On the Road to Graduation [Closed]

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Aimee leaned against the metal bars that protected her from falling off the edge of the ferry, content in letting the crisp ocean breezes blow through her short, ginger hair. Feeling the salty spray of the sea on her face, Aimee's eyes were closed in the blissful moment, enjoying the warm sunshine and calm seas whilst she could. They'd be landing in Vermilion City soon enough, at least if the word being passed around the ferry were to be believed. Once they arrived Aimee figured it would be busy from then on until they'd finished their final graduate exam and dissertation, which could take more than a year if they weren't proactive with their time. With a small sigh, Aimee's green eyes opened again and she glanced up at the sky. Sometimes she swore her tutors hated her, after all the other three groups had gotten one region each to tour. The group she was in however had to journey around both Kanto and Johto purely because they were conjoined regions. At least they'd learn a lot though, and it would definitely be fun to see all those new places...
Aimee's green gaze turned to the cloudless sky with a smile. It wasn't really all that bad after all. She had three friends in the other members of the group she'd been put into, that had to be a plus side as well.

Her thoughts were disrupted by a Fletchling perching neatly on her head. With a chuckle, Aimee reached up as if to make sure the Tiny Robin Pokemon was balanced correctly on her head, "You enjoy your flight?" she asked the Fletchling with a smile. Arietta chirruped cheerfully in response before hopping off of her human friend's head and landing on the metal fencing that prevented people from falling into the water.

Pic of Aimee for any snoopers and my future self |D:

Current Team(Will be Updated!):

"Hmm, some fishing huh? Well, that sounds pretty good. A nice, chill activity for us to do starting."  Damiean said, glad that they were going to do some fishing instead of a potentially more serious task.  Damiean also liked the idea because it would allow him to take in the new region of Kanto more, get a chance to see what it was like. Damien then saw Aimee walk out towards the inner city with Justin close behind, chuckling at her energetic personality, kind of reminding him of an old friend of his.

"Hehe, you sure are energetic aren't you?" Damian said, chuckling as he put his arms behind his back and began walking towards the others, with Kimori following close behind.

"Also, a year is more than enough time dude. Hopefully this fishing will calm you down."  Damian said, turning his head back toward Daniel to make his comment and then turning back as he continued walking towards the others.

Seeing, how the others had already left, Daniel decided for it to be of no use to remain in place, making his way towards the house of the fishing guru.
While the area around the harbor had been full of people and their Pokémon, the streets in town were much quieter. Ben gave off a relieved chirp, happy to finally be out of the blazing sun to have the chance to walk in the shade. The city looked exactly as one would expect of a touritst city, small stores selling useless souvenirs everywhere, while people and Pokémon of all regions made their way through the alleyways.
Sadly just walking past someone didn't count for their quest to encounter each and every Pokémon.
Something was interesting though.
Quite a few trainers seemed to look like a celebrity...a famous Pokémon trainer and his Pikachu. But no matter how hard he tried, Daniel was unable to name the person.
For some reason he didn't seem to age, so he usually was a guest on all those beauty shows the student's mother kept watching, but Daniel had always tuned out during those.
Who was that guy again?

As the harbour lead into the streets of Vermilion City, Aimee would occasionally stop to glance around some of the souvenir stalls. Most of the stuff on these stalls was pretty cheap and tacky, but she kept glancing at each stall as she wandered past, as if looking for the perfect souvenir. Arietta meanwhile seemed to be enjoying her time in the air as she followed Aimee.
After a while of passing shops and stalls that seemed of little interest, Aimee paused to take a closer look at the wares of a small stall on the corner of the street. It was another souvenir stall, but Aimee had spotted an enamel pin that was fashioned to look like the silhouette of a bird against a stylised Vermilion sunset. Arie landed gently on Aimee's head after realising that she had stopped walking and looked down at the pin, chirruping her apparent approval for it's design.
"You think it's pretty too huh?" chuckled Aimee, glancing up as if to look at the Fletchling as she shifted her position on her trainer's head and gave another tweet of agreement. Aimee then glanced at the saleswoman as if to silently ask how much it would cost.
"150 Pokédollars," smiled the woman, Aimee digging through her pockets for the money. The academy had provided them with spending money and she had brought some of her own, figuring she could use some to buy herself some interesting souvenirs to remember the trip with.
Handing the notes over, the woman thanked her and Aimee turned her attention back to the group, catching up to them and slipping the pin into her pocket for now. Arietta took to the air again as Aimee jogged back over to the others.

Stepping through the various shops and stalls set up, Justin found himself wandering off a bit, looking at the various souvenir options there. Well, I mean catching a few pokemon would probably be a pretty good souvenir in and of itself. Nothing here really catches my eye. While nothing caught his eye, he felt a telltale tug on his hair from Audrey, glancing up at her with his peripheral vision. The Mienfoo pointed at a stand with a few bows and ribbons on it, pointing at a light blue colored bow.
"What, you want something for yourself? Alright then." The boy chuckled, stepping up to the stand. He paid out the 100 pokedollars, before taking the bow and handing it to Audrey. After doing so, he decided to go regroup, turning and walking back to the others as the Mienfoo put the bow on her neck, like a bow-tie.

As the group walked through Vermillion City, Damiean analyzed the surroundings of the area even more. He saw all of the different shops and stalls placed around the area, each with their own assortment of items or souvenirs that attracted in most people that came to the city. Those kinds of tourist traps were the kind of things Damiean never saw interest in. He didn't need some useless object to remember going somewhere. Whenever Damiean went to any new area, he remembered everything perfectly with his memory. The design of the area, the smell, the people, the way the air felt, all of that was engraved into his mind if he was given enough time to take it all in. After walking with the group for a while, Damiean stopped for a second, looked at a sign on a nearby building, and then called the others over.

"Hey guys, I think this is the fishing place right here." Damiean said as he began walking toward the fishing guru place, with Kimori still following him.

Daniel let out an exasperated sigh upon witnessing the actions of his partners.
"You are not seriously buying this stuff, are you? It is the middle of tourist season in a town of tourism. Do you know how absurdly high the prices here are in comparison to pretty much anywhere else? I am pretty sure we will be visiting a few other towns on our travels...well, at least we are finally here."
While the others apparently had no idea about the amount of money they were wasting, Damiean had atl east made himself useful and spotted the place they had been headed for.
While Daniel was opposed tot he luck aspect of fishing, he liked its quiet and calm nature as well as the fact that it could easily be used to patch up gaps in schedules.

Aimee shrugged at Daniel's comments and evident disapproval of her and Justin's buying of the souvenirs, "Well I like my new pin, and I think Audrey's new bow suits her," she smiled, having taken note of the new accessory when Justin had returned to the group. She was quickly distracted however by the sign Damiean had pointed out.
"Vermilion has a lot of access to the ocean, perhaps we can ask the Guru to teach us to fish and find our first Kanto Pokemon on the edge of the city?" she suggested, catching up to Damiean, "It would definitely be a nice way to kickstart our little quest."
Aimee had never actually been fishing before. Her parents had always found it to be rather boring and so she'd never had the opportunity. Hearing her parents describe how much time they'd wasted on a fishing trip was enough to put anyone off fishing for eternity, but Aimee wasn't willing to make a final judgement until trying it herself. Maybe she'd end up appreciating the  activity in a way her parents had been unable to. With that in mind, she knocked on the door of the building, not wanting to barge in as it seemed impolite.

The Mienfoo stuck her tongue out at the commentary Daniel had provided, while Justin just shook his head a bit with a smile.
"Well, I'm sure your plans to go through here as quick as possible gave us ample time to shop later, but it still wasn't overly expensive." He snickered light heartedly, looking back over to Aimee as she figured out a plan of action as far as fishing went.
"Alright, that sounds good then." He agreed to the plan, despite his prior experiences with fishing. Having a parent work at the aquarium in town, they had taken him fishing down by the ocean numerous times. Experience didn't exactly make him better at it, however. Justin simply didn't mesh well with fishing for some reason. Things were never really successful on his end of the line.

"Come on man, if they want to buy some souvenirs, then let them buy some souvenirs. I don't like those things either but that doesn't mean they should be ridiculed for getting them. Just calm down for a minute dude so we can fish the fishiest fish we can fish up here." Damiean said, his face looking a bit more serious than before though he still said what he said in his same calm tone. Kimori even seemed to get more serious as he turned back for a second at Daniel and crossed his little arms before turning back around and walking with Damiean towards the fishing place. Though Damiean did give a small chuckle at his line about tha fish.

Daniel sighed. Of course noone was listening to him, but he was used to that.
"Oh, don't worry, my dear friend,", he began to address Damiean,
"I am perfectly calm. I just wanted to provide you with tips on how to use your money more...efficiently. Well, it seems we have arrived."
Without even giving them time to talk, Aimee had already knocked on the door, alerting all inhabitants to their presence. Now they wouldn't be able to think of what they would be going to say before.
Wonderful, just wonderful.
Fishing itself didn't seem to be too difficult regarding the technical part, but Daniel feared, that his lack of bodily strength might cause some problems for him.
They would just have to see...

The door opened to reveal a middle aged man with a thin, stubbly beard. He smiled brightly at their group, quickly welcoming them inside as Aimee asked and confirmed his identity as Vermilion City's Fishing Guru. The man seemed quite happy to see such youngsters interested in fishing, and very soon began showing them his large assorted collection of fishing rods, urging them to each pick one they liked so they could use them in the harbour and he could teach them all the little tricks there were to the art of fishing.

Arietta had perched neatly on Aimee's shoulder as they had gone inside the building and, being a smart and polite pokemon, remained there as the Fishing Guru imparted his wisdom upon them. Very soon the fisherman was asking them to choose a rod, to which the Fletchling glanced each of them up and down, not particularly finding any of them appealing. Aimee however caught sight of a rod with a maroon red colour scheme that matched her jacket, the guru seeming to notice her green gaze landing upon it.
"Isn't she a beauty! Lovely colour; though I've always preferred the blues myself," the fishing guru commented with an enthusiastic smile, reaching up to take the rod from it's stand and handing it to Aimee. He then cast his own brown gaze at the other three, wondering which fishing rods they'd choose to go fishing with.
Aimee, this being her first time even considering going fishing, seemed to be positively excited by the idea, despite how boring the activity was always portrayed to her.
"I wonder what we'll catch first..." she mused to herself, imagining all the different possibilities. Mostly Magikarp and Azurill came to mind, as those were the Pokemon that she'd most commonly see in Aquacorde Town, though sometimes in Ambrette Town she'd spot fishermen with hooked Skrelp or Tentacool.

Justin laughed a bit about Damiaen's fish comment, debating responding with a pun before deciding against it and continuing into the Fishing Guru's house along with the group.
"Well, these are all pretty nice looking rods." He simply commented, honestly having gotten a bit bored by all the information the Guru had on fishing. It wasn't exactly the most exciting activity, as he had discovered before. As he looked over the rods he eventually settled on a dark blue colored one, picking it up just because it seemed to look good. Audrey piped up with her own opinion, nodding in agreement with his choice of rod. As he waited for everyone else to take their pick as well he wondered if there were any interesting pokemon in the harbor, still not completely excited by the thought.

As the group walked into the Fishing Guru's house, Damiean began analyzing the insides of the house to see exactly what they were in for. He saw several fishing rods all around the inside of the house as well as several other fishing materials such as bait and spare hooks. While Damiean wasn't too familiar with fishing, he could tell that the Fishing Guru was well prepared for any type of fishing scenario, whether it was for himself or for other like them. He saw Aimee and Justin picked up their own respective rods and so Damiean decided to do the same, picking up a green rod, matching the color of Kimori.

"Hmm, this is a nice rod. Hope we find some good pokemon with it, eh Kimori?" Damiean said to his Treecko companion, though not getting a response as Kimori was still in the middle of analyzing the Fishing Guru's house.

After the middle-aged man had invited the group inside, Daniel found himself taking notes on pretty much everything the Guru told them. While the teenager was not really a fan of the man's tendency to stray from the straight facts, he was an authority on the field of fishing, so there wasn't really anything the boy could do about it. So why shouldn't he attempt to make the best out of the time they had to spend here?
At least the activity of fishing was a more theoretical one than he had imagined, less relying on dexterity and strength but rather careful selection of lures and other things as well as a good tactic.
Finally Daniel chose a yellow fishing rod.
It didn't really look all that great, but he couldn't just pass by such a chance to complete the set of the four primary colours after all.

"Alrighty then. Looks like we're just about ready to head down to the harbour and do some real fishing!" grinned the Fishing Guru after everyone had selected the fishing rod they wished to use, making a small comment on the different features of each as they were picked out by the group. The guru then grabbed a toolbox that had assorted baits in and lead the way out of the house, beckoning the students after him.
Aimee glanced at each of the others with a small shrug, waiting for them to continue onward before following herself. Arietta however opted to once again fly on ahead, thoroughly enjoying the open air of the outside. Having known Justin from before this trip, Aimee was vaguely aware that he had fished before. Curious, she caught up to him, levelling her pace with his.
"Have you ever caught anything interesting before?" she asked him, making conversation as the guru lead them towards a more secluded area of the city's harbour.

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