Cynthia walked into the Dojo, excited to see what progress Roland had managed to make in the week he had spent with Isabel Joy. She had been surprised when the nurse had requested to delay her initial report by a week in order to protect Roland’s battle strategy.

  The request had caught her off guard for two reasons, one was that she was the champion, trainers like to hide their training methods in order to get an advantage on the competition but anything that a new trainer could come up with and develop in a week she would have surpassed years ago.

  The second reason was that this was not really a battle, it was simply the first training exercise that Lucario had given to both Roland and his Pokemon, all they had to do to win was make Lucario move from his chosen spot, she had originally given them the task of injuring her Pokemon to get a day off training but there was no real chance of that happening.

  So when Isabel expressed interest in the competition it had given Cynthia pause, Isabel was an experienced nurse, she knew the disparity in power between Roland’s Pokemon and her own, and yet her actions suggested that she believed Roland might be able to win.

  Cynthia wasn’t nervous at the thought she might actually lose, instead she was excited. It had been years since anyone had really challenged her, since the installment of her elite four no challenger had actually managed to reach her to take her title of champion.

  While the stability that provided the region was very much appreciated, the trainer inside her did yearn for a rival, someone who could stand against her and push her to even greater heights.

  As she stepped inside the Dojo she found Isabel standing by the door, her Blissy already released from its ball, they shared a quick smile before Cynthia’s focus was drawn to Roland.

  He was sitting in a meditative pose in the center of the Dojo, his Pokemon released next to him, the Manaphy to his right and the Horsey in the pool Lucario had created on there first day to his left.

  Roland’s aura was spilling from him like an overflowing sink, whatever method he had developed to supercharge his aura he had clearly already used, Cynthia had to flare her own aura to not be pushed back by him.

  He smiled at her as he got to his feet and gave a short bow, “Thank you for taking the time to visit us today Champion, both my Pokemon and I have been working hard to beat your challenge.” Roland’s voice came out calmly as he stepped backwards creating space for the battle to come.

  Cynthia returned his smile, “It is my pleasure, I look forward to seeing how far you have come in such a short amount of time. The rules remain the same.” She said as she released Lucario, “If you can force Lucario to move then you win, if you manage to actually injure him then instead of a day off training I offer you a single wish that I will fulfil to the best of my ability. Please be aware that for such a challenge the wish I can grant will have to be of equal difficulty so don’t get any ideas on asking for a city to run or anything.” She finished with a light chuckle.

  “Champion, I can promise you this, I will never ask for a city to run. The logistics of such an endeavor are completely beyond me, and a career in politics is the last thing I want.” Roland responded with a light laugh himself.

  “Well then, let's see what you can do!” Cynthia cried as she declared the start of their match.

  “Neressia, Nereus, you both know the plan, I have full faith in you.” Roland said as his Pokemon began to move, Cynthia was immediately stunned as Roland’s Horsey started swimming through the air.

  He taught his Pokemon air swimming in a week? That's absurd. She thought, however, she did not let this surprise show on her face, not wanting to give any indication on how impressed she was to the young trainer. It’s absurd to teach air swimming to a Pokemon so young in such a short amount of time, but it won’t be nearly enough to beat Lucario.

  Roland did not give any other commands as his Pokemon began to move, the Manaphy was using tail glow to build up power, the same strategy was used last time while the Horsey let out a smokescreen blocking her view of the fight.

  While a smokescreen was a great tool to control information on the battlefield especially at the lower levels, it would not work against her. She had a number of methods of dealing with moves like that from using vacuum wave to blow the smoke away to simply moving out of the affected area, she would not do either of these.

  Obviously moving would result in her loss and to deploy an offensive move like vacuum wave against a trainer who had his Pokemon for around a month was in poor taste for a Champion, instead she was content with seeing what strategy Roland had cooked up while Lucario used his aura control to keep track of his opponents.

  The Horsey flanked around to the other side of Lucario so that they could hit him from both sides, again a good strategy but not nearly enough, while the Manaphy had boosted its power it did not have the proficiency with attacking moves to put any real pressure on Lucario, and without said boosting moves Horsey simply didn't have the power behind his attacks.

  This is where the second big surprise of the match came into effect. Cynthia couldn't see what was happening exactly due to the smoke screen but she could feel the amount of power moving across the battlefield, this wasn’t entirely surprising large amounts of energy being thrown around in attacks was all too common on the battlefield, but this situation surprised her for two reasons.

  One the amount of energy that was moving was far more than Pokemon of this level should be able to funnel into an attack, secondly the target of this energy was not the spot Lucario was standing in but instead where the Horsey had moved to.

  Cynthia had been busy in the past week, trying to deal with the political mess of a new terrorist organisation being unearthed so the time she had to research the legendary Pokemon Manaphy was limited, but not entirely non-existent.

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  What she had been able to find was that Manaphy was known as a Pokemon that could befriend any other, how exactly it went about doing this she didn’t know but if it was able to pass stored energy to other Pokemon it would be a good way of making friends, after all in the wild the stronger a Pokemon was the more it was respected, if a Pokemon was able to go around passing out power like that then it would be a welcome sight indeed.

  The Champion considered giving Lucario some direction, but decided against it, for one Lucario was a Champion level Pokemon, he was more than cable of keeping track of what was happening without her help, it also felt wrong for her to intervene, this was a battle between Lucario and Roland’s team not a challenge against her.

  After the stored energy entered the Horsey, Manaphy immediately began using tail glow again, shortly both of Roland’s Pokemon were fully boosted, a smile appeared on Cynthia’s face. He found a way to boost the Horsey’s attack, if they work together with Manaphy drawing Lucario’s attention and Horsey landing a good surprise attack then maybe they could force Lucario to move, although with how much of their time must have been spent on teaching Horsey to air swim and Manaphy learning the energy swapping move he can’t have had any time to teach any stronger moves, its unfortunate but a simple water gun even boosted will be enough to hurt Lucario.

  With both Pokemon boosted, they moved into the final stage of their plan, blasting Lucario with everything they had. Roland was really gambling on Lucario thinking all of there time had been spent on the tail glow/ heart swap combo and so would be expecting simple water guns coming his way, attacks he should be able to take with ease, such ease that he wouldn't bother using protect.

  Neressia and Nereus both charged their water guns, drawing all of the aura Roland could provide and pouring it straight into their attack, letting the pressure build and build.

  With a shout from Roland both attacks flew out, to Roland's joy Lucario only shifted his stance to brace himself for the incoming attacks, opting not to dodge or use any move to defend himself.

  The second the attacks landed an explosion rang out, sending the smokescreen outwards blinding everyone to what had happened.

  Cynthia wasn’t sure what had just happened, she had seen the attacks through her link with Lucario’s aura, not a clear picture for sure but clear enough. Two water guns coming from opposite directions, the Pokemon had been boosted with tail glow but they were young and inexperienced, Lucario should have been able to coat his body in aura and simply redirect the attacks to the side.

  So why did they explode like that, and more importantly how was Lucario?

  As the smoke began to clear Cynthia’s mask finally broke unable to keep the shock of her face, laying on the ground, bleeding from a small cut on his back was Lucario, he wasn’t truly hurt of course but he was injured if by the thinnest stretch of the definition.

  “Unbelieveable” she muttered as her eyes scanned the room towards Roland, only to find him passed out, laying face down on the floor.

  Isabel let out a sigh, “I told him that this would happen if he let them use that much aura” she said under her breath as she walked over to flip Roland into his front, “Blissy could I have a soft boil please?” she asked the large pink Pokemon.

  Cynthia raised an eyebrow at the command, “You plan on feeding an unconscious man a soft boil, from your Blissy no less? I take it you have a good reason for breaking the law in front of me?” The Champion asked Isabel.

  Isabel froze in place as she turned to face the Champion, “Im… im.. I'm sorry, it’s the quickest way to get him back up, and it's safe I promise!” She shuttered, having forgotten whose presence she was in, the week she had spent with Roland and his relaxed carefree attitude had started to wear off on her, paired with seeing him use moves on himself almost constantly had caused her to relent to his constant requests to eat a softboil egg.

  Roland had the idea that the move restored Pokemon health in battle so it must be a large source of normal TE that was then used to restore a Pokemon’s body, the actual mechanism for this process was beyond him but he had claimed that he didn’t really need to know how it worked just that it did, and if it worked for Pokemon why couldn't he use it to restore his own aura.

  Isabel had been strongly against the idea at first, not only was using Pokemon moves on humans illegal for the most part, her Blissy was exceptionally well trained, the potency of her eggs was a step above the regular, and yet seeing Neressia constantly infusing him with energy through heart swap told her that this was not a regular trainer, maybe he could make this work after all?

  After much discussion Roland had agreed to eat part of the egg to begin with, a good thing as a small bite from the egg had flooded Roland's reserves, resulting in a multi hour meditation session where he frantically siphoned as much energy as he could to his Pokemon.

  Isabel had refused to continue after that but Roland had claimed that his initial testing with Heart swap had gone much worse and that most of the issues he faced came from the energy being normal TE instead of water TE that he was used to.

  This revelation did open up a whole new discussion on tail glow generating bug TE and heart swap being a psychic type move, something Roland had to inform Isabel off, yet it appeared that Neressia already converted the energy into water TE before passing it onto Roland. They had both agreed that this would require further research, it was just the time they had available was already assigned for training, research could wait.

  Still it had set a new precedent that with time and practice Roland could process the energy from a softboil egg, providing that he could siphon the energy off to his Pokemon, something that allowed Neressia to spend more time practicing water gun than constantly charging and providing energy to Roland.

  After a week of this Roland had gotten a lot better at processing the energy, he still could only eat a portion of the egg unlike Pokemon who would chomp the entire thing during battle but that feat alone was unheard of for a human.

  Having gone through this process countless times Isabel had forgotten who she was in the presence of, a mistake she feared could now have serious complications.

  “He has eaten the eggs before?” Cynthia asked, her voice not giving away her mood at all.

  “He has.” Isabel said, her voice a little more than a whisper.

  “Continue then.” Cynthia commanded with a nod.

  With the Champion’s permission Isabel felt a bit more confident as she broke the egg up into small pieces that she pushed into Roland’s unconscious mouth. She made sure to break the pieces small enough so that he wouldn't choke on them.

  After what felt like the longest few minutes of Isabel’s life Roland’s eyes shot open.

  “Jesus those eggs certainly wake you up with a kick.” he said as he looked around at the room's inhabitants watching him.

  “What's Jesus?” Isabel asked, confused by the expression.

  Roland’s face fell as he was clearly in a deep contemplation, “You know what, I think any answer I give here will probably piss someone off so best not to say anything.”

  “What in the legendaries are you talking about?” Isabel asked even more confused.

  “Nothing, forget it, did we win?” Roland asked quickly, changing the conversation.

  “I must say, I am thoroughly impressed.” Cynthia stated, cutting into the conversation, “While you were only able to inflict a small insignificant injury it was an injury and so by rights you did win, now tell me what is your wish?