It had been a long time since Josh had been to his old Minor League Gym grounds on Route 111. He wanted to train with Swift at his Gym, but the Gym was not at full capacity due to being selected for the 2024 Silph Cup season finale. A Pokémon fast as a Raikou needed room to run. While he could accelerate and decelerate faster than with Josh on his back, their collective consciousness had to respect the young man's limitations. He was no Avatar. As he was now, that Raikou stomping on the gas pedal would only injure him.

The crackling grew louder and louder, culminating in a gigantic lightning bolt striking a moderate distance from Aaron Toral . Were he to avoid averting his gaze, he would see a feline silhouette amidst the bright flash, slowly fading into a black-and-white facsimile of the legendary Pokémon Raikou... with a human figure sitting comfortably on its thundercloud.

As the lightning and sparks dissipated, he would be able to see that the human figure astride the Beast was a familiar face.

"Oh, hi there Aaron!" Josh waved nonchalantly. "Didn't expect to see you out here!"

The deadpan tone brought MATIAS SILPH 's words to mind. Did he really come off as intense? Perhaps the Avatar was right. "I'm sorry!" he quickly apologized. "Still trying to get used to Swift." While it was half-true, a lot of what made the Beast stand out so much was the intensity with himself. Despite his apology, the monochrome legendary Pokémon's stare looked like it could sear a soul with electrical burns. In order to fully control the ash Raikou, he would have to fully control himself... a Herculean task, and perhaps even an inhuman one.

"Seven badges?" Josh remarked, whistling at how quickly Aaron rose through the ranks. "Impressive. I do want to warn you, though, getting eight Badges is the easiest part of the road to the rank of Champion. Speaking from personal experience." Each one of the Elite Four had a different lesson to teach Josh about the way he handled himself -- lessons that had shaped the racer into the exemplary Champion he was. With CIAN MAHER stepping away from the circuit to focus on taking care of Rustboro City more directly, Josh was now the only Champion Ranked trainer in Hoenn that did not work with AQUA -- or a legendary Patron.

And he preferred to keep it that way.

Josh's challenge, too, was physically taxing. To the uneducated, riding a Pokémon may not have seemed strenuous. That notion couldn't have been farther from the truth; at speed, a Pokémon mount exercised the thighs, hips, and even upper body. Keeping one's balance on a Pokémon with a spine as flexible as a Raikou's required great strength, dexterity, and stamina. "I'm here to work with Swift. After the attempts to retake Petalburg failed, it's clear I need to redouble my training and efforts in making us the best partners we can be. And with the Silph Cup's season finale taking place early next month, I had to come out here instead. Because today...I'm pushing him to full gallop. No Quick Attacks or anything like that yet. Just as fast as he can run without tiring." It was a tall order, too; even a race car with its gas pedal to the floor could not keep up with the speed god's ashen vestige.

Josh had seen plenty of trainers with high Badge counts not take the Champion Assessment as seriously as they needed to. "Take it from my experience; I'm a Champion now, and I got my butt kicked by the Elite Four. All four of them." Not the current Elite Four; he had defeated Navy and his Urshifu in one attempt, but the previous four made him look like a child fresh out of Trainers' school.

The rider pensively shook his head in agreement with Aaron's assessment. "I'm right there with you. I'm loyal to the League's precepts. Not the people in charge." This shift in rhetoric was part of the motivation for the young man to register Mauville Racing Grounds as an independent business. His record with Hoenn's League was not the most spotless, but his competence at his job kept him in his seat. His Beast also let him serve a unique role within the League, and one that would grow increasingly valuable the more terrain Rocket claimed on the mainland.

DESIREE BLOOMS was a regional treasure, but her Gym Challenge was not easy. "It's... surprisingly similar to mine," Josh revealed, vaguely recalling what happened. As it turned out, being on narcotics wracked one's memory. "She'll challenge you to an obstacle course not unlike some of my courses here. The only difference is, to put it bluntly, under the influence. You won't be able to think the same way you normally do. Your reflexes won't be as sharp as normal. The only reason I won was because of my Zeraora." That was the one detail he did recall: being flung around in the thundercat's saddle with every object he bonked. While it was fun in the moment, it was not something he desired to repeat.

It was a problem Josh also had to deal with when he was ascending through the ranks, though only during his title match. "It was only Kyle that used any of his legendary Pokémon against me," he added, recounting parts of his own Champion Assessment to Aaron. "Their goal is not to come down upon challengers with their full might; if they did, then no one else would ever become a Champion." He knew Kyle was holding back. Despite having to go through Ho-oh and Entei, Josh got to field six Pokémon against his three. "Ultimately, they're not different from what we Gym Leaders do. We test for mastery over a specific aspect of Pokémon. They just do so on a different level than we do."

Togedemaru, while not Josh's style, was a fine choice. "I will say, then, that you might want to work on not only your Pokémon's conditioning, but yours, too." Swift crouched and Josh scooted forward, as to offer Aaron a seat on the Raikou's back. "Now I can't exercise the best muscles for the course, but I can give your core and your thighs a hell of a workout, if you want." If Aaron knew him well, he might be able to infer that there might be other muscles that would get a workout, too -- including the ones that governed his reaction time.