Destiny Colosseum ~ Training Rooms

[ExplosiveTurkey]

Perhaps she noticed his body language, perhaps she didn't. Either way, Aria shrugged in response. "Eh, not really. I've mostly just been wandering around. Training's out of the question, though — kinda fucked up my legs during the fight."

Her brows furrowed in interest as she looked them over one more time. "Still, I wouldn't mind sitting by to watch if that's okay with you. Only caught bits and pieces of you two earlier, so I'm a bit curious to see how you fight. Oh, and I can keep your corruption in check if you'd like to practice using those powers a bit?"

 

[Negrek]

"Oh! Sorry," Rocky said, his ears standing up in alarm. He was hardly subtle about then checking out her legs to see what kind of gruesome injury she might have sustained.

Nate winced and shoved the door to the training room open. "Right. Sure. Knock yourself out," he said, already making his way inside. "Just don't go expecting nothing special."

"I'm really good at fighting," Rocky confided in Aria, then bounded after him.

While Rocky took up a spot at the far side of the ring, bouncing exuberantly on the balls of his feet, Nate glanced over his shoulder at Aria. "Kinda surprised to see you around. I thought your Diyem was gonna vanish you back to your home worlds after that battle."

Rocky giggled. "Maybe we beat them so bad they were all too hurt to go home yet!" Bounce, bounce.

 

[ExplosiveTurkey]

"We were going to leave, but it's almost the grand finale for you guys. Figured we might as well stick around to catch it," Aria replied, having taken a seat on the floor with a wall to lean against. "Shame we can't help more, but... mm. No point thinking about it."

Eyes glinting with anticipation, she watched the two like a hawk. "Don't be stalling on my account, though."

 

[Negrek]

"We won't!" Rocky said before Nate could get a word in edgewise. "I'm really strong. Look!"

The familiar spread his hands, electricity crackling and snarling between them. Nate had only just got an arm up to shield his face when the lightning bolt leapt free, crashing straight into him with a roar. He shook his head irritably, rubbing the tingles out of his arms. Maybe it didn't hurt, but getting hit by lightning still didn't feel all that comfortable, neither.

"Yeah, one more battle for us, I guess," he said, swatting a few halfhearted balls of water towards Rocky, who easily dodged them. "Pretty weird. Must be different than yours, huh? All those... moons or whatever the fuck they are, with the energy bullshit. You guys just had the big gooey thing to deal with, right?"

 

[ExplosiveTurkey]

"Kiiinda? We had to deal with a handful of smaller gooey things to deal with the actual big gooey thing, but no moons were harmed in the process."

Lightning from an infernape. Aria was disappointed by her own surprise — of course a familiar would have weird aces up their sleeve. His childlike enthusiasm reminded her of someone else, but... mm. Not a memory she wanted to visit.

Drumming her fingers against her thigh, she stared at the wet splash Nate had left on the wall. "Y'know, I've been getting the feeling that Rocky's the only one who wants to be here. Is fighting not really your thing?"

 

[Negrek]

"Nope! He just likes to boss people around," Rocky said. He crouched low, grinning broadly. "Come on! Try your Radiance again. If you don't, I'm going to start using grass moves on you."

"Yeah, I've never really been into getting my face punched in and shit," Nate said, frowning while he tried to decide what to do. He didn't like the thought of standing around looking like a dumbass trying to use "Radiance," but neither did he like the idea of getting beat up by a bunch of tiny leaves. Type affinities were so fucking weird. "But I guess that might be helpful, right? If we're not supposed to attack the big bad Blacklight thing, anyway. Just, like, accept it and be its friend or whatever."

 

[ExplosiveTurkey]

Aria tut-tutted. "Didn't you know? Nine out of ten dentists recommend getting your face punched in. More clients for them."

Her mind wandered back to when she'd first found out what commercials were. Arceus, the human world was weird.

"Though, I'm not sure if I'd recommend playing pacifist with the Blacklight if you prefer your teeth intact. Yeah, being nice to it might go a long way, but only after it stops trying to brutally dismember you."

 

[Negrek]

Rocky laughed at Aria's joke and sent a warning volley of razor leaves spinning at Nate. The marshtomp grimaced and frosted them out of the air with a glittering wave of snowy air. No damage there, but that was only a warm-up. Rocky was already conjuring more leaves.

Well, fuck him, Nate wasn't going to play his stupid games. "So what's your deal?" he asked Aria, not taking his eyes off Rocky. "Heard from Starr that you can, like, travel between worlds or something. Seems like a better deal than most of the heroes around here scrape. How'd you get set up with a gig like that?"

And the Blacklight... sounded like it would be just another fight, then. Nothing out of the ordinary. It almost felt perfunctory at this point, for all Diyem had been going on about the planet getting pulled into darkness or whatever.

 

[ExplosiveTurkey]

"It's... really not that great, if I'm being honest. Makes retirement a pipe dream, for one," Aria said with a sigh, crossing her arms behind her head and slumping back. "But to answer your question, imagine if all the big shots in Destiny Village had a problem they physically couldn't interact with, and needed others to do the dirty work for them. I'm one of those people, and it earnt me my fair share of brownie points."

A pause.

"Huh. Sounds an awful lot like the Blacklight when I put it that way, doesn't it?"

 

[Negrek]

Nate snorted. “Yeah, I was gonna say. Guess we’ve all gotten a taste of that now.” He frowned. “Starr made it sound like a pretty great deal, but I guess not, huh? Not if it means you’re on call for this shit all the damn time. How’d you end up being one of the people who, I dunno, heroes or whatever? Seems like your handlers or whatever are pretty fucked, if they gotta rely on people like you so hard that they can’t never let you retire. No way that’s gonna work long-ter—“

He was cut off when an energy ball slammed into him, knocking him to the arena floor. Rocky leapt lightly from foot to foot, giving him a disapproving frown. “Come on, you’re supposed to be fighting! Use your Radiance!”

Nate pulled himself back to his feet, grumbling under his breath. “Fine. You want to see a whole lotta nothing?” He stood with feet spread apart, hands loose and slightly raised, and concentrated.

 

[ExplosiveTurkey]

Aria chuckled, biting back the answer she had at the ready. Wouldn't do to distract him when Rocky had finally succeeded in annoying him enough.

 

[Negrek]

Nate looked briefly, hopefully over at Aria, but when it became apparent that she wasn’t going to say anything, he sighed and focused back on Rocky. He clenched and unclenches his fists; his brow furrowed in concentration. Perhaps he was gathering energy for something, or maybe the tension in the air was just Rocky’s eager anticipation as he leaned forward, eyes brightly aglow.

Nothing happened.

Nate released a huge breath of air and let his hands fall to his sides. ”See? The fuck were you expecting?”

Rocky’s tail lashed behind him in annoyance. “You have to actually try! Think friendly thoughts!”

“Friendly thoughts, huh? Certain people around here ain’t exactly making it easy.” He tried another hopeful look at Aria. “You ain’t had to deal with this shit from your own familiar, did you?”

 

[ExplosiveTurkey]

"Not really. Mine just had a crush on me, both of us knew it, and both of us had to pretend otherwise," Aria deadpanned, raising a paw and twirling some radiant flames between her fingers. "Great company, though. You can decide if that's better or worse."

 

[Negrek]

Oh, God. Even thinking of that made Nate want to cringe through the floor. He glanced over at Rocky--eurgh. "Holy shit. You win, I guess. God, that must have been awkward."

Rocky frowned. "I don't get it. Why couldn't you just say you had a crush? That sounds cute!"

Nate shuddered. "Anyway. We gonna fight, or what?"

Rocky tossed another volley of leaves at him, and Nate blocked them easily with a wave of water. It had been enough to get a change of subject, at least. "All right. Now are you actually going to try?" Rocky asked severely.

"Sure. Think... friendly thoughts," Nate scowled. It was pointless, but whatever. What did Rocky want him to think of, that time with the parasites? He stared hard at Rocky, trying to see one of those gross slug things instead. Not so different from how the familiar had used to be, actually, before he went into his stone.

After a moment, Nate did feel something. He felt... itchy.

 

[ExplosiveTurkey]

Oh. Oh.

Aria had assumed he'd just been fucking around earlier, but the faint pressure radiating from him proved that notion wrong. No wonder she didn't remember much of him from the fight — with the sheer amount of Blacklight energy flying around, someone like him had been blotted out completely.

...Good thing she'd gotten her powers under control by then. Subconsciously draining his Radiance would've dropped him back at square one.

"Whatever you're doing, it's working," she said in a vaguely hushed tone. "Just, uh... letting you know."

 

[Negrek]

"Really?" Nate screwed his face up skeptically.

"Yeah!" Rocky's tail flicked back and forth in excitement. "Keep trying! Just think friendly thoughts!"

Dead god why did Rocky have to keep fucking going on about that. If there was ever a way to make him feel less fucking friendly... Nate tried to put it out of his mind. If he could get this over with, maybe he wouldn't have to hear about this stupid shit ever again. He had no idea what the lucario could be going on about, but whatever. He could play pretend a little longer, at least.

He tried again to focus on the parasites. What had he done with them? Kind of got down low, to be on their level--okay, there was no way he was doing that, and Rocky was taller than him anyway. There wasn't much too it, really. Just tried to make them understand that he wasn't going to hurt them, hell, he wanted to help them.

Nate squinted at Rocky and concentrated, grasping for some feeling he wasn't even sure had been real. He felt itchy. Tingly, even. Weirdly warm? He was probably straining something. He tried to focus once more on Rocky, and--

Nate used Radiant Misdirect!

Nate sneezed hugely, and then again, eyes watering uncontrollably. When he could finally see properly, Rocky was frowning down at him, his excited twitchiness subsided. "Well?" Nate asked. "Nothing, am I right?"

"I don't know," Rocky said. "That was... kind of pathetic. I don't know if I feel like fighting you anymore."

Nate snorted. "Well, something must have happened, then? What else could that be except a motherfucking miracle?"

"No, I mean... I really thought something was going to happen," the familiar said dejectedly. "It's no fun fighting somebody who can't fight back."

Oh, well fuck Rocky very much, too.

 

[ExplosiveTurkey]

Raising a brow, Aria leaned in with her chin resting on a knuckle. "Ouch. Kinda cold considering you're the one who talked him into it. But, uh... hm."

Her eyes fell on a spare sandbag lying nearby, and she reached over to drag it close. Then, almost effortlessly, she flung it in Nate's direction, only for it to go sailing straight over his head.

"Huh. Neat," she said, punctuated by the thud of a wall being assaulted.

 

[Negrek]

"I guess," Rocky said, scratching the side of his face. Something seemed to be troubling him.

What was troubling Nate was that the lucario just up and chucked a sandbag at him out of nowhere holy shit. He jumped when it slammed against the wall behind him. "What... What was that about?" he asked.

Rocky brightened. "Are you sure you don't want to spar a little, Aria? I know you said your legs are hurt, but you don't need them to do something like Aura Sphere!"

 

[ExplosiveTurkey]

"Maybe if I was in my real body, but here... I think my aura's more attuned to putting people in casts," Aria explained, firing a disappointingly-small blob of aura at Rocky.

She didn't wait to watch what happened, tilting her gaze back to Nate. A quick flick of the wrist, and a blue barrier formed right in his face. "Relax, I wasn't planning on taking your head off. I just wanted to see if I could hit you. Or if I even wanted to. I thought I did, but... apparently not."

With a shrug, she pointed at Rocky. "Dunno how it works, but congratulations, that's your power. You make people not want to beat you up. I think."

 

[Negrek]

Rocky flicked an aura sphere out to intercept the attack; they burst in a flash of clashing energies, letting out a faint "pop." Rocky grinned. That honestly hadn't been so much weaker than the attacks Marshtomp had been sending at him anyway, and he loved getting to train with new people!

Aria's pronouncement distracted him, though. Rocky exchanged a glance with Marshtomp, and then the two of them burst out laughing.

"No, no, it's definitely not that," Rocky said once he'd gotten his giggles under control. "He makes everybody want to beat him up, all the time! It's what he's best at."

"Yeah, can't say I've ever had someone tell me I make people not want to beat me up before," Nate said, a bit sheepishly. "Don't exactly track with my experience, if you know what I mean." The lucario did seem to know what she was talking about, though. And he didn't think she would have missed with that punching bag if she was trying to hit him, and unless this was some bizarre, elaborate scheme Rocky had put her up to... "Maybe it's some kind of shield thing that doesn't form properly, or some kind of deflection?" he said hopefully. It was weird enough to be entertaining the whole "Radiance" idea at all.