Sven Barkley

[Giant Brother]

Name: Sven Barkley

Age: 26

Gender: Male

Race: Human

Alignment: Lawful Good

Timeline: Modern

Appearance: Sven has a slight athletic build and has brown eyes. His hair has been dyed orange and spiked. He wears dark blue jeans, a black shirt with a skull on it and a black leather motorcycle jacket. He wears a pair of motorcycle goggles and a white aviator's scarf. Has black fingerless rider's gloves with studded knuckles.

Personality: Sven is a bit cocky. He stubbornly fights to the bitter end and enjoys a good battle. Nonetheless, he's a shrewd man, and is a good teacher as well as a good student. He knows he's still learning, but he doesn't bother saying that out loud.

History: Sven was the sole protoge to an elderly gym leader from a small town in Hoenn known as Ivory Town. Unlike his teacher's conservative appearance and stereotypical "wise old man" mannerisms, Sven was a wild man. However, this did not stop the two from becoming very good friends. It's this kind of odd companionship that made their gym's badge have meaning, the old man would often say. Sven was an excellent student, and was to inherit the gym after the elderly trainer passed away. One day, a thief running from the authorities made his way past the gym. When he asked to hide in the establishment until the police went by, the gym leader adamantly refused. In a moment of desperation, the thief shot the gym leader. Later in the week, the elderly man died from the wounds the thief had given him. In his will, Sven was given official recognisation as the leader of the town gym. After that, those that sought Ivory Town's Gemini Badge had to make their way through Sven's fierce opposition.

Powers: Can accurately gauge an opposing trainer's skill level. This is a trick among gym leaders. (At least that's my theory. I mean, someone that starts off in Fushia City couldn't possibly face such fierce opposition from Koga, and someone that does Cereulean City last isn't going to have that easy of a win.)

Pokemon:

Has several, as he needs the appropriate team to fight a talented or green trainer. His normal team that he uses against veterns is:

Toxicroak / Poison/Fighting / Male
Empoleon / Water/Steel / Male
Exeggutor / Grass/Psychic / Male
Beedrill / Bug/Poison / Male
Charizard / Fire/Flying / Male
Magnezone / Electric/Steel / Genderless

A few of the other ones he has are:

Flygon / Dragon/Ground / Male
Honchkrow / Dark/Flying / Male
Snover / Ice/Grass / Male
Abomasnow / Ice/Grass / Male
Girafarig / Normal/Psychic / Male

Weapons: His gloves. The studs aren't just for decor, they are there for a reason.

Weakness: Has to mostly rely on his team to fight.

[Ninmast]

What's his gym's theme?

[Giant Brother]

Dual types, unity of opposites... Basically teamwork and companionship is the theme of it. Normally there's only two members, the leader and his apprentice. At times there may be others, in which case they almost all have some sort of special companion that's also a member, like a sibling, lover or close friend.

[Ninmast]

I thought gyms had to have a pokemon type theme.

[Giant Brother]

Not necessarily. For example, look at the Veridian City gym, it had absolutely no consistant theme among it's ranks. Plus, it technically does have a type theme, it's just way more ambiguous than others. Basically, if it has two types, it's there.

[Ninmast]

Actually, Viridian City Gym is Ground. Gary just kept his old team instead of switching to a new one when he took it over. But if your guy was a gym member from the get-go, wouldn't he have a more themed team, if not for casual battling, then at least for official battles?

[Giant Brother]

Perhaps Viridian was ground, but only for Giovanni, practically all of the other trainers had their own style. It was pretty much themed on whatever pokemon Team Rocket commonly used.

Well, like I said, the theme for the gym is more on pokemon with two different types than a full team with one underlying type theme. So, any pokemon with two types, like Starmie or Tropius, would be used. Pokemon of only one "pure" type, like Azumarill or Typhlosion, wouldn't be used.

[Ninmast]

Strange ... what's their badge look like? A yin-yang?

[Giant Brother]

No, more the astrological sign for Gemini, which does look similar... But not exactly the same.

[Reiko]

Personally, I rather like the character, and it is saddening to think that an actual gym doesn't carry that theme. It would probably end up being a rather fun badge to go after, though by the end of the battle you might feel like your facing a champion instead of a gym leader. Now if only there was a way to transfer this gym into the games...