CH75 (689), Got Older Again

I kept playing tune after tune for a bit more than an hour before I put my ocarina away, and had my Pokemon sub in instead, starting from Manami/Lapras, who sang "Let It Go" for us. Manami followed up with another song before Saphira/Altaria took her place, and my Pokemon kept swapping in for another hour before we decided to switch things up again.

We played the manipulation game, and the manipulation here was not the psychological kind, but the elemental one. Every participant had to choose a typing/element they could proficiently use and use their manipulation ability to create the same forms/shapes that the game master was presenting. Those that failed to copy the shape requested by the game master lost/got disqualified. Obviously, the shapes started out quite easy with squares and other easy stuff before becoming progressively harder.

The first round was a free-for-all where everyone participated regardless of their age/stage, and unsurprisingly none of the "fresher" ones made it far into the game due to the difference in their energy/type manipulation mastery. Tatsumaki/Alakazam ended up winning this one by the way. Starting from the second round, we decided to separate everyone into groups according to their mastery. We ended up with four groups, though the master group had a pitiful amount of participants so they chose to act as game masters for the other groups.

Hera/Pidgeot acted as the game master for the beginners, Osiris/Skellibra was the game master for those who showed proficiency, and Tatsumaki/Alakazam acted as the game master for those with advanced manipulation capabilities. With the groups being split like this, the game masters were able to stretch out the rounds without the majority of the participants feeling bored, so everyone got to have fun. They were happy and I was happy as well since this was a pretty good exercise on top of being a fun game.

Nearly everyone got into it and they all tried their best to win or at least get farther than before which was great to watch for me. Munchlax was the only one not taking part for obvious reasons, but he had fun watching everyone together with me and I could see that the game roused his interest in energy manipulation which was good news. I only stopped them from continuing when it was time for dinner.

Everyone talked about how fun the game had been during dinner, and they decided to add the game to their list of favorites. This shifted the subject to the various other games we played and the Labyrinth Dungeon came up. Everyone talked about how fun that one had been and they collectively asked me to play that again sometime and I agreed though we would have to leave it to another day since we were going to be busy with other things during the upcoming days.

Anyway, after dinner was complete and everything had been cleaned up, I brought out the beanie bags, the snacks, and the drinks in preparation for another movie night. Honestly, three movie nights in a row was a bit much, but everyone wanted to continue watching Lilo&Stitch and I bowed to their collective wishes.

We ended up watching another 10 episodes, leaving us with only 9 episodes for season 1, which left us pretty much halfway through the story since there were only 2 seasons in total. As a kid, I always thought the shows I watched had a lot of episodes, but I noticed that most kid shows have way fewer episodes than one would expect, including Lilo&Stitch.

Anyway, Palkiday was once more spent nearly fully on training with a few 40-60 minute breaks between each session as well as lunch. Then after a belated dinner, we finished up the first season of Lilo&Stitch and I told everyone that there would be a week-long break before we would continue with season 2 since it was becoming a bit too much. There were some protests at first, but I remained steadfast and they eventually accepted that watching 39 episodes in four days might have been a bit much.

Now, while that may not be as much as some addicts used to binge in my last life, even then it was better to stop the onset before it becomes the norm and gets worse from there. Not that I did not have my episodes as well in the past where I binged hundreds of episodes in just a week or so, but exactly because of that I knew that it was better to prevent this from happening. At least here the matter/power was in my hands since I was the only one who could provide the anime service, so they had no way to secretly binge-watch stuff.

Well, I got off topic, but at the end of Palkiday, we agreed to push our next movie night to the end of the next week. Unlike the previous mornings, Dialday morning went a bit differently since all my Pokemon wished me happy birthday, going so far as involving nearly all Utopians in a happy birthday song for me. It was also the first time in like 4 days that I had to leave Utopia.

The first batch of my birthday guests, if they could be called such, was slated to arrive at 10:30 a.m., so I had to be at the Lilycove Teleportation Hub to welcome them. My parents showed up right on time together with Jessie, Rose, her parents, and Kinji. Mom was the first to spot me and as usual, she gave me a crushing hug while telling me how much she missed me. The others waited until she was done before talking to me.

We chose to stick around the area since the others were going to arrive as well over the next few hours and we welcomed them together each time, our group growing progressively bigger until everyone had arrived. It was 2 p.m. at that point, and our first order of business was to go for lunch.

We then strolled around Lilycove City with me once again acting as the tour guide, and we finished the stroll with a trip to the beach, where we spent an hour and a half before we left. Our reservation was at 7:30 p.m., and everyone had to freshen up before so I led them to the hotels they booked a night at. It took nearly an hour before everyone was ready, which I/we had expected and planned accordingly, so we still had 20 minutes until 7:30 p.m. More than enough time to head to the Cove Lily Hotel for our reservation.

The receptionist actually recognized me from my battle against Stephanie. She excitedly asked me for an autograph, before realizing that her behavior might be a tad unprofessional, after which she tried to make a recovery to a more professional tone. I could not help but chuckle amusedly at that byplay and gave her one of the signature cards I kept at hand, which had the receptionist break out in a bright smile. She swiftly pocketed the card before calling a server over, who led us to the private room we had booked.

Ace and Yu did not miss out on the chance to tease me, much to the amusement of everyone else. The server left after guiding us to our room and asking if we wanted to order straight away, which we rejected. He came back roughly 5 minutes later and inquired if we were ready to order, which we were. After taking our order, they brought out the appetizers as well as our drinks.

It took about 30 minutes for them to start bringing over our food, which we spent talking while some partook in the appetizers. They actually brought out a fresh batch of appetizers after noting that the first batch was gone which was definitely nice. Anyway, it took a few minutes, but eventually, everyone had their food, so we began to eat while continuing our conversations.

20 minutes later the server politely knocked on the door to inquire if we needed anything, which some used to order some more drinks. He did the same after another 20 minutes, and we ordered dessert which they brought over after cleaning up the tables. Then, at around the one-hour mark, as if a signal had been given, the server entered the room with a few more staff in tow. They had a cake, sparklers, and everything. The staff sang Happy Birthday, which my friends and family joined in.

The server placed the cake right in front of me, and let me make the first cut before taking over. The staff left after handing out cake to everyone, leaving behind a bunch of balloons and a banner. We collectively focused on eating the cake first before they began to come up to me to properly congratulate me on turning 15, starting with Mom. I naturally thanked everyone for their well wishes. The gift handout followed after that, and I put away all the gifts, planning to open them at a later date when I was alone.

We spent close to another hour simply chatting before we left the Cove Lily Hotel's restaurant. Since it was barely 9:30 p.m., we hung around the city for another two hours before we split up, with everyone leaving for their hotel (rooms). I did not bother with finding myself a room in a hotel and found a deserted place to enter Utopia after the last one had gone up to their room. The next morning I left Utopia at 9 a.m. after having breakfast with my Pokemon, though I myself refrained from eating my usual amount.

I left Utopia to meet up with everyone for our promised breakfast at 9:30 a.m., so after meeting up with everyone, we headed to one of the restaurants that offered a great breakfast buffet. After breakfast, I once again brought them around Lilycove City. It was at 2 p.m. that the first one had to leave and the others followed suit one by one. By 4 p.m. only the first group was left, but they also left after we had dinner together, officially concluding the birthday visit/break.

I took a look at my watch after the final group teleported away, and it was only a quarter past 7 p.m., so I decided to cross off the last point on my "Lilycove must visit" list, the Psychic House. I knew that the place was open until 9 p.m., so I had more than enough time for a quick visit, and the visit proved interesting enough. I asked them if they could demonstrate/explain how they were blocking memories to help with trauma.

They agreed to that after I showed them my Psychic certificate, though they did warn me that blocking memories like this was only a temporary measure since the subconscious would still "know" about the event/memory that got blocked. Their recommendation was to use this technique in combination with proper therapy to deal with the trauma since a permanent sealing of memories was more of a last-measure kind of thing.

I also tried to get a look at the temporary blocking of moves, but they refused my request citing that the previous method was used for medical/psychological treatment, so they did not mind enabling others to help others. However, the move method was purely a cash earner, so they saw no good reason to share it with others.

Now, one would think that knowing how to seal trauma(tic memories) would mean that one should be able to seal moves as well or at least get an inkling of how to do the other. However, the Psychic House staff confidently told me that the two procedures used entirely different methods since moves involved more than just memories, though that naturally would not stop me from learning it on my own if I wanted to.

I was somewhat sure that this knowledge should be available in my super library since it was Pokemon-related, but to be perfectly honest I saw no real reason to do so for now since I couldn't think of a reason to use the technique on my Pokemon. Unlike other Pokemon that might need the help due to their "limits", my Pokemon never had any problems with learning moves thanks to my help and their high potential.

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