The blonde gushes about how happy she is to be seeing the start of another journey, and then heads off to Route 19 to show you about Pokemon catching.  Your mother wishes you farewell- and at long last it’s time to leave your hometown.  Heading North through the tunnel-shaped building gets you stopped briefly by the gate guard, who starts telling you you can’t go out of town without a Pokemon- then stops on realizing that you’ve actually got one.  As a going-away gift, the guard gives you a free Potion- useful, that.  If you like you can stand on the exclamation pad and look up at the news bulletins, but they’re unlikely to mean much to you at this point.

Further North outside the building, Bianca awaits.  She comments on how it reminds her of the start of her own journey (and that of her two friends), and then explains the basics of how the Pokedex interacts with encountering and catching Pokemon.  Leading you into the tall grass, she says it’s time to show you now.  She runs into a Purrloin, and sends out a Lillipup to weaken it- then catches it with a simple Pokeball.  Returning to you, she explains the importance of weakening a wild Pokemon by hitting it with damaging moves and status effects.

She then points out that the road leads straight to Floccesy Town, which is where Hugh probably went.  Introductions finally over, she turns and heads off.

Route 19 is full of Patrat and Purrloin (Level 2-4), which is a bit unfortunate.  Purrloin suffers from severe Floatzel Syndrome, being very cool in appearance and concept with good speed and attack, but having defenses made of wet tissue paper.  Unlike Buizel/Floatzel from the fourth-generation games, though, its evolution into Liepard leaves it with only somewhat good offense and speed while keeping its defenses thinner than a coat of paint.  Patrat, on the other hand, packs less of a punch than Rattata, lower speed than Sentret, and less reliable tricks then Zigzagoon- a trend that continues with the evolved forms of Watchog, Raticate, Furret, and Linoone.  Generally speaking, neither of these pokemon has what they really need to be reliable team members.  You can use them if you’re especially enamored of their designs, but they tend to make for weak links in your party.

A little looking around will garner you a second Potion, which is always handy.

As you pass a cliff, a voice hails you from on high- it’s a man with flaming-orange hair, who introduces himself as Alder.  He declaims his interest in the world, and says his purpose is to tell people ‘how wonderful it is to walk toward the future with Pokemon.’  Leaping down, he examines you and your starter, and tells you that you’re not an experienced Trainer yet- so he’s going to train you a little.

He runs ahead East, into Floccesy Town, and leaves you in the dust.