CH33 (94), S**t, I Nerfed Meruem

After I woke up this morning I took my Growlithe Egg out of my space just as I had been doing every morning before breakfast. I always put it inside before sleeping, so that it could get the bonus provided by the breeding area that was created for it.

Then after waking up I would take it out, so that my parents could check up on it while I was out exploring. This time I decided to check its status to see if anything had changed.

'Species: Growlithe

Gender: Male

Type: Fire

Potential: Deep Green

Stage: None, PokeEgg

Genetic variation: None

Abilities: Intimidate, Flash Fire

Talents: None

Affinities: Fire'

Nope, nothing had changed after all, but I had expected that. There was still quite some time until the egg would hatch, and I was sure I could increase its, his? potential at least once before then. To help along with that I was going to start using the Fire Chips and Fire Rocks that I had been accumulating for this.

I was sure that the D-Class versions would have been too much for the egg, which was why I had my space produce the E-Class version instead. This had resulted in an increased production rate, which left me with enough materials to start my plan now, rather than in a few months.

I put the incubator in the padded area inside my room specifically prepared for it, before taking out 10 Fire Chips and placing them down in a circle around the incubator.

'Name: Fire Chip

Type: Fire

Class: E

Uses: It's a fragment of a Fire Gem that has retained the ability to absorb and store certain amounts of Fire energy from the environment.

Contains fire-type energy and can be used as a supplement to help fire-type Pokemon.'

Afterward, I took out 10 Fire Rocks and placed them down around the incubator as well.

'Name: Fire Rock

Type: Fire

Class: E

Uses: It's a rock that forms around a Fire Stone. While it is not as precious or useful as a Fire Stone, it can absorb and store certain amounts of fire energy from the environment.

Contains fire-type energy and can be used as a supplement to help fire-type Pokemon.'

To be honest, I had half expected the Fire Rock to turn into a Fire Stone after the upgrade, but ultimately that didn't happen. Apparently, the rock was missing the wavelength that evolution stones possess. As a result, only its effectiveness got improved, but it didn't turn into Fire Stones.

By my estimation it should take the egg about 2-3 weeks to drain these chips and rocks, so until then I won't have to replace them. Anyway, after I placed the incubator in its place and surrounded it with the fire materials, I went downstairs for breakfast.

I told my mom about the chips and rocks I had placed around the incubator so that she didn't get surprised while checking up on it. I simply told her that I had bought them in Viridian City, using the money I earned during battles. Well, the part of my money that I didn't hand to her for "safe-keeping".

She readily accepted my explanation. After I was done eating, I hugged her and left after telling her that I'll see her later. Just as I had previously decided on, I had Xatu Teleport me to the entrance of the Bug Club. I walked up to the registration desk and signed up for a fight.

This would be my first battle as a Bug Collector after my rank-up. Battles between Bug Collectors were 2 vs 2, so I needed to decide on which ones to use. As I was sitting there in the lobby thinking about my options, I realized I had f**ked up.

I had 4 bug types, which was good. The only problem was that after Mothra's evolution, she had become too distinct. If I used her here, then my connection with this alias would be uncovered as soon as I used her outside the club, which I had already done.

So unless I was willing to out my alias as Meruem, I couldn't use Mothra. Well, that still left me with Butterfree and my two Weedle is what would normally be the logical conclusion. The only problem with that was that both Weedle were only at the (high) iron stage, while the Pokemon of most, more like nearly all, Bug Collectors were at the bronze stage.

As if that was not enough I had given Lackey 1 the week off, because of his exhaustion, so he was out as well. This left me with only Butterfree and QueenBee, who was only at the (high) iron stage. I should have thought about this before coming here.

At least the battles were only 2 vs 2, I could still win, as long as no one too strong came up, thanks to Butterfree's strength. I was simply going to use Weedle first, have her battle as long as she could without getting trashed, so that she could get battle experience, and then recall her.

After that, I would send in Butterfree and hopefully mope up the opposition. I would have to take longer rests between battles since I couldn't substitute them and I also wouldn't be able to participate in as many battles for the same reason.

I normally avoided being in a disadvantaged position, so this was something new for us, but it would be a valuable experience nonetheless. I called out both of them and explained the situation to them. Contrary to what one would expect, both were excited by the prospect. Since it had been some time since I last checked his status, I decided to check up on Butterfree's status before the battles began.

'Species: Butterfree

Gender: Male

Type: Bug, Flying

Potential: Deep Green (86.72%) -> (96.69%)

Abilities: Compound Eyes, Tinted Lens

Affinities: Bug, Flying

Bond: Mikail (weak)

--

Parameters:

Stage: Bronze Stage (high)

Vitality: A

Strength: B -> A

Endurance: A -> S

Agility: A -> S

Energy Capacity: A

Energy Density: A

--

Condition: Healthy, Excited

--

Masteries: Bug E. Manipulation (Beginner) -> (Proficient), Air E. Manipulation (Novice) -> (Beginner)

--

Techniques: Tackle (Beginner), String Shot (Proficient), Bug Bite (Proficient), Electroweb (Proficient), Harden (Proficient), Iron Defense (Proficient), Gust (Proficient), Confusion (Proficient), Sleep Powder (Proficient), Stun Spore (Proficient), Poison Powder (Proficient), Bug Buzz (Proficient), Psybeam (Proficient) -> (Advanced), Air Slash (Proficient) -> (Advanced), Tailwind (Proficient) -> (Advanced)'

It was impressive how far the guy had come. He was only missing a scant few percent to upgrade his potential to light blue. Not only that but by the time his strength had reached the A-value, his endurance and agility parameter had also increased to S.

This made me hesitate on allowing him to break through to the silver stage since he was only missing another two S-values to receive a 40% potential bonus upon breakthrough. Besides his impressive progress with his parameters, he also improved his masteries. Both for his elements, as well as moves.

I had him focus on Psybeam as well as Air Slash for long-range offense and Tailwind for mobility. This overall improvement in his strength was the reason I was willing to go with my current plan, despite practically participating in 1 vs 2 battles. Soon enough the announcement came and I had my first fight.

Our first fight was against a boy that used a (low) bronze-stage Ledian as his first Pokemon. As planned I used Weedle first, but no matter how hard she fought, she had nearly no chance at winning. She tried to hit Ledian with Poison Sting or entangle it with either String Shot or Electroweb, but the flying menace dodged all her attacks while flying.

We tried to use strategy to lure it into some string traps, but it was too fast, so we had no chance to box it in. Using String Shot to either approach it or dodge its attacks was also not working that well, because of the speed difference.

So we, or rather she did her best to tire out Ledian instead so that Butterfree could have an easier time beating it. We did just that until I saw that she was unable to hold on. I praised and then recalled her, before calling out Butterfree instead.

As soon as he appeared on the court, he used Tailwind to give himself a mobility boost. While it might have been unnecessary because of the strength difference between the two, but it was part of our standard battle protocol, so meh.

I ordered Butterfree to use Fast Asleep, and he released a cloud of Sleep Powder that got propelled by a Gust. Ledian naturally dodged it, but it successfully reduced its air space. I told Butterfree to bombard it, and he used Psybeam and Air Slash to attack it.

While Ledian managed to dodge a few, he ultimately fell to Butterfree's assault. The boy recalled his Ledian and called out a (low) bronze-stage Pineco next. This confused me a bit because that was a really slow species and a pretty bad match against Butterfree.

The only thing I could think of was Self-Destruct, but as mentioned earlier it was too slow to reach Butterfree with it. I told Butterfree to take it out from afar when the boy gave an order that surprised me. Or more like the result of said order surprised me.

After the boy said "Rapid Carnival", his Pineco first shone with a metallic light, which made me guess that it used Autotomize. Afterward, it used Rapid Spin, followed by Rollout. It practically shot at Butterfree and started to glow halfway to Butterfree.

Surprised at the turn of events, and seeing that he would have a hard time dodging the blast radius with how fast that Pineco had gotten, I told Butterfree to use Ultimate Defense first, before he tried to dodge. Ultimate Defense was the command for the combo of Harden and Iron Defense.

As I had expected Pineco used Self-Destruct as soon as he was close enough, trying to take Butterfree down with it. The boy had apparently decided that he could not win against Butterfree with his Pokemon, so he had settled for mutual destruction. I could respect that, but unfortunately for him, he was going to be disappointed.

Once the dust stirred by the explosion settled down, his downed Pineco and my mostly unscathed Butterfree became visible. The referee declared the result and praised my opponent for his strategy.

Since Weedle was exhausted and Butterfree was mildly injured by the kamikaze attack of Pineco, I took a 30 minutes break to heal them and give them some rest. After that, I registered for our next battle. We battled another 7 times that day.

The overall sequence stayed the same. I sent Weedle out first so that she could hopefully tire out the opponent's first Pokemon. After that, I cleaned out the rest with Butterfree. Towards the end, winning got harder, mostly because Butterfree was pretty tired. Which was why I decided to stop, even if there were still 2 hours until dinner.

I used that time to visit Viridian City instead. I checked up on the Pokemon I had marked for our family, to see if they were still there. Fortunately, all of them except for a light green potential Diglett were still available. It seemed someone got lucky with that one.

Anyway, once I made sure that the Pokemon I was going to show my mother tomorrow were still there, I returned home. The next day, after breakfast I addressed my mother.

"Mom, while I was in Viridian City, I went through a few stores to look for any Pokemon that would be useful for us and I found some. Could we go to Viridian City this time?" I told her, before asking for her consent.

"Oh, did my boy do preliminary work for his family? I'm sooo proud of you. Of course, we can go to Viridian City." She answered while pinching my cheeks as if I was a little boy. Okay, I may have been a little boy in her eyes, but that stuff was still embarrassing, even if I used to like doing it to little kids as well.

"Great!" I said, after choosing to ignore her actions. My father who had been listening on the side decided to butt in as well. "How about I come with you as well this time? We could turn it into a little family (work?) trip." He said, and I just shrugged.

My mother on the other hand just looked into his eyes, quirked an eyebrow, and posed a question. "Were you not planning to train your Pokemon?" My father, who absolutely did not squirm under her gaze, replied.

"I want to do something together instead. We shouldn't neglect family time. We've been busy during the last few weekends, so this weekend I want to do something together, even if it is kinda like work." He said, and my mother put on a face that clearly said "yeah, I believe you".

Still, she chose to reply with something positive. "Oh, honey, how thoughtful of you. That's a great idea." She said and our weekend business trip turned into a weekend business trip for the whole family.

It took us a bit less than half an hour, because Xatu had a bit of a harder time teleporting so many people at once, but we arrived at Viridian City. Still, considering that the distance we covered was about 800 km, I would say he did a good job.

I led my parents to the different stores I had found good potential Pokemon in, and my parents bought them without any hesitation. After that we simply strolled around, occasionally visiting some other stores as well.

I brought them to "Aldini's" because I quite liked the store, and I was craving some pizza. We ate our lunch, I had my pizza funghi and everyone was happy. After lunch, my parents decided to return home, since they were satisfied with our harvest.

I had selected 7 Pokemon beforehand, the missing Diglett excluded, and during our stroll, we managed to find 1 more. So, we bought a total of 8 Pokemon today.

Our yield consisted of a light green potential Ekans, a light green Pineco, a light green Sandshrew, a green male Nidoran, a green Hoothoot, a deep green Farfetch'd, a light blue Goldeen, and a light blue Pidgey, that I was totally planning to set aside for myself.

The only one I was interested in was the light blue potential Pidgey, and I was absolutely taking that one. I had no interest in the rest. While the Goldeen and Farfetch'd had good potential, I was not really interested in their species. Had it been the galarian variant instead, I would have definitely taken it for myself, but the normal one was just meh in my opinion.

The next day my father flew around a bit to get the Pokemon checked in several batches at different cities. He came back and told us about the results. I used my manly charms to persuade my parents to leave the Pidgey to me. I definitely did not use watery, hopeful eyes, pouting, no pleases were involved. I didn't put on the whole program. Nope, only my manly charm, and natural handsomeness.

After that my father went around once more, but this time to sell the rest, since they were not interested in any of the others as well. When he came back a few hours later, he told us that he got a total of 8.170.000 Poke for all of them.

Our total expense for all Pokemon, including their potential test, was 3.050.000 Poke. Pidgey was included in this as well. So, after subtracting our expenses from our earnings, we were left with a profit of 5.120.000 Poke.

Had I not taken Pidgey for myself, that could have been even more, but I would say that it was good money for a few days of "hard" work. We were all happy with the result and ordered some Sushi for dinner as a tribute to the Goldeen that made up the bulk of our earnings. *pfft*

That night while I was laying in my bed, I suddenly remembered the Smeargle that I had caught and subsequently forgotten. I facepalmed at my Goldeen brain and decided to tell my parents about it tomorrow. Having made that decision, I went to sleep.

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