CH22 (544), The Next Phase

The Colonel left after confirming our/my safety, and Captain Bishop left right after him, but not before mentioning that we would have to actually speak with the psychological counselor before we were allowed to leave. That explained why we were led to this office in the first place instead of some other room.

Less than three minutes after Captain Bishop left, a lady entered the room and introduced herself as the psychological counselor. She asked which one of us wanted to go first, and being the gentleman that I was, I allowed Jennifer to test the waters, I meant to go first.

Jennifer certainly did not mind, and the two vanished behind the door leading to a side room. I could not help but be surprised when they came back out after just 15 or so minutes since I had expected that counseling session to take much longer than that.

Honestly, I had been ready to wait for an hour or two for my turn. Yet, Jennifer's session was done in a fraction of that time. In fact, she directly left after thanking the counselor and wishing me a good day, leaving me alone with the psychological counselor, who asked me to follow her into the counseling room.

We entered the side room the two had left just a few moments ago, and I had to say it did not look like I expected it to. There was no special therapist sofa or anything like that. Instead, there were two comfy-looking one-person couches, with a couch table between them, and the counseling lady asked me to take a seat on one of them while settling on the other one.

The counseling session that followed did not go as I expected it to as well. She first asked me quite a few seemingly completely unrelated questions, such as "What are you thinking about your practical year so far?", "What are your plans for the future?", "What's your favorite food?", "What's your favorite drink?", "What are your favorite 3 Pokemon?", "What's your favorite type?", and "Which type do you like the least?".

She had to have asked more than 50 such questions, and it took us more than ten minutes to go through them all, even though nearly all of them could be answered in either a word, a sentence, or two sentences at most.

Only after she finished those questions did she ask me about what I saw and how I felt while I saw that, which was how I expected this session to go in the first place. Still, she listened to what I said, and only asked me to elaborate twice.

Once I was done with my narration she addressed certain points, which boiled down to my desire for strength not being wrong, but her cautioning me against letting such desires/thoughts take over. She said that my sympathy towards the weak was a good trait, along with my control, which stopped me from behaving irrationally during the observation.

She pretty much said that there was nothing wrong with what I felt and decided on, but that I could and should not rush things for many reasons, chief among which was that I had all the time in the world to fulfill them. She naturally said quite a bit more than that, but to me, that was what her speech/counseling boiled down to, and I agreed with her since I thought the same.

Regardless, this part took close to another 10 minutes, and at the end of it she declared that I was fine, so after spending just 20 minutes talking to her, I was given the all-clear and allowed to leave. I naturally made my way back to Border Camp 96 after that, and predictably, as soon as I arrived, I was directed to Colonel Shelpard's office.

The colonel simply asked me how I was doing, and after I told him that I was fine, he told me that I had the rest of the day off, but that I still had to remain on campgrounds before dismissing me. I made my way to the barracks, more specifically my bed, and focused on Utopia to spend the rest of the day with my Pokemon, at least in some form.

Obviously, the vicious war/confrontation that took place, or rather was probably still taking place, ended up being the main topic of our talks. By now I was not surprised to see that none of my Pokemon seemed to be negatively affected by what they had seen, though I was not sure if that would have remained the same if they had actually been forced into such a situation.

Regardless, none of them showed any negative thoughts due to the events and instead used what they saw to fuel their determination to get stronger, which was pretty much the best outcome I could have asked for, so I did not insist on talking about it once I confirmed that they truly did not feel dismal or anything like that.

The rest of the week after that went like it did before, unaffected by the first true large-scale conflict I saw, and the rest of the month was the same as well. I ended up finishing the military phase of my practical year without any further surprises, and when Arcday, the final day of the month came around, Colonel Sheppard, Captain Box, and the other officers as well as the soldiers I served/worked with escorted me to the gate of Border Camp 96.

I loudly thanked them for sending me off and wished them all the best before giving a final salute, which they reciprocated. Afterward, I walked a certain distance from the camp before I called out Horus/Xatu, and asked him to Teleport me to Amber City. That was the closest city to the one I had to head to for the next phase of my practical year, or rather, it was the closest one Horus knew the coordinates of.

I had already received an email from the alliance that contained the information on the hospital I had been assigned to for the second phase of my practical year. I actually ended up being assigned to a military hospital and not a regular one as was the norm. However, I had to add that according to some quick online search, it appeared that the military hospital did accept regular patients as well as long as it was possible.

Furthermore, unlike the regular hospitals that the other youths were assigned to, the military hospital treated Pokemon as well if it was necessary. As for the hospital's concrete location, it was located on the outskirts of Aero City, which meant that it was really close to the coast, so it served both the regular military as well as the navy, though due to its location, the soldiers belonging to the navy were the "main patients".

Ultimately, it took Horus around four minutes to bring me to Amber City, from where I booked a teleportation to Aero City. The first thing I did there was to find myself a KFP, and on the way to the KFP I also found out more about the military hospital I was assigned to. Interestingly enough, I found out that a few weeks ago, the military hospital had been accepting more regular patients for around a month before they went back to accepting fewer regular patients.

Funny coincidence aside, I made my way to the hospital and announced my arrival at the reception desk. The lady I spoke with arranged for one of the more idle nurses to take me off her hands, and the nurse that came, then brought me around the hospital to show me some of the places I needed to know, such as the emergency room (ER), supply rooms on each floor, the employee rooms, the toilets, the cafeteria, and the office of the doctor I was assigned to.

She also explained where I had to report to each morning, along with the rules I had to pay attention to, some of which were even stricter than those at the military, though overall they were much more lax.

At 11 a.m. she led me back to the doctor's office since apparently that was when her shift started. The doctor welcomed me to the hospital before explaining to me what my tasks would be for the next two months, which was how long the duration of my hospital phase was.

My tasks comprised mostly of shadowing doctors while being assigned certain tasks that would then be live-tested once I showed a certain level of competence in them. These tasks were mostly related to basic and advanced first aid along with some basic suturing and cast techniques.

Moreover, according to Doctor Bethany, my working hours would be from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. and I would be working six days a week, from Arcday to Kyoday. That was much more relaxed than my time in the military, especially since she said that I was free to spend the rest of my time however I wanted to.

Well, she did add that she recommended that I use a few hours every day to work on the tasks I had to complete. I was given access to hospital supplies for that, so I could spend a few extra hours at the hospital to "train" if I wanted.

Afterward, they gave me the address of the hospital dorms where I would be staying for the next two months, along with simple instructions on how to head there from the hospital. The dorm was pretty close to the hospital, and it took me less than 5 minutes to walk there at a sedated pace.

I registered with the dorm manager, who had an office on the ground floor, and he gave me the keys to my dorm room. It also appeared that there was a curfew for occupants below the majority, and since I was neither an official trainer nor had I turned 17, I was included in that group. Not that the curfew would affect me in any real way since I was rarely out after 11 p.m.

Regardless, I took the keys and went up to the third floor. The dorm manager told me that my room happened to be the last unoccupied room on this floor, so it was easy to find the only unlabeled door. It was a quaint little room with a bed, a desk, and a closet. There was no kitchen or toilet/bathroom. The community kitchen was on the ground floor, while each floor had a shared bathroom/toilet for each gender.

I took a look at the men's bathroom/toilet and thankfully the place appeared as sanitary as it could get, which was probably because everyone at the dorm worked at the hospital, so they knew the importance of cleanliness. I checked out the community kitchen as well even though I had no real plans to use it since I would either eat at Utopia or outside.

After that, I went out to scout out the city, and due to the slightly remote location of the military hospital and consequently the dorm, it took me about 25 minutes to arrive at the city center at an ordinary/sedated pace. Naturally, the first thing I did was check whether my favorite/usual restaurants had branches here at Aero City or not.

I had already found one KFP, and I located another two branches in different parts of the city, along with 4 KFCs, and one branch of "Aldini's". Interestingly enough, I managed to find a Krusty Krab branch, which was the first time I saw one of these since my visit to Pumello Island years ago. In fact, this was the first time I saw one of these in Kanto, and I naturally went there for lunch to check it out.

While ordering a batch of Krabby Burgers I asked the cashier when they started to expand to Kanto, and he shared that the owner decided to expand to Kanto just last year. It appeared that the Orange Archipelago and Kanto were for now the only regions that had Krusty Krab restaurants, though there were only five branches in Kanto for now, with each one being in a "coastal" city.

The Krabby Burger was just as good as I remembered, and I added the Krusty Krab to the list of places/restaurants I would regularly visit. After lunch, I strolled around the city for another hour before heading back to my dorm.

Once there, I locked the door and made sure everything was clean/clear before heading inside Utopia. I went around Utopia, visiting my Pokemon, and spending a few minutes with them to ask them how they were doing before moving on to the next one. Though most of them tagged along, before long our group had grown rather big, and after I was done visiting everyone we moved to the central zone, which was my area.

We hung out for a bit before it was time for their evening training, and luckily enough, Squirtle ended up advancing to the (high) iron stage during the training session.

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