The New Normal - 15-10

The New Normal – 15-10 – Gyms and Dojos

The ‘controversy’ involving Bruno was very quick to die down as his critics swiftly realised that they weren’t about to win over the public, which was to be expected since Steven manufactured the whole thing.

However, thanks to the discussions that stemmed from it, which reinvigorated the discussions about whether foreigners could be made into League Officials in other regions, it also led to the topic of the ‘Minor Gyms’ to be brought up once again.

This was especially prevalent since the reconstruction of Cinnabar Island was now mostly complete. Unlike when I had visited previously, where the entire island was still pretty bare aside from the massive arena that they had prioritised to build, now the city had been almost completely rebuilt. Though, this time, it had a very different layout than before, and I could really see just how meticulously this new city had been planned out.

First and foremost, the entire city was built further away from the volcano this time, and many of the residential districts were placed as close to the nearby ports as possible. Likewise, the ports also have been massively expanded from what I remembered, giving ample space for boats to arrive if an evacuation was needed.

Furthermore, the layout of the streets was also far less cluttered, with all of the roads purposely leading to one of the many designated evacuation zones. Additionally, barriers made of specialised reinforced and heat-proof material had been built up all around the volcano, while a large moat had been similarly dug out to buy more time if there was an eruption. Not only that, but all the buildings themselves were spaced out in a way so that if a building did collapse, it was less likely to completely cut off the road or alleyway when it fell.

Overall, from what I heard from Lance and Blaine, they were very happy with the changes, and it was a clear demonstration of the effort that the planning committee had put in place to prevent another disaster that was the previous eruption to occur again. With all of these changes, I trusted that an evacuation in the case of a future eruption would be far smoother, and there wouldn’t be as many trapped civilians as last time.

However, with the newly completed renovation of the island, it was time for the Cinnabar council to make some noise again. They had been biding their time, waiting for the construction to be fully completed. And now that it was, they were once again airing their grievances towards the Indigo League and demanded that their Gym be returned to them.

They weren’t even trying to be subtle with it either. Currently, right in the centre of the island, there was a huge, empty plot of land that was suspiciously sized to be the perfect fit for a Gym. They were even blatant enough to put a sign in front that said ‘under construction’ as well.

It was almost like they were signalling to the world: ‘Hey look, there should be a Gym right here!’

To be fair, the Cinnabar council was making good points. For one, Cinnabar Island was now eminently suited to have a Gym be placed there, as once their former residents all returned to the Island (and they were already in the process of doing so), they would certainly have the population to match the current Lavender Town. Not only that, with all the new renovations that were made, there was no doubt that Cinnabar Island would return to its former glory, or even surpass it. Therefore, they rightly argued that it was a huge waste for the island to not possess its own Gym like it did in the past.

On the other hand, there was also no good reason for the Indigo League to withdraw the Gym from Lavender Town. Dorothy had been running it well, and many people didn’t have any complaints about their Gym experience. On the contrary, many lavished the new Lavender Gym with praise, stating that it was very suitable for a 7th Badge experience as Dorothy’s Ghosts and their plethora of status moves challenged trainers in a way that the other Gyms didn’t. Barring Fuchsia, it was the only other Kanto Gym that forced you to work around a whole variety of status effects.

And even with the newly renovated Cinnabar Islands, the Indigo League was refusing to budge on this point. Now that they had proven competent, they wouldn’t rip away the Gym from Lavender Town without good reason.

Therefore, the Cinnabar leadership decided on a different course of action. Instead of trying to butt heads with Lavender and demand they ‘return’ their Gym, they were choosing to ask the Indigo League to approve of more than the traditional 8 Gyms. In essence, they were promoting the ‘Minor Gym’ idea that had been circulating around for some time now, since they saw this as their way of getting a Gym back on their island.

On the topic of the Minor Gyms, the idea had found a lot of interest within the Gym Leaders of Indigo, and many were in favour of expanding the number of Gyms from the usual 8. However, the problem was that the Gym Leaders couldn’t agree on how the Minor Gyms would be integrated into the existing Gym system.

That was why Lance had called us in for another meeting to discuss this topic once again – with the aim of finally coming up with a solution that we could submit to the Committee. As soon as I arrived at his office, I noticed that he had handed out a list of points from the Gym Leaders about their opinions and concerns from their discussions on the Minor Gym system.

From what I read, they were happy to have new Gyms set up on the Sevii Islands and at Cinnabar Island. Lorelei and Pryce had already spoken with them, and they agreed that having three new Gyms set up on One Island, Three Island, and Five Island respectively.

“…You really need to come up with better names for those Islands.” I muttered, “There’s no way we’re just calling these Islands by their numbers.”

Lorelei looked away, “Yeah… I’ll bring it up with their council soon.”

“Why only four new Gyms though?” Karen asked, “If I remember correctly, don’t the Sevii Islands have six, no, seven islands? Wouldn’t there by one Gym per island?”

“Not all the islands are developed enough to host a Gym.” Lorelei replied, “That’s why Two Island, despite being somewhat developed, isn’t really suited to having a Gym because it’s too small. Likewise, a few of the other islands might be big enough, but they don’t have the necessary infrastructure to host a Gym right now.”

Okay, that made sense. Including Cinnabar Island, that would make four new Gyms that were planning to be set up. Not entirely unreasonable.

However, the main issue came with the value of these ‘Minor Gym’ badges. From what the Gym Leaders had discussed, a majority of them refused to allow these Minor Gyms badges to be replacements of their own. In other words, they categorically refused to support any idea that would make it so that a trainer could skip over their Gym and challenge a Minor Gym instead to satisfy their badge requirements for the Indigo Conference.

Koga approved when he read this, “If I was still a Gym Leader, I would have said the same. As much as I approve of expanding the Gym system, I would not approve if the new Gyms ended up lowering the ‘value’ of a ‘Major Gym’ badge. At the end of the day, it’s a matter of politics and influence. If my Gym gets skipped over just because there’s an ‘easier’ alternative out there, then I lose much of my prestige.”

“But wouldn’t you say that giving trainers more options on which Gyms they could challenge make it more strategic for them?” Lance asked.

“Perhaps it would.” Koga nodded, “And maybe the Gym Leaders know that too. But neither their local councils nor the Gym Leaders themselves would approve of a proposal that would undermine their own Gym’s prestige. Politically, it is not realistic.”

“It might be selfish, but I see where they’re coming from.” Karen added, “I wouldn’t do anything that would hurt the prestige of Brock’s Gym either. He might be overworked as ever during the opening few days of the Circuit, but he would never trade away the importance and prestige of being the ‘first Gym’ of the Circuit. Nor would his local council allow him to do so either.”

I frowned when this was all explained to me, but I could understand their sentiments. Unless there was a very good reason for it, there was little reason to give up your own influence when it wasn’t necessary. Perhaps if I were in their place, I would feel the same way too. So I didn’t blame them.

And in the end of the day, we needed the consent of the Gym Leaders if we wanted this to pass. So this was just a compromise we would have to make.

Therefore, just like it was proposed at the beginning to them, the Gym Leaders would only agree to the Minor Gym system if they were added in addition to the existing Gyms, rather than as an alternative to them. At least that made things simpler, since we would be stepping on less toes this way.

Fortunately, in the notes that they wrote, they also understood that there was a need to provide an incentive to challenge these Minor Gyms. Because what was the point of getting these Badges if they weren’t going to help them at all with their Circuit run, outside of bragging rights?

As a result, the Gym Leaders suggested an idea. If a trainer was able to collect all four Minor Gym Badges within the same Circuit, then they would be able to skip over the Open Qualifiers for that year’s Indigo Conference and start right at the Preliminary Rounds. Their reasoning was that if they were capable of getting all four Minor Gym badges, then that was proof enough that they were strong enough as trainers to not need to be tested in the Open Qualifiers.

Of course, this benefit only applied for that year’s Conference. So you would have to challenge through all of the Dojos again in the next Circuit if you wanted to skip over the Open Qualifiers in the next year’s Conference too.

Furthermore, because of this, that meant that the Gym Leaders for these Minor Gyms only needed to operate at a 8-badge level, which would heavily simplify their logistics and training requirements. It also meant that these Minor Gym Leaders would have to be just as talented as any other Gym Leader, given the level of challenge they needed to provide.

I personally felt that this was a good incentive. It might have been a very long time since I had last challenged the Indigo Conference, but even then I would have appreciated the opportunity to not only earn more bragging rights with the new Badges, but to also skip over the Open Qualifiers.

Since the Open Qualifiers were a series of 1v1s, where a single loss would permanently knock you out of the Conference, even if they were pretty easy most of the time, it would only take a single mistake to end your run.

As Karen put it, “I know many Ace trainers would cherish that opportunity a lot. I mean, I’d completed my own Indigo Conference run not too long ago, and I would never have passed up on the opportunity to skip right to the Preliminary Rounds. It would have saved me so much hassle. Besides, there are just so many battles that you have to go through in the Open Qualifiers – that even for an experienced trainer like myself, it’s just a huge time sink. And you’re not even allowed to slip up once or you might risk getting knocked out.”

“So you think this is a good enough incentive?” Lance looked to confirm.

“Absolutely.” Karen replied immediately, “If we offered this for the new Minor Gyms, then I can guarantee you that these Gyms would receive a steady flow of trainers looking to earn the reward. Not only would many Ace trainers be challenging them, but you should expect those talented trainers that breeze through the standard 8 Gyms to take a crack at them as well.”

“There is an additional benefit that we have not considered.” Koga added, “If we were to include this new system, it would also make the battles that occur in the Open Qualifiers to be a bit more fair – since all of the heavily experienced and veteran trainers would likely take the opportunity to skip over right to the Preliminary Rounds. Therefore, the average skill level of the trainers in the Open Qualifiers would be more balanced – ensuring that fairer battles take place.”

“Yes, that is a good thing too.” Karen agreed, “I did feel bad for the trainers that I beat during my run through the Open Qualifiers that were clearly far below my skill level. I mean, I’ll take the win, but I prefer winning against someone who has an actual chance of beating me. In those cases it just felt like I was crushing kids.”

It was then that a thought came to my mind, “…Anyone else think that ‘Minor Gym’ is a bad name for these new Gyms?” I pointed out, “I mean, if you’re supposed to challenge them after the existing Gyms, then they aren’t going to be ‘minor’ in the slightest. So having them be called ‘Minor Gyms’ seems really wrong.”

“He makes a good point.” Lance said, “We need a better name for this, one that would preferably avoid confusion for the common trainer. Anyone have any suggestions?”

“…What about ‘Dojo’?” Karen suggested, “So you could have a Fighting Dojo, a Normal Dojo, a Dark Dojo and so on and so forth. And they should be called Dojo Masters instead of Gym Leaders. That should distinguish them from your standard Gyms. And now that you mention it, we shouldn’t call them ‘Badges’ either. That just makes things confusing. How about calling them… ‘Emblems’ instead.”

“The term does suggest a certain level of prestige.” Koga replied, “I approve of these names.”

The rest of us nodded along as well. As Karen said, those were much better names as it helped avoid confusion, especially for foreigners who might not be aware of the difference. Lance proceeded to make a note of it.

“But would you get anything for completing one or two of the four Dojos?” Lorelei asked, “Or would you have to complete all of them to gain the benefit of skipping to the Preliminary Rounds?”

“It should be all or nothing.” Karen said firmly, “It shouldn’t be so easy to skip over the Open Qualifiers. With such a benefit, we should make them work for it. Otherwise, it’d be too easy for them. That’ll make it clear that the Dojos should only be attempted by those who really think they have what it takes to win or make it far in the Indigo Conference, or those who are really seeking out the bragging rights that earning their Emblems gives you. Additionally, if the Dojos prove sufficiently challenging, then earning those Emblems could be something like a minor achievement. It would be good for those trying to distinguish themselves from the common trainer.”

“We should keep things simple for now.” Koga agreed, “We need not complicate matters any further when we are already introducing a radically new system.”

“So if you fail to beat all the Dojos in one go, then the Emblems are purely for bragging rights only?” Lorelei remarked.

“…I think we could leave it at that for now.” Lance said, “If we feel that the number of challengers to said Dojos are insufficient, or if there are a large number of people complaining about the lack of incentives, then we could think of additional benefits that we could include during the next Circuit. But I agree with Karen that the current incentives should be fine for now. Since the Dojos need to be challenged every Circuit if you want to reap the benefit, then I think that should allow for a steady number of challengers already.”

“Yeah, sure, I can see it.” Lorelei said, “The Sevii Islands are definitely going to be really happy with the additional influx of trainers because of this. We could even give these new Dojos a collective name, something like the ‘Island Dojo Circuit’. It’ll make it seem more prestigious.”

I nodded; that was a pretty good name.

“Hold on, one more thing.” Lance suddenly said, “Do we allow these Dojo Masters to be given the same rights as Gym Leaders – as in, they’re allowed to appoint their successors personally and be given the right to challenge the Elite Four or Champion directly?”

“I don’t see why not.” I shrugged, “If their duties are basically no different from being a Gym Leader, then they should be afforded the same amount of rights. Besides, having more potential challengers is a good thing. It strengthens the sense of competition and keeps things from getting too stale.”

The others all agreed on that too. Thus, we went back and forth a little longer, but in the end, we all agreed with what we wanted to do with these new Gyms – or Dojos, as they were going to be known as.

Lance made a note and summarised everything that had been discussed today. In short, Cinnabar Island and the Sevii Islands would play host to four new Dojos, which would be collectively called the ‘Island Dojo Circuit’. These Dojos would offer Emblems that, if you collected all of them, you would be able to skip over the Open Qualifiers in this year’s Circuit – though if you wanted to repeat this privilege you would have to re-earn the Dojo Emblems again next year as well.

That would be the system in place for now. Though obviously, if things needed tweaking, then those adjustments could be implemented in the following Circuit. We didn’t expect to get it perfect on the first try, after all.

However, even though we now had a solid plan in place that took into account of the Gym Leaders ideas and concerns (which means they shouldn’t have a problem with it), we now had the unenviable task of trying to push this through the Committee.

Even though we tried to keep it from being too controversial, a proposal as radical as this was inevitably going to have its detractors.

Besides that, we also had to find suitable trainers that could fulfil the role of these Dojo Masters. That was much easier said than done, since their position was basically equivalent of being a Gym Leader, except they were generally stationed in less important locations that were further away from the mainland.

On that note, we all unceremoniously pushed that duty onto Lance to handle. None of us had any candidates in mind that we wanted to suggest – since the only person I could really think of was Daisy Oak or my sister, but it was far too early for them to do so – so we just saddled him with the responsibility.

There was also the matter of financing all these new Dojos and their construction. While the Cinnabar council had informed us that they were more than willing to help fund the construction of their own Gym (or Dojo, in this case) if it was approved, the same could not be said for the Sevii Islands. Despite the newfound life that was injected into the Islands thanks to the construction of the Regional Union, it was nowhere near the levels of the towns and cities on the mainland.

So Lance, Lorelei, and the local councils of Sevii Islands would have to come to some kind of arrangement as to how they were going to fund the construction of three new Dojos, as well as any of the additional infrastructure that would be needed to accommodate the new Dojos. Most likely, they would need the Indigo League to front most of the costs, which wouldn’t be an easy sell to the Committee.

That sounded like a pain in the neck to negotiate, so I was glad I was separate from these conversations.

Nevertheless, the implementation of these new Dojos would not be easy. And I suspected that we would have many more meetings just like this one where we would have to discuss how to adjust this new system in the future. I could already foresee the headaches that were incoming.

Especially since there were still other problems to consider. Currently, we only had four Dojos planned, but will more be set up in the future too? And if so, how would they be integrated into this new system? Would you still need to earn all the Emblems to get the privilege of skipping over the Open Qualifiers? Or was a certain number going to be enough?

These were all problems that Lance made a note of for the future.

Yet, despite all of these problems, I didn’t really mind. On the contrary, I felt pumped that so many changes were happening at once that would reshape the political landscape for the years to come. We were trying to change things for the better, and I always felt that doing so was a worthwhile goal to work towards.

Stagnancy was always the enemy.

A.N. This was another heavy political chapter, but given how radical the newly proposed changes were, I felt that it deserved to have a chapter all to itself to fully flesh out the discussions. This wasn’t something I wanted to be decided off-screen, and I wanted the opportunity to elaborate on why certain decisions were made. Otherwise, it might just feel like this came out of nowhere.

This chapter and my thoughts on the new Dojos were inspired from a myriad of different sources, and I did my best to research through a lot of Pokémon stuff as well as your comments to come up with this ‘final product’. Even though I tried to be as creative as I could with it, I know it’s probably not perfect and everyone’s going to have their own ideas on what they could do with this new system.

Also, I promise that the next non-Interlude chapter will be introducing something many of you will hopefully find exciting! Hope you enjoyed!