28,000 Popularity Points was neither a fortune nor a pittance. Roy spent 100 to refresh the System Shop, clearing out the three items he couldn't use yet.
The shop updated again, this time with five products:
1. Technical Machine: Flamethrower Effect: Attacks the target with a stream of fire. May leave the target burned. Cost: 2,000 Popularity Points 2. Technical Machine: Protect Effect: Protects the user from most moves used by other Pokémon. Cost: 2,000 Popularity Points 3. Technical Machine: Trick Room Effect: Creates a strange space where slower Pokémon move first for five turns. Cost: 2,000 Popularity Points 4. Technical Machine: Skill Swap Effect: The user and target exchange Abilities. The user's original Ability returns when it is withdrawn or faints. 5. Item: Power Band Quality: Perfect Effect: Increases the power of the holder's physical moves by 15%. Cost: 200,000 Popularity Points
Four of the five products in this refresh were Technical Machines. Only one was an item.
They were things he could use right now, too. Litwick could learn Protect and Flamethrower to fill out its limited move pool.
And at 2,000 Popularity Points apiece, Technical Machines looked like the best value in the System Shop.
He could give Trick Room and Skill Swap to Duskull and let it make a nuisance of itself.
Roy wanted the perfect-quality Power Band badly, but it cost 200,000 Popularity Points. It would have to gather dust in the System Shop until he could afford it.
Roy spent 8,000 Popularity Points on the four moves. He planned to use his remaining 20,000 to raise his Extreme Ghost Power to level two.
It wasn't that he had points burning a hole in his pocket. His Ghost Power now had to sustain Misdreavus as well as Litwick and Duskull, and his daily