Leaving Town

You head to the Poke Mart and stock up on some more healing supplies before exiting Pewter City to the east onto Route 3. Despite your determination you still feel somewhat nervous as you step out onto the route, knowing that there will be plenty of trainers out here looking to challenge you. Plus, you know from the town map that Daisy gave you that the only way to progress towards Cerulean City is to head through Mt. Moon at the end of this route, and you don't much like the thought of wandering around lost in a dark, claustrophobic cave system.

Your nerves are soon calmed, however, by how nice everyone seems to be around here. None of the guys you encounter and battle make any lewd comments about your body or what they want to do to you, and you even encounter a couple of other female trainers, who are incredibly kind and friendly towards you. You assume this is Brock's influence as Pewter's gym leader coming into play; the people who grew up in this area really seem to admire his more progressive attitude towards women as well as his battling skill. You know full-well that the level of respect you're being given will not be a common occurence on this journey, but you'll take it while you can.

Your confidence builds as you keep winning battles; keeping Mankey on the team was definitely a good idea, as the majority of trainers out here seem to use normal-type pokemon like Rattata and Jigglypuff, which the fighting type is able to deal with fairly easily. The best moment of the day comes from Charmander, however, who starts glowing with a bright white light at the end of a battle with a bug catcher. You and your defeated opponent stand marvelling at the sight before you, and, under a minute later, the light fades and your starter pokemon stands proudly before you, transformed into its second stage of evolution, Charmeleon. You give the fire lizard a big hug, feeling an immense amount of pride in yourself that you raised it to this level.

By the time evening starts drawing in and you reach the Pokemon Center at the end of the route to heal your team, you've amasssed a good amount of prize money, and your confidence has shot right back up to the same level it was at when you won your gym battle. You feel ready to take on Mt. Moon now, your nerves about the dark caves almost completely dissipating; you're a future pokemon master, and you are going to make it through those caves no matter what.

The only question now is...