"Perfect!"
Seeing Excadrill tangled in silk and unable to move, Benga immediately ordered, "Now's our chance! Larvesta, use Flamethrower!"
Larvesta, which had been knocked back, hadn't gone down. Once it landed, it endured the pain and spat out a stream of flame.
"Protect."
Excadrill immediately raised a Protect barrier to block the flames — but the silk surrounding it was caught in the blaze and melted away in an instant.
"What?!"
Benga was stunned. He'd never expected Excadrill to use Protect. He had finally managed to restrain it, and yet the situation had been undone so easily.
"Larvesta, lay down more silk around it!" Benga ordered hurriedly.
Larvesta immediately spat out more silk, spreading it around to stop Excadrill from launching a surprise attack.
"It's useless. Excadrill, use Scorching Sands!" Gary ordered.
"Drill!"
Excadrill spat out a torrent of boiling sand. The searing heat instantly melted away the surrounding silk while slamming into Larvesta at the same time.
It was super effective!
Bang!!
Larvesta was hit hard by the sand, but it still held on. The temperature itself didn't affect Larvesta much.
"Crush Claw!" Gary ordered.
Whoosh!
A translucent red blur tore across the field, closing in on Larvesta and knocking it away with a single claw.
Bang!!
Larvesta flew seven or eight meters before crashing to the ground, unable to get back up.
"I lost...!"
Benga clamped his mouth shut, thoroughly dissatisfied, but he'd been swept in all three matches and couldn't find a single point to argue with.
"Good work. Come back and rest."
Gary recalled Excadrill and said, "The match is settled. Would you like some advice?"
"What are you going to say?" Benga asked.
"Honestly, your level isn't bad. You could hold your own against the top students at Naranja Academy," Gary commented.
In truth, Benga wasn't weak — he was still a Beginner, and his Pokémon had genuinely high combat power for their level. The real problem was that Gary's Excadrill was simply monstrous. It was only Level 31, yet it had already mastered an absurd number of moves.
"You really do talk like a teacher from Naranja Academy," Benga muttered, still sulking.
Losing had left him unhappy, but hearing Gary praise his strength like that had made him feel a little proud all the same.
"Also, your Pokémon are excellent, but they're all late bloomers. You'll have to grind for at least another two or three years. In that time, you'll probably get overtaken by plenty of your classmates," Gary said.
"What did you say?!"
Benga strongly objected to that — especially the part about being overtaken by his classmates.
"I'm telling you the truth. Out of your three Pokémon, only Gabite will grow at a decent pace, and even then it won't be that much faster. Getting Larvesta to evolve into Volcarona is going to be extremely difficult," Gary said.
"That's none of your business! Just you wait — I'll raise them myself and get my revenge on you!" Benga shouted.
"Then if we ever meet again, I'll look forward to it. Goodbye for now."
Gary waved him off, turned, and left.
Benga, meanwhile, ran off toward the Pokémon Center.
Gary found a Chinese restaurant near the Castelia Gym. After lunch, he had Togekiss carry him to Virbank City.
Virbank City lay west of Castelia City — you only had to cross a stretch of sea to reach it. With Togekiss, the crossing was easy.
He arrived in Virbank City with ten minutes still to go before 2 p.m.
Since he hadn't been able to challenge the Castelia Gym, he'd skip ahead to this one instead.
Virbank City had a Gym of its own. Its Leader was a girl named Roxie, who specialized in Poison-type Pokémon and was also a rock musician.
Being a rock musician, Roxie's Gym was naturally built as an underground rock venue. Roxie didn't just perform there herself — idol groups from across the Unova Region came to play shows at the venue too.
Because Unova's film industry hub, Pokéstar Studios, was located in Virbank City, anyone with dreams came here to chase them. The city was thriving in entertainment and had earned the nickname "the city that never sleeps."
Following the signs and asking around, Gary found the Virbank Gym without much trouble.
"This is a Gym?"
If he hadn't spotted the official League Gym emblem on the door, he'd have assumed it was a fake.
Gary knew that after Roxie inherited the Gym, she'd relocated it underground. So he pushed open the door himself and found a passage leading down below.
"Vee!"
Eevee pricked up its ears, signaling that there was noise coming from behind the door at the bottom of the passage.
Gary and Eevee headed down the stairs, and as they got closer, they could hear faint sounds behind the door.
"The soundproofing here is genuinely good."
It seemed Roxie was a highly conscientious rock musician who had deliberately soundproofed the venue so as not to disturb the residents' rest.
Gary pushed open the door and immediately heard the steady pounding of a drum. It wasn't especially loud, but the deep thump of the beat made your heart pulse along with the rhythm.
Gary didn't pay it much attention, though. He was far more interested in what was happening in front of him — a girl was in the middle of a battle with Roxie.
Unfortunately, Gary had arrived too late. The battle was already over. The girl's Swoobat had gone down, and a Koffing was floating on the field.
[LV30 Koffing / Gym-tier]
Seeing Koffing's level, Gary figured the coming battle would be meaningless. Roxie wasn't especially strong.
At that moment, the victorious Roxie walked up to the girl, pointed at her, and said, "Challenger, you're welcome to come challenge me again next time. Thanks for today."
"Thank you for the lesson today."
The girl looked bewildered, not understanding why Roxie was thanking her, but she still responded politely before turning and hurrying off.
As the girl passed Gary, he stepped aside to let her through.
"Hey! Are you here to challenge the Gym too?" a voice called from behind him.
Gary turned around to see Roxie pointing at him. At the same time, the leather-clad men and women gathered around her were staring at Gary with rather menacing looks — like they wanted to eat him alive.
Seeing Gary look her way, Roxie declared confidently, "Nice to meet you. I'm Roxie, the Gym Leader of Virbank Gym."
"Hello. My name is Gary, from the Kanto Region. I'm here to challenge the Gym," Gary replied politely.
"Perfect. I didn't get nearly enough out of that last battle. Let's get started right away," Roxie said excitedly.
Although Roxie was a rock musician, she was quite unique — she liked to blend rock music into Pokémon battles.
"You just finished a battle. Don't you want to heal your Pokémon first?" Gary asked.
"Don't worry about it. I've got other Pokémon I can use. It won't hold up the match at all," Roxie said indifferently.