[color=0076a3][center][h2]Sebastien Tomas[/h2][/center][/color]

The last time Sebastien had gone to a pub in Wyndon it had been a decidedly less classy affair than this; he hadn’t been wearing a suit back then, for one thing, it was a lot noisier and more crowded for a second and he was pretty sure there had been a lot more drunks vomiting in the gutter and fighting over taxis. Though the night was still young and surely even gym leaders would get rowdy given the right incentive.

[i]The Last Dahlia[/i] was an upmarket establishment, far away from the kind of places he had wanted or had been [i]allowed[/i] admittance to when he was younger and less… important than he was now. The choice of venue just went to show how much bigger the Pokémon League was compared to where he had been before, the fact that the entire place had apparently been booked out just for them even more so. This meet-up wasn’t even for anything important, just a chance for the gym leaders to catch up before the beginning of the new season, though the invitation Sebastien had received made it sound like attendance was not optional in his case. ‘Networking’ they’d called it; a chance to get better acquainted with his fellow gym leaders ahead of the opening ceremony, especially since he hadn’t had much chance to interact with them since officially joining their ranks. Some of the people here tonight he was pretty sure he had only ever met when challenging them to a battle. The champion was to be there as well, who Sebastien would be meeting for the first time.

This was going to be his first year as a gym leader, his first full year at least; his first year taking part in the Galar Cup as anything other than a challenger. Though in truth, all of the focus was going to be on the people tackling the Major League and the other gym leaders they would need to beat; a Minor League leader like himself likely wouldn’t get much attention, outside of being an unknown, and he expected to be spending most of his time training for the upcoming tournament over anything else. In that sense he was looking forward to tonight as an opportunity to get to see his competition early.

Pushing open the door to the pub he found that he was not the first to arrive, but far from the last as well; a few of the other gym leaders were already here, plus a young lad who had to be the champion. Rather than join them, he walked over to the bar and caught the attention of the bartender. “A pint; whatever you have on tap.”

As the man left to fulfil his vague order, Sebastien listened in to the on-going conversation taking place further down the bar. It was more casual than he had thought it would be; not that he had expected them not to know each other or to be hostile, but it was obvious right from the start that most of them had a history with each other and he hadn’t been sure if the gym leaders would interact with each other that much outside of work obligations like this and the tournament.

A pint glass being placed in front of him brought his attention back to the bar and he reached for his wallet to pay before the bartended waved him away. Tonight’s tab was on the boss then, it seemed. Sebastien reached for the pint glass with his right hand before he remembered himself and picked it up with the left instead; he still caught himself doing that, even though it had been years now, and it annoyed him every time it happened. Placing his right hand in his pocket, he leaned against the bar, drink in hand, and waited for a lull in the conversation so that he could start with this ‘networking’ business.