#omoilee

Karui turned down the Elite Four position. She didn't want to give up battling regularly in order to sit and wait for somebody to finally beat the challenging Land of Lightning League (The Triple L, for how many 'Ls' people usually took for each gym.) She wanted to keep her gym, so Omoi got bumped into the free Elite Four spot.

Not much to do when The Triple L was such a gambit, so Omoi starts traveling again with his Poketch turned on. He heads to the Land of Fire, knowing Karui's long distance lover was also a gym leader there. He decides to have a bit of fun and challenge the gyms of the region and - fitting a trainer of his caliber - he knocks through most of the gyms. He is prepared to tackle the final gym, only to be told he'd need the Strength HM in order to get there and the only way to get it was to challenge the Dojo just outside the Hidden Leaf. Assuming it was going to be an excursion not unlike the other dojos he'd seen before, Omoi waltzes in prepared to get the HM and be on his way.

Little did he know that this Dojo was considered to be the unofficial ninth gym of the region. The Dojo Master Rock Lee specialized in Fighting-types, who would normally be a neutral cake walk, but these are pokemon unlike any Omoi had faced. They're trained to peak performance and outspeed his team at every turn. Their offense is powerful and their defenses enormous, but Omoi scraped against beating Lee but couldn't quite make it - taking his first loss in the region.

Lee encourages him to not give up, that others had beaten him before and continued on to the eighth gym. He invites Omoi to join his Dojo and train with the team that had bested him, to whip his team into their best shape.

Omoi - charmed by the encouragement he received and mesmerized by Lee's impossible body - takes him up on it and trains there. The two spend their days killing kids' dreams of facing the League and working out, chatting about their experiences and what their journeys had been like. Omoi finds himself enamored with Lee and forgets why he was there in the first place.

Eventually, Omoi is called back to face an opponent that had somehow struggled through Karui's gym. He is devastated to be reminded of his position, but Lee is encouraging and hypes him up for his first official Elite Four match. He said he'd tune in for the match and cheer him on, though he would not need it as the training had surely paid off.

Omoi returns to The Triple L and- unsurprisingly- stops the challenger in their tracks. Three times. The kid is devastated, but Omoi solidifies himself as a member of the Elite Four. Having slaughtered a hopeful kid's dream of being Champion, Omoi returns to the Hidden Leaf and challenges Rock Lee's Dojo again. This time- by the skin of his teeth- Omoi gets one past Lee's Infernape and wins the match.

Lee proudly- but sadly- hands over a copy of the Strength HM and congratulates Omoi on a job well done. Omoi decides that - rather than finish what he started - he'd stay and train just a little longer. He couldn't be Champion of this region, but he could always work harder and become Champion of The Triple L.