Category: Pokémon

Rating: M

Couples: ?/OC

Warnings: AU, hint of rape/character death

Chapter: 5

Copyright: Characters & places © By Game Freak, Plot © by me

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With Allortan having made the statement, the glove had been thrown. With those few words, he had put them in a corner. With having given them alternate – better – targets, continuing after Diantha would indicate that her lawyer had been right on the money with his suspicion of their reasoning, whether it was true or not.

"I did not expect this." Diantha watched them leave.

"Nor should you." The pale-brown haired male stated softly. "This isn't over. Far from. I have bought you time, perhaps, but not much more."

"How come?" Drasna joined them, arms crossed.

"Because if they do not now also make a move on me or Steven, they would admit that they indeed merely went after Diantha for her money." Malva answered in the lawyer's stead. "They'll regroup, rethink and then redo the entire thing all over again. They have to now, as doing anything else will earn them some loss of face."

"Lovely." The Champion rolled her eyes in annoyance. "Can I call you for the next round as well? Hopefully while this time being able to pay you myself?"

"You know my phone-number." Allortan smiled gently. "Shall I drive you home, Diantha?"

"Yes please. I need to make some calls." She took a few deep breaths to calm herself before they headed out into the paparazzi laying in wait. "Including a long rant about freezing assets like this."

"We can face the reporters for you, if you want." Wikstrom offered. "You can take the side-entrance to the garage. Just wait a bit until we started talking before you drive out."

"I'd appreciate that." The actress was quite relieved, all things considered. "You don't mind, do you?"

"I had worse clients, let me assure you." Allortan lead the way into the garage, opening the door to his car for her. "Ten minutes be enough, you think?"

"Hopefully." She leaned back a bit in the seat. "I assume you agreed with Malva there, so how long until we'll have to do this again you think?"

"Hopefully a couple weeks at least." He reached behind him to dump his suitcase on the back-seat. "Mostly because I will be in trouble if I miss much more free days."

"Again, I..."

"Diantha." He stopped her with a raised hand. "That mon coeur is upset with me for missing a free day does not mean she doesn't understand why I missed it. You are rather popular in Kalos."

"Still." She smiled gently. "I do feel bad about it. Can I make it up to you two? Some dinner, at least?"

"I'd like it, she… not so much." He smirked a bit at her questioning glance. "Diantha, put a powerful man with a woman, what does she become? Only his woman. She prefers if people don't know so she gets judged on her own merits, rather than the merit of being together with me. So we don't really go out together much." He shrugged lightly. "I am sure she wouldn't mind you knowing, but you do have a bit of a problem of getting anywhere subtly. We have had privacy for roughly Oizys' lifetime and no offense, but we'd rather not risk ruining it now."

"I guess I can understand that." Diantha chuckled a bit. "Can I donate a big bouquet of flowers for her at least?"

"I am sure she'd appreciate that." He started the car, cautiously heading out of the parking-garage under the Lumiose Courthouse. When seeing that the journalists had all flocked to the front-entrance, he quickly drove the other way, heading for Diantha's mansion. "Shall I just send you the bill for the bouquet?"

"Just drive past a flowershop."

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

"Thanks for the warning." Steven was lounging outside, having accepting Diantha's call during his lunch-break. "Can I get a piece of your wonder-lawyer?"

"If you help pay, I might consider letting you have a piece." Diantha herself had decided to make most calls while comfortably ensconced on her couch. "I just hope he is still a wonder-lawyer when court starts again."

"If anything, between your and my funds, we can get a small army of lawyers to back him up if necessary." Hoenn's Champion reached for his drink. "Wallace is not going to be happy with me though. He's already getting annoyed with me for staying so long in Kalos."

"In my defense, it's not like we could have seen that coming. Cynthia didn't get sued over her Team Galactic-mess and they wanted to unmake the very world." Kalos' Champion leaned her head back.

"Maybe because there wasn't a tv-crew when Cyrus made his move?" Steven suggested. "Meanwhile, Lysandre announced it on national television – with more people in other regions hearing it through the grapevine – and the final battle was shown live with commentary and some amazing camera-angles. In SInnoh people only found out after the problem was solved what had been going down. You of all people should know the power of a good story."

She groaned at the truth. "I am going to have Malva set a fire to this mess. Let's see how that story will go. You'd think they have better things to do than get even more trouble into the region. People are still recovering from the attacks and now they drag the protectors of the region to court like we invited Lysandre in to ruin Lumiose."

"Politicians can be like that." He offered. "Anyway, what will you do now? Return to League-business and filming?"

"Probably." She reached for the cup on her small table. "Partially I just want to wait until the coming trail and after that start again. But one cannot plan movie-schedules around these things… So I told Kathi to tell the director I'll be back on Wednesday."

"The bane of deadlines." Steven smirked. "So when can I be introduced to my future lawyer?"

"I managed to convince him to have a thank-you-dinner on Friday. I guess you can join then?" A small pop-up alerted Diantha to a text-message arriving. After reading it she snorted before bursting in laughter.

"Something happened?"

"Olympia just send me a message." Diantha struggled to calm down. "Apparently Wulfric told her about today. She thinks it'd be barely enough material to reach the first commercial break on a tv-show episode. If that."