Chapter Sixty-Eight - Practice and Loooooove

The next morning's practice was going pretty alright.

Choco was happy to find a practice partner, a smeargle called Sketch that belonged to a man with a strange accent who sat in a corner of the training room and spent the morning drawing the pokemon he saw.

Sketch was nice enough, even if he wasn't very talkative. He was, however, very quick and surprisingly acrobatic. He used a move that let him copy Choco, and so they were having a Clean battle in a corner of the room, flinging Cleaning Balls at each other while trying to dodge them at the same time.

It was fun! Like long-ranged tag. And if one of the Cleaning Balls flicked out and smacked a pokemon by accident, then the worse that happened was that they were a little cleaner as a result.

Oran was off in the pool section of the gym with Broccoli and a trainer who was wearing very little clothes for a human, though she also had a towel wrapped around her. Her pokemon was a weird hard-shelled guy called shellder who kept catching Oran in a move that had her spinning around and around until she was dizzy.

It seemed kind of fun, actually!

Oran was trying really hard to figure the move out, because it was both a good attack, according to Broccoli, and a way to make an opponent get caught. It apparently had some valuable synergy? Choco wasn't sure what that meant, but he trusted Broccoli.

"Smea smea, smeargle smear smeargle?" This is fun, but do you have other moves we can try?

Choco paused, then nodded. "Buneary bun bun." I know a move called Fireball.

Sketch blinked his big eyes, then shrugged. They agreed that it wouldn't be a bad idea to give that a try, so they moved out of their corner of the training area and to a space where a few dummies were standing next to a boring, unpainted concrete wall.

Choco raised a paw towards the nearest of the dummies and focused for just a moment. His energy turned into fire, and then into a Fireball which he flung forwards with a thought. He course-corrected at the last moment to hit the dummy closer to the centre of the target painted on its chest.

"Smeaaaa!" Whoaaa!

Choco grinned smugly. Sketch tried his move, but his Fireball flew out, then turned at the last moment to miss the target.

Ah! It was moving the same way he'd moved it? So Sketch wasn't just copying Choco's move. He was copying the move completely, even the little course corrections that Choco made. He bet that in a fight that would be a pretty huge weakness.

Choco laughed and raised his paws, then summoned two Fireballs at the same time and launched them to the target, twisting them in the air to hit the middle. He launched another two, then two more, each one arcing further away before turning in towards the dummy.

He was so cool!

"Lop, lo lopunny pun punny." Wow, I didn't know buneary could use Ember.

Choco turned, grin still in place before his entire body froze up.

There was a lopunny in the room, and she was beautiful. Long, soft ears ending in fluffy pink fur, legs that made her three times as tall as Choco so that he had to crane his neck back to see her. Strong muscles hidden by well-groomed fur.

"B-bu-bu-bu-bu-bu-bu," he said.

The beauty looked down at him and blinked. "Lo...punny?" Are you... okay?

"Bu-bu-bu-bu-bu," he continued.

"Choco! It's time to go!" Broccoli said as she swept over. She paused next to him and then knelt down to pick him up by his middle. He didn't even resist. "Are you okay? Oh, hi there! Wow, you're a pretty bun! What's your name? I'm Broccoli, Broccoli Bunch, and this little guy is Chaos Cuddles Cauliflower."

The lopunny giggled, a sound Arceus in all of his glory only wished he could emulate. "Lo lo, punny." My name is Lolo.

"Hi Lolo," Broccoli said. "I like what you did with your ears! Is that natural? I'm envious! Mine are kind of a normal colour, I guess."

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"Bu-bu-bu-bu-bu-bun?" B-b-b-b-b-b-b-bye?

"Oh, right, we need to head out! Nice meeting you. Oran! Are you ready to go? We need to dry you off or the nurses are going to be all miffed that we're tracking water all over."

Choco raised a paw and managed to wave Lolo good-bye. She giggled again, and waved him bye back.

It was the most beautiful moment in his life.

"Marill... marill rill?" Is he... is Choco sick?

"He's a little sick, yeah," Broccoli said. "He's got boy sickness. Don't worry about it."

"Ma." Okay.

"I'll explain, uh, a little later," Broccoli said. "For now, it's shopping time!" Broccoli gave Choco a firm squeeze, which did help him get his mind straight, at least until he thought about Lolo.

What a beautiful name.

He sighed wistfully, even as Broccoli idly scratched his head. After a moment, he realized that they'd joined the others of their little group and were heading out of the pokemon centre towards the biggest and second tallest building in the city. The only one taller was the radio place further in, and it was only taller because it had a long spindly tower sticking out of the top.

"I always wanted to hang out at a mall like they do in the movies," Broccoli said.

"Well, this is your opportunity," Jazz said. They entered to discover a large atrium with music in the air, people milling around, and lots of little stores off to the sides. The centre of the store was an open space that went up several floors, with railing all around and bridges connected over the gap.

A few bird pokemon were zipping from floor to floor, even though there were clear signs that said not to do that.

On the ground floor, there was a small park-like area. A few trees in large... tree container things? Choco didn't know what they were called, but he imagined it must have been awkward for the trees to fold all of their roots in there.

There were a few benches too, and a few tables where some people were eating an early lunch bought from the many, many food stands.

They stopped in the middle and Broccoli was staring around like she couldn't decide what to do first.

"Let's go to floor... two, it's got the Trainer's Market," Jazz said. "Tabitha, do you have a decent number of pokeballs for Monday?"

"I have one for each King I intend to catch. Though... I suppose there's no harm in having one or two more. I wouldn't mind restocking on some essentials."

They started towards a weird self-moving staircase off to one side when Choco noticed a kiosk mounted to the back of a huge ivysaur. The woman at the kiosk was selling pretty flowers to people passing by.

Choco sighed. He bet Lolo smelled like flowers.

"Hey, uh, Broccoli, is Choco alright?" Jazz asked.

Broccoli nodded. "He's okay. I think he has a crush. We met this nice pokemon called Lolo at the pokemon centre. She looked a bit like Choco but more pink and taller?"

"A lopunny?" Tabitha asked. "I think I saw it. Pink fur is rather uncommon on an already uncommon pokemon. I suspect they're part of the contest route."

Choco perked up. She was part of those contests?

"So now the little guy has a crush, huh?" Jazz asked. "Well, all the more reason to toughen up, I guess. In the pokemon world, strength is the most attractive feature of all."

"Is it really?" Broccoli asked. "I would have thought that grooming, a nice smile, and a good personality counted for more."

"No," Tabitha disagreed. "Strength is definitely more important."

Choco agreed. If he wanted to make Lolo pay attention to him, he had to be more cooler than he ever was before. That meant being stronger! But.. maybe Broccoli wasn't entirely wrong either.

He had to be cooler too.

He glanced up as movement caught his eye. A TV was showing two humans arguing with each other, but they were doing it while singing, holding microphones at weird angles and throwing signs with their free hands.

That was right, he had to be cool like they were.

He could do it!

Probably.

***