CH238 (852), Nani?!

I did not directly make the offer but went to check out the Hitmon-pair and their 2 Tyrogue first. Compared to the other groups theirs was actually a bit better with all 4 having yellowish potential, but since not even one of them had light green potential or above they did not make it past the screening process. The only one left unchecked after that was the Hitmontop that came with the Scrafty group.

Hitmontop had remained at the back and I noticed that it was keeping an eye on the Scraggy since it stepped in once to break up a little scuffle that had broken out between one of the Scraggy and Tyrogue. Once that tussle had been dealt with, Hitmontop stepped back again and continued to watch the Scraggy like a hawk. Them being fighting types, I would have thought that they would not have minded the little ones brawling, but then I realized that they probably did not want the children's noise to annoy us.

Nonetheless, it was because of this that I was unable to check out Hitmontop while I Observed the Scrafty group, so I amended that now that I was done with everyone else. Hitmontop ended up giving me quite the surprise. It turned out that Hitmontop had a pretty good talent called Spinning Top which increased the power of moves involving rotation.

The bonus rose depending on how long Hitmontop kept (continuously) spinning. The initial/starting bonus was 50%, and it rose by 10% for every 10 spins, reaching 100% after just 50 spins. The bonus peaked at 200%, though it took 250 spins to reach the maximum bonus because the increase rate slowed down after it reached 100%. Still, there was no doubt that the talent worked incredibly well with moves like Gyro Ball and Rollout, especially the latter.

Not to mention that Hitmontop in general used a dance-like battle style that involved a lot of rotation during the execution of their moves, particularly kicking ones, so most of Hitmontop's moves likely still benefited from a 50% power boost, which was pretty good. The only unfortunate part was that Hitmontop's potential was light yellow, on top of him being at the (low) silver stage.

Even though Spinning Top made him quite a bit more interesting, it was not enough for me to want to add him to Utopia, especially since it would likely mean having to take along at least some of the low-potential Scraggy and one of the Scrafty, because I seriously doubted that Hitmontop would leave behind his wife and children. Actually, unless it turned out that they had no real bond with one another, I would likely lose interest in him anyway if he ended up discarding his wife and children.

Regardless, the synergy between Hitmontop and his Spinning Top talent made me think that the idea of a Hitmon-team was actually not a bad one if I managed to find Hitmonchan, Hitmonlee, and Hitmontop with good potential as well as matching or just plainly good talents. This being a Hitmon-team, Hitmonform as the ultimate evolution of the line were naturally also on the target list, though considering their general superiority over the other 3 my requirements for them were lower than for the other three branches.

Still, while Hitmontop's talent might have made him a candidate for the team, his potential and baggage disqualified him from the selection. On the other hand, Hitmonlee's potential was decent enough, but sadly he had no talent, so unless he ended up lucky with Utopia's optimization, he would likely fail to qualify for the Hitmon-team as well, if I really set one up.

Nonetheless, he could serve as a reserve member and there was the chance that he could unlock something during his future breakthroughs, so I decided to offer him the chance to join Utopia after all. I would have probably not done that if I had not suddenly decided that a Hitmon-team sounded interesting since employing a team like that sounded like it could be a fun challenge I could set up in the future.

It was the same way I thought a Gyarados-only team was just as funny as it was shocking as long as the Gyarados were trained well. Hence, I approached Hitmonlee, who was talking with Melinda/Mienshao, and told him that I was interested in recruiting him. I did make it clear that if he joined, he would only be on a prospective member list and would have to train hard to make the cut, with a not small chance that he would still not make it onto the main Hitmon-team even then.

However, I also mentioned that I would ensure that he got all the resources he would need to train, which combined with the environment of his potential/new home would guarantee returns that he would never be able to come close to if he stayed here. He would also have a lot of sparring/battling partners available, including the ones he saw here if managed to become strong enough to arouse their interest.

When I mentioned the last bit, I felt Hitmonlee's attitude, which had been wavering, shift dramatically, and he directly agreed to join. I had noticed that quite a few of the fighting types around us had begun to listen in on our conversation, and I felt their desire rise progressively during my recruitment pitch. It had reached a point, where I was sure that most of them would have directly agreed to join if I asked them to, but sadly for them, I was not planning to do so since they did not make the cut.

I pointedly ignored their eager looks, pulled out an AuraBall, and lobbed it at Hitmonlee, who let it hit him without putting up any resistance. The AuraBall barely shook once before the capture process was complete, and I briefly considered whether I should directly place the ball inside Utopia, or if I should let Hitmonlee out first so that he could act as our guide for the rest of the evening before I let him out inside Utopia.

After a moment, I decided to go with the latter and let Hitmonlee out. I had a plan that involved the largest room of the fighting types as well as dinner, and Hitmonlee's entry to Utopia along with the optimization that he would undergo there could potentially play a part in that plan. I told Hitmonlee that I might need his help later on, before telepathically explaining what I had in mind. Hitmonlee nodded once I was done and told me to leave it to him.

After I got his agreement, I finally began checking out the rooms belonging to the various groups present. Since I had already caught him, I headed to Hitmonlee's room first, but it ended up being just as spartan as the one belonging to the first Machoke group, so I left less than a minute after entering the room. The only reason we even stayed that long was that Hitmonlee left a sign for his Hitmonform friend to inform him that he was gone and that he would not return.

It would be a lie to say that I was not interested in that Hitmonform, but Hitmonlee told me that it could take at least a week, most likely much more than that before Hitmonform came back, so I let it be. If Hitmonform came back early enough he would likely find out from the others where Hitmonlee had gone, so he could approach us if we were still around. If we missed each other, all we could say was that Hitmonform was not destined to join us.

Anyway, I moved on to the second Machoke group's home accompanied by one of the Machoke. While this one was less spartan, with them having a rudimentary table and seats as well as a section that was obviously singled out as their sleeping area with how the ground had been worked on, it was still not what I had been hoping for. So, after some polite words to the Machoke, I once again left the room and asked one of the Scrafty to show me their place.

The first thing I noticed was that their room was nearly double the size of the previous three, but after taking into account that their group was (nearly) double the size as well, it made sense for them to have a bigger room, so I noted that as reasonable while letting my gaze wander around the room. There was no doubt that the Scrafty home was very different from the homes of Machoke and Hitmonlee. Ah, it was also Hitmontop's home I guess.

Anyway, this room had actual furniture, aside from the rudimentary table and seats that the previous Machoke home had. There were what looked like little stone beds for the Scraggy I assumed. Well, that, or those were rectangular pots they used for planting, but I seriously doubt that was the case since there were exactly five and nothing was growing on them. Some might think that using the beds was superfluous if one was still filling them with soft earth, but I believed that it showed the initiative/essence necessary to make a place a home.

I believed it was this initiative of theirs that had them set up two stones in their room that had various objects on them, which was exactly what I wanted to see. I directly went up to the closest rock, with Scrafty, Hitmonlee, Nyx/Umbreon, and Thor/Raichu following suit. I finished checking out all five objects before they arrived, and since none of them had any real value, at least to us, I made my way to the next stone before Nyx and Thor had even taken a look at the first one.

The second stone had 7 objects on it, and three of them particularly drew my attention. One was what looked like a fossil, or rather the fossil of a bone. The second object appeared to be some kind of metal from the way it glinted under the greenish light of the Luminous Moss, and the final one seemed like a crystal. Well, or at least part of one since its edges were not smooth and it was barely the size of a child's fist.

I left those three for last and began to Observe the other 4 first. One of those actually ended up being of use to us since it turned out to be a pure black onyx which per its description was beneficial to rock-type Pokemon in two ways. First, it was quite a bit more nutritious as well as filling compared to regular minerals, and long-term consumption made the outer rock/body of a rock type more vibrant, though I was not a 100% sure how that would work for most of them. Did it make them look more glossy or was it something else?

Either way, I asked Scrafty if I could take a closer look at the Black Onyx, and after receiving permission to do so I took it into my hands. I inspected it for a few moments, before I turned slightly, blocking Scrafty's vision for a moment, while I transferred the Black Onyx to Utopia, where it was analyzed. Once I got the notice that Utopia could now produce Black Onyx on its own, I brought the one belonging to Scrafty and his group back out and placed it back after once more thanking Scrafty for allowing me to inspect it.

After I was done with the first 4 objects, I turned to the three that had attracted my attention from the start. I decided to begin with the rock that seemed to contain part of a (fossilized) spine, and after slapping it with an Observe it turned out to be a viable fossil of a Mountain Goat. No, I was not talking about Gogoat or a progenitor of it. Well, actually maybe it could be something of a progenitor to the line, but the spine piece belonged to some regular Mountain Goat, as in an animal and not a Pokemon.

Hence it was pretty useless if we disregarded its collective value, which I was not interested in at all. After the brief moment of disappointment I felt passed, I moved on to the second object, the suspected metal. I ended up being right on that one, but it turned out to be something I already had copied through Utopia during the Eevee project, so I did not need to put on another performance for Scrafty.

Regardless, I still had a final object to Observe, so I moved my attention to the suspected crystal and checked it out as well. I nearly gaped when I saw what my Observe ability showed me. The crystal was in fact a crystal, but way more important than that was the fact that there was a freaking Mega Stone inside that crystal that could not be seen from the outside.

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