An idea

Balto looked at Vali with a small whine and nosed her. Vali hugged him tightly around the neck, "Balto, you know I didn't ask to bond with Thorin like that. Neither of us did even if it brought us closer together, it doesn't mean he's replacing you. You're my buddy, the first pokemon I ever met, and my darling best friend who I count on to keep me sane when everyone else is being completely stupid."

Balto practically wrapped his body around her in the mockery of a hug. Vali rubbed his ears with a gentle smile, "I love you too, Darling."

It had taken Balto a week for him to come around like this and Vali was glad for it. She'd missed this greatly and would be glad to have things back to their new normal soon.

Before Vali was aware of it, the days under Blaine had become weeks and then months which seemed to stretch onward. Each day she worked with her pokemon to get stronger and gain new knowledge that would be helpful in the future. It was a little harder when the League sent Blaine out even if she wasn't to go along with them. The missions got progressively harder though none got to the same point as the first, but all of them increased their strength to a point. The talks with Lance and Steven often drifted due to how busy the two could be during certain times though each tried to make some time at least once a week. Despite how busy it was, everyone was definitely reaching towards their goals.

Vali collapsed against the table as she complained, "How the hell are there still trainers trying to challenge the gym? The holiday is due to begin in two days?"

"It's how it can be some years," Martha shook her head, "You get used to it,"

Vali frowned a bit as she thought about some of the trainers that had managed to get through to challenge Blaine. They'd been woefully unready and to be honest it had been rather hard to watch Blaine steam roll through them even if they'd only had two to three badges. She glanced up when Jackson asked, "What's wrong, Vali?"

"Just thinking about some of the challengers making it through," Vali took the hot-chocolate he offered her, "With how unready they are, it's hard to watch Blaine steam roll them even if they need it,"

"True," Jackson nodded in agreement, "But there isn't really much we can do,"

A thought occurred to Vali just then, "But what if there was," Jackson looked at her in confusion, "Granted it's something I heard about from Steven, it might not even work here," She got her thoughts into order, "So the main thought is having gym trainers challenge prospective challengers to a battle. Rather than Blaine hand out the riddles, we would do it for him. This way, we could prevent some of the trainers who manage to get by on luck alone from completing the challenge,"

"That would be a good idea, but I don't know," Jackson looked reluctant while Martha gained an interested look on her face.

"It would ensure Blaine would get a better break and we could actually have more interesting challenges going on," Martha pointed on as the door opened to allow the others into the cafeteria.

"What's going on in here?" Zavian asked as he walked over and took a seat across from Vali.

Martha grinned a bit, "Vali has an idea to make things a bit easier around here and more interesting."

Zavian looked interested at that as did the others as they walked over. Blaine walked in to the room as Martha said the last couple of words, "Who has an interesting idea?"

"Vali," Martha answered earning a soft grunt.

"Let's hear it, Brat," Blaine told Vali as he went to sit down.

Vali looked at everyone as she took another drink of her hot chocolate, "Some regions like Hoenn already have a system like the one I'm think of us using," She felt both Elrond and Thorin send her some confidence, "Due to the rather large number of trainers coming into the gyms especially during later times of the year when it gets closer to each League, the gyms in question developed a systems that puts their gyms trainers to use in a unique way. Many of them ensure that the challengers are ready to face their gym leader."

"And what exactly is your idea for us?" Isobel asked with a slight frown, "The idea might sound nice and all for the other regions. It doesn't mean it'll work for us,"

"I'm thinking that rather than Blaine being the one to hand out the riddles, we do it," Vali told her earning frowns from everyone save for Martha and Jackson, "We would battle the challengers after they arrive on Cinnabar. We'd talk to Nurse Joy of course and make sure that it was a challenger of course then go from there," She was thinking about this in depth with Elrond's help and voicing those thoughts allowed as they came to her, "We would split the riddles between us and challenge them depending on who wants to get the first go. If they're strong enough, we give them a couple riddles to work through leading them in the right direction. If they're too weak, we still give them riddles, but they'll send them in the wrong direction,"

"And what?" Isobel asked with her frown growing, "We lead them around in circles?"

"Not at all, we lead the strong ones towards Blaine while the weaker ones are given more riddles and continuous battles," Vali explained as Blaine gained an intrigued look, "Either they'll eventually leave to battle another gym until they're ready or they'll become strong enough to challenge Blaine. In the end, the challengers will finally become worth Blaine's time while we'll get a chance to battle if we want to,"

Isobel opened her mouth only to be cut off by Blaine speaking, "I like it. It'll need to be gone over more of course, but if we do this correctly, we might just start something new for Kanto. Jackson, I want you in my office in thirty minutes. We're going to be going over the details for this and figuring out how to put this into practice."

With that said, Blaine walked out of the room in a considerably better mood than when he walked in. Vali grinned a bit though it disappeared when Isobel cursed softly, "What the fuck was that? Is he really going to just do that?"

"Apparently," Martha grinned brightly, "I'm glad though. It'll be good for the gym. I've been wanting more data for my studies and I know everyone has been a bit stressed lately," She shook her head at Isobel when the woman scowled at her, "Give it a rest Isobel, you're just pissy that you didn't think of it first,"

Isobel glared at her before huffing and turning to stalk out of the room. Vali looked after her with a concerned look only for Martha to say, "Don't worry about it, Vali. She'll come around. Isobel can get childish sometimes."

Vali still felt a bit bad even with the reassurance.