Virah hummed a tune as she finished changing, after having some time to herself to think about it, lying to her friends about fighting the ninja had been a good decision on her part.

She knew that they'd have to confront the dangers of their little adventures at some point but she hoped that when the time comes, they'd all be experienced enough to not just survive, but come out of the event with a mental fortitude to keep going.

Virah trusted that Grene would be able to do that, the martial artist is pragmatic like that, Whitney on the other hand…

Virah let out a sigh, Whitney's innocence puts a complexity to the entire thing that Virah wished wasn't there, the pinkette would probably react to almost being killed in a bad way, and seeing trainers fight dirty would probably discourage her from continuing to being a trainer.

Virah closed her eyes, 'no, she won't do that,' the poison specialist tells herself, convincing herself to trust Whitney was the only option here, and it was one she willingly took.

She got out of her room and walked until reached the center's counter where Whitney and Grene waited in line to withdraw their Pokemon.

Virah had already gotten hers this morning and asking the center to heal her Zubat and Beedrill after fighting someone in her secret identity was just asking for trouble, and it was this particular line of thought that got her to thought of buying a first aid kit dedicated to her team.

Time slowly passed and when her friends withdrew their teams, they left the center to go to a nearby diner for breakfast.

"So you didn't have breakfast earlier?" Whitney asked with a frown, "why?"

"I wanted to wait for you guys, and besides, I only planned on scheduling our gym fight for this morning, and I only exercised once I realized I had plenty of time in my hands after leaving Chuck's gym," technically, all her words were truths.

"You wanted to wait for us huh," Grene responded followed by an exhausted sigh, "you didn't even bother with buying snacks? Or anything close to that?"

"No," Virah shook her head, mentally noting that carrying bread or biscuits in her bag might just be a good idea actually.

Talks related to Virah over exerting herself continued as they made their way to the diner, and her friends did make up good points that made her reflect and reconsider her future options.

Carrying snacks around with her was one thing, but Whitney mentioning that she should have considered her "morning exercise" earlier as simply warming up for their actual exercise together later today made Virah think that flying across the city with a Fearow might have been a bad idea.

In hindsight, getting her adrenaline pumping by jogging across the city might have been better, if not time consuming.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

Would she have encountered the ninja if she jogged? Presumably not, but there's a good chance that she might have.

Once they got close to the diner, their topic shifted from Virah being too much of a workaholic to what their plans were later today, this continued even as they sat down and waited for their orders.

"I don't know, we'll obviously exercise after we rest," Whitney said one part of their day, though everything else was left unmarked, "there's no place for us to hang out in Cianwood though, unlike Goldenrod,"

"Mhmm," Virah hummed in agreement, Cianwood didn't have the same stuff Goldenrod had, and entertainment here consisted of local tournaments, both for Pokemon and regular humans.

"How about we split up and do whatever we want?" Grene suggested out of the blue.

"Do whatever we want? Like what?" Whitney tilts her head, "I don't think there's anything I can do here to have fun, if at all,"

"You can search for Pokemon," Grene said, and before Whitney could speak, she adds, "I want to try fighting the local tournament, actually, I think all of us do, remember the muscle band I said you can win here?"

Whitney nodded, her expression going from cheery yet confused to neutral mixed with a frown.

"I want that,"

"And so do I," the pinkette huffed, "so we can train together to get it can't we?"

"I'm going to train alone," Grene rebuked Whitney's offer, "I wanna go to the wilds and fight Pokemon there,"

"Tyrogue won't respect you like this Grene," Virah pointed out, her tone lowering.

"It's not for him," Grene bit back, "I want to be strong and this is the best way to do it, I'll train by myself, get the muscle band before Chuck, and after that I'll beat him,"

Virah sighs as she stares at the waitress carrying their food over to them, Grene wanted to impress Knuckle for the same reason why a normal trainer wanted to get hold of a Dratini; his line had the potential to be great.

Bruno had two Hitmon's in his team, three, technically, though he seems to have never used his Hitmontop in his battles so far.

Why that is, Virah had no clue, but the Pokemon was there, and the fact that they were all Tyrogue's evolutions proved that Knuckle, although still weak, had the capacity to become great one day.

As their food came to their table, Virah considered her options, does she go with Whitney as to not leave the pinkette alone or does she go alone and take advantage of Grene's suggestion to split up so that she can find out more about the ninja?

'I'm not a detective,' Virah thinks to herself as she stabbed the sausage in her plate with a fork, 'I can't find anything about her even after I spend all day looking for clues so you know what?'

"You can come with me after we exercise Whitney," she offers the pinkette, who looked at her with shining eyes.

"Really? Where?" The upbeat personality of her friend had come back like it had always been there, and Virah envied her for such a quick recovery from her initial glumness.

"I wanna go to a forest too, I think I'll start recording a species of Pokemon to study them," the poison specialist answers, "it's a requirement for me to do by Eggtech so we'll probably have to sit there in the wilderness for a while,"

Long enough to be able to aid Grene when she's in danger.

"You're going with me?" Grene turned to her, her tone shock.

"No, we'll stay out of the more dangerous areas since I want a consistent data throughout the week, which means I'd prefer it if the Pokemon I'm studying don't move around much thanks to the threat of more dangerous Pokemon," Virah answered lengthily, not adding the part where they'd be near the martial artist.

"Oh," Grene sighed in relil "goodluck with that then,"

"Thanks," Virah smiled at the martial artist, "I'll do my best,"

"By the way, is that what professors usually do? They go out into the wild and study things?" Whitney asked.

"Not really, a few do, but most kinda just sit down in a lab for a better control at existing data, they try their best to imitate the wilderness for more consistency too," Virah answered, "it also depends on the study,"

She hums, "for example, a professor who mainly studies about evolution would have Pokemon in different cages with varying materials inside, one could be a regular home, another can be filled with shrubs and wood like a forest,"

Virah ate before continuing, "and all of that is so that they can discover what kind of factors affect the speed of a Pokemon's evolution, does pampering them make them evolve faster? What about making them live like they were in the wilds?"

"Once they confirm a hypothesis, they would move on to gathering data, mainly by asking trainers who are in their journey as well as those who have finished it, questions such as did one of their Pokemon evolve when they were traveling? What about their current team now that they were done? Did one evolve?"

Virah shrugged, "things like that,"

"Sounds tiring," Grene said.

"Pretty much, but they're the reason why Elite Trainers have an easy time training their team to be the best of the best in modern times, without them we wouldn't have breeding centers that run efficiently or gyms would have an actual risk of death, that sort of thing,"

Her friends went silent and they ate their food without much fanfare after that.