Once the family was gone, Josh was going to slide off Valoo's back when he heard Zachary calling out for him. He turned the Drampa to face the blue-haired trainer and waved back, hovering closer to his friend. "Oh, hey, Zachary!" he waved, Tiamat's shadow zooming past the two as the Dragonite flew high above the Gym grounds. The purr of a Pyroar might rattle Zachary if he let Rani touch him, Nuka the Litleo cutely eyeing the trainer.

"You said you're interested in becoming a Gym Leader?" Josh asked. "I know you said this once, but it sounds like you've given some serious thought to it." He slid down from Valoo's back and whistled for his Pyroar pride, Aslan their Shiny king leading the charge. All of them wore saddles bearing the Ranger insignia upon them. "You're not the first person I've trained to be a Gym Leader. Elise Calcifet 's castle, on the east side of Mauville, is a Minor League Gym. She learned everything she knew from me, and she's a great Leader."

The Gym Leader gently stroked Aslan's mane before taking a seat astride the golden lion. "Is that what you're here for, or are you here to challenge me?"

"She is," Josh confirmed, and would describe the castle on the east side of town in greater detail. Securing the grant for the building had to be a mess, what with how high land values were and how many people and businesses would have had to be moved from their homes. As Zachary pet Nala, the lioness purred, perhaps feeling like a strong massage to whatever skin was in contact with her.

The Minor League program, which used to be run by the late kyle lopez , was now run entirely by dahlia goode . "It's a program that Kyle ran, meant to scout for Gym Leader candidates. They get to open their own Gyms and take challengers, though with a much smaller budget. Several current Gym Leaders, including myself, graduated from the program. When I was in the Minor League, the Racing Grounds were located on Route 111, and only had three courses instead of twenty-four." The property was nostalgic for him, enough so that he never arranged for the fencing to be taken down. By now, the grass was overgrown, having not been mowed in a year and a half. The only building that remained on his grounds was the Operations Center, and only the basement of it where his Secret Base once was.

"You'll still get challengers," Josh continued, "but not at the rate a Major League Leader does. Their Badges even count for the Gym Challenge, but you can only use one Minor League Badge to qualify. It lets you get your feet wet without having to deal with the... political baggage that comes with being in the Major League."

Glossing over Zachary mentioning he wanted to engage in a Pokémon battle for the Quick Badge, Josh tried to calm him, the thrumming echo of Pyroar purrs the pride's effort to get the blue-haired man to relax. Nala even crouched next to Zachary. "It's not a conflict of interest at all! Elise herself challenged me not long ago, and she's works here part-time. There's two ways you can earn my Badge. In a battle of strength, or in a battle of speed--"

Before he could finish, he saw Dizzy whack Zachary with the wand-stick. A little confidence would help a long way in being a good Gym Leader candidate, he thought.

Josh's smile grew with Zachary's contagious excitement. "There's a series of exams you'll need to take in order to qualify for the Minor League program. You'll also need to pitch your Gym idea to Commissioner Dahlia," he explained the criteria the program used. "I do want to warn you that it is a lot of work. You'll want to hire some help, or you'll get overwhelmed. I've got close to 40 employees here now. Even on a Minor League Gym Leader's budget, you'll be able to hire a few people." It helped that Mauville was a rich city. With so much tax revenue coming in, budget wasn't too much of a concern for the racer. Depending on where Zachary set up his Gym at, he might have a bit more of a challenge.

Unusual challenges were something Josh wished the League didn't discourage by requiring a number of Badges be won by battle rather than one-off challenges. He understood why, but he still didn't agree with it. Ultimately, as long as the lesson taught was being imparted, the nature of the challenge didn't matter. "Not all of them do, but I would say most. Alexei Ivanov 's Gym in Fortree has three different challenges you need to know how to ride a flying Pokémon to compete in. Elise Calcifet 's and Rosmontis' Gyms are about navigating labyrinths. And Hideo Kino 's lets you experience a dream and fight through it. They really are fun and engaging. If you want higher challenger volume, offer something unique, and people that aren't even interested in the Gym Challenge will come. Trust me!"

That reminded him, he still needed to go to Fortree Gym to take on the place's third challenge... when he and the Birdfather weren't feuding over the "betrayal" in Lilycove.

"Sure, we can arrange for both!" Josh offered, what with how enthusiastic the blue-haird trainer was. "I just want to warn you that if you make today's challenge official and you lose, you won't be able to re-challenge for 45 days." He was then offered to suggest the type of challenge his friend would register for. "Tell you what. Let's brawl first. That will help me figure out what you need to improve on. Do you want to make this challenge official or not? If so, I've got some paperwork you'll need to fill out."

Josh smiled upon hearing Zachary's choice. He would be able to put on competition for a Badge within his element. Though battle was the more common of the two challenges now, he thoroughly enjoyed letting loose with his fastest Pokémon. "Now I can't say anything official, as appointing new Gym Leaders is well above my pay grade," the Master of Faster explained. "I can certainly give you feedback, but I can't say whether or not the League will accept you. I'm not privy to the process, but I imagine the Elite Four are the ones responsible for screening new Gym Leader candidates. You not only need to be skilled at battle yourself, but you need to be good at recognizing others' weaknesses and engineering improvement plans for the trainers who come to you and fail to earn a Badge."

Badge count was important. While not the only factor or even the primary factor, it was important for Gym Leaders to possess enough evidence of their merits to be respected in their positions. "I wouldn't say badge hunting is the only way to improve as a trainer, or even the be-all and end-all of trainer prowess. But it is a regionally and even internationally-accredited standard for the overall strength of a trainer," Josh continued. "You have the right attitude, though. Ultimately, a Gym Leader is an educator. Of not only trainers less talented than them, but ones more talented, as well. It is also important that Gym Leaders can educate themselves. Listen to their own advice. You recognize that even a as a Gym Leader -- no, a Champion -- the learning process never ends. That's a good start."

Enough introspection; they had a battle to start. "Name your team size and your format for the match. I'll whistle for a team that I think would be a nice, even match." With over a hundred Pokémon to pick from, he was prepared for just about anything!

"Of course they're our evaluators," Josh added. "They're our direct superiors in the League. We answer to them. They're not easy to impress, either. Navy was largely responsible for shaping me into the person I am now. He was once a Gym Leader, too. Most of the people that get promoted into the Elite Four were at one point Gym Leaders." That, or they had their positions for a very long time. Melody and Greyson used to be Gym Leaders. It was the way Josh felt it should have been, too: promote from within rather than hiring people from outside. They knew the ins and outs of how the League worked.

The gauntlet had been thrown; it was now just a question of which Pokémon he would use. He had so many to pick from. "Singles works for me, three per side!" He wanted to use at least one bug-type to test Zachary with; after all, if he was working on his fear of insects with Shalin, he shouldn't have such a strong reaction to one.

Whistling for three of his Pokémon, they began to bound and zip across the property, toward the grounds they would be sparring on. The first one that arrived was Nala, a female Pyroar that was about as tall as Josh himself. The second was a Shiny Sylveon that wasn't too much smaller, stretching and wrapping her feelers around Josh out of love for him. Heralding the third was a piercing buzz, a red-eyed insect zipping toward the Gym Leader and challenger. A Beedrill that was even larger than Shalin's, almost to the limit of their species' size, he didn't look as affectionate as his friends, but seemed well-behaved enough.

"Just gotta get their saddles off them, then they'll be ready to go."

Josh noticed how tense his challenger had become at the sight of King Zing. In years past, that would have been warranted; this Beedrill had nearly taken Eris Halla 's life, having induced its own RAGE into the Gym Leader seated upon it. After a year of rehab at the League, the Pokémon was much more placid. It lacked the candy-like affection of Shalin's, but was still friendly enough. His buzzing sounded just as grating and as mean. For a bit, he wondered if he should give Shalin a run on his wings as a way to strengthen them further. "No need to be afraid of him, Zachary," Josh tried to console him. "You learned from Shalin Nariya that in the hands of trainers, bugs are nothing to be scared of. Now show me the progress you've made." All it seemed to take was a poke of Dizzy's stick to give him that courage.

Seeing the Abra, Josh didn't question the decision at all. The psychic-type looked like it didn't get along with him too well. He could relate to that; he was handling several ornery Pokémon himself. Granted, they were "legendary" paradox Pokémon that had their own rules they had to be treated by, but even so, he had been through Zachary's same plight. "What is there to take back?" Josh asked. "Abra is a fine choice, Beedrill are poison-type as well as bug-type. One well-placed psychic attack will put King Zing in a real bind... if it can hit him!" he smirked.

When Josh was done educating Zachary on the type chart, King Zing's wings drowned all out other noise, buzzing vehemently enough that Tarot and Zachary may have been able to feel the disturbed air. The wasp raised his foreleg stings skyward, FOCUSING his ENERGY and getting excited for battle. He poked his long and sharp stinger out of his rear for a second before retracting it.