508 CH139 (503), Do I Seem That Reckless?

Honestly, I did not plan to keep Mothra/Butterfree's new strength a secret, and since Mothra enjoyed going around with me in her chibi form, her general prowess as a dark gold stage Pokemon would become "public" knowledge once we went to the lab on Arcday, so I went ahead and shared the news with my friends and family after breakfast the next day.

I obviously had to call my parents first. Otherwise, Mom would pout and sulk if I went ahead and shared the news with someone else first before I shared it with them, or more specifically her. The two requested that I switch to a video call before bringing out Mothra so that they could congratulate her "in person".

They heaped a ton of compliments and praises on her and Mothra, as a master of cute-fu, especially in her chibi form, acted all shy and bashful at their words. For a moment I was honestly worried that Mom would melt under Mothra's cuteness, but thankfully she managed to avoid a meltdown due to cuteness overload.

Once Mom was satisfied, we began talking about Dad's upcoming birthday in two months. The two were currently in Ferrum because they had some of the best steel-type trainers in the world there and Dad wanted to face them.

Cell/Magnezone was naturally another reason he chose to go there since he would be able to come across useful tips and tricks in a place that could reliably produce such strong specialists. Mom certainly did not mind looking into tips and tricks for her Aggron as well.

Anyway, back to Dad's birthday, according to Dad they would still be in Ferrum by the time of his birthday, so I would have to go there if I wanted to celebrate it with them. At first, they tried to say that I did not have to come over, but they changed their tune to "leaving the decision up to me" quite swiftly after I insisted on going over there just once.

The only worry they actually had was that the 15th of the 12th month happened to be a Mewday, which was a workday, but I assured them that I would simply have to work on a Kyoday in exchange for being able to take that day off.

Now I only had to successfully convince Professor Oak to actually go along with my idea. Maybe I should have talked with him first before saying that to my parents, but I chose to leave that for "Future Mikail" to worry about on Arcday. I left thinking about what kind of gift to give Dad to "Future Mikail" as well.

Anyway, soon after that we ended the call, and I posted the good news to our group chat. It did not take long for the first congratulations messages to come in. The first one to do so was actually Yu, who did it while jokingly asking how other geniuses were supposed to breathe if I kept covering them all in dust. He complained that I kept making him cough and sneeze.

I could not help but laugh when I saw him sneaking in some self-praise like that. Well, he was not totally wrong since Yu was quite talented. I just found it funny because my sense of humor was weird like that.

While I was laughing, Kinji send over some congratulations as well. It seemed my message managed to catch him while he had a signal. That was a happy coincidence and after I thanked him for his nice words, I asked him how he was doing over there.

We spent some time talking about Kinji's time on the western continent, with Yu occasionally chiming in, and as always I was glad to hear that Kinji seemed to still enjoy exploring the various areas of the western regions.

While we were "talking" more and more of our friends showed up and sent over congratulatory messages before joining in on the conversation, which widened the scope more and more. I spent the next few hours chatting with my friends and we only stopped when I declared that it was time for me to prepare lunch.

Though that did not stop Jessie from sending me a private message if I was at my dorm or back in Hope Town. Apparently, she wanted to come over after lunch to congratulate me/Mothra in person. I shared that I was in Pallet City, but told her to stay put and that I would come over to her place instead so that we could directly head into the city.

So, after having lunch with everyone inside Utopia, I headed towards Jessie's dorm with Mothra sitting on top of my head. I told her that we were coming over after we left my dorm, and she was already waiting at the entrance of her dorm building when we made it there.

Jessie called out to Mothra as soon as she saw me/us, and my girl took off from my head and flew into Jessie's waiting arms for a hug. I walked up to them, and I had to admit that I found it pretty amusing just how much Jessie was showering Mothra with compliments while hugging her like a plushie.

Well, that might have been because I could not help but imagine Mothra turning big and engulfing Jessie like she was some kind of plushie instead. It was funny because Mothra could totally do that thanks to her new talent. Truly, imagining a super large Mothra hugging Jessie like that made me chuckle, I simply could not help it.

We spent a few hours hanging out and at one point Jessie even got Mothra to take part in one of her PoryTom videos. Well, for "anonymity" sake Mothra was not in her full chibi mode during the video, but close to 1 meter in size instead. That was still slightly smaller than the average Butteerfree, but not by much.

Nonetheless, even if she was not cuteness personified, or rather pokemonified, as she happened to be when she was in her chibi mode, Mothra still looked quite impressive thanks to the various patterns on her wings and the fluff she had around her neck as well as antennae, so I had no doubts that the videos they took would go viral.

Anyway, we split after dinner, and I made my way back to my dorm with Mothra sitting on my shoulder. Once I was back, I chose to laze around for the rest of the evening while thinking about the best way to bring up my Dad's birthday and my plans in that regard to Professor Oak. I came up with some ideas and decided to play it by ear.

The next morning I made my way to the lab accompanied by chibi Mothra, and I actually had to do a minor correction to my initial thought regarding Mothra's new/current strength. I/we were not planning to keep her general strength a complete secret.

However, I still asked her to keep it a bit on the low. With her doing that, no one would be able to tell that she was at the (mid) dark gold stage unless she actively released her energy. It was enough that they knew that Mothra had reached the dark gold stage. They did not need to know more than that.

Anyhow, we made it to the lab and I moved Mothra back to Utopia once we moved past the reception and entered the inner part of the lab. The news of Mothra's new strength spread rather swiftly inside the lab, so the most obvious consequence was that a lot of my colleagues and the lab staff came up to me to congratulate me/us.

I was pretty sure that by the time lunch came around, I had gotten congratulated by nearly everyone at the lab, including Professor Oak. The professor even mentioned that I was the youngest recorded person to have trained a Pokemon to the dark gold stage.

Seeing how I had previously decided to go with the flow, I chose to use the moment he was praising me to bring up my dad's birthday and ask for the day off on that day. I naturally brought up my plan to compensate for that by working on a Kyoday instead, but he waved that off and said that it was fine.

Not only did he approve my request, but he even added that I did not need to make up for the day I was going to "miss". Naturally, I thanked the Professor profusely for his generosity, but he simply laughed/chuckled and said that spending time with the family was just as important as our work at the lab.

Before he left, he reminded me to take care of myself and to be a bit more alert whenever I went out into the wild. He warned me against taking risks simply because one of my Pokemon had broken through to the dark gold stage since that was a good way to die prematurely.

I knew that he was showing his concern for me, so I nodded seriously even though I could always hide inside Utopia if I came across any mortal danger. Nonetheless, his advice was sound and I knew that it was not a good idea to get overconfident regardless of Utopia's existence since the plan to escape to Utopia was not infallible.

Well, the rest of the time at the lab was rather normal if we disregarded the people who occasionally congratulated me. What I did not expect was to be approached by my whole security detail after leaving the lab at 6 p.m. When I said the whole security detail, I meant the 4 trainers that took turns "guarding" me.

According to them, they came over to say their goodbyes since their job was officially over now that I had a dark gold stage Pokemon that was actually on my team. They congratulated me on that and wished me the best of luck in all my future endeavors. Well, that and they too warned me against taking any unnecessary risks.

When they exhorted me to think thrice before wandering deep into dangerous areas such as the central part of the Mt.Moon Mountain Range and the Viridian Forest, I could not help but chuckle a bit bashfully.

Nonetheless, seeing how they had been shadowing and "protecting" me in the dark for all these years, I sincerely thanked them for their work, and seeing how all four were Aura Guardians, I told them about the bunny project and that they could tell Professor Varon that I sent them to help test the procedures.

That way they could help their Buneary evolve to the Aura Variant without having to pay for anything. I took down their names and wrote Professor Varon a mail in front of their eyes to show that I was serious. After I did that, the quartet started to thank me, and I waved them off telling them that they earned it.

Anyway, less than half an hour after they left, Mr. Cameron called me. He also congratulated me on reaching the next big milestone on the path of a trainer. Afterward, he confirmed that all Aura Guardians and personnel acting as my security detail had been withdrawn and that there would be no more Order or Alliance personnel shadowing me in the future.

To be perfectly honest, I was quite happy to hear that since that meant that I would no longer have to hide inside Utopia or go through all those hoops and jumps whenever I wanted to do something I did not want others to know about yet or ever for that matter.

Still, I was quite thankful when he added that my "weaker" friends such as Erza and Rose were still under protection for at least another year to ensure that no one tried to use or harm them because of me.

I expressed my heartfelt gratitude to Mr.Cameron for the support he and the order gave me, and he just told me to not stray from the good side and to keep doing what I was doing. According to him, that would be more than enough for them.

Well, he also reminded me to not take any unnecessary risk when I went out there, and seeing how everyone I talked to mention that, I really wanted to complain about the picture they had of me. What kind of reckless person did they take me for?

Yet, that's not what I did. No, instead, I released a sigh and thanked him for his concern while assuring him that I would be careful.

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