Helping out

My new energy reserves were a godsend in this way as I could do much much more before they ran dry. In a way it also made me suspicious about why there was no information that said if professor Oak could actively use his aura or not. I literally couldn't forget I had the stuff after I got this new ability as the sheer amount left me nearly buzzing like I was hopped up on caffeine. I refused to believe that the good professor wasn't a natural aura user with so much in him.-

Yet despite looking through records of his feats not one even mentioned the stuff which felt off to me , not like it was missing per se so much as like he was hiding it for some reason. For the life of me though I couldn't understand why. With his level of power he was practically untouchable so what was the point of keeping such a thing secret? Suspicions aside I was loving the freedom that this ability granted me as I no longer needed to be stingy with my energy to make it last.-

Not to say I wasn't using the energy efficiently but I wasn't squeezing every last drop of potential out of it like I had to before. It simply wasn't necessary at this point and was more work than I wanted to do for a small efficiency increase. Admittedly as we traveled I didn't spot very many people or pokemon that had been missed in the entire path Groudon left behind. Or perhaps it might be better to say that there weren't many to begin with. You would need to be pretty unlucky or have terrible perception to not notice Groudon coming well in advance and as a result get out of the way.-

The really sad part was that Groudon didn't even move that fast relatively speaking but due to it's immense size covered a lot of ground with each step it took. In more than a few places I was able to spot crushed remains or rather what was them of them. Like everything that walks Groudons footsteps were uneven at parts as different steps had different weight distribution to them. As a result on some of the "light" footprints the bodies hadn't been liquified or turned into paste and had actual noticeable pieces remaining.-

I took care to avoid those as it was a waste of time to try and recover the bodies as even if they had a few identifiable pieces the rest of it was almost always ruined. I wasn't so out of touch with emotions to fail to understand that receiving the remains might be even more devastating than not ever getting that confirmation. Unless one was delusional they would eventually come to accept that their loved one wasn't going to come back and slowly move on. Thanks to how clear the path was my team and i moved fast and eventually got close to Mauville by the time it was getting dark.-

I called Watson up to let him know we were nearby and shortly afterward someone came to get us. When I went to ball up my team though I was told that only Gaia should be put away as the rest could be helpful. She was unhappy about it but I could understand that her massive size made delicate tasks hard for her. It was just as bad as I had imagined as nearly every part of the city had been filled with people that either had no where to go and no way to help or injured that were getting or needed treatment.-

The ones that still needed treatment were the sort who had less threatening injuries like broken bones or cuts and scrapes. Obviously a broken arm or leg was less urgent than saw a piece of shrapnel a centimeter from someone's heart or ruptured organs. I reached the central area of the city that had the people in charge of this whole operation rushing about and giving out orders as necessary. I even noticed a good few individuals with the healing ability using it to stabilize wounds or keeping people alive during frankly dangerous surgeries. -

Yeah it was so bad that that the surgeons and doctors had to operate in less than sterile conditions. At the head of all this was the oldest Joy I have ever seen as all her hair was silver and she had deep wrinkles and was so weak in the body that she needed to remain seated at all times but gods damn did she have a voice on her. "GET THOSE SALINE DRIPS TO SECTION 3! WHERE ARE THOSE POTIONS WE WERE PROMISED!?" she was loud and controlled the chaos like it was an art.-

She spotted my team and me the moment we entered the area and ordered us to different places immediately. Vulcan was fitted with a special two person stretcher set up and set to ferry the injured as necessary. Rune was a bus boy for whatever supplies they needed and Yani was the same with a key difference that made me VERY unhappy. She was told to use her healing move and the order even specified exactly which one was meant. This meant somebody had spilled the beans on the move before I could set up my plan and I was pretty sure this meant i was going to have a target on my back.-

"Lets make one thing clear boy , I don't like you. You are violent and brutal and stand in opposition to everything my clan stands for. We seek to preserve life good or bad and you take it like you are judge , jury and executioner. Why the gods saw fit to give someone like you the gift of healing I do not know but that is the only reason i will tolerate your presence here AM. I. CLEAR?" she said clear disdain and I nodded calmly.-

"Good now go put your gift to use and stop polluting my air." she said dismissing me and I went to a nearby sanitation station to clean up. I wasn't bothered by her attitude or what she said because she wasn't wrong. I took life as I saw fit and with that alone I qualified to be on the Joy clans shit list. Add on my healing ability and I might as well be spitting in their faces regardless of how much good I do. Believe me when I tell you that while the Joys were mostly peaceful they could get VERY mean if they didn't like you.-

Their closeness with the Jenny clan only made this so much worse as it meant that you were put on a zero grace list. Do something illegal and you got punished for it fully if they found out. Thanks to Birch I knew that the only reason I wasn't on this list was because most of my actions were in some way or another helpful. Like me wiping out team Magma for example , that team was no longer a problem it was gone , done , finished. This dropped crime rates by a VERY large amount throughout the whole region.