Karen frowned a little as Umbreon barely dodged a well-aimed focus blast from Explotaro. The boy had talent, she would give him that, but, as of yet, his attacks were still a tad too rough to match the nimble manoeuvres of the dark Eevee evolution. "What were the others thinking, letting this one through? Will's probably going off and getting fat behind that mask of his," she made a mental note to review the training schedules of the Elite Four when the match was over. Gold, with ever present cue stick in hand, was furiously commanding Explotaro to keep up the pressure, as the Typhlosion eagerly complied, taking chunks out of the arena and sending rubble flying everywhere.

It hence, did not surprise Karen much when a stray piece of rubble chose exactly that moment to hit a rather... ah, inconvenient part of his anatomy.

Gold, to his credit, stood his ground. Goodness knows who could be watching the match – he knew Professor Oak had secret, rather discreet access to the cameras lining the walls of the match area. How else could he show up at that uncanny instant someone had beaten the champion? Plus, if old man Oak could watch from the comfort of his lab, his assistant just might have decided to join in.

And the image of him crouched on the ground in a rather, undignified, pose would be not awesome.

He pushed the pain to the back of his mind and turned to face Karen once again when he noticed she had, for some reason ceased her attack. Confusion registered in his eyes as hers moved from his cue stick to him, his cue stick to him and finally from his cue stick to him again. Said confusion only heightened as a smirk curved its way over the older woman's face as she cast him yet another appraising look.

"My, making up for something are we?"

That, Karen mused, as Gold's attacks gained a renewed vigour, was probably not the most tactical of decisions.

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