CH21 (251), Another Academy Mission

As if he had timed it, Horus/Xatu gave us a reason to celebrate just a day before the start of the sixth term. It took him nearly six months, but the less than one percent he had been missing finally got filled as well, and his potential officially turned light purple.

We threw a big party to celebrate the event and I saw the stoic Horus shedding a manly tear out of happiness. Still, he would vehemently deny it if anyone brought up that fact.

The next day I went straight to Mr. Burns before going to class and told him that I was ready to hand in my second project. He said that he would inform Mr. Cameron and see if he was available. If that was the case, he would most likely lead me to Mr. Cameron after I was done with my lessons for the day.

Just like he said that he would, Mr. Burns showed up after my last class for the day and led me to Mr. Cameron's office. After greeting him I handed over both the memory card containing the project as well as the already printed paper/project.

Before he began reading Mr. Cameron informed me that my last paper had caused a wave of imitators to appear who submitted similar papers for other regions including the Viridian Forest. Most were still under review, but none were as comprehensive and extensive as mine at least so far.

Well, according to Mr. Cameron that was more because no big or even semi-big names were among those who copied my approach to release a paper, but he still praised me since my work stood out as better among those that came after.

Nonetheless, I was sure that he said that as a warning to remind me that if my second paper was not as good as my first one my reputation would suffer a blow. I was also speculating that the number of points I was going to receive would be much lower than before.

After he said his piece Mr. Cameron looked through my paper and he gave me a satisfied smile once he had gone through the whole stack.

"Good," he began with a nod, "you did not disappoint me. The whole thing looks good and I see no problems appearing during the review, so it should pass the review within a month if we ask nicely.

Still, I can tell you right now, that I'm pretty sure that the information on the Volcarona line will be withheld from the public, and will only become accessible to trainers of a certain class."

Before I could ask why he thought like that, and I had no doubt it was going to happen if someone like Mr. Cameron believed that it would happen, he provided the answer in his next sentence.

"Otherwise, I do not doubt that there will be many daredevils, stupid, and/or arrogant people, as well as criminals that will try their luck at getting a Larvesta.

That would result in many people dying while moving towards the center/core area of the Viridian Forest, and even worse than that is that I'm sure the criminals would not hesitate to cause a disaster during their endeavors if it meant that it would help them accomplish their goals."

Still, I was not sure what kept the trainers with access to the information for doing the same mistake, so I just directly asked Mr. Cameron.

"Well, the answer is pretty simple. First, they would survive the trip to the central/core area, and second, they know how to behave to avoid causing major problems for themselves and others.

You know most Pokemon do not mind if someone, human or Pokemon, manages to get something valuable from their territory or even under their nose. They attribute it to the other party being better or simply lucky. While there are obviously exceptions to this, most Pokemon won't bother creating a fuss if something like this happens.

The same is true for capturing Pokemon in their territory. They won't mind if it's done in moderation, actually, that is even true for Pokemon dying since they see it as part of the life cycle.

Well, the dying part is mostly okay as long as it's not one of the area boss's tribe members because the reactions there change from species to species, and that's why this kind of knowledge gets taught in trainer school so that aspiring trainers know what to do and what not.

I mean some species won't mind if you capture their offspring since they can feel that they are still alive. Heck, some species won't mind even if their offspring dies, attributing it to their weakness.

On the other hand, some species will react adversely to the capture of their offspring, and if the offspring gets killed then Arceus may help the idiot who did it. This kind of knowledge is why paying attention to Pokemon-related subjects at the trainer school is important."

I was not sure why, but I kinda got the impression that I was being lectured right now. The way this conversation had been going after the first part was him lecturing me with little-old-me quietly listening.

I did not think that Mr. Cameron would start lecturing me for no reason, so there has to be a reason for it. Did they investigate how I got my Pokemon and stumbled upon Mars/Ursaring's capture, which admittedly could have ended badly, or was there another reason?

"Now, the reason I mentioned those things has to do with a mission I want to offer to you. The mission is a two weeks long support and relief task, so it's a pure non-combat task, and you can "only" earn 300 academy points at the end of the job without the option to earn additional points," Mr. Cameron began his explanation and I realized why he held that lecture before this.

"Your duty if you choose to accept is to provide help with healing, clean up, and rebuilding. Now, before I go into the mission details, I want to ask if you want to accept the mission or not? I want to add that the academy and I would recommend that you participate in this mission since it is an experience that all trainers should go through and that it will be useful for your future."

Well, to be honest, the way he formulated that offer sounded more like an order than a recommendation, but I was inclined to agree. First of all, 300 points were not as low an amount as Mr. Cameron made it sound, especially since I did not have to fight anyone.

More importantly, I was curious about the mission. His lecture roused my interest in hearing what happened and what the mission entailed.

"I'm interested, but I'd like to hear the mission details before agreeing," I told him and he seemed satisfied with that since he began to tell me about the mission.

"Now, here's a bit of background information on your mission. The place you're going to is a small town called Spiral Town near the north-western border of Rota. The place has a population of roughly 12500, and the region around them was normally safe since we had an arrangement with the leader of the biggest Pokemon tribe in the area."

'Yeah, I know what that kind of intro means,' was what I thought, and Mr. Cameron seemed to instantly understand what I was thinking, which I attributed to his superior aura abilities.

"Yes, it's just like you're thinking. Some idiots went to the Sawsbuck's territory to steal a really rare material, an ancient moss rock to be specific. If that had been all the situation would not have escalated as much as it did, but those nincompoops went ahead and killed the Boss Sawsbuck's youngest daughter along with her caretakers.

The poor Deerling was only at the iron stage and we know for a fact that they could have simply knocked her out since they managed to take down the caretakers, who were Sawsbuck at the silver stage.

Now, this is why it's important to pay attention in class at trainer school because if they had done that, then they would have known that killing the offspring of a Sawsbuck is a surefire way to provoke the otherwise friendly and peaceful species to go into a revenge rage.

Boss Swasbuck nearly immediately learned of his daughter's death, so the criminals did not have too much time to hide. The boss gave out the order and a small tide formed with the sole purpose of tracking down the perpetrators at all costs.

The trace led the tide to Spiral Town and despite the Pokemon not actively attacking anyone, some people got hurt while the Pokemon were going everywhere looking for the criminals.

The people were naturally perplexed by the unusual tide, not knowing how to react, especially since they knew that the alliance and aura guardians had an agreement with the Boss Sawsbuck.

A lot of buildings got damaged during the search. Unfortunately, some people died when the criminals got cornered and began using innocent bystanders as shields.

That group of imbeciles turned out to be the smart kind of idiot since they managed to drag out the case for more than an hour which led to the death of 48 innocent people, with 4 of them being children. Currently, there are 7 fatally injured, 86 seriously injured, and more than a thousand people with mild to light injuries.

Roughly a fourth of Spiral Town is ruined and another fourth got damaged to a certain extent as well. Thankfully, we had a few Aura Guardians in the area that managed to arrive within an hour. After quickly making a rough picture of the situation, they managed to work together with the Pokemon to capture the criminals responsible for the situation.

Then they proceeded to do a more thorough investigation of the situation before deciding what to do with the criminals and how to "tread" the tide. It is only because they were Aura Guardians and that the Pokemon knew of our reputation that they allowed our people to go through with the investigation instead of directly demanding the perpetrators.

In the end, it took the Aura Guardians less than 30 minutes to get a complete picture of the situation and in that time the Boss Sawsbuck arrived as well.

Coming to the obvious conclusion that the whole thing was the fault of the criminals including the death of the bystanders, the Aura Guardians confiscated the Pokemon and bags of the criminals before handing them over to the Boss Sawsbuck.

They also returned the Moss Rock to him which appeased the boss, who retreated along with all wild Pokemon. I personally find it a bit unfortunate that they had to hand over the criminals to appease the boss since I would have liked to publicly execute them for their crimes as a warning to other criminals, but it had to be done that way.

All that happened yesterday evening, and currently disaster relief and help are being supplied to Spiral Town. Your mission is to go there and assist in clean-up while also providing help with first aid and healing since we know that you have quite a few Pokemon that are capable of using decent healing moves.

12 of the 16 PokeCenters got destroyed or damaged during the tide so they need all the help they can get. While Nurse Joys and doctors are being sent over, a few extra helping hands are always welcome. You will be accompanied by 3 others that will be sent there to help either way. They will be supervising you on the side.

To be honest, this is one of the mildest results of a Pokemon Tide possible, and we want to use this to show you some of the consequences of a tide without the outcome being too much. You'll be given leave for the two weeks this mission is going to last, so what do you think? Are you going to accept or decline the mission?"

I had to sigh at what the greed of some b*st*rds had caused. Still, if I had to be honest I had already made my decision halfway through his narration of the situation, so I told him I was accepting the task.

Mr. Cameron was happy with my decision and told me that the departure was in 60 minutes. I had that much time to prepare for my 2-week stay at Spiral Town and to inform my parents of the mission before I would return to the academy gate, where I would meet up with my "supervisors". We would then Teleport to Spiral Town for our respective tasks.

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