5 minutes earlier

"Relax Lance. I am just going to test him, isn't that the whole point of the final test isn't it, an in-person interview of the pokemon in a one on one situations."

Cath had been caught by Lance just before she made it into the female changing rooms, the Dragonite was breathing hard and had his teeth bared, his wife was in human form with long blue hair looking directly into his eyes.

"Yes, it is but not in the damn washroom when your naked" Cath just gave a well-natured sigh before shrugging.

"Call it a test of character then" Lance wavered slightly at that.

"Cath..." in response Cath just reached up and placed a hand on his cheek, rubbing the side of his face with her thumb as she smiled gently.

"I will be fine, we both know I way out level him there isn't anything he can do to me even if he tried to, it's a good idea to get an idea of his mindset now you know that" Lance turned his head away slightly, has he placed his hand on top of hers considering what she had said. He knew it probably would be for the best, and if he did try anything, she would quickly deal with him before it went anywhere. He sighed before accepting the idea; he didn't like it a single bit, however.

"Fine, just don't take it too far, alright?" Cath just laughed lightly; her face softened as she hugged her husband before whispering in his ear.

"I will wear a swimsuit then, is that better you big baby, you know I love you and only you, you know that honey" she kissed his cheek before pulling back and turned to the door of the changing room.

"Yes that would be better, thank you. Wait why do you have your swimsuit here anyway" realisation suddenly hit Lance as Cath just let out a pearl of laughter, looking back over her shoulder as she pushed the door open she chided her overprotective husband with a slight pout.

"Honestly did you think I would walk into the washroom naked? Half our staff are guys Lance, and I am certainly not dumb enough to walk into a shared washroom without a swimsuit on you know", and with that she walked into the changing room, leaving Lance slack-jawed and red in the face, realising he had jumped to conclusions.

Vaal, at this point, had drifted off slightly and was still resting at the bottom of the bathing pool. The water was nice and warm like a giant blanket that was gently weighing down on him, he did have some HP damage, mostly from having dried out and was unable to breathe correctly, the heat itself didn't do much damage to him being a water type. Coupled with the fact his amnesia and curse lowered some of the damaged taken he was sitting around half of his HP left at the moment.

"Hmm hm hmm hm hmm" a pleasant humming sound entered the room, along with the sound of footprints which caused Vaal to stir awake, opening his eyes he blinked a couple of times before suddenly someone or something stepped on his tail.

1 minute earlier

Much to her shame, Cath couldn't but consider if she should go into the washroom naked, the idea did have a kind of thrill to it, but she was married, happily, though she did think things could be better.

She sighed as she stripped off her top and trousers, removing her bra and panties she looked into the full-length mirror inlaid into the wall. She liked her human form, a lot more than her natural one anyway, however, her husband prefered her natural style as he would put it. Still, it made her happy he didn't want anyone else to see her naked in her human form, that thought brought a bittersweet smile to her face.

She ran her hands over the sides of her body from her hips to her armpits before turning back to grab her swimsuit out of her locker, and she had a job to do, she could soul search later. Quickly slipping on the two-piece swimsuit, she started to hum as she waltzed into the washroom. Entering the wash area, she surveyed the room trying to find the Quagsire as she made her way into the large centre hotspring in the entire of the room. Entering the hotspring, she felt the smoothing warmth the water splash up her legs; a smile started to creep its way onto her face.

Then she stepped on something squishy.

Vaal reacted immediately to the pressure on his tail, constricting his abdominal muscles he performed a sit up with his arms outstretched, mouth open in a shout of shock more than pain. As his head breached the surface of the water, a fist shot down to meet him, slamming straight between his eyes sending him straight back down underneath the water, his head bouncing off the tiled floor. Cath stepped backwards off his tail so with a flick of it he shot away using the force of the tail-flick to get away from the newcomer, before lifting himself to the surface of the water, slower this time with caution.

Cath still had her hands up and closed into fists, ready for a fight; however, now her mouth was slightly open. Her eyes went wide as she eyed the pokemon rise slowly head first out of the deep end of the hotspring, the Quagsire was glaring at her with narrowed eyes and lips tightly squeezed together.

Vaal eyed up the newcomer. She was very tall, long legs and an athletic build with clearly defined muscles on her abdomen, thighs and arms. She was wearing a swimsuit that exposed her midriff and left little to the imagination when it came to her chest and hip area. The swimwear consisted of black panties and a black sports bra. That caused him to raise an eyebrow as he started to wonder who the hell she was.

"Haha sorry about that, nice to meet you finally Mr Marshtail, I am Cathrine Ryuukin I will be the one in charge of your final exam" Cath regained her calm demeanour and placed her hands on her hip, jutting it out to the side slightly as she spoke.

Vaal just continued staring. Cath just huffed.

"You can look, but you certainly aren't doing yourself any favours in doing so you know."

"I'm trying to decide if your the real deal or someone else" Vaal replied evenly.

"You came into the washroom with a swimsuit on, and nothing else then stood on my tail and then punched me in the head" he pointed out, Cath just rubbed the back of her head avoiding direct eye contact with Vaal.

"Yeah yeah I'm sorry about that, you just caught me by surprise that's all" she tried to explain, slowly realising how it sounded like an excuse. Vaal just slowly floated over to the side of her to reach the shallow end of the hot spring.

"Judging by the fin sticking out of your back you are a Kingdra?" Cath's eyes went wide, not many pokemon knew where to look when she was in human form to find out what species she was. All pokemon while in human form have one identifiable feature visible when in human form, for a lot of pokemon this would typically be a tail or wings. It was a failsafe left into ditto suits so different pokemon could be identified even if they were all in human form. For Cath, it was her dorsal fin that jutted out of her back.

"Outstanding recruit, not many pokemon know where to look for that."

"So what will happen in the test then?" Vaal wanted to cut to the chase.

"Okay, so the final test is an in-person interview one on one that's all" Cath just walked further into the hotspring before sitting down and started to enjoy the warmth from the hot water. The sight of Cath suddenly relaxing left Vaal frozen on the spot wondering what the heck was going on as he stared after Cath.

"Come sit with me, and we will talk" Cath spoke over her shoulder. Okay so he has pretty good deduction skills, he seems pretty quick to temper. Still, he is remaining cautious after the first meeting, can't blame him really, and he didn't goggle inappropriately at my body, so that's a plus, I wonder if he will try to take advantage of me being in a swimsuit.

Vaal slowly made his way over to join her, however, went wide leaving a good couple meters in between them, he wasn't going to go back into striking range again.

Cath, however, misinterpreted this action as giving her space, something she appreciated as, in her mind, it showed he wasn't going to try taking advantage of her despite her asking him to sit with her. A decentish character so far, that's good.

"So Vaal Marshtail, why did you want to become a member of the LFP?" Cath started to wash her hair, scooping up handfuls of water before throwing it up over onto her head, Vaal just looked away while he considered his answer.

"I suppose I wanted to follow my dad in protecting the city" that took Cath by surprise.

"Your dad's an officer in the force?"

"He is part of the rangers" Cath stared at him with wide eyes.

"Oh? That's quite the accomplishment" Vaal just smiled forlornly.

"Yeah it is, but I wasn't strong enough to follow him into them, so I decided to try and join the LFP instead."

"Why not the army?"

"My parents wanted me to stay in the city if possible, so they suggested the police force or a gym battler, I choose police force."

"Why did they suggest a gym battler or police force?"

"Because I wanted to be stronger" Vaal spoke, his voice was soft and low as he slipped his hands into his vest's pockets. Cath stayed silent, considering the new information she had learnt.

"So basically you came to us in hopes of getting stronger, not out of a sense of justice or duty or anything?"

"Yeah, that's pretty much it..."

"So what?" Vaal looked around back to Cath with a questioning look. Cath was leaning back in the water with her arms out behind her supporting her; she huffed before replying.

"What, you think I am going to fail you because you are using us to get stronger? Not everyone that comes to us is here because they have a great sense of justice or duty that's normal, hell I would call you a liar if you had tried to tell me otherwise."

"So you're fine with that being my reasoning?"

"Yeah, give me a reason why I wouldn't be fine with the reasoning" that made Vaal pause for thought.

"Ummm, because, oh… I got nothing..."

"Exactly, honestly speaking if we only accepted pokemon that had a massive sense of justice, we probably wouldn't have many pokemon. Besides, have a sense of justice doesn't instantly mean you have the skills or character that is necessary for this kind of job does it" Cath spoke in a slow, precise manner as she eyed Vaal out the corner of her eye.

"I am the same as you, I wanted to get stronger while being able to protect my city, this is my dream job in some ways" Cath admitted to Vaal.

"So do I get the job?" Vaal asked, tilting his head to the side, Cath just laughed.

"I am still considering it, but so far you haven't given any major reasons why I shouldn't give you the job."

"Major reasons? There are minor reasons?"

"Yeah, for example how you acted during the stress room, you sat at the table waiting for 15 minutes before you realised something was wrong, you didn't try to look around the room, you found the hidden message by complete chance, and you nearly suffocated. You should have told you, partner, to pass you your emergency breather the moment you worked out we were draining the moisture out of the room, a couple of other smaller things as well but overall you did pretty well."

"Okay..."

"As I said, however, these are only minor problems in the grand scheme of things, and so far you haven't tried to go all googly eyes at me or anything of that sort, it shows you have a somewhat decent character at least which is good. You are trusting in your partner, and you can think on your feet and keep relatively calm in a high-stress situation, you are a pretty high level for your age as well and made through the academy with flying colours. You haven't shown any indication of you being racist or typist furthering the point you have a good enough character, your motivations for joining us might not be 100% selfless however that is pretty common among the officers here, so yeah." Cath turned her head to face Vaal before flashing him a broad grin.

"Welcome to the LFP officer Marshtail, and I hope your partner can pass his final test." with that she stood up and walked over to Vaal who had frozen and was staring at her approach with wide eyes.

"Wait seriously? I passed?" Vaal was having a hard time believing what he just heard. Cath just laughed as she offered him a hand.

"You heard me, officer, you passed now get up, dry off and head to the break room for debriefing" Vaal took her hand and let himself to rise back to his feet. Now on his feet, he bowed in thanks before he turned and started moving towards the door.

"By the way, why didn't your jaw hit the floor? A lot of the guys can't help but stop and stare at me in this, my husband included, yet you seem completely oblivious to my looks. Why is that?"

Vaal paused momentarily, before looking back and waved one hand under his mouth from side to side.

"You're just not my type" before turning back and walking a little quicker towards the door as he started to sweat.

"Ara? I think I forgot something" Cath suddenly remembered she needed to test the recruits battle abilities.

When Vaal heard the ara, however, he immediately burst into mist before sprinting out of the door using the sudden burst of white cloud to cover his retreat. He had heard his mother say the same expression before chasing after his father as the latter fled away. He knew it was never a good thing to be on the receiving end of it.

Cath however just started laughing as she saw Vaal dash out of the door leading to the guys changing room, before diving into the hot spring to enjoy the water for a little bit longer.

"Oh I should text Lance, he needs to know he passed" Cath surfaced as she tapped on her bracelet on her left wrist.

"Send a text to Hubby with the following."

Ciel, on the other hand, was starting to get much more nervous, his tail was twitching again, and his eyes were very narrow as he glanced further down the corridor he was ambling down. The receptionist, who had introduced herself as Reala had told him that the final test would be down at the bottom of the corridor.

He slowly wandered down the surprisingly long corridor, taking the left-hand turn like ordered and that's where things started going wrong. Turning the corner, Ciel walked into a face full of a yellow powder. Ciel instantly recognised the move, realising he was under attack he activated his hone claws as he ducked the next attack when a pokemon leapt at him. The assailant had been aiming for his head and upper torso, so the newcomer sailed over him before rebounding off the wall behind him hitting Ciel in the back running him with an electrical charge.

Ciel reached around, grabbing the pokemon by its ears before flinging it down the corridor towards its allies, who were now dashing towards Ciel, the pokemon turned out to be a Plusle, slammed into the Parasect stunning the two of them in the resulting collision.

Ciel capitalised on the stun rapidly changing back into his natural form before following up with a succession of fury swipes, slashing into the two pokemon before somersaulting back as the final newcomer joined the fight. A Serperior that slammed its tail into the ground where Ciel was mere moments ago.

The pokemon glared at Ciel as its eyes gleamed a red light, Ciel released a cute sounding growl and whipped his tail back and forth dropping both the aggressor's attack and defence before he leapt back into the fight.

The Serperior whipped its tail aiming at the mid-air pokemon, aiming to slam him into the wall. However, the large appendage went straight through Ciel, or rather, the image of Ciel.

The real Ciel had gone low to the ground, a second after the double team had jumped, with the pokemon's focused on the double team, they didn't see the actual danger till it was far too late.

Ciel slammed into the Serperior using his play rough move, a pinkish glow emitting off from parts of his body he started to shove, slap, jab and bite at the pokemon, the energy of the move dealing damage to the pokemon's HP. He pushed off the Serperior's body to dodge a thunder wave coming from behind him, activating hone claws again he performed another fury swipe into the Parasect. Aiming for the eyes, hoping to land a weak point crit before he took a bullet seed point-blank to the midriff, the impact sending him off course missing the fury swipe.

He twisted in mid-air so he would land on his paws before jumping back as a thunderbolt shot towards him. He felt the air burn as the electric attack narrowly missed him. He tensed up ready to strike again; he needed to deal with the Parasect, the Serperior had received the paralysed debuff so shouldn't be much trouble to him now.

"Okay stop right there" a deep, commanding voice rang out behind him, Ciel spun, activating play rough, his paws glowing a bright pink as he swiped towards the towering pokemon.

"Easy there" the newcomer easily out sped him, dodging his attack with apparent ease as he lent to the side letting Ciel's paw hit nothing but air. Ciel backed up further from all of the pokemon before deciding to inspect them all. Looking at the newcomer, he saw a rather large Dragonite. The pokemon was semi-dressed, the top half of his body dressed out in a formal looking uniform. There were various badges positioned neatly in a row on his left chest area and the station badge on his right, shining golden in the corridor light; it showed signs that its owner spent a great deal of time polishing it.

On seeing it, however, Ciel immediately sat down before raising his right paw to the side of his head. Lance just gave a light laugh as he narrowed his focus on the rookie, while the other three pokemon behind him started to get back to their feet and deal with the various HP loss from the short battle. The double team clone wandered over to Ciel and adopted the same position as the original.

"I see you have excellent control over your double, that is quite impressive" Lance complemented Ciel as he kept a close eye on his face, seeing how he would take it. Ciel just remained impassive though his eyes gained a slight sparkle of pride which Lance missed, however.

"Thank you, sir, it is something I am quite proud of."

"Shame you haven't worked on your mid-air dodging at all, you jumped right into that bullet seed" Ciel's face twitched slightly at that in shame, it had been a mistake on his part, he hadn't considered if the Parasect had ranged attacks or not.

"Sorry sir" Ciel was a little downcast at that but tried not to let it show on his face as he looked ahead towards Lance.

"Hmmm," Lance had an unimpressed look plastered on his face. Still, inside he was grudgingly impressed, he had seen a lot of other pokemon try to brush off the negative comments. They would often claim that they wouldn't usually be hit by it, or had just been unlucky at the moment, they usually didn't do very well in the field.

"You can stop saluting now recruit" Lance spoke dryly towards Ciel who was starting to look slightly uncomfortable as he tried to maintain his salute. Ciel dropped his paw back down but remained seated, the body double mimicking as usual before flickering out after a quick side glance from Ciel.

"So tell me, why are you applying for this position? As I understand you have quite the reason for doing so, according to your head of year anyway" Lance tilted his head slightly as the pokemon behind him slowly walked down the corridor talking to themselves in quiet voices. Ciel watched them walk away, Lance just lightly huffed as he shifted his stance slightly.

"Relax recruit, they will be your future co-workers, should you pass this test anyway, now answer the question."

"Sir, I want to join the LFP as thanks to someone that rescued me when I was young" that made Lance pause, this was a rare motivation, most pokemon joined for a sense of duty, keeping the peace, gaining levels, things like that. Joining as thanks to someone was surprisingly rare, not many pokemon were willing to dictate their entire life to this job as thanks to someone else.

"Oh? That is quite an interesting motivation you have there."

"Thank you, sir, I am aware."

"Don't think it will give you any advantages in this test, got it?"

"I understand sir."

"Now then I have a couple more questions, this shouldn't take long" Lance then started to ask various questions regarding Ciel's moves, ability, grades and parentage. Reasonably dull stuff, however towards the end.

"So your level 42, male, limber ability, borderline grades and you are from the Padfoot family, the banker family?" Lance couldn't help but raise an eyebrow at that bit of information.

"What is a rich kid like you doing here? I would have thought you would take over your family's business; the Padfoots are worth millions" Ciel just looked somewhat uncomfortable at that. He didn't like the stigma that because he was from the Meowth evolution line, he was supposed to go into business.

"Ah my bad, I guess you heard that a lot?"

"Yes, sir, it happens a lot."

"Hmmm?" Lance noticed that his bracelet was buzzing on his wrist slightly, it was linked to his mobile and notified him that he had received a text message from Cathrine.

"One moment" he pulled out his mobile from his side pocket, quickly unlocking it and reading the text message.

The Quagsire passed, send the Huntail to the washroom, love you xx.

"Ughhh" Lance just rolled his eyes at that as he moaned quietly to himself from the text. Glancing over to Ciel, he made a decision.

"Hmmm, welcome to the LFP recruit, your partner also has passed the final test and will be heading up to the break room as we speak, follow me" Lance slipped his phone back into his pocket as he walked past the gobsmacked Persian. Ciel had frozen with his eyes wide open, mouth agape, his ears and tail were the only things moving as they twitched slightly as he slowly processed what he had just heard.

Lance glanced back over his shoulder as he neared the corner.

"You coming officer?" Ciel flinched as he realised that this was real, he was now an officer in the LFP, a giddy smile had slipped on to his face he got up and started to follow his new boss.