Welcome to Gaia! ::

Keiko followed Ulla to the photo booth, but it took everything she had to not hug Ulla with everything she had. Between trying to look like me and the Buneary ears, Ulla was utterly adorable. Somehow, Keiko restrained herself, but she couldn't help but smile as widely as possible as they went to take their pictures. "I'm glad you found this booth. This is a really good idea. These photos will last us a really long time."

"I can't let it bother me," Keiko said in a concerned tone despite the smile on her face. She was clearly having a very good time. "Once I'm up on that stage, I'll have to focus on fighting the chief of the village."

Keiko patted Ulla's head to take her mind off of that thought, then got up. "We've probably got time for one more booth before the event starts if there's something else you wanna do," she offered with a bigger smile on her face.

As Keiko was looking around to see what else there was to do, a voice caught her attention, causing her to turn around and face the hybrid whispering to her. "We're ready for you in the town square," was all they said before they disappeared into the crowd.

"Oh, I guess we don't have as much time as we thought. Hopefully the festival will go on for a bit longer after the spar," Keiko said to herself, before looking at Ulla. "The spar's about to begin. I won't stop you if you want to keep checking out the festival, but I'll be in the town square south of here if you wanna cheer me on," Keiko said with a happy smile before turning around and making her way to the town square.

Keiko not only arrived at the town square but had let herself into the fighting ring built there before Toshiko showed up. What Keiko wasn't expecting, however, was the announcer. He began talking about the village and the festival for a bit before changing subject to the looming battle, the tradition behind it, and finally - the contestants. "The challenger is Keiko Yuniko Carrie, a young girl born human to unknown parents. She was adopted by a couple running a mom-and-pop delivery service south of Tohjo Falls, where she spent half of her childhood - the other half was spent all across Kanto and Johto, taking over for her ailing adoptive father. She recently left said business for unknown reasons, but was captured by a splinter sect of Team Cipher, where she was turned into the hybrid she is today. While it's not known what she does today, we do know she has two moves in her arsenal - Return and Frustration! She uses both moves to bolster her fighting strength, but in different ways. According to rumors from Fuego Ironworks, she may have a third, unknown move as well! Quite the mysterious challenger for our beloved champion to face off against. Speaking of-!"

As soon as the words 'speaking of' were uttered, Toshiko let herself out into the ring, flashily removing a sparkly pink cape and making some kind of wrestling gesture that got the crowd cheering in excitement. "Our champion is none other than Toshiko Bareemo, daughter of the previous chieftain of Bareemo Village and current chieftain of the same. She has a vast arsenal of moves and a feral way of fighting that we all know and love. Can our outlandish challenger last against an opponent that has K.O.'d opponents much stronger than her? Let's find out!"

The crowd cheered as a bell rang above the fighting ring. Toshiko popped her shoulders in response. "Nothing personal, Sparkles, but I've got a rep to maintain." the chieftan said flatly, squaring up to charge. Keiko almost instinctually started looking around, not sure what she was looking for.

Before Keiko could react, Toshiko grabbed her shoulders and started pushing her back, almost like a sumo wrestler. This only caught Keiko off-guard for a second, but as she began struggling to push the chieftan back, she discovered that her small feet made it hard for her to grip the ground, letting Toshiko push her farther back until she finally managed to hold herself in place. "Not bad," Toshiko purred tauntingly before pulling Keiko into a suplex that left Keiko lying on her back, stunned. Toshiko grinned maliciously, and held her arm out, patting her open shoulder before falling down on Keiko, but not before the Lopunny hybrid lunged forward, causing Toshiko to fall flat on her face. Instead of taking her chance to attack, Keiko stood still, bracing herself for the Delcatty hybrid's next attack.

"Never fought like this before, huh?" Toshiko chuckled as she got up to her feet. She then ran up to Keiko and bear hugged her, causing Keiko's spine to pop in ways it never had before. Keiko roared in pain, struggling futilely to push the stronger hybrid back. She then realized that Toshiko was holding her upward and gave the chieftan a swift knee to the chest. This resulted in a yelp of pain and a loosening of muscles sufficient enough to let Keiko slip out of the chieftan's grasp. Toshiko wasn't very happy with this development, though, and repaid her opponent with a backhand strong enough to send Keiko spinning, knocking her flat on her stomach. Seeing the opportunity, Toshiko then stomped on Keiko's tail.

Keiko screamed as excruciating pain encompassed her entire being, emanating from the most sensitive part of her body. "Ha! That'll teach ya to drop the foul play, ya bunny b***h!" Toshiko leered. Keiko almost passed out from the pain, but something within her snapped, and everything - Toshiko's laughter, the cheers from the crowd - all sound vanished. The pain was still there, but it was slowly fading as something else took its place. Keiko clenched her teeth, and her muscles drew taught. Finally, energy began flooding her body, spilling out in a pinkish aura. Keiko had mitigated the pain with a wellspring of fury, and her Frustration was apparent in the pinkish aura surrounding her. Shifting her weight, she planted a foot firmly onto Toshiko's belly, and with abnormal strength, pushed the chieftan far back enough to free her tail. In an instant, Keiko pushed herself up and slammed her hindquarters into Toshiko's gut. She then turned around with a look of unyielding rage on her face, but immediately dropped her Frustration when she realized that Toshiko had seemingly vanished.

"Good job!" Toshiko shouted, helping Keiko to find her location - amidst the crowd! She'd caused a bit of damage, but nobody looked hurt. While Keiko looked on, Toshiko lept back into the ring. "You clearly haven't mastered it yet, but you've got a decent handle on Bounce,"

"Didn't you lose?" Keiko asked, causing Toshiko to laugh out loud.

"This ain't a ring-out match, Sparkles," Toshiko smirked. "Submission. You gotta get me to give up if you wanna win."

"Oh, frick," Keiko spat under her breath. Toshiko didn't let that thought sink in, though, and immediately lunged at Keiko with a haymaker. She tried to knock Keiko against the ropes, but now that Keiko knew where that wellspring of anger was, she could tap into it more easily. Reactivating Frustration, she halted Toshiko's momentum before flinging the large Delcatty hybrid toward the ropes meant for her. As Toshiko bounced back, Keiko jumped backwards at the chieftan so she could grab her head and throw her toward the ground. Toshiko landed back-first onto the ground and cursed under her breath. She leaped back up before Keiko could do anything, though, and punched Keiko in the gut, knocking the wind out of her, which forced her to drop Frustration. Another back hand got Keiko knocked on her stomach again, only this time Toshiko jumped onto Keiko's back and pulled her arm back as far as it'd go.

"You might want to tap out if you wanna keep this arm," Toshiko teased. Keiko grunted in pain as the arm was reaching its limits, and tried to use Frustration to break out of Toshiko's hold again. But the fact that using Frustration in bursts consumes more energy than than holding it over a long period of time coupled with the fact that the arm Toshiko was torturing was broken recently in a fight against S-22 and was basically jury-rigged back into functioning thanks to Ulla's Fairy Channeling meant that Keiko didn't have the strength to resist, and after screaming in pain, Keiko smartly tapped out before Toshiko re-broke her arm.

Toshiko let go of Keiko's arm and stood up, raising both of her arms victoriously. "There you have it, folks!" The announcer cheered. "The chieftan of Toshiko Village, our beloved Toshiko, is victorious once again!" Keiko lay still and struggled with the pain in her arm. Her eyes were wet from dealing with the pain, but she wasn't sad that she lost. Her task was to fight Toshiko, not to win. After showing off for the villagers a bit more, Toshiko helped Keiko to her feet. "Not bad, kid. You lasted longer than half of the men in the village, and put on one hell of a show to boot. I'd say you more than earned my training." she said loudly, thoroughly pleased with the struggle she'd participated in.

Keiko smiled at this, but was too tired to do much else. Fortunately, she could still walk on her own, and did so slowly, making her way out of the fighting ring and back into the crowd, looking around for Ulla. "That's all for today, folks! For those of you visiting, next festival won't be for a few months. Hope you had fun with us!"

Keiko smiled as she saw Ulla, but didn't react at first as her adoptive daughter attempted to heal her. She'd forgotten that Ulla was watching the whole fight. "Ulla, honey, I'm okay," Keiko said reassuringly, patting Ulla's head as she said so. "I'm going to be sore for the rest of the night, but I'm not hurt any worse than what a full night's sleep can't cure."

"Your mama fought pretty good, huh?" Toshiko offered, walking up to the two of them. She quickly turned her attention to Keiko, though. "I got you two set up with a tent just outside town. It's too late and I'm too worn out to start your training now, so we can start in the morning. Make sure to get plenty of rest - you're going to need your strength in the morning!"

Keiko sighed as Toshiko walked away, the chieftan leaving with a big smile on her face. "On second thought, maybe I should let you heal me."

As Keiko and Ulla headed toward the tent, they got to see the village as the festival was ending and everything was being cleaned up. It got exciting at times, coming across a stand in the process of being put away and guessing what it might have been used for, or coming across other people on their way to their homes and spending some time talking about how much fun the festival was. They even got to re-connect with some familiar faces like Hope, Lulu, and Bruce, albeit for a short amount of time as they, too, had places to be and things to do. Eventually, the mother-daughter pair would make their way to a group of tents in the outskirts of the village - the 'visitor's center' where all the visitors who were staying overnight were given tents to sleep in.

"Today was a big day," Keiko said happily as she entered the tent. She felt a bit sad that it was all over, but she didn't want to complain because it was a lot of fun for the most part. The tent itself was kind of plain, containing two beds, a park table and a single bench for it - presumably for enjoying breakfast in the morning. Keiko set her purse down next to one of the beds and sat down, sighing in relief afterwards.

The next morning, Ulla would wake up to an otherwise empty tent. A note on the bench would inform her that Keiko woke up early and had left to start her training, and to ask around for her location if she wanted to watch.

Keiko and Toshiko by then were in the wilderness close by to the town. Craters in a neaby cliff would stand testament to Keiko's eventual mastery of Bounce and the many tries it took to get there. As for Keiko herself, she was standing before Toshiko, her arms crossed in front of her chest and held close to her body. Toshiko, however, was throwing punches to her student to help her master Endure. Judging by how matted Keiko's fur was in places and how worn out Toshiko was getting, they'd been at this for a while.

Several hours passed while Keiko and Ulla trained under the tutelage of Toshiko and Lucario respectively, and the sun was high in the sky by the time Toshiko decided to stop.

"That's enough. You've got as good a handle on it as you're going to get without regular practice. That ends your training with me. For the time being, you're learned all I can teach you. Practice with these moves for a while on your own time, and let me know if you want to learn anything else, but for today, and probably for a while, I'm done." Toshiko explained as she attempted to regain her breath.

Keiko was sore pretty much everywhere in her body at this point, but hadn't once complained up to this point. "Thank you for this," she said, realizing she hadn't really thanked Toshiko for the opportunity the chieftan offered her up to this point. "I'll definitely call on you when I'm ready to learn something new, but I agree with you - I'm done for now."

"You and Ulla are free to hang around if you want, but you've probably got business elsewhere, and I won't force you to stay. I've got my own work to be doing soon anyway. See you later, Keiko." Toshiko added, waving to the Lopunny hybrid before walking off to return to her home.

Keiko stood there for a bit, catching her breath and stretching so her body didn't feel as sore. She then walked toward where Ulla and Lucario were training. She didn't sense their presence or their energy as soon as they showed up, but it didn't take her long. Fortunately, Lucario wasn't helping his trainer practice her channeling abilities by striking her body directly, but rather by having Ulla block his blows with a directed version of her barrier, so Keiko didn't have to worry about Ulla being in pain. "Having fun?" Keiko asked, mostly to get Ulla's attention but also sincerely. She didn't wait long to get to the point, though. "Toshiko's decided that I've learned everything I can from her for the time being, so we're free to go home whenever we want to. We don't have to leave, as we've earned our place here according to Toshiko, but I bet you're probably missing Terashi and Leon by now."