Koga wasn't sure what to think of AJ when the kid first entered his room.
The boy spent several minutes searching through his items and bumping into walls before even acknowledging Koga's presence.
Once the two locked eyes, Koga gave his usual speech about his great power as a member of the Elite Four, but the kid didn't say a word, didn't so much as bat an eye. He just stared straight at Koga, gaze unchanging. He wasn't sure the kid ever blinked.
He only used a Feraligatr the first time. An unusual Pokemon choice, as Totodiles were so rare that they were found in research labs more often than in the wild. The Feraligatr packed a punch, taking down several of Koga's Pokemon in one hit, but that's not what caught his attention.
No, it was the kid's checking his backpack in the middle of combat, but never actually using his healing items, even when he desperately needed them. One time his hand hovered over a medicine bottle, but instead landed on a Poke Ball, which he promptly threw at Koga's Muk.
In order to be admitted into Indigo Plateau, every challenger had to have gotten eight gym badges from the gyms of Johto. This kid was no exception; his credentials checked out, showing that he'd managed to take down even Clair. Such an achievement took both strength and skill. It was a rare Trainer that had that kind of raw talent.
And yet, the kid thought it was a good use of time to throw a Poke Ball at his opponent's Pokemon during their battle. And then to do it again, after Koga had knocked away the first Poke Ball and calmly but firmly explained that such conduct would not be tolerated in these hallowed halls.
The kid's Feraligatr fell to poison, the poison that he could have healed with any number of medicines in his bag but hadn't. Even as the Elite Four security came to throw him out of the room, he kept up gazing at Koga, wide-eyed, unblinking.
It was only as they checked the kid's belongings and found his Trainer Card that Koga learned his name was AJ. He hadn't spoken a word to Koga in that room, only a few brief to his own Pokemon.
The boy showed up again an hour later. His team was more varied this time, and the last Pokemon standing was not the Feraligatr from earlier, but a Pidgeot. A Pidgeot that, when poisoned and about to keel over from exhaustion, was ordered to use Whirlwind three times in a row rather than bothering to attack Koga's Pokemon at all.
Their third battle comes half an hour later. Koga found himself looking at his watch as the kid walked all around the room without challenging him. He examined the trees, went over to the doors he'd just came through and the doors that would open for him if he managed to win, hid in the room's corners… The battle was relatively unremarkable after that. It was only the Feraligatr again, and after felling much of Koga's team, it collapsed, its strength sapped by poison. Koga began to wonder why this AJ kid even bothered carrying around medicines when he never seemed to use any of them.
Half an hour later, his Ariados took out AJ's Espeon before it even got to use a proper attack.
Well, you can't say he isn't persistent.
The times between each battle become more irregular, preventing Koga from taking a bit of time to rest. He came back in ten minutes, then almost forty minutes after that loss, then just under half an hour… The constant challenges might be less frustrating if they weren't so irregular in timing, but then, nothing this kid seemed to do was regular.
What kind of Trainer neglected to give his ailing Pokemon the bountiful medicine in his bag when they were most in need? Was he just that greedy? But that wouldn't explain his throwing Poke Balls mid-battle, or his looking at useless items before many of his moves, or constantly checking the Balls that contained his fainted Pokemon…
Koga searched for a method to the kid's madness, but there seemed to be no pattern to his actions at all. It was chaos, pure and utter chaos. Like nothing he'd ever seen before…
Except that, when he thought about it, something about this boy's pattern of his actions, or rather their entirely lacking a pattern, seemed familiar in a way he couldn't quite put his finger on.
Koga was starting to get tired of the kid's challenges. He could be spending his time taking other, more serious challengers, or honing his Pokemon's skills further… and instead, he was forced to waste his valuable time waiting on AJ. Waiting as AJ wandered around Koga's room, getting trapped in corners, running into the closed doors repeatedly. Waiting as AJ consulted his golden Poke Ball and checked his items and Pokemon over and over before finally deciding on a move that was probably utterly useless. Waiting as security dragged him away, and then waiting for his next challenge, because it seemed as though this kid had no intention of cutting his losses and trying again when he'd grown stronger. Maybe he was too stupid or stubborn to realize that giving up and coming back after further training rather than having to get thrown out of the esteemed halls of the Elite Four every few minutes was even an option.
On the eighth attempt, Koga finally asked some of the questions that had been bubbling up in his mind, though he fully expected that, given the kid's muteness and lack of response to anything but his battles, he wouldn't get a reply.
"Why do you keep trying?"
The kid didn't even look up as he grabbed another Poke Ball from his bag, apparently ready to let it suffer the same fate as its compatriots, the pieces of which were starting to form a large pile on the room's floor.
"Why don't you just go back home?"
AJ looked up now, standing up, the Poke Ball falling from his hand to the ground and breaking in half.
"Can't you stop wasting my tim, and come back when you're more prepared? I mean, you don't honestly think you stand a chance at beating us right now, do you?"
Slowly, carefully, AJ nodded, the first meaningful gesture Koga could remember seeing from the kid.
The Elite Four member couldn't help but laugh. "You- you think you can get past us? Seven times I've beaten you now, and you think you can defeat not only me, but Bruno and Karen after me, and even the Champion? You must be crazy, kid!" Koga knew he was being a bit harsh on the boy, but whether AJ realized it or not, his inane challenges were preventing the Elite Four from getting any real work done. "Crazy or stupid, or maybe both! But you need to get out of your little fantasy world and realize that there's no way you're winning this one!"
The two made eye contact. The kid's eyes had been dull, unfocused, but now Koga thought he saw something that hadn't been there before- a fire, a certain glint to them. And the boy smiled.
AJ's commands to his Pokemon seemed just a little bit louder and sterner now, a small bit of emotion breaking through that eerie monotone.
And slowly but surely, in between the kid's constantly playing with objects completely irrelevant to the battle at hand, Koga's Pokemon fell.
Koga could only stare in shock as a burst of water from the kid's Feraligatr took his Crobat down. He hadn't prepared another Pokemon for the battle, hadn't expected he'd need anything but these five.
AJ had won.
It took Koga a minute to process this information and realize that he should be saying something to AJ, congratulating him on winning the battle, conceding his own defeat.
He spit the words out. "You have proven your worth."
The kid just kept smiling.
It took AJ a few minutes to leave the room and proceed to the hall where Bruno awaited him, and as the kid stumbled around the room, Koga couldn't help but wonder where he had gone wrong. How had a bumbling kid managed to defeat his carefully-chosen team? Was it just dumb luck?
Or was there a method to his madness after all?
He heard, or thought he heard, a caw, the bird's cry leaking in from the other room through the wall. It was the Pidgeot, of course, the kid's Pidgeot…
And that's when it all fell into place.
Koga had fought another kid like this, almost the same age as AJ, who also hadn't said a word and moved irrationally and lacked any semblance of a battle strategy.
That kid had had a Pidgeot, too.
And despite it all, through sheer force of will, his persistent challenges had paid off. In the end, no matter who he faced, that boy had always won.
Maybe this kid would turn out the same. Maybe he'd prove them all wrong and become the Champion, just like Red had. Maybe he had it in him to win the whole thing after all.
Koga was actually somewhat surprised when AJ walked through the doors to his room again an hour later.
He sighed. This was going to be a long night.