Sirius' return and experiments

Sirius returned the Ketchum-Black-Potter residence a little before breakfast. Vali discovered the fact when she stumbled into the kitchen and found the grim animagus drinking a cup of coffee with Regulus laying at his feet. She blinked at the sight of him as her tired mind struggled to make sense of what she was seeing. Delia gently pushed her into a seat with a mug of hot chocolate, "Breakfast will be ready soon, Vali."

Vali drank some of her hot chocolate after blowing at it for a few moments, "Welcome home, Siri."

"Thanks, Pup. Based on how you look, I'm guessing your Vulpix egg hatched?" Sirius asked her with a raised eyebrow.

"Four days ago," Vali answered yawning, "He's asleep right now, but you'll be able to meet him soon,"

"No nickname yet?" Regulus got up and moved over to greet Vali.

Vali scratched him behind his right horn earning a groan of pleasure from the hell-hound, "Not until after he starts battling, I want to be able to find a good name for him."

Regulus licked Vali's cheek when she stopped scratching him and rather than return to Sirius' side, he laid down beside her chair earning a mock pout from Sirius. Sirius shook his head, "I guess that makes sense. Has he been active much?"

"Sometimes, he didn't do more than sleep the first day which isn't surprising considering the fact he'd just spent a lot of energy hatching," Vali thanked Delia when the woman laid a plat filled to the brim with breakfast in front of her, "Everyone's been a big help with him though Terra, Pele, and Arwen seem to be unable to decide how to react to him,"

Vali spent the next while until Ash and Steven joined them talking about her team. Sirius had been surprised to hear that Smaug had gotten out of his battle with Charizard with just a few bruises, a bunch of cracked scales, and an injured wing. Hearing about Elrond's surprising evolution was even more surprising, the grim animagus actually ended up spraying the table with coffee when his goddaughter told him about it. Thankfully for the grim animagus, he hadn't had much coffee in his mouth and hadn't ruined much food. He was still scolded by Delia and made to clean up the mess.

All of her pokemon had quite a few diffrent opinions about the grim animagus. Empress and Eevee didn't like him. Pele just thought he was another funny looking human. Elrond tolerated him so long as he didn't try anything with Vulpix. Idril and Terra were hesitant about him. Arwen and Pippin liked the man especially since he was more than willing to play around. Balto liked him. Smaug ignored him. Celina looked at him in disdain until he complimented her feathers and said that he wished he'd had a flying-type partner. While Vulpix was still a bit too young to form an opinion, he sneezed and spit up on Sirius when the man held him while Vali was taking their picture. Needless to say, she spent much of the day working to keep Sirius from destroying the photo after he'd gotten cleaned up.

Regulus found a lot of joy in wrestling with Balto and racing his old friend. All her other pokemon were treated with a mild amount of interest. He tended to ignore them unless it was Vulpix who he avoided like the plague since he didn't like baby pokemon. He and Elrond seemed to dislike each other with the Alolan Raichu doing his best to avoid the Houndoom. Psychic-type pokemon had a hard time getting along with dark-types unless raised to get along. Same with ghost-types actually, it was going to be interesting when Vali finally got a ghost-type and her Houndour egg hatched.

Professor Oak used the fact that Sirius was finally home to go through multiple experiments with the two magic users using the stones that Vali and Steven found. Between the two, they were able to discover that the stones took on the color of the magic belonging to the user. While Vali's magic looked like fire, Sirius' magic was darted between grayish black and pale green with a bit of dark blue tossed in. From there, they discovered that elemental magic seemed to be amplified when the stones were in use. Vali's accidental fires were contained or put out by the various water-types around the lab. Sirius' main element seemed to deal with darkness. This prompted the Professor to theorize that it had to do with the pokemon they seemed to be at home with, Sirius mainly enjoyed spending time with dark-types, but also enjoyed being around electric and water-types to an extent.

When the testing of Vali's inner flame began, they were able to discover that fire-types seemed to flock towards her as if under a spell. Vali wasn't able to consciously use her inner flame no matter how much she tried. When she did pull her inner flame to the forefront, she wasn't able to use her magic at all. If she pulled her inner flame to the forefront and didn't let it recede, she'd pass out for anywhere between a few minutes to a few hours during which she'd be subjected to visions and seizures as her nose bleed heavily. If that happened, she would barely be able to move as all her energy seemed to have gone up in smoke. Professor Oak put a stop to that part of the experiment and warned her against attempting to try using it until they figured out what was happening. Considering just how bad she felt afterwards, she was all for it.

One of the good things that came from their experiments came with a deeper understanding of her fire-type pokemon. Even without being able to hear what they were actually saying, Vali was actually able to understand them to a degree it didn't matter. In return, they seemed to understand her on a deeper level as well. Professor Oak theorized that it was due to their inner flames bonding in someway. Balto and Smaug became even more protective over her. Pele actually seemed to understand things just a bit faster. Arwen's energy seemed even more controlled. Out of all her pokemon, Vulpix seemed to be affected the most out of all her pokemon. He absolutely refused to be separated from Vali for any reason and was inconsolable if she was out of eye-sight. When she told Professor Oak, the man told her it was likely due to the fact she was Vulpix's mother figure and how young he was.