601 CH74 (596), Disaster Relief (4)

We did not have to wait long for Rose's semifinal "battle", and Ivy/Leafeon beat the other side's Blastoise rather soundly. It was not a good match-up for them, and I suspected that they had expected/hoped that Rose would use Princess/Ninetales instead. Well, their hopes were dashed, and Ivy ended up knocking out Blastoise 2.5 minutes before the 10 minutes were up.

Blastoise had been about to lose due to running out of points anyway, so Ivy just sped up the process by half a minute or so. One way or another Rose moved up to the final, which meant that she was just a single step away from winning the Ribbon Cup. Unlike the semifinals, the final round was 15 minutes long to give the finalist some extra time to battle/"perform".

Rose's opponent for the finals ended up being that fourth-timer, and the guy actually brought out a Pokemon that he had not used at any point during the Festival so far, taking those of us who had not bothered investigating his whole career by surprise, and how could we not when across from Princess/Ninetales, a golden Azumarill at the (high) silver stage appeared.

It was as if the type disadvantage was not enough, so the Azumarill had to be freaking shiny on top of that, making each of its actions a tad more "impressive" just because it was golden, at least until the novelty wore off a bit.

Looking at Rose, it seemed like she was caught off guard as well, and I doubted that she had not investigated Rahul. Moments later the host actually confirmed that Rahul was using this Azumarill for the first time ever in a contest/tournament, effectively making the Festival's final battle Azumarill's debut.

Nonetheless, poor match-up or not, Rose and Princess did not let that stop them. They gave it their all from the get-go, but the other side proved that Azumarill was very well trained by countering nearly every one of Princess's moves with a similar one. Sunny Day got neutralized by Rain Dance, Fire Spin got doused by Whirlpool, Flamethrower countered with Hydro Pump, and so on.

Even close combat proved to be hard since Azumarill evidently had Huge Power, but all these things still were not enough to make Team Rose give up. They switched to a style that focused on the seemingly only advantage they had over the golden egg, namely Princess/Ninetales' speed. Princess ran circles around Azumarill, dodging as many attacks as she could while striking at as many openings as possible.

Unfortunately, her attacks were doing not as much damage, both because Ninetales had to be quick about it and because of the type disadvantage. Heck, at one point she even managed to fire off a Solar Beam hoping to cause some substantial damage both to Azumarill's health and points, but that ended up going wrong.

It turned out that Azumarill also possessed Sap Sipper aside from Huge Power, turning Team Rose's bet into a flop. Not only did Solar Beam cause no damage, but it also raised Azumarill's strength by a notch and actually cost Princess a bunch of points. I honestly understood why Rose decided to risk a Solar Beam despite knowing that Sap Sipper was one of the potential abilities an Azumarill could have, but unfortunately, luck had not been on her side.

Yet, even after that setback, Team Rose did not give up. They kept trying their best to make up for that point loss, and they were doing a decent job at it too. Neither side managed to knock out the other, which spoke volumes about Princess' effort, and neither side managed to reduce their opponent's points to zero, though it was a close thing with that one, so the battle kept going until the 15 minutes were up.

Once the timer rang, one could, unfortunately, see a definite difference in points on the screen, so it came as no surprise when the screen changed and displayed the photos of Rahul as well as Azumarill, crowning them the winner of the Minor Festival. I caught the moment Rose saw the result and she looked sad for a moment before she tried to put on a more neutral look while she consoled Princess who appeared quite disappointed as well.

Nonetheless, after talking to Princess for a few moments, Rose actually went up to Rahul and congratulated him on his victory. Rahul looked just a tad bit surprised at Rose's action but thanked her happily before encouraging her by telling her that she had done a phenomenal job making it this far in her first Festival and that he only won because he had been doing this for way longer than she did.

Rahul also assured her that he was sure she would win her next one since she seemed way more talented than he was. He joked that he did not even make it to the semi-finals in his first two Festivals, and then he actually offered her the chance to take a photo with his Ribbon Cup to motivate her until she could get her own. Everyone caught their conversation due to the mics they wore, and Rahul won quite a few people over with what he said.

I had no idea if he said all that because he meant it or to make a good impression on everyone, but it definitely lifted Rose's spirit, at least from what we could see, and she accepted his offer. Following their conversation, the judges came up to the pair and congratulated Rahul on winning the Festival before praising Rose on her performance.

They then handed the Ribbon Cup to Rahul who shed a tear of happiness while receiving it. He held it high into the air while happily laughing before handing it to his golden Azumarill so that it could hold it for a moment as well. While the cup was in Azumarill's arms, Rahul called out a bunch of his other Pokemon and allowed them all to hold the Ribbon Cup for a moment while enjoying the claps as well as cheers of the spectators.

They then took a bunch of photos, before Rahul actually waved Rose over. They first took a photo together before he went ahead and kept his word, allowing her to take photos with just her and the cup. Well, and some with her, the cup, and her Pokemon.

I felt that regardless of the motive for his actions, this was a rather grand gesture on Rahul's part, and I as well as everyone else in our group were quite thankful that he had done it since we could see the happiness Rose displayed while taking those photos.

Anyway, Rose then returned the cup to Rahul before leaving the stage with her runner-up ribbon. Seeing her leave the stage, our group left our seats as well and headed toward the contestant area. When we made it there, Rose had not yet come out, so we proceeded to wait for her. When she still did not show up 5 minutes later, I extended my senses out to check up on her.

I found her in a "corner". She was alone and crying out of sadness for her loss. Thankfully I felt no despair or any other such hefty negative emotions, just the understandable kind of sadness at her loss, so I chose to give her the space she needed to let out her sadness and left her alone for now. I would check up on her once more if she did not come out in another 5 minutes.

As luck would have it, Rose showed up roughly 4 minutes later, and I could feel that she felt much better now. She showed nothing of the sadness I had "witnessed" earlier, and I did not mention it either. Instead, I joined the other in telling her that she had done a great job and that we agreed with Rahul's flattering evaluation. I even used my aura to make sure she knew I meant it when I said that.

Rose gave us a smile and thanked us for our kind words as well as our consistent support. She then showed us her runner-up ribbon, and we took a bunch of photos together. After that photo session, we went out for dinner. We booked a room in one of the higher-end restaurants and celebrated the successful completion of Rose's first Minor Festival.

An hour or so later Rose shared something with us. Apparently, she had decided that she would not move up to the Major Festival circuit yet even though she could do that thanks to the ribbons she had earned during this circuit, including the runner-up one. Instead, she would follow the "regular path" and aim to win the next Minor Festival. She even said that she was not aiming for the next Kanto Festival but for the Johto one in two years.

According to Rose, the main reason behind that decision was that half her Pokemon had yet to reach the silver stage, much less the (high) silver stage, and that the time until the Johto Minor Festival would be enough for them to do that. It would also give her enough time to come up with more performances and move combinations.

Not to mention that it would allow her to gather more experience before she moved on to the next level, which was valid since this was just her first year. I was confident that Batsey/Golbat and Tsunami/Magikarp would have evolved by then as well, which would strengthen her team by quite a bit. As for her "older" Pokemon, they would be able to use the time to train until their "absolute limit" since they had nothing better to do anyway considering that they could not break through until the end of the Johto Festival.

Anyway, we all were supportive and told her that her decision was great. After that, we hung out for another two hours talking, taking photos, and other stuff before separating, but obviously not before congratulating Rose one final time on an impressive performance. I made sure to give everyone a goodbye hug, including my parents before I left for Granite Town.

It took until Giratiday of the new/second week before I was transferred to another location since there was nothing left for us "noobs" to do in Granite Town. My new assignment was not that far away. I got sent to a village beside a river that ended up overflowing, submerging nearly all of the farmland, and a third of the village.

Our job aside from helping house as well as check those whose accommodations had been submerged, was to take care of the overflowing river, which we did in three ways. One group checked why the river was overflowing, one tried to widen the river on the other riverbank a bit, while a third one tried to erect a temporary barrier between the village and the river, to keep it from being flooded so that we could drain the water.

By the time the weekend came around, the river had been sufficiently expanded and the water had been drained, which left us only with the reconstruction of the destroyed farmland and village areas. Well, I would have normally only joined the others on Arcday since I had Kyo and Grouday off, but I still stuck around for the first half of Kyoday to help them a bit before I entered Utopia for the rest of my weekend.

My Pokemon and I first spent a few hours focusing on their moves/move pools, and while we were doing that, Fortuna/Togetic actually advanced to the (high) silver stage. It had been close to 5 months since her breakthrough to the silver stage, and she was now ready for her evolution to Togekiss.

Naturally, everyone was immediately excited when they felt Fortuna's (high) silver undulations, and they began crowding us to congratulate her. I made the announcement over UtopiaFM, informing every Utopian about the upcoming evolution before asking for everyone's attention and telling them to head to Fortuna's place.

I took the lucky girl in my arms and carried her there myself since doing that would be quite a bit more cumbersome once she had evolved to Togekiss. Everyone else kept pace with me/us, and we happily talked about all kinds of stuff while heading to Fortuna's place. I was in no hurry to arrive there, so by the time we made it there, a lot of the Utopians had already made it there, including the Spinda Quartet, who bound over to us as soon as we showed up.

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