With Petalburg City having been taken over by Team Rocket, there was sentiment brewing among Josh's Gym employees that Mauville or Rustboro would be the syndicate's next target. Not wanting to be caught in the middle of a siege, several employees had voluntarily left, leaving the racing entrepreneur with no choice but to offer overtime. Overtime he didn't want to pay long-term. As such, he had put out a wave of advertisements looking for help in nearly all of his Gym's positions. dirk summers was one such applicant.

The young man had caught the Leader returning to the colorful blue, purple, and yellow lobby after getting take-out from the Checkered Flag, a restaurant and bar that had only recently reopened its kitchen after suffering quite a bit of damage in Hitoshi Inoue 's recent Dynamax attack on the city. He would not be able to return the handshake, for his hands were filled with a shake and a bag filled with a steakburger and waffle fries. "You caught me getting lunch, Dirk," Josh shrugged. "Great to meet you, though! Gym Leader Devlin or Champion Devlin, but please, call me Josh! What is it you need?"

Josh's smile grew when he heard Dirk's reason for visiting the Gym. "Indeed, we have quite a few openings. As long as you don't mind me eating in front of you, we can talk employment over lunch -- in my office upstairs!" Provided there were no objections, the Leader would guide Dirk to the Gym's main elevator. Once they were inside, he would make small talk with the candidate. "You must be an athlete, like I used to be. What's your name?"

Once they arrived on the Gym's top floor, the only one with windows on all sides, Josh led him down a hallway and through double-doors leading to a lavish office that was clearly designed to hold a mainframe computer. One of the room-sized ones from the early days of computing. The amount of memorabilia in the room was staggering: small plastic figures, a display of trading cards, some posters, and even a Ride-On plush toy not far from Josh's desk. All of the memorabilia was of a single legendary Pokémon: Raikou.

The Gym Leader unwrapped his burger, put it on one corner of the paper wrap it had been surrounded in, and spilled his waffle fries near the other corner. He took out a sealed ream of printer paper and placed it to one side, resting his shake on top of it. Upon smelling the food, a rather-large Manectric wearing a saddle woke from a nap and walked toward Josh. Even the electric-type's saddle looked like a Raikou's thundercloud. "Oh, Saber, you must have smelled lunch! Here, have a few! I got a large for a reason." He slid a small pile of them for the canine to snack on.

"I see you have an application on file," Josh started after checking League and Gym records. "Currently, we have positions open for Gym Trainer, Pokémon Caretaker, and in Security. Refresh my memory; which of those positions were you interested in?"

Ketchup and mayonnaise oozed out of the bottom of the burger as the Gym Leader took his first bite out of it. Though the Checkered Flag's kitchen was new, their recipe was just as good as it was before. the attack. The meal, though not cheap, was worth every PD he paid. He listened to Dirk's history and was surprised to hear that the jersey was no replica, he played for a real sports team. He had watched Olympic volleyball before, knowing the agility and strength required for the sport. Strength that would serve him well.

One he was halfway done with his burger, he set it down and started to advance through the interview's prompts. After some keyboard tapping and some mouse clicking, he was able to pull Dirk's League profile. "Sounds like you've already done your homework," Josh mused. "Then you must know that you'll need not only Pokémon that are good in combat, but ones that wear a saddle well." Were Dirk to look out the north window, he would see the size of the Racing Grounds behind the office building -- and some of the dozens of saddled Pokémon that belonged to Josh. From the ordinary, humble Rapidash to a gigantic Beedrill that one would have to be quite brave to fly on, nearly every conceivable ride Pokémon was there.

One concern did catch his eye, though. "I pulled up your League file, and I noticed you do not possess any Hoenn League Gym Badges. Do you have any Badges from other regions?"

A week wasn't terribly ambitious to get a very basic ride Pokémon; it was a sign Dirk knew exactly how long it would take to hunt down one of the many dozens of species that could serve the purpose the Gym needed. Strong but not unrealistic expectations. "I'll hold you to that if we speak again," Josh answered, noting down both the apparent lack of ownership of a ride Pokémon as well as the two Galar League Badges. Hoenn Badges or no, they held the same weight in determining Dirk's prowess. "There are times I wish I could go back to Johto and finish the Gym Challenge there. But with how close Mahogany and Blackthorn are to Kanto, it's too big of a security issue for a Hoennian Champion like me."

After enjoying a few more waffle fries and taking a drink of his shake, Josh cleared his throat before asking Dirk the next set of questions. "Reiterating that a lack of Hoenn League Badges will not disqualify you from consideration. I do need to ask you, though: other than your athleticism and skills with stray Pokémon, what skills do you have that will let you succeed in this position? Why do you want this position?"

Josh wouldn't mince words as to why he didn't complete his bid for Champion Rank in Johto. "Kanto is still under Rocket occupation," he reminded Dirk. "Most of the remaining Gyms are in eastern Johto, too. If word of my presence there spreads far, I would be too juicy of a target for Rocket to resist. And Hoenn cannot afford to lose me right now." They had already lost a very valuable and active Ranger Captain who went above and beyond for the war effort. The League could not afford another such loss.

Dirk in no subtle motion displayed what Josh thought to be nerves. Nerves that indicated in the Leader's eyes that he had not fully prepared for their interview. When he at last did give an answer, Josh lightly and slowly clapped his hands. "Those are exactly the kinds of people that Hoenn needs. We need those with the drive to defend the region. While it will not be expected of Gym Trainers to help with the war effort, you're exactly the kind of person that will make sure those using the Quick Badge as a medal of honor indeed have the chops to wear it."

Typing with one hand and digging into the rest of his lunch with the other, Josh entered a few more notes about Dirk before continuing on. "Next, can you share with me your greatest success story your skills as a trainer have led to? It doesn't have to be battle or tournament-related."

Josh's smile grew as he listened to Dirk's resolve, then his story. He was in Hoenn for all the right reasons. He seemed to understand the war. He seemed to understand that Josh could not afford to divide his efforts between his birth region and his new home region. That was part of why he was not as invested as Eva Morales was in Kanto's reconstruction, and to a lesser extent, Johto's.

He finished his food and wiped his hands clean on a napkin before standing up and sitting on the giant Raikou plush's thundercloud again, looking much more relaxed than he did before. "You have the instincts of a Ranger, too. To make a split-second decision to stop a poacher, all on your own accord..." he trailed off. Dirk had impressed him thus far. They thought a lot alike. "If I don't hire you directly, you should have absolutely no trouble getting a job with Mauville's Rangers. I'm sure annalise henderson would love talking to you."

He flicked the Raikou's felt reins and even flinched like one would while riding a jumping mount. He almost looked like a child in an adult's body. "Next, I want you to share one of your most significant shortfalls and how you learned from it." It was by far the most difficult question on the interview, but it gave Josh an idea of the candidate's growth potential -- a very important factor in making his decision. What was arguably more important than Dirk's vision of the past... was his vision of his future.

The results of Dirk's injury, and the lessons from it, were lessons Josh had to learn, too. He had burned himself out chasing Raikou for so long, Only after his failures nearly cost an innocent child her life was when Josh realized the Beast needed to come to him. And that Beast did come. "That's a lesson I've had to learn, too. It's not an easy one to learn, and kudos to you for being able to learn it on your own."

Doing some number crunching in his head, it seemed Dirk was a good candidate for the position, both in terms of past experience, motivation, and general mentality. "I do have one more question for you. Gym Trainers at Mauville Racing Grounds will be expected to be a part of the field for Racing Challenges. Do you have any Pokémon that would be good for racing across land, on water, and in the air? If you don't have any right now, that's okay. It won't disqualify you from consideration." Josh had plenty of loaners to go around, though he had discovered the races were more competitive if the Gym Trainers used their own personal Pokémon instead.

After all, mount and rider worked best when of one mind.