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A man who knew what he wanted! Chili, who had valiantly chased off the harassing Absol, turned to the newcomer in the gym. Saden, the boy clad in blue, stood in the gym and Chili approached.

"I can see the fire in your soul," he said and he pointed to the arena, "so let's get down to business! You want to challenge the gym? Well, I'm the strongest of the three gym leaders! Let's light this place up with some action, follow me!"

And Chili would then lead Saden to the arena, and into it, and then he'd take his side on the other end, and then he'd say, "the Pokemon you choose to fight with determines which of us brothers you fight, I'm assuming you're using that one, right?" he said with a gesture to the ice type.

Easiest battle ever.

"I'll teach you about this gym," Jack said as Squirt rolled forward.

"Jump."

Venipede was up, letting Squirt rocket passed him...

...and into the wall of honey.

"Protect," Jack said and Venipede twisted around to catch Squirt before the honey could rebound him. Young, inexperienced, and one level of roll out wouldn't be enough to break the wall of honey, so, unless Squirt somehow avoided it, it would be pressed into the wall, to be stuck in a honey wall.

"And finish it," Jack said, warranting the use of Poison Tail into Squirt's back.

"It's all about environmental control, kid."

Nothing changed, in that case. The call for protect was still issued, a shield so to speak that would force Squirt to a halt.

Warranting the next strike as Venipede swung his tail around aimed to stab into Squirt before he could escape.

And thus, the two orders from the last post played out. Jack spoke the line he had before and he smiled big and wide.

"Defense Curl," Jack said and Venipede rolled into a ball, its defense increasing by a significant amount as the rocks hit and bounced off.

"And more!" Jack ordered, Venipede's curl tightening as its defense rose. It's not like it mattered, as far as the arena was concerned, Squirt was between Venipede and the honey wall, with no where to run and less than six inches of space between them(and between Squirt and the wall).

If it tried to move to the right, left or above, Jack was prepared to order Venipede to "Poison Tail" and catch Squirt in his escape

The meeting point was Venipede, so what did he do?

Why, they call it the ol' switcharoo!

"Up and over!"

It was too late for any more orders at this point, Venipede going over Squirt and placing him in the point blank range of his own attack.

And now that Venipede was behind Squirt who was likely being barraged by his own attack, Jack called, "Venoshock!"

"Fantastic!" The voice boomed from above and in the rafters of the gym stood Burgh, clapping.

"You came for tips? Hahaha, I'm afraid you've misinterpreted the purposes of gyms!"

He then dove from the top, saved only by a flashing light and the appearance of his main Pokemon.

The sight of the omnipretent smiling faced Leavanny cause both Jack and Venipede to withdraw, backing away until they were out of sight, permitted to do this by Burgh.

"Bravo to your battle," he said. He looked at the battlefield, the rocks that littered it and he smiled and looked back to Luka.

"Gyms are tests, the criteria for which you learn at the drop of a hat," he said and he gestured to the hall of honey.

"Come on, come on, I'll give you a few tips. Leavie, please, some tea?"

Leavanny, with her omnipresent smile, simply nodded and disappeared from sight, heading off ahead of the duo.

Burgh laughed, trainers were always so confident in knowing, the older ones anyways. "Do you know why you lost? Because you aren't observant enough," he said.

It wasn't an insult, Burgh merely stated a fact. He could blame his Pokemon all he wanted, blame his connection to it, but at the end of the day, he'd lost the match long before that.

"When you made your first move, you trapped yourself between a rock and a hard place. In order to get out of it, you'd have to use brute force. Instead you tried to take advantage of type advantage. So your opponent used the opposite defense, and this baited you into trying the same tactic again, only also trying to get out of the rock and hard place. Because of that you were set up to take a powerful hit.

"In other words, you would have won, little student, if you hadn't opened up with Roll Out."

Burgh smiled as they reached his 'office', a land of paintings and framed poetry. He turned, arms wide, and he grinned at Luka. "The art of Pokemon battling relies on the same thing as the art of drawing. You must have an eye for mistakes. You must be able to tell when one thing isn't good enough, when something doesn't flow, that's the lesson of this gym and your folly."

"Environment, my good student, environment control is the key to victory here. You have to know where a move will lead you, and what can happen in that confined space, or else you're going to lose on just your first move!"

He shook his head and held an arm out to the table before taking his tea cup and sipping it daintily.

"But you didn't come here for that, yes? I'm afraid there is nothing I can teach you. Everyone says 'experience is what I lack', but that's not true. Experience teaches us what we lack, it's not what we lack. You must find your faults and work on them.

"For you, student, you must pick your first move more precisely. You must not choose just for type advantage, you have to consider what your opponent can do, what the arena is like and who stands in the firing line."

He took another sip. "And finally, my fair student, gym leaders scale. I have dozens of Pokemon at my disposal for this gym, and I will pick one based off of the challenger's rank as a trainer. You will have just as much trouble here as you would have in Striaton City, the same with any other Gym. We get harder, not by order, but by the amount of badges you have."