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How long was he supposed to be without 'strenuous activities,' as they had phrased it? He didn't remember distinctly, but he knew that it was much too long to be sensible. It was his right arm that had been damaged, after all, not his left. His dominant arm remained quite usable, and it was that thought that brought Luke to Camphoreon's large beach in the early afternoon.

Though warm weather had overtaken much of Kodo, it was far from summer, and the population of the beach reflected the season. Those who had made the visit sought shelter in nearby shops to escape the bitterly cold sea breeze, leaving great spans of the area devoid of human life. It was a nice change of scenery from the park and the grassy outskirts, and a jacket, paired with the promise of physical activity, warded off the cold.

Luke stood upon the shores in one such jacket, his sword grasped in his left hand in preparation for one such promise. Team Rocket wouldn't take time off to wait for his arm to heal to its full capabilities, and so he wouldn't take time off from practicing and ensuring that he was ready to defend. His now-damaged right arm, usually used for the purpose of balance, remained firmly at his side out of a physical instinct, and his swing was awkward for it. He swung nonetheless, though, each lunge just slightly more graceful than the last.

The sudden voice commanded a pause, and Luke lowered his sword and half-turned to see who had called his name, his breathing only slightly labored from the previous exercise. He recognized the individual's form with ease, and he straightened his posture slightly in preparation for the conversation he anticipated to follow. "Hey," he greeted simply - he didn't know Dith all that well, and though he knew tell of him to be generally positive, he was still rather uncomfortable with the unfamiliarity. "Yeah, not really beach weather, I guess. The park's getting kind of stale, though, so why not."

Luke frowned, his stance autonomously shifting into a slight aggression. If he'd wanted to hear that, he would have stayed at the hospital in Sandalwood - or at least around Camphoreon where Guy would undoubtedly tell him something similar. He refused eye contact, turning a disaffected gaze to the horizon. "I'm not gonna trip," his defiance manifested in his tone. "And even if I did, I'd fall in sand."

He returned his full attention to Dith, still frowning, "Well what's the other option? I wait around and do nothing for however long and then mess up when Team Rocket attacks because I haven't been practicing?" He breathed a short, frustrated sigh, lowering green eyes to the sand. "I can risk the small chance of getting hurt now from practicing versus the guarantee of getting hurt later from not being able to to defend myself properly - or that someone else will get hurt because I wasn't prepared. I'm not just gonna stand around."

"It's not about being ready for single combat or whatever," he said, disregarding for the time being that Asch certainly carried a bladed weapon. "It's about reflexes, stamina, and responding to the environment. I can't even command pokemon well if I can't do that." Add to that, he just felt like a hypocrite standing around telling his pokemon to work hard when all he was doing was telling them what to do. It was frustrating, and it make him feel useless. He was through with feeling useless - that was why he was taking his swordsmanship so seriously now. He hated feeling so hesitant and inept all the time.

The foreign word went without acknowledgment for its lack of recognition, but the rest of the words were received with a distinctly bittern disposition. That bitterness, however, was directed more at himself than at Dith's encouragement. "It's the only thing I'm good at, and I'm not even that good. I don't want to keep losing to Asch." Not physically nor mentally. He was beyond sick of having his confidence stripped away so easily by his brother's cruel words.

Luke wasn't terribly comfortable with how much more easily he and Dith could meet one another's gazes now that the much taller man was seated, and he turned partway to the side to direct his focus elsewhere, his hand tensing and relaxing intermittently on the hilt of the sword he still held. "I don't claim to know myself all that well either," he said, though not without hesitation in the words, "but I know when I'm not good at something. I hate feeling useless. Hate it. A month's too long to just stand around and let everyone else do my part for me." Not that he even knew what 'his part' was supposed to be. Everything was frustrating, with or without taking the stupid arm into account.

He was starting to run out of things to say without repeating himself, but he was far from prepared to give in. It wasn't as though he didn't understand Dith's point of view, and he even understood that his company was probably (definitely) right, but nothing that was said could remove the feeling of helplessness - of being completely disarmed - that he had felt standing in the hospital room being hailed as a coward and having nothing to say in rebuttal. The memory was disheartening, and he deflated visibly as a result, fingers loosening around the sword's hilt before returning the blade to its sheath. "Fine, whatever."

Luke listened - half-heartedly, perhaps, but listening nonetheless - to the story Dith told. It sounded vaguely like a lesson, 'I was young and brazen once and now I'm telling you about it so you don't repeat the things I did,' and so the boy nearly dismissed it with a huff, but a thought struck him as the anecdote reached it's conclusion. "Do you get hurt like that often?" he asked, referencing the mishap at the contest alongside the two injuries Dith had mentioned while sharing his story.