Home for Christmas

Vali returned home for the Holidays and found Ash happily throwing himself at her the moment she walked through the door, "Vali!"

"Hey, Ash," Vali hugged him back as Elrond quickly used his psychic energy to balance her, "You been behaving?"

"Of course!" Ash grinned at her, "I missed you so much, Vali. You've been so busy lately. I've barely seen you,"

"It's been crazy at the gym," Vali replied with a soft smile.

Ash pulled back as Delia called out, "Ash, let Vali, Elrond, and Thorin inside!"

Letting out a small grumble, Ash moved back to allow Vali and her pokemon fully inside the warm house. Elrond closed the door with his powers as she began taking off her boots. Ash asked, "So did you catch any new pokemon?"

"Nope, Magby is still my only new pokemon," Vali replied with a soft chuckle, "But we've been learning some fun new techniques,"

Ash looked excited, "Can I see?"

"Maybe," Vali grinned at his look of frustration, "How's Delia been?"

"Mom's been good. Sirius' been home every couple of weeks. He's supposed to be home later tonight apparently which has her excited," Ash informed her as she set her boots down by the door and moved deeper into the house.

"So how has school been?" Vali asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Okay..." Ash deflated a bit earning a concerned look, "The practical stuff's easy, but the theory is hard even with Gary helping me. I mean I've been getting through it, but I just find everything so boring! I know you said we needed a lot of it, but still,"

Vali sighed softly as she sat down and Thorin immediately jumped onto the couch beside her, "I get it, Ash. I had trouble with theory back in my old world. Perhaps you should try exercising when attempting to learn your theory, it might become easier to reach you then."

"Maybe," Ash looked doubtful.

"Anyway," Vali glanced around the room, "Where's Pidgey? I would've thought she'd be here as well,"

Ash perked up a little, "She evolved yesterday. Once I followed your advice on how to keep her loyalty and stuff, I brought her to Professor Oak. He's keep her for a few days to study since it's apparently unusual for Pidgey to evolve in winter."

"It is," Vali confirmed as she recalled the study she'd read after catching her own Pidgey, "Given how long you've been taking care of her as well, she should've evolved a bit earlier though her taking longer will only have been beneficial,"

"Really?" Ash looked a bit awed at the thought.

Vali nodded as she ran her fingers across Thorin's back, "Just like Thorin here, she'll have learned the most she could as a Pidgey. It'll make her stronger in the long run."

"Wow," Ash breathed as he looked towards Thorin, "Maybe that's how I'll raise my pokemon, I'll ensure they've learned everything possible in each of their evolutions,"

"A good plan though you might need to invest in some ever-stones if that's the case," Vali informed him before chuckling at the confused look, "Much like a fire-stone or dusk-stone, ever-stones are considered evolutionary stones only they are anti-evolution stones,"

"Anti-evolution?" Ash looked like the concept blew his mind.

Vali nodded while wondering if he would truly understand it at his age before inwardly shrugging. If he didn't, she could always try again later on when he was older, "Anti-evolution is a concept that the scientific community came up with to explain why certain species of pokemon do not evolve. It was only when ever-stones were discovered that they realized that Anti-evolution was a real concept that occurs in nature. Pokemon of the Anti-evolutionary spectrum and ever-stones both emit a form of radiation that cancels out evolution, the pokemon do not radiate it very strongly though and it would take a rather large amount to keep other pokemon from evolving. Ever-stones can easily keep a pokemon from evolving via contact which is why it's a good idea to keep your pokemon from swallowing them."

"Wow," Vali could tell Ash didn't really understand everything she was saying, "So what if the pokemon was really strong though?"

"There have been studies done that certain pokemon species have been known to need multiple ever-stones depending on how long they've been close to evolving," Vali replied as she thought about it, "I think it's mostly been dragon-types though I might be wrong on that. It's a question to ask Professor Oak,"

"What's a question to ask Professor Oak?" Delia asked as she walked into the living room with a tray of hot-cocoas and a plate of cookies, "Welcome home, Vali,"

"It's nice to be home," Vali replied with a soft smile, "Ash brought up ensuring his pokemon were strong before they evolved. I mentioned ever-stones and now we're wondering if dragon-types are the only ones who need multiple ever-stones to keep from evolving,"

Delia hummed softly, "I'm not sure. Professor Oak will definitely know though. He should be here in an hour or two though with Gary and Daisy."

Vali was smiling until she heard Daisy's name. She wasn't quite happy with the girl that had essentially disappeared from Gary's life save for a week out of every year. Delia handed her a hot-coca as Ash grinned, "Really? Awesome! I wonder if Professor Oak will have any of his pokemon with him."

"Most likely Alakazam," Vali offered earning a happy look.

Delia sent Ash to go finish cleaning his room as Vali settled in a bit more firmly against the couch. The brown haired woman gave Vali a once over, "How've you been? Without sugar coating it?"

"Stressed and tired," Vali looked at Delia with a tired look, "The League's sending me out with Blaine every other time and things are getting progressively harder," Thorin nuzzled into her side a bit more and increased the heat he was letting off which soothed the aches in her body just a bit more, "Add in the increase of trainers attempting to get a badge and me attempting to get everything done as fast as possible, we're running ourselves ragged even with the weekends back here," She hesitated before saying, "I ended up giving Blaine my proposal for how the Gym Trainers could make it easier and more difficult for the trainers to do the gym challenge. From what Jackson told me before I left, he's probably going to push it through the League depending on how well it goes with us,"

"That's amazing, Vali," Delia smiled proudly at her.

"Not really, Hoenn and Sinnoh both have a system like this in place already," Vali waved off the praise with a tired smile, "I'm just trying to get Kanto onto the bandwagon,"

"It's a good idea and you'll be praised for bringing it to Kanto," Delia told her rather gently, "Now why don't you go unpack and maybe take a nap, I'll wake you when dinners ready,"

Vali would've protested had she not been so tired, "Okay."

Standing slowly as Thorin moved and Elrond resumed floating, Vali stretched a bit feeling the bruises and aching muscles protest her movements quite a bit. She set het hot-coca on the tray again as Delia said, "I made sure everything was washed and aired out for you."

"Thank you," Vali murmured as she tiredly picked up her bag.

Vali made her way towards her room. Once inside, she released everyone and smiled a little as they immediately began to settle down for a nap including Magby. Plopping her bag onto the ground by the door rather than unpack, she joined them and promptly fell asleep curled up amidst her pokemon.