[Spooky Plate Fragment: A Ghost-type plate fragment. When held, it boosts the power of Ghost-type moves...]
"Gulp." The moment Reiji saw the panel, he swallowed hard. The information that popped up had genuinely scared him.
"T-This is... Arceus's Spooky Plate... a fragment of it..."
"Holy shit." Reiji completely lost his composure. There was no telling how much Ghost-type energy this thing contained, and Gengar had actually dared to swallow it. The fact that it hadn't blown itself apart was already lucky. He immediately opened Gengar's proficiency panel.
[Gengar (shiny)]
[Type: Ghost + Poison]
[Gender: Male]
[Potential: ???]
[Level: 56.11%]
[Ability: Cursed Body/32.12%]
Ghost-type Moves: [(Shadow Ball/50.82%) (Shadow Punch/43.11%) (Shadow Claw/41.92%) (Confuse Ray/42.57%) (Lick/46.55%) (Curse/40.15%) (Hex/40.23%) (Destiny Bond/45.63%) (Phantom Force/47.56%) (Night Shade/41.13%) (Spite/36.13%) (Nightmare/45.66%)]
Poison-type Moves: [(Toxic/54.84%) (Acid Spray/41.52%) (Venoshock/41.21%) (Poison Jab/47.15%) (Toxic Spikes/46.54%) (Sludge Bomb/33.35%) (Smog/32.14%) (Poison Gas/27.55%)]
Psychic-type Moves: [(Hypnosis/43.41%) (Dream Eater/40.12%) (Psychic/39.64%) (Trick Room/33.44%) (Rest/50.81%)]
Normal-type Moves: [(Mean Look/33.48%) (Perish Song/25.78%) (Protect/40.87%) (Hyper Beam/32.32%)]
Dark-type Moves: [(Payback/31.26%) (Taunt/33.77%) (Sucker Punch/30.88%) (Dark Pulse/36.42%) (Nasty Plot/22.92%)]
Fire-type Moves: [(Will-O-Wisp/40.45%) (Fire Punch/24.98%)]
Other: [(Ice Punch/23.23%) (Thunder Punch/19.15%) (Drain Punch/18.55%)]
He clearly remembered Gengar being level 50 last week. Now it had shot straight to 56. That was several levels in one jump.
The numbers after the decimal were still moving, changing almost every minute. Even if it only climbed by 0.01 each time, one full percent would only take a hundred minutes.
Gengar had changed this much after eating one tiny fragment. Reiji's whole brain went numb. Of all the things that glutton could have swallowed, it had picked a piece of the Spooky Plate.
At this rate, breaking into Elite Four tier was only a matter of time.
And he still had a fragment about the size of his thumbnail. According to Darkrai, the piece Gengar ate had been even smaller than that. If a fragment that tiny could cause this kind of change, then all he could do now was wait and see where it went.
He no longer had the heart to check the rest of the abilities or moves. Instead, he took out a box that could block energy fluctuations and carefully stored the Plate fragment inside.
This thing was a treasure. With it, Gengar's path to Champion tier no longer looked impossible. It might even get a glimpse into the realm of Legendary Pokémon—the Distortion World, Giratina, shadow, and antimatter.
Giratina was a Legendary Pokémon created by Arceus. If Giratina had that power, Arceus naturally had it too. The same went for the other two big lugs, Dialga and Palkia, who ruled time and space.
Reiji honestly didn't know what to say. Gengar was already his luckiest Pokémon. He had dumped over six hundred million into it, and now it had run into something as absurd as the Spooky Plate.
After holding it in for a long time, only one thought came to mind.
Gengar was about to take off.
...
After putting away the Spooky Plate fragment, Reiji realized he couldn't sleep at all. Even after flying from the forest near Pallet Town to Viridian City late at night, he still wasn't sleepy.
The reason was simple. The fragment had him far too worked up. It was supposed to be just a ruin. At first, he had only planned to scrape up whatever he could and leave.
Who would have thought he would actually find something like the Spooky Plate? It was an enormous help to Gengar. Champion tier was no longer just a hope—it was practically a fast track.
With the Spooky Plate fragment, Gengar would reach Elite Four tier faster than Reiji had expected. The only question was when it would wake up. It would probably be asleep for at least a few months, so there was nothing to do but wait.
Only then did Reiji notice the last unusual stone still sitting in the box. It stood out because the whole thing was a deep green, with markings in the middle that looked somewhere between writing and graffiti.
Luckily, the panel could still identify it. Otherwise, he really wouldn't have known what the green stone was.
[Golett (inactive)]
[Type: ???]
[Gender: ???]
[Potential: ???]
[Level: ???]
[Ability: ???]
[Moves: ???]
"What?" Reiji stared at the long string of question marks on the panel. Other than the name Golett, everything else was unknown.
Type, gender, potential, level, ability, moves—every field was question marks.
Was it because Golett was still inactive? If so, how was he supposed to activate it?
He knew what kind of Pokémon Golett was. Ancient people had shaped it out of clay. If anyone asked how that worked, the answer was ancient supertechnology. It was basically the same kind of thing as Magearna. Who knew how clay bodies and metal gears were supposed to come alive?
In ancient times, things like this were probably built by mad scientists. In the modern era, all that was left was archaeology.
Even with question marks all over the panel, Reiji was a veteran Pokémon fan. He could still guess most of Golett's information.
Its type had to be Ground and Ghost.
Right. Speaking of Ghost type, he remembered now. An inactive Golett was basically just a lump of stone, which matched the Ground side.
Activating it with Ghost-type energy would make it Ground plus Ghost. In other words, this Golett was only missing the Ghost-type energy needed to wake it up.
There was no rush. He wasn't ready yet. As for Golett's gender, it should be a genderless Pokémon.
Its potential would probably depend on the quality of the Ghost-type energy used to activate it, and on how much of that energy he poured into the stone.
For example, he had just obtained a top-grade Dusk Stone, the Spooky Plate fragment from the ruin, and whatever material had been used to make Golett in the first place. Once it was activated, he would know how high its potential was.
Using the Spooky Plate fragment to activate Golett was out of the question. That was for Gengar. Until he confirmed exactly how much the Plate fragment could do for Gengar, there was no way he would waste it on Golett. At most, he would use the top-grade Dusk Stone. That had come from the ruin too anyway.
Then there was its level. That would still depend on the Ghost-type energy. If there was enough energy, it should feed back into its level. If there wasn't, then it would probably start at level 1. There was nothing complicated there.
As for abilities, its hidden ability was No Guard. Its regular abilities were Iron Fist and Klutz.
No Guard meant that, because both sides were fighting without guarding properly, all moves used by both sides would always hit.
Iron Fist increased the power of punching moves.
Klutz made the holder's item useless.
None of the three were great. No Guard was just mutual destruction. Klutz was even worse. Only Iron Fist had any real appeal.
Golett's moves weren't worth worrying about yet either. They would probably just be a mix of Ground-type and Ghost-type moves.
For this Golett stone embryo, Reiji had no intention of activating it now. He would wait until the Indigo League was over and he was back at Mikan Gym.
At the very least, he needed Gengar to wake up first so he could confirm what the Spooky Plate fragment actually did.
If the fragment turned out to be nothing special—though that was obviously impossible, and even Reiji didn't believe it—then he could use it to activate Golett.
But if the fragment really helped Gengar touch the realm of Legendary Pokémon, letting it master shadow and anti-gravity power and become a lite version of Giratina, then the fragment would stay with Gengar. There was no question about that.
Especially after Darkrai left, Reiji's sense of safety had dropped by at least eighty percent. He needed Gengar to become strong enough to serve as his final trump card. Otherwise, even doing bad things wouldn't feel safe anymore.
Only when Gengar grew strong enough to fill the gap Darkrai had left would he get that sense of security back. Then he wouldn't have to be afraid of walking at night.
Good teeth meant a good appetite. Eat well, sleep well, stay healthy, and even sleep soundly after turning off the lights.
"Phew. Sleep. I need sleep." Reiji let out a soft breath, put the Golett embryo away, then lay down on the bed with Eevee in his arms. He kept adjusting his breathing until his mood slowly settled.
By the time Gengar woke up, he would already be back in the Orange Archipelago. Activating the Golett embryo could wait until then. That was still months away. Thinking about it now was pointless. Sleep came first. Tomorrow, he still had to travel to the Indigo Plateau for the opening ceremony.
[End of chapter]
[100 Power Stones = Extra Chapter]
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