CH19 (149), Selection

At exactly 7:45 a.m I stood in front of the classroom with Sorrel who seemed to have come early. He looked pretty giddy, but I could understand that.

From the few talks we had over the last two days I learned that Buneary would be his second Pokemon. Heck, Ralts was going to be my 30th Pokemon and I was still excited. Less than a minute after I arrived Mr. Burns came as well.

"You're here good. Follow me." He said before he led us to the building for aura studies.

We went to the third floor and stopped in front of a door labeled Mr.Cameron. Mr. Burns politely knocked on the door and waited for the permission to enter. He warned us to be polite and ushered us inside after he opened the door.

"Mr. Cameron, Sir, I brought over the two candidates that are allowed to search for a partner. This here is Sorrel and he chose Buneary as his future partner, and this is Mikail who chose Ralts as his future partner." Mr. Burns politely introduced the two of us.

I had been circulating my aura since we left irregular studies building. I did this to cover my psionic energy. On its own, it may have not been that useful but I also used a psychic technique I learned from my super-library that allowed me to withdraw all my psionic energy to my mindscape and to mask it.

The aura circulation took care of the rest. Obviously, this wasn't enough to hide my psionic energy from some overpowered psychic or even more overpowered non-psychic individual, but I was doing it to hide it from the general populace anyway, so that was okay.

The man Mr. Burns called Mr. Cameron nodded his head at Mr. B's introduction and I felt as if his gaze lingered a moment longer on me than on Sorrel, but that could have been because he felt that I had more aura than I was supposed to since he had most likely seen my file.

"Alright, you can go back to your duties Charles. I'll do the rest of the explanations." Mr. Cameron said to which Mr. Burns just nodded and told us to listen to Mr. Cameron before he left.

After Mr. Burns left, Mr. Cameron focused on us and smiled good-naturedly at us.

"Well, let me tell you how this whole thing is going to happen. I will transport each of you to an area where the species you have chosen lives. The inhabitants of those areas are in a partnership with us and won't harm you." He began but he seemed to have noticed something because he reassured us of the safety bit before he continued.

"There are partners of deceased Aura Guardians living there, so you are as safe as possible. Anyway, a member of the tribe will lead you to the young that are deemed ready for a partner and you'll have to find one among those younglings you click with.

You can take as long as you need and once you are done call the academy. They'll inform me and I'll come to get you. Any questions?" He finished and we both shook our heads.

"Alright. Do both of you have a phone or do you need the Academy to loan you one?" He asked but both of us told him that we had phones of our own.

"That's good. Sorrel I'll deliver you to your destination first." He said before he called out a Gallade. He then turned to me and told me to wait a moment before he told Gallade to take them to the Lopunny area.

They vanished and about 1 minute later Mr. Cameron and Gallade returned without Sorrel.

"Alright, it's your turn now Mikail." He informed me before he told Gallade to take him to his tribe's area. Gallade's gaze briefly swept over me when he heard Mr. Cameron's instructions and he nodded before he teleported us away.

A few seconds after we arrived a Gardevior and a Gallade appeared in front of us. They greeted us and Mr. Cameron politely returned their greeting. I naturally did the same.

"This young man is the one that is here to see if he can find one among your younglings that is willing to become his partner." Mr. Cameron said and the two nodded.

'We shall bring him to the place most of the young are gathered around this time. Whether he manages to find a partner or not is out of our hands. We shall, however, keep him safe even from the most mischievous of our members. My mate shall keep an eye on him to make sure nothing happens.' The Gardevoir replied mentally and Mr. Cameron nodded in thanks before he turned to me.

"You can take as long as you want and don't forget to call the Academy once you're done." He said before he left.

Once he was gone I was alone with the pair and the two seemed to be analyzing me. After a moment they looked at each other and seemingly had a mental conversation.

Since they obviously did not need to look at each other for that, they did it for my sake, to show me that they were having a mental conversation. The silence would have been pretty awkward, or rather more awkward, otherwise.

Anyway, the two nodded, which was more than likely for me to see once again before Gardevoir addressed me.

'Young Mikail taking your abilities and talent into account we decided to give you an offer that we do not offer often. The last time it happened was more than 100 years ago.

You now have two options. The first one is the one you had since the beginning. We will bring you to the gathering place and you'll try to find a partner among those younglings. The second one is that we'll take you to another area where the slightly older ones among our young gather.

They are older than the younglings in the other area and stronger, so it will be harder to find one that is willing to follow you and it would also be harder to bond with them for the same reason.

I can assure you that if you choose the second option and fail to find a partner you still have the option to visit the first area. So, the only thing that could happen is for the search to take longer.' She told me and I honestly saw no reason to decline her offer.

If I couldn't find anyone with good enough potential to balance out the higher stage among the older ones, I would simply go to the younger Ralts. With that in mind, I agreed to her offer and they both smiled a smile that said, "as expected".

Gardevior said goodbye and vanished while Gallade teleported me to my destination. He send out a message to everyone in the area before he left me alone.

Most likely to give me the feeling of privacy while keeping an eye on me from some distance. I still appreciated the gesture even if I was still under observation anyway.

Anyway, after the message, I became the focus of nearly every Ralts and Kirlia in the area. Yeah, surprisingly there were even a few Kirlia among the young I was allowed to choose from.

Nevertheless, that was not going to change my approach. Ralts and Kirlia were known as the "Feeling Pokemon" and "Emotion Pokemon" respectively.

So, showing them that I was sincere when I told them that I was only planning to help them get strong and that I would try to provide them the best life I could, was the best way to go about it in my opinion.

Naturally, I also made use of my calming aura and aura speech to make my intent clear and to help me, but that was practically expected in this situation. This was an Aura Guardian test/opportunity after all.

Anyway, after I saw the Ralts and Kirlia approaching I checked the status screen of as many as I could. At least I did so for the ones that allowed me to touch them since I couldn't use my psychic abilities without them being detected by a lot of Pokemon in this place.

Fortunately, no one among them seemed to have a problem with me touching them since it seemed like touch also made it easier to use their sensing ability on me.

Among the 60+ Ralts and Kirlia I checked, none had worse than yellow potential which was pretty impressive. This meant there was a chance that there were no members with bad potential among the whole tribe.

Still, considering the tribes were formed by partners of Aura Guardians it made kinda sense that they had a high potential average. They most likely never integrated any bad seeds since the beginning and over hundreds or even thousands of years, the potential average remained rather high.

Nonetheless, I started to digress once again. Among all of them, I found 3 males that were the most promising and talented. I was shocked at how many high potential members they had, but these 3 were the best and I was unsure which one to choose. It was really unfortunate that I could only choose one.

As for why I was only considering males? Well, I wanted the first one to become a Gallade, so I had to chose a male, and none of the females were outstanding enough to change my mind.

'Species: Kirlia

Gender: Male

Type: Psychic, Fairy

Potential: Blue

Stage: Silver-stage (low)

Genetic variation: None

Abilities: Synchronize, Telepathy

Talents: Mind Hub

Affinities: Psychic, Fairy'

This Kirlia was already at the (low) silver stage and had blue potential. On top of that, he had a talent derived from his "Telepathy" ability that allowed him to act as a hub for mental communication. He could connect way more minds than anyone else at his stage.

This would be really useful for me with my high number of Pokemon or during my time in the army. Kirlia no. 2 was not worse than the first one at all.

'Species: Kirlia

Gender: Male

Type: Psychic, Fairy

Potential: Light Blue

Stage: Bronze-stage (high)

Genetic variation: None

Abilities: Synchronize, Trace

Talents: Condition Transfer

Affinities: Psychic, Fairy'

He may have had only light blue potential, but that could be covered with the limit-breaking training he could do due to being only at the (high) bronze stage. This way his potential at the silver stage would be blue at least and may even turn deep blue.

The only "negative" was that he would have to invest a lot of time to reach the silver stage. Still, there was also his talent "Condition Transfer" that had been derived from the "Synchronize" ability.

It allowed Kirlia to use the bridge "Synchronize" created between him and the attacker to transfer the status condition instead of just giving the source the same one. So, Kirlia got healed while only the attacker suffered.

This was a pretty great talent in my opinion, but the last candidate was just as great.

'Species: Ralts

Gender: Male

Type: Psychic, Fairy

Potential: Light Blue

Stage: Bronze-stage (low)

Genetic variation: None

Abilities: Synchronize, Trace

Talents: Save Point

Affinities: Psychic, Fairy'

This one was still a Ralts despite being at the (low) bronze stage. Thankfully he did not have an aversion towards evolution. I knew that since I asked him and he told me that he simply had not felt ready yet.

Ralts had light blue potential just like candidate number 2, so just like him, he had the guarantee of attaining blue potential at the silver stage. The probability for deep blue was even higher with this one since I could still make use of his evolution to Kirlia to boost his potential a bit through supporting materials.

He also had the same "negative" as candidate no. 2, but in Ralts case, it would take even more time to reach the silver stage since he started at the (low) bronze stage and not the (high) one.

However, there was his talent that more than made up for that. Ralts had "Save Point" as his talent, which was derived from his "Trace" ability. "Save Point" allowed him to save one ability he copied with "Trace" until he wanted to exchange it with another one.

So, if he copied a "Lightning Rod" with "Trace", then "Save Point" allowed him to save "Lightning Rod" even after "Trace" reset. Ralts would then keep "Lightning Rod" until his "Trace" found an even better ability that he wanted to keep instead.

It was pretty overpowered actually and if not for the fact that "Trace" could not copy the abilities of those more than a stage above it, I would call it nearly unrivaled.

I was pretty sure I just stood there for like 20 minutes just mulling over which one to choose. Ultimately, I chose Ralts because his talent had so many possibilities. So, him having to train an extra 2-3 years was negligible, especially since I was still young and my official journey was still far off.

I approached Ralts once more and did my best to get him to join me and after I made some pretty sincere and persuasive points Ralts agreed. Once I got his agreement I caught him with a "P.F.Ball", one of my newer achievements geared towards psychic and fairy dual types.

As soon as I balled Ralts Gallade appeared before me and congratulated me. He requested me to call out Ralts so that he could say his farewells, which I would have done anyway.

It took Ralts 30 minutes to return and after recalling him I acted as if I put his ball inside my Silph.Co bag while placing him inside Utopia. I obviously let him out of his ball once he was inside so that Utopia could do its magic.

While that was happening I called the academy to tell them I was done, and it took me only 5 hours. Unfortunately, it seemed like I had missed all my classes for today so I could return home once I was back at the academy.

It took about 5 minutes for Mr. Cameron to appear, so I used that time to check out Ralts full/new status screen.

'Name: None

Species: Ralts

Gender: Male

Age: 6+ years

-

Type: Psychic, Fairy

Potential: Light Blue -> Blue (96.84%)

Genetic variation: None

Abilities: Synchronize, Trace

Talents: Save Point

Affinities: Psychic, Fairy

-

Bond: Mikail (artificial, weak)

Quirks: Slightly Stubborn

----

Parameters:

Stage: Bronze Stage (low)

Vitality: G

Strength: H

Endurance: G

Agility: G

Energy Capacity: F

Energy Density: G

----

Immunity:

Dragon

-

Resistance:

Fighting (Major), Psychic (Minor)

-

Weaknesses:

Poison (Minor), Ghost (Minor), Steel (Minor)

----

Condition: Healthy, Excited

----

Masteries:

Psionic Energy Manipulation (Proficient)

Fairy Energy Manipulation (Beginner)

----

Techniques:

-

(Unofficial) Initial:

N/A

-

Novice:

Growl, Charm, Future Sight

-

Beginner:

Hypnosis, Draining Kiss, Life Dew, Heal Pulse, Dream Eater

-

Proficient:

Disarming Voice, Double Team, Confusion, Psybeam, Calm Mind, Psychic

-

Advanced:

Teleport

-

Mastered:

N/A'

His full status was pretty good. His potential was only missing a few percent to reach deep blue. He was not too far off from reaching the (mid) bronze stage and his move pool was pretty solid as well.

Probably because he was actually over six years old. His quirk explained a bit why he had not evolved yet despite being ready to evolve. Ralts turned out to be pretty great.

Anyway, Mr. Cameron showed up and brought me back to the Academy after exchanging a few sentences with Gallade. Once we were back he gave me a few encouraging words, told me Sorrel had already returned two hours ago, and sent me on my way.

Since I had no more classes today I went straight home.

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