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"Hey!"

Wayne stood at the doorway, light streaming in from behind. He was tall, sticking out his chest with his gaze firm, determined. His fists clenched into tight balls. He was ready.

"Burgh! I'm here for a rematch!"

"Yeah, yeah, give me a second," the receptionist popped her gum and leant across the desk. Wayne deflated and tip-toed over, listening in. "Burgh," the bored woman said into an intercom, "that kid's back. You, what's your name?"
"Uh, Wayne Lee. But everyone calls me W--"

The intercom speaker crackled with shrill laughter and the receptionist looked Wayne in the eye. "He remembers you. Go on in."

The gym doors creaked open automatically, revealing the honey-drenched confines of Burgh's gym. Wayne slipped inside quietly.

"Tell me about it, I just spent the walk here rubbing sand out of my eye. Turns out hat's a really bad idea cause it kinda scratches your eyeball. My mom showed me this trick where you pull your eyelid down and make it water, which I totally wish I'd remembered like half an hour ago when I was coming out of the desert. What's a desert even doing there anyway? It doesn't even make any sense."

Wayne cleared his throat.

"I mean look at this!" he held up Petilil's pokéball. She was inside, bald from where her leaves had been plucked, "It took everything Petilil had to get Hitmonlee back on his feet! And I don't know how long it takes for leaves to grow, man! There's stuff riding on this match now!"

The trainer swapped the pokéball out for another, then threw it down to his side. Hitmonlee materialised in a force of light, standing his with arms folded and glaring at anyone in sight. He leapt forwards, landing on bended knee in the arena and Wayne hurried to the challenger's box, which was a slightly raised platform.

"I'm ready for you! One on one, just you and me! Uh... using our pokémon, obviously."

An aggressive pokémon, huh? Well thankfully, Wayne had years of experience dealing with wild pokémon around Village Bridge. He wouldn't be caught off guard like some rookie trainer.

The two sets of Razor Wind would shoot towards Hitmonlee like a staggered hail of bullets. He brought his foot up with "Vacuum Wave!" and the surge of air pressure accompanying the void would crash into Leavanny's leaves, and they slotted into the ground harmlessly.

Leavanny was making distance between them, probably hoping to draw Hitmonlee onto her terms. Instead, he grounded himself and used "Meditate!", keeping stood up in a ready stance, his eyes glinting as power coursed through his body, heightening his strength. Should Leavanny rush forwards, he'd be prepared to weave out of her way and angle at her side, within kicking range.

Short distance, no-leg-extend kicking range, that is. Hitmonlee's full range is pretty long.

Wayne stopped a smile. This was something Burgh didn't expect. But did that even matter? It didn't look like Burgh was the one leading the match... crap, was he still gonna give out a badge for this? Oh man, he better not be a cheater.

May as well finish things up quickly then.

"Blaze Kick!" he commanded, and as Leavanny rushed past Hitmonlee, he'd swing his foot around, wreathed in a glow of flame about as large as he was. He didn't attack as quickly as he could've, to make sure he could still react to any sudden changes in this close combat; as such, the kick wasn't at full strength.

But it'd probably be enough to send Leavanny crashing into the honey-soaked walls, trapped and on fire.

Hitmonlee spun as his foot hit Reflect. Luckily, Duosion was a master of the technique and the fight type had a chance to study it while the psychic practised. As his foot collided with the shield, it was slowed down to a snail's pace, stripping his kick of its momentum and allowing Leavanny to pass.

Using the slowed leg as an anchor, Hitmonlee lifted himself up and brought his other foot around with another "Blaze Kick!", which would be aimed to meet Leavanny's Leaf Blade head on. With the powers of fire and diamond-hard-feet combined, Hitmonlee should be able to tank the grass attack and plow into Leavanny's chest.

"Hey Burgh! Do I still get a badge when I win?!"

"Dude, are you feeling-- Hitmonlee!"

Leavanny flew over the fight type's head, spinning into a point blank Leaf Storm. It was a strong move, Wayne's eyes opened wide, a flash of blue, Hitmonlee began to turn at the last moment but the storm crashed into his back.

He bent at a bad angle, slamming into the floor, but catching himself with his hand enough to pull himself forwards. With his foot freed from Reflect, Hitmonlee was able to ignite it with a "Blaze Kick to get away!" and begin mitigating the damage from the rest of Leavanny's storm.

She was out of his short range by now, but that let Hitmonlee enough time for a breather. He was on his knee, breathing hard but hardly injured. There was a black mark on his back, like a burn, littered with scratch marks but no slices. Wayne nearly collapsed.

He put out a hand to stop himself, head pounding again and sweat bleeding from his pours. He held his face, eyes a pinprick. What, was that... Aura? He barely noticed the black mess crawling out of Burgh's twisted mouth.

Hitmonlee was back up, ready stance again. He prepped himself then drove a foot into the ground, sending worth shivers of power. The Earthquake attack would cause damage just by standing on the ground with it active, but the full brunt of the attack would be felt if you didn't get out of the way of the stream of upturned ground that was racing towards you.

The floor split and spat up jagged chunks. It wasn't some slow moving sequential strike; Earthquake raced towards Leavanny at break-neck speeds, giving her mere moments to move.

If she took to the skies, it'd leave him open to "Meditate!" and prepare for her descent.

It kind of all happened at once. Luka was looking out with his scanner and trying to work out how the thing worked when a quite bright yellow shape started nudging around his feet. Luka opened his eyes to see a Flareon sniffing at his feet and then he got a text from Henrietta about going to her house later. The jolted shock of his Xtranceiver and the Flareon completely sapped out his scanning vision and his sight returned to normal.

He got off his seat and knelt down to pet the Flareon. "Hello little fella, where's your trainer?" He looked about to see if he could find anyone that looked like they had lost a Pokémon. He couldn't see anyone and that confused him. Flareons were not native to Unova, so, this Flareon either belonged to someone or someone had abandoned it. The brightness he had seen suggested that this Flareon was powerful. From looking at his own Pokémon and the other Pokémon around the area, he had noticed that as well as vary colours that seemed to depict either a mood or a mind frame, there seemed to be varying degrees of brightness or a sort of glow. Luka thought that he might be thinking too much into things, but, when he had looked at his own hands he had been able to see that glow around him too. It was so weird. Ah well, it looked as if Henrietta might know something so he decided that he would most definitely attend the meeting. It wasn't like the message said anything interesting, but, why would Henrietta, the incredibly shy girl who didn't like attention, want a bunch of people she'd technically only known for a few days coming to her house. It had to be something important.

To Henrietta:
~ I'll be there. See you then. smile

Luka~

He finished off the text and returned his attention to the Flareon. "Now.... what are we going to do with you?"

((Not talking heat here, Ava. That is part of Luka's Aura Power, at least in its weakest form.))

Luka smiled as the Flareon rolled over and yipped. It was pretty adorable. So, he rubbed the Flareon's belly, since, that's kinda what Pokémon liked when they did that. Still, where was this Flareon's trainer? It had to have one.