Katy: the Cortondo pastry chef who stopped holding back

Katy is a Gym Leader who has been asked not to do her job too well. A Bug-type specialist in Cortondo, she also runs the pastry shop across the street, and her Gym is almost always the first one students come to challenge. So the League asked her to ease off — an order she follows through gritted teeth for the entire first half of her story.

Contents

• Cortondo, the Bug type and a sweet comparison
• The League's order: "take it easy"
• Patisserie Soapberry, right across from the Gym
• The Bug Badge, then the inspection that sets her free
• Horizons: a baking duel before the battle
• From Naranja Academy to a tea party in Cortondo
• Katy at a glance
• Frequently Asked Questions

Cortondo, the Bug type and a sweet comparison

Katy runs the Gym in Cortondo, a town in Paldea, and champions the Bug type. The game nicknames her "the Sugarbug", a nickname that layers her two jobs on top of each other instead of keeping them apart.

She explains her specialty with a single image. She compares these tiny Pokémon to the cakes she bakes: small in appearance, but carrying considerable power — the power to make people happy. That's her answer to anyone who finds the Bug type too modest.

Her outfit says the same thing. A long brown skirt cut like an apron, a beige chef's hat, white lace gloves, a teal-green bun — and a spiderweb-shaped pin at the top of her skirt. Her design is by Megumi Mizutani, who also created Brassius, Iono and Tulip.

The League's order: "take it easy"

Cortondo is close to Mesagoza, and that geography decides everything. Katy's Gym is often the first one that Trainers from Paldea's academy come to battle, which makes her the first hurdle for a good share of the region's beginners.

The head of the League, Geeta, draws an explicit instruction from this: go easy on newcomers. So Katy has to battle while pulling her punches, with the rules leaving her no choice.

The character doesn't take it well. The order deeply saddens her, because it forces her to watch her Bug-type Pokémon lose over and over — the very type she spends her time defending to those who underestimate it.

Patisserie Soapberry, right across from the Gym

Katy owns and runs Patisserie Soapberry, a pastry shop located directly across from her Gym. The magazine "Sweet Truth!" credits her with a long family line of pastry chefs, which explains why she took up the trade before joining the League.

Her cooking teacher is Kofu, the Cascarrafa Gym Leader. His lesson fits in a single sentence: put more of herself into what she makes. Katy has stuck to it, and her sweet bug-shaped cakes have earned her a reputation and a shop that's never empty.

Success has a downside, and she readily admits it. She spends more hours in her pastry shop than on training or battling at her Gym, and says so herself. Between an order that holds her back and a business that's booming, her Gym Leader post takes a back seat.

🍰 Bug-type Pokémon have their own section too: see the Pokémon figures.

The Bug Badge, then the inspection that sets her free

The first encounter takes place on the Gym's battlefield, where she's feeding a Vivillon. She congratulates the challenger on clearing the Olive Roll, briefly lays out her view of the Bug type, then accepts the battle. Losing costs her the Bug Badge, a TM and one of her pastries, and she takes the opportunity to admit she should work on her technique.

The rematch comes much later. Now Champion, the player is tasked by the League with inspecting the region's Gyms to assess their Leaders. Katy admits she had completely forgotten these inspections existed, is surprised to find the new Champion standing in front of her, then announces that for once she'll battle at full strength.

She loses again, and that's where the character turns. She enjoys the feeling, concludes that going easy on Trainers does nobody any good, and connects this revelation to Kofu's advice: what she puts into her cakes, she decides to put into her battles too. To customers who find the Gym too tough, she'll reply that she added a touch of bitterness.

Horizons: a baking duel before the battle

The Horizons series first introduces her from a distance: Liko learns she'll have to face the Cortondo Gym Leader to complete her Terastal training. Along the way, we learn that Murdock works part-time for Katy, to help fund the Rising Volt Tacklers.

The trial almost never happens. Coral, furious that the exclusive pastries have already sold out, demands a battle too, and Katy doesn't have time to take on two Trainers on top of running her shop. Since the training rules forbid students from facing each other in Terastal battles, the Gym Leader settles it another way: a baking contest will decide between the two contenders. Liko finishes her cake without any trouble, while Coral sends out her Glalie in a fit of pique and gets shown the door.

The battle itself is a lesson in deceptive appearances. Her Teddiursa adjusts its tactics depending on whether Floragato attacks it up close or from a distance, withstands its opponent's Terastallization, then takes on the Bug type itself and settles the exchange with a single move. Even so, Katy stamps the trial as passed: in this training, winning or losing doesn't count, and Liko showed she gave it her all — at the oven as on the battlefield.

From Naranja Academy to a tea party in Cortondo

Katy then returns as a partner, not an opponent. During a friendly battle against Rika at Naranja Academy, her Lokix backs up Liko's Floragato, paralyzes Dugtrio, then falls to the poison of the opposing Clodsire. The match is lost; the Gym Leader comforts the young Trainer by telling her that tears of frustration like hers are worth nurturing.

At the student tournament, she's in the stands alongside Grusha and cheers Liko on before her battle against Roy, struck by how much confidence the teenager has gained. The two Gym Leaders come to congratulate her after her defeat, for her performance as much as for seeing her training through to the end.

The final appearance takes place on her own turf. Katy welcomes the group to Patisserie Soapberry, hosts a tea party with Murdock, notices Terapagos, then offers a friendly battle to put her employee's doubts to rest: her Ursaring freshly evolved and Terastallized, against Terapagos — and loses. To Murdock, who is hesitant to set off again, she remarks that these young people are butterflies fresh out of the cocoon, and that there's still time for him to spread his wings. He resigns shortly afterward, with her blessing, promising to finish his new cake recipe; she, in turn, hopes he'll come back to Cortondo to let her taste it.

Katy at a glance

Frequently Asked Questions

• Why does Katy have to go easy on Trainers?
  Because Cortondo is right next to Mesagoza: her Gym is almost always the first one challenged by students from Paldea's academy. Geeta, head of the League, therefore asked her to take it easy on beginners.
• What do you get for beating Katy?
  The Bug Badge, a TM and one of the pastries she makes. She congratulates the winner, then admits she could stand to polish her own battle technique.
• What's the connection between her baking and her battling?
  Her cooking teacher Kofu, the Cascarrafa Gym Leader, taught her to put more of herself into her cakes. After her second defeat, during the Gym inspection, she decides to apply exactly the same principle to her matches.
• Does Katy fail Liko in the Horizons series?
  No, even though she wins the battle: her Terastallized Teddiursa knocks out Floragato with a single move. She still passes Liko, on the grounds that winning doesn't count in Terastal training.
• Where can you run into Katy outside her Gym?
  In the Scarlet and Violet DLC, she's available at Blueberry Academy from the start: you can talk to her, face her in a friendly battle, trade with her for a Combee with a Partner Ribbon, and receive three Sweet Herba Mystica after your first win.

In short

Katy's story isn't one of a Gym Leader who improves, but of a Gym Leader who had been switched off. The League asked her to lose gently, and her shop was eating into her training hours, so it took a routine inspection for her to remember what her Bug-type Pokémon are worth. The Horizons series finds her at exactly that balance point: a formidable opponent who nonetheless refuses to make winning the yardstick. She passes Liko on commitment, never on the score — and she's the same person who judges a cake by what went into it.