Bab 96: C096 - MPLR: Move Power Leaderboard Rankings
The week after the wedding saw a lot of change on the farm. For one, Courtney had talked with Luna and Carl about adding another house to the farm grounds for just her on the other side of the hot spring. Construction started with Pete's express approval because, of course, he didn't mind his partner moving out if it was just a minute walk away. What he had more than anything on the Evergreen Meadow was open space.
Free real estate, if you will.
And speaking of free real estate, his pokemon and the girls' pokemon opened up a sort of open-air battle-gym that resembled a quarry more than anything on the other side of the lake.
It took a while to get there for the smaller pokemon, but it was meant for the bigger pokemon in the first place. The four trainers living on the farm, as in Pete, Jasmine, Courtney, and Valerie, decided that a crucial new training would be added to the training regiment they already worked through: Power Training.
What their pokemon were asked to do was repeatedly use a move at its full power to raise the level of output they could wield it at. That was where the quarry came in; they repeatedly destroyed the ground, boulders laying around or just rocks by wielding the moves against nature instead of other pokemon.
Like that, they could recklessly go all out without the fear of unplanned damage to themselves or others. The few bruises and sore muscles they would get through this kind of training were easily fixed by the many pokemon with healing moves on his farm.
The choice to put the training field there on the other side of the lake was mostly to make sure the noise didn't bother the farm, but also because there was little nature to destroy at the already rocky beach. With his Mega Milotic being the supreme ruler of the lake, there was little the water pokemon living there could do to sway the pokemon moving there.
Then, two unprecedented evolutions happened on the farm. The pokemon already existed, and the evolution condition was known. But Courtney bonded to two Eevee, and they evolved into Vaporeon and Glaceon after Courtney focused on the bonds. They evolved without their evolution stones.
It was easily explained, of course, if you knew that Courtney was the avatar to a legendary water pokemon. And since it said it 'presided' over water AND ice despite the mono-water-typing in the games, Pete brushed away that Courtney managed to evolve an Eevee into both typings just like that.
Yet, since he didn't want to advertise Courtney's status as a legendary's avatar, the observations and conjections he noted down would not be published in the near future.
With another week ending and his impending Alola trip, Pete stood near the cliff of the waterfall near his home, Ilex Falls. On his shoulders sat a freshly hatched Rookidee, given to him as an egg from Jasmine's brother who owned the shiny Corviknight, and on the other sat a slightly older Fletchling from his most recent egg haul.
Next to him was a bunch of expensive looking equipment with Devon Corp logos over most of them, and Pete was currently tapping his tablet PC to do some last-minute adjustments. Thankfully, the equipment came with comprehensive and all-encompassing software ready made, and all Pete wanted to change was how the data was saved to account for all the different pokemon and categories.
The first move power leaderboard rankings, or MPLR for short, were about to be recorded. Pete settled on quite a few categories to give many of his pokemon a chance at winning. There was raw power for every typing, divided by stab and non-stab. It was also divided by attack and special attack, as well as several moves that were more or less universally learnable throughout most species.
Then, there was a setup category where pokemon were allowed to use a single move to power up first before. Otherwise, Pete feared his pokemon would become too one-dimensional despite never stopping their spars or battles in the forest. That was also why every four weeks, the used moves for the raw power rankings would rotate to a different move, lest his pokemon only trained the power of a singular move. The raw power ranking was recorded once every two weeks, so they could compete twice throughout the categories.
The other 'major' category Pete included was power growth. It was only divided into stab and non-stab and would record a pokemon's % growth in attack power over the weeks with the same move.
Pete's condition for a pokemon to go with him to Alola a little over a week later was the highest %-growth in a move's power for the fully evolved pokemon when another ranking was recorded. Raw power ranking was his pokemon using a prepared move while the growth category was a move of the pokemon's choosing.
Whenever he was at the farm, Pete would hold the growth ranking every week while the raw power category was recorded every two weeks. That was, of course, subject to change if he ever felt it necessary.
"You look like a big nerd typing away on that tablet, you know?"
"Sorry - but if it wasn't my big nerd brain, what else made you fall for me? My amazing sense of humor? My cute butt?"
Jasmine slapped her husband's arm slightly and retorted with a pout, "I certainly didn't fall in love with the fact that you don't allow a single setup for a joke or how you win every argument before we even have one."
Pete looked up with a grin, "I love that about our relationship, though."
"Ugh, finish your task. My pokemon are getting impatient."
"And mine aren't? Look! Your one Rhydon already fell asleep in the shadow of the cliff while my Conkeldurr are both shadowboxing as warm-up. Clearly, my pokemon are more pumped about this than yours."
As Jasmine looked over, Pete finished the setup and asked his first pokemon to test out one of the hardest devices to create. The one recording the strength of non-material special attacks from typings like fairy, psychic, ghost...
'I'm ready, Pete. You want me to use Extrasensory, correct?'
Pete nodded toward Mega Reuniclus and gave her the go-ahead. After the attack landed, which only made the device shake a little once, a ping was heard on his tablet to show the PV or power value it recorded. The number was the first ever recorded at 580, which didn't awe the trainer or his mega evolved pokemon. With nothing to compare it to, this number meant nothing to Pete or Mega Reuniclus.
It did, however, make Pete appreciate Reuniclus' power when his Espeon used the same move and it 'only' recorded a 394. When it was Metagross' turn and the move was recorded at 404, Pete grew excited at Mega Reuniclus' apparent strength.
Recording every move he wanted took hours where he only had a brief pause for lunch where Courtney recorded the rest of the moves because she accepted the task of continuing the rankings when he wasn't at the farm for all the pokemon present.
"So? Who had the absolute highest attack and special attack?"
Jasmine had made herself comfortable on Pete's lap as he tiredly sat on the couch to relax his muscles. She gently brushed his hair, looking at him as he pondered her question with closed eyes.
"Do you want me to include our mega pokemon or just the... what will we call them? Regular pokemon?"
"Do both, I want the highest for megas and regulars," Jasmine hurriedly decided.
"Hmm, highest stab move recorded for all pokemon period was Mega Milotic using Hyper Beam as a test, but technically Hyper Beam isn't part of the rotation... Anyway, Pixilate seems to be absolutely broken for a pokemon of her power, and I fear what Clair's Mega Altaria is capable of among all the other dragon pokemon."
"Oh? What did the reading say?"
Pete opened his eyes and said in a disbelieving voice, "2.930..."
"That sounds like... quite a lot."
"It is, especially if you consider Hyper Beam can hit quite a lot of targets... For example, Mega Reuniclus' Hyper Beam got recorded at 2.023 while the older Rapidash's Hyper Beam hit for 1.110 PV. The highest stab move for regulars during the recording was my Serperior using Energy Ball at 503... I knew Serperior was a bonafide genius and goes into the forest for battles a lot, but he blew everyone else out of the water. Turns out my other pokemon, like Metagross, only really trained control over their powers and a wide moveset so far and even Metagross just barely managed to land over the curve with Flash Cannon at 438, clearly showing that he put more effort into his steel moves," Pete explained before sighing, "It really makes me wonder about the benefits of bonded affinity, though. His steel move was almost 10% stronger than his psychic move. And don't get me started on Arcanine getting a 475 with Fire Fang despite me not even having a fire affinity. Whatever she does in that hot spring all day must be amazing training..."
'Which is even more baffling since I know the numbers from the game and while most moves I chose for this contest today have either 70 or 80 power, Fire Fang has 65,' Pete inwardly thought. 'Well, Arcanine has a rather high base stat all things considered. Plus, my Arcanine does train quite a lot despite my joke.'
"So most of the fully evolved pokemon landed somewhere between 400 and 450-ish?"
Pete opened his tablet that was beside him to show Jasmine the numbers, "Actually the median is somewhere between 390 to 425 for stab and 255 to 270 for non-stab since they don't train those moves as much - is what I'm guessing. And that's only considering the better of the two scores between physical and special. We only have these few outliers where every pokemon from your team is in except for your Gliscor and Camerupt," Pete explained while showing his wife a sorted list that highlighted the highest score they earned for stab and non-stab in the physical and special category. "Both of them told my Reuniclus that they weren't very familiar with the chosen moves for today, but they had fire in their eyes when I told them to train them hard during these two weeks to show a better score."
"Wow, I mean I learned about the difference between physical and special attackers in school, and we had an entire textbook full of examples, but getting these numbers is amazing! I never knew Gliscor's special attack was so low!" Jasmine shouted in amazement before getting shocked while scrolling through the list. "And Mega Steelix! He barely scored higher than Donphan in special attack, and her score is almost 1/3 lower than her attack score! My only two pokemon worth training in special attacks are Claydol and Camerupt! Oh, Petey, you're amazing!"
"Yep, and don't forget to send your Garchomp over to Dragon's Peak with a kick to his butt. His score for stab dragon moves suck hard."
Jasmine looked over the numbers and shook her head, "His ground attack Drill Run scored a respectable 478 beating even your Arcanine, I'll let him off the hook this time. But he really should train his Dragon Claw... a 399 is really low..."
"Like I said," Pete said with a shrug.
PERTIMBANGAN PENCIPTA 
Nuclide
Nuclide The numbers won't appear again. It took me almost a full three hours of comparing BST (base stat values) of pokemon to make the numbers comparatively believable and I still deleted a lot of boring number talk. Only %-growth will be a reoccuring number that I will feature in future chapters.
Before you ask, Ho-oh's Sacred Fire hit Giovanni's Mega Beedrill for >10.000 PV and wasn't Ho-oh's full power. Plus, if the mega evo's energy didn't kick in to save Mega Beedrill's life, it would have died.
Bab 97: C097 - Preparations for Alola
A week later, the results were in for the eight fully evolved pokemon Pete would take with him for protection outside of his two mega pokemon.
Arcanine learned a second water move with Courtney's help, Brine. It was a water move that dealt increasingly more damage the more the enemy pokemon was already wounded, maxing out at twice the damage at around half health. His Arcanine managed to increase the damage of this move by 36% in just seven days. It was by far the highest increase of every pokemon participating in the MPLR.
Next was Pete's Espeon who managed to increase the power of his stab move Psyshock by 31% followed by his Flygon increasing the power of her stab move Earthquake by 28% and she even managed to increase the nonstab fire move Flamethrower by 24%.
His Flygon took the instant one-hit Ice Punch KO inflicted by Giovanni's Nidoking very badly, but thankfully concentrated most of her frustration out on the boulders at the open-air battle-gym instead of Dragon's Peak or the other pokemon living there. It showed in her rate of improvement.
On a shared fourth place was Pete's first Togekiss. She was the youngest pokemon of those who qualified and managed to do so by increasing the damage of her stab move Dazzling Gleam by 27%.
Following that in fourth place alsowas Pete's Metagross, who chose to train a psychic move after it felt Pete's disappointment at its superior steel type damage. It learned Mist Ball from Mega Milotic since it was taught the move by Suicune, and Metagross managed to increase the damage of the move by 27%, same as Togekiss.
Then came three pokemon who all improved a move by exactly 25% in a week: Serperior with non-stab Dragon Breath, Nidoking with stab Poison Tail, and his shiny Slowbro, who Pete thought only jokingly participated when he used Hydro Pump as the move he wanted to record his growth in.
The runner-ups for the growth rate that almost made the cut were four pokemon Pete didn't quite expect: all three Farfetch'd and Blaziken. The four birds all improved a fighting move by 21 to 24%, though they all did that with a different move.
Blaziken chose the special attack Aura Sphere, the male Farfetch'd chose Brick Break, while the two female Farfetch'd chose Cross Chop and Low Sweep. The fact that one female Farfetch'd chose to train a move that didn't include using a leek as a weapon was very surprising to Pete, and he encouraged her to keep training like that.
And, for the first time since he bonded with it, Pete could feel frustration from his shiny Golurk. His bonded pokemon learned Phatom Force from the TM Agatha gifted him at the wedding, but its power only increased by 'only' 18%, which was still quite a lot higher than the average of 8% increase in damage.
Pete took a while to speak with his silent protector and encouraged him to use this time here at the farm to keep everyone safe and train as hard as he could manage. Golurk simply spread himself too thin, he argued.
Not only did Golurk roam the farm and the forest to do its 'duty', but the golem also trained the nonstab move Ice Punch which worked great with its ability Iron Fist that increased the damage of all punch moves. Golurk 'only' increased its power by 14%, a number that Pete still praised with deep fervor. Not every pokemon of his could be a genius on the level of the first three pokemon of those that qualified.
And, Pete argued that he also participated with Ice Punch in the nonstab growth competition and increased the PV from 20 to 21, a measly increase of 5%. It wasn't technically Ice Punch, but he unloaded his entire ice affinity energy while punching, so it was close enough.
He told Golurk that he was a good three times better than his trainer in sheer talent alone, which finally eased Golurk's frustration and even amused the gentle giant.
Unloading the entire affinity in his body with a single thought was something he learned from Leona, the future Mt Pyre guardian and girlfriend of Steven Stone. It came with a great strain on his body and mind, but it helped in training an affinity earnestly if you heeded Leona's warnings of spreading out its usage with appropriate breaks and only using a single affinity at once.
Pete's highest affinity by now was almost a tie between psychic and fairy, the former still leading by a little and Pete tested out the PV a few days after the wedding to land at 111PV with a psychic punch. He could likely fight a Rattata now without having to rely on his pokemon after living in this world for over two years in his old earth's time.
But that was with him living a relatively peaceful life. So Pete had to ask himself: What could people like Bruno do after a long life of training and concentrating their efforts on a single affinity? Could they beat his stronger pokemon? Would there be bottlenecks or plateaus that couldn't be breached by simple training?
"If I knew him, I could invite him for a test punch. Carl and him are estranged according to him, but Luna is on the farm to build a house. Maybe Bruno wants to visit his niece and combine it with a look around? I'll ask Valentino if he wants to talk to his uncle-in-law and have him ask the elite four member," Pete mumbled as he looked at his packed bags. "Ugh, I won't be back before Luna is done here..."
For his Alola trip, Pete would bring only two extended bags of holding, but these two were quite a bit superior to the ones he found in the containers at the beginning of his life here. They had 'smart' compartments that activated via voice command and held enough combined space to house a Wailord - though the mouth of the bag was not even remotely big enough to fit one inside.
One bag was just a back-up in case he needed it, the other was filled with all the essentials he needed, a small mountain of food and pokeblocks, a huge assortment of berries and other poke items like super expensive max potions he got from Devon Corp.
That bag also contained a small mountain of gifts for the people he was about to meet. Like a small berry tree sapling assortment for Professor Kukui where he even included one of those Oran-Occa crossbred trees for the burn salve that didn't have seeds in the berries, which meant he was the only source for the berry in the world.
Since he would meet Lusamine, the head of the Aether Foundation that was a huge power of good in the region of Alola, Pete included those trees for her as well. He still wasn't sure what Lusamine wanted to talk about with him, but he didn't need to know to gift her something this precious.
Her company's main goal was on the level of the Joy clan's - curing hurt pokemon through technology and whatever else method they could find. To that end, they even actively fought villainous organizations to try and free enslaved pokemon, and they trained pokemon trainers for the sole purpose of defending habitats of weaker pokemon and aiding the police in raids like mercenaries.
"Got everything, Petey?"
Pete looked up and nodded, "Yeah, I think so. Too bad they can't change the opening of the Alola league's reopening for my sake. I kinda wish I didn't have to go while Luna and Courtney are working on her house."
"You don't trust them?"
"Eh? No, I do! I just wanted to help," Pete sheepishly answered while scratching his ear.
"Well, your two Conkeldurr are already on it, and Klinklang is as well. So rejoice that at least those three are staying to work on something. You should tell Golurk to ask if it can help, too. I get the feeling it's a little moody these days."
Pete nodded and replied, "Yeah, he was really bummed that he wasn't a genius. I mean, to me, he still is - but as long as he doesn't think so my point is moot. Him landing at 18% when my best guess was that the pokemon will end up at 2% growth in a few weeks after hitting a maximum of 5% yesterday is simply astonishing."
"Let me guess, He didn't appreciate you giving him a lesson in math when he was down?"
"No... it didn't help as much as I hoped. It got better when I made fun of myself, though. Oh, and I told him that he beat four of your pokemon, too. But don't let your two Rhyperior, Donphan, and Mega Torterra hear it," Pete answered with a wink.
"Eh, the first week was spectacular, but I doubt the numbers will be much more than half of this week's the next time. They can't possibly keep up this rate of improvement and will hit a wall or two soon. First, for proficiency with the move, then with output of typing energy, and eventually, there will be natural bottlenecks for their species," Jasmine added with a thoughtful expression.
"Wow, who's the big nerd now, huh?"
"Hey! You're the one who calculated for Reuniclus to keep her improvement for Extrasensory at a constant 5% per week for 57 weeks straight so that the PV she reaches with the move will be 'over 9000', whatever that means," Jasmine scoffed.
"You wouldn't get it. Inside joke," Pete brushed off.
Jasmine glared at her husband for a moment before changing the subject, "So? Anything else Courtney and I need to know before you head out?"
"Hmm, nope. Courtney already knows about the eggs, three more Eevee should hatch soon. My test egg Eevee with the ground type energy hatched yesterday, and Mommy Sylveon allowed me to bring him with me since the little guy's dad is coming, too. You yourself know about the color variant Trapinch that hatched earlier this morning since I gifted the right to raise her to you and Flygon approved... hummm, there's some a few cross-breed berry seedlings in my study that might sprout soon if the process worked out. If you could look into my study every few days? I already asked the two Cinccino to water the pots while they are on their daily dusting tour around the house," Pete recounted while tapping his chin. "But as you might know, they don't know how to call me..."
"Aww, the genius professor couldn't teach his pokemon to work a phone yet? Are you sure you even tried? The two Cinccino are smarter than most pokemon I know," Jasmine taunted with a haughty expression.
"You know what? You're right. I should ask the Cinccino to call me. I bet they wouldn't forget since going up to my study is part of their daily routine," Pete replied while innocently scratching his head.
Jasmine started shaking her husband like a petulant child and cried out, "Ugh! A smart answer for every single taunt! Pete, stop it! Let me win one argument!"
"Hey, it was you and Sophie who forgot to take out the Thunder Stone from the generator when I asked you to," Pete defended with a smug grin.
Jasmine continued shaking her husband and retorted, "And we apologized a million times!"
"You know that I don't really care, and I'm just riling you up, right?"
The shaking of Pete gained intensity. Jasmine countered with a pout, "Then let me win one argume~eeent."
"Alright, hit me with one, and I'll let you win."
"Hmm," Jasmine stopped the shaking and gained a thoughtful expression that turned into a sly grin, "I'll miss you so much more than you will miss me while you're in Alola!"
"Ugh! Going for the big guns! I give you a foot you take an arm," Pete said while clutching his heart in fake hurt. "Very well, I will stand by my promise. I will not miss you quite as much as you miss me, and I shall compensate you for it with immeasurable love and the perfect gift upon my return!"
Jasmine gained a sweet smile and gave her husband a short kiss filled with feeling. Since they already shared a morning filled with love, the couple stopped at that and the newlyweds made their way down toward the lake where his eight top scorers, both mega evolved pokemon, the freshly hatched Eevee with the high chance of becoming a ground evolved Eevee and his two newly hatched bird pokemon Rookidee and Fletchling waited for him.
Behind them in the waters was a speedboat capable of outspeeding a Sharpedo that he rented from Hoenn's champion Steven. Together with Mega Reuniclus and Metagross using Teleport on long stretches to close the immense distance, Pete would only take roughly a single day to reach Alola, it would be less if he chose to risk it and only get teleported on a wooden plank instead of the heavy boat, but why should he?
PERTIMBANGAN PENCIPTA
Nuclide
Nuclide
Time to confess something. I only played half of Sun&Moon when a friend lent me the cartridge a good year after its release. I didn't care much for the new pokemon outside a scant few, and the new game mechanic with those special Z-moves or whatever was stupid. I also won't include z-moves in this story.
And here's a little spoiler:
The Aether Foundation, despite my lack of thorough knowledge, is important for the future of this story :) You'll find out why in a couple of chapters!
Status Power Mingguan
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