Chapter 206

Chapter 206: Chapter 206

Mike sat on the blanket Gengar had spread out for him, going through all the footage Gengar and the others had recorded during the evolution experiment.

Professor Oak and the other researchers were off to one side examining the newly evolved Kleavor, each of them taking responsibility for a different aspect of the investigation as they began analyzing its Abilities, moves, base stats, and other characteristics.

Lucian eventually walked over and sat beside Mike.

Once Mike had finished checking the footage and packed away his cameras and other equipment, he glanced over and asked, "You’re not going to help study Kleavor?"

Lucian shook his head. "Kleavor simply isn’t the kind of Pokémon I’m interested in."

"You don’t think Kleavor looks cool? I think it looks pretty awesome."

"I like Psychic-type Pokémon."

"Fair enough."

Cynthia approached while the two were talking and leaned against a nearby tree.

"Have you decided what to do with these Kleavor?"

Mike thought for a moment before answering. "Since Roark was the one who dug up the Black Augurite, I was thinking we should let him take one. Another can be entrusted to the professors for continued research. As for the remaining Kleavor, we can see whether any of them want to leave with Aaron. If one does, he can take it with him, while the others stay here and protect their colony."

"That sounds reasonable," Cynthia said with a nod.

"The only problem is that we still don’t have much Black Augurite." Lucian adjusted his glasses. "Any evolution that depends completely on an item is inevitably going to be limited by how much of that item exists."

"Our Wyrdeer have it easier," he added. "They only need to master their signature move before they can evolve."

Mike turned and stared at him. "...Since when did Wyrdeer become your Wyrdeer?"

"Don’t worry about that."

Cynthia watched the two of them immediately start bickering again and smiled to herself.

One of these days, she really needed to find a way to get Mike to participate in a League Conference, then pull a few strings and give him some official position within the Sinnoh League!

Once he was on the payroll, there would be plenty of League work she could hand over to him, which would leave her with much more time to deal with the things she actually wanted to do.

The thought alone put her in an excellent mood!

...

The researchers remained busy until the afternoon before finally returning to the blanket.

One of them handed Mike a sheet containing the measurements they had compiled.

"The base stats have been determined."

Mike took the paper and looked over the results.

Kleavor

HP: 70

Attack: 135

Defense: 95

Sp. Atk: 45

Sp. Def: 70

Speed: 85

Total: 500

"So its total base stats are actually the same as Scyther and Scizor," one of the professors remarked in surprise.

"That makes sense," Mike replied. "Scizor already has the same total as Scyther. Since Kleavor is another evolutionary branch of Scyther, it wouldn’t be strange for its total to stay unchanged as well."

What made the Scyther family particularly unusual was that evolution normally altered a Pokémon’s overall distribution of ability, yet Scyther’s branches retained a total of 500.

Only when Scizor underwent Mega Evolution did its total rise by another hundred points.

"That’s true."

The researchers continued comparing their notes before moving on to the next subject.

"We’ve also identified two of Kleavor’s Abilities: Swarm and Sheer Force. We still don’t know what its Hidden Ability is. None of these seven Kleavor appear to possess it, unless one of those two turns out to be the Hidden Ability after all, so we’ll need more Kleavor for additional research."

Mike took a sip of tea and thought about it.

"If I had to guess, its Hidden Ability probably has something to do with cutting moves. Maybe Sharpness."

"Sharpness, like Gallade’s Ability?" one of the professors asked.

Mike nodded. "Gallade is a close-range fighter and learns plenty of slicing moves, so Sharpness suits it perfectly. Kleavor literally fights with two giant stone axes. If its Hidden Ability were Sharpness, that would make a lot of sense too."

"Steadfast is another possibility," someone else suggested. "Judging by the colony leader’s personality, I wouldn’t rule that out either."

Professor Rowan and the others nodded thoughtfully.

There was no point making conclusions with so little data, so they decided to wait until they had access to more Kleavor before continuing that part of the investigation.

The Pokédex entry would also need to be developed carefully, especially since everything they had observed so far suggested that Kleavor possessed a comparatively mild temperament despite its intimidating appearance.

Cynthia then turned toward Roark. "Can you continue excavating Black Augurite?"

Roark rubbed the back of his head. "The energy survey we ran on the piece we already excavated indicates that there should still be quite a lot of Black Augurite buried deeper inside Oreburgh Tunnel, but we can’t safely continue mining yet. We have to reinforce the entire section first."

"Safety comes first," one of the professors immediately said.

Roark nodded. "Once we can safely extract more, I’ll send several pieces over here first. Until the information on Kleavor has been properly added to the Pokédex and made public, we also need to make sure these Kleavor aren’t casually seen by passing Trainers. An unidentified Pokémon appearing without any available Pokédex information could easily cause an accident."

"Understood."

When the subject returned to how the newly evolved Kleavor would be distributed, Mike repeated the arrangement he had discussed with Cynthia.

Roark’s grin immediately widened when he heard that he would be allowed to take one with him, while the professors agreed to keep another at a research institute and coordinate their observations remotely so everyone could share the results.

With the full moon only a few days away, nobody was in much of a hurry to leave Sinnoh either.

Professor Kukui decided there was little point returning all the way to Alola when Ursaring’s evolution experiment was approaching so quickly, while Professor Oak similarly chose not to make another trip back to Kanto.

Professor Sycamore also remained behind, giving the researchers an opportunity to continue studying Kleavor together until the Ursaring experiment and the upcoming summit were finished.

As they were settling those arrangements, the Kleavor colony leader approached Mike with another Kleavor beside it.

"Klahr—"

Mike stopped what he was doing and looked between the two.

"You want us to take this one away with us too?"

The leader nodded.

The second Kleavor raised one of its stone axes and gave a low cry.

It had always loved fighting, and after evolving, that desire had only become stronger.

It wanted to leave the colony and challenge more Pokémon elsewhere!

"So it wants to travel around and fight stronger opponents?"

Kleavor nodded eagerly.

Mike turned toward Aaron and gave him a meaningful look.

Aaron grinned and walked over to the Pokémon. "Want to come with me?"

Kleavor shook its head, then raised its stone axes and pointed them directly at Aaron.

Roark immediately understood it.

"It means you have to beat it first. Only then will it go with you."

Kleavor nodded.

Aaron’s expression lit up.

"Great. Then let’s battle!"

Everyone moved aside to give them room.

Aaron released Drapion, and the Poison/Dark-type stared curiously at the unfamiliar Pokémon opposite it as though silently wondering what in the world it was supposed to be.

Mike sat on the blanket with Glameow in his arms, while Hatenna settled beside him and gently rubbed her oversized head against his arm.

The battle began almost immediately.

Kleavor attacked first, rushing Drapion with one of its stone axes raised high, but Drapion lifted its pincers and caught the descending weapon.

It seized both of Kleavor’s arms, hoisted the Bug/Rock-type completely off the ground, slammed it down several times, and finally hurled it away.

Kleavor had barely climbed back to its feet when rocks came crashing down from above and smashed into its body.

Rock Slide struck super effectively, burying it beneath a pile of broken stone, yet Aaron didn’t order Drapion to continue attacking. He simply waited.

Mike watched the fight and quietly sighed to himself.

An Elite Four member was still an Elite Four member.

Even if Aaron was hardly the most intimidating member of the group, his strength was still far beyond that of the vast majority of Trainers.

A moment later, Kleavor burst out of the rubble with a roar and charged Drapion again.

Drapion’s tail hardened with a metallic sheen before whipping violently into its opponent.

Bang!

Kleavor was sent crashing to the ground and didn’t move.

Aaron immediately enlarged a Poké Ball and threw it.

The ball struck Kleavor, pulled it inside, fell to the ground, and shook twice before clicking shut.

Capture successful!

Drapion walked over, picked up the Poké Ball, and returned it to Aaron.

Aaron had apparently spent too much time around people like Mike, because he immediately struck an outrageously dramatic pose to celebrate his new capture!

Mike’s eyes lit up.

At last.

A fellow man of culture!

Aaron returned to the group and proudly held up the Poké Ball.

"I caught Kleavor!"

Cynthia applauded first, and everyone else followed with congratulations.

Before the applause had completely died away, Mike asked, "By the way, when are you planning to announce Kleavor’s existence to everyone else?"

The professors exchanged a glance before explaining that they intended to handle it much like Wyrdeer.

They would first complete the Pokédex data, papers, and supporting research, then reveal Kleavor to the wider world through a public battle.

Nobody objected to that arrangement.

"In that case," one of the professors suggested, "why not eventually have Kleavor battle Ursaluna and let both of them make their public debut together?"

"Kleavor and Ursaluna together?"

The suggestion immediately caught everyone’s attention.

"If the Ursaring evolution experiment succeeds during the coming full moon, then besides Kleavor, we’ll also have the first newly evolved Ursaluna of the modern era. A battle between the two would probably have an even stronger effect than revealing them separately."

Everyone thought that made sense.

"Then that settles it," Professor Rowan said. "Once Ursaring has evolved, we can stay here and continue Kleavor’s research as well."

Mike glanced toward the colony leader. "We should still ask Kleavor whether they’re willing to let us continue studying them."

The leader listened to the explanation and nodded, making it clear that the researchers were welcome so long as they didn’t harass or endanger the rest of its colony.

"No problem," Professor Oak said with a laugh, stretching his back. "It’s been a long time since I’ve been involved in research this continuously."

He looked toward Mike with obvious amusement.

"Mike, you really have brought us one surprise after another."

First Wyrdeer, then Kleavor, with Ursaluna potentially next.

Pokémon that had disappeared from the modern world were appearing again one after another.

That thought prompted another question.

"Mike, do you think Pokémon from the Hisui era all had signature moves of their own?"

Mike thought back over what he knew.

"Probably. From what I understand, a lot of Hisuian Pokémon did possess moves unique to their species. It may have been one of the ways their populations adapted well enough to survive in that environment."

The question unexpectedly sent his thoughts in a new direction.

Many Pokémon with obvious Hisuian characteristics had historically evolved from otherwise ordinary Pokémon, and after evolving they could use distinctive moves associated with those ancient forms.

If that was the case, could modern Pokémon perhaps be taught those ancestral signature moves first, using them to awaken something dormant in their bloodline, then be exposed to whatever special environmental or magnetic conditions their ancestors had required?

Could that allow them to evolve into their Hisuian forms again?

Mike’s thoughts accelerated.

When Stantler evolved into Wyrdeer, the process had already shown that as long as the correct method of guidance was restored, even modern Pokémon could relearn techniques that had been lost by their lineage over time.

So perhaps the idea wasn’t impossible.

As for reproducing the ancient environmental conditions or magnetic fields...

With modern technology, maybe that could be done too.

And the very existence of the system’s missions suggested that Hisuian forms weren’t limited to a tiny handful of species permanently lost to the modern world.

’Should I try it?’

Mike remained lost in thought until one of the professors called his name.

"Mike, what do you think?"

He snapped back to reality. "Sorry, Professor. What did you say? I didn’t hear you."

"We were discussing the summit. We don’t intend to reveal yet that we’ve already worked out how to restore Kleavor and potentially Ursaluna. Our research on both species is still incomplete, so we were thinking of only mentioning the discoveries briefly for now. How does that sound?"

"No problem. I’ll follow your lead."