"Grey! Tell me! What's your choice? Are you really going to coast through life without ever amounting to anything?"
Kyurem kept circling Grey, its eyes full of confusion.
"Among the humans who actually know what they're talking about, I'm considered one of the third gods among the top-tier Legendary Pokémon."
Kyurem's fierce face leaned in until it was nearly nose-to-nose with Grey.
"Besides me, that class includes Rayquaza, Giratina, and Zygarde. A trainer like you should know who they are, and how strong they are, right?"
"I do. In most cases, a third god can suppress the other two top-tier Legendaries of its region. Sometimes even if those two team up, they still can't beat their region's third god."
Grey did not phrase it too absolutely.
But the truth was more or less exactly that.
In many situations, a third god really could dominate the other two top-tier Legendaries of its home region.
Even Groudon and Kyogre, despite having moves that could threaten Rayquaza, still tended to get beaten down by it.
That was even more true for Reshiram, Zekrom, and Kyurem.
The first two could at least hold their own against some other third gods, but against Kyurem, it was like an Alolan Rattata running into a Gumshoos. At that point, the smart move was to run.
"Then if you know that, why won't you become my hero?"
Kyurem frowned and exhaled two streams of icy breath from its nostrils, only for Grey to block them with Aura.
"Because I do know that. And after teaming up with you once, I can honestly say it didn't feel nearly as natural as commanding Reshiram."
Grey was telling the truth.
When they fought other trainers, both of them were the type to win by overwhelming force, but even then, the way they fought was still a little different.
"Human... you... sigh, fine. If there's no bond between us, then I won't force it."
Kyurem understood that forcing things never led anywhere good.
If Grey became its hero against his will, the boost to Kyurem's strength would not be all that great anyway.
If it could get to one and a half times its current strength, that would already be decent.
And there was always the risk that the boost would be nothing at all, and their coordination would actually get worse.
"Whew... good."
Reshiram let out a breath full of sparks.
Thank goodness Kyurem had not gotten its way.
Otherwise, life after this would have been a lot less comfortable.
Thank you, Grey.
That was Reshiram's one and only thought.
"All right, all right, let's put that aside for now. I still need to figure out what to do about the new badges."
Grey turned his full attention back to the Gym.
Come to think of it, he had been a Gym Leader for quite a while now, but lately he had hardly taken any Gym challenges at all.
It was about time he started accepting battles again.
But after he posted the announcement, there still were not many trainers coming to the Fighting Dojo. Saffron Gym had only recently stopped being a pile of rubble, and with the Indigo Plateau Conference about to begin, most trainers had their minds elsewhere.
So he figured he might as well sort out the "Legend Badge" first.
His current idea was simple enough: create custom versions based on the Legendary Pokémon he actually had.
A Kyurem version, a Reshiram version, a Legendary Birds version, an Urshifu version...
Yeah, that was probably enough for now.
Surely trainers from all over the world would want to come earn badges like that.
With that thought in mind, Grey passed the idea along to the craftsman who handled his badge designs.
...
...
Once that was done, he turned his attention to the new Pokémon he had caught in Unova.
This trip had brought back quite a few of them.
There were Victini, Meloetta, Keldeo, Scraggy, Larvesta, Reshiram, Kyurem, Cobalion, Virizion, Terrakion, Tepig, Kubfu One, who was being raised toward Single Strike Style, and Kubfu Two, who was being raised toward Rapid Strike Style.
Of them, Scraggy, Larvesta, the two Kubfu, and Tepig did not really have much battle strength yet, so they were the ones that needed the most attention for now.
Of course, Larvesta was already close to evolving. In a little while, it would probably become a Volcarona in one leap.
And a golden Volcarona, just thinking about it sounded cool as hell.
As for the two Kubfu, they needed to study the scrolls before they could evolve.
Before heading to the Isle of Armor, he still had to finish raising them properly.
That would also give Mustard a good answer and prove he had not neglected their training.
There was not much to say about Tepig.
With a famous master guiding it, Grey had no reason to worry at all.
Scraggy, though...
Grey honestly was not sure how to raise it.
He had just run into that one by the side of the road and caught it on a whim.
He did not really understand its personality yet, either.
"All right, Scraggy, show me your signature move."
Grey wanted to see if Scraggy had any good tricks up its sleeve.
"Scraggy?" ("You want me to put on a show? Okay! Watch this!")
Scraggy immediately did a backflip.
Thud!
The landing, unfortunately, was not very pretty.
Scraggy came down hard on its knees, then clutched them and started yowling in pain.
Grey: "..."
That trick had been a little too intense for its own good.
"All right, maybe just stick to the basics for now. You started late and never had any proper training."
Grey helped Scraggy back up, showed it how to do a proper backflip, and then turned his attention to the two Kubfu.
"Hmm..."
Grey fell into thought.
Honestly, if he did not have Aura, it would have been hard for him to tell the two of them apart.
Right now, Kubfu One was being trained in the direction of Single Strike Style, while Kubfu Two was being trained toward Rapid Strike Style.
Their personalities looked a little different on the surface.
But in truth, there was not much difference between them.
Only in certain little details did they behave differently.
"Kubfu?" ("Hey, human, why are you staring at us like that?")
Kubfu One strutted over arrogantly.
Even though Grey had beaten it senseless before, the two Kubfu had changed completely since then.
They were nothing like the little rookie cubs they had once been.
"Kubfu!" ("Whatever! Human, take this first!")
The muscles in Kubfu One's hind legs tensed violently, and it shot forward like a pale blur!
That little fist tore through the air and came straight at Grey's face.
Grey sidestepped the punch with ease, then snapped out his right hand like lightning and grabbed Kubfu One by the scruff of the neck.
The little thing froze instantly in midair, all four short limbs flailing uselessly, like a Squirtle being lifted by its shell.
Seeing that, Kubfu Two stepped in with an intricate fighting rhythm.
Its offense flowed without pause, like a surging river, fists and palms alternating in a relentless chain of afterimages.
Clearly, Kubfu Two had already grasped most of the core idea behind Rapid Strike Style.
Given a little more time, it would probably be ready to study the scroll and evolve into Rapid Strike Style Urshifu.
But...
If it already understood the essence of Rapid Strike Style, did it really still need the scroll to evolve?
Grey honestly was not sure.
He did not have any scroll-like items on hand right now, so if Kubfu Two fully understood Rapid Strike Style after a while and still did not evolve, then he would have to head to the Isle of Armor.
With that thought, Grey flicked his wrist and tossed the Kubfu he was holding up into the air.
At the same time, he shifted forward into Kubfu Two's fluid barrage. His arms spun like wheels, drawing all of the incoming force into his own motion and dissolving it completely.
By the time Kubfu One came spinning back down, Grey had already used the force he had just redirected to steady it neatly by the back.
The two little cubs were left frozen, one above and one below, in the crook of his arms, their round eyes full of absolute confusion.
"Kubfu?" ("Wait, did we just get busted again?")
The Kubfu sounded completely baffled.
It really did seem like Grey had caught them all over again.
But that made no sense. These past few days, they had been studying fighting techniques under the three Elite Four-level Swords of Justice from Unova.
So how had Grey still caught them so easily?
And yet that was exactly what had happened.
The Kubfu really had been shut down by Grey all over again.
Even after learning battle techniques from those three Elite Four-level Sacred Swordsmen, Grey had still stopped them cold in a single move.
That made the Kubfu start doubting themselves.
Could they really defeat Grey one day?
"Kubfu!" ("Little bro, our Kubfu clan can evolve! Once we evolve, we'll come back and settle the score with this guy!")
Kubfu One was hot-blooded to the core. Even while hanging there in Grey's grip, it showed not the slightest sign of fear.
After all, Grey had already caught them. If it wanted to throw hands with him, what exactly could Grey do about it?
Seriously.
What was he going to do?
Nothing, obviously.
That was why Kubfu had so much nerve.
Grey: "..."
Great. These two little hellions really had not forgotten their original goal.
Honestly, that was fine.
At least they had not lost sight of themselves.
"Then do your best. If challengers start showing up and some of them are on the weaker side, I'm going to need the two of you to carry the banner."
There were just too few low-level Pokémon around right now.
If weak trainers came by, he could hardly send out his high-level Pokémon and flatten them.
That would defeat the whole point of being a Gym.
At that point he would just be stomping rookies.
...
...
Two days later.
The trainers who came by for everyday Gym challenges were simply too weak.
Even with badge restrictions in place, most of them still wound up getting steamrolled by his other Pokémon.
Grey had even tried letting the Kubfu handle some of the battles, but they still beat the challengers within a few turns.
That left Grey feeling awkward.
In the end, he had Silver take the field as a student and block a large number of challengers instead.
It also doubled as a good opportunity to temper Silver's strength.
Still, a rather unusual boy arrived at the Fighting Dojo today.
Knock, knock, knock...
A knock sounded at the dojo gate.
"Hello? Anybody there? I'm Gold from New Bark Town in Johto, and I'm here to challenge the Fighting Dojo today! Is your Gym Leader around?"
The boy introduced himself as Gold.
He looked about the same age as Silver. His hair was black, with a long lock sticking up at the front of his forehead, giving him the air of a trainer with a lot of personality.
When Grey opened the door, he found himself looking at a boy holding a billiard cue.
Grey raised a brow.
After a brief pause, he said, "Kid, my Gym isn't the kind of place just anyone can challenge. How many badges do you have right now?"
"I only got my starter not that long ago, and I've only got three Pokémon on me right now. But every one of my Pokémon is awesome, so don't look down on them!"
Gold did not actually know why he had ended up in Saffron City. He had originally planned to come watch the Indigo Plateau Conference in person, only to discover he had remembered the date wrong. So he had just wandered around for a bit.
And then he spotted the Fighting Dojo.
So naturally, he came in.
"...?"
Gold had not answered Grey's question directly.
But he had also answered it perfectly.
If he had only gotten his starter recently, then he was obviously a complete rookie.
It was not that Grey had anything against rookie trainers.
But a brand-new trainer who had only just received a starter...
Well, their strength really was not going to be much to look at.
"The problem is, if you don't have enough badges, then you can't challenge me."
Grey smiled helplessly. Under normal circumstances, he really did not accept challenges from rookie trainers.
Then again...
There were exceptions to everything.
"Wait, hold on! Come on, man, your Gym would be my first challenge ever! Tell you what, if you accept my challenge, then win or lose, I'll give one of your Pokémon Eggs a lucky boost. How about that?"
Seeing Grey turn him down, Gold hurriedly started pitching his strengths.
Especially when it came to what he could actually do, he could absolutely deliver.
That was right.
Gold had a special ability too.
It was called Hatching Power. The League had never recorded it in any official files. It was a special gift Gold had discovered by accident.
"I used to work at the Day Care. Any Pokémon Egg that passes through my hands comes out with way better natural potential than it had before."
And by "potential," this did not mean some flashy fan-site rating.
It meant actual IVs.
Gold's ability was ridiculously overpowered.
If a zero-IV Pokémon Egg ended up in his hands, then after his lucky touch, it could become an egg with one perfect IV.
And it was guaranteed to pick up at least one Egg Move.
That was absurd.
After all, Grey had only barely managed to get Egg Moves onto all of his Pokémon thanks to Mew acting as his live-in mentor.
Gold, on the other hand, basically started out ahead from birth.
He was winning before the race had even begun.
"Hmm... but I don't have any Pokémon Eggs right now that need that kind of boost."
If this had been two months earlier, then Farfetch'd's egg could have used it.
But the problem was...
Farfetch'd had already hatched.
Grey did not have any Pokémon Eggs on hand that needed hatching.
So that was awkward.
"Uh... that's fine. You can just give me some way to contact you."
"The problem is, if you want my private contact info, you need to unlock a captain-tier membership first."
Grey generally did not hand out his contact information.
Back when Caitlin got it, that had only happened because she had gone all the way up to the Governor-tier membership.
Of course, that had been part of the reward from the very beginning.
Gold: "..."
The moment Grey said that private contact info required a captain-tier membership, Gold's eyes widened as he stared at him.
How could someone so young already be this into monetizing everything?
Gold was from New Bark Town in Johto.
He watched streams sometimes too.
A few days ago, he had just seen some guy buy a captain-tier membership for a female streamer, and Gold had called him an idiot. He had said the money would have been better spent on Gold instead, since Gold's version came with the added bonus of an egg boost.
There was no way he was going to mock that guy one minute...
and then turn around and buy Grey a captain-tier membership the next.
Yeah, right.
Not happening.
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