When you think of the flying type, most people think of birds. It's the obvious connection to make, as each generation introduces at least a few new ones. You also have sweaty weirdos like Falkner obsess over bird pokemon as a flying type representative. Luckily, Unova decides to make a much cooler connection to the flying type: airplanes.

That's right, the 6th gym of the Unova region, the Mistralton City Gym, is located right at the foot of a giant runway. Where plans actually take off and land. Mistralton's gym leader, Skyla, is a qualified pilot and does whatever pilots do. It's one of my favorite concepts behind a town/city in Pokemon.

Anyway, beating Skyla will grant the player the Jet Badge.

Pokemon Black, White

Skyla is first seen upon arriving in Mistralton City. She's talking to some old man, and it turns out he's Professor Juniper's dad! I still think it looked quite suspicious, I feel like Skyla might be making some money on the side... He even talks about flying to a different region...

Sugar daddy aside, Skyla is glad to see the player and tells you that she'll have a gym battle with you, after you do one teeny tiny thing for her. Of course. Can't have it easy these days. Apparently she saw an injured Pokemon on some tower when she was flying over, and now it is her (and our) job to make sure it's okay. Sounds like a date to me. We have our fun up there and ring the bell after to cleanse our sins, allowing us to challenge her gym.

Skyla has by far the best gym design in the game, though to be fair they are all bangers. Except Burgh's of course. In Skyla's gym, you need to enter these machines, before getting absolutely launched into orbit by them. No seriously, they are literally shooting some 16 year old out a cannon into the air. There's even a funny moment where the cannon shoots you too far and you slam into the gym wall, slowly sliding down like a cartoon. This gym isn't hard, there's barely a puzzle to it, but it's really enjoyable.

In battle Skyla is unfortunately fairly simple to beat. She's the 6th gym leader but only has 3 Pokemon, a trend which will only get worse in later games. She leads with a Swoobat, a Psychic/Flying type bat. Unfortunately Swoobat is a special attacker and Skyla has opted to use a fully physical moveset, making it very weak. Next is the regional bird of Unova, Unfezant. The only interesting thing about this pokemon is the difference in appearance from the male to the female form. In battle it sucks, and so does Skyla's. Her ace pokemon Swanna, a Water/Flying type, is the only one that poses any sort of threat, though an electric attack dispatches is pretty easily. I'll look past the obvious flaws in her team because her character and gym are so fun.

You don't really see or hear from Skyla again until the very end of the game. There, she joins her fellow gym leaders in storming Team Plasma's Castle and holding off the wise sages so the player can advance. Pretty neat stuff! I assume Skyla gathered them all in her airplane and they parachuted down, that's my headcanon anyway.

Pokemon Black 2, White 2

Skyla is among the lucky gym leaders to retain their position in the sequel games. You first see her after talking with Professor Juniper (the daughter this time) in Mistralton City. She had asked Skyla to fly her to somewhere but suddenly wants to go to that same tower me and Skyla had fun on a few years ago. Ringing that same bell once again allows us to challenge her to a gym fight.

I assume Skyla got slapped with several Health and Safety violations as the human canons were removed from her gym. Instead, there's a few giant wind turbines at the back of the building blowing massive gusts of wind at you. You need to time your movements in between these waves of winds (haha new game titles) so you don't get blown all the way to the start. Trust me, it's very frustrating when it happens. Skyla unfortunately has not taken my advice or critique to heart, and makes the same mistakes as her first team. At least she swapped useless Unfezant out for the much better Steel/Flying type Skarmory. Only in challenge mode does she realize special Swoobat is stronger, on top of throwing a Sigilyph on her team. Nice one Skyla!

After defeating her, Skyla flies you and Professor Juniper to Lentimas Town, on the other side of the region. Maybe it's just me but it's really fun to actually sit in an airplane in one of these games. Anyway, what even is Lentimas Town? It wasn't even on the map in the first game, and I doubt they built a whole town in the few years I missed out on.

And that's the last you really see of her. I believe there's like one small quest you can do involving one more airplane ride, but that's it.

Skyla does appear as an opponent in the Pokemon World Tournament, alongside her fellow Unova gym leaders. She can be battled in the Unova Leaders and Type Experts challenges. She adds some great new Flying types to her teams, including the pair of Mandibuzz and Braviary, as well as the incredibly dangerous Archeops. Where were these guys earlier?

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I've always had a soft spot for Skyla. I love her design and color scheme, and her pilot theme is really fun. Maybe I'm a simple guy but the runway is genuinely really cool to run across as well.

We don't learn a lot about Skyla as a person outside of her role as a pilot, but we do know that she's very close friends with Elesa, the electric gym leader of Unova. Ironic I suppose as the flying gym leader? Their friendship is genuinely wholesome though. Elesa is sporting a new look in the sequels, and supposedly she confided in Skyla about her worries/doubts about it. It's nice to see characters in these games talk to people other than the player. I do wish we saw more of their dynamic in the actual stories of either game, though.