Tests

Blue leads a grim strategy meeting with his allied trainers and gym members. Despite their exhaustive efforts to reclaim the island from the ditto outbreak and ensuing chaos, the wild pokemon are growing stronger, higher stage evolutions are appearing, and their stampeding patterns are adapting, threatening to reverse all their progress. Recognizing that his core team—including Elaine, Glen, Marcus, and Chase—is nearing the point of exhaustion, Blue asks them for an honest assessment of how much longer they can sustain this grueling pace. Most admit they only have a few weeks left before fatigue forces them to pull back.

Refusing to accept a slow defeat, Blue pushes the group to brainstorm a path to victory rather than mere containment. He initiates a "babble" session, explicitly forbidding criticism to encourage wild, unconstrained idea generation. The team floats ideas ranging from securing wealthy donors to flooding habitats and introducing invasive species. They ultimately conclude that they desperately need a massive influx of strong, high-level trainers, though attracting that many without a clear reward seems impossible.

To solve this, Blue invites Brightfire—a famous, daredevil streamer from one of Indigo's Dragon Clans—to Cinnabar. Brightfire has built a massive audience by live-streaming highly dangerous captures, popularizing the motto "No risk of dying, no point in trying." Blue hopes to leverage Brightfire's influence to recruit his "clan" of thrill-seeking followers. As they hike up a mountain trail, Brightfire is highly skeptical of Blue's structured, CoRRNet-approved operations, assuming they are too tame for his audience.

Blue leads Brightfire to a vantage point overlooking a plateau where a squad of trainers is desperately holding off a simulated stampede. Brightfire is initially unimpressed, predicting the trainers will simply use teleportation to escape when pushed to the cliff's edge. However, Blue springs his trap: two trainers higher up the mountain intentionally trigger a massive landslide using a rhyperior and an onix. As the cliff face collapses toward the plateau, the defending trainers are forced to leap off the edge, deploying parachutes to escape the devastation.

Brightfire is stunned and exhilarated by the sheer scale and intensity of the exercise, which Blue explains is designed to train fighters to use environmental destruction to their advantage while enduring extreme constraints. Impressed that Blue is genuinely pushing boundaries, Brightfire agrees to stay and stream more of the island's operations, effectively guaranteeing that dozens of his skilled, adrenaline-seeking followers will flock to Cinnabar to join the fight.

With Cinnabar's recruitment numbers looking up, Blue turns to his next objective: securing assistance from neighboring Gyms. He travels to Viridian City for a meeting with Leader Giovanni. He expects the powerful and enigmatic Leader to be a deeply intimidating final obstacle on his journey, and hopes to convince him to send Viridian Gym members to support Cinnabar's defense. Instead, Blue is surprised when Giovanni immediately agrees to send the trainers before Blue even finishes his pitch.

Giovanni then offers Blue a shocking proposition. Noting Blue's exceptional leadership and his ambition to become Champion quickly, Giovanni offers to simply hand Blue his Viridian badge. He proposes they engage in a few basic formalities and an exhibition match, which Giovanni subtly implies he will throw to give Blue a perfect, legacy-building victory.

Blue is caught entirely off guard. He desperately wants to be practical; accepting the badge would save him immense time and effort, allowing him to focus entirely on uniting the region against the looming threats. But as he considers the offer, he realizes that Giovanni is testing him. More importantly, Blue recognizes his own psychological needs. He tells Giovanni that while accepting a thrown match might be practically advantageous, he cannot lead Indigo if he secretly doubts his own legitimacy. To be the Champion he envisions, he needs the absolute certainty that he actually earned his victory against one of the strongest Leaders in the world. Giovanni breaks into a rare, wide smile, deeply pleased with the answer. Respecting Blue's unyielding drive and integrity, he looks forward to their eventual, genuine battle, and promises to help Cinnabar find peace so Blue's test can arrive sooner.