A Blond Ray of Sunshine

Part 5: Frozen Summer

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— Part 5: Frozen Summer —

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Antoshi closed his eyes, standing amongst the quiet of nature, inhaling the fresh air deeply. He looked to the early afternoon's nearly crystal clear blue sky. With a slow exhale, he took some time to simply enjoy the peace and splendor outside of the cabin in the woods he now called home. It was a home he shared with his best friend, his brother, his sister and her best friend. The warm, summery air rolled past him in gentle breezes, almost soothingly, as if telling him he was right where he needed to be.

In the large, grassy clearing outside their cabin, the blond-haired boy had finally regained his normal, sunny disposition. Antoshi was feeling much more confident than he had in past months. His new, abnormal life was finally settling into a sense of normalcy. It'd been exactly fifty days — not that he was counting, of course — since Antoshi first met his brother back in Goldenrod City and subsequently fought against him. The teenage boy strolled along the natural lawn, his hands in his pockets, enjoying the pleasant day all by his lonesome. He grinned to himself, well aware that at least one of the others would certainly join him before long.

He briefly turned his attention to the skies over the cabin, recalling the snowflakes that fell upon the window one morning. Three weeks had come and gone since then. He wondered if it was a Pokémon that caused such a strange occurrence. His instincts as a Trainer made his heart swell with excitement at the idea that perhaps a Legendary Pokémon had appeared before him. Such fleeting creatures have always been known to appear mysteriously.

His focus shifted to the front door, noticing his sable-haired brother heading outside. Both boys were wearing similar clothing: red and green tank tops in their respective favorite colors, and long, white shorts for both of them.

"Out here by yourself, huh?" Latoshi asked, grinning, as he approached.

"Yeah," Antoshi smiled, turning his attention to the sky. Latoshi did the same.

"It's a great day out today. Perfect day for some fightin'," Latoshi joked.

Antoshi grinned, hissing, followed by a chuckle. "I don't need you using the 'f-word' around me," he joked.

"Don't give me that. You know this is what you love doing."

"Exactly! That's why!"

"Come on," Latoshi goaded him, stepping back a few meters from him. "Let's keep the streak going. This'll be twenty days in a row. So far, it's much better training for me than anything I ever got from Lazarus."

"How did you train with Lazarus, anyway?" Antoshi asked, as he started to warm up with some stretches. "Maybe you could use some of those methods against it."

Latoshi scoffed, stretching as well. "Lazarus made me do this 'image training' where I would envision my opponent's movements so that I could have this sort-of ... sparring session in my head. It was actually the most boring way to train imaginable. I never want to do that again."

"Wow, it sounds boring. Besides, why pretend to have a sparring partner when you could have a real sparring partner?"

"Oh, yeah! Now you're reading my mind! If I didn't know any better, I'd think I was related to you or something." The two brothers shared a laugh.

Antoshi's expression turned serious, taking a fighting stance, bringing his flaming red aura to life around him with a grunt. Latoshi smirked, generating his green aura as well while getting into a similar stance. The two boys' irises glowed brightly in their respective colors. Antoshi took a moment to appreciate his brother's aura no longer looking or feeling corrupted with Lazarus' rotten, black Ki.