Space lives on your breath... (2024)

warnings: sexism, violence, cursing, tension, misogyny (?)

“Why her?” Blaziken asked angrily. “You told me that it’s only the guys in both aspects of this tournament. What the hell makes her so special that she could listen in?”

“I did say that, however, since she’s learning and won’t speak out of turn like a certain girlfriend of mine, meaning you,” Latios explained. “I decided Palkia is smart, mature and strong enough to be in on our meeting.”

“Whatever,” she scoffed as she crossed her arms.

I nodded while taking everything in. I thought it was kind of funny that Blaziken was jealous of me because I got to be in the conference and she didn’t. I mean, damn, it’s only a conference. It wasn’t like I was going to be in the actual battle. If she wanted in next time, she might have to learn to listen to what Latios wants instead of everything always being about her. I sat there as Latios turned to his girlfriend and raised his eyebrow as he tried to explain everything to her.

“Blaziken, we’ve talked about this when you were with me yesterday. I told you that you could fight in the second half of the tournament but not -,” Latios tried to explain.

“But that’s a wildcard battle! Wildcard battles are only for fun. I want to be in the MAIN battle, Latios. You told me you would let me fight you,” Blaziken yelled as she cut him off. “You don’t see me as serious at all do you?”

“Blaziken, first of all, don’t you ever disrespect me by cutting me off,” he said angrily as he raised his voice. “Now second of all, you knew that my main battle was guys only. Plus I said that in the halftime battle, I would be your opponent, did I not? I do see you as serious, but the main battle is for strong fighters only.”

Blaziken was fuming as she clenched her fists; the steam was literally coming from her head. So not only was Latios going to have a main battle, which was with the guys but he was also going to add a fun battle to it, in which us girls could join. Actually when I thought about it, it was a great idea. Because we actually got to see a more professional battle with strong and bold battlers first before we jump into it. It could be a great learning experience for me on my journey. Not only would it be good for me, but for the other girls and some of the guys.

“If I could add to this discussion here, but I thought we were told that if we made a tourney, that we should allow everyone to sign up,” Braviary interjected.

“Well, if they willingly do not sign up for the serious half of the tournament, then it’s okay,” Latios said as he tried to articulate a defense for himself.

“Key word there, Latios: willingly. It don’t mean that Blaziken gets pressured into not signing in,” the red haired guy explained. “SHE has to decide for HERSELF if she wants in or not.”

It WAS true that Vanilluxe and Gothitelle told everyone that if they wanted to have a battle tournament at their house, they have to allow anyone to sign up. Which brings the question of: why didn’t Latios have this battle at his house? At least he could do what he wanted there. Here his wishes won’t be respected as much in favor of the battlers who… don’t really know what they are doing. The reason I was excited about this tournament was that I was going to get see the strong battlers fight and learn from them, the masters. If weak battlers got to wiggle their way into this battle, then there would nothing for me to learn. I could have battled for that notion.

“But I wanted to see the stronger battlers fight,” I said sadly. “Blaziken and I aren’t that strong and Latios and the others are. I want to learn from them. I am here to learn how to be stronger right? What could I possibly learn from battlers who can’t even beat me?”

When I asked that question, Blaziken and Braviary both looked at me with a weird expression. Even Milotic, who was pretty much laying her head down on the table crying, had to look up at me. Blaziken looked like she was about to blow a gasket judging by the redness that spread all over her face.

“Shut up, Palkia!” Blaziken shouted angrily as she slammed her fists on the table. “I like I wanted to tell Latios, I AM strong. I’ve been training under the best physical combat trainer in Unova for a year and a half, someone who is naturally strong and had to work her way up. Even she says I’m strong. So don’t you dare say I’m not strong, got that? Especially since you are sitting there like a skinny little twig.”

“Oh yeah? Well, Dialga has taught me some tricks as well,” I retorted. “Unless you want a big fat time loop, I think you oughta get out of my face.”

As I quickly stood up from my chair, so did Blaziken. We were both giving each other the death stare at this point. I was trying so hard not to punch her in her face at this point. Just because I was thinner and had a smaller frame than she did didn’t mean I was scrawny. I weighed less than her, so what? Let’s not forget that she’s a physical attacker and my specialty is special attacks. Also, it didn’t ignore the fact that I was higher up on the list than she was. I was still technically stronger than her, even with all that training she has received. She had no right to talk smack about me to cover up her own shortcomings.

Just as we were having our stare down, an arm appeared right in front of me and pushed me down to my seat. At that time, I could hear Latios chuckling softly.

“Cut it out,” Braviary said as he looked at both of us. “Palkia, now that was just really unnecessary. Blaziken, do we really have to resort to name calling? Latios, you shut up. Now, I’m going to go comfort my friend. Y’all best better not start this crap again…”

As he went to go comfort the upset blonde, Latios looked up at his girlfriend as he raised his eyebrow at her. He clearly looked aggravated at her, yet amused at our fight.

“Now then, do me a favor and go get me a drink,” Latios said to his girlfriend in an agitated tone. “I would like some apple juice.”

Blaziken frustratedly got up from her chair, kicked it, and proceeded to go into the kitchen. In that moment, all I could do is just sit and stare. For one, it would prevent her from saying anything else to me that would cause me to pull her two pigtails or give her a black eye. Second, for that comment, I was glad that Latios had done something about it. She was at the refrigerator, just looking at everything that was going on in the dining room. I wanted to give her a “ha ha!” look, however I didn’t really care enough to do it. So I just glanced over at her as she was trying to find the apple juice.

“You’re lucky I want to make this work…” she mumbled under her breath.

“Yo, what’s going on here?” a familiar voice asked. “Can’t I have a relaxing and calm talk with my wife without you guys starting a fight?”

I looked over at the hallway and saw Vanilluxe, just standing there with one hand on his waist. However, his clothes were different now from when I first greeted him. He was now wearing a white shirt, about two sizes too big, tucked into a pair of baggy, elastic blue pants. He defiantly looked more comfortable, however I have no idea why the change of outfits. Upon seeing him, Milotic lifted her head from the table. She smiled at him, as she was excited to see him, however knowing his reaction earlier, she was careful not to spook him. Vanilliuxe motioned for her to go outside to that they could have a talk. However, as they got up to head to the back door…

“So, you have a wannabe man for a wife and you attract useless eye candy. Wow, Vanilluxe you need work big time,” Latios said to me under his breath.

While I raised my eyebrow at Latios, Vanilluxe looked over at him and me as he was getting ready to go outside. However, Milotic quickly turned around as she stared at us hard. I could see the tears forming in her eyes as she tried to lunge at Latios. Before she could even try to hit him, Vanilluxe stuck his arm right in front of her, keeping her back from doing that same thing.

“I am NOT useless!” Milotic screamed in tears while trying to break free. “How dare you!”

“Hey, Milotic stop okay? You’re better than this,” the older man explained as he has his arm right in front of her. “Now, don’t give a damn about what Latios thinks of you okay? I’m your best friend and so is Braviary and we know that you aren’t useless. Plus you beat me in a battle, remember? You have strength that you will use, however know that you don’t have to be a good battler to be useful. You being a good person makes you useful. ”

Latios let out a laugh that was so loud, that the sound waves bounced off the plain white walls. We looked at him, with expressions of blankness on our faces as we tried to figure out why he was laughing. Blaziken just stood right in front of the open refrigerator, trying to figure out just what was going on while trying to avoid getting him his drink. When he was done laughing, Latios cleared off his tears of joy and just chuckled at me.

“Palkia, did he just say that he got beat by that deadweight?” Latios asked.

“I don’t think Milotic is deadweight…” I started to say. “To answer the question, I was the referee for their inside battle, a battle that was interrupted. However if Gothitelle didn’t yell at us, then it would have been Milotic that won the battle, I even got it in my notes,”

“Hah! Well good thing you get to see how a real battle is done,” he chuckled.

All the while, Vanilluxe seemed like he was trying his best not to respond to what Latios was saying about him. It was pretty hard for him to do so as he kept looking at the two of us. The look that he gave Latios suggested that he wanted to kill him. However, he wanted to save that energy during the tournament. The tournament… something that I wish could be brought up again instead of a fight about Milotic’s usefulness. I really don’t think she’s useless. She’s annoying but she’s anything but deadweight, and it makes me sad to see her cry.

“Now you see what I’ve been trying to tell you, Palkia? Other than strength not being everything, you need to always question what others say if it seems off to you,” Vanilluxe said in a stern voice.

“Don’t be jealous that I am a real man…” the blue haired man whispered loudly.

“Latios, a REAL man wouldn’t tell a young girl, who is trying to find her inner strength, that she would never be as strong as someone who was born with different genitals. Finally, a real man wouldn’t boss his girlfriend around and order her to get her drinks in someone else’s home. Especially since Gothitelle and I have told everyone many times that no one, except us, was allowed in that kitchen. What kind of message are you sending to Palkia here? Males are always better and a woman’s place is serving her man? You see, I saw the crap you were saying to Palkia through her notes. I will give you that males naturally have an edge when it comes to biology, however it doesn’t mean that they are always better. Women make great fighters as well and you experienced that firsthand, didn’t you Latios?” the cream haired man asked.

‘Women make great fighters as well and you experienced that firsthand, didn’t you Latios?’ When that thought came up from their conversation, it made me think of when I was in Latios’ house asking him questions. When he told me that men were naturally stronger but I asked about Gothitelle and Gothorita and he said nothing to me on them. It brings me to the question as to why he didn’t respond, and now I felt like asking him. However I didn’t want to embarrass him further, so I whispered my question to him.

“Hey, why did you dodge my question about those girls when I asked you at your house?” I whispered to him, not realizing that the others seemed to have heard me as they were laughing.

“None of your business, Palkia,” he whispered back loudly to me in an angry tone while hitting the table with his fist. “Stay out of it. Go put on your make up or something.”

I just sat there, with my heart pounding. I didn’t realize that I have just offended Latios and in front of company. I was really hoping that this doesn’t ruin my chances of getting into that battle meeting. I mean it was an honor to be the only girl listening in on the conversation, but not that could be ruined, all because of what I just asked. Worst of all, I thought that I was being careful not to embarrass or offend him, especially with other people looking at us.

“I’m sorry, Latios,” I said as I almost had tears in my eyes.

Now, I can’t do anything to Latios for that one because he was stronger than me, and he was male. So if I were to attack him for the insult, he probably would think its child’s play. Plus, he was more respected than me, so I have to be really careful around him. If it was Blaziken saying that or if Latios was a girl, I would punch her.

“Palkia, it’s alright. He’s just mad cuz he got his butt kicked by two girls, that’s all,” Braviary said. “I get beaten by girls a lot. I don’t see what the problem is.”

“Oh, I just went easy on those girls. I knew they were weak, and I didn’t want to crush their egos, so I went easy on them,” Latios explained. “They thought they were manly, and as the nice guy I was, I didn’t feel like putting them in their place.”

Now, Latios is a smart guy, but I knew that what he said wasn’t true. Mostly because Gothitelle was the type of fighter that would never let her opponent go easy on her and she wouldn’t go easy on them either. She’d expect a fair and rather tough challenge. When it came to Gothorita, she would actually be offended if someone were to treat her battling as if it wasn’t serious. Some Pokemon often don’t want to fight her because of how small and young she is, but I knew that once they accepted, she can actually kick butt out there. It’s impossible for Latios to go easy on them; they’d never fight anyone who’d go easy on them. Plus it didn't seem like something he would say. With that, I just sat there and shook my head no.

“Bull! They have beaten you fair and square and YOU know it,” Vanilluxe raised his voice as he started going towards the fridge. “Blaziken, do you mind going back to your seat?”

As Blaziken started to go back to where she was sitting, Vanilluxe was picking up from where she started: pulling out the juice and pouring it into a tall glass. As soon as she sat down next to him, Blaziken looked up at Latios with an angry look on her face. She was clearly upset at him for embarrassing her the way he did, however for what she said to me, she kind of deserved it.

“Hope you’re happy…” she muttered.

Blaziken looked away as Vanilluxe was standing over the kitchen divider, easing in on the conversation. I was not sure about anyone else, but I could feel this conversation getting tenser and tenser by the minute. All I want at this point is for everyone to get along and to talk about the battle tournament that I got to listen in on.

“Cut the attitude, Blaziken. You’re lucky I’m not entirely mad at you. I’m mostly mad at everyone telling me those two gender-confused girls could actually beat ME in a battle. Next time they want to step to me, I’ll show them their place, gladly. Especially the fat one,” he whispered angrily.

I slowly started to get up from my seat, just looking around in shock. I just couldn’t believe he said that about Gothitelle. I mean I understand that he snapped from the embarrassment but to call someone fat is an insult to anyone and I personally would never resort to those types of attacks. Everyone else in the room was very surprised as well. Vanilluxe just gave him the death stare from behind the counter as he brought over the drink. However, as he was about to get closer to the table, I could hear someone coming in through the front door.

“Your door was open, sorry. Anyway, looks like I got myself into a tropical storm here,” the somewhat nerdy male voice said.

“More like a hurricane,” Braviary interjected. “Sorry ‘bout that, Haxorus.”

I turned around and saw a young man with a young girl. He had short and choppy puce colored hair topped with a dark red baseball cap that read ‘I love baseball’ in big blue letters. He had a short dark brown vest over a red t-shirt and also had matching brown pants. Now the girl hanging on his arm was a girl I disliked. Not as much as Latias or, at the moment, Blaziken but nonetheless. Sure, she had pretty medium length blue and black hair for which she’d wear a red flower in it. She also had a short kid-like, long sleeved blue dress with two vertical red stripes on in the side. The bottom of her dress looked as if it were ripped, however it was just the style.

I found this girl to be very airheaded and annoying, especially when it came to her needing to be rescued. In short, she thinks that her boyfriend rescuing her is indeed romantic and would say it a lot. I noticed that she came with a big yellow ball and was slowly rolling it on the floor. I just rolled my eyes as I looked toward the kitchen, at everything that was going on. Detecting that there would be some fireworks between those guys, I took my make-up bag and notepad and slowly started to ease my way to the living room. Even from fifty feet away, I could feel the tension of the house.

“So, you wanted apple juice right?” Vanilluxe calmly said as he stood in front of Latios, holding the big glass in one hand.

Latios nodded as he gave the older man a confused look. “Yes, I need something to drink badly.”

Vanilluxe just stood there, narrowing his eyes at the blue haired man as he moved the glass closer to him. When the glass was about six inches from him, he stopped and continued to stare at him. He had fumes in his eyes; he looked like he really wanted to give Latios a piece of his mind. While on the other hand, the young man just sat there with a deer in the headlights look, wondering if he was going to get his drink. However, something happened which changed the mood of the room in a matter of minutes.

“Well drink up, Latios!” the older man shouted as he jerked the glass forward and purposely split all of the apple juice on the blue haired young man, also getting a good amount on Blaziken as well. However that was on accident.

Gasps could be heard from around the room as Latios doubletaked at both his dripping wet self, his shocked girlfriend and at the irate older man standing in front of him. That wasn’t very nice of him to do, I thought to myself and I could only figure that everyone else must be thinking the same thing. The blue haired man then got up from his chair, with that same fire in his eyes, just starting at the other man.

“Blaziken, move out of the way. I don’t want you to get hurt,” Latios said as he motioned for his girlfriend to leave the kitchen.

As she quickly moved out of the way, Braviary moved closer behind Vanilluxe, hoping that maybe he could prevent him from doing anything reckless. While Milotic stood behind the red haired boy with both her hands on her face in shock. Both guys as of now were still staring at each other, while the cream haired man made a fist with his right hand and began to pump it.

“What the hell was that for?” Latios raised his voice.

Then, all of a sudden, Vanilluxe, with one hand, started to grab Latios by his sweatshirt collar and started to speak. “You can talk about me, I clearly don’t give a damn what you say about me, okay?” he said calmly with an edge of anger.

“But…” Vanilluxe started to shove the blue haired man about four inches from where he was standing. “LET ME GET ONE THING PERFECTLY CLEAR OKAY? DON’T YOU EVER INSULT MY FAMILY!”

The older man was breathing rather quickly as he gave Latios the ‘I’m going to kill you’ stare, in which, Latios had the look of fear in this eyes, something so rare to see from him. My heart was beating quickly as well as I saw Haxorus trying to protect his girlfriend from everything that was going on. It made me wish that Dialga was here to shield me as well. His strong arms wrapped around me, whispering to me that everything was going to be okay. I needed that at the moment and bummer that I don’t have that right now.

As Vanilluxe started to lunge at the blue haired man, Braviary ran up behind him and grabbed his arm, thus, preventing him from moving any further. He was very resistant and wouldn’t go down without a fight. Haxorus had to jump in and assist the red haired boy in keeping the older man under control. I just stood frozen in my spot, the annoying black haired girl kept calling out for her mate, Blaziken ran to Latios and stretched her arms in front of him and Milotic was crying hysterically, pleading with her crush to stop trying to fight.

“Blaziken! Move out of the way!” Vanilluxe shouted while trying to break free from Braviary and Haxorus’ restraint.

“Please stop this! Even though he pissed me off, I love him!” the young girl yelled.

“Okay!” Braviary called out. “It’d be best if ye took Latios outside so we could handle things here.”

As Latios and Blaziken started to walk to the front door, the older man had one more thing to say to his target. “OOH YOUR SO DAMN LUCKY RIGHT ABOUT NOW BECAUSE I SO WANT TO TEAR YOU APART!”

Please guys, stop fighting. I did not come here to see you chew each other out. I came for advice and I hope I get to hear some soon…