Giratiday happened to be my/our third day at Hardwood Village, and it was also the start of the Minor Festival's preliminary period. The preliminary period was, for the most part, the stage that "belonged" to the "rookies", under which all coordinators who were participating in the Minor Festival for the first time fell. I mean, with 8 or 9 out of 10 participants being rookies, it was no surprise that the Minor Festival was also called the Rookie Festival.
Still, Rose despite also being a "rookie" got to skip the preliminary period thanks to the 5 2-star Ribbons she earned. From what I knew, depending on how many people managed to do that, the main event would start with either 256, 128, or 64 participants. That seemed rather convoluted, but I was certain that it was to ensure a certain average level among the candidates of the main event, and I was not the one who had to bother with the details, so whatever.
Rose had posted to our group that she was already in Indigo City since she wanted to watch the preliminary period. I understood her wish to scout out her possible competitors, but I honestly thought that looking at the videos of the "winners", as in those that qualify for the main event, would be easier, especially since a lot of performances had to be happening at the same time, though that was only my opinion. In the end, all I needed to know was that I had to be at Indigo City on Kyoday morning.
Anyway, back to Hardwood Village's matter. By the end of the day, we had cleared everything aside from the safe zone, leaving behind a wide empty area that used to be more than half the village. Josh told me that the next part, the rebuilding, would be left to professionals and that our help was no longer needed. We were being reassigned to another location but would receive the official assignment tomorrow morning, so we were free to stay at Hardwood Village for the night if we wanted to.
I honestly had no plans to do that so I told Josh as much, and he accepted that. He simply thanked me for the good work I had done and asked me to pass his thanks to my Pokemon as well. Our conversation was caught by some of the others, which was not surprising since we were not making any effort to hide it.
It did not take long for me to be surrounded by my fellow relief workers, who all wanted to thank me for making their job easier. The other juniors were among them, and I just told them all that I was happy to help. Heck, even some residents, who noticed the commotion thanked me for my efforts.
Since they had me surrounded, I could not just leave without being rude and/or coming across as an a**h*le, so I had to stick around for a few minutes before I got the chance to extricate myself. Still, just as I was about to teleport away, my fellow juniors called out to me, so I stopped to see what they wanted. It turned out that they had wanted an autograph from me for some time now, but only managed to gather the courage right now when I was about to leave. No idea why they did not simply ask before since I wouldn't call myself all that scary.
Regardless, I gave them their signatures before quickly teleporting away. I eventually made it to Viridian City, from where I entered Utopia. The next morning, right after I left Utopia, my phone rang and I saw my new assignment. Apparently, an earthquake happened in Granite Town yesterday night and I was being sent there to help.
Granite Town was a large town on the verge of becoming a small city located somewhere on Route 6, not too far from Sepia City, so I first teleported there before heading for Granite Town from Sepia City. The place was pretty much at the foot of the Mt. Moon Mountain Range, so that earthquake could have been either natural or caused by one or more Pokemon. I was just thankful that the earthquake did not cause a landslide, or at least not one that affected the town since nothing like that had been mentioned in the assignment message.
Anyway, roughly 35 minutes after leaving Utopia, I made it to the specific coordinates I had been sent for the meet-up. On the way there, I observed the town, but honestly, aside from some slight cracks in the road and the occasional cracked window, I saw no signs of devastation or destruction, which was good news I guess, but it still made me wonder why the disaster relief bureau got involved.
That doubt quickly cleared up once I made it to the temporary command center. It appeared that while the damage above ground was minimal, underground the situation was totally different. In fact, when I showed up, they had been discussing evoking a red alert which was a pretty big deal. A red alert was the second-highest a situation could go on the bad scale and meant that one or multiple major cities could be affected negatively, or at least an area equal to that. The only thing worse than that was the black alert which meant at least half a region could be at risk.
Anyway, the problem at hand was due to extensive damages caused to the pipe/drainage system of the town during the earthquake, though if it had been just that, it would have been pretty bad for the town, but would not have caused a red alert. Unfortunately, the earthquake did not only destroy the drainage system, but it also caused cracks underground that connected a rather deeply located natural water reservoir/system to the drainage system of Granite Town, meaning that the town's good old waste was contaminating the water reservoir, and who knew where the contaminated water flowed to from there.
For all we knew, the reservoir/system could be connected to the underwater water system of the whole Mt. Moon Mountain Range, which would allow the town's waste to dirty the water a few hundred kilometers around Granite Town, though the pollution would be lighter the further away the water flowed. Honestly, considering everything, code red might have been a bit much and the orange alert might have been more appropriate, but Sepia City was theoretically close enough to get affected, so the conditions for a red alert were fulfilled.
Still, regardless of which level the alert was, this situation had developed in a direction where neither I nor any of the other relief workers currently present, could deal with it, so it came as no surprise that Lara called in help. She applied for help from a lot of Muk so that they could take care of the waste before it could contaminate the underground water source. In addition to that she applied for a lot of Dugtrio and/or Sandslash to survey the underground around Granite Town and close the cracks that were connecting the drainage system with the underground water system.
Wooper and Quagsire were requested for that last step since there were some areas where a current was flowing which had to be interrupted long enough for the Dugtrio/Sandslash to mend the earth layer in a manner that the water/waste from the draining system won't seep through once more. Only once that was taken care of, could the repair of the drainage system start. I offered the help of Manami/Lapras, Moka/Crobat, Seb/Nidoking, Gaia/Nidoqueen, and a few more of my Pokemon who I felt could help with these matters, but Lara declined my offer and told me to leave this to the professionals.
Instead, she had us survey the town and mark the areas where the earth had visibly cracked on the live map of the town. Those of us with ground-type Pokemon were asked to do the same survey, just with our Pokemon checking the situation below the surface. We were supposed to mark any places with bigger-than-minute cracks so that those places could be dealt with to prevent any (earth) cracks from forming in the future.
I belonged to the second group, and after getting Lara's permission, I brought out Seb, Gaia, Osiris/Skellibra, and Gaara/Gabite to help me with the survey. Gaara stayed by my side, more for his safety than mine, while Seb, Gaia, and Osiris moved parallel to us to help cover a larger area. We were free to mend smaller cracks ourselves but were supposed to only mark the bigger ones so that "professionals" could deal with them.
Less than 20 minutes in, we witnessed the arrival of our support. I got to see a virtual sea of Muk being released and led into the drainage system. A moment later a lot of "heads" poked out of the ground before vanishing once more. Still, they had to do their job and I had to do mine, so I stopped focusing on them and focused on doing my job instead. I was using this opportunity to train my own seismic sense as well, so aside from Gaara, I too was checking out the ground below us.
The size of a town such as Granite Town was not small, so the detailed examination of the ground took time even if there were a lot of individuals doing it. By the end of the day, only close to 40% of the live map had been covered, so I/we had to continue on Dialday.
The next morning I left Utopia shortly before 9 a.m. and called out the "seismic" group to resume our "seismic" examination. Around midday, the news went around that the Dugtrio Survey had been completed and that the biggest cracks/rifts had been closed. They had now started on the smaller fissures, but the biggest risk had been dealt with for now. While no more polluted water had been able to seep through ever since the Muk had arrived, dealing with the root of the problem was definitely important.
Anyway, at the end of the day, when I stopped "working", nearly 80% of Granite Town had been surveyed, leaving less than a day's worth of "work". Not that that had anything to do with me anymore since I had the weekend off. After reporting to Lara, I left Granite Town and headed for Indigo City.
Once I made it there, I met up with Rose for dinner, and unsurprisingly her parents were already there as well. Still, neither of us chose to take up more of her time after dinner since Rose was busy with her last-minute preparations for the main event tomorrow.
After wishing everyone good night, I strolled around the city and I had to say, while the Minor Festival did not take place at the Indigo Plateau, Indigo City was pretty much the second-best/most memorable location to hold the tournament in.
The next morning I waited in front of the Indigo City Teleportation Hub for the others. Everyone in our friend's group chat had agreed to come over to watch Rose's performance/cup, and we've agreed to meet up at the Teleportation Hub at 9:00 a.m. My parents would be coming over at that time as well. There was no way they would miss out on Rose's first tournament/Festival after all.
The Minor Festival was starting at 10:00 a.m. which would give us enough time to briefly meet up with Rose and get to our seats. In the end, it did not even take until 9 a.m. for everyone to show up, and after all the greetings were out of the way, we swiftly made our way to the stadium. We met up with Uncle Thorn as well as Aunt Lily outside the stadium, and just as planned, we did not head for the spectator seats but made our way to the participant's area.
The security did not let us inside, but that had not been the plan anyway. Instead, we called Rose out so that we could wish her all the best and express our support for her. Rose looked quite moved when she saw all of us standing at the "entrance" to her side and her happiness at our encouraging words was apparent to anyone who saw her at that moment.
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