"That's really nice of you but... do you think it's big enough? What if your research gets wet?" I asked, not even wanting to think of the guilt I would feel if that were to happen.

Gary blinked at me and surprisingly looked me up and down. I couldn't even decide how I should react to that when he smirked and held out his umbrella so that it was resting on my head while the handle was tapping him on his chest.

"You don't exactly take up a lot of space, Sayuri," he said with amusement in his expression. This time my cheeks heated up from a different kind of embarrassment and I opened my mouth to retort when Gary smiled sincerely at me. "It's nice of you to worry, but there's plenty of room. I always get the extra-large size for umbrellas," Gary said easily.

All of my anger diffused almost instantaneously and I glanced out at the rain coming down even harder now. I glanced a little nervously at Gary, but he was still giving me that easy smile that belied absolutely no hidden motives and I found myself nodding.

"If you really don't mind," I said quietly. Gary chuckled and took the umbrella off my head and began walking over to the doors.

"'Course I don't. Are you headed to the Pokemon Center?" he asked over his shoulder and I quickly jogged after him.

"That's right," I responded as Gary unhooked his umbrella and shook it out.

"Cool, I'm staying there for the night too," Gary said as he popped the umbrella opened and looked over at me. I felt rooted to the spot as his dark eyes met mine, but as he flicked his eyes from me over to his side, I realized he was waiting for me before walking out the door.

More awkwardly than I had hoped, I shuffled over to Gary's side, trying to keep at least a few inches of space between us. Gary was a fairly average height for a guy, probably around 5'9" or 5'10", but being only 5'3" myself that still meant he was a good 6" taller than me. This meant that obviously, Gary was the one holding the umbrella and when I looked up at the sheet of cloth-like plastic that was covering us from the torrential rain I couldn't help but sigh deeply.

"What's up? Are you getting wet?" Gary asked, tilting the umbrella slightly more towards me.

"Oh no! I'm just fine. I was just... wishing I was taller," I admitted awkwardly, playing with the end of my braid. With the pounding of the rain around and above us, it was a little difficult to hear Gary, but I thought I heard a chuckle and looked up to see him grinning slightly.

"Being short isn't all bad. You never have to worry about hitting your head on low hanging lights or door frames," Gary pointed out, speaking a little louder than usual.

"I guess," I said with a frown. "But it'd be nice if I could reach the top shelf when I go shopping."

Gary laughed at that and I could feel myself smiling. I didn't like to talk about my height since I hated being called short, but it was nice to know that Gary wasn't going to tease me about it.

"So what made you change from researching fossil pokemon to dynamaxing?" I asked, thinking back to how we had met again. It still floored me that Gary had recognized me after several years. It was almost depressing in a way that I hadn't changed as much as he had.

"I saw a presentation given by Professor Magnolia's assistant back when I was in Sinnoh and I found Dynamaxing fascinating. It is such a random thing that only occurs in Galar and ONLY in certain places of the region. I mean. How did they even discover this? And the Wishing stars and Dynamaxing bands? The way Professor Magnolia created those when we still have so many questions about why the power spots even exist is incredible!" Gary said, speaking faster as he got more and more excited.

I couldn't help but grin along with him and I admired his intense curiosity. Honestly, I could care less about why dynamaxing worked. All I needed to know was how to use it so I could win pokemon battles, after all. But it was interesting to hear Gary as he explained what he had been researching and the data he would be taking back to Professor Magnolia. Although some of it went completely over my head.

"But even though I find it so interesting," Gary said, straightening up as his excitement cooled into his usual calm demeanor. "I still specialize in Fossil Pokemon research. The Galar region has incredibly unique fossil pokemon. When they're being restored you can actually combine several different fossils to create four different subspecies of fossil pokemon."

"Wait, what?" I asked, squinting my eyes and wrinkling my nose at this ridiculous claim. Gary grinned at me as he led me down the street and towards the Pokemon Center.

"It's the weirdest thing," he said with a nod as if agreeing with my skeptical expression. "The pokemon that get restored kind of look like two pieces of a puzzle meshed together awkwardly. I actually have one of them with me. Do you want to see?"

"Of course!" I readily agreed. My only real experience with fossil pokemon was that time I had gone to Sinnoh's restoration facility in a group of trainee breeders. Besides that, I had only seen fossil pokemon in battles or in books that I had studied, so I was excited to see one up close.

"Cool! Let's get inside and change first though. My feet are soaked," Gary said while lifting one soggy foot and shaking it for effect.

I quickly agreed and after we walked into the Pokemon Center together we each retreated to our rooms to warm up our feet and change into some new clothes. There was no way I was going to see Gary in my pajamas, so I changed into the black capris and purple cap sleeve shirt I had brought from Unova and hurried downstairs.

Gary was already waiting in the lounge area of the Pokemon Center and he lifted one hand to catch my attention as I came down the stairs. Trying to keep myself from smiling at having a very attractive guy calling me over, I walked quickly to his seat as he stood up and watched me approach. He was still wearing the black shirt with an open collar and purple necklace, but he had changed his jeans for tan cargo pants and he had replaced his soaked shoes with a pair of comfy runners.

"That did not take as long as I expected," Gary commented. I hesitated, not sure if that was meant as a compliment or not, but Gary gave me another of his easy smiles. "Ready to see my Dracovish?"

"Dracovish... that's an interesting name," I said, sounding out the name for myself. Gary chuckled and pulled a pokeball from his hip.

With an easy toss, the pokeball went sailing into the air and opened a foot in front of us, releasing a red stream of light. When the pokemon materialized in front of me I looked up, and up, and up, and even farther up until I actually lost my balance. To my embarrassment, Gary easily snagged an arm around my shoulders, steadying me before I fell on my butt like in my earlier pokemon battle.

My eyes could barely even process the slightly grotesque pokemon in front of me. It towered over everyone in the pokemon center and I wouldn't have been surprised if Gary told me it was 8 feet tall. Its body actually made me a little squeamish to look at. It kind of had the shape of an intensely curved cornucopia with what looked like large teeth going up its stomach and chest area while large legs held it up. Its legs and body were green with its belly and teeth-things being a dark red color. Then its head literally looked like a miniature Wailmer that had been plopped on its dragon body and even sported some fins coming out of its chin.

The huge pokemon let out a long breath that sounded alarmingly like a growl and I couldn't help reaching across Gary's stomach and grabbing his other arm as I stared numbly at the beast in front of me. A familiar chuckle pulled me from my temporary paralysis of fear. I whimpered slightly as Gary pushed me back up into a proper standing position before taking his arm from around my shoulders and gently pushing my hand off his other arm.

"Dracovish, this is Sayuri. She's an old friend," Gary said, walking up to the pokemon that towered over him too and patted it on the side. This gesture made me realize that this pokemon did not have any arms, just his large legs and the weird fins on his chin.

I jumped as Dracovish bent his neck (if you could call it that) down slightly and brought his large mouth to hover a little above my head. Glancing over at Gary I saw him pantomiming petting something and I looked up at the large head above of me and swallowed.

Come on, Sayuri, I scolded myself internally. This is Gary's pokemon, not a wild unknown. You can do this. Forcing myself to move, I timidly stretched my hand up and awkwardly patted what I thought might be his cheek. Dracovish's mouth split open wide in what I hoped was a smile and not in preparation to bite my head off.

"H-hello, Dracovish," I stuttered slightly but managed to speak. Although my voice was an octave higher than normal. Dracovish let out another growl that caused me to flinch. I glared over at Gary as I saw him covering his mouth, but his shaking shoulders belied the laughter that he was trying to hide.

"Would you like a snack before you go back to your pokeball?" Gary asked the big pokemon, patting it firmly on the side to get its attention.

It moved his head away from me, thankfully, and turned a toothy grin towards Gary. I watched as Gary took out a storage capsule and pressed the button once, releasing what appeared to be a large stick of berry leather. Dracovish eagerly bent down, but I was surprised when it cautiously grabbed the treat on the end, as far away from Gary's hand as possible, before pulling it up and tossing it in the air, where he nabbed it as it fell back and chewed it with obvious relish. I smiled quietly at the cute trick and from the corner of my eye, I could see Gary giving me a knowing look.

"He's not so scary once you get to know him," Gary said as he patted Dracovish on the side once more before returning him to his pokeball. I flashed an awkward smile at him and nodded.

"You weren't kidding about the whole jigsaw look," I said, still feeling the goosebumps on my arm that had come from looking at the slightly grotesque pokemon.

Gary chuckled as he clipped Dracovish's miniaturized pokeball on his belt and nodded. Realizing that my excuse for seeing Gary again was now gone, I looked up at him and wondered if he would say it was time for him to go to bed or something. When he opened his mouth I midway panicked and blurted the first thing out of my mouth.

"How big do you think Dracovish will be if he's dynamaxed?" Gary blinked, seeming surprised that I had interrupted before he could even say something, but he let out a half-smile and whipped out his Pokedex.

"From previous recordings, Dracovish can reach a height of 35 feet during a Dynamax phenomenon. Although it is pretty hard to get an accurate measurement during a battle setting so I would love to try it out for myself and see if that is really true," Gary said with an excited glimmer in his dark eyes.

To my surprise and delight, Gary continued talking with me about all of the little facts about Dynamaxing that he had been researching and we even ended up eating dinner together at the PokeCenter cafeteria. It seemed a little intense how much knowledge Gary had gathered in the short time he had been in the Galar region. But I ended up benefiting from his mini-lecture on the subject since it helped me learn more about how it worked.

"Man. Talking about this stuff makes me want to get into the action myself," Gary said with a sigh, leaning back in his chair and looking up at the ceiling with a wistful expression.

My back straightened at this comment and I tried to dismiss the nervous energy that was flowing through my body. Yeesh, what am I even doing right now? Am I seriously developing a crush on a guy just months after I found my ex cheating on me? I thought with mild disgust. But even though my head was telling me I was being stupid, the thought of seeing Gary more often if he joined the gym challenge filled me with excitement that I couldn't deny.

Choice A: Invite him to travel with you for the gym challenge

Choice B: Mention you would be rivals if he joined in

A/N LOL I love writing about the different personalities that all of these guys have and the extremely different reactions that Sayuri has to them. I have no idea when I'll be able to finish Gladion and Raihan's routes, but by the end, I wonder which route will feel the most natural?