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The crunch of leaves punctuated the silence under the canopy of Viridian forest. An Aurorus, a creature this area had likely not seen since prehistory, lazily munched on the most tender leaves, stripping them off their branches with a single-minded lassitude. Occasionally, the soft munching would change to hard cracking, as the pokemon froze sticks and branches, swallowing them whole as gastroliths. At the base of the creature's neck, Viridian Gym leader, Quilo Kitamura heaved an annoyed sigh. For him, that was practically screaming to the unseen sky. He'd been in here for three hours trying to hunt down a carnivine that had been attacking children's bug types. He'd never seen the appeal of those types, but there was a devoted group of children who bragged incessantly about their weedles and caterpies. When some of their parents had shown up at his home, distraught children in tow, he'd had no choice but to go find this fearsome killer of the children's beloved worms.

Not their fault that their pokemon's natural predator had moved in, and their pokemon weren't smart enough to not wander into a sweet-smelling trap, but such were the duties of a gym leader.

"Austrum, try a frost breath around the trees again. Maybe we'll finally flush it out." The aurorus swallowed the last mouthful, then dutifully summoned elemental cold from somewhere deep within its long throat. Unlike the last twenty times he'd tried it, this attack was met by an odd chirrup of pain, and the canopy came alive with movement and unseasonable flashes of red as the hidden carnivine made a run for it. Austrum blasted it with frost breath again, but Quilo already had a different plan. "Haze, Katana!" he said, releasing the froslass and sandslash from their pokeballs. "Follow and stop it." Haze had already taken to the air, moving at a speed the landbound and competitive Katana did his best to match. "Come on, Austrum, we'll need you on the other side." With a low rumble of protest, Austrum nevertheless allowed himself to be returned.

Quilo took off at a run, using the glint off Katana's icicle-clad back to track the pair. He'd get that carnivine. Maybe get a ranger to relocate it further away from the Trainer Route, where the bug catching kids could play and train without worrying about their bugs. First of all, though, he needed to catch the damn thing.