CH2 (132), What Happened/The Squad (1)

After I shared my decision with my parents, we talked about my living arrangements. The academy offered dorms to its students at a pretty affordable cost. There was also the option of renting their own place if they had the money for it.

Luckily, there was still some time to look over the options, so we decided to discuss everything during the weekend. Once the serious business was over I decided to go over everything in preparation for the future starting with my Pokemon.

A lot had happened especially after I caught my Feebas. That event transpired nearly 4 years ago, roughly about 3 3\4 years ago actually. Still, who kept track of something like that, am I right?

Anyway, everyone had made considerable progress since then and Xatu had even finally decided he was ready for a name. I remember being really happy with his decision.

It actually happened a month before "Rayquaza's Descent", the same year I caught the two Feebas. "Rayquaza's Descent", even after all the years I have been on Terra I still sometimes wonder about the form they decided to use Rayquaza's name since they didn't use it during the naming of the days.

"Rayquaza's Descent" was what the last day of the year was called on Terra and the first day of the new year was called "Rayquaza's Ascent". They even named the holiday they had at the time "Rayquaza's Patrol". Compensation much, am I right?

Anyway, a month before the end of 2174 Xatu felt ready for a name and came to me so we could choose one together. We went over quite a few names and he ultimately settled on Horus.

He was not the only one among my Pokemon that got a name but with him being my first Pokemon it was a bit different. Since Horus came up, let's just start with him.

'Name: Horus

Species: Xatu

Gender: Male

Age: 7+ years

-

Type: Psychic, Flying

Potential: Blue (6.42%) -> Deep Blue (89.37%)

Genetic modifiers: None

Abilities: Keen Eye, Synchronize, Early Bird

Talents: Energy Sensitivity V.1+

Affinities: Psychic, Flying, Ghost (Budding)

-

Bond: Mikail (strong)

Quirk: Curious

----

Parameters:

Stage: Silver Stage (high)

Vitality: A

Strength: A

Endurance: A

Agility: S

Energy Capacity: S

Energy Density: A

----

Resistance:

Grass (Minor), Fighting (Major), Psychic (Minor)

-

Weaknesses:

Electric (Minor), Ice (Minor), Rock (Minor), Ghost (Minor), Dark (Minor)

-

Standardized:

Electric (in-progress)

----

Condition: Healthy, Happy

----

Masteries:

Psionic E. Manipulation (Advanced),

Flying/Air E. Manipulation (Beginner) -> (Proficient)

----

Techniques:

-

(Unofficial) Initial:

N/A

-

Novice:

N/A

-

Beginner:

N/A

-

Proficient:

Reflect, Light Screen, Wish, Psycho Shift, Confuse Ray, Leer, Peck, Night Shade, Gust, Flash, Roost, Miracle Eye, Rest, Steel Wing

-

Advanced:

Shadow Ball, Air Slash, Protect, Calm Mind, Cosmic Power, Psychic

-

Mastered:

Stored Power, Teleport'

There was a lot to unpack and simultaneously not that much. His age had obviously gone up as had the age of everyone else.

Still, at 7 years old he belonged to the senior members of our little group age-wise since all of us were relatively young, even the oldest among us, which by the way was not me.

Anyway, there was his potential which did improve mostly due to his breakthrough to the silver stage. The increase outside of that breakthrough was less than 23% over nearly 4 years. Yeah, thank Mew for the limit-breaking potential boost.

Unfortunately, Horus did not manage to unlock a gene during his breakthrough to the silver stage, but I was hoping he would manage to do so during the one to the gold stage.

There was also his affinity with the ghost type. It went from being a trace, so being barely there to budding.

Honestly, we didn't really focus on that. It grew through the training of his ghost-type moves and the occasional ghost-type supplement. That was probably also why it only reached the first official affinity grade. Still, it was enough for now.

Then came something I was really happy about when it happened, the bond. The bond between us had upgraded to "strong" shortly after Horus broke through to the silver stage. The metaphorical path that connected us widened with it bringing some boons with it.

One of the boons was an increase in my physical/mental capabilities, but those were not so significant for me. Now, don't get me wrong if I had been a regular trainer the boost would have been great likely ending with me doubling, tripling, or even quadrupling my capabilities.

At least that would be the case once my new limits were reached, but I was not a regular trainer. No, I was a Tier 2 Psychic and Tier 2 Aura User, so the boost I got was relatively small. However, every bit counted so I was not complaining.

Besides, there were two more boons the strong bond brought with it. First, was the lifespan increase, which was obviously not that important for me right now. You know with me being a strapping young lad.

The second one was pretty awesome. It gave me a small resistance to Horus's typing, so I gained some slight resistance to psychic and flying/air moves. Nothing extraordinary but it was a start and as they say, something was still better than nothing.

Anyway, back to Horus. My boy had "recently" managed to raise all his parameters to A and began his limit-breaking afterward. The two S-values were the result of 12 months of hard training supported by a lot of supplements and I was hoping the others would soon follow.

Besides regular parameter training, we also went through resistance training. About 3 years ago I finally began the resistance training of all of my Pokemon. At the time I had finally unlocked the formulae for the supplements necessary to support such training.

Horus was going through the electric course, which showed up in the new Standardized section as in-progress. Once the regime was successful Xatu would have turned his relation to the electric type from a (minor) weakness into a neutral one.

Some of my Pokemon had already succeeded to do so with one type. I had my "new" electric type help him with his resistance training but more about that and the other newcomers later.

Now, back to Horus's progress. Unfortunately, despite getting better with the manipulation of the psionic energy his mastery had not risen to the mastered rank. This went a long way to show how difficult it was to reach that rank.

Still, he managed to improve his mastery over flying/air energy to the proficient rank, so that was good. He also had a pretty good improvement as far as his move pool was concerned.

Not only did he manage to learn Miracle Eye, which took nearly 8 months by the way, but he also raised it to the proficient rank. The same was true for the 2 other new moves he learned after Miracle Eye, which were Rest and Steel Wing.

It took much less time to learn those two, but he also had help with those two so that factored in as well. For Rest, he had Ursaring whom he had been able to talk to whenever he needed help, and for Steel Wing, none other than Mothra had helped him.

She had actually managed to learn that one on her own once more showing the greatness of her talent. Seriously his girl's talent was like a bug. See what I did there? *cough*

There was also Roost that he had started learning around the same time as Miracle Eye but finished way before it. He had Hera's help whenever necessary so that was no problem. Roost got raised to proficiency even before Miracle Eye was learned and we decided to stop at that point.

Aside from those three, he had improved Flash from beginner to proficient, Cosmic Power from proficient to advanced, and Stored Power from advanced to mastered.

Despite the progress he made with Psychic, increasing its might and range, its rank did not improve. The same was true for Teleport, but at least that one was already mastered, so not reaching the transcended rank was understandable.

He managed to greatly increase the range of the Teleport while also reducing the duration of the breaks between each teleportation but the rank stayed the same.

Nonetheless, he had gotten much stronger in this time and I was really proud of him. He went from the small Natu he had been to a strong Xatu that many would be jealous of.

However, there was someone that had him completely beat in the jealousy department. I was obviously talking about Mothra. My girl was simply fabulous and her progress was just as impressive.

'Name: Mothra

Species: Butterfree

Gender: Female

Age: 6+ years

-

Type: Bug, Flying

Potential: Light Purple (64.59%) -> Deep Purple (29.64%)

Genetic variation: Royal

Abilities: Compound Eyes, Tinted Lens

Talents: Quick Start V2

Affinities: Bug, Flying, Psychic, Grass (Budding)

-

Bond: Mikail (strong)

Quirks: Likes to eat, Curious

----

Parameters:

Stage: Silver Stage (high)

Vitality: SS

Strength: S

Endurance: S

Agility: SS

Energy Capacity: SSS

Energy Density: SS

----

Resistance:

Grass (Major), Fighting (Major), Ground (Minor), Bug (Minor)

-

Weaknesses:

Fire (Minor), Ice (Minor), Flying (Minor), Rock (Major)

-

Standardized:

Electric

----

Condition: Healthy, Happy

----

Masteries:

Bug E. Manipulation (Proficient) -> (Advanced),

Psychic/Psionic Energy Manipulation (Beginner) -> (Proficient),

Flying/Air E. Manipulation (Novice) -> (Proficient)

----

Techniques:

-

(Unofficial) Initial:

Hurricane

-

Novice:

Rage Powder

-

Beginner:

Energy Ball, Protect

-

Proficient:

Bug Bite, Tackle, Gust, Sleep Powder, Stun Spore, Poison Powder, Whirlwind, Steel Wing

-

Advanced:

Iron Head, Iron Defense, Harden, Psychic Fangs, Thunder Fang, Electroweb, Bug Buzz, Psybeam, Air Slash, Signal Beam, Quiver Dance, Psychic

-

Mastered:

Confusion, String Shot, Tailwind'

She had obviously reached the silver stage just like Horus, so her potential increased through the limit-breaking bonus as well. She went from light purple to deep purple thanks to the 160% bonus, which was great.

What was less great was that in the nearly 4 years that went by I had only managed to increase her potential by roughly 5% through the use of supplements. Her potential was just so high that their effectiveness (potential-wise) was either minimal or non-existent.

Still, thankfully the limit-breaking bonus was not influenced by her strength or current potential, so that was really helpful.

Mothra just like Horus did not unlock any additional gene or upgrade her royal one during her breakthrough, but just like with Horus I was pretty confident that it would happen during her next breakthrough.

Enough accumulation and all that. What I was actually thinking about was the potential cost of the genes. I knew that unlocking genes used up potential, but I was unsure how much.

What I knew was that the cost increased with the Tier of the gene so the king gene was rightfully costlier than the royal gene. Still, I was looking forward to it and Mothra could afford it either way.

Funnily enough, Mothra had the next thing in common with Horus as well. She had increased her affinity to the grass type to budding, but unlike with Horus, this was actually her fourth affinity. Ahh, my not so little, little girl surpassed expectations left and right.

That happened more on its own as well, so it was a welcome surprise when it happened. Next, there was our bond which naturally improved to "strong" as well. As if there was any doubt about that happening. No, that one had been written in stone.

Now, I had already mentioned her breakthrough to the silver stage and she had reached the (high) silver stage some time ago. More than a year actually, and she was doing her limit-breaking training.

As can be seen, by her strength and endurance parameters it took her more effort and time to increase those. The way it was currently looking and the increase in time I knew happened the further along one went with limit training told me we would be at it for a while.

I was guessing it would take her at least a few more years before she could break through to the gold stage with all her parameters at SSS. Thankfully we were young and had no problem with spending the extra time the limit training was amounting to.

Besides, this way we theoretically stood out "less" since our progress "slowed" down. "Less", because we still were going to stand out the way things were looking right now.

I estimated that Mothra at least would be at the (high) gold stage, doing her limit-breaking, by the time we began our official journey, so yeah. Still, I was not sure so I could be off as well.

Anyway, that was something for "future me" to think about. Now, just like Horus Mothra did the resistance training as well. She even trained the same one, electric, like him, but in contrast to Horus Mothra successfully completed it.

She managed to get rid of her weakness to the electric type. Reducing her high number of weaknesses from 5 to 4, which honestly was still rather high. Currently, she had started with her resistance training towards the ice type with the help of Lapras.

Next up were her energy masteries, and among all my Pokemon Mothra had the highest number of them. Her bug, psychic, and flying/air energy manipulation had all improved.

Among those three her bug one became advanced, while the other two became proficient. Considering the number of them this was pretty impressive.

Especially her flying energy mastery since that one improved by two grades compared to the other two that only increased by one grade. After that impressive bit, we were only left with her move pool.

Now, as one would expect from someone with her talent and potential, her move pool had seen a lot of progress. She learned 7 new moves one which came naturally without her even trying to learn it.

That was Rage Powder, a move most Butterfree naturally comprehended while getting stronger as long as they did not neglect their powder moves. Still, it was a move that we were not really interested resin so it was her only move that was still at novice mastery.

Psychic and Quiver Dance, two of those 7 new moves, came rather naturally to her as well and since they were very useful she trained them up to advanced mastery.

The other 4 moves did not come as natural with one of them being actually not even among the moves Butterfree learned. Those 4 moves were Energy Ball, Protect, Steel Wing, and Hurricane.

Energy Ball and Protect were learned and raised to the beginner mastery before she shifted her focus to other moves. Steel Wing was a move that the Butterfree species actually did not learn.

At least they did not learn it on their own and it was not easy to do so even for Mothra. She derived it from her Iron Defense and Iron Head moves, just like she had managed to derive Iron Head from Iron Defense. Still, not only did she learn it she also raised it to proficient mastery.

I was pretty sure the only reason she even succeeded with that was her really high potential with her overpowered talent. I was sure that the biggest factor was still her talent and without it, I did not believe it would have been possible for her to learn those moves.

The same was true for Thunder Fang and Psychic Fang. So, I was thankful for her great talent. Anyway, back to her new moves. Hurricane was her latest project and she was still trying to get it down. She was using Gust, Whirlwind, and Air Slash as the basis of her endeavor.

Now, the number of her old moves that improved were too many. Gust, Whirlwind, Sleep Powder, Stun Spore, and Poison Powder were raised to proficient.

I was actually considering if I should have her combine her powder moves as well, but it was better if she finished with Hurricane first. Then there were Bug Buzz, Psybeam, Air Slash, and Signal Beam.

She improved her mastery of those to advanced and to add a cherry on top of all of that she even mastered Tailwind. We focused on Tailwind since it helped increase her mobility and speed, which increased her survivability.

Honestly, even I was thinking that her progress with her moves was terrifying, but it is what it is. This simply proved what a darling my Mothra was.

Especially, if one compared her progress to that of Optimus who was actually one of the prime members of the Butterfree species, which showed the vast difference between her and regular Butterfree.

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