We had a lot of fun on Rayquaza's Descent and it was definitely nice to get together with so many of my friends. The girls did manage to catch me off guard when each one of them brought out a small New Year's gift as soon as the clock struck 00:00. It was as if they had agreed to do this beforehand, but had not informed me or anyone else about it.
However, seeing how they had only prepared a gift for me and looking at their reactions to the gifts they pulled out, I was pretty sure this was not a planned thing. When I threw a look at the boys, Ace just teasingly told me to not look at him like that and that he did not have a gift for me since they usually did not exchange gifts and no one had told him about this.
Ace looked like he was enjoying a show, and while Kinji as well as Aaron watched on silently, I could feel their amusement as well. Not that it was hard to see it since they made no efforts to hide the fact that they found my predicament amusing, and a quick sweeping glance through the room told me that all parents, as well as siblings, were "discreetly" watching the show as well. If you could call giggling and gloating discreet, that is.
Thankfully I was quick-witted enough and pulled out a few flower sculptures I had made while practicing my glass or earth sculping. I had thousands of them stored inside Utopia since I felt it would be a waste to throw away or destroy the successful/good-looking ones.
Well, they came in handy now, and I handed each girl a bouquet of 12 glass flowers, with the flowers chosen to suit their preferences. The girls were happy, I handled the situation cleanly, and I certainly enjoyed Ace's disbelieving look when I dealt with the surprise so easily. All in all, everyone was happy.
We all stayed at Seafoam Island for the night and spent the majority of Rayquaza's Ascent there as well. It was only after dinner that we began to split up. Everyone being able to take the time to spend the last day of the last year, as well as the first day of the new year together was already pretty great, and it was no surprise that they had other stuff to take care of.
Unsurprisingly, by the time we were back home, the girls began to flood our chat group with pictures of the last two days. They were essentially bragging, but it was nice to see them having fun. Those who missed out declared their envy and that they would definitely do their best to join us the next time.
Speaking of plans, my parents were planning to stay in Hope Town until Kyoday morning before leaving again. Initially, they had been planning to stay until Grouday evening, but I persuaded them otherwise for two reasons. The first one was that I had to deal with the interviews for my orphanage on Kyoday and did not know how long that was going to take.
The second reason was that I had to leave for Lavender City on Grouday since I would be staying for a month due to the orphanage phase of my practical year. I was planning to leave for Lavender City as soon as I had dealt with the weekly check-up routine, so their staying would essentially be for naught.
Hence, we spent the next two days together, and they left on Kyoday right after breakfast. I left not long after them and headed for the agency. Viola greeted me upon arrival and led me to the conference room where the job interviews were going to take place.
She informed me that the first prospect, namely Penny, was scheduled to arrive in 10 minutes, and exactly 10 minutes later Viola called my orphanage's prospective matron inside. We talked a bit, and I made sure to use my extra senses during the conversation to ensure that she was being sincere.
Thankfully that was the case, so I agreed to officially hire her. I informed her that she would be starting next month along with everyone else. I was planning to inform the alliance about the opening as well, and that month was to give them the time to facilitate the transfer of orphans to my orphanage.
The plan was to start small until everything/everyone properly settled down, so I would limit the initial number of orphans to 10 babies, and 30 children from 2 to 10 years of age. After maybe half a year to a year, we could expand that number a bit more. Naturally, I was going to tell them that orphans from Hope Town and its surrounding towns as well as villages were seen as priority candidates.
Anyway, after Penny, I went through each of my prospective employees one by one, and thankfully none of them showed any signs of lying, pretense, or negative intent, so I was able to hire them all. The last interview was with Leon Schnitzel, the former Elite 4 Candidate who applied for the clerk position.
I saw no reason to beat around the bush, so the first question I posed was why he applied, even though I had an idea of why he did, and he frankly told me that it was a high-level mission issued by the alliance. He assured me that he was fully capable of handling the responsibilities of a regular clerk, but did not forget to mention that his presence was a favor from the alliance to me, which would ensure the nearly absolute safety of my orphanage until the start of 2191.
He also gave me a guarantee that neither he nor the alliance was going to interfere with the operation of the orphanage or meddle with any of the orphans. I could feel his sincerity and with his permission even pulled out Gwen/Gardevoir whose talent made it impossible to lie to her.
Well, at least I did not believe that any human below the Legend Class was capable of doing so, and even then I was fairly confident in her abilities. Regardless, with Gwen's assurance I was certain that Leon was telling the truth. I made sure to thank him for protecting the orphanage staff as well as the orphans in the future, and he told me to leave it to him.
Once the interviews were complete, I paid the agency and thanked Viola for everything. I also gave her a 5-digit tip before leaving the agency and directly heading to Hope Town's town hall. I headed straight to the reception, and the clerk actually recognized me. He arranged everything, and thanks to him, I was able to swiftly meet up with someone capable of helping me with the orphans.
I left the town hall with the promise that Hope Town would oversee the transfer of the 40 orphans to my orphanage at the start of the next month. Finally done with my own orphanage's matters, I made my way back home.
I briefly considered whether I should stop by a restaurant to get something to eat since I skipped lunch, but there were only two and a half hours until dinner, so I decided to just wait. Besides, spending time with my Pokemon made the time go by faster, and I directly entered Utopia as soon as I made it back home.
Just as there was only half an hour left until our usual dinner time, Jade/Gyarados excitedly came up to me. She asked me to check her status sheet, and a quick look confirmed that she had completed her limit-breaking phase. I was quite happy for her and swiftly congratulated her before announcing the news over UtopiaFM.
I then urged everyone to head to Jade's lake, and once we were there, I waited for 5 more minutes before sending those capable of using Teleport to bring over the stragglers. Once everyone had gathered I told them to form the circle while I went up to Jade and hugged her before wishing her good luck. Fortuna/Togetic followed suit and once she was done, we joined the others.
I then gave Jade the go-ahead, and she initiated her breakthrough. The breakthrough went well. Once it was over and Jade's (mid) dark gold undulations spread, I went up to her to congratulate her on reaching the dark gold stage. I also went ahead and congratulated her on joining the Aurora Club since I saw nothing that could have jeopardized that.
Jade was pretty happy and thanked me before she got slam-hugged by Medusa/Gyarados. The others were just behind her, so while they were crowding around Jade, I went ahead and checked her new/updated status sheet.
'Name: Jade
Species: Gyarados
Gender: Female
Age: 12+ Years
-
Type: Water, Grass
Potential: Light Aurora (15.19%)*
{Deep Purple (48.86%) -> (50.38%) -> Light Aurora (15.19%)}
(Genetic) Modifiers: Grass Variant'
As expected her potential had risen to light aurora, and since that was the case, I directly took a look at her ability section to see what her third one ended up being. So far Jade and been the only one among the Gyarados variants to have two alternate abilities, and I was curious to see if she would unlock a third alternate or if she would jump on the Moxie train.
'Abilities: Chlorophyll, Sap Sipper, Moxie*
Talents: Photosynthesis
Affinities: Water, Grass'
I could not say whether I was surprised or not, but I had to admit that compared to an uncertain/random third ability I actually preferred Moxie to a certain degree, so I was quite happy to see that Moxie was the ability Jade ended up unlocking. I shared the news with a happy Jade before I continued looking through her stat sheet.
'Bond: Mikail (deep)*
Quirks: Peaceful
--
Parameters:
Stage: Dark Gold Stage (mid)*
Vitality: C
Strength: E
Endurance: D
Agility: D
Energy Capacity: C
Energy Density: D'
As usual, there was no surprise as far as our bond and her stage were concerned. Her parameters on the other hand showed that she would have to work more than her fellow squad members to reach the (high) dark gold stage, and unless she really went all out in her training efforts, she was most likely going to once more be the last one among them to advance.
Considering her peaceful nature/quirk, it was unlikely that she would go such a training bender, but that was fine. Jade was perfect as she was and if it meant that she would be the last to reach the (high) dark gold stage, that was okay.
Anyway, I continued looking through the rest of her status screen and saw no further changes caused by her breakthrough.
'Techniques:
-
Proficient:
Thunder (+), Blizzard (+), Flamethrower (+), Protect (new), Endure (new)
-
Advanced:
Whirlpool (+), Leech Seed (+), Seed Bomb (+), Solar Beam (+), Grass Whistle (+)
-
Mastered:
Hydro Pump (+), Sunny Day (+)'
Still, looking at her move pool, I felt that it was time for her to work on Leech Bomb. Jade had told me that she wanted a custom move as well, and now that she had broken through we could put it on the agenda, but that was something we would be discussing some other time.
Once I was done checking her status sheet, I immediately declared the start of Jade's celebration and began to pull out everything necessary, including our dinner, which would be included in her party.
The next morning after breakfast, I went through with our regular Grouday check-up routine, and once I managed to check up on everyone, I left Hope Town for Lavender City. My first stop was naturally the orphanage to settle the matter of my accommodations for the month I would be spending here.
I had to say that I was not surprised when the matron told me that they did not have an employee dorm. Instead, I was offered two options. First, I could stay at the orphanage, but in that case, I would have to stay in a shared room with some of the older orphans.
The second option was that I could find/organize somewhere to sleep on my own, but I would have to ensure that I would be at the orphanage at 7 a.m. each morning. Additionally, I would have to pay for that out of my own pocket.
---------------------
---------------------
This part is purely to display Jade's status screen in one piece and does not count toward the word count.
'Name: Jade
Species: Gyarados
Gender: Female
Age: 12+ Years
-
Type: Water, Grass
Potential: Light Aurora (15.19%)
(Genetic) Modifiers: Grass Variant
Abilities: Chlorophyll, Sap Sipper, Moxie
Talents: Photosynthesis
Affinities: Water, Grass
-
Bond: Mikail (deep)
Quirks: Peaceful
--
Parameters:
Stage: Dark Gold Stage (mid)
Vitality: C
Strength: E
Endurance: D
Agility: D
Energy Capacity: C
Energy Density: D
--
Immunity:
Grass
-
Resistance:
Water (Major), Ground (Minor), Steel (Minor)
-
Weaknesses:
Flying (Minor), Bug (Minor)
-
Standardized:
Poison
--
Condition: Healthy, Pleased, Satisfied
--
Masteries:
Water Energy Manipulation (Advanced)
Grass Energy Manipulation (Advanced)
--
Techniques:
-
(Unofficial) Initial:
N/A
-
Novice:
N/A
-
Beginner:
N/A
-
Proficient:
Tackle, Flail, Bounce, Bite, Dragon Rage, Twister, Ice Fang, Cotton Spore, Brine, Crunch, Dragon Pulse, Aromatherapy, Wood Hammer, Magical Leaf, Solar Blade, Hyper Beam, Earthquake, Thunderbolt, Ice Beam, Thunder, Blizzard, Flamethrower, Protect, Endure
-
Advanced:
Splash, Swift, Aqua Jet, Water Pulse, Waterfall, Dragon Dance, Energy Ball, Rain Dance, Aqua Tail, Scald, Surf, Horn Leech, Giga Drain, Synthesis, Chloroblast, Whirlpool, Leech Seed, Seed Bomb, Solar Beam, Grass Whistle
-
Mastered:
Water Gun, Hydro Pump, Sunny Day'
-----------------------------
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