CH83 (447), Towards The Second Phase (2)

The month's final week began and on Kyoday the new one would be starting. That one was the final month of the sixth term according to the academic system, so I was pretty close to finishing up my first year at the lab. It also meant that I had to take part in the final exams at the end of the next month, but I was honestly not worried about passing. I was confident that I could crush those exams at any time.

Anyway, shortly after I made it to the lab, one of Peter's assistants came over and informed me that two of the eggs were expected to hatch either today or tomorrow. I was not surprised by that since I was expecting that, but I obviously thanked her for keeping me up to date, and I asked her to pass my thanks to Peter as well.

What I knew, but they didn't, was that one of those eggs actually contained a Toedscool, so they would be witnessing the first of their Toedscool hatching. The other one was "just" an Oddish, but a good one. I did visit the egg room during lunch break and confirmed that my memory did not fail me. The check also told me that the eggs could hatch anytime now.

It was roughly 2.5 hours later that I was informed that the first egg was hatching. After getting permission from James and the go-ahead from Carl and Sibel, I rushed to the egg room. After swiping my lab pass at the door, I moved inside and managed to catch the end of the process.

While the harem, sorry, I meant breeding project members were a bit disappointed, seeing the Oddish in place of the egg, I wasn't. Especially, since that Oddish was one of the ones I marked, so it would go to me after the three-month period stipulated by the professor was up.

I moved up to it and made sure to radiate warmth and friendliness to it using my aura to keep it relaxed before throwing the others in the room a slightly disapproving look. While they did not outwardly show any disappointment, which would have been seriously disappointing, they did delay the next step a bit due to it, which they should not have.

I levitated one of the bottles they had prepared over to myself and crouched down to Oddish before giving her a warm smile, which earned me some happy giggling/gurgling in return. I then held out the bottle's teat to Oddish and she began to suckle the green-tinted Miltank Milk.

Yes, every baby Pokemon loved Miltank Milk even rock types. Heck, even ghost-type babies loved it, though surprisingly happy emotion-filled energy was just as good for them. Anyway, Oddish finished the milk and began dozing off, so I placed her into the bed they had prepared before moving toward Peter.

I told him that I would be sending one of her/Oddish's aunts over to keep an eye on her. They could go about their work like always since Gloom would only ensure that Oddish had someone from the family around. I mentioned this to him once/before, but I did it again just to make sure he did not forget it.

Naturally, the plot assigned to me by the lab was the next place I went to since that was where Toedscruel, Vileplume, and their family were staying. They welcomed me happily and I told them the reason for my visit. They were all really happy to hear about the addition to their family and asked to come along as well, so not only did I bring one of the Gloom to the egg room but also a Toedscruel and a Vileplume.

Everyone taking part in the breeding program naturally knew those two, so friendly greetings were all we received and while Toedscruel left after checking the Oddish, Vileplume decided to stay for a bit more along with Gloom. I remembered that the parents might want to see their baby as well, so I told one of the assistants to fetch them, but he told me that they had already done that.

Hearing that I gave him a nod before I left and made my way back to my group's lab room to resume my work on the Arctic Heart. Carl and Sibel briefly asked how it went and I told them. We resumed our work after they congratulated me.

That evening, two hours after I left the lab for my dorm, Peter called me and told me that the second egg was hatching, so I rushed over at top speed. I could feel the excitement even outside the room, so I was sure that the egg had already hatched by the time I arrived, and sure enough when I stepped inside, I saw Peter along with Vileplume standing beside a newly hatched Toedscool. The others looked rather excited and I saw Gloom taking care of a currently awake Oddish.

I turned to one of Peter's many assistants and told him to send someone to Toedscruel and the parents as well. If they had not done so yet. All in all, it was an exciting 20 minutes before I left back to my dorm room. The week passed by rather swiftly after that, and before I knew long it was Dialday, the last day of my work-week and the last day of this month.

We did decent work with the Arctic Heart, raising the output to 8.5 out of 10, and I was hopeful that we would manage to reach 9.5 by the end of the new month, which would mean that we were successful and could close the Arctic Heart chapter of our Eevee project.

I spent the weekend back at Hope Town with my parents so that we could spend some time together. After spending the first two days of the new month in Hope Town, I was back in Pallet City and went straight to work. The new month did seem to have a lucky start since Abzu/Milotic asked me to check his status screen after I entered Utopia that evening.

I naturally did and saw that he was done with his limit breaking. I called everyone over and they began trickling in. Once I saw that no one else was coming I gave Abzu the go-ahead, and he initiated his breakthrough. The whole thing went smoothly and once it was over I went up to him to congratulate him.

Tiamat/Milotic was just behind me and directly hugged Abzu as soon as I finished my words. When I used the word hug in this context, some would probably laugh and say things like "they don't have any arms", but those people did not know how much control Milotic had over their antennae and eyebrows.

Anyway, the others rushed over as well and I began to inspect Abzu's new status screen.

'Name: Abzu

Species: Milotic

Gender: Male

Age: 11+ Years

-

Type: Water

Potential: Deep Purple (63.98%)*

{Purple (0.42%) -> (3.98%) -> Deep Purple (63.98%)}

Genetic variation: None

Abilities: Marvel Scale, Competitive

Talents: None

Affinities: Water

-

Bond: Mikail (strong)

Quirks: None

----

Parameters:

Stage: Gold Stage (mid)

Vitality: D

Strength: E

Endurance: D

Agility: D

Energy Capacity: D

Energy Density: C

----

Resistance: Fire (Minor), Water (Minor), Ice (Minor), Steel (Minor)

-

Weaknesses: Grass (Minor)

-

Standardized:

Electric*

----

Condition: Healthy, Excited, Delighted

----

Masteries:

Water Energy Manipulation (Advanced)

----

Techniques:

-

(Unofficial) Initial:

N/A

-

Novice:

Attract, Captivate

-

Beginner:

Water Sport

-

Proficient:

Splash, Tackle, Life Dew, Aqua Ring, Safeguard, Dragon Tail, Twister, Refresh, Flail (+), Wrap (+), Disarming Voice (+), Recover (+), Blizzard (new), Hyper Beam (new), Double Team (new), Swift (new), Iron Head (new), Avalance (new), Mud Shot (new)

-

Advanced:

Water Pulse, Ice Beam, Endure, Coil, Rain Dance, Protect, Iron Tail, Aqua Tail, Surf (+), Hydro Pump (+), Whirlpool (new), Dragon Pulse (new), Dragon Dance (new)

-

Mastered:

Water Gun, Scald (+)'

Abzu had once more caught up to and surpassed Tiamat potential-wise, even if it was just by 20ish% since both currently had deep purple potential. Still, it was an achievement, so it was something worth being happy about.

Besides, the way things stood, even if he somehow ended up being lucky during his next breakthrough, he would still end up attaining light aurora potential, regardless of what kind of modifier he unlocked. Abzu and Tiamat were certainly happy when I confirmed his new potential.

I moved on and saw that the next change was in the parameter section. He was starting at the (mid) gold stage, and his starting parameters were pretty good. They were a bit worse than Tiamat's had been, but the difference was not that big considering that she had a shiny gene.

I quickly checked Tiamat's status as well and did a side-by-side comparison of their parameters. The way I saw it, they would have a 12 to 16-month gap at most even after Tiamat ended up reaching the (high) gold stage before Abzu. Maybe less depending on how big the difference in training intensity and time between the two ended up being.

Anyway, I kept looking through the rest of Abzu's status screen without really expecting anything else to have changed, but I ended up being surprised when I saw that his electric weakness had been officially standardized.

He had been spending quite a bit of time with Thor/Raichu training his electric weakness, unlike Tiamat who was a bit more laid back in her resistance training, and it ended up showing.

It seemed his breakthrough was enough to give his weakness/resistance the last push it needed, completing his resistance training for him, and sparing him from any more electric suffering. Sadly, the rest of his status screen was change free, but the weakness reduction was already enough to make me happy.

Abzu was much happier than I was when I shared the news with him, and he even teased Tiamat by telling her that he would still accompany her whenever she trained her resistance with Thor. Anyway, I directly declared the start of his party and began pulling out everything we needed.

The next two weeks were calm for our group, but less so for everyone else. The Leafeon side finished another one of their items, even if it ended up being another bust, and Peter's group called me thrice more to call me over for a hatching egg. None of the Pokemon that hatched ended up being a Toedscool, but I did not mind since it was nice to see a Petilil, Bounsweet, and Formantis hatch in Kanto.

On Giratiday of week three, we managed to reach the 9 out of 10 "milestone", and I was seriously contemplating whether we should declare the project complete at this point. While our original goal had been 9.5 out of 10, I was starting to get fed up with working on the Arctic Heart, but I decided to keep quiet until the end of the month. If we failed to reach that point by then I would speak to James about it.

The reason I made that decision might have been linked to the fact that I would be spending the fourth and fifth week at the Pallet City Trainer School for the final exams, so Carl and Sibel would be working on the Arctic Heart on their own. Still, you knew it was serious when I thought that the final exams were a good distraction from working on something.

Regardless, the week went by and when I clocked out on Dialday, everyone on the project wished me luck on the exams. James had told me that I was expected to focus on the exams during these two weeks, which meant that I would not be coming to the lab during this time.

As for the three-month-long break that came after the exam period, he simply told me to pay the lab a visit on Kyoday before leaving for my break/Hope Town.

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