CH80 (694), Long-Awaited Moment

After returning from the Pinkan zone, I supervised everyone's morning training, though I could only do so for less than an hour before it was 9 a.m., which was the time I previously set for my departure from Utopia. Once I noticed that the time for me to head out had come I told everyone to continue training for another hour under the supervision of my Earth Clone before leaving Utopia with Mothra/Butterfree, Thor/Raichu, and Hades/Gengar.

Upon reappearing at the spot where we entered Utopia last night I brought out a compass and the map to determine in which direction we should head. Once I knew where to go I set off with Thor, while Mothra lounged on my head and Hades chilled inside my shadow. It didn't take more than 10 seconds for us to stumble upon our first wild Pokemon of the day, a Zigzagoon that was passing through the grass in front of us, but we ignored it and kept walking since it was neither on my capture list nor was I interested in having one of my Pokemon fight it.

That first encounter was quickly followed by many more, and less than 3 minutes later we came upon our first Wurmple. It was crawling along a branch on one of the trees to our left, and I expertly hit it with a PokeBall, causing it to fall off the branch before it got drawn into the PokeBall, indirectly saving it from falling into the ground. I caught the PokeBall with my telekinesis before it could fall onto the ground as well.

While PokeBalls were generally sturdy enough to easily withstand a 5-meter fall like that without a problem, it was better to not test whether that would always remain true or not, especially not while the ball was still in the process of capturing the Wurmple. The PokeBall wiggled a bit while I was levitating it over, but it ceased doing so shortly before I took it into my hands, indicating a successful capture.

Due to the experience this morning, I could not help but be curious if the lucky streak from yesterday was still continuing, so I briefly released the Wurmple to check its status sheet. I also gave the little one an Oran Berry to snack on to make accepting his capture easier and to apologize for hitting him on the cheek with the PokeBall.

Anyway, Wurmple's status sheet told me that the streak was over, or that it was taking a break, because this guy had deep red potential. That would naturally increase by a grade or two once he entered Utopia. Yet, its potential was still anything but what I would call decent. Nonetheless, Wurmple's potential was no problem for the Pinkan project. In fact, it was useful since I needed Wurmle with all kinds of potential for the project, so he was welcome all the same.

Looking at him eating the Oran Berry with such gusto, I did not want to interrupt him by suddenly withdrawing him, so I first moved his PokeBall to the storage, before moving Wurmple together with his berry to the Pinkan zone. I was sure that one of the other Wurmple would tell him where he was once he was done eating his berry and noticed that his surroundings had changed.

After I transferred Wurmple to Utopia, we resumed our walk, and a few minutes later we finally came across our first humans of the day. It was a pair of teens or young adults, I could never be too sure about that stuff with the way people developed over here. Regardless, after exchanging greetings, they asked me if I was interested in a double battle against them, and I agreed, though I made sure to ask them at what stage the Pokemon they were going to use would be so that I could match that. 

I jokingly added that I wouldn't want to send Mothra out just to have overshot by quite a bit, while Mothra released her dark gold undulations to accentuate my words. They were shocked at little Mothra's strength and quickly told me that they were only planning to use silver-stage Pokemon. I agreed to match that, and after we settled on a 4 vs 4 battle, they released their first duo, while I called out Hestia/Eevee and Freyja/Lopunny.

The Pokemon of the duo were quite good, but Hestia and Freyja managed to defeat all 4 of their Pokemon, though they were visibly exhausted and somewhat hurt after that. Honestly, the cooperation of the other side was better than ours, but we won by virtue of our superior individual prowess and the fact that I actively instructed Hestia and Freyja.

Admittedly, that was not surprising considering that the duo seemed to be experienced in double battles, while this was the first time that Hestia and Freyja fought together. Both had cooperated with others before, but never with each other, so this performance was to be expected. Not that they had done a bad job since they at least did not get into each other's way even before I fully took charge.

Anyway, once the battle was over, the pleasantries were dealt with, and we continued on our way, I made the mental note to have my Pokemon do some cooperation drills/battles even outside of their distinct little groups. The next four hours after that passed by with the occasional battle against both wild Pokemon and trainers. I also ended up capturing 16 more Wurmple, and all of them ended up having lower-than-average potential, which was a rather stark contrast to yesterday's harvest.

Putting that slightly unfortunate situation aside, I finally chose to stop at a small clearing for lunch since it was already past 1 p.m. As usual, the aroma released by the food I took out, especially the food I gave to Mothra and Thor, lured over a few wild Pokemon that could not help but follow the scent of appetizing food. I brought out a few berries and cut them into pieces before handing them out to those who dared to approach us.

I also used the chance to bribe all Wurmple that showed up into joining Utopia by offering them a complete Oran Berry while promising them a steady supply of future berries without having to worry about having to vie with others for them. All of them readily agreed to the deal, so I got to ball another 8 Wurmple during lunch alone.

The rest of the day went pretty much the same. We came across wild Pokemon and ignored most of them, only battling with a few of them when I felt like it. We also ended up battling some of the trainers we came across, and I managed to catch another 19 Wurmple, bringing the grand total for today to 44, which was 2 more than yesterday. Still, unlike yesterday, the potential average of this batch was quite a bit worse than the previous one.

I did not want to speak in absolutes before they underwent the Utopia treatment, but the way I saw it, only 3 of them were going to have blueish potential after the optimization. Not to mention that the ratio of Wurmple with potential at and below yellow was much higher than yesterday as well.

Anyway, the first thing I did after entering Utopia at 8:30 p.m. was to release the Wurmple at the Pinkan area and observe their status sheets after their optimization was complete. As I had expected, only 3 of them had their potential raised to blueish, with the best one having blue potential. The rest went pretty much as I had expected as well, so I simply told the "older" Wurmple to bring the new arrivals up to speed before returning to my place for dinner with my family.

The remainder of the evening was spent talking with my Pokemon and relaxing. Hestia even came up to me and asked me to let her fight more since she wanted to use the battles to finally push herself to the (high) silver stage. She was really close to advancing and she knew that which only raised her impatience. I agreed to her request and promised her that I would call her out more often after the others at the silver stage agreed to let her have a battle priority until she advanced.

The next morning I followed the usual routine, and once it was 9 a.m. I left Utopia just as planned. The morning/day went similar to the previous one right up until it didn't. Roughly two hours after lunch, during a battle against a lady we met on the road, Hestia ended up advancing in the middle of her battle against the lady's Weepinbell. Hestia still calmly continued the battle, and she obviously won the fight. 

However, as soon as the pleasantries were over and the lady moved on, Hestia jumped me and excitedly asked for us to enter Utopia so that we could start her evolution ceremony. Knowing how much she desired to evolve and how long she had been waiting for this I naturally agreed. As soon as we entered Utopia, I made the announcement, informing all Utopians about Hestia's upcoming evolution.

I told them that those interested in witnessing the evolution should head to the Eevee territory before my group did just that. Once we made it to EeveeLand, we proceeded to wait for everyone to arrive. 10 minutes into our wait, I succumbed to Hestia's glistening eyes/stares and mobilized the Teleporters to speed up the arrival of those who wanted to watch the evolution. It took another 5 or so minutes, but eventually, everyone had been brought over, including the very excited Spinda Quartet.

With everyone present, I decided to finally start, so I took out all the supplements I prepared for this moment. Naturally, before I began to apply the supplements I called Fortuna/Togekiss over so that she could wish Hestia the best of luck with her evolution. Considering my own not-so-great luck with the Wurmple during the last two days, I first asked Mew and Jirachi for their support before wishing Hestia good luck with her evolution.

Then, just to be on the safe side, I had Fortuna wish Hestia good luck once more. Following that, the Eevee Squad rushed over, and doggy-piled Hestia. They also wished her good luck before leaving us alone so that I could finally start applying the supplements I prepared.

Hestia complained a bit about her fur being dirtied when I began spreading the external supplemental salves on her fur, but there was no way around it so she had to endure it whether she liked it or not. Well, I did not say it like that to her and simply patted her head and told her to endure it for a few moments so that she could evolve, which earned me a reluctant nod from her.

Once I was done with the external supplements, I gave her two tonics to drink before finally taking out the Fire Crystal I prepared as her trigger. Hestia's excitement shot through the roof when she saw the Fire Crystal appear, but she still restrained her eagerness and waited for my signal to touch the crystal, which I definitely appreciated. 

I levitated the Fire Crystal over to Hestia as I was stepping back to join the circle the others had formed around her. I moved the crystal right in front of Hestia's paw and told her to go ahead, which had her directly place her paw onto the crystal. The moment her paw touched the Fire Crystal Hestia erupted into a bright light. Roughly 15 seconds into the evolution I suddenly felt more energy being drawn towards Hestia, which caused the light she was releasing to increase in brightness. 

That naturally caught everyone's attention and caused their excitement to rise since this phenomenon meant that Hestia's evolution had triggered something extra. Going by the fact that it was noticeable like this, it had to be an extensive change, so it was either a modifier or a talent that affected Hestia on a more comprehensive level. Either way, it was great news for her.

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