<div class="floatleft">(http://cdn.bulbagarden.net/upload/1/11/VSBrock.png)</div><br/><strong>Name:</strong>Brock<br/><br/><strong>Location:</strong>Douglasberg Casino<br/><br/><strong>Tagging:</strong>Elly, Draven<br/><br/><strong>Current Pokémon:</strong>Onyx (+?)<br/><br/><hr/><br/>Once all four trainers were in their starting booths, it was mere seconds before the announcer began his countdown, the hyped-up audience joining in. "THREE! TWO! ONE! START!" As the last syllable was called, the announcer fired a shot into the air and the gates on the starting booths opened, allowing both the trainers and their chosen pokémon to go forth and begin the hunt. Despite the rock snake's unwieldy size, Brock and his Onyx were probably the first to get going, the Kanto Rock master dashing behind his pokémon's tail as it arced gracefully in the air, then dove into the ground. Burrowing beneath the sand, Brock simply followed the quakes as Onyx sought out buried treasure.<br/><br/>The middle-aged man and his Dodorog were a lot slower to start than the fiery youngsters, but it was clear they had much experience with this sort of contest. The man's son was cheering them on right from the start as they moved briskly from the gate, the trusty pokémon running its snout over the sand and trying to sniff out the best source of buried gold and gems. With this kind of competition, it was anyone's game.<br/><br/>===<br/><br/><strong>Name:</strong>? ? ?<br/><br/><strong>Location:</strong>Douglasberg Ferry<br/><br/><strong>Tagging:</strong>Katsuo<br/><br/><hr/><br/>The good news was that the trail didn't head up to any of the upper levels of the ship, where the crowds and odors of food and other pokémon would make it very hard for Toshi to follow. The bad news was that it didn't even seem like there were any security personnel on the lower levels, despite what had happened in the engine room. Katsuo probably wouldn't hear it, but with his superior hearing, Toshi might have picked up on the very faint sounds of fighting up above. That probably explained where all of the guards had run off to, but it wasn't a good sign for whatever was going on down here.<br/><br/>Katsuo and his companions would only stumble upon any security at the same point where the trail ended, in what looked like the secure storage room. A medium-sized, plain room, its only feature was a large, rectangular, high-tech door at the opposite end of the room that looked like something that belonged on a bank vault, an idea further supported by the two security guards that were also present. Not that they were much use; one was on the floor each against the left and right walls, unconscious and splayed awkwardly, as if they had received a nasty Electric shock to knock them out.<br/><br/>Standing in front of the door was a man in a white suit (http://i43.tinypic.com/s58oe9.jpg), waiting as his Porygon floated by a computer panel next to the vault door, staring at the screen and hacking through the system without even touching it. The man looked like the professional criminal he probably was, and if Toshi's nose was right, he was the one that had just blown the engines.<br/><br/>===<br/><br/><strong>Location:</strong>Old Douglasberg, Ruins<br/><br/><strong>Tagging:</strong>Hibana<br/><br/><hr/><br/>Hibana and her team wouldn't be attacked again as they moved down two more floors to be on the same level as the doctor, no doubt good news when she was still in pain from a direct Carvahna attack. She was just fortunate to have had the wild pokémon ram into her instead of trying to use its death, since that at least meant she got to walk away with all of her body parts still attached to each other.<br/><br/>Two flights of steps and one filthy, moldy, dark set of hallways on a tilt later, the Fighting Gym Leader would finally find the room with the soft blue computer glow coming from it. Stepping to the door, she would see a room devoid of anything but broken furniture and debris, at the center of which stood her missing scientist. Using the only functional table in the room to set her computer on, she gently tapped away at the keyboard of a laptop, occasionally drawing one hand away to run her fingers over the screen as if she was receiving some sort of tactile feedback. It looked like she was running some sort of analysis on the surrounding area, but the fluctuating graphs and sensors on her screen didn't really provide much information.<br/><br/>Hearing footsteps, the woman turned to face the door; beautiful with straw blonde hair, she was a fully-grown woman probably in her forties, yet she looked much younger. She wore black pants and a blue jacket, neither particularly thick, but of hardy enough material to keep her warm in this cold, hostile environment. "Who's there? You don't sound like a pokémon to me," the doctor asked curiously, her eyes facing Hibana, yet seeming to stare a thousand times farther. In fact, it was quite clear she didn't see Hibana at all, which made it all the more intriguing that a blind woman managed to get this far down without any guidance.<br/><br/><div class="spoiler_container"><div class="spoiler_header" onclick="hideSecond (this);" role="button">Doctor Cedony Pierce - Teller of the old tales.</div><div class="spoiler_body"><div align="center">(http://moe.animecharactersdatabase.com/uploads/chars/5688-670803075.jpg)</div><br/>A world-renowned historian, Doctor Pierce specializes in understanding the cultures of societies that have no modern descendants (i.e. those that fell to war or internal turmoil, dead cultures), as well as understanding the events that lead to each ultimate destruction. Despite her fame, Doctor Pierce is a known recluse, preferring to work alone when she travels the globe on expeditions, and rarely leaving her lakeside home in England when she's not on the job. Some might call her crazy for trying to do her job alone when it could put her life in danger, but she might argue back that only the craziest people make it into the history books.<br/><br/>Doctor Pierce is not a trainer and carries no pokémon with her, though she does have a pet Snubbull at home.<br/></div></div>