Virah scanned the crowd of students outside of Ilex Forest and wondered just how in Ho oh's name did they all miss each other during the exams.

From what she's gathered from her schoolmates, it wasn't just her group who spent the exams by themselves and a few experienced the same thing.

It was an odd thing to think about, especially since she expected that she would at least encounter some of her fellow students during her stay in the forest.

'And if this is how it's like when an entire trainer's school takes their Ranger's Exams, then what's it like when we actually go to the wilds?' Virah couldn't help but ask herself.

Will the "dangerous" parts of routes lack other trainers? She wondered.

Obviously she'd find at least one trainer in the wilds during her journey but just how many she would actually encounter was a mystery to her.

The alienating experience that she had the past month indicated that finding her fellow trainers on places like the deeper parts of Ilex Forest would be rare.

Public areas like mapped out and ranger patrolled parts of Routes will have trainers, that's a given, but actual wilderness like caves or even Mt. Silver are going to have nothing but Pokemon and maybe the occasional elite or professional trainers.

Virah shifted her gaze towards Whitney and for a split second, she felt conflicted about whether or not she should talk to the pinkette about her thoughts.

She decided not to.

'I just need to help her buy more food during our journey, food that'll last us weeks,' because really, weeks is how long she's planning on staying in the wilderness in her search for her team members.

But just how much would weeks' worth of food will cost them? How many battles would she have to do in order to get that much money? How much would she have to bet? How many times does she need to win?

Those questions were, to the current her, downright unfathomable and she couldn't even scratch the surface of just what she needed to do in order to get weeks worth of food in advance after every major city.

And it wouldn't just be for her, Whitney, or Grene either, she would have to take their Pokemon into account, and those guys didn't just need food, they also needed vitamins, tool kits, potions-

Virah's head whirled at the thought of all the things that she needed throughout her journey and honestly, she couldn't help but frown from just how costly being a Pokemon trainer actually is.

The poison specialist cleared her mind and focused on the congratulatory speech that the principal was spouting, she listened for a good while before deciding that it was exactly as boring as Whitney said it would be and she quickly went back into her head.

'All the things I need to buy as a trainer would probably put the cost of my bag to shame,' Virah thought with a frown, 'and that means what?.. Exactly?'

Virah put her stagnant thoughts on hold and looked around for ideas. She saw a girl combing the hair of her Pichu, which wore a bow tie.

Pokemon pageants were... good pay, technically, and a lot of trainers compete in it since there's a stadium out there that specifically caters to that kind of thing but does she want to do that?

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Pageants sounds like something that would be too time consuming...

Virah decided that it simply wasn't worth it and moved on with her train of thought.

She needs to have other means of earning money between routes, not just through battling other trainers and Gym money.

Well she was a move tutor and...

Virah turned to Grene, she remembered the martial artist talking about advertising her family's dojo during their journey and Virah considered doing that.

It was a good idea, especially if she wanted people to know her as a move tutor.

'Hm.' She hummed in thought, so she's going to have to start teaching moves to other people's Pokemon soon huh?..

Virah faced Grene, "hey Grene?"

The martial artist met her eyes, "yeah?"

"Do you have any more books about Aura training?" She asked.

Grene nodded, "yep, I'm even planning on bringing a few with me,"

"Let me borrow them," Virah said.

"I'll do that even if you don't ask me to," Grene answered with a smile.

The two of them decided that the conversation ended there and Grene went back to listening to the principal's speech while Virah continued mulling over her future side hustle as a move tutor.

Knowing more about how Aura works was a good thing since it'll allow her to possibly understand how a Pokemon uses Type Energy but at the same time, she would also need to start studying things related to actual Pokemon moves.

'I remember seeing someone carrying a book about move theory before,' Virah bit her cheek and wondered if that book was a good start since it did look to be pretty advanced.

If she was going to start learning, then she's going to need to start with the basics which... she doesn't really know anything about- well, maybe a little bit.

She knew that moves used a Pokemon's natural energy or Aura in order to function and every single Pokemon instinctively knew how to use that energy and turn it into valid moves.

That was how she basically got by with her "tutoring" so far, by making Pokemon realize that they can use a move through simple training.

However, if she wanted to take things seriously, then she needed to learn a few more things in regards to it.

Virah spent the latter part of the congratulatory speech just thinking about what she needed to learn and from the top of her head, she realized that she needed to expand the current movepool that she could teach.

She also needed to learn about the theory behind those moves and why they are they way they are.

And last but not least, she needed to learn about how moves function as a whole, and not just the whole "Pokemon instinctively know how to use their moves" bit either, no, she needed to go deeper than that, she needed to know how a Pokemon uses their moves.

Virah looked at her hand, 'but I guess I'm already on my way to doing that aren't I?'

Aura.

The key to the last one was her Aura.

She needed to understand how Aura feels and then translate that into proper words that, when spoken, convey meaning behind its function beyond "Aura can do things".

Soon enough, the speech ended and Virah waved goodbye to her friends, "see you guys tomorrow?"

"You promised us that you'll show us your room," Whitney said as she broke their hug, "you'll do that right?"

Virah nodded, "yep," she smiled, "I think I'm finally ready,"

Mostly because she knew that they will go on a journey a week after the fact.

And honestly, if that's the case then letting her friends see her room wasn't such a big deal anymore, after all, she would be sleeping in more comfortable places soon.

With one last goodbye, they parted ways, with Whitney and Grene walking back with their parents and Virah... alone.

She didn't mind though.

No really.

On her way back to her apartment, Virah scanned the bookstores that she passed by for anything that might help with her future part-time job.

But strangely enough, books about move tutoring were either outright non-existent or if they were, contained knowledge that was so old, Virah thought that they were written a few decades back.

She sadly didn't find anything of note and she arrived at the foot of her apartment building empty handed.

Virah looked up at the ruined state of the building and felt at home, the peeling paint on the cracked walls reminded her of her room and she walked forward with a small smile.

When she reached the first floor, she waited for Ratata to come to her and when he didn't, she raised an eyebrow and chuckled, 'huh, guess he's enjoying his stay in my room too much, I swear if he messed up my bed I'm going to start being stingy with his food.'

In the air, something flickered, Virah mistook it for the light bulb spazzing out again but for a split second, a shape materialized above her head.

It looked around- confused- it's eyes found the girl and a fondness- for the Poison Type Energy wafting off of her awashed its mind.

Virah went up to her room only to freeze once she noticed the door was out of place.

Her brows shot up, "did he seriously break the door?"

She pushed the door open, "Ratata, the door is broken-"

Her own gag cut her off and it was then that she became aware of the stench.

Virah pulled her shirt's collar up to her nose and stepped forward, her steps were slow and careful but her heart raced with anxiety.

Everything stopped at the sight of the corpse on her bed, it was rotten now, its shape barely recognizeable to anyone else other than her but Virah knew what it was.

Or rather, who.

She gagged, but not for the same reason as before, tears went down her eyes and most would mistake them being borne from the strong smell but if they saw the young girl run forward while weeping, then they'd realize it was anything but.

Virah stumbled and she crashed to the floor, she crawled forward, whines seeping out of her lips.

"No-" she reached the foot of her bed and held the dead Ratata close. Virah cradled it like it was one of the newly hatched Pokemon from her job and wept.

Her cracked voice started to echo out- "No-" she was cut off by a whine, hers, "No-no-no-"

She coughed.