The next day I woke up at 7:00 a.m. to get ready since Mr. Koetsuji told us yesterday to gather outside at 7:30 a.m. I called out to Ace to wake him up, but he just mumbled "5 more minutes mom" before ignoring me.
Since I was such a good friend, I decided I had to help Ace wake up no matter what so that he could get ready. I promptly did so by kicking him off his bed. He landed on the floor with a *thud* and began cursing like a sailor.
"Why the hell did you do that?" He complained while rubbing his back after. "Couldn't you be a bit more soft? How about calling out to me, or some prodding?"
"I tried, but you called me mom and ignored me," I said with a perfectly innocent look.
He shook his head, choosing to ignore my antics, and we both took our stuff before moving to the showers. By the time we came back out 10 minutes later, we had changed into new clothes and were done with our morning routine.
Seeing that there were only 20 minutes until the deadline and that roughly a fourth was still sleeping, I, out of the goodness in my heart, decided to do another good deed.
I called out Thor and told him to give everyone still sleeping a slightly shocking wake-up call. *pfft* Thor snickered a bit before releasing a really low-powered Thundershock.
That he managed to hit everyone at once with the same intensity was a testament to his control and high mastery of the move. Still, what followed was a cacophony of curses, while the rest of us were laughing.
The hair of everyone that got shocked was standing up and the hair of some turned into an afro. Nonetheless, there were less than 20 minutes left until Mr. Koetsuji's deadline and I had no plan to run just because these guys kept wasting.
"Ladies, you have 20 minutes to get ready and be on the field. So, you better hurry up and get ready. Believe me, you don't want to be the reason we have to run around the field." I told them in a really nice tone.
Thor releasing sparks behind me was out of my hand and totally unintended. Yep, pure coincidence. That everyone else chose to stop laughing when I said that and stared at them balefully did make my warning more effective.
The concerned group stopped complaining and rushed to get ready. We left after that and chose to wait at the meeting point. The teachers were already there waiting for us.
Around 5 minutes before 7:25 a.m the girls and the other boys began arriving. Weiss was one of the first girls to arrive, but we didn't comment on them cutting it close when we saw the warning in her looks.
By the time, the time was up, we were still missing some people. That made a lot of us, including me, curse. Despite my warning, 2 boys managed to be a minute late, and all boys stared at them the whole time they walk over, making them sweat out of nervousness.
I was planning to let them sweat over what I was going to do to them as retribution while doing nothing. If they however did not learn and slept in tomorrow like they did today, I was planning to wake them up in a very special way.
Now, boys aside, 7 girls came late with some of them being late by over 5 minutes. Because of this group of idiots we had to run 26 rounds around the field and that on an empty stomach.
The whole thing also delayed our breakfast as well, since Group 2, who was responsible for gathering food today, was only allowed to head out after everyone was done with their rounds.
They only returned around 9:30 a.m. They brought over a lot of berries, 8 Goldeen, 2 Seaking, and 10 Spearow. It was my group's turn to cook and I obviously once more took the leadership role.
I ordered one part to wash and cut the berries, while one pulled out the flour, milk, salt, sugar, and chicken eggs the camp had in store. I instructed them on how to prepare pancake batter while simultaneously de-boning one of the Seaking and cutting it down into small stripes.
I told the group that was done with the berries to preheat a few pans and checked the batter. It looked okay, so I showed them how to make a pancake, or rather how much batter to pour onto the pan, how long to wait to flip it, and when it was done.
While that was happening, I told another group to cover the Seaking-stripes in a bit of flour, before I showed them how to fry them on the pan. With my iron fist control, we managed to have everything ready in about 30 minutes, which could be considered pretty fast.
We brought everything over to the canteen and began handing everything out around 10:10 a.m instead of 9:00 a.m. Everyone was done eating around 10:30 a.m and Group 1 was done with cleaning at 11:00 a.m.
No one complained about the food, so I got the impression that it was at least edible. Anyway, Mr. Koetsuji called everyone over and told us that we were going to walk towards the meeting spot for the hunting competition.
He gave us 5 minutes to make sure we had everything we thought we would need, and once those 5 minutes were up we began moving towards the west at a moderate pace. At least moderate according to Mr. Koetsuji, our year-mates were somewhat between power walking and jogging.
The competition would begin at noon, but the rules and regulations would be announced at 11:45 a.m, which gave us roughly 40 minutes until then.
Roughly 25 minutes after we set out, he gave us a 5-minute break and told us to recover. Afterward, we resumed walking but this time the pace was easy. The reason for his actions became apparent when we arrived at the meeting point just 3 to 4 minutes later.
He did not want us to arrive there looking fatigued since it would leave a bad impression on our competition. All of us began to observe the group from the Knight Academy, who seemed to have arrived before us. They were observing us as well.
I could see that they had more students than we had, which was probably because knights did not have any special powers as an enrolling requirement. If my estimate was correct, they had like 200 students, compared to our 67.
What honestly surprised me a bit was the number of female students on their side. I knew that Terrans made no real distinction between genders in professions such as trainers, rangers, and any other vital professions.
I mean ours, Aura Users was close to 50%, but I had still thought theirs, Knights, would be much, much lower. My guess had been at around 1 out of 10, but I was proven wrong. The ratio was more like 3 out of 10, so three times my estimate.
Being wrong usually never felt nice, but this time the surprise was a pleasant one, so I had zero problems with being wrong in this case. Aside from their number, I also noted that they were split into many small groups, and my cliche senses were going haywire at that.
Hopefully what I was worried about would not happen. Before I could make some more observations, Mr. Koetsuji, who had walked over to the other side to talk to someone, walked towards the middle of the clearing we were on.
The woman he had been talking to was walking by his side and once they stopped they addressed all of us.
"Alright, for those of you who don't know us. I am Mr. Koetsuji, the headteacher of the aura academy during this excursion, while this is Ms. Striker, the head instructor of the knight academy during this excursion.
The two of us have a joint leadership for all events, so you do not have to worry about any teacher being partial to one group or another. That won't happen, we can guarantee that much." He began to speak, and his voice was audible to everyone despite him standing where he was.
Ms. Striker began to speak when he paused.
"As you have been informed yesterday, the event is a hunting competition. Each one of you will receive a paper from us. On that paper, you will find the Pokemon accepted as targets and the points you will receive for either killing or capturing them.
To receive the points you have to either hand over the carcass or the Pokeball you caught the Pokemon with. We will provide you with all the Pokeballs you need for this event, but you have to return all unused balls after the event." After she said that she stopped and Mr. Koetsuji resumed talking.
"Don't try to keep them, because we will document who received how many balls. Moreover, we and our Pokemon will keep an eye on all of you for the whole competition.
We won't interfere in your battles, but if you get into a dangerous situation, we will save you as long as you yell out that you are withdrawing from the competition.
We'll still try to save you if it seems like you're about to die, yet still did not yell out for various reasons. When that happens, you will still be withdrawn from the competition.
However, there is a chance that you might die or get wounded before we can rescue you, so for your own sake, don't be too stubborn. Also, the hunting area for the competition is in a 5-km radius of this clearing." He told us and Ms. Strike followed up as soon as he paused.
"Trying to cheat by working together is useless, just like trying to keep some balls for yourself since we'll know that you did it. In case you think you could get lucky, don't.
Mr. Koetsuji's Gallade, and my Medicham, along with the support of the Pokemon of the other teachers can cover the whole hunting area. Also, if it looks like you are going to step out of the competition area you will receive a mental warning.
If you disregard the warning, we are not responsible for anything that befalls you." She announced with a stern tone.
"You'll find a copy of all rules and regulations on the backside of the paper you will receive. The rewards for the competition will also be on that paper, on the same page as the points distribution.
Anyway, the competition will end at exactly 6 p.m, so anything you do after that will not get you any points. Please make your way over immediately at that time.
Oh, and just to make sure no one says it hasn't been mentioned, robbing others is forbidden as well. Only the Pokemon you got on your own count. Read through the rules at least once, and spare us the moaning later on." Mr. Koetsuji finished and the teachers proceeded to hand out the announced paper.
Ace and Weiss focused on their papers, while I took a look at mine. The front had the event details, as well as the prizes.
'Accepted targets 1:
-
Dead or Alive:
Rattata, Sentret, Weedle, Kakuna, Spearow, Ekans, Spinarak.
-
Dead only:
Paras.
-
Alive only:
Caterpie, Metapod, Pidgey.'
This list seems to only contain the initial stage Pokemon, but the differentiation made sense to me. The dead or alive group were species that were common in both tides and among trainers. They were also really abundant, so we were neutral towards them.
I think the situation with Paras needs no explaining. Death to the zombies. As for the alive-only group, those were species that rarely or never participated in tides and were friendly towards humans unless attacked.
'Points 1:
-
Dead:
-
Iron stage:
(mid) & (high) - 1 point
-
Bronze stage:
(low) & (mid) - 3 pts, (high) - 10 pts
-
Silver stage:
(low) - 20 pts, (mid) - 30 pts, (high) - 50 pts
-
Gold stage:
(low) - 200 pts, (mid) - 400 pts, (high) - 600 pts
Alive:
-
Iron stage:
(mid) & (high) - 1 point
-
Bronze stage:
(low) & (mid) - 5 pts, (high) - 20 pts
-
Silver stage:
(low) - 40 pts, (mid) - 60 pts, (high) - 100 pts
-
Gold stage:
(low) - 400 pts, (mid) - 600 pts, (high) - 1000 pts'
This part showed that capturing Pokemon was worth more points than killing them. This showed that the academies preferred capture over slaughter, but that killing was still an acceptable option.
I seriously doubted anyone would find a member of these species at the gold stage, even silver-stage ones would be rare, but I understood why they added it.
'Accepted targets 2:
-
Dead or Alive:
Raticate, Furret, Beedrill, Fearow, Arbok, Ariados.
-
Dead only:
Parasect.
-
Alive only:
Butterfree, Pidgeotto, Pidgeot.'
This list just contained the evolution of the previous one so not much to say about it. The same seemed to be true for the point list as well.
'Dead:
-
Iron stage:
(mid) & (high) - 5 points
-
Bronze stage:
(low) & (mid) - 15 pts, (high) - 30 pts
-
Silver stage:
(low) - 50 pts, (mid) - 70 pts, (high) - 100 pts
-
Gold stage:
(low) - 400 pts, (mid) - 600 pts, (high) - 800 pts
Alive:
-
Iron stage:
(mid) - 5 points, (high) - 10 points
-
Bronze stage:
(low) - 20 pts, (mid) - 30 pts, (high) - 60 pts
-
Silver stage:
(low) - 100 pts, (mid) - 150 pts, (high) - 300 pts
-
Gold stage:
(low) - 800 pts, (mid) - 1000 pts, (high) - 2000 pts'
Seeing as there was no 3rd target list, every other species was a non-target. I'd honestly thought that at least Oddish would have been also part of the Alive only list, but it seemed like I was wrong.
The last thing on the page was the prize list.
'Prizes:
-
1st place:
Choice out of 3 5 -star (high) Iron-stage Pokemon + Top Food for 18 months.
-
2nd place:
Choice out of 2 5 -star (high) Iron-stage Pokemon + Top Food for 12 months.
-
3rd place:
1 5-star (high) Iron-stage Pokemon + Top Food for 6 months.
-
4th & 5th:
3 C-class materials of choice.
-
6th - 10th:
1 C-class material of choice.
-
Pokemon Pool:
Swablu, Rufflet, Vullaby.'
The prizes were way more generous than I had expected, especially the ones for the first 3 places. Swablu was a Pokemon that evolved into a dragon-type and it was not easy to get one of those. The difficulty in finding one on the market, aside from their prices, was extremely high.
Rufflet and Vullaby were also pretty expensive and their lines were among the strongest of the flying type. So, as I said impressive prizes. Those three together with the top-ranked food for the chosen Pokemon, along with the items promised to the other kids had to cost a fortune.
I was guessing the amount was in the tens of millions of Poke, and this was for a competition among students. Now, factor in that they held this excursion every year, and you got a small picture of how much the academies and humanity were willing to invest into their next generation, as long as they proved capable.
Anyway, once I was done with the front I quickly read through the rules on the back before I took a look around. Most were still checking out the paper, but Ace and Weiss were done, so we began talking about the Pokemon list and the prizes.
The number of conversations kept increasing as more students were finished with their papers. A few minutes later, Mr. Koetsuji announced that the competition had begun, and everyone began swarming the teachers for some Pokeballs before streaming out of the clearing.
Weiss, Ace, and I did the same, before moving in different directions after we wished each other good luck.
-----------------------------
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