Were you thinking this story was dead to me? Heavens no.

I encourage all healthy people to read on, enjoy, and review.

Chapter 12: A Day of Training

Chris was having a good sleep in the morning. For some reason, his bed felt far comfier than usual. He was in Summer Vacation so there was no worry to oversleep a little. It was his reward for having finished Junior High School, after all, but the fact that a Lucario was sort of tossed in there, that was very nice, just like his comfy bed.

He woke up very slowly. His vision was blurry enough to distort his sight in front of him. Maybe it was just him, but it felt like he was being pushed up and down along with the bed. He mumbled a few words and just closed his eyes, dismissing the odd blurry event as a dream. He was dreaming for sure. Chris's mind was probably playing some tricks on him, just like the day a huge Lucario was dropped in his room…except the Lucario was very real. The swaying of the bed was definitely a dream, though.

"…420…421…422…423…" The movement stopped. "…No, I can do this faster and smoother. That won't wake him up… 424, 425, 426, 427, 428, 429, 430…" The movement became faster and smoother, in no way brusque and reckless. "Heh, this bed isn't as heavy as he said it was. It's the only thing I can use to build up some muscle…"

"…Wha…?" Chris opened his eyes and rubbed them to clear his vision. When he noticed that he was pushed up and down to the direction of the ceiling, his eyes widened. He looked to his right and saw the upper border of the widescreen TV before his gaze wandered above forcefully. It became clear to him what was happening. "EARTHQUAKE!" he panicked and quickly sat up to jump down, only then his feet realized the floor was a little farther away from usual that he ended up falling down face-first. "O-oww…"

"…Chris?"

"…U-um…" The teen groaned in pain rolled to the side to rest on his back, confirming that there was no such earthquake in LA. As he stared up at the ceiling for a moment, he sat up and saw the reason why he thought there was an earthquake.

The Aura Pokémon was doing pushups right underneath the heavy bed, his thin but strong arms stretching out from the floor, his legs spread evenly and firm, and his back carrying the whole bed with impressive display of raw strength. Though Chris couldn't see clearly, there was no sweat on the serious Pokémon's face, which had been a real shame to Lucario.

"M-my bed!" Chris shouted. "M-my goodness, what are you doing?!"

Lucario blinked rather casually. "I was doing pushups," he simply said. "You said your bed was the heaviest object in the house, so I…"

"…started doing pushups underneath…while I was asleep?" Chris finished, looking morbidly surprised that he couldn't wake up somewhere in the hundredth rep.

"…Basically, yes," Lucario said…and continued doing pushups. "456, 457, 458, 459…"

"H-hey, stop!" Chris ordered. The Aura Pokémon stopped. "I-I haven't given you permission to do such a thing yet! I'm surprised I didn't roll over the bed till now…"

"I… Um… I'm sorry…" Lucario said, looking depressed. Sighing, he pushed up the bed with a free hand – of course not feeling stress or compression – and crawled out to stand up and take a deep breath. "…Not heavy enough," he muttered.

If Chris could sweat-drop, he would do it around now. "Really now," he replied.

Lucario gasped. "I-I'm sorry for not asking for permission to do pushups under your bed," he apologized. "And…for that matter…uh…good morning?"

"That sure was a good morning to me…while falling down my bed," Chris complained, making Lucario look guilty. "…But anyway, good morning to you. I hope my added weight mass was enough for your little training… (Dear god, does he think I'm fat?)"

Lucario wasn't stupid. He could see the sarcasm and annoyance right through his words, but sarcasm wasn't part of the large scheme of emotions his aura could pick up. "I'm very sorry about it, really," Lucario reinforced. "I was starting to get desperate with not doing any sort of physical training. Meditating many times gets dull quickly, and my body needs me to get tempered."

Chris decided to humor the juggernaut. "If you can lift up my bed…and me with your back without breaking a sweat, doesn't that tell you that you're super strong already?" he asked.

The Pokémon put up a tough look. "I firmly believe there is no limit to my powers," he said. To add emphasis to his statement, he let his aura flow out of his body, engulfing every corner including the murderous spikes on his limbs.

"W-wow," Chris muttered, causing Lucario to blink.

"Is…something the matter?" Lucario asked, still glowing with his aura.

"Y-you look kind of cool glowing like that," Chris admitted. The light of the aura was illuminating the room a bit thanks to the curtains blocking the sunlight. The teen could swear that there was an otherworldly feeling rubbing on him by standing close to the glowing creature. "A-ah!" He blushed and looked away. "S-sorry, what I mean is that…you're strong enough as you are! How could there be more improvements to your strength?"

"(His aura is exuding ecstasy and awe…)" Lucario thought to himself, as he read Chris's aura with great detail. "…Because I don't know how to use Aura Sphere. That is why," Lucario responded, making his glowing aura vanish. "Ever since I arrived here, I have tried to create a single orb of aura to use for combat, but I'm unable to do that… It's a great shame to a Lucario that can't use the move." His inner worries showed up in his saddened look as he looked down on his hands.

"…That look on your face tells a lot," Chris pointed out. "It really is bringing you down…"

The Aura Pokémon looked back at the teen. "All those praises you've told me before made me feel better," he said. "So…I wondered if I could learn Aura Sphere soon enough. I wish to see how powerful the move is when I use it. You told me I have impressive strength."

"And you're also very tall, if the data I've read is to be believed."

Lucario looked a bit shocked. "Data? You mean to say…you know how to teach me Aura Sphere?"

"Wait, what? No!" Chris shook his head. "T-that data I read is just Pokédex data about your species. It doesn't say anything about teaching Pokémon moves through actual training. From what I know, Pokémon just sort of automatically learn moves through leveling as they fight battles."

"Learn moves…automatically?" Lucario wondered, tilting his head. "There have been moments when Pokémon do learn moves automatically, but many do need to learn how first… That's what I think." He cursed his dormant memories. He wasn't very sure about anything like that, but it felt right to say it anyway, just to remember the home he hardly saw. "It'll take me some time to learn the move eventually. But…there aren't any Pokémon in this world; not even within the area my aura reaches out to. Can I gain experience just working out? Aren't there strong humans around?"

Inside Chris's mind, he imagined the Lucario growling and killing Bidoof with a single Force Palm to the face. The Bidoof disintegrated, leaving blood marks of the scene of the crime. Now, he replaced Bidoof with humans. It was far worse and horrifying. "…I'm not taking you out to a dojo or whatever! That'd ruin the whole 'hide the big Lucario from humanity' thing!" Chris objected. "And I won't let you punch a human. You'll kill someone!"

Through sheer will, Lucario avoided glaring. "I can try to lessen the force of my blows," he said.

"You're still ignoring the part about hiding," Chris pointed out.

"Oh, right… Lessening my power wouldn't just feel right." Taking a risky move, Chris stood on the tip of his feet and knocked on Lucario's forehead. It did feel like knocking on a wall. The Pokémon didn't feel the knocking. "Uh, what?"

"You. Are. Not. Going. To. Fight. A. Person. Period," Chris said with emphasis on each word.

The mental Riolu pouted. "Then what do you have in mind to train me?" Lucario questioned. He was sadly glaring down at Chris, but he took it back when he sensed a wave of fear coming from the teen. "I-if you have anything… I'm not forcing you."

"W-well, I did say I'd get to train you…somehow…" Chris muttered. "I wonder what I can do with you. My house isn't exactly a luxurious military camp… Like I said before, you have incredible strength. I should draw some very hard routines."

Lucario looked around for a bit. "If I'm that strong, can I try lifting the house?" he asked. The look on his face said he wasn't kidding. He was dead serious about it, and Chris discouraged the idea strongly. As much as it sounded tempting to see him do it, Chris couldn't afford seeing the water tubes getting torn apart and the whole foundation falling down.

"…Dear god, you are desperate," the teen muttered. "I need to come up with something fast." He needed some sort of distraction. What if Lucario would try to do that? "Uh… Do you want to have breakfast first? There's a lot of bacon to look forward to." Lucario's weak stomach growled in anticipation, making Chris laugh for a bit.

After a relaxing breakfast and a soothing shower, it turned out Chris managed to come up with a routine. To challenge Lucario's limits, he gave him a near-impossible task.

"1000 pushups in the balcony," Chris said stoically. "It's summer. Let the heat of the sun make you sweat."

The Aura Pokémon actually looked pleased. "It shall be done," he said, and politely bowed before making his way to the second floor.

When Lucario was gone, Chris grimaced. "(Not a single objection to that? Really, that seemed a little weak to him… Oh well. As long as he's happy about it…)" He looked around the empty living room. "(And now I'm alone, and I dislike doing anything else outside. The temperature is a bit too high today… No, I have to do my best for him somehow. I need to come up with more exhausting-sounding routines. This should end once he learns Aura Sphere.)" He sighed, wondering if letting the juggernaut learn such a move would end up with stuff blowing up. Gulping, Chris hoped nothing like that would happen as he went to his room to grab a notepad and a pen.

An hour later, before noon set it, Chris heard the doors of the balcony closing. In a minute, Lucario was back to his room, and he seemed to be breathing a little fast. "Done," he said. "1000 pushups under the sun. That was good." He fought the thought about flexing an arm to see if he had grown a little muscle mass. The Riolu inside of him flexed both and then collapsed on his back.

Lucario had arrived behind Chris's back, for the latter was sitting down on a chair in front of a desk with a notepad full of routines. The Aura Pokémon saw him checking a line before turning around to look up at him. "Oh, you did it?" he asked.

"Yes, I did," Lucario said, smiling a bit. "I did build up a sweat…mostly because of the sun, but it was good all the same."

"Nice! I'm so glad you're having fun with this."

"Why shouldn't I? I do love to work out my body after tempering my mind too many times before," Lucario said. "(Soon, I shall be able to start learning how to do an Aura Sphere if I keep this up…)"

"It's good you like it because…" the teen rose up from his seat and held his notepad, "I came up with a lot of impossible-sounding routines for you to do."

The person in front of Lucario surely wasn't his trainer, but he did sure look convincing enough to pass off as one. Grateful that he was told to do training other than simply learning how to read or make food, the Aura Pokémon was starting to think differently about the human. The Riolu in his mind ran wild with the idea, as he was wagging his little tail so vigorously and barking happily. "That's…that's great," Lucario said, his reading-eyes catching sight on some interesting sentences that caught his attention.

"It really wasn't that hard to get some ideas, after I saw you doing a thousand pushups…" Chris trailed off. "If anything, your strength makes things easier than they are without injuring yourself. No pain, no gain."

Foreign to the saying, Lucario could tell what that meant just fine. "Make me feel as much pain as possible that I'll wake up bruised up the next morning," he said, sounding like he was challenging Chris.

Chris was quick to envision himself lashing Lucario with a whip, only for Lucario to get angry, grab the whip, and blast Chris's face with a Force Palm. Was the Aura Pokémon masochist? "(S-stupid weather! Stop making me think of the worst case scenarios!) O-okay, you gave me the go, but I won't hurt you myself, and I sure wish my regime doesn't leave you handicapped."

"Bring it on," Lucario said, narrowing his eyes.

"(…Holy crud… I can totally sense the fire in his eyes,)" Chris shivered, to which Lucario quickly sensed a wave of fear and opened up his eyes. "(He does love to work up a sweat… I better make a note of that to get even closer to his side. That could save me a lot of rage fits in the future.) Alright, then. Your body better be ready for this." The Riolu pouted and tried to look tough.

Sit-ups were just as basic as pushups, but the fact Chris tossed in the word "rhythmical" was a little unexpected instead of the count. Lying down on his back on the floor of the living room, the dutiful Lucario started the routine, sitting up with a rate of 30 sit-ups per minute without dropping the rhythm of his body.

"The point of this training is to see how well you can raise and lower your upper body without suddenly rising up or falling down too fast," Chris explained, sitting down on the couch to the right side. "I want to have some…fun seeing how you can keep the rhythm. (Oh god, I sounded too creepy there…)"

"Hah, challenge my body in any way you see fit," Lucario dared, doing sit-ups with a steady rhythm and holding his angles without missing the beat. "In the end, I benefit from this."

"(We'll see if I don't benefit from this as well, you,)" Chris thought with a stoic look. "(Taming you with this should let me avoid so many close calls later on as you keep living under my roof…unless I'm making any future beat-downs all the worse on my end… Uh…)" He gulped. "(…I need to keep giving him more food. No way am I letting him grow any muscles and kill me with a sneeze!) I'll look forward to see you learning Aura Sphere."

"When that happens, I'll show you everything I can do with my aura senses," Lucario said, unaware that he gave Chris a sincere smile that was very inviting. "I guarantee you will be amazed."

"A-ah… I-I see," Chris responded. "…I knew I would benefit from this too. You just proved it."

"Oh…" Lucario was just about to slow down in his sit-ups, but he caught on quickly. The Riolu cheerfully tossed his arms up and hopped around. "…I-I see you're trying to distract me with this conversation. Very smart, Chris, but it won't work on me." He focused his sight on the ceiling and the angle going down from there. The teen blinked in confusion at the statement.

"But I didn't… I wasn't…"

There was regret building up inside Lucario. The little comment was a little too much for him to take, just trying to push Chris apart and fear the thought about liking him better than his trainer. The Riolu growled angrily at his move, representing how his subconscious was completely against the idea of not making a strong, unbreakable bond with the human, even if he enjoyed everything about Chris. "…Um…at what sit-up I'm at now?" he asked.

"Huh? Uh, the 60th," Chris said.

"Oh, I see. Thanks," Lucario thanked with a small smile. Despite the confirmation not looking like one, Lucario felt good that his makeshift apology worked. The Riolu looked happy that his older self tried to amend things at least. "(I can't grow too fond of him! He is showing me a lot of wonderful stuff to make me feel at home, but there should be a limit to this! I can't just push away my trainer over him…)"

An hour later, the Aura Pokémon stood up and took a deep breath. By the time he had finished, Chris brought up several bottles of water for the Lucario to drink in case of exhaustion. With two-thousand sit-ups completed, the Aura Pokémon looked at himself while the teen watched him. "...So?" Chris asked. "How do you feel?"

Whether the hot weather made him sweat or not, Lucario did feel stress in his veins and sweat on his fur. There was a slow speed in his last two-hundred sit-ups, making him realize that the training regimen was truly working. He had taken a step to the abs of his dreams, or so he and his inner Riolu thought with glee. "I can feel it... I do feel my energy going down..." the Lucario said with a content smile. "I think this is working out after all..."

The sudden spike of happiness coming from Chris's aura staggered Lucario. He mentally punched himself in the face, but the Riolu looked proud with his little chest sticking up. "Really? It's working? Oh, I'm so glad for you!" Chris said, his words showing how strong his positive aura was. "I thought I was going overboard with two-thousand sit-ups, but it hit the spot, right?"

Lucario was confused now. Training his body with such crazy goals was clouding his mind with what he was trying to avoid doing with Chris. If he looked happy, it was going to make Chris happy, which in turn would make the Riolu have multiple field days in an hour, which would end up with him desperately trying to push Chris away as recklessly and subtlety as possible. When he saw his trainer's smile, Lucario gulped mentally. "(Ack, focus, Lucario!) U-uh, yes, it hit the spot. Six spots, I hope..." He rubbed his stomach quickly.

The feeling of happiness coming from Chris's aura dimmed down to a normal level, mostly because his owner couldn't quite tell why the Lucario was rubbing his stomach the way he was doing it. Was he that desperate to grow muscles or something? "...Um... You do know the muscles won't come out quickly in a day, right? You'll have to be doing this routine like a thousand times or so to see results...I think. I never took a liking to working out myself."

The rubbing stopped suddenly when Lucario looked back at Chris's quizzical look. "I...I know that," Lucario said. "(...This seems like a good time to look offended so he doesn't...doesn't...doesn't...)" He was having a mental breakdown when he saw his chance to act like a jerk to Chris. But truthfully, being a jerk wasn't in his nature. Outright crushing the teen's kind attitude was too much to do or even begin with. Lucario had his chance to do it when he first came into the world, but that chance was lost forever. Moreover, the inner Riolu was frowning, wondering why he needed to look so negative for no reason. The reason was his original trainer, not the absolutely wonderful person helping him out!

...Oh, crap! Where did those adjectives come from? Was the giggling Riolu's fault? The Lucario was going to lose it quickly if he didn't act faster!

All of his troublesome thoughts halted when he heard Chris chuckling. "Don't you worry, okay?" Chris said with a welcoming look on his face. "I have truly never seen a buff Pokémon like you in TV or somewhere else, but...I'll help you out in becoming the strongest being ever, and you will look the part just as you want."

Just thinking about the godly body of his dreams put Lucario's thoughts in high gear. "Absolutely wonderful!" the Riolu beamed with glee. Lucario was quick to hide the single tear that his right eye shed. "(That was a very close call... Why...why am I getting so sentimental? Why can't I deny his help?)" Honestly, Chris thought it was just sweat and nothing more.

"So let's continue with these crazy workout routines, but you should drink some water first" Chris offered. He handed a bottle of water to Lucario, who hoped the water flowing down his throat would drown his insecurities. The only thing the water did was make it rain softly for the Riolu to rejoice.

For the next workout, it wasn't exactly workout. Chris had suggested Lucario to stay balanced in one foot and not touch the floor with the other unless he were to fall. Easy enough, the tall Pokémon stood on one foot and even put his palms together to meditate in peace. All he needed now was a waterfall to crash down on his head and shoulders, which he actually asked Chris. "Can you?"

"Not unless I took you to one..." Chris said. "I never understood why letting a waterfall fall on you is considered training. Does it do anything?"

Lucario didn't know. His mind just automatically suggested him to add that after he had watched an anime with a scene like that...and said scene had a buff, strong-looking guy to boot. He hoped his dream wasn't masquerading itself to reveal he was into buff guys. He wanted to be one, not be with one! "I think it does... I mean, why would they go through the trouble to do it? It doesn't look that bad to me."

"But for me, it does. All that water falling down on you... My bones would probably shatter apart," Chris said, shrugging afterward. He looked at the clock on the wall. "I should see what we're going to eat for the afternoon, so I'll leave you to do your balancing act." Nodding, the teen went back to the first floor.

Lucario sighed. The less time he spent with the human, the better it was for him to remain relaxed... The Riolu was barking angrily that the attention was gone from him, however. He was tossing a tantrum, wishing that the absolutely wonderful human would come back soon to see him. Little by little, Lucario started to feel...abandoned, even if it looked ridiculous since Chris wasn't gone.

"(...Am I really fated to be with him?)" Lucario thought, his body balanced in a perfect position. "(Is it useless for me to try to push him away from me? Just the thought of trying to start being rude to him is so but so wrong... He clearly wants the best for me, and even my body language...)" To his dismay, his long tail started to wag a bit. He blushed and desperately tried to calm it down, succeeding after five seconds. "(This accursed tail of mine says more than my own words! How could that be possible? This isn't fair to me! I don't want to be with him forever!)" While the Riolu giggled that his older self was slowly resigning to his cruel ideas, Lucario glared into space and looked around the living room to distract his mind but not so much as to lose his balance...

There was a photo on top of a small table.

Raising a curious eyebrow, Lucario squinted his eyes to focus on the picture... It was a picture of a much younger Chris being held by his father on his left arm, with his mother rubbing his son's head. All three of them were smiling happily, with the background having a big tree and a wall. The Aura Pokémon recognized the setting as the backyard, simply because the tree didn't look at that different from today. His eyes slowly drifted to the young Chris's sunny look so full of happiness with his family. No doubt his aura was so vibrant and full of energy back then, Lucario thought. A long stare at Chris's smile made Lucario smile as well, as if he was the reason the kid in the picture was smiling...

Then his smile went away when he looked at Chris's parents. "(I wonder if things would've been different if any of them was here,)" Lucario thought. "(Now I'm the source of his happiness, or so his aura waves tell me so... But... Didn't he get sad when his parents went away from home? I would if my parents left me behind for a good reason... Huh... My parents... Damn it, I had never seen their faces when I was born into the world...)" Lucario felt his balance leaning to the left, to which he gasped and quickly readjusted himself. "(And now I'm getting melancholic over that. Just my luck...)"

The troublesome thoughts kept piling on as he kept the firm balance on his foot. Luckily, he started to think about the godly body of his future, which was perhaps a guilty pleasure that he was willing to use just to forget about his stress over his heritage and, most importantly, the absolutely wonderful human in the house. He grunted to himself when he described Chris with those words; words the Riolu cherished greatly.

After doing several rounds of going back up and down to check on Lucario, Chris's fourth visit was the last one Lucario was willing to receive, dropping his somewhat numb right foot on the floor. "Three hours and you didn't lose your balance?" Chris said in complete admiration. "Unbelievable... You really think you need to keep on training?"

In retrospect, distracting himself with the size his body would get in the future wasn't such a good idea. "I won't stop until my biceps match the size of basketballs...or those bowling balls I've seen on TV. This thin body shall bulk up so much that even you won't recognize me till I speak," Lucario said confidently, to which then he blushed a bit and frowned. Obviously, the Riolu wanted that to happen soon. "(Oh Arceus, what in the hell was that that I just said?)"

Chris could only blink awkwardly at the description. He thanked himself that he was never so good at imagining such images. "I...see..." he trailed off. "Uh...well...here to your great future?"

"Uh...yes...my great future indeed," Lucario said. "(Just what I needed: I'm turning into a muscle-head... No, I'm turning into a Machoke trapped in a Lucario's body.)"

The teen looked to the sides and scratched his head. "Does...um...getting super buff has to do anything about learning how to use Aura Sphere?" he asked. Lucario's eyes widened. Somewhere along his routines, he had forgotten the main reason why he was working out in the first place. "If that's true, I'm kind of scared about how Pokémon look down there in your world..."

Certainly, his species weren't gods of massive manly (womanly?) testosterone. Knowing that made Lucario feel disappointed, until the Riolu for once tried to help him by barking at him that that was not the point to focus on. "N-no, I'm sure they're not that huge...uh...strong! Yes, strong..."

"...A-anyway!" Chris spoke up, trying to stop blushing at the disturbing thoughts. "Your third routine for the day has ended. We're going to be moving on to something else on the list."

"...I...wish to stop this for now if you don't mind," Lucario said. Chris didn't react oddly. "I shouldn't probably overdo it today. I have all the time in the world to pace myself and make this happen."

"Make what happen?" Chris asked.

Grow gigantic muscles, of course! The Lucario grunted mentally when he immediately thought of that. To focus correctly, he thought about a blue sphere that represented the Aura Sphere...which then somehow turned into a sphere representing his bicep flaring with aura. He once more yelled at himself. "L-l-learn Aura Sphere! T-that's what I'm talking about," he said, stuttering more than he thought he would do so by accident.

"(This conversation is turning extremely awkward now... I-I have to help him – and by extension myself – to thinking about other stuff!)" Chris thought alarmed. "S-so yeah, I decided to make steaks for today again! Never mind we had it for leftovers for yesterday's dinner! I-I mean, you like steaks, don't you?"

Lucario's distracting thoughts were replaced by rows of steaks blocking his perturbing muscular body. "(Screw it. This is far less arousing-looking... Dammit, I thought the word up!)" he thought. "Y-yes, please! I want three steaks! I can burn the extra body fat tomorrow if I keep working out diligently!" The haunting thoughts were coming back to him, so he quickly pressured Chris to start walking (or running) back down to the kitchen. The teenager didn't mind at all because he was just as embarrassed about the whole thing that he wanted to forget about it as soon as possible. Even the Riolu looked perturbed. He wanted an Aura Sphere so badly...

Before he knew it, it was already night and Chris was sleeping soundly in front of him. With the peace of the moonlight filling the room, Lucario was glad that the most important resting event of the day arrived. For once, he was truly focused on mastering the envisioned move his species was known around for. Truly his Aura Sphere would be the strongest there was, if Chris's opinions were true.

He couldn't quite go to sleep yet. Lucario stared at the teen's welcoming – if sleepy – expression. Something about Chris made Lucario feel closer to him...and it was around then that he had yet again failed to distance himself from him, though honestly, he cherished the feeling. It was a strange fuzzy feeling he didn't want to let go because it was relaxing him greatly. Thinking back about the embarrassing events of the day, Lucario chuckled. True, it was pure silliness about how they both reacted so flustered about the rather scandalous thoughts the Aura Pokémon brought up due to his wild mind running wild with the ideas, but still...

But still, it was hilarious to think back on it without dwelling in the past for too long. It was all the more enjoyable just knowing that Chris had been there with him.

It was the Riolu's cue to speak up, or so Lucario imagined as his inner younger self was seen resting on a cloudy bed. "You like him a lot, just like I like him a lot too!" the Riolu said. "You keep saying no to him, but I know better than that! It isn't so bad to stay with him in this house... He feeds you, he spends time with you, he teaches you stuff...and he even trains you! You and him are a wonderful duo! Imagine if you and him went out on a journey... You'd be stoppable!"

"(But...I'm not so sure yet...)" Lucario thought, looking worried at the happy look of the human. "(It's not fair for my trainer... She has to know I'm gone...)"

The Riolu sighed. "You don't have any memories of her, unlike all the new ones you've made with Chris! Really, it's futile to keep trying to go back to that old life you barely even knew about... You enjoy your new life to the fullest with him. Why throw it all away?"

"(...)" Lucario grunted and glared. "(Why am I even holding a conversation with a person who's clearly not even inside my mind?)" he shot back.

The Emanation Pokémon put up a dull look with a grin as he replied with, "Because you're making me exist and say all these nice things back to you, because you know them to be true and you're just playing hard to get, silly."

The large Aura Pokémon growled in frustration, though he did keep the loud growl inside his head as to not startle Chris's sleep. Despite his tired look, the conversation had ended with Lucario listening to the Riolu giggling. He took it as rude teasing, though the Riolu meant very well regardless. Deciding that he was going insane with his subconscious, Lucario yawned and lied down his over his crossed arms, not noticing that the scene in the room looked like he was keeping Chris safe. In the end, he fell asleep with a smile that later appeared on his lips.

The icing on the cake was the dream he had that same night: him standing in front of a large mirror reflecting what female Pokémon would describe as the manliest eye candy to ever walk on earth and male Pokémon would describe as the luckiest bastard ever. Instead of complete joy, the even larger Lucario said, "I have some other...serious issues I need to work out...on! On! I mean work on!"

The small Riolu suddenly appeared from his left and looked up at his massive self from below the towering knee area. "You know who made this happen in a month? It was Chris! He's the best!" he said with joy.

Lucario screamed and promptly punched the mirror to destroy the desirable-yet-undesirable image, thus ending the dream and him sleeping much better afterward.

It looks like this Lucario is going to be ready to make that Aura Sphere very soon now. Can't wait to see myself how Chris will react to that, and also how this stubborn Pokémon will eventually surrender to his Riolu self.

Please do review soon, okay?