Legendary Shadow

The next day, Liam went up to the Mahogany Gym. He battled through some trainers and leveling up Latios as he made his way towards the Gym Leader, Pryce. Pryce is a bald older man with short white hair, three upper spiked fringes in front, and two spikes on each side, brown eyes, and pale skin. He usually has a displeased look on his face. Pryce supported himself with a grey cane, which has a brown top.

When he was young, Pryce was adventurous, like his friends, and had fun with them. However, after the death of his Lapras, Pryce became cold and very distant from his friends.

To others, he would often act humble and kind. 

Pryce often apologized for that and thought himself inferior and cowardly. But this was merely a guise to prevent people from suspecting him as being the cold and ruthless, Mask of Ice. Evidence is there to back the theory, but the Pokémon Chairman refuses to believe Pryce to be the Masked Man. 

The Masked Man was ruthless and unsympathetic. He believes that Pokémon are nothing but mere tools to help him accomplish his goals. He immediately saw the coldness in Liam's eyes and knew that there was a story behind this guy.

Pryce used to be friends with Professor Oak, Agatha, Kurt, and the Day Care Couple. However, one fateful night, Pryce's two favorite Lapras died in an avalanche just before their baby Lapras was born. 

Overwhelmed with guilt and distress, he became cold and distanced himself from his friends. His friends unsuccessfully tried to console and remove the guilt from his heart. He became the masked man and did terrible things around Johto. 

The Masked Man kidnapped Carl, Sham, Will, and Karen when they were children to utilize their potential. He also captured Silver and Green, but they escaped. Green went to Kanto while Silver stayed in Johto.

Seeing Liam in front of him, Pryce was surprised when he saw Liam's eyes because no challenger ever came into his gym with such a serious face before, and he could tell Liam had killed before just from the way he looked. Pryce wondered if Liam would be able to give him a challenge. 

After announcing the start of the battle, Pryce introduced himself and decided to use one of his strongest Pokémon. He wanted Liam's power as he could tell Liam was hiding something with his years of experience. 

Liam also introduced himself and waited for Pryce to bring out his first Pokémon, which was his trusted old friend Dewgong. He used Dewgong only for gym battles and his other Pokémon for otherworldly things. 

Liam was surprised by this because it seemed like Pryce was not going easy at all. Liam wanted to use Latios to continue leveling up, but in this battle, Latios would be defeated before he could even blink. Due to all the battles that Latios went through, he had leveled up to 60 in quite a short time.