Percy and Aurora joined the rest of the Prodigies outside of the Pokémon Center. Ash asked Aurora about what happened with Dan. "He's probably going to spend his time with his friends. The limb regrows fee is taken care of so we can leave now." Aurora answered. "Alright then. We can do two more hours of searching and then I think we can cut it early.
I'm sure we're tired and need to rest." Ash reasoned. Most of the Prodigies if not all were tired from the extremely eventful and stressful day. Percy himself was very tired but refused to let it get to him. The Prodigies walked back to the forest. On the way they had a conversation on what to do with the giant Ariados. "I've healed all the Pokémon we've fought. What should we do with the giant Ariados?" Ash asked.
"We can send it to Professor Oak." Marcus suggested. Most of the Prodigies seemed somewhat apprehensive to the idea. "And let him reap all the profits of our effort? I'd rather not. We're already doing this mission for him and the giant Ariados must be worth over one hundred million pokedollars." Kai snorted.
Most of the Prodigies agreed, not for the exact same reasons but they didn't want to give the Pokémon to Professor Oak. "Do you want to sell it and distribute the money between us?" Zoe asked. "It's incredibly rare to find a giant Pokémon. Is it best to just sell it to some random rich guy or use it ourselves." Ash commented. "How are we going to 'use it'. Share the Pokémon or something." Jasper said. "I don't know. I was just saying something. Does anybody want to keep it." A lot of hands shot up.
The only people who didn't want the giant spider were Misty, Marcus, Grace and Kushida. Percy clearly wanted the giant spider because it was sick as hell. He could easily ride on it and swing around on its back. "Well that's no good. We'll have to come up with a way to decide who gets it then. Maybe a battling tournament or something." Ash said. "Sounds good. We'll set up the bracket and stuff after this mission." Jason said.
Soon enough after a little more chatting they arrived back at the forest. They picked up where they left off and doubled their pace. By the time everybody was too tired to continue they finished and set up camp outside the forest. In total they explored half of the forest and would be able to finish exploring the whole forest before the deadline as long as nothing pops up.
Percy sat on a foldable chair next to Jasper and Jason. They chatted about random little things and waited while some of the curry cooked. Jasper was the designated cook and was cooking as they chatted. "I've been thinking about what I'm gonna do after this. Since the rookie tournament is in 5 months." Jasper said. The year length is 36 months on this planet and the rookie tournament takes place once every year. It takes the planet 36 months to revolve around its star.
(AN: I've decided to make the years 36 months. I've thought about it a lot and I don't think I have enough time to do what I want. I got the idea from Pokémon Alternate Universe Adventures.)
It's a large tournament hosting hundreds of thousands of trainers. As long as the trainers Pokémon are lower then level 40 they can participate and apply to the tournament. They also have to have some sort of recommendation from a gym leader to get in.
This can come in many forms. The most popular way is to challenge a gym and hope that you can make it to the gym leader. Most of the time a gym leader is very busy and can't take on any challenger that wants to challenge the gym.
So most of the time the gym leaders would filter out the lesser trainers by using trainers beneath them. For example if Percy wanted to challenge the Honey Gym he would have to battle one of the weakest trainers that are a part of the gym.
If the trainer is able to, they would match Percys Pokémon level with their own Pokémon. The battling rules would fluctuate with Gyms but most of the time the first 3 hurdles would only battle with one Pokémon. For Percys level it's possible that the lower level trainers don't have a Pokémon that's the sameish level.
At most the Pokémon will be one level above Percys and no more. After Percy defeats those trainers he'll move onto the higher up trainers in the gym. Eventually he'll get to the second in command and try to defeat him. The second in command would also use the same level Pokémon. Finally he would go against Heuning Miele and try to defeat her.
If Percy got that far there's a high chance it'll be televised to the region. Percy thought he heard Heuning say that a challenger got far enough to actually challenge her. And when there is a strong base gym it's a rare event for somebody to make it that far. Percy imagined that Hunter the second in command, doesn't let people through a lot.
If Percy beat Heuning then she has to give him a recommendation to the tournament. If he loses then she doesn't HAVE to. But if she thinks he did well enough then she can recommend him anyway. If Percy lost at Hunter then it's possible for Hunter to ask Heuning to recommend him.
Most gym leaders have respect for their second in command and would definitely recommend for them. Of course Hunter would have to actually want to give someone a recommendation. Percy wasn't planning on challenging the gym at the moment.
It didn't seem like the right time to put his time into it. The process could take up to 2 weeks depending on the scheduling that he gets. Total Percy would have to battle 6 people before he could battle Heuning. There's already potentially hundreds of trainers challenging the gym already and Percy didn't want to wait for his turn to come. "So what do you plan on doing Jasper." Percy asked.
Jasper stirred his curry once and turned to Percy. "I think that I might just train indoors for a while. I got to wait for my Spearow egg to hatch and I think I'll just take it easy. After about a week I'll travel to Viridian City while making stops at smaller cities. If some of the other Prodigies want someone to travel with I'll be there. No intense wild training or anything. Once I get it's level to 20 or something I will probably train really hard in the wild. I think I'll train hard in Viridian Forest and add a new Pokémon to my team." Jasper explained. Percy nodded and leaned back in his chair.
All three boys turned as they sensed somebody approaching them. Grace and Luna were approaching the boys and got scared that all three of them turned their heads at the same time to look at the girls. Percy uncomfortably shifted his chair away from the girls.
Grace greeted them with a wide smile and the space around her lit up. "What's up Grace." Jasper asked. "I was wondering if you wanted to do something with me." Grace said. She repeated the same thing she said to Percy and Jason and explained her modeling gig. "So do you want to do it. I promise there will be big rewards." Grace flashed a bright smile. "No thanks." Jasper replied simply. Graces face dropped. "Why not?" "I'm not a big modeling guy. I'd prefer spending my time training."
He shrugged and turned back to stir his curry. "But you can make big connections and meet a lot of people. There's probably a lot of money you can get too." Grace reasoned. "Who else is going?" Jasper asked. "I've already asked everyone else and Ash, Kushida and Misty are going. Haley tried to say yes but Marcus and her are meeting a big Pokémon company for a sponsorship. Everybody else doesn't want to." Grace made puppy eyes. "So Percy and Jason aren't going." Jasper asked. "No. Jason can't because he's with a model and Percy can't because of 'unforeseen circumstances'." Grace said.
She sent a weird glance to Percy who was very deliberately looking away. Percy who isn't great with emotions or other people had no idea what the glance meant. But to the other Prodigies they saw the glance held a complicated feeling. Grace had noticed that Percy was avoiding her and had no idea what she did wrong. When Percy had said that something came up she was confused but when he continually avoided her she thought she had done something.
Grace being the incredibly nice person she was didn't want to screw up any friendship she could possibly make. She even saw Percy as a somewhat impressing figure from his combat prowess. The farther Percy distanced himself from her the more she wanted to repair whatever she did. So when she saw that Percy and Jasper were talking she took the opportunity to ask Jasper and try and see what the problem with Percy is. "I'm sorry but I'm uncomfortable with modeling. Maybe if another guy was going I'd go." Jasper explained.
Graces expression fell and she turned to Percy. "Are you sure you can't go?" She asked him. Percy refused to make eye contact with her but instead sent a glance at Luna. Luna held a complicated feeling. While she didn't want Percy to go to the modeling thing she didn't want her sister to be sad because of her. 'It's Percys fault not mine. If he wasn't a pervert this wouldn't be a problem.' She thought to herself.
After reconfirming her belief she sent a semi threatening glance at Percy. "I'm sorry Grace. I really wish I could but something came up." Percy said. Her already crestfallen expression became worse and her head lowered. "Oh okay. See you guys." She walked away with Luna. "What are you doing so that you can't go?" Jasper asked. "Uhhh I'm going out with a friend so I can't." Percy improvised.
He shot a glance at Luna who was explaining something to Grace out of earshot. Jasper nodded and continued to stir his curry. A few minutes later dinner finished and Jasper dished out the food. Everybody ate around the fire and Percy made sure to avoid Luna and Grace. Percy destroyed his food and meditated around the fire. Tonight Percy has a watch with Aurora. He has the last watch with her. Then Percy went to bed with Crash