Back ho, Kenji opened the new bag of Pokéblocks and released his Weedle from its ball.
The mont it appeared, Weedle's eyes locked onto the food in Kenji's hands. It let out an eager hiss, its small black eyes filled with an intense craving.
Kenji didn't waste any ti. Without a word, he poured a large pile of the mid-grade Pokéblocks onto the floor. Weedle dove in, devouring them like a miniature Snorlax.
Kenji watched with an expression that said, I knew it. He stood by quietly as his Pokémon ate one block after another.
Eight... ten... sixteen...
Weedle ate as if it had no concept of being full, driven by a primal, insatiable hunger.
This was the final sign before its evolution.
It was preparing to beco a Kakuna. Once it evolved, it would beco completely immobile, unable to battle or even eat. To ensure it had enough energy to survive the pupal stage and successfully erge as a Beedrill, a Weedle would instinctively eat as much as possible beforehand.
The more energy it stored now, the faster it would break out of its cocoon later.
This was precisely why Kenji had spent every last Pokédollar he had on Pokéblocks.
In just a few minutes, the food that represented his entire life savings was more than half gone.
Suddenly, Weedle stopped eating. A faint white light began to emanate from its body. The glow grew brighter and more intense, until it completely enveloped Weedle in a brilliant cocoon of light.
Kenji clenched his fists, his heart pounding. This was the light of evolution.
The seconds ticked by. After a full minute, the light slowly faded.
The Weedle was gone. In its place was a hard, pale-yellow chrysalis: a Kakuna.
Its entire body was a solid, pale-yellow shell. The oval-shaped exoskeleton looked incredibly tough, covered in intricate, fine lines. A pair of sharp, triangular black eyes were embedded in the shell, gleaming like polished obsidian.
Kakuna (3-Star)
Gender: Male
Level: 8
Type: Poison / Bug
Base Stats: 325 (205 60 60)
Abilities: Shed Skin, Huge Power (Hidden)
Moves: Harden, Poison Sting, String Shot, Bug Bite
Held Item: Last Whisper
Potential: D-
It had only been one day. A single day since he had received his exam Pokémon, and he had already managed to evolve it. This kind of speed had to be completely unheard of.
And after consuming so many Pokéblocks, Kenji was confident that its evolution into Beedrill would be significantly faster than normal. By his estimates, he would still have nearly two weeks of training ti left after it erged.
He was going to ace this exam. He was absolutely sure of it.
For the next few days, the Kakuna lay perfectly still on the sofa, silently gathering energy. Kenji, in a rare mont of freedom with no school and no part-ti job, found himself with nothing to do. Leo was busy training his Pidove, so Kenji decided to give himself a much-needed break.
With his partner's evolution now underway, he finally had a mont to properly investigate his system.
"System, can I continue to increase my Pokémon's star rank?" he asked. He clearly rembered that in the ga, units could go up to four stars.
"Conditions not yet t. Further star-up is locked," the system replied.
Kenji's eyes lit up. "What are the conditions?"
"..."
He waited for several minutes, but the system remained silent, earning it a few grumbles under his breath. Still, the response confird that a 4-Star fusion was possible. He would figure out the conditions eventually.
The leisurely ti passed quickly, and a week flew by in a flash.
One day, while Kenji was playing a ga on his phone, a notification popped up. He casually opened it and saw it was a ssage from his class group chat. It was from the class president. The ssage was an invitation: since the exam was coming up, she was organizing a group trip to the nearby wilds to get so real-world battle experience for their Pokémon.
Kenji frowned, glancing over at the motionless Kakuna on the sofa. His first instinct was to decline. He had no idea when it would finally evolve, and it would be incredibly awkward to show up to a battle-training session with a Pokémon that couldn't even move. Besides, if he wanted battle practice, Edgecliff City had plenty of official Pokémon Battle Clubs. There was no real need to go out into the wilds and fight unpredictable Pokémon. It was dangerous out there. Wild Beedrill, for instance, were known to travel in massive swarms of fifty or even a hundred.
Ding!
Just as he was thinking of how to politely refuse, a direct ssage ca in from Leo.
Leo: Dude! dude! did u see the group chat? u going?
Kenji was about to type back 'no,' but his phone imdiately started buzzing with a series of new ssages.
Leo: we should go together
Leo: dont worry i'll protect u
Leo: it'll be our last class trip together
Leo: c'mon buddy pleaseeeee...
The barrage of ssages made Kenji's eye twitch. He quickly typed back: Idk, we'll see. What am I supposed to do there with a Kakuna?
There was a sudden silence from Leo's end. A few monts later, a new ssage appeared.
Leo: ??????????
Leo: wait WHAT? your weedle already evolved into a kakuna???
Kenji: Yup.
Leo: Damn bro, making moves in silence. aight then.
After a bit more back-and-forth, Kenji put his phone down and looked back at the Kakuna. In the days that followed, he watched it constantly, but there was no change.
Crack—
Then, on the night before the scheduled trip, as Kenji was clearing the table after dinner, he heard a faint cracking sound. He whipped his head around. On the hard, yellow exoskeleton of his Kakuna, a tiny hairline fracture had appeared.
This was it! The final sign!
Forgetting the dinner plates, Kenji rushed over to the sofa, his excitent impossible to hide.
One minute... ten minutes...
He held his breath, staring intently at the tiny crack, but nothing else happened.
Ding...
His phone buzzed again. It was Leo, asking for a final confirmation about the trip.
Kenji glanced at the crack on the shell. If the exoskeleton was already breaking, its evolution into Beedrill had to be imminent. After a mont of thought, he sent Leo a simple reply: I'm in.
Leo: Aweso, i'll sign you up.
Kenji sent a quick 'thanks' and put his phone away to finish cleaning up. It seed there was still a little more ti to wait.
After cleaning and taking a shower, he sat on the floor, leaning against the sofa, playing on his phone while he waited. He didn't want to miss it. For the sake of sentintality, he really wanted to witness the mont his partner was reborn as a Beedrill.
The next morning, the first thing Kenji saw when he opened his eyes was the coffee table. He had accidentally fallen asleep on the floor.
He scratched his hair, which was now sticking up in every direction, and then snapped his head around to look at the sofa.
There, right where his Kakuna had been, lay the empty, pale-yellow shell. But now, a large, gaping hole had been torn open at the front.
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