The rest of Roy and Antonia's trek through the Viridian Forest was an uneventful one. The two new trainers stuck close to the well-worn path which wound its way through the heart of the woods. Although they had encountered signs of other trainers, namely the results of their battles, neither had expressed any interest in investigating further. Antonia had offered to try and identify some wild plants for them to eat, but she hadn't sounded confident enough in her skills to convince either Roy or herself, so the two of them had marched northwards for the better part of the morning with growling stomachs and short tempers.

Fortunately, before either of them had the chance to come to blows, the trees had begun to thin, and then Roy and Antonia found themselves standing all at once outside of the forest. The path they had been on all morning merged with a wide road which crested over a hill. Beyond that lay Pewter City. The city might have suffered the effects of time since its heyday as a mining hub, but for Roy and Antonia its blocky buildings and haphazard layout were a beautiful sight. Roy grinned at Antonia, his first real smile in over an hour, and he said, "Well, looks like we made it, Toni."

"Yes," was all Antonia said in response, but she was smiling as well. "I suppose we ought to get to the nearest pokémon center."

"Yeah, there should be something to eat there."

"I was thinking about the pokémon," said Antonia with a shake of her head. The pokémon had been cooped inside of their poké balls since the earlier part of the day, when Roy's hungry charmander had tried stuffing Antonia's weedle into his mouth when he had thought that no one had been looking. Even in their frustrated states, Roy and Antonia had agreed that they would make faster progress with only two grumpy travelers instead of five.

Now that Pewter City was in sight, Roy was suddenly full of energy again. Antonia's spirits were lifted, but it was Roy who kept outpacing her and then had to work to undo his eagerness and return to her side. Each time he repeated this process, he gave her an apologetic smile and a shrug of his shoulders, because both of them knew that it would only be a matter of time before he wound up several yards ahead of her again. They continued on this way until they saw the telltale red roof of a pokémon center. Roy abandoned his companion to run headlong towards it. Antonia followed after him, briskly but also painfully conscious of how childish the pair of them must look to any passersby.

Because of this, Roy had already unloaded his charmander into the professional care of the pokémon center's staff by the time that Antonia walked through the door. The dark-haired nurse on-duty clucked motherly over the state of both the pokémon and their trainers and directed Roy and Antonia to a small cafeteria where they could get something to eat while their pokémon were treated.

Antonia was conscious of the pokémon center's generosity and took only what she needed before sitting down at one of the cafeteria's plain plastic tables. While Antonia began to eat her food, Roy walked over to where she was sitting with his arms laden with all of the free food that he could carry. He paid no mind to Antonia's silent admonition and instead tore into a vivid green apple. After his first mouthful of food had been swallowed, he asked, "So, Toni, what's the plan?" Another bite, another swallow. "I mean, once the pokémon are out do you want to head straight to the pokémon gym or try practicing with me and Charmander?"

"Well," Antonia started to say, but then she saw the unabashed anticipation on Roy's face and she decided to direct her comments to her container of pasta salad instead of to him, "even though we need to buy some supplies, I thought that we might stop by the gym first. Maybe there are some other trainers challenging the gym leader and we can see how he battles and with which pokémon. That would be more helpful than us battling again."

She didn't look up to gauge Roy's response, instead busying herself with her food, but the boy was nodding thoughtfully. "Yeah, Charmander and I aren't ready for a rematch yet." He took another bite of his apple and said around it, "But we will be."

Because Antonia did not say anything further, Roy just continued to eat alongside her. Despite his larger amount meal, he finished it before Antonia did hers. As he was about to go back for more, Antonia asked him, "Do you think that the pokémon are ready yet?"

Roy finished getting up from his chair, and scratched the back of his blonde head lamely as he said, "I don't know, probably."

"Good." With that, Antonia rose from her seat and, after dropping her dishes off in the cleaning rack, strode back to the lobby of the pokémon center with Roy in tow. They found the pokémon on the tile floor being fed by the on-duty nurse they had spoken with earlier.

"Oh, hello," she said looking up from her work, "I was just about to come get you two. Your pokémon are all doing fine, although they certainly seem to be hungry." To punctuate the nurse's point, Antonia's bulbasaur lifted his bowl of kibble over his head with his vines and dumped all of its contents into his waiting mouth. "Are you going to head over to the pokémon gym?"

"Yes," said Antonia simply.

The nurse smiled wanly and said, "I hope that you two take some time to consider whether you're ready to challenge Brock or not. There has been a lot of new trainers going to the gym and coming back with hurt pokémon."

"Is Brock strong?" asked Roy.

"Oh, most definitely. He wouldn't be a gym leader if he wasn't, and his pokémon, well, you'll see when you get to the gym." With that, the nurse patted the bulb on Bulbasaur's back before using it as leverage to stand back up. Then she went off to complete whatever other tasks she had, leaving Roy and Antonia alone with their pokémon.

Seeing the distressed look on Antonia's face, Roy scoffed, "I think she's making some of that up, Toni. Just trying to scare us."

Although Antonia nodded in half-hearted agreement, her face and voice told a different story as she said, "Still, maybe we should do some more training before we go to the pokémon gym, just in case."

They settled upon a compromise. The two trainers would not use the whole day to train, just an hour, and instead of battling each other Roy and Antonia sought other ways to get their pokémon ready for the battle with the gym leader. This took the form of drills. The pokémon, feeling sluggish and full after a hearty meal, were hardly enthusiastic about this. Antonia, on the other hand, seemed to be in her element and she drove the pokémon, and Roy, hard as they raced around the yard behind the pokémon center, ducking under and jumping over the equipment of a much-loved playground.

By the end of their training, the air was ringing with Antonia's tone of command. "Bulbasaur! Get those vines out further! Weedle! I know you can climb faster than that! Roy-"

"What?" snapped the other trainer as he rounded on Antonia.

"Um," Antonia said weakly, "I was just going to ask if you wanted to head over to the gym now."

Roy's annoyance vanished as quickly as Antonia's authority did, and he stood by the swing set shifting on his heels. "Yeah, I figure we're all pretty warmed up now." He was as sweaty and covered in dust as any of the pokémon. While Antonia had been coaching them from the sidelines, Roy had been alongside them, exercising and listening to Antonia's increasing demands.

The pair walked around the side of the pokémon center only to nearly run into a group of other children, four in total, who were looking downcast. Roy recognized them from his class and asked, "Hey, what happened to you guys?"

"Brock happened to us," one of them, a boy about Antonia's height, said and the others nodded somberly.

"Are you guys going to challenge him too?" a girl from the group asked Roy and Antonia. When they said yes, she shared a nauseated look with her friends. "Look, just, don't get your hopes up, okay?" With that, the sad procession trudged past Roy, Antonia, and their pokémon and took seats on the rusting swing set.

Roy and Antonia exchanged uneasy looks after they tore their eyes away from their dejected peers. Neither of them said anything until Roy led the way towards the front of the pokémon center, and then he said, "It's nothing. They probably just weren't ready, not like us. We can do this, Toni. You can do this."

Antonia took a deep breath in through her mouth and let it out through her nose. "You're right, Roy," she said, before adding a qualifier, "We'll see what happens."

The two of them set off towards the Pewter City Gym. It was not a difficult building to find given the wide avenues which marked the city's history. The gym appeared to be at the heart of an old industrial district, surrounded by factories which were either closed down or running at less-than-full capacity. Everything had a faded look to it, which granted a heightened sense of solemnity to Roy and Antonia's walk. The muted tones of factories and blocky apartment buildings made it seem as though they were dressed for a funeral.

But if their surroundings were depressing, then the activity around the gym quickly put them out of Roy's mind. The Pewter City Gym was surrounded by a throng of people chatting amicably among themselves. There were vendors pushing drinks and snacks, workers and families who had stopped by to observe some of the battles, and, of course, plenty of pokémon trainers. Roy spotted a few of his peers from Pallet Town, but they were outnumbered by the new faces. Plenty of pokémon were recognizable to him as well, and in addition to the bulbasaur, charmander, and squirtle that he had grown accustomed to in Pallet Town there were also pidgey, rattata, caterpie, and weedle. Like Antonia had said yesterday in the Viridian Forest, they were all pokémon perfectly suited for beginning trainers, so it was no surprise for Roy to see them here. He was more intrigued by the unfamiliar pokémon and faces he saw. Some of the trainers and pokémon looked rugged, and others more refined, but the older ones all had an air of confidence to which the inexperienced rabble from Pallet Town could not hold a candle.

Roy wanted to talk with some of them, to hear some stories about great battles fought or incredible sights seen, but Antonia was insistent that they make their way to the battlefield. "There will be time enough for talking later," she said as they led the way around the perimeter of people and pokémon. Roy wanted to raise an objection, but he saw the green tinge that Antonia's face had taken on and so he wisely reconsidered.

Unlike the rest of the buildings in the district, the gym had not been squeezed into what little space was still available, but rather boasted a sizable open area surrounding it on all sides. There was a park with benches, tables, and a playground for children, although everything seemed to retain the slate gray character of the rest of the environment. The main feature of the land, however, was the battlefield. In contrast to the simple affairs that could be found behind any pokémon center, the Pewter City Gym boasted a dynamic landscape of rocks, crevices, and hills all bordered with meticulously straight lines of white. The same kind of bleachers which Roy and Antonia had seen at sporting events back home were arranged on both of the long sides of the field, while the short ends of the rectangle each possessed a small dugout from which the gym leader and his challenger could issue commands.

A match was just wrapping up as Roy and Antonia approached the field. A young trainer with wavy brown hair and a pair of glasses which kept threatening to slip off of his nose was directing his pokémon, a bulbasaur, against Brock's choice, a gray pokémon which looked like a roughly-hewn rock with two arms ending in equally craggy-looking fists. Both Roy and Antonia watched as the two pokémon slammed into each other on the battlefield several times. Each time they met in the center of the field, the challenger's bulbasaur, which looked to be a little larger than Antonia's, came away looking more bruised and tired, while Brock's pokémon was stoically preparing for their next bout. While the challenger and his pokémon were catching his breath, Brock bellowed, "Finish him off, Geodude! One last tackle attack!"

At his trainer's command, the geodude bounded towards its foe by grabbing the ground in front of it and using its powerful arms to fling itself forward. The geodude built up more and more speed until it slammed into the retreating bulbasaur's side with a heavy whump. The blue-green pokémon dropped to its stomach and panted in exhaustion and pain until his trainer recalled him to his poké ball in a burst of red light.

"The challenger has forfeited the battle!" the referee announced from the sideline. "The winner of the match is Brock!" There was a smattering of polite applause from the assembled spectators as the losing trainer crawled out of the dugout. He was about to walk away from the battlefield with his head hung down, when Brock jogged up next to him and placed a hand on his shoulder. At the touch, the younger trainer looked up and exchanged a few words with the gym leader to which only they were privy. Then, Brock clapped him on the shoulder again and the trainer walked off, still looking disappointed but not quite as dejected as before.

Antonia watched this scene play out in its entirety, but found that Roy was already striding boldly toward the battlefield. There was a loose circle of other trainers who had edged closer to Brock after the match's conclusion in hopes of challenging him next, but they hesitated to approach the gym leader whereas Roy did not.

Brock noticed the boy striding up to him and a small smile played across his otherwise stern features. The gym leader was an older teenager with a head of spiky brown hair and a muscular build. Despite the gap in age and height, Roy boldly marched until he was standing in front of Brock and said, "Hey there, Brock. My name's Roy. I'm from Pallet Town, and I want to challenge your gym."

"It's nice to meet you, Roy," Brock said as he seized Roy's hand in a firm handshake. "I'm happy to accept your challenge." His voice was softer than what Roy had expected given his appearance and how the other trainers at the pokémon center had talked about him, but it still resonated with the weight of his title. "How does a two-on-two pokémon match sound to you?"

"I'll only need one."

"You're a bold one," observed Brock, and he folded his arms across his chest as he studied Roy. "Very well, you'll be my next challenger today. Go and stand over there and listen for the referee's instructions."

As Roy walked over to the dugout, Antonia finally caught up to him and worked to match his long, confident strides. "What's going on Roy? What did you say to Brock?"

"It's great, Toni! I'm challenging him right now! Charmander and I are going to wipe the floor with him!"

Behind her glasses, Antonia's eyes went wide and she was biting her the inside of her lip as she said, "Roy, don't you think you're, well, biting off more than you can chew?" Roy's face was a picture of mingled confusion and betrayal, so Antonia added bluntly, "You haven't won a single pokémon battle before."

"Well, that's true," admitted Roy, but he was already stepping around Antonia and sliding down the ladder into the depressed earth of the dugout, "but we got through that forest in one piece, right? And charmander is pretty strong, you saw how he tried taking on those pidgeotto."

"Roy-" Antonia started to say, but the rest of her words died in her throat as the clearing echoed with the booming voice of the referee.

"The match between the gym leader Brock and the challenger Roy is about to commence! The battle will be a two-on-one pokémon match, by the challenger's request." At that, Roy flashed Antonia a wide grin and the girl's pie-shaped face grew even more morose. "The gym leader will not be allowed any substitutions."

"How about you show me that prized pokémon you're so proud of?" shouted Brock across the battlefield, eliciting a matching laugh from Roy.

"You asked for it! Come on out, Charmander!" Roy depressed the button on his poké ball, and flicked his wrist to send it up in the air in a wide spiraling arc. In a flash of light, his pokémon took the field. The flame on Charmander's tail was crackling and he uttered a loud growl at Brock on the other side of the battlefield.

The gym leader was hardly intimidated, however. Instead, he put his thumb and forearm to his chin and said, "A charmander? That's an interesting choice there, Roy, but let's see what you two can do." Then, Brock's face hardened and he sent his own poké ball spinning into the arena with a cry of, "Go, Geodude!"

The pokémon which emerged from the gym leader's poké ball was the same gray boulder with arms that Brock had used earlier. It landed on the earth of the battlefield with a heavy thud and glared at Roy's charmander.

In a heartbeat after Brock's geodude had appeared, Roy was already giving his first command, "Charmander! Soften him up with an ember attack!"

The orange-scaled pokémon grunted to acknowledge his trainer's order, and then he opened his mouth and began spewing red hot coals at Geodude. But that wasn't all – charmander was also running headlong toward the other pokémon as he brandished his claws while his opponent tried to shield its body and catch as many of the embers as possible in its outstretched hands. Charmander's attack left scorch marks along Geodude's rocky hide, but the smaller pokémon did not flinch and instead patiently watched Charmander's approach.

When Charmander was finally close enough to try scratching at Geodude, Brock barked out, "Grab it, Geodude!" With surprising speed, the rocky pokémon shot out its arms and wrapped one around Charmander's waist and the other around the claw that the orange-scaled pokémon was bringing down on Geodude's head. The two pokémon struggled against one another, with Roy's charmander growling and hissing in frustration while Brock's geodude maintained its serious demeanor.

"What will you do now, Roy?" Brock asked and on the other side of the arena, Roy felt his smile falter, if only a little.

"This is nothing," he said to himself, and then, to his pokémon, Roy yelled, "Use your fire again! He can't block it while he's holding you!"

Before listening to Roy's command, Charmander first snarled and tried to twist out of Geodude's grip, and only when that proved fruitless did he summon up a new barrage of fire in his mouth and released it in Geodude's face in a single concentrated burst. As Roy had hoped, the attack made Brock's pokémon release Charmander in order to try and avoid the fire. However, it did not seem to do much damage to Brock's pokémon and, worse yet, Charmander had not taken the opportunity to retreat to a safer distance, but instead advanced on the confused Geodude again with his claws.

Roy tried to reign his pokémon in by yelling, "Charmander! No! Come back over here!", but his pokémon didn't heed his orders. While Geodude was still reorienting itself after disentangling itself from Charmander, the larger pokémon had closed the gap between the two and tried raking his sharp claws against the top of Geodude's head. The claws had even less of an effect than his fire, and Charmander could only growl as he tried again and again to break through Geodude's rocky skin.

"Your pokémon isn't listening to you, Roy," Brock remarked sternly. "I think it needs more training."

"Come on, Charmander," groaned Roy.

Finally, Charmander broke away from battering at Geodude with his claws, although it was due less to Roy's instruction and more to the obvious hopelessness of the task. With a few springs backwards, Charmander found a position in front of one of the boulders which jutted out of the arena like so many jagged teeth and began firing off a few token embers at Brock's pokémon.

But Geodude was ready for them, and it batted the feeble attack off with a swipe of one of its hands. Then, Brock gave a one-word command, "Tackle." At that, Geodude began bounding towards Roy's charmander on its muscular arms, picking up more and more speed with each bounding leap of its body until it was hurtling at its opponent. Roy tried to warn his pokémon and ordered him to get out of the way, but Charmander ignored him and tried to match Geodude's headlong attack with his claws.

With the speed that it had picked up, the rocky pokémon was more than a match for Charmander's ill-prepared counterattack and it slammed into Charmander's head with enough force to send the reptilian pokémon onto its back, clutching its head and groaning in pain and anger. Geodude steadily approached its fallen foe and when Charmander tried to snap at it with his sharp teeth, Brock's pokémon merely pressed one of its stony hands against his snout and pushed him back to the ground where Charmander lay hissing and lashing out with its tail and claws in an impotent tantrum.

Roy could feel the eyes of the gathered crowd on him and on his pokémon. His face grew flushed and hot and his fists clenched at his sides. "Come on, Charmander, get out of there!" he yelled, but Brock's geodude wasn't giving Charmander any chance to do so. It had maneuvered itself on top of the other pokémon to rest its bulk on Charmander's back while one hand muffled his snarls and snapping jaws while the other looped around one of Charmander's arms to grip his neck.

It was clear to everyone, Roy included, that Charmander was beat, but he refused to admit it. For nearly five minutes, he alternated between pleading with and browbeating his pokémon to get up and fight back, all while Geodude continued to hold Charmander down. Finally, Brock asked in a frustratingly patient voice, "Do you yield?" and Roy's defiance crumbled.

"Yes," he said so quietly that only he could hear, and then Roy retrieved Charmander's poké ball from his pocket and recalled his exhausted pokémon. Then, aware of every set of eyes boring holes into his back, he climbed out of the trainer's dugout and plodded slowly over to where Antonia had been standing to watch the match.

"That wasn't so bad," she said with a grimace that desperately wanted to be a smile.

Roy didn't say anything to her, or at all, until Brock strode up to the pair of them. The teenaged boy offered his hand to Roy who took it limply in his own and let his arm be pumped up and down by Brock's handshake. "Thank you for the battle," Roy mumbled.

"You and your pokémon have some potential, Roy," the gym leader said, but his voice was firm when he added, "but you both need more training before you're ready to challenge a gym."

When no response came from the crestfallen boy, Brock's expression softened, but he did not say anything further to Roy. Instead, his eyes lighted upon Antonia who was standing next to Roy and fidgeting with the hem of her shirt. "Are you also here to challenge my gym?"

"Well, yes," answered Antonia after she shot a nervous glance at her companion. Roy did not express any approval or disapproval, opting instead to keep his head hanging down to look at his shoes. "My name is Antonia," she continued in a stiffer and, to her ears, more formal voice, "and I would like to challenge your gym, Mr. Brock, sir."

"Excellent, well, Miss Antonia, why don't you head to the field." Then, to Roy, Brock said, "It was a good try, Roy. Keep your chin up." With that, he jogged over to the referee and then back to his side of the battlefield.

Antonia lingered next to Roy. "Are you okay?" she asked him.

His reward for her concern was a mutter of "Yeah, I'm fine. Go have your battle."

Still, Antonia did not go right away, but when Roy did not say anything more to her, she began to walk stiffly to the challenger's end of the outdoors arena. She had nearly reached her dugout when something in Roy came alive and he shook his head free of the fog which had seemed to cloud his thinking. Across the field, loud enough for most everyone in the area to hear, he shouted after Antonia, "Hey, Toni! Kick his butt!"

The girl's face blanched even as she waved politely to acknowledge Roy, while across from her Brock looked up from the medicine which he was administering to his geodude and smiled. But his face grew serious again as he took his position and stared down his challenger.

"Let's see what you've got."