Clay's not the greatest or the best, and he wishes they wouldn't tell him so. Some do, and it irritates him. He might have made his money in business, but that doesn't mean he can stand it when people fawn at the feet of others. He never did it and never will.

People like that irritate him, and he seems to be surrounded by them - because he is rich and he is strong.

But he's not the richest or the strongest, and he remembers it every day.

He wouldn't want to be, either. What he has now is enough. When you want more than enough is when you start failing.

Clay isn't the greatest or the best, but he'll never be a failure. Never.

In business you fail quickly if you aren't a good judge of character, and judgement is the one thing Clay might really be the best at. He at least has not seen anyone better, yet.

So when they come striding over the bridge, he knows instantly that the girl could be something wonderful, and the boy will never be better than her sharpest shadow.

But he tells them that they don't impress him, anyway. He's seen too many wonderful things crumble and die, and too many shadows swallow their friends, or fade away entirely.

That's business.

He's not wrong about the girl (though that's no surprise - when he makes a call, he makes sure he isn't wrong). She ran through Storage faster than her friend could keep up, found Plasma first, and might well have been able to defeat them despite being outnumbered eight-to-one - the boy finally arriving just made it easier for her.

At least, the way the workers tell it, you might think that.

Clay knows why. It's because the girl has a pretty face, a friendly smile, the confident spring in her step that means she knows how strong she is and that she's only going to get better. The boy, in contrast, is serious and looks down his nose at you without meaning to. He's more cynical and wiser about the world; he knows his place in it is small, and he is determined to change that. But the world keeps knocking him back and he steps with the shaken pride of someone who only proves to himself that he's not as good as he wants to be.

The girl lives in the present, and takes things as they come. The boy stares at the future, and desperately tries to not let it get away from him.

Neither way is right, but the girl's is better, for now.

They still passed his little test, and he admits that he is impressed by the strength of both of them - especially together. He recognises what the workers don't when he walks in to Storage: that when the battles were done, it was each other they congratulated, and when the danger was still there, they covered each other's backs without asking - without thinking. He didn't even need to see the battle to know that. It was obvious.

That isn't something you see in business. It makes him smile, remembering that the wonderful things and the shadows can still be friends, when they aren't fighting over the motivations between them.

But he thinks something is off about them. The boy is too serious to be cheerful, too prideful to be approachable, and the girl is friendly, but quiet, and private. The silence that lapses between them is broken only when necessary. It is entirely companionable, but only because they know the gaps that might fill it, and Clay knows a pair like this could never have become friends on their own, or laid the foundations on which that silence is built.

The missing piece continues to puzzle him, even when he has the two of them all figured out.

Clay is surprised when the girl is the first one to challenge him. He expected the boy to be there first, chasing hard on the steps of his future, and he has to frown briefly to himself. It's normally a bad sign when the shadow starts becoming aware of what it is.

He finally learns the girl's name. White. It's unusual, but he has heard worse.

And White, he soon learns, is wholly appropriate to her. She is entirely plain; there are no clever strategies with her. She doesn't fight through trickery - she just gets by on the power that she earned, and the determination to earn a little more.

It is close - close! - to how he fights, close enough to make him smile, and remember his days as a young trainer. But Clay's a Leader, and his fights now are to defend, not to gain.

All fights become that in the end. That's the same, in business or in battling. It all comes down to defence. Because when you gain something, eventually the time will come when someone else wants it.

(And if offence is his best defence, then what of it?)

White loses, just barely. She knows it as much as he does and it is with frustration that she recalls her final pokemon.

She hasn't lost before. He can tell by the hard line of her jaw, the rigid expression of thanks for a good battle - the angry promise that she will do better, next time. She doesn't say the last part aloud, but Clay hears it, clear as day.

"Try again when ya like," he tells her, and she looks up in surprise from her purse, counting out prize money. He waves away the bills when she offers them. "Naw, I don't need yer money. Just make sure ya come back stronger. Weren't luck what lost you that battle, and weren't skill neither."

Something settles on her shoulder and weighs her down; a realisation or a hope, maybe both. "I'll have to ask Cheren about strategies, I guess."

"Don't do that either," he says, and she looks up in surprise again, from her feet. It does suit her immeasurably better to stand tall. "Strategy don't work fer some people, an' if that's how ya try to win next, ya'll just lose harder." White seems to take this as a criticism, so he flashes her a smile. "Don't feel bad, now. Ain't no shame in bein' different to yer friend."

A soft "But..." tumbles from her lips before she can stop it.

A private girl, like he thought. Independent. It's not that she doesn't like asking for help, it's just that the concept of it alien to her, and she doesn't know what to ask for when she does.

"Hey - yer not the only one who don't care fer strategy, and I gotta tell ya, been a long time since a trainer matched me at m'own game."

This does make her smile, properly. "Really?"

He tugs his hat a little further down over his eyes. "I don't say things I don't mean, girl."

The next time she battles him, White wins by a clear margin.

"See," he says, as he hands her the badge, "That's why ya shouldn't knock relyin' on strength. Ya lose once, ya go away and train yerself 'til ya can beat 'em. If ya strategies fall 'part, ain't nothin' else ya can fall back on."

"Did you tell Cheren that?"

He looks at her, surprised, but then chuckles. There is something of a competitive spirit in her, despite her reserved quiet - there's a fire in her eyes now that says, see, Cheren, my way is better than yours.

She's wrong, but he won't tell her that.

"Yer friend already knows, White. That's why he ain't challenged me yet."

It's not their ways of battling that separates them in strength - it's in the way they walk; in the way that White knows carefully where her feet are treading, and Cheren knows where he wants to place them, years from now.

But he'll let them work that one out for themselves. It'll do them both the world of good - because despite what Alder said when he passed through, it's not Cheren who has to worry about having nothing to do when he's on top of the world.

It's White.

Because Cheren will be able to look back at the steps he's taken and retrace them, but White will only have a void ahead and behind. Living in the moment is no good if the next moment isn't going to be any different.

Cheren beats Clay on his first try, as they both knew he would.

"White lost," he says, looking at his new badge. "Her first battle with you, I mean. Didn't she?"

Clay looks at him for a moment and feels pity. Cheren's just beginning to realise that he's her shadow, a heavy coat that he puts on before every match and takes off when he thinks he's gained the advantage, for real, this time. But he can't do that if he still wants to be her friend when they get to the top.

"Do ya think it makes a difference?" he asks, and Cheren doesn't answer. "Ya be careful now. Don't get cocky, but don't ya think 'bout quittin', neither."

He looks at Clay in something like wonder, eyes narrowed. He still has hope for the world, but the cynicism holds him back.

"Don't assume ya'll get beat," Clay tells him, and pulls his hat a little further over his eyes. "Then yer ain't got a chance in hell of winnin'."

"You seem full of contradictory advice," he says carefully, but he's being careful because he's trying to think and listen at the same time.

Clay chuckles before he can stop himself. "Yer human, ain't yer?"

Everyone is full of contradictions, even him. Maybe no one more so than him. That's the truest fact of human nature - none of them make perfect sense.

"What does that mean?" Cheren asks.

Clay smiles and wishes him luck on his journey.

White operates on instinct, but she also thinks - her emotions are tempered by judgement. She doesn't reach extremes, and she doesn't lash out. But she still operates on instinct, and her first impulse is normally the one she carries through. It's why she battles the way she does - because strength is something that she knows on a deeper level than she does type matchups and battle theory.

Cheren doubts emotions and instinct, because he is stubborn by nature but they change. He likesto be able to point to the evidence that says he was never wrong - which is why, even with Clay's advice, it will take a while before he can accept that White is better than him when their badges say they should be equals. He's already starting to underestimate himself, at the same time as overestimating himself, because that's what the evidence tells him, and either of those things could blow his strategies to pieces, and continue to sabotage any plans he makes before he ever puts them into practise.

Clay pities him for that, because only realising exactly how strong he is will fix it. That's instinct, not deduction and logic, but he'll get there in the end.

(His only worry is what will happen before the end.)

A day after Cheren has left town - to catch up to White, who must be through Chargestone Cave at this point - Clay meets the third spoke of their wheel, and suddenly a lot of questions are answered.

Her name is Bianca and he couldn't have found someone more opposite to Cheren if he tried. The first time he meets her he knows instantly that she is different - she bursts into the Gym and trips over her own feet in her eagerness to meet him, and it's only after she finds him there in the lobby that doubt enters her expression, and wonders if maybe she shouldn't have done it at all.

She doesn't want a battle. She rarely goes looking for battle - you might not even think she was a trainer at first glance. Her pokeballs are stored safely in her bag, where no one can find them but her, and she doesn't reach for them automatically, like trainers do, when she feels uncertain or fearful - like she does now, suddenly staring him down.

"Um... Mr. Clay, I was, uh, wondering... I mean I came here from..."

Clay sighs and waves a hand to stop her babbling. She's looking back to justify where she is now, not thinking about what she's here for - but she is here for something, probably decided on the spur of the moment, and she hasn't had time to think exactly what, yet.

He has an office upstairs that he rarely uses. He prefers the underground, furthest from the skyscrapers of business as it is possible to get. But the upstairs office is where he beckons Bianca. It's impossible for a girl like her to think business-minded - her expression is too open, too clear. She has her trepidation and determination written all over it; it doesn't take someone like Clay to read her mood.

She follows him and talks along the way. He figures out quickly that she doesn't like silence, and now he knows who laid the foundations for Cheren and White's quiet companionship. Bianca might have built a castle out of words.

"Ya prefer tea or coffee?" he asks, when there is a gap in her voice. She pauses and frowns, and he laughs at her confusion, because she seems so much younger than the other two - the serious ones out to make the world respect them, one way or another. "Well, ya ain't here for a battle, are ya?"

"How'd you know?" Bianca asks, eyes wide with curiosity. She doesn't think - that is an unkind way to phrase it, maybe, but true - she doesn't think, she acts. "Did Elesa tell you?"

"Naw," he says. "Ya just get ter know what people're like, is all. Ya not much for battlin', I see."

"Not really..." she admits, in a distant way. She's not ashamed of it, at least. "I've been thinking, though, about what I want to do, and... well, I don't really know yet, but I've been helping out Professor Juniper, and that's a lot of fun! And I was thinking maybe..."

She stops, and says, "Um, I'd like some tea, if you don't mind."

"Ya not gonna get anywhere if ya think 'bout it too hard."

"Hm?"

Cheren had looked at his advice without thinking he would take it, but surprised Clay had gotten as close to his character as he had. Bianca hangs on to his every word, as he's sure she does with everyone, but she doesn't even think about whether it's suitable for her or not - and not everyone is as good as judging people right as Clay is.

"Ya not the sort who works stuff out by thinkin'," he explains. "I'll train yer a little or whatever, if ya want, but yer ain't gonna work out what you want t' do 'til ya try it."

"You think so?" she asks, but it's not a question he needs to answer, because she trusts that he has already done so.

Bianca would be a terrible liar. It doesn't occur to her that people might say things they don't mean. She defers to people, to emotions - to things she can recognise in herself and relate to, understand, even a little. But she was brought up closeted in a tiny world and, unlike her friends, didn't really do much to expand upon it before she left. Everything she sees seems so new to her, so captivating, and because she has no experience with it she looks to others for guidance. Those she knows best: Cheren and White.

"Ain't a bad thing, to not know what ya wanna do with yer life yet - how old are ya, anyways? Fifteen?"

"I was fifteen in October," she says.

It's August. She doesn't say 'I'll be sixteen in October.' She tells him the things that have already happened - the argument with her father, Elesa's words of encouragement, working with Professor Juniper, the battles she's fought with Cheren and White...

"I don't know," she says at last, at little helplessly, spinning her finger around the edges of the mug he gave her. "I'm sorry, Mr. Clay, I don't really know what I came here for anymore."

"Don't worry 'bout it. Ain't like I got somethin' better t' do, with no challengers in town."

"Do you get many challengers?"

"Quite a few. Hardly any of 'em worth talkin' 'bout, though."

She smiles distantly again. She is not like Cheren, walking in firm reality, or even White, who wonders a little about the things that catch her attention. No, Bianca's constantly caught up in what ifs and hows and whys, remembering what things used to be like, and wondering what that means for now.

"Is it fun, being a Gym Leader?"

The question surprises him, but only a little. "Depends," he says, "On what ya want to be one for."

Her shoulders sink. "I don't know what I want to do."

"Do I have ta keep tellin' ya? Ain't no harm in that, even if ya are nearly sixteen."

She only hunches her shoulders further. She must've been told otherwise by a lot of people if she doesn't believe him immediately. Clay sighs.

"Look," he tells her. "Don't think 'bout findin' yerself a job, or a career - that's how you wind up employed in a job ya don't want. Now, some people're okay with that, but I don't think ya one of them types. You just keep doin' what you love doin' and one day you'll find ya got yerself a job."

"Is that how you became a Gym Leader, Mr. Clay?" Bianca asks, wide-eyed.

He laughs. He picked up a job in the big city when he was waiting to challenge the Gym, and realised the day he beat it that his prize money was less than his wages. Then he spent twenty years clawing his way up the ladder before he realised that beating the Gym was the last time he'd felt truly happy, too.

"Naw," is all he says. "Wish it were, though."

At least he can tell Bianca will never mistake money for happiness - he's only worried that she will mistake contentment for happiness.

Clay could tell anyone that they aren't the same thing.

Bianca is not only talkative, she is bright. White might have her quiet friendliness, but Bianca glows with it, looks like the kind of person you wouldn't be afraid of stopping on the street or sharing a coffee with - except that she is less of a magnet, and more like the nickel. It is Bianca, he is sure now, who first approached White, and it is Bianca who first asked Cheren about what was whirling around in his head, and dared to think that she might understand it.

Cheren has his surety, is so sure of himself that it is easy to make him unstable, to topple his foundations. White is also confident, but she has enough flexibility to readjust and bounce back easily when she is knocked down. Bianca goes completely the other way - she is so unsure of the ground under her feet that she treads with too much care, and wobbles when her footing seems the slightest bit damaged, even though the ground is only shaky because she thinks it is.

For all of that, though, there are some things that Bianca knows -an instinct - unlike the other two, and knows so well that it doesn't occur to her that they could be doubted. Ironically, her greatest advantage comes from knowing that she doesn't know - there is a big wide world out there that she is yet to explore, pokemon that she is yet to raise and tame and love, and she does not delude herself into thinking that she has the slightest clue of how to start. Her second greatest advantage comes from knowing that she can learn.

Cheren sees in black and white. He can either do these things, or he can not. He might be able to do them inexpertly at first, but that is only practise. If he keeps losing to White... then it stands to reason that he can't not lose to White. (Never mind who tells him not to give up on the idea of winning.)

White is determined enough that she doesn't care about what she can and can't do - but she doesn't worry about learning, only about getting things done. Like her strategy, when trying to learn doesn't work, she will just force her way through with all the power that she puts into her battles.

Bianca splits the world into things that she can do, and things that she can't do yet. Maybe she doesn't have enough time in the world to learn to do them all, and maybe there are so many steps between now and the goal that it will take her years to get there, but she'll learn, eventually. Her cautious footing helps her, because where Cheren retreats and White storms straight on past, Bianca will see the intricate networks, the tiny little nuances that make her a master, if not of the true goal, then of that step, eventually. If they had many more years than the span of a human lifetime, Bianca would be just as good as White one day.

They only have one life, though, so Bianca will always be those many steps behind.

But that makes sense, really. Cheren, obsessed with the future, will be planning the steps light years ahead. White, stuck in the present, will be hopping swiftly from one step to the next. Bianca, always looking to the past, will be concentrating very hard on understanding what she has just done, and learning how to do it as good as anyone - and if you asked her, she would guide you through the steps to her position, and then watch with a smile on her face as you rapidly overtook her.

Bianca is so obviously made to be a Gym Leader that it's almost painful to keep it a secret.

Clay does anyway, because Bianca will find herself in that position one day, and he doesn't want anyone to spoil the surprise.

Still, they are friends for a reason, and if Bianca is going to be a Gym Leader, it's fair to assume that White will be Champion, and Cheren will never quite be as good as her, but that he will eventually learn to live with it - although he won't give up either, if only to give White something to do.

He can imagine them, in a distant future, when Plasma have gone, and maybe left room for another team of criminals to take their place. Clay doesn't like to let himself be optimistic, but it's not often that he meets kids like these, really, or hears about the great things they've been doing out in the wider world, and so he allows himself to hope that one day they might be a perfect fit for the League:

White will be the Champion, both feared and admired, keeping the peace by stomping chaos down - she will have honed herself, and her pokemon, into a pedestal worthy of defeat, just as the Champions before her did.

Cheren will be foremost amongst her Elite Four - he will offer her advice, know where her power is best exercised, where it is safe to leave peace to the trainers who will succeed them one day, and he will be the only one to tell her when to stop.

Bianca will be their eyes and ears, the one who watches all the trainers pass through on their journey, takes note of the troubles they face, and passes on the ones they should be aware of, and the trainers they should look out for.

(Because right now Champion Alder doesn't want to sit on the pedestal that his beloved pokemon helped to create, and Marshall is too in awe of him to know when he should nudge him towards it, and the Leaders are too focussed on their own cities and too used to the status quo to remind them both of what they should be doing; of what needs fixing.

Clay is as guilty as any, wrapped up in playing guessing games with strangers and making excuses for his stagnation, because business has been hammered into him too hard for him to get it out, and most of his efforts go into making his city prosper and wondering how happy he would have been getting to this position the hard way.)

But what he likes best about the three of them is not that, if they worked together, they could be something truly wonderful - it's that they already know it, and they already are.

A/N: There are not enough Clay fics in the world. He is awesome, guys, why is this? (Yeah, I know this is a sad excuse for a 'Clay fic', but the point stands.) I always got the feeling he cared more about the PC than other Leaders, anyway - you seem to interact with him more than any of the others.

Reviews and criticism always loved! I'd especially like to hear what you think about the character interpretations.