Chapter 5: The Trio Triangle

After a stroll through the city Cilan and Aoi made it to Café. It was a huge building that had many terraces so its customers could eat outside, but even more remarkable about the place was the giant exclamation symbol it had above its doors.

"Well here we are! Welcome to the Trio Café the most popular café in all the Unova region!" Cilan exclaimed as he ran up to the doors and shot out his arms into the air.

"Thank you again for showing me the way, I'm not the best with directions so I tend to get lost pretty easily" Aoi said with a nervous chuckle. Cilan motioned for Aoi to follow him. Once inside Aoi could see how elegant this place was. There were tables everywhere

"Wait I thought you said this place was the most popular café in the Unova region. Shouldn't it be packed?" Aoi asked with a very confused look on his face.

"Actually there's a really good reason there's nobody here and that's because we're closed on Sundays."

"Closed?! Then why did you bring me here Cilan?

"Because we may be closed to the public but that doesn't mean we're closed to trainers.

"Huh? Why do trainers get to come in?

"Because not only do we serve delicious tea and food here, this establishment is also the Striaton City Gym!

"Right right that makes sense….Wait what?! This place is a gym?! It doesn't look anything like a gym! Aoi said startled.

"Haha well you're going to be in for a surprise then my dear friend." Cilan said as he skipped over to the edge of the back wall of the café where the giant drapes were. He pulled on a rope off to the side and the drapes slowly opened up to reveal another area to the café. It had a checkerboard tile floor with three big circles in the center. Each a different color, the one on the left was green and had a picture of a leaf on it, while the one in the middle was red and had the symbol for fire, and the last one was blue and had a water droplet on it.

"You see Aoi to advance in this gym you must correctly answer what type is good against the type that is shown on the drapes. To do so you simply step on which panel you think is correct and if your right then drapes will open and you will be able to proceed further, however if your wrong then on of our staff members will challenge you to a battle and if you win then they will give you the correct answer and allow you to pass. So are you interested Aoi? Also as an added bonus you will get a free meal from us if you manage to win!" Cilan said with a smirk

"Alright! If it means I can get a free meal then I'm definitely gonna try!" Aoi said as he hopped out of his chair and rain up toward the three panels. On the drapes before him was a symbol for water. "Well grass and electric types are good against water and seeing as how their no electric type I think I'll pick grass."

Aoi heard a buzzer signaling that he was correct and the drapes opened up to reveal another set of panels. He quickly made his way through the quiz and found himself in a section of the café where the lights were turned off but he could make out three figures in the darkness; from the darkness he heard someone say welcome to the Striaton city gym. A spot light turned on to reveal a man probably in his early twenties with red spiky hair who was posing as it he was showing off something to the right of him.

"My name is Chili and I light things up with my fire type Pokémon!" A man with long blue hair that covered the right side of his face appeared as another spot light turned on.

"I am a water type specialist, my name is Cress it's a pleasure to meet you" He said as he flipped his hair. One last spotlight turned on to reveal Cilan between Chili and Cress

"And my name is Cilan and I excel in using grass type Pokémon! You see Aoi the Striaton gym is very unique in that there are three gym leaders an…"

"And the three of us will decide which one of us you will face! It'll be based on the first Pokémon you chose as your starter" Chili blurted out interrupting Cilan.

"That is indeed the case, now challenger who did you choose as your starter?" Cress questioned pointing at Aoi

"I picked Oshawott as my starter!" Both Cress and Chili took a few steps back while Cilan stepped forward.

"Well it seems that I will be your opponent Aoi! I hope you're ready because I won't hold anything back! Now Lillipup I choose you!

"Go blue!"

"Alright Aoi you can have the first move." Cilan said with a bow

"Heh big mistake Cilan! Now Blue hit em with water gun!" Blue launched a beam of water that knocked Cilan's lillipup back a few feet.

"Not bad at all now lillipup use work up! And follow it up with tackle" The lillipup started jumping back and forth getting faster and more furious after each jump; it then charged at Blue with a tackle

"Blue use water gun on the ground to push yourself in the air!" Blue looked down and started shooting a water gun at the ground to propel himself into the air right before lillipup was able to hit him. "Now use water gun to take out lillipup!" Blue launched another water gun at lillipup slamming him down into the ground and knocking it out.

"What an inspiring battle style Aoi to think water gun could be used to dodge your opponent like that, but I think you'll find that won't work against my pansage!" Cilan recalled his lillipup and threw out his last Pokémon Pansage

"Alright that was great Blue! Now come on back. Let's heat things up, come on out Aka! Let's finish this quickly; Aka use incinerate. The red monkey jumped into the air and shot out a few fireballs from its mouth. Pansage was able to dodge the a couple of them so it avoided being knocked out in one it but it wasn't able to use the oran berry it was holding because incinerate burned it.

"Oh no pansage! Are you alright? I know you can do this! Now use vine whip!"

"Aka dodge its vines and get close!" he was able to weave in and out-of-the-way of pansage's vines avoiding any damage. "Now grab a hold of him and use incinerate so he can't get away!" Aka grabbed pansage's hands and let out a fiery blast directly at him. A puff of smoke covered the battle field; as it started to clear Aoi was able to see Aka was fine although the oran berry it was holding had gotten burned as well, but Cilan's pansage was down for the count.

"Truly magnificent! Not even Chili or Cress could have beaten you." Cilan exclaimed as he called back pansage. "Now to show that you've beaten the Striaton Gym here is the Trio badge. Gym badges are proof of a trainer's ability; also I would like for you to have this. It's TM 83; TMs are technical machines that allow you to teach your Pokémon new moves. Their pretty hard to find so make sure you take care of it." Aoi accepted the gym badge and TM from Cilan and thanked him for battling with him.

"Now about that FREE meal you mentioned earlier" Aoi said as he rubbed his hands together with a grin on his face.

"Yes of course! Chili let the chef know we've got a customer, and Cress go handle the front." The two brothers ran off in opposite directions while Cilan led Aoi to table so he could take his order.

-Chapter 5 End-