CH147 (761), Scary Thought

It was funny how things could go sometimes; Less than an hour after we left Oplain City Hades/Gengar suddenly poked his head out of my shadow and gave me a proud grin before releasing (high) gold undulations, showing that he had finally advanced. I did naturally congratulate him on his advancement, as did Mothra/Butterfree and Nyx/Umbreon, but I also told him that I hoped that he would take his training more seriously from now on. There was a reason I thought finally when he showed off his undulations.

Frankly, Hades could have easily reached this point in half the time it took him in reality. However, a mix of slight laziness, contentment from getting lucky with his breakthrough, and his insistence on sticking to my shadow whenever I was out, which resulted in a reduction of proper training time, led to him taking more than double the time he could have usually advanced provided optimal conditions. It was not that I begrudged him for taking this long. Still, I knew that if he continued to do as he had been doing so far, completing his limit breaking would take him 4 to 5 years even with everything I and Utopia supplied him with instead of the 2ish years it should take him if he was diligent.

Hades gave me a sheepish smile and nervously scratched the back of his head when I brought up that he would lag behind his friends if he continued his current style. However, he still nodded his head repeatedly while promising to be more diligent, though he jokingly added that I shouldn't expect him to suddenly train like that training machine Kimura/Hitmonform. I could not help but comment that Hades would be like that as well if he got the returns Kimura was getting from his diligent training. That boy's talent ensured that Kimura was always supremely motivated to train because he was getting incredible gains in return.

Nyx grumbled that she would love to have Kimura's cheaty talent, and I could not help but laugh when Nyx shouted "Why are you nodding, you're a cheater as well" after she noticed Mothra seriously nodding in agreement to her words. Mothra pouted at Nyx's rebuff before she cutely complained that she would have been much stronger than she was if she had Kimura's talent, which was true, though I actually thought that her move cheat was better for Mothra since it was more appropriate for her species. Mothra laughed happily when I told her as much, especially after I explained that her talent ensured that she was stronger than virtually anyone else as long as both parties were at the same stage, or close to the same stage.

Anyway, after that bit, I told Hades that I would share the good news with the others during dinner at 9 p.m. before I asked him if he wanted to eat something specific for dinner so that I could prepare it for him as a reward. He wanted a pizza with a few ghostly toppings and I did as I promised and specially prepared two XXL Ghost Pizzas for dinner; One for Hades alone, and one just in case some of the others wanted to try the pizza. I actually entered Utopia an hour earlier than I usually did for dinner to make the pizzas since I had nothing like it stored away. In the end, my decision to make 2 pizzas ended up being right since 6 curious ones wanted to try the Ghost pizza to see if it tasted good, though Shadinja and Horus ended up being the only ones who liked its taste.

There would have probably been more curious ones, but the example of the other 4 tasters who called the pizza bad and not tasty at all while grimacing scared them off. I was honestly not surprised at that development, so all I did was chuckle at their reaction. There was a reason I called it Ghost Pizza after all. Anyway, I resumed my journey the next morning, leaving straight after breakfast while my earth clone supervised everyone's training. The only difference compared to yesterday was that Hades had decided to stay back in Utopia to train with the others, but only after he got me to promise him that I would let him join us once the morning training session was over.

I kept my promise and let him join us two hours later, and Hades dove straight into my shadow after giving us a thumbs-up. He stayed there until lunch, which he ate with us before I moved him back inside Utopia for the second training session of the day. I once again let him rejoin us after the post-lunch training, and after hearing from Nyx that he had missed nothing interesting, Hades once more dove into my shadow. The rest of the day/evening passed by in the same fashion, but I did not mind that since I knew that not every day of the journey could be super exciting or result in a lucky discovery. I had no problem enjoying the ambiance of nature and the occasional wild as well as trainer battles.

Regardless, Kyoday came to a nice end, and Grouday morning saw me do our usual weekly check-up once breakfast was over. This time around, I decided to start from the bottom, which happened to be Larvitar. Squirtle came next, followed by Beldum, and it was Beldum who ended up giving me pleasant news. It appeared that Beldum had managed to complete its limit-breaking phase since the last check-up, so I told it and everyone else that we would be heading to Beldum's place for its breakthrough once I was done checking everyone. I also made an announcement over UtopiaFM that there would be a breakthrough taking place at Beldum's place in 15 to 20 minutes before I returned to doing the checkups.

Funnily enough, it did not take long before I came across some more good news, this time from our living fossil, though it was nothing as grand as a breakthrough. Still, only slightly more than 4 months had passed since his resurrection/restoration and Anorith was already at the cusp of advancing; As long as any of his parameters rose by a grade, Anortih would advance to the (mid) bronze stage. When I saw Anorith for the first time, I had expected this to take a bit longer, but he had proven to be a diligent water bug, so he had definitely earned the praise he received from me in return.

Moving on, there were no further surprises after that, so after going through both the main and reserve teams, I led everyone toward Beldum's place where those interested in witnessing the breakthrough had already gathered. I directly told everyone to form a circle while Beldum, Fortuna/Togekiss, and I moved to the middle of the forming circle. The two of us wished Beldum all the best and I hugged the head part of its steel body before we joined the others. Once everyone was in position, I gave Beldum the go-ahead, and it initiated its breakthrough.

Beldum shimmered a bit during its breakthrough, and the process took slightly longer than a usual breakthrough to the bronze stage normally did, but the difference was not too big, so I was unsure what had caused those minor extras, especially since Beldum's potential was not rising to the aurora grade which I would have usually blamed for minor differences like these. Either way, once the breakthrough was complete, and (mid) bronze stage undulation began to spread, I made my way over to Beldum's side to congratulate him along with an excited Squirtle who was too eager to wait for me to finish first.

We congratulated Beldum on successfully taking the next step, and from the way its eyes reacted Beldum was very happy to hear those words. The others joined in as well and I saw Beldum's eye-smile throughout the whole thing as I checked his new/updated status sheet.

'Name: N/A

Species: Beldum

Gender: Neutral

Age: 3+ Years  

-

Type: Steel, Psychic

Potential: Deep Purple (61.18%)*

{Light Purple (99.81%) -> Purple (1.18%) -> Deep Purple (61.18%)}'

It was very nice to see Beldum's potential as Deep Purple, especially the 61% part since there was a very good chance that I would be able to help Beldum fill that bit in during its evolution to Metang as long as the potential of the Beldum I found for the fusion-evolution was not much worse than ours. It was time to inform Professor Oak that I was looking for a partner Beldum for mine so that I could keep an eye/ear out for me if he didn't mind, though I would only actively start looking for one once our Beldum advanced to the (high) bronze stage. I just saw no reason to truly focus on the matter before Bedlum reached the optimal evolution point all apex species shared.

Anyway, I continued looking through the rest of the status sheet, and it didn't take long for me to come across what I believed to be the reason for the little extras during Beldum's breakthrough.

'Talents: Reflective Surface*'

Beldum had unlocked a talent, and from its description, there was no doubt that this talent was derived from Beldum's Clear Body ability. It was practically an extension of said ability which essentially turned the two into a mirror of Corviknight's Mirror Armor ability. Clear Body prevented anyone/anything from lowering its parameters, and Reflective Surface reflected the energy used in that attempt back to its source, which was what Mirror Armor did. Knowing all that, there was no doubt that Reflective Surface was a complementary talent instead of a stand-alone one, though that did not change the fact that it was a pretty good talent.

Moving on, the next change was the obvious one in the parameter section.

'Parameters:

Stage: Bronze Stage (Mid)*

Vitality: F

Strength: E

Endurance: D

Agility: F

Energy Capacity: F

Energy Density: E'

Following that, there were no further changes caused by Beldum's breakthrough. Hence, I shared what I had seen with the others before promising Beldum to hold a celebration for it after dinner.

'Masteries: 

Steel Energy Manipulation (Proficient)

Psychic/Psionic Energy Manipulation (Beginner)

----

Techniques: 

-

Proficient: 

Iron Head (new), Headbutt (new), Zen Headbutt (new)

-

Advanced:

Iron Defense (+)

-

Mastered:

Tackle (+)'

I told Beldum to think of what it wanted until dinner and share it with me while we ate; I would change the celebration accordingly. After settling that, I told everyone that they could skip the morning training and hang out before I left Utopia with Mothra and Nyx. We continued traveling until 6 p.m. instead of 9 p.m. before returning to Utopia since I decided to use our usual dinner time instead of the travel dinner time due to Beldum's celebration. During dinner, Beldum told me that he wanted to watch the Matrix trilogy since it remembered the story I told them about machines taking over the world.

I only had to slightly edit the narrative to include Pokemon acting as batteries as well, and them being forced to live as simple animals in the virtual world since they were unable to get stronger, captive as they were, which kept them from becoming sapient. That they were easier to control that way was also a factor. Honestly, it was an easy edit for me and had a minimal impact on the overall plot since the people inside the Matrix did not even know about the existence of Pokemon, and the only Pokemon playing a role was the Porygon that went rouge and started the whole machine apocalypse, though after alluding to it being a Porygon it simply got referred to as artificial intelligence/AI.

Frankly, seeing how Porygon were digital Pokemon, and how Porygon-Z, at least the one in canon, was considered a buggy Pokemon (evolution) it was not too outlandish to think that one of those could malfunction or go off the deep end and start a plan for world domination. While that would not work in a dimension/world with Pokemon of the strength present in our universe, I could imagine one actually succeeding in a universe closer to the games in power scaling. PoryUltron was a scary thought, so I pushed it aside and focused on enjoying the Matrix Trilogy (Pokemon Edit) with my Pokemon.

---------------------

---------------------

This part is purely to display Beldum's status screens in one piece and does not count toward the word count.

'Name: N/A

Species: Beldum

Gender: Neutral

Age: 3+ Years  

-

Type: Steel, Psychic

Potential: Deep Purple (61.18%)

Modifier: Ability-Variant

Abilities: Clear Body, Heavy Metal

Talents: Reflective Surface

Affinities: Steel, Psychic

-

Bond: Mikail (Weak)

Quirks: None

----

Parameters:

Stage: Bronze Stage (Mid)

Vitality: F

Strength: E

Endurance: D

Agility: F

Energy Capacity: F

Energy Density: E

----

Immunity:

Poison

-

Resistance: 

Psychic (Major), Normal (Minor), Grass (Minor), Ice (Minor), Flying (Minor), Rock (Minor), Dragon (Minor), Steel (Minor), Fairy (Minor)

-

Weaknesses: 

Fire (Minor), Ground (Minor), Ghost (Minor), Dark (Minor)

-

Standardized:

N/A

-

Resistance Training:

N/A

----

Condition: Healthy, Pleased

----

Masteries: 

Steel Energy Manipulation (Proficient)

Psychic/Psionic Energy Manipulation (Beginner)

----

Techniques: 

-

(Unofficial) Initial:

N/A

-

Novice:

None

-

Beginner:

None

-

Proficient: 

Take Down, Iron Head, Headbutt, Zen Headbutt

-

Advanced:

Iron Defense

-

Mastered:

Tackle'

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