Gaze Forward

Blue leads a grueling, multi-trainer mock incident on the outskirts of Vermilion City. Acting as the attackers, Blue's team mimics wild pokemon behavior by attacking without coordination, but Blue uses a single whistle command to suddenly swap his entire team to Flying and Ground types. Despite the brutal attrition and localized sandstorms, Glen's defending team brilliantly counters with an improvised wave of Surf, breaking the assault and barely winning the match.

Afterward, Blue fields questions from an ever-growing crowd of reporters, promoting his vision of overhauling gym challenges into realistic survival scenarios. His post-match debrief with his trainers is interrupted by a summons from Leader Surge. At the gym, Blue finds Surge waiting with two Indigo League administrators, Hiro Iha and Yuna Khatri. The officials express deep concern that Blue's scenarios diverge too far from the standard one-on-one mastery battles. They argue that awarding badges for group survival will dilute the prestige of the Indigo League and cause international friction. Blue passionately argues that the traditional format fails to prepare trainers for actual crises, and insists that adding one scenario-based badge improves the system. Surge publicly backs Blue, dismissing the officials, but privately delivers a hard truth: once the gym officially adopts the scenarios, Blue will be cut out of their design process to ensure he faces a fair challenge. Blue realizes that when he leaves Vermilion, he will lose ownership of the very system he created.

Later, Blue flies to Pallet Town on Daisy's swellow for a party celebrating Professor Oak's recovery. On the flight, Daisy begs Blue not to bring up Red's abandonment on the S.S. Anne, sparking a bitter argument that ends in silence. At the party, Blue plays the part of the cheerful grandson, but inwardly struggles with the grief of Aiko's death and the heavy guilt that Gramps nearly died because of him. After the guests leave, Blue overhears Gramps on a friendly call with Red. Once Red hangs up, Blue enters the office and delivers an ultimatum: he refuses to face another Stormbringer incident until he knows Gramps won't rashly follow him into the danger zone.

Gramps gently reveals a piece of Blue's past that Blue himself had forgotten. In the immediate aftermath of his parents' deaths, a very young Blue had made a solemn, spoken vow to destroy the Stormbringers. Gramps had overheard it and knew Blue would inevitably throw himself at the legends. Rather than try to stop him, Gramps spent years stepping back from incidents, deliberately preserving his health and his exposure to Pressure so he could be strong enough to help Blue when the time finally came.

The revelation shatters Blue's guilt. Realizing that Gramps made his own calculated choices, Blue lets go of his childish vow to blindly attack the Stormbringers at every opportunity. He maintains his ultimate goal of taking them down, but resolves to do so on his own terms, without throwing his life away in the process. The next day, Sabra messages him: his first official group badge challenge is in one week, and the battleground will be within Vermilion City itself.