Creigs' team was about the strength of a first gym, so till people got past Guzma and headed for Crazy Joy, he was assigned to patrol. Whilst he had an Aether employee as a partner he was wearing an identification badge, the Iki town people might know him by sight the people of Ula'ula did not, which lead to high risk of being mistaken for a tourist. There were two things they were primarily looking out for, dangerous animals, and the teens who would try to disrupt the event in revenge for their punished parents. Fursry was also around, helping keep pokemon healed and encouraging animals away in a peaceful way other couldn't do. They were also checking on the people blocking Route 10 on occasion for attacks or breaches.
While most of problems got chased off three teens decided they could take Creig and the Aether Employee. The teens had four pokemon between them, while Creig and his patrol partner had 6. This wasn't an official battle, and these teens weren't holding to battle etiquette, the only reason the leader didn't send out both his pokemon was lack of confidence in commanding two at the same time. The pokemon they were up against Rattata, Mankey, and Salandit, Creig started with Toboggan, his patrol partner started Fomantis and Steenee. Salandit was the biggest threat at the moment as it had type advantage against everyone, the enemy knew that two covering by having Mankey and Rattata move forward to threaten Creig and Aether respectively. Toboggan got off two Defence Curls before Mankey was too close, Creig decided to go dangerous, with just a "Right" he sent Toboggan to help Aethers' pokemon while he kicked the Mankey that thought it had a good chance to take out a trainer tried to punch him. Even as he concentrated on defending himself from the Mankey his connection to Toboggan told him his starter was still up, when he found an opening he sent out Shrift to take up the fight. The few Ice Shards she got off couldn't hit the more experienced Mankey so Creig called out "Area" to have her shift to Powder Snow. She wasn't strong enough to beat the Mankey, right after she got lucky and froze the Mankey which allowed her to get an Ice Shard hit in, it immediately after broke out and got a hit in, which was the start of the downturn. Just before Mankey got the final hit a slightly charred Steenee Vine Whip grabbed it and bounced to around knocking it out. Even at the teens tried to run the police showed up and caught them before they got a block away.
It was lucky that it was as easy to heal pokemon as it was hard to hurt them. Shrift had suffered fractured ribs and Toboggans ice shell had been mostly melted. Fomantis had been knocked out and as previously mentioned Steenee had some burns, the latter of which occurred because Creig going hand to hand with a Mankey had distracted the Aether, but wasn't worse because it distracted the teens as well. Since none of the injuries were unusual or severe everyone was back to health in an hour approximately and grabbed a quick food break before getting back to patrol.
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Nate had awakened early to check in with Looker before heading off to take the Island Trail, both Anabels' was with Looker and wished him luck on the trials today. Ferries had been set up to take people to Ula'ula, since you couldn't take ride pokemon until after the first Grand Trial, and a course in how to ride that would take a day on its own. Nate, joined by Rosa took the earliest one, though Rosa went to the pokemon center to help till evening, when she would actually start her trial. Creig had already left for the island with an Aether employee to make sure the perimeters were safe before kids and teens started showing up. The only other person, from the class at least that was this early was Jenny, they discussed the trial rules till they arrived, they weren't lawyers but it was always good for law officers to understand loopholes and how to prevent them so bad guys didn't get away. Guzmas' theme apparently, was Secret Honey Stash where you had to get the coordinates for by finding swarms of ledyba in the city and gardens, count how many there were correctly, then the placement of that number in the sequence would be revealed by the ledyba taking a formation that was a number. They had changed it a bit so it was a simple number to letter cipher instead of X, Y, Zed coordinates that required map reading, Nate personally was disappointed by this, even if it was understandable.
About a hundred people got off the ferry with him, with the total people taking the trial being a couple thousand, he was glad to be early. He went for the easiest ones first, places where ledyba would be comfortable such as the gardens. A short while later he realized it would be harder than it looks, he was unlikely to just stumble on a group, it was testing the basics of awareness and tracking, even so figuring out if pokemon or people who were moving about were supplying and checking on the ledyba, while easier, required timing and perception, with wild hopes that they supplied multiple groups. During the afternoon Nate belatedly realized that following a Joy to Guzma would be the most efficient, eventually, when he needed supplied, it was too early for any but the extremely lucky. Nate found his first group by following Creig doing his patrol and checking where he would look, Creig had seen him and discussed with his partner about shaking him off, they agreed Nate was doing a valid strategy since he wasn't just asking, and they weren't making allowances for his pace, Nate figured they knew they would lose him at the first group he found as well. They never dropped an explicit hint, Nate also got to see Creig handle animals, it was better than the Aether employee, and started from a simple premise, if the animal cared about you without you going to it first, it was scared or hunting, and interaction was likely to scare most animals.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
It was turning evening when Nate slapped his forehead realizing that he might of asked the ledyba group if they would give a clue to another group, maybe with a bribe. He backtracked all the way back, and it turned out that wasn't the case, it had still been worth the attempt. He found his second group when he was taking a break for dinner, and had a sinking feeling this would take a few days. With that he decided to map the patrol routes that were happening to increase his chances. Before going to bed a couple of other trial takers challenged him to battles with ledyba locations on the line, not that they had any to give, still it was neither against the rules or a bad idea, tomorrow he would challenge and accept challenges with those who had locations. Perhaps Guzma had set actually set a warriors trial on purpose, being alert, tracking, gathering intel through stealth and force, it was very familiar things to do.
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Rosa had been surprised when Creig had come into the pokemon center, she knew he might get into battles on patrol so she knew he might, but that wasn't what surprised her, it was that he was favoring a few of his own body parts in similar ways as to when he had sparred with Bruno. Nurse Joy had glared at him when he explained he went hand-to-hand with a Mankey, the police hadn't arrested him though, so it must have been a REAL battle, not a serious, or difficult, but people looking to do actual harm to the trainers battle, it made her shiver, she had been kept up at nights worried that Lord N was in such perils. It happening in this more peaceful region caused her to redouble her estimates on how many times it was happening to Lord N. After checking it seemed Creig had no major injuries, just light bruising, a chansey gave him a low dose Heal Pulse, which he thanked them for and made a comment about how he could have walked it off, NO, better full health just in case is what Rosa thought of that, even Foongi gave him a talking to.
Despite the amount who actually started the trials today being only about a fourth of the total, Rosa started to understand why some pokemon centers locked the doors open during certain days, they would have been open anyway with how often people came through! Luckily it was low level fainting in most cases, most didn't even have bruises, she remembered when Hala brought in one of his core team pokemon who had been fainted, that was a hurt pokemon! Amazingly it also recovered relatively quickly, probably due to its higher vitality, it then tried to go straight back to battling! Pokémon really loved battling when it was safe and included healthcare, wild pokemon were still mostly leery. Just like when she started working at Melemele pokemon centers many were confused that someone other than a Joy was working there, as Creig put it: it messes with their world view.
Despite being tired when she got off work, she immediately started her trial, going to the gardens first. Foongi connected to the mycelium networks to determine where groups of ledian were. She found four groups, though she still had to count the ledyba, she did this trick on route 11 and the road to the outer cape finding two on the route and one on the path, the rest would have to be in the city, but she would do that tomorrow, maybe, or maybe she would catch a pokemon? An observant pokemon might be good to help with tracking, a bird type was used to hunting bugs and a bug type could sniff out the pheromones. Foongi had also identified where Guzma was, but Rosa figured there was secondary test to make sure people found the ledyba swarms, like the treasure not opening if you didn't know the numbers. She has no idea she had gotten ahead of Nate, she went to sleep thinking he had already solved everything and was going to face off against Guzma tomorrow.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Guzma, for the first time in a long while had alone space, to take in everything that had happened, he had been so busy taking care of all the kids. Some were coming around, making sure he had food and checking if he got any challengers yet, two people had gotten lucky, though only one managed to win, if barely. What would have been his destiny if the Tapu hadn't made clear who was sinner and who not, and why for that matter, even now he was pulled between grief and understanding. If he had been condemned for being someones' kid? he Knew he would be burning with resentment, he already felt some for those not helping the orphans, probably why he and Ledian were got along, caring for swarms of kids, being mad when people didn't give a bit of decency. Then there were the rebellious ones who wanted to rebuild the failed system, Guzma couldn't take them all, not by himself, even now a couple people were nearby to make sure he didn't get ambushed. When Totem Ledian chose him, he was surprised, when Creig and Kakui had confirmed him for trial captain, Craig had mentioned it as a positive change from the timelines he knew, which means in others he was never chosen, rejected, probably cause of his resentment at what he would have seen as an unfair world. When he slept, he didn't sleep easy, but he wasn't continuously haunted by nightmares, some of his dreams were of being a hive lord, perhaps lead of an Alola rangers core, not that Alola in particular was in need of such a thing, he could still dream between the nightmares though, a realistic dream, attainable, and not cancelling out the attempt to be strongest in Alola. Ledian adjusted the blanket covering the boy born to be a leader, for good or bad, it would help push him towards good, Ledian felt that was the true innate path of this boy, the protector thrummed in his heart, perhaps in the distant future when Nanu rested this boy would be the next in that place.
