Matthew stepped onto the fresh grass right outside of the town of Pallet. The sun was shining brightly from behind the young adult, casting a long shadow onto the path ahead of him. There were pidgeys hopping about in the tiny clearings, and rattatas scurrying about through the roots of the plants. Light clouds were lazily drifting across the ocean everyone calls the sky. Every once and a while a cloud would block the sun for about ten seconds or so. It was truly a beautiful day to be outside, and a better one to start a trip across Kanto. The steady breeze blew Matthew's coat forward and ruffled Sebastian's fur.

"Couldn't have chose a better day, hey?" Matthew rhetorically asked the Growlithe standing beside his leg.

He took a quick breath of air and began moving forward, through the grass. His family wasn't one to go out of town much, so it was a slightly hard thing to leave his hometown alone. He hadn't eve left town for at least a few years, so that made it a tad bit worse. He couldn't remember much about the routes and paths, but one thing was easy: it was a straight walk to the next city. It wasn't far away, either. The only thing he had to be worried about was the few trainers that slowy walked around the route. It would be painful to lose his first battle, and then rush Sebastian's unconscious little body to the next town.

Now, there's a clear way to distinguish a battler and a normie. Battlers always have that sort of look in their eyes, scrawling around for someone to fight. Normies took challenges given to them, and didn't persistently try to battle everyone who has a living Pokémon. Unluckily, the former types were pretty much everywhere, so if you didn't want to run away all the time, you had to be prepared. There was only a single Battler on that route. She waited oddly right in front of the town entrance. The teen wore overly fancy clothing and a red-rimmed bowler. One would think it would be way too hot in that get-up, but the fabric wasn't actually warm. There was an alternate version for cold weathers.

Matthew eyed the girl a bit. Not sexually or anything, but curiously. Observing her looks, and most of all looking her straight in her eyes. His father taught him this. The girl caught eyes with Matt quickly and she smirked a bit. Behind her materilized what looked to be like some type of ghost. A ghastly. A wise choice to use on such a route. Most had normal types, or had pokemon that only knew normal type attacks. Luckily, Sebastian had the ability to use Ember, but his Bite was stronger than that. Matt didn't know about ghost types...

Both stood still silently, until their partners caught on and went in front of them. Matt lifted his cap up a bit and smiled competitively. First battle, what a rush! It was hard to tell who would win from his perspective, but it was rather obvious who would with Matthew's strategy. The girl snapped her fingers, and the Ghastly then started to linger closer, but then it teleported behind Sebastian and violent slammed into it with it's disturb ghost tounge. Sebastian was tossed to the side... Their opponent was stronger than they thought. Just as Sebastian got up, the Ghastly began charging a shadowy ball of energy. The Growlithe leaped forward and attempted to take a chomp out of the ghost, but he faded right through and ended up a heap on the floor.

Matt cringed as Sebastian fell to the ground. He wanted to rush in and attack the Ghastly himself, but he knew he couldn't do it, so he just patiently waited for Sebastian to get back up. No signs of doing so. The ghastly shot the energy ball at Sebastian. The impact was an explosion that sent the young Growlithe hurdling into a tree, nearly fainted. It struggled to get up. Just how strong was this ghastly!? This wasn't fair!

"Damn it, get up Sebastian!" Matt shouted to his partner as the Ghastly began charging yet another Shadow Ball. The girl just lightly snickered as she brushed a strand of hair away from her eyes.