In the earliest era of pokemon battles, the hardest challenge for any trainer was finding the strength to attack. Disruption was the style of the age, and the dominant pokemon were creatures like Electabuzz and Hitmonchan – not because of their modest power, but because their attacks were simply too quick to block, no matter what items enemy trainers reached into their bags to grab. Many saw pokemon they had spent their lives training rendered useless by quick, repeated blows from tiny pokemon they could sweep away in a single strike – if only they could power up enough to do so.

One gym leader grew so frustrated with this strategy that he developed a strange machine which transformed his gym utterly. He did not outright block any items – if only because he could not figure out how - but the strange currents he added around the perimeter of the gym created an electric shock which disrupted any items which would drain a foe's pokemon. Although the removal items still worked, they zapped the user's fingers in the process, forcing the opposing trainer to throw away other items or pokeballs if they sought to drain his precious pokemon of their energy.

He had built the No Removal Gym out of bitter frustration, and expected the League to demand he take it down the moment they got word of it. He had never expected that the trainers of other pokemon which powered up as slowly as his Charizard would prefer his machine and flock to his gym for practice matches. And he was even more surprised when the league explicitly declared his gym – and other equally bizarre modifications - legal, leading to a continuous revolution in architectural design which shapes pokemon gyms to this day.