Rival battle time! This won't take long, heh.
Brief pause to check kittorch's dex entry now that I can access it:
I dig this background, it's really pretty. Now, let's see... how do I go about starting a battle so I can get some practice bashing Aenjara into other pokémon?
Yep, walking far enough back toward the way you came will usually do it. August shakes his tiny adorable fist at us and challenges us both, but April walks away and says she'd rather bond with her starter first. Not me, though. Come at me, August, so that my tiny magical monster friend may tear your tiny magical monster friend a new one with her vicious kitty claws.
Fancy.
Hey, August has a female starter, too. Huh. Here's the catchy rival battle theme if you'd like to listen to it as Aenjara scratches her foe's eyes out.
Unfortunately Bubull there hits pretty hard, and even with a lucky crit on Aenjara's second scratch it looks like I'mma need the obligatory potion just to be safe.
That sure is a potion. Again, fancy. And then Aenjara was rude enough to crit again and KO right after I healed her. We could've saved that potion for later, y'know. >/
Bad timing aside, Bubull falls, Aenjara hits level 6 (no new moves yet, though), and August pays up. That's 150 pokéwhatevermoneys down for my new TV! Good work, Aenjara, even with the close call and that little potion-wasting fiasco. Just don't do it again, because if you turn out to be really bad at battling we're going to have to try to earn our TV money by putting you in deeply embarrassing cat videos on the internet.
A little poking around the neighbors' houses shows that August has so many sports trophies that they don't fit in his trophy cabinets and have to sit on the floor, and April's room was apparently recently struck by a booknado. Not all that unexpected, although it is nice to see that the rivals' rooms actually show something of their respective personalities rather than just being carbon copies of the player's room. Mom will heal your team, also as expected, and when you try to leave town she gives you the running shoes. Phew, I was starting to think they'd show up late and I'd have to walk everywhere.
That seems to be all for Apalis Town—at least, there's no one else I can set Aenjara on and beat money out of—so I guess we keep heading west and onto the first route!