Grooming talks and battle prep

"Well shit, she's angry at me," Lance commented as Vali disappeared into the house.

Steven looked at the dragon-tamer with a small frown, "What exactly did you do to make her angry?"

"Asked about her relationship to Delia," Lance answered with a sheepish expression, "Found out she'd lost her birth parents and she stopped me from apologizing for bringing it up,"

"She isn't mad at you," Steven shook his head, "She's just annoyed that someone that's somewhat close to her was going to apologize for bringing it up," Lance looked at him in confusion, "Vali won't get mad at you for that especially when you didn't know. It'll take more than that to get her mad," He turned back to the backyard, "Let's get your pokemon settled, Vali will probably be less annoyed if you ask her to groom or take pictures of them,"

"Sure, sure," Lance nodded his head as he began releasing his pokemon, "Though why grooming? I get pictures, but not grooming,"

Steven chuckled softly, "Vali loves grooming pokemon because it both makes them feel good and she gets to know them better. It's her way of connecting with them on a diffrent level than usual," Vali had won over Skarmory after a thorough grooming session which was saying something since the steel-type was prickly with just about everyone save for him, "It also gets the pokemon relaxed which is helpful in a new setting and she finds it calming."

When Lance asked Vali to groom his pokemon after she'd come back outside, the fire-type master-in-training knew that Steven had said something to the dragon-tamer, but couldn't feel annoyed with him over it. She groomed the pokemon after lunch and showed an increasingly interested Lance what to do with his pokemon when they needed to be groom. She had each of the red head's pokemon practically eating out of the palm of her hand. By the end, Lance had commented that he had never seen his pokemon so relaxed and content which pleased her to no end. Once all the pokemon had been groomed with Vali guiding Ash once the boy had finished cleaning up his mess, she took a picture of everyone together and multiple other shots while promising to make copies if anyone wanted a specific picture.

Lance headed to the trainer dorms set up by Professor Oak's lab after dinner. They were regularly used by traveling trainers either staying for one of Professor Oak's lectures or just passing through. Since Pallet Town wasn't big enough nor popular enough to warrant a pokemon center, Professor Oak had the League set up a trainer dorm for those trainers that needed to stop on their way to Viridian or the nearby port. If Delia hadn't been willing to allow it, Steven would have been staying there much like Lance. Lance wasn't staying mostly because he didn't want to impose and the fact there wasn't any training facilities. There was also the fact Smaug and his Charizard didn't exactly like each other, no one wanted to wake up to either of the draconian fire-types attempting to duke it out.

Lance looked at the paper Vali was rewriting and whistled, "Already working on your first research paper?"

"Blame Professor Oak," Vali put down her pen and grabbed her old paper to look at what she'd written and what Professor Oak had said was wrong with it, "Though given the amount of red ink drowning my first draft, I'm betting he regrets his decision just a bit,"

"Is this on a fossil pokemon?" Lance asked as he picked up the first page of her first draft.

Vali nodded as she put down the paper and went back to her writing, "Mhmm. I documented and collected all the needed data myself. Professor Oak sent me a bunch of extra information and I'm currently trying to cobble it all together into a proper research paper," She jerked a thumb towards where Steven and Claydol where helping Elrond increase his psychic abilities, "Which is a lot less fun than it sounds especially since Professor Oak is a perfectionist."

Lance plopped down beside her, "You can't really blame him though since your name is going to be attached to his thanks to him being your sponsoring Professor."

"I know, but frustration doesn't really care about that," Vali set down her pen again and rubbed at her hand, "Sometimes, I wished that he would let me write this on a computer, but no, the first few drafts have to be hand-written," She grabbed her lemonade, "Though my handwriting is a lot better than before," She noticed Lance's curious look and grinned a bit, "I had worse than Pidgey-scratch for writing. It was a miracle that anyone could read it. Delia and Professor Oak forced me to correct it, so now everyone can read my writing without wondering if I'm trying to be an abstract artist or a doctor," She looked at him, "So what brings you this way?"

"Professor Oak is fixing up Lucio," Lance answered with a small grimace, "You weren't kidding about his Charizard being a monster. He kicked Lucio's ass within the first three minutes and played with him for a further six. Lucio's going to be feeling it for weeks,"

"But you get why I recommended getting some tips from Professor Oak?" Vali asked as she got her things packed up since taking a break would do some good.

Lance nodded with a grin, "Hell yeah. Professor Oak is awesome if he can raise that beast of a Charizard and a Dragonite while still having their loyalty even when he isn't actually battling anymore. I really want to meet his Dragonite."

"You probably will since she always likes dropping into see me when I'm around the Corral," Vali put her things away before leaning back against the tree she'd chosen to sit against, "She's awesome,"

"I'll bet," Lance grin widened, "Dragonite are always awesome," He looked at where Smaug was laying, "How is he doing?"

"Better today, I'm lucky Professor Oak talked to his Charizard about not playing with Smaug," Vali reached into her bag and pulled out an oran berry granola bar, "He's really motivated to get back into the sky," She looked out at her and Steven's training pokemon, "How long will you be staying in Pallet Town?"

"A few more days than I'm headed back to Blackthorn until it's time to sign up for the Conference," Lance answered as he settled rather lazily against one of the boulders sitting around the edge of the field they were currently sitting in, "Gotta train hard if I'm going to win and even harder to beat the Elite not to mention the Champion. I'm still trying to figure out how I'll beat Lorelei,"

"You'll figure it out," Vali took a bite of her granola bar.

"You'll have to figure out how to beat Giovanni," Lance commented with a slight chuckle, "How's that going for you?"

Vali waved her unoccupied hand, "Kind of good, but not really, I have some plans cobbled together, but it's difficult for me to figure out what exactly to do. I know I'm going to be using Balto, Celina, and Elrond. I'm not sure about Smaug right now since he needs to recover and I don't want to rush him into a battle against Giovanni's ground-types. It leaves me with two open spots that I'm not sure what to do with."

Save for not using Empress or Pippin since neither of them would do well, Vali couldn't gamble with this last gym battle and those two would likely get seriously hurt. Lance nodded as he looked over the pokemon training, "I assume you're keeping Empress out of it?"

"And Pippin since gambling with this gym battle would not only see us lose, but also some serious injuries that I don't want either of them to deal with," Vali looked at Lance curiously, "What happened in your last gym battle?"

"Giovanni used a Rhydon first then a Nidoking followed by a Dugtrio and a Nidoqueen," Lance answered as Vulpix wandered over to lay down in Vali's lap, "He used a Graveler as his last pokemon,"

Vali frowned a bit, "But I thought he usually used a Persian."

"From what I've found out, he tends to switch it around," Lance reached out and rubbed between Vulpix's ears earning a pleased coo from the vulpine pokemon, "But that's the same with most of the gym leaders,"

"True," Vali would need to do a lot of research then, "I've got a lot of work ahead of me,"

"How about you take a break from planning and have a battle with me?" Lance gave her a challenging grin, "One on one,"

Vali thought about it before nodding deciding it would definitely be a good way to clear her mind and perhaps knock everything into perspective, "Sure, sure. I'll use Balto."

"I'll use one of my Dragonair," Lance replied as he stood up.

Vali gently pushed Vulpix off her lap before standing. Gobbling up her snack, she downed it with the last of her lemonade before calling out, "Balto!" Balto rushed over to her from where he'd been watching over Pippin sparring with Arwen and gave her a curious look, "Want to battle with me?" Balto nodded with a bark and wag of his tail, "Glad to hear it," She looked at Steven, "Steven, mind refereeing?"

Steven shook his head, "Not at all, we should move to the battleground before you two start."

Vali returned her pokemon save for Balto and pulled herself onto his back. Lance called out his Dragonite while Steven got onto Metagross' back after recalling all his other pokemon. She grinned at the two, "Last one to the battleground is a rotten egg!"

With that, Vali nudged Balto's side and the Arcanine took off with a howl as the two males stared at her in shock before determination set in. The two quickly followed after her with the fire-type master-in-training nudging Balto's sides in a way that told him to go faster. If one were looking at the forested area of the Oak Corral, they'd see three blurs of color racing towards the lab.