417 CH50 (414), Final Days Of 2181 (3)

After waking up the next day, I spent the whole Arcday morning calling my friends and talking with them. The main purpose was to see if any of them wanted to come over for the new year's celebration, or rather to see if they were free to come over.

There were many official as well as semi-official events and gatherings during Rayquaza's patrol, but the two days of Rayquaza's Descent, as well as Ascent, had the biggest ones. Since quite a few of my friends belonged to either a big family or clan or had influential parents, they usually had to attend such events.

At the end of my call marathon, only Kinji, Jessica, and Rose, along with her parents promised to come over. Yu, Aaron, as well as Misty were on another continent altogether, and the others had previous commitments. I briefly considered whether I should invite James and Layla as well. However, I ultimately decided against it. While the two were moving past the acquaintance phase, they had yet to reach friends status.

Anyway, I informed mom about Kinji, Jessie, and Rose, plus her parents coming over for Rayquaza's Descent. Including today, this gave her roughly 10 days to prepare, and I told her she could ask me for help whenever she needed it.

After settling that, I thought about what to do next, and I decided that it was time for another round of grooming and massaging. I had 47 Pokemon in my main group right now, and if I reserved 2.5 to 3 hours each day for the grooming/massaging session, I could go through 5 to 6 of them each day.

Doing that would allow me to go through all of them within 8 to 9 days, so I would be done just in time for Rayquaza's Descent. Besides, it was the perfect method to bond as well as spend time with my Pokemon, and would cover a big part of the period between breakfast and lunch. I could fill the rest by simply relaxing and chatting with them. I did not make any form of schedule for the period after lunch so that I could do whatever I felt like or arose at those times.

Anyway, decision made, I gave mom a heads-up and went out to the terrace since I did need the space. Moreover, I did not want to dirty the house since that would have caused a lot of work for mom. Still, while it was not really cold, it was a bit chilly outside, which was not that surprising considering that it was winter.

Nonetheless, it was still cold enough, that I disliked the idea of doing the grooming session under these conditions, especially since I would be using water in the process. Sure, I would be using lukewarm water, but being wet under these circumstances was not pleasant.

I solved that problem in an easy and prodigal manner. I pulled out quite a few D-Class Fire Stones and Sun Stones and distributed them around the terrace. Normally, the passive heat released by one of those stones would have been negligible unless one or two were kept on the body. More if the body was a particularly large one.

However, by using a considerable number of the two stones, and placing them in relative proximity to each other, I ensured that our terrace reached a pleasantly warm temperature. Not summer-level warm, but more like the end of spring, or growth-level warmth.

After I felt satisfied with the warmth produced by my set-up, I began pulling out all the materials I would need for the grooming/massage session. Once I had everything I needed, I began pondering who to start with. It took a few minutes, but I settled on the first batch, and since I decided to spend the whole grooming/massaging time in the presence of my Pokemon, I decided to call out the whole batch at once.

Osiris/Marowak, Charmander, Eggy/Salandit, Bruce/Zubat, Moka/Crobat, and Anubis/Riolu appeared on the terrace, and after taking stock of their new surroundings and recognizing the terrace they all turned to me to see what was going on. When I told them why I called them out, they cheered, and I smiled at their enthusiasm.

I chose to start with Charmander, and Osiris also stepped closer to observe from the side. The others chose to relax and chat with each other, while occasionally looking over. In most cases, and for all of my Pokemon, the first step of grooming involved wiping/washing the body with water.

I usually preferred using lukewarm water, but Enji/Arcanine and Charmander were the exception, for them I used hot water instead. The water was not scalding, but still pretty hot, and most species aside from fire types would not feel comfortable with such high temperatures.

Anyway, I submerged the towel and began wiping Charmander's body. I started with his head and moved on to the rest of his body. I made sure to be thorough, and the satisfied sighs Charmander released showed that he was enjoying the process. Once I reached the area close to the tip of Charmander's tail, I asked him to suppress the flame so that I could clean the area as well.

The flame on the Charmander-lines tail was pretty interesting and had a tale attached to it, but while the flame could in fact be used as an indicator for the health status of a Charmander line member, it was not inseparable from their life.

Charmander were in fact able to control the flame to a certain extent. They could flare it and reduce the size if necessary, and they were in fact capable of stopping it entirely. However, doing so felt uncomfortable and the feeling increased the longer they suppressed the flame, so all of them preferred letting the flame be.

Still, that meant that a Charmander would not die if the flame on its tail was snuffed out, and as long as it was alive it could easily reignite it. Still, their preference to keep it burning along with the fact that the flame looked dimmer if they felt bad, or brighter if they were energetic was probably how the tale of their life became bound to their tail flame spread in the first place.

Well, that piece of deliberation aside, I finished wiping Charmander's tail and his tail flame roared back to life. I put the towel aside and began checking Charmander's body, more specifically his scales to see if any looked problematic or if there were any other problems.

Once I was sure that were no problems with his scales, I took a look at his claws, to make sure that none were chipped or dull. They looked okay, but I still asked Osiris to hand me the file and made sure that they were in prime condition.

Afterward, I asked him to pass me the self-made wax so that I could apply it on them before I asked Charmander to open his mouth wide so that I could check his teeth and gums. They came out clean and healthy as well. The physical check aspect was done after that, and I began massaging his body instead.

I began for the top of his head and moved all the way to the tip of his tail. Well, only after he temporarily quelled the flame. Charmander certainly enjoyed the massage, even if quelling the flame for some time brought about some discomfort.

The final step of our grooming was applying the lotion as well as wax I made for him on his body/scales. Charmander moved beside a batch of the Fire Stones once I was done, and laid down right beside them before he began dozing off. Meanwhile, I decided to start with my assistant Osiris.

The procedure was similar to Charmander's, except for the flame part, and the fact that I had to apply a different salve and wax polish on his skull compared to the rest of his body. Oh, and I used lukewarm water instead of hot water. Osiris moved beside Charmander after I was done with him and laid down beside him.

I moved on to Anubis and after I was done with his grooming, I worked on Bruce. Moka was the last one that got to enjoy the treatment, and in turn for having waited this long, I took an extra 5 minutes while I was massaging her and another extra 5 minutes while applying/rubbing the salves and lotions on/into her wings.

After I was done with Moka, I roused the ones that had been dozing off, and once everyone was awake, I pulled out my ocarina to play some music for them. I allowed them to choose the tunes, but I made sure to pass the sounds to Utopia as well so that they could also listen in.

Those among mom and dad's Pokemon that preferred staying on our property instead of somewhere in the surrounding wild or their Pokeballs, along with the wild Pokemon we allowed to live here, also moved closer to listen in on the sounds of my ocarina. I kept playing for close to an hour until mom called me inside for lunch.

The time after lunch was spent with my parents. We played some board games while talking about all kinds of stuff. One of the things that came up was my plan to do something during the month-long stretch of free time I would have after the week I would spend at the lab after Rayquaza's Patrol.

I told them that I wanted to stretch my feet for a week or two. Mom and dad took that into consideration and moved any vacation plans around that. We did not settle on anything, and dad and I ended up leaving the vacation planning to mom, who promised that she would come up with something great.

We spent the rest of the day at home as well, and the next day went along the same lines. Giratiday broke the trend when I did a trip to Rota City after lunch to meet up with Erza, who had invited me over. We ended up strolling around the city for a bit before stopping at the coliseum, where Erza ended up challenging me to a battle.

Apparently, she wanted to see how she would fare compared to the last time. She did better, even if she still lost, but there had been no doubt that that would have happened. Anyway, I did not stay for dinner and went back to Hope Town after accompanying Erza to the PokeCenter. I contemplated visiting Mr. Cameron but ultimately decided against it.

The rest of the week passed similarly, with me grooming and spending time with my Pokemon, and then either spending time with my parents or friends before returning home for dinner. Among my friends, Wendy came over to visit on Dialday, and the Dokuogi siblings paid me a visit on Grouday.

During her visit, Wendy shared that she had fulfilled the requirements to attempt the advancement challenge from Bird Tamer (Senior Class) to Sky Noble (Expert Class), but that she decided against it. She wanted to try her hand at coordinating and would come back to the Bird Club, sorry, Flying Club after a year or two.

I obviously supported her decision and offered her my help in case she ever needed some help or advice. After considering that she might prefer asking someone a female or someone with actual experience, I told her that she could also call Jessie since performances and coordinating did have some common ground.

Anyway, on Grouday, shortly after Akame and Coco left, Tyson/Machamp ended up completing his second round of limit-breaking, which was some pretty good news. It took me another three days after that, to finish my grooming sessions, but I managed to do so on Giratiday, the last day of the year.

It was around 40 minutes before lunch that I finished grooming Stan/Gyarados, who had agreed to be the last one, due to being the largest of my Pokemon. Not long after that Kinji arrived together with Jessica, and they made it just in time for lunch. Aunt Lily also called around that time and informed us that they would be arriving around 4 p.m.

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