgraded potential.
More and more of our family members came over and I made sure to announce over UtopiaFM that we were holding a super big party to celebrate Vendrak's big step forward. Hypno was one of the first nonmain members who arrived and he directly went up to Vendrak and hugged him. These two were good pretty good friends, and there was a very good reason for that. It had to do with Eggy's quirk section.
'Quirks: None*'
I could not help my happiness when I saw that Eggy's quirk section had returned to an empty state after he learned about his new potential. It was really close with that one, and I was really lucky that I was keeping an eye on everyone's conditions since that was why I had noticed that a nascent inferiority complex had started to form within Vendrak despite my/our best efforts.
I mean it appeared as a budding inferiority complex in his quirk section so I was not presuming things. I had always been worried about something like that, which was why I already used to regularly talk to him to make sure that something like that did not happen, and yet it did, so I went a step further and used my aura to show my sincerity during our talks. I kept that particular knowledge to myself but made sure to involve my other Pokemon, such as Gwen/Gardevoir, more in our talks.
Gwen for example was a great help in the matter not only because of her talent but also because of the fact that she was the slowest among my gold-stage Pokemon to develop due to her joining while she was already at the gold stage, which meant that she did not have the development speed advantage the others had due to their previous limit breaking efforts. Her light purple potential also placed her at the bottom rung among her fellows, so while her case was nowhere as bad as Vendrak's, she had an inkling of what he was feeling, which helped them connect.
Optimus/Butterfree and Prime/Beedrill were also able to connect with Vendrak in a way that others couldn't, especially Optimus who had Mothra/Butterfree blazing ahead. Finally, there was Hypno, who also bonded with Vendrak very well, which was no surprise considering his own circumstances. I had to say that Hypno, with his hardworking nature and his less optimal talent/potential, served as a good role model for Vendrak.
Anyway, as much as the removal of that budding inferiority complex relieved me, I was earnestly hoping that it would stay like that, and I was not planning to stop my current efforts just because the problem was gone now since I wanted it to stay that way. Considering his current situation, there was a chance that Vendrak could "relapse". I would only be confident in our "success" in this matter once he advanced to the silver stage. Yet, that was currently looking like a "long-term" goal.
'Parameters:
Stage: Bronze-Stage (high)
Vitality: B
Strength: B
Endurance: B
Agility: A
Energy Capacity: A
Energy Density: B'
It had been slightly more than a year since Eggy advanced to the (high) bronze stage and with my unrelenting support, his consistent effort, along with Utopia's perfect environment, Vendrak managed to close in on the regular limit step by step.
Still, even though Vendrak was doing his best and no doubt making phenomenal progress for someone in his situation, at the rate he was going, it would take him at least 5 to 6 more years to complete his limit-breaking, though that was using his previous progress speed with his deep yellow potential.
Thankfully, 1 year or so from that duration should have gotten slashed off due to his potential rising to light green. On top of that, I was planning to have him take part in quite a few battles once my journey began, which should speed things up a bit as well. Hopefully, these two factors would help him reach that goal within 3 or fewer years.
I really wanted Eggy to at least reach the final round of his limit-breaking so that I could start him on the plan I had made for his evolution, and for that plan to work, Vendrak had to be able to dominate female Salandit/Salazzle at the same "level" as him or even slightly above his "level", which referred to the (low) silver stage.
That was one of the reasons why I had him work on his moves as much since battle prowess was very important and moves were an important factor in that. I was confident that he could manage the domination part as long as he reached the final LB round in combination with his moves.
'Masteries:
Poison Energy Manipulation (Proficient)
Fire Energy Manipulation (Proficient)
----
Techniques:
-
Novice:
Rest (new)
-
Beginner:
Nasty Plot (+), Dragon Pulse (new)
-
Proficient:
Incinerate (+), Double Slap (+), Poison Tail (++), Flamethrower (new), Venoshock (new)
-
Combo moves/Custom moves:
Tinder (Proficient)'
Regardless, for now, I was just happy that Eggy had attained light-green potential. We would work towards the other stuff step by step, just like we did until now.
---------------------
---------------------
This part is purely to display Vendrak's status screen in one piece and does not count toward the word count.
'Name: Vendrak (Eggy)
Species: Salandit
Gender: Male
Age: 5+ Years
-
Type: Poison, Fire
Potential: Light Green (00.00%)
(Genetic) Modifiers: None
Abilities: Oblivious, Corrosion
Talents: None
Affinities: Poison, Fire, Dragon (budding)
-
Bond: Mikail (weak)
Quirks: None
----
Parameters:
Stage: Bronze-Stage (high)
Vitality: B
Strength: B
Endurance: B
Agility: A
Energy Capacity: A
Energy Density: B
----
Immunity:
None
-
Resistance:
Grass (Major), Bug (Major), Fairy (Major), Fire (Minor), Ice (Minor), Fighting (Minor), Poison (Minor), Steel (Minor)
-
Weaknesses:
Ground (Major), Water (Minor), Psychic (Minor), Rock (Minor)
-
Standardized:
None
----
Condition: Healthy, Happy, Excited, Relieved
----
Masteries:
Poison Energy Manipulation (Proficient)
Fire Energy Manipulation (Proficient)
----
Techniques:
-
(Unofficial) Initial:
N/A
-
Novice:
Rest
-
Beginner:
Sweet Scent, Nasty Plot, Dragon Pulse
-
Proficient:
Poison Gas, Scratch, Ember, Smog, Dragon Rage, Tinder (C), Poison Fang, Flame Burst, Toxic, Endure, Protect, Iron Tail, Incinerate, Double Slap, Poison Tail, Flamethrower, Venoshock
-
Advanced:
N/A
-
Mastered:
N/A
-
Combo moves/Custom moves:
Tinder (Proficient)'
-----------------------------
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