Shalin huffed as she came down from the Infinity Energy high, though some still flowed between her and her Venusaur. It manifested as a faint, green slow, most concentrated on Shalin and the vine she was seated atop. "I'm alright!" she replied. "Her Vine Whip can get a little loud sometimes is all!" Was she implying she had been a passenger on the end of her Venusaur's Vine Whip attack? It may have been too ludicrous for Haoyu to consider.

She had slid so far back that she couldn't even reach its tip. Patting the vine gently, Shalin coaxed her Venusaur into swinging it so that she would slide down it and back onto its thick tip. The sliding motion looked as quick as the steepest water slides in Slateport's most well-known water park. "Captain Shalin Nariya, Hoenn's wildest Pokémon rider," she introduced to herself. "You... kind of stumbled into my back yard, which is impressive on its own. What brings you out to this neck of Petalburg Woods?" she asked, the Type: Null a little more relaxed now.

Shalin smiled when she heard Beckett's reason for remaining in a town. "You can still live off-grid, long as you can run everything locally! Just catch a few electric Pokémon to charge your devices!" That's how Shalin kept her phone charged: a portable battery that she could connect her electric Pokémon to when it ran low on power.

That brilliant smile turned upside down when family was mentioned. "They... didn't survive the Rocket invasion. But it's okay. As a Ranger, it works out better that I live away from the city." At the mention of Fuchsia City, her expression turned more neutral. "So you had to live through that hell, too..." she trailed off, scanning toward the crater's rim for any signs of Josh. Still nothing; her worry over the Gym Leader grew by the moment...

Serena sounded an endearing purr that may have tickled Lucia when she felt the girl sit in the seat on her back. She was used to strangers riding her, making her about as beginner friendly as a feline mount could be. There was, of course, the issue of how much Serena's back flexed when she got going.

"It's easier than you think! Think of the reins as your steering wheel and your leg pressure as the gas pedal," Shalin presented the analogy of driving a vehicle. "Just pull on her reins with your left or right hand, and she'll turn in that direction. The harder you pull, the more quickly she'll turn, but don't overdo it!" She remembered going flying off Serena's back when she was still learning with the Pokémon; those claws had quite the grip to them.

"Then for speed, just squeeze her sides a little tighter than you normally would, and she'll go faster. Relax your legs and she'll slow down. it really is as simple as that!" Not quite; there were more advanced maneuvers, but those were not for beginners to know about; were inexperienced riders to execute them, it was more likely their mounts would get upset and hurl them to the ground.

A large shockwave raced above Haoyu's head as the deafening noise reached his ears. It would be high enough above him that he was in no danger of being knocked down, but could feel some of the moving air inside it. Were he to turn his head toward the shockwave, he would see a most unusual sight: a Venusaur that towered over most of her kind, well over the height of a one-story building.

The Venusaur also had an unusual, green glow surrounding her entire frame, though it was most intense at the giant vines extending from the base of her flower. There was a silhouette at the end of one of the vines, colors blocked out by the late afternoon sun casting a shadow. Were Haoyu to get closer, he would be able to see what the silhouette on the end of the vine was.

It was a girl, dressed in a Venusaur-themed Sygna Suit, sitting atop the thick pod at the end of the vine like one would ride a Pokémon. And she looked way too joyful after such a terrifying crash rumbled through the wide-open, grassy Petalburg Plateau. Not far from the Venusaur was a Type: Null who looked worried about the exertion her trainer was putting herself through.

The steel-type's metallic buzz was one of the most grating sounds any insect could produce. She liked the humming sounds many insects made with their wings, but Scizor wings caused even her skin to tingle. Even so, the Captain would remain true to her word. She would only intervene if Zachary looked like he was in trouble.

That trouble would never come.

Zachary's simple question would come with a simple answer. "Many trainers choose their Pokémon. Some Pokémon, though, choose their Trainers." It was rare, but not unheard of, for a common Pokémon to do so. Most of the time, it was rare, powerful, or even legendary Pokémon that made such decisions. "And if you try to raise a Pokémon that chooses you, you need to treat it like a partner. Pamper it. Do what it wants you to do. Otherwise, it will be inclined to up and leave... or worst case, turn on you."

Treble struck the Regirock head on as Cian attempted to make his escape, the Captain doing her best to hold the rock-type off. Faster and faster his scales shook, Shalin screaming in an odd mixture of fear and bliss as the vibration reached an intensity unlike anything she had felt in her life. It drew upon every bit of her Sygna Suit's energy.

No matter how strong the vibration was, the Regirock's body would not crack. Instead, Shalin felt Infinity Energy suddenly leave her as her Kommo-o passed out from both the exertion and the pressure of their legendary foe's hug. It wasn't done yet, though; Shalin, too, hopelessly tried to writhe free. To no avail; as she heard the sound of her bones snapping, her vision turned to static.

Her run through the RKS Simulation had ended.

Such was the advantage to being a high-ranking Ranger: Shalin could get access to expensive, specialized gear she would only use on occasions such as this. Even so, Josh was no Avatar. He couldn't survive in the bottom of the crater without protection. They wouldn't need to go too far into the crater itself, though even high up it was uncomfortably hot. Survivable, but not pleasant by any means.

"I actually live off-grid in Petalburg Woods, between Petalburg and Rustboro," Shalin answered as she peered over the giant insect she was flying on in search of anything anomalous by the crater's rim. "I'm originally not from Hoenn, though. I dropped by from Ecruteak on a trip that was supposed to last a couple weeks. Then when the barrier went up before the Meteno crisis, that couple weeks turned into a few months. By the time I could return to Johto, I was too invested in my new life here."

Shalin's eyes widened when she heard what happened to Elaine. "Nihilego poison is no joke," she replied. The rock and poison-type Ultra Beast was one of the rifts' biggest dangers. Their venom inebriated not the body, but the mind, which was far more dangerous. "Keep your wits sharp. If you let your guard down, you might not get them back."

Warning aside, Shalin descended alongside Tiamat. The visual sensation of seeing Sandy's individual wingbeats, yet able to feel vibrations from them churning, was even more disorienting than riding on the wings themselves. "It's going to be almost impossible to see down there," she pointed out before getting a clever idea. At Shalin's command, Sandy landed on a narrow ledge on a nearby cliff and relaxed her wings. "This is gonna look really weird and unbelievable, but trust me. This is what Sygna Suits can do."

Shalin lifted her right leg above her Flygon's back and turned, looking like she was going to sit side-saddle on the dragon. Nothing unusual yet. The unusual followed when she slid down the wing, Sandy raising it to keep her trainer from falling into the abyss. The two radiated a green glow, illuminating the darkness around them in a small area like seeing through night vision goggles. "I knew the light of Infinity Energy would have a use somewhere," she said with a smile, grabbing onto the wing with all four limbs as she braced herself for the buzzing to come.

It was the best way she had to cast light over a large area using the Pokémon she had with her!

Shalin dreaded going back to Littleroot Town. She had horrific memories of the place. It was her introduction to the horrors of Hoennian war. A war she could not escape, now that she was a Ranger Authority. Even so, what choice did she have? She had to swallow the tough pill and head out there; there was an unruly mob wreaking havoc upon the small town, seemingly over how little the League has done to defend the small but important town against Team Rocket. While the place wasn't built directly on the coast, there was a port nearby, which was the fastest way to get to Dewford from the mainland.

Using the whistle as a cue, Shalin joined Leo, seated on the back of a Kantonian Persian wearing a luxurious-looking saddle. "Rustboro Captain Shalin Nariya," the authority introduced herself. "I understand where your frustrations are coming from; parts of the town still are in shambles after the rift opened where Littleroot Theater was at. We're doing everything we can to look into closing the rift. Until then, it is important not to go near it. Let Law Enforcement, Rangers, and Gym Leaders handle it. They're trained for it."

Shalin hummed as a shift in the wind's direction was a messenger of the beginning of the storm's end. "Honestly, it sounds like the Ranger side of things is the best place for you. I'd stay where you're at. If you work hard and make yourself useful, you'll rise through the ranks. Who knows? Maybe one day you'll be a Captain like me!" When she became Captain of Rustboro, such a position wasn't even on her radar. It mostly fell into her lap.

The girl frowned at the mention of snowy peaks. "Mountains we have all kinds of. There's the Rusturf range, the Chimney range, the Great Desert range..." she trailed off. There were even others she wasn't listing, such as the small one running west of the highway between Mauville and Slateport. "We don't get much snow except around here and Shoal Cave. Hoenn's in the tropics, you know. That the Silent Icelands exist at all... they were created by Kyurem."

The idle conversation would meander on until the sun's rays reflected off a nearby snow drift and into Shalin's eyes. "Looks like it's passed." Stepping outside, she waved for Lathiel, Scar, and Caprice to follow her. In the wake of the storm passing, it was extremely cold but calm. "Ready to saddle up and do what we came here to do? We were supposed to survey wild Pokémon outside the Giant Chasm and file a report with HQ."