Chim

I'm surprised it took me this long tbh.

Claude’s group “Challenge it is,” the researcher replied. “Follow me.” The friendly man walked surprisingly fast in the direction of the front gate. In the distance the group could see 5 balloons. Each of them had a different color and a wooden stand with the assignment on it. Two assistant researchers just finished laying down a rope that was about 20 meters. Right in the middle, on the ground, they placed a white line before tying white flags on both sides. The group reached them rather quick due to the researchers pace. They could finally see the front gate, about 150 meters away, which was quite a distance for a front gate. “This is the official visitor’s entrance with the parking lot. Over there is our reception desk. It’s not very appealing but security comes first.” The man was right. The entrance didn’t look very appealing. Heavy automatic slide doors, camera’s and a dark front was all they could see. Even the windows had security rolls. Right now they were open so the student may have been able to take a glance at the front desk employees, if it wasn’t for the Flygons hanging around. “These guys are our Border Control Security Squad Alpha. They are the best of the best and your opponents for this challenge.” All Flygons were wearing headbands that matched one of the balloons: red, blue, yellow and pink. Only the green one seemed to be missing. At a glance they didn’t seem very strong. The one wearing the pink headband was joyfully looking at the students, like she wanted to play with them. Somehow Samantha had caught onto it before anyone else and had already made her way over to hug the Flygon. Right next to her sat the Yellow Flygon. His back was positioned towards the group as he tried to scratch his chin with his hind leg. The Flygon failed, lost his balance, and fell over. The other two, Red and Blue, were rolling around on the parking lot in a playful fight. The Red one had his opponent pushed on the ground, cheered in victory, but got knocked over and had to start all over again. “The assignment is simple. All five of you, including your Pokémon pick one opponent for a tug of war. However there is a catch. One of these five Flygons is instructed to hold back. He or she is a guaranteed win and will give you a letter you need in your treasure hunt. Three of them will base their power on how many questions you answered correctly. The fifth one won’t hold back at all and pull you over the white line in an instant. You can either solve the challenges individually, in pairs or as a group.” He gave a mischievous grin. “One more thing; you can find all the information over these five on the wooden stands. They have nothing to do with the assignments they received but if you can’t make a decision, I’d advise you to choose carefully.” He then turned around, looked at the roof, and whistled. The fifth Flygon lifted his head and snorted before lying down again. This one was wearing a green headband and wasn't very interested in seeing the students pick a balloon. Mayanna’s group When all the student finally reached the second lab, Matt was already waiting impatiently with a female researcher by his side. His foot went up and down while he had his arms crossed. “Finally. I already chose challenge so hurry up!” The researcher raised her eyebrow. She was small, not much taller than the students with black hair tied into a ponytail. “I already said this is a group decision. All of you have to make the choice what you want to do as a group. You can either go for a challenge against one of our own dragons, test your knowledge or get a tour of a building. You can only get one tour but at least you’re sure to get a letter you need for your treasure hunt. If you pick challenge and you lose, you get nothing. If you fail the knowledge test you will receive a wrong letter without knowing. That’s the gist of it so pick wisely.” Toshiro’s group Kay and James arrived right behind Wolt and Citrine, the former giving Toshiro a sheepish look. Of course Kay realized they were a minute late but he was curious about his neighbor’s reaction. But before anything could happen Redwood clapped his hands. “Now that you’re all here, follow me to the side entrance. It’s actually a small working place with four desks so forgive the mess. These researchers and breeders are top notch, but keeping things tidy isn’t their strongest point. And somehow I just sound like my own assistants…” he shuddered before letting the students in. It was a small and simple room. Four desks with a stack of papers and a laptop, bookcases filled with books and even more papers and some posters of dragons on the walls, with even more stacks of papers just standing on the ground. There were two other doors connecting this room to potentially wide working areas. At the furthest desk on the left were three men talking; Devin Cadmus, Roman and Alastair. The youngest of the three was laughing, turned around and waved at the students before moving towards one of the desks at his right. His father just nodded in acknowledgement and followed his son. Redwood walked over to his own desk and took a seat. “You’re all here for an individual talk and get a Pokémon. Roman and Alastair have access to all your information as well so feel free to talk to them as well. There are only four of us so one of you has to wait. You can take a seat right next to the door.” Kay was standing closest to the chair and wasn’t really in a hurry and decided to take a seat, leaving the four others to decide whom they wanted to talk to. For ambitious young breeders like Toshiro, this was a chance he wasn’t likely to get anytime soon again.

That's everyone. At the end of the chapter I'm going to remove the players that left. So Claude etc won't be at the Academy anymore in chapter 3. For Claude's group: in the next update there are 5 challenges for you to solve. You can either go alone, pair up or do all 5 in group.

I got Gabite... I like it. I would steal all the treasures and shiny things and swim in it every day.

Alright, I'm waiting for one more person to answer the question. After that I'll rework the story so there are less chapters. I will have less time this weekend so I'll try to update somewhere Saturday so everyone has something to do.

“Routes of Hazzard!” – Brendan Brendan couldn’t believe what he just heard Jason say. Hadn’t he seen the state these Patrat were in? What if this had happened to Gomez or Rascal? Would he still say the same? Probably not. Not to mention Jason made it sound like Pokémon were tools for battle. Sure, they may fight all the time and have resilient bodies, but that does not mean you can critically injure them and leave them half dead somewhere in the bushes. And then the argument ‘they attacked us’ made Brendan flip the switch. What a childish excuse. Their group were the ones intruding the Patrat’s territory, not the other way around. And while the rookie trainers had a justified reason to be there, Brendan still found it wrong to blame the Patrats. All they did was follow their instinct in order to survive another day. To be able to eat so they could feed their entire den. What was wrong with that? They didn’t know stealing was bad. They were wild, just like Jason had said and they only knew one thing: survival. That was the exact same path humankind followed hundreds of year ago. Only humans were far worse. The Patrats stole food with trickery. Humans used to kill one another for power and survival. And to this very day there were still a lot of people like that left. So according to Brendan these Pokémon hadn’t done anything wrong and their group had gone too far. However before he had the chance to say what was on his mind, an explosion and smoke filled the area. The Patrat slipped out of his arms and suddenly Brendan was left standing there, dazed, without realizing what was going on. He only knew Titan was close by and had no choice but to wait for the smoke to clear. Apparently everyone else managed to recover much faster than he did and they had seen something. Brendan only heard vague descriptions but by the sound of things Alecks had spotted the driver’s hat and Mio assumed a Watchog had joined the battle. “Great. Things get even more complicated now,” Brendan muttered as he recalled Titan in his Pokéball. “Sorry buddy, but right now we need speed. I’ll release you when we get there.” He ran passed Jason, giving him a disappointed look the young trainer couldn’t miss, before following right behind Alecks.

“Routes of Hazzard!” – Brendan “Its fine,” Brendan said to Mio. “You should keep your potion. You have two Pokémon to look after and you might need it later on when Meena gets, eh, a little too excited again.” When the Patrat finally stopped struggling, Brendan picked up both the potion and the healed Pokémon before walking over to Mio. “Here, take it.” He didn’t accept a no for an answer and just pushed the healing item into the shy trainer’s hand. In his mind this was the only right way. Mio had a higher chance to use his potions and he didn’t want to be the reason for the boy to run out of potions when it truly mattered. Besides using his own potion to heal a fallen foe was Brendan’s decision in the first place. "Hey guys, why don't we get the Patrats we've defeated and take them back to Juniper's lab after we're done here? They could be healed back there and also they won’t be out in the wild messing with others or stealing again." “Sounds good to me, Alecks, but how do you intend to carry them all over? This one alone is a hand full.” Brendan rubbed Singo gently over the head while walking over to Alecks. “Unless we can get an empty box from the truck and someone’s willing to wait here with the Patrat’s that got hurt. I mean, we can hardly leave them here all by themselves.” His eyes fell onto the wounded Patrat in Alecks arms. “That one needs someone to look over him…” The cogwheels in Brendan’s head started to spin. They had to make a decision here and seeing as none of them really had any experience with situations like this, he felt like it was up to him. He had experience making tough calls. As a catcher he was the one who made the signal to start each play. In order to do that, he had to keep a clear eye on all the opposite batters, their strengths, and the current state of his own pitcher. This situation was no different. “How are Jacks Pokémon doing?” he asked no one in particular, but he was looking in the direction Jason had come from. “If they are alright, maybe they can look after these little ones? An extra pair of eyes can always help to spot a potential surprise attack.”

Goddammit Jory, if I get the first one on my list Jason will be his first victim. I mean.. that also works.

Btw are you hosts going to let us know which Pokémon we can catch from our list? Because in Brendan's case most will serve a certain role in the team. That way I can see what I already get to work with.

I'm sorry but that's not an acceptable excuse. Go read this: http://www.pokemonreborn.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=17659 because this is exactly the problem we're facing now. I'm just wondering why it wasn't stickied. You, and your character, both have the right to start an interaction or make a decision instead of waiting on others. If no one makes the first step, we will never move forward. So, yeah, not going to lie but I was pretty pissed yesterday. First no one makes the first move and suddenly Dobby left after pulling a Snap. (Snap Crackle Pop used to be a co-host for those that don't know her. She vanished in thin air about a year ago). When we first started this 'second run' I expected less activity and a few people to drop out. What I didn't expect was my co-host dropping everything RP related and no one willing to make a small decision. This RP has around 12 planned chapters. Chapters 1 - 2 and 5 are supposed to be really short. Go figure that things are already starting to drag out. This is how I more or less planned things: Chapter 1: Intro Chapter 2: Show what the region is about and fuck everything up Chapter 3: Bad guys alert Chapter 4: Everything to hell Chapter 5: Liking wounds and some character development Chapter 6: Fuck you all (year 2) Chapter 7: Gathering information Chapter 8: Chim is a god. Live or die. Chapter 9: Year 3: things calm down Chapter 10: I lied in Chapter 9 Chapter 11: Chim is a god part 2 Chapter 12: You all graduate. At least those that survive. Now I can't / am not willing to do 12 chapters anymore. I can squeeze 3-4-5 easily together without making it a bad story. I only have to force RoG to fastforward their schedule. I can do the same with 6-7 and 9-10. I can tell this story in 8-9 chapters if I reveal things a bit earlier. All it requires is some work on my part. Now I have only one problem. Is it worth the effort? People that are dropping left and right or not posting at all is really taking away the fun for me. As a host I can do whatever I want, but if there is no response / co-operation from my players I'm not going to get very far. So I want all of you to make a decision. Are you willing to put some effort into this or not? If you lost interest, that's fine, no hard feelings. Same if you don't have the time to make a post. Ideally I would say you can make a post every third day or something like that so we can create a pace to get going. I'm going to do one last count and will leave this open for a few days. I will poke around if people don't answer the question. You can either PM me or say it in here. Based on those decision I will let this idea die or go for it until the end. But please, be honest. That's all I ask.

It's been a week and no one in Claude's group tried to make a decision. Really? If people can't make the effort to answer a simple question I'm really starting to doubt that reviving this project was a good idea.

Congrats! Does this mean you'll release a new Se7en mon because you're in a good mood?

It took Joey several minutes to calm down and realize he wasn’t dead yet. He tried to put his fears to the back of his mind but no matter how hard he tried, they kept lingering around. As a result Joey still couldn’t think straight and put the entire situation together. “What the fuck happened? I thought I was dead! And where are we anyway?” He was asking more in general, completely oblivious to Yuzuki’s annoyance.

To be honest I didn't expect Meena's attack would have such an impact. I wanted to do something similar to the Patrat that lost a tooth (which is why Brendan grabbed 2 Oran Berries) but I guess this also works to show Brendan's kind side. (He would call it sportsmanship though)

Routes of Hazzard – Brendan Titan hopped as fast as his sturdy little feet could muster. He too had heard the Patrats and right now was carving his own path towards the battle. The branches didn’t cut very deeply into his skin, unlike his human trainer who was right behind him, so he managed to keep the extra damage to a minimum. “Holy shit,” he heard Brendan say. They had reached the battlefield and Titan could hear 4, probably 5, different sounds caused by multiple team members and enemies alike. But he could not see the bleeding Patrat. Instead he heard Brendan walk passed by him. “Stand guard. Don’t let anyone come near me.” The tone had changed. The order was more firm and less friendly than usual. And there was a slight hint of sadness that only Titan’s incredible hearing could pick up. So he obeyed and hopped himself in between his trainer and the battle that was about to unfold. Brendan had crouched next to the bleeding Patrat. He stared at the deep red dots caused by Meena’s fangs. It was one thing to fight these little rats to protect the food, but that didn’t mean things should’ve gotten out of hand like this. Just like earlier when Titan had knocked out a tooth of another Patrat. For Brendan that wasn’t how a battle should be like. There was only one thing that he could do. He quickly grabbed a potion from his bag and started to try and heal the bleeding Patrat. If this didn’t work he decided there and then he would take this little guy, or was it a girl, to professor Juniper’s lab. Bag update: XTransceiver Flashlight Potion (x2) Pokéball (x5) Eviolite (held by Titan) Razor Fang

@genderlesshawke: I'm going to wait for the next update until I make a new post. I don't really want to make a post saying 'Brendan followed.'

I use the colors to let them stand out a bit. My only other option is to set everything white and personally, I find it harder to research the part that I need if I didn't use the colors.

Exactly. You only have to report to a specific building when I ask for it in an update. If not, you're all free to move around as you please. Mayanna's group will be the last to be called to Redwood. In the meantime just complete the challenge or knowledge parts. I'd hate to do 'tour' because it's boring to write and there is very little interaction. And do feel free to explore building 4 as well. Redwood just happens to be there amongst a few other researchers.

Claude’s group Samantha shrugged and followed the rest of the group towards the first building. Right next to the door with the sign stood a man in a lab coat. He was focused on his own Ipad and only looked up after the group had reached him. A gentle smile appeared on his face as he pushed his glasses up to the bridge of his nose. Judging by the mixture of grey and brown hairs, this researcher appeared to be in his late forties, early fifties. He was quite short and had a small belly showing under his coat. “Welcome to the first laboratory. My name is Richard and I’m one of the few researchers that will hand out the tasks. Before I let you enter, you all have to make a decision as a group. There are three choices,” the man explained. He held out his hand and raised his forefinger. “Challenge.” His second finger joined. “Knowledge.” And finally a third finger accompanied by the third choice: “Tour.” All choices are what they seem to be. They all earn you a letter to need to complete your treasure hunt. But be aware that if you fail knowledge, I won’t tell you. You will earn a letter without knowing if it is the right one. Losing a challenge won’t have any consequences. If you decide to take a tour, my colleague will show you around the first laboratory and explain what we do in here. After that he will ask all of you a different question. If someone doesn’t know the answer you also get a wrong letter. Make your choice.” Mayanna’s group “Well that freak appears to be our last member,” Matt said when he saw Emberly waving. “So let’s get started. The sooner this bullshit is over, the better.” Without waiting for an answer he turned his back towards the group and walked in a random direction. He seemed to be heading towards the second laboratory. Toshiro’s group “Yeah, no problem.” Kay said to James. “I have plenty of experience from when I went camping with the orphanage. I can get this thing up in less than 5 minutes. I just had fun seeing the cool guy struggle so I’ll do it later. Right now we need to head over towards that building or else Toshiro will go berserk on us.” Gaster’s actions earned him Princess’s full attention. She wasn’t really impressed by the cold wind, but his vanishing action was really interesting. Interesting enough for her to chase him down while her trainer was leading James away from their camp. All five group members could already see Redwood waiting in front of a sidedoor. They better hurried up if they wanted to reach him on time.

I got held up a little and wasn't really in the mood after work. Updates are coming tomorrow. If Mayanna's group hasn't chosen a building I'll use Matt to get them going.

Btw are you still planning to update first? Because I was waiting before posting.

“Routes of Hazzard” – Brendan Brendan was flattered someone else showed so much interest in Titan. Especially since the rock type didn’t stand out against some of the other starters who had much flashier moves. He said nothing during Mio’s investigation and waited patiently until the boy was finished. “Why I picked Titan? I guess he just fit,” Brendan said while following Mio. “I had a really hard time picking a starter. I didn’t have any preferences since I grew up without Pokémon. But my dream is to join an expedition team after my training is done to unravel some more ancient mysteries. I figured I had to explore a lot of caves and ruins so what’s better than having a rock type around in those environments? I simply followed those thoughts and researched the rock Pokémon that fit the starter description and had a weak spot for Gigalith when I first saw it. I looked a bit deeper into it and found some information about a Roggenrola’s hearing and everything just fell into place.” Brendan scratched the back of his head and stared above the tree line. “I guess I really put too much thought into it, but I have no regrets. So what about you? Why did you pick Loam?”

“Routes of Hazzard” – Brendan Brendan was still trying to figure out how to give the Oran Berry to Titan when Loam came over. “Hey buddy.” He put his berry-free hand out so the water type could catch his scent. “Do you happen to know how Roggenrola’s eat?” he joked. Titan let it all happen. There was no reaction when Loam came really close aside from a small nod. It didn’t bother the Rock type at all. He was just being the calm gentleman he always was. An intelligent one if not for that weird sizzling sound. Unfortunately his trainer wasn’t on his level yet. Titan could hear him scratch his head trying to figure out how to deal with the Berry problem. Humans could be incredibly simple minded. Eventually Mio made a move and Brendan had no choice but to follow the group. “I’m ready. I just hope this works.” He squeezed the Oran berry tight in his hand and let the juice drip all over Titan. The bite marks quickly disappeared as the fluid started to work its magic and was absorbed by Titan’s rocky exterior. “I did it!” Brendan cheered, throwing his hands in the air and smiling at Mio. “Titan’s healed so lead the way!”