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In the first patch of grass outside of Pallet Town, Jetta, Petra and Reginald came across a pidgey. Jetta would've been up for catching it, but Reginald said it wasn't good enough even to be in Petra's team, and he battled it, knocking it out in just a couple of moves. He was slowly starting to get on Jetta's nerves, and her friendly attitude was slipping a little.
Thankfully the next pokémon they came across - a rattata - was left to Jetta to deal with. Since Coal was her newest pokémon and hadn't had any training yet, Jetta decided to give him a run out.
It took them longer to finish their battle than it had taken Reginald to beat the pidgey, and of course he tried to make something of it, but Jetta moved on without taking anything the guy said on board.
After a dozen or so battles each - except for Petra, that is - the group came to a hill that looked over only one more field before the road to Viridian City.
Down in that field they saw Solomon, with his charmander, battling a bunch of rattata. It looked like the little charmander had learned ember, probably through having it beaten into him rather than experience.
Jetta and Petra weren't so keen on heading in the boy's direction, but Reginald - arrogant, after his earlier win - was keen to brag how well his pokémon was doing. He led the way down into the field and toward Solomon.

"Getting anywhere?" Reginald called as he neared Solomon.
"I bet we could beat you now," Solomon replied. "All of you, probably."
His charmander used some sort of purply, fiery attack to knock out the last rattata in one move, then it walked over to his side, showing the same angry sort of expression and holding itself in the same aggressive sort of way. "Char!"
"Was that dragon rage?" Reginald asked, doubt in his voice.
"Yeah. So what? We've been training hard," Solomon bit back.
"But it shouldn't learn that for a long time. How did you ever...? It's inconceivable."
"Well we did it because we're so great. You want to battle or not?" Solomon demanded.
Reginald turned his nose up, then whipped out his pokéball. Jetta didn't think it was a good idea for him to battle, but she wasn't going to tell him that. He'd only go ahead and do it anyway.
"Two on two?" Solomon asked, proud smirk already sneaking onto his lips.
"B-but I only have one pokémon," Reginald stuttered.
"Fine. One on one. Go on, Charmander," Solomon said.
Reginald stepped back and called out his bulbasaur. The grass type stared at the fire type it had beaten earlier in the day, ready to battle once more.

"Pineco, tackle it to take it out of the match!" Solomon ordered.
Jetta quickly returned Gooper and replaced her with Coal. "Coal, you can do this!"
"Char?" Coal asked, looking around. Then Solomon's pineco smashed into him, knocking him back.
"Yeah!" Solomon cheered. "Your sneaky switches won't help you. Pineco's taking all your pokémon down."
"Coal, are you okay?" Jetta asked the chimchar.
As the pineco moved away again, Coal stood back up and shook off his dizziness. "Chimchar."
"Get ready for it! Use bide!" Solomon commanded.
Jetta caught herself before she issued an offensive command. If she attacked now, all the damage would be sent back twofold. Better to stay defensive until the pineco had finished storing energy. "Use leer, Coal. If you attack it'll only hurt you in the end."
"Char," Coal nodded, then he looked the pineco in the eyes. He stared it down fiercely.
"Hey, quit it!" Solomon growled. "Attack us, you wimp!"
"Keep it up, Coal," Jetta chirped. She kept a keen eye on the pineco too, and the moment the concentration disappeared from its face, she shouted, "Attack now!"
"Chim~char~chim~char~chim~char!" Coal charged toward the pineco. Then, rather than ready a scratch attack, he formed a fist with his hand. As he flung it toward his opponent, it burst into flame. It was a fire punch.
Bam.
The pineco arced through the air. By the time it hit the ground at Solomon's feet it was already unconscious.
"Charmander and Pineco are both unable to battle! Jetta wins again!" Petra squeaked. "The girls wipe the floor with the boys!"
"We'll have less of that," Reginald huffed. "This wasn't a gender battle, and you lost both matches you entered."
"Well done, Coal. That was brilliant for a second battle," Jetta praised her pokémon. "Keep it up and we'll make light work of Brock."
"Chimchar," the pokémon said, nodding its head. Jetta was glad he wasn't proud or boastful. She despised people like that, and wouldn't want a pokémon who was like that either.
"So where did you get the wooper?" Solomon demanded. He appeared to have returned both of his pokémon and stood over Jetta with a big frown on his face. "Where? Tell me!"

Glint had forgotten that Kai wasn't from Kanto, and so might not know what a cleffa was. "Oh, it's a baby pokémon. Evolves into clefairy, then clefable. In Kanto they live on Mount Moon. You might have heard the legend, about them being from space - like solrock and lunatone. Wait, they're indigenous to Hoenn... Hey, think dialga and palkia. Only obviously cleffa aren't legendary."
Glint supposed all that was beside the point. He would have got his pokédex out and showed Kai a cleffa on that, but after what the boy had said about learning for himself, Glint thought it best not to spoil anything.
"Brock and I tried to get this little egg back to its parents, but we couldn't find them. I left it with Brock to care for, but after our battle he gave it to me. So I'm going to raise it like I would any egg at the daycare. Who knows, maybe one day I'll find its parents and it can go free with them. Other than that - and Gruff obviously - I've got a squirtle called Squirbert, who's in a bit of a mood with me at the minute, and I've got a baby oddish called Coni. Have you got other pokémon besides Turtwig?"

Glint laughed when Kai explained that he hadn't caught any pokémon for himself. Not because it was funny, but because he could relate. "I've never caught any pokémon either. Gruff here was born the same time as me, so my grandparents put him in his first pokéball. Coni, the oddish, we were looking after her egg for someone in Pewter, and when she hatched prematurely we put her in a pokéball just to transport her to her owner, who it turned out didn't want her. And Squirbert, well Squirbert was captured by a machop, with one of my pokéballs. He just decided to stick around. I think he's using me to reach his own objectives. But that's fine."
As they came out of the first patch of grass they hadn't seen any pokémon yet, but when they came up to the next patch Glint was sure he heard something. He slowed down and tried to see what it could be. "Did you hear that? You up for battling it, if it attacks, or should Gruff and I deal with it?"

- Kai Izumi -

Leaping out of the grass like some sort of angry spring, a wild Pokémon attacked the party of two! Landing before them with a drawn out hiss, it appeared to be some sort of serpent- this a naturally slender body of purple, yellow eyes, and a yellow stripe. Most people would know it to be an Ekans- but Kai? Kai didn't have the faintest idea what this thing was.

"Okay, well whatever it is... Turtwig, you're up!" he boy called out, throwing a ball forward, the sphere cracking open and letting out a shining white light, releasing the turtle-like Pokémon inside. Turtwig was immediately greeted by the face of its enemy, Ekans' eyes burrowing into him menacingly... it was pretty intimidating, and put Turtwig on edge to say the least. It even effected Kai- just a little bit. But not enough to give a command, at least. "Tackle!"

"Wig!" Turtwig cried out, charging forward. however, the Ekans opened its mouth and sprayed out a noxious purple liquid- an attack that on contact with Turtwig burned at him, and hurt quite a bit. However, the little guy barrelled on regardless, slamming into Ekans as hard as he could. The snake was knocked back a little, but quickly recovered from a relatively feeble blow. It let out another dull hiss, before lurching forward, biting Turtwig's side. Turtwig let out a yelp, and bit into Ekans side out of violent impulse. The two Pokémon taking damage and reaching an ouroboros-style impasse, they separated some distance, Turtwig landing near Kai, who still had some faith in his friend yet. "Alright Turtwig, you did good- try to land another hit when you can!"

Turtwig nodded, not realising such an event was sooner rather than later- Ekans used this brief exchange as an opening, leaping forward and plunging the end of its tail towards Turtwig, jabbing him right in the face with a powerful Poison Jab attack. Turtwig was launched some feet backwards from the force, the little guy twitching a little from the pains of a super effective attack. Kai could only stand there with worry unsure of what to do at the moment- his options were running sort of slim with this one on one battle so far, it seemed.

Turtwig bit down on an Oran berry that he specially kept for just such an occasion, at least easing him out of a bit of the pain. However, his defences were smashed apart by the various toxins of the spray and the jab, and he was running low on health to say the least. Even so, he rose to his feet and sprinting forward as fast as he could, the little grass Pokémon used another bite attack- using as much force as his jaws could. The Ekans let out a cry of pain, smacking Turtwig away with the blunt force of its tail instead of a proper attack, but certainly enough to stagger it's opponent.

Kai knew Turtwig was at the end of its ropes, but was at a loss as to what to do. However, there was someone else- watching intently- who knew precisely how to act..

With a flash of white light from his chest, another one of Kai's Pokéballs cracked open- this time, without his input. The beam flew forward to an area just in front of Turtwig, forming into the visage of Croagunk- standing tall and looking at the current opposition with an almost whimsical expression- blocking Ekans from continuing the battle with Turtwig any further. and making a small taunting gesture with one of his hands, signalling the fight would wage on with him in Turtwig's place.

Ekans didn't really seem to care who it assaulted, so if one was willing to be its victim then why not indulge it? The snake did a repeat of its previous tactic, springing out forward and bite down on whatever obstacle it found- this time it being Croagunk's arm. However whilst Turtwig would flinch a little, Croagunk didn't even blink- looking at the bite for a few extensive moments, before slowly turning its gaze to Ekans. If Pokémon could speak, it was a fair bet that Croagunk would say something along the lines of "... is that it?"

Croagunk threw his arm tot he side, effectively tossing Ekans backwards a distance. The snake opened its mouth, and Kai decided to chime in to help out his new competitor. "Watch out- I think he might be about to spray some more poison!"
Croagunk wasn't that phased by such information, knowing his limits and resistances- but adopted a defensive stance regardless to suit the advice of his trainer. However, as he braced for a counter... of sorts, his timing was messed up purely by the fact there was no aggressive move- no spraying at all erupted from Ekans' mouth, but instead a harsh screech. It rattled Kai's, the fallen Turtwig's and even Croagunk's bones- throwing everyone in the vicinity off balance a bit and lowering their defences.

But as Ekans used this chance to attack, Croagunk snapped into action. shifting his feet to almost skid forward, he launched a punch upward as Ekans glided through the air, directly into the snakes gut. Ekans coughed up some acid spray mostly out o reaction rather than intent, which hit Croagunk but hardly stopped a second, even more forceful punch landing in the same place, keeping Ekans airborne for another few seconds before it hit the ground, knocked out entirely.

Croagunk looked at tits fallen opponent and then to his trainer and audience, before giving them a smile and a sound that almost resembled a rough chuckle.

- Kai Izumi -

Kneeling beside Turtwig, Kai stroked the little guy's shell in a gesture of comfort and support, happy he had won the battle with the wild Ekans and even if Turtwig did get a pretty beat up by it all, proud of his starter immensely for it's efforts on his behalf. Of course he was always proud and incredibly appreciative of his team- they were his closest friends, perhaps even another kind of family for him, after all... but at times like these, it was only right to show it a little bit more. "Great job out there Turtwig. Guess our first battle in Kanto was a victory, huh?"
Turtwig just smiled, nodding with a weak but still cheerful "Wig." of approval, quite content to share his trainers enthusiasm and preference of seeing the brighter side of things.

Though Glint didn't exactly give commentary on the battle, his tone of voice betrayed him and Kai knew more or less the vein of his current thinking and opinions. However, the boy was quite understanding- he knew right now he was a pretty poor trainer, but resigned himself to optimism, vowing to get better. To this end, Glint's offer seemed like a very good path to take.

"Sure. I wouldn't mind some more experience... and besides, it'll just help me increase my knowledge of Kanto's Pokémon species, wouldn't it?" he mentioned, trying to pick out what sort of other benefits lay in the wake of such actions. "I think my team is more than ready for it... maybe it's just me who needs to practice the most right now.." the boy gave a slightly solemn smile, a little disappointed in himself. However, Turtwig was having none of it, giving the boy a nudge of his head and a grin- whilst Croagunk casually walked over, and patted the boy on the back. With encouragement from his team, the boy didn't need words anymore to perk back up.

Picking up Turtwig carefully, he offered it to Glint for applying his super potion. "I guess as soon as we're all healed up, let's get started!"

- Kai Izumi -

As the super potion worked its magic, Kai thought over Glint's particular question concerning Pokédexes and more directly, Kai's decision to not have one. "I admit, I understand fully where you're coming from. I don't think I've met even a handful of trainers that didn't have some sort of Pokédex device on them... so it is pretty odd, for sure."

Kai shrugged, conveying his lax take on it, however. "I don't really know a really good reason why I think I prefer to be without... if I had to guess, its mostly just because I've seen people rely on technology like that a bit much. Pokémon, like people, can surprise you. So it's good to learn through experience with many different kinds of Pokémon, rather than just glancing at facts through a screen. I understand there are many types of Pokémon and learning this way is going to take a while... it might even be impossible, but its still a route I think I'd like to take."

Thinking it over, Kai really couldn't quite put his finger on his own reasoning. It really was just an instinctive choice, for better or worse. "I suppose as a breeder it'd be helpful and maybe I'll pick one up in the future if I really need to or change my mind... but I sorta like being without for now. It helps me push my limits a bit, and I prefer taking things at a slower and more in-depth pace anyway when it comes to learning."