A celebration naturally followed Hashirama/Venusaur's breakthrough and since we were going to celebrate the successful appeals anyway, we combined the two reasons to throw one big party that only ended an hour or so past midnight. I headed straight for bed wanting some good sleep. It felt like I had just laid my head on the pillow when I was forced awake by my third thought stream. A quick check showed that I had been sleeping for barely two hours before I was woken up.
I always had one of my thought streams stay in a semi-active trance-like state while I slept to keep an eye on Utopia in case of emergencies, which I suspected was only possible without long-term consequences thanks to Utopia's soothing and healing function. Either way, I was brought out of my sleep because the Munchlax egg had shown elevated energy fluctuations, which usually only appeared when an egg's hatching was imminent.
These fluctuations were kind of like the contractions of women. As soon as they appeared, you knew a new life was about to enter the world. However, unlike with the contractions of women, which in the worst case could last up to 24 hours or more before the baby was born, the fluctuations coming from an egg indicated that the Pokemon would hatch within an hour.
Anyway, I hurriedly teleported to Munchlax's egg sanctuary to check up on the egg. He had not hatched yet, but I knew that it was only a matter of time now. Unfortunately, I had not managed to raise Munchlax's potential to light blue before we reached this point, and a final observe confirmed that his potential was still shown as deep green even now.
'Species: Munchlax
Gender: Male
Type: Normal
Potential: Deep Green
Stage: None, PokeEgg
(Genetic) Modifiers: None
Abilities: Pickup, Thick Fat
Talents: None
Affinities: Normal'
Nonetheless, I had a feeling that we had come really close to reaching that point. I had no proof of that aside from my gut feeling, but I was pretty sure that I was right. I guess I would see how close we had actually gotten once Munchlax had hatched and Utopia was done with him. I took him out of the incubator since the egg was about to hatch and it wouldn't be receptive to any supplements during this period. Besides, there was no reason to let a perfectly good incubator get destroyed during the hatching by letting the egg remain inside.
Instead, I moved the incubator away and laid the egg onto the mound prepared by Utopia. I proceeded to wait for the egg to hatch on my lonesome since I did not want to wake the others up, knowing full well that Munchlax would go to sleep once he had eaten his first meal. I simply felt that there was no reason to interrupt their sleep for this, especially since Munchlax would most definitely be going to sleep as well. They could just as easily see Munchlax in the morning.
It was 38 minutes later that it finally happened, the egg erupted into light, and the light began to expand until it became roughly half a meter in diameter. Once the light dissipated, I got to see the newborn Munchlax in all his glory. He was about 0.5 meters tall and close to that wide as well, but newborns were usually smaller than the grown-ups of their species, so that was normal. In fact, Munchlax was already a big boy for a freshly hatched Munchlax, not too far off from the species average, and I was pretty certain that he would grow to be an above-averagely tall Munchlax once he stopped growing.
Anyway, the moment Munchlax was born, Utopia initiated its optimization process, so before Munchlax even had the chance to take his surroundings in, he got a dose of the Utopia special. I saw Munchlax close his eyes and release a content hum while I heard Utopia's report inside my head. Munchlax opened his eyes at the same moment the optimization finished, and his eyes were quickly drawn to mine.
Before either of us could say anything, Munchlax's belly rumbled. He released a whine while holding his stomach and looked at me with big, wet eyes that screamed I'm hungry, feed me. I could not help the chuckle that escaped me at that development. Still, there was no way I was going to leave poor Munchlax hungry like that, so I pulled out an extra large bottle of special milk I prepared for this moment, put up my good guy aura, and approached Munchlax with the bottle in hand.
Munchlax perked up when approached him, and from the movement of his nose, I could tell that he had somehow managed to get a whiff of the milk's frankly light scent. That just showed that one should never underestimate the sense of smell of a hungry Snorlax-line member I guess. Either way, Munchlax actively approached me and he tugged at my shirt while asking for food as soon as he could.
I gave him a pat on his head before I sat down and told him to take a seat on my lap, which I could have saved since Munchlax directly climbed onto my lab and raised his arms towards the milk bottle. I moved the bottle closer and allowed him to suckle on the bottle teat. While he was drinking the first meal of his life, I checked out his status sheet.
I already knew that he had not unlocked any modifiers or talents or anything extra since the optimization log had told me as much. It was his potential that I was most interested in since I wanted to know how close I had gotten to helping him start with light blue.
'Name: None
Species: Munchlax
Gender: Male
Age: 0 Day
-
Type: Normal
Potential: Blue (58.89%)
(Genetic) Modifiers: None
Abilities: Pickup, Thick Fat
Talents: None
Affinities: Normal'
Well, I guess that answered that question. I had practically raised Munchlax's potential to the limit of deep green before he hatched, which was pretty good work on my part. 1.11% more and he would have hatched with light blue potential. Either way, he had a pretty great start to life, and as long as he did not suffer any significant potential loss along the way, Munchlax was slated to reach the fabled aurora realm during his breakthrough to the gold stage.
Heck, if everything went well with the supplements and his evolution, Munchlax could attain true aurora potential during his breakthrough to the dark gold stage even if he ended up unlocking a level 1 modifier at some point. Granted he would have to complete his limit-breaking for that, but that was a given for all main and reserve team members.
I would naturally not force him to do so since I gave all my Pokemon the right to refuse the extra work it took to go through the limit-breaking phase, but anyone who did so would not make it to either the main or reserve team. The same was true for those who had no interest in battling. They could simply enjoy a relaxed life as Utopians.
Nonetheless, Munchlax still had a year or so ahead of himself before he would be doing any serious training, much less the one of the limit-breaking variety, so Munchlax had quite some time on his hands to see how things went for the others, and if he would be willing to do so as well. I was sure he would want to do it once he had spent enough time hanging out with our family.
Anyway, I continued to check out the next part of his status sheet, and I was not surprised to see the state of his bond section, Munchlax had just been born after all.
'Bond: None
Quirks: None'
I had not caught him yet, which meant to artificial link/bond, and we had barely spent two minutes together so far, which was not enough to establish any true bond between us. Had he been in my care as an egg for more than a few weeks, we might have been able to establish a weak genuine bond within a day or two or so, but since that was not the case, I was honestly expecting it to take a week or more. Newborns did bond much faster than juvenile and mature Pokemon after all.
Still, with him being a Munchlax, I could think of ways to speed that up a bit. I felt that I might be able to establish a proper bond with Munchlax in a few days, a week at maximum, using his species's love for food, especially tasty food. Moving on, I saw the thing all newborns had in common, their state as a stageless Pokemon with a (0%) progress bar.
'Parameters:
Stage: Stageless (0%)
----
Condition: Healthy, Curious, Hungry'
I also saw in his condition section that he was still hungry and since he finished the milk bottle moments after I read that, I smoothly swapped the empty bottle for a full one before he could start a huff. He briefly looked up at me when the bottle vanished before focusing back on the bottle, or rather the bottle teat, in front of him once the fresh bottle appeared in my hand.
I finished looking through the rest of his status sheet while he was drinking his second bottle of special milk, and unsurprisingly, the final two sections made a pretty poor showing. Not that one could/should expect more from a newborn.
Masteries:
Normal Energy Manipulation (Novice)
----
Techniques:
-
(Unofficial) Initial:
N/A
-
Novice:
Lick, Tackle, Defense Curl
-
Beginner:
N/A
-
Proficient:
N/A
-
Advanced:
N/A
-
Mastered:
N/A'
Honestly, while it would have been great if Munchlax had started with an egg move or two, his three moves were not too bad either, especially Defense Curl since it would come in handy in the future for Rollout.
Anyway, once I was done with Munchlax's status sheet, I simply caressed his fur while he drank his milk. Munchlax actually ended up revealing that he was still hungry after finishing the second bottle, which honestly was a tad bit out of my expectation since I had expected him to be full after the second bottle.
Thankfully, I had prepared and stored hundreds of special milk bottles in advance since I expected him to drink around 300 or so of them within the first month. I had been planning to create a fresh batch once the supply was about to run out, but the way things looked it appeared that the supply would run out a week or two earlier than expected. I would have to observe his milk consumption for the rest of the day and the next few days as well to get a better estimate of how many bottles Munchlax would need per month so that I could prepare correspondingly.
I had also prepared a few healthy and nutritious snacks for him that were supposed to go along with the milk, or rather for him to snack on between his meals/milk, so that had to be taken into consideration as well. Speaking of snacks, Munchlax finally seemed sated after finishing the third bottle, so I put away the empty bottle before I took out one of the sweet snacks I had prepared to see if he would like it.
Munchlax perked up after getting a whiff of the snack and held up his hands towards the snack. He immediately threw it inside his mouth after I gave it to him, and from his happy look he seemed to like the taste. He gulped it down after chewing it a few times, and as soon as it went down his gullet, Munchlax turned his head in my direction before stretching his arms out once more and asking for more snacks.
He did that three more times and only after gulping down his fifth snack did he contentedly pat his belly. Surprisingly enough I actually felt a bond being established between us while he did that, which threw all my previous assumptions out of the window, showing that I had underestimated the power of food as well as Munchlax's appetite. Following that Munchlax sleepily mumbled incomprehensible stuff before he fell asleep in my lap.
Since it was only 4 a.m. I decided to get some more sleep as well, so I brought out a sleeping bag and lay down with Munchlax in my arm. Before I closed my eyes to sleep, I did a quick check of Munchlax's status which confirmed that we had indeed bonded after Munchlax ate the fifth snack. I had honestly not expected this development and I found it a bit funny. This was a perfect example of the saying that love goes through the stomach.
---------------------
---------------------
This part is purely to display Munchlax's status screen in one piece and does not count toward the word count.
'Name: None
Species: Munchlax
Gender: Male
Age: 0 Day
-
Type: Normal
Potential: Blue (58.89%)
(Genetic) Modifiers: None
Abilities: Pickup, Thick Fat
Talents: None
Affinities: Normal
-
Bond: Mikail (weak)
Quirks: None
----
Parameters:
Stage: Stageless (0%)
----
Condition: Healthy, Curious, Content
----
Masteries:
Normal Energy Manipulation (Novice)
----
Techniques:
-
(Unofficial) Initial:
N/A
-
Novice:
Lick, Tackle, Defense Curl
-
Beginner:
N/A
-
Proficient:
N/A
-
Advanced:
N/A
-
Mastered:
N/A'
-----------------------------
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