CH27 (391), Opening The Flood Gates

Once the light show died down, the cute little Pancham was gone, and a big, much less cute panda-looking Pangoro took his place. Pangoro was certainly enjoying his new height and he was checking out his new looks.

He had already known how he would look after his evolution, but as I liked to say, knowing something and experiencing something firsthand are not the same.

As for how I knew that he was enjoying his new look? Well, it was hard not to notice that when he asked Buneary, Mienfoo, Togepi, and the others how they managed to shrink without him noticing anything before he broke out in laughter, showing that he was just teasing them.

The other younglings simply ignored his antics and rushed up to him to check him out even before I could go up. Buneary and Mienfoo climbed onto Pangoro's shoulders and sat down, and even Togepi asked Tyrogue to carry her up and place her on top of his head, but before Tyrogue could do that, Saphira/Swablu decided to land there.

Togepi pouted when Saphira did that, but I simply grabbed her and placed her atop Saphira after asking her for permission. Togepi enjoyed her new seat quite a bit and laughed happily.

Anyway, ignoring the antics of the little ones, I congratulated Pangoro and checked his new/updated status screen.

'Name: None

Species: Pangoro*

Gender: Male

Age: 6+ years

-

Type: Fighting, Dark*

Potential: Purple (68.99%) -> (82.83%)

(Genetic) Modifiers: None

Abilities: Iron Fist, Mold Breaker

Talents: Convert*

Affinities: Fighting, Dark

-

Bond: Mikail (weak)

Quirks: Mischievous (benign)*

----

Parameters:

Stage: Bronze Stage (high)

Vitality: B -> A

Strength: A

Endurance: B

Agility: C -> B

Energy Capacity: C -> B

Energy Density: C -> B

----

Immunity:

Psychic

-

Resistance:

Dark (Major), Rock (Minor), Ghost (Minor)

-

Weaknesses:

Fairy (Major), Fighting (Minor), Flying (Minor)

-

Standardized:

None

----

Condition: Healthy, Elated, Curious

----

Masteries:

Fighting Energy Manipulation (Proficient)

Dark Energy Manipulation (Beginner) -> (Proficient)

----

Techniques:

-

(Unofficial) Initial:

None

-

Novice:

Parting Shot, Entrainment, Thunder Punch (new, +), Fire Punch (new, +), Ice Punch (new, +), Bullet Punch*, Night Slash*

-

Beginner:

Work Up, Slash, Vital Throw, Body Slam, Hammer Arm (new, +), Mega Punch (new, +), Drain Punch (new, +)

-

Proficient:

Leer, Tackle, Taunt, Karate Chop, Low Kick, Bulk Up, Circle Throw, Low Sweep, Payback, Sky Uppercut (++), Crunch (+)

-

Advanced:

Arm Trust, Comet Punch (+)

-

Mastered:

N/A'

Well, now, after his evolution, we could probably start thinking of a name for him, but maybe he would like to wait until he began limit breaking. I would certainly bring it up later on.

Regardless, his new species was proudly displayed, and we celebrated his 6th birthday two months ago, so that was also old news. He had finally received the dark typing, but that was something that happened naturally to all Pangoro. Still, it did not change the fact that he now had the typing to match his full dark affinity.

The bonus Pangoro gained to his potential during the evolution was not that big, a bit shy of 14%, but I had predicted as much beforehand since Pangoro already had purple potential. Besides, I did not have as much time to prepare for his evolution as I had for some of the others, which was years, by the way, so I did a pretty great job regardless.

The only way he could have maybe gotten a significant potential boost even with his current potential was if I had somehow managed to find the perfect complement/material for him, but finding those was not easy since they changed even among members of the same species, so finding them came down to luck.

At least, it was not among the stuff I prepared for Pancham/Pangoro's evolution. In fact, the only time I witnessed an evolution with a perfectly matched component/supplement was when mom's Staryu evolved using the core I bought.

*le sigh*

To think my one lucky purchase went to Star, who took the longest out of my parent's Pokemon to warm up to me. Anyway, moving on, Pangoro did not unlock any modifiers/variations, but I did not expect him to do so, since his evolution did not drag out as it usually did when one of those was involved.

Still, he did unlock his talent, which I let happen since there was no reason to hold it back during his evolution, and I had to admit the talent did take me by surprise at first, even if it was for the wrong reasons.

Honestly, the first thing that came to my mind when I read Convert, was if Pangoro was going to turn into a monk, priest, or preacher, praising Mew or Arceus, or whoever else among the legendaries to anyone who would listen in hopes of converting them.

No idea why I thought of that first, especially since religion as far as I had witnessed so far was a pretty lax thing in this world. Oh, people believed in the legendaries as deities, pretty hard not to when there was proof of their existence as well as feats.

However, no one forced anyone to do anything they didn't want to, and no one cared whom you focused your belief on, or even if you chose to not care about religion per se even after knowing deities existed, as long as you did not go around harming others or committing any crimes in the name of religion, or the other extreme, to get rid of religion.

From what I learned, the last cult that tried to do the first vanished nearly two centuries ago, and the last group that tried to do the latter vanished a few decades after that.

Unsurprisingly, both groups appeared in the same region, namely Sinnoh, and it was even less surprising that the second group appeared as a result of the first.

The victims of the first group spread their hate and within a few decades, their actions resulted in the formation of another radical group. After those two events, the alliance made sure to adjust its policies to ensure that something like that did not repeat itself, and seeing how no other such groups had sprung forth on either side during the last century, they seem to have succeeded.

Thank Mew for that since that meant that I would not have to deal with any religious or anti-religious nutjobs. Still, I had to say, the history section concerning religion and their opposition was surprisingly interesting. There were books on full-blown wars between religious and non-religious groups, or between groups focusing on different legendaries/deities.

Thankfully, there was no mention of any legendary involvement in those conflicts since that would have not been pretty for anyone considering how powerful the legendaries were supposed to be.

Everyone was lucky that the legendaries seemed to be content with ignoring any religious squabbles between factions. Though I did find texts that said that some legends did intervene.

However, they did that to stop the conflict and not to participate. As I said the topic of holy wars and crusades against religion(s) was pretty interesting. Nonetheless, I got quite sidetracked, so let's focus back on Pangoro's new talent.

Pangoro's Convert had nothing to do with religion but rather allowed Pangoro to turn some of his moves from physical ones to energy/special ones. I said some since apparently moves like Tackle, Bodyslam, or Crunch could not be converted, but others such as the elemental punches, or Hammer Arm and Arm Thurst could.

In fact, all moves that fell under Iron Fist could be converted. Moreover, they retained the bonus they received from Iron Fist even after being shot/send out. Still, I had to admit that I was really grateful that Convert was an active talent, that required him to voluntarily activate it since Pangoro's energy parameters were inherently weaker than his physical ones.

Nonetheless, Convert gave Pangoro the option to deal with his long-range weakness, so it was a great talent. Besides, reading the effect of Convert and thinking about the fact that Pangoro resembled a Panda, I could not help but think that the name Po would fit him quite well.

He could now shoot out energy attacks using physical moves, so Dragon Warrior Po or Iron Fist Po since he had an ability with the same name just seemed to fit. Po would definitely be one of the names I was going to recommend Pangoro.

Moving on, his mischievousness had already been cleared, and his parameters had shown good progress since he joined more than ten months ago. I was confident that he would start limit-breaking after a few more months.

It was his type relations that saw the biggest change with the official addition of the dark type, with his new immunity towards the psychic type being the biggest change.

Pangoro's move section actually received two newcomers through his evolution. He managed to gain both Bullet Punch and Night Slash upon evolving, which was, as far as I was aware, extremely rare.

Most of the time, a Pangoro learned either Bullet Punch or Night Slash, and some even learned no moves at all, but the last one was rather uncommon as well. Still, I was obviously happy with the new additions, especially since both fell under the effect of Convert.

I was quite happy with what I had seen in his status so I immediately announced the start of Pangoro's evolution party, causing everyone to cheer. The following two days following Pangoro's evolution and subsequent celebration were rather calm but on the third day after Pangoro's evolution, Gwen/Gardevoir reached the (mid) gold stage.

Everyone was naturally happy with her success and she beamed when I praised her, using her accomplishment to motivate the others, especially the Slythering Six, who were all really close to completing their limit-breaking.

Well, it seemed as if I managed to succeed since Ryujin/Gyarados managed to raise his last parameter to SSS just two days later, officially completing his limit breaking, which meant that it was finally time for him to break through to the gold stage, becoming the second to do so among the Slythering Six, with Stan/Gyarados obviously being the first.

I retreated to my room and entered Utopia as soon as I could when Ryujin told me that he got a feeling of wholeness. A quick check confirmed that he had in fact raised his last parameters to SSS, consequently finishing the whole set, which was why he managed to touch upon that feeling of completeness.

Anyway, once I had my confirmation I gave him the good news and began calling everyone over so that they could witness his breakthrough. After the last one arrived, I gave Ryujin the signal and he began breaking through to the gold stage.

He began attracting the energy around him, and when he began glowing, I knew that his breakthrough had triggered something, even if I did not know what. So, when his breakthrough exceeded the usual time I was not surprised.

However, that quickly changed close to a minute later, when a domineering aura broke out just as Ryujin's breakthrough was complete. It was not Ryujin's Intimidate, but something different, something stronger, and whatever it was, he definitely had no control of it, at least not right now.

I knew that because the aura he was releasing was spreading indiscriminately, and it was affecting the little ones, so I began releasing my aura to shield the ones beside me, while Mothra/Butterfree, Horus/Xatu, and the others did the same. We all did it the moment we noticed the others being affected, so nothing happened to any of the younger/weaker Pokemon besides the initial scare.

Thankfully, it took Ryujin less than half a minute to gain control as well as retract the aura he unconsciously released, and we stopped releasing ours as well at the same moment. Ryujin threw everyone an apologetic look, and he did apologize for losing control like that but I as well as everyone else assured him that it was not his fault.

All of us were aware that what happened was out of his control, so no one minded what happened, and congratulated him on his successful breakthrough instead. Mothra was especially enthusiastic and she managed to cheer him up through her behavior quite swiftly.

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