CH57 (118), Cubone

I spent Dialday doing my own training and the weekend was spent with my parents. Training went alright, but I was thinking about changing to 2 days instead of just one because one felt a bit insufficient since I had to divide it between my psychic and aura training. I'd think about it once I was done with the cave I was currently exploring.

As for the time spent with my parents, we had a good time like always. We watched some TV, played some games, did some puzzles, listened to some stories, and ate some nice food. Just things one could do with the family that would entertain everyone.

Naturally, we spent some time with mine and their Pokemon as well, and get this I noticed that the potential of Sunny, my mother's Gloom, had finally improved to yellow. I didn't tell anyone about it, since it was not that much of a change star-wise, but it was still better than nothing.

That wasn't the most notable event though, no, that honor went to Azure's evolution to Kingdra on Grouday. My father had managed to buy a C-class Dragon Scale that came from a gold-stage Kingdra, which I was unfortunately unable to replicate or reproduce because its class was too high.

An important point to mention is that not every dragon scale counts as a Dragon Scale. For that to happen it needs to contain some essence in addition to draconic energy. Regular dragon scales only retain some draconic energy and can be from any part of the body.

Dragon Scales are always from the breast area and need a long, long time to form naturally since they have to absorb and retain some of the dragon's essence as well.

My father also got some blood from a dark gold stage Kingdra, along with some supporting E- and D-class materials. Some of them got treated and mixed with the blood, while others were used as they were.

Once everything was ready, he held the Dragon Scale against Seadra's chest and Seadra began to evolve. After it was over and while everyone was congratulating the freshly evolved Kingdra I checked his potential. Unfortunately, it did not increase, but I was sure that it was not too far off from happening.

On Arcday and Mewday I explored some more passages in the cave, but nothing notable was found or happened. Today I was inside the cave as well and the tunnel I was currently walking in seemed to head a bit downwards.

A few minutes later we arrived at a dead end. As soon as we saw that there was only a wall in front of us I heard Nyx grumbling both vocally as well as mentally over the telepathic link that we kept active as a form of training and because it makes understanding what they are saying easier for me.

'Another dead end. Why do there have to be so many dead-ends? This is the 4th time we ran into a dead-end today alone.' She grumbled and I had to smile.

She was disappointed because we noticed that rooms no matter how small contained some interesting or useful stuff. Most of the time it was things I already had, but at least there was stuff to see.

Dead ends on the other hand were nearly always devoid of anything interesting, which was why she began to dislike dead ends. Honestly, the rest of us were not thrilled by them either, but she was the most vocal among us.

I crouched down and scratched her behind her ear, causing her tail to wag behind her. It also stopped her grumbling, while she enjoyed my masterful ministrations. I felt Teddi's envious stare, so I waved him over and scratched his head with the other hand as well.

There was a reason why they liked getting scratched and caressed by me so much. I used some of the knowledge about massages from the grooming branch to help them relax and feel good. While I could only count as a beginner apprentice Groomer, it was enough for some neat massage tricks.

On a side note, the Groomer profession was much more extensive than I had previously thought possible. It was no wonder there were so many specializations for it.

Once I was done with calming Nyx I stopped caressing both, which made them release a disappointed whine. I stood up and we returned to the fork from which we entered the current passage. There I added a C beside the X I had carved on the passage entrance.

Since that one had been the last path at this fork, I backtracked to the fork before this one and added a C to the entrance of this branching point as well. Immediately after I went to the passage I had yet to enter and carved an X on the wall before I entered it.

Just a few minutes later Nyx bound a bit ahead, moments later I saw her curiously observing a Cubone that was keeping an eye on her as well, but it was alert and cautious instead of excited.

I could totally understand its reaction, I would be cautious as well if a foreign Pokemon suddenly ran up to me, and was eyeing me curiously. Still, this was the first time I saw a wild Cubone. Cubone were actually quite an interesting species, at least for me, because of the Pokedex entry it had in my previous life.

According to that entry, the skull on Cubone's head was the head of its deceased mother. If it really had been like that then every time a Marowak or Cubone laid an egg it would have to die afterward, which is obviously illogical.

This had been one of the topics I had been most curious about, so I checked up on my knowledge sea to see if it was mentioned in there, but it was not among the knowledge on Cubone I had access to, so I tried to see if I could find it somewhere else, but I had no such luck.

Apparently, myths and origins of specific species were not among the knowledge I had asked for. Still, being genuinely curious, I looked if there was any information in books on myths or origins we had at home or online.

Surprisingly I found a few mentions in history books and school books. It was none other than Professor Oak that studied the topic and found the generally accepted answer. I had to look up some more info on the internet to get a more complete picture, but the whole thing was really interesting so I had fun while doing my research.

After Oak noted the visible resemblance between Cubone and Charmander he began an in-depth research and concluded that sometime in the distant past the Cubone-line had to have split off from the Charmander-line through an event that happened to a variant.

Cubone's general resemblance to Charmander and the similarity between the skull it wore and the skull of a Charizard supported that conclusion as well. However, after being unable to find an exact answer on how or why it happened he delved into myths on the origin of the species.

That was where he came across the myth that the skull on Cubone's head was from his mother, which apparently existed on Terra as well. Wanting to find the truth, he decided to leave the human territory to find larger Cubone/Marowak tribes to see if they had any stories about their origins.

After multiple trips where he visited many tribes and talked with the elders as well as leaders, he learned that the story with the skull had some truth in it, but none had a concrete idea of the true origin.

On his last trip, however, he got wind of some hearsay on a Cubone kingdom deeper into the continent that was supposedly the oldest Cubone tribe on the continent. Professor Oak asked around and managed to get some rough directions that he followed, which after months of searching led him to the aforementioned tribe/kingdom.

There he not only learned the most credible origin myth but he also discovered that Marowak had another evolution but more on that later. Oak entered the kingdom and revealed the purpose of his visit, thanks to the great strength of his Pokemon he was able to safely enter into a dialogue with the elders and the leader of the tribe.

From them, he learned that this tribe was so old that it was said that the founder of the tribe was the very first Marowak. According to their lore, the very first Marowak was born as a male ground-type Charmander-variant to two regular Charizard.

The father did not want to accept the newborn Charmander and supposedly even tried to kill him, but the mother Charizard did not allow something like that, opting to protect her hatchling instead.

Apparently, the mother Charizard and father Charizard got into a bad fight, which ended with the mother driving off the father. However, she got badly injured as a result of the fight and shortly after succumbed to her injuries.

If she really got hurt that badly during the fight with the father or if she got ambushed afterward by another party is unclear, but the hatchling blamed the father.

Sad by the loss of his mother he mourned her death and stayed by her side until only her skeleton remained. He then buried her skeleton except for her skull which he wore like a helmet to have something to remember her by as well as to cover his head since he subconsciously resented his father and by association the Charmander-line.

According to their lore, the Charmander variant then left their home and went outside to get stronger. It fought battles, survived, and got stronger. Their lore said that he was stronger than regular Charmander because he drew some strength from his mother's skull.

By the time he evolved, he didn't turn into a Charmeleon variant but fused the skull of his mother, which he had been drawing strength from, with his head becoming the first Marowak.

Since Marowak fused with the skull of a Charizard his new form turned out to be a stronger species than Charmeleon. That Marowak looked less like a Charmeleon was a nice bonus for him.

Now comes the highlight, after his evolution was over he was apparently visited by Mew because he was the first of his kind. Mew then created a female Marowak to be his mate, so that they had the chance to propagate the new species.

Once the pair of Marowak had their first egg and it hatched, their hatchling turned out to be a Cubone instead of a ground-type Charmander-variant signifying their split from the species. They had a lot of children and managed to stay safe, which lead to the successful propagation of their species.

Anyway, the first Marowak eventually died and someone else took the leadership role of the tribe. Years passed, the tribe grew and leaders changed. Now, up until then the Cubone-line despite originating from the Charmander-line only had one evolution instead of two.

Or so they thought because no one evolved further than Marowak. Yet, at one point one of the Marowak that became the tribe leader actually managed to evolve a second time. He turned into Skellibra, a ground/dragon type that was in fact stronger as a species than Charizard.

Through certain non-violent means that do not get elaborated on Professor Oak learned that a Marowak needed to not only reach a certain strength before it could evolve, but also overcome the resentment towards their origin that had been ingrained into their genes by their progenitor. Once both conditions were met Marowak would evolve into Skellibra.

Since the second condition was quite vague not many could actually fulfill it, but at the time Oak visited the tribe he had seen at least 20 of them. However, he said that he was sure there were more than that.

Nonetheless, compared to the number of Marowak that was a tiny number. After he learned the truth of the matter, he returned to Kanto to document what he had learned.

Immediately afterward he visited Alola to analyze the alternative evolution Cubone seemed to undergo there and what he learned supported everything he had researched before.

It seemed that during the evolution process something on Alola caused the Cubone to synchronize with the resentment of its progenitor and access some part of its genes it gained from him and in return also the Charmander-line, resulting in a fire/ghost type Marowak.

Fire because of the connection to the Charmander-line and ghost because of the synchronization with the progenitor's resentment. Professor Oak also concluded that the Alolan Marowak was unable to evolve again because it synchronized with the resentment instead of overcoming it, which permanently closed the door to evolution for it.

After he published his research Cubone and Marowak became more popular for a time, but it was pretty hard to fulfill the vague second requirement which meant not many managed to actually evolve their Marowak.

Consequently, Cubone's popularity reduced again until it was at nearly its previous level. Still, there were trainers with Skellibra in Kanto but they were really, really rare, there were only a handful overall if I was not wrong.

As for its looks, Skellibra kept the color scheme of Marowak. It more than doubled in size and broke free from its skull face. The libra part signified it overcoming the progenitor's resentment and this was physically shown by it breaking free from the skull and gaining a draconic head.

It looked like the mix of a Dragonite head as well as a Charizard head minus the antenna and two horns, those combined into a single one. The mixing of the two head shapes resulted in a head that was less round than a Dragonite one but not as rectangular as a Charizard one.

Its hands had three claws just like its feet. The other notable point was that its tails gained two spikes. As for the skull, after it broke free from it, the skull didn't vanish. No, Skellibra kept it as a shield, while using the bone it had, which turned pointed, as a weapon.

Well, I digressed pretty badly, but what all this research on resulted in was that I definitely planned to add one to my party, particularly after finding out about Skellibra, which was something I would have never done before all that research.

I focused back on what was happening around me. Thankfully, Nyx and Teddi had managed to calm down and engage the Cubone in a conversation, while I went off into my own world thinking about the origin story of its species.

I checked its potential, which was followed by me creating plans for his "voluntarily" capture.

'Species: Cubone

Gender: Male

Type: Ground

Potential: Deep Green

Stage: Iron-stage (high)

Genetic variation: None

Abilities: Rock Head, Lighting Rod

Talents: None

Affinities: Ground'

The easiest one was asking Nyx as well as Teddiursa to persuade and tempt Cubone into joining me. I directly contacted them per telepathy and told them my request. They did as I asked them to and managed to get Cubone interested enough that he accepted to be captured by me if I managed to beat him in a battle.

I obviously agreed and used Nyx to softly kick his ass since I already saw him as a new team member. After handily handing him his ass I caught him using a CommonBall since I had yet to unlock the next batch of Pokeballs which included the GroundBall.

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