CH131 (361), Until The Next Time, Rota (2)

Once we were done cleaning out the storage room, I decided to finally check out the small parcel that got delivered while we were busy with the storage room.

Looking at the sender, I learned that it had been sent by Prof. Oak's lab assistant and I saw a paper along with something that looked like a catalog inside.

I quickly read the paper and in it was written that my registration process was formally complete and that they had done a public announcement regarding my acceptance on their site this morning.

The letter also stated that the catalog was a list of recommended trainer schools that the assistants had put together for me. They mentioned that all trainer schools listed there would be willing to coordinate with their lab.

The letter explicitly mentioned that once I had decided on the trainer school I wanted to attend, I was supposed to inform the lab, so that they could handle the registration and formalities.

They would be handling the whole process so that they could ensure that I could get away with attending only a select few classes as well as the exams while spending the majority of the time at the lab.

Anyway, before I began shuffling through the catalog, I sent the news to my group chat to inform all my friends that the deal was sealed. Well, I got distracted for a bit when the congratulatory messages arrived, and I got sucked into a conversation with everyone.

I spent close to an hour writing with my friends. We first talked about my internship, then the topic moved on to potential trainer schools before it moved on to the upcoming completion of Jessica's nursing training.

Jessie would be a full-fledged nurse starting next month, and her training would officially be done this Kyoday, so we talked about organizing a "graduation" party for her during Grouday or the next weekend.

In the end, we decided to hold the party next Kyoday since that was the day most of our circle could attend, but I privately decided to visit her this Grouday to congratulate her in advance.

I already had prepared the perfect "graduation" present for her, and I could not wait to surprise her. I had honestly invested a lot of time and effort to prepare her gift and I genuinely hoped that she would like it.

When I told my parents that I would be attending Jessie's party next Kyoday, mom got the idea to mix the successful internship party they were planning to hold for me with Jessie's party.

I tried to stop her since I felt as if that would detract from Jessie's success, but mom waved off my concern, saying that it would do no such thing.

When I argued that the party was supposed to be between our friend circle she simply smiled and said to leave the organization to her, before she pulled out her phone and started a video conference with Jessie, Weiss's mom, Ace's mom, Aunt Lily, and a few others.

Saying a prayer to Mew for Jessica I decided to wash off my hands from the whole thing, finding solace in the fact that I would be surprising Jessie this Grouday, so leaving the other party to mom's mercy was okay, at least that was what I comforted myself with.

Well, while mom was busy taking over the party next week, I showed dad the trainer school catalog sent by the Oak Lab, and we looked through it together, so that I could get a second opinion on the choices.

There were over two dozen trainer schools listed in the catalog, but after going over the options, again and again, we managed to narrow the options down to 6 trainer schools.

One in Viridian City, one in Ashgray City, another one in Pallet City itself, one in Celadon City, another one in Jade City, and finally the last one in Coral City.

Still, call me superstitious or too cautious, but I felt uneasy at the thought of spending prolonged periods in Viridian City, so I ended up eliminating that one first.

Pallet City was no doubt the most convenient one out of all options since none of us doubted for one moment that it was the trainer school Professor Oak had the most influence in, so it would definitely make things really easy for my internship.

Besides, the trainer school in Pallet City was together with the one in Ashgray City the only ones that did not have a preference Pokemon/typing-wise, so that was also something to consider.

The fact that these two were the only two trainer schools that allowed their top students to pick a regional royal starter was also somewhat of a major plus point. Everyone else had to rank at the top in the regional rankings with their final results to get a pick from the regional royal starters.

Still, the other trainer schools/cities also had their plus points. The trainer school in Coral City had a slight preference/focus on water types, with it being located on the coast, and Ace was there, so I would be able to see him more often if I chose that one. Moreover, it was a fact that I had a lot of water types, so I would fit right in.

Yet, the final two were not to be looked down upon. The trainer school in Jade City's main winning point was that it gave their top students the chance to pick a dragon type as their graduation/starting Pokemon. Well, that was actually the only reason it made it into the final selection.

The trainer school in Celadon had a slight preference/focus on grass types, and due to being in one of Kanto's biggest/most prosperous cities, it had abundant resources. The catalog mentioned that the trainer school liked to invite foreign guest lecturers, and that was one of their major selling points.

After looking over the information on the five trainer schools once more I chose to eliminate the Jade school first. Dad agreed with me that being able to choose a dragon was not enough for it to compete with the others, especially since I already had a Gible and Ryujin/Gyarados.

Ashgray City was the next to be eliminated. I already had 2 out of the 3 regional royal starters, so that option was less appealing to me than it was to others. Not to mention that Pallet City offered the same thing along with its other advantages, so Ashgray City had to go.

That left me with the Celadon City Trainer School, Coral City Trainer School, and Pallet City Trainer School. I ended up eliminating Coral City since being able to see Ace more often was not enough to contend against the advantages of the other two trainer schools.

Mom came up to join our discussion when only the last two trainer schools were left, apparently already done with her party discussion. When I mentioned that she began to laugh and told me to check the time.

I was quite surprised to see that dad and I had already spent over two hours going over the trainer school catalog. It was already past 3 p.m., and we had actually missed lunch.

Well, there was not much else we could do besides shrug since it already happened, so we focused back on choosing a trainer school for me. The Celadon City Trainer School had in general more to offer than the Pallet City Trainer School, but dad pointed out that I would be spending most of my time in Oak's Lab at Pallet City anyway.

Mom also pointed out that Pallet City was pretty central for Viridian City, Coral City, and the Seafoam Islands, as well as Azure City, which would make meeting up with Jessie, Ace, and Weiss more convenient.

Well, as far as Jessie was concerned that actually depended on where she decided to work now that her internship was over, but otherwise she was right. Still, it was not that strong of an argument, but I got where she was coming from.

We ended up discussing the good and bad points of each place while comparing them, but we ultimately ended up agreeing that signing up at the trainer school in Pallet City would be more convenient for me, so we finally settled on that one.

The letter had mentioned that I could send my choice directly to the assistant and he added his work mail address, so I wrote him a mail with my pick.

Once I had done that I began taking pictures of the catalog's pages and sent them to the group chat so that the ones that had to apply for a trainer school as well could take a look at them.

The reason I sent the picture to the group chat instead of sending them to them privately was that they could get advice from the others this way. Having done my good deed of the day, I put the catalog away and asked mom if we were going to prepare a late lunch, or if we were skipping it since dinner time was in about 3 hours.

Well, while we ended up skipping lunch I could not do the same for my Pokemon since they required more energy than we did since they actually trained or played around. Both of those things burned energy, which had to be replenished, hence I began handing out lunch to everyone inside Utopia.

Some had helped themselves to berries already, but none refused some extra food. My parents and I spent the time until dinner relaxing, and while we were chatting I hesitated a bit before bringing up Sunny and Lono's graves.

I was wondering what we were going to do regarding those since I knew that mom took care of them at least once every two to three months if not monthly as long as she could help it. Dad was the same, so it seemed inconvenient to leave them here. However, I did not know what they thought about excavating their graves, hence my hesitation.

They told me that they had already talked about that and they decided to bring along both graves, or rather the coffins, to Hope Town and bury them on our property there.

Still, they were planning to wait until the last day to do so, so we would only be excavating them either on Dialday night or Kyoday morning. I just nodded, respecting their decision since it pertained to their lost Pokemon.

Regardless, I changed the topic after that since the mood had become a bit low, and thankfully they were back to usual by dinner time. The next morning, I spent the time after breakfast helping my parents with some more packing, and I alternated between helping mom and dad until noon.

After that, I went upstairs and cleaned up as well as changed into a clean set of clothes before I headed out to the coliseum for my meeting with Erza. I made it to the coliseum with 15 minutes to spare, but then I realized that we had not said where exactly we were going to meet up.

The Coliseum was pretty big and actually had multiple entrances, so it was possible that we would miss each other if we ended up waiting at the wrong entrance.

I quickly called Erza to ask her for a clear meeting place and she ended up choosing the northern gate, which was on the exact opposite side of where I was since I was currently standing in front of the southern gate, so after ending the call I swiftly made my way over to the northern gate while making sure I did not start sweating for obvious reasons.

It took me a few minutes, but I arrived at the place and I still had more than 10 minutes until 1 p.m., our agreed-upon meeting time. Yet, I saw Erza already waiting for me in front of the entrance.

She was actually wearing a white summer dress instead of her usual more utilitarian clothes, so I was really glad that I chose one of my nicer clothes for this definitely-not-a-date meeting with her, and that I had made sure that I was sweat-free right now. Ezra did make the effort to dress nicely after all, so I would have felt bad if I had shown up in "shabby" clothes.

Anyway, after I made sure everything was in order I stepped up to her and greeted her, gaining her attention.

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