Early morning.
Another sunny day.
Gary rode his bicycle to the entrance of the Cerulean Gym. It was a weekday, not a weekend, which meant Misty's three older sisters wouldn't be performing their underwater ballet show today. They should all be inside.
[Ding! Mission Released: Obtain the Cerulean Gym Badge]
[Reward: Low-level Rare Candy ×10, Permanent TM Device — Waterfall ×1, Top-quality Mystic Water (Increases Water-type move power by 50%) ×1]
The system mission triggered the moment he reached the door.
The reward structure was nearly identical to Pewter Gym's, with one notable difference. The Skill Learning Device this time was Waterfall—a Water-type physical attack with only 85 base power.
The reward from Pewter Gym had been Stone Edge—a Rock-type physical move with 120 base power. Significantly stronger.
Then again, considering the gap in difficulty between Brock and the Cerulean sisters, the disparity in rewards made sense. Brock was a competent Trainer in his own right. The Sensational Sisters, by contrast, only had the type advantage to lean on. Their actual skill as Trainers was nowhere close to Brock's.
Among the four sisters, only Misty had genuine talent. The other three were entirely unsuited for serious battle.
Gary parked his bike and walked up to the front entrance.
He paused, looking up at the building.
They really did whatever they wanted with this place.
The Cerulean Gym had been almost entirely repurposed by Misty's three sisters into an underwater ballet performance hall. If their father had still been around to see what they'd done with the family's Gym, he would have been furious.
Gary pressed the doorbell.
A moment later, the door opened.
A girl with long pink hair stood in the doorway. The instant she registered Gary's face, her eyes widened.
"Wow! You're handsome!"
Gary didn't react.
He'd grown up in Pallet Town. Girls reacting to his appearance was hardly a novelty. He'd been dealing with it since elementary school.
He didn't know which of Misty's sisters this one was, but he had no interest either way. Little girls his own age held no appeal for him. He preferred mature women—the Cynthia type.
"Hello," Gary said evenly. "I'm here to challenge the Gym."
"Ah—!" The pink-haired girl's smile faltered slightly, replaced by mild dismay. She'd clearly hoped he was here to flirt with her or her sisters, not battle them.
But Gym Leaders couldn't refuse legitimate challenges. With a small sigh, she turned and gestured for him to follow.
"Come on in."
Gary noted the timing internally as he stepped through the door.
So they haven't completely given up yet.
In the original timeline, Misty's three sisters didn't fully abandon their Gym Leader duties until after a series of brutal defeats by three Trainers from Pallet Town. He himself had been one of those three, of course.
The trio of Pallet Town Trainers had been somewhat ruthless in those battles. But objectively speaking, they had done the right thing. The League couldn't tolerate slacking Gym Leaders. Anyone who only worked three days a week and rested for two simply wasn't qualified for the position.
Inside the Gym, the main arena was being cleaned. A blonde-haired girl and a blue-haired girl were preparing the venue—presumably for the upcoming weekend performances.
"Sisters! A challenger's here!" the pink-haired girl called out.
The two cleaning girls paused, looked over—and froze the moment they registered Gary's face.
"Oh? I didn't expect today's challenger to be this cute," the blue-haired one teased, leaning on her mop.
"Hehe, he really is handsome," the blonde agreed, smirking.
"Hello," Gary said flatly, ignoring the comments. "My name is Gary. Can we begin the Gym battle?"
His tone was clipped enough that the three sisters exchanged glances.
In Gary's eyes, none of them rated above a 7. Their flirting was wasted on him.
"You really don't understand romance," the blonde sighed dramatically. "Fine. I'll be your opponent."
Gary blinked, then asked, "Are you the Gym Leader?"
"Yes. The three of us are all Gym Leaders." She struck a small pose. "I'm the eldest, Daisy. This is my younger sister Violet, and that's our youngest sister Lily."
"Got it." Gary nodded. "Can we begin, Gym Leader Daisy?"
"Sure. Let's start."
The Gym battlefield was a unique aquatic arena. The center was a large swimming pool, with two small floating platforms positioned on either side as Trainer-side Pokémon footing.
In a venue like this, Water-types had every conceivable advantage. The fact that this Gym had a reputation as the weakest in Kanto, despite this kind of home-field setup, said everything about the actual skill of the three sisters.
"The match rules," Daisy said, "will be one-on-one. Understood?"
"One-on-one?" Gary frowned slightly, surprised. "Shouldn't it at least be two-on-two? You can barely test a Trainer's strength with a single Pokémon."
"What?" Violet, who had taken the referee's position, raised an eyebrow. "Do you have a problem with that?"
"…No." Gary shook his head.
He'd expected as much, honestly. The three sisters were essentially indistinguishable from random passing Trainers. A battle against them wouldn't meaningfully improve his Pokémon's growth.
He just wanted the Badge and the system reward.
"Then my Pokémon will be… Seel, go!"
Daisy threw her Poké Ball.
A burst of light, and a small white sea lion with a tiny pointed horn on its head emerged with a splash.
"Wow! Wow!"
Gary activated the Eye of Insight.
[Seel ♂ — Level 16 — Elite-tier]
His brow furrowed.
Level sixteen?
That was absurdly low. Even accounting for the sisters' lack of skill, this was beneath the standard expected of an officially recognized Gym Leader.
"Exeggutor, your turn."
Gary tossed his Poké Ball toward the platform on his side.
"Exeggutor!"
The towering Grass/Psychic-type materialized on the floating platform. Its three heads swiveled curiously, examining the surrounding water—it had never battled in an aquatic arena before.
"Exeggutor…" Daisy murmured, slightly surprised. Gary had clearly come prepared. Choosing a Grass-type for a Water-specialized Gym was textbook strategy.
"Begin!" Lily called.
Splash!
Seel immediately dove beneath the surface. The water was its element. As long as it stayed submerged, it could control the pace of the battle.
But Gary had already accounted for that.
"Exeggutor, use Confusion. Create a whirlpool in the center of the pool."
"Exeggutor!"
The eyes on Exeggutor's three heads flared blue. Telekinetic force surged outward and plunged into the water.
A small vortex appeared at the center of the pool. It spun, slowly at first—then faster, expanding outward as the psychic energy intensified. Within seconds, it had grown into a massive, churning whirlpool that consumed the entire central section of the arena.
"Wow—!"
Seel, who had been hiding underwater, was immediately caught in the vortex's pull. It struggled to swim out, but the centripetal force dragged it inward and trapped it inside the spinning column of water.
"This—!" Daisy's confident expression faltered. She hadn't expected an opening move like that.
Most challengers tried to fish Water-types out using direct attacks. Gary had simply weaponized the entire battlefield.
"Egg Bomb."
At Gary's command, three large eggs the size of Exeggutor's heads began forming around its body. The eggs detached and launched into the air, arcing toward the whirlpool.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
The eggs detonated upon impact with the water's surface. The explosions tore through the whirlpool, and the shockwaves spread outward in concentric rings, propagating violently through the water itself.
When the chaos finally subsided, the pool's water level had visibly dropped. The whirlpool had collapsed into churning, foamy chop. And Seel—
Floated to the surface, eyes spinning in dizzy spirals.
Unconscious.
Gary nodded slightly.
Egg Bomb. Useful.
The move had awakened naturally when Exeggutor reached Level 20. Its accuracy was admittedly poor, but with the target trapped in a whirlpool, hitting was effortless. And underwater detonations transmitted shockwaves through the medium itself—causing severe internal damage to anything submerged.
The combination had ended the match in a single exchange.
Daisy stared at the floating Seel, frozen in place.
She hadn't even had a chance to give a single command.