This monk looking person wearing a vigilante mask standing in front of Julian is the gym leader of Icirrus gym, Brycen.

He is a very strong pokemon trainer and if not for the past circumstance he would have had been able to handle the problem that was brought by Team Plasma. ​​

Brycen "Welcome challenger, sorry for the inconvenience, you had to wait for so long"

He said and apologized to Julian, well he apologized to every trainer that came to him after the gym reopened, he takes his job as a gym leader very seriously, and taking such a long leave was not his way of doing his job.

So he apologized to every trainer then came to challenge him.

Julian "No problem, the extra time really helped me as well"

He said and he is not lying. If he had battled Brycen before, his Deino would have evolved and with how Zweilous would have acted, he would have lost that exchange and he had no doubt about it, the trouble Julian had to go through to straighten up.

His Zweilous would have been destroyed on the battlefield even with Julian behind him because the two heads would have caused trouble for the other dragging Zweilous down.

Julian is thankful to Brycen for not taking challengers, even though he doesn't show it or tell it to anyone, he likes his record of being the undefeated trainer than he is, the only person who has never lost a single exchange in his life, the closest thing that people have come to defeating him is a draw in one round.

And that draw might never repeat itself ever again but Julian is much more of a trainer now than he was in his early days, with the knowledge that Julian has right now, he could easily defeat his past self easily.

He knows this because he has held many simulations of the current him battling his old self, the one during Kanto. When he was in Hoenn. When he was in Sinnoh. With every region later down the line in his journey, his past self was harder to defeat, this showed that he also has been improving as well, with new pokemons come new method to teach them.

He sees and learns new behavior of pokemons, their mentality, their taste, all these new experience helped him understand pokemons more than ever before, he wondered if pokemons are really that different from humans.

Some pokemons are so intelligent that they surpass human intelligence, they feel all emotions that humans feel, and they had powers, the only reasons human has survived in this world for such a long time is because of their ability to use tools, this is the biggest cheat that any animal could have.

And with this ability and human's intelligence, they dominated and outlived most animals that started with them, soon they domesticated some animals and helped them to survive in this world that they cannot survive, they befriended these pokemons and advanced even further.

Soon these pokemons became part of human lives, joined their wars, battled against each other, and many more, now things are a lot peaceful and Julian likes it, so he will step in to stop unnecessary fights so that this world doesn't go through another war ever again.

__________________

Back inside the gym.

Brycen "But I would still like to apologize"

He said and bowed down while joining his hands.

Julian "I appreciate the gesture"

Julian said. Since Brycen is so sincere in his apologies he had to accept it.

Brycen "I won't waste your time anymore, let's battle"

Julian "Yes, let's do that"

Julian agreed and took his spot on the battlefield and waited for Brycen to take his place on the battlefield as well, Brycen soon stood up on the other side of the ice-covered battlefield, the battlefield in front of Julian is huge and the ice on top of the battlefield is very smooth.

A pokemon that has smooth feet will have a very hard time battling on this battlefield.

Julian looked at his current situation and decided to start with Fraxure as his claws could dig into the ice and grip the battlefield.

But he waited for Brycen to make his choice first, soon a man walked in and took the position of the referee.

The referee then started to introduce the rules of the battle and then confirmed if both trainers are ready to go, once he got the confirmation he started the battle.

Brycen started off and sent out his first pokemon for this battle, his Cryogonal.

With his choice very clear, Julian also made him and stuck to his choice and sent out Fraxure to the battlefield.

Fraxure took the stage and found himself on top of slippery ice, as he was about to slip, he used his claws and punctured through the ice and balanced himself, he used his tail and slapped on the ice field as well causing cracks to spread across the field to make the surface around him rougher for more grip.

Fraxure finished setting up the battlefield for himself and is now ready for his opponent.

Brycen looked at how his opponent's Fraxure changed the battlefield for its own good, he knew that this would be a very tough battle.

Referee "You may start the battle"

The referee waved his flags and started the battle.