CH91 (455), New Direction Determined

The day after my birthday party the third week began, and it was a pretty calm week right up until I got a message from the lab on Palkiday. Actually, I got two messages, one from James and one from Carl. Both contained the same content, just that the delivery was different.

James' message simply stated that the Leafeon project had entered the conclusion phase due to a successful trigger test and that the project would be concluded once the other groups were done with their potential triggers as well.

Our Glaceon project had gone through the same closing phase, so I was not surprised by that. However, unlike what happened with us, I did not think that another one of the other Leafeon groups could "one-up" this one since according to Carl's words, the successful trigger was just as cheap as the one that "one-upped" our Arctic Heart.

Similarly, it was useless outside of functioning as an evolution trigger, which honestly was not a problem since the project goal, from the very beginning, was to create a cheap evolution trigger, so they merely did what they were asked to do.

Regardless, it was expected that the Leafeon project would be concluded within the next 1 to 3 months, so I would be back at the lab before that happened. James did not mention whether the next part of our Eeveelution project had been settled, and neither did Carl.

I was curious if they had chosen the steel Eeveelution or not, so I wrote both to ask them about it. Carl told me that they had not been told about the next phase yet, and James told me to wait until I was back at the lab, so I was forced to stay curious until the end of my vacation.

By the end of the week, I had pushed the new project path to the back of my mind and focused on enjoying the rest of my vacation. I spent the next week either with my parents or with my Pokemon, and even my personal training as well as projects had taken a back seat in favor of spending time with those two groups.

A nice surprise was when I noticed that Togepi had finished her second round of limit-breaking while checking her status on Grouday. The day after that, the final week of my break began, and Mothra/Butterfree made sure that I finished my break on a high note.

On Kyoday, I checked the status of everyone since it was the last day of the month, and I was really happy when I saw that Mothra had actually finished her first round of limit breaking. That was an awesome way to finish the break and a great way to start the new month.

I said new month and not the new academic year because that one did not start on the next day since the first day of the 20th month fell onto Grouday. Nonetheless, Grouday was the last day of my break, so I said my goodbyes to my parents and made my way back to Pallet City after dinner.

I had to do some quick cleaning to get rid of the dust that had accumulated in my dorm room during the close to three months that I was gone. Once I was done with cleaning I decided to take a look at my Rattata project since I had been neglecting that one a bit during the last few weeks.

While nothing groundbreaking had happened, there were a few pretty good developments during the last two or so months. The project group had grown by 3 to 239 Rattata due to 3 of the younglings that had grown out of the Stageless phase, while the number of second affinity holders had grown by 4 to 175.

Unfortunately, none of them belonged to the fire group, but they at least had a member joining the standard fire affinity group. Another member managed to reach the (high) bronze stage, even if it was a member with a (weak) fire affinity.

The water group gained two new members, and one of them had their affinity rise to a standard one. However, no one managed to raise their strength, so the number of (high) bronze Rattata in the water group remained at 2.

The grass group was kind of the opposite of the water group. Their number rose by 1 to 54, but none of their members managed to raise their affinity to a standard one. Yet, two of their members managed to reach the (high) bronze stage.

The electric group was probably the most balanced out of the four. They gained 1 new member, growing to 39. One of them attained a standard affinity, and another one managed to reach the (high) bronze stage.

Honestly, the Rattata project was making pretty good progress and I was hopeful, that I could start the "real" propagation of Rattata variants by the end of this academic year. I also checked up on the Bellflower project, but it was still slow going.

The flowers had only grown by another centimeter, and I was really wishing they would grow a bit faster. Nonetheless, at least they were growing, which was good since it showed that my plan seemed to be working for now. We would see how good it was working when the flowers were done growing and began to bloom.

Arcday signaled the start of the second week, even though it was only the second day of the new month. It was also the day my second academic year at the lab officially began, along with my second year at the Pallet City Trainer School as a part-time student.

Due to that, the first place I went to after leaving the dorm was not the lab, but the Pallet City Trainer School. The moment I entered my new classroom on the second floor, the others that were already there began talking rather excitedly among each other. I was somewhat of a celebrity due to my achievements and the fact that I was interning at Oak Labs, along with the school-skipping rights that came with it.

That they had only seen me a handful of times during the last academic year was probably also one of the reasons why their excitement had not lessened all that much. A few of them came up to me to talk to me and I did not refuse since I was not an asshole that thought that all of them were beneath me. No matter how tenuous it was, we were classmates, so I answered their queries to the best of my abilities.

I politely refused to answer any lab-related questions, but I did answer personal ones such as who my current strongest Pokemon was, which I naturally answered with Mothra/Butterfree. I had to chuckle a bit when I earned a few incredulous looks, though some did nod probably those that had seen some footage of Mothra or bothered looking me up.

Nonetheless, I did tell them that Horus/Xatu and Stan/Gyarados were my second strongest ones. Still, I did not elaborate on just how strong those three were aside from saying that they were at the (high) gold stage. I was not sure if telling them that those three could deal, or at least go blow-to-blow with dark gold stage Pokemon would be too much for them.

The difference between us was already pretty confidence-blowing, so I did not want to add to that. I mean, worst case they felt really bad about themselves, which I certainly did not want, and in the best case, they would think I was lying, which I did not want as well since a negative reputation was something no one wanted.

Anyway, I was saved by the bell, or rather our homeroom teacher who entered a few moments before the bell rang. After that, the sequence of last year pretty much repeated itself, and about two hours later I left the school with my new books, my new time/lessons schedule, as well as the dates I had to actually show up at the school.

Naturally, everything was stored inside my bag and I directly headed for the lab instead of stopping by my dorm room. I only missed about three and a half hours of my usual morning at the lab in total, and there was still more than an hour until the usual lunch break. James saw me enter and waved me over, so I headed to his side first before moving toward the work table I saw Carl and Sibel working.

"James, how's it going?" I asked him after arriving at his side. "Can't complain," he said with a shrug. "How was your break?" he asked in return, and I returned his answer in kind.

"Can't complain as well," I answered with a shrug. "I relaxed, visited Alola, did some private research into something that managed to rouse my interest, and relaxed some more," I gave him the short version of my break.

"Oh, really, anything of interest?" he asked but I shook my head. "Nah, I dug into legends and stories on one of the local species that I have a member of. Nothing we are working on here at the lab," I returned without going into detail, which earned me a nod from James.

"So, how's the progress with the Leafeon project? How far have you gotten with tying up the rest of the project?" I asked curiously. "It's going pretty good", he began with a smile.

"Another group managed to finish their undertaking, though the attempt failed. Nonetheless, only two groups are left, and once those are done we can all start working on the new study direction. I'd give it another month, or two at the latest," he finished confidently and I nodded along in understanding.

"That's great news," I started before going onto the part I was truly interested in. "So, from the way you worded that, I am inferring that our new research direction has been determined. What kind of Eeveelution did Professor Oak end up choosing?" I asked what I had been wondering ever since the topic came up before my break.

"You'll be happy to hear that he chose the potential steel Eeveelution as our research direction. I mean, because that was the one you recommended as well," James shared and I could not help but smile hearing that the direction I favored ended up being the one we would be focusing on.

Though, I did not think that my recommendation was enough to make the professor choose the steel Eeveelution. It was more likely that he, similarly to myself, believed that the steel Eeveelution would be the one with the highest chance to succeed in the shortest amount of time.

Well, that, or my opinion truly was the deciding factor, which would have been pretty cool. Regardless of what the reason was, I was happy with the result so I thanked James for sharing the news with me.

Afterward, I made my way to the work table that Carl, as well as Sibel, were at and greeted them both along with everyone else there, which was half of everyone working on our Eevee project. After a brief exchange of "How are you" as well as "How is it going", they brought me up to speed, and I began joining them in finishing the current evolution trigger everyone was working on.

Obviously, just because I joined the group, did not mean that the trigger would suddenly become complete, so the first week ended and the trigger was still not done. The next week was pretty much the same.

However, I did have a personal highlight on Giratiday thanks to Enji/Arcanine. That evening, Enji came up to me tail wagging in excitement, and told me that he had reached the (high) gold stage.

Obviously, I was really happy to hear that and hugged him before ruffling his fur as well as patting his head. We did celebrate his progress, and that bit of good news was enough to keep me happy for the rest of the week.

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