CH43 (565), Police (13)

Once I had sent off Rose and returned to my dorm, I made my way inside Utopia together with Mothra. Unsurprisingly, everyone was waiting for me/us at my place. I had told them about the attack right after it happened, or rather Mothra had strongly requested that I share the news with the others, so I had done it even though I had initially been planning to wait until the night, once I was inside Utopia, to do so in person.

Anyway, as soon as we appeared in front of them, Mothra left her perch atop my head and joined the others. She briefly exchanged greetings with them, before they all collectively stared at me in a mix of worry, concern, as well as criticism. Honestly, the whole thing looked a bit rehearsed, and as soon as they did it, I knew what this was about.

Just as I had expected they brought something up that I had previously refused due to various reasons, and at the time, they had accepted my refusal. Yet, this sudden attack on my person gave them a reason to bring up the matter again. In fact, it made them even more persistent.

They insisted that I keep one of them by their side 24/7 for safety's sake. This time they did not accept my comment on Mothra being by my side quite often, just as she had been today, since there were long stretches of time when she was not with me.

The matter of convenience and regulation was also brushed off by them. They pushed Hades/Gengar forward and said that he could lurk inside my shadow which would go unnoticed by nearly anyone and would not cause any problems as long as I completed the necessary procedures with the alliance and police HQ.

My rebuttal that this would hamper Hades' training got shot down as well. He said that he could do it during the times I was inside Utopia, along with the assurance that he could train more subtle stuff while he was lurking in my shadow.

I brought up a few more arguments about why they were exaggerating and why I did not need a 24/7 guard, but they argued against all of them. I managed to bring up points about why none of them could/needed to stay with me 24/7, though Hades/Gengar kind of bypassed all of them due to his shadow powers.

Due to that, they kept insisting that I should just let Hades stay in my shadow all the time, at least while I was outside. Honestly, we reached an impasse, and they forced me to bring up an argument that I did not want to use because it would to a certain degree hurt Hades' feelings.

Sadly they left me no other choice, so I argued that even though his abilities were useful and convenient, Hades was currently not stronger than me, so any dangerous situation that Hades could help with, I could probably deal with by myself. I mean it was true. While Hades was extremely close to finishing his limit-breaking phase, only needing to raise a final parameter, he was still at the silver stage.

Still, fact or not, everyone froze the moment I said that, and I could metaphorically see the arrow stab Hades' chest when he heard my counter-argument. They had left me no choice and I could feel that Hades/Gengar felt a hit hurt by my words, even though he and the others knew that what I said was true.

Nonetheless, true or not, I kind of regretted my words as soon as I said them. However, they truly left me no choice of settling this nicely. I really did not want Hades to hang around inside my shadow while I was in the bathroom.

Anyway, that point of mine pretty much wrapped up the argument, and I spent some time afterward cheering up Hades. Thankfully, he was an innately cheerful guy, so it did not take long before he genuinely felt better. I still sneakily gave him some of his favorite snacks, which made him grin happily while he stored them inside his shadow space. We then hung out for a few more hours before I went to sleep.

The next day, after breakfast, I went ahead and started our Grouday check-up routine a bit earlier than usual. Once everyone was done eating and we/I had cleaned up the place, I told them that we were doing the check-up right away, so they did not disperse and hung around to wait for their turn.

I decided to go through the water types first so that they did not have to wait for long and could go back to one of the bigger water bodies since the one at my place was not large enough to accommodate them all without feeling cramped.

Manami/Lapras was still one parameter improvement away from completing her breakthrough, and by now, the same was true for Ryujin, Aby(ss), and Medusa. Jade was currently the only member of the Slythering Six that was still missing two SSS to complete their limit-breaking phase.

Another piece of good news was that Squirtle's Water Pulse finally reached advanced mastery, which made it his second advanced move along with Water Gun. I told him that adding Aura Sphere to that list was our next goal and he gave me a thumbs up in return. Seeing his pose, I had the sudden urge to buy him a pair of sunglasses, but I shooed the thought away since it would be impractical.

Once I was done with the water types, I moved on to the rest of my Pokemon. It was certainly a surprise when I saw Hypno waiting together with Hades, Tatsumaki/Alakzam, Ali/Gallade, and Gwen/Gardevoir. It seemed that Hypno wanted to request a status check because it had been quite some time since the last one.

I was pleased that I could give him some happy news since he had managed to complete the first round of his limit-breaking, and he even had two of his parameters at SS. Hypno looked quite happy to hear that and those around him congratulated him on his success so far. If he kept at it, Hypno probably would be able to complete his limit-breaking phase in another 2-3 years.

Potential-wise he was still a bit over 50% away from breaking into the blue hue, but Hypno was content with what he had. In his words, his potential was already much much better compared to what he started with, so he was happy with any improvement that happened.

Anyway, after Hypno, it was Hades' turn, and I was surprised to see that he had somehow raised his vitality value throughout the night, completing his limit-breaking phase. I was genuinely happy for him, even though I knew that they were going to use his soon-to-be gold stage against me or rather against my argument on Hades' strength/power.

Nonetheless, I shared the good news with him as well as the others, and predictably, everyone was happy to hear that. I asked Hades to wait until the rest had their status checked, and he jokingly told me that I may continue. Going through the rest of our group took about 12 minutes and nothing really stood out amongst the statuses I checked following Hades' graceful consent.

Once I was done checking the last one, I announced Hades' upcoming breakthrough over UtopiaFM. With that out of the way, we made our way to Hades' place. It did not take us long to arrive there, and we were the first ones to show up. Shedinja soon followed, and the Spinda Quartet showed up not long after Shedinja.

Still, Hades being the friendly ghost that he was had a lot of friends in Utopia. Friends that had set out from their habitats/places because they wanted to witness his breakthrough to the gold stage, so we had to wait for all of them to show up.

While we waited everyone simply chatted with one another, and while most chats were of the casual daily life kind, I occasionally heard them talking about whether anything unusual would happen during Hades' breakthrough, or who would be the next one to reach this point.

Anyway, roughly 15 minutes later the last stragglers finally made it, and after I did a last admin sweep to ensure that no one else was coming over, I told them to gather around. They formed the circle, and I together with Fortuna/Togetic wished Hades good luck, before joining the others. Once everyone was in place, I gave Hades a thumbs up and he initiated his breakthrough.

The breakthrough went remarkably smoothly, and as soon as it was over, we felt him emanate a (mid) gold stage "aura". I naturally went up to him to congratulate him on his successful breakthrough. Hades laughed heartily due to my words before he urged me to check his status sheet to see how it had changed. While I did that, the others came up to him to congratulate him as well.

'Name: Hades

Species: Gengar

Gender: Male

Age: 9+ years

-

Type: Ghost, Poison

Potential: Deep Purple (65.89%)*

{Purple (5.86%) -> Deep Purple (65.89%)}'

Well, the usual potential bonus took place and helped push Hades to the door of the aurora realm. Okay, maybe not the door, but certainly the porch. He was missing less than 35% to allow his potential to upgrade to light aurora, which pretty much guaranteed that he would reach that point during his next breakthrough. Unless he decided to no longer bother with limit-breaking training, which I highly doubted.

Anyway, I continued looking through the following sections, but none of them showed a change as a result of his breakthrough. At least not until the parameters section, which was a given since he had reached the next stage.

'Parameters:

Stage: Gold Stage (mid)*

Vitality: E

Strength: D

Endurance: E

Agility: B

Energy Capacity: A

Energy Density: D'

While Hades was starting at the (mid) gold stage, his starting parameters were such that a single increase in any of them would lead to him advancing to the (high) gold stage. He had Trace of Shadows to thank for that.

Nonetheless, that was good news for us and he sported a massive grin after I shared the good news with him. The rest of Hades' status sheet was untouched by his breakthrough, though I was once more happy to see that Hysteria had reached beginner mastery.

'Techniques:

-

Beginner:

Hysteria (C, ++), Thunder (+), Rain Dance (+)

-

Combo moves/Custom moves:

Hysteria (Beginner)'

Anyway, as soon as I was done checking his status sheet, I told everyone to move to my place for Hades' celebration. Once we made it there, I pulled out everything for the celebration, and just when I was about to declare the start of the party, I ended up being startled when Hades used his shadow teleportation to suddenly pop up before me with a wide grin.

He chuckled happily before asking me mirthfully if I knew what his breakthrough meant, and as soon as I heard that, I knew that he had not forgotten yesterday's matter after all. As expected, he told me that I no longer had an excuse against him staying in my shadow.

I could have quibbled, but I did not want to deny him after yesterday's affair, so I ended up agreeing, though I did add that he had to cut off his outside view while I was handling my business in the bathroom. Everyone around us cheered after they heard my acceptance, while Hades laughed happily before he agreed to my condition.

Following that, we started his party for real, and the celebration went on for pretty much the whole Grouday. The next morning, I went back to work, and as soon as I reported for duty, Detective Monroe led me to the interrogation room to look through the memories/thoughts of the criminal boss our team captured two days ago.

They brought in the crime boss shortly after the two of us settled in our seats, and observing the crime boss, I saw that he looked a bit haggard, which was quite normal considering that he had been incarcerated for the last two days.

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

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

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

Name: Hades

Species: Gengar

Gender: Male

Age: 9+ years

-

Type: Ghost, Poison

Potential: Deep Purple (65.89%)

(Genetic) Modifier: Trace of Shadows

Abilities: Infiltrator, Cursed Body

Talents: Prankster King, Shadow's Favor

Affinities: Ghost, Poison, Fighting

-

Bond: Mikail (strong)

Quirks: Playful

----

Parameters:

Stage: Gold Stage (mid)

Vitality: E

Strength: D

Endurance: E

Agility: B

Energy Capacity: A

Energy Density: D

----

Immunity:

Normal, Fighting

-

Resistance:

Poison (Major), Bug (Major), Grass (Minor), Fairy (Minor)

-

Weaknesses:

Psychic (Minor), Ghost (Minor), Ground (Minor)

-

Standardized:

Dark

----

Condition: Healthy, Happy, Elated, Pumped

----

Masteries:

Ghost Energy Manipulation (Advanced)

Poison Energy Manipulation (Proficient)

----

Techniques:

-

Unofficial/In progress:

N/A

-

Novice:

Attract

-

Beginner:

Spite, Energy Ball, Thunderbolt, Foul Play, Ally Switch, Giga Drain, Swagger, Destiny Bond, Self-Destruct, Hyper Beam, Phantom Force, Hysteria (C), Thunder, Rain Dance

-

Proficient:

Astonish, Sucker Punch, Payback, Hex, Night Shade, Sludge Bomb, Curse, Nightmare, Toxic, Shadow Punch, Mean Look, Dark Pulse, Smog, Protect, Poison Jab, Shadow Claw, Gaslight (C) Double Team, Scary Face, Explosion, Lick, Taunt, Sludge Wave

-

Advanced:

Hypnosis, Poison Gas, Venoshock, Will-O-Wisp, Psychic, Dream Eater, Confuse Ray

-

Mastered:

Shadow Ball

-

Combo moves/Custom moves:

Gaslight (Proficient), Hysteria (Beginner)

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