Today is the day Julian will face off the gym, but before he goes to challenge the gym, he sat down in front of his PC and started to look around about Veilstone gym, the gym leader of this gym is Maylene a fighting type trainer, her main pokemon is a Lucario with Machoke and Meditite as her second and third.

She is a strong gym leader with a win rate of 90% wins in every challenger's first challenge, she rarely loses her first battle with the challenger, the next battle will favor the challenger because every gym leader have a style and once a trainer figure it out, overcoming it will be easy. ​​

Julian then looks through some of her mock battles in exhibition match and tournaments held in Sinnoh, but this doesn't always give an idea about how the gym leader really battle, this is a mock battle, they are being careful not to hurt the other party so these type of battle always lack the techniques and special style that a trainer posses.

This is also the problem of many young trainers, they study the mock battles of the gym leaders too much, they don't even understand they are not learning anything while studying these battle.

After seeing through them Julian still was able to get some points, even though this is a mock battle the trainers won't change their style and from this Julian can roughly guess what a real battle scenario would look like.

The gym always took three on three pokemon battles so Julian has to come up with a team like he thought he wants Cranidos on this battle as he is the only one who is weak against fighting type in his team.

Julian's team is really good at taking on fighting type trainers so this gym battle would still be easy for him even if his Cranidos goes down, but it is not likely to happen due to all the training Cranidos has gone through.

After doing what he wanted it was time for Julian to go and challenge the gym, he got out of the hotel and headed towards the gym.

He soon arrived outside the gym, he is surprised to see that this fighting type gym, this was very different from the past gyms he has seen, unlike any fighting type gym that looked traditional and followed the ancestral design, this one looked very modern and big, it was more like a mansion than a gym and there was also additional huge buildings attached to the main building, one on the side and one at the back.

The backside of the gym is a very thick forest mostly home to wild pokemons.

Julian entered the gym and started to look around the gym, he saw some pokemon statues and fountains around the gym, most of these statues belong to fighting type pokemon, stating that this is a fighting type gym even though it doesn't look like one from the outside.

As Julian walked further into the gym, he heard yells followed by the sound of kicks and punches, he followed the sound and soon arrived in an open area gym, he saw a girl with short pink hair, with a band-aid on her nose, she is wearing a blue top with white trousers and blue gloves.

Beside her is a Lucario who is training with her, they seem to be very focused on their training as well, her Lucario suddenly noticed something and turned around to see a man wearing a black mask looking at them.

Seeing this it charged at Julian as it created a long baton from its aura and swung it towards Julian, it trainer who is also the gym leader of this gym, Maylene, seeing Lucario suddenly attack someone random stunned her for a second.

Maylene "Lucario no"

But her reaction was too late, Lucario's baton was already above Julian's head, but before the Baton could even land Julian grabbed it with his bare hand and stopped it.

Lucario was surprised by this and tried to pull it back but was unsuccessful, Julian then squeezed his hand and shattered the baton into fragments which caused Lucario to fall on its back.

Maylene who is also surprised by this snapped out of it and rushed towards Lucario and made it stand up and bowed down to Julian.

Maylene "I am very sorry Lucario is very protective, he thought you must be a thief as your face is covered"

She apologized to Julian and stared at Lucario to do the same as well, Lucario also bowed down and said sorry for its action.

Julian "Its no big deal, well anyways I am here to challenge the gym, you must be the gym leader Maylene, right?"

Maylene "Yes, I am, so you are a challenger, you can wait inside I will come and battle you after Lucario and I clean up"

Julian nodded and walked towards the main building, on his way he saw another person who entered the gym with him, it was none other than Paul.

Julian 'I have been seeing him a lot lately'

Julian thought and just nodded at him and walked in, Paul was surprised to see Julian here, he can recognize Julian even though he is wearing a mask because he could see Julian's eyes clearly, he is also wearing the same dress as the time he met Julian in the forest.

Paul 'He must be challenging the gym as well, I think I should watch how he battles'

Paul thought and walked in as well.