Ciel had made it to the second floor by following Rusty’s direction and was currently looking for the door with the words break room written on it. He walked past rooms filled with desks and computers, file rooms, and what looked like a meeting room before finding the break room. Walking to the door he peered in through the glass window set into the door frame, seeing if anyone else was currently inside the break room, seeing no one inside he relaxed his posture as he walked in, pushing the door open.

Walking in into the room he started to survey the room, richly furnished, tiled floor in a black and white checkered pattern with pale blue painted walls. The ceiling was very high, 7 meters up with strip LED lights and air conditioning in the room, on the far side wall daylight was streaming into the room. The room itself was huge with various tables, chairs and sofas scattered haphazardly around the room, set along the wall directly left of the door were multiple vending machines that held various snacks, bottle and cans. At the far left-hand end of the room were fridges, microwaves and even an oven and sink with dirty and clean dishes alike stacked up, clean on one side, dirty on the other. Various cupboards set into the wall above kitchen counters, there were even cupcakes on the side cooling down by the looks of the steam coming off them.

In the centre of the room was a large table with rows of potions, mega potions and healing potions of various types; burn, para, sleep and antidotes. There was even a bowl full of apples, oran and sitrus berries. Ciel meandered slowly over to the table; he took in the room as he went, making a note of the various size chairs that were placed somewhat haphazardly around multiple tables. The smell of cake was fresh in the room; it was probably for the celebrations later, Ciel reasoned. That thought made him salivate, and he started to eye up the cupcakes greedily. After a while he decided it wasn’t worth the risk, he still hadn’t past the last test so just grabbed three oran and three sitrus berries. Like most things, healing items worked on the rule of 3, 3 per day before the particular object loses its effect on you.

He flicked one of the sitrus berries into his mouth and started to try crunching it down to a smaller size, it was pretty tough to chew, but after a couple of seconds, it began to crack apart as the pokemon's teeth made quick work of it. The berry was a little sour on his tongue, but he expected that.

Swallowing the berry the effects were almost instant, Ciel felt a rush of energy as it started to restore some of his missing HP. Ciel worked out he needed to consume the other two sitrus berries and an oran berry to regain his HP to the max fully. So flicked another sitrus into his mouth and started to chew it down, followed by the final one a couple of seconds later. Once the sitrus berries were all devoured, he took the oran berries and started working on them as they were just as tough as the sitrus berries and a little dry in taste.

Once the berries were done he double-checked his bracelet which showed that his HP was now full, something new though was two little blue circles that were now underneath the HP reading, this was showing how many berry effects he had stored. As a result, it was the other reason why berries would typically be select over potions. Ciel’s mind wandered back to a lesson he had received at the academy.

“Okay listen up recruits! Today we are going over healing items, understood?” the teacher bellowed out, standing rigid to attention in his human form as he addressed the packed room.

“Sir, yes Sir” the room answered as one, it was something that the teacher had beaten into them, for some of them, in a literal sense. The teacher nodded in satisfaction before turning to the blackboard behind him.

“Alright so as a lot of you know there are four main ways of restoring HP, Charly can you name them” the teacher singled out a swallow that was on the back row who was trying and failing to avoid having to answer.

“Sir, they are using berries, potions, certain moves and sleeping?” she sounded unsure, no one wanted to get the answer wrong; it meant punishment. If they were way off the actual answer they could be kicked off the course; the teacher had a strict guideline, you should have already learnt everything once before coming here; if you can’t commit it to memory, you don’t deserve to stay here. It was harsh but led to great results in those that passed the course.

“Correct! Now a better answer would be, only certain berries, certain medicine items, certain moves and taking no damage for 12 hours then sleeping” he started to write these down on the board in white chalk.

“This is something fundamental to keep in mind; not all berries will give HP, only a select few have healing properties, these berries are oran, sitrus, figy, wiki, mago, aguva, iapapa and enigma. These eight berries are the only berries that will restore any lost HP if eaten” having finished writing the berry names down he spun around, trying to catch anyone that wasn’t taking down notes, he found a target.

“Samael, can you tell me under what conditions do each of these berries activate their healing properties” he spoke in a honeyed tone, raising one eyebrow as he leant forwards, hands behind his back. The Alolan Marowak had dazed off slightly so was jerked back awake when the teacher had singled him out of the crowd. Glancing at the board, he gulped as his mind started racing, looking for the answer.

“Oooh? Can you not answer or were you not paying attention to my lesson?” the teacher had a false smile plastered on his face as he fixed his glare on the now shaking pokemon.

“Sir! Oran and sitrus berries activate their healing properties when the pokemon that consumed them has taken enough damage. The amount of damage needed for oran berries to activate is 10 points of HP damage. For sitrus berries, it is 25% of the maximum HP value of the pokemon. The reason for this is because that's how much each berry will heal. Enigma will only activate its healing property if the pokemon has taken a hit from a super-effective move and will fully heal the pokemon. For the other berries, they will only activate when the pokemon has less than 25% of their maximum HP the remaining and will heal them for 50% of their maximum HP.” Samael spoke in a taut voice, stuttering and fidgeting through the whole thing. The teacher just nodded, his smile a little more genuine now.

“Very good, don’t let me catch you snoozing during my lessons again, understood” the teacher turned back to the board to write out what Samael had said so the rest of the class could write it down in their notes.

“Now something to remember is that the figy, wiki, mago, aguva and iapapa berries have a potential side effect, depending on your tastes. Each berry has a robust flavour, figy is spicy, the wiki is dry, mago is sweet, aguva is bitter, and iapapa is sour. As you know every pokemon has a favourite flavour and hated flavour if you eat a berry that is your hated flavour and activate its healing property you will also receive the confused status effect, keep that in mind.”

The teacher finished writing this bit of information down before turning back to face the class.

“Now who can tell me why berries are better than say potions in a battle” Ciel raised his hand along with half of the classroom.

“Hmmm, Ciel, tell me why berries are better than potions in battle” Okay thought Ciel, just when it comes to battle, not out of combat.

“Sir, its, because berries give their HP restoring property instantaneously in a burst while potions, do so over some time.”

“Very good. Explain your answer.”

“Potions heal a certain amount of HP every second they are in effect, to a total amount typically reached after 5 seconds of usage. They are usable on any part of the body which is a plus however due to them requiring 5 seconds for them to be used to the maximum efficiency they can be interrupted in the heat of battle. Being interrupted, however, cannot happen with berries; however, as they grant the HP restore the moment they can be activated” the teacher nodded.

“That is correct, now remember all berries, including ones that have effects other than HP restoring, work to the rule of 3 and each pokemon can hold up ten berry effects per day, who can tell me what berry storing is? Vaal” the teacher motioned to Vaal who was sitting next to Ciel on the second row. He had raised his hand to answer.

“Sir, berry storing is a technique where a berry is consumed; however, the berries effect doesn't activate immediately. Instead, the berries effect is kept within the body for up to 6 hours, during those 6 hours if the berry can be activated, it will activate. Using this technique means you can eat the berries before a battle and still receive the effects of them without having to consume them during the middle of battle” he spoke in a clear monotone voice.

“Good answer, this is very beneficial in regards to other berries such as the damage reduce berries. A pokemon can eat a berry that will reduce the damage they will take from a super-effective type without having to eat it moments before the moves hit, it gives the pokemon more leeway in that regard” the teacher addressed the class.

“Berry storing is something every pokemon can do, but not many know about it nowadays as it's considered an advanced battle tactic, now on to healing potions...”

Ciel woke up from the memory as the door was pushed open behind him with a loud click as a newcomer stumbled into the room.

“Come on nearly there mate” the pokemon spoke in a worried almost masculine tone. They were supporting someone else over his shoulders, as they turned left to face the centre of the room he saw Ciel and froze its place, staring with eyes wide open and eyebrows raised.

“Ciel that you, man?” Ciel spun around and likewise froze at the sight of the newcomer.

“Ise, what you doing here, oh shit is Callum alright?” Ciel hurried over to the two pokemon to help Ise in supporting Callum who just groaned lightly in a possible greeting.

“He took massive damage in the interview room; no one mentioned anything about bolts of Giratina damned lightning or bloody toxic spikes at all” Ise cursed as with Ciel’s help shifted over to the centre of the room before lying the groaning pokemon down onto a tabletop.

Callum was in his natural form with a dark purple substance dripping out of his jaws, a clear sign of a poisoned debuff. Ise had mentioned toxic spikes which would make sense with him being a Mimikyu they must have added them to increase the stress they were going through, short of firing acid at them or something.

“You got an antidote mate or a Pecha berry?” Ise glanced over to Ciel as she started fidgeting, Ciel pointed over to the large table at the centre.

“Plenty over there, keep him from fainting if you can. I will grab you some hold on” Ciel darted over to the table as Ise bent over Callum.

“Come on mate, last push we are nearly there come on.” Callum just slapped Ise’s ass with his tail as he grinned. Ise’s face flushed bright red as she covered her ass with her hands.

“Heads up” Ciel called as he flung over an antidote over to Ise, hitting him in the head but the pokemon managed to catch it as it rebounded off his head. Callum couldn’t help but laugh at that.

“Grahahaha nice shot Ciel, right in the noggin” Ise just blushed as she used a charge of the antidote on the Huntail before using another on herself, only to be safe.

“Ggrraaahh that’s better, poison sucks harder than a slurpuff looking for a sugar rush” Ise just sighed.

“Do you always have to be so vulgar Cal?” Callum just laughed him off.

“Awww come now Ise that was innocent by my standards you know that” he leaned in close to Ise’s face with a teasing look and speaking in a smoky tone of voice. Ise took a step back and covered her face with her hands.

“Will you two get a room already” Ciel had a deadpan look and spoke in a tone so dead a ghost type would be impressed.

“Only if you care to join us paws for days” Callum just winked over towards Ciel past the simmering Ise. He glowed white all of a sudden, turning back into his human form to be about to move around.

“Caaaalllluuummm” Ise rumbled out, in a deeper masculine voice. Ise Fellowfae was an unusual pokemon. If people saw an image of her they would almost always say she was a guy, she had a handsome masculine face and body on the outside, this was quite literally, a disguise.

Ise's true gender was pretty unknown as Ise had only ever told very few pokemon that she trusted, and had told even fewer the reason why her disguise looked like that. Her mask, as she called it, had brown tanned skin, lightly built body and relatively short in stature, she had bright turquoise eyes, not a freckle insight and sandy blonde hair that was cropped short at the back and sides with a fringe at the front she kept to one side. She had a well-defined ace with a sharp jawline and semi-angular cheekbones, match that with a kind and generous smile, and she was very popular with the girls, much to her dismay.

Callum, on the other hand, was the complete opposite compared to his partner. He was much more stoic looking in his words. His body was much more substantial in build and was also much taller than his partner. His face was snub-nosed, with a wide jaw and angular cheekbones.

A lot of people often mistook him for a sailor as his dark coloured skin was rough and weathered from exposure to the sea. His eyes were reasonably deep-set into his face and were a dark, murky brown with a slight redness around the edges of his eyes from the seawater he often swam in. He still got some appreciating looks from the girls but was overshadowed a lot by Ise, not that he minded, he just found it funny watching her trying and failing to avoid the female attention.

“Awww come on Ise, I can’t be the only one you show your true form to you know, plus I hear he is well hung!” Callum sounded far too cheerful saying that for Ciel's taste so while the Huntail threw back his head and laughed Ciel just flung the potion bottle into his mouth.

“Screw you, Callum, like hell am I letting you see it” Ciel walked over to one of the chairs that were next to the table that Callum was still sitting on, choking slightly on the potion bottle before grabbing it out of his mouth and smiling again.

“Thanks for the potion” and started to douse himself with the mega potion spray. Ise just gave an exhausted sigh. She just moved over to grab some more potions and a couple of apples. She hadn’t had breakfast this morning due to the stress of the interview being today.

“So you two passed the stress test then?” Ciel asked Callum who had finished using the mega potion. Callum just looked around to Ciel before tilting his head and shrugging.

“Probably? All we got from the receptionist was that the higher-ups would decide if we passed or not, so that was a stress test? Damn no wonder they lit up the room like a thunderstorm” he turned away from Ciel with a distant look in his eyes and started to chew the inside of his cheek. Ise made it to the table grabbing a couple of berries, apples and potions before walking back to join the other two, dumping the items on the table next to Callum before grabbing a seat opposite Ciel.

“So where's Vaal?” Ise asked innocently while Callum’s face just darkened in a scowl.

“Yeah, where is the swamp sucker” Ciel just crossed his arms looking down as he gave his response.

“He got hit pretty hard in the room we were in, and he had to be carried to the washroom to get some water.”

“What happened to him mate?” Ise leaned forwards while Callum just raised an eyebrow, looking unimpressed by the news.

“We got hit by a heatwave while they drained all the moisture out of the room, the room reached 87 degrees before we managed to get out” Ciel looked up and met Ise’s gaze.

“Blistering binacle” “Arceus damnation” Callum and Ise just swore.

“Is he alright?” Ise asked in a concerned tone of voice, a worried look on her face.

“We had to use his emergency breather” Ise just furrowed his brows looking unsure as Callum took in a deep sharp breath as he winced.

“Depths be damned it was that bad?”

“Yeah that bad, so he will likely be trying to rehydrate with a shower or something” Ciel sat back in his chair as Ise eyed up Callum.

“Emergency breather?” he asked Callum who just waved it off with his hand before explaining.

“It's a face mask water types have to wear if they get too dry to breathe properly” Ise bolted up slamming her hands down onto the table shouting.

“That's not something you can brush off mate, and you're telling me he nearly suffocated for Helix sakes!” Callum just held his hands up in front of him as he jumped off the table and turned to face his partner.

“Relax Ise, he is alright, if he wasn’t Ciel wouldn’t be here, would he?” Ise just squinted her eyes at Callum before sitting back down into her chair.

“So Vaal and Ciel passed, though Vaal nearly died by the sounds of it, I wonder if Lee and Zed will make it through, that ‘stress test’ as you put it is perilous isn’t it mate” Ise glanced at Ciel who was startled by the news.

“Lee and Zed are here?” Callum and Ise nodded as Callum replied.

“Yeah, we saw them in the reception before we went into the hell room, wonder what they have to go through for their stress test though” Callum looked to the ceiling as he stroked his chin. Ciel grinned.

“A couple of topless bodybuilders would do it for Zed” Ise blushed as Callum burst into laughter.

“That sounds like my kinda test” Callum said in a cheerful voice.

“Probably would be” Ciel and Ise chimed in at the same, both this a bemused look on their face.

The door into the break room opened as the receptionist Reala walked in with a clipboard in one hand. She was studying the board as she walked into the room, looked up as she turned to face the rookies who had shifted around to meet her.

“I am looking to a Callum Deepwater and an Ise Fellowfae?”

“Right here, darling.”

“Nice to meet you.”

Ise bowed her head in greeting while Callum struck a bodybuilder pose grinning as he maintained eye contact with Reala who just giggled.

“Drinks before dicks little boy. Now the higher-ups have decided to pass you the stress test which means you just have to go through the final test, same for you mister Padfoot. Your partner is currently undertaking the test as we speak, you have been called to the basement floor by the chief for your final test, if you would like to follow me, please. Oh, mister Ise and mister Callum you will be tested directly afterwards so please prepare yourselves.” The first part was spoken in a smokey teasing voice before Reala took a much more professional tone. Callum had blushed red slightly as Ise glared at him while Ciel got up and walked over to follow Reala out of the room.

"do you have to be so vulgar all the time" Ise whispered to Callum as the pokemon rubbed the back of his head letting out an awkward laugh.

"Hey I didn't know she would be interested in me, don't hit me I'm still low" Ise had started slapping him.

“So Vaal is currently being tested?” Ciel asked as he approached Reala, who smiled, opening the door and replied.

“That is correct, and he is currently undergoing the final test by the commissioner's wife and head of the rapid response unit Mrs Cathrine Ryuukin.”