Duke (Lyuri)

Duke is Lyuri's Lucario and her strongest Pokémon.

Appearance

A regular Lucario, though he has turned human at least once.

Personality

Normally Duke is a calm and composed Pokémon, also very kind, dedicated and sociable, he values training highly and most of the time he was seen training his skills, Duke isn't one to ignore others that might be having problems, even more due to being able to sense other's feelings, as such, he's always trying to help in his own way, which means he generally just tries to give some advice after getting a better understandment of the problem in question and being quite understanding of the situation for the most part. Duke's also known to rarely get angry and even when he does he isn't one to show it, instead he just gets deadly serious which can be rather unsettling for others around him, as it's quite a change from his usual self.

Duke also used to be quite oblivous to love and romance in general, but this changed slightly after Lyuri confessed her love for him and they started dating, though he's admitelly not much better with those subjects than before. While he's tutoring others, he tends to be a rather harsh teacher at times, but at the same time he knows when it's good to stop before it starts to become detrimental to one's health, as such, while his training may be a bit harsh, he knows that there's a limit as to how much punishment one can take and is more than willing to hold back if necessary.

Other Details

• Age: 8
• Height: 1.3m (1,70m as a human)
• Birthday: December 18
• Nature: Calm
• Ability: Inner Focus
• Met at: Flocessy Ranch (As a Riolu)
• Ball: Great Ball
• Favorite Move: Aura Sphere
• Likes: Adventuring, reading, training, Rawst Berries, helping others with problems.
• Dislikes: Arrogant and stubborn peoplemons, dirty tricks (however he can deal with those kinds just fine, he just prefers not to).

Battle Strategy

Duke's a jack-of-all-trades, being able to work well in most situations, he knows a wide variety of special and physical moves to help him in combat, but also supporting moves like Heal Pulse, Protect and Helping Hand, as well as boosting moves and some surprise moves like Copycat and Counter, what he's going to do depends on many factors such as what kind of attack the opponent is weaker to, how strong it's defense is, if there's a need for a surprise factor and, in case of Double/Triple/Rotation battles, how his allies are doing. All in all, Duke's main problem is dealing with Pokémon who have a type advantage, but he also knows moves to deal with them.

Known Moves:

• - Close Combat, Drain Punch, Aura Sphere, Force Palm, Bulk Up, Counter
• - Thunder Punch
• - Me First, Helping Hand, Protect, Sword Dance, Extremespeed, Work Up, Copycat
• - Psychic, Heal Pulse, Calm Mind
• - Dark Pulse, Nasty Plot

History

Kanjoh-2

Duke was a Riolu that has always worked hard to be strong, why, nobody knows, he met Lyuri when she got a part-time job at the Flocessy Ranch and got impressed with his fighting prowess when he fought a few other Pokémon in the ranch and ended up taking him with her in her adventures, intially he was relunctant, but being with her helped him get even stronger so he quickly bonded with the girl and soon they became great partners. Duke has been with Lyuri since then and was probably the most invaluable member of the team, quickly becoming her strongest Pokémon, seeing his development really impressed some of his fellow teammates, namely, Riku and Zap, who both really admired him despite him not thinking he deserved much praise.

Duke spent most of his time either training or putting Riku, Zap or Zack on the line, other than that he didn't do much with other people, he met Lake, Stratus, Quin and Ad Min at Route 39 along with Riku, where unfortunately Zack started to cause conflict by repeatedly insulting Stratus until he stepped in and made Zack leave, after that they had a small chat before parting ways. They met again on Ecruteak after Zack had ruined one of Lyuri's comic books that he lent to Riku and that he still hadn't read, he got there after Zack had left, making Riku worry about him thinking that he was the one for ruining the comic, Duke knew better though and quickly solved the problem, he also challenged Lake to a friendly battle and barely managed to win against the Feraligatr.

Duke also got involved in the incident where a human Riku ran off after talking with Lyuri and leaving her locked in his room, Duke helped Lyuri get out and, after getting some help from Lake's group, they head out to Goldenrod seeking the fugitive kid, after a long search Duke found Riku using his aura and quickly caught him before he ran away again, Lyuri and Riku then sorted his problems and the trio went back to Ecruteak. Duke was absent during the Christmas party at Snowpoint, but after the party was over and Lyuri's group went back to Ecruteak, he met with the two newcomers of the team: Jordan and Gex, both then asked him to teach them how to battle and, though a bit reluctantly, Duke accepted.

After one of the training sections, Duke, Jordan and Gex almost got ran over by a car, driven by Zap and Riku, that soon crashed into a tree, Riku got out of the ordeal unharmed, but Zap was badly injured and was hospitalized soon after, Duke was really disappointed at Riku for taking part in that, but after talking with Jordan he quickly forgave the Sandslash after seeing Zack sort of comfort him. He resumed his routine after that and upon going to Mahogany he met with Lake and Stratus yet again after seeing Gex, Jordan, Zap and Riku boasting about him, they had a small chat where him and Lake planned on having a rematch soon, he then left with Zap. He was also present at the Ice Path exploration after noticing that the others had been gone for a while and decided to search for them at the Ice Path where they found out that they, along with Lake and Stratus, were being attacked by a Mamoswine, Stratus ran away with the others, leaving Duke and Lake to fight the mammonth, Duke managed to withstand an Earthquake from it and still fight back, it wasn't until Riku appeared to distract the Pokémon that they won the fight. After all that, Duke learned about what Stratus and Lake were doing and decided to help them collect the ice rock samples from the cave along with Riku, after doing that Duke was present during the revelation of Sakura's attribute and after saying good-bye to Lake and Stratus, they went back to Mahogany.

PEFE Exp

After Lyuri and the others were called to PEFE, Duke and the kids decided to know more about the place while trying to stay close to each other, needlesly to say, they got separated, Duke, Riku and Zap were in the Tropical Module when the blackout happened and met Elise there as she was attacked by a wild Blaziken, they helped her go fight it and after everything was done, they decided to follow Elise to the Aquatic Module, eventually meeting with more people and finding Gex and Pyry, however, Riku and Zap got knocked out in a battle against a Haxorus and Duke, along with Pyry, Jordan and Gex, let the others solve the problem happening on the island while they took care of the uncounscious mons, after everything was done with, Lyuri returned from her own adventure reunited with him and the others, they then left the island shortly after being reunited and meeting with Saif, a new teammate.

Relationships

Humans

Duke is incredibly loyal to Lyuri and does everything he can for her, while also being the one to put her back on the right path if she starts doing something bad, the two are quite close to each because of that, which is also helped by Duke being the strongest out of Lyuri's Pokémon. Upon becoming human, this friendship grew to Lyuri to the point of her going against her own beliefs and falling in love with him while he was completely unaware of it, however, upon her confession, Duke accepted being her boyfriend out of the belief that this would be a way to repay Lyuri for everything she did for him and the others and because he started to develop his own feelings for her. She's also his apprentice when it comes to Aura, and while training they don't think of each other as a couple, and more like master and pupil, like they should.

Sakura, being Lyuri's sister, is also good friends with Duke, both having a lot of respect for each other, Duke is fond of Sakura's kindness and optimistic way of being, while she's impressed by his battle prowess, both hold each other in high regards.

Duke is also Herbert's Aura mentor and friend, they're on good terms with each other and he doesn't seem to mind Herbert's snarky tendencies as much as others like Lyuri do, taking everything in a mostly light-hearted way, with time, Duke also started to guide Herbert by helping him to deal with his inner problems and telling him of his own experiences to try and make him understand what is better for him in his view-point to get him to consider or reconsider some decisions, as such, he became an even bigger mentor figure to the boy.

Duke also gets along very well with Jacob, being unaware of the earlier complications between him, Sakura and Lyuri, as such he didn't have as much of a bad impression of him as Lyuri did and was quite friendly to him and upon learning about his problems, Duke did his best to help him grow out of them the way he could, while also just having friendly interactions with him, the two of them never had any issues with each other and are stil in very good terms with each other.

Other human friends of Duke's include Rawst, Elise, Sam and Hikari.

Pokémon

Duke considers Riku his little brother, as such they're very close to each other, Duke being very protective of him and hurting him being one of the few ways to truly anger him, Riku frequently makes Duke look better than what he himself thinks he is, but he still appreciates that he thinks of him that way, on the other hand, he's frequently trying to make the Sandslash become more confident and assertive, something that has been somewhat successful, though his wasn't the biggest influence on that. They have grown a bit distant of each other when he became human, but not by much as they still hang around sometimes.

He's also the teacher of Jordan and Gex, helping them to become better battlers, being two recently caught Pokémon, Duke was a bit unsure at first, but he took the challenge upon himself and accepted, similarly to Riku, the two often exaggerate on how good Duke is, much to his embarrassment. He thinks of Jordan as a bit of an odd Pokémon, but also the most reliable of Riku's friends outside of Riku himself; he considers Gex to be a rather troublesome Pokémon, but he still cares deeply about him and worries a lot about his well-being, though it's something he normally doesn't show much.

Zack considers himself to be Duke's rival, but the feeling isn't mutual as Duke thinks of rivalries as a waste of time and potential, this doesn't stop Zack of being a rather rebelious Pokémon when around him and frequently trash-talking him, while Duke dislikes his arrogant attitude, he doesn't really hold it against him and just tries to ignore him the best he can, however it's doesn't work sometimes, Zack is also pretty much the only Pokémon of Lyuri's team that was able to anger him and that only made Zack more and more eager to try and anger him so that he could force him into a battle.

Lake and Duke are also good friends and both consider each other to be strong battlers, they tend to help each other be it because there's some big trouble happening or just because they want to help each other to get something done faster, in either case they'll do what they can to help and Duke also looks forward to battling with Lake again someday.

During his stay as a human, Duke also "caught" Blake, their relationship is a bit of an odd one as Duke himself didn't do anything to make the Murkrow like him, but that didn't stop him from keeping himself close to him and frequently staying on his shoulder as a pet bird, Blake frequently mimics Duke's gestures and other actions such as sighing, a behavior that he thinks of as stranger or in the very least unique, due to the Murkrow not talking at all, it's hard for them to have a more open relationship, but they still get along fairly well.

He's also friends with pretty much everyone of his team, acting as a leader for them at the same time, other than them, his Pokémon friends include Grant, Seth and Stratus.

Trivia

• He reads the same comics as Lyuri.
• He has been a tutor for both Pokémon and Humans, though in different subjects in a way.
• As a human, he's frequently doing things such as jumping from trees and cliffs, mostly because he wants to make sure he's still in a good shape.