Friday, Day of the Battle Tower Opening Ceremony

Gloria could hardly contain herself throughout the day's classes. After getting back to her dorm the previous night, trying to push the image of a shirtless Raihan out of her thoughts, she'd spent a good hour packing and planning for the weekend's events. She intended to debut a new uniform for her first series of battles that evening, and even though Tower battles weren't public, there would certainly be fans and reporters hanging out in and around the building. Gloria had also thought long and hard about what to wear during any possible matchup with Leon, as she knew she couldn't be outshone by her predecessor.

He may look like he's from the 18th century, but the public eats that stuff up!

Between class periods, Gloria had been stopped by fellow trainers in the hallway to talk about the Battle Tower. She couldn't let anyone know she'd helped with it, since she wanted all the credit to go to Leon, but it was nice being able to finally talk about the Tower with her classmates. It was a relief to not have to keep it a secret anymore.

For the first month or so of classes, Gloria had become accustomed to receiving huge amounts of attention from nearly everyone on campus. All of her classmates were enamored with the idea of befriending the Champion, and it felt nice to be popular for once. But Gloria kept her main circle of friends small and knew that she had a reputation to keep up as someone so revered in the Galar region. It was terrifying at times, but being asked for an autograph every few days was certainly entertaining.

Gloria's last class of the day, Water Bio 1, was fairly empty that afternoon. She and Hop and Marnie sat in a row closer to the front of the lecture hall than usual, trying to pay attention before school was out for the weekend.

The two girls found it difficult to focus as Hop continuously bounced his knee, which could be felt through the floor.

"Hey man, can you knock that off?" Marnie whispered, trying not to sound too bothered. "It's a bit distractin'."

"Oh, sorry!" Hop replied, his sudden loudness causing the lecturer to cast the students a warning glance. Hop then continued, whispering, "I'm just so hype for this weekend, it's hard to sit still."

"Honestly, same," Gloria assured. "Just twenty more minutes!" she must have spoken a bit too loudly, as one of the students seated in the row in front of the three turned halfway to face her. Bede…

"Can you keep it down, please?" He whispered harshly, yet the fairy-type gym leader's eyes were more sympathetic than anything. "Some of us are trying to learn." Bede then quickly turned back around to pay attention to the lecture, mumbling something to the girl next to him.

"He's still as sour as ever," Hop grumbled, trying to keep his voice down. "He's got everything he could ever want and still finds something to complain about."

"He's got a point, Hop," Marnie whispered, jotting something down in her notebook. At least someone had been paying attention to that last PowerPoint slide. "Just shut up, you two. You'll have the whole weekend to gab."

The rest of the class period dragged by as Hop and Gloria painstakingly took notes on the biology of the Wailord family. It would've been interesting stuff any other day, but there was an atmosphere of untempered excitement amongst the trainers of Galar that Friday.

The three friends made no haste packing up their materials and heading out of the lecture hall. It was surprising how empty the classroom was that day; Water Bio 1 was taken by nearly every first-year at the University. It seemed many students had already left for the weekend, likely on their way to Wyndon for the festivities.

Gloria led the way up the stairs and out into the hallway only to be met with a crowd of her classmates' face lighting up when they saw her. Hop and Marnie followed close behind, seeming a bit confused at the hubbub.

"Good luck at the Battle Tower, Gloria!" a first-year named Reese exclaimed, smiling at the front of a group of excited trainers.

"You too, Hop!" another girl added, waving at the former gym challengers.

Gloria and Hop looked at each other in surprise, then back at their classmates.

"Uh… thanks, everyone!" Hop addressed them, waving at his fans. "We'll tell you all about it when we get back."

"I'll be heading up to Wyndon next weekend!" Marnie declared and stepped out from behind her friends, much to the surprise of her classmates.

"Oh wow, that's so cool!" someone shouted.

The three friends spent a decent amount of time chatting up their classmates, Gloria checking her phone every few minutes to ensure she and Hop had enough time to get to the train station. She was about to retrieve her friend from a gaggle of excited classmates when someone unexpected made himself present to her.

"Hey, you." Gloria looked up slightly as Bede somehow appeared out of the crowd before her. Most of the trainers were talking with Hop at the moment so she hadn't been paying attention.

"Oh, hi, Bede." The Champion wanted to choose her words carefully. She didn't have the greatest past with the Ballonlea gym leader and knew he was easy to set off.

"Er… good luck this weekend." Bede's violet eyes were shifty as he tried to find the right words. "I've heard this is the kind of battling you're into, and I- uh, we wanna hear about it when you get back."

Gloria forced herself to not give away her surprise at Bede's comment. He was usually so distant from the rest of the year's gym challengers and his sudden interest in what the Champion was up to seemed completely out of the blue.

"Yeah, I'm pretty excited about it." Gloria willed herself to make eye contact, trying to read the gym leader's unfamiliar expression. "I was thinking after this weekend I could-"

"Glor! We're leaving!" Hop's voice snapped Gloria out of the fog clouding her thoughts during the awkward encounter. She looked over Bede's shoulder to see Hop racing towards her, quickly throwing himself between the Champion and the gym leader.

"Uh…" Bede suddenly looked exceedingly flustered at Hop's interruption.

"Hop, we still have an hour 'til we have to be at the station." Gloria assured her friend as she cast an apologetic glance at Bede.

"I know, but I've gotta finish packing. You can come with me." Hop quickly took Gloria by the arm and waved goodbye to Marnie, who was busy conversing with the now thinning crowd of trainers. He made sure to give Bede a warning look, but the fairy-type trainer simply blinked in confusion.

Gloria pulled her arm free of Hop's grasp as he walked speedily in the direction of the boys' dormitories, straining to keep up with her taller friend.

"That was awfully rude of you back there," she grumbled, suddenly very embarrassed by Hop's actions.

"You should have seen how uncomfortable you looked, Glor. I dunno what that guy was saying to you but I could tell you wanted out of it."

"…Huh? Oh, Bede? We were just talking about the Battle Tower. I'm just not used to talking to him, I guess. Especially after the gym challenge." Gloria thought back to how absolutely, positively bratty Bede had acted towards the other challengers just a few months prior.

"He probably just wants your strategies." Hop scoffed as the two trainers arrived at the elevator at the end of the hallway. He was repeatedly pressing the "up" button on the wall, not seeming to realize it only needed to be pressed once.

"I don't think so, mate. He just wanted to wish me luck." Gloria stared at her shoes absentmindedly as the elevator finally opened and Hop stopped smashing the "up" button.

"That's awfully sus. Especially after he yelled at me in class today." Hop led the way into the elevator and hit the button for the floor he lived on, only once this time.

"He didn't yell at you. I think it was called for; you were bein' quite distracting today."

"That's rich, coming from you."

Gloria was astonished at Hop's sudden change in attitude. It seemed like the interaction he'd broken up was unusually upsetting to him. She decided to change the subject.

"Why haven't you finished your packing yet? I did mine all last night."

"Oh, you know me," Hop said with a smile as the elevator opened on the floor of their destination. He hurried out and down the hall, Gloria close behind. "Couldn't sleep, tried to let out some energy through studying."

"Studying? We just had midterms."

Hop came upon his room quickly, throwing the door open right away as he hadn't locked it before class. Gloria sometimes questioned her friend's living habits, which was again confirmed by the state of his room they came upon.

The Champion followed her rival into his room, not sure where she should sit while he finished packing for the weekend. Both Hop's and his roommate's desk chairs were occupied by piles of books and clothes, which were equally likely to be clean or worn. Hop dug through the pile on his chair, somehow knowing exactly where the shirt he was looking for resided within the mess.

"Hop, how do you and Carson live like this?" Gloria asked, slightly horrified at not being able to see the carpet through all the mess on the floor.

Hop looked up at her for a second, then continued his whirlwind pace of finding things he needed and throwing them into a heap on his bed.

"Well, Carson's almost never here unless he's sleeping. And he only sleeps about four hours a night." Hop continued his packing mania as Gloria simply shut the door behind her and sat down against it.

"Maybe you should stay home this weekend and clean instead," Gloria remarked, noticing how much worse the room looked when she was sitting on the floor.

Hop laughed a bit to himself, clearly in a better mood already. He froze suddenly at some unknown thought, then shooed Gloria away from the door as he threw open the closet adjacent to it.

"I almost forgot! Lee told me to wear something nice tonight, he's going to have you and me speak at the opening ceremony."

Gloria's eyes widened as she shot up to her feet. "Huh?! When did he tell you that?"

"He texted me during Water Bio. I thought you already knew!"

Gloria frantically dug her Rotom phone out of her backpack, opening her messages for the first time since before classes that morning. She'd been trying so hard to focus on school she hadn't even been paying attention to notifications. Sure enough, she had missed texts from Leon.

Leon: I got some media time for us tonight. Im gonna say some things but if you and Hop wanna talk a bit, i've made the plans

Leon: you might wanna wear something nice. I'll be in my tower uiform

Leon: hellooooo? This is kinda important

Gloria quickly put away her phone again and began to head out the door. Did that man really wait til THE DAY OF to tell me about this?!

"Sorry, mate, I gotta go figure this fancy thing out."

"Oh, I'm almost done, let me come with!" Hop finished stuffing a pair of slacks into his duffel and slung it over one shoulder. "I can help you pick something out."

Gloria rolled her eyes. "I guess so."


"Shit. I don't have anything nice with me besides a cocktail dress." Gloria complained as she flopped onto her bed, staring at the ceiling. Hop sat at Gloria's desk, spinning the swivel chair in circles as Marnie snoozed on her own bed with headphones on.

"That'll look nice enough, Glor. Just hurry, we don't have a lot of time." Hop continued spinning, not used to actually being able to sit in a desk chair.

"I'm supposed to look elegant, ya doof. Not like I'm hitting the town." Gloria pressed her palms over her eyes, secretly wishing Leon hadn't asked her to speak that night. Suddenly, a last-ditch idea popped into her head. She jumped off her bed and began to dig through her packed bag that sat on the floor.

"Leon's wearing that crazy vintage getup tonight, isn't he?" Gloria thought out loud, carefully pulling a garment out of her bag.

"Yeah, why?" Hop stopped swiveling, interested in what Gloria was getting at.

"I guess I'll just wear my 'V.S. Tower Tycoon" getup as well." She held up a long, royal blue tailcoat with matching slacks and a white dress shirt, made complete with a fluffy collar.

"WOAH! That looks like what Lee was wearing yesterday, but like… better!" Hop suddenly looked puzzled. "Wait, what's a Tower Tycoon?"

Gloria thought for a moment, realizing Leon probably wasn't using the traditional Tower boss title since he wasn't a Battle Technician.

"Oh, it's just technically what frontier Tower bosses are called, but I guess I misspoke. This is what I'm going to wear if I face Leon this weekend."

"That is BADASS!"

"I'll look like I'm about to ride a Rapidash in Medieval armor off into the sunset."


Gloria and hop made it to Hammerlocke station with only minutes to spare. The station was swarming with students and all sorts of citizens, traveling for the weekend, most of them to Wyndon.

As Hop and Gloria left the HU campus with a few other student challengers, they were met with nearly everyone in their path asking for some sort of autograph or photo together, which the challengers had to deny for time's sake. They were running a bit behind schedule already and assured their fans they'd be back in Hammerlocke before the weekend was over.

There was also a crowd of battle fans outside the stadium, wishing Gloria, Hop, and all the other challengers luck at the Tower. To Gloria's dismay, she'd spotted the gym leader Raihan towering above the crowd, taking selfies with some of his own fans. He'd managed to catch the Champion's eye just as she passed, and she may or may not have seen him wink at her.

I'm not letting you get me into a PR nightmare, Raihan. We have reputations to hold up, y'know.

Gloria and Hop boarded the train together and found the compartment she'd reserved for just the two of them. As the train left Hammerlocke, the two trainers waved out the window to all of their local fans. It was surreal. A few months earlier they were just a couple of small-town kids struggling with young adulthood, dreaming of taking on the gym challenge; now, they represented an entire generation.