Chapter 216: Elite's ready!
The Elite Challenge was where a trainer would get to challenge me for what amounted to a Badge for Prestige. This badge would be slightly different from those I typically offered, but there were a few catches.
First of all, there was a significant cost associated with simply making the challenge. This money would not be refunded to them upon their victory. At first, I had thought to make it refundable but then after a round or two of Bertha wrecking the battlefield in her fights, I had decided to just pocket the money and set it aside for the truly damaging matches.
This might not be the case any more with my great diversified revenue stream but the price point now merely added to the prestige. You didn’t get to simply challenge with some easy savings. You had to work for this in more ways than one and put your money where your mouth was.
Georgina had, earlier in the year, successfully argued for this cost to be increased due to my fight with Lance. People fighting against one of the pokemon that fought Lance would be yet another drawcard for the Gym.
Secondly, you only really had two options for the matches. When the match started I would have most of my Elite pokemon, of the rock typing, in front of me. Then a randomiser would be used to make it the luck of the draw. This stopped people from building precise teams for niche pokemon like Don, or Bertha.
All of my pokemon would already have it rough with trainers, if they were smart, preparing entire teams for certain pokemon to face them and certain moves to be used.
The only other option they had for this was to specifically ask to face my strongest. This had to be booked well in advance, and then? When every eye was on them? They had to have the spine to demand to face my best.
They had to announce it in front of everyone who came to the Gym that day. They’d do so, knowing full well that I would not hold back.
Titan had for a long time been slightly ahead of other pokemon like Bertha. With Empress, his mother, joining my roster of Elite pokemon that gap had been a little tighter with there being a lot of overlapping points.