9 Chapter 9: Tradition
Regarding Charlotte, as if on purpose, I couldn't see her again at the Pokemon Center, I think she was kind of sorry for me because of the whole situation with Fletchinder, but from what the Nurse Joy told me, after she recovered she said something about continuing to train before trying to challenge Brock, so I think sooner or later I'll see her again.
With all those experiences and knowledge acquired, I could hardly realize that the days passed and finally my birthday arrived, along with the possibility of getting my Trainer license and finally starting my Pokémon journey.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The morning of my tenth birthday started like any other day, I barely managed to get up when the first rays of the sun entered through my window, at first I wanted to stay asleep and maybe rest for the rest of the day, since I felt exhausted by my time at the Pokémon center, which although it was brief I can say that it was more tired than I imagined, I never really asked her directly but definitely whatever the Nurse Joy earns isn't enough, I thought to myself as I lazily got up and headed for the showers.
Just as I put my hand on the doorknob to go out into the hallway, the door burst open which made me fall noisily to the floor, almost as if it were her own birthday, Mother Clarisse entered with the happiest smile I have ever seen her and with a two-tiered chocolate cake with 10 lit candles on top of it, who, when he sees me on the floor, almost drops in shock: "Excuse me, Max! I was so excited for your birthday that I forgot to play as you asked me to," she said somewhat with her head down as if she recognized her mistake: "but come on! It's a special occasion! Finally my boy is 10 years old!" she said, almost screaming as she raised the cake as if it were a trophy with a restored happy spirit.
I could only stand up and put a smile, as an adult one forgets the excitement of having a birthday with time, I think the happiest birthdays are usually when we are still children, so feeling grateful I went to hug Mother Clarisse and thanked her for everything she has done for me this week and maybe more time if we count the years that have passed. I take care of the former owner of this body.
Mother Clarisse looked surprised for a few moments and then with tears in her eyes and a calm smile she hugged me back and said, "I know things are a little weird because of your memory loss Max, but I hope you know that no matter what happens you can always count on me, so why don't we eat the cake and then let's get your Trainer license?"
It was a pleasant surprise to hear that, in all the week that I have been in this world I never saw Mother Clarisse leave the orphanage, I imagined that she always had a lot of work to do or she was simply a hermit: "Thank you very much, I know you don't like the idea of me leaving but I appreciate you doing this for me, I'm a little nervous and being with you calms my nerves," I said with a grateful smile as we sat down for him to blow out the candles and eat some of the cake.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
After a nice meal and a pleasant chat Mother Clarisse finally let me finish getting ready and we started walking to the Pokemon Gym in Pewter City, on the way Mother Clarisse filled me with stories of how many orphans when they received their license and their first Pokemon rushed to face the leader of the Gym or went fully to Viridian Forest to train their new partner, she was pretty clear in warning me not to do either of those two things, based on what she told me it's always smarter to level up your first Pokémon by pitting other novice Trainers in town against the weak Pokémon that were around.
That got me thinking that maybe the Ekans that ate Pidgey could have a low level, I remember perfectly the location of where those Oran Berrys were, so after having some experience and if my new Pokemon has the right type I could go find it and settle our scores, even if I don't find that Ekans, the Oran Berrys would be very useful and would help me to have more resources apart from the Trainer Starter Kit.
Snapping me out of my thoughts, Mother Clarisse shook me a little by the shoulder and said, pointing with her hands, "We've arrived Max, welcome to the Pewter City Pokémon Gym! One of the most famous in the entire region, here they got their first very famous Pokemon Trainers who went on to win the Indigo Plateu, and even here the previous champion of Kanto-Johto, the legendary Jonathan Jones, got his initial!" She said the latter as she puffed out her chest proudly as if she had won the championship herself.
I stopped for a moment to admire the structure of the building, it was quite large and had many decorations at the entrance that looked like precious stones, so I found out in the last week this gym has not been renovated for long, previously when the leader of the Gym was Flint the decoration was very minimalist, it seemed more than anything like a kind of cave that some Pokémon dug with a lot of force and a rather rudimentary entrance, but everything changed when his son Brock inherited the gym, he is quite known for being a peacock when it comes to his personality, apparently his interest in girls is even greater than how he was in the anime and he does not hesitate to show how great his gym is by making it shine and look like a thriving place, I guess to break the stigma that rock Trainers are brutes who only spend their time climbing mountains and full of dirt.
Upon entering the gym we could observe a small reception with a boy of approximately 16 years old happily attending the entrance who when he saw us raised his hand excitedly signaling for us to approach: "Hello, my name is Junior! I am the right hand of the leader of this gym and I am currently covering the position of receptionist for some particular situations, how can I help them?" she said while pausing her gaze for a moment on Mother Clarisse, which in a way made me a little uncomfortable.
Clearing my throat to get his attention I introduced myself in front of the boy: Hello my name is Maxwell and the person who accompanies me is called Clarisse, we are here because I just turned 10 years old and I came to process my Trainer license and with the intention of obtaining my first Pokemon" the boy turned his gaze towards me and trying to sound professional he explained to me calmly: "Of course, we always welcome promising young talents," he said before turning his gaze to Clarisse and putting on a complicated expression: "Excuse me, it's not that I want to change the subject, but I don't know her somewhere?"
Mother Clarisse just smiled and said calmly: "I'm one of the caretakers of the orphanage in the city, you've probably seen me walking around, now if it's not too much trouble could we go ahead with little Max's request?"
The receptionist made a face of wanting to keep thinking about where Clarisse was familiar until he gave up and turned to look at me: "you're right, excuse me, Max, please accompany me to the continuous room, there a professional will give you a small general exam and a quick psychological test".
Following the Young Trainer we entered a small room that was on the left side of the reception, there was a small classroom with approximately 20 chairs in which you could see two other children sitting waiting and in the background next to an old blackboard was an old man with a Gardevoir to his right.
"Looks like you're in luck, you won't have to wait long as these other two kids are coming to take the test to get their Trainer license too, please take a seat and in a few minutes the teacher will give them instructions," said the receptionist in a cheerful tone.
I quickly sat down in the nearest chair near the back of the room, the other two children looked at me for a moment with little interest until the teacher got up from his chair and introduced himself: "Good afternoon young promises, my name is Ronald and I will be your examiner today, before I begin I will explain to you how you will be evaluated to see if you are ready to receive your license and your first Pokemon"
"To begin with, I will give you a small exam of approximately 3 pages, in this exam you will only be evaluated your common knowledge of language and mathematics, with this we make sure that you know the basics before going out to explore the world and do not fall into scams by merchants when collecting your rewards or that you can properly manage your finances," said the last with a very serious tone.
"After you finish the written part you will come to my desk where Gardevoir will give you a small evaluation, don't worry, I tell you beforehand that your memories will not be read to you in any way, Gardevoir will only analyze your feelings and evaluate if you are emotionally mature enough to become Trainers" this last part made the two children in front of me a little nervous, so to calm the atmosphere a bit I raised my hand and asked: "Excuse me Mr. Ronald, what if Gardevoir judges us as unfit to be Trainers? Will we no longer be able to start our journey?"
Master Ronald just gave a loud laugh and said: "I always get asked that, you don't have to be worried, basically the Gardevoir exam is just to make sure that we are not giving Pokemon to disturbed young people, it is very rare for someone not to pass the exam and even when it is the case you can try again in a few months so you can rest assured"
With the doubts cleared up, the teacher approached our chairs and passed us the exams in an orderly manner, which after having given them a look I noticed that they would not take me more than 5 minutes to answer, actually the mathematical part only covered the basics: addition, subtraction, multiplication, division and as a final question to get extra points we were asked to get percentages, From then on the language part was even simpler, they only asked us to do a small essay of why we wanted to be Trainers, apparently this world has only one globalized language, so the language part was the same in all regions, which for someone from a world with more than 7000 languages was a relief.
After reviewing my answers and taking a look at the essay, I approached the teacher Ronald to grade them, I could see his surprise when I finished answering very quickly especially after looking at the worried faces that the other two children had while answering their exams, the teacher with a serious expression began to read my answers and then smiled and said to me with a surprised gesture: "I think you just broke a record boy, no one had finished these exams so early and with a perfect grade, you can tell that you put a lot of effort into your education, now please come to Gardevoir so that I can take the exam"
With some nervousness I contemplated Gardevoir, I particularly like this Pokemon a lot, it has a good combination with the Psychic-Fairy type and is one of the few Pokemon that I always used in my team, but now having it in front of me I could understand why Mother Clarisse was not enthusiastic about the idea of a Psychic Pokemon analyzing me, It's really terrifying that a Pokémon can scrutinize your mind and not be able to do anything to defend you, there are few humans who have psychic abilities and unfortunately I don't think I'm one of them, so it's in my plans to have a Pokémon of this type.
With some caution I asked the teacher, "Excuse me, I'm a little curious, is the ability to read Gardevoir's feelings because of his Psychic type or his Fairy type?" the examiner, noticing that I was trying to buy time before gathering courage and approaching his Pokemon, said to me in a relaxed tone: "It's actually because of the Fairy type, the Psychic energy feels very different, if you ever have a Psychic Pokemon you will quickly identify the feeling, now, don't be afraid and get closer to Gardevoir, believe me, it will be fast and Gardevoir is a very kind Pokemon" almost as if it was his signal Gardevoir smiled at me and took a step back almost as if telling me that I could get closer at my pace.
Swallowing a little and with some concern that Gardevoir would overreach and scrutinize in my head I approached the Pokémon quite cautiously, when he saw me he only closed his eyes and the red crest on his chest lit up, a warm sensation came to my body, I felt quite calm and even somewhat happy, It reminded me of how I felt the first time seeing Mother Clarisse, it's like a feeling of affection and protection.
After a few minutes Gardevoir opened his eyes and turned to look at his Trainer and then nodded his head, Master Ronald just smiled and said to me in a cheerful tone: "Congratulations, you passed the tests, please stop by Junior so that they can give you your license and your Trainer starter kit".
Feeling a weight less on me I almost jumped for joy, thanked the teacher and left the room quickly to the frustration of the other children who were still immersed in their exams, when I opened the door to go back to the reception I could see an excited Junior next to Mother Clarisse posing for a photo with a rudimentary photographer's camera, the boy seemed to be in seventh heaven for having a picture with Mother Clarisse, that seemed very strange to me, although Mother Clarisse is very pretty with her brown hair that boy far from seeming to be attracted to her seemed more than anything to admire her.
Noticing that I was entering the reception the two turned to look at me and Junior said to me in a cheerful tone "Apparently you did well Mr. Maxwell, please come to the reception so that I can finish capturing your data to issue your license and that I give you your kit" feeling somewhat self-conscious by that extreme show of respect I slowly approached the reception for the amusement of Mother Clarisse who only He covered his mouth slightly, trying to stifle his laughter.
Once I was in front of Junior he proceeded to ask me: "Now, Mother Clarisse has already given me most of her information Mr. Maxwell, we only have the last name pending, as you will have already explained the orphans who turn 10 years old can choose the last name that suits them the most, please tell me the last name that you would like us to put on your license" said the receptionist again with great respect.
I thought for a few moments, I really have a hard time remembering my previous name, so I felt a bit lost with the last name, I turned to look at Mother Clarisse and asked her somewhat embarrassedly: "would you be very happy if you could use your last name Mother Clarisse do you think you can?" Mother Clarisse hearing that almost started to cry again today, but with a complicated expression she told me: "I would be very happy to give you my surname Max, but we have a tradition in our orphanage, most of the orphans who become Trainers adopt the surname Jones for good luck and it is not that I am very superstitious but those who did reached high places in the Indigo Plateu and even traveled to other regions in these last years".
Noticing that he had his reasons for not giving me his last name I decided to follow his advice and turned to look at the now excited Junior who was impatiently waiting for my answer and said, "Okay, from now on I will be known as the Trainer and future champion Maxwell Jones."
