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"Thank you." He thanked the receptionist before finding a place to sit among the assortment of furniture, eventually deciding on what looked like a nice plush chair but when he sat down he discovered what such dry heat did to furniture. "Stiff..." He muttered to himself as he wiggled around and tried to make himself comfortable. Hopefully he wouldn't have to wait too long.

Time would become an amorphous blob in Sub's mind as he sat there, never once looking at a clock. He had his SNAG on him but he dared not check the time and while he did see a clock when he was talking to the receptionist he could not see it from him. As for that receptionist he envied her and her air conditioned room so much right now that his envy had spawned hate and the smacking of her gum was not helping. Where was Claire!?

He couldn't take it anymore, he wouldn't take it anymore. The sounds, the occasional breeze whose coolness faded as soon as it barely caressed his skin, and worse of it all that Darkrai damn gum popping! Was it getting hotter in here? It sure felt like it but was it really? Or was his mind playing tricks on him? Was this part of some test? It was, wasn't it? Here he was sitting in a stew of sweat, his 'Pokeballs' drenched while he waited for Claire who was probably in the back somewhere in a nice air conditioned room. knowing good and well the Snagem leader was waiting for him.

Sub didn't know what to say. He had been sitting here for hours, sweat soaked into every fiber of his clothing giving him an appearance of having jumped in a lake recently. Smelled like it too. For a few more seconds he would sit there in silence, staring up at the woman with his jaw slacked ever so slightly. This was a joke, right? It had to be. Did Darts find out he was coming and set all this up as some kind of prank? Shaking off any conspiracy theories he may have thought up the man stand up and giving the woman one last crazed look before silently walking towards and out of the front door.

Any other time he probably would have been thankful for getting out of this foyer of hell but right now his heat seared mind was too fried to even register the temperature around him, the Snagem leader trying to figure out what the hell is going on and what he had been doing this whole time.

Was...was that Claire!? Did she know he was here this entire time!? Oh hell no! Did that cold blooded reptilian dragoness really just snub him for the past few hours? Forced him to see in a stew of his own sweat and Arceus knows what other secretions. He had heard plenty of things about Claire through RC, Darts, and various magazines and TV shows but never did he think she would be this vile. If she thought for one second that he was just going to walk away and let this slight go unpunished she had another thing coming!

[Thirty minutes later.]

"Oh just you wait..." Sub muttered himself as he now scaled the side of the gym via grapple hook, the man now sporting a long sleeve black shirt and equally black beanie. He had ran to the Pokemon Center and ordered GRAY to have Claydol bring him the supplies he needed, informing the AI that he had given himself a new mission, of which said AI did not even question him on.

Eventually he would make it to the room of the gym and while wrapping up his grapple hook and stuffing it in his bag he looked around for some kind of door that might lead into the gym. "I might just steal a badge instead, forget the battle at this point. Hell, maybe I'll find something else of value to swipe! That'll show that cocky no good..." He continued to rant as he looked around.

Of course it wouldn't be this easy, in fact Sub would be disappointed if it was. With a scoff he would give off a quiet whistle, a certain Spiritomb answering his call as the ghoul rose up out of the trainer's shadow. "Open this door for me, it's locked." He asked of the ghost.

With a creepy chuckle the Spiritomb would attempt to slip through the door with his spectral form and once on the other side would use what psychic abilities it had to undo the deadbolt and the doorknob's own lock. If successful the door would swing open, Griswold greeting his trainer on the other side and with that obstacle out of the way the Snagem would casually stroll on in.

The man wasn't necessarily surprised when he saw Clair and it registered to him that she had been waiting for him, she was the most powerful gym leader in Johto after all and probably ranks high on the global scale, especially considering if the rumors that she was as strong as the Elite Four were true. "Money? Please, if I wanted money I would go rob a bank. Not only would it be much easier but less risky and a lot more profitable. No, I'm here for a badge. I came here earlier for a battle to earn one, which I assume you knew good and well I was here, and since I was denied my battle I decided to come get one myself." He plainly explained to Clair.

Sub would stare at Clair for a good long while, he had dealt with plenty of self righteous individuals but Clair was a whole different ball game of her own. He knew she was referring to Darts right away and honestly took it as a compliment so that part didn't really bother him. "Well I guess I can see why RC used to run with you guys, dragons of a scale, I guess." He said with a chuckle, finding his own little joke humorous.

"What's that make you then? I've heard talk way back when that not even the illustrious Clair could pass the clan elder's test and yet some runt from New Bark Town was able to, right after defeating you in battle. That had to hurt, huh? Probably as much as it hurts every time you lose to your dear cousin. Must be lonely standing all alone in his shadow, constantly being compared to him. But hey, what do I know? I'm just a nobody. Wait a minute, is that it? Are you afraid of losing to a nobody? Don't want to go through the humiliation again? I get it now." He scoffed. "I guess meeting Darts and having him show you up too brought back some flashbacks, huh?"