Finding the gym and tournament discussions

Finding where Blaine was actually pretty easy, the man owned a hotel which sat over top the entrance to his gym. All it took was showing the Nurse Joy manning the front desk of the Pokemon Center their completed list of riddles and she told them exactly where to go. Blaine grinned when they entered the hotel, "Finally figured out the riddles, huh?"

"Why in the name of Arceus would you build your gym in a volcano?" Vali asked as they approached the front desk, "I get wanting to emphasis fire-types especially Magmar, but seriously?"

"For that reason," Blaine's grin widened at the look of confusion tossed at him, "To ensure that the trainers would be forced to think and only those truly willing to get their badge would be able to find my gym, it's a lot better than having to face false challengers,"

Vali could understand that, but had to ask, "How did you get this past not only the League, but the Gym Inspectors? You might've been an elite, but that wouldn't be enough to slip this past them."

"There are protections in place and the battlefield isn't exactly inside the Volcano itself," Blaine moved to the computer, "Now you both have two options for your gym battles. You can fight a member of my real team and depending on your performance will get the badge. Or do a regular gym battle which would be a four on four,"

Steven immediately chose the latter while Vali actually had to think about it. The desire to see just where they stood against Blaine's actual team was difficult to ignore, but she forced it aside as she contemplated just how risky this would be. Were they ready to fight an elite level pokemon? No, but that didn't mean they couldn't try. Blaine wouldn't be aiming to kill any of them, but the injuries sustained from that kind of battle would be bad no matter how well they fought. She looked at Steven as he asked, "Vali, are you thinking about the first option?"

"I'm giving it some real thought," Vali admitted as she looked back at Blaine, "Blaine, what member of your real team would it be?"

"My Magmar," Blaine answered with a light smile.

Vali's eyes widened and the desire to take the first option increased quite a bit. Battling a legend like Blaine's Magmar wasn't something just anyone did, it was capable of sweeping entire teams of pokemon if the man deigned to pull the fire-type out. It took serious skill, cunning, and power to win against that beast of a pokemon. Given their current power levels and the fact that three of her team members still needed a lot of training before that would be possible, they would likely lose very badly. Clamping down on that desire as she thought about how well her pokemon would actually fare against it, she said, "I'll take the second option. As much as I really want to battle against your Magmar and see just where my team stands, we are not anywhere close to ready."

Blaine nodded and typed it into his computer, "Good choice. A fire-type master should never let themselves become reckless otherwise they will be burned," He looked at both of them, "When do you want to battle?"

"Next week on Friday," Vali answered after a moment of thought

"Next week on Thursday," Steven said as Blaine typed away on the computer.

Blaine nodded, "Alright, we're all set. Vali, you will be battling me at 1:30 PM next week on Friday. Steven, you will be battling me at 2:45 next week on Thursday."

"What the actual fuck is up with these riddles?" Vali heard one of the newly arrived trainers complain.

Not even two days after scheduling the battles saw Cinnabar invaded by trainers attempting to take down Blaine, Vali had heard many of them start cursing at the fact Blaine had given them all riddles. Blaine had requested that Steven and her keep the location of his gym a secret which the two had promised to do since it was part of the challenge. When they weren't training for the gym battle, she was spending much of her time going over video's of Blaine's past battles and surfing the online forums for any information she could find. She decided against transferring any of her pokemon mostly because the ones back at the lab weren't prepared for a gym battle. While they could adjust if need be, it would cause unneeded stress.

Vali debated on who to use other than Balto, Smaug, and Elrond. Pippin had already battled in a gym battle and he had already requested through Elrond to be left out of it. This left Empress and Pele, she was leaning more towards Pele both because of the type match ups and because the Numel was having an easier time listening to her. Empress wouldn't be very effective when it came to the gym battle and was still a bit too hotheaded for her to risk it. Eventually deciding on having Pele as her fourth, she took Empress and Pippin out to battle when possible mostly to ensure that neither were left out. Pippin was throwing himself into training in order to overcome his clumsiness. Empress was annoyed at not being allowed to participate in the gym battle, but a talk with Balto got her to behave. At the very least, Empress was happy about being able to battle as often as she wanted.

Shaking her head lightly, Vali joined Steven in the trainer lounge. Steven looked up from his pokenav when she took a seat beside him, "How was battling?"

"Not bad, Empress actually used Zen Headbutt during my last battle or something close to it," Vali answered as she took off her gloves and shoved them into her jacket pocket, "I'm going to get her using it as soon as possible since it's a good move to have. She still doesn't have Focus Energy down, but I'm sure she'll get it soon enough. We lost that last battle though, but the guy's Florges had a really wicked Moonblast and Empress' Ember is still not even close to becoming a Flamethrower. I'll have to work with her on it,"

"A Florges? Was the guy a tourist?" Steven asked with a raised eyebrow.

Vali nodded with a grin, "From Kalos, he had a pair of Pyroar, a Litleo, a Stufful, and a Bruxish. The last two are from Alola," She grinned, "Oh, the Litleo was so cute. I definitely want to get one at some point."

Steven chuckled softly, "Well, it sounds like you had some fun."

"Yup though that wasn't the best part," Vali's grin widened as she practically vibrated in her seat, "I was passing through the plaza and found about about a small double battle tournament being set up. One of the prizes is an all expenses paid ferry ride to any port in Kanto," Steven's eyes widened, "I checked with the people announcing it two tickets for the ferry ride and it's for one of those really fast ones that would take all of a day to get to Pallet town from here. The other prizes are a voucher for the local trainer supply store and some pokeballs from Johto,"

"When is the tournament?" Steven asked as his eyes narrowed.

"Two days after my gym battle with Blaine," Vali offered up more information, "I looked at the rules and traveling partners are placed together so long as it's not an odd number of people. Pokemon like Gyarados or Onix aren't allowed, no moves like Earthquake are either because of the nearby volcano and the fact this is an island," She took out the brochure she'd gotten from one of the people at the sign up booth, "Everything else is pretty basic. We'd have to pay a fee of 250 poke each, but that's easy. So," Steven took the brochure from her and began look through it, "Wanna battle together?"

Steven was quiet as he looked through the brochure and Vali patiently waited for his reply while looking through her pokedex to write down any training improvements she'd decided on. When he finished the brochure, Steven said, "Sure, it'll be fun."

"Great!" Vali saved her work and stood up, "We should go sign up now,"

Steven nodded as he stood up as well, "Let's go then."