CH44 (658), Ferreon

'Name: Ferrus

Species: Ferreon*

Gender: Male

Age: 6+ years

-

Type: Steel*'

Well, Ferrus was now one of the few Ferreon in the world. That would naturally change in the future as more Eevee evolved. However, it has been only a bit more than a year since we created Ferrum, so the total number of Ferreon within the entirety of the human territories probably has not even reached 5 digits yet. The last time I checked less than 9 thousand Ferrums had been sold, so the number of Ferreon had to be below that, though admittedly that was around 8 months ago. Some might think that a few thousand Ferreon was not a low number, but if we compared it to the number of the other Eeveelutions that existed, which was probably in the high millions at the very least, then that perception of theirs would probably change.

Those numbers would not drastically increase all of a sudden since we knew of no natural way for an Eevee to evolve to Ferreon, which meant that wild Eevee did not have the opportunity to evolve to Ferreon as far as we knew unless a natural substitute for Ferrum somehow suddenly popped up somewhere. I would not say that it was impossible for that to happen, but it was unlikely, so the growth of Ferreon numbers relied on trainers buying our Ferrum to help their Eevee evolve.

Despite that, I still expected the number of Ferreon to grow to a hundred thousand or so within a mere decade or two simply because Ferreon was a pretty great Pokemon and Eeveelution. Granted all Eeveelutions were pretty good Pokemon, but Ferreon was among the better ones within the Eeveelution group. It was already common knowledge that all Eeveelution shared the same total racial value (BS), and that they all had the same set of 6 values that were simply distributed differently among the 6 parameters.

While Umbreon was arguably the best tank among the Eeveelutions, Ferreon was without a doubt the best suited for close combat among the group. The three highest values of Ferreon went to Hp/Vitality, Atk/Strength, and Def/Endurance with vitality being the lowest of the three and endurance being the highest. Those combined with the species' type relation chart due to its steel typing along with its abilities made it a great close combatant. I mean, let's look at Ferrus' abilities first.

'Abilities: Steelworker*, Motor Drive*'

Steelworker was pretty much a steel-type specific Adaptability, at least effect-wise, since it increased the power of steel moves by 50%. With Ferreon being a steel type that raised the power of his steel type moves to more than double the standard, and with most steel type moves being physical ones, which was right up Ferreon's alley, it was safe to say that I was quite happy with the ability.

Sure, better abilities existed, but Steelworker fit Ferreon quite well, though, in my opinion, it was the next ability that was the hidden gem. Motor Drive not only granted Ferrus/Ferreon an immunity to electric energy but also increased his speed if hit by electric energy. Having an immunity to a certain type was always nice, but it was the second part that gave Ferreon a good way to cover the species slower, or more like average speed without having to use speed-boosting moves.

While Motor Drive usually depended on the opponent using electric moves, hence limiting its greatness factor, it could be quite useful outside of one-on-one battles, raising its greatness factor back up. One of my other Pokemon could either directly target Ferrus with an electric attack to boost his speed, or simply use an AOE move like Discharge or Shock Wave to activate the effect of Motor Drive.

Anyway, with his new abilities out of the way, I looked at the second reason I thought that Ferreon was a great Eeveelution. Ferrus' type relation section had undergone a massive change, and I certainly believed that it was a positive one. He might have lost his immunity to ghost-type energy, but he gained two immunities in return, though one of them was due to Motor Drive and not his steel typing.

'Immunity:

Poison, Electric {Ghost removed}

-

Resistance:

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

-

Weaknesses:

Fighting (Minor), Fire (Minor)*, Ground (Minor)*

-

Standardized:

Fighting (in progress)'

In fact, even the two immunities seemed to pale a bit compared to the sheer number of resistances Ferrus gained as a Ferreon. Going from 0 resistances to 10 minor ones was incredible and seemed a bit absurd. The two minor weaknesses he gained along with the 10 minor resistances were a minor trade-off that I would accept on any day, especially since it was easier to get rid of a minor weakness than it was to gain a minor resistance.

The only thing that could have made this whole change better would have been if the standardization of his fighting-type weakness had been wrapped up as well. Unfortunately, that did not happen, so Ferrus would have to keep working on that on his own.

Still, I ended up skipping all across the status sheet due to praising the Eeveelution I helped discover and actually ended up ignoring the section I usually cared about a lot. Well, it was actually impossible to not "see" it while my attention was jumping all around, but I ignored it in favor of the other sections.

'Potential: Deep Purple (31.66%)*

{Purple (72.81%) -> Deep Purple (31.66%)}'

I had been expecting Ferrus' potential to rise to deep purple since the missing portion was not big enough not to. However, focusing on the change in his potential I had to admit that the supplements had granted Ferrus a pretty good increase, and while the increase might not be as high as the 70ish% that Borr had gotten, it was still more than what one could usually expect at 59ish%. This definitely was something to be happy about and the others agreed with me.

Now that I had checked his potential, I also looked at the other sections I ignored so far, and the first one that contained an actual change was the addition of the steel type affinity that came with his new typing.

'Affinities: Normal, Steel*'

I continued to look through the rest of the status sheet and I had to wait until the final two sections for some more changes that I had not already looked at. The addition of the steel energy manipulation was a matter of course, and thanks to his advanced mastery over Iron Tail, it actually began at beginner mastery instead of the novice grade.

'Masteries:

Normal E. Manipulation (Advanced)

Steel E. Manipulation (Beginner)*

----

Techniques:

-

Novice:

Metal Claw (new)

-

Proficient:

Star Shield (C, +), Stored Power (+)

-

Combos/Custom:

Star Shield (Proficient)'

The complimentary new move that came with the evolution was certainly welcome as well. Metal Claw was a decent move and thanks to Steelworker it got a petty good power boost as well.

Anyway, usually I would say that it was time to celebrate his evolution now that I had gone through his status sheet, but we had just finished breakfast, and starting a party now was way too soon. I told Ferrus as much before I informed him that we would hold his party an hour or so before dinner instead. That way we could party for the rest of the evening and I could still do other stuff during the day.

The question was what I should do with the time until the party. I allowed those below the gold stage to have a shot at the Battle Club yesterday since they would not be able to take part in the Gym Challenge tomorrow. The same was true for the gold stage members of our team as well, but just because I would be getting my Gym Badge tomorrow did not mean that I had to finish the Battle Club challenges today.

I could just as well go to the Battle Club on Palkiday since finishing the Gym Challenge did not mean that I had to leave Lilycove City straight away. Battle Club issue aside, I had still not visited the Water Club, the Sea Ranger HQ, or the Psychic House, and I was definitely planning to do so before I moved on from Lilycove City. I also still had to check out the spots I learned about at the Fisher's Club along with the ones I was hopefully going to learn about at the Sea Ranger HQ.

All in all, I was predicting that I would be staying in Lilycove City until at least the end of the week, if not a few days beyond that, so pushing part off the golden battles or even the whole thing to another day was not a problem, which was good since I did not believe that I would be able to allow everyone to battle within the next 8ish hours even if I tried to. At least not without changing the "battle until knocked-out" approach.

I ultimately decided to still visit the Battle Club but only for a few hours, likely until lunch, and then after lunch, head to the Sea Ranger HQ to check it out. Decision made, I allowed Utopia to finally proceed with the habitat adjustment, which changed part of EeveeLand to a steel energy-rich region before I left Utopia and headed to the Battle Club. There I first headed to the counter to register all my gold-stage Pokemon before taking a seat in the lobby to wait for my first battle.

I did not have to wait for long before I heard the announcement that I and some Knight Commander called Cain had to head to hall 7 for our battle. I made it there moments after my opponent, and once the whole foreplay was done with, I released Optimus/Butterfree. He ended up facing an Absol that just like Optimus was at the (high) gold stage, though he might as well have been a sub-stage above Absol since he was just about done with his second round of limit-breaking.

Absol did its best, but Optimus used his air superiority and Bug Buzz as well as Signal Beam to take it out with relative ease. He did not even resort to his many powder moves to finish the battle, because he knew that it would have made the battle much easier and he wanted the chance to enjoy the battle. Nonetheless, the next battle showed that this did not stop him from using them if he had to do so to win.

The Scyther Optimus had to face after Absol was nowhere near as bothered by his bug moves, and it could follow him into the air as well, so Optimus went ahead and began to flood the battlefield with his powder moves. Scyther tried to stem the flood using its wings and even by spinning really fast, but Optimus kept going until Scyther eventually failed to stop the powder moves and fell to the ground paralyzed shortly before falling asleep.

Optimus once again refrained from using his powder moves against his third opponent, which was a Swalot, though this time it was due to Swalot's physiology rather than wanting to make the fight more interesting. The battle took a bit longer than the previous two due to Swalot using Stockpile and Swallow to recover whenever it was low on health. It kept trying to poison Optimus throughout the battle and even attempted to use Yawn on him once or twice.

The fact that this was its focus right up until Optimus managed to take it down, made it abundantly clear that Swalot's usual strategy was to poison its opponent and outlast them, or force them to sleep and then presumably either poison them or take them out with Spit Up. It honestly was not a bad strategy and I could see Swalot take down a lot of Pokemon relying on it. Unfortunately for them that did not include us.

Anyway, I thanked Cain for the fight and made my way back to the lobby for my next battle. This time I was planning to lead with Prime/Beedrill and just like with Optimus, I was expecting Prime to win 3 to 0 as well.

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

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

This part is purely to display Ferrus' status screen in one piece and does not count toward the word count.

'Name: Ferrus

Species: Ferreon

Gender: Male

Age: 6+ years

-

Type: Steel

Potential: Deep Purple (31.66%)

Modifiers: None

Abilities: Steelworker, Motor Drive

Talents: None

Affinities: Normal, Steel

-

Bond: Mikail (strong)

Quirk: None

----

Parameters:

Stage: Silver Stage (high)

Vitality: C

Strength: C

Endurance: D

Agility: C

Energy Capacity: D

Energy Density: C

----

Immunity:

Poison, Electric

-

Resistance:

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

-

Weaknesses:

Fighting (Minor), Fire (Minor), Ground (Minor)

-

Standardized:

Fighting (in progress)

----

Condition: Healthy, Happy, Excited, Pleased

----

Masteries:

Normal E. Manipulation (Advanced)

Steel E. Manipulation (Beginner)

----

Techniques:

-

(Unofficial) Initial:

N/A

-

Novice:

Metal Claw

-

Beginner:

Baby Doll Eyes, Charm, Last Resort, Mimic, Trump Card

-

Proficient:

Growl, Helping Hand, Tackle, Tail Whip, Sand Attack, Refresh, Bite, Baton Pass, Calm Mind, Dig, Rest, Protect, Endure, Shadow Ball, Hyper Voice, Take Down, Double Edge, Star Shield (C), Stored Power

-

Advanced:

Copycat, Iron Tail, Body Slam, Quick Attack, Double Kick, Work Up, Swift

-

Mastered:

None

-

Combos/Custom:

Star Shield (Proficient)'

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