Chapter 208. A Mountain of Evolution Stones?
With a finished prototype in hand, it only needed improvements, and Natsume's workload lightened considerably.
He also noticed that the League's attitude toward him was unusually favorable.
Whenever he asked to enlarge and refine the Loreidon chassis, someone took the request away immediately.
In less than three days, the upgrade was complete and delivered back to him.
"What exactly is that associated ore?"
Natsume's eyes widened.
It could make the procedure-obsessed League set aside all red tape and put his needs first.
He even suspected the League had pulled together a specialized vehicle-research team just to wait on him.
Natsume didn't believe that turning in a small silver mine could give him that much clout.
"I asked around these two days, and the silver mine is actually the associated ore," Mewtwo said, carrying a cup of warm milk into the backyard.
In the backyard, a massive Loreidon was parked there.
Unlike the Loreidon Mewtwo had seen before, this enlarged, refitted Loreidon seemed to have some mysterious additions from Natsume.
An inverted-triangle blue eye was embedded in a dark red energy core at the front.
Blue-white armor had grown into the sharp, bony silhouette of Eternatus.
Countless blood-red lines, laden with Dynamax energy, converged on Rotom's eye and wrapped it like a lens.
From afar, the vehicle's nose looked like a ferocious red-eyed demon.
"This is no different from a stretched limousine anymore, right?" Honora said, stepping out and covering her mouth in surprise.
Natsume was hanging beneath the front of the chassis, a full meter off the ground.
Hearing them, he stuck his head out and stared straight at Mewtwo.
"What did you say?"
"Silver ore is the associated ore," Mewtwo repeated.
"Then what is the League actually mining there?" Natsume asked, full of curiosity.
"Strictly speaking, it isn't ore."
Mewtwo shook its head.
"There are many things inside like glass beads."
"Glass beads?" Natsume froze for a second, not understanding what Mewtwo meant.
After a moment, an invisible force burst from within Mewtwo, and its body was shrouded in white light.
"Those glass beads seem to be related to the Divinity within me.
I suspect Mew made them a long time ago."
"Because I found that by invoking the authority of genes according to the residual power within the beads, my own form changes."
As it spoke, a bulge on Mewtwo's forehead lit up.
Its head swelled and lengthened, its tail stretched into a slender ribbon of light, its body shrank and grew more lithe, and a violet psychic field steamed off its surface like mist.
"Mega Mewtwo Y!"
Natsume recognized the state at a glance and blurted it out.
The next second, all expression vanished from his face.
He slipped off the vehicle's front and crashed to the ground.
"Natsume, are you alright?" Honora rushed forward to help, but he waved her off.
"Give me a moment."
Arms folded over his chest, Natsume turned away and lay there like a corpse.
Now he knew why the League was treating him so well.
So it turned out that what they were mining in there were Mega Stones.
On the other side, Mewtwo, feeling the power within its body, noticed Natsume's commotion and turned, looking at him quizzically.
"Why call it 'Mewtwo Y'?"
"I call this the Natsume Form," Mewtwo said.
"Natsume Form?" Honora looked back at Mewtwo, puzzled.
What was happening to Mewtwo seemed related to Mega Evolution.
But what did it have to do with Mr. Natsume?
"Yes," Mewtwo nodded, then continued.
"The first time I tried to sense the power within those beads, I found that when I ran the process, there seemed to be some unnecessary elements, and I would get stuck inside the evolution light."
Here, Mewtwo paused.
"Those unnecessary elements might be where I differ from Mew.
After thinking it through, it could only be the human genes in my body."
"So I used my authority to briefly alter the portion of genes pertaining to humans, modeling them after yours, Natsume."
With that, Mewtwo gazed steadily at Natsume.
"Then I successfully Mega Evolved into this.
The power of Psychic-type moves in this form seems to have improved a great deal."
"Natsume Form it is, then."
Expressionless, Natsume stood up.
The essence of Mega Evolution is squeezing potential from the genes to break through to the next stage for a short time.
Given the Divinity over genes within Mewtwo, achieving this only required slight adjustments for it to Mega Evolve on its own.
Natsume patted Mewtwo on the shoulder and said:
"When Ash gets back, try switching to his genes.
There should be another form."
Maybe Mega Mewtwo X would really make a comeback.
"Right!"
As if something had just occurred to him, Natsume's eyes lit up.
"In that case, can you help other Pokémon Mega Evolve?" Natsume stared at Mewtwo, eyes blazing.
"Mm… if I understand them well enough, I should be able to," Mewtwo said, a little uncertain.
"Try it on that one."
Natsume pointed at the Loreidon.
Mewtwo's face darkened.
"At the very least it needs to have genes."
Mewtwo waved a hand, indicating it was helpless with silicon-based life or plasma-state Pokémon.
"I see…"
Natsume nodded.
Not every Pokémon can Mega Evolve.
Shaking his head, Natsume returned to the Loreidon.
At this point, Loreidon was Natsume's enhanced build with implanted chips and Porygon — its chest now held a jet-black energy source.
Its base stats had surged by 80, reaching 580.
[Base Stats: 580 — HP 120, Attack 120, Defense 55?, Sp. Atk 120, Sp. Def 55?, Speed 120]
As the body for a mecha Rotom, a vehicle-Rotom's greatest need is balance.
Only then can it handle internal type-conversion work and interface with other chassis in the future.
But there was a serious issue: the vehicle-Rotom was still rather frail defensively.
That much was obvious from the base-stat distribution.
Fortunately, once the Eternatus carapace fused as planned, both defenses had begun to rise.
"Here."
Natsume smeared a lump of black-and-red carapace onto Loreidon's frame, then tossed a Master Ball to Mewtwo.
"Try modifying this Master Ball the same way you modified the Ultra Ball."
These last two days, the lab construction had gotten on track, and Mewtwo had spare time again.
Mewtwo nodded and left.
Natsume wiped the sweat from his forehead and watched the softened carapace slowly merge into the chassis, then wiped his brow again.
These carapace pieces were exceedingly delicate.
Keeping them softened each day consumed a large amount of his red crystals.
He had dug up three tons of red crystals that day.
Just maintaining the Eternatus carapace in a softened state over these few days had already cost nearly half of it.
"Good thing the weather's been nice these days, or I might not have had enough crystals on hand."
Once softened, the carapace was extremely finicky.
If it got cold or hot, wet or dry, it would harden quickly and lose the ability to fuse with metal.
In the lab, of course, conditions could be controlled perfectly.
But there would always be some meddlesome instrument that wandered over to touch it — and then got glued to the carapace.
Everything was getting better, and at this moment, his plan had truly taken its first real step.
Gazing at the vehicle-Rotom before him, Natsume felt a surge of grand ambition.
"Kra-boom!"
A thunderclap cracked across a sunny sky, and Natsume jerked, looking up.
"Plop!" Big, fat raindrops spattered his face.
"It's raining.
Mr. Natsume, we'll have to stop here for today," Honora said, looking up.
Natsume didn't reply.
He only stared blankly at the sky.
On the rooftop, the vanished Mewtwo reappeared, turned, and fixed its gaze sharply to the south.
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