A Viridian Win!

Zaria grinned as she threw an arm around Vali's shoulders, "That was an awesome battle, Vali. My heart was racing the whole time."

"I'm glad you enjoyed it, Zaria," Vali looked up from her badge to smile at Zaria.

Zaria tightened her arm for a moment as they walked to the pokemon center, "So what now?"

Vali put her badge into the case for it, "I'm going to register for the Conference after getting everyone seen to. After Steven's had his battle, I'm going to head back to Pallet Town. My pokemon are going to have a week to rest then we'll buckle down on training our butts off for the Conference."

"You'll be working with Professor Oak during that time, won't you?" Steven asked earning a nod, "That'll be interesting,"

Zaria let out a groan, "It's no fair that you're going to be training with someone like Professor Oak."

"I'm probably not going to be training with him a lot," Vali replied as Zaria let go of her, "He's going to be busy and just give me a little advice,"

"Still," Zaria shook her head, "You're still going to have a big advantage over everyone else,"

Vali snorted softly, "Not much, we're going to face people with more experience than us during the tournament, you know? I need every advantage I can get especially since I'm shooting for Elite," They walked into the pokemon center, "I'm going to get my pokemon checked out."

"I'll be going to go spend some time prepping my pokemon," Steven told her and she waved him off.

"I've got to go call my dad," Zaria hugged Vali lightly, "I'll see ya later,"

Zaria headed off and Vali went to wait in line. Nurse Joy smiled at her when she reached the counter, "Hello, Vali. How was the battle?"

"We won," Vali grinned at Nurse Joy as the woman set a tray onto the counter, "It was really tough and Balto was the only one that didn't faint. I'm not sure about how bad the damage was for each of them. Arwen and Elrond definitely need to be checked over thoroughly. Celina got caught in an Self Destruct, but I'm not sure about the amount of damage,"

"I'll give everyone a thorough check over," Nurse Joy promised as Vali placed her pokeballs onto the tray, "Now I assume you want to register for the Conference?"

Vali nodded as Nurse Joy handed the tray to Chansey, "Yes, I figured it be best to do it now."

"Unfortunately, you'll have to wait until two weeks before the Conference," Nurse Joy offered her an apologetic look, "Sorry, Vali,"

Vali sighed a bit having figured something like that would happen, "It's fine, Nurse Joy. I'll have Professor Oak handle the whole thing."

Nurse Joy nodded, "Of course. I'll call you to the front desk once I'm able to figure out what's going on with your pokemon."

"Thanks, Nurse Joy," Vali waved lightly as she headed out of the pokemon center to give her other pokemon the good news.

Excitement coiled through her body, Vali couldn't believe that they'd done it. They'd gotten all eight badges and would be heading to the Indigo Conference.

Vali's pokemon would be in Nurse Joy's care for a week at most despite the harsh battles thanks to the fact Nurse Joy was well used to dealing with such injuries as a result of being so close to the last gym in the Indigo League. Balto had suffered the least of her pokemon having some major bruises and muscle strain. Pele had a lot of bruises, but would only need to rest a bit in order to recuperate her lost energy. Celina had gotten away with some broken and cracked bones as well as some burned off feathers. Arwen had a sprained ankle, but the worst injury on top of her various bruises were her heavily bruised/cracked ribs. On top of wearing himself out and suffering from quite a few bruises alongside a case of acute poisoning, Elrond had completely exhausted his electrical storage to shock Nidoking which would take upwards to a month to completely replenish though this would also increase said storage which wasn't too bad.

Balto would be released the next day alongside Pele since both required the least amount of care. Celina and Arwen would be staying for around five days while Elrond would be released two days afterward. Elrond had somehow managed to get through the battle without a broken bone, but the poison from Nidoking wasn't something they could play around with. But none of them were in danger of dying which was more than most first year trainers could say if they fought against Giovanni, it was the amount of preparation and the surprising pokemon choices that allowed them to actually win. If there was one thing Vali was truly grateful for, it was the fact that Smaug had been absent for the battle if only because Giovanni would have known how exactly to deal with him and they hadn't quite managed to come up with enough unique strategies to make up for their lake of experience. Of course Smaug wouldn't have taken that well, he'd fight until he fell unconscious to if it meant winning a battle against the odds. While she admired him for his passion and unending well of determination, she would prefer not to see him so deeply injured that moving was impossible with immense amounts of pain.

Vali walked into the Viridian gym with Vulpix, Eevee, Terra, and Zaria following Steven. They were lead to a seating area to watch the battle and all three of her pokemon looked at their trainer as she said, "I want you three to watch this battle carefully. One day as soon as we're ready, we'll be fighting at this level."

Nods were given with Vulpix actually settling down to focus on the field with an intensity she'd never seen before, Vali felt a grin stretch across her lips knowing that this would be one of the moments that'd shape his future. Zaria grinned as she released Sneasel and Zabbi giving them a similar pep talk before the battle began. When Steven called out Aggron, she focused intently on the battlefield no longer thinking about anything else save to record it using her pokenav.

The battle started off with a bang as Giovanni released a Rhydon who began to use Flamethrower immediately. The Rhydon was a beast of heavy armor and looked as if it was a step away from evolving into a Rhyperior. Definitely a severe step above the one she'd face the day before, Steven was going to be in for a hard battle if this was going to be a running trend with Giovanni's pokemon. Thanks to their training together, Aggron was able to withstand the heat fairly well and shut Rhydon up with a rather harsh Iron Tail to the face. Aggron took any hits that Rhydon dealt out with a grunt and fought back with just as much fury as the drill pokemon. Eventually Rhydon fell to a Heavy Slam though Aggron wasn't that far off, Giovanni recalled it and sent out a Golem.

Each pokemon Giovanni released was a monster above the Nidoking that she'd faced yesterday, they got meaner and bigger with each new pokemon. Aggron fell to Giovanni's Golem who ended it with a powerful Hyper Beam. Steven took it out with Blastoise who fell to the Nidoqueen that Giovanni sent out. Skarmory took Nidoqueen and the Dugtrio that followed it before falling to the Nidoking that appeared after it. Metagross appeared as Nidoking roared his victory and cut off the drill pokemon with a Meteor Mash. Nidoking was good causing heavy scratches across Metagross' armored body, but Metagross was better than him. With their resistance to poison and ability to avoid ground-type attacks, Metagross managed to pull ahead and ended the battle.

Throughout the battle, Vali felt nervous and excited as each blow was exchanged. The speed of the battles was difficult to keep up with and techniques used by each pokemon was on another level. To think that she'd be battling at that level one day left her giddy, she couldn't wait until they reached that level and fight against Steven. At that thought, she decided that one step to her journey would be to battle Steven on a level playing field. When the battle ended, she looked towards Giovanni and saw that he actually looked vaguely pleased by the results, but refrained from coming down to give Steven the badge himself. Zaria spoke with a bright grin, "Holy shit! That was awesome, Steven's going to become a champion for sure."

Vali nodded slowly, "Yeah," She smiled lightly, "It was awesome."