Maybe it was a bit cowardly of me, avoiding the test, but instead of going back to Roxanne I decided it would be better to go visit Winona first.

  There was no need to bother Wattson again either. So when we teleported into Mauville we headed straight off to the east end of town and further out towards the water.

  East of Mauville there was a large river that cut off the city from the rest of the country. It collected into a large estuary here as it reached the ocean, the river itself extended a long way up into the mountains to the north. There was no easy way to cross except from here.

  Surf was the classic move in the games, letting you travel across the water barrier after beating Norman. I had a Marill, but I obviously couldn’t exactly ride him across without getting wet myself. Fortunately for me I had a safer, dryer alternative to the crossing.

  Leah gripped my hand tightly, focusing on her view of the other side of the water and in a moment we were on the other side.

  “Cleon!” shouted a Kecleon, which had been hidden on the small beach, having been startled into revealing itself by our sudden appearance.

  Upon seeing what had happened, Leah covered her mouth and giggled. I chuckled too, especially when the Pokemon began to complain indignantly. Something about the invisible Pokemon being caught out like that was just funny to me.

  “Sorry,” I said. “We didn’t see you there.”

  That only made my Gardevoir giggle again and she pressed her head against my shoulder to stifle herself.

  Apparently our amusement wasn’t welcome because the Kecleon shouted something in Pokespeech. Leah pulled her head away from me and was about to say something when the Kecleon’s tongue suddenly shot out of its mouth.

  My Gardevoir wasn’t quick enough to react to the surprise attack and the tongue struck her face where it went up from the bottom of her chin to the top of her forehead, a lick of green hair was left sticking up comically.

  The Kecleon retracted its tongue, looking smug at what it’d done. It didn’t seem to have done any damage at least. Well, no damage except to my Pokemon’s pride.

  It said something again, sounding pretty haughty, but its words died in its throat as Leah stepped forward and loomed over the Pokemon. She glared down at it.

  “Gardevoirrr?” Leah asked, one of her eyes twitching as her rage built.

  “Kecleon!” The Kecleon shouted in surprise as it suddenly found itself lifted up off the ground, caught in my Pokemon’s telekinesis. The next moment it was sailing off in the direction of the body of water we’d just crossed, let go by Leah to finish the rest of its journey with only it’s newly found momentum.

  I watched as the Pokemon flew through the air in an arc and wound up landing with a satisfying splash in the mostly calm waters.

  “Voir…” Leah said with a huff. She reached up to wipe her face and tried to put her hair back in place with a pout on her lips.

  “Garde?” She asked after a few seconds, asking me to tell her if she’d fixed her hair.

  “You look good,” I said. Her hair was still a bit out of place and slightly damp too, but I wasn’t going to tell her that. It’d dry on its own anyway.

  With that little bit of excitement over, we headed off towards the next Route. This was one in particular I was excited to see. It wasn’t too long to travel before we found the crossroads. Further east would be where the large berry farm was in the games and I imagined something similar existed here too. It was northwards I was more interested in.

  Route 119 extended all the way north to Fortree and this route in particular I had fond memories of from the games I once played.

  When I was a little boy, some of my friends had set up Secret Bases and we’d exchanged data between our games so they would transfer over. I looked back fondly on those days. In particular I remembered amusement at how my level 67 Sceptile repeatedly oneshot my friend’s Groudon, which was something like level 85, with it’s Solar Beam. It’d only been after he’d deliberately acquired a Shedinja to stop my Sceptile cold that he’d been able to beat the unintelligent computer using my uploaded team.

  Anyway, the fun thing about Secret Bases was that it wasn’t just your linked friend’s that got copied over. The Bases from other people they had shared data with also copied over between cartridges. I’d found, all on my own, a few other bases from people I had never and would never meet in person and a lot of them had been on Route 119. It had been just a little bit magical to a young boy back then who didn’t have many friends.

  I figured something must have been telling in my expression. Because Leah giggled while looking at me.

  “What? I’m just feeling nostalgic.”

  Leah chuckled again and looped her arm through mine.

  “Vooooiir,” she teased, gesturing forwards at our surroundings humorously with the arm not linked with mine. My lips twitched in amusement, I wasn’t ashamed in the slightest about how I felt.

  We headed off towards the path that would lead to Fortree, a fun little adventure ahead of us.

  Then there was a crackle of thunder in the distance and almost immediately after the rain began to pour down.

  Yes, I remembered Route 119 fondly, but the rain was certainly a lot more pleasant when it was just on the screen.

  ***

  Roxanne split her time between teaching at the Trainer School and her Gym. It was always a bit lopsided, with her spending more time at the Gym at the start of the Trainer season and more time at the school later in the year.

  That was fairly ideal in a way. Because it meant she had more of a chance to teach the kids that would be getting ready to come and face her at the start of the next season.

  But there was that awkward period of quiet. The school year was almost over so there were just a few exams left and the season was almost done so there were barely any challengers. So now she had to find something more to do with her time.

  But Roxanne was prepared! Right now she was preparing to set up her auditions for next year’s prospective Gym trainers. She didn’t do it like the other Gyms with lots of permanent staff. Instead Roxanne recruited the brightest students from the local schools for the next year, which also gave her the opportunity to teach those more promising trainers on a more one to one basis.

  It wasn’t just kids that Roxanne had working for her though, She also had Marc. He was a stereotypical hiker and strictly speaking he would have to be her deputy by seniority if nothing else, being in his late forties now. He’d been a Gym trainer since before she’d got her current position too, but he wasn’t the type of guy she could rely on for administerial stuff. Instead, Marc did a lot of work in monitoring the surrounding area north and south of Rustboro, so he wasn’t always available at the Gym. He was invaluable for what he did, but Roxanne did sort of wish he’d spend more time at the Gym.

  She put all that out of her mind for a minute and continued typing at her computer. By the time she was finished the first stage of this year’s selection process was finally ready. It was a test on Pokemon, their types and movesets and there was even an essay question to cap it all off.

  Roxanne was actually pretty pleased with this idea. The question was asking about which Pokemon the examinee should prefer to be using in a three way battle scenario and why. The choices were between either a Shroomish, a Wingull or a Zigzagoon, all of which were Pokemon that could be found in the surrounding area. It was deliberately going to be a highly scoring question with no real wrong answers. Roxanne wanted to see the test taker to comment on the strengths and weaknesses of each of the Pokemon in question and it would also give her an idea of their personality and preferences too if they described how they would approach the situation strategically.

  Aaaand, done.

  “Uffff!” She huffed, leaning back into her seat and closing her eyes. She was finally finished but regardless of how satisfying it was to have everything prepared, it had still taken up a lot of her time today. She checked the clock and realised suddenly that it was pretty late now. She hadn’t even had dinner yet.

  If someone had told her what it would be like, just how much work went into teaching then she might’ve chosen a different lifestyle. But Roxanne really did enjoy it and she’d committed herself to it now anyway. Plus, she definitely didn’t want to see another spate of uneducated young trainers barrelling through her door only to be soundly defeated, one after another. That had made her first year of being a Gym Leader unpleasant in the extreme.

  Roxanne quickly pulled up her calendar. All she had was a sixth Badge battle scheduled for tomorrow afternoon, plus she needed to do some work with her Gym Pokemon, making sure their strength levels were recorded accurately.

  If only it were that easy though. People had tried to quantify Pokemon strength for decades and got nowhere with it. Roxanne liked to have the Pokemon run a mini battle tournament and she graded the Pokemon based on their performance and what moves they knew. It wasn’t a perfect system but it worked for her.

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  Roxanne’s tummy rumbled, protesting loudly in the otherwise silent room. She really ought to grab something to eat. She needed to see to her Pokemon too. That was before getting some sleep.

  She was getting ready to leave the building when her PokeNav dinged. It was a text reminder from Winona about the video call later with the other Gym Leaders which she’d both forgotten to put in on her calendar and then completely forgotten about it.

  “Darnit,” Roxanne cursed quietly.

  “Thanks, Winona,” she grumbled to herself. Forgetting about the meeting was probably preferable right now…

  She set off back to the Gym, which also conveniently doubled up as her home.

  Already she knew she wasn’t going to get enough sleep tonight.

  ***

  The Gym Leaders had got together via video call again. After having visited a bunch of other Gyms now was a good time for them to all have another chat about Harry Hemming.

  Juan was here too, but that was a bit of a special case. Wallace was the official leader, but nobody was under the impression that they didn't run the Sootopolis Gym together.

  “He’s got a decent bit to learn about the role,” Wattson said. “But his heart’s in it. Give him a bit of time to figure things out and I think he’ll be able to handle any trainers needing some help or good advice.”

  “What about you Moore?” Winona asked curiously. She was the most interested in the man right now. “You said your granddaughter battled him instead of doing it yourself.”

  “That’s right,” Moore nodded.

  After some time to think things over, Moore had some minor concerns about their prospective ninth member he wanted to at least mention to the others.

  “He’s a bit rough around the edges in terms of battling and strategy,” Moore said carefully. “In his battle with Flannery he made a few critical mistakes. Most apparent was his choice in moves to use. If he’d applied strategies better or thought a bit more carefully about his decisions against Flannery then he might have done even better than he did.”

  “Well I didn’t see anything like that when I battled him!” Brawly drawled with humour in his tone. “The guy handed me my ass pretty easily. Had some pretty sneaky tactics with that Mawile of his.”

  “And he still won both battles too,” Wattson pointed out. Moore couldn’t disagree. If Harry had lost then he would be being far more critical about it, but on reflection that was his opinion and he felt it bore mentioning.

  “Flannery is as strong as any Gym Leader should be,” he told them. He’d trained his granddaughter well. She had strong Pokemon and a decent eye for tactics and she would make a fine Gym Leader when she took over properly.

  “I’m not disputing that he’s not actually strong enough. But I got the impression overall that he hasn’t engaged in a lot of high level trainer battles, or many battles where he hasn’t been able to just overpower his opponents. It’s little details that caught me. Like withdrawing his Pokemon rather than let them battle until they were knocked out.”

  In short, he was used to not having to push himself and he coddled his Pokemon a bit too. Moore suspected Harry hadn’t been pushed properly in a good while.

  If Harry had kept his Gardevoir on the field to fight the Torkoal then his victory over Flannery might have been more one sided. As it was, it had still been a solid victory in the end. That Marill had almost one-hit her Rapidash and Flannery had been right to surrender the battle at that point. It was a monster, especially given how weak the species usually was.

  Harry clearly had the potential in him to be strong, maybe the strongest of the Gym Leaders with the right tempering and a bit more time. What rankled him in hindsight was that, to Moore, it just felt to him like the young man wasn’t putting his all into things. Harry needed something to drive him to improve as a trainer. Hopefully becoming a Gym Leader would do that.

  “If he’s strong enough now regardless, then that’s not a major concern anyway,” Winona said firmly, receiving nods and noises of agreement from the rest of the Gym Leaders.

  “What did your meeting with him go like, Norman?” asked Roxanne, moving the subject along. The man grimaced, meanwhile Moore didn’t miss the girl suppressing a yawn.

  “He understands Fairy types as well as you’d expect from an expert and he figured out exactly what was going on with the Jigglypuff,” Norman said before shaking his head.

  “We could’ve solved the problem ourselves eventually but Harry definitely helped speed things up. The Jigglypuff were really awkward and uncomfortable in a way they hadn’t been before when I spoke to them and confronted them again with Harry’s theory. They agreed to stop bothering the other Pokemon like they were doing and we’re setting it up so that the other Pokemon don’t bother them anymore. Only time will tell if we need to do anything more drastic but I was already planning on building a new smaller habitat off the main one so if they stay with us any longer then I’ll put them there until their habitat is restored.”

  “That’s another point in his favour then,” Wattson said cheerfully. It was clear that Harry had impressed him during their meeting.

  “Really, after everything you’ve told us so far, it sounds like we are dealing with a wild expert,” Wallace said airily, referring to trainers who tended to stay away from civilization rather than engage in the battle circuit and typically accepted routes. “We’ve seen them pop up here and there before.”

  “But none that wanted to come out of the wilderness and of all things come and join our ranks, or go around writing mediocre drama,” Juan pointed out from next to the other Water type trainer. “He sounds like a fascinating fellow.”

  Moore withheld a snort of amusement at hearing the stories the Fairy trainer had written being called mediocre. Flannery would probably have a conniption if she were listening in.

  “Where is he now, anyway?” Wallace asked. “He’s doing the regular route. So he must be on his way to see Winona now.”

  “I didn’t get the chance to ask,” Norman replied. “He’d left his Gardevoir in the wilds to see her old family. She tried teleporting directly back to him later while he was still at the Gym. Of course she bounced off our Dark emitters so then the Gardevoir decided to fight her way through the Gym, past a bunch of my trainers to reach him.”

  “Oh no, was anybody hurt?” Winona asked with concern.

  “She didn’t do much damage, no more than we sometimes see when one of the Vigoroth get excited. It was mostly my Gym trainers’ pride that got hurt in the end,” Norman groused, lips twitching in amusement. “Harry seemed pretty embarrassed about it and left in a hurry. I guess he should be coming to you next though.”

  “He’s following the traditional trainer route,” Wattson agreed. “But still, he’s going a lot faster than most trainers travel around the country.”

  The usual journey around Hoenn took five to six months for young trainers. Obviously that would be far less if you weren’t stopping to train your Pokemon, catch new ones or waiting in one of the settlements for a Gym battle.

  Harry by comparison had visited five Gyms now in just over a week.

  “Well he does have a teleporter, not many trainers have that advantage and he is a Hoenn native,” Liza stated confidently.

  “About that,” Brawly spoke up. “Say, d’you guys think you could help teach my Medicham Teleport?” He asked with interest of the Psychic trainers.

  Being on Dewford with their general lack of easy transportation, Brawly was probably the least able to move around the region in the event he needed to get somewhere. Having access to a teleporter would be very helpful for him.

  “Nope! There are only a few Pokemon that can learn Teleport and none of them are Fighting type,” Liza responded authoritatively.

  “No there is. Gallade can learn Teleport,” Tate contradicted, sounding a bit more subdued than his sister as he disagreed with her.

  Liza’s cheeks flushed red in embarrassment as she realised her mistake and she pouted at her brother. Tate cringed slightly under his sister’s glare.

  “That’s a tough Pokemon to get a hold of,” Brawly mused, ignoring the byplay. “Maybe I should ask Harry for some advice on getting one. Unless you guys might be up for a trade?”

  “We don’t have any Ralts or Kirlia that are Gym Pokemon,” Tate said. “If you go looking for one though, then it has to be a boy, and you’ll need a Dawn stone to evolve it.”

  “Or lots of time in the sunshine,” Liza piped in. Tate nodded in agreement.

  “Well sunshine we’ve got in spades out here,” Brawly laughed. “Thanks you two. I’ll keep that in mind.”

  Tate practically preened while Liza averted her gaze from the screen. Moore withheld a chuckle, seeing similar reactions from the adult Gym Leaders present at seeing the younger kid’s response to the praise from the muscular and no doubt very cool, Gym Leader.

  “Moore,” Winona interjected. “I’ve been thinking about what I wanted to do when Mr Hemming visits. Why don’t l ask him for a battle too and see if I can settle your concerns about him. Will that help?”

  Moore was surprised at the suggestion but nodded gratefully.

  “It will,” he agreed. “In fact I wouldn’t mind coming up and observing, if that’s alright with you?” It was always best to get a first hand view on these things and it would be fun to watch another high level battle first hand.

  It was also considered polite to request permission to enter another Gym Leader’s territory, as it were. At least that was how it’d always been amongst the older crowd.

  “Sure,” Winona agreed easily. “We can make a day of it if you like. Anyone else want to come?”

  The suggestion caught several of the other Gym Leaders by surprise.

  “We’ll come!” Liza and Tate said quickly, speaking in unison.

  “I will too,” Wattson stated more sedately. “Moore, I’ll pop around with my Electrode and pick you up, if you like.”

  “That would be wonderful,” Moore said gratefully. His Charizard was a fast enough flyer, but his old bones weren’t quite what they used to be and he’d much prefer to avoid the cold at high altitude.

  Brawly apologised, saying that he didn’t have the time to get away with some issues cropping up with the local Aggron population. Norman bowed out, mentioning his ongoing work with the Jigglypuff situation and Roxanne said she was too busy right now too. Wallace and Juan were both busy preparing for both a new contest exhibition and on top of that they had several Gym battles lined up they needed to be ready for too.

  “Sorry everyone but I really need to get some work done, I’ve got a busy day ahead of me tomorrow,” Roxanne told them.

  Everyone said their goodbyes before Roxanne left the call.

  “I better leave too,” Winona said. “There’s a big storm heading our way and I need to make a run around my territory for any lost trainers.”

  “Err, if Harry’s supposed to be coming your way does that mean he’ll be somewhere in that storm?” Liza pointed out, making everyone react with surprise.

  “I’ll make sure to keep an eye out for him. But I certainly hope he’s smart enough not to try travelling when the weather picks up,” Winona replied.

  “Good luck,” Norman said seriously, receiving a polite smile from Winona as everyone else said goodbye too and she left the call as well.

  “Is there anything else we should talk about?” Norman asked. “Nothing out of the ordinary?”

  There were shakes of the head from the other Gym Leaders and the conversation quickly devolved into Wallace and Juan enthusiastically talking about their upcoming contest exhibition. Moore wasn’t particularly interested but he nodded politely and listened as best he could.

  The call ended a little bit later and Moore shut down the videophone, feeling a little bit excited at the opportunity to see Harry battle again.