In the end, it was the clock that swayed my decision. There was only an hour left until dinner time, and I had been planning to leave the Battle Club around that time. Taking the average length a battle took so far into account along with the waiting period, I doubted that I would be able to finish Freyja/Loppuny as well as Hestia/Eevee's battle and start a third one within the given time.
Besides, if I allowed Hypno to battle, I would have to do so for Gaara/Gabite and Fortuna/Togekiss as well since they only got to sub in for others, and we definitely did not have the time for that since I still wanted to visit the Night Market after dinner. Decision made, I continued to wait for my next battle, and it took roughly 10 minutes before my name/alias resounded from the speakers.
I made my way to the hall and took my position across from the guy I would be facing. I actually recognized the guy from my visit to the Trainer Fan Club. He had been a member of Norman's fan group and I battled against him, so I knew that he was going to use normal types. I would have normally gone with Hestia for this battle since Freyja would have had a less challenging time against a normal type specialist, but I distinctly remembered that this guy had a decently strong (low) gold-stage Snorlax and I saw no way for Hestia to win against it.
That would have been fine since I did not mind my Pokemon losing, especially not against obviously stronger Pokemon, which definitely was the case here seeing how Hestia was only at the (mid) silver stage. However, if Snorlax ended up being the first to be sent out, Hestia would only get to battle once, and in a fight she could not really win, no less. Well, unless the other party made some really stupid decisions, but I did not remember the guy or his Pokemon being dumb. Taking all that into account, I took out Freyja's PokeBall and led with her instead.
She ended up facing a Spinda which did not last all that long against her since she went all out from the get-go, knowing that she would have to face the Snorlax at some point. That point happened to be directly after Spinda since Snorlax was sent out as Freyja's second opponent. The battle between the two took nearly 20 minutes simply because the other party knew its strengths as well as weaknesses, and chose the most appropriate strategy for this battle.
That strategy happened to revolve around the fact that Snorlax was a tank along with the repeated use of Rest to recover some of its health while grinding down Freyja's stamina and energy. This strategy relied on Snorlax's high vitality and the fact that it was by no means defenseless during its sleep since Snorlax kept using Sleep Talk as well as Snore to attack while it was sleeping. A few uses of Defense Curl boosted its endurance and its natural endurance towards energy attacks meant that Snorlax could take a beating while it was sleeping.
Nonetheless, aside from one close call where Feryja nearly got hit by a sudden Hyper Beam that got triggered by Sleep Talk, Freyja methodically beat Snorlax up until it got knocked out while it was sleeping, though it took a long time to do so. Unfortunately, taking down Snorlax took a lot out of her since she had to expend a lot of energy and stamina in the process.
Due to that, she ended up falling to the Vigoroth who got sent out after Snorlax. Vigoroth in turn ended up falling at Hypno's hands, or rather his psychic moves. I decided to swap in Hypno, and he used Teleport to keep his distance from Vigoroth while attacking it from afar using Psybeam and Psychic. After thanking my opponent for the battle I once again returned to the lobby to wait for my final battle of the day.
This time I got called up relatively quickly and I naturally led the battle with Hestia/Eevee. She had to face a Volbeat as her first opponent, and she beat it by barraging it with Shadow Ball as well as Hyper Voice while keeping her distance with Quick Attack. She was less lucky with her second opponent which happened to be an Absol. The two had a close fight, but Hestia ended up falling a bit short and fell before Absol did.
Nonetheless, Hestia did quite a bit of damage, so Fortuna/Togekiss easily took out Absol after she was tagged in. Fortuna also took down the Manectric that got sent in after Absol, earning me the victory, which tied up the battles for the day. I went to the counter after that and informed the staff that I was done for the day before leaving the Battle Club. I then entered Utopia and had dinner with my Pokemon.
Following dinner, I spent 2 hours performing a small spa/massage session to finally finish off my promise. It was a bit past 9 p.m. by the time I was done with the final Pokemon. Once I was done, I left Utopia and headed towards the Night Market, where I strolled around, keeping an eye out for any Clamperl, Tentacool, and Corphish as well as anything else that might attract my attention. I naturally also stopped at some of the food/snack stalls to buy something to munch on while I strolled around the market.
I left the Night Market shortly after midnight and by that point, I managed to spot and buy 5 Clamperl, 2 Tentacool, and 1 Corphish that were decent enough to qualify for my Pinkan research. After they underwent the Utopia treatment I had 1 Clamperl with deep yellow potential, 3 Clamperl with light green potential, and 1 Clamperl with deep green potential. The two Tentacool had light green and green potential respectively, while the Corphish had deep yellow potential.
Admittedly, it was not the best haul, but it was good enough for the experiment, and that was all that counted. Seeing that it was already past midnight, I went to bed after placing this batch beside the previous one. The next morning I woke up two hours earlier than usual to do some personal training before breakfast. I first did some physical training before spending 40 minutes on my various aura abilities, followed by another 40 minutes focused on my psychic abilities.
Once I was done with that, I freshened up and began preparing breakfast. The aroma of the food lured everyone over, including Munchlax, who was the first to show up. As usual, breakfast was an energy-charged affair, though some seemed to be more hyper than usual. The reason for that became clear after everyone had eaten and we finished cleaning up the place.
The Eevee Squad excitedly rushed over and Ferrus jumped into my arms before releasing (high) silver stage undulations. As soon as I felt those, I understood why they were so excited since Ferrus was now ready for his evolution to Ferreon. The others who came to the same conclusion began to congratulate Ferrus on reaching the (high) silver stage and his upcoming evolution, while I made the announcement over UtopiaFM. We then made our way to EeveeLand, and while we waited for everyone interested to show up, I began taking out all the supplements I had created for this day/moment.
Due to the fact that Ferrus was evolving to Ferreon, which was a steel-type Pokemon, there was only one ingestible supplement among the bunch I had prepared, and it was made using Babiri Berries, Nut Berries, along with Aggron and Lucario blood. The rest of the supplements were salves that had to be applied externally. To concoct those, I used ground-down plates and other pieces belonging to a bunch of steel-type Pokemon along with some blood and berry juice.
As usual, the good luck hugs took place before I applied the salves, though Fortuna and I had to wait until the Eevee Squad was done doggy piling Ferrus before we could do our part. They then joined the others in the circle that was being formed around Ferrus, while I began to apply the various salves on Ferrus' body. I naturally also helped him gulp down the single tonic I prepared.
Once Ferrus had ingested the potion and I was done applying the salves, I brought out the most important item for this evolution, the Ferrum. I naturally had some of the evolution-triggering alloy that we created at Oak Labs inside Utopia for this moment, and I saw Ferrus' eagerness as soon as the Ferrum appeared in my hand. I gave him a smile and slowly levitated the Ferrum towards him while stepping away. I allowed him to touch it as soon as I joined the others, and Ferrus lit up the moment he touched the Ferrum.
The evolution went similar to Borr's evolution, and just like his, Ferrus' evolution ended smoothly as well. After the light settled, we were able to see Ferrus in all his glory, and he looked just like the Ferreon I had seen at the lab. The same white body, the same grey armor that covered the top of his scalp, his back, shoulders, and the top portion of his tail, as well as the same blue eyes, feet, and spearhead-looking tail blade. Well, not exactly the same, since he was a bit bigger than the Ferreon at Oak Labs had been, which was no surprise and simply proved that Ferrus was following the example of his fellow evolved Eevee Squad members.
From the samples I had seen at the lab, I knew that regular Ferreon were already bigger than their fellow Eeveelutions by roughly 25% which we attributed to their steel typing, and as I said, Ferrus was a bit bigger than the Ferreon I saw at Oak Labs. From what I was seeing right now, Ferrus appeared about 150 cm tall, if we disregarded the ears, and 180 cm long, 270 cm if we included his tail, which made him quite a bit taller than Nyx/Umbreon, Jean/Espeon and Borr/Glaceon. Comparing them as they were doggy piling him after rushing past me just now, I'd say that Ferrus was around 25 to 30% bigger.
I did not mind them doing that and had in fact expected that to happen since they did it during each Eeveelution so far. Still, that made it no less amusing to watch, especially since Ferrus was the biggest of the bunch now, which made doggy piling him harder for the Eevee Squad. I chuckled at the sight and as usual, allowed them to stay like that for a minute before I freed Ferrus from the Eevee(lution) pile.
I then hugged him and noted how his weight had increased by about 12 times to roughly 140 kg, which was more than double Nyx's weight, making him the heaviest member of the Eevee Squad by far since the position had belonged to Nyx before this, though it was admittedly still pretty light comparatively considering his new typing and size. I teased him about being the heaviest member of their group, and he laughed before firing back that he did not mind the extra weight since that was due to the weight of all the awesomeness he now packed in his body. I had to admit that it was not a bad comeback and pat him on the head while telling him that he was absolutely right.
Anyway, I congratulated him on his evolution before I set him back down and allowed the Eevee Squad to crowd him again. I watched as they circled him and checked him out from top to bottom. The others joined us as well and proceeded to watch the Eevee Squad's antics with me. I allowed the Eevee Squad to mess around for a minute or two before I told them to step back and allow the other to congratulate Ferrus as well.
The Eevee Squad did make room when I asked them to, and the others, starting with Enji/Arcanine began to congratulate Ferrus on his successful evolution. While they did that, I went ahead and took a look at Ferrus' new/updated status sheet.
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