"Then go ahead and challenge it."
Gary willingly gave up his place in line.
"Huh?" Barry was startled, then said in surprise, "You're pretty decent. Fine, I'll let you come in and watch the battle afterward. That way you'll know in advance which Pokémon the Gym Leader uses and can plan your tactics."
"Heh."
Gary nodded with a smile.
Barry might have been reckless, but he was kind-hearted, and he didn't mind Gary watching his Gym battle at all.
Unfortunately, that Gym battle was never going to happen.
"Hey! I'm here to challenge the Gym, so open the door already!" Barry shouted at the entrance.
"Gym challengers, please come this way."
Barry looked confused, but followed the voice prompt over to a cabinet beside the Gym entrance.
"This Gym does not require a challenge. You may receive your Badge directly. Please help yourself."
With that, the cabinet door opened, revealing a pile of Beacon Badges inside.
"Huh? What's that supposed to mean? You're just handing out Badges?"
"No way!"
Barry was utterly stunned. For a rookie like him, this was completely unheard of.
"Correct. At this Gym, the Badge can be obtained directly without a battle."
"You… that's a foul! You're getting fined for this!" Barry said indignantly.
Barry was the son of a Frontier Brain, so he understood Gym rules better than most people.
"Please help yourself."
The robot didn't care about any of that. Those were simply the instructions it had been given.
"Fine, I'll take one, then."
Barry had gone through a lot of trouble to get to Sunyshore City. He couldn't just refuse the Badge because of how the Gym Leader was running things, so he took one out.
"Thank you for your patronage."
Barry stared at the Gym in frustration, then seemed to think of something. He immediately turned to Gary and asked, "You didn't get to battle either, right? Did you just grab a Badge too?"
"No. I don't approve of a Gym like this," Gary said.
"Then what will you do?" Barry asked.
"Sinnoh isn't just Sunyshore City. There are Gyms in other places too—I'll simply go challenge those instead," Gary said, unconcerned.
Any region could have up to eighteen Gyms, and Sinnoh had more than eight. As for Ash, two of the Badges in his collection had also been obtained without a proper challenge.
"You've got a point, but you came all this way. Doesn't it feel awful leaving without a fight?" Barry asked.
Gary smiled slightly. "What, you want to battle me?"
"Yeah! You up for it? I made it all the way to Sunyshore City, and I'm strong," Barry said confidently.
Sunyshore Gym was recognized as the strongest Gym in the Sinnoh Region. Any Trainer who dared to challenge it naturally had plenty of confidence in his own strength.
"All right, I'll take you on."
"What format do you want?"
Gary was quite curious about Barry's strength too. From what he could tell, Barry was about the level of a Trainer who'd finish in a League Conference's top sixteen. Most of the Pokémon on his team would be at Gym level; perhaps his main Pokémon were close to quasi-Elite, but there'd only be one or two of those.
"Let's do a 3-on-3. If you win, I'll give you this TM. But if you lose, you pay me one million," Barry said.
Gary was stunned for a moment. He hadn't expected Barry to be into wager battles.
Gary had never taken part in one before, but most wager battles were only worth two or three thousand—tens of thousands at most. A million was way too big.
"Do you usually open with a million?" Gary asked.
Even someone with pockets as deep as Gary's wouldn't dare push a wager up to a million. His family had money, but he wasn't about to squander it like that.
"Nope!"
"Then why does betting against me cost a million?"
"Because I can tell you're a really strong Trainer, and the clothes you're wearing look pretty expensive. One look and it's obvious you're not short on cash," Barry said.
Gary was surprised.
He hadn't expected the reckless Barry to be so perceptive—able to judge whether someone had money just from how they dressed.
"A million's fine, but what move is this TM? Is it really worth a million?" Gary asked.
"Snarl. The move isn't very powerful, but it's a spread attack. It can counter Double Team, and even if a Pokémon hides up in the sky, it'll still get hit. It's a very practical move," Barry said.
Snarl was indeed a spread move, just as Barry said, and it could hit airborne targets. It could also ignore Substitute. The key was its added effect—it was guaranteed to lower the target's Special Attack.
Its only drawback was low power. At just 50, it was best learned by a Dark-type Pokémon to get the most out of it.
"All right, I accept," Gary said.
So the two of them found a public battlefield near Sunyshore Gym that hadn't been used in a long time.
They took their places in the command boxes at either end of the field, both sides ready.
"Let me show you my strength. My vanguard is this one!"
"Go, Staraptor!"
Barry was first to release his Pokémon.
[LV44 Staraptor / Quasi-Elite]
Not bad at all—it actually had Elite potential.
Barry might be reckless, but he was smart about raising Pokémon. He didn't just take in everything he found the way Ash did; he decided whether to raise a Pokémon based on its own aptitude.
Staraptor was strong among the fourth-generation regional birds, since it could learn equalizing moves like Endeavor.
"I'll leave this battle to you."
"Go, Magnezone."
Gary casually tossed a Poké Ball into the sky.
The ball opened in midair, a burst of white light shot out, and a Magnezone appeared.
[LV59 Magnezone / Champion]
"Whoa!! Your Magnezone is a Shiny!" Barry said in surprise.
The difference between an ordinary Magnezone and a Shiny one was quite noticeable. One was gray and silver, the other white and silver—and then there were the eyes. An ordinary Magnezone's were red, while a Shiny's were blue.
"Yeah, I've raised it since it was still a Magnemite," Gary said.
"What?! How lucky can you get? A fine! I'm fining you!" Barry yelled.
Gary looked awkward, not sure what exactly was wrong with Barry.
"'Fine' is just my catchphrase. I'm not actually fining you," Barry explained.
"I know."
"Can we start now?"
Gary already knew that and didn't much care. Right now he just wanted to get the battle over with quickly so he could claim the Snarl TM.