Skyla: The Pilot Gym Leader Who Gave Badges Without Battling

She handed over the Badge without sending out a single Pokémon. Skyla runs the sixth Gym of the Unova League, in Mistralton City, and specializes in just one type there: Flying. As much a pilot as a Gym Leader, she had taken to settling her battles in her head, comparing teams instead of having them fight. It took another Gym Leader calling out that shortcut for her to truly get her Gym running again.

Contents

• Mistralton City, the Sixth Stop in the Unova League
• A Flight Crew Silhouette, Down to the Hairpin
• The Gym Leader Who Fought Her Battles in Her Head
• The Battle Cilan Wrung Out of Her
• Tournaments, the Mobile Game and Collectible Cards
• Skyla at a Glance
• Frequently Asked Questions

Mistralton City, the Sixth Stop in the Unova League

Skyla holds sixth place on the League circuit in Unova. Her Gym is in Mistralton City and covers a single specialty, the Flying type: any Trainer who walks through the door knows exactly what's waiting, and gets there late enough in the journey that improvising is no longer an option.

The place doesn't look like an ordinary battle hall, either. The Mistralton Gym is set up in a hangar, north of the city's airport, a setting that announces its owner's second job before she even opens her mouth.

A curious symmetry links her to another Gym Leader, Winona, who runs the Fortree Gym. Both are the sixth Gym Leaders of their League and field Flying-type Pokémon, and both of their Gyms sit in a rainy area — an echo that nothing in the story ever explains.

A Flight Crew Silhouette, Down to the Hairpin

The character is dressed in shades of blue. A long-sleeved crop top and sky-blue mini shorts, with matching gloves and boots in a bolder blue: Skyla wears an outfit that works as a single unit, cut for movement rather than for show.

Two pieces give away her profession before she even introduces herself. A dark blue harness straps across her torso over her clothes, and a holster is fixed to her right thigh: this is the gear of someone who climbs aboard, not of someone who waits behind a desk.

Then there's the detail that ties everything together. Her medium-length red hair is pulled up into a bun by an ornament shaped like an airplane propeller, and her official description in the mobile game confirms what the setting hinted at: she flies a cargo plane, escorted by bird Pokémon, and her energy has won her a large following.

🛫 Swanna, Unfezant and the rest of the squadron in cuddly form: check out our Pokémon plushies.

The Gym Leader Who Fought Her Battles in Her Head

The anime catches up with her at the point where she had stopped battling for real. She had long since given up real Gym battles without turning challengers away, though: she received them, she sized them up, she just no longer fought them.

Her replacement method was coldly methodical. She would take stock of the challenger's team, set it against her own, then play out the battle in her head until she knew who would win.

The verdict came down without a single Pokémon leaving its Ball. If her simulation had her losing, she handed over the Badge on the spot; if it had her winning, she asked the challenger to come back another day. Her stated reason fit in a single sentence: the challenges kept piling up and no longer left her an hour to herself.

The Battle Cilan Wrung Out of Her

Ash and Cilan show up together in Mistralton City, and the latter takes her method as an insult to the profession. He demands a real battle to prove her wrong, and she finally steps onto the field.

The battle is fought with three Pokémon each and swings twice. Her Swoobat first knocks out Pansage, then falls to Crustle, which immediately follows up by taking down Unfezant as well; Skyla then has only one card left, Swanna, which brings down Crustle before narrowly clinching the win against Stunfisk.

That one win too many traps her in her own rule: since she has just won, she ought to send Ash away until later. It takes her grandfather Miles stepping in, the pressure of a crowd that came to see a battle, and a Swanna eager to fly some more to get her to carry on — and she comes out of that second match determined to hold real Gym battles from then on.

Tournaments, the Mobile Game and Collectible Cards

The Pokémon World Tournament calls her up for several competitions, including the Unova Leaders Tournament and the Flying Type Expert Tournament. The format sets the size of her team there — three Pokémon in Single Battles, four in Double and Rotation Battles alike, and her full roster of six as soon as it switches to Triple Battles.

The mobile game has featured her since launch, with a wardrobe that changes partners with every outfit. Her standard version teams up with Swanna by default, and with Unfezant once her friendship is maxed out at the Trainer Lodge; then come a red winter outfit paired with Togekiss, an anniversary outfit in which she rides the gusts of Therian Forme Tornadus, and a summer swimsuit alongside Jumpluff.

Two briefer appearances round out the picture. A short animated adaptation stations her in front of N's Castle, where she backs up other Unova Gym Leaders against the grunts of Team Plasma; on the card side, she joined the Trading Card Game with the Boundaries Crossed expansion, released in France in February 2013.

Skyla at a Glance

Frequently Asked Questions

• Which Gym does Skyla lead?
  The Mistralton City Gym, the sixth stop in the Unova League. She specializes exclusively in the Flying type there, in a hangar set up north of the Mistralton City airport.
• Why did Skyla refuse to battle?
  Because the nonstop challenges no longer left her any time to herself. So she compared the two teams and simulated the battle in her head: if she lost, she handed over the Badge without battling; if she won, she asked the challenger to come back later.
• Which Pokémon does Skyla use?
  In the anime, she sends out Swoobat, Unfezant, then Swanna. In the mobile game, her partner depends on her outfit: Swanna, Unfezant, Togekiss, Therian Forme Tornadus or Jumpluff.
• Who convinced her to go back to real Gym battles?
  Cilan first, who demands a real battle. Then her grandfather Miles, the spectators who came to see a battle, and her own Swanna, which wanted to fly more. After her match against Ash, she decides to get back to it for good.
• Does Skyla appear outside the main games?
  Yes: in several Pokémon World Tournament competitions, in the mobile game since launch, in a short animated adaptation where she takes on Team Plasma in front of N's Castle, and in the Trading Card Game since February 2013.

In short

Skyla is one of those rare Gym Leaders whose arc tells of an abdication rather than a crowning achievement: she had turned her Gym into a ticket counter where the Badge was issued on calculation alone, and it took a slighted colleague, a grandfather, a packed house and an impatient Swanna to bring her back onto the field. The rest of the character comes down to a harness, a holster and a propeller planted in her hair — a Gym Leader who thinks like a pilot first, and only then remembers she has a Gym to defend.