After battle talks and talks over cooking

"Leaves a bad taste in your mouth, huh?" Lance asked rather suddenly.

Vali jerked a bit and found Lance sliding into the seat next to her, "W-what?! Lance?"

"I saw your battle," Lance explained holding out lemonade and she took it slowly, "While mine was before yours, it was on the field right next to yours, so I was able to make it in time unlike Steven. The battle was pretty awesome up until that last one, huh? It left a bad taste in your mouth,"

Suddenly feeling a lot more interested in her lemonade, Vali uncapped it and took a drink. She stared down at it for a few moment before sighing knowing that Lance would probably push for an answer, "Yeah. I like winning a battle, but not like that. She put a pokemon that doesn't even listen to her on the field and it ended up getting a broken bone because of it. I mean it's wing'll heal just fine, but it'll never fly the same way ever again. What the hell was she thinking?"

"Probably hoping she'd win. I never thought I'd hear you of all people curse," Lance looked at her in surprise, "I didn't think you knew any curse words,"

"You'd be surprised how many I knew then," Vali replied with a shake of her head, "But it looks like I'm moving onto the next round. It's only going to get tougher from here on out, isn't it?"

"Yeah. It's very likely we're going to be facing each other," Lance said with light grin, "I'm actually looking forward to that. I want to face you on that battle field again,"

"I want to face you again too," Vali replied with a matching grin already feeling a bit better, "Only this time, I plan to do a lot better," She thought about Empress and the fact Nurse Joy would be handing her over today, "Lance, I don't plan on using Empress during this tournament again. Would you mind helping me figure out a training plan for her?"

"Sure thing," Lance's grin grew, "I love helping baby dragons get stronger after all,"

Steven walked into the cottage only to pause at the scent filling the air and smiled warmly when he realized that Vali was cooking. Taking off his shoes, he headed for the kitchen and found Vali adding some sort of spice to one of the many pots on the two stoves that were in the cottage kitchen. She looked up at him and smiled, "How many pokemon did you win by?"

"Two. Blastoise needed a bit of help from Skarmory," Steven answered as he eyed the pots on the stove, "How many people did you decide to feed tonight?"

"Us, Lance, Zaria, our pokemon of course, your father, and Siri," Vali with a pleased look on her face earning a light chuckle, "Would you mind giving me a hand? I could use an extra one,"

"Sure," Steven washed his hands after releasing his pokemon into the yard, "Where is Lance?"

"Getting some extra stuff with Zaria and Sirius," Vali answered with an amused look on her face, "Lance was helping me cook until Zaria came over and nearly ended up burning everything. He offered to distract her. Sirius can barely manage to avoid burning water, so its best to just have him out of the way unless its to toss salad as you already know,"

Remembering some rather amusing moments from Christmas, Steven asked, "And my father is coming for dinner because?"

"He wants to spend more time with you and get to know us all a bit more," Vali shrugged a bit, "I also like feeding people when I have a chance, so why not,"

Steven smiled lightly, "It'll be a bit diffrent. My father's not used to having things not cooked by trained professionals."

"Well guess he'll have to deal with it for tonight," Vali nudged him a bit, "After all, I'm taking the time to actually cook for everyone,"

"He'll probably enjoy it," Steven paused a bit in stirring some noodles as he remembered something, "By the way, Father wanted me to tell you thank you for the photo-album. It was a really nice gift and really brought the story I was telling to life,"

"I'm glad," Vali smiled lightly as she moved to the oven and pulled out some garlic knots, "I was a bit hesitant, but I'm glad that I pushed through it all to give that to you. I'm creating another one just from everything going on here at the Conference. I think I'll come next year even if I'm not participating just to take pictures since I've got a feeling there's going to be good money to be made on it. Even if there isn't, the amazing pictures I could take here of both the pokemon and the moments created in real time,"

The almost mesmerized look on her face was actually kind of adorable. She shook her head as a timer rung and moved to pull out some poffins. He looked at the treats in some surprise, "You made poffins?"

"And pokepuffs," Vali walked over to one of the cabinets that had been empty this morning and showed him a container that hadn't been there before, "These are for your pokemon, Mawile actually. I have some for Metagross too. Just a few since I know they don't eat much, I still figured they deserved a treat since we've made it this far in the tournament,"

"Celebrating this early?" Steven asked with a raised eyebrow as this was a little surprising.

Vali flushed a bit, "I know it might seem a bit stupid, but this is my first tournament. I might not make it through my next battle or we will which'll be awesome. I want to celebrate the fact that I've made it into the top Top 64 on my first shot. I only have the Ice and Grass fields to get through, but there is no telling if my opponents will actually manage to take my pokemon out. I might end up against you or Lance after all which means I'll probably end up losing."

"That's not true," Steven protested earning a shake of the head and a small laugh.

Vali returned to the stove, "We both know that's a lie, Steven. You both have more experience then my team and I. You're on another level entirely and we're not ready to face you on an even playing field. We'll surely try our hardest," She grinned at him with a fire in her eyes, "Doing our best to drive whoever we're up against to the brink, but in the end, we'll lose whether due to superior strength, strategy, experience, or a combination of it all. We'll take what knowledge we can and put it to use in order to ensure our next battle won't go the same way," She looked at the food in the pot in front of her with determination, "That's how it is after all, we grow with each battle both lost and won never truly giving up even when things get tough, right?"

"Right," Steven looked forward to the battle even if he didn't like how Vali was putting herself down, "But there is a chance you could win,"

"A one in a million chance," Vali admitted in a soft tone, "But Steven, how likely is that even with my luck?"

Steven had to concede, "I suppose we'll have to see what happens when the time comes."