CH127 (491), Covert Mission/Aftermath

POV: 3rd person

Date: Dialday, 05.01.2184

Location: Rota, Rota City, Aura Guardian Order

Quite a few men and women of various ages were standing around the room in groups of various sizes, discussing things among themselves, producing what seemed to be a lively atmosphere, but anyone actually present in the large conference room would have been able to feel the semi-serious undertone that was present in the background.

It was not always that one could find so many of the order's elders showing up to one of the conferences. In fact, it was something that happened rather rarely since for some reason most of the elders used the excuse that they were way too busy to come to some meeting unless it was one that they absolutely had to show up for.

The current session was not one of those unavoidable ones, which was why it was a bit surprising that so many of them had shown up. Even the elders themselves were surprised to see that so many of their colleagues and friends had actually bothered to appear.

Still, they all came to the same conclusion, and that was that it made sense for them to come over considering that everyone else was probably just as interested in the topic as they were. Today's gathering was not on some lousy budget or some two-bit criminals. Well, actually some two-bit criminals were involved, but they were not the focus.

No, the focus of today's meeting and the reason why so many of them bothered to show up was the report on the latest, as well as one of the biggest, if not THE biggest prodigy of the order's history. Today, they were going to discuss Mikail Geo and how he handled the latest test the order had given him through Arthur Cameron.

When said person moved towards the podium the ongoing conversations began to fall into a hush. Arthur did not beat around the bush and asked them all to take a seat at one of the many tables in the conference room.

He reminded them that copies of both the mission and capture report from Mikail, as well as the observation report from Mikail's security detail, along with the confession/interrogation reports of the criminals were already on each table for them to read through.

Once everyone had gone through those, they would start discussing how Mikail handled the mission, and whether they believed that they should truly give him the hitherto unprecedented privilege of skipping the practical year to start his journey a year in advance or not.

After Arthur said his piece, everyone began moving to one of the seats near them, and for the next few minutes following that, the only sound that could be heard throughout the conference room was the rustling of paper along with the occasional mumble coming from one of the elders reading the reports.

It took close to fifteen minutes for everyone to finish reading since some of the elders liked to read at their own pace. Still, no one urged them to hurry up since they spent the time they had to wait to contemplate what they had read and how they should vote as well as the why.

"Alright, since everyone is done reading the reports, let's start the discussion for and against the motion before we move on to the vote," Arthur Cameron spoke up once he saw that the last one of his fellow elders had stopped reading.

"Let me be the first one to share his opinion," Arthur Cameron continued. "Personally, I believe that Mikail deserves the privilege. Up to this day, Mikail has shown more than enough maturity and ability necessary to start his journey.

As far as his last mission, slash test is concerned, Mikail has completed the scouting mission in a close-to-perfect manner. Each one of his approaches was done in a thought-out as well as mature way, and he managed to identify each criminal without exposing himself.

He even went so far as to list their crimes for further processing, easing the interrogation process quite a bit. Not only that, he showed his compassion when he pointed out the ones that seemed to be decent despite the environment they found themselves in."

Up until that point, the others had quietly listened to Arthur's argument, but when he mentioned the last bit some of the elders could not help but speak up/intervene.

"While that might have been helpful and somewhat nice of him, I believe he was too liberal with his use of telepathy," Manuel Sanchez spoke up, cutting off Arthur Cameron, and he was not the only one to do so.

"No matter how professional or admirable he acted during the main part of his mission, I can't help but feel a bit worried about the way he went about capturing this Nate Fall.

Mikail systematically as well as methodically took the man apart and left him a near-broken mess. Considering how Mikail personally requested to capture said individual, it can be determined that he acted purposely and calculated during the whole process.

We've all read the interrogation, so most likely all of us would agree that Nate Fall certainly deserved what he got. However, that Mikail went about it in the way he did, without requesting any authorization, makes me believe that the practical year will be a good and necessary experience for Mikail," Celine Cassone objected and many others nodded, showing their agreement.

Some even ended up verbalizing their agreement. Still, there were not only voices of agreement. Quite a few elders felt that Mikail's actions were acceptable and that he did act within the boundaries of the mission.

"While I respect your opinion, dear Celine, I'd like to humbly disagree with it. I believe that Mikail acted within the limits of the given mission, which he was assigned after requesting to participate in the capture phase. The parameters of the mission clearly stated that he was supposed to do his best to capture Nate Fall alive, and that elimination was preferred over escape.

Additionally, Mikail did make sure to question his order contact regarding the restrictions and limits set for his approach to the mission, and said contact, who happens to be our fellow elder Arthur Cameron, informed him that there were no limits and that he was free to go about the mission however he wanted, so all of his actions during the mission were within the boundaries of his mission.

In fact, as far as Mikail's actions before, during, and after the capture are concerned, I believe that they are a testament to his maturity and sense of responsibility. Not only did he ensure that they were away from any other people during the confrontation, but he also ensured that neither Nate's Pokemon nor Nate died during the process.

He perfectly followed protocols during the handover, and his action during the capture resulted in one of the easiest interrogation processes the order has ever seen. While his approach might have been a bit too hard, the history of the target shows that such an approach is understandable and in my opinion, acceptable.

Anyway, I think that Mikail deserves the privilege of skipping the practical year since I believe that there is not much the year can give him that Mikail does not already know or has," Daiki Akai first disagreed with Celine before communicating his support of Mikail.

Following that a few more elders spoke out either in favor of Mikail's actions or against them, but the arguments pretty much boiled down to a few points. On the opposing side, the main ones were his "excessive"/liberal use of telepathy and memory examination, along with his readiness to "guide" the civilians without asking for approval, regardless of his initial query due to the extent of his actions.

The approving side was mainly arguing that Mikail had done a good job and that nothing he did was theoretically outside of the limits of the mission he was given. They also referred to his personal ability, that of his Pokemon, along with his many achievements to argue that Mikail did not really need the practical year.

Anyway, Arthur Cameron allowed the discussions to go on for exactly 40 minutes before he asked them to finish up their arguments so that they could move on to the vote. Just 5 minutes later Arthur announced the start of the voting process. He first requested those against the motion to raise their hands.

After waiting for a few moments, he began counting the number of votes before telling the elders that they could take their hands down. Arthur noted down that there were 39 votes against the motion before asking those in favor of the motion to raise their hands. After counting them, he ended up noting down 38 votes in favor of the motion.

Unfortunately, they needed a majority to settle the motion, and neither side managed to gain a majority due to 11 elders that abstained from the vote. After sharing that with the rest, Arthur declared that they would start a second round and that all elders were obligated to vote for one side this time around.

The second round finished up with a really close outcome. The elders that were against Mikail starting his journey without having to take part in the practical year managed to win the vote with a rather small advantage of 45 to 43 votes. Nonetheless, no matter how small the difference was, this result still meant that Mikail would have to go through the practical year after all.

The elders that voted for Mikail and Arthur Cameron, who had presided over the session, were just happy that Mikail had no idea that he had narrowly missed the chance of skipping a year ahead to start his journey a year in advance. Mikail would have no doubt been disappointed by that, but he did not know, so that was fine.

POV: Mikail Geo

Date: Arcday, 08.01.2184

Location: Kanto, Hope Town, Geo Family Home

After completing the mission, I spent the new year period with my parents and I could honestly say that I felt well enough after spending a few days with Mom and Dad. The two had stayed a few more days after we entered 2184, but ended up leaving once more on Dialday right after breakfast.

Aside from that, I had also received my mission rewards a few days ago and they were pretty much as we had previously agreed upon. I had honestly expected them to deduct some order points from the mission reward due to my actions against Nate but I ended up getting the full amount of points I should have gotten, along with some additional points for the capture itself as well as the extra details I added to my report.

I got a bit lucky I guess and Mr. Cameron probably also spoke up for me to ensure that I got what I was supposed to receive. Still, something more important than the mission reward for me was that the battle had, as I had hoped, pushed Anubis/Lucario enough for him to complete his limit-breaking just yesterday.

He had broken through to the gold stage, and I had to say it was a rather impressive breakthrough since Anubis not only attained light aurora potential in the process, but he also ended up starting straight from the (high) gold stage thanks to his "Blessed by Aura" modifier.

Further, not only did his potential reach the light aurora grade, but it was already close to halfway to the aurora grade, which was quite impressive. All in all, I could say that Anubis definitely had not wasted the last 1.5-plus years since his evolution to Lucario.

'Name: Anubis

Species: Lucario

Gender: Male

Age: 12+ years

-

Type: Fighting, Steel

Potential: Light Aurora (43.37%)

{Deep Purple (26.35%) -> (26.74%) -> Light Aurora (43.37%)}

(Genetic) Modifiers: Blessed by Aura

Abilities: Inner Focus, Prankster, Justified*

Talents: Auralize

Affinities: Fighting, Aura, Steel

-

Bond: Mikail (strong)

Quirks: None

----

Parameters:

Stage: Gold Stage (high)*

Vitality: D

Strength: B

Endurance: D

Agility: C

Energy Capacity: B

Energy Density: D

----

Immunity:

Poison

-

Resistance:

Bug (Major), Rock (Major), Dark (Minor), Normal (Minor), Grass (Minor), Ice (Minor), Dragon (Minor), Steel (Minor)

-

Weaknesses:

Fire (Minor), Fighting (Minor), Ground (Minor)

-

Standardized:

None

----

Condition: Healthy, Happy, Excited

----

Masteries:

Fighting Energy Manipulation (Advanced)

Aura Manipulation (Proficient)

Steel Energy Manipulation (Proficient)

----

Techniques:

-

(Unofficial) Initial:

N/A

-

Novice:

N/A

-

Beginner:

Quick Guard, Helping Hand, Final Gambit (+), Heal Pulse (new), Dragon Pulse (new), Extreme Speed (new)

-

Proficient:

Foresight, Quick Attack, Metal Claw, Iron Defense, Rock Smash, Bite, Counter, Screech, Crunch, Copycat, Feint, Nasty Plot, Reversal, Vacuum Wave, Low Kick, Low Sweep, Protect, Detect (new), Iron Tail (new), Earthquake (new), Bone Rush (new), Metal Sound (new), Meteor Mash (new)

-

Advanced:

Force Palm, Bulk Up, Bullet Punch, Endure, Close Combat (+), Sword Dance (+), Work Up (+)

-

Mastered:

Aura Sphere'

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