Virah sat down on a bench and allowed her ragged breathing to run its course, her chest heaved up and down as her lungs filled with much needed air.

Her red face slowly calmed down as the seconds passed and eventually, she was able to sit upright without straining her chest. She leaned forward and winced as the burning in her legs continued to ache.

Exercise was painful, but also necessary if she wanted to become a better trainer and…

'Is… avenging Ratata really that good of an idea?' Virah thought back to Grene and Whitney's suggestion of bringing the fight to Team Rocket and honestly…

… Thought that it sounded appealing enough to be worth doing, and that's taking in all the factors that they needed to consider when fighting an organized crime group like rocket.

Like for example, actually finding them- that can easily be solved on a myriad of ways, and most of them were through Pokemon, Whitney's Meowth for example can track the scent of a grunt and follow it to a hideout, or maybe even Jet's hearing could help in the search.

And on that note, Virah considered how deadly a Pokemon battle would be against another Rocket Grunt and this particular question genuinely took her a while because as far as she knew, criminals have never truly gone lethal.

At least not in the same way the grunt she and her friends encountered back in the forest. Mostly, they just fought back without targeting trainers or maiming Pokemon.

And going by that train of thought, it's obvious that grunt they fought back in the forest was an outlier.

But why? Why was he willing to go lethal? Why attack trainers and hurt Pokemon?

What made him different from all the other grunts out there?

'… rank?' Virah considered.

That was a possibility since apparently, the one responsible for killing Ratata had been someone with a high rank within the organization so there's a very good chance that the higher the rank, the more likely they are to kill due to the lack of consequences from doing so.

Virah pressed her back against the spine of the bench as a frown grew on her face, high ranking executives for Team Rocket were already known for their strength, now she has to worry about their mercilessness too?

"That's…" Virah sighed and straightened her posture. Everything was so complicated…

Fighting grunts, worrying about her possible death, and that dream- it was still something she couldn't begin to describe let alone put into words but for some reason, she's sure that she'll figure it out at some point…

It was weird, knowing something so worrying yet feeling nothing towards it but expectation but that's how she felt about her dream and Arceus. Expectant.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

But for what? Exactly? Virah wasn't sure, maybe it had something to do with…

"You finished already?!"

Virah snapped back to the present and turned her gaze towards Whitney, she nodded, "yeah, I thought that I'd do my morning jog early so I don't have to worry about the sun messing up my skin,"

Whitney raised a finger, opened her mouth, then snapped it shut, "I… that's a pretty good point," she admitted, "I guess I can probably also do that…" she trailed off, "what time do you usually wake up?"

"4." Virah answered, making the pinkette frown, "if you set an alarm and wake up during that time everyday, I'm sure you'll get used to it,"

"I get that…" Whitney started, she sighed, "yeah… no, I don't think waking up that early is for me, I'll stick to sleeping in till 7,"

Virah nodded, "there's nothing wrong with that,"

With that being said though- Virah looked up and hummed, "the sun's starting to rise," she said, her words made her friends nod, "I think I wanna go check on Jet, he's probably gathered a lot of items by now,"

"What kind of training is that?" Grene asked as she and Whitney tailed after the leaving Virah, "making a Zubat gather stuff sounds weird, how would they even do it?"

"That's one of the reasons why I made Jet do that sort of thing to begin with, so that he learns how to do more than just attack, I told him to do whatever and I won't mind right as long as he finds an item," Virah answered lengthily.

"Even if he does something as simple as find ones that aren't stuck or buried, it still means that he used his ears critically enough to spot them," the poison specialist further explained, "and also, making him fly around at this point in time is just good exercise for him overall,"

"I guess," Grene nodded, "also, are you going to train Nitro?"

"Hm? Yeah, why?" Virah faced the martial artist, "is Hollie going to spar with him?"

"No, not really," Grene shook her head, "I was thinking more of… Knuckle?"

"That's a bad idea," Whitney shook her head, "it'll just make Nitro angry if you make him fight with Knuckle,"

"I know but Knuckle said that it would be great if he could fight the strongest Pokemon we have and I thought that would be Nitro so…"

Virah hummed, "you know, I'm thinking of talking to Nitro about Tyrogue," she started, she looked around and saw the focused looks her friends shot her, "I think it's a good idea, especially since we're going on a journey soon, their hostility has gone on for too long I think,"

"I feel the same way," Whitney said, "but I don't really know if I can talk Kitten or Galeforce out of their hatred for him,"

"Hm…" Virah hummed in thought, "you can try to do it,"

"I will," Whitney replied, "don't get your hopes up though, since the two of them can be quite stubborn,"

"Mhmm." Virah nodded.

The three of them made their way towards the spot where Virah instructed Jet to pile up the materials he found while making small talk, when they got there, Virah neared the small hill of rubble and inspected it while waiting for Jet to come back.

When the Zubat returned, Virah gave the Zubat an approving nod, "good job," she raised the basket of berries that her Pokemon gathered and placed it on the ground, "eat as much as you want,"

Jet got close and immediately started eating.

"You also found a Paralysis Heal, which is pretty good, and also a few other items like this broken Pokewatch, ruined bug net, abandoned badge case, and even a broken Pokeball," Virah continued, "this is a pretty good haul,"

Jet stopped eating and looked up, "Zubat!"

"Good job," Virah nodded, "you can rest now,"

Jet returned her gesture before diving back down on his food and continuing his second breakfast, and as the Zubat started munching down on his food, Nitro got near and hovered next to her.

"Let's go," Virah jerked her head to the side.

"We should probably also start exercising," Grene mentioned.

Virah turned back, "that's a good idea," she nodded, "you should do that,"

They parted ways, with Grene and Whitney heading for one of the cobbled paths on national park and Virah and Nitro towards an open field of grass.

"Hey, uh, Nitro?" Virah's started stopped in place and faced her, "while we train, can I talk to you about something?"

Nitro nodded, Virah smiled,, "that's… good," she said, "uh, I'll go ahead and gather the rocks, you can start hitting the air for a warm up,"

Virah occasionally glanced at her Beedrill as he jabbed the air with his drills. She wasn't sure how to start the topic of Knuckle but she was figuring it out, she slowly gathered rocks while considering all the possible options she realistically had when it comes to the topic.

She still didn't have anything by the time she gathered a pile of pebbles and as the first round of the throwing started, she observed Nitro and the Beedrill observed her right back once he finished splitting the thrown stones in half.

"It's about Knuckle, Nitro," she started, finding no better way to start this thing other than being honest, "I… this thing isn't right," she added, "I don't think you and everyone should continue hating on him,"

"Beedrill?" Nitro tilted his head.

"No- no- it's just, we're a team here aren't we?" Virah started, "so how about we just… wait it out?"

She sighed, "okay, maybe I'm not ready to talk about this yet," she picked up a rock from the ground and prepared to throw it, "let's talk about this later but for now, let's just train, okay?"

Nitro nodded and the two of them continued training.