BattleNet

Chapter Seven

BattleNet

By the beginning of Gray’s second month as Sinnoh’s regional Professor, the laboratory had developed enough of a routine that he occasionally forgot he was supposed to be in charge of it.

This was ideal.

Marcus handled most of the ranch systems before Gray knew there had been a problem. Mira had settled comfortably into several long-term ecological projects and had begun using one section of the lab as though she had personally conquered it. Elias had reorganized enough of the old sample storage that Gray could now ask where something was and receive an answer instead of an archaeological expedition. Tessa had established herself as the unquestioned authority on anything involving breeding, juvenile Pokémon, and rehabilitation cases that refused to cooperate with everyone else.

Lyra had become a small administrative government.

Gray did not like governments.

He liked this one somewhat more than average.

She controlled his calendar, intercepted enough League correspondence that his inbox had become survivable, reminded him about food with the relentless patience of water eroding stone, and had somehow developed a working system for deciding which meetings Gray genuinely needed to attend and which meetings she could make disappear.

Gray had stopped asking how.

Some knowledge was better left mysterious.

Roark had also become a regular enough presence that nobody commented when his helmet appeared beside the laboratory’s rear entrance.

This was irritating.

Not because Gray minded.

That was the irritating part.

Roark would turn up two or three times a week, sometimes for something legitimate and sometimes because Oreburgh apparently lacked chairs, coffee, fossils, or all other forms of human companionship. He still had responsibilities at the Gym and mine, so he was not always around, but he had become familiar enough that Aggron expected him and Chatot had added several phrases to his vocabulary that Gray absolutely knew had come from Roark.

The worst remained “LYRA!”

Chatot used it indiscriminately.

Sometimes Lyra was not even on the property.

Roark denied responsibility.

Gray did not believe him.

Life, in other words, had become surprisingly pleasant.

Then BattleNet ruined Thursday.

Gray discovered the article at eight twenty-seven in the morning while eating toast at his desk.

Not because he followed BattleNet.

He did not.

BattleNet was one of the largest trainer-focused sites in Sinnoh and several neighboring regions, which meant Gray encountered it only when someone linked him an article or when its forums accidentally appeared in search results while he was trying to answer an entirely different question.

He respected the site's battle archives.

Mostly.

Its editorial department could go fuck itself.

Gray was reading a review of proposed excavation permits when Chatot landed beside his keyboard carrying Lyra’s pen.

Gray looked at the bird.

Chatot looked at Gray.

The pen remained firmly in his beak.

“Put that back.”

Chatot took two sideways steps.

“Mine.”

“No.”

“Mine!”

“That is not how ownership works.”

Chatot hopped onto the monitor.

Gray reached for him.

The bird flew away.

Gray sighed and returned to the permit review.

Thirty seconds later, Lyra appeared in his doorway.

“Have you seen my pen?”

“No.”

Chatot, from the top shelf, shouted, “MINE!”

Lyra slowly looked upward.

Gray pointed. “Hostile witness.”

She held out her hand.

Chatot considered her.

Then dropped the pen.

It hit the floor.

Lyra picked it up.

Gray watched this with mild resentment.

“He never does that for me.”

“He respects me.”

“He fears bureaucracy.”

“Same thing.”

She started to leave.

Then stopped.

“Oh. Have you seen BattleNet?”

Gray looked up.

“No.”

Lyra’s expression changed.

Small.

Barely.

Enough.

Gray narrowed his eyes.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“That was absolutely something.”

Lyra stepped farther into the office.

“You’re going to be annoyed.”

“I am already annoyed.”

“No, more.”

Gray put the toast down.

“Why?”

She took out her phone.

That was when Gray knew.

Anything bad enough that Lyra had decided to show him personally was going to be terrible.

She turned the screen.

At the top was the BattleNet logo.

Below it sat a photograph of Gray at sixteen.

Gray stared.

The photograph had been taken at the Silver Conference.

He knew it immediately.

He was standing on a battlefield with one fist raised, hair considerably longer than it was now, face streaked with dirt, while Aerodactyl screamed somewhere behind him.

Across the photograph, BattleNet had placed a headline.

BEFORE THE LAB COAT: THE NEW SINNOH PROFESSOR WAS A PROBLEM

Gray stopped chewing.

Lyra said nothing.

He looked at her.

Then back at the phone.

“What the fuck is this?”

“I told you.”

“Why do they have that picture?”

“Public League archive.”

“That was sixteen years ago.”

“Yes.”

“Why are they writing about it now?”

“Because you’re the new regional Professor.”

“That is not an answer.”

“It is exactly the answer.”

Gray took the phone from her.

He scrolled.

The subheading was worse.

Gray Linden is known today as Sinnoh’s blunt new regional Professor, archaeologist, fossil researcher, and reluctant public figure. Older battle fans remember something else entirely. BattleNet went digging through the archives.

Gray slowly looked up.

“They went digging.”

Lyra folded her arms.

Gray pointed at the screen.

“They wrote that on purpose.”

“Probably.”

“This is theft.”

“No.”

“They did not ask me.”

“They don’t need permission to write about public records.”

Gray stared.

“That sounds fake.”

“It isn’t.”

“It should be.”

Lyra was trying not to smile.

Gray saw it.

“This is not funny.”

“I haven’t said anything.”

“Your face has.”

He scrolled again.

There were embedded videos.

Multiple.

Gray felt something cold settle in his stomach.

“Oh, no.”

Lyra leaned closer.

“What?”

“They found the Karen match.”

She looked at the screen.

“Is that bad?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because I was an idiot.”

Lyra smiled.

Gray glared.

“I was sixteen.”

“That usually explains being an idiot.”

“Thank you.”

He started reading.

BEFORE THE LAB COAT: THE NEW SINNOH PROFESSOR WAS A PROBLEM

By BattleNet Features Staff

If you only know Gray Linden from recent headlines, you probably know three things.

He is thirty-two years old, making him one of the younger regional Professors in recent Sinnoh history.

He is an archaeologist and Pokémon historian who has already developed a reputation for blunt interviews, unconventional starter placements, and asking the Sinnoh League for enough fossil-restoration funding to make accountants cry.

And he owns more Magikarp than anyone with a functioning sense of restraint should probably own.

What you may not know is that Professor Linden used to battle.

Not casually.

Not “did the Gym circuit once and moved on.”

BattleNet’s archival team spent the last week reviewing old Sinnoh and Johto League recordings, regional tournament footage, challenger records, and newspaper archives.

The result?

Professor Gray Linden was, for several years, one of the nastier young defensive battlers in the region.

Then, almost immediately after reaching the highest level of his competitive career, he walked away.

Gray stopped reading.

He looked at Lyra.

“Nastier?”

She shrugged. “Compliment, probably.”

“It sounds criminal.”

“Continue.”

“I don’t want to.”

“You absolutely do.”

Gray hated that she was right.

He scrolled.

The article continued with a brief summary of his childhood near Canalave, his first Pokémon, and his early Gym challenge. Some of the information was old enough that Gray had no idea where BattleNet had found it.

His father discovering the Shieldon fossil.

His parents helping pay for the restoration.

Gray beginning his journey at ten.

His first Sinnoh League run.

He frowned harder as he read.

“How do they know this?”

“Newspaper archives?”

“My mother wrote for a local paper.”

Lyra leaned against the desk.

Gray scrolled back.

There it was.

A citation.

An old Canalave-area human-interest piece about a local child receiving a revived Shieldon.

Gray remembered it.

His mother had not written the article herself.

One of her coworkers had.

There was even a photograph.

Ten-year-old Gray sitting cross-legged on the floor while Shieldon attempted to eat the lace from one of his shoes.

Gray's irritation softened for perhaps three seconds.

Then BattleNet ruined it again by zooming directly into the photo during an accompanying video.

He clicked.

The video opened with quick cuts.

The old photograph.

Gray at the Sinnoh League years later.

Bastiodon blocking an attack.

A teenage Gray screaming instructions from the sideline.

Then modern footage from Celia Marr’s interview photograph, Chatot biting his ear.

A narrator spoke over it.

“Before he was Professor Linden, Gray Linden was a Canalave kid with a revived fossil, a defensive battle style, and apparently no interest whatsoever in ending matches quickly.”

Gray paused the video.

“Fuck them.”

Lyra laughed.

“That one was funny.”

“No, it wasn’t.”

“You once told me your battle style involved entrapment and wearing people down.”

“Yes.”

“So?”

“That is elegant.”

Lyra nodded solemnly.

“Of course.”

Gray resumed.

The first battle clip was from Sinnoh.

He remembered this one less clearly.

He was thirteen or fourteen.

Bastiodon had still been a Shieldon.

The footage quality was poor, recorded from a lower-tier regional broadcast and later digitized. Gray stood at one end of the field looking painfully young, his hair falling into his eyes every time he moved.

His opponent had a Monferno.

The narrator explained that young Linden had already been developing a preference for defensive positioning, field control, and forcing opponents to exhaust themselves.

The clip showed Shieldon taking a Mach Punch.

Gray winced even now.

Teenage Gray shouted something unintelligible.

Shieldon dug in.

Monferno attacked again.

And again.

Then the field changed.

Stealth Rock.

Sand.

A forced retreat.

Monferno came back later already injured.

Gray watched himself set the entire thing up.

Lyra watched too.

“You looked angry.”

“I wasn’t.”

“You look furious.”

“That was concentration.”

“You looked like you wanted to murder someone.”

“I was fourteen.”

“Again, that explains a lot.”

The clip continued.

Shieldon won.

Not spectacularly.

Slowly.

Painfully.

The opponent had been stronger.

Faster.

More experienced.

Gray's younger self had simply refused to let the battle happen on the opponent's terms.

BattleNet froze the video on teenage Gray crouching beside Shieldon afterward, both hands against the little Pokémon's face.

The narrator said:

“Linden’s early matches were messy, sometimes overcomplicated, and often much slower than they needed to be. What stands out in retrospect is that the core philosophy was already there: survive, observe, limit options, and make the other trainer solve a problem they didn’t plan for.”

Gray frowned.

“That’s not terrible.”

Lyra smiled.

“High praise.”

He ignored her and kept reading.

The article followed his progression through Sinnoh.

Not every Gym.

Thank God.

BattleNet highlighted three matches.

The first showed his Bastiodon after evolution, fully establishing the defensive style Gray had eventually become known for.

The second used Cradily.

That footage was better.

Gray remembered it immediately.

His opponent had assumed Cradily would sit in place.

Cradily did.

That was the trap.

BattleNet's editors overlaid a simplified field diagram showing how Gray had used positioning and recovery to restrict the opponent until switching became dangerous.

Gray hated the graphics.

The analysis was correct.

That made it worse.

Then came Absol.

The narrator introduced him with a dramatic pause.

Gray groaned.

“No.”

Lyra looked over.

“This one embarrassing?”

“No. BattleNet is about to become stupid.”

It did.

The screen went dark.

A silhouette of Absol appeared.

Text flashed:

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on NovelPhoenix. Report any occurrences.

THE DISASTER PROBLEM

Gray closed his eyes.

“Fuck them.”

Lyra laughed again.

The actual footage was from Johto.

By then Gray was older.

Fifteen.

Maybe sixteen.

Absol moved across the field with frightening speed while Gray called commands from the sideline.

BattleNet's analysis focused on something Gray remembered being proud of at the time: he had deliberately allowed the opponent to believe Absol was his primary attacker, then used him almost entirely for disruption.

Taunt.

Pursuit.

Pressure.

Forced positioning.

Gray had spent six minutes convincing the other trainer that Absol was going to sweep their team.

He never tried.

Aerodactyl did.

The video cut to Aerodactyl dropping from above at a speed that made even modern Gray grimace.

Lyra leaned toward the screen.

“That was yours?”

“Still is.”

“He was insane.”

“Still is.”

The old footage showed Aerodactyl slamming into the field, scattering dust.

Gray’s younger self shouted something.

The opponent’s Pokémon went down.

The stadium erupted.

Modern Gray watched without saying anything.

He remembered that feeling.

The crowd.

The noise.

Aerodactyl circling above.

Bastiodon waiting in reserve.

Adrenaline so strong it made his hands shake afterward.

He had loved it.

That was the complicated part.

Gray had never quit competitive battling because he hated it.

He had quit because there were other things he loved more.

BattleNet understood that too.

Annoyingly.

The article quoted an old post-match interview.

Sixteen-year-old Gray stood sweaty and exhausted beside a reporter.

The reporter asked what he planned to do if he won the Silver Conference.

Young Gray shrugged.

“Probably go look at ruins.”

The modern video paused.

The BattleNet narrator said nothing for several seconds.

Then:

“He was apparently serious.”

Lyra covered her mouth.

Gray stared.

“I hate this website.”

“You were exactly the same.”

“I was sixteen.”

“You were already like this.”

“That is defamatory.”

“It is video.”

“Deepfake.”

“Sixteen years ago?”

“Advanced technology.”

Lyra laughed.

Gray went back to the article.

Then came the Silver Conference.

BattleNet had found almost everything.

Of course they had.

The Silver Conference had been one of the better-recorded tournaments of its year.

Gray had been a relatively unknown Sinnoh trainer when he entered.

By the quarterfinals, commentators had begun calling him one of the tournament's most irritating opponents.

Gray remembered liking that.

He still did.

The article included highlights rather than full matches.

Bastiodon absorbing absurd punishment.

Cradily dragging battles into uncomfortable positions.

Absol forcing switches.

Aerodactyl doing most of the visible violence.

Blissey appearing in one late tournament match and immediately turning the battle into a war of attrition so unpleasant that the opposing trainer looked personally offended.

Gray laughed at that one.

Lyra noticed.

“You're enjoying this now.”

“No.”

“You are.”

“Some parts.”

“Thought so.”

“Still illegal.”

“It is not illegal.”

“Morally illegal.”

The final match showed Gray's victory.

He remembered this one perfectly.

The last Pokémon.

The stadium.

His hands shaking.

Bastiodon barely standing.

The opposing Pokémon attacking one last time.

Bastiodon taking it.

Then ending the match.

Teenage Gray did not celebrate gracefully.

He jumped.

Actually jumped.

Both fists in the air.

Then immediately ran onto the field toward Bastiodon.

The camera followed.

Gray wrapped both arms around Bastiodon's face shield.

Bastiodon shoved him backward.

Gray laughed.

The old footage froze there.

BattleNet added:

Linden was sixteen. Bastiodon had been with him for roughly six years. They are still together today.

Modern Gray stopped.

Lyra stopped too.

The office went quieter.

Gray looked out the window.

Bastiodon was visible in the distance near the house.

Same face.

More scars.

Slower.

Older.

Gray scrolled before the thought could develop any further.

Then he saw the next heading.

THREE DOWN, ONE TO GO

“Oh, fuck off.”

Lyra leaned over.

“Elite Four?”

“Yes.”

“Karen?”

“Eventually.”

Gray already knew what came first.

Will.

Bruno.

Agatha.

BattleNet had acquired archival portions of all three matches.

The footage was incomplete in places, but there was enough.

Will's match showed Gray visibly uncomfortable against Psychic-types even then.

BattleNet noticed.

Naturally.

A text box appeared beside footage of teenage Gray ordering Bastiodon to protect Absol from a Psychic attack.

Fun modern context: Linden recently told the Jubilife Daily that Psychic-types scare him because “I don’t like things that can change what I think.” Apparently, this is not a new concern.

Gray looked at Lyra.

“This is harassment.”

“You're a public figure.”

“I reject that.”

“They do not.”

Bruno’s battle was more physical.

Ugly.

Hard.

Bastiodon took a beating Gray hated watching now.

Aerodactyl carried much of the later match.

Then Agatha.

Longer.

Stranger.

Gray looked younger in each video than he remembered feeling.

That bothered him.

At sixteen, he had thought he was nearly an adult.

Now he looked at the screen and saw a child making decisions in front of thousands of people.

That was unsettling.

Then came Karen.

The video thumbnail alone made him wince.

Lyra noticed.

“You don't have to watch.”

Gray looked at her.

“Yes, I do.”

“Why?”

“Because they watched it.”

That did not make much sense.

Lyra didn't challenge it.

Gray pressed play.

The footage opened late in the match.

BattleNet had clearly chosen the sequence to support its analysis.

Gray's team was exhausted.

The previous Elite Four matches had taken a brutal toll.

Bastiodon was injured.

Cradily was slower.

Aerodactyl had already fought.

Gray himself looked awful.

Sweaty.

Hair stuck to his face.

Eyes too wide.

Too much adrenaline.

Karen looked calm.

That was the difference.

Even now.

Sixteen years later.

Gray could see it immediately.

She was still thinking.

He was trying to finish.

BattleNet slowed one sequence.

Gray switched too aggressively.

Karen anticipated.

Punished.

The narrator said:

“This is where the run ends. Not because Linden suddenly forgets how to battle, and not because Karen discovers some perfect counter. He gets impatient.”

Gray watched his younger self make the next choice.

Wrong.

Not catastrophically.

Enough.

Karen's Pokémon exploited it.

Gray swore quietly.

Lyra looked over.

“That bad?”

“Yes.”

“You've said you rushed.”

“I did.”

The narrator continued.

“By this point, Linden had fought through an entire tournament and three Elite Four members. His team was exhausted. So was he. Instead of slowing the match down—the exact thing that had gotten him this far—he tried to accelerate it.”

The final exchange played.

Gray knew it.

Every second.

He knew what he had thought.

He could end it here.

Force the pace.

Don't let Karen settle.

One more push.

She had been waiting for it.

The match ended.

Teenage Gray stood there quietly for several seconds.

Then recalled his Pokémon.

Karen crossed the field.

The old broadcast microphone picked up only part of what she said.

Something about patience.

Something about being good enough to know better.

Young Gray laughed weakly.

They shook hands.

The clip ended.

BattleNet's narrator finished:

“It would be easy to frame this as the beginning of some comeback story. It wasn't. Gray Linden never made another serious run at regional competition. Within a few years, his name began appearing more often in archaeological journals than battle coverage.”

The article returned.

Gray read silently.

BattleNet described his years in Johto and Hoenn.

The shift toward archaeology.

Fossil restoration work.

The two minor lost sites he had helped document.

His return to Sinnoh.

His parents' deaths were mentioned briefly.

Gray's eyes stopped.

The article did not sensationalize it.

That helped.

It stated only that both had died approximately three years earlier in a residential sinkhole caused when an Onix accidentally tunneled beneath the property.

Gray's jaw tightened.

Lyra noticed.

“Want me to close it?”

“No.”

“They didn't need that part.”

Gray kept looking at the sentence.

“It is public record.”

“That doesn't mean they needed it.”

Gray exhaled.

“No.”

They moved on.

BattleNet connected the incident to his continued work underground carefully.

Not dramatically.

They noted that despite the accident, Linden remained an active field archaeologist, regularly worked in caves and ruins, and owned a Steelix.

Gray found that last detail darkly funny.

The article did not attempt to explain his psychology.

Good.

He would have become genuinely angry then.

Instead it moved into the present.

Regional Professor.

Laboratory.

Ranch.

Starter program.

His staff.

His ongoing research interests.

Then the conclusion:

So what happened to the sixteen-year-old who nearly fought his way through an Elite Four?

Apparently, he found something he liked more.

Linden still battles. Sources around the Sandgem laboratory describe him as highly capable in the field, and his primary team remains largely composed of longtime partners from his competitive years. But he has shown no indication that he intends to return to formal competition.

That may be the most interesting part of the story.

Pokémon culture tends to treat elite battling as a summit. If you're good enough, surely you keep climbing.

Gray Linden climbed high enough to see the summit.

Then he went looking for ruins.

Gray stared at the final line.

Lyra waited.

Gray scrolled back to the top.

Then all the way down.

Then back to the top.

His face tightened.

Lyra knew him well enough by now not to interrupt the process.

Finally Gray put the phone down.

“They did not ask me.”

Lyra sighed quietly.

“No.”

“They wrote my entire life story.”

“Parts of it.”

“They found footage of me when I was fourteen.”

“Yes.”

“I had that haircut.”

Lyra smiled.

Gray looked offended.

“Do not focus on the wrong crime.”

“The haircut was pretty bad.”

“My mother liked it.”

“I'm sure she did.”

Gray slumped deeper into his chair.

“This is bullshit.”

Lyra sat across from him.

“It could have been much worse.”

“That is not comforting.”

“They didn't misrepresent you.”

“They called me nasty.”

“Nasty defensive battler.”

“Worse.”

“They were complimentary.”

“I did not ask them to compliment me.”

Gray pushed away from the desk and stood.

He started pacing.

Lyra remained seated.

This had become familiar.

“When Celia interviewed me, she asked. She came here. I agreed. I knew what she was doing. This—” Gray pointed at the phone as if the entire BattleNet organization lived inside it. “This is people digging through everything I've ever done because apparently putting on a lab coat made me interesting.”

“You were already somewhat public.”

“No.”

“You won the Silver Conference.”

“At sixteen.”

“You fought the Elite Four.”

“At sixteen.”

“You published papers.”

“Research.”

“You have a blog.”

“Niche research.”

“You became regional Professor.”

Gray stopped.

“Temporary lapse in judgment.”

Lyra folded her arms.

Gray resumed pacing.

“They could have emailed.”

“They probably assumed you would say no.”

“I would have.”

“Yes.”

“That isn't the point.”

Lyra laughed.

Gray glared.

“It is not.”

“I know.”

“They could have at least told me.”

“That I agree with.”

Gray stopped.

Vindication.

“Exactly.”

“They should probably have contacted the lab for comment.”

“Yes.”

“That doesn't mean they needed your permission to write the article.”

Gray's vindication disappeared.

“Traitor.”

“I work for you. I do not exist to tell you everything you want to hear.”

“Terrible assistant philosophy.”

“Excellent assistant philosophy.”

Gray dropped back into the chair.

Chatot returned through the open window.

He landed on the desk.

“Bullshit!”

Gray pointed at him.

“Correct.”

Lyra laughed.

Gray took his phone and opened BattleNet again.

The article had already been shared thousands of times.

Of course.

There were comments.

Threads.

Clips.

People were reposting pieces of the old matches.

Someone had made a short compilation titled:

Professor Linden Forgetting He's Supposed to Be a Scientist for 4 Minutes

Gray refused to click.

Lyra clicked it.

“Give me that.”

She moved the phone away.

The video showed archival footage.

Gray screaming a command.

Aerodactyl attacking.

Bastiodon refusing to go down.

Then modern footage of Gray giving a dry interview answer.

Then teenage Gray shouting again.

Lyra was laughing.

“This is editing manipulation.”

“It is very funny.”

“I hate the internet.”

“You have a blog.”

“Different internet.”

Gray spent the next fifteen minutes complaining.

Not productively.

Just complaining.

About privacy.

About headlines.

About archive footage.

About journalists.

BattleNet was not technically journalism, according to Gray.

Lyra disagreed.

Then he complained about her.

She ignored him.

At one point Roark walked past the office, heard Gray say, “They used the Karen match, Lyra. The Karen match,” and stopped.

He looked in.

“What happened?”

Gray pointed at the phone.

Roark saw BattleNet.

His face lit up.

“Oh, I saw that.”

Gray stared.

“You what?”

“Everybody saw that.”

Gray looked betrayed.

“How long?”

“Couple hours?”

“And you didn't tell me?”

Roark's smile became cautious.

“I thought you knew.”

Gray looked at Lyra.

Then Roark.

“I hate both of you.”

Roark entered anyway.

“They did a good job.”

“Get out.”

“The Aerodactyl section was great.”

“Leave.”

“You were terrifying at sixteen.”

“Roark.”

Roark laughed.

Gray put his head on the desk.

This was his life now.

Apparently.

Byron read the BattleNet feature that evening.

Unlike the Jubilife Daily profile, BattleNet did not arrive folded beside breakfast.

Roark sent it to him.

That alone made Byron suspicious.

The message read:

This is the guy I was telling you about. BattleNet found his old footage.

Byron opened the link from the sitting room at home after a long day at the Gym.

The headline appeared.

He snorted.

“Problem?”

That sounded like BattleNet.

He began reading.

The childhood section interested him less than the battle archive.

Byron knew what he was looking at immediately.

Not the person.

The style.

The first Shieldon footage made him lean forward.

Young.

Very young.

Messy.

But there.

Patience.

Field control.

Refusal to trade blows when he didn't have to.

Byron watched the entire clip.

Then the next.

Bastiodon.

Better.

Older Gray had already learned when to let the opponent exhaust themselves and when to punish impatience.

Byron smiled faintly.

“Mean.”

Not cruel.

Mean in the battling sense.

There were trainers who attacked you.

Then there were trainers who made you regret whatever you had planned before the match began.

Linden had been the second kind.

The Cradily footage confirmed it.

Byron laughed once when the opposing trainer switched directly into a hazard setup Gray had spent several turns constructing.

“That was your own fault.”

He watched more.

The Absol section was clever.

The Aerodactyl follow-up was brutal.

Byron did not care much for BattleNet's dramatic editing, but the archive footage underneath was excellent.

Then the Silver Conference final played.

Byron recognized it.

Not immediately.

Then Bastiodon took the final attack.

Something in Byron's memory shifted.

He had seen this.

Years ago.

The broadcast had been running at the Gym.

Roark had been younger.

Byron remembered half-watching while doing paperwork.

A Sinnoh kid with Bastiodon.

He had forgotten the name.

Now he watched again.

Young Linden ran onto the field and grabbed Bastiodon.

Byron smiled.

“That's where I know you.”

He leaned back.

Then he watched the Elite Four footage.

All of it.

Will.

Bruno.

Agatha.

Then Karen.

Karen was the one he watched twice.

BattleNet's analysis was right.

The boy hurried.

Not early.

Late.

That mattered.

He had earned the position he was in.

Then lost because he stopped doing what had gotten him there.

Byron rubbed his beard.

“Sixteen.”

Ridiculous age.

He thought again about the earlier article.

Ten-year-old trainers.

Sixteen-year-old tournament champions.

Pokémon culture did strange things to your idea of age.

Byron watched the end once more.

Karen crossing the field.

The handshake.

Then the archival record ending.

He understood why Linden had left competition.

Maybe not personally.

But enough.

The boy in the footage looked like someone enjoying himself.

The man in the recent interview also looked like someone enjoying himself.

Just while talking about fossils.

Byron found that reassuring.

Then he reached the section about Gray's parents.

His expression changed.

Onix.

Sinkhole.

Both parents.

Byron knew enough about mining accidents to understand exactly how fast something like that could happen.

He paused the article.

Sat quietly.

Then resumed.

BattleNet did not linger.

Good.

Byron appreciated that.

At the end, he sent Roark one message:

He was good.

Roark replied almost immediately.

I KNOW

Then another:

He still is, apparently. Won't battle me though

Byron smiled.

Maybe he doesn't want to embarrass you.

The typing indicator appeared.

Stopped.

Appeared again.

Then:

wow okay

Byron put the phone down.

Excellent.

Cynthia had already known Gray's competitive background.

In abstract.

There was a difference between knowing someone had won the Silver Conference and watching sixteen-year-old Gray Linden nearly vibrate out of his own skin while Bastiodon absorbed an attack that should have ended a match.

She found the BattleNet article late that night.

Not through Roark.

Through the League's internal media summary.

The Champion received a morning and evening digest containing notable regional coverage.

Most of it was dull.

The BattleNet feature was not.

Cynthia opened it from bed.

Her Garchomp was asleep nearby, occupying enough floor space to make movement inconvenient.

The article's title made her smile.

The first childhood photograph made her pause.

Gray at ten.

Shieldon chewing on his shoe.

Cynthia looked at it for longer than she expected.

He looked completely different.

Of course he did.

Children did that.

Still.

There was something strange about seeing the person who wrote those tightly reasoned archaeology papers as a little boy trying to recover his shoelace from a fossil Pokémon.

She kept reading.

Then started the first battle video.

Cynthia watched differently than Byron did.

Not because she was Champion.

Because battling was still central to her life.

She noticed patterns quickly.

Gray's early positioning was clumsy.

His timing improved fast.

By fifteen, the defensive instincts had become deliberate.

By the Silver Conference, they were dangerous.

Cynthia paused during one match and replayed a switch sequence.

“Hm.”

Garchomp opened one eye.

Cynthia glanced down.

“He baited that.”

Garchomp closed his eye again.

“Yes, I know you don't care.”

She resumed.

Gray's teams were unusual.

Not absurd.

But unusual enough to make opponents think.

Bastiodon was obvious.

Cradily less so.

Absol created uncertainty.

Aerodactyl punished uncertainty.

Blissey made impatient opponents miserable.

Cynthia understood the construction.

Gray was not trying to overwhelm people.

He was trying to make them uncomfortable until they made a mistake.

Then Aerodactyl usually hit them.

Hard.

“Annoying,” Cynthia murmured.

It was complimentary.

She watched the Silver Conference final.

Then the Elite Four.

Will interested her because Gray clearly hated the matchup.

Not strategically.

Emotionally.

He did not like Psychic-types.

That was visible even before BattleNet pointed it out.

Bruno's match showed Gray at his most stubborn.

Agatha showed adaptation.

Karen showed fatigue.

Cynthia watched Karen twice.

Then a third time.

BattleNet's analysis was correct but incomplete.

Yes, Gray rushed.

More interestingly, Karen knew he would.

She had spent enough time in the match showing patience that Gray eventually felt compelled to break it.

Cynthia smiled faintly.

“That was mean.”

Garchomp did not respond.

Karen had won the battle before Gray made the obvious mistake.

The mistake was simply where everyone could finally see it.

Cynthia wondered whether Gray knew that now.

Probably.

He seemed the type to have replayed the match until he hated himself.

Or avoided it for sixteen years.

Possibly both.

Then came the strange part.

No return.

No second run.

No later tournament.

Nothing.

Cynthia understood that less intuitively than BattleNet's writer seemed to.

She loved battling too much.

The idea of reaching that level and simply deciding to do something else felt almost alien.

Then the article showed the old interview.

Sixteen-year-old Gray being asked what he would do after the tournament.

Probably go look at ruins.

Cynthia laughed.

“Oh.”

There it was.

That explained everything.

He had not abandoned one passion after failing at it.

He had chosen another after succeeding.

Very different story.

The article eventually moved toward his archaeology.

That part Cynthia already knew.

Then his parents.

She stopped.

Read the short paragraph.

Onix.

Sinkhole.

Three years ago.

Cynthia had not known.

The information changed nothing about her academic opinion.

It changed the shape of the person slightly.

She thought about his recent reaction to the tunnel beneath his ranch, which Roark had apparently mentioned to Byron, who had apparently mentioned it somewhere in League communication.

Not fear.

Not publicly.

Still.

Interesting.

She continued.

At the end, Cynthia opened one of the full archived matches linked below the feature.

Not BattleNet's edit.

The entire Silver Conference semifinal.

Forty-three minutes.

She watched twenty.

Then realized she was supposed to sleep.

She watched the rest anyway.

Gray won.

Barely.

Afterward, the camera followed him off the field.

He checked every Pokémon before speaking to the press.

Cynthia noticed.

Of course she did.

She closed the video.

Then reopened the modern photograph from Celia Marr's interview.

Same person.

More beard.

Less hair.

Significantly more profanity, probably.

Cynthia smiled.

She saved two battle links.

Not for any particular reason.

She simply preferred complete records.

That was all.

Gray discovered the BattleNet forum thread the next morning because Roark sent it to him.

This was an act of hostility.

Gray knew that immediately.

The message contained only:

do not open this

Gray opened it.

The thread title was:

BattleNet Forums › Competitive History › Archive Diving

So apparently Professor Linden used to be a MENACE

Started by:route216throwawayPosted: 8:14 PM

route216throwaway

did everyone else somehow know the new sinnoh professor won silver conference or have i been living under a rock

battleNet feature:[link]

the bastiodon footage is disgusting. complimentary

cranidosFan91

I knew he won Silver but I did NOT know about the E4 run.

Three.

THREE.

Then he just left???

Who does that

oldmanriver

People who have other interests.

Not everyone wants to make professional battling their entire life.

cranidosFan91

yeah but THREE

PPMaxedOut

Watched the Karen match.

BattleNet is right, he absolutely threw the pace away at the end.

Still impressive as hell considering his team looked half dead by that point.

sunnyshorewifi

Still impressive as hell considering his team looked half dead

His Bastiodon had just gone through BRUNO.

I would have simply gone home.

wurmplebusiness

The actual important information in the article is that Professor Linden's first Pokémon was a Shieldon and apparently twenty-two years later he STILL calls it “old man.”

I am emotional about this against my will.

6badgesandabuspass

my takeaway was that ten year old gray had the exact same facial expression he has now

kid looked like shieldon owed him research funding

mod_Cobaltium[MOD]

Reminder: Please do not post or request private personal information about Professor Linden, laboratory staff, or family members.

Public League records / publicly archived interviews / published articles are fine.

Anything involving home addresses, private contact info, travel plans, etc. gets removed.

sandgemlocal

He lives literally on a public League research ranch, nobody needs to dox the man, you can just go there during intake hours and get yelled at about starter safety.

mod_Cobaltium[MOD]

Do not go there specifically to bother him.

sandgemlocal

wasn't planning to 😭

ToxicOrbEnjoyer

I need people who weren't watching Johto back then to understand that Karen was TERRIFYING.

Linden losing to her after Will/Bruno/Agatha is not an embarrassing result.

At all.

battle_frontier_divorcee

Correct.

Also the BattleNet edit doesn't show how slow the early part of that match is.

Karen basically lets him cook himself.

ToxicOrbEnjoyer

THANK YOU

Everyone is focusing on his last switch.

The last switch isn't why he lost.

She spent like 15 minutes making him increasingly annoyed that she wouldn't take the bait.

By the time he rushed, she already had him.

geodude420

she already had him

phrasing

mod_Cobaltium[MOD]

Behave.

geodude420

no

missingnoodles

The jump cut from teenage Professor Linden screaming “AERODACTYL, NOW!” like somebody is about to die

to current Professor Linden calmly saying “we don't know and that's fine”

absolutely murdered me

same guy?????

QuietNatureMint

Actually yes, very obviously the same guy.

He spends the entire old footage trying to gather information before committing.

It's basically his research philosophy in battle form.

Route3Rattata

bro psychoanalyzed a Stealth Rock setup

QuietNatureMint

I said what I said.

HikerDan_NotThatOne

Former competitive Rock/Steel trainer becomes archaeologist and fossil researcher.

That's not a career change that's just specialization.

piplup_with_a_knife

I cannot get over the fact that this man has:

• won Silver Conference
• beaten 3 E4 members
• discovered lost ruins
• revived fossils
• became regional professor at 32

and his current public reputation is mostly

“guy with abusive magikarp”

magikarp17fanclub

SHOW RESPECT

LakeValorParkingEnforcement

Username created yesterday.

Coward.

magikarp17fanclub

every movement needs a beginning

duskballer

His Absol strategy in the semifinal is NASTY.

He spends half the match making the other trainer think Absol is going to be the closer and then sends Aerodactyl out like a brick through a window.

Beautiful.

sixturnsetup

Honestly the whole team is unpleasant.

Respectfully.

Bastiodon: won't dieCradily: won't die but annoyingBlissey: WON'T DIEAbsol: mind gamesAerodactyl: attempted vehicular homicideChatot: probably swearing somewhere

softboiledmain

Blissey only showed up for one of the linked tournament matches and immediately added like 12 minutes to the runtime lol

sixturnsetup

exactly

JohtoTapeArchive

For anyone curious, BattleNet missed at least two surviving broadcasts.

I have a 70% complete recording of Linden vs. Whitney from his Johto challenge and a terrible copy of his Pryce match.

Before anyone asks: no, I am not uploading copyrighted full League broadcasts.

I might post timestamps / summaries if mods allow.

mod_Cobaltium[MOD]

Summaries and short clips within forum rules are okay. Full broadcast rips are not.

cranidosFan91

PRYCE MATCH???

PLEASE

JohtoTapeArchive

It's mostly snow interference and a 16-year-old yelling at Cradily.

Manage expectations.

excadrill_union_rep

This entire article really explains his starter program though.

Guy spent his own childhood traveling with a fossil Pokémon and then went “why would I only hand out Turtwig/Chimchar/Piplup.”

Honestly makes sense.

badguybutnotevil

Still think giving a ten year old an Aron is insane.

excadrill_union_rep

Chimchar breathes fire.

badguybutnotevil

...fair

NormalGemStan

Can we talk about BattleNet including the sinkhole thing?

Felt unnecessary.

NoivernAt3AM

They didn't dwell on it.

It is part of his public background and kind of relevant to him continuing to work around caves/Onix.

I thought they handled it okay.

NormalGemStan

Maybe. Still feels weird when the guy wasn't even interviewed.

route216throwaway

yeah that's the part that's rubbing me wrong too.

article is good but imagine waking up and seeing your whole childhood + dead parents + teenage sports footage compiled by strangers because you got a government job lol

geodude420

“government job” is doing a lot of work there

he owns 31 magikarp on taxpayer land

we deserve transparency

sandgemlocal

THE MAGIKARP ARE NOT TAXPAYER FUNDED

probably

FiscalFeraligatr

As an accountant I am begging everyone in this thread to never discuss public finance again.

magikarp17fanclub

how much public funding goes directly to number 17

FiscalFeraligatr

blocked

SteelWingman

As somebody who actually battles competitively, old Linden footage is weirdly educational.

He is not mechanically flashy.

Like at all.

A lot of his wins are just “you now have fewer good choices than you had three turns ago.”

That is much harder to play against than it looks.

choice_scarfed

Yeah he's a squeeze player.

Makes the board smaller until you have to pick something bad.

SteelWingman

Exactly.

Then Aerodactyl appears and ruins your afternoon.

definitely_not_a_gymleader

seems overrated

route216throwaway

username suspicious

definitely_not_a_gymleader

mind your business

oreburghcoal

bro if this is roark again I swear to god

definitely_not_a_gymleader

who

oreburghcoal

LMAO

mod_Cobaltium[MOD]

Do not speculate about user identities.

Even obvious ones.

definitely_not_a_gymleader

thank you moderator

oreburghcoal

OH MY GOD

AncientPowerPoint

As someone in academia: I am BEGGING BattleNet to do a follow-up where they force him to comment on his own old matches.

Not because it would be useful.

Because I want to watch him suffer.

PeerReviewEnjoyer

He'd spend 40 minutes correcting BattleNet's tactical analysis and then say competition isn't important.

AncientPowerPoint

exactly

unown_letter_q

Has anyone else noticed his published papers are only like four total?

Not criticizing, just expected more considering the profile.

PeerReviewEnjoyer

Archaeology.

Fieldwork.

Long projects.

Four decent papers at 32 is not weird depending on career path, especially if he's doing site discovery and restoration work.

Also he blogs constantly, apparently.

unown_letter_q

ah makes sense

HikerDan_NotThatOne

His blog is unhinged btw.

10/10.

piplup_with_a_knife

link the Hisuian roof rant

HikerDan_NotThatOne

[link]

system

This post has been edited by HikerDan_NotThatOne.

Reason: fixed link

roofloadbearing

okay i'm 600 words into this

why is the pokemon professor calling a historical reconstruction “a culturally significant way to die in a roof collapse”

PeerReviewEnjoyer

because he's right

roofloadbearing

I LOVE HIM

NormalGemStan

The funniest part of this whole thing is BattleNet framing him like some forgotten elite battler and meanwhile the man himself is probably outside feeding Magikarp and refusing to answer emails.

sandgemlocal

can confirm he is often outside

cannot confirm emails

FiscalFeraligatr

Please stop providing local observational intelligence on the professor.

sandgemlocal

HE IS VISIBLE FROM THE ROAD SOMETIMES

mod_Cobaltium[MOD]

Moving on.

KarenWasRight

Okay as a longtime Karen fan:

Linden did extremely well.

He also deserved that loss.

You cannot spend your entire run winning through patience and then decide Karen is the person you're going to rush.

That's like deciding Bruno is the E4 member you're going to fistfight personally.

ToxicOrbEnjoyer

best analysis in thread

KarenWasRight

Thank you.

Also young Linden's face when Karen says something to him after the match is killing me.

That's the face of a teenager being told something he already knows.

oldmanriver

Probably was.

wurmplebusiness

and then instead of training for a rematch he went to university and looked at old rocks

king behavior

battle_frontier_divorcee

Honestly?

Yes.

magikarp17fanclub

HE CHOSE THE PATH OF MAGIKARP

FiscalFeraligatr

I hate this thread.

Gray reached the bottom.

He stared at the screen.

Then slowly looked across his office at Roark.

Roark was sitting in the other chair.

He had gone very still.

Gray narrowed his eyes.

Roark did not move.

Gray turned the phone around.

On the screen:

definitely_not_a_gymleader

Roark looked at the ceiling.

Gray said, “Interesting username.”

“I don't know what you're talking about.”

“Of course.”

“Could be anybody.”

“You wrote ‘seems overrated.’”

“A common opinion.”

Gray smiled.

Roark started laughing.

“You weren't supposed to read the forum.”

“You sent it to me.”

“I said don't open it.”

“That has never worked on anyone.”

“Fair.”

Gray looked back at the thread.

Then at the BattleNet article open on his computer.

Then at Roark again.

“I still hate them.”

“The forum?”

“BattleNet.”

“You spent forty minutes reading comments.”

“Research.”

“Sure.”

Gray scrolled back to the post about the Karen match.

He read it once more.

Then locked his phone.

Roark smiled.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“That means something.”

Roark leaned back.

“You know the article was good.”

Gray frowned.

“It was invasive.”

“Both can be true.”

Gray did not answer immediately.

Annoyingly, Roark had stolen one of his own arguments.

He hated when people did that.

Finally he said, “They still should've asked.”

“Yeah.”

That was enough.

Gray looked out through the office window.

Bastiodon was in the grass near the house.

Chatot flew past.

Someone outside shouted something that sounded like Elias complaining about Aggron.

Normal.

The internet could spend the day rediscovering a version of Gray Linden who had existed sixteen years ago.

They could analyze him.

Edit him.

Argue about his switches.

Laugh at his hair.

Debate whether Karen had broken his competitive spirit.

They would be wrong about that last part.

There had never been anything to break.

He had simply found something else.

Gray stood.

Roark looked up.

“Where are you going?”

“Outside.”

“Why?”

Gray glanced toward the ranch.

“Number Seventeen hasn't assaulted anyone today.”

Roark stood too.

“That sounds temporary.”

“Exactly.”

They left the office.

Behind them, Gray's computer still displayed the BattleNet headline.

He did not close it.

That meant nothing.