I Sting (Pokemon Poison Type Specialist)

"Still nothing," Virah whispered under her breath after she checked the underside of an eleventh beach umbrella.

She thought that the upright structures didn't seem like they were special at first sight and after checking less than a dozen of them, she was confident that her assumption was actually correct.

'I didn't know what I expected actually…' Virah's train of thought trailed off towards Ho oh knows where as she left the vicinity of the umbrella and headed towards the outer edges of the beach.

With the moon fully visible in the sky, the tides were high, water rose from the depths of the ocean as large waves that surfed across the dark-blue surface before eventually crashing against the sandy shore.

Virah eyed the salty water as it touched the edges of her feet, moments later, it turned into foam that sunk below the sands.

The poison specialist looked around, spotting something strange amidst such an eerily alien scene was nigh impossible, her mind was simply too busy trying to figure out what was wrong with the beach itself rather than anything else.

'And it's not like I can connect that wrongness to my suspicion either,' Virah considered that her uncomfortable feeling stemmed from the strangely liminal feel of the empty beach and not Team Rocket.

'Maybe it's not even them,' Virah thought to herself as she picked up a seashell from the sand, she grabbed the silicate object and held it on the palm of her hands, 'are they even here?'

She wanted to believe that Rocket had influenced every inch of both Johto and Kanto but at the same time, she also believed that even if they did do that, then the organization would learn how to be more careful around cities protected by Gym Leaders.

Virah found herself staring up at Jet, her Zubat hasn't gone down so far, which meant that he hasn't seen anything strange on the beach yet.

Virah sat down on a blanket underneath an umbrella, she put some thought into how Team Rocket would move when it came to places like Cianwood, she thought about what kind of businesses the organization typically dabbled with followed by how they would operate under that pretense.

'Pokemon trafficking,' Virah thought, 'that's their main method of profit,'

With that in mind, Virah wondered where an organization like that would stay around Cianwood followed by asking what they would do if they do successfully manage to start a business here.

'I'd probably sell them on the open, wouldn't I?' Virah thought to herself, she stood up, 'but Whitney already has the city, which leaves me with the docks…'

Virah stood up and signaled for Jet to follow, she looked up at the Zubat and saw him circling twice, once she confirmed that he would start following her, Virah ran for Cianwood's docks.

Once her feet stopped the concrete pavement of the docks, Virah stopped, she wasn't sure if going around and breaking into warehouses was a good idea for her persona as a hero but she was confident that if there was something rocket related on Cianwood, it would be around here.

'I just need to find it,' Virah said to herself as she moved forward, she had already decided to go and investigate so there was no backing down now.

She got to her first warehouse and for a good while, she stood stock still in front of the monolithic building, unsure of what to do.

Her eyes did all the work during this time and through them, she spotted and thought about all the ways she could enter the building without breaking doors or windows.

'Going through the gap between the roof and the wall seems plausible,' Virah considered as she eyed said gap, 'maybe I can just spy on them?..'

Decision made, Virah walked up to the warehouse and jumped, her Aura boosted her body just enough to allow her to reach the gap in the walls by jumping to the wall and then kicking off of them, she repeated this process several times, and as she did, her body continuously moved sideways.

She reached out and touched the edges of the gap, her gloves protected her fingers from being cut or bruised which let her climb up without straining herself.

Once her head was above the gap, she scanned the inside of the warehouse, curious as for what lays within.

'… nothing important,' Virah sighed and let go, she dropped back down to the ground and with a disappointed shake of her head, she ran to the shadows to conceal herself.

'Guess there's really nothing here…' she couldn't help but direct a question at herself, 'is there even something here?'

Well, no, there actually isn't and she just wanted to alleviate her boredom but then again, the question of why she's doing this specifically to do it is a good one.

By this point, what she's doing isn't even helping anyone, and she's sure that if someone catches her, she'd actually get punished instead of praised…

'Well, that will actually happen no matter what,' Virah thought to herself, 'no one would want a kid my age to go around attacking criminals after all,'

Virah leaned her back against the wall and looked up at the moonlit sky, "okay- okay, I think I'm going to continue," she said after a while, "I'll do it quick and then go back to search for Whitney and Grene, simple,"

Virah let her mind calm down before continuing to search the warehouses for any signs of rocket influence, she eventually managed to spy on all of them and once she was done, her thoughts of there being nothing in Cianwood only got more and more justified.

Virah walked to the edge of the docks, a frown tugging at her lips, "of course there's nothing," she softly said to herself, "and why would team rocket do anything in the open?"

She silently observed the ocean, save for the black speck in the distance, nothing much changed, there wasn't anything interesting out here, and that made sense because why would there be?

Virah sighed, "well, time to go back,"

Virah searched for her friends, starting with Grene, who she found was doing katas on her side of the beach, she waved to the martial artist after she landed, "Grene,"

Grene stopped and looked at Virah, "Virah," she looked up, then back at Virah, "you also found nothing right?"

The poison specialist shook her head, "nothing," Virah replied, "not even the warehouses had anything on them, if there's a rocket hideout somewhere around here, it's hidden well,"

Grene shook her head, "I think that's impossible, no one in Cianwood is interested in rare Pokemon, and even if they were, it would probably only be a Tyrogue,"

"So there's no business to be done here," Virah sat down on a nearby blanket, "and that's why rocket hasn't done anything?"

It's not like Grene's guesswork was wrong, it made sense that if there's no business to be done in a city then Rocket wouldn't be there, they're profit based after all and shipping rare Pokemon in a place that didn't want them would only lose them money.

Grene stopped her Katas and focused solely on Virah, "we should leave, no?"

"Yeah, we should," Virah stood up, she dusted the sand off her costume, "let's go?"

"Mhmm." Grene nodded.

The two of them sprinted from the beach and back to the city, where they scaled the walls and proceeded to run across the city's rooftops in search of Whitney, it took them a while to find the pinkette and once they did, all three of them went back to the Pokemon center.

"So you were just… sitting around and doing nothing?" Grene asked the pinkette as they walked to their rooms, "I thought you'd practice battling honestly,"

"I didn't feel like doing anything," Whitney grinned, "I gave up on trying to find anything rocket related too, so there's that,"

"You searching for this place's slums was a good idea though," Virah commended, "good on you for doing that,"

"Does Cianwood actually have a slum?" Grene asked Virah to which the poison specialist shook her head, "really?"

"Yeah, the population here is too small so the city isn't that big, Cianwood did lose people during the war though, but it wasn't as much of a big deal as it was to Goldenrod's losses," Virah answered.

"Why wasn't it a big deal?" Whitney asked.

"Because Cianwood's population is small, nothing much changed, and I guess the people here having close knit families also helped," Virah considered, "because of they're more traditional, people don't spread out and each building is occupied by entire families instead of individual tenants,"

"You're saying that the buildings did lose people, but since their families are living there…"

"It prevented them from being abandoned yes," Virah nodded, "it's kind of interesting if you think about it,"

Both her friends nodded, with Whitney saying, "do you think there are abandoned buildings here?"

"Probably," Virah shrugged, "but I think that's a bit unlikely,"