There are a couple more individuals who want some! One is wearing all red under their blue jacket and looks nervous at the prospect of small talk, but he'll battle.

There are also Abra and Oddish hanging out in the grass! The latter are both easier to catch and probably more to Gwen's taste.

She's not much for small talk, anyway. Battle, battle.

Hmmm. Yes, she wants an Oddish, Oddishes are great. And she'll try to catch an Abra, and probably end up using her last two Pokeballs on that.

Yeah, the Abras around here are the least interested in fighting of any Pokemon she's seen. They just teleport away from her balls. She does get her Oddish, though! The one she catches has slightly more frondy leaves than average; they're sort of fern-like. 

Oooh, interesting. Does Fern mind having his leaves pet? Pet pet, gentle pet.

However that goes, onwards!

Fern waves his fronds to pet her hands back! They're pretty soft, for leaves.

Onward is: more road! Her itemfinder finds a TM that teaches Thunder Wave.

Oh, neat! She'll have to think about who to teach it to. Meanwhile, more walking.

Route 24 turns into route 25, and she finds another TM, this one labeled "Seismic Toss". A little further down the road is a house with its door open and odd thumping noises coming from inside it.

Hello, TM, you're going in her bag.

...

... Well, the door's open. Beedle, if something tries to jump her when she goes in, you're out to deal with it.

Nothing tries to jump her, but the large human-pokemon hybrid(?) clumsily bumping around in the front room might be kind of concerning.

"Excuse me, can you help me out?" says the entity, voice somewhat garbled but still understandable.

What. What.

Um.

... No, seriously, what.

"Uh?"

"I've accidentally merged myself with a Pokemon!" says the strange being. "Can you go to the console over there and press 'Revert'?"

.... Yeah she can do that. She does that.

The being disappears in a shower of sparkles, and a human and a Rhyhorn appear next to each other in similar showers of sparkles.

"My goodness, that was an adventure!" says the human in a much more comprehensible voice. "Looks like my teleporter still needs a lot of work. I'm Bill, nice to properly meet you."

Gwen, she signs, and then her brain finishes rebooting and she remembers her Pokedex. Taptap: "I'm Gwen."

"Hello, Gwen. Say, I have a present for you. I got this cruise ticket for a ship full of Pokemon trainers, but I have a schedule conflict and can't go. As a thank-you for getting me out of that jam, why don't you take my ticket and have a fun boat trip?"

Processing...

"...'Kay."

He grins and hands her a slip of thick, glossy paper with "S. S. Anne" written on the front. The back has a set of available dates and times and the pick-up and drop-off address in Vermillion City.

She takes it and tucks it in a skirt pocket.

... Taptaptap. "You're working on a teleporter?"

"I am! It's well known that it's possible to store Pokemon as digital information in one place, and reinstantiate them in another. So it ought to be possible to send them places without needing to carry a physical Pokeball or use the large machinery of PCs. Unfortunately, without a Pokeball on the receiving end, it's difficult to do things like 'make sure you're aiming at a clear space'."

She giggles a little and then stops herself. Taptap. Pause. More taptap. "Aim it at special pads? Then you know not to step there."

"Yes, but then you're back to having to put a piece of equipment at the destination instead of being able to send to anywhere."

"That's fair."

She's no science prodigy, and so she'll wish Bill luck and head back the way she came. Hey, TMs, which of her Pokemon can learn Thunder Wave and/or Seismic Toss?

None of them can learn either one! Seismic Toss is very tricky and specialized, and Thunder Wave only works for Pokemon that can generate their own electricity.

Oh well. They can just stay in her bag, then.

So! Ticket: how long away is this cruise? Map: what's the best way to get to Vermilion City?

The cruise is an all-day affair complete with buffet lunch, leaving in the mornings and dropping folks back off in the evenings. What with that rockslide outside Saffron City, the best route to Vermillion is an underground path that goes from Route 5 to Route 6.