The sound of the morning traffic on the street below caused Jason to groggily open his eyes. Upon realizing what day it was, he quickly went about his morning routine: Shower, brush teeth, get dressed, find a CLEAN lab coat, and grab his satchel before moving out of his bedroom. It had been over a year since he'd last lived on the Institute's campus, and while Jason missed the more social environment of the dorms, the Bibarel Apartment complex was significantly cheaper. Not only were the apartments a few blocks from the campus, but the Laventon Institute even covered the rental fees with scholarship money!
"Morning, gang" said Jason to the three Pokémon lounging in his living room. The trio all shook themselves from sleep while their trainer began preparing a thermos of coffee in his kitchenette.
"Today's the day. We've got classes in the morning, then we'll have free lab to run all our testing today!" "Nido!" "Sala-Sala!" "Slow..." Jason smiled at seeing his team get excited at the prospect of more research. Not to mention he'd reward them with a few extra berries at dinner if they did well. With their final year at the Institute starting today, it was vital that Jason complete his thesis before the year ended next Spring. Once the coffee was finished, the senior student capped his thermos and produced three pokeballs from his lab coat.
"Return!" Rex, Ricin, and Toxin were all vacuumed up into the red light and Jason carefully placed their pokeballs onto his belt holsters. With everything ready, he swiped a few breakfast bars from his cupboard and left his apartment.
The Sun was just starting to peek over the buildings in Jubilife City as Jason hit the street and began his walk to school. Producing his Rotom Phone from within his bag, he smiled to himself as he opened the voice recorder app.
"Laventon Institute Thesis Log: It's the start of my final year at the Laventon Institute. So far, I've been able to travel to just about every known region on the planet to gather environmental data. In this final year, I'm going to begin testing on Pokémon in these new environments. With the right stimuli, I just might be able to crack the code and discover new forms of Pokemon evolution that no one has ever seen before! Aside from a few core classes and TA sessions, I've got almost free reign to travel this semester." Jason winced internally upon remembering his TA commitments. Being one of the top fourth year students, it was natural the staff would ask him to assist with training the incoming class of first years. That also meant having to deal with... her.
Unfortunately for Jason, it seemed as though reminding himself of his commitments only made the universe throw them in his face once again. As soon as he arrived at the Institute and picked up his schedule for the week, he saw his first class of the day was going to be one of said TA sessions: Adv. Pokémon Ecology w/ Professor Michael Birch. As a footnote, Jason saw the TA list: Jason Yew (4th Year) and Natalie Willow (3rd year). Having been introduced to each other through Prof. Oak two years ago, Jason and Natalie just never seemed to hit it off. She viewed him as her "rival" for some reason and Jason ALWAYS felt like she had it out for him. Nevertheless, he'd have to put up with this if he wanted to get to his own research that day.
With a sigh, Jason began climbing the stairs until he reached the floor where the first year classrooms were located. He quickly found the Ecology classroom only to see Natalie already inside.
"Here we go..." With a last minute curse, Jason slid the door open and stepped inside,
"Morning, Nat."
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