Mauville Racing Grounds' facility was enormous indeed; while the office space had little signage due to its size being on the smaller side, the property where the action took place, just outside the city proper, was enormous. Luckily, Josh had experienced staff who knew the facility well, and signage that could guide challengers to the correct location. The voice of SHELLY SPIEL, Josh's scheduler, echoed over the Gym's loudspeakers:

"Challenger Noel Parker , please report to the Main Sector. Challenger Parker, to the Main Sector. Thank you!"

Provided Noel followed the ample signage to get to the Main Sector, where the facility's battle courts were located, he would find Josh removing the saddle from Kamuy, the Umbreon whose venomous rings glowed a bright yellow even in daylight. "Aha, Noel, was wondering if you were running late," Josh greeted his friend and war buddy. "Glad to see you come to brush up on your combat skills. Arceus knows we all need them." The vast battleground behind him. While most Gyms' battle courts had some variance to how large they were, Mauville's was notable for being extremely large; it was triple regulation size, and it was wide open. Pokémon had plenty of room to run and nowhere to hide, playing into the ultrafast Pokémon on Josh's Gym squad and giving them quite the home field advantage.

The Gym Leader directed the Noel toward the west side of the triple-sized court, toward the Trainer's Box on the challenger's side. "According to your application, this will be a two-Pokémon Singles match. The first side to incapacitate all their opponent's Pokémon will be the winner. The challenger is permitted to withdraw Pokémon, but the Gym Leader is not. There will be a seven-minute time limit. Once time expires, the side with more Pokémon standing will be the winner. Ties will be broken by sudden death. Good luck to you; you'll need it."

Once the two trainers were positioned, the small gallery cheered, primarily for Josh, as the platforms rose to a height of roughly ten feet. The Gym Leader hurled his Poké Ball toward the circular pool surrounding the inner ring of the battle court, a Dragonair ready to do battle while his large Umbreon stood near him. "Now, bring forth your first Pokémon. I can assure you it will be the only decision you will have time to ponder," Josh taunted as the move timer counted down on the scoreboard clearly visible to the challenger.

The Goodra before Josh was one that had puzzled Josh the first time he encountered one long ago, when Amor Rose challenged him in his Gym's infancy. He had nearly suffered a perfect defeat at the Rocket's hands. With the knowledge of how to battle one, things would be much different -- and much more difficult -- for this challenger. The speed advantage the Gym Leader had would be great, particularly when his Pokémon spiraled around the large court at Extreme Speeds. He couldn't rely on that to dodge forever, though; while blindingly fast, the move also put its wielder under a great deal of physical stress.

He had to save it for when the time was right.

Without that massive speed boost, the burning wave of dragon energy was too fast and precise to dodge, part of Resheph's skin bleached purple. Pulling a 180 and pointing her tail at the rival dragon, a wave of her own -- a THUNDER WAVE -- hurtled toward the steel-type. If it succeeded in locking up the slimy foe's muscles, it would make further Dragon Pulses much easier to slip past.

Noel had the right idea. One effective means to combat speed was with staunch defenses. There was no soul more adept at that than Elinor Anderson . The remnants of their long and violent battle far off the quiet road that was 117 had etched that reality into the Gym Leader's mind. It was a reality that had served the Master of Faster well in defeating many challengers that felt they could win with defense alone. If Noel wanted the Badge, he had to prove that he could win with more than just toughness.

"My pleasure," Josh smirked. Resheph was so in sync with her trainer that she knew exactly what the Gym Leader wanted. Her tail glowing with purple dragon energy, the nimble Dragonair turned calligraph, stroking intricate shapes in the sky with a DRAGON DANCE. With the already fast dragon growing even faster, the window in which the Goodra could react to future attacks was rapidly closing. Soon, she would be too fast for any of Noel's Pokémon to react to...

The initial, shotgun-style spread of water proved difficult for Resheph to evade, even with her added speed. Her scales, designed to cut through aquatic environments, blunted much of the power behind the Goodra's assault. As the dragon's speed continued to grow, so did her ability to outpace even the fastest shots from her less mobile foe.

At the peak of her dance, Josh smirked, having the challenger right where he wanted him. If Noel's Goodra was as well-trained and as defensive as Amor's, this was a winning position for the challenger in the match's first round. During his last run-in with the old variant of the gooey dragon, Josh went with a direct assault with as much power as his Dragonair could muster.

This time, the Leader had a different tactic in mind. "Dive, girl!" Josh commanded his serpentine partner. With her horn pointed right at the foe's midsection, it looked like she would attempt to drill through the dragon-type. Instead, she pulled up at the last minute, using her momentum to harshly whip her tail toward the foe in a DRAGON RUSH.

Noel's logic was sound. There was no Pokémon in the world fast enough or agile enough to dodge the curtain of star-shaped projectiles. There was, however, a brief period of time that it took for the Glaceon to fire off the attack. All Resheph needed was a split second. "Resheph, EXTREME SPEED!" All the untrained eye would be able to see was a purple streak of dragon energy, even Josh straining his eyesight to keep an eye on the flying serpent as she covered the entire arena's length in the blink of an eye.

The blistering burst of near-supersonic speed would keep Resheph safe for a time, but the rate at which it consumed stamina put her under a great deal of stress. The energy stars chasing her collided moments after the dragon was forced to slow to sustained speeds, sending her sliding across the grass.

Withdrawing Resheph, Josh pointed for his second Pokémon to leap down from his Trainer's Box. It was an Umbreon that was almost his size, rippling leg muscles a sign that the Pokémon carried the weight of a human rider regularly. "Kamuy, CONFUSE RAY!" The dark-type's yellow rings blinked fast as a seizure-inducing strobe light in an attempt to overload the Eeveelution's eyesight.

A pair of ICE SHARDS, by sheer fortune, clipped Kamuy, the small Rapidash-sized Umbreon briefly closing his eyes and wincing from the cuts. Umbreon were not a species known for speed, but in the hands of the Master of Faster, even a dopey Slowpoke could run. It was a challenge Josh had once pondered, training the psychic-type to be the fastest of its kind. It still wouldn't be fast, but it would be amusing to see the normally unaware Pokémon move at something resembling a gallop.

"Kamuy, TRAILBLAZE!" was the Gym Leader's follow-up command. Flexing his legs, the dark-type built up a surprising amount of speed, the grass beneath him seeming to part ways as he looked to ram and trample the smaller Glaceon.

Speed allowed Josh's Pokémon to be adept at evading direct attacks. The obvious counter was indirect, indiscriminate ones, such as the ICY WIND that froze the path Kamuy TRAILBLAZED previously. The glowing dark-type was about to about-face and lunge at the Glaceon again, only for the ICY WIND to make the ground beneath him too slick to do so. The cold gale also raised the tension in his legs, sapping him of all the speed he had built up.

It all built up to the opportunistic Glaceon pounding Kamuy and landing on his back, Kamuy letting out a pained howl after being afflicted with subcutaneous freezing thanks to the ICE FANG. Desperate to fling the smaller Eeveelution off, the physically strong Umbreon began to buck and writhe, throwing in the occasional QUICK ATTACK to shift his momentum in a direction awkward for his unwanted rider.