Steven's Inner thought's and Training with Surge

Steven looked towards where Vali was sleeping with a frown on his face. Despite both of them going to bed on a high note, he couldn't seem to fall asleep and it all had to do with his traveling partner. Knowing that Vali had maybe a year if not two before she'd finally meet the 'Lord of Flames' was disconcerting, he was going to be the Champion of the Hoenn league by then or at least on his way to doing that. They were going to part once the Indigo Conference was over with maybe a few days after together, but he'd be going back to Hoenn. And Vali would be in Kanto, they'd be an ocean apart and like she'd told Ryner, it wouldn't be an easy thing to travel back to Kanto meaning he wouldn't be there to help her if she needed it.

Ryner was a good friend despite the fact Steven was somewhat tempted to strangle him right about now and he'd brought up a good question to Vali. What was she going to end up doing? A fire-type mastery was quite clear and she'd commented about wanting to become a member of the Elite Four multiple times during their journey. While he knew she could do it especially if Blaine decided to take her on, he wondered at what she'd do before then. An Ace trainer? It was possible and probably the most probable. He knew she'd keep up her hobby of taking photos, but what else was she planning on doing? So many questions though he supposed his biggest one was, where did he fit in her plans?

Steven didn't want to lose contact with Vali and knew she'd keep that from happening. The thing that unsettled him the most was not being able to see her as often once he left Kanto. The thought of not being able to turn his head and see Vali's reaction to whatever he'd said left him feeling a bit hollow. Sure, he'd be able to call Vali and ask for her opinions if he really wanted to now that she had a pokenav. But it wasn't the same, he wouldn't get to see the way Vali eyes darkened with thought as her mouth quirked into a slightly frown or how her nose scrunched up when she was thinking about something complicated. He wouldn't get a surprise hug from Vali when she managed to win a difficult battle or thanked him for helping her pokemon figure out how to do some new move. All those thoughts left him unsettled though he supposed it was due to Vali being his first real female friend.

Arriving at the gym right on time, Vali was sent to the indoor training ground where Lt. Surge waited. When she got there, the Gym Leader was pounding into a punching bag while his pokemon were working around him. Lt. Surge spotted her and barked, "Get your pokemon out and have them warm up! Get warmed up too, they're not the only ones getting a work out today."

Vali was somewhat glad that Lt. Surge had suggested she bring a change of clothes and wore ones she wouldn't mind getting dirty. Setting down her bag and taking off the jacket she was wearing, she called out her pokemon, "Everyone, I want you to start warming up. Vulpix, I want you to watch us, okay?" Vulpix nodded slowly with a curious tilt of his head, "You'll be doing this too once you're old enough."

All her pokemon had a specific warm-up though her fully evolved ones had changed theirs a bit, Vali mainly stretched for her warm ups and went through a small routine that Steven had cooked up with her. Smaug's routine involved stretching his wings and other muscles before going for a run in an attempt to up his ground speeds. Balto stretched his muscles and doing a small walk that would evolve into a run. Elrond's warm up had mainly become levitating things as he did a few other things that usually depended on his mood. Pele mostly ran around with Empress as they were her slowest pokemon outside of Terra and Idril. Pippin did his best to run while trying to keep from tripping up.

Lt. Surge called it all to a halt after ten minutes and they gathered around him, "Alright. Smaug, you'll be working with my Electivire to increase your power and get a better defense against electric-type attacks."

Smaug looked at her as Electivire let out a low whirling sound as it beat it's fists together. Vali nodded lightly and reached up to scratch under his eye like he liked, "Go on, Smaug."

After nuzzling his trainer lightly, Smaug moved to stand beside the powerful electric-type. Lt. Surge looked a little amused, "Balto," Balto peered at the man, "You'll be working with one of my Zebstrika to kick your speed up further. You'll also be working on aiming your attacks and hitting targets while moving at high speeds,"

A monster of a Zebstrika moved forward and nickered at Balto as it stomped a hoof. Vali patted Balto's side, "You do need help with that, Balto."

Balto nudged her and bent his head to nip lightly at Vulpix's ear before going over the the Zebstrika who eyed him. Lt. Surge snorted a bit as the Zebstrika flicked its tail almost dismissively, "Elrond, you're with Raichu. You've got less power than a regular Raichu which means you'll have to work harder if you want to pack a punch. Raichu'll walk you through it," Elrond nodded and floated over to Raichu with a small frown on his face, "Pippin, you'll be working with my female Luxray. She'll basically get you up to speed with your attacks and work on your balance."

The female Luxray let out a gentle purr as she walked over to Pippin. Pippin hesitated for a moment to glance at Vali for permission before rushing at the female when she nodded to him. She smiled softly as the two began to exchange some sparks and purrs. She looked back at Lt. Surge, "What about Empress and Pele?"

"They need to pick up their speed. Power won't mean shit if they don't have the speed," Lt. Surge replied causing Empress to growl at him earning a snort from the Gym Leader, "My Manectric will be working with them on that,"

The Manectric that stalked forward from the group of gym pokemon was absolutely beautiful. He was absolutely regal and clearly well-taken care. The golden fur around his head and legs was almost glowing in the fluorescent lights. The sleek blue fur coating the rest of his body was a bright and healthy almost neon sky blue. The three claws on each of his feet were razor sharp and perfectly shaped. The only thing that marred the beautiful pokemon was the long scar over his right eye that left the crimson coloring a pale pink. Vali looked into his eyes and knew that he was proud of the scar. She looked at Lt. Surge after a few moments, "He's absolutely beautiful. You take great care of him."

"He's been with me for a long time," Lt. Surge smiled as he ruffled Manectric's golden fur a bit earning a playful nip from the proud electric-type, "Seen hell with me,"

Vali offered Manectric a smile, "Thank you for your help, Manectric."

Manectric's gaze was measured as he peered at her before finally deigning to nod. Lt. Surge grinned a bit, "That just leaves Eevee and Vulpix, the runt can just sit back a bit since we're going to be working mainly with Eevee today. Jolteon here is going to help us."

With that said, everyone broke up with Pele taking a few minutes to follow after her apparent teacher. Lt. Surge led Vali, Eevee, Vulpix, and Jolteon over to a section of the indoor training ground covered by two obstacle courses. Looking over them, she had to ask, "Are we running those?"

"Yup," Lt. Surge turned to give her a grin that was all teeth, "All higher up trainers have to be physically fit especially if the League needs to call on them. Since you plan on becoming a Elite at some point, you're gonna need to work your ass off. You'll be going through these courses with each of your pokemon save for the runt at least once. Seeing as you'll be running them twice a day until you leave or I feel you're ready for the next level, you better get ready to be pushed to your limit,"

Vali looked at the obstacle courses which didn't seem that scary. They were comprised of a few simple platforms, a beam that obviously required some balance to cross, a set of monkey bars, a rock wall, and a pool of water that's obviously meant to be swam in. The pokemon side of the course had a some tilted platforms instead of monkey bars that ground based pokemon needed to cross. She narrowed her eyes at it since this seemed a bit too basic, "This isn't all there is to it, is there?"

"Good instincts, Kid," Lt. Surge pulled out a remote, "This lets me play around with the obstacle courses and make it harder, I'll be doing some basic stuff since you've never done anything like this before,"

"Right," Vali looked at Eevee who was eyeing the courses with distrust, "Eevee, let's get through this together, okay?" Eevee looked at her before nodding with narrowed eyes, "Though Surge would it be possible to nix the water on Eevee's side?"

Lt. Surge looked at Vali with a raised eyebrow before his eyes narrowed, "Tried to drown him, huh?"

"From my understanding, yeah," Vali replied was Lt. Surge fiddled with the remote and an icy platform appeared on the pokemon course, "We're going to work through it,"