CH114 (344), One Trip After Another (4)

The next day started the second week of the 17th month, also signaling the start of the second week of the official 3-month long "school" break I had until my high school life, or rather the tertiary education circle began.

I still had to take care of that as well, along with finally sending out my applications for my internship, but that could still wait for a week or two. I wanted to finish adding all newbies first before I began focusing on the next phase of my education.

As I said, it was Arcday, and dad was already gone by the time I woke up and went down for breakfast. He insisted on following his weekly schedule despite not having the usual working schedule due to being a freelancer right now, but that was okay.

Dad being a disciplined person was much better than him being an irresponsible person after all. Anyway, dad's diligence aside, Mr. Cameron called me shortly after I was done with breakfast. He informed me that I could visit the Tyrogue habitat on Mewday, meaning tomorrow, and the Togepi habitat on Dialday.

Also, apparently his meeting yesterday was with Oak Labs, and he told me that my visit to the Charmander habitat/breeding ground on Grouday stood, and he managed to raise the departure time from 5 p.m to 6 p.m.

That only left the visit to the Mienfoo habitat unscheduled, at least among those I had settled on, and I used the occasion to inform Mr. Cameron that I would also like to visit the Buneary and Pancham habitats. That decision left me with 573 AP, but I would later decide what I was going to do with those academy points.

After that conversation over the phone, I told mom that I was going to spend some time with Gible and went back up to my room. I locked the door and entered Utopia, where I found Gaia/Nidoqueen talking with Gible.

It was a pretty adorable scene, with Gaia sitting on the ground and with Gible sitting between her legs while leaning on her belly. Gible was animatedly talking, while Gaia would occasionally chip in, and she would sometimes pat his head, which Gible seemed to enjoy.

I saw Seb/Nidoking chilling/sitting not far from them, leaning against one of the trees while keeping an eye on the two. I decided to take a photo before I made my presence known, and only after I had shot a picture or two did I announce my arrival.

"Good morning Gible, Gaia, and Seb as well" I greeted them. Gible tried to stand up, but I waved it off, so Gaia pat his head and had him keep sitting. I made my way across the two and sat down right in front of them.

"I see you've met Gaia and Seb," I said to Gible who excitedly nodded his head, moving nearly his whole body with the movement. It was a bit funny to see, and I released a good-natured chuckle seeing his enthusiasm.

"I'm happy you've taken a liking to them, especially since we are going to introduce you to everyone else as well after this," I informed him, and Gible looked a bit nervous at the prospect.

Gaia and I assured him that everything would be fine, and Seb said one or two encouraging words as well. Gible calmed down after our assurance that everything would be fine, and that we would make sure no one got hurt by accident.

After that, he was rather excited to meet the rest of the team, so we stood up and made our way to neutral ground, also known as the center of Utopia, which was just the area around my house.

I called all team members over since I decided to introduce him to the team first before introducing him to the rest as well. Better start small, even if small in this case was a bit more than 40 Pokemon. That was still better than the 160 or so it would have been otherwise.

Anyway, everyone trickled in, and I introduced Gible to them. I mentioned his talent as well as the troubles it caused him, as well as the fact that he could now learn how to control it.

I asked them to take care of him and to make sure they don't accidentally hurt themselves through him until he got his talent under control, since that would somewhat ironically hurt Gible if they got hurt because of him. I obviously left out the "somewhat ironically" bit.

Gible looked pretty surprised seeing or rather being introduced to so many team/family members. He looked even more surprised when he heard that there were more Pokemon living inside Utopia that he was going to see later on.

As usual, my Pokemon were a lively bunch and the older ones proved that they were pretty dependable. I saw Horus/Xatu making sure that the Eevee did not hurt themselves during their overenthusiastic greeting.

Thanks to their natural endurance most of the members at the (high) silver stage had no problem with touching Gible gently without hurting themselves even if they took no precautions.

Those that noticed a prick simply used their energy to reinforce their skin, using a replica of a low-key non-combat version of Protect. Only the Eevee, Bruce/Zubat, and Eggy/Salandit needed help with their safety.

In the end, we spent a few hours like this just talking among ourselves, with Gible spending some time with everyone, before playing with the "young" group. I also handed out food and drinks to everyone during that time.

I took all photos according to our tradition and then told everyone that I was leaving Gible to them before I left Utopia since lunchtime had crept up on us. I obviously only left after handing out their lunch first.

Mom asked me during lunch how it went with Gible and I told her that it went pretty well. I asked her how Aron's training was going in return, and she happily began to talk about their training, and the progress they were making.

While listening to her one would think that Aron had been with her forever, even though he only joined her a week ago. Still, I loved her as she was, and her enthusiasm was one of mom's strong points, so I listened to her narration with a smile.

At least Aron seemed to like her well enough from what she was saying, and I was sure she was telling the truth, mom was a pretty loveable person after all. She grew on you as long as you let her, which could probably be misunderstood somehow, but I meant it in a 100% nice manner.

Anyway, I spent the rest of the day between spending time with mom and looking up some more information on the professors of the northern continent. While I had already mostly made my decision, there was no harm in making sure it was truly the right one.

I left the decision of what to do with the rest of the day to my Pokemon, and most of them simply went with the usual routine of training and relaxing. Before I knew it was dinner time, and dad said something really interesting.

"I went back to Hope Town to check up on our house today since we are going to move back there for the duration of Mikail's tertiary education," he said after mom asked him how his day was.

"Oh, how was it?" Mom asked him curiously and I looked at him in curiosity as well.

"The house is fine, and it simply needs a thorough cleaning before we moved back in. The garden only needs a slight weeding but is otherwise in order thanks to the wild Pokemon we allowed to live there.

They made sure to do their best to maintain our property, so other than looking a bit wild the rest is just as we left it," he shared and mom looked happy hearing that.

"That's great news, I was worried that my flowers would all be dead by now since it has been some time since we last went back to Hope Town," mom said and I had to agree.

It had truly been some time since we went back, and now that I thought about it I kind of felt nostalgic. I wondered how the little water-variant Sentret was.

It has been nearly 9 years since I first saw it, and close to 6 years since I last saw it. It had probably already evolved to Furret by now, that or if I went a bit morbid in my thoughts, it could have also died somehow.

Maybe I could casually look for it once we were back in Hope Town. I might even get to fulfill my vow from that day. Anyway, dad brought me out of my musings by addressing me.

"Say, son, have you already decided which trainer school you want to apply to?" He asked curiously and mom watched me attentively as well, waiting for my answer.

"Not really," I denied with a shake of my head. "I looked through a few, but I have yet to decide which one I want to study. I think I'll wait until the case of my internship is determined before applying so that I can choose one that is close to the laboratory I'll intern at," I finished and mom nodded while saying *hmm*, and *hmm*.

"That's a good idea, but don't wait too long. The application phase ends sometime around the middle of next month I think," dad warned and I acknowledge his warning.

We talked as we ate, and before we knew it, all the food was gone. Seems like we got too into our talk since we usually noticed how much food was left. Nonetheless, after dinner, we sat in the living room, and let the news run while we played some good old board games.

We kept playing until late in the night, and by the time I went up it was already after 11 p.m, and by the time I fell asleep, it had to have been close to midnight. The next morning I woke up slightly early, a bit before 8 a.m, and I left our house at around 8:30 a.m to make my way to the academy.

Mr. Cameron asked me to be at his office at 9 a.m, so I was planning to be on time for my visit to the Tyrogue habitat. I left a bit earlier just in case something happens that cost me time, but nothing like that happened and I made it to the academy gate by 8:45 a.m.

Seeing how I still had 15 minutes, and not wanting to show up early since Mr. Cameron had specified 9 a.m, this time around, I made my way to his office at a leisurely pace. I spent close to 5 minutes waiting in front of his office door and knocked on it at sharp 9 a.m.

He called me in, and after exchanging greetings, he called out his Gallade, who teleported me to the Tyrogue habitat. A Hitmonform was waiting for us, and Gallade entrusted me to him before leaving.

Hitmonform informed me that he would be leading me to the habitat's core area, where the Tyrogue were generally hanging out, and that he would remain by my side for the duration of my stay today. He also informed me that I could stay until 7 p.m, and had to leave after that.

We began heading toward our destination, and I decided to ask him something I had thought of yesterday. I told him about Tyson/Machoke and asked him if Tyson could spar/fight against any of the resident Pokemon that were around his strength level since finding so many friendly and strong fighting types was not easy.

This would really help with fulfilling Tyson's evolution condition, and thankfully Hitmonform said that there was no problem with Tyson issuing an open sparring invitation. However, no one would force anyone to accept his challenge, so if and how many accepted his challenge depended on his luck.

I thanked Hitmonform with a smile for his permission. I honestly doubted that there would be no Hitmonchan, Hitmonlee, or Hitmontop that were itching to test themselves against a strong-looking Machoke.

Anyway, we finally stopped walking, and I could see quite a few Tyrogue hanging around the area we stopped at. They were all doing their thing, most of them either sparring or training, but our arrival attracted the attention of quite a few of them since I could see them looking over at us.

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