Tae

Tae is the Gym Leader of Fastfall. She appeared in Chapter 3 along with some of her Pokémon.

## Appearance

Tae has a tanned athletic body, along with slanted brown eyes and black hair. Her hair is tied up in a twisted knot, a hair-tie separating it from the untied ends, which start going up from the knot and then fall towards the right like a ponytail. She also has a thin red hairband that keeps most of her bangs from falling as low as they should. Usually wears black flats, a white tank top, and dark red tracksuit pants with orange vertical stripes on the sides until the knees. Has a thick black belt with pouches on the front and sides. She has her arms from elbow to wrist bandaged, and taped fingers. Keeps her team’s Ultra Balls on the back of her belt.

## Personality

Tae's a bright individual with a bit of a thrill-seeking problem. While she was acting, she could blame all her excitable and reckless behavior on her eccentric celebrity persona, but now that she's retired and in a position of a lot of responsibility, she has to hold herself back and tone it down as much as she can. Though she still has her quirks, like rigging most of Fastfall's public buildings' windows so people and Pokémon can be safely thrown through them. Or jumping down from the roof of the Gym and letting the Psychic-types on the floor below catch her and deposit her safely on the ground. Or training against her Fighting-type Pokémon herself. So she might not have toned it down as much as she thinks she has.

Still, she loves what she does, and likes being helpful to locals and tourists alike. While being a Gym Leader is her main job, she sometimes cameos in other movies, and Fastfall has become an iconic location for action scenes. Though this means that sometimes half the city will be closed for filming, its all worth it when one goes to the cinema and sees someone flying a plane into the public library (disclaimer: scenes like that are created by making replicas of the buildings involved. The local library and other landmarks remain very undestroyed).

## Role

Tae was first mentioned in Valda's backstory, chasing Valda off the city with her Medicham when the Noivern flew into the filming area and wreaked havoc, including making a car explode.

She first officially appeared on the Fastfall side of Day 13. She gave the group information on the Contests and agreed to give them a ride to their destination, Taismog. When her Sawk pointed out Valda's clothes resembled a Noivern, she asked if any of them had one, chance Gaes took to convince her both Lambert and Valda had. Wanting to confirm if they were the trainers of the rampaging Noivern from some days ago, she sent her Lucario to them to the Pokémon Center so Lucario could check on their Noiverns while she prepared for Lambert's Gym Challenge. When the group returned without her Pokémon, she assumed Lucario had given them the green light and wandered off, and dropped the subject.

Both Lambert and Rhapsody fought as trainers in the Gym battle, and won. After that, she told them to be back in two hours to give them the ride they had requested.

## Pokémon

### Sawk

Tae's Sawk is as famous as her, acting as her sidekick in all movies she appeared in. He can use enough sign language to communicate with Tae and other humans who know that variation. Mostly serious and not particularly caring, he's usually unamused by anything and everything that doesn't relate to his trainer or Pokémon battles, though he'll still get in-character if someone who has seen one of the movies asks him to.

He appeared with Tae briefly before the official Gym battle.

### Lucario

Lucario is gender-fluid, and purposefully modifies their greeting to go along with the feelings they're having that day to convey to their friends how to address them. They take their job as Gym Pokémon very seriously, to the point of trying too hard and continuing to pursue objectives a reasonable Pokémon would have asked for help with.

Lucario escorted Lambert's group as Tae suspected them of having the Noivern that had interrupted the filming a few days before. Valda managed to fool Lucario by shifting, making them lose the track and pursue a woman who no longer was there.

## Gym

### Layout

The Gym was remodeled into a towering skyscraper of 75 floors including the roof, where the battleground is located. The floor is painted with the usual battleground motifs, and the whole roof is surrounded by a chain fence to prevent people or Pokémon from falling. During official battles, the 74th floor will be occupied by an assortment of Psychic and Flying Pokémon on stand-by in case something does fall. Sometimes, Tae even likes to climb the fence and jump down, relying on the psychic power of the Pokémon there to catch her and deposit her safely on the ground. All in all, the floors 1-4 and 70-75 are for the Gym and Tae's personal use, the 73th floor even being reworked into her house, while floors 5-69 are public and contain Pokémon-related goods and services, like shops, Daycares, or tutors.

### Official Pokémon

Levels 1-4: Timburr, Mienfoo, Meditite, Croagunk, Scraggy, Monferno, Machoke, Throh, Heracross, Mienshao, Hitmontop, Hariyama, Pangoro, Chesnaught, Gallade, Blaziken

Level 5: Sawk, Lucario, Medicham, Poliwrath, Blaziken, Breloom

### Battle style

Against people's expectations, Tae starts with clear, tried-and-true strategies and type match-ups. Unlike most other trainers who do though, her improvisation skills are off the chart, and it's almost impossible to catch her off-guard. She follows the strengths of each Pokémon and finds with them the roles they excel at, making them that much stronger.

## Badge

The Fracture Badge looks like a window, made of resistant clear glass surrounded by brown metal making up the frame. There are 5 ruby ovals in the center to represent knuckles, the thumb on the right side. The number of cracks in the window (0, 1, 2, 3, shattered) indicates the level it was won at.

## Trivia

* Tae's name comes from Taekwondo.
* She's ambidextrous.
* She was an actress before being a Gym Leader, and was known for doing all of her stunts and fights without the need of a double for neither her nor her Pokémon. As such, she’s good at many martial arts, knife-handling, parkour, and at the shooting range.
* She was the protagonist of a saga of 4 action movies called Vendetta along with her friend and co-star Ade, the first of the movies airing 25 years ago. Her Sawk featured prominently in them too. Tae and her Sawk learned enough ASL for the roles to be able to have simple conversations, though neither of them is completely fluent.
* She sometimes does improv in Gym Battles, where she tells the challengers to act as the heroes and she acts like the villain and rolls with whatever they say. Complete with villainous monologue and all.
* Lambert and Rhapsody won the Fracture Badge at Level 3 on Chapter 3.