507 CH138 (502), Rollercoaster

Professor Oak gave me a warm welcome after I stepped into his office. Once we were done exchanging pleasantries, we began talking about how I was going to spend the next 7 months at the lab, 6 if we discounted the month-long break in between, which was pretty much how long my last two terms were in total.

Instead of assigning me to a special project, Professor Oak gave me the role of a Roaming Assistant, which basically meant that I was free to move between any of the ongoing projects at will. The only exceptions to that "rule" were the restricted projects for obvious reasons.

I only had to hand in a weekly report that documented which projects I had joined and what we had done during the week I was there. That was pretty much as much freedom as one could have at a lab, and I was pretty sure that the only person at the lab right now with more research/work freedom than me was Professor Oak himself.

The professor even went so far as to say that I should spend this week simply going around the various ongoing projects to take a look at what they were doing. He told me to take my time and to take as many breaks as I needed/wanted since according to him I would probably need those.

Professor Oak had a smile on his face that I could not really define when he said that, so I simply thanked him for his generosity before leaving his office. Once I had closed the door, I had the illusion that I heard some chuckling behind the door, but I ignored that and made my way to one of the close by lab rooms to take a look at what they were doing.

Well, it took less than 30 minutes for me to get an idea why the professor had smiled like that and why I had the feeling that I had heard some chuckling after I left his office. As soon as we passed the 30-minute mark I got swarmed by calls and emails as well as messages from reporters, scientists, regular as well as prominent professors, and even some companies as well as their representatives.

Heck, even some people/representatives from movement groups called me. Unlike the first group which wanted to talk to me about my papers in a friendly/positive manner, the movement groupies simply wanted to admonish me for irresponsibly messing with the local Pokemon.

I had to spend nearly the whole day answering calls and Professor Oak even came over after the first hour to laugh at my predicament. He also told me not to worry about looking into the projects for now, and that the heat should die down in a week or two.

It was clear that he knew that this was going to happen and he certainly seemed amused by my predicament. Just as he has predicted, I had to deal with calls for the whole day on Mewday as well, and frankly, it seemed as if Giratiday too would go like that. Yet, I turned out to be wrong with that assumption.

Giratiday went worse than the previous two days for a single reason. I got a visit from two alliance agents who asked for a private talk with me. During that conversation, they asked me to refrain from going around randomly evolving wild Pokemon without capturing them since messing with the local "ecosystem" like that was frowned upon.

Apparently, it was okay to capture members of an established "ecosystem", but inducing random evolutions or adding species to a set environment was not okay, who would have thought?

Okay, to be honest, I understood where they were coming from. I simply told them that I got the message and that I would not do something like that again since according to them I would have been fine if I had simply captured the Ursaluna and Ursasol.

Even though the matter was pretty harmless, getting a talk to from some alliance staff was certainly not something I wanted to repeat, at least not when it was because I had done something "wrong". I certainly would not have minded their visit if they had come over to praise/reward me.

Funnily enough, that happens as well, just another two days later. The second batch of alliance representatives informed me that I would be receiving a certain amount of alliance contribution and merit points/credits for the various papers I had published during the last year. They really used the stick-and-carrot method on me, and I could not even blame them since it was my own actions that caused it.

Regardless of all that stuff, I was thankful when the number of calls and messages began to slow down after the first week. The numbers kept decreasing during the second week and by the end of the month, the matter seemed to have finally settled down.

It was at that point, that Professor Oak came up to me to ask me what I had learned from the experience and I honestly told him that I was going to be more careful about how and when I was going to publish my next paper. Not to mention that I would have to think about what exactly I was going to mention in the paper itself, and what that would mean for me. He seemed satisfied with my answer and told me that I had done well enough with the way I dealt with the wave I had been forced to face.

Honestly, I was not even all that upset with Professor Oak even if it became apparent that he had a finger in the whole thing since I really did learn some lessons during the whole experience. While I did not have to like it, I understood the reason behind it.

Truthfully, I had already expected something like this before I came back, and I was just happy that Professor Oak was there to regulate the whole thing since I did not want to imagine what that whole experience would have been like without him interfering.

Still, valuable lesson or not, I was happy that I no longer had to deal with all that Tauros shit, and I definitely enjoyed the rather calm days that my first week of the new/10th month turned out as.

I chose to spend Kyoday relaxing in my dorm room, or rather inside Utopia, and I would have simply lazed around for the whole day if Mothra/Butterfree had not abruptly flown over to me all excited and declared that she felt "complete".

I directly sprung to my feet at that and checked her status to see if she was right. Once I saw that she had in fact been right, I hugged her and spun her around out of happiness. I naturally immediately announced Mothra's upcoming breakthrough throughout Utopia before heading to Mothra's habitat with her happily lounging in my arms.

By the time we made it there, some of the others were already present and Mothra left my embrace to fly over to them for a talk. It took less than 10 minutes for everyone to be present and they directly began forming the circle when I declared that we would be starting.

I walked up to Mothra to give her a last hug before her breakthrough, and Togetic did the same while wishing her good luck. Once the two of us had joined the others, I gave Mothra the signal and she initiated her breakthrough.

The whole thing went rather smoothly and took less time than I thought it would. There was a bit of a light show showing that something happened, but as I said it was not all that bright, so I doubted it was something big.

Anyway, the moment the breakthrough was over, Mothra went back to her chibi form, but she also openly displayed her new (mid) dark gold stage might for everyone to see/feel. Seeing how she was done, I had my second thought stream focus on Utopia.

Through my connection to Utopia, I saw Mothra's habitat grow due to her increased strength, but the expected capability update did not happen. I had hoped that Mothra "alone" would be enough since she was already at the (mid) dark gold stage, but it seemed like I was wrong.

Regardless, the current star was Mothra, so I bottled my unrelated frustrations and swiftly rushed up to her to give her a congratulatory hug before the other followed suit. While they were all swarming Mothra, I followed my usual routine and began looking through her status screen.

'Name: Mothra

Species: Butterfree

Gender: Female

Age: 12+ years

Type: Bug, Flying

Potential: Light Aurora (71.28%)*

{Light Aurora (31.1%) -> (31.28%) -> (71.28%)}'

What the f*ck? How did that happen? Why in Mew's name did Mothra's potential only increase by 40% even though she completed her limit breaking? Shouldn't it have been 80% after the whole aurora grade debuff thing? Why in Giratina's name did it get halved a second time?

I forcefully calmed myself down a bit to think things through, and I couldn't help but release a mental groan when the only thing I could come up with, was the fact that she broke through to the dark gold stage. The only logical conclusion seemed to be, that for some reason, breaking through to the dark gold stage halved the limit-breaking bonus that a Pokemon received.

Well, I was actually able to come up with some reasons right away, such as saturation of the body, which made it harder to influence the fundamental of the body, in which the potential was included. Another could be a higher life level meaning that any changes to the potential required double the effort.

Regardless of what the reason was, the end result was that Mothra only received a quarter of the potential bonus she should have originally gotten, which was kinda sad since she would have managed to reach the aurora grade, if not for this natural Nerf that suddenly popped up.

Mothra lost the chance to be the first among my Pokemon to reach the aurora grade, which to be honest was kinda disappointing. Yet, there was nothing I could do to change that, so I did my best to sound as enthused as possible while sharing the news with her and the others.

I saw Mothra's disappointment when she heard that she did in fact not attain aurora potential as we had assumed she would, but I along with the others managed to perk her back up soon enough. I told her that this simply delayed the inevitable by a bit and that she would simply have to break through to the platinum stage to make up for it.

When I declared that nothing could stop Queen Mothra from reaching aurora potential, she cheered and laughed. I felt that she genuinely felt better about the whole thing after my/our pep talk, so I continued looking through the rest of her status screen, hoping that I would find some good news.

'(Genetic) Modifier: Queen {King}

Abilities: Compound Eyes, Tinted Lens, Shield Dust

Talents: Quick Start V2, Size Control*'

Surprisingly, finding something did not take all that much. Mothra actually managed to somehow unlock a second talent. I had come across a few talent upgrades or mutations, but this was the first time that I got to see a second talent appear on a status screen, and I was not limiting this to my Pokemon, but actually including the hundreds of thousands of status screens I had seen to this day.

Anyway, Size Control was actually pretty on the nose with its talent title, so I had a pretty good idea of what the talent did, and honestly, it was not hard to guess why or how Mothra had gotten the Size Control talent considering just how much she loved using her mastered Minimize.

By now, Mothra going around in her chibi state had become something of a norm, so her somehow managing to unlock the ability to freely and naturally manipulate her size while surprising, was not all that shocking, but that might just be because we were talking about Mothra.

Mothra doing stuff like that first made you think "That works?" Or "The hell" before just accepting them and shrugging it off as "Just Mothra things". That reaction flow had become quite normal by now, so this second talent thing could simply be added to that list.

Still, I was sure that our family's lucky mascot had played a part in Mothra's luck as well, so I made a mental note to praise Togetic and give her some extra snacks during the celebration once I was done checking Mothra's status screen.

Nonetheless, before all that, I went ahead and actually read through the description of the new talent. Well, as I had expected, the description was rather on point and simply stated that Size Control allowed Mothra to manipulate her size however she wanted.

Obviously, unlike with Minimize, this went in both directions, so aside from assuming a natural chibi version of herself, Mothra was now able to grow larger as well. This meant that she could grow into a giant version of herself too. She now had the potential to truly achieve Kaiju levels of height, allowing her to, at some point, reach and maybe even surpass her namesake.

Well, at least, I was believing/hoping that she could do that in the future. I was unsure what her current limits were, and what the limit of her talent itself was. Considering that Mothra had been able to shrink down to close to a tenth of her original size through Minimize even before she unlocked her new talent, I would have said that she should be able to replicate at least that much with size control.

In fact, even though Mothra had switched to her chibi mode after she finished her breakthrough, I was pretty sure that she ignored her new talent for that and actively used Minimize for the change, which made sense since she did not actually know yet that she had unlocked the ability to freely control her size.

As for the size increase, I was guessing the same rule for the size decrease was probably true for that part as well, so she should be able to grow around ten times her original size, but that was something we would have to test.

Anyway, there was also a reminder below the description that stated that Size Control did not add a parameter modifier to Mothra's parameters and that the only effect of her size changes would be the natural consequences that followed them such as becoming denser and hence slightly tougher due to shrinking, or becoming less dense and hence slightly less though by expanding.

That was something we had already noticed once Mothra began using Minimize, so it was not surprising to see that it applied to Size Control as well. Regardless, after reading through that warning/reminder, I shared the good news with Mothra and the others, and everyone was stunned for a short moment before erupting in cheers.

They all began congratulating Mothra, who had flown at me to hug me which I obviously returned. I just enjoyed the moment and the great atmosphere for a bit. I had to smile when I saw Mothra fly to Togetic after she let go of me. She pulled her into a hug as well while calling her our family's lucky charm, showing that she thought of the same thing I did.

After that, we all asked Mothra to test out her new talent. Considering that she had been in her chibi form she first had to stop using Minimize to maintain her chibi form and use her now natural ability to alter her size instead.

Mothra nodded enthusiastically before growing back to her original size. She then proceeded to close her eyes and we all watched her full of anticipation. Everyone perked up when Mothra released an intrigued thrill/buzz, and we were all excited when she began shrinking once more.

Well, that lasted until Mothra shook her head and grew back to her original size, showing that she had accidentally used Minimize instead of her new talent. Not really that surprising since Minimize had kind of become second nature to her even though it had not been that long since she had mastered the move.

Yet, it only took her another try to shrink back down to her chibi mode, and seeing how she opened her eyes and cheered, we all joined her, believing that she had succeeded. She confirmed that she had worked it out a few moments later.

I asked her how shrinking with size control differed from her usual use of Minimize, and she said that unlike with Minimize, she did not need to use any energy or stamina to keep up her chibi size. She only had to use some of her energy whenever she changed her size, but other than that there was no additional energy or stamina cost for upkeep.

That was good news but not surprising since it was a natural change meaning that her chibi size became her new "natural" size until she changed it once more. Seeing how she had shrunk down to her usual chibi size, we were naturally curious if she could shrink any further, or if that was her current limit.

It turned out that she could in fact shrink by another 2-ish cm, which showed that her current shrinking limit was exactly 10 times her "original" size. Obviously, the question of how big she could become came up next and the result was quite a bit smaller than expected.

Mothra maxed out at close to 16 meters, unlike the 29-ish meter I had been expecting. That showed that she was currently not able to increase her size by 10 times as I/we had been expecting her to do.

16 meters was a bit below 6 times Mothra's original size, but it did kind of made sense that she was not as good at growing bigger than she was at growing smaller considering that she had mastered Minimize but had no prior experience with turning bigger.

I was confident that she would quickly reach the 10 times growth limit once she began practicing the change, and Horus/Xatu, Tatsumaki/Alakazam, and Gwen/Gardevoir were quick to agree with me. Seeing the smartest of our bunch agree with my words, Mothra nodded along and got a bit fired up.

She began to practice growing larger by returning to her "original" size before growing as much as she could. While the others watched her and cheered her on, I turned my focus back to her status screen.

'Affinities: Bug, Flying, Psychic, Grass*, Aura (Budding)*'

Well, what can I say, except that I certainly did not expect to stumble upon another happy change right after moving on to the next section, and it was not even a single surprise, but a double "happiness punch".

I had actually been hoping that her grass affinity would upgrade from weak to a full/standard one, due to the number of grass-type moves she had raised to advanced mastery, which pushed her grass energy manipulation to advanced mastery as well. Not to mention the grass energy-rich snacks I had been feeding her to help the process along, so seeing the complete grass affinity was a pleasant but somewhat expected surprise.

The budding aura affinity on the other hand took me completely by surprise since I had not been expecting her to unlock that one at all. I mean, she had neither learned any aura moves nor had I been pushing the development through any supplements or aura snacks.

Honestly, that aura affinity came out of nowhere. The only reason I could think of was our bond and my own aura. Maybe the bond feedback Mothra had been receiving from me had reached a certain saturation point, which then resulted in her unlocking a budding aura affinity.

Regardless, of the reason, it was definitely good news, and when I shared it with the others, they all had disbelieving looks on their faces for a moment before congratulating Mothra on her incredible lucky streak.

Frankly, I was surprised by her luck as well, and the good news had certainly made up for the whole reduced potential bonus that happened.

Anyway, while the others were chattering, I once more began to look through Mothra's status screen, only to stop in happy disbelief when I saw the change that happened to the next section.

'Bond: Mikail (deep)*

Quirks: Likes to eat, Curious/Lively'

For a moment I could not believe it, it had actually finally happened. I/we had been hoping that it would happen ever since I read up on the reason why it was taking so long, and now, our bond had finally grown from strong to deep.

Now that I actually bothered focusing on our bond, I could feel that it had grown stronger. The reason I had not immediately noticed the change was that I was too strong for my own good.

Unlike other trainers who immediately noticed the bonuses/perks they received from their new "deep" bond, I was already quite strong myself, so the impact of the boost our bond gave me was not all that big. At least it was not big enough for me to notice a difference without trying to look for one.

I would definitely take some time, later on, to look at my own status to see what kind of impact our upgraded bond truly had on me since I knew that there were supposed to be some changes on my side that I would like to take a closer look at.

Nonetheless, our "deep" bond did explain the increased number of pleasant surprises, since such a bond was supposed to have some positive impact in that direction on the Pokemon.

I/We had been waiting for this day for quite some time, ever since we had been led to believe that my being as strong as I was, was supposed to make it possible to increase our bond from strong to deep at the limit of the gold stage instead of the dark gold stage.

Yet, it was close to half a year ago, when I was starting to get really, really frustrated with the lack of a bond upgrade even though Mothra, Horus/Xatu, and Stan/Gyarados were close to finishing their limit-breaking, that I turned to my super library as well as the net and began to truly dig into everything I could find on the topic.

It took a lot of research to find the reason for the delay I had to endure. The reason was quite simple while still making some form of sense, which kept me from raging since doing so would have been unbecoming of me.

Anyway, apparently the "strength" condition for Pokemon of certain species was higher than that of others as far as the bond depth was concerned. More specifically, any Pokemon with a racial value (BS) above 500 had a requirement that was a substage higher than their "weaker" counterparts, which was the (low) dark gold stage.

In fact, it was at least two substages higher for pseudo legendaries, meaning any species with 600 RV or above, normally had to wait until at least the (high) dark gold stage for a "deep" bond. Some even had to wait until they reached the platinum stage for their bond to upgrade.

The trainer's strength could push that down to the (mid) dark gold stage at best, but sometimes it still took until the Pokemon made it to the (high) dark gold stage.

Considering the racial value of my own Pokemon, it had been no surprise that the expected bond upgrade never came. The modifier bonuses worked against me in this case, and all three of the "big" candidates needed to be at least at the (mid) dark gold stage for the bond upgrade to happen.

The focus here was on the "at least", and that was also the reason we had not been sure whether the bond would directly upgrade or not. Nonetheless, it had finally happened, and I swiftly shared the good news with everyone else.

Mothra tackled me in a hug and laughed out of happiness. I saw those with an RV close to Mothra looking relieved at the news since it meant that their bond should also go through the upgrade once they reached the (mid) dark gold stage. Unlike them, those with an RV above 600 were still unsure if that applied to them as well and I could see it in their stance.

Nonetheless, they all congratulate Mothra, who beamed at them. She gave them all a happy smile and said that it would be their turn soon enough as well. I shared my theory that the bond might have been the reason for the high number of pleasant surprises in addition to luck, before I continued to look through the rest of her status.

'Parameters:

Stage: Dark Gold Stage (mid)*

Vitality: D

Strength: E

Endurance: E

Agility: C

Energy Capacity: B

Energy Density: C'

It was no surprise that she was at the (mid) dark gold stage since Mothra had been openly displaying her prowess for quite some time. Still, it was nice to see that she would only have to raise her Strength and Endurance once to advance to the (high) dark gold stage.

Moving on once more, I was surprised to see another pleasant surprise. Honestly, the number of surprises was becoming quite surprising.

'Resistance:

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

Weaknesses:

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

Standardized:

Electric, Fire*'

Nonetheless, while I had not expected her fire weakness to become standardized yet, I certainly welcomed the change. Mothra had been semi-regularly working on her fire weakness, and I had actually been expecting it to take another two or so years before it finally became standardized.

Seeing her breakthrough pushing that timetable up made me happy, and Mothra was undoubtedly happy about it as well. The others were quite jealous about that one and teased Mothra a bit about trying to take Togetic's position as the lucky one.

Togetic played along and pulled out her Baby-Doll Eyes before looking at Mothra and asking if she really wanted to take her position. I had to laugh at that exchange, and while Mothra was trying to assure Togetic that the others were just talking nonsense, I went ahead and looked through the rest of Mothra's status screen.

'Condition: Healthy, Happy, Pumped up, Delighted

----

Masteries:

Bug E. Manipulation (Advanced),

Psychic/Psionic Energy Manipulation (Advanced)

Flying/Air E. Manipulation (Advanced)

Grass E. Manipulation (Novice) -> (Advanced)

----

Techniques:

(Unofficial) Initial:

N/A

Novice:

Draining Kiss, Flash, Supersonic, Sweet Scent, Headbutt, Round, Natural Gift, Brave Bird (new), Sky Attack (new), Magical Leaf (new), Moonlight (new), Moonblast (new), Dragonbreath (new), Shock Wave (new), Heat Wave (new)

Beginner:

Rain Dance, Roost, Dream Eater, Mega Drain, Future Sight (new), Rest (new), Razor Wind (new), Stored Power (new), Omnious Wind (new), Cosmic Power (new), Calm Mind (new), Acid Armor (new), Zen Headbutt (new), Thunder Wave (new)

Proficient:

Bug Bite, Tackle, Whirlwind, Endure, Aerial Ace, Rage Powder (++), Safeguard (+), Swift (+), Venoshock (+), Shadow Ball (+), Double Team (+), Silver Wind (+), Toxic (++), Wing Attack (new), Bodyslam (new), Poison Fang (new) Toxic Thread (new), Poison Jab (new), Gravity (new), Giga Impact (new), Acrobatics (new)

Advanced:

Iron Head, Iron Defense, Harden, Psychic Fangs, Thunder Fang, Electroweb, Bug Buzz, Psybeam, Air Slash, Signal Beam, Quiver Dance, Gust, Air Cutter, Steel Wing, Protect, Energy Ball (+), Sleep Powder (+), Stun Spore (+), Poison Powder (+), Pollen Puff (3+), Giga Drain (+), Hyper Beam (+), Sunny Day (+), Solar Beam (+), Twister (++)

Mastered:

Confusion, String Shot, Tailwind, Teleport (+), Psychic (+), Hurricane (+)

Transcended:

Minimize*

Combo/Custom:

Powder Bomb (All Variants, Prof.), Powdered String (AV, Prof.), Powdered Web (AV, Prof.), Steel Slash (Prof.), Spiral Galaxy (Adv.), String Whip (Prof.), String Needle (Beg.), Aerostream (Beg.)'

There were no changes in the energy section, and I was not surprised that she had yet to unlock aura manipulation. She had only unlocked the affinity just now after all. Besides, her affinity was merely at the budding grade, so her not having the corresponding manipulation mastery was normal.

When I came to the move section I honestly skimmed through it since Mothra simply had too many moves due to her talent. Yet, I still had to take a double take when I saw that Minimize had actually moved to the transcended mastery subsection.

However, after thinking about it, that made sense since Size Control was pretty much superior in any way compared to Minimize, so in a manner of speaking, Mohtra had already transcended the limits of the move.

Anyway, after I was finally done with Mothra's status screen, I declared the start of Mothra's party, and everyone cheered at the declaration.

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

The chapter ended up with 4866 words, so it is twice the size of my usual chapters. Also, just to be clear, while most of the chapter was focused on Mothra and her breakthrough, the first part of the chapter, which is unrelated to her, is 1100+ words in size, and that is about half the size of a regular chapter.

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

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

'Name: Mothra

Species: Butterfree

Gender: Female

Age: 12+ years

Type: Bug, Flying

Potential: Light Aurora (71.28%)*

{Light Aurora (31.1%) -> (31.28%) -> (71.28%)}

(Genetic) Modifier: Queen {King}

Abilities: Compound Eyes, Tinted Lens, Shield Dust

Talents: Quick Start V2, Size Control*

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

Bond: Mikail (deep)*

Quirks: Likes to eat, Curious

----

Parameters:

Stage: Dark Gold Stage (mid)*

Vitality: D

Strength: E

Endurance: E

Agility: C

Energy Capacity: B

Energy Density: C

----

Resistance:

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

Weaknesses:

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

Standardized:

Electric, Fire*

----

Condition: Healthy, Happy, Pumped up, Delighted

----

Masteries:

Bug E. Manipulation (Advanced),

Psychic/Psionic Energy Manipulation (Advanced)

Flying/Air E. Manipulation (Advanced)

Grass E. Manipulation (Advanced)

----

Techniques:

(Unofficial) Initial:

N/A

Novice:

Beginner:

Proficient:

Advanced:

Mastered:

Confusion, String Shot, Tailwind, Teleport (+), Psychic (+), Hurricane (+)

Transcended:

Minimize*

Combo/Custom:

Powder Bomb (All Variants, Prof.), Powdered String (AV, Prof.), Powdered Web (AV, Prof.), Steel Slash (Prof.), Spiral Galaxy (Adv.), String Whip (Prof.), String Needle (Beg.), Aerostream (Beg.)'

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

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