Grisham: The Barista Who Rebuilt Team Flare

A counter, an apron, and a criminal organization behind the coffee machine. Grisham serves customers at the Nouveau Café by day and runs Team Flare Nouveau the rest of the time. It isn't a double life kept up for show: the café is the cover, set up by the group to vanish from the sight of a society that had cast it out. That leaves the question the whole character raises: can you restore a name that its own founder destroyed?

Contents

• "Le Gris": A Second-Generation Grunt
• The Ultimate Weapon, and Five Years as Outcasts
• Team Flare Nouveau and the Nouveau Café Cover
• A Z-A Royale Opponent
• Grisham at a Glance
• Frequently Asked Questions

"Le Gris": A Second-Generation Grunt

Grisham was born in Kalos and joined Team Flare through the second wave of Grunt recruitment, the one the organization launched to bolster its ranks. He joined young, and the timing never gave him a chance: he didn't have time to prove himself in the field before it all came to an end.

The lack of opportunities took nothing away from his skill. Pokémon battles already set him apart, to the point that a nickname from that era stuck with him — "Le Gris" ("the Gray") — and he climbed the ladder of reputation without ever climbing the ranks of the hierarchy. His name made its way up to the group's top brass, as far as Mable and Xerosic.

What tied him to Team Flare wasn't the promise of a career. He wholeheartedly believed in the project championed by Lysandre at the start: a more beautiful world, where people would help one another. It's that message, and not the one that came after, that explains everything else about his path.

The Ultimate Weapon, and Five Years as Outcasts

Lysandre activated the ultimate weapon five years before the events of Pokémon Legends: Z-A. For Grisham, as for every other member, the consequence was immediate and absolute: having been associated with the group, even from a distance and even without having done anything, was enough. They became criminals in the eyes of society, and outcasts in practice.

So he settled where nobody went anymore: Lysandre Labs, abandoned since the fall. A fallen man's lair turned into a refuge by one of his former subordinates — the setting alone sums up what became of Team Flare after the ultimate weapon.

It was the archives left behind that changed everything. There, Grisham found documents on the ultimate weapon and on its creator, AZ, along with mention of a second machine by the same maker, hidden at the top of Prism Tower. Reading them led him to a conclusion that shifts all the blame: AZ, in his reading, caused the disaster, Lysandre's madness included.

Team Flare Nouveau and the Nouveau Café Cover

Out of that conviction, an organization was born. Grisham founded Team Flare Nouveau with an agenda he frames in terms of the common good — bringing peace, improving everyone's lives — and a more personal goal grafted on top: clearing the name Lysandre covered in blood. The group doesn't disown its legacy; it claims to correct it.

It still had to exist without being seen. The answer comes down to a shop sign: the members blended into society by opening the Nouveau Cafés, a perfectly ordinary commercial front. The boss himself works the counter of the Nouveau Café as a barista.

The method is the exact opposite of the founder's. Where the original Team Flare flaunted its red suits and its laboratories, Team Flare Nouveau bets on being utterly ordinary. You can see it as caution; you can also read it as a statement about what the next generation learned from the first one's failure — never be recognizable again.

A Z-A Royale Opponent

For him, the Z-A Royale isn't a pastime. Grisham enters it as a participant with the aim of reaching the top of the rankings, because it's the shortest path to what he's after. The tournament becomes the tool of a project far bigger than itself.

The player finds him in their path at one specific point: he's the opponent in the nineteenth reward match of the Infinite Z-A Royale. From the twenty-first on, he doesn't drop off the board, though — he joins the pool of opponents the mode can draw at random, so you can face him several times.

One equipment detail marks him as a man of his time: his Pokémon are kept in Timer Balls. As for the species associated with him, it's Charizard — a personal favorite, in a team that also fields Pangoro, Malamar, Pyroar, Tyranitar and Salamence.

🔥 The boss's signature Pokémon has its own section: see Charizard.

Grisham at a Glance

Frequently Asked Questions

• Who is Grisham in Pokémon?
  He's the boss of Team Flare Nouveau and the barista at the Nouveau Café in Pokémon Legends: Z-A. A former Grunt of the original Team Flare, he also competes in the Z-A Royale.
• Why did Grisham found Team Flare Nouveau?
  After Lysandre activated the ultimate weapon, the group's former members were treated as criminals. Taking refuge in the abandoned Lysandre Labs, Grisham discovered documents there about the weapon and its creator, AZ; convinced that AZ is responsible for everything, including Lysandre's madness, he founded Team Flare Nouveau to bring peace and restore Team Flare's name.
• What are the Nouveau Cafés?
  They're the establishments Team Flare Nouveau opened to give itself an ordinary cover and hide from the rest of society. Grisham himself works there as the barista.
• Where do you battle Grisham in the Z-A Royale?
  He's the opponent in the nineteenth reward match of the Infinite Z-A Royale. From the twenty-first on, he's among the opponents the mode can draw, so you can run into him again.
• Why is Grisham nicknamed "Le Gris"?
  The nickname dates back to his time as a Grunt. He never got the chance to prove himself in the field, but his skill as a Trainer in battle had already earned him a reputation that reached Team Flare's top brass, such as Mable and Xerosic.

In short

Grisham holds a special place among the antagonists of Kalos: he isn't a product of Lysandre's project, he's its collateral victim. Recruited too late to act, cast out for what others did, he rebuilds an organization on the very name that condemned him. Team Flare Nouveau talks about peace and serves coffee, where the old one talked about beauty and armed a machine — and the whole character lies in that gap between the intention he proclaims and the legacy he embraces.