I had one of Papa’s big coats over my shoulders as I sat outside.

It was cold, and I’d really prefer to be inside where it was warm but…

“Are you ready to come inside yet?” I asked into the large hole that Mama had been glaring at me for.

It wasn’t my fault! Arcanine was being… Stubborn.

I peaked over, squatting down to peer into the hole. Arcanine's big eyes were glowing a little bit from the house's evening lights.

I’d spent most of the day at Gram Grams, and tomorrow we were going to meet the Mayor. There was going to be a party.

But right now despite it being chilly and all I wanted to do was curl up somewhere warm, Arcanine was still pouting.

Our eyes met for a while but she looked away.

“You did fine. There isn’t anything to be ashamed of.”

“Awwowoooo!” She protested not even with words but just a howling grunt of disagreement.

“Come on Arcanine you can’t live in a hole. You can’t train in there.” I offered reasonably.

“Awooooo.” She let out a breathy whine.

“No, you aren’t going to quit training, come on.” I offered leaning forward and offering my hand, but before I could touch her snout, she shifted and I yelped as I fell backwards just avoiding the cloud of dust that had just swept past my face as she used Mud Slap! That would have been super effective!

But she was just digging up dirt and chucking it out of the hole.

“Rude! You fought fine! He planned for you! He knew what you were going to do and planned around it. It wasn’t your loss, but mine… Remember?”

“Wawawawaooo.” She whined and I sighed, I was going to have to do something desperate. I took off Papa’s Jacket and put it on the porch and then sighed as I headed for the big hole and just dropped inside.

“Arc!”

“No!” I cried back as I landed on her as I slid down. She tried to move around, but now I was there, and there wasn’t enough space for a big old dog and a little girl in this hole.

There was a whole lot of being crushed into slightly damp dirt, as Arcanine tried to get me out, but then a moment later she went still when she realized I wasn’t moving.

“Ow.”

“Arc.”

“I wasn’t blaming you. It was my choice to get in here.” I told her, and then reached up and started scratching at her nose, she huffed, blowing air into her jowls and held it in. Pouting but she couldn’t escape me now, so I started petting at her snout, cleaning it off the bunch of mud she’d collected while digging. “That’s a good girl.”

She exhaled, blowing warm air into my face but I just kept slowly petting her, watching as she relaxed under my attention no matter how much she wanted to pout and whine.

“That’s my good girl.” I told her, and she glanced at me, before looking away, refusing to look at me again.

“I’m sorry you lost that battle. I should have done something differently.” I told her, but she just continued to try and ignore me.

At least she was warm even if the dirt I was pressed up against was freezing.

“Boop.” I said as I poked her nose.

“Awooaooooo!” She whined, once more stirring and trying to get away from me, but still unable to.

“Nope. Boop.” I told her once more booping the snoot.

“Arc!”

“Oh so you’re talking to me now?”

“Canine! Arc!” Then she flooped exhaling long and hard. Ah, she wasn’t upset with me. She was upset with herself.

“Nope.” I said reaching out and grabbing the snout and pulling her down so she was forced to look at me. “I love you no matter what. Even if you lost every battle you’d ever been in, I’d still love you.” I told her and with a bit of finangling I got up high enough to press my forehead against hers.

“Arc.”

“Doesn’t matter. I’m proud of how well you fought.” I told her.

“Arc, Arcanine.” She grunted at me, but at least she was actually communicating in more than just whines and moans.

“Arcanine. You can’t win them all, and the more you win, the more people are going to come up with ways to beat you. I messed up, and wasn’t expecting an Explosion so early. If I hadn’t let you get so beat up, you’d have been okay to do some prep moves and get strong enough to roll all the way through them… It’s my fault.”

“Arc.” She said and then stuck her wet nose right into my neck.

“Eee! Cold!” I snapped and then as I pulled away rubbing at my neck I looked her over and saw it. She was really not okay with her loss. While Lucario had been knocked out as well, none of the main team besides Dragonite at the end had been.

“Don’t be-” I cut myself off, because downplaying her obvious upset wouldn’t help. “Okay, if you’re upset about your loss I know the one tried and true perfect way to make you feel better.” I told her and she blinked her eyes growing large on her face she leaned in to hear.

But I rolled my eyes and started crawling my way off of her so I could escape this hole. “It’s simple. You learn from what happened, and keep training and growing stronger, so that it never happens again.” I told her and then I turned and crawled my way out of the very deep hole.

Papa and Mama were not going to be pleased. We’d have to call some construction guys to fix it.

Once I was at the top I spat out some dirt as I tried to knock off most of the dirt from me with my hands. Aww man. I was going to get in trouble for getting this messy.

“I’ll need to keep training too. I don’t want to put you into a position where you lose again.” I admitted to the open sky. It annoyed me whenever my pokemon got hurt. I still wanted my pokemon to be so strong that no matter what no one could beat them.

There was a sound of scrabbling claws on dirt and Arcanine finally pulled herself out of the hole, covered in dirt and mud.

“You look like a mess.” I told her, but she just leaned in and licked me across the nose.

“Eww!” I whined as I tried to push her back but couldn’t quite manage it as she started licking me happily. “No! Bad dog!”

“Whose being bad?” Papa called out as he stepped out onto the porch. He took a moment to look me and Arcanine over, before he started laughing.

“Laugh it up.” I grumbled, which he did without hesitation. I’m sure I was absolutely covered in mud and dirt.

I looked at my pup who was still a little less full of life than normal, but her tail was wagging a little, enjoying Papa’s laughter.

“You realize this means we’re both going to end up in a bath right?” I asked her, and her ears shot forward in shock looking from me to Papa.

“Oh yeah. Definitely a bath.” Papa said smirking because he knew what his words would cause.

Arcanine turned and ran. I watched her go without even bothering trying to slow her down.

“That’s for using the ‘W’ word around Arcany.” Papa said, and I narrowed my eyes at him because he was smirking down at me, very amused with the whole situation.

“Yeah yeah, laugh it up. I’m gonna take a bath.”

“Not before you get her cleaned up.” He said, and I groaned because she was going to be a total pain in the ass about this.

“Arcanine! Get back here!” I yelled out as I started running after her.

—--

“You okay in there? You didn’t fall asleep did you?” Mama called out as she knocked on the door.

“No! I’m just warming up!” I called out as I laid back in the bathtub.

Kanto bathtubs were pretty awesome. The warm water seeped into me banishing the cold of trying to get Arcanine to actually wash the mud off.

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In the end the hose hadn’t been enough and Milotic had been required to hit her with a Surf just to get her to stop turning the water into steam as it got too close.

Ah, this was the life. No camp out in the cold. Bathrooms, and meals that I didn’t have to cook.

This was definitely better than living out on the road.

Even if the stars were wonderful, and camping was fun…

No! Don’t let the temptation in! Vicky was an indoor girl right now!

I heard a thud at the door and blinked my eyes open. “Go away!” I called out and closed my eyes, but the scrabbling thud happened again and a moment later the air in the bathroom shifted, and I heard the door pop open.

Dammit.

“Growl! Growlithe!” I was barked at as some of the pack scrambled into the tiled bathroom.

“Don’t even think about it-” I managed to get out before one of the pack charged across the tile, their nails clicking as they ran and then leapt.

I got a face full of Growlithe, mouth wide and tongue hanging out as it jumped spread eagled towards the bath.

Sputtering as the pup hadn’t bothered to jump into the bath, and not on top of me. I pushed her off, and then wiped my face, just in time for two more to jump in.

“No!” I yelped, but that did nothing as soon the bath water was a turbulent white water as three dogs all jumped around in the water and played.

“What in the world?” Mama called out as she hurried over and peaked in.

I just gave her a look as I rested my chin on my forearms on the side of the bath. The three Growlithe were acting like angels sitting in the tub with happy looks on their faces and eyes closed as they pretended everything was fine.

“Oh no. I’m not dealing with this. Don’t let them out until they dry off, and drain the furo when you’re done.”

“Yep.” I agreed and Mama sighed and closed the door behind her. “Really you three? During my bath?”

“Growl!”

“Gro gro growl!” They barked at me happily and so I sighed and stood up.

“Pretty sure I have your grooming brush in here.” I muttered as I stepped out and pulled out the cupboard finding a Growlithe brush.

This wasn’t the first time I’d been in charge of bathing the pups.

I stepped back in, because even if I had to clean these idiots, at least I was going to be warm when I did it.

The three started play-fighting over who was first until I just picked one of them and settled them in front of me, and started brushing.

“Gro gro gro.” He panted happily, as he settled in. He sat down between my legs, tail wagging which wasn’t comfortable until I sat on it, so I could start brushing.

“How’s this?” I asked as I worked through his mane.

“Growl!” He barked, chipper at the attention and I nodded, getting to it. Lots of fur was coming loose along with plenty of dirt. Thankfully Papa had upgraded the plumbing to handle Arcany’s fur when he evolved, so it’d be fine.

The brush ran through fur over and over. I could feel his muscles untense under my hands as I worked, brushy time was a good time. Hmm? “Getting a little fat are we?” I asked as I noticed he was a bit plump under the fur. I reached up, pressing against his side, feeling the the way the fat wrapped around his mid section.

Definitely getting chubby.

“Growww!” he growled at me, and I just hummed at him.

Papa was good at keeping track of food, so if he was getting plump…

“So is it Mrs. Kinna down the street?” I asked, eyes narrowed and I felt him tense.

Gotcha.

“You know she feeds you guys junk food. Stop running off to her backyard and begging. If Papa finds out, you’ll be on a diet.” I reminded the poor thing which turned to me with big watery eyes.

“Don’t give me that look… I won’t tattle. But Papa will find out. He always does.” I said with a poke on the cold nose which had them licking their snoot to remove the bits of water.

So I poked it again. Shaking it off I got back to work.

“Blegh. You really needed this.” I told the pack as I pulled off a chunk of fur. It wasn’t even time for them to lose their winter coat yet! Dang shedders!

Once the first one was clean he romped over and tackled the other to play fight in the water, and I was just happy the water splashing out of the tub would go down the exterior drain and wasn’t something I’d have to mop up.

“You next.” I told the girl and she pranced over, sloshing water everywhere, and I started brushing her down.

Finally I finished all three of them and pulled the drain. That was going to need some cleaning, but for now.

“Alright you three ember up.” I told them as I made sure to open the window to let out the steam.

Slowly the three heated up, and steam started streaming off them, but this thankfully wasn’t their first after bath dry off, and Papa had trained them well. They didn’t burst into flames and burn the house down. They heated up until the water steamed off them, all three of them standing in front of me with happy puppy smiles as they did their task under my watchful eye.

Once they were dry enough I let them cool off a bit, even as I was starting to sweat from the heat and grabbed a fresh towel.

Rubbing them down and getting the rest of the moisture from the fur I threw on a towel and opened the door the cool air was perfect and three Growlithe all rushed out yipping happily.

“I’m not sure what’s worse. Bath dogs, or dogs that hate baths.”

“The first one. At least with the ones that hate the baths you don’t have to deal with it all the time.” Papa said as he came down the hall and I smiled at Lucario that was following him.

I’m pretty sure the conference was the last time I’d ever get to battle beside that Pokemon. Now that she was back home she’d basically been attached to Papa at the hip.

“Good job taking care of them.” Papa said with a wink as he walked by and Lucario hurried after him. Those two!

I headed into my room and grabbed some clean clothes. I was going comfy mode, equipped with warm pajamas I flopped onto the bed and sighed at how comfy it was.

No more stress. Only comfy.

I opened my eyes to look out the window.

That was a lie. There were a lot of things to be stressed about right now. The Conference was over, but repercussions weren’t over.

I was now a household name. Just going outside had meant people stopped me constantly to talk to me.

Then there were the reporters. I wasn’t just a household name, I was a name that a lot of people wanted to know more about. I was famous.

Luckily this was the Pokemon World, and even though there were a bunch of reporters in Viridian, there hadn’t been any issues, but my school informed me that some reporters had been snooping around.

It was all more than I really wanted. Luckily it should slowly fade away. I’d just won the big conference, but once people got used to that I should be okay.

Unless I beat Lance.

Ugh.

Being Champion was…

Yep not thinking about that anymore. Instead as I stared out into the night I had to wonder… What next?

I mean sure I had plenty of things I wanted to do. There were plenty of Pokemon I still needed to cuddle!

But… I still had the Z crystal for Jangmo-o. I’d need to go to Alola and try to convince the Kahuna and the Tapu to give me a z ring.

But that… That wasn’t what I meant. What did I want? I knew I wasn’t going to become like Professor Oak. I’d not do well in a completely research field like that. There were still a lot of things that I should probably do something about.

The crap Pokedex… I wonder how people would react if tomorrow I just dropped a complete numbered Pokedex of all the pokemon I knew?

Eh. I’d definitely miss a few. My memory for Pokemon was pretty good, but not perfect. I could finish the Kanto Dex though.

But again that was just something to do, but not what I wanted to do.

What would I look like in ten years? Twenty?

That was the question.

Hmm. Thirty year old Vicky would be a bad bitch. I nodded at least confident in that. Would I be some wild woman living out on a reserve taking care of an entire herd of wild dragons, and other pokemon?

Would I be some famous battler? The Champion? The World Champion?

Or maybe just some Mom with a kid or two teaching them how to battle as they got ready for their journey?

I felt myself smile at that idea even if I wasn’t really planning on a family.

Who am I kidding? I’m definitely going to be the crazy dragon lady. I’m gonna bring people to my home covered in little dragons and tell them all their names and show pictures and shit.

This was a life, and I had to decide what kind of life it would be. Arceus had blessed me with a second chance, and I’d definitely been living it happily, but now that the Journey was over…

There was definitely something different. A change.

Ah well. I had the rest of my life to figure it out. I wiggled under the covers and curled up. Tomorrow.

—--

Tomorrow came and went.

Spending the day with my baby team had been nice, but I was back in Viridian because unfortunately there were responsibilities. I hated responsibilities.

“Do we have to?”

“Yes, now stop fidgeting.” Mama said as I took a breath and walked forward, from the car and up the gravel driveway towards a rather large mansion. The lights were on, and even from out here I could hear the people talking and the faint music.

Viridian City was hosting a congratulations party for my victory.

Yes, the city itself. The Mayor was hosting, and all the important people in the city would be there… Like Giovanni.

I haven't seen him yet, but he'll be here… Probably. Unless his Gym was blown up still or whatever.

“Ah the girl of the hour! Come come!” A large man called out as we entered, the doors held open by an actual waiter. Papa put on a smile as he approached.

“Mayor Hatake.”

“Mr. Ferrous, and Mrs. Ferrous! Lovely to see you, I do hope the Pecha berries have been growing well?”

“Very well.”

“Delightful, I look forward to the spring crop then! And of course Victoria Ferrous, Victorious indeed!” The large man had a bit of a gut, but as he offered his hand and I took it, I felt the Calluses of someone that worked with his hands…

That and I could tell he knew how to battle.

“Nice to meet you?” I offered back and the man smiled behind his beard and threw me a wink.

“Come in come in! Everyone has been looking forward to greeting you and of course showing what a real Viridian Trainer can do!” He laughed loudly, and already people were starting to surround me.

The introductions were a haze. Blah blah mayoral aid, blah blah debutante.

Of course just as I was starting to truly blank out with a fake smile and a daydream of just releasing Arcanine and running away, I blinked.

“And this is-”

“Zelos!” I greeted the girl in her fancy slinky dress and hair up in a pretty bun with two trails coming down her cheeks.

“Ah, Simon, Ms. Ferrous is someone I’m already acquainted with. My daughter went to school with her.” Zelos’s dad said, the man who the mayor was about to introduce me to.

“Victoria.” Zelos said, sounding all haughty and I couldn’t help the smile that spread across my face.

“I’ve been wanting to talk to you!” I reminded her, but Zelos rolled her eyes.

“I’ve been busy preparing my return to Unova.” She said simply, and I rushed her before she could say anything and wrapped my hands with hers despite her attempts to resist.

“You’re leaving already? When? Is it by plane? We should get everyone together so we can all say goodbye!”

“D-Don’t be stupid.” She hissed, and even whispered the last bit so none of the adults could hear…

They were all looking at us Zelos, they totally heard.

“I’m leaving in a week, and I don’t want some silly party!”

“But Zelos, if you leave, most of us won’t see you again. You’re going all the way to Unova.” I reminded her but she shook her head.

“It’s fine.”

“Zelos is being stubborn about it. Even my attempts to get her to tell her friends here in Kanto have met without success.” Her father cut in, and Zelos shot him a betrayed look.

“Daddy!”

“Hahaha! It’s good that our Unovan friends have made such excellent friends!” The Mayor chuckled out.

“Indeed.” A new voice, and one that I instantly turned to look at.

“Purrr.” And then a Persian was nudging my side, which I reached up and scritched under his chin.

“Giovanni! Come come! You already know Ms. Ferrous, she did take home your star badge after all!”

“I do indeed.” He said and our eyes met.

I pointedly looked away. He wasn’t worthy of another challenge. If I fought him again, it wouldn’t be through official means. It would be when I go to completely destroy his organization and force him into prison.

“I was hoping to see you Ms. Ferrous, your conference win was exemplary. Congratulations.” He offered with a suaveness that only made him come off oily.

Jeez no wonder his hair was always slicked back he was leaking oil.

“Thank you Gym Leader.” Papa interrupted putting his hand on my shoulder and dragging me in. “Our family is flattered by your praise.”

Giovanni looked us both over for a while before shrugging.

“A pleasant night to you all. It seems I have prior arrangements.” He spoke calmly and turned, walking away, snapping his fingers, and his Persian gave me one last bump before following after him, once more looking like a hunting cat.

“Thanks.” I said to Papa, who squeezed my shoulder in response.

“Well there are lots of people looking to offer their own congratulations! I simply must ask, have you ever met the Head of the Beauty society here in Viridian?” The Mayor asked, as he brought attention to some old lady that wore waaaaay too much makeup.

“Oh my! Is that the new conference winner! What a stunning match! But really, we should talk about your style! A true Viridian woman should dress-”

I looked at Zelos, she looked at me, and then turned and strode away, leaving me to my fate.

Zelooooooos!