CH148 (762), Crater? No, That’s Definitely A Bowl

Funnily enough, (high) dark gold undulations began to spread from my left while we watched the second movie. It had been coming either way, but somehow instead of during or after a training session, Parvati/Beedrill advanced now, which had me pause the movie for a few minutes so that we could congratulate her on reaching the (high) dark gold stage. Two minutes later she told me to continue playing the movie already. We continued our travels the next morning, starting the new week with a pleasant stroll toward Bowl City.

I let Bedlum test its new strength a few times against a handful of wild Pokemon as well as trainers, and I could feel that it was pleased with the result. It was certainly very motivated during the post-lunch training session. Squirtle, Larvitar, and the young from the reserve team also got their part of the action, which was why I was a bit slower than I was already usually traveling, but I saw it as an excellent trade, especially since I had decided to Teleport or fly the rest of the distance to Bowl City anyway to cover any delays that happened. The young ones were certainly animated during dinner, talking about the battles they experienced.

They were also quite motivated during their morning training the next day/on Mewday. However, it was Kimura/Hitmonform that gave me a surprise during that training session. In the middle of his workout session, we noticed that the difficulty of his exercise suddenly eased, so I asked him to stop and used my earth clone to check his status sheet. It appeared that Kimura had indeed undergone another one of his batch increases, which was why the difficulty of his exercise had lessened. This increase resulted in the completion of his second round of limit-breaking, which meant that Kimura was going to begin the final round of his limit-breaking phase.

Usually, looking at a Pokemon with Kimura's potential (aurora) and racial values training inside Utopia with the support/supplements I provided, I would estimate that it would take them somewhere between 21 to 23 months to complete their final round of limit-breaking, but we were talking about the training cheat Kimura here. I was certain that Kimura would do it within the next 6 to 8 months instead, which was close to a fourth of that in the best case and close to a third in the worst case.

Anyway, the rest of the week passed by and we were practically at our destination when we entered Utopia on Kyoday for dinner. I decided to Teleport the last bit after finishing our usual weekly check-up, so I got right to it after breakfast the next morning. The check-up passed smoothly with the most noteworthy piece being that Gwen's first parameter had risen to SSS. I was now confident that she would be able to break through to the dark gold stage before the start of the Hoenn Senior League Tournament. Well, as long as she did not slack off, but I did not think that was possible since Gwen was one of the most diligent Pokemon in our family as far as training was concerned.

I naturally shared the good news with her and I could feel how much she was looking forward to finally breaking through. Honestly, if not for the fact that she was going to break through to the dark gold stage, which meant that she was already going to only receive half the usual 160% potential boost, I might have told her that she could break through right now. However, Gwen could really use the 80% that a complete limit-breaking phase would grant her since it was the only way to really bring her potential closer to deep purple. As things stood right now, I had managed to raise her potential so much during the last slightly more than two years that there was less than 0.2% missing before it upgraded to purple.

If we added 80% on top of that, I could guarantee that her potential would reach deep purple during her breakthrough to the platinum stage even if the worst case happened and the limit-breaking boost underwent another halving. Even if that didn't happen and Gwen ended up unlocking a modfier, which was usually a good thing; She could at least afford to do so without having to worry about being unable to attain deep purple potential. She "couldn't afford" that if she broke through right now and only received a 40% bonus, which was why I did not mention the matter of an "early" breakthrough to her.

Moving on, I left Utopia after finishing the check-up session, though this time it was just me and Mothra, who was lounging on my head in her chibi form since we were going to do a few Teleport Jumps to finish the last stretch of our trip to Bowl City. I levitated into the air to get a better look into the distance and teleported us forward. I did that two more times before I was able to see the city in the distance, so a final Teleport brought us to the edge of the crater. Sorry, not crater since according to the net the citizens of Bowl City did not like to call it that. Neither did they appreciate being told that it used to be a lake that dried out.

They did that even though studies had shown that both accounts were true, or maybe it was exactly because of that. Either way, it had been confirmed that the cavity Bowl City was in was formed when something very big slammed into the ground from a very high height. No one was sure whether that object was some space rock, though they found no traces of any space-origin materials so that was unlikely, or a large Pokemon that fought against some flying type that first raised it into the air before letting it drop, though that would require the Pokemon to have been very strong because it must have survived the impact since no remains were found at/around the impact center.

Regardless of what caused the crater, it later got filled with water, presumably through the combination of rain and an underground well being unearthed. Yet, after who knows how long, the lake started to slowly dry out ten to twenty thousand years or so ago, becoming a dry lake bed within the last 5 thousand years. During that time regular vegetation grew and Pokemon along with a few small critters settled there. They lived there happily until around 900 years ago when a bunch of Hoennese decided that this place was the perfect spot for a new settlement. It was the leader of that group that named their settlement Bowl Town, which later became Bowl City because, in his words, this place was like a bowl gifted to them by nature with everything they needed already inside.

The people liked his comparison and even today Bowl City denizens were proud of their city name. They happily called the whole area The Bowl. Anyway, I stopped pondering the trivia I read up on the city that appeared on my mind when I stared down the cliff, my gaze locked toward the city down there. I decided to not take the official road down the cliff and simply jump down. I'd use my psychic powers to deal with the landing, and my last thought on the hole, before I jumped, was that the hole was not round and thus did not really look like a proper bowl no matter what the bowl people argued.

Still, my disagreeing with the people of Bowl City on the place's name did not stop me from touring the city for the rest of the day since the Gym challenge was only tomorrow. I still had not looked into the Pokemon the Gym Trainers or Gym Leader used, so all I knew was that they used rock-type Pokemon without knowing which species or their level/stage, though I was hoping that I would get to face some dark gold stage Pokemon since this was a (Standard) Gym, not a minor one.

The next morning, with the arrival of Arcday, we greeted the start of a new week. It also happened to be the final week before the 23rd month, which began on Palkiday in 3 days. I left Utopia after the morning training session ended and leisurely made my way toward the Gym. Since my appointment was at 1 p.m. I still had more than an hour until I had to show up at the Gym, which was why I occasionally stopped whenever I saw a snack stand/cart that looked/smelled tempting. Yet, despite that I still made it to the Gym with nearly 20 minutes to spare of which I spent 15 minutes in the challenger room before I got called to the battlefield.

I was not sure if the Gym had advertised my challenge or if the Gym was just that popular but the audience stands were filled to the brim. Still, seeing how low the number of people actually chanting my name or that of my Pokemon was, which seemed to be a thing since I was hearing a few shouts of Mothra, I guessed that most were not here for me, or at least not here to support me. Nonetheless, the crowd was big and they were excited either way. They cheered as my first opponent came onto the field and gave a final loud applause when the two of us released our first Pokemon before they quieted down to watch the battle.

Kun/Azuraid had no trouble dealing with the (high) gold Magcargo, and the (high) gold Onix that followed was also dealt with by Kun, though doing so took more out of him since Onix size gave it a greater reach, which reduced the disadvantage of facing flying Pokemon in closed venues like these. However, even if its size gave it better chances at retaliating, it also made Onix easier to hit, which was why it still fell under Kun's aerial water assault.

The final Pokemon Kun had to face ended up being a (low) dark gold stage Lunatone, which answered my question about whether we would be facing dark gold stage Pokemon during this Gym Challenge. That Lunastone moved through levitation/telekinesis leveled the playing, or rather the moving/maneuvering field; Add in that it could Teleport, and Lunatone actually had the mobility advantage. Combined with its strength, Kun was forced into a very hard battle that he still managed to win, though it was a pretty close thing since he began to lag toward the end of the fight which caused him to suffer quite a bit more damage than he might have otherwise suffered.

Admittedly, that was because he had fought two battles before facing Lunatone. Ultimately, Kun still managed to win, and I was hoping that the close last battle would stimulate him, allowing him to complete his limit-breaking phase soon. Either way, Kiara made way for the second Gym Trainer, who ended up sending out a (high) gold Golem. Golem got to face my Alpha Slowbro since I decided to give him some piece of the action as well even if he was in the reserve team. He showed everyone why I went so far as to add him to the reserve team by demolishing Golem in short order before doing the same with the (high) gold Sudowoodo that followed.

When Hamid sent out a (low) dark gold stage Aggron as his final Pokemon, Slowbro finally began to struggle a bit. Yet, AlphaBro still managed to take Aggron down before he sat on the ground and began to breathe heavily out of exhaustion. He did raise his head and looked toward the cheering audience with a slightly blank look before breaking out in a slightly dopey look, which had me chuckle. I praised him on his victory before recalling him so that I could let him out inside Utopia to let him quickly recover there.

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