To make up for my long absense, here's the Gym Leader AU that no one asked for. It's Generation 7, but set in Sinnoh rather than Alola, because I can remember the names of the places in Sinnoh without having to look them up on Bulbapedia. Here's a short guide to who's who and what gym they run just before we start:

Gym Leaders

• Ruri – Flying types – Oreburgh City

• Serena – Dark types – Eterna City

• Yuya – Dragon types – Veilstone City

• Yugo – Electric types – Pastoria City

• Yuzu – Fairy types – Hearthome City

• Yuto – Ghost types – Canalave City

• Rin – Ice types – Snowpoint City

• Yuri – Poison types – Sunnyshore City

Elite Four

• Sawatari – Bug types

• Gongenzaka – Fighting types

• Kurosaki – Steel types

• Reira – Psychic types

• Reiji

Gym Demolition

"Can you believe this, Yuya?!"

Yuya largely ignored Yugo teleporting into the room in which he was in. He preoccupied with trying to feed his very stubborn Zweilous, which was much easier said than done.

"Yuya! Hey! Talking to you!" Yugo barked, striding across the room whilst shoving the map from Yuzu that dictated how to safely navigate the warp panels to the gym leader's room into his pocket. "Yuzu's not here! Have you seen her?"

"Well obviously, Yugo" Yuya stated a little too cheerfully considering the twin heads of his Zweilous were attempting to snatch the same chunk of food from each other. "After all, I am inside her gym after all. Did you think I had my own key?"

It wouldn't at all be surprising if Yuya did have a key to Yuzu's gym, in Yugo opinion. It was no secret that whilst Yuya was the Veilstone Gym leader and had been since his father's retirement, he'd been all but living at the Hearthome Gym ever since Yuzu took it over, besides the rare nights the pair spent at the Veilstone Gym. Sora was all but running the Veilstone instalment at the moment and had to call Yuya every time a challenger made it to the gym leader's podium. It was getting somewhat ridiculous. But then again, if Yugo didn't live the entire width of Sinnoh away from Rin, he'd spend as much time as possible at her gym too.

"But the monthly gym leader meeting's about to start and she's not even in her own gym!" Yugo pointed out, his Magnemite doing lazy circles of his head, sparking ominously when Yugo ignored him in favour of the ongoing Yuzu crisis. "Rin's going to be so mad if she'd not here when she turns up! Do you think she's forgotten?"

She couldn't have forgotten. The monthly gym leader meeting was held on the last day of every month, and the gym leaders would trade responsibilities for holding it. Yugo had held it at the Pastoria Gym last month, so it was obviously Yuzu's turn now. Why would she leave the gym if she knew the other gym leaders were turning up? Maybe to get cleaning supplies? But the whole gym was spotless, and none of the gym's trainer seem to know anything about the missing gym leader going on an errand. In fact, all the trainers appeared to be usually shy, and tried to dodge any questions about where Yuzu might have gone or even if they'd seen her that morning.

"What's with you, anyway?" he had to ask "You're really quiet today. Something happen?"

Yuya didn't exactly reply. Just hmmmed as he threw another piece of food into the air for the second Zweilous head to stop the fight between the two heads.

Yugo figured it out a second before his Magenmite, who began beeping in distress as it anxiously retreated towards the warp panel again. Yugo himself turned pale as he pieced together Yuya's unusual attitude, Yuzu's disappearance and the gym trainers' reluctance to talk.

"No, don't tell me. Did you two have a fight ag—"

"I don't have a clue what you're talking about, Yugo" Yuya declared with a smile that was far too insincere to put Yugo at ease as he patted his Zweilous on its twin heads "Now would you like to pet Odd-Eyes here? I promise you, he doesn't bite, unless it's people he doesn't like."

The long beep that Yugo's Magnemite let out could only be described as a plea for mercy.

"Yuto! Turn the lights on! We needto talk to you!"

Ruri squinted into the darkness of the Canalave Gym, dodging a levitating book that idled across the vertically spacious room. Shun glowered at the book as it turned around and levitated right over his head, looking like it wanted to hit him over the head before it thought better of it, bobbing off into the darkness.

"I can get Raptor out" Shun suggested "Have him drag the guy down here by his stupid hair."

Ruri rolled her eyes and placed a restraining hand on his shoulder, her Talonflame tweeting disapprovingly at him. "Relax, he's going to have to be at the gym leader's meeting soon. He has to leave at some point."

She turned her gaze upward to where she knew Yuto probably was at this second. In the past, the Canalave Gym had been owed by steel type gym leader Dr Faker. When he had retired, it had been expected that his son Kaito would take over the gym. Kaito had dismissed the idea and had taken off to run the Battle Tower over at the Battle Frontier, turning the running of the gym over to a reluctant Yuto. Yuto, as a ghost type user, had decided to keep the original layout of the gym, but turn the lights off and supply torches to potential challengers, as well as allow his Mismagius to levitate some books to fly around the building. It was not a popular decision – enough people found the gym hard to navigate without risking life and limb by falling five stories from the platforms because they couldn't see the edge in the dark, or because they got pegged on the head by a flying book.

Like the one that was harassing Ruri's Talonflame right now.

"YUTO!" Ruri called into the gym. God, this was why she didn't like visiting. With her gym being first on Sinnoh's official journey route, her gym had a simple layout that involved no flying books and Ruri was happy to keep it that way.

Finally, Yuto appeared into the light of the doorway, eyes blinking because he was an idiot who stood in the dark all day. His eternally present Mismagius was snickering over his shoulder and Shun looked like he was seriously debating reaching over and throttling the little troublemaker.

"I thought the meeting was in Hearthome?" Yuto frowned.

"It is" Ruri confirmed "But we stopped by here first."

Yuto glanced down at his Pokétch with a frown. "Er…I'd invite you in, but we've gotta get going, haven't we? It's supposed to start in—"

"We're not coming in" Shun interrupted him, folding his arms over his chest "This is an intervention, Yuto."

Yuto's frown deepened and he looked like he was considering every possible definition of the word 'intervention'.

"It's about your Pokémon" Ruri clarified.

The Mismagius' face fell and it burrowed into Yuto's neck protectively. Yuto placed a hand on its head, glancing between the Kurosaki siblings with a look of disapproval.

"What about them?" he asked, darkly.

The siblings looked between each other, appearing to be daring each other to speak first. Apparently Shun lost, as he sighed moodily and looked Yuto dead in the eye.

"Yuto, they're too overpowered."

Yuto didn't seem to process that at first, staring at Shun like the older boy had a fly on the end of his nose.

"Look, we understand you've had that same line-up since you took over the gym" Ruri explained "But they've been levelling up ever since and…well…"

"They're too strong" Shun finished the sentence bluntly.

Yuto still didn't appear to understand still. "And I'm proud of them for that."

"Yeah, yeah, we know, that's great" Ruri explained "But problem's…well, you—"

"You have a level 47 Mimikyuu" Shun told him.

Apparently the Mismagius caught on, as it started sniggering sinisterly. Shun glared at the Pokémon but that just made it snigger more.

"And…" Yuto was still confused.

"And you can't have Pokémon that strong" Ruri informed him "You're fifth in line, so that people can get your badge without having to travel all the way along Mt Coronet first and then head over to Sunnyshore City on the way to the league. But your Pokémon are even stronger than Rin's and are catching up to Yuri's. Reiji's getting anxious that they're too…overpowered."

"Level. 47. Mimikyuu." Shun stressed the words as if to drill the severity of his point into Yuto's skull.

Yuto still didn't looked impressed, eyes darting between the siblings as if he was silently debating which one to chew out first. Finally, he turned to Shun.

"Says the man who had to be forced by Reiji to 'use variety'" he recalled.

Shun's jaw tensed. He had done his best to forget that one time he'd all but insisted on using a team of six Skarmory in his elite four battles. Yuto seemed to be incapable of forgetting that one particular phase of his life.

"Look" Ruri sighed "If it was us, we wouldn't have said anything. But it's Reiji, and he's the one who makes the rules. He's not saying get rid of your Pokémon, just find some weaker ones for the challengers. I have to do it every couple of weeks, what with how lower-levelled Pokémon level up so quickly."

Yuto seemed slightly placated by Ruri's words, petting his Mismagius on the head gently. "I love them all."

"We do too, buddy" Shun told him, though still wearily eyeing the Mismagius that was sticking its tongue out at him "But we've gotta give the challengers a chance. Yuri's been so bored lately that he caused a chemical spill into the ocean just so that he'd have something to do."

A smirk of amusement spread across Yuto's face at the mention of Yuri's extra-curricular activities. The problem with being the final gym before the league was that challengers had to fight through seven gyms before they got to you. Naturally, Yuri was prone to fits of boredom from time to time and when you mixed a bored poison-type user with a city that was historically used to putting up with the antics of exceptionally bored gym leaders, it wasn't ever going to end well.

"So, maybe consider retiring some of them from gym battles?" Ruri suggested.

Yuto considered the idea with a small nod. "I'll think about it."

Ruri considered that confirmation enough. If Yuto didn't go through with it, then Reiji couldn't complain she and Shun hadn't tried. Then it was his problem.

"Alright then!" she cheered, clapping her hands together "Let's get this show on the road! Ready to go?"

"Uh…yeah" Yuto confirmed, checking his bag and his Pokéballs "Are you coming too, Shun?"

"Yeah, why not" Shun shrugged "Shuin'in's hanging around the league again. Apparently I must solve my disputes with him with words, not by having Raptor drop him into the ocean twenty miles from shore."

If the residents of Canalave City heard laughter ringing from the sky as two gym leaders and an elite four member flew away towards the east, then they at least had the decency not to mention it to Shuin'in.

"Yuzu and Yuya had a fight! Everyone run for your lives!"

It was early on a Tuesday morning and Serena was barely awake, yawning and stretching as she stumbled into the Hearthome Gym. She'd been up most of the night evolving her Eevee into an Umbreon and had completely forgotten the date, leading to her only getting three hours sleep before having to appear at the monthly gym leader meeting.

The trials of running the only dark-type gym in the known world.

That being said, even if she had been fully awake, she may not have noticed the panicked Magnemite before it crashed into her face.

Yelping with surprise, Serena crashed to ground, narrowly avoiding landing on her Bisharp as she collapsed in a heap of limbs.

"What the hell?!" she yelled as the Magnemite kept flying towards the door, not even fazed by the impact, whirring in what sounded like distress. As she tried to get up, she was knocked down again as this time a human run into her, her Bisharp sounding its disapproval as it shook one of its fists towards the fleeing human.

Rolling over to try and get up again, Serena saw the potential disaster about to occur in the doorway of the gym.

"Rin, look out!" she called out.

Rin paused mid-step, ducking to the side to avoid a fleeing Magnemite before reaching her arm out to grab someone trying to bolt from the gym wearing a Riding Pokémon suit that they'd brought back on a previous trip to Alola. Rin would recognise it anywhere – she'd been there when he bought it.

"Hello Yugo" she said casually as she held the human who had just knocked Serena down in place with one arm "What seems to be the problem?"

Yugo recognised the voice, checked the girl in question to confirm it was who he thought it was, and then grinned with delight. "Rin-Rin!"

Yugo's Magnemite finally seemed to notice its trainer wasn't following it and it ground to a halt, spinning on the spot and hurrying back towards Yugo.

Rin seemed amused by the trail of destruction Yugo had managed to lay out before her, and she was delighted to see him after far too many weeks of video calls only, but there was clearly some reason why he was on the run and she probably wasn't going to like it.

"What the hell, man?!" Serena protested, storming towards the pair with a look of murder in her eyes "Did you not see me or something?!"

Yugo's eyes widened with horror as the previous thirty seconds flashed before his eyes. "Oh my Arceus! I am so sorry! I-I was just trying to run before disaster struck and—"

"What disaster?" Rin cut him off "What did you do?"

"It wasn't me!" Yugo insisted "Yuzu and Yuya had a fight!"

Silence reigned for a good few seconds. Then Yugo's Magnemite started zapping Yugo's shoulder with frustration and Serena's Bisharp began pulling on her trousers with a look of worry.

"Is it too late to get away from Hearthome?" Serena suggested, looking up at the blue skies hanging over Sinnoh's second largest city. They didn't appear all that reassuring, knowing a major disaster on scale with a Groudon-awakening event could be about to take place.

"Maybe we can call the others, postpone the meeting?" Yugo suggested "I mean, Yuto and Ruri are probably travelling together. And I'm sure if we called Yuri he'd answer. We could get everyone else to turn around right now."

"Wait, this is Yuzu's city, right?" Rin pointed out "But I'm not seeing her Togekiss flying around."

The other two peered up at the sky. Sure enough, the white blob that was always soaring across the Hearthome sky was notably absent.

"That means Yuzu's not here, right?" Rin added.

Serena thought about it, and had to acknowledge the point. If that Togekiss was gone, then Yuzu definitely wasn't in the city. That could mean a bunch of things though. It could mean she was cooling off, but it could also mean she was on her way to Stark Mountain to trigger an eruption that would blanket Sinnoh in five feet of ash. That was the hazard of Yuzu and Yuya's relationship – most of the time, they were good for each other; but when they did fight, the results were explosive.

Before Serena could vocalise her thoughts, a shiver went up her spine as she felt something slimy land on her head. Rin and Yugo's eyes widened with horror, confirming her worst fears. Craning her neck back, she glared up at the top of the doorway, glaring up at the Goomy that was perched there, laughing.

"You little pest" she growled with a menacing look in her eyes "Go back to Mummy, or whatever."

Frustratingly, the Goomy didn't even seemed phased. It just kept laughing, much to her anger.

Serena's eye twitched, and Yugo and Rin winced in tandem. Everyone in Sinnoh with half a brain knew what The Eye Twitch meant.

Without budging another facial muscle, Serena released her Weavile from its Pokéball. "Weavie. Use Ice Shard."

The Goomy's face fell as the Weavile's face simultaneously broke into a grin. With a shriek of alarm, the Goomy jumped from the doorway to the floor to avoid the stream of icy arrows, slithering across the floor as the Weavile chased it into the gym, Serena cheering her Pokémon on the whole way.

Neither Rin nor Yugo said anything for a long while, just stood there, watching the carnage. Finally, Rin vocalised her thoughts in a monotone voice.

"Yugo, go find Yuri" she told him.

Yugo frowned, confused. "Er…why?"

"Because I need someone to distract Yuya whilst you look for Yuzu" she explained, walking it the gym to try and break up the ongoing fight between dragon and dark types "And if there's one thing Yuri's good at, its being distracting."

Most of the champions had various titles bestowed upon them based on their reign at the top of that particular region's league. Alder was the oldest champion. Green Oak had the shortest reign. Lance was the only champion of a region to have never beaten the previous champion (Red had conveniently gone missing and Lance was selected to fill his spot at the head of the Kanto and Johto leagues.

Reiji, to the surprise of many, wasn't the youngest champion. Though some disbelieved it, Reiji hadn't become the champion of the Sinnoh league until he was thirteen, though Reira had achieved the same thing by the age of ten, albeit it he turned down the opportunity to take Reiji's throne. Instead Reiji was known as the toughest champion – in the three years he'd been champion, he'd been defeated exactly once, by Reira. The reason the Sinnoh league produced some of the greatest trainers in the world was because Reiji was so tough to beat. Most people who had made it through the elite four were content to let that be the end of their winning streak – just getting the chance to face Reiji was enough of an honour.

Though his reputation did have an unfortunate side effect – not many people were willing to challenge the Sinnoh league when they knew they'd have a much easier time in other regions. Which meant that, particularly the elite four, had very little to do all day.

Which lead to bouts of boredom.

Like this one.

Reiji pushed his glasses up his nose and stared at the carnage before him. "Why?"

The kitchen of Lily of the Valley Island had been completely upturned. There was chocolate syrup on the floor and mayonnaise on the walls. The table was a mess of baking powder and batter. The oven was beeping in distress and billowing black smoke. There was a big black lump thing in the middle of the table covered in what looked like icing sugar. As were the four faces surrounding it.

"Nii-San!" Reira gasped, automatically drawing the attention of the other three.

Sora Shuin'in, the league's most frequent visitor that may as well have moved in by this point, grinned up at Reiji with teeth covered in cake batter. "Hey Akaba Senior! How's your day going?"

"What did you do to my kitchen?" Reiji asked, his voice low and serious.

Shuin'in's grin faltered and he appeared to swallow nervously. Sawatari and Gongenzaka shared a look of worry and Reira dipped his head.

"We…er…" Gongenzaka tried to find the words and failed. The fighting-type user had been at the league almost as long as Reiji had and Reiji was happy to have someone as level headed as he was around on a daily basis, to balance the sheer insanity he had to put up with from Kurosaki and Sawatari (and more recently, Shuin'in). But he wasn't exactly brilliant at thinking on his feet either.

"Well it would've gone much better if I was put in charge" Sawatari proclaimed, which at least reassured Reiji that not all normalcy had been thrown out the window.

The general understanding from the public was that Shingo Sawatari had used his political connections to usurp the previous elite four bug-type user and take his place. What actually happened was there had been a deep falling out between Dennis, Sawatari's predecessor, and the elite four's resident steel-type user, Kurosaki. Reiji didn't particularly understand what the disagreement was about, other than apparently Kurosaki's sister, the Oreburgh City gym leader, was somehow involved. Regardless, Reiji couldn't have his elite four at each other's throats every working day. So, after consulting with Gongenzaka and Reira, it was decided Dennis would be asked to leave, with a recommendation he try out to run a facility at the Battle Frontier, hoping that an entire sea being placed between them would end the pointless feud.

With Dennis' departure being so sudden, Reiji needed to find a replacement, quickly. Yuya recommended his old friend Shingo Sawatari as a replacement. Reiji had had his doubts, mostly over the fact Sawatari had never held a position as a gym leader let alone an elite four member before, but agreed Sawatari could stand in as a temporary placeholder until a suitable replacement could be found.

A year and half later, Sawatari was still the elite four's fourth member.

Yeah, Reiji could see where the rumours were coming from. For an elite four member to have never held a gym leader position before was almost unheard of (almost, except for Reira. But then again, Reira could easily have taken Reiji's champion spot should he wish it and making him a gym leader seemed like too much as an insult for a trainer for his calibre). And maybe Sawatari had been around too long, and it was time to finally find a real replacement for Dennis' position. The other elite four members seemed to have made their minds up, what with Sora hanging around Lily of the Valley island to visit Reira more often than usual and Kurosaki had been casually bringing up the Battle Factory's Head Crow Hogan's name in conversation a lot lately, but Reiji hadn't quite been able to show Sawatari the door yet. The bug-type user had good strategies considering he championed what was considered to be the weakest archetype, and had a wide move pool that not many people expected of bug type Pokémon. Despite his attitude, Sawatari was as good as Yuya had recommended.

Just, obviously not good at whatever trial had been attempted here.

"What would have gone better?" he asked, looking directly at Sawatari. Sawatari immediately balked under the pressure and looked away, his head all but being tucked into his neck. Even attention-grabbers sometimes knew when it was in their best interests to shut up.

Finally, Reira put everyone out of their misery and pushed the burnt lump of dough towards him nervously.

"Happy birthday, Nii-San" he declared.

Reiji didn't know how to react. Surprise? Joy? Disapproval? Was it even his birthday?

"Kurosaki said to say happy birthday for him" Gongenzaka added.

Huh? It was his birthday, wasn't it? He'd completely forgotten it was today. Not that he'd ever properly celebrated a birthday before. His parents certainly weren't the type to celebrate such trivial things and he'd spent the last three years living at the league. Until Reira arrived on the scene eight months ago, no one there had ever even asked about a birthday. Reiji found he was…oddly touched that they'd tried to do something special for him.

Glancing down the…cake, he smiled up at the four people standing around the table like a bunch of children whose hands had been caught in the cookie jar.

"Thank you" he told them sincerely.

A collective sigh of relief was let out around the room.

"Though perhaps, next time" he recommended, patting Reira on the head "Just buy a cake?"

"Where's the fun in that?" Shuin'in protested "It's not that bad – you just have to pick the black bits off!"

Reiji was sure that constituted the whole cake, but Shuin'in appeared determined to prove his point and began, sure enough, picking the black bits off, trying to find a part of the cake that wasn't burnt.

"You're ruining it!" Sawatari all but screamed as Gongenzaka's hands hovered nearby, unsure whether to grab Shuin'in hands to save the cake or declare it a lost cause.

Reiji couldn't help but chuckle. If he had to celebrate his birthday with anyone, he wouldn't protest at it being these four.

"So, let me guess. She finally left you for actual dragon tamer. Let me guess. Lance? Or was it Claire?"

Yuya's smile became even more plastic as he produced a Piloswine-sized stack of paperwork that all had to be covered in the meeting agenda. If Yuzu was going to be a child and disappear suddenly without any warning, then it fell to Yuya to do the unpleasant task of paperwork.

Behind him came a Kommo-o, pushing a cart filled with even more paperwork. It was visibly straining until a Garchomp came along to help it out. They entered the room at the back of the Hearthome Gym, where Yuzu could have her office out of sight of the public areas of the gym. Hanging one of the walls was a photo of Yuzu and Yuya and their teams, which got updated every time their little family grew. Yuya dared not call attention to it or Yuri would see it and Yuya had had enough people making his life miserable today.

Yuri's Roserade and Salazzle looked at each other and Yuri had no doubt that if they could raise their eyebrows at the massive amount of paperwork then they would. He was almost tempted to do it himself because that was probably most of the Lush Forrest right there on that cart. Instead, he whistled appreciatively and took a photo of Yuya with the Mt Coronet of paper.

"What are you doing" Yuya mumbled, his voice so flat it would simply be a crime to put a question mark there.

"Sending this to Dennis – he has the most Twitter followers" Yuri told him, doing exactly that as he spoke "With any luck your errant girlfriend will see it and get her butt back here before Serena razed her gym to ground because I am not taking the blame for that."

"There was no doubt about that, Yuri" Yuya informed him dryly, sighing down at all the paperwork before him. He sat down in Yuzu's chair, a Jangmo-o jumping up into his lap and curling up there, waiting to be petted.

Yuri pursed his lips, not pleased with the lack of reaction he got. Usually Yuya was among the most fun people to prod, due to the fact Yuri was always guaranteed a reaction. But 'depressed, mumbling' Yuya wasn't picking up the cards.

"So, what was the great tempest about, anyhow?" Yuri asked, a snippy tone to his voice to indicate just out annoyed being left out of the gossip loop made him feel "I turned up and everyone's acting all edgy and won't tell me anything. Personally I think I'm the person in the best position to know – after all, I don't give a crap about either of your feelings."

It was such as Yuri thing to say that Yuya almost laughed despite himself. His face did break into a grin, delighting his Pokémon who had been worry about his mental state all morning.

"I'm sorry they dragged you into this, Yuri" he chuckled "I'm fine."

"If you were 'fine', you would've told me to smile already" Yuri retorted.

Yuya did actually laugh this time, although sheepishly. "I mean it, I'm alright. It's just…who just gets up and leaves in the morning without leaving a note or anything? I mean, she could be in trouble and I wouldn't even know about."

"Be honest, has she ever gotten herself into a situation she couldn't handle herself?" Yuri pointed out "She's not Dennis – you don't need to watch her to make sure she doesn't walk off the side of a building."

He wasn't joking. It had actually happened once. Hence Yuri all but blackmailing people to get the rights to the nearest gym to the league headquarters. Of course, that was before Dennis got himself kicked out of the league, but the point still stood. Yuzu and Dennis couldn't be more different people – Yuzu didn't need a guy to constantly be watching out for her.

Yuya levelled Yuri an unimpressed look. "Do you know what she tried to do last week? She tried to climb up to Spear Pillar. Alone. With only fairy-type Pokémon."

Ah. Okay. That was fairly stupid.

"How did the Bronzongs take it?" Yuri asked, entirely sarcastically.

"Not well" Yuya gritted his teeth to declare "Understand my worry?"

"Not at all" Yuri responded "I don't give a crap about your feelings, remember?"

Yuya laughed full heartedly at that. "Yuri, you are fantastic and you should never change."

"'Fantastic' wasn't quite what I was going for" Yuri told him "'Terrifying' or 'Sociopathic' would suffice."

"I apologise to your ego" Yuya told him, half-preoccupied searching through some files "Hey, can you help me find the file on letting the Eterna Gym have late hours?"

"I will personally kiss your feet if you get Serena to agree to that ridiculous request" Yuri informed him, keeping at the names on the front of the files despite himself "And I am not going to help you look through—" He paused and frowned at one of the files. "'Forum of discussion with regards to the use of the southern gyms to generate solar energy as to sustain their own use'. What the hell?"

"It's Gongenzaka's idea" Yuya explained "Yuzu and Yugo's gyms are the size of a football field each and they're just steel on their roofs. Not to mention they use more electricity than almost all the other gyms combined. And yours and Ruri's aren't far behind. He suggested we add solar panels to the roofs to generate electricity. I was going to ask you about it, actually. Since your city is the expert on managing solar power and all."

"Don't look at me – there are actual electricians that deal with that side of it; they're just glad the electric-type gym's moved away to be someone else's problem" Yuri snorted "Are you telling me the geothermal energy thing Akaba set up under Yugo's gym isn't producing enough power to run that idiot's light show? And we wonder why we don't get paid as much as other regions' gym leaders."

"It's just an idea" Yuya pointed out "It'll take careful organising if it's to go ahead – all of the southern gyms will have to close at some point, and we'll have to set up a time and date for each that likely to be the least disruptive to challengers."

"How come we're only hearing about this now?" Yuri frowned "I'm from Sunnyshore and I hadn't heard about this."

"Someone at the league mixed it up with an expansion for the Veilstone shopping centre – I only found it a few days ago" Yuya explained.

Yuri scoffed. "Paper-pushers. We should put them to work in the mines."

"I'm pretty sure Ruri would never approve for the Oreburgh mines to be used as a form of torture, but you could always raise the idea during the meeting" Yuya pointed out, now leafing through a file entitled 'Have Yuri and Rin switch gyms already' "I swear this is the fourth time Yugo's suggested this. Don't suppose you fancy a move to the arctic, do you? It would probably do some good for her to be nearby him. And you would be closer to Dennis. I know it would means you wouldn't be the final gym anymore, but…"

"I'll put some thought into it" Yuri stated, which Yuya took to mean 'Only when Yugo gets on his knees and begs me for it. And even then I'll still probably say no just to torture the guy some more'.

"Can you believe he actually got Candice to support his campaign?" Yuya wrinkled his nose as he read "Apparently Rin tried to enter the Snowpoint Temple. Not many people up there are happy about that. At least she has the excuse that she's not a Snowpoint native. And then there's this whole business with—"

Yuya was cut off by loud CRASH! outside the office.

Yuya instantly shot to his feet. "What was that?"

Yuri didn't answer – he was always making his way out of the office into the main gym area, his Pokémon just behind him. Yuya didn't hesitate to follow him.

What greeted him was a sobbing Goomy launching itself into his arms, a Weavile just behind it and the gym leaders Serena and Rin not far behind said dark type Pokémon, one cheering it on and the other telling the Pokémon to 'hold it!'.

Instantly the chasers all ground to a halt, staring up at Yuya with wide eyes, as Yuya himself levelled the three of them with a glare. As the Goomy continued to cry hysterically in Yuya's arms, the Weavile retreated to Serena's side, confirming its loyalties.

Serena took a deep breath before addressing Yuya. "Look, Yuya, that thing just dumped slime on my head. Look, you can see it running down my face, right now! I was just showing it a bit of discipline. No harm, no foul! Right?"

Yuya continued to say nothing, just glaring in Serena's general direction, as the Goomy frantically shook its head from side to side through its tears, appearing to deny Serena's recall of events. Yuri and Rin both felt the tension in the air, one edging back into the office and then other towards the warp tile that she had just come from.

Serena swallowed nervously, feeling the tension too. "Yuya, come on. We can settle this normally. That's no reason to act all pissy about it."

Without a word, Yuya released a Salamence from its Pokéball.

The Weavile recognised what was going to happen a split second before everyone else did, as it made a break towards Rin and the warp panel.

"Salamence. Hyper Beam."

The Salamence took aim and tried to hit the running Weavile with the bolt of energy from its mouth. It instead missed and hit Serena's Bisharp, knocking it out cold.

"Oh no you don't!" Serena declared, summoning about one of her Pokémon "Scrafty! Use Brick Break!"

As the Scrafty knocked his Salamence off balance, Yuya called for his Kommo-o, the had just pushed past Yuri to get out of the office. "Salamence! Kommo-o! Flamethrower!"

"Guys! Come on!" Rin protested, peeking out from behind the Abomasnow she had summoned as a barricade between herself and the raging battle "We're gym leaders! We have to be more mature about this and OH MY GOD!"

She yelped and ducked back behind her Abomasnow as a Flamethrower went flying over her head and hit the wall. The other Flamethrower hit the wall as well, causing Serena's two Pokémon to scatter for cover.

Yuri's Salazzle looked up at the ceiling before crying out with alarm, retreating with its master and its fellow teammate Roserade to take cover from what was about to happen.

Rin looked up and saw the problem immediately. The Hearthome gym had been originally designed as a ghost-type gym. Whilst some gyms, like Rin's, were fire-proofed to deal with this exact problem, this one was not. The amount of heat coming off of the twin Flamethrowers was starting to melt the thin steel walls and the ceiling above was starting was descend towards them.

"You've got to be kidding me!" she yelled out as her Abomasnow reached up to halt the ceiling's path to crushing them all.

Rin's cry caught the attention of Yuya and Serena, who then also clued on to the mortal danger there were in. Serena swore whilst Yuya silently debated whether it was worth attempting to save the gym or fleeing the place and grovelling to Yuzu later.

"Let's scadaddle!" Serena declared, and Yuya found that to be the best course of action.

"Starly! Air cutter!"

Several Air Cutter attacks hit the melting walls, causing them to crumple and the ceiling to fall faster. Rin's Abomasnow groaned under the immense weight and Yuya's Kommo-o lifted its hands up to help the ice-type Pokémon out a bit.

"Ruri!"

"Ruri, what are you doing?!"

Ruri, who had just teleported in via the warp panel behind Rin, glanced sheepishly around the room. "Oops, sorry. I thought we were demolishing the place so we didn't have to have the meeting."

"Oh yes! Demolishing the gym whilst we're in the very heart of it!" Serena shot back at her "Of course that's exactly what we're doing! How could anyone misinterpret that?!"

"We're all going to die" Shun stated rather calmly, frowning up at the falling ceiling of the room he had just arrived in.

"Mimikyuu! Chandlelure! Psychic! Jellicent! Hydro Pump!"

The ceiling glowed blue and started to rise again, to the relief of the Abomasnow and Kommo-o taking its weight, and the walls began to fold out again. A well-aimed Hydro Pump cooled the walls down before more damage could take place.

Everyone heaved a sigh of relief.

"Nice timing, Yuto" Shun remarked to the Canalave gym leader, who'd warped in just in time to save the day.

Yuto shrugged like it wasn't a big deal.

"Hey guys! Look who turned up!" Yugo also warped into the room, his happy smile falling as he took in the destruction "Whoa! What happened? Did Yuri finally snap and actually burn down Yuzu's gym?"

"He seriously went through on his threat?" Ruri all but laughed at the idea.

"I am responsible for none this!" Yuri insisted indignantly, marching out the office once he was certain the danger had passed "Blame these heathens for nearly killing us all!"

"What heavens? What are you talking about? And what happened to my gym? Rin, what happened here?"

Everyone turned in surprise to the warp panel again, where people had began moving more into the room because it was getting pretty crowded over there. To the surprise of many, it was the Hearthome City gym leader herself standing on the warp panel, surveying the room with a look of astonishment.

"Hey guys, look! Yuzu came back!" Yugo declared with a smile "She just waltzed in through the front door."

Yuya swallowed nervously, still holding his terrified Goomy in his arms. Most of the room was wondering how he was managing that, since they assumed the mass of smile was pretty heavy.

"Yuya…" he mumbled, bowing his head.

"Yuya!" Yuzu reacted with surprised, but didn't appear angry "You're here? I thought you were sleeping in today."

"…What?" Yuya stared at her with bafflement, the other leaders' heads moving between the couple as they spoke, like they were witnessing a verbal tennis match.

"Well since you were so tired last night that we had to stay in Veilstone, I figured you wouldn't be up for coming to the meeting today, so I wrote a note saying I'd attend the meeting for both of us – I left it with your lunch box" Yuzu helpfully explained.

Yuya winced. He'd been so upset about Yuzu leaving Veilstone without a word that he'd headed over to Hearthome without picking up his lunchbox.

Yuzu continued on, apparently not noticing the change in Yuya's expression. "I was flying here on Toge when some idiot riding a Charizard knocked us out of the sky and we ended up near Lake Valor. So I walked over to the Pokémon centre in Sunnyshore City and they agreed to look after Toge overnight and I started to walk back here. I was getting close to Pastoria when I just so happened I ran into one of those Roaming Pokémon – Azelf I think – and it was about to teleport off when I suggested it use Teleport on me and send me to Hearthome instead. I don't think it minded so long as it was left alone and I woke up in front of the Pokémon Centre down the street. Didn't expect to get here to see my gym on fire though. What happened?"

Most of the gym leaders were silent after the long ramble of an answer. Then Ruri and Yugo started to laugh, followed shortly by Yuto. The others all looked at each other with bemused smirks except for Shun, whose look of contempt portrayed exactly how he felt about Yuzu gang-pressing a legendary Pokémon into service as a glorified courier, Yuri, who didn't appear to care, and Yuya, who just looked relieved.

"So, you're not mad at me?" Yuya confirmed, looking like a thousand pound weight had just been lifted off of his shoulders.

"Of course not, silly" Yuzu all but laughed "Why would I be mad at you? You haven't even done anything wrong."

"I know – that's why I was so confused when you just disappeared" Yuya pointed out "Why didn't you call me or something?"

"My Pokétch got broken in the fall" Yuzu explained "Sorry – I was going to find someone with a Pokétch, but no one at the Lakefront Hotel had one and the trainers along the route were more preoccupied trying to battle me than help me out."

"Well that's that mystery solved" Rin remarked with a smile.

"See! I told you! Nothing to worry about!" Yugo declared, causing Rin and Serena to sweatdrop.

"But seriously, why's my gym on fire?" Yuzu frowned "Good thing Yuto's hosting the meeting next month. You can go burn down his gym instead."

"Mine's right on the waterfront with a state-of-the-art sprinkler system" Yuto told everyone, as if he was honestly expecting the same thing to happen to his gym next month, like it was some sort of bizarre monthly tradition to burn the hosting gym leader's gym down. "Nice try."

"Hey, would you look at that" Yuya remarked with his usual happy smile, looking around the room at everyone gathered "All eight of us are here! There's even an elite four member here to supervise! Now we can start the meeting! Who thinks we should start with a discuss about raising the monetary tax on trainers who loose during a gym battle in order to prevent copious retrials?"

The entire room simultaneously groaned, mumbling about how only Yuya could find some level of joy in sitting around talking about taxes and how even Yuri found meetings about them too sadistic to use as a reasonable torture. Some Pokémon retreated back to their Pokéballs at the announcement.

If the Goomy in Yuya's arm snickered at their reactions, it wasn't because it was now getting revenge for trying to faint it with an Ice Shard. It totally wasn't.

Okay, yes, it completely was.