A/N: I know, I know, I know. "Sammie, you're already writing an Elite Four centric story with the Sinnoh Elite Four and explain how they became Elites!" Well, this is a slightly different story. I wanted to write a completely separate story - a collection explaining how each Elite and Gym Leader became a member of their region. Sorry to the Kalos, Alola, Galar, and Paldea fans - but this will just feature the league members from Kanto, Johto, Hoenn, Sinnoh, and Unova. I think everyone likes it better that way anyway.

This is also posted under my ao3 account of the same name.

Full Summary:

One could be chosen to be a member of a League in their respective region for many reasons. Some planned on it. Some did not. Plenty were kind. Several were nasty. Most of them were somewhere in-between. These are the stories behind the elites and gym leaders of Kanto, Johto, Hoenn, Sinnoh, and Unova - and how they achieved greatness. Will go in chronological order of when they received their titles.

Or:

The leagues were competitive with each other. This system was created long ago to ensure "friendly competition" so that another world region war wouldn't break out between each other like the last time. The Indigo League starts as the best. Unova's education system is nothing to joke about. Hoenn couldn't give less of a damn. Sinnoh's considered a laughingstock with nothing to lose. But as the years go by and things start to change, their competition becomes not-so-friendly. Generational trauma doesn't simply go away. It stays buried deep down, but stirs slowly, and before you know it, the five regions are like a barrels of gunpowder, ready to burst.

Chapter 1- Agatha

Agatha was the start of it all.

She may have not been the first ever member of a Pokemon League (there were plenty of others before her) but Agatha was by far the most influential on the many gym leaders, elites, and even a few champions that would come after her, and the others couldn't even come close. Even champions from all the other regions didn't have the level of respect that Agatha did. Hell, some of those champions even feared her. Agatha found that she liked being feared very much. She was the first elite to establish a total command of any room she was in, within not only Kanto and Johto, but the other regions would look to her for many years to come - even during their heated competition, but more on that later.

If you were to ask someone on who created the ultimate setting on how to run a battle, they would say Agatha.

If you were to ask someone on who had the most input on who the next gym leaders and elites would be, they would say Agatha.

If you were to ask someone on who invoked indescribable terror, they (with upmost certainty) would say Agatha.

Contrary to popular belief, Agatha wasn't that horrifying once you got to know her well. Though she was strict, Agatha wasn't completely heartless. She gave out league jobs to those who others wouldn't even consider; those with even the roughest of backgrounds. Many young people that came along due to Agatha's persuasion in her later years (which, within others in the Indigo league, would playfully call that group her "league children"), because Agatha saw something in them that others didn't.

Vengeance.

Agatha Bychkov would be the first to know about that.

Agatha was sixteen-years-old, and she was furious.

Fury seemed to describe Agatha very well, as anyone in Kanto would be able to tell you. Right now, she's furious because she had lost a battle against Samuel Oak yet again. That Oak boy really nagged at her, because no matter how consistently awful Agatha was to him, Oak was always friendly to her. But Agatha figured that it was pity and Agatha hated being pitied more than anything else in the world... okay, it was the second thing she hated the most in the world. She hated being pitied, because if she was pitied, then she was weak. Agatha hated weakness more than anything else.

She despised it. It made her skin crawl. Oak was weak, though not in a battling-sense, and Agatha hated that. She hated that Oak didn't seem to care that much about battling and liked researching instead, meanwhile Agatha was jumping through hoops for a battle.

The fight. Agatha loved to fight. She itched for it; she was quite mad about it. She got her first Pokemon at ten which was actually a Pidgey and she was immediately hooked with how terrifying Pokemon were. When she was small, she was described by her family as "Hurricane Agatha" and it was not because she was cuddly and sweet. Agatha made most of the male trainers cry when she first started battling and she took a lot of pleasure in doing so. They had underestimated her because she was a girl. Back then, female trainers weren't treated with as much respect as her male counterparts. Therefore, Agatha was nasty because she had to be and had no regrets.

If you were to ask Agatha in her senior years how she would've reacted if she had to do it all again, Agatha would tell you she would've been nastier.

Oak was one of the few that wasn't afraid of her. He was one of the few that actually respected her. He was one of the few that didn't look down at her whenever they battled, even when he would win time-and-time again. So she hated that Oak wasn't as passionate about battling, she hated that Oak was so friendly, and she hated that he cared more about studying Pokemon instead of using them as weapons, like they should be.

Did this mean Agatha hated Oak himself?

Heavens no.

On some level, Agatha appreciated him. She appreciated him because he was the reason she was getting stronger, because those other trainers that she would battle wouldn't anymore for two reasons; the first was that they were too weak for her battling-wise, and the second was that they feared her. Oak didn't fit into either of those boxes.

"You've gotten stronger," Oak would always tell her. "You have such a natural talent for battling."

But what enraged Agatha was that Oak was even more talented when it came to battles, and he would rather study them from a biological point.

"I don't understand why you waste your time," Agatha snapped at him one day. "They're killing machines, and you should treat them as such." Because it was true. They were monstrous creatures that could very well take out your entire family and not blink an eye whilst doing so.

Oak told her they were more than that, and Agatha thought he was insane.

The funny thing was, Agatha researched Pokemon too, but in an entirely different way. She studied their movements - the way they reacted to pain, the way they were defensively and offensively. She studied how typings worked among Pokemon, which was effective against what, and what was ineffective against what. It was also a matter of what type was more combative and which type was more frail. These were ruthless weapons, and Agatha had to have her pick on what specific ammo to use.

Agatha was eighteen-years-old when she took a trip to Lavender Town, specifically the seven-story-tower that was the town's main attraction that gave even the strongest trainers the creeps due to how unsettling it was. Naturally, Agatha was intrigued and knew that she had to go there. She entered the tower and immediately relaxed in the atmosphere. She hadn't faced a single Pokemon yet. That's when and where she found her choice of bullet.

Ghost-type Pokemon were a special type of menacing, and Agatha liked menacing. Grinning triumphantly at the Gastly before her very eyes, Agatha hurled an Old Ball at it. It shook once, not twice, but three times. Gastly from what Agatha could recall, evolved into Haunter, and if you traded it that Haunter would evolve into Gengar. It was not only a ghost-type, but a poison-type.

It was diabolical and sinister. Agatha liked those things, too. Later there would be rumors that her first Pokemon was actually a Gastly, and that she actually frightened the ghost rather than the other way around. That was only half-true, because yes, while she did frighten her Gastly with her signature grin, it was not her first Pokemon.

Time went by, where Agatha grew out of her teens and had not only one Haunter, but three. She also acquired a Golbat and an Arbok for their poisonous types. At this point in her travels, she paid no mind to whatever Oak was doing - because she was winning, getting stronger, better.

To get even better than better, Agatha would have to evolve her two Haunter. While so much as changed, a lot has also stayed the same. One of the few things that stayed the same was that Agatha was feared, rightfully so, and no one would trade with her because her presence alone had frightened trainers. She knew this, and often took pleasure as she did, but this might be the first time where it backfires on her.

That's when she knew she had to go back to Oak.

But first, not without a battle. Shockingly, at first, Oak refused. This naturally enraged her; because battling was how Agatha got her kicks and Oak was depriving her of that, and she sensed something that she had never acquired before in regards to him.

He was afraid of her.

Not full-blown terror like other people had, but there was a hint of fright in Oak's voice when he said no. He couldn't deny it either, because Agatha not only was an expert in detecting fear, she exploited it. This time, Agatha (dare she say) was a little afraid, because Oak was afraid. She didn't show it though, absolutely not. Her voice became sharper and demanded that they have a battle - and he obliged.

Agatha sent out her first Haunter, whilst Oak sent out Arcanine. His Arcanine attempted to get her Haunter with a flamethrower, but Agatha commanded her ghost to evade the attack - and being a ghost type, Agatha knew she could take full advantage of being able to disappear at will. That's when Agatha was able to get her Haunter to use shadow ball. The Arcanine was hit, taking an unusual amount of damage, before being commanded to use another flamethrower. This time, does Haunter manage to take some damage.

Agatha wasn't giving up that easily. With one more shadow ball, did Arcanine go down.

Tauros was the next Pokemon on Oak's team. Agatha mumbled a swear under her breath, because she had studied on why her Haunter couldn't attack Pokemon like Pidgey, Tauros, Chansey, and other Pokemon that were to be called the Normal type. Oh sure, Oak had his own way of researching Pokemon, but so did Agatha. But she knew that neither of them could hit the other, and Oak knew that because she suspected that Oak wanted her to switch out her Pokemon out of frustration.

He was correct because dammit, the idiot knew her so well. Agatha called back her Haunter and sent out her Arbok. That was when Oak ordered his Tauros to use a Take Down attack, which Arbok couldn't evade in time. Agatha's heart was racing, because Arceus - she was not about to lose to him again. Her Arbok was still going, and commanded the snake Pokemon to use a toxic attack. Let the bull Pokemon go down slowly, painfully, whatever. It didn't make a difference to Agatha, and a quick trip to the Pokemon Center later would be fine.

Tauros was weakened by the poison, and this time, Agatha would be the one to stall him. She ordered her Arbok to leer at Tauros, which the latter winced at. Very good - Agatha couldn't hold back a sinister grin. Tauros fainted after a bite from Arbok combined with the poison. Dirty trick? Yes, yes it was. But she was winning. It was almost strange.

Agatha recalled her Arbok to bring her first Haunter out again, while Oak threw another Pokeball to reveal Exeggutor. That's when things got interesting. Oak ordered his Exeggutor to use psychic, which brought her first Haunter down. Fine, she could be petty. Agatha sent out her second Haunter, causing Oak to blink in surprise, and then had the nerve to act shocked when Haunter used a shadow ball on his Pokemon. It was a critical hit, a one-hit knockout, and Agatha was starting to get skeptical.

Agatha withdrew her second Haunter to send out her Golbat, and she resisted the urge to roll her eyes when Oak sent out Venusaur in response. That Venusaur was always giving her a damn hard time in the past, and after years of studying typings, she knew why. It was the reason she picked up some poison-types, too. Venusaur's poison would not be able to hit her Golbat, and her Golbat's speed would overwhelm the plant starter Pokemon.

Case and point, Oak ordered his Venusaur to send a storm of razor leaves, all of which managed to miss the flighty bat. Agatha commanded her Golbat to use wing attack. The Venusaur wasn't swift - that was its major flaw. Venusaur survived the first wing attack, but not the second. It went down, and it finally dawned on Agatha that Oak only had one Pokemon left. His Gyarados, which, attempted to use a hyper beam against Golbat - which does knock out the bat. Agatha still had her second Haunter, which she sent back out to use a curse attack - inflicting Oak's final Pokemon with the ghostly condition. Taking advantage of the fact that Gyarados needed to recharge, Haunter used toxic to poison it as well. It would only be a matter of time, given the combination of the curse and poison would take the water-type Pokemon out.

"Haunter, shadow ball," commanded Agatha.

Game, set, and match.

It was the first battle Agatha won against Oak, and she almost didn't get an enjoyment out of it. Almost, though. According to Agatha, Pokemon battles alone were a high but winning them too was pure euphoria. But this battle in particular rubbed her the wrong way, even if it finally ended in beating Oak. It should've made her so high that she would've met Arceus herself, but there was this... disinterest on the side of the battlefield that was certainly not coming from her end.

Oak smiled weakly. "You finally beat me."

It was spoken aloud, filled with regret and defeat. Agatha normally liked those things too when it came from the opponents she demolished, and she was supposed to be looking forward to the day Oak would finally say it, and now that he did, Agatha almost didn't want it.

Once more, almost.

"What's happened, Samuel?" Agatha spoke brashly, unable to help herself. "You're slipping."

Oak looked at her. "Ghost-type Pokemon suit you well, Agatha."

Agatha glared. "Oak."

"You've been gone for quite a while. I was wondering why you originally came to see me in Pallet Town again," rambled Oak, rubbing his chin. "I noticed you had Haunter with you in our battle. I'm assuming you've figured out that we need to trade in order for them to evolve?"

"That I did."

"Let's get to it, then."

So Agatha traded her two Haunter, which both evolved into Gengar, and they traded right back. While Agatha was happy that she got her two Gengar - therefore, getting stronger - she couldn't help but stare at Oak in bewilderment. He looked like a shell of a man that she once knew.

"What's happened?" Agatha pressed.

Oak gave her a careless shrug. "Agatha, you and I both know that I'm into research."

Agatha scowled. "Of course I do," she replied bitterly.

"...I've been toying with something for a while now," Oak said, almost like a confession.

"Like? Out with it now, I do not have all day and you know this!" Agatha knew that after Oak had let her trade Pokemon with her that she shouldn't have been treating him like this. Oak was always kind to her, despite her being pretty awful to him, but Agatha suspected that she was going to hear something that she did not want to.

And she would be correct. "I'm going to quit battling to focus on research," Oak told her, and his voice was wavering slightly, because he was afraid of her.

Agatha's eyes flashed dangerously; this was why he was on edge for the first time. This was why he wasn't looking forward to seeing her. This was why he didn't want to battle her, because he had become weaker due to him focusing on the biological research of Pokemon rather than what Pokemon should really be about which was how they battled, and they always, always disagreed on that - this time was no different.

In many years to come, rumors would spread due to people thinking that Agatha had screamed at him then. A high-pitched, detrimental shrill that would rival a teapot would've been heard all throughout Pallet Town due to their falling out, and that Agatha had attempted to snap his neck herself over the decision he made.

"...why?" Agatha told him with her gaze averted, a voice unusually soft and so unlike her.

They were wrong.

Agatha's eyes snapped up to meet Oak's own. She repeated it furiously, not yelling, but noticeably louder than a normal speaking volume: "Why?!"

Oh no, Agatha was angry. They weren't wrong about that, she was most definitely angry at Oak, and everyone knew it. What they didn't know was that she felt hurt. What they didn't know was that she felt betrayed. They didn't know either of those things because people would assume that Agatha wasn't capable of feeling such emotions. But Agatha wasn't completely heartless, and for the first time, feelings of hurt and betrayal outweighed her anger - and Agatha didn't know how to feel about that.

He didn't answer her immediately.

"You're a brainless moron," sneered Agatha. "Hell... you..." She faltered slightly, if only for a moment before hardening her glare: "You were better than me. Were. What in Arceus' name could be so important that you'd abandon Pokemon battles, it's weak of you, Oak!"

"I'm having a huge breakthrough," pleaded Oak, but Agatha was disgusted by his presence. That's when her anger returned, and at least she had some familiarity with that. It was weak of him. It was absolutely pathetic. "I'm having a huge breakthrough with my research. A device that would record Pokemon, and facts about them, and-"

"There is no point," Agatha cut in sharply.

"You know that's not true."

"But it is," retorted Agatha, crossing her arms. "And that has always been the world of difference between us, Samuel! You treat Pokemon as if they were pets, but if you don't train them properly, they are menacing creatures! They could tear your limbs off. If you're going to use Pokemon you might as well learn how to use them against other Pokemon that can take the damage that humans cannot! That's where the battling comes in, because that's how you're supposed to use them."

Oak stared at her. "We are never going to agree on that."

Beat.

"That we aren't," Agatha allowed, then she shook her head. "I need to leave." She proceeded to exit his home.

"Agatha..."

She didn't stop at the threshold and turn around like she desperately wanted to.

"Agatha, please."

She didn't stop at the entrance of the first route and turn around like she desperately wanted to.

"I'm sorry."

She didn't look back, not even for a second.

At age twenty-nine, Agatha became the first female Elite in the Indigo League, and she had no remorse. Around the same time, Oak became Professor Samuel Oak and revealed his invention of the Pokedex. Agatha didn't care, or at least tried her best not to care, and Oak's accomplishment flew away in the back of her mind.

Though Agatha has achieved elite status, that did not mean she's done and accomplished with her life, and she had accomplished quite a lot of things in her youth. Everyone would bring up what Professor Oak did, but what they didn't bring up was that Agatha published her own research as well. She was the one that created the typing chart. She was the one that introduced how these typings combated against one another, and which ones were ineffective. It was her that studied status effecting moves and its durations.

Oak could sit back and relax regarding his invention being successful, but Agatha had something to prove to him. She would not rest. She would not sleep. She would accomplish everything and more, because she had the thirst to better than him, the thirst to keep going, to (in some twisted way) keep their rivalry alive without speaking to him.

There was nothing sweeter than the taste of vengeance, and the right way to do that was to achieve greatness.

At age twenty-nine, Agatha was far from satisfied, and perhaps she wouldn't ever be. She had an empire to build, because if Kanto and Johto were to have good gym leaders and elites it would only be right if she played a role in it. The Indigo League needed to remain the best league of all the regions.

Regions were competitive with one another, league-wise. It was called the League Numbering System (LNS) in which they recorded and measured how many trainers the gym leaders and elites from all over would defeat; but it only counted if a trainer from a competing region challenged them, and shockingly, there were more challengers like that than one would think.

If a league member that was a gym leader won against a trainer from a different region in an official battle, then the gym leader's region would gain one point. However, if the gym leader lost, then the gym leader's region would lose one point. Depending if a trainer had lost against a gym leader more than once, the trainer would gain a third of their points back that the gym leader had won if they finally managed to beat them. For the elites, stakes were much higher on the defending region's end. If the trainer won against an elite, then the elite's region would lose five points. If the trainer lost, then the elites would gain only three points. The reason for this was because elites could be battled as many times as one wanted, while once you beat a gym leader and obtain their badge then you couldn't battle them anymore.

As for defeating the champion? Well, that was rare – but the champion's region would lose fifteen points, whilst if the champion won the region would gain a mere five points. If the trainer stayed as the champion, then they would have to fight for that region instead of the one they originally came from. This never happened. Call the system petty. Call it immature. Agatha didn't care; that's just how it was - and she was a traditionalist in that sense.

It was something that five of the regions - Kanto, Johto, Hoenn, Sinnoh, and Unova - agreed on long ago, ten years before Agatha was born. Normally these trainers would practice by trying to take on their own gyms from their own regions, maybe get to the elite four if they're good enough, and then venture off to one of the others. This system was created to ensure friendly competition so that another world region war wouldn't break out between each other like the last time. Kanto and Sinnoh's champions at the time were both ruthless in their own right and both committed terrible atrocities. Blood was shed, and many top-trainers, soldiers, civilians, and Pokemon had died.

Kanto and Johto were connected with each other due to them sharing the Indigo League. There was a time where Johto tried to have their own elite four, and that was something the region tried to erase from history, but failed. It was abysmal with their chosen champion getting beaten constantly, and eventually when Johto assisted Kanto in the region war they had gotten themselves in with Sinnoh, Kanto agreed to take Johto in and created the Indigo League - a combination of the two. Johto's scores weren't that great (at least they weren't Sinnoh, but that's a story for another time), however Kanto had carried them through and Indigo was always on top due to them having the strongest elite four and quite a good amount of Kanto gym leaders.

The LNS had a friendly rivalry, but regional pride ran deep. Agatha wanted to make sure Indigo stayed at the top. She needn't worry about this until much, much later.

Most importantly, Agatha wanted every single trainer in the world to know her name, and what she represented, and how she achieved all the things she did. In years to come, Agatha is many things to people; terrifying, influential, menacing, strict, the best strategist trainers had ever seen and a glare that would make most people wet themselves.

But Agatha had a heart like everyone else.

You see, there were certain... things in the leagues that you didn't discuss. One of them was Agatha's association with one Professor Oak. There was a reason for this. People still talked, of course, having their own theories - but only one league member would have the guts to confront her on it one-on-one. A league member that was arguably as clever as she, one that Agatha considered a friend however wouldn't admit aloud like many other things, because again - regional pride ran deep. The other league member was entirely correct in her assumption. But this was many, many years later.

Whatever this may turn out to be, it is first and foremost a story of achieving greatness. A story about how league members - with all their quirks, will, determination and, in some cases, sheer luck - had achieved it in some way, shape, or form. Greatness could mean many things. A lot of it was good. A lot of it was bad. And a lot of it was somewhere in-between. It was arguable that most of it was in-between, like people usually were. League members were human after all, despite others insisting otherwise.

But great, nonetheless, and Agatha was the start of it all.