"Oh, it's Lillie? Where did everyone else go?"
Grey was a little surprised to see the new arrival, Lillie, coming out to greet him.
Normally, if anyone came out to welcome him back, it was Bumiao.
So why was it Lillie today?
And besides the group of Pokémon and Lillie, all the other students and staff at the dojo were nowhere to be seen.
"Well... how do I put this? Someone challenged Silver to a fight, and Bumiao and the others went along too."
Lillie held Cosmog in her arms, and there was a trace of unease in her voice.
It was her first time seeing something like this, someone actually coming to pick a fight, and from the look of it, the other side had come in aggressively. They definitely didn't seem like decent people.
"Oh? What happened, exactly? How long have they been gone?"
Grey raised a brow, already thinking about which Pokémon he should bring to back them up.
"We're back!"
Before Lillie could answer, a string of footsteps came from beyond the dojo gate.
Grey turned around and saw Silver, Green, Bumiao, and...
"Brother Nobuhiko?! You're back!"
Grey rubbed his eyes, almost unable to believe the person standing in front of him.
He had just been about to go out and support Silver.
But looking at this, the one who had challenged Silver wasn't anyone else, it was Nobuhiko.
Nobuhiko, the Fighting Dojo's second master.
The trainer who had handed the Fighting Dojo over to Grey.
After transferring the dojo, he had gone off to train at Mt. Mortar in Johto.
Now that Nobuhiko had returned to Saffron City, Grey found himself feeling nostalgic.
Come to think of it, three months had already passed.
He had been a Gym Leader for three months now too.
If this were some long-running serialized fantasy epic, they'd probably have enough material for a million words already.
"Grey, it's been a long time. I never thought you'd really restore the Fighting Dojo's glory. I have to say, it's incredible."
When Nobuhiko had first handed the Fighting Dojo over to Grey, it was because the dojo's momentum had already run out. He couldn't keep it going anymore, so he had no choice but to pass it to a rookie like Grey, someone who still had the drive to try something new.
If Grey could bring it back to life, that would be perfect.
And if he couldn't, that was fine too.
Back then, the Fighting Dojo had been lifeless, especially compared to the thriving Saffron Gym.
Then Team Rocket blew up Saffron Gym, Grey's relationship with Sabrina heated up fast, and that gave the dojo room to breathe.
After all, after being beaten down by Sabrina for two straight tournaments, if she had wanted to, she absolutely could have reported the dojo to the League and had it relocated.
But Sabrina never did that. In fact, after her Gym was blown to ruins, she even moved into the Fighting Dojo.
"Oh, right, where did Sabrina go? I remember you two were pretty close. You didn't have a fight, did you?"
Nobuhiko waggled his brows at Grey.
"No. Sabrina went to Unova to film a movie. I've just been thinking about how to rebuild the ruins of Saffron Gym."
Grey fell into thought.
Saffron Gym had already been a ruin for a full three months. He had talked about rebuilding it long ago, but he still hadn't settled on how.
After all, the two gyms had practically nothing in common. On top of that, the Fighting Dojo was completely checked by the Saffron Gym in terms of typing, so it was hard to come up with any especially clever design.
If he just linked them together, Fighting Dojo on the left, Saffron Gym on the right, that would feel way too... slapped together.
At least in Grey's opinion, it needed some kind of idea that would make people's eyes light up.
For example, he could keep the two sides distinct in their attributes while adding a central section in the middle.
At the moment, Grey had two ideas.
One was Double Battles.
In other words, he could team up with Sabrina, Silver, or Green and battle challengers together.
Of course, it wouldn't be a case of having challengers face him and Sabrina right from the start. The lineup would change depending on how many badges they had and how strong they actually were.
The other idea was Legendary Pokémon battles.
He could build a special arena meant specifically for battles involving Legendary Pokémon.
The price of building that kind of arena went without saying, it would be astronomical.
At least judging from Reshiram's destructive power, there were almost no structures that could truly withstand its strength.
Even a giant building like Silph Co. had been burned open by its blue flames.
And Silph Co. wasn't some ordinary building. To guard against powerful invaders, even its outer walls alone were durable enough to withstand prolonged attacks from Elite Four-level Pokémon.
Even Champion-level Pokémon could only hammer away at it for a short time before breaking through.
And yet even that level of durability had been burned away by Reshiram's blue fire.
So just the materials alone would probably cost a fortune.
Back to the point.
Nobuhiko returning to the dojo today made Grey think of a lot of things.
If Nobuhiko could stay for a long time, then Grey himself wouldn't have to sit in the dojo all day.
"Brother Nobuhiko, how long are you staying this time?"
Grey rubbed his hands together, clearly ready to talk Nobuhiko into "reclaiming the Gym Leader seat."
"Hmm... probably only a few hours. I've got something else later. Grey, seeing the Fighting Dojo's glory restored in your hands, even Master Koichi praised you for it."
A few moved tears welled up in Nobuhiko's eyes. He sniffed and placed a hand on Grey's shoulder, his face full of amazement.
"So my choice back then really was the right one. I'm sure that before long, you'll win the Gym Leader Tournament."
At first, Nobuhiko had thought that getting the dojo back among the eight official Gyms would already be the absolute limit.
But now, Nobuhiko felt that Grey had a real chance, no, not just a chance, he was certain to become the strongest Gym Leader in the world.
"I'm decent enough. Nothing that crazy. It's just that Giovanni and Pryce are both ridiculously hard to read. If I don't use Reshiram and Kyurem, I'm not sure I can beat them."
A huge part of Grey's current strength rested on Reshiram and Kyurem.
As for Champion-level power besides them, Annihilape was still carrying the banner by itself.
Beyond that, the Pokémon most likely to reach Champion-level before the Gym Leader Tournament were Blaziken, Gallade, and Lucario.
Breloom, Articuno, and Zapdos had a good chance of reaching Champion-level during the tournament itself.
As for the rest of his Pokémon, aside from the Swords of Justice, many of them still needed time just to reach Elite Four-level.
"You've always been like this, Grey. You always downplay things whenever someone praises you, before and now."
Nobuhiko laughed helplessly.
Even if Grey excluded Reshiram and Kyurem, that didn't mean those two dragons suddenly stopped being his Pokémon.
Obviously not.
And besides, if you looked across every region put together, how many trainers even had Champion-level battle power?
Giovanni, Pryce, Wallace, the former Sootopolis Gym Leader, and Raihan. Other than Grey, there were only those four.
So if Grey's strength were ranked among all the Gym Leaders in the world, he was absolutely in the top handful.
"Being modest is good. Run your mouth too much and you're just asking to get struck by lightning."
Grey wasn't the flashy type by nature.
He hadn't started acting like he owned the world just because he had caught Reshiram and Kyurem.
If he ever really got rebellious ideas, forget Kanto, the whole of Saffron City would already belong to him.
"Well said. Then I won't keep bothering you. I should go catch up with some old friends too."
Nobuhiko wasn't actually much older than Grey. After saying that, he left the Fighting Dojo to go look for some of his old friends.
Grey, meanwhile, pulled out his phone and started scrolling through his contacts.
"Man, where am I supposed to find some kind of construction genius..."
He flipped through the list and realized that basically everyone he knew was a trainer.
If he needed help fighting, people would probably come.
But if he needed someone who understood architecture or engineering, that was another story.
"Forget it. Lance is basically a demolition specialist. If anyone knows the right kind of construction expert, it should be him."
The more Grey thought about it, the more reasonable it sounded.
So he got right to it.
[Dojo Annihilape: Lance, do you know any construction experts? The dojo needs an expansion, and the materials I need might be a little absurd.]
[Dragon Master Lance: Oh? What kind of absurd are we talking about? Tell me the details first. I know quite a few people in construction. I just don't know whether any of them can meet your requirements.]
League facilities also needed actual engineers and builders to put them together. You couldn't just gather a bunch of Machamp and tell them to stack bricks.
So it made perfect sense for Lance, as an Elite Four member, to know people in that line of work.
[Dojo Annihilape: Ahem. The thing is, the material strength I need has to be enough to withstand battle-legend tier Pokémon.]
[Dragon Master Lance: ?]
[Dragon Master Lance: Gym Leader Grey, have you been practicing stand-up comedy lately?]
At that level, Pokémon were normally supposed to be able to control their own power, weren't they?
[Dojo Annihilape: Here's the situation. I've had an idea lately. I want to merge the Fighting Dojo and Saffron Gym. But if I just merge them normally, that's way too bland.]
[Dojo Annihilape: So I quietly added a little extra. And that extra is that I want to add Double Battles and Legendary Pokémon battles too. Just as bonus attractions. It won't affect badge matches.]
[Dragon Master Lance: ...]
[Dragon Master Lance: Gym Leader Grey, I have to admit, it's a great idea. But as far as the construction experts I know go, none of them have ever built anything with that kind of durability. You could say this would be completely unprecedented.]
Once you got to battle-legend tier, most trainers tended to develop their teams out in the wild anyway.
Take Red and Blue for example.
Those two were constantly running all over the place, and they handled both battling and training wherever they happened to be.
Lately they'd been "retiring" on Mt. Silver, and causing no end of trouble for the local Pokémon.
Even Galar's Unbeaten Monarch, Leon, was the same way.
There was simply no precedent for something like this.
So Grey's question was genuinely a first.
If a trainer showed up with a Pokémon close to battle-legend tier and wanted to battle, what then?
The arena getting wrecked would be inevitable.
But what if Reshiram decided to destroy the arena every other day?
Just imagining it was enough to make your pulse jump.
Your wallet would cry too.
[Dragon Master Lance: That said, if we're talking about what you described, I actually do know a "genius." If he's willing to help you and handle it personally, I think your idea might actually be possible.]
[Dojo Annihilape: Oh? Which genius? Let me hear it.]
[Dragon Master Lance: It's someone you know too. Blue.]
[Dojo Annihilape: Huh?!]
...
...
"Lance said you needed help from the great me. I already know the general situation, so now let me sort this out."
Blue arrived at the Fighting Dojo. Sitting on the sofa with one leg crossed over the other, he took a sip of tea and asked Grey for the finer details.
"So what you need is for my Pokémon to help you build a structure that can withstand moves from battle-legend tier Pokémon, right?"
"Yeah. Basically, as long as it can withstand a short burst from Reshiram and Kyurem, that's enough."
Grey's idea was simple. Any Pokémon could get heated in battle.
What he wanted wasn't an arena that could withstand Reshiram's blue flames forever.
He just wanted one that wouldn't get reduced to ruins the moment Reshiram or Kyurem got fired up.
It sounded simple, but actually making it happen would be incredibly difficult.
"Hmm... real knowledge comes from real testing. I think I need to battle you first before I can figure out roughly what kind of structural strength you'll need."
Blue's idea was straightforward. He would have his Rhyperior battle one of Grey's Pokémon.
After that, they'd know exactly what they were dealing with.
Simple and brutal, with no need to worry about spending all that effort building something only for it to collapse in one hit anyway.
"Good idea. I don't see any problem with that."
Grey nodded in agreement.
But which Pokémon should he use?
His eyes drifted between Reshiram and Kyurem.
Lately, he had mostly been sending Reshiram out to battle. He hadn't really gotten a feel for Kyurem yet.
Yeah.
"I choose you, Kyurem!"
Grey decided to send Kyurem into battle.
"I'm not doing it. I want to sleep."
Kyurem flatly refused.
Grey: ?
"Hey, all I agreed to was coming to Kanto with you. I never once said I'd fight alongside you."
Kyurem didn't think its memory was failing that badly.
It had indeed agreed to come to Kanto with Grey, but it had never said anything about this kind of battle.
At best, when it was in a good mood, it might listen to Grey's commands once in a while.
But in most situations, getting it to obey in battle was practically impossible.
Practically.
Which meant there was still a chance.
"Kyurem, just say it. What do you want?"
Grey knew Kyurem wanted something, the problem was that he had no idea what it was.
"Heh. Are you sure you want me to say it? What I want is probably something you won't agree to."
Kyurem let out a cold laugh.
"Say it first. After you say it, I'll decide whether I agree or not. If you don't even say it, how do you know I'll refuse?"
Grey felt that as long as everything wasn't out in the open yet, anything was possible.
How could Kyurem think so little of him?
"What I want is simple. Grey, I want you to become my Hero."
"No! Grey is already my Hero of Truth. How could he become the Hero of an empty-shell dragon like you? Are you really trying to steal him?"
Before Grey could answer, Reshiram answered for him.
Reshiram believed Grey was its Hero of Truth, and because it had Grey, its strength had risen to the level of three Kyurem put together.
If Grey became Kyurem's Hero instead, Reshiram's power might fall drastically, and then its mortal enemy Zekrom would beat it senseless.
Just imagining it was terrifying.
Kyurem, not a chance.
"Heh. And who said one person can't be more than one kind of Hero? Let me put it this way, a truly exceptional person can hold multiple Hero roles. Not just the Hero of Truth, if Grey is willing, he could also become the Hero of Ideals at the same time."
When a person was exceptional enough, they would never be limited to just one title.
That applied to Heroes too.
Most Legendary Pokémon had some kind of Hero designation of their own.
They just called it different things.
It wasn't as though those roles didn't exist.
Take Ho-Oh, for example. Its chosen hero was called the Rainbow Hero.
Lugia's was the Sea Hero.
Seen that way, being a "Hero" really just came down to whether the Legendary Pokémon wanted to grant the title.
If it wanted to grant it, then you were a Hero.
It was mostly a matter of naming.
That was what made the Hero slots among the three Unova dragons especially precious.
Reshiram and Zekrom had just made too many assumptions.
One Hero slot could only belong to one person at a time, but nobody ever said one person could only hold one slot.
"So, Grey, what do you think? Become my Hero, and from now on I'll listen to you. If you tell me to go east, I won't go west."
Kyurem's voice carried an almost seductive pull.
It admitted that at first it had only wanted to change sleeping spots.
But now things were different.
Seeing how strong the Reshiram that had once split off from it had become, Kyurem felt that it was no worse than Reshiram.
To put it bluntly, jealousy was at work.
"Well... this Hero thing probably depends on compatibility too, right? How about this, first let's fight together once. If the two of us are actually compatible, then I'll become your Hero. How's that?"
There was no way Grey was agreeing to anything in advance.
He was absolutely not going to take a loss in a situation like this.
Trying to get one over on him?
Nice try.
He wasn't bragging, but there really weren't many people who had managed to take advantage of him.
Only Caitlin and Sabrina had ever done that.
Aside from them, not really anyone else.
"?"
Kyurem considered how workable Grey's proposal was.
"If not, then forget it. Reshiram, you can battle Mr. Blue instead."
Grey started walking toward Reshiram.
One step... two steps...
Kyurem still didn't answer.
With his back to Kyurem, Grey raised a brow and quickened his pace.
In a situation like this, the first one to turn back was the one who lost.
Only when Grey was almost beside Reshiram did Kyurem finally speak in an unhurried voice.
"Fine. We'll try it first."
Hearing that answer, Grey suppressed the urge to smile, then slowly turned back toward Kyurem.
"Good. I hope the two of us can work well together."
...
...
The battle site was set in the outskirts of Saffron City, near the section that connected to Cerulean City.
If they fought inside the dojo, then before either side even used full power, the Fighting Dojo would probably follow Saffron Gym's example and turn into ruins.
"You picked a good spot, Gym Leader Grey."
Blue wore a faint smile. One hand in his pocket, he casually flipped a Poké Ball up and down.
The aura unique to a powerful trainer exploded outward, creating an overwhelming pressure, as if a vast force were bearing down on everything around them.
"What a terrifying aura... is this the special presence a battle-legend tier trainer has?"
Grey raised a hand to block the gusting shockwave.
At the same time, he refused to yield. His Aura power erupted in an instant.
The two surging fields of energy collided, making it feel as if the two trainers themselves were about to start fighting in the next second.
"Gym Leader Grey, you're the first Gym Leader I've ever seen who actually captured a Legendary Pokémon. And you're the second Gym Leader who's ever made the great me feel cautious."
Blue looked completely serious now, even if he still kept referring to himself like that.
"As for what happened on the S.S. Anne before, I'm grateful to you for saving Gary. But in this battle, I won't be holding back. Show me your full strength, Gym Leader Grey!"
The instant Blue finished speaking, the Poké Ball in his hand slammed onto the ground.
Boom!
A massive rocky beast appeared, something like a Rhydon in overall shape, but far more changed and evolved in appearance.
Its grayish-brown body was covered in orange-brown armor, and the two horns on its head made it look imposing and fierce.
[Pokémon: Rhyperior]
[Type: Rock, Ground]
[Level: 80]
[Ability: Solid Rock]
[Moves: Rock Wrecker, others omitted.]
This Rhyperior was level 80, and its Ability was Solid Rock. Even when it took damage from a move that was super effective against it, the damage would be heavily reduced.
Kyurem's Ice-type moves had the type advantage against Rhyperior, but because of Solid Rock, that damage would be weakened.
At the same time, Rhyperior's Rock typing threatened Kyurem in return, so from that angle, Kyurem was at a disadvantage.
The two trainers moved with perfect tacit understanding.
After silently counting three seconds in their heads, they gave their orders at the same time.
"Kyurem, Glaciate!"
"Rhyperior, Stone Edge!"
Kyurem was faster. Ice energy erupted around it, and it became a streak of icy blue afterimage.
With a beat of its frost-covered wings, an absolute-zero cold wave burst forward.
Everywhere it passed, the air instantly condensed into crystalline trails of ice. Rhyperior was still in the middle of slamming the ground when a thick layer of frost spread across its heavy rocky armor.
Crack!
A crisp sound of splitting ice rang out. Frozen like a statue, Rhyperior stood rigidly in place, even its eyes locked in the instant of its surprise.
Of course, the icy seal only looked overwhelming.
In reality, it had merely coated the surface of Rhyperior's armor with a thin layer of frost.
Almost the very next second after being frozen, the giant beast let out a sky-shaking roar.
"RHYAAAH!"
Rhyperior smashed the ground with its heavy fists. From the spiderweb-like cracks, countless jagged stone lances burst upward!
Each one carried enough force to split a mountain as they blasted toward Kyurem!
Rhyperior's eyes burned with fury at being toyed with, and the speed of the stone barrage was actually even faster than the spreading frost.
Clearly, Kyurem's little stunt had enraged the beast.
"Kyurem, next, Ice Beam!"
Grey still chose to answer with another Ice-type move.
Glaciate wasn't Kyurem's strongest move. That attack had only been a test.
Since Glaciate hadn't been enough to stop Stone Edge, then he'd use Ice Beam and see just how effective it really was.
Kyurem said nothing. Ice energy gathered before it, and a freezing beam shot forward, locking the incoming stone spikes in place in midair!
//Check out my P@tre0n for 30 extra chapters on all my fanfics //[email protected]/Razeil0810