CH56 (578), End of 2184 (4)

The next morning after breakfast I began our regular Grouday check up. I started with the little ones and left the biggest ones for last. I had to say that the number of my Pokemon that had come close to breaking through was incredible, but I was still the most optimistic about the final two members of the Slythering Squad.

That was why I was the most expectant when I began to check my Gyarados, hoping that Aby or Jade had simply not managed to get a feel of the completion of their limit-breaking phase. I began with Jade and saw her strength had still not risen to SSS. Still, I knew that she was working hard on it, so I was sure that the moment would come soon enough.

After confirming that Jade was in an optimal state, I moved on to Aby(ss) and came face-to-face with exactly what I wanted. It appeared that my previous idea had been right, at least as far as Aby was concerned since her energy capacity seemed to have risen sometime during the week, allowing her to complete her limit-breaking phase without noticing. It might have happened during a period where she had been distracted, so her not noticing was normal.

Regardless, I was just happy that it happened and naturally shared the good news with her. I told her we would move to her place as soon as I had checked up on the other members of her swarm. The four dark gold-stage Gyarados were perfectly fine, but their status sheets showed no crucial changes, which was not all that surprising.

Nonetheless, once I was done checking them, I told everyone that we were heading to Aby's Lake for her breakthrough before announcing the event throughout Utopia in case anyone else wanted to watch. Aby excitedly led the way, her enthusiasm infecting the others as well, turning the leisurely pace into a swift one.

We made it to Lake Abyss in "record" time, but much to Aby's chagrin, I still had her wait for the Pokemon I knew were heading here to witness her breakthrough. To keep her from getting annoyed at those poor guys and gals, I pulled out my Ocarina and began to play her favorite tunes/songs.

I only stopped once I saw through my second thought stream that everyone who wanted to come had arrived. Funnily enough, Aby seemed a bit reluctant to see me stop playing the Ocarina but quickly threw that reluctance away when I reminded her that she could now break through.

I quickly had everyone form a circle around her while I went up to her and hugged her after she leaned down. I wished her good luck and Fortuna/Togetic who had hugged Aby after me wished her a smooth breakthrough. We then withdrew to the circle and I gave Aby the go-ahead. She initiated her breakthrough and the whole thing went as smooth as butter.

Everyone felt Aby's (mid) dark gold stage might, and we could all see her happiness, even if she was not cheering out loud. I went up to her and kissed the crown/crest on her forehead before congratulating her on reaching the dark gold stage. She released a happy gurgle, and her eyes sparked with happiness.

Then the rest of her squad came to congratulate her, closely followed by the rest, so I went ahead and took a look at her new/updated status sheet while they were doing that.

'Name: Abyss (Aby)

Species: Gyarados

Gender: Female

Age: 12+ years

-

Type: Water, Dark

Potential: Light Aurora (10.79%)*

{Deep Purple (39.96%) -> (41.58%) -> Light Aurora (10.79%)}

(Genetic) Modifiers: Dark-variant

Abilities: Intimidate, Infiltrator, Moxie*

Talents: None

Affinities: Water, Dark'

The long-awaited and expected rise to light aurora happened without a hitch, adding another member to the prestigious Aurora Club. As usual breaking into the Aurora spectrum unlocked a third ability, and I could not say that I was surprised to see Moxie listed there. While there had been no indication of such a thing, I was curious if Aby had unlocked a talent of some kind, but that section remained as empty as before.

I felt kind of bad for Aby since she had become the only member of her Gyarados Squad without a talent ever since Medusa unlocked hers. Not that being talentless was a bad thing, even though this sentence made it sound like that, but it was a fact that Aby now continued to be the only Slythering Six member without a talent.

Still, I went ahead and told Aby about her upgraded potential and Moxie, but remained quiet on the talent front. Aby looked happy about the news, and just when I was about to continue looking, she asked if she had obtained any talent.

Not wanting to disappoint her, I quickly came up with an excuse and told her that it seemed like her body was preparing to unlock a strong one, so she had not gotten one this round. She probably knew that I was just saying that to console her, but she still went along with it and said that she was looking forward to it.

Now I just had to hope that she actually ended up unlocking something during her next breakthrough. The others finally began to distract her once again, so I quickly went ahead and continued looking through her status sheet.

'Bond: Mikail (deep)*

Quirks: Calm

--

Parameters:

Stage: Dark Gold Stage (mid)*

Vitality: D

Strength: C

Endurance: D

Agility: C

Energy Capacity: D

Energy Density: D'

I had already felt our bond deepening, and everyone had gotten a feel for her new strength. Yet, it was still nice to see that she was not all that far away from advancing to the (high) dark gold stage. She "simply" had to raise two more of her parameters to C. The easiest one to do so would be her energy density. As for the second one, the other three parameters had around the same progress speed, so she could just choose the one she preferred to focus on.

Shelving that thought, I continued to look through the rest of her status, but there were no further changes caused by her breakthrough. Still, before I went ahead and shared the news with Aby and declared the start of her celebration, I decided that it was time to once more focus on Sarcasm to raise it to advanced mastery. It was just too useful a move to not do so.

'Techniques:

-

Proficient:

Fake Tears (+), Flatter (new), Endure (new), Sarcasm (C, new)

-

Advanced:

Scary Snarl (C, +), Nasty Plot (+), Taunt (+), Torment (+), Payback (+), Feint Attack (+)

-

Mastered:

Hydro Pump (+), Crunch (+), Scald (+)

-

Combo moves/Custom moves:

Sarcasm (Proficient) {Combines Taunt, Torment, Flatter}'

We spent the next four hours celebrating Aby's breakthrough, but roughly three hours before dinner, Aby thanked everyone and told them that this was enough to show her their fondness. She told them that they could go ahead and train until dinner since she knew that most of them were close to breaking through as well.

Aby did not want them to miss out on a day of training, but she did tell me that she wanted to watch a movie after dinner, so theoretically she simply put a training break for her friends to her party. Well, everyone seemed to appreciate her gesture, and they all thanked her for her thoughtfulness. The day ended with us watching an action movie of Aby's choice.

The next day not only started off a new week but also welcomed the arrival of my parents, who came an hour before our usual breakfast time. Tomorrow was the final day of 2184, so they wanted to be here a day early. Actually, they already wanted to come over in Palkiday, but I insisted that they should continue their travels until the end of the week.

Unsurprisingly, the first thing Mom did upon arrival was to hug the stuffing out of me before checking me out to see how I was. She asked me if I was still being attacked by greedy b*st*rds, making me just laugh nervously. Dad hugged me as well and tried to calm Mom down who upon realizing that I was still being attacked, began ranting about sticking to me from now on and making an example from my attackers until no one dared to attack me.

Selectively ignoring the extent my Mom was willing to go for me, I joined Dad in calming her down. Hades rose from the shadows and joined us, assuring her that he was always by my side. He even played the Mothra card and joked that my head was her favorite resting spot. That along with his constant presence in my shadow seemed to reassure Mom more than anything, and I had to admit that I was thankful that we had managed to stop her from really sticking to me for the foreseeable future.

Afterward, Mom and I prepared our breakfast together. Once we were done with breakfast, they left for the backyard and made their way to the mini graveyard. I did not go with them to give them some time alone. While they did that, I did some meditation/training. The two were out there for close to an hour, and upon returning Mom began to squeeze me once more, thanking me for taking such good care of Sunny/Vileplume's resting place. Dad gave me a proud look and expressed his thanks as well.

Following that, we took a seat on the veranda and I asked Dad how his preparations were going. Dad happily began to tell me about their journey and Mom chimed in on occasion as well, before she began to talk about the things she did while they were traveling. We talked until lunch and after we had eaten, we headed out into the town.

My parents actually wanted to see my places, so I first brought them to the orphanage, before moving on to the reserve. They suggested something I certainly welcomed, which was that they could leave their Pokemon here if they ever exceeded their carry capacity and had to keep one of their Pokemon somewhere else.

Mom said that at least they would not be alone if they stayed here, and Dad agreed with her. Thanks to my Junior Professor License that was no problem, and I naturally welcomed the additional security. I told the two as much and they just laughed happily.

After leaving the reserve, we made our way into the town center and strolled around. Surprisingly, Weiss called me an hour before dinnertime. She told me that she wanted to invite us over to their home for Rayquaza's Descent as well as Ascent, and I heard Aunt Willow speak up beside her, telling me that we had to come.

In fact, she seemed to seize the phone from Weiss and told me to hand over the phone to my mother. I could not help but internally complain why she did not simply call Mom on her own phone, but still silently passed the phone to Mom, who looked quite amused.

The two talked for a bit and I heard Mom tell Aunt Willow that we would be there at 5 p.m. She then handed the phone back to me and it appeared that Aunt Willow had done the same since I heard Weiss apologize for her Mom just commandeering the conversation like that.

She also told me that she had invited our friends as well and that more than half of our friends/chat group had accepted her invitation. That was certainly good news, and I told her I looked forward to seeing her/them tomorrow before hanging up.

After I did that, Mom said that we had to buy a little something for the Schnees, so she dragged us to a few stores until she finally bought some little trinkets that she said were perfect for the occasion. Only after she had done that were we finally able to go to a restaurant and eat dinner. We did not immediately return home afterward but instead kept strolling through the town center to enjoy the festive atmosphere.

The next morning we started our final day of 2184 with a special breakfast prepared by yours truly in collaboration with Mom. Mom had us go all out and we cooked up a veritable breakfast feast. Thankfully I had an enormous stomach capacity, so none of the food went to waste, but if not for me being a "monster" we would have never been able to eat all the stuff we cooked up.

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

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

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

'Name: Abyss (Aby)

Species: Gyarados

Gender: Female

Age: 12+ years

-

Type: Water, Dark

Potential: Light Aurora (10.79%)

(Genetic) Modifiers: Dark-variant

Abilities: Intimidate, Infiltrator, Moxie

Talents: None

Affinities: Water, Dark

-

Bond: Mikail (deep)

Quirks: Calm

--

Parameters:

Stage: Dark Gold Stage (mid)

Vitality: D

Strength: C

Endurance: D

Agility: C

Energy Capacity: D

Energy Density: D

--

Immune:

Psychic

-

Resistance:

Fire (Minor), Water (Minor), Ice (Minor), Ghost (Minor), Dark (Minor), Steel (Minor)

-

Weaknesses:

Grass (Minor), Fighting (Minor), Bug (Minor), Fairy (Minor)

-

Standardized:

Electric, Fighting (in progress)

----

Condition: Healthy, Pleased, Excited

----

Masteries:

Water Energy Manipulation (Advanced)

Dark Energy Manipulation (Advanced)

----

Techniques:

-

(Unofficial) Initial:

N/A

-

Novice:

N/A

-

Beginner:

Thrash

-

Proficient:

Tackle, Flail, Bounce, Bite, Dragon Rage, Whirlpool, Twister, Ice Fang, Brine, Rain Dance, Flamethrower, Thunderbolt, Thunder, Blizzard, Iron Tail, Iron Head, Protect, Earthquake, Dragon Pulse, Lash Out, Fake Tears, Flatter, Endure, Sarcasm (C)

-

Advanced:

Splash, Swift, Aqua Jet, Water Pulse, Waterfall, Dragon Dance, Dark Pulse, Ice Beam, Aqua Tail, Brutal Swing, Hyper Beam, Surf, Snarl, Scary Face, Scary Snarl (C), Nasty Plot, Taunt, Torment, Payback, Feint Attack

-

Mastered:

Water Gun, Hydro Pump, Crunch, Scald

-

Combo moves/Custom moves:

Scary Snarl (Advanced), Sarcasm (Proficient)'

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