Return of a rival

"Vali!" Came from behind the fire-type master-in-training as she headed for the training facility.

Vali paused as she turned her head and found Zaria rushing up towards her, "Zaria?"

The mocha skinned dark-type master-in-training grinned as she skidded to a halt behind Vali, "Sup, Vali."

"Hey, Zaria," Vali turned to face her friend, "What brings you to Viridian? And is that a Sableye?"

The Sableye hung from Zaria's neck peering at Vali curiously. Its blue gem-like eyes were a milky almost white blue showing that the creature was still quite young. Its skin was a light purple color just beginning to darken into the deep amethyst the species was known for. The red gem on its chest was about the size of a dime rather than the almost tennis ball size they usually were. The same could be said for the gems on its back. Its ears twitched with every sound echoing through the city. Its mouth opened letting out a soft nervous chitter revealing sharp fangs. Zaria grinned as she reached up to stroke the Sableye's head, "This is Zabbi, she hatched from an egg I got during a minor tournament while in Lavender Town. As for why I'm in Viridian, I'm scouting out Giovanni since I'm debating whether or not to have him as my eighth gym battle."

"Who'd you battle for your sixth and seventh?" Vali asked as Zabbi the Sableye slowly began to reach out to her, "I mean you've probably fought Koga, but you'd still be in Cinnabar if you were battling Blaine,"

"You'd be right," Zaria smiled as Vali held out her hand and allowed Zabbi to play with her fingers, "I ended up going for that small dark-type gym. You know the one that's near the old Kanto/Johto railroad through the mountains?"

"The one that ended up falling into to disuse after the many cave ins," Vali was surprised by how careful Zabbi was being with her sharp claws, "How was it?"

Zaria grinned a bit, "Not bad, it wasn't as difficult as the main gyms, but the gym leader was definitely worth being called one. He has this kick ass Umbreon-"

Probably becoming impatient, Vulpix let himself out of his pokeball cutting off Zaria as Zabbi let out a hiss of surprise. Vali bit back a hiss of pain as Zabbi's claws dug into her fingers as a small shriek of surprise left the Sableye. Vulpix shook himself out as Zabbi released her fingers earning a hiss of pain as the small barbs on the Sableye's claws caught on her skin. Vulpix froze for all of a few seconds before growling at Zabbi in anger with fangs bared and fur bristling in anger. Zaria backed up a bit as Vali bit out, "Vulpix, stop," Vulpix flicked an ear at her as he stood protectively in front of her, "You just startled Zabbi which is why they hurt me," Vulpix immediately stopped growling and looked at her with wide disbelieving eyes, "That's what happened, Little One."

Vulpix let out a whine falling out of protective mode and into apology mode. Vali bent down to reassure him that she wasn't made as Zaria whistled, "So your egg hatched, huh?"

"Yeah a bit before Christmas," Vali winced as she flexed her bleeding fingers, "Right, I need to go get this checked out,"

"I'll come with," Zaria grimaced at the injury as she pulled out a clean looking rag, "Here,"

Vali wrapped up her fingers and put pressure on them as they headed to a nearby clinic.

Vali left the clinic with two stitches where Zabbi's claws had dug the deepest. Zabbi apologized and after a few tense moments got along with Vulpix once her not-so little fox stopped sulking about being the cause of his mother figure's newest injury. After arriving at the training facility, the two began to play after Vali set her pokemon to work with Zaria's joining in. She was a little surprised to find that Zaria had also gotten a Swinub though given that the Safari-zone had quite a few pokemon from other regions running around this year, it wasn't quite so surprising. Zaria looked at Vulpix as he wrestled around with Zabbi who was being careful with its claws, "Damn, he's getting pretty big considering he hatched around Christmas and is the runt of his litter."

"It's because he has the King-gene," Vali smiled over at Terra who was working hard to master Sandstorm at the moment, "He's going to be huge as a Ninetales,"

"Damn," Zaria shook her head, "How the hell do you have a Shiny and a King with both pretty much falling into your lap?"

"My luck is absolutely random," Vali leaned back against the wall, "So Zabbi, are they male or female?"

"Male," Zaria glanced at Vali's bandaged fingers with a small wince, "I'm really sorry about that. Zabbi's still getting used to everything,"

"It's fine since he hatched what two weeks ago?" Zaria nodded at her words, "So don't worry about it, I'm just glad he isn't an adult or that could've been worse,"

Both of them shuddered a bit, it was a well known fact that adult Sableye could shred a human without much trouble with their claws. Thankfully, the odd species tended to ignore humanity unless something took its attention even then they tended to avoid humans for the most part. Zaria followed Vali's lead and leaned back against the wall, "Eevee looks like he's doing well."

"He's better and with any luck, he'll be able to battle by next year," Vali smiled a bit as Eevee worked with Pele, "He's opening up to everyone on the team though some more than others,"

"That's good," Zaria put her arms behind her head, "So where's Steven?"

"Training in a diffrent facility," Vali grinned a bit as she watched Vulpix and Zabbi roll around, "He found one better suited to his tastes. It's an awesome place too, but too expensive for me especially since I pretty much blew my budget on getting some TMs," She mentally winced at the reminder though thankfully she'd been earning money back thanks to participating in trainer battles, "He's really looking forward to battling against Giovanni. I can't wait to watch,"

"Even if I don't end up choosing to battle Giovanni, I'm staying long enough to see that," Zaria grinned a bit, "It's bound to be good especially if the rumors about Giovanni are true,"

Vali hummed lightly in agreement. The battles were going to be amazing especially since there was a chance that Steven could lose. Battles were always better when there was a chance someone you knew could lose, it made your heart race especially when everything was so close that a single wrong move meant losing.