Sun And Lillie Vs. The World (The Sequel to Heart of a Champion)

Chapter 13- Many Happy Returns

I walked downstairs to start training camp up again and down there was Elio. He was hitting the heavy bag in good form. "Hey Elio, how was work?" He turned back, "Great! I can't get the kids to stop asking about you though." I scratched the back of my head. "heheh, sorry, guess I am kind of big news right now..." Elio smiled and kept punching, "So what's the plan Dad, Lei's my best friend, but he's also a tough code to crack in battle, take it from his rival on his island challenge." I shook my head. "I'm gonna watch some film today, have the Pokemon practice what we usually do, and then go from there." Elio delivered a left hook to the bag and then turned to me, "Can I join you, I need a good workout..." I smiled and put my arms on my hips, "Anytime man, let's do it!" Just then Ninetails ran down the stairs and began rubbing up against Elio, he looked down at it, "You want to go too boy? Sure!" With that practice was off and running.

Ninetails hadn't missed a beat. He would be killer if he was on my team, but he has his reasons and that's ok. Midway through practice though I got quite the surprise, Servine evolved to Serperior. I looked over her in amazement! "Way to go Serperior! I'm proud of you!" It slithered over and nuzzled me in response. I wasn't laughing afterward though. That Serperior is deceptively fast, has split second decision making ability, and just all around has that killer instinct in it. Lillie was right, I was able to build a weapon from that egg. The team looked great, Incineroar was in fine form, Whimsicott was back at 100 percent, Serperior was a force of nature, Eevee was the hardest worker in the room, Raichu was every bit as good as he had always been, and Garchomp...well we'll get there eventually I suppose. Now that practice was over I glanced over my phone to check for some things, an article about someone apparently putting 100 million (!) dollars on Silver winning the next World Championship, An article about my chances against Lei....and finally a text from Mom. Apparently Dad was retiring and coming back from Lental! It will be nice to see him again after all this time, maybe my kids can finally know their grandpa after all this time.

Mom and Dad came over for dinner later that week and it was super nice to talk to Dad again. I sat across from him in the living room. Elio and Lillie at my sides and Stella in the recliner. Dad looked quite a lot like me, but he had grey hair and a short grey beard. He leaned back as he sat and then looked at Lillie, "So you're the young lady I hear so much about?" Lillie smiled, "Yes. It's nice to finally meet you." He sighed, "Likewise... if I had it my way I would've been here to get to know all of you better..." I shrugged, "You did what you had to do." Dad shook his head then looked at Elio, "So what's going on with you... Elio... you going to follow in your Dad's footsteps?" He shook his head, "Nah. I never was too good at all that... I think I'll do my own thing." I looked over to Dad, "Heh. I assume you heard that I'm getting pulled out of my early retirement." Dad smirked, "Oh. Yeah I know. I already put some money down on you winning..." I chuckled, "Heh. Guess blind confidence runs in the family." Lillie giggled, Stella then looked over to Dad, "Hey... do you have any stories about my dad that he wouldn't have told us?" I looked over at Stella with an expression that said 'really?'. He chuckled, "As a matter of fact young Stella... I do..." I zoned out for the rest of the story, but Elio, Stella, and Lillie sure got a kick out of whatever he said. Either way I was happy for Mom to finally have him back. I don't know if I could separate myself from Lillie for a few days. Much less many many years. I got misty-eyed just thinking about the years we spent apart. That being said, it was time to put my nose to the grindstone. Get back to work and make good on my battle with Lei.

December

Tomorrow was the big day, the stadium was already sold out at 100,000. Sure, everyone knew I could battle, but the time was nigh to see if I could hang with the best. At practice that day (as had become usual, with Elio and Ninetails) we went over the game plan one last time. The plan was to do stuff that was unusual to me, sort of like my Cynthia game plan but I didn't need to switch gears, all I had to do was mix up my movements. I had a big advantage in the forms of the rookie pokemon on my team. Lei didn't know them like my others. This one might be up to them. After a long day of training I went to bed with Lillie and got ready for the big day tomorrow.