Grusha

"The Sub-zero Shredder"
Grusha
Species	Human
Hair color	Blue
Eye color	Blue
Base	Glaseado Gym
Debut	Pokémon Scarlet/Violet

Grusha is one of the eight Gym Leaders of the Paldea region who appeared as an opponent in the ninth generation games of the Pokémon series, Pokémon Scarlet and Violet. He specializes in Ice-type Pokémon.

Background

Grusha was a snowboarder who used to be professional. He was considered to be the second-greatest pro snowboarder in the world and won at least six Paldean competitions in a row. However, he eventually suffered some unspecified injury that caused him to end his snowboarding career. Grusha fell back on his other talent, for Pokémon battling, and he dedicated himself as the Gym Leader of Glaseado Gym. He could tend to be pessimistic and reserved when dealing with others, and he was quick to remind others of the harshness of winter mountains. His Gym Test was the Snow Slope Run, in which challengers had to ride a Pokémon down a snowy slope while hitting goal posts.

In Scarlet and Violet, he was challenged by Florian/Juliana. He admitted that they were pretty cool in the Snow Slope Run, but he also warned them not to let their success go to their head and that today was not a good day to battle him. Florian/Juliana still battled and defeated him, which apparently reminded Grusha of the way he used to be. He gave Florian/Juliana his Gym Badge and TM124: Ice Spinner. He also reluctantly took a commemorative photo posing with Florian/Juliana despite being embarrassed by the concept, calling it 'uncool' and 'silly'. Florian/Juliana could return for a rematch in the post-game, at which point Geeta had assigned the newly Champion-rank trainer to run an evaluation of all of the gyms. Once Grusha learned that the trainer had achieved their dreams of becoming a champion, he admitted that his own feelings about that were complicated but that he ultimately thought it was amazing. Grusha also showed anxiety about the gym inspections, because even though Geeta had assured him that they were only a formality, he still worried that he could lost his Gym Leader position and have nothing left. After being defeated again, Grusha bemoaned that Geeta sent him a trainer who he could not defeat, but he still felt no regrets about the battle, and he felt that Florian/Juliana had reignited his passion to become stronger. He left the trainer with a warning to not a catch a cold on their way down the mountain.

Pokémon Roster

• Frosmoth
• Beartic
• Cetitan
• Weavile: Rematch only.
• Altaria: He Terastallizes this Pokémon into an Ice Tera Type.

Trivia

• He has the same name in Japanese and English, and he is named after the Russian word for 'pear'.
• Grusha is the only Gym Leader other than Blaine (specifically in the second generation games) to have a Gym that's not connected to a town or city.
• Although the Gym Leaders can be fought in any order in Scarlet and Violet, Grusha's Pokémon team has the highest levels of any Gym Leader in the games, and so he stands as the eighth and final Gym Leader in their implied order.