Clay

"The Underground Boss"
Clay
Species	Human
Hair color	Brown
Eye color	Brown
Base	Driftveil City
Debut	Pokémon: Black and White Versions

Clay is the gym leader of Driftveil City's Pokémon Gym and is the fifth gym leader of the Unova region who is faced within Pokémon: Black and White Versions. He specializes in Ground-type Pokémon.

Background

Clay is implied to have hailed from humble beginnings, but he made it big and became the most important person in Driftveil City. He owned his own mining company and became known as the Miner King. He also became the gym leader of Driftveil's Pokémon gym due to being a skilled Pokémon trainer. His gym was a giant mine shift filled with elevators, and Clay usually awaited challengers at the very bottom, in order to remind himself of how he himself started off "at the bottom". Clay gave the Quake Badge to those who bested him, but he did not give praise easily. In addition to those activities, Clay saw it as his dutie as gym leader to take care of problems that arose around town. He also ran maitenance of the drawbridge that linked Driftveil to Route 5 as well as the ships that passed through the harbor. Clay also owned Twist Mountain, which was located farther north, where he ran a mining operation.

In Pokémon: Black and White Versions, Clay caught a group of Team Plasma grunts lead by Zinzolin after they had stolen the Pokémon from various trainers in town. He did not detain them from long, as Elesa then called him to ask him to lower the drawbridge, as she had met some trainers with potential whom she wanted to send his way. Clay lowered the drawbridge for them, but during all this excitement the Team Plasma group got away. When the young trainers Black/White and Cheren arrived, Clay held them responsible for Team Plasma's escape and eventually reached the agreement that Clay would only accept their gym challenge after they found the fugitive Team Plasma members. Black/White and Cheren successfully found them hiding within Cold Storage, and Clay arrived with his posse to round up the defeated Plasma grunts. He brought them back to his gym, but he was then approached by Ghetsis, who came with more Team Plasma grunts. Ghetsis was able to intimidate Clay into releasing Zinzolin's group into his custody.

Clay then returned to his gym and awaited his challenges. Black/White arrived, and Clay was interested to see what potential Elesa had seen in them. After being defeated, Clay seemed to be under the impression that they were nothing special. He gave them the Quake Badge but would not give them the TM until they did him a favor by meeting him at the entrance to Chargestone Cave. The entrance to the cave had been blocked by a Galvantula's nest, so he used his Korokrok to destroy it. Clay then gave the trainer his favorite TM, TM 78: Bulldoze. He admitted uncertainty as to whether Black/White was a strong trainer, but he advised them that if they thought that they could go wherever they want and do something, that they should do that and decide their own limits. Clay was later defeated by both Cheren and Bianca as well.

Sometime after the Team Plasma incident, a meeting of the gym leaders was held regarding the subject of Team Plasma. They were ready to take action against the team, but the team had been flying under the radar so they decided to wait until Team Plasma made a move to deal with them. Clay later met with Black/White and Cheren again when he was investigating Twist Mountain. Clay told them about the Team Plasma situation and said that they no longer had to worry about Team Plasma. He also advised them to go off the beaten trail in the mountain and to have fun training there. Bianca later called for him when she went around to alert all the gym leaders of N's Castle, which had arisen by the Pokémon League. Clay seemed to lead the group of gym leaders to the castle, and they arrived in time to hold off six of Team Plasma's Seven Sages while Black/White went on ahead to challenge N.

Pokémon Roster

In battle, he uses the following Pokémon:

• Krokorok
• Palpitoad
• Excadrill

Trivia

• He is of course named after "clay", due to it being an earthy mineral.
• Clay has been known to donate the fossils he finds to the Nacrene museum, which is run by fellow gym leader Lenora.
• According to the National Gymquirer, he wears a fluffy knit hat under his cowboy hat.