Her class' arrival to Ilex Forest didn't feel that nice and Whitney had been comparing her experience to that of her friends, thinking that the walk they have to this place whenever they wanted train and hang out are so much better and eventful.

She also knew that she was just stating the obvious because compared to the slow and boring drive of this school bus towards Ilex Forest- She, Vhira, and Lionel usually ran around and talked whenever they go here.

Whitney didn't need to look around to know what the problem was but even then, she decided to ignore it. She didn't need to make friends anywhere near here.

She couldn't wait to get off of this bus and start this entire expedition, anywhere but this place was better at this point. Whitney could practically feel the hate oozing from her seatmate and she in turn is hating every second she's spending around it: the same way that the girl most likely feels about her.

She could feel her face morph into a scowl as she stared at the window and Whitney instinctively took a deep breath to calm herself down. She wished it was always like this, her body needing no command on her part to calm itself down. She wished it was all reflex instead of anything she had to prompt.

Feeling the vehicle slow down, Whitney perked up and strapped her bag onto her shoulders. She waited for it to stop before she sprung up from her seat and got out of the socially choking atmosphere she was in, she didn't need to wait for her seatmate to get out first - she didn't need for anyone to get out first really, - because staying in that deity forsaken bus felt like she had a rope coiled around her neck that prevented her from breathing properly.

It was most likely a placebo effect since she subconsciously knows that everyone on that bus hates her. And that was good, she didn't need Lionel's ability, she considered it as more of a nuisance rather than some amazing benefit. And her opinion of it is gonna stay that way no matter how many "Espers" she meets.

Hopping down the bus, Whitney ignored all the stares that she could feel on her back and heaved in a breath instead. Following the slow exhale of air from her lungs, she started stretching to start warming up for the long trek that she'd have for the trek towards the camping spot that she picked inside the forest; a clearing located near a small, circular lake - one of many inside its woods apparently, - that's located around the east.

It was far enough from Azalea that Whitney felt comfortable to be able to call for help and it was deep enough into the forest's outskirts that she most likely wouldn't get lectured about not having the full experience of the expedition because "she can call for help any time". In her opinion, it was better to have help so close like that but what does she know? She's just a student staying in a forest full of dangerous creatures for an entire month without any help from any adult.

Her situation isn't that bad to warrant for help, right?!

Whitney's back popped and she considered that she stretched enough. She looked at the sun, then at her Pokewatch, thanking Ho-oh that the teachers allowed her to carry this thing around (under the reason that any trainer that have them would obviously use them when they're inside dangerous environments,) instead of guessing the time in there.

"alright! all of you line up!" Whitney heard her teacher say and she left the bus' front to move towards her, going to the back of the girl's line despite not being tall at all. When all of the students lined up, - with none of them complaining about her spot, - her teacher spoke again, her voice loud enough to let Whitney hear from where she was, "alright, so, all of you are going to be staying in this forest for one month!

"that means no leaving this place until the end of it no matter what," as she spoke, the teacher started walking around to meet the student's eyes, like a Ranger instructor, "unless of course, you all meet emergencies but that's an exception!" she glared at some guy she passed, must be some troublemaker, "and when we go to you and find out that you aren't even in danger then that means that your grade for this activity would be low, and we all know what that entails right?"

Whitney nodded, getting a low score from this meant that she would have that score semi-permanently written on her trainer ID which would result in rangers immediately searching an area she'd be missing in after a set amount of time determined by the score she'll get. Said score goes from 1 to 20 in digits, with 1 to 6 giving the trainer around 2 - 6 days before the search and rescue, 7 - 10 giving them 7 days to 9, and so on and so forth.

Lionel was the best example that benefited vastly from this system that Whitney could think at the top of her head because if it weren't for the fact that he had the highest priority of getting a search after only two days of going missing in Union Cave, she did not know if he would even be alive today.

Truth be told, she didn't honestly care what kind of score she got for this entire thing because she didn't plan on diving into the deeper areas of the "dangerous locations" anyways and if she did plan on doing something like that then she can always go to the rangers to retake this entire thing and - presumably by then, - finish with flying colors.

She would prefer to not take this at all honestly, two days alone is enough for her to go into deeper areas but the fact that this thing is mandatory for any trainer meant that she didn't have a choice but to go ahead and at least finish this to the best of her ability. At least she wouldn't disappoint her father then.

She scowled and didn't listen to anything more her teacher said after thinking about that.

After what felt like forever, her teacher finally stopped talking and that got Whitney to finally pay attention, she looked where her teacher was, saw that she was pointing at the forest's general direction, then proceeded to start walking. And like a domino effect, everyone around her started moving.

The drop off point for their class had been Ilex Forest's southern side and was a little bit over to the left of where she and Lionel had last hung out to eat ice cream. She was familiar with the forest's lay out obviously, Route 34 included, but that didn't mean that she wouldn't just go ahead and scout out the place where she would be entering. And thanks to Lionel's assistance, she managed to find a nice yet secluded spot that'll become her temporary home for the next month.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

After arriving in the forest, Whitney warily looked around; trees, a lot of shrubs, undergrowth, a mud pit to her left as well as her right, a Caterpie hanging out with four Metapod on her right was looking at her, she ignored them and continued to search for any landmark that reminded her of the path she and Lionel had taken and after walking forward followed by moving left, she bent down and picked up a rock with a small chip on top of it.

She placed it back where she found it and moved. Whitney looked back, once, to see if her classmates were trailing behind her but thankfully, they weren't.

A quick listen told her that they were near, but not anywhere around her. She looked forward and kept moving.

...

"sigh" Whitney checked her Pokewatch and found out that even after only 2 hours of walking, she was already tired. She knew that it was most likely because of her current mindset where her mind is occupied by the fact that she'll be staying in this place for a month. Was her feeling like this understandable? Yes, yes it was.

But was it productive? It wasn't.

She slapped both her cheeks to encourage herself and decided to keep moving. She was burning daylight walking as slow as she was.

After another hour of what she considered a faster pace, Whitney finally reached the spot that she scouted out beforehand- A relatively large clearing that had soil and plants dry enough to let her know that rain didn't fall around here as often yet had a small lake she could use for water.

Here, she could remain dry and safe, away from Ilex Forest's usual rains as well as clean herself and get water to drink for both her and her pokemon from the lake. The only real problem that she really did have around here was the fact that there were a few mud pits in some of the clearing's corners, most likely housing a few pokemon she has to kick out.

Or leave alone, if they're okay with her intruding the spot.

The grass here was also a little bit tall for her taste but she got that covered- With a press of a button, Meowth's Pokeball popped open and after a flash of red, her pokemon stood in front of her, ready to battle. A quick pat on the head made him scowl and Whitney, ever since earlier this morning, finally smiled genuinely at the sight.

"you're not here to battle," she bent down and patted the feline, he swatted it away in reply before glaring at her, "you need to cut the grass for me yeah?" she pointed at the tall blades of grass in front of her and Meowth returned a skeptical look, "what? you can't just expect me to cut them all by myself!"

"Mewr!" her pokemon walked over to her in frustration, his hand ready to press the button of his pokeball so that he could be recalled but all Whitney needed to do was stand up to make sure he couldn't reach it.

"nope~~~" she bent down and patted him on the head, a grin on her face, "now, Fury Swipes on those blades of grass,"

Reluctantly, Meowth did as he was told and four minutes later, Whitney was standing in front of a cleared out patch of land. She walked over and checked the height of the grass, "yep, just enough," she patted Meowth on the head and recalled him, she saw his prideful look, he didn't think she did but calling that out (with a bit of tickling,) at some point in the future would change that. She started giggling as she pat Meowth's Pokeball,

After collecting the cut up blades of grass, she organized them into two distinct groups; dried and wet.

Dried meant that it could be used for starting a fire and wet meant that it would be useless. She already had rope and fiber could easily be thrown away. Luckily or maybe as expected, the grass had mostly been dry with only three or so blades being wet, and it wasn't because they already were, of course, those blades were just unlucky enough to fall unto the nearby puddles.

Placing the small mound of grass on her feet, Whitney tossed her backpack right next to them and started pulling out her stuff- first off, her tent, nothing special, just a regular dome-shaped expandable tent that could be easily afforded back in the department store, after that, she took out her lighter, a bit of gasoline, and then called out her Pidgey.

"alright! we're going to start preparing our camp so how about you go ahead and grab some stones and a few branches?" her pokemon purred in reply and Whitney sighed, "no, he already helped, this spot had been cut by him," he purred again and Whitney sighed for the second time, "it's not how that works,"

A bit of convincing later, her Pidgey finally flew away in search of firewood and stones. Meanwhile, Whitney decided to prepare her tent, placing it in the middle of her spot before expanding it.

With the tent now set up, she went around the clearing in search of sticks, she wasn't picky, not really, she just needed two with forked ends so that she had something to hold her pot with while she was cooking. The sticks needed to be strong too, obviously, how else are they going to hold her pot if they aren't?

She came back to her spot a little while later with two sticks in hand, both she considered as something that fit her needs and both, she thought were good enough. She quickly found out that her Pidgey had in fact, prioritized these types of sticks and two bulky branches with forked ends were waiting for her back in their spot.

She threw away the ones she was holding and decided to let her pokemon do his job.

Setting up the fire pit was easy, just dig a small hole in the ground, surround that with stones, and then proceeded to sprinkle the wet clay with dry dirt. Ash was good too, but Whitney didn't have that yet and so she's stuck with using dirt to make sure that the fire pit can actually keep fires burning.

With everything done, all she needed to do now was wait for her pokemon to gather enough firewood and then proceed to create fire. She already had kindle, a pit, as well as a way to start the fire. Fuel was the only thing left.

Her Pidgey had certainly taken his sweet time to build up the firewood and by the time the Pokemon had given her enough to keep a fire going, it was halfway past three and considering that she's arrived here since two, that meant it at least took an hour for this amount of wood to build up. She wished that it wouldn't stay that way but she had a hunch that it somehow wouldn't be possible.

Not with Ilex Forest constantly raining, not with a bunch of stronger Pokemon making her Pidgey wary to drop down and take suitable firewood and not when their small clearing was at risk of getting found out by her classmates because they followed a Pidgey that was obviously carrying a branch way too large for its own use, or, in other terms, firewood.

Regardless, a fire was started and her lazy Meowth willingly got out of his Pokeball to scoot over to her and ask for food. She rubbed his head, "not right now," she told him before moving her hand across the head of her Pidgey, who looked like it was yearning for attention, "good job," she complimented.

They stayed that way, in front of the fire for a little while before Whitney stood up, she didn't recall any of her Pokemon because they'll be going into the forest in search for berries to ferment. Building up a supply of berry juice now meant that she wouldn't worry about healing her Pokemon later.