"I should have gone easier on it."
Gary looked at the big hole in the wall. Repairing that was going to cost a fortune. Taking in the wrecked battlefield, he felt a headache coming on. Structural damage to the gym building would be handled by the League's maintenance department, but the battlefield itself was the Gym Leader's own responsibility.
"Gary, you'll be the Gym Leader here from now on, so I'll get going first." Seeing that everything was settled, Ash got ready to leave.
"Yeah, you should head home soon. Aunt Delia really misses you," Gary reminded him.
During his days in Pallet Town, Delia had learned Gary was back, and she'd dropped by Professor Oak's Laboratory every few days to ask him whether Ash had returned. Gary was the same age as Ash, after all, and the two of them had grown up together. Every time Delia saw Gary, she thought of Ash—seeing him was a little like seeing her own son.
"Alright, I'll head back first. Bye!"
"Pikachu!"
Ash and Pikachu said their goodbyes and left.
"Gary, remember to challenge the Battle Frontier," Scott reminded him.
"Don't worry, I'll take it on in two months," Gary said.
"Good, then I'll be off."
Scott left with his mind at ease.
In truth, Gary would have challenged the Battle Frontier even without Scott's invitation—the system's task rewards saw to that. It was only a matter of time.
There was still plenty of time before the Lily of the Valley Conference anyway. If Gary wanted, he could defeat all the Frontier Brains and then rush over to the Sinnoh Region to collect his eight badges within two months.
"First, let's get this field cleaned up."
Gary surveyed the ruined battlefield and released the Pokémon he'd brought along to help clear it.
Then he asked Tracey to transfer Kabutops and Omastar over for him.
Two Kabutops and two Omastar, to be exact. According to regulations, the Viridian Gym's challenge requirement was that a Trainer had to earn at least seven badges in the Kanto Region before qualifying to challenge it.
And under the League's newest rules, gyms with challenge restrictions like Viridian required the Gym Leader to hold gym battles in at least a three-on-three format.
Two Kabutops and two Omastar were enough to cover that. Gary added Crobat and Tyrantrum as well—there were type regulations for gyms, but it didn't matter if one of the lineup didn't fit.
"Who would've thought that after going all the way around, I'd still end up on Blue's path. Am I just destined to be tied to the Viridian Gym?" Gary said with some feeling.
In the Pokémon Special manga and the games, Blue had eventually become the Viridian Gym Leader. Gary had never once considered becoming a Gym Leader himself—and yet here he was, if only temporarily.
"Might as well look the place over."
Leaving the battlefield to his Pokémon, Gary took a tour of the Viridian Gym.
The rebuilt gym wasn't large. The battlefield took up the main area, with additional rooms set aside for Pokémon training. Besides the bathroom and kitchen, there were five rooms left over for living quarters, each around sixty square meters—quite spacious.
Gary also called the gym's referee to get acquainted in advance. Every gym battle held from here on had to be officiated by a professional referee; without one, a gym match was considered invalid.
"Hello, Gym Leader Gary. I didn't expect you to arrive so soon." After their phone call, the referee came to the gym to meet him in person.
"Hello, Hannah. It's our first time meeting—I'll be in your care." Gary extended his hand first.
"Hello!" Hannah shook his hand and let go.
The Hannah standing before him was a professional referee certified by the Trainer Association—a young woman who looked to be under twenty.
When Gary had first heard her name over the phone, he'd wondered if she might be the same Yellow from the Special manga. Now that he saw her in person, they were clearly two completely different people who happened to share a name.
"I'll be counting on you for the gym battles from now on," Gary said.
"No problem, it's what I'm here for," Hannah replied with a smile.
"By the way, you got here fast. Do you live nearby?" Gary asked.
"Yes. So I wouldn't hold up any gym battles, I rented a place close by. Whenever there's a match, you can call me anytime," Hannah said.
"Got it." Gary nodded, then asked, "One more thing—do many people come to challenge the gym regularly? How often do gym battles happen on average?"
"Not many challengers come regularly. It's really only when the Indigo Plateau Conference is approaching that Trainers show up, and even at the busiest, it's three matches a week at most. In the off-season, sometimes there isn't even one match a week," Hannah said.
Seriously?
Three matches a week at most—the Gym Leader position was practically a vacation.
But thinking about it, it made sense. The Viridian Gym had its challenge requirements, and there simply weren't that many Trainers who could collect seven badges, especially in the Kanto Region.
The Indigo Plateau Conference held by the Kanto League only drew a bit over two hundred participants, and at most half of them were Trainers who qualified through badges. Even if every single one of them challenged the Viridian Gym, that was only a hundred-odd battles a year—one gym battle every three days at best.
This Gym Leader job was basically free money. A handful of battles a year, a steady government paycheck—it beat being a civil servant.
Gary and Hannah went on to talk about Agatha's time as Gym Leader.
According to Hannah, Agatha had held the position for a little over two months. She was simply too strong—no challenger had managed to defeat her, and at best they'd only injured her Gengar. During her tenure, the badges she handed out were awarded based on the challenger's performance, judging whether the Trainer was worthy of one.
Gary thought Agatha was being a hypocrite. When she was Gym Leader, she got to use her main Pokémon—but when it was Gary's turn, he was forbidden from using anything above the level limit.
That was just unfair!
Gary decided he'd have his grandfather send Rhyperior and Aerodactyl over later.
He had already settled on the gym battle format: three-on-three. The first two Pokémon would be Kabutops and Omastar, and the third slot would go to either Aerodactyl or Rhyperior.
It wasn't that Gary couldn't accept losing—it was that a Gym Leader's position was far too passive. His Pokémon types were fixed and he couldn't swap freely mid-battle; he was practically a sitting target for challengers to pick apart.
And while Gary wasn't one of the Elite Four, he was a three-time League Conference champion. If he lost a gym battle, he'd never live down the embarrassment.