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Spring has arrived! And with it, the yearly Camphoreon celebration of the spring festival!

The event was held in the largest of the Camphoreon parks, spread out through the while aria, and covered with venders selling all kinds of things, from from fruits, baked goods and hot meals and snacks, to flowers and hand made crafts like charms, jewelry, and clothing. All of it spring inspired.

There was music drifting from every corner of the park, and a large, general feel of light hearted celebration.

This year was especially exciting for the trainers in Kodo, since the arrival of Steven Stone at the last year's festival, more and more trainers from the island of Kodo have been taking a more serious approach about training, and a bigger excitement about the potential arrival of a Pokemon League in Kodo! Officially marking their home island as a League region!

This of course had yet to be decided, or followed through, but the trainers of Kodo could only put in their support for this to happen.
an encouraging letter, and posts on Trainer forums had been sent out, to encourage any and all trainers in Kodo to come celebrate at the Spring festival, not to just have fun, but to show their support for the League.
And of course to sign up for the annual strong trainer's pokemon battle challenge.

One of the trainers that had been a hand in spear heading this get together, was a young women, newly turned 18 with blond hair and large, bright blue eyes, and a consistent look of joy on her features.
She had skipped her spring dresses for this day, to wear her trainer's outfit, tall riding boots in her favorite colors, pink fabric draped over the back of her hips around her sturdy riding suit.

She had taken a moment to let herself be distracted by one of the bands playing by the gathering of trees, where she danced with her Kiss Kiss, a newly evolved Raichu.
Pastin, her Rapidash standing by, and watching them with a gentle look.

A deep voice called her name, a voice she recognized instantly, Kiss responded with a happy "Rai Rai!" and bounded over to the large man, while Pastin bowed his head in greeting to their friend, both the man and the pokemon on his shoulder.

The girl stepped herself into a spin, stopping once she was facing Dith, and letting her arms fall delicately to her sides as a smile lit up her face.
"Dith!" She called in delight, taking Kiss' lead and hurried over to meet him, opening her arms as she made to give him a BIG hug.

Dith beamed and grabbed Rosie around the waist, lifting her up and spinning her around a couple of times before setting her back on her feet and giving her a proper hug. Viktor meanwhile, accustomed to this kind of greeting, had flopped around Dith's neck like a fur stole and dug his claws into his shirt for purchase; falling off was not on his to so list.

"You know I think I first spotted you this time last year," Dith said, giving his Espeon an apologetic scratch behind the ears. "Time flies when you're busy, eh?" Life had changed a lot too; his old life seemed so far away as almost to belong to somebody else. He missed his work when he thought about it, but most of the time he just didn't think about it because he was so busy and caught up with enjoying what he was doing. You couldn't be too things at once, not with all your heart, and what he was doing here felt more important for now.

She squeed in surprise and delight when she was easily scooped up and spun around. laughing as she wrapped her arms around Dith's neck in return of the tight hug.
Over the year, all the traveling and training and just being together as a group, Rosie had started to see Dith very much as a father figure.
She wondered, if she had a father, if this is what it would have been like.
Probably not though! Dith was the best, enough said.

When he spoke, bringing back that a year ago to this day they had first started on what journey would lead them to where they are today.
She smiled and nodded, "A whole year! I think we've come a long way, and its only the first year~"

Another familiar voice called to them, and Rosie looked around to see Guy, and his pokemon not to far from them.
"Hey Guy!" Rosie threw a hand up to call out to Guy in greeting when something suddenly moved by Dith, she looked quickly over to see a familiar blue Vaporeon.
"Fathom?" She blinked, looking up from where he came from.
"Tymiko!"

Kiss Kiss was able to hold her ground much easier this time when she was tackle hugged, cooing happily and returning the hug to her friend.
She said proudly.

Pastin, having jumped in surprise when a Vaporeon fell out of no where blinked at the water type. then glanced around as other familiar pokemon started to join the group.

Tymiko winced as she saw what had happened, crouching in her tree and wishing she could disappear. Oh well, there was no help for it now. She had to take responsibility for her pokemon. Why didn't she just keep him in his pokeball like a good trainer would have? Hmm...maybe she just liked the company.

Swinging down onto a lower branch, she dropped onto the soft grass and walked over, looking as guilty and embarrassed as her pokemon. "I'm sorry...I didn't see him fall." she apologized to the group, looking from Rosie to a young man with short blonde hair to...a giant man with long, blonde hair. Her eyes widened in awe.

Fathom, meanwhile, was very much relieved to know that the man he had landed on seemed very friendly. He good-naturedly acknowledged the Vaporeon's fall and didn't seem to be angry at all. Relieved at this, his tense muscles relaxed a bit and he waited for his trainer to come over to the group. When she was close enough, he attempted to leap for her shoulders, but she leaned back in shock and caught him in her arms instead.

"Fathom! Warn me next time, won't you?" she cried, having almost fallen over when her pokemon had made the jump. But the tallest man was speaking to her now. She looked up to meet his eyes respectfully and tried not to fidget. "Thank you," she said softly, wondering where her courage had gone. "Dimitry is a wonderful name too. But...I'll call you Dith if you call me Ty," she added with a small smile.

Glancing around at his question, she looked at the other two trainers. "Um...is it okay? You all seem to know each other already and I didn't want to intrude..." She shifted the weight of the Vaporeon in her arms. Wow...water-types were heavy. As she began to look around, though, he mind was distracted from her burden. "Oh...your pokemon...they're all so lovely..."

Fathom smiled up at Viktor once he was settled in, tilting his head. he mused. He flicked his tail playfully, showing he took no offense.

A raven haired young man was passing by when he noticed the festivities going on in the park beyond. His feet paused on the sidewalk and he turned to look at all the excited throngs of people that seemed to be gathering. His faithful Growlithe looked on as well, this time holding a bone from his last meal in his mouth.

"Huh, wonder what's going on over there," he said to himself, before looking down at his companion. "Think we should check it out Repede?" The Growlithe just huffed in reply.

"Yeah, why not." Might as well see what all the fuss was about.

With that, Yuri changed course and headed into the park.

Trainers welcome huh?
Well, while Ray certainly didn't mind having something to do, she had to admit she wasn't entirely sure she understood why Anna and Danny kept insisting on keeping her filled in on League blogs and chat boards.

She chalked it up to the two of them wanting to know what the happening at Kodo was for themselves, and she was more then happy to fill them in,
Ray was curious herself. What were trainers here like?

She had been told that there would be a lot in the aria, this not only gave her time to get a glimpse on the pokemon live here, but Anna had also mentioned that in the past, with the large gathering of people and pokemon, that the risk of having Team Rocket involved somehow went up.
Ray had no idea what Team Rocket was like, but so far it just looked like a normal festival to her.

A tall, wiry female figure stood by one of the trees within the park's festivities, with one shoulder leaned against the trunk, one ankle crossed casually over the other.
She had a mild, amused smile over her lips, with a half lidded expression on contentment.
She peered around with a mossy colored eye, the other being covered by a pull over of long ashy gray bangs.

The ex-trainer wasn't in any particular rush to get anything done, or go out to look at anything, but just as she was wondering where she wanted to go next, a familiar person crossed her vision.
"YURI!" She barked, pushing herself off the tree and pointing over to him. "I challenge you to a Pokemon battle!" she called, in a very typical league trainer fashion.

A celebratory gathering with Pokemon and trainers? If there was anyone who was looking forward to this, it was Opal. The girl had herself a white blob that was bobbing up and down on her head in an excited manner, repeating in a super fast manner "Dit dit dit dit dit dit dit dit dit!" There might have been music filling the air, but it didn't seem like she was dancing to the tune.

Ivory could hear several familiar voices amidst the crowd, but she didn't seem to go out of her way to approach any of them at the moment. However, one thing she couldn't ignore was the demand from some unknown person for Yuri to have a Pokemon battle with her. She remembered meeting him and his Growlithe recently at the Pokemart, and she recalled how new he seemed to a lot of things trainers were pretty well versed on.

"...oh... that might not go so well..."

Before the bundled up trainer could react, it seemed that the ditto had managed to find something to do amidst a larger gathering of trainers and Pokemon. She plopped right off of the girl's head, landing on the ground like a boneless blob of jelly would. Quite quickly, she was slinky-style moving towards a Rapidash and a Pignite. In a friendly manner, she began to wave her stubby arms about, greeting everyone with an enthusiastic "DIT DIT DIT!!"

"O-opal! What...what are you...?!" The girl let out a huge sigh.

Typical Opal