I woke up and was greeted by the sight of an unfamiliar room. I looked out, noticing that the sky's barely starting to turn bright. A quick glance to my right allowed me to easily spot that little yellow blob of condensed murderous incarnate given life, curled up in a small basket at the corner of the room and still snoring away.

Good, I survived a night without it trying to kill me in my sleep. Imagine surviving a deathmatch against someone like Giovanni only to be offed by a crazy rat. It will be such a lame way to die.

I silently made my way to the restroom and quickly washed up. Grumpy was already up by the time I exited the restroom, squinting his beady little eyes at me as though asking me why I had woken him up at this ungodly hour.

"Sorry if I woke you, feel free to continue with your beauty sleep," I told Grumpy as I changed out of the clothes I wore to sleep the night before and chose a fresh set to wear to start off the day. I headed out of my room shortly after with umbreon accompanying me. Surprisingly, Grumpy followed after us.

"You are just biding your time, waiting for the opportune moment when I have completely dropped my guard around you to deliver the decisive strike to my heart, aren't you? As a professional assassin myself, I see the need to let you know that I'm very familiar with that routine. Word of advice: Instead of the heart, it's easier to aim for the neck if you want a clean kill. We are born with a rib cage for a reason."

Grumpy's ears twitched a little in irritation, probably for having his intentions exposed so easily.

I walked down the stairs to the first floor. My ears picked up the faint sound of a whirring machine from a nearby room and I took a peek inside. I realised that this was the fitness room from the presence of several fitness equipment inside. Elesa herself was running on a treadmill and was dressed in some trendy looking sportswear.

Grumpy walked up to Elesa and climbed his way up to the top of the treadmill. Grumpy's presence prompted Elesa to turn around, spotting me watching her from the door.

"Morning, didn't expect you to wake up this early, or did I somehow wake you up? I thought the soundproofing of the rooms was good enough but I could be wrong."

"I tend to automatically wake up at sunrise no matter the season," I reassured her with a shake of my head. "Didn't take you to be an early riser too."

"I am a supermodel, finding time to keep in shape is a necessity. Haven't you heard of the saying? There is no ugly woman, there are only lazy women. Beauty will never find its way to you if you never take the time and effort to maintain your figure and looks and it's especially true for those in my profession."

"Can't say I heard the saying before, but now I do," I walked in and surveyed the room, remembering just how messy the room was when I was doing the spring cleaning yesterday, and also remembering the stuff I had found in here that I don't want to remember finding.

"Care to join?" Elesa offered and I decided that there's no harm trying. I sat down on a nearby bench, looked around the room to see what's in store here and after some consideration, tried lifting some dumbbells.

As I suspected, I'm no longer able to lift the heavier weights that I was once able to lift. I knew a part of it was because I had no time to keep my body in shape after constantly wandering around Unova like a homeless mook until I reunited with my family, but I also knew that the main reason was because my body was still weakening from the illness although the deterioration had suddenly slowed considerably for some weird reason.

Maybe there's really no stopping my illness in eventually laying claim on my life.

"I told Alder and Grimsley about your plan. Your father was obviously not too happy at the idea, but understood the merits behind it should it succeed. Alder said that he needed some time to consider it. Until then, we wait."

"He better come to a decision soon. We don't have much time," I replied as I continued with my repetitions after changing the weights to a lighter one, noticing how Elesa was barely out of breath despite the speed she was jogging at and she had definitely been jogging for a while before I entered. She's unexpectedly fit, but it really shouldn't be a surprise given how necessary it was to maintain her figure as a supermodel and also because of her job as a Gym Leader.

"So until then, what are you planning to do? Helping me to clean my house? I don't mind that."

"I'm not your servant, do it yourself," I vocalised my thoughts loud and clear, to which she laughed.

"Just kidding~ Although I really won't mind if you ever decide to help out again. But since you are so free, how about following me for a day? Aren't you curious about what goes on in the everyday life of a Gym Leader?"

"No."

"At least pretend to consider my offer before rejecting it!"

"Why would I do something so pointless? That would be a needless waste of time."

"So you are just going to… do what? Sleep the day away?"

"No clue, but definitely not that."

"Then you might as well just follow me until Alder pumped his instructions down."

I sighed. She does have a point.

"Fine, if only to get you to stop bugging me."


After we finished our workout, had our breakfast, showered and got ourselves changed, we left for Elesa's gym.

"Are you really going to call him Grumpy?" Elesa asked while locking the front door. As usual, Grumpy was glaring at me from his position beside my feet.

"I'm sure he likes that name," I answered, seeing Grumpy's scowl deepened before he huffed and showed his back to me again, deciding to ignore me altogether.

"Pfft, you two are really made for each other," Elesa barely managed to smother her laughter as she handed a pokeball to me. "Here, Grumpy's pokeball, but he hates staying in it so I don't think you will have to use it often."

"No, I don't think that will be the case," I disagreed as I accepted and pocketed Grumpy's pokeball. "On the contrary, this might be the only thing protecting me from this little murderer wannabe. I'm going to take really good care of it. Hug it to sleep every night."

"Whatever you say," Elesa rolled her eyes and walked forward and I followed. I heard Grumpy scurrying after us before I felt a weight climbing up my leg, reaching my back before perching itself on my right shoulder.

"Taking my teachings to heart so soon? Can I trust you to not tear my throat out at the first opportunity?" I asked the grumpy little rat which was now hitching a ride on my shoulder. Grumpy simply turned its head away to show just how it was planning to ignore me for the rest of the day.

The Nimbasa City Gym was within walking distance from Elesa's house. It was still early in the wee hours of the morning and the city was only just starting to stir. Elesa's identity was very well hidden by the large winter coat she was wearing and furthermore so with a winter cap, sunglasses, and scarf, allowing her to walk down the streets without being identified.

"Here we are," Elesa motioned towards the two buildings that constitute her gym. "On the right is the building where my gym trainers will screen the challengers and only those who managed to defeat all of the gym trainers are allowed the right to schedule a time to face me in battle. Once a timing has been fixed, which is usually in the evening, they will challenge me in the other building on the left. Usually my gym trainers try to help schedule the challenges such that I can clear as many of them as possible in a single night to save time."

"Your gym is the fourth in the circuit, right?"

"Yup. My gym and Clay's is where most people drop out of the circuit and end their career as trainers when they realise that the sharp increase in difficulty to rise up to the top becomes too much for them to handle. It's a delicate thing. On one hand, we need to set the difficulty to be challenging enough so that only the competent ones can pass and not allow just any Tom, Dick, or Harry to walk away without being thoroughly tested. On the other hand, if the gym challenge is too difficult it might create a lot more dropouts than necessary, and Unova might lose potential talents who dropped out before managing to grow into their full strength. I hate this part of my job sometimes, it's too delicate a thing to balance properly."

"And Elite trainers with the full set of eight badges can still rechallenge the gym circuit on the Elite level? At least, Indigo allows that."

"Every region allows that, encourages trainers to keep in shape and gives them the chance to fight us Gym Leaders at our full strength, giving them some exposure about what it really means to be a trainer that stands at the very top," Elesa explained as she unlocked the front door of her gym, or more specifically unlocking only the building on the left which she said is used for hosting challenges for trainers who defeated all of her gym trainers. "Of course, we don't often get such challenges because the whole world knows just how difficult it is when a Gym Leader is allowed to use one hundred percent of their power, but we still do receive those sometimes."

"Then must they still challenge the gyms in the assigned order? Or…"

"That depends on the region," Elesa informed as she pushed open the front door. "In Unova, trainers challenging us on the Elite level challenge are free to choose the order in which they want to challenge our gyms. Other places, not necessarily. I know for a fact that Hoenn is one of those where even the Elite level trainers have to strictly adhere to the assigned order and cannot progress until they complete the current gym challenge they are stuck at. Here, come in."

We stepped into the gym as the lights automatically turned on when the sensors picked up on our presence.

"So this is the legendary Nimbasa catwalk?"

The interior of the building was a long catwalk, the space beside it down below had seats where spectators can sit and view the battles taking place. All in all, it looked less like a gym and more like a gallery for models to strut around.

"I'm surprised that you know about the catwalk, considering how you didn't even recognise me when we first met," Elesa's reply was as dry as the cold winter wind as she started to remove her coat now that we are indoors. "There are two catwalks, this one is used to entertain Intermediate level challenges. There is another one used for challenges on the Elite level in another part of the building but like I said, we don't use it often. If I remember correctly, there are Intermediate level challengers scheduled to face me in battle tonight. You can stay to watch if you want to, but you might want to find yourself a seat before that. I don't charge any entrance fees and there's usually a full house whenever the public knows that I will be battling challengers again."

"So anyone can come in to spectate?"

"That's the point. I need to make it easy for aspiring trainers to come and watch the battles so that they can learn what being a trainer is about. It's part of my job to encourage and guide the next generation."

That's reasonable. It's easier to encourage children to aspire to be trainers if they are able to easily find a way to spectate a pokemon battle where it is not too high level for them to understand, but yet not too easy for them to find it boring. Watching Intermediate level battles can achieve exactly that. It's a smart thing to do on Elesa's end.

"But… a catwalk? Any reason behind that?" I gestured to the catwalk with a slight jerk of my head.

"My job as a model is just one reason for this. The more important reason is that I feel that this helps to give them the experience and exposure I feel that they will need along their journey. Think about it, for new trainers my badge is the fourth badge they will be trying to grab from me. At this point, they are all Intermediate level trainers on their way to try making it to the Advanced level. I'm sure you have seen it before, trainers who show huge potential when training alone but just keep messing up whenever there are eyes on them in a public setting. That's unacceptable. In my opinion, a qualified Intermediate level trainer must at the very least, be able to function well under pressure even when all eyes are on you, even when every single action you take is being magnified under public scrutiny. Nobody will earn that badge from me unless they can prove to me that they possess that trait. As for whether they can beat me, that's secondary and not what I'm really looking out for. I still hand out my badges to those who lost but in my opinion, have what it takes to earn my recognition and badge."

"So you are training them for what they will experience in the real world once they leave the Gym Circuit?"

"That's one way of putting it," Elesa agreed as she gestured for me to follow after her. "My office is on the top floor. You need to transfer a haxorus back home, right? Pass the pokeball to me, I have a PC transfer system in my office, I can do it for you. I will need to attend a web conference in about half an hour and there are a few training rooms that you can use if you are bored. Sometimes my gym trainers will come to use it as well, so share the space with them if they need it. Feel free to walk around and explore the place. The other building will be opened to challengers soon, but this building is not going to be open to the public until tonight when the challengers are scheduled to challenge me."

With that, Elesa left for her office, leaving me alone.

"Your first time here too?" I asked the pikachu riding on my shoulder who replied with a nod. It was obvious from how he was curiously observing the place while sniffing at the air.

"Come to think about it, let's visit the training room. Now that we are stuck with each other I will need to see how you can contribute to the team. I partake in some really dangerous stuff, so you need to be able to prove to me that you can at least take care of yourself."


"So not only do you have issues with producing enough electricity to produce anything more than a little shock, you have some issues with mobility too."

Grumpy gave me another of his usual scowls for having his weaknesses bluntly pointed out like that. I had just put Grumpy through a light sparring session with umbreon in order to gauge his skill level. Both of the problems I mentioned stemmed from the injuries he suffered from his previous trainer and had not yet recovered from, and maybe never will.

However, I still feel that this is not an entirely hopeless situation. There may be still a way for Grumpy to continue battling and it's obvious that Grumpy still yearns to be able to battle. We just have to figure out a way for him to do so.

"Grumpy, I'm going to ask you a question and I hope you can take this seriously."

Grumpy continued to glower at me. Ignoring him, I asked my question.

"Are you willing to fight for me?"

I can see the confusion in his eyes, so I decided to elaborate.

"I deal with all sorts of dangerous work that involves blood, death, and gore. The possibility of death is our constant companion. The mentally weak have no place on my team because they will just get themselves killed. If you are not willing to face what we face regularly then this is your last chance to get your exit ticket. Do you understand?"

Grumpy bared his fangs at me, showing that he doesn't want to be called weak.

"I can make you into a decent battler. I still think that you can contribute to the team in ways that they cannot should you become a permanent battler. Of course, you will never be the strongest or most powerful, I can't do that, not when you are unable to evolve and not when you are suffering from injuries that nobody knows if you can recover from, but I can make you a dangerous little murder rat nonetheless. Interested?"

Grumpy stared at me in silent contemplation. After what seemed like an eternity, he gave me a nod of agreement.

"Good. I will lay down some ground rules before we get started. For one, we usually work as a team, we very rarely go solo. We don't fight fair and never fight fair because the fights we get into have no rules to speak of, and the most important thing will always be about survival. Secondly, you have to get used to learning and identifying our own brand of non-verbal cues and commands because that's how our team works, and you need to learn it fast. Thirdly, I am the law in this team and I will be strict with you if we want to achieve results. You can ask them the kind of things I put them through in our early days," I gestured to the rest of my team who were lounging about in the training room, observing the moves Grumpy demonstrated for us earlier when I asked him to. Grumpy has enough diversity in his current movepool, enough for me to decide just what role I want him to play in the team.

"So are you willing to trust me? This cannot work without trust because we are putting our lives in each other's hands. I will trust you to protect me just as you need to trust me that I'm not sending you to your death. I need you to be sincere with your answer, Grumpy, no more trying to murder me in my sleep or challenge me to a fistfight and all that nonsense. If you accept my offer, from now on, we are a team, a family, and we will always have each other's backs. Individually, we will never be the strongest fighters, but I can guarantee you that we can be one of the deadliest teams in the world that always gets the job done."

I knelt down and held out my hand towards the little rat. The little rat stared at it for a short while before placing a paw on my hand in a show of agreement.

"Good," I grinned. "Let's get started. The best teacher for you will be umbreon, you can start by trying to mimic how he moves. Umbreon."

Umbreon walked over to stand on the opposite end of the training ground where Grumpy was, preparing himself once more to be Grumpy's opponent in this mock battle.

"Here's what I think you can do to get stronger. Grumpy, cease being an electric type altogether."

Grumpy looked at me as though I'm crazy.

"I'm serious. Think about it, how can an electric type utilise its power when it is unable to even produce anything more than a little spark? Let's be realistic here, do you think that you can still fight like an electric type in your current state? You need to first learn to face the truth, Grumpy, before I can help you."

Grumpy gave me a begrudging nod, telling me to continue.

"Thankfully, while your movements are hindered by your injuries, you are not entirely crippled. Getting you to move around like you were never injured in the first place will be a little difficult, but not impossible. Heard of Agility?"

Grumpy nodded his head and I saw a faint psychic glow covering his body, telling me that he was able to use that move.

"Good. Ninetales and weavile will make you a master of that move in time, that will solve your mobility problem. However, I don't see speed becoming your signature combat style nor will it become your bread and butter because the fact is, the injury on your left side is always going to be a problem for you to be able to rely on speed as your main strength. Your injuries will not allow you to be constantly on the move using the speed boost provided by Agility. I need you to remember, Grumpy, that Agility will only serve as a defensive mechanism for you, to escape from blows that might otherwise kill you when you really need a burst of speed for that one short moment. Following so far?"

Grumpy nodded. I can still sense his confusion, but at least he's listening.

"So, we established that fighting like an electric type will never serve you any good, and that speed will never be how you win your battles. That leaves you with three things that you must master to be able to pit yourself against foes many times your strength. One, you need to know how to fight defensively and you need to master it down to an art form. Two, you need to hone your non-electric type moves to their greatest potential. Three, you need to act like a sneaky little saboteur and be a master of paralysis. Yes, you are unable to use even the basic Thundershock properly, you couldn't even shock me from the front porch when I was lying just about ten metres away, but that doesn't mean that you are unable to use electricity at all. You can still give me a nasty shock when I'm close enough for you to touch me, can't you? That means that you can still induce paralysis through physical contact. Your ability, Static, is something that doesn't rely on the electricity you produce from your cheeks to take effect but instead, rely on the static electricity accumulated from the fur all around your body, so learn how to abuse it. Electric type moves that do not need a whole lot of power to be used, like Nuzzle, you should still be able to use them. Your electric sacs are not that damaged to the extent that Nuzzle is off limits for you. Nuzzle hardly does any damage in a fight, but the surefire paralysis it can induce is something that can level the playing ground for you, so master it too. Able to understand what I said so far?"

Grumpy nodded, this time a little more excitedly at the prospect of being able to fight again.

"Alright, so here's what we are going to train you in. Agility, so that you can use it when you need to bail yourself out of danger. Defensive moves like Protect, Double Team, Light Screen, Substitute, Wish; learning them are definitely a must too. Umbreon can help you with that after we are done with Agility. Thoroughly mastering offensive moves like Iron Tail, Slam, Toxic, Grass Knot might be a little difficult, but still doable. Then we need you to be able to properly control your Static ability and how to inflict paralysis through Nuzzle in the shortest time possible. I need you to be able to paralyse your opponents with just a single touch, that's how good you need to be to start becoming the most dangerous pikachu ever. Up for it?"

Judging from the maniacal grin on Grumpy's face, he's more than ready to undertake this training regime that could only be thought up by a madman like me.

"Alright, let's get started. For now, use Agility to try and get close to umbreon. Try your best to paralyse umbreon using anything you can think of. Time to see just how crazy you can be, little guy."


"Who the hell are you and how did you get in here?"

"Don't mind me, I'm just borrowing this place for a moment. Here, you can have that corner," I pointed to the unoccupied space in the training room. The three gym trainers who just entered stared at me with their hands hovering over where their pokeballs were attached to the belt, as if contemplating if they should just boot this unknown intruder out.

I don't blame them for being wary about me, because I'd bet that Elesa had definitely forgotten to inform her Gym Trainers about my presence.

"Elesa invited me here, ask her if you don't believe me. But I believe that she should be taking part in a web conference now, so maybe now's not the best time to disturb her," I explained as I continued to observe Grumpy taking part in a mock battle against umbreon. For now, it takes about three seconds of continuous physical contact for Grumpy to paralyse umbreon such that umbreon cannot easily break out of the paralysis. In a battle, three seconds is still too long, but that duration can be shortened with practice.

Grumpy's battle instincts, while a little dull from not participating in battles for two years, was still sharp enough and could definitely be further refined. Grumpy's actually rather talented in the art of battling seeing how he adapted to my teachings so quickly. Now, he's training to avoid umbreon's blows with nothing but Agility. Weavile and ninetales had given him a few tips and it seemed to be working. His rate of progress was rather astonishing, to the point that I am starting to suspect that maybe he was one of those pokemon who were specifically born and bred by trainers for the sole purpose of battling. While not necessarily a deciding factor, pedigree does sometimes play a big role in making up a part of a pokemon's potential.

If that is so, it must be a huge blow for Grumpy's previous trainer to be able to get his hands on a pikachu with such splendid pedigree only to find out that he was unable to evolve. However, it's still not an excuse to do what he did to him. Evolution is not the be all, end all, deciding factor that constitutes a pokemon's strength.

The three gym trainers had also decided to trust me for now and observe the mock battle taking place as the roles between Grumpy and umbreon reversed once more. This time, it's Grumpy doing the attacking and umbreon doing the defending. One of the gym trainers finally decided to approach me after seeing the oddity in Grumpy's training.

"Dude, why is your pikachu not using any electric type moves at all? It's not even fighting like an electric type. Need help? We are Electric Specialists after all."

"My pikachu is injured. Other than a few weak electric type moves that it may or may not be able to use, it won't ever be able to fight like an electric type ever again."

"Oh," the teenager who approached me winced with a pained expression on his face, knowing just how difficult it must be to train an electric type without it being able to fight like an electric type.

"You are not an Electric Specialist," a girl spoke up as she looked at the rest of my team who were resting in a corner of the room. Her words made hydreigon stir as he raised one of his heads from where he was napping earlier and that immediately unnerved the gym trainers. Hydreigons are extremely notorious for their violent natures in this part of the world where the majority of their species can be found.

"Keep your distance and he's not going to bite," I warned the gym trainers before paying attention to Grumpy once more. Grumpy had been at it for almost two hours already and I'm surprised he had so much stamina in the first place. Still, it's best to not overdo it when he had only just gotten back into a training regime after being on hiatus for two years.

"Alright, Grumpy, umbreon, break it off. We are taking a break," I clapped my hands to grab their attention as Grumpy pulled the distance away from umbreon with a well executed Double Team. Umbreon barely broke a sweat but Grumpy wobbled slightly on his feet from the exertion. Still, Grumpy looked very satisfied at the workout he had been through, looking as though he didn't mind continuing this for a few more hours. Truthfully, judging from his performance so far, he probably could.

My little insane rat is actually a stamina freak, who knew?

"It takes time for you to get back in shape, so don't push it. You don't want to aggravate the injury on your left side," I reminded my little murder rat as I picked him up and placed him on my shoulder to allow him to rest, knowing that the lack of leg strength on his left side was what causing the unsteady movement and that he should properly rest before straining it once more. For now, it's best if he kept the usage of his limbs to a minimum. Hence, the reason why I allowed him to hitch a ride on my shoulder.

"Hey, you mind battling against me? I want to battle your hydreigon," the boy who had first approached me asked and was met with a collective dumbfounded stare from our team, as if trying to question his sanity and see if they could spot any loose screws in his head. Hydreigon was still lazing around on the ground, but I could tell that he was slightly interested in the proposition from how one of his heads had perked up slightly at the mention of his name.

"Look, kid, I don't want to sound rude, but you don't know what you are getting into."

"But it's not everyday I can meet a trainer who has a hydreigon on their team. They are so rare, and only a few trainers would dare to even try training them. I hadn't even met a single challenger with a deino or a zweilous in my three years here, let alone a hydreigon. I'm not passing this up. Fight me, please?"

"What says you?" I asked the resident dragon on our team as he lazily shifted his head to look at me and gave a yawn before looking at the lad. Hydreigon then began to smack his lips rather audibly.

"Uh… I think he's hungry?" The only girl among the group started to shiver and took a few steps backwards. She let out an undignified scream and hid herself behind her friend's back when hydreigon started to rise into his full height and float menacingly into the air.

"Guess he accepted your challenge," I turned to look at the gym trainer who had issued us the challenge. "How are we going to do this?"

"Six on six, full team!" The teenager declared excitedly with fire burning in his eyes. With the exception of Grumpy who was still new and thus unaware of what we could truly do, the rest of my pokemon couldn't help but break out in howls of laughter.

Unless you are somebody on the level of the likes of Giovanni, challenging us to a teamfight is the stupidest thing one can do. So, I decided to grant this fool another chance to save himself.

"Just to be clear, when you say six on six, you mean the one-on-one battle royale where our six pokemon take turns fighting or…"

"That takes too long! Six pokemon all at once, how about it?! It's more exciting that way! Of course, your hydreigon must be among the six!"

It takes everything I had to not show him the sadistic smile that was threatening to break out across my face. Oh boy, he's in for such a rude awakening. I guess this is fate's way of telling me that someone has to show the young padawan just how cruel the outside world can be sometimes.

"Don't say that I didn't warn you, but it's your funeral."


"So, what was it that I heard about… Some shady man decimating my gym trainers such that they are now having an existential crisis and questioning their career choice?"

"They asked for it, quite literally."

It's lunchtime. Elesa had brought me out and offered to treat me to lunch at her favourite cafe and naturally, word of the challenge had reached her ears the moment she stepped out of her office.

"I heard something about Reynold challenging you to a teamfight, six on six, and ended with something like… obliterated with nothing but Dark Pulse from your hydreigon?"

"That's his name? Reynold? He wanted to fight my hydreigon, I even warned him that he had no idea what he's getting into. He challenged me to a six on six but he's so weak that hydreigon alone was enough to finish off his entire team. And then he decided that the mature thing to do was to break down in tears. How is this my fault?" I asked as I ate this specific pasta that Elesa had recommended me to try, which she said should be spicy enough for me to taste something. She's not wrong, I am able to taste it to a certain extent.

"You traumatised him. He's one of the best trainers I have and you finished him off in five seconds. Now, I know you are powerful, but do you understand the meaning of holding back against trainers that are obviously nowhere close to our level?"

"The moment I understood the meaning of holding back against my opponents is the day I get myself killed."

"Then what about Anthony?"

"Oh, you mean one of those who entered the training room after they heard that Reynold was defeated by this, quote-unquote, shady intruder?" I did an airquote motion of my fingers while slowly savouring my meal. "That smart alec claimed that without hydreigon, my team is nothing impressive. I honestly could care less about what he said but my pokemon didn't take too kindly to that comment. Zoroark and bisharp had quite a bit of fun playing with his pokemon."

I fed a small piece of pasta to Grumpy, who tried the pasta but immediately spat it out when he realised it's too spicy for him. Not a fan of spicy food? Pity.

"He just threw in his resignation letter, saying that he needs to go on a training trip before coming back to defeat you. Now I have to search for another gym trainer, no thanks to you. Do you know just how hard it is to find a decent gym trainer?"

"If he couldn't take loss very well then he should consider quitting being a trainer altogether. He asked for a fight, he got one, and then threw a temper tantrum the moment he couldn't place his words where his mouth was? Your gym doesn't need trainers like that."

"I know, but…" Elesa rested a palm against her forehead in exasperation. "It's really such a pain to find a replacement gym trainer on such short notice, and one that is actually decent."

"How long do you usually need to take to find a gym trainer that fits all of your requirements?"

"Two weeks, and that is if I get lucky."

"I can be your temporary gym trainer until you find a replacement," I offered, only to look up from my plate to see her staring at me in surprise.

"What? Something on my face?"

"Did you just offer yourself to be a gym trainer? You?"

"We need Alder's permission and support to do whatever we are planning to do next, and it doesn't seem like he will give us any concrete instructions until then. Since I'm just wasting time either way and you feel that this is all my fault, I might as well help out until you find yourself a replacement. Sounds like the logical thing to do, right?"

"So you do have a nice side to you after all," Elesa looked at me as though she just knew me for the first time. I simply rolled my eyes at her.

"If you don't want my help just say so."

"Can you start work right after lunch?"

"Whatever suits your schedule, woman."


Name: Jayce Dandolos

Age: 22

Pokemon Team:

1. Ninetales, female

2. Exeggutor, male

3. Weavile, male

4. Honchkrow, female

5. Umbreon, male

6. Hydreigon, male

7. Drapion, female

8. Zoroark, male

9. Bisharp, male

10. Shiftry, male

11. Porygon-Z, (Nosy), genderless

12. Greninja, male

13. Spiritomb, male

14. Pikachu, (Grumpy), male