John's Team
Tyrant - Slaking
Vordt - Ursaluna
Smough - Snorlax
Klee - Blissey
Port - Mantine
Zephyr - Pidgeot
Klaus - Wyrdeer
Luna - Clefable
Pixel - Porygon
Euphie - Eevee
The New Normal – 4-2 – Progress
I flew home after that conversation with Agatha. I did ask Karen if she wanted to accompany me so that we could get started on training immediately, but Karen had something to discuss with Agatha and wasn't available. I accepted that and made my way out by myself.
It was already past nightfall as I got home shortly later, and I found Euphie, Pixel, and Whismur all playing together. I had left my newer Pokémon behind so that they could play around with Whismur, and I was very happy to see all three of them getting along. The three of them might not be in the same team but learning to make friends and interact with other Pokémon is never going to be a bad thing.
I watched as the three of them continue their playfighting, and I was proud to see that Pixel was dominating their fights. Sure, it was a very low-level fight, but Pixel had gotten very good at using Thundershock and was able to use the occasional Thunderbolt. That gave it a huge advantage over its more melee focused companions.
Euphie on the other hand seemed to be prioritising her physical attacks as newer Pokémon were often to do, which wasn't ideal for a future Sylveon, but I was okay with allowing her to train this way for the time being. Besides, I realized that she seemed more content to just goof and play around, so I suppose I shouldn't get too greedy and just be satisfied that she was improving at all.
Eventually, I would have to knuckle down and actually train Euphie in preparation for her evolution into a Sylveon, even if she didn't take to training all that easily, like Smough did originally. I would just have to be patient when training her. And besides, it was still early days yet, and she had plenty of time to get stronger.
For the time being, I remained content to let her spend some time playing around and integrating herself into my team. But as I watched Euphie snuggle tightly into Klee's arms after her 'defeat', tailed wrapped around her neck while being patted on the head, I felt comfortable that I didn't need to interfere there.
Speaking of children, I needed to make my way back to my room to check on the egg. I've been checking up on the egg very frequently recently as I was certain now that the egg was close to hatching and that it was going to successfully hatch into a D-Zigzagoon. I couldn't wait! With all the research reports and notes already completed, all that was left to do was to see the final results of our experiment.
Of course, before I got into the house I was waylaid by Zephyr, who flew around me while chirping to catch my attention.
"What's up, Zephyr?" I asked him. "Did you want to show me something?"
"Pidgeot! Pid…" Zephyr nodded eagerly and then took off to the skies. I watched as he swooped around in the air before he fell into a blistering fast nosedive that looked like he showed no regard to the fact that he was about to crash straight into the ground. Of course, Zephyr then managed to pull up just before he hit the ground.
He went and did this over and over again for several minutes, sometimes he would be surrounded by a tell-tale silvery glow of his Brave Bird before he surged forwards in the sky, smashing almost recklessly through branches and fallen logs. It was not just a matter of strength, but I marvelled at the way that Zephyr intentionally angled itself when colliding into object to give it as much striking power as possible. It was a combination of these very minor, yet overall important details that demonstrated his near-perfect mastery to maximize the impact of his recoil attacks using Brave Bird.
It took me a while to figure out what he was trying to demonstrate to me, but I finally got it.
"Zephyr!" I called out to him. "Did you manage to train your new ability like I told you to?!" Zephyr squawked affirmatively in the sky before he finally settled down again next to me, preening with pride and happiness.
I smiled at his preening and rubbed and scratched his chin. "Well done! I can't believe you mastered the Reckless ability so quickly! That's incredible, Zephyr!" I gushed excitedly, and Zephyr responded with a happy chirp of his own.
As I mentioned before, mastering a new 'ability' was really just your Pokémon pushing themselves to the very limit of their training in one area or another so that it can mimic the effects of an ability. By being able to drive himself into the opponent so deeply, Zephyr was able to re-create the power boost to recoil attacks from Reckless. In a way, because Brave Bird was the only recoil move that Zephyr knew, mastering Reckless could also be seen as just mastering Brave Bird to its extreme.
I supposed part of the reason why he was able to master Reckless so quickly was that he was both a well-trained Pidgeot that was already extremely proficient at using Brave Bird, on top of his sheer determination to grow stronger and catch up with the stronger members of my team. Thus, it was mostly a natural progression for Zephyr to have mastered Brave Bird to such an extent that it was as if Zephyr had the Reckless ability in the first place.
I knew that Tyrant was having far more trouble with trying to re-create the effects of Guts.
Still, he really deserved all of the praise considering just how quick he was able to learn the ability. He was one of my most enthusiastic Pokémon when it came to training.
But first, I wanted to double check to see just how much of a difference there was.
"Zephyr, Vordt, get over here!" A distant grunt sounded out as Vordt slowly lumbered his way here from where he was busy destroying the ground as he practiced his new combination move. Vordt was making good progress with Seismic Eruption, but the follow-up eruption of rocks was a bit too delayed for my liking, so I had him continue practicing.
As my two Pokémon arrived, I pointed to Zephyr. "Zephyr, I want you to hit as hard as you can with Brave Bird on Vordt. I want to see just how much power you can put into it. You both okay with that?"
My Pokémon squawked and grunted respectively, before Zephyr took off into the sky while Vordt began to brace himself and dug his claws into the ground. I watched as Zephyr somersaulted in the air, before he began his meteoric decent into Vordt, glowing silver all the while.
Then, the two collided as Zephyr struck the center of Vordt's chest. Vordt let out a growl of pain as he was physically pushed back by the supposedly much weaker and lighter bird, highlighting the sheer power of Zephyr's Brave Bird.
Zephyr in the meanwhile looked almost like he had taken a hit from Vordt from the recoil damage alone. One of its eyes was bruised, and its wings were flapping unevenly.
Despite this, I was more than satisfied with that performance. For Zephyr to be able to deal some serious damage to Vordt with his Brave Bird was a testament to the dedication that he put into his training, being able to immerse itself in a state of deep focus to remove all hesitation from within himself when attacking with Brave Bird so that it carried just a bit more power.
As I mentioned before, Zephyr's issue that caused it to be the weakest member of my team was that Pidgeots were just not known as powerhouses at the Elite level, since they were comparatively weaker than the other Pokémon you'd see at this level. However, now that Zephyr had learned Reckless, I hoped that it could improve on his niche as a pseudo-duellist against other Flying type Pokémon like him.
"Come down, Zephyr! You did great!" I proudly exclaimed, receiving a proud squawk in return before Zephyr landed next to me.
I patted him on the head. "Well, it seems like you had a much easier time learning a new ability than Tyrant, Zephyr." I joked, while gesturing to Tyrant in the distance, who had set himself on fire once again trying to practice resisting the effects of Burn. "He's having a little trouble getting fired up." Zephyr squawked indignantly at my terrible pun, and I let out a chuckle.
I continued scratching at Zephyr for a while before a grunt from Vordt reminded me of his presence, and I sheepishly sent both him and Zephyr to Klee to be healed up.
Despite his injuries, Zephyr gave another excited chirp before he took off into the air, eagerly showing off to the world. I chuckled to myself as I saw it before I made my way back to my room, though I made a mental note to give Zephyr a new training target soon enough. This time, I felt that he had mastered Brave Bird enough that it was probably unnecessary to train it further for the time being.
Instead, I wanted to bolster my team's effectiveness against Ghost types. Thus, I made a mental note to begin training soon with Zephyr about training him to learn Foresight. It was normally an egg move, but with enough instruction from myself, Zephyr should be able to learn it anyways. I figured that, since Zephyr was effectively the only member on my team who could directly match the commonly speedy Ghost types, he could help me fulfil another needed niche on my team.
Sure, Smough already knew Odor Sleuth from when he was a Munchlax, but more counters against Ghost types were never a bad thing.
As soon as I went into my room, I quickly checked on the egg. I could see that it was wobbling slightly in its incubator, a sure-fire indicator that it was getting very close to hatching. That made me excited once again, and I was finding it increasingly difficult to remain patient.
Still, I somehow dragged myself to bed and, despite my impatience and excitement, forced myself asleep.
"Thank you for coming in once again, John." Shelly told me with a smile. It was the next day, and Shelly had called for me in the afternoon to come visit her branch once again. She also told me to bring along Pixel, which probably meant that she had some news regarding Porygon.
"No worries, Shelly, I'm happy to be here." I answered pleasantly, "So, what's going on?"
"Well, apparently your scientists from Giovanni had done a lot of previous research on Porygon, which I guess isn't that surprising considering they were the ones to create Porygon in the first place." She explained. "However, my colleagues at Petalburg were able to make a lucky breakthrough of sorts regarding a possible Porygon evolution."
"Oh? That's very interesting. Could you elaborate?" I asked curiously.
Shelly nodded. "So, remember how I told you that Porygon was probably going to need a particular item to evolve?" I nodded. "Well, our researchers there have confirmed it that Porygon is able to evolve with an item. But not only that, according to what they told me, they've managed to narrow down the factors needed to evolve a Porygon." She explained to me.
She then went on to describe with her scientific terminology how the scientists were able to compile the data that they collected from Pixel and combine it with data that they've gathered from other Porygon to determine what kind of item is needed to trigger an evolution. They said something about specific data packs and digitalized genomes, but I didn't understand any of it. I just knew that they were doing something exciting, and that Pixel might be able to evolve into a Porygon2 soon enough.
"I apologize if I'm oversimplifying what you're trying to tell me, but from what I understand, you and your colleagues are getting very close to creating an item that can be used to evolve my Pixel into its later evolution." I interrupted her after a while.
"Ah, yes, that does cut through to the heart of the matter." She chuckled embarrassedly as she realized that she had lost me with her explanation. "But you're correct. We are getting close and hence why I have invited you here today. I assume you've been training your Pixel here even more since we last met." I nodded affirmatively. "Well, we just want to collect more data on it to see if that can help with finalizing our creation of the evolution item."
"Oh sure, no problem, right Pixel?" I turned to Pixel and saw it buzz happily. "Yeah, we're both fine with this. Lead the way."
She led me down to the room where she had previously run some tests on Pixel. As I watched Shelly carefully strap Pixel into the machine, I suddenly remembered the disaster that was Porygon-Z and needed to make sure that they weren't accidentally going to drive Pixel insane.
"Ah, I do have a question regarding the evolution of Porygon." She turned to me curiously. "Remember when I mentioned last time that I wanted to ensure that the evolution of Porygon was going to be safe? Have you followed up on that?"
"Well, I did make a note of it. But I'm not sure there's anything to worry about?" She gave me a questioning look. "All evolutions are safe. It's been repeatedly documented that Pokémon only evolve if it's safe for them to evolve into their new forms. There has never been an incident where a Pokémon accidentally mutilates themselves by evolving."
I shook my head. "That's not what I mean. I understand that that may be the case for MOST Pokémon, but you understand that Porygon aren't biological Pokémon like the rest of them are. It's literally created out of data." She still looked confused, so I tried to clarify myself. "You told me that your colleagues intended to evolve Porygon using an item that would essentially feed specific data into it to artificially trigger the evolution. And since Porygon are literally created from data, what's to say that you don't accidentally harm the Porygon or drive it insane if you created an unstable evolution by feeding it the wrong sort of data." I explained to her, hoping to justify and prevent the tragedy that was Porygon-Z.
Shelly's eyes widened as she adopted a look of understanding. "Oh! Yes! That's a great point to make. Wow, I would have never thought of that." She took out her notepad and scribbled something down. "I need to tell my colleagues about this. We never once considered that we might accidentally create an evolution that may be harmful to the Pokémon themselves. We always assumed that, so long as we could actually trigger an evolution, that the resulting Pokémon would be fine afterwards. But yes, considering Porygon is made out of data, we may have additional considerations to think of. Thank you for this." She rambled excitedly.
I just nodded easily and said that I was just looking out for my own Porygon. I really didn't want to give Pixel an Up-Grade or a Dubious Disk that may cause Pixel to become insane afterwards. Even if Porygon-Z was a powerful Pokémon, I would rather have a sane, but weaker, Porygon2 instead.
After Shelly had written down my concerns, she went back to her tests with Pixel. I waited patiently once again for her to finish, and about half an hour later she was done and returned Pixel to me. As we made our way back to her office for her to type everything up, Shelly made some comments and praised me for how much stronger Pixel was compared to the last time we were here, and I just told her that Pixel was just a hard worker and deserved all the credit. Pixel buzzed and whirled happily at our words.
"Oh, speaking of which..." Shelly suddenly turned to me away from her computer. "I wanted to ask if you would like to be the honoured as the first person to own an evolved Porygon. If so, we would simply create the item first, but allow your Porygon to be the first one we tested it on."
"Uh, thank you for that offer, but I definitely don't need to be honoured that way." I said immediately. "Firstly, I didn't really do anything to deserve that honour, and I feel like your research team should get the credit and honour for the discovery and the evolution. Also, and please don't take this the wrong way, I would much rather make sure that the evolution goes well before subjecting my own Porygon to it. I don't want to accidentally drive Pixel to insanity." I half-joked.
Luckily, Shelly took no offense to my words and just chuckled. "I understand. I'll let my other colleagues know that. Of course, I'll leave that last part out." We shared a small laugh together.
We then chatted a bit about the timeline about getting Pixel evolved, and she said that you never knew for sure with this kind of thing but to expect it hopefully within the next month or so. She told me she would call me as soon as they had done a few successful tests with their item, and I thanked her for that.
"Oh, and just one more thing." Shelly called out to me. "Mr. Stone wanted to give this to you." She rummaged briefly through her cupboard before she fished out a pouch. Inside that pouch was a couple of TMs. One was pink, another purple, and the last one was green. My eyes gleamed with interest as I saw them.
"As you probably recognized by now, these are the TMs for Psychic, Shadow Ball, and Solar Beam respectively. Apparently, he had read from the reports that you were helping out greatly with their research project back in Hoenn, so he wanted to gift these to you as thanks." She explained as she handed the TMs to me.
"Oh…wow!" I was pleasantly taken aback as I carefully received the TMs. "I'm not sure I did anything worthy enough to deserve this gift, but please pass on my thanks to Mr. Stone for me. I'll be sure to put them to good use."
"You're welcome. And of course, I will pass on your thanks to Mr. Stone. We would prefer it if you could use those TMs to continue training up your Pixel. We picked them specifically for your Porygon, you see, because we thought that the stronger that Pixel gets, the better data we can get out of it to improve our abilities at researching its evolutions as well as potentially demonstrating how we can more efficiently mass produce Porygon." She explained to me.
I nodded to signify that I understood, and I pocketed the TMs safely back into the pouch. As I was doing so, Pixel recognized the TMs and buzzed happily.
"Pory! Pory! Pory!" Pixel whirled, and I gave a genuine bark of laughter at his excitement. My eager Porygon wanted to learn all three of the TMs as soon as possible and get to training right away! I made sure the TMs were safely stored away before I crouched down and spoke to Pixel.
"You can't learn all three of them at once, you silly little thing." I said, and Pixel buzzed in annoyance. "Calm down, Pixel. I know and am happy that you're so eager to learn, but sometimes you have to take things one at a time. You'll get overwhelmed if you try to learn all three of these TMs at once."
Pixel didn't seem satisfied and continued buzzing about, so I decided to put my foot down. "Pixel. Enough of that." I said sternly, which seems to have at least caught its attention. Seeing that it was now in a listening mood, I relaxed my tone of voice, "You need to learn to be patient. I will always work hard to make sure you're going to be as strong as you can, and I'm as excited as you are about learning these new TMs, but you won't be able to learn all of them at once."
Pixel whirred sadly at that, but I wasn't finished yet. "Don't worry, Pixel, we can learn them one at a time. It won't take too long, and I assure you if we do it this way, you'll end up stronger than if you had just rushed through the training. Can you please trust me? I've done something like this many times before."
Pixel looked up and stared at me, probably trying to see if I was telling it the truth. I met its gaze. After a while it looked away, buzzing happily, and hopping up and down. I smiled at its' antics.
"No wonder you made it into the Elite Four at such a young age." Shelly spoke up, reminding me that she was still there. I scratched my head embarrassedly.
"Heh, well, I have had a lot of practice with training my other Pokémon." I told her, "I never really liked using TMs that much unless I had to. Both because they were, at the beginning, prohibitively expensive for me to use, and also because I found that relying too heavily on TMs to train your Pokémon in certain attacks often makes their attacks very stiff and inflexible. I prefer using the TMs as a template to get started, then building on it naturally until my Pokémon can develop their own method of using that attack."
"That's an interesting way of thinking about it." Shelly replied. "I never really was that great of a trainer, as you can see by the fact that I became a scientist." I nodded as she chuckled, "So I never really thought about the consequences of being too dependent on TMs. Now that I think of it, my colleagues and I often use TMs for testing purposes, so we may have accidentally made our testing Pokémon a bit too dependent on TMs…and I don't even think my colleagues have thought of it like that." She admitted ruefully.
"Well, it's something to consider." I remarked, before Pixel started buzzing about impatiently once again as it saw that we weren't leaving. I shook my head bemusedly.
"Ok, sorry about this, but dear old Pixel over here is being very impatient. If I don't head back now, I'm not sure if it'll try running off on its own." I joked and Pixel narrowed its eyes indignantly at my comment. Shelly laughed at that and told me that it was fine. She thanked me for my help once again and let me be on my way.
Before I was about to leave though, she did ask about if I had any possible names for the Porygon evolution. I instinctively just said "Porygon2", and she criticised me for my terrible naming sense. I shrugged; I was getting blamed for using the official name!
Shaking my head at that, I just left the building and was about to fly back home. Just as I was about to fly off though, I received a call from Giovanni.
"Hello, John speaking."
"John, it's Giovanni." He greeted. "I have a small proposal for you."
"Oh? What is it?" I asked curiously.
"You know how the next circuit is about to begin, right?" I answered affirmatively. "Well, you have sold me on the idea of playing nice with the public. So, I had an idea. Why don't we host a charity show match to help donate to those who were injured at Olivine City?"
A.N And Zephyr 'develops' Reckless as a new ability! As I mentioned before, some abilities will be easier to 'develop' than others. So, don't expect new abilities to come too often or too easily. This was really just me opening the door to future possibilities, and to test the waters. Mastering 'reckless' as quick as he did was only possible because Zephyr was extremely proficient at using Brave Bird user anyways, so this was just the result of his training.
Also, the next non-Interlude (4-3) chapter will come on Thursday instead of Friday. Sorry about that!
After going through the comments on all 3 sites, I decided that many enjoyed the Wednesday Interludes enough for me to continue them (and I personally like writing them because they let me try out new POVs). Just a reminder, the Wednesday Interludes ARE BONUSES that I write if I have the time, so even if you don't want them, I can't just replace them with a full chapter due to time constraints.
Yet, I want to write things that readers enjoy, but it's hard to strike a balance when people want different things. Regardless, thank you for being polite with your criticism and I thank you for your continued support. I will strive to see if I can find a better solution for presenting the Interludes.
However, I will try to cut down on full length Interlude chapters as much as I can, especially back-to-back ones.
This chapter has been BETAed by Allute! Thanks man! And to anyone who wants to support me, please check out my p atreon at CartecTNN where you can read 8 advanced chapters! Thanks to those who have supported me already!