CH70 (592), Closing In On The End

Arcday started my last week at the bureau, and yet nothing much changed in my schedule. Maria did not make an exception, and just like she or the bureau had planned, I completed the alliance-provided list on Dialday. Today was my last day at the bureau and I had to say it was my most pragmatic phase so far.

When I left the bureau for good at 3:30 that day only Maria and Francis, whom I had only seen once since his initial greeting, came to send me off. Those two along with the receptionist were also pretty much everyone I had interacted with during the last two months. One would think that employees in such a successful finance bureau would be more social, but everyone at the bureau was too busy to socialize, at least as long as it was not with a customer or a potential customer.

Regardless, it was not as if I had been here to make friends, so I thanked Maria as well as Francis for sending me off and left "Persian Finance" without looking back. Still, since I had been told to report to the Disaster Relief Bureau's HQ here in Saffron City on Arcday, I did not leave the city and simply strolled around a bit before entering Utopia.

I briefly considered whether I should start another full-on grooming/massage session or not, but after taking into account that the last one happened just last month, I decided against it. Granted it had been the start of the month, nonetheless, that was close enough that it made me push the session to the end of the next month.

Instead, I ended up holding an impromptu concert, though I waited until after everyone was done with their training and we had eaten dinner. Kyoday was spent inside Utopia as well, and I once more combined my personal training with everyone's free time by putting on puppet fights for them.

After dinner, we watched the latest batch of performances Jessie had uploaded on PoryTom. Everyone animatedly discussed what they liked or disliked about the performance between videos. I once more saw more than one of them being genuinely interested in the whole performance video thing, and I could not help but seriously consider whether I should open a PoryTom account for that purpose.

Occasionally putting together a video for them and uploading it would not take too much effort. The only real drawback would be if we ended up giving up too much information to possible future opponents, but even that could be avoided, or at least limited by simply restricting the performances to "visual effects" without any strength.

I was sure they would enjoy it, and that really was the only reason I needed to come to a decision. I would register a PoryTom account, but only after the start of my journey. Most of them were close to a breakthrough, and I did not want to distract them for now.

I was expecting the majority of them to be done by the time my journey began. There was also the fact that I would have no obligation to use up hours of my day, which meant that I'd easily be able to set aside a few hours each week for this, and with that decision made, I "focused" back on the video.

The next morning, after breakfast, I began our usual Grouday check-up, and once it was Melinda/Mienshao's turn, I saw that she was ready for her breakthrough. She would be the second one among the third batch, so those who joined after I graduated from the Aura Academy, to reach the gold stage. Kimura/Hitmonform was the first, but there was no way anyone among my Pokemon could progress faster than him due to his buggy talent, so that was no surprise.

Anyway, I shared the good news with her, but as usual, we waited until I was done checking up on everyone before we made our way to her place. I naturally informed all Utopians of her upcoming breakthrough, and we waited until all the spectators had arrived before we started off the breakthrough tradition.

Fortuna/Togetic as well as I hugged Melinda and wished her good luck before moving back to allow her to break through. She initiated the process as soon as I gave her the go-ahead. No one was surprised when she shone just a bit since everyone had known that her potential would advance to aurora, and the same happened to everyone that did that before her.

Honestly, I could not help but wonder if she would unlock a modifier or a second talent since luckily something like that happened to all aurora potential holders so far. Yet, no further out-of-the-ordinary activities took place by the time the breakthrough concluded, and Melinda's (mid) gold stage undulations began to spread as I made my way to her side.

I gave her a hug and congratulated her on reaching the gold stage along with her potential advancing to aurora. The others began to surround us just as I stopped the hug, and while they were busy congratulating her, I began to look through her new/updated status sheet.

'Name: Melinda

Species: Mienshao

Gender: Female

Age: 10+ years

-

Type: Fighting

Potential: Aurora (8.57%)*

{Light Aurora (37.02%) -> (37.14%) -> Aurora (8.57%)}'

As expected her potential moved up the ladder, making her the fourth to reach this point, which was honestly insane. Moving down the sheet, I was unsurprised to see no change in either her modifier as well as talent section since there had been no such indicators during the breakthrough. There was also the fact that her potential had suffered no reduction.

Nonetheless, it appeared that this block was not completely without changes since I saw that Melinda had actually unlocked a new/additional affinity.

'Affinities: Fighting, Aura, Water (budding)*'

Frankly, I had no idea where that one came from. The only thing I could think of was her talent "Flowing Like Water", and even then that one was not truly related to water but referred to a state of being, showing similar traits to water. Even in my ears, that seemed like a weak argument. Honestly, it seemed like Melinda had taken Bruce Lee's "Be Water My Friend" a bit too seriously, but I was not complaining. One could never have enough affinities after all.

When I told Melinda about her new affinity she was surprised but definitely happy. The others obviously heard me as well, and the water squad immediately offered to help Melinda with her new affinity, which was heartwarming and had Melinda thanking them for their offered help. Meanwhile, I resumed looking through her status sheet.

'Parameters:

Stage: Gold Stage (mid)*

Vitality: E

Strength: C

Endurance: E

Agility: C

Energy Capacity: D

Energy Density: E'

There was no surprise in her parameter section, and while having two Cs was good, the 3 Es she was sporting were going to ensure that it would take her some time to advance to the (high) gold stage. Nonetheless, that was not something we didn't already know, and the next bit made me ignore it right away.

After she had broken through to the silver stage, Melinda like everyone else had started to work on one of her weaknesses. Thankfully, one of her weaknesses had been one that I had an outstanding affinity to, which was why she chose to start with it first. Still, even though our bond made her psychic resistance training a bit easier, we had yet to complete it, at least until now.

'Weaknesses:

Flying (Minor), Fairy (Minor)

-

Standardized:

Psychic*'

It appeared that her breakthrough managed to fill in the gap and complete the process for her, leaving her with only two minor weaknesses. Nonetheless, I was pretty sure that Melinda would want to take a short break from any further resistance training as well once she heard about this, and I decided to ask her to determine which weakness to focus on next during that period.

Melinda was indeed very happy when I shared the news with her and there were quite a few exclamations of envy from the others, which made me smile a bit knowing full well how pretty much all of them disliked the resistance training, yet all of them insisted on doing it even if it was just in small doses.

Anyway, I continued to look through the rest of her status to finish and was promptly taken by surprise when I saw that she had a new move in her novice sub-section.

'Techniques:

-

Novice:

Poison Jab (new), Blaze Kick (new), Surging Strikes (new)*

-

Beginner:

Rest (new), Dig (new), Aerial Ace (new)

-

Proficient:

Take Down (new), Vacuum Wave (new), Agility (new)

-

Advanced:

Force Palm (+), Vital Throw (+), Detect (+), Fury Swipes (+)'

Apparently, her new affinity did not come alone but brought along a gift. Surging Strikes was a move that had only been heard about in legends since no one knew how to use it. I knew about it from Gen 8, but in my time only Urshifu could learn it, which would explain why no one here knew it either since Urshifu was also the stuff of legends. Oh, sure there were some out there in the world but there were currently none in the "human zone".

I had actually wanted Melinda to learn that one ever since she had unlocked her talent since they were practically made for one another, but we had failed because something was missing. Maybe it was a water affinity maybe it wasn't, the important thing was that she should now be able to perform the move. When I told her about her new move and how she should now have some instinctive knowledge of it, she was quite surprised, which then turned to happiness.

After a quick rehearsal of the move's description on my part, she tried her hands at it. It might have been our previous efforts, or maybe a combination of her experience with Fury Swipes and her talent, or it could have simply been because she should "know" the move since it was displayed in her move section, but she managed to perform a proper Surging Strikes after just three attempts.

The happiness she displayed at that moment was immense, and everyone cheered her on. I congratulated her on her success before I began pulling out everything we needed for a party. The celebration that followed went on for the rest of the day.

The next morning I made my way to the address of the Disaster Relief Bureau's HQ. The HQ building was no skyscraper with its 10 stories, but it did not need to be impressive or imposing considering which organization, or rather alliance branch it housed.

I entered the building and headed straight to the reception. The lady at the counter actually recognized me and welcomed me to the HQ using my name. Sandra then asked me to wait a moment while she made a call, following which she informed me that the person responsible for me would be here soon.

While we waited, she asked me for a few signatures, one for herself, one for her husband, and two for her kids. That naturally attracted the attention of Sandra's colleague, which resulted in both the man and the lady asking for signatures as well.

I did not bother prying if they were genuinely interested in my signature or if they decided to get one just in case it would be worth something in the future, and simply gave both one autograph each, though it seemed that their actions attracted the attention of the few people hanging out in the reception area/first floor.

Thankfully, before they decided to come over as well, my direct superior arrived and asked me to follow him to his office. On the way there, he introduced himself as Youssef before he began telling me some of the facts I needed to know.

First of all, they did not offer dorm rooms, at least not per se. According to him, I would be sent from one "disaster point" to the other, so I would not need a dorm room since I would be traveling around. What they would do, was offer me a place to stay in the place I had been sent to even if it was just a tent. It seemed that no aspiring trainer got to stay in one place/city for more than a few days during this phase, and I was fine with that since I could enter Utopia from anywhere.

When he mentioned that my work week went from Arcday to Dialday I felt relieved since I had honestly expected it to be a 6-day week. Heck, I had not even excluded the possibility that there were no free days during my ruminations, so I was quite happy with how that actually turned out. I obviously did not say that out loud, lest the guy decided to go "Oh, really? Then let's go with that instead".

---------------------

---------------------

This part is purely to display Melinda's status screen in one piece and does not count toward the word count.

'Name: Melinda

Species: Mienshao

Gender: Female

Age: 10+ years

-

Type: Fighting

Potential: Aurora (8.57%)

(Genetic) Modifier: None

Abilities: Inner Focus, Regenerator, Reckless

Talents: Flowing Like Water

Affinities: Fighting, Aura, Water (budding)

-

Bond: Mikail (strong)

Quirks: Patient, Likes to Meditate

----

Parameters:

Stage: Gold Stage (mid)

Vitality: E

Strength: C

Endurance: E

Agility: C

Energy Capacity: D

Energy Density: E

----

Resistance:

Bug (Minor), Rock (Minor), Dark (Minor)

-

Weaknesses:

Flying (Minor), Fairy (Minor)

-

Standardized:

Psychic

----

Condition: Healthy, Happy, Pleased

----

Masteries:

Fighting Energy Manipulation (Advanced)

Aura Manipulation (Advanced)

----

Techniques:

-

(Unofficial) Initial:

N/A

-

Novice:

Revenge, Poison Jab, Blaze Kick, Surging Strikes

-

Beginner:

Quick Guard, U-Turn, Rest, Dig, Aerial Ace

-

Proficient:

Reversal, Swift, Pound, Fake Out, Double Slap, Hone Claws, Jump Kick, Bounce, Low Sweep, Low Kick, Brick Break, Focus Blast, Close Combat, High Jump Kick, Mega Punch, Mega Kick, Protect, Endure, Take Down, Vacuum Wave, Agility

-

Advanced:

Aura Sphere, Meditate, Calm Mind, Drain Punch, Force Palm, Vital Throw, Detect, Fury Swipes

-

Mastered:

N/A

-

Combo moves/Custom moves:

N/A'

-----------------------------

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