Chapter 47

"You goddamn lunatic! I told you not to go after them in your condition!" A man's voice hollard.

"I don't care! They shot my partner and took my sister's pendant!" Another man cried out. "And now Reggie might never fucking walk again! All because of those sick sons of bitches!" There was a sudden loud slam that was quickly followed by deafening bangs and intense screams of anger and pain alike.

"Gyaah!" Stan suddenly cried as the booming noises of the television startled him awake, the Luxio jumping up and stumbling off the edge of the couch, falling face first into the hardwood floor below. "Ooow~" He whined, pushing himself up and teetering back and forth.

"Oh my god! Stan, are you okay?" Tia panicked, jumping down and inspecting her close friend.

"Y-yeah. Aihm ohkay." He muttered.

Tia lifted his chin and gasped from what she saw. "H-holy shit!" She snapped, detaching herself from her usually reserved nature as she saw the river of blood flowing from the cat's nose. "Y-you're nose is bleeding!"

Stan blinked, now feeling the cold liquid stream past his lips. He glanced down and saw some spots of crimson droplets splash onto the floor.

"Here," Alice started, taking a few tissues from the box on the coffee table and crouching down, "It doesn't look that serious, I highly doubt it would break from such a small fall, but just keep these in your nose for a minute and see if it helps."

Stan nodded and followed her instructions to keep his head tilted forward slightly and his back straight.

"I've never seen you act so panicked before, Tia." Lilly noted, leaning forward and giving the Absol a curious look.

Tia flinched, "I-It's nothing. I'm just worried about my friend… Isn't that a normal thing?" She asked, a hint of resent between her words.

Lilly shrugged, displaying her somewhat naive and carefree attitude, "I mean yeah, but I don't see you act this worried, or really shy, unless it's about Aura or Stan: and even with Aura you act more calm than this."

Already aware that she couldn't say anything to convince Lilly it was for some other reason, Tia let out a breath and calmly sat back on her haunches. "I guess it's not hard to tell how I feel about Stan." Lilly cheerfully nodded. "I'm just more comfortable around him because, when we first met, he sort of helped me see how ignorant and selfish I used to be." Tia could feel her face warming up but managed to hold back from blushing, "Him and I have both been through a lot of similar problems so we just have a better understanding of each other." She hastily finished, not wanting to reveal any more than that while the Luxio was within earshot.

Little did she know, Stan shared the exact same feelings towards her, just as well anxious over what the other would think of these thoughts of affection, and worried it might ruin their already close friendship. Despite both of them being too enveloped in their anxiety to admit their feelings, it was clear to everyone there that they both wanted to be more than just friends, Kibbs even thinking to herself how ironically similar their situation was to a cliche romance story.

"I'm gonna go let Aura know what happened, if he has plans to train today then Stan should sit out for a few hours at least, so long as this is just a nosebleed and nothing more serious." Alice said.

"I'll go let him know." Tia quickly interjected.

Alice blinked, "Okay then, thank you."

Responding with only a nod, the Absol hurried over to her trainer's bedroom and lifted her paw to knock, pulling back for a second to breath before letting her large claws tap against the wood. She heard some shuffling inside. Looking at the door handle, Tia pulled the lever down and gently leaned into it to slowly open the door just a crack, having both smelled and faintly heard the two last night under the movie the rest of them watched, she didn't want to accidentally see something she shouldn't. "Aura?" She called in a hushed voice. "Diamond?"

She heard the sheets rustle and a groan come from the bed, telling her they were definitely still asleep. Opening the door a little wider, Tia kept her gaze away from the bed just in case. One quiet step after another, the Absol made her way into the room with her head kept lowered.

"Morning, Tia." Diamond greeted.

The sudden appearance of the fox startled Tia as she leaped into the air and yipped, accidentally waking Aura who quickly pushed himself up. "What's going on?" He groggily asked, rubbing his eyes and not yet noticing Tia at the foot of the bed.

Diamond stepped out of the bathroom followed by a cloud of steam, covering herself with her towel draped around her dripping wet figure. "Sorry about that. I didn't mean to scare you, Tia." She apologized. Tia took a moment to breath. "I was just drying off from my shower when I heard someone walk into the room."

Another groan came from atop the bed as Aura sat up and massaged his forehead, "I didn't even notice you leave the bed. But I guess thanks for the wake-up call, Tia. What time even is it." He rambled with his voice hoarse and dry.

Regrettably, Tia actually hadn't even paid attention to the time much herself either.

Snickering escaped Diamond's lips, causing her to receive some odd looks from the other two, before pointing to the bedside table where a digital alarm clock sat with bright red numbers on the front, "If you'd like to see for yourself, it's almost one-thirty in the afternoon." She giggled.

Aura snorted, "Hey, don't judge me. I just woke up while you've been up for-" He paused, not actually knowing how long Diamond has been awake.

"A little under an hour. Spent most of it washing my fur." She said. "Speaking of which, I should finish drying off and grooming my fur before I leave any more puddles lying around." Diamond then returned to the bathroom and resumed drying her fur with a second towel, her first one already drenched, this time not bothering to close the door as she saw no need to in this situation.

"Anyway. I'm gonna take a guess and say you came in here to talk with us about something?" Aura asked, Tia clearing her throat and nodding.

"W-well, Stan was startled awake by a movie the rest of us were watching and fell on the floor. His nose was bleeding pretty bad so Alice wanted to let you know he should take it easy for a while."

Aura seemed to be more attentive upon hearing this. He grabbed the blanket and nearly threw it off himself before he remembered: he was still naked from last night's love making. "Uh, thanks for letting me know about it. I'll be out in a minute to see how he's doing, just gotta get dressed." He said with a blush.

Tia caught a blush as well and cleared her throat awkwardly. "I'll just head back to the others then. S-sorry for just walking in." Not wanting to waste any more time, she scurried out of the room hastily and fumbled with the door until it clicked shut.

Aura sighed and whipped the covers off, rotating so his feet touched the floor and stood with a tired grunt. "Man, still sore as hell from all that training, guess we've been taking it a bit too easy here since it'll be a while before we're on the road again."

Slipping on his boxers, Aura stumbled his way into the bathroom where he found Diamond in the middle of brushing her teeth. She looked at him in the mirror and smiled, some of the light blue foam dripping onto the floor as she turned around and told him good morning. It made Aura chuckle loudly watching Diamond suddenly cover her mouth before accidentally spilling any more on the floor and quickly spit into the sink. Aura leaned over from behind Diamond and nuzzled into her cheek, giving it a light peck and laughing to himself. "Hmhm, morning." He said, this time nuzzling into her neck with his hands cupped against her hips.

Diamond melted in his arms, unintentionally swaying her hips and pressing her butt into his crotch with her tail curling around his leg. They both chuckled from their playful teasing. "You know, it took me a while to get your cum out of my fur, and I'd prefer to keep it out for a bit longer." She kissed his cheek, leaving behind a circle of toothpaste which made her laugh. "You should probably have a shower too, I might like the way your scent, but I don't think the others will."

Feigning hurt for a second, Aura lifted his arm and sniffed, "Whew! Yeah I see what you mean. You wouldn't mind checking on Stan then? And let them all know I'll be out in a bit?" He asked.

Diamond took a cup of water and rinsed out her mouth, "Of course. Let me just finish up and I'll head out." Receiving another peck from her mate, she watched through the mirror as Aura pulled away and let his boxers drop to the floor before he stepped into the shower.

Shifting the focus back to Tia as she left the bedroom, the Absol let out a breath of relief as she turned and went back to the others.

"What's the plan?" Alice asked, replacing the tissue in Stan's nose.

"Oh, uh, they should be out in a bit. Aura just woke up but Diamond's been awake for a while apparently." She informed them. "So… how's Stan?"

"Well it's clearing up a bit but honestly it might just be some bruising, I can't say for sure right now so I'll probably take him down to get examined."

Tia sulked, "Oh."

Just then, the bedroom door opened up with the damp Delphox stepping out. "Morning, everyone."

"Morning, Diamond." Lilly greeted. She looked around the fox at the door, "Where's Aura?"

"He's just gonna have a quick shower so he should be out in a while, but he wanted me to see how Stan was doing."

"Well as I told Tia, I can't be too sure if his nose is actually broken without a proper examination, but best case scenario it's just some bruising and should only take a few hours to recover."

Diamond hissed, putting a paw over her own muzzle as she imagined the pain Stan felt.

"It's not that bad." Stan told them, "It hurts yeah, but I'm fine."

"Still, it'd be better to be safe than sorry. I'll take you down there right away just to get a full diagnosis." Alice told him. "We'll be back in a bit." Not wanting to argue, Stan got up and followed her to the front door.

"Diamond, honey. Just so you know I left some breakfast for you two in the fridge."

"Thank you, Darlene." Diamond headed to the refrigerator and indeed saw two plates of food sitting inside, taking one of them and putting it into the microwave.

Close to ten minutes had passed by the time Aura finally left the room, his hair still ruffled and damp, he greeted the others and was then told about the breakfast in the fridge. After heating it up, he sat at the table across from his mate who had actually been eating slowly as she wanted to wait for Aura.

"Next time you don't need to wait for me, Diamond. I'd assume it's pretty boring to just sit here." He told her.

Diamond shrugged, "I guess so, but it just feels natural to think about you before myself."

This made Aura freeze and his arms stiffen. Diamond suddenly looked concerned as he lowered his hands to the table slowly. "Diamond… I love you more than anything, but even if by law you're technically my Pokemon, you are NOT my property."

"I-I'm sorry, Aura. I didn't mean it like that," she placed her paw atop his hand, "I just mean that you're the most important person in my life, so I feel happy when you're happy."

He huffed, "Yeah, I just want you to start thinking about what makes YOU happy too. Sorry for making it seem like such a huge deal, but you understand what I meant."

She nodded, "Of course, let's just leave it at that and finish eating. I've been feeling a lot hungrier lately, and I think it might be because of the egg."

A short while later, after Aura and Diamond had finished eating and Aura was thinking up some training routines, Alice and Stan returned with some good news. Alice quickly took to sharing with the rest that Stan's nose was not broken after all, but there was some minor trauma that should only take a few hours to clear up, and during this time it would be best for Stan to relax and not be active for the rest of the day.

Aura nodded and patted his Luxio's head, "Guess that means he gets to sit out with Prince today."

Lilly cocked her head to the side, "Why's Prince sitting out?" Aura then briefly explained that he had done plenty of training already the past few days, so he would now begin to focus on training the others instead.

After another hour, Aura figured his routine should be good enough for now and let everyone know they would be heading out shortly.


"Alright," Aura called, "to start the day I think we'll have Tia and Lilly face off." The girls looked at one another and nodded, promptly walking out to the field with Aura whilst everyone else took a seat on the patio. "You two are both pretty agile so I wanna see how you compare in speed."

Watching from the deck as Aura continued his explanation and Lilly and Tia hurried to opposite sides of the field, Stan couldn't stop himself from fidgeting with his paws and biting his lip. He looked at Prince next to him and thought for a moment, finally unable to keep his mouth shut any longer. "Prince?" He muttered, keeping his voice low enough so no one else could hear him over the others training. "Could I talk to you about something?"

Prince turned to face him with a serious expression, "Sure, what's on your mind?" He replied, taking the hint and keeping a hushed tone as well.

"Earlier, when Tia told everyone that she saw me as her best friend? It just… made me think about something between us." Stan bit his lip harder and scratched his ankle nervously. "I feel super close to her as well, but the thing is that I want to kind of be more than just friends…" His face lit up with a vibrant red blush. "When I was still a Shinx, I didn't see it like this at the time, I only wanted to be friends with her; but, after I evolved and me and her actually spent time together and got to know each other better, I sort of want to be something more serious to her…"

"You want to be mates?" He questioned.

Stan only nodded, "I'm just scared that she might not feel the same way as I do, like if I admit how I feel then it would ruin the relationship we already have. Is there any advice you think you could give me?"

The perplexed look on the Lucario's face already told Stan what Prince was already thinking, "I'm sorry to say that, growing up, I never had time for relationships of any kind. My whole life was always about training and preparing to lead the pack after my father, so I may not be able to help much in this situation."

He sighed, "That's fine. I'm sure it doesn't help that I'm just asking this out of nowhere either."

Prince assured him that wasn't the reason. "Believe me, Stan. If I had the answers I would be more than willing to help. But perhaps you would have better luck asking someone who has experience with love, such as Lee or even Master Aura."

"Well I don't know Lee that much, so maybe I can ask Aura later. But I don't want to distract him from the tournament with this kind of stuff."

"I'm sure Master Aura would not be bothered by it. On the contrary, I think it would distract you more than anything to keep it bottled up."

Silence fell between the two as Prince didn't want to overload Stan's already disorganized thoughts, deciding to simply stay quiet and let him process what he had said while enjoying the battle between his teammates. However, even though Stan was trying to grasp his thoughts and think of what to ask Aura, all the shouting from the ongoing battle had pulled his focus towards the field, more specifically, towards the Pokemon he had on his mind. His eyes trailed along Tia's slim figure as her smooth white fur shined in the sunlight. He had become completely captivated by her graceful maneuvers as she nimbly sped around the field and avoided Lilly's attacks. As Tia landed and skid across the ground with her back toward them, Stan couldn't help his gaze falling on to her firm rear as her tail stood straight up in her stance.

"Stan?" Prince said, snapping his fingers in front of the dazed Luxio. He finally came to and blinked, "You blanked out for a few minutes, I thought nothing of it at first but-" Prince quietly gestured to between his legs, Stan looking down and becoming beet red as he swiftly slid his forelegs to in front of his partially visible member to hide his obvious arousal. He stuttered from embarrassment; thankfully, Prince informed him no one seemed to have noticed. "Maybe you should try to focus on something else for now."

During the time Prince and Stan were talking, Aura had instructed Tia and Lilly to battle each other through their own choices. His reasoning behind this was to better understand and learn how they fight without his input to discover a mutual point of balance between their decisions in battle: how much his own input affects their personal battle style and where that point of perfect balance lies between them.

Although it took a couple minutes to properly explain his intentions to the pair, they understood how crucial proper synchronization was during battle and agreed to do their best and not hold back during their match.

"Alright guys. Even though I want you two to fight on your own this time, I just don't want either of you to go overboard." A synchronised nod came from the pair as they never broke eye contact.

The moment Aura gave them the signal to go, both Pokemon charged forth using synchronized Quick Attacks, somehow catching each other off guard as they narrowly avoided colliding with one another and skid to a halt.

"Looks like they both value their speed during battle." Lee pointed out, nodding cooly with his arms crossed.

Alice looked up from her book, "Well, Absol and Lopunny are typically less bulky Pokemon, so they have to make up for it in speed and attack power. Oh, and from the looks of it, Aura might actually be taking notes over there."

Just as Alice described, Aura was periodically glancing at his phone and typing something in, and judging by his solid expression, he seemed to be quite focused on every move the two would make shortly before returning to his phone.

With the two Pokemon clearly matching in agility, they could both see it was obvious that they would need more than just speed to win.

A scowl spread across Lilly's face before suddenly charging forward then leaping high into the air, the lower half of her right leg glowing white as she charged up her High Jump Kick. Tia knew she was at a type disadvantage, however, due to the amount of cocky Mienfoo she had to deal with in the mountains, she glared at the Lopunny with a confident grin. As Lilly started her rapid descent, Tia let out a growl and instantly split into multiple copies of herself using Double Team.

Sadly it was too late by the time Lilly realized her mistake as High Jump Kick may have had great power, but at a risky cost. She couldn't stop herself in time, and as such, she unfortunately crashed into one of the decoys, phasing through it and slamming her leg into the hard dirt. She let out a scream of pain and rolled onto her back clutching her knee.

With an open opportunity for a free hit, Tia disbanded her Double Team and widened her stance. She reeled back and let out a roar, summoning a circle of translucent blue swords to spin around her and cross over each other then quickly vanish in small bursts of light, the end result causing Tia to momentarily glow red as her attack power increased. "Sorry about this, Lilly." Tia's horn glowed white as she sprinted towards the downed rabbit, swinging her head at her to strike with a powerful Slash attack.

Taking the hit, Lilly rolled across the ground from the sheer force behind Tia's move, the rabbit struggling to push herself off the ground. Suddenly, her leg didn't feel as bad anymore compared to that. For a moment, Tia looked concerned for her friend, but after spitting some of the dirt from her mouth and slowly sitting up on her knee, she actually smirked and gave a weak thumbs up to the Absol.

Suddenly, Lilly opened her small mouth and unleashed a beam of frozen energy, striking Tia's legs directly and thoroughly freezing them to the ground. Though she felt bad using her friend's compassion against her, they were instructed to treat it like a serious battle, and Lilly wanted to impress Aura with her skills.

As Tia struggled to release her legs from their imprisonment, grunting and growling every time she failed to pull out of the ice. Giving her a sly smirk, Lilly coiled herself low to the ground before suddenly launching herself sky-high. "She dodged it once, but she won't be able to again." Lilly thought to herself as she twirled around, her ears loosely stretching out from the momentum and her leg starting to glow white. Panic rose within the Absol's chest as she struggled even more to free herself before taking the High Jump Kick.

Unfortunately for the Dark type, Lilly's strategy worked well and her ice held fast to her paws. There wasn't a thing Tia could do other than brace herself for the attack, as none of her own moves were powerful enough to deflect it. Pain broke out through the Absol's nerves as her frozen shackles shattered under the pressure, freeing Tia only for her to fly across the field from the impact of Lilly's brutal attack. Tia swore she could feel her ribs nearly shatter like the ice had, but thankfully they were at most just fractured and would be treated once this was over.

Painfully lifting herself off the ground, the weakened Absol went wide eyed as she felt liquid clog her throat, lurching forward as she hacked and coughed up a small puddle of blood at her feet. Onlooking trainers felt uneasy seeing the Pokemon spitting out blood onto the dirt, Stan even jumped to his feet to hurry over to his close friend in a panic, but Prince held out his arm calmly. "You should know more than any of us how tough she is." He assured.

Lilly stood frozen in shock with her paws held over her muzzle; meanwhile, Aura hastily jogged over to Tia's side and crouched down beside her. "Shit. You okay? I know I wanted you girls to go all out but I'm not gonna push you past your limits." He said, pulling a cloth from his back pocket and wiping a bit of blood from Tia's face.

The Absol spit another glob onto the ground and took a deep breath. "I'm fine, but thank you. We should get back to training now if we're supposed to treat this like an actual fight."

"Right. We'll train for a little longer then get you both patched up." Patting Tia for a second, Aura hurried back to his position and removed his phone from his pocket.

Watching Aura walking back to the sidelines and Tia taking on another fighting stance, everyone figured they were going to resume the fight. Prince looked to his electrical companion and nodded. "I told you she was tough."

Stan nervously rubbed the back of his head, "Yeah. And I guess that's another thing I really love about her."

Not much longer, the battle picked up again on Aura's command and Tia immediately shot forth with her Quick Attack, though Lilly's response to this was a well-timed roll to the left, safely bringing Lilly out of harm's way and providing another opportunity to counter attack; unfortunately, Tia figured her missing would entice such a response.

The moment Lilly lunged forth, the cream-coloured fur on her ears glowing orange as she violently whipped them around in Tia's direction, the Absol suddenly pushed off her hind legs, pivoting effortlessly on one paw and intercepting Lilly's Rock Smash with her own Psycho Cut, perfectly knocking away Lilly's ear and forcing her to recoil sharply. Thus, it was Tia's turn to retaliate.

Focusing the dark energy in her horn, Tia rushed Lilly and unleashed a flurry of Night Slashes, her movements far too agile and hasty to follow with the naked eye. In the end, after the final blow was dealt, Lilly was sent skidding across the field with multiple cuts and bullets of sweat streaming down her body. Despite her exhaustion and pain, Lilly managed to pull herself together and straighten up with her fists raised.

"How is she still standing after all that?" Diamond questioned.

"She must have used Endure at the last moment to protect herself from all those critical hits." Alice began to explain. "Tia's ability is Super Luck which means her attacks sometimes do more damage than normal, and pair that with the naturally higher critical chance of Night Slash the only way to have survived that onslaught would be to just endure it all."

With both Pokemon on their last stretch, the two simultaneously charged at the other with one final Quick Attack. The pair colliding and dealing massive damage to the other; however, the one who came out on top in the end was none other than Tia: all thanks to her much higher raw attack power.

"That's enough for now!" Aura called, quickly saving his notes and jogging over to the duo. He crouched down and helped Lilly sit up, "You both did amazingly well to say the least, I think I found out your prefered fighting styles so this should give me something to look into for the tournament."

Through her tired pants, Lilly smiled and gave a weak thumbs up to her trainer, "I'm just glad we could help you, Aura." She tried to push herself back up, however she quickly faltered and fell back on her rear with a hiss of pain.

"Oh no, I didn't hurt you too bad, did I?" Tia hastily asked, taking a closer look at the rabbit's arm. Lilly shook her head and happily said otherwise, though this didn't stop her from letting out a surprised squeak as Aura suddenly put one arm under her knees and one behind her back to hoist her up bridal style.

He chuckled at the blush that formed around the bunny's face as he stood with her in his grasp, "I'll just carry you back inside. You both did awesome today, so all that's left is get you girls patched up and then we can all go out for some well deserved lunch." Conveniently, both Tia's and Lilly's stomachs growled from the thought of food, Tia now sharing a similar blush with Lilly from embarrassment: their reactions enticing even more laughter from the trainer.

As Aura started towards the back entrance of the Pokemon Center, he paused and looked over to make sure everyone else was following him, nodding after seeing them approach and entering the building along with the others.