Conquest 3.m

Watching Azula tear her way through the Indigo Conference was like watching a force of nature. She was unstoppable, untouchable, uncaring, but most of all, bored. I knew she'd expected as much, that she considered herself to be far above all others, even her nephew and Ash, who she considered better than most, and yet she was still disappointed. She'd hoped to find a worthy opponent. She spoke about it sometimes, when her, their, mood turned dark. She lived for power, to truly use that power, and to have no one who could drive her to make an effort? It weighed on her.

I'd watched her on her first match at the Conference. Her face in that blank, emotionless mask she wore nearly all the time. She showed emotion so rarely, though I knew it was mostly just a mask. The more time I spent around her the more and more her and Luna's emotions seemed to just hang around them in a cloud that was easy to sense and feel. It was worrying, how she seemed to be anxious, scared, and slightly depressed so often. How little she seemed to sleep, and how what little she did sleep was plagued with nightmares that leaked some fairly horrible emotions. I was worried about her, and from some of the questions her mothers had asked me, so were they.

I wasn't blind. I could see she cared, more than cared, about me. Even before that first kiss, I'd had an idea about her feelings, and the stirrings of feelings of my own for her forced me to consider things about myself I'd never considered before. She was almost obsessed, but her affection was honest. She cared about my well being, she cared about Mom's well being. I felt the Gengars she left at Mom's home, watching, making sure that we were safe against retribution from a family I'd never known I had until I ran into my aunt.

And wasn't that another worrisome thing? What could have been so terrible for things to be as they were? I remembered the nightmares she'd had after finding out my family's secrets, remembered how disturbed and broken she'd been when she came back from talking to Clair. I'd done my best to comfort her, and it'd seemed to work, but she'd had to leave so soon. The next time I saw her, the bags under her eyes were even worse than before. At least Mom seemed happier than I'd ever seen her since she got in touch with Aunt Clair. At least something good had come from that. Well, besides qualifying for the Silver Conference, but that seemed so small in comparison.

Azula and Luna. When I first met them so many months ago at Professor Elm's lab and challenged them to a battle, they'd refused to let Wani-Wani fight Luna. I hadn't thought much of it at the time, she'd sent out Zeus and we'd tied, but now, seeing them demolish a trainer so much older than them, supposedly so much experienced than them… Well, it was really quite a sight to behold, especially when I could tell they weren't trying, not even when they and the Ampharos put up that light show.

That was another peculiarity about Azula. When you spoke with her you weren't speaking just with her. When she spoke, it wasn't just her speaking. Azula and Luna were so close at times they were more a single individual than two. They were unimaginably close, sometimes disturbingly so, but I couldn't bring myself to care. They were unique, passionate, strong, and frankly super cute. So I was going to see where things went. It helped a lot that kissing was, uh, amazing, even if she had a tendency for public displays of affection. I was still blushing from the kissing she initiated at the cafe she seemed to favor while waiting for her matches.

She smashed her second match, sent out her Starmie, gave her opponent the first move with that little phrase she'd used when we fought. She proceeded o one shot her opponent's Seaking and Victreebel with a Psychic, then drowned their Tentacruel in an unending tide of Thunderbolts and Psychics. She'd done it with her face in that emotionless mask she always wore and an added air of bored disappointment to her. She actually pulled out her phone and put on her headphones on after the Victreebel was recalled. She was already walking back to the arena's exit, beckoning us to follow, when the Tentacruel went down. Nameless the Starmie circled back to her and hovered around her head for a few second before being recalled.

We had dinner with our families, taking over a couple tables at an all-you-can-eat buffet. It was amusing to watch Azula's niece and her Chansey browbeat her into eating much more than she usually did. Interesting to watch her mothers scold her and Luna for being as disrespectful as they had been in their second match, and them being stubborn and pouting about how there was really nothing else they could have done. At one point Ash and Gary loudly proclaimed they would be the ones to win the Conference and Azula and Luna snorted at the declaration. It felt like what I'd always thought a family reunion might be like. Even Mom, for all that she'd barely met everyone, seemed to be fitting in well with Azula's mothers. I was happy.

The accommodations assigned to our weird group were nice. A furnished cabin with room for everyone, even if Azula and Luna hadn't crawled into my bed half an hour after most of us had gone to bed. She'd done that at home too. I couldn't say I minded. For all that she seemed to be bones and cold skin, she and Luna were surprisingly huggable, and they loved cuddling into me.

That's how I woke up. Cuddling. My hands had not wandered during the night. At all. Nor had the terrible twosome sighed in disappointment when I repositioned said hands. A night without nightmares for her and Luna, and a pleasant one for me. Wonder who she'd fight today, and how. Hopefully she'd have a chance to cut loose. Brooding wasn't good for her. I shook them awake. We could get an early start and get a nice breakfast together before her first match.

Their next match was as easy as the first two, with Nameless making another appearance and letting their opponent wail at the starfish until it looked like it was dead. The announcers were baffled at her complete lack of response to attacks, Nameless was completely covered in blood, then there was a shift in Azula. She never stopped being bored, but she seemed to have deemed her demonstration of superiority to be enough, and then a Recover had her starfish looking like new a moment later. Then she crushed the Pidgeot that had been beating on it in one hit, followed by a Gloom. The third was a Raichu that actually managed to fight back and force another Recover before taking a barrage of Psychics to the face, slumping down against the arena wall where it'd slammed after the first hit.

She was less disrespectful this time, sure, she'd still been… less than ideal with the show she'd put on, but at least this time she hadn't essentially ignored the fight in favor of her phone. Or left the way she had last time. I had this feeling that the general public would have two views of her: arrogant disrespectful child among the older people, and cool badass among the younger ones.

Funniest part was that for all her lack of manners, and for all that she couldn't be bothered to even pretend to be a little modest, no one could say it'd been luck. Not after the smackdown Luna had laid on their first opponent, or the one Nameless had delivered to the second one, and most definitely not after the show they'd just put up. Seriously, it'd lasted longer than the previous two combined, and had consisted mostly of the starfish letting its opponents hit it until they felt like they'd made their point.

I watched Azula feed Luna a waffle fry, love for her sister clear on her face, giggling when she pulled the fry away and Luna pulled most of it back to her mouth with her powers. Then Azula poked Luna's front horn. The most powerful Ralts to ever live responded with an annoyed cry of "Ralts!" and jumped on her sister, poking her back, prompting a breathy squeak from Azula. Well, what do you know? She was ticklish. The ensuing poking war lasted a few minutes and ended as a decisive victory for Luna who was merciless, slippery, tiny, and didn't have severe breathing problems to rob her of her endurance in the face of uncontrollable giggling.

I laughed at their antics. Stopping for a snack had definitely been a great idea. I wished I'd recorded that. Then I realized that maybe I may have not had a chance to record it, but quite a few of the people sitting around us had. If the whispers along the lines of "Oh Arceus, they're so cute!" and "Wow, that's Trainer Azula!" were anything to go by, they'd just won themselves a major PR win.

Seemed like they were in a good mood. I smiled and snatched Luna from her sister's lap in the middle of her show of dominance over said little sister, then tickled her until she surrendered. Damnit, how could they be so cute? Azula was beaming at me and Luna was pouting with her arms crossed, pointedly looking away from us. I kissed the top of her back horn. I was doomed. I don't think I could ever walk away from so much cute.