616 CH89 (611), Final Preparations

After our return to Rose City on Arcday, Senior Ranger Elisabeth and I reported back to the Ranger HQ. There, the completion of my ranger phase was confirmed, officially concluding my practical year. The head ranger made sure that I was aware that even though my practical year was over, I still had to wait for the start of the 18th month to begin my official journey. I simply acknowledged that since I had already been aware of that.

He also informed Senior Ranger Elisabeth that she had fulfilled her final assignment and was effective immediately promoted to an Ace Ranger. He congratulated her on her promotion before dismissing us. We left the head office, and I congratulated her on her promotion. Since we had previously talked about this being the last task keeping her from her promotion, I had known that she would be promoted sometime soon.

I had just not expected that the promotion would happen this swiftly and frankly somewhat brusquely. I offered to invite her to a meal to celebrate her promotion to Ace Ranger and she accepted, so I brought her to one of the better steak houses after confirming that she was fine with the place.

We talked a bit about our plans while we ate. I told her that I would go back to Hope Town for the rest of the month, and she shared that her next destination would be Cerulean City, from where she would be heading to the closest ranger station to the border. Before we parted, I wished her all the best and told her to be careful out there as well as to take care of herself.

After leaving Rose City, I returned to Hope Town where I was planning to stay for the rest of the month. Mom as well as Dad happened to be at home already and greeted me warmly when I came home. The two had already told me a few days ago that they were planning to stay at home for the month to spend time with me before I left for my journey, so I was only slightly surprised that they were back earlier than me.

Mom had already prepared lunch, so she dragged me to the table, with Dad following along, and asked me how I was doing. I did not have it in me to tell her that I had already eaten something, so I kept quiet on that front and ate while I told them some of the stuff that happened during the patrols I had done along with Elisabeth. I told them about Baltoy's discovery as a finale.

After we were done with our lunch and moved to the living room, I asked them how their journey had been going. They shared some of the things they had been up to and I had them show me their Pokemon afterward. I wanted to check up on them since it had been some time since I had last done so, and my parents readily agreed, which was why we headed to the backyard.

Mom went first and released her whole team. Everyone seemed happy to see me, and they all greeted me warmly before letting me inspect them. I was quite literally checking up on them in addition to using my observation ability to check their status sheets. They were all in very good condition, and some of them had made good progress within the last 1-2 years, while others had made no visible progress, at least none that I could see on the limited status sheet.

The ones that had no visible progress all belonged to Mom's "older" Pokemon. Meanwhile, her "newer" Pokemon had all undergone some change. Mimikyu had broken through to the gold stage, as had Aggron, who had even advanced to the (mid) gold stage. Her Golbat had evolved to Crobat and reached the (mid) gold stage as well. On top of that, Crobat's potential had risen to blue, which was quite nice.

Magikarp had undergone the biggest change since he had evolved to Gyarados and advanced to the (high) bronze stage. Not only that, but his potential had also risen, specifically to light purple, making him the first of Mom's Pokemon with a purple shade.

The rest of her Pokemon, with the exception of Star/Starmie, all had a blue shade potential-wise. Star had the worst potential out of all her Pokemon with its deep green potential, though I was hopeful that its potential would rise soonish since I kept giving Mom supplements over the last few years.

Anyway, I gave Mom a new batch of supplements for those that had advanced/evolved since our last meeting before asking her Pokemon to move to the side so that Dad could let his Pokemon out as well. Dad's Pokemon also greeted me warmly when they saw me, and I had to say that, unlike Mom's Pokemon, quite a few of Dad's older Pokemon showed some progress as well.

Cell/Magnezone had broken through to the dark gold stage, while Agni/Arcanine had advanced to the (mid) DG stage, as had Skye/Pidgeot, which gave Dad a rather good lineup. He now has 7 dark gold stage Pokemon. 1 of those, Titan/Nidoking obviously, was at the (high) DG stage. 2 were at the (low) DG stage, while the other 4 were at the (mid) DG stage.

A lineup like this meant that Dad was now coming really close to becoming a "veteran" among Ace Class trainers, and with some more work, he could qualify for a rank up to the Elite-Class, at least Pokemon-wise, though he would need two more (high) DG stage Pokemon for that. Not that he could get promoted even if that happened since he was missing out as far as the other conditions were concerned. Still, he would be marked as a veteran-grade Ace-Class trainer, or maybe even a special grade one, which was an accomplishment in itself.

Anyway, aside from Dad's "older" Pokemon, the "new" ones had made some visible progress as well. Drago/Dragonite had advanced to the (mid) gold stage and was according to his own words not too far from advancing once more, while Magus/Mismagius had broken through to the gold stage. Obviously, like Mom's Magikarp, Dad's Magikarp had evolved to Gyarados as well, and she too was currently at the (high) bronze stage.

Similarly, her potential had risen to light purple as well, but unlike with Mom, Gyarados was Dad's third Pokemon with light purple potential. It also needed to be said that according to Dad, Gyarados could break through to the silver stage as long as they wanted to do it, but they were waiting until she stopped getting stronger.

I gave Dad a new batch of supplements for his Pokemon as well after declaring that I was done with the check-up. Still, no matter how one looked at it, it was obvious that I had surpassed both my parents or rather my Pokemon had surpassed theirs by a long shot. I mean, I currently had more (high) dark gold stage Pokemon than they had DG stage Pokemon combined.

Still, comparing them to myself was not fair for them or anyone else for that matter, and I made sure not to mention anything like that to either of them. I simply told them that their Pokemon looked good and that I was looking forward to Dad winning the Grand League as well as becoming an Elite Class trainer.

The next few days, I spent most of the day with my parents while only spending around a quarter inside Utopia. That changed at least for the day on Dialday with Tiamat/Milotic's advancement to the (high) dark gold stage. It happened roughly an hour after lunch, and I spent the rest of the day inside Utopia celebrating the fact with my Pokemon. I naturally told my parents that I would be spending the rest of the day with my Pokemon before going inside Utopia.

On Grouday we traveled to Rota since Erza's, or rather Rota's Junior League Tournament would begin on Arcday, and we were going to cheer for her just like we had cheered for Rose and Weiss. The others had agreed to show up as well, though most of the boys were only going to show up once the main event began. Still, we met up with those who agreed to come to the preliminaries on Arcday before meeting Erza and her parents at the Rota Stadium.

While the Rota Circuit was smaller than the Kanto one, it had the same format, so the preliminaries worked the same way as well. Erza easily made it through each round, and smoothly qualified for the main event on Palkiday. On Palkiday morning we met up with the "stragglers" in front of the Teleportation Hub. Once everyone had arrived, we made our way over to the stadium, where we wished Erza all the best before moving on to our spectator seats.

We practically spent the next two days there, right until Erza won the final battle and received the Rota Cup. Following her declaration as Junior Champion of Rota, we went to celebrate her new title and it was close to midnight when everyone finally split up. My parents and I went back to our home here in Rota and only returned to Hope Town after dinner.

The next morning began the 4th week of the month, and my week ended up starting with a surprise visit from Jessie. Mom warmly welcomed her before she "dragged" Jessie to the side for some "girls" talk. She happily "released" Jessie around 5 minutes later, and the two of us went up to my room to talk.

Apparently, Jessie had come over to talk about my/our Hoenn journey. While she had initially planned to accompany me to Hoenn, it appeared that she had changed her mind since she told me that she had decided to stay at my reserve for the year I was in Hoenn. She took a rain check instead and expressed her interest in traveling with me through Kanto the following year.

The reason she gave me for this decision change was that she wanted to train her Pokemon some more so that they could break through. Jessie wanted them to be at least at the gold stage because she did not want to become a burden that needed to be protected. I told her that she would not be a burden and that I along with my Pokemon could easily protect her while dealing with our own stuff, but she was determined to stick to her decision, so all I could do was accept and respect her choice.

I had to admit that I was a tad bit happy that Jessie had made this decision since it would make my travel through Hoenn quite a bit easier. Without a travel companion, I would be able to simply spend the nights inside Utopia, which would make for a much more comfortable time in the wild.

Regardless, after our talk, we set up her official employment contract since she would be working for me for the next year and I had no plans to let her work at my reserve without paying her. While we were at it, we also settled the employment contacts for the two nurses Jessie had poached for me. Jessie stayed with us until dinner before leaving, but not before promising to come back to send me off on my last day in Kanto.

The next morning I made my way to the reserve and left the "goldies"/guardians as well as all reservists at the Pokemon reserve. While some of the species/groups were still missing a few members to reach the goal I had set for them, I decided to leave them all there anyway.

The rest of the week after that passed by relatively calmly, and before I knew it my last week in Kanto arrived. The first two days nothing out of the ordinary happened, but on Giratiday, Jean/Espeon ended up advancing to the (high) silver stage during our post-lunch training session. We obviously celebrated the occasion, which was why I spent the rest of the day inside Utopia.

The rest of the week after that passed by rather quickly and before I knew it we had Grouday, which was the first day of the new/18th month. Since I was going to leave for my journey tomorrow very early in the morning, all my friends along with most of their parents and siblings came to our house for a "send-off" party.

I was happy to see them all before my journey and we definitely had fun talking about everything possible. A lot of advice was thrown out, and all of them said that the most important bit was to have fun. They all left shortly after 10 p.m. since they knew that I would be leaving early, and less than an hour after they left, I went to bed after wishing my parents a good night.

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