The Oak residence

Once Ash had finished cleaning up his room, Vali returned her pokemon and they headed to the Oak residence around lunch time. She made a mental note to get her Houndour egg from him since she hadn't wanted to bring it near the school. She didn't trust the kids outside of Ash and Gary to not accidentally do something to harm it. Gary greeted the at the door, "Vali!"

"Hey, Gary," Vali took the hug with a smile, "Eager to watch the battle?"

"Yup!" Garry grinned at her, "It's going to be awesome!"

Humming lightly, Vali moved them out of the door way to let Ash, Steven, and Delia inside, "We're going to make and eat lunch before then."

"Are you going to make brownies, Vali?" Gary asked her with pleading eyes, "It's been so long since I've had any,"

Vali thought about it before shrugging, "So long as Professor Oak doesn't mind and we have the ingredients, I don't see why not."

"I don't mind at all," Professor Oak said as he walked up behind Gary, "Gary isn't the only one who's been craving some,"

Vali rolled her eyes before looking at Delia as she began taking off her boots, "Boys, we will be in the kitchen getting lunch and desert ready."

"Ash, Gary," Vali gave the two a serious look, "It's time to give Steven a crash course in the wonders of snow ball fights,"

"On it!" The two saluted her.

"Don't forget your winter clothes, Gary!" Professor Oak called out as the two boys dragged Steven out of the house, "Those two," He shook his head with a soft chuckle before looking at Vali as she took off her coat and gloves, "Vali, are you going to be taking your Houndour egg home today?"

Vali nodded as they headed for the kitchen, "Yes, thank you again for looking after it. I just didn't want those kids from the school to accidentally hurt it somehow."

"I understand, Vali. I've been getting reports from the various teachers about their students and some of them just don't sit right with me," Professor Oak frowned a bit, "I plan on investigating those reports, but getting the time to do so is difficult,"

Vali began pulling out her ingredients for the brownies while Delia got the stuff out to make lunch, "Professor, maybe you could use that pokemon summer camp idea you talked about before? The League is always trying to find ways to prevent pokemon abuse from happening, so you could contact them about sending some of their Ace trainers and psychic-type pokemon to help monitor the kids. It could be a training exercise for the recruits or something," She began mixing together her ingredients after preheating the oven, "They might actually find some kids that could be potential Ace trainers too."

Professor Oak and Delia were quiet for a few moments before the man said, "That could work, the League would probably like it since it'd give them another way to test the new Ace trainers. The Rangers might get in on it too. Perhaps I should speak to my fellow Professors about it..."

Vali and Delia watched Professor Oak mumble to himself as he produced a notebook and pen. She looked at Delia and the elder woman shook her head, "Let's leave him be for now," Delia looked at her with a proud smile, "That was a very good idea, Vali."

Flushing a bit a the compliment, Vali shrugged and turned back to the brownies she was making, "It was an idea I had for awhile now since I know Gary and Ash need something to do in the summer that includes human interaction."

Lunch was being served when a knock sounded at the door, Vali went to go answer it and found Daisy Oak standing there. Daisy smiled awkwardly at the witch, "Hey, Vali."

"Hey, Daisy," Vali moved aside to allow the elder girl inside, "We're about to sit down for lunch before I battle Professor Oak,"

"Right," Daisy shook herself lightly, "Vali, thanks for telling-"

"Ash was the one to notice it," Vali gave the eldest Oak sibling a bland look, "Daisy, I don't want to fight with you, but please remember that your baby brother needs you," Turning from the brown haired girl, she called out, "Gary! Come here a moment,"

Gary walked out, "Yeah, V-Daisy?!"

Vali left Gary to his elder sister and returned to the kitchen. Professor Oak nodded to her as he moved to greet his eldest grandchild. She took her seat next to Steven as he asked, "Everything okay?"

Vali offered him a strained smile that probably looked more like a grimace, "Yup. Peachy."

"Vali," Delia gave the fire-type master-in-training a look.

"I'll be fine," Vali pushed down the darker emotions that had surged through her upon seeing Daisy Oak.

Vali had known she was irritated with the eldest Oak sibling, but actually seeing Daisy actually made her angry. It wasn't hard to guess why she was angry. Dismissing a family member like Daisy had, it reminded her of the Dursleys. While she knew that Daisy was nothing like those animals, it didn't change the fact that the elder girl had pretty much been ignoring her brother. It was the same feeling she'd had towards Ron and Hermione when the two rarely owled home. Hermione got a small pass since the girl's parents were non-magicals, but Ron didn't have that excuse. Even Ginny, the twins, and Percy wrote their parents letters more than once in a blue moon, she just couldn't understand why someone would ignore a member of their family when there was actual love and care present.

Forcing herself to calm that anger, Vali reminded herself that it was Christmas and getting into fights with people was frowned on especially when they'd finally returned home for the first time in a while. She dug into her lunch when the Oak's returned after Steven was introduced. Ash and Gary kept up a conversation with Daisy allowing the witch to calm herself down. She listened with half an ear before focusing on Daisy when the elder girl said, "I'm actually going to be competing in the Grand Festival this year."

"Does that start in two months?" Vali asked her as she tried in vain to remember the weird schedule Coordinators used.

Pokemon Contests were weird especially since it was encouraged to dress up your pokemon in some of them. While Vali did admit to respecting those pokemon trainers that chose to be Coordinators because of their ability to turn attacks into something beautiful rather than devastating, she found the whole dressing up part and not battling by League rules weird. Pokemon Contests occurred all year long, but their Grand Festivals had an even odder schedule than the Kanto/Johto League Conferences which tended to overlap each other to the point you could probably participate in both if the League allowed for it. Even the Gym Leaders took a month off after the League Conferences to recover from the rush for last minute gym badges and to change out their weaker teams if they needed to, Coordinators and all those involved in Pokemon Contests didn't seem to take a break especially the announcers.

Daisy nodded with a grin, "Yup! I can't wait since I'm pretty sure we're going to win this year for sure."

"Hey, Vali?" Ash called for her attention and she looked at him, "How come you're not a Coordinator?"

"Ash, I respect them for being able to turn attacks into something beautiful and artsy especially when you get to the higher levels," Vali tried to figure out a way to put it without insulting Daisy before giving it up as a lost cause, "It's too weird for me to consider as a profession right now,"

"Coordinators aren't weird!" Daisy denied immediately.

Vali pinned her with a look, "They like dressing up their pokemon with weird themes and battle using non-League rules. Do I need to speak about the weird antics they get up to?"

"Some people might be like that, but I'm not," Daisy protested with a slight wince.

Vali shrugged lightly, "So it hasn't infected your brain yet, you're probably going to end up weird too after the Grand Festival."

"It's call a facade. Every experienced Coordinator ends up with one," Daisy sniffed at her.

"Weird," Vali countered before looking at Ash while ignoring Steven's shaking shoulders having a feeling he was silently laughing at the conversation, "Ash, I'm odd enough as it is. Being a Coordinator would make me odder, I don't really care for all that showy stuff though I will admit that playing around with pokemon attacks and turning them into art is pretty cool,"

"Is it possible to be both a Coordinator and a Gym Battler?" Ash asked her curiously.

Vali thought about it carefully, "Yes, but it be a very stressful thing to do especially for the pokemon involved since they'd have to switch up their styles a bit in order to either make them pretty or make them devastating."

"One of the trainers that I battled during my last Conference was one," Steven commented earning a few curious looks, "Wallace mentioned that it was difficult for both his pokemon and him especially at first. If he'd actually focused on the gym battling aspect, I probably wouldn't have made it into the top sixteen much less the top eight,"

"Coordinators and Gym Battlers have diffrent mindsets," Professor Oak spoke up, "It takes someone with a very liquid mindset to be able to do both,"

"Liquid? Like water?" Ash asked with a confused expression.

Vali shook her head, "I think the Professor means that their minds can shift into diffrent gears like how someone driving a car switches from driving forward to driving backward."

Ash gained an expression of understand, "So most people can't do it?"

"No, but those that do tend to go far," Professor Oak replied as Vali took a bite of the pasta she was eating.

"So if I tried to do both, it might help me to become a pokemon master?" Ash asked with wide eyes.

"Yes, Ash, but you'll have to work a lot harder than most trainers," Professor Oak warned him.

Ash grinned at the Professor, "Working harder than everyone else is what a pokemon master does."