522 CH153 (517), The End (3)
I let Stan/Gyarados enjoy his first proper flight for a while before I asked him to come down so that I/we could properly congratulate him on his breakthrough to the dark gold stage, and his new ability to freely fly as well I guess.
Stan did follow my request and once he moved closer to land in front of me, I managed to get a proper look at him. I saw no obvious physical changes, so I could exclude anything that would cause those to happen. I hugged his head after he extended it to me and began congratulating him on his successful breakthrough and his flight.
Mothra/Butterfree and Fortuna/Togetic jumped out to congratulate him as well before trying to persuade him to go for a quick round in the air with them. The only reason they failed was that the rest of the Slithering Six interrupted their persuasion attempt to congratulate their leader, which was followed by everyone else piping up as well.
While they were doing that, I went ahead and checked out Stan's new/updated status sheet to see for myself what exactly had changed as a result of his breakthrough.
'Name: Stan (Dilong)
Species: Gyarados
Gender: Male
Age: 11+ Years
-
Type: Water, Flying
Potential: Light Aurora (22.86%)*
{Deep Purple (64.1%) -> (65.73%) -> Light Aurora (22.86%)}'
Well, I was definitely happy to see that he had finally joined the light aurora group. Unfortunately, I was not all that surprised to see that the percentage to the next grade had "only" increased by that much.
Mothra's breakthrough had already shown that the dark gold stage had an impact on the potential increase granted by the limit breaking. More precisely, it doubled the "potential" needed to increase the percentage counter by 1%.
Due to this, it took 68.54% of Stan's potential bonus to attain light aurora potential instead of the 34.27% it would have taken if he had broken through to the gold stage instead. At that point, the potential requirement doubled again, causing the "potential cost" for each 1% increase on the counter to essentially quadruple. 91.46% thus turned into 22.86%.
Ultimately, the most important part was that he now had the fabled 7-star potential as well. It certainly made Stan happy to have the confirmation from me, and the Sinister Six were quite elated that one of them had finally joined the aurora group.
Though, Stan was only the forerunner of the group since the rest was going to follow as soon as they broke through to the dark gold stage as well. Anyway, while they were cheering I resumed my check-up.
'(Genetic) Modifier: Royal
Abilities: Intimidate, Moxie, Strong Jaw*'
Considering the fact, that there had been no potential loss, I was not surprised that there was no change in the modifier section. We had all known/expected that Stan would gain a third ability since that came along with the light aurora potential, and quite a few potential abilities had been suggested between us.
Strong Jaw had been one of them, even if I had to admit that it was one of the less impressive ones. A plus 50% in power to all bite-related moves was not bad, just not as good as some of the other abilities we listed. That there were only like 10 bite-related moves that I knew of, and the fact that Stan only knew 3 of those was another point that made the third ability less impressive.
We would have to work on that if we wanted to ensure that his new 3rd ability did not go to waste. Besides, this way at least Stan's impressive jaw was going to see some use. I was a bit curious whether the rest of the Sinister Six would get the same 3rd ability, or if theirs would be different thanks/due to their different second typing.
If I had to be honest, I would prefer it, if they unlocked something else. At least, as long as it was better than Strong Jaw. Yet, Strong Jaw was what Stan got, and all we could do was make the best of it. With that thought, I made sure to put on a smile and share Stan's new ability with the rest.
Stan did not show any disappointment when he heard he had unlocked Strong Jaw, which was to be expected since he was usually rather calm, discounting the whole flying incident, but I still made sure to mention that we would start working on some of the bite-related moves we knew of, as well as some custom ones, to show Stan that we could work with the ability and that it was not a bad one.
Seeing how he brightened just a bit more, I knew I made the right choice. After dealing with that, I continued looking at his status sheet, and I directly came upon a pleasant surprise.
'Talents: Personal Pace*
Affinities: Water, Flying'
Apparently, Stan had unlocked a talent, and from the way it sounded, it gave me the impression that it was linked to his Calm Quirk. I had honestly thought that the talent Stan unlocked in the future would be related to leadership seeing how he was the leader of his Gyarados team and the swarm, along with the fact that he possessed the royal gene.
Still, there was no reason to throw around any further guesses, when I could simply read through Personal Pace's description, and after doing just that, I could say that Personal Pace gave the impression of an upgraded Own Tempo.
While Own Tempo only protected the owner from confusion, even the self-inflicted one, along with intimidation, Personal Pace did much more than that. In fact, Personal Pace covered most of the volatile conditions such as encore, flinches, intimidation, drowsy, and locks, whether that be abilities, moves, or retreat/distance on top of confusion.
Additionally, the holder of the talent was able to draw others/those that trusted him into his own pace, ensuring that they would not flinch, get confused, or be intimidated as well.
It was a pretty good talent, and great news for moves like Outrage and Thrash since Personal Pace made them viable/useful in my eyes. Now, that Stan would no longer get confused after using them, I could have him focus on mastering them.
Furthermore, seeing how he could extend his talents to his friends/subordinates to a certain extent, I had not been completely wrong with my assumption that he would get a leadership-related talent, even if it turned out to be not what I expected.
Anyway, I shared the good news with Stan and the others, and he seemed quite happy to hear that he had gotten a pretty good talent. Everyone congratulated him, and while they did that, I moved on to the next part of Stan's status sheet.
'Bond: Mikail (deep)*
Quirks: Calm'
To be honest, after Mothra's case, I was not surprised to see that our bond had been upgraded to the "deep" grade since I was absolutely confident in our relationship/bond. Besides, due to knowing that it would happen, I had been paying some attention to our bond during his breakthrough, so this time around I had sensed/noticed the bond strengthening.
This was the second bond of that level, and once Horus/Xatu broke through as well, there would be three of them. If my theory was right, and I was really hoping it was, then that would be enough to finally trigger that cursed Utopia upgrade.
Still, confidence or not, I still shared the news with the others. Stan only gave a nod, no doubt having noticed the change as well, knowing that it was mostly likely coming. The others congratulated the two of us and while I was thanking them all, I used one of my thought streams to start checking Stan's status screen again.
'Parameters:
Stage: Dark Gold Stage (high)*
Vitality: C
Strength: B
Endurance: D
Agility: C
Energy Capacity: D
Energy Density: C'
Well, it was something we all had expected to happen. Not to mention that his aura got released when he flew around, displaying his might to everyone. Nonetheless, here we had it black on white.
Thanks to the effect of his royal gene and the bonus of his limit breaking, Stan was starting out at the (high) dark gold stage. With this, he had, temporarily, surpassed Mothra stage-wise. Yes, as of this moment, Stan had surpassed Mothra, at least on paper.
Whether he would be able to beat her or not, if it came down to it, was another matter. Mothra had too many ways to face others. It was quite hard to face her without her being able to counter one's moves or target one's weakness.
Speaking of weaknesses, I took a look at Stan's type relation section to see if his breakthrough had managed to help with his efforts on raising his electric resistance
'Resistance:
Fire (Minor), Water (Minor), Fighting (Minor), Bug (Minor), Steel (Minor)
-
Weaknesses:
Electric (Minor), Rock (Minor)
-
Standardized:
N/A
-
Resistance Training:
Electric (1st phase finished, 2nd phase in progress)'
Sadly, this section remained unchanged. It had been more than 3 years since he managed to reduce his major electric weakness to a minor one. Yet, due to his efforts in reaching the dark gold stage as well as training his moves and learning how to fly, Stan had only been able to work on his resistance on occasion.
However, now that he had achieved his goals and broken through, Stan could focus on his resistance training, so I was reckoning he'd be able to finally standardize his electric weakness before the start of our journey.
Still, seeing how there was nothing to share with the rest, I moved on to the next section of the status sheet.
'Condition: Healthy, Happy, Elated, Exhilarated
----
Masteries:
Water Energy Manipulation (Advanced)
Flying/Air Energy Manipulation (Proficient) -> (Advanced)
----
Techniques:
-
(Unofficial) Initial:
N/A
-
Novice:
Sandstorm (new), Rest (new), Fly* (new), Sky Attack* (new), Sky Drop* (new)
-
Beginner:
Outrage (new), Bounce Impact (new, C), Icy Wind (new)
-
Proficient:
Tackle, Flail, Bite, Dragon Rage, Twister, Ice Fang, Scary Face, Brine, Thunder, Thunderbolt, Ice Beam, Iron Tail, Iron Head, Protect, Safeguard, Earthquake, Flamethrower, Hyper Beam, Endure, Blizzard (+), Hail (new), Brutal Swing (+), Breaking Swipe (+), Sunny Day (+), Dark Pulse (+), Thrash (+), Torment (+), Giga Impact (new)
-
Advanced:
Swift, Aqua Jet, Water Pulse, Waterfall, Dragon Dance, Rain Dance, Aqua Tail, Crunch, Surf (+), Dragon Pulse (+), Air Cutter (+), Scald (+), Whirlpool (+)
-
Mastered:
Water Gun, Splash (+), Hydro Pump (+), Hurricane (+)
-
Transcendence:
Bounce*
-
Combo/Custom:
Bounce Impact (Beginner)'
Well, I could say that there were a few surprises there. The biggest one was probably Bounce reaching transcendence mastery. I was unsure whether that was the reason he finally comprehend Fly, which was what allowed him to fly freely without relying on wings, but I was pretty sure that Sky Attack and Sky Drop were linked to Bounce.
Unlike with Fly, which he had been working on anyway, Stan had done no training related to Sky Attack and Sky Drop at all. My guess was that whatever epiphany had allowed him to push Bounce to transcendence and grasp Fly, had made use of the two moves to grasp Sky Attack and Sky Drop as well.
I mean it was obvious what kind of role Fly had since both moves required the Pokemon to actually fly, but there were also aspects of Bounce that could be used to comprehend the two moves, such as its energy accumulation as well as instantaneous eruption for Sky Attack, and its height management as well as impact control for Sky Drop.
Anyway, regardless of the explanation for the gift, it was a fact that Stan had learned 3 new moves and transcended another, so I shared the good news with everyone else. They were all impressed and began to congratulate him once more, this time on his luck.
Nonetheless, seeing how I was done checking his status, I declared the start of Stan's advancement celebration, and Mothra together with Togetic used the chance to finally drag Stan into a game of flying tag. It was a bit funny to see a behemoth like Stan play flying tag with Togetic and Mothra as well as the others that decided to join their game.
Though Mothra grew to her maximum size as well once or twice throughout the game while trying to catch one of the others off guard, which ended up working.
---------------------
---------------------
This part is purely to display Stan's status screen in one piece and does not count to the word count.
-
'Name: Stan (Dilong)
Species: Gyarados
Gender: Male
Age: 11+ Years
-
Type: Water, Flying
Potential: Light Aurora (22.86%)*
{Deep Purple (64.1%) -> (65.73%) -> Light Aurora (22.86%)}
(Genetic) Modifier: Royal
Abilities: Intimidate, Moxie, Strong Jaw*
Talents: Personal Pace*
Affinities: Water, Flying
-
Bond: Mikail (deep)*
Quirks: Calm
----
Parameters:
Stage: Dark Gold Stage (high)*
Vitality: C
Strength: B
Endurance: D
Agility: C
Energy Capacity: D
Energy Density: C
----
Resistance:
Fire (Minor), Water (Minor), Fighting (Minor), Bug (Minor), Steel (Minor)
-
Weaknesses:
Electric (Minor), Rock (Minor)
-
Standardized:
N/A
-
Resistance Training:
Electric (1st phase finished, 2nd phase in progress)
----
Condition: Healthy, Happy, Elated, Exhilarated
----
Masteries:
Water Energy Manipulation (Advanced)
Flying/Air Energy Manipulation (Advanced)
----
Techniques:
-
(Unofficial) Initial:
N/A
-
Novice:
Sandstorm, Rest, Fly* (new), Sky Attack* (new), Sky Drop* (new)
-
Beginner:
Outrage, Bounce Impact (C), Icy Wind
-
Proficient:
Tackle, Flail, Bite, Dragon Rage, Twister, Ice Fang, Scary Face, Brine, Thunder, Thunderbolt, Ice Beam, Iron Tail, Iron Head, Protect, Safeguard, Earthquake, Flamethrower, Hyper Beam, Endure, Blizzard, Hail, Brutal Swing, Breaking Swipe, Sunny Day, Dark Pulse, Thrash, Torment, Giga Impact
-
Advanced:
Swift, Aqua Jet, Water Pulse, Waterfall, Dragon Dance, Rain Dance, Aqua Tail, Crunch, Surf, Dragon Pulse, Air Cutter, Scald, Whirlpool
-
Mastered:
Water Gun, Splash, Hydro Pump, Hurricane
-
Transcendence:
Bounce*
-
Combo/Custom:
Bounce Impact (Beginner)'
-----------------------------
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