Chapter 6: Gym Leader Andri Berg

It didn't take Daniel long to appreciate the fact that Kai, his new magby, was bred from an elite caliber pokemon. First and foremost, the fire type was smart. Where it took Drift, Daniel's starter, a week to gain an understanding of English, the magby already understood and was able to respond in coherent ways with various gestures such as nodding, hand motions, or facial expressions. That simple fact allowed for Daniel to start training with Kai far sooner than he was able to with Drift.

Kai was also stronger than Daniel imagined he would be. From the first day he started training the pokemon, he already had a good grasp on moves like ember, smog, and headbutt. He also had a rudimentary understanding of more advanced, though still basic, moves like fire punch and flame charge. Daniel guessed that those skills stemmed from his lineage.

The last thing that Daniel quickly noticed was that Kai seemed to be a born and bred competitor, with the drive and ambition to match. The fire type wanted to learn and to grow stronger. It was an attitude that took Daniel weeks to begin to cultivate in his starter and was something he was still working on with his meditite when the training didn't involve yoga. The magby threw himself into every type of drill, regardless of what was being done. Once, Daniel showed the pokemon a video of a magmortar using thunder punch in battle. Not only did Kai spend an hour trying to recreate the move, he also began demanding to watch more videos to learn. It was something Daniel found quite comical: seeing a small fire duck angrily pointing at a television set and shooting small embers when Daniel wouldn't obey.

The only true frustrating aspect of training the fire type was having to shovel snow out of his yard every morning to give the magby a drier place to train. After a week of doing this, a snow storm hit and Daniel was forced to reserve a training room at the pokemon center in order to find a dry place for the pokemon. He quickly decided that a short walk through the snow was a much better alternative to shovelling it every day, even when it wasn't actively snowing, and that became his permanent training location for the following weeks.

The center's training rooms were well equipped to handle all of Daniel's training needs. The pokemon center provided weights, resistance bands, boxes to create obstacle courses, as well as different items to help train pokemon in different moves. They also had dummies that Daniel used to let his team practice attacks on. And though he didn't use them, he knew there were also pools to train aquatic pokemon.

He was surprised at how much his team grew during their time training. All three of Daniel's pokemon were noticeably stronger and faster. Drift, his sandshrew, required him to think of harder obstacle courses every other day as he grew more comfortable and flexible in his hard body.

Drift was able to hold a metal claw in each arm and use it to attack multiple times in a combination of metal claw and fury swipes. Individual hits were slightly weaker than a regular attack, but the constant assault ended in more damage to the opponent. At least, the dummy that Drift attacked with the combo move looked worse than the one he attacked with a regular metal claw. For now, they were calling it metal fury, which sounded cool at the very least. Daniel did notice that the sandshrew's ice type moves were lacking though. He made a mental note of it, but ignored it as he would be battling ice type pokemon for the foreseeable future. Plus, he had his journey south through the snow to help his starter develop those techniques.

Sasha, his meditite, was able to extend her fast to eight days from the three she could do when Daniel first caught her. It meant that her evolution was still a long way off, but it was a clear improvement over the two months since she joined Daniel's team. She was now able to inflict pain with her confusion attack as well as confusing opponents. Drift learned this the hard way when the sandshrew fell on top of the meditite in the middle of a balancing drill. Sasha, upset by an eighty pound ice shrew falling on her, used confusion. Not only was Drift hurt, but he ran into the wall immediately after when trying to fight back. She was also constantly able to use force palm, a fighting type move that required intense focus. She would hit an opponent with an open palm causing them to fall backwards from the force of the attack. Sasha was also starting to learn power-up punch from that technique.

Kai, by the end of the first month Daniel trained him, made significant improvement towards learning fire punch. Daniel guessed that the magby managed to actually ignite his fist a little over half the time, though the fire wasn't quite significant enough to truly burn anything. On one occasion, the fire type also managed to produce some sparks from his fist while trying to replicate thunder punch from one of the videos Daniel showed him.

Throughout the month, Daniel wasn't inactive himself. He purchased a stress ball from the store to keep his left arm active throughout the healing process. The muscles screamed in protest every time they were used, but the pain was less after each use. Similarly, his back stung and resisted his movements whenever Daniel attempted to stretch or run, which was often. Still, by the time his stitches fell out, Daniel felt confident in his range of motion for both his arm and his back. At the end of the month, he was finding that some of his previous strength was starting to return.

Daniel did notice that the doctor was indeed correct that he would lose feeling in his arm. Most of his left arm, from the elbow down, had no feeling. There were small areas that had some feeling when poked with a pin, though not with a normal touch. Curiously, his back had regained much of its feeling, though Daniel was unsure why.

He spent his nights watching battle film. The League kept a database of all gym, elite, and quarterfinals or better tournament battles for the past fifty years. Daniel was sure that other leagues did the same, though he wasn't able to access them as he was only a registered trainer in the Sinnoh region. He mostly focused on gym battles against Leader Berg, though he did look at some with the sandshrew, meditite, and magby lines.

He found that almost every battle that Berg led with a water type, the challenger had a fire type pokemon in their party. Interestingly enough, when Daniel dug further, all of those challengers had used their fire type in previous League battles or in their preliminary battles, which the gym had a record of online. There were occasional outliers, but that seemed to be the trend.

Daniel waited around a week following his stitches falling out to finally make the trek to the gym. There was no real reason for him to rush the challenge now that winter had arrived, so he waited until he felt confident in his body.

Snowpoint City Gym was the largest building in the city, located on the east side, near the coast. The massive building was a supersized igloo, with thick glass blocks cut to mimic ice blocks. The exterior of the building was almost always frosted over due to the cold. The interior was much more practical than the exterior, just a decent sized foyer with a reception desk. To the left of the receptionist were stairs leading to the offices above and the training rooms below; to the right was the audience entryway into the stadium.

Unlike the times that Daniel came over the summer, the building felt dead. Over the summer, there was a constant stream of trainers or people coming to watch battles. Now, there was just a single woman behind the reception desk and no one else in sight.

Daniel approached the front desk and said, "My name is Daniel Pugh, I would like to schedule my gym challenge please."

The receptionist was the same snobby woman from the first time he was at the gym to meet with Leader Berg. Her eyes widened slightly and she quickly picked up the phone after asking him to wait a moment. "Daniel Pugh is here to schedule a challenge… Yes sir, I'll tell him," she hung up the phone and returned her attention to him and said, "Leader Berg will be down in a moment, if you wouldn't mind waiting for him."

Daniel nodded and moved to stand a few steps from the desk. The wait wasn't long, but Daniel felt incredibly awkward standing there, fidgeting every other moment. "Trainer Pugh, I am surprised to see you," the leader said when he arrived from the stairwell to the left.

Before Daniel could respond, the leader addressed the receptionist, "Beth, we'll be taking gym five. Please inform the members that it will be closed for a bit." The leader motioned for Daniel to follow and they began making their way to the basement levels.

"Why are you surprised to see me, sir?" Daniel asked once the door to the stairs closed behind them.

"Snowpoint is a small city. Not a lot of people like to live here due to the conditions," Leader Berg began, "On top of that, most young adults choose to go into academia due to Uxie's influence, so our trainer classes are typically smaller than average for Sinnoh. All that to say, I don't have a lot of Tier One challenges. In fact, the last one I received was two years ago. By the time you showed up with your starter, all of your classmates had left Snowpoint. And when you didn't make your challenge by the end of summer, I assumed that you had as well."

They passed the first basement level and continued further down. "I actually spent that last month of summer north of the city with Cal Sullivan. You battled him pretty much right after we got back," he explained.

The gym leader's eyes unfocused and his voice was wistful as he mused, "Ah yes, I remember Trainer Sullivan. What a show of skill and passion. I should have requested a change in terms the moment he beat my mamoswine to truly challenge him." Berg shook his head as if clearing his wandering thoughts. He continued, more focused, "I wasn't aware that you knew Mr. Sullivan; you should be glad to have a friend like him. I'm curious though. If Mr. Sullivan challenged me so quickly, then what delayed you?"

"We got attacked by a boogle of weavile and sneasel. I wanted to wait until I felt healthy enough to travel after my challenge. And Cal gifted me a pokemon that I wanted to spend some time training and bonding with," Daniel answered as they came to the third level down. Here, the gym leader led them down a hall and to the second door with 'GYM 5' written on it.

"I would love to hear that story some day. To walk away from an attack like that is quite fortunate," the leader said, though he didn't push for the story. Instead, he opened the door to the gym and motioned Daniel inside.

The gym was a massive room, large enough for Daniel to wonder how it was even built so far underground. Large, steel I-beam columns supported the ceiling above every thirty or so feet. Artificial snowmakers were placed at every corner, creating a constant flurry of snow in the room. At the back of the room was a large obstacle course that looked much more complex than anything Daniel created for his starter. He thought it even had tunnels in areas. Another area of the room had gymnastic equipment such as bars, balance beams, and trampolines. Daniel also noticed a small video room tucked into a corner and multiple cameras placed throughout the gym.

"Whoa," Daniel breathed out.

"Incredible, isn't it? I had this built for Everest, my sandslash, so he could train my younger shrews. Now, release your starter."

Daniel obeyed and let Drift out of his ball. The sandshrew looked around the room in wonder, much like Daniel had moments earlier. "Drift," he said, gaining the attention of his starter, "This is Gym Leader Berg. I'm not sure if you remember him, but you've met him before." Drift grunted and threw a mound of snow at him as if the pokemon was insulted.

The gym leader then released his own pokemon. A large, light blue sandslash coalesced beside the leader. Alolan sandslash, though taller than their desert cousins, still only typically grew to about four feet tall. The one before Daniel looked closer to five feet with it's icy spikes reaching even higher. It had two deadly looking claws extending over a foot long from each hand with small curves at the end to act as ice picks. The already chilly air got even colder at the pokemon's appearance.

Drift jumped in surprise at the appearance of the sandslash and stood defiantly in front of Daniel. The elder sandslash merely clicked its claws together and stretched.

"This is Everest," Leader Berg said, "He is my elite sandslash and has been a wonderful friend and pokemon to me for years."

"How is he so big?"

"The bond between trainer and pokemon is a wonderful thing, Daniel. It brings out the best in us both. I'm certain you will understand one day."

"I suppose you're not planning on telling me how Drift evolves," Daniel joked, though he couldn't deny the small spark of hope he felt in his heart that the leader would actually answer. Even Drift looked at the leader hopefully at the question, losing some of his protectiveness in the process.

"No, I am not," the leader chuckled, "That is for you to find out, as I told you before. No, I want Everest to test your starter to see how he is doing. Everest, if you would?" The sandslash gave a grunt to Drift and motioned Daniel's starter to follow. Drift took a step forward before looking back at Daniel. At his nod, the sandshrew followed the elite pokemon to the obstacle course on the farside of the room.

"You can tell a lot about a trainer by looking at his pokemon," Leader Berg mused, "Your sandshrew is both loyal and protective of you. That speaks volumes to me, Daniel."

"Thank you, sir," Daniel responded respectfully. "Leader Berg, with all due respect, why did you have your staff waiting for me?" The question had been bouncing around in his head the entire conversation. He was a rookie trainer with no badges; there was no reason for a gym leader to take any interest in him.

"Ice type pokemon are the rarest type of pokemon, both in number of species but also in what areas they can survive. Not only that, most ice types require some special method to evolve rather than just age or strength like most other types. Of the known ice types, sandslash is the second rarest, only topped by the elusive froslass, which I still can't manage to figure out how to evolve a snorunt into," the leader paused, giving frustrated huff before continuing, "So not only were you the only person in you graduating class that did not come to me requesting a starter, you managed to catch a rare ice type, that's extremely difficult to evolve.

"You break the mold, Daniel," Leader Berg continued, "You stood out from your peers. You defied logic and chose a starter you would struggle to evolve. That was enough to interest me. Now I know I wasn't wrong. You have dedicated far more time than an average trainer to working with your team prior to your first gym challenge. You chose, unlike your peers, to challenge me first. And you have hinted at plans to travel during a Snowpoint winter, which I doubt any single badge trainer has attempted in the last few years."

Daniel did not respond, choosing to watch his starter run through the obstacle course while he contemplated what the leader said. Everest, Leader Berg's sandslash, seemed to move easily through the obstacle course. Daniel noted that the elder pokemon was able to move individual spikes on its back, though they were formed from steel and ice, to fit through small spaces. Drift, on the other hand, struggled through the obstacle course. It was clearly at a higher difficulty level than anything he completed before. Still, Daniel proudly watched as his starter finished the course and immediately ran to the beginning to try again. The sandslash pulled Drift away from the course after another time through and led him in a series of stretches, which Drift had little problem with.

"He's flexible," Berg finally said, breaking the silence. "You've done well in that."

Daniel nodded, pride welling in his chest at the compliment, "I caught a meditite, so we do a lot of yoga." The gym leader laughed at the comment.

After the stretches, the two shrew pokemon ran a few short sprints, where Drift was horribly outpaced. Then, Berg tested the sandshrew's strength through some resistance bands and weight lifts, which Daniel's starter struggled to complete. "He is weaker than I expected him to be," the leader commented as the shrews went to drink some water from a fountain near the trainers. "But, he's much more flexible, and about as fast as I thought he would be. There is certainly room for improvement, but you've done well, Daniel."

Daniel thanked the leader as he bent down to scratch Drift's belly. The sandshrew squirmed in pleasure at the attention. "You did good bud," Daniel murmured to his starter. Drift blew a couple snowflakes at him in response.

"Arnold, please meet us in the arena. You have a Tier One prelim."

Daniel whipped his head in surprise from his starter back to the gym leader who was putting away his dex. "Excuse me?" he asked of the leader.

Gym leader Berg looked down on him with a mischievous grin and said, "You were planning to schedule a challenge today, correct?"

"Well, yes. But I didn't think I would battle today!"

"Do you think an extra day of preparation will change the outcome of your battle?"

"No, but-"

"Do you have the challenge fee?"

"Yes, but-"

"Are your pokemon ready to compete?"

Daniel looked at his starter who stared back at him with a cold, steely determination. The sandshrew nodded and got to his feet. "We're ready, sir."

"Then let's go, Trainer Pugh."

Blood rushed through Daniel's veins with each frantic beat of his heart as they made their way to the arena. This would be his first battle against another trainer. Was he ready? Was Drift? Of course he would be using the sandshrew. A knot formed in Daniel's stomach anytime he considered not using his starter for such a momentous occasion. "Are you ready, Drift?" he asked his starter quietly just before they entered the arena. He got a grunt and a dusting of snowflakes in response. "Okay, let's do this then." He returned his starter and entered the arena.

The arena, like the rest of the gym, was much emptier than Daniel remembered. A few gym trainers who had heard about the battle milled in the stands, chatting amongst themselves, though that was it. The battle field itself was covered in snow, with a pair of small pools on either side. The gym trainer who would be battling him, Arnold, stood on the Gym's side of the arena. Daniel moved to the challenger's side as Leader Berg moved to referee the match.

"This is a Tier One preliminary challenge battle between Trainer Daniel Pugh and Snowpoint City Gym," the leader called out once he was in the referee stand, "This battle will be a one on one battle with no switches or items. Does each side understand?" When both Daniel and his opponent gave their consent, Leader Berg continued, "Trainers, pick your pokemon! On my mark, release them!"

Daniel firmly held Drift's luxury ball forward as he watched Arnold mirror him with a red pokeball. This was a ritual of sorts for battles. A show of honesty and equality between trainers. At the start of every battle, and in the case of a draw in the middle of a battle, each trainer would choose their pokemon and release them at the same time. The tradition started so one trainer wouldn't have an advantage over the other, though now it was more ritualistic than anything. Leader Berg called for the battle to begin.

Excitement flooded Daniel's being as he released Drift onto the arena. Fittingly, his opponent released the ice type variant of vulpix that was originally discovered in Alola like the ice type sandshrew. The ice fox was slightly shorter than Drift, and much more lithe. "Metal Claw!" he called out to his starter as soon as he registered the opposing pokemon. Drift charged the vulpix and made to slash it with a glowing claw. At the pinnacle of the sandshrew's arm path, the vulpix dodged to the left, completely avoiding the attack.

"Again!" Twice more the vulpix dodged out of the way. It then hit Drift with a powder snow, which the sandshrew shook off with ease. The vulpine pokemon was too quick for an attack like metal claw, which had a small contact area. When he was too slow to dodge, Drift was slammed in the stomach with a strong headbutt.

Daniel called out, "Powder snow. Follow it!" It was the same technique that they used to tackle Sasha when catching the meditite.

Drift straightened from where he had bent over after the headbutt and pushed a wave of snow towards his opponent. The vulpix wasn't able to jump out of the way of the snow and it was slowed down just enough so that Drift tackled it to the ground, using his weight to hold the pokemon down. "Metal fury!" Daniel watched as both of Drift's sharp nails gleamed with power before the sandshrew furiously slashed at the vulpix.

The super effective attack had the vulpix yelping in pain as blood and blue fur were strewn across the arena. After a couple seconds of the assault, Arnold returned his pokemon, forfeiting the match. Drift fell a couple inches to the ground. The sandshrew stood proudly, droplets of blood falling from his claws.

"The challenger is the winner!" Leader Berg called out. The leader, along with the gym trainers in the stands, politely applauded as Daniel ran onto the arena field to congratulate his starter.

"Drift, that was amazing!" he called out. His sandshrew turned towards him and blew snowflakes in excitement. Once Daniel reached his pokemon, he knelt down to give him a few proud scratches on his belly, despite the vulpix's blood staining his fur.

"Well done, Daniel," Leader Berg said as he and the gym trainer, Arnold walked up to him. His opponent repeated the sentiment with a congratulatory nod.

"Thank you, sir. And thank you for the battle," he responded.

"When you leave," the leader said, "Stop by the front desk. You'll need to pay the challenge fee. I know things were done a little out of order, but that still needs to be done before we can battle. And tell Beth to schedule you for noon the day after tomorrow."

The following day, Daniel spent time resting and relaxing with his team at the pokemon center. Kai, his magby, did not enjoy the snow, which made anywhere outside troublesome. And Drift was not allowed inside his house per his mother's orders in order to protect her hardwood floors.

Resting and relaxing, funnily enough, meant something different to each of his pokemon. Drift spent his time alternating between creating mounds of snow to jump in and curling up beside Daniel for physical attention. Sasha spent the whole day meditating. Daniel thought he even saw her body raise an inch of the ground at one point. Though when he looked back in surprise, she was firmly on the ground. Kai insisted on watching battles, though Daniel forbade him from training. He did take some time, whenever Drift left him to entertain himself, to sit by the magby and talk through the strategy of the battle currently playing.

It was in that time that he spent with his fire type that Daniel finally decided on a strategy for his challenge the following day. From all the replays he watched of Leader Berg, it seemed like he only led with a water type when he knew that opponent had a fire type pokemon. Cal had said the same of the gym leader after his battle. So Daniel decided the plan would be to lead with Kai, as Berg was unaware of the fire type, only that he had three pokemon. He hoped that the gym leader would start with a pure ice type, which would give Kai a leg up on the competition. If he was wrong, then he still had Sasha and Drift to finish up the battle.

"So here's the plan for tomorrow," he told his pokemon as they were preparing to leave the pokemon center. "Kai, you're going to start us off. Berg likes to lead with a part water type if he knows the opponent has a fire type pokemon, but he doesn't know about you. Sasha, you'll come in next. I know you've battled wild pokemon before, but I want to get you some experience in a trainer battle too. This will be a good opportunity for that. Drift, you'll be cleaning up. We only have to beat two pokemon, and all of you have a type advantage."

His sandshrew immediately grunted and butted his head against Daniel's knee. That same determination from their preliminary battle burned in his starter's eyes. "I know you want to battle, bud. But Kai and Sasha need to get some experience too. We're a team. We have to help each other grow and they need this experience to grow." The sandshrew was still clearly unhappy, but he consented.

"And if our adversary leads with one of the water?" Sasha's voice echoed in his mind. Based on the curious glances from his other two pokemon, Daniel knew she had broadcast the question to the group.

"Kai will at least be able to compete with a water type," he answered, "It's not ideal, but I believe Kai can do it." He intentionally did not address the scenario where his magby would lose, however likely it was, as he didn't want to convey anything but trust in his pokemon's abilities. "It's a three on two battle, so we should be able to do this without a problem. We've trained for this."

His stomach forgot his confidence from the night before as he arrived at the gym the day of his battle. He made his way to the restrooms before checking in and proceeded to lose his breakfast. The nervous sickness surprised him. He remembered being sick prior to his first volleyball tournament, but had handled pressure well after that. Hopefully, the same would be the case with training and battling. Once he got the first gym battle under his belt, things wouldn't be so dramatic.

As it was over a month into winter, there were no other challengers. That meant the arena was once again empty aside from gym trainers, his parents, and a class from the university. Daniel guessed they were there to study ice type pokemon as battle strategy wasn't a subject taught at Snowpoint University. The lack of other challengers meant that Daniel had no wait before his battle began.

At noon sharp, he stepped out onto the challenger's platform, which was raised a few feet off the ground. Leader Berg stepped out a moment later on the opposite side. There was no announcer, just the referee who called out the challenge and the rules. "Trainer Daniel Pugh is challenging Snowpoint City Gym in a Tier One Gym Challenge. The challenger is allowed three pokemon to defeat Gym Leader Andri Berg's two. No items or switching is allowed. Do both sides understand?" Daniel and Berg both nodded, and the referee continued, "Trainers, select your pokemon and wait for my mark!"

Daniel pulled Kai's ball from his bandolier as Berg selected his own red pokeball from his belt. After a second, the referee called, "Begin!"

His burnt red fire duck coalesced on his side of the arena, immediately ready for battle. Opposite of the magby, a blue and tan ball like pokemon appeared. A spheal, quite literally the only pokemon he did not want to see against Kai. Daniel searched for his opponent's eyes and found them smirking back at him. "How'd you know?" he called out to the gym leader.

"Educated guess," he called back across the arena, "A Sullivan gave you a pokemon. Good chance it was a fire type."

"Fair enough. Kai, ember!" The magby jumped into action and shot a burning coal at the seel pokemon. It landed, but did much less damage than Daniel thought it would. He heard his opponent order for a water gun and Daniel responded with, "Dodge! Make sure you stay out of the way of those water attacks."

His magby had enough battle instinct that the order wasn't needed. Kai was already jumping away from the bullet of water. He came up firing another ember for the same result as the first. "Smog, fire's not working!"

Kai leaped out of the way of another water gun and coughed up a noxious purple cloud that settled around the spheal. The moments he needed to use the move, however, was all his opponent needed to land a water gun. Fortunately, he had a few seconds to shake off the hit as the round pokemon began coughing on the poisonous fumes. Leader Berg quickly ordered the spheal to use icy wind to disperse the smog.

"Headbutt, then fire punch!" Daniel called out. The fire type charged at his opponent. Just before he lowered his head, the water type hit him with another water gun. Kai still had enough momentum to power through and hit the spheal. The headbutt was weaker than intended, but still did damage. The proceeding fire punch did even less damage. The magby finally went down to another close range water gun.

Daniel returned his pokemon, frustrated at the loss. Still, the spheal was weak, evidenced by the black scorch marks all over its body and the labored breathing. Daniel also thought he saw a tinge of purple entering its eyes. "Sasha, confusion!" he called out immediately upon releasing his meditite. The bipedal pokemon's eyes glowed blue for a brief second before the spheal grunted in pain and was sent rolling backwards.

Berg returned it before it came to a stop and released his final pokemon. It was a light blue, fluffy pokemon that constantly bounced from one foot to the other. It had two ice shards on its stomach that matched its icy eyebrows. It was an ice type darumaka.

"Meditate, teleport away if it gets close," Daniel ordered, fearing the amount of damage the darumaka could dish out. Meditation, they discovered, could strengthen Sasha's attack for a short period of time. They both hypothesized that it was due to the increased connection to her body that meditation provided.

The darumaka curled itself into an icy ball and rolled quickly towards Sasha. She teleported away without any trouble. The ice type fuzzball angrily shook a finger at the meditite once it stopped rolling, upset that it missed its attack.

"Daniel!" Sasha's voice was panicked, "My adversary has prevented me from teleportation!"

"Force palm," he responded. She did as ordered and got in close to the darumaka. As she thrust her palm forward, the darumaka did a quick spin with a clap. A large block of ice rose up behind Sasha. She hit the ice type, sending hit flying and the block of ice crumbled like an avalanche on top of her.

Sasha cried out in pain, pulling at Daniel's heartstrings. Still, she was able to crawl out from the icy rubble before the darumaka could recover. "Confusion, keep your distance." The darumaka gave a squeak as it was sent spiralling even further backwards. Sasha used confusion again before breaking the taunt. She teleported directly to the darumaka and hit it with another force palm.

Daniel's opponent did not return his pokemon, but he did hold up his hand requesting a pause. Daniel acquiesced, calling out to his pokemon, "Sasha, hold!"

"You are clearly worthy of your first badge," Berg began, "What do you say to an extra challenge?"

"What do you have in mind?"

"A one on one. Your starter against one more of my pokemon. If you lose, you still have earned your badge. I wish to truly test your sandshrew."

Daniel felt his eyes tighten imperceptibly. After a moment, he asked, "What about if I win?"

He watched as the gym leader's entire persona shifted. It was almost as if the gym leader knew the question was coming, and knew that he had Daniel right where he wanted. "If you win," he paused, with a wide grin as if he was soaking in the dramatic build up, "I'll tell you how to evolve him."