Kyeo is up bright and early and has changed into one of his new outfits. He is ready though he is not sure if Frank means to have breakfast first?

Pokemon Center breakfast isn't for another hour or so but there are snacks set out on tables for the early risers.

Kyeo waits till he sees someone else take snacks so he knows how much it's normal to grab at once.

That would be Frank! He grabs a handful of protein bars.

Kyeo will take... two. Omf.

Two is nourishing! They are densely packed with nutrients.

Oh good. Which way?

Frank leads! It's a short walk.

The high school is big and so are its grounds. Most students aren't there yet—classes at the high school start late—but some athletic teams arrive early for practices. Kyeo might notice the football team out on their field as he passes.

A reassuringly recognizable activity in broad scope if not in specifics.

Frank greets a receptionist at the door of the school.

"Hi, two adult visitors, please. Kyeo here is attending career counseling as a new arrival to the region, and I'm bringing a Pokemon that can psychically bridge the language barrier for him."

The receptionist gives Frank and Kyeo some paper armbands to wear.

When Frank puts his on Kyeo copies him. "Thank you."

Frank leads the way to the counselor, who greets Kyeo.

"Hi! I'm Brianna. Frank's told me a bit about your situation—you're Kyeo the portal traveler, right?"

"Yes. I am from a universe without Pokémon. The technology is substantially different; you have things we do not but we have faster than light travel and I am not from the planet to which humans are native."

"All right! Frank said you're curious about Pokemon ownership; is that what you want to start with or do you have other questions about jobs that take priority?"

"I am given to understand that virtually everyone has Pokémon and I have no particular reason to want to avoid it, but I would like to choose a variety that will fit in with whatever else it makes sense for me to do."

"Sounds good! That's not the order I'd do things with high school students—for them I almost always recommend the 'travel the region, get some Badges, then I do aptitude and personality testing together on you and whichever Pokemon you've happened to bond with' path—but for an adult immigrant with no particular attachment to our traditions your way makes sense.

I could start you with some tests you can fill out on a computer by yourself, to get an idea of what category of career you'd be best suited to, does that sound good?"

"Yes, thank you."

Available aptitude tests:

—a four-axis personality test, like Earth's Big Five minus Openness; instructions emphasizing that there are no "right answers" and the goal is just to find a career one can thrive and contribute long-term in

—a general intelligence test (Corviknight's Progressive Matrices)

—high school diploma equivalence subject tests (emphasize that, taken through machine translation, they will include a mark indicating lack of language proficiency but sufficient reading comprehension; langugage proficiency certificate can be obtained separately later; also that there are no right answers and that these + the intellligence test are only preliminary results in determining whether he is college-track or not, due to possible cultural gaps in testing)

These tests are presumably all wildly culturally incompetent and will get weird results for this reason. He is a little above median on all of extraversion, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and agreeableness. He is on the high end of the middle standard deviation of intelligence as measured by matrices. He knows absolutely fuckall about Pokémon, Pokémon-derived science, local history, and any literary references he might be supposed to catch, but with the translation program caught up on Ibyabekan math notation he can do that all right, and he tends to "comprehend" more than was technically specified in a given paragraph rather than less but multiple choice questions may well save him there.

"Preliminary test results suggest it's well worth getting your high school equivalent diploma—just a few months, subsidized, or even weeks of decdicated study—and your first few Gym Badges! Those will massively open up options for you to contribute to the fullest extent of your abilties and get rewarded accordingly. The Gym Badge element means getting your Pokemon. Results also suggest that you're fit for customer-facing roles, but I'm taking that with a grain of salt given the cultural gap. I would suggest focusing on non-customer-facing until you have your language proficiency certification in addition to the high school equivalence.

The fact that many high school diploma required jobs also ask for some Gym Badges suggests that it's in your interests to get some Pokemon, frankly, and your linguistic and cultural gap indicates to me you might be best suited for a Psychic-type with some ability to communicate without words. I could pass your personality test results on to a Professor's assistant for a specialized starter Pokemon recommendation."

The receptionist texts on her phone.

"I think it might be best to get a Professor's assistant in town to offer a starter Pokemon, rather than a Gym Leader like Clay who's particularly type-focused; Bianca is less than an hour's flight from here right now and always has good recommendations. I can text her your personality test results and advise her to show up."

"And how would I go about getting a flight?"

"She'd fly to us! It's one of the Professor's and their assistants' jobs to give out starters—traditionally also Pokedexes but more and more phones just take the app these days."

"Oh, that's very generous of her to commute for it though."