my best friend's brother is the one for me

dethroned at last

Leon returns to Postwick without Gloria, during her next attempt at the gym challenge. While she is traveling from city to city, facing off against the same gym leaders she had to face down before, Leon goes back home, and she only finds out as he is returning to Wyndon. He asks where she is and stops by, telling her that he was just passing through, and she manages to get him to tell her where he was, and little more.

"Is the gym challenge just as challenging as you remember?" he asks.

"It is, actually. They're all using their teams from the finals, rather than their normal gym teams," she replies.

"Ah, well, that does make sense!" Leon says. "It isn't often that a gym challenger comes back to do it again, after all. But I already knew about their teams. You know I never miss a match of yours!"

"I know you're just trying to scope out the competition," she says, "because you know this time I'm coming for you with everything I've got."

"I don't doubt it, but I'm not going any easier on you! I've beaten you once before, so I'm sure I can pull it off again."

"That confidence will be your downfall," Gloria warns him, but Leon simply laughs it off.

"I don't know about that. I'm hoping that, no matter what happens, I'm going to win either way."

She doesn't ask him what he means, but she's starting to think that it might have something to do with his sudden visit home, and with what he said to her on Christmas. But she doesn't think about it for long, deciding to wait on him for that, and put all of her focus into training her team, so that she can give him an even better battle this time.

~X~

Even with the gym leaders giving her a run for her money, Gloria manages to obtain all eight of her badges once again, and in time for the semi-finals, just like before. She doesn't know her rivals like she knew the ones she faced her first time, but then, that was when Hop was doing it with her. In the semi-finals, she goes up against two trainers she hardly knows, both younger than her, but she has kept up with them well enough to know their teams, and is able to secure two more victories, landing her a place in the bracket for the finals.

Leon is waiting for her at the end of this, and perhaps something more, if she's able to defeat him. Maybe even if she doesn't; it's hard to know if he would hold out on her until she was able to win or not. Knowing him, it could go either way, but after all the work she has put in, she wants to win no matter what, even if there isn't anything else waiting for her, other than the chance to become Galar's new champion, after defeating the undefeatable.

The gym leaders still present her with a bit of a challenge, but the shift in difficulty is not as steep as it was the first time, as they have given her more than enough time to get used to it. She is not knocked as off balance by the whole ordeal, and wins these battles even more swiftly than before, making her way through the bracket until only one challenge remains. Leon, her boyfriend and lover of a couple years now, a fact that nobody in the audience knows- well, besides their families and Sonia, of course. And, at this point, Sonia might as well be a part of the family.

As she sends out her first Pokemon, she can't help but wonder how differently the crowd might behave if they knew the truth of their relationship. It would certainly make for an interesting, but that is part of the reason they still haven't made their relationship known yet. And, anyway, she needs to focus on the battle, because Leon is the most challenging trainer that she has ever faced, and likely will ever face.

He certainly meant it when he said that he would not go easy on her, and every loss on his part soon results in a loss on her part, keeping them evenly matched all the way to the end. They are both down to their last Pokemon, when he sends out his beloved Charizard, and she sends out the Inteleon that he gave her on the day that they met.

Gloria only barely wins, and Inteleon is exhausted when Charizard is finally called back, pushed too far to be able to battle. The screams in the stadium are deafening, as no one is quite able to believe that the returning challenger really managed to defeat the undefeatable Leon. Gloria can hardly believe it herself, feeling almost dizzy as she tries to take it all in, looking to Leon for his reaction.

She isn't sure what sort of reaction to expect from him, but she definitely doesn't expect him to do what he does next. First, he makes a show of it for the crowd, smiling and tossing his cap in the air, giving some sort of speech that is mostly lost in the roar, but then, he turns to her, closing the distance between the two of them, and when he drops to one knee, the crowd goes mostly quiet, only a low buzz of conversation remaining, as most of them wait to hear what he is going to say.

Gloria had hoped he would propose to her after all of this was over, but she never expected it to be right here in the stadium, with everyone watching. After working so hard to keep this relationship a secret, she had assumed they would slowly ease their way into being public, but now Leon is pulling out a ring, grinning up at her as he says, "Gloria, now that you've become my champion...would you please become my wife?"

Once again, the roar of the crowd becomes deafening, and there is probably no one able to hear her response, but it's not hard to tell what she says when Leon's smile grows even more as he slides the ring onto her finger. He stands up then, and he pulls her close, giving her a long and enthusiastic kiss that she's sure should not have been this public.

However, she's much too happy to care, and rather than thinking about the fact that practically the entire region is watching, she returns his kiss. Now that they're public, she doesn't have to worry about slipping up in interviews and mentioning something she shouldn't, and she no longer has to pretend that he's just a mentor, and just her best friend's brother. Even if there is a little bit of backlash, considering their history and how sudden the engagement is announced, she will remain as happy as she is right now, because, at last, the world knows that Leon is hers and that she is his.

After all they've been through together, she looks forward to sharing the rest of her life with him, and it is only later that she realizes his proposal was so monumental that it distracted her from everything else. She's so busy thinking about their public relationship and their upcoming wedding, that she nearly forgets she's the champion now.

Naturally, when she accuses him of trying to upstage her in her big moment, he denies it.