Roy accepted the Strike Badge from Chuck without any hesitation and put it into his Spatial Bracelet.
Seeing that Roy, whom he had lost to a year ago, had now surpassed him, Chuck couldn't help but feel a surge of emotion:
"I never thought that you, who were being utterly crushed by me just a year ago, would be stronger than me now. It's truly a case of new talents replacing the old, and the old ones being swept away on the beach."
Roy, however, said without any politeness:
"I was giving in to you last year. Don't you understand the importance of respecting elders and caring for the young?"
Upon hearing Roy's words about respecting the elderly and caring for the young, Chuck immediately wanted to retort that he was only in his early thirties and in the prime of his life, only looking a little older than his age.
But when I think about how Roy is only 15, less than half my age, I feel like I'm already an old man.
The urge to refute vanished, Chuck by memories of his youth.
Roy looked at Chuck, who was reminiscing about his youth, and asked:
"By the way, when is dinner served?"
"What did you say?"
"Are we not allowed to let our guests eat when they come?"
Have a meal?
Chuck took out his Communicator, checked the time—it was only around 3 PM—and Roy was already thinking about eating? "Are you a glutton?"
Suddenly, Chuck seemed to have thought of something and asked:
"Wait a minute? You can just stay at my Gym for the next couple of days and wait for the Martial Arts Tournament to begin."
"Of course, you can't expect me to live at the Pokémon Center, can you?"
Roy looked completely at ease.
He had calculated the time before he came, and Cynthia should arrive at the port of Goldenrod City the day after this Martial Arts Tournament ends.
The timing was just as he had predicted, perfectly timed.
"What? Is that not allowed?"
"How dare you? When you rode Dragapult on your own, did you not think of me?"
"I was just worried that you'd be too fat and crush my Dragapult. Besides, if you weren't so slow, would we have been spotted?"
"I'm too fat? Why don't you say you turned and ran away without even glancing at me? I don't care, it's all your fault!"
Chuck immediately started arguing with Roy, showing no airs of a Gym Leader whatsoever.
The referee, caught in the middle, felt as if the two had turned into eight-year-old children, arguing endlessly about who was right and who was wrong.
However, even eight-year-olds don't seem to be that childish anymore.
After arguing for a long time, the two still stuck to their own versions of events, neither of them admitting they were wrong.
In the end, it was Chuck who first ended this pointless argument, but he certainly wasn't going to take Roy out to dinner right now.
After handing their Poké Ball to the Gym Apprentice to take them to the Pokémon Center for treatment, Chuck took Roy to an empty arena in the Training Ground.
"Come on, if you beat me, I'll take you out to eat."
"You said it, so don't blame me for not giving you face if you lose."
Chuck wanted to test Roy's current skill level.
Roy stretched his limbs, then leaped onto the ring, turning to raise his hand at Chuck as a sign of Taunt.
This smooth little combo left Chuck completely bewildered, Chuck also wanted to imitate Roy's earlier move and jump onto the ring.
But at most he could jump onto the ring railing; once he even got stuck between the railing and a pillar.
In the end, Chuck obediently climbed over the barriers and entered the arena.
Hearing that the gym leader was going to battle Pokémon Trainer from outside the gym, several curious apprentices came to the ring.
The two engaged in a full-fledged Fighting type in the ring. Chuck's specialty was Judo, but Roy's specialty was using strength to overcome gentleness.
At first, Roy wasn't used to it and kept getting thrown to the ground by Chuck's various takedown techniques, but once Roy got used to it, he immediately turned around and gave Chuck a triangle choke.
Chuck's efforts ultimately benefited Roy.
Roy even imitated Chuck's move, using the Vital Throw Chuck, who felt as if he had been thrown out of the air.
After sensing Roy's inhuman power, Chuck increasingly felt that Roy's action of lifting him up just now was very similar to Bruno a year ago.
Back then, Bruno completely overwhelmed Shiba's pride Judo, Judo, with sheer brute force, leaving him utterly powerless to resist.
Unwilling to Defiant, Chuck sprang to his feet and charged at Roy, but the outcome was mostly the same.
Roy then used a classic Judo kick to throw Chuck to the ground again.
Seeing that Roy had broken through all his Judo skills and that he had been left on the edge of the ring, Chuck sat up, panting heavily.
"I'm not fighting anymore, I'm not fighting anymore, you're a monster."
Roy's assessment of Chuck was that he was about the same level as Bado from the Bruno Dojo.
Just as Chuck was about to turn around and walk off the stage, he suddenly saw the apprentices who had come to watch the fight below the stage. He originally wanted them to continue their training.
Before he could even speak, Chuck's eyes lit up, and a new idea popped into his head.
"Wait here, I have a task for you."
It turns out that the apprentices in the Gym were becoming more and more restless as the Fighting Tournament approached, with some even boasting that they could win the Gold Belt.
So Chuck wanted to take advantage of Roy's presence to teach these kids a lesson about the power of the unmatched.
"You need to eat more rice."
Don't worry, you won't go hungry.
Seeing that Roy had agreed, Chuck shouted to the apprentices below the ring who were preparing to leave:
"None of you leave. Go and call everyone on the Training Ground over here."
The apprentices from the Gym looked at each other, wondering what had happened.
"Hurry up!"
The apprentices who were watching the fight quickly called everyone who was training in the Training Ground to the area below the arena.
Dozens of apprentices were gathered below the Gym, looking at Chuck on the platform, wondering what he was going to do.