"I do," Shalin answered. "I want to try to figure out exactly where this 'Spectacle Rock in Sootopolis' is. It might shed some light on what exactly this place is," she continued as she made her way back downstairs. "Alright, let's head over to the east wing. The way up has to be there." Surprisingly there were no fowl puns intended.

The east wing featured a hallway and a bedroom that were both in complete disarray. As Shalin stepped into the bedroom, she heard deep, muffled noises that appeared to be unidentifiable Pokémon cries coming from beyond a staircase on the north side of the room. Light filtered from deep within the staircase's climbing spiral, an indicator they were headed in the correct direction.

The cries sent chills down Shalin's spine. Whatever was on the other side of those stairs was serious stuff. Serious enough that a wild Snom was fleeing toward Shalin, who at the time was standing in the doorframe, at top speed. The young, frightened Pokémon leaped into her arms, at first chilling her both physically and mentally. "You look scared!" she smiled toward the insect Pokémon. "I'm scared too. If we're both scared, we can either be scared together, or overcome this together. What say you?" She procured an empty Poké Ball from her supplies and let the Snom make that decision for itself.

Seeing Alex ready his new find, Shalin did, as well; with her battered team and a terrifying Pokémon cry coming from beyond the stairs, she couldn't be too prepared. The duo ascended to a large balcony on the east wing, above the cloud layer. This was likely a place no human had set their eyes on in centuries. A second set of stairs wound around the opposite side of the balcony, also going upward and back into the Nest.

Once the two of them were on the balcony itself, though, two large slabs of rock fell from above the frames the entrances were at, as though the two had triggered a trap of some kind. That would be the worst of their worries, though; the source of the cries had made its presence known.

A wild Pidgeot that had somehow Mega Evolved.

It was positively enormous, too: roughly the size of the Great One, Ho-oh, the red-eyed avian whipped up powerful wind gusts that tested the balance of the intruders from its mere presence. The overwhelming gusts from the resulting TWISTER lifted Shalin off her feet and into the slab behind her. She let out a loud grunt at impact, but landed on her feet when the monstrous fowl shifted its eyes toward the Fortree Leader.

This was the one opportunity Shalin had, and she had to take it. It was risky, but she had to fight. Her aim with her bow was not going to be steady enough when aboard her only flying Pokémon that could still battle. She sent Flit out and mounted the Yanmega, putting her earplugs in before takeoff.

What she planned was going to hurt her, too. It was the price she had to pay for mobility and relative safety, now knowing the Pidgeot's massive wings could effortlessly lift her off the ground from the resulting wake. She clutched Flit's reins tightly and guided the bug-type as close to Alex and the Pidgeot as possible while making sure the Leader was out of range of any friendly fire. She took a deep breath, then issued her command. "Flit, SUPERSONIC!" She braced herself for the rattling exoskeleton that accompanied the Yanmega vibrating his wings at full speed and power...

Even with Flit's saddle blunting the force of the SUPERSONIC attack, the vibration was nearly throttling. Yes, it was adrenaline pumping to a point, and she loved that, but this was beyond her skill to handle. The shaking was almost stingingly intense, to the point where Hoenn's self-proclaimed wildest rider was squinting from being dazed, her vision a blur. She was unable to see the gigantic foe's BRAVE BIRD coming, particularly with the sheer speed it charged her with. The dragonfly stopped buzzing his wings immediately on contact, Shalin ripped from his saddle and sent flying toward Alex with great speed. At the very least, he might break her fall! If not... well, then she might just pass out on the spot from exhaustion and her wounds!

The potent BRAVE BIRD tore through Flit, leaving the insect in a heap on the balcony. With no trainer to withdraw the insect, that Pidgeot was swooping around in an attempt to make a nice meal out of him! By a stroke of luck, the impact had triggered the release mechanism on Prance's Poké Ball, the Stantler bravely bounding in front of her fallen companion. The orbs on her antlers glowed with the strobe light of a CONFUSE RAY, trying to buy enough time for her trainer to snap out of her daze and withdraw one of her closest partners...

Vince grabbed the badly hurt Shalin mid-EXTREME SPEED, getting her out of danger's way. The BRAVE BIRD, followed up by AIR SLASH, rent the consciousness from Prance in seconds. The beak wound around Prance's chest was deep, and those wind burns looked serious. Once Shalin realized what was going on, she wearily sent out her tired Scolipede, Tari, and withdrew the rest of her team.

As much as she wanted to save them for emergencies, this battle absolutely qualified as an emergency. From a small pocket, she procured a Z-CRYSTAL and tossed it into the air, the Scolipede glowing a deep purple, visibly shaking enough for those nearby to feel the vibration from the building energy. She didn't want to have to put the tired poison-type through such exertion, but her back was to the wall. She was going to wind up in the talons of the Alpha Mega Pidgeot otherwise.

"Tari, use ACID DOWNPOUR!" Shalin screamed, falling to her knees afterward from her own beak and wind burn wounds.



While it was more like a needle downpour than a true ACID DOWNPOUR, Tari about-faced and discharged a great volume of small needles, each the vessel of deadly venom that would easily be lethal if not treated promptly. As the bug-type found her rhythm, she was launching them so fast that the firing sounded not unlike a minigun discharging dozens of bullets per second.

The needles filled the charging Pidgeot's feathers, not taking long to form a visible coat that, even if the needles weren't poisonous, would have disrupted the Pokémon's lift to the point where it was incapable of flying. Its body going limp, the enormous bird fell to the balcony floor with a loud thud, reverting from its Mega Evolved form. Even outside that form, the bird was still big. As the bird fainted (and perished, unbeknownst to Shalin and Alex unless they were brave and/or foolish enough to check), the ambient sound of a whirlwind ceased. A wind dome surrounding the peak was the true reason for the mysterious cloud cover surrounding the peak, but now it was fully exposed to the world below.

Shalin's first instinct was to run to Alex, who looked somehow more shaken up than she was. "You okay?!" she panted, on the brink of collapse herself. She was largely running on adrenaline. Once she was able to confirm her partner was okay, she led the way through the newly-opened exit, now that the slabs had receded. What she saw at the top of the shallow, but long, spiral staircase blew her mind.

There were remnants of a village on the roof of the fortress the two had just navigated. For a civilization that was supposedly thousands of years extinct, they were quite advanced. Many simple buildings were built and even carved into the plateau that was the peak, quite a few having stone runways arching over the cliff for birds to take off from. In the center were two and a half walls of a derelict temple whose wind-green hue seemed to defy time itself. There were half-ruined statues of rare flying Pokémon dotting the village square, but the only one recognizable was of the Wind Djinni, and even it was misshapen from the damage inflicted by the passage of time.

From inside the derelict temple was a bright, green glow not unlike the color of the temple itself. This was the same glow they could faintly see from the room where the two had found the Avian Bows essential to taking the Pidgeot down. The source of the glow was a round object about the size of Shalin's hand.

The Gale Medallion.

"Alex! That's it!" Shalin shouted, a second wind filling her as her true objective of the expedition was in sight. She ran toward the round object floating atop a dais with the image of the Wind Djinni seemingly floating beneath its surface. She grabbed the floating object and triumphantly raised it above her head.

You got the GALE MEDALLION, one of the Medallions of Eight! A relic of the Wandering Stormbringer's divine strength, its fierce winds reach even the deepest chasms.

While Shalin held the Gale Medallion above her head, she felt like she was in the center of a whirlwind. A strong, circular gust blew her fine hair around as Alex's mind seemed to be blown by what he had seen. What he was seeing were the remnants of an ancient human village that obviously bonded with large bird Pokémon. With there being so many structures that looked like bridges to nowhere, as well as the general bird Pokémon motifs, it was obvious that here rest a great deal of knowledge of bird Pokémon lost in the sands of time.

What would potentially surprise Alex most would be the apparent lack of eye protection. Murals and other depictions of the ancients showed birds being ridden all natural rather than geared like Shalin's were. That was nothing unusual; even by modern standards, whether trainers rode their Pokémon bareback or with tack was largely trainer preference. Either this civilization was flying blind, completely trusting their Pokémon as they flew, or they had some other way, perhaps a supernatural one, even, to keep the inevitable hurricane-force winds away from their eyes. It was nothing short of extraordinary.

"Thanks," Shalin answered as she relaxed her arms, still tired but her second wind kept her going. "You want to take a look at it?" If Alex was to do so, he would see the green medallion to be about the size of his hand. It was surprisingly large, and even a little heavy. On its front side was a bust of the legendary Pokémon Tornadus in its Therian Forme, the engraving looking almost lifelike. On the reverse side were seven round indentations and a bevel, arranged in a pattern of the eight major compass directions. The very top one was the bevel. If he held the medallion himself, he, too, would feel the sensation of being surrounded by a whirlwind.

"You okay?" she asked when Alex said his head did not feel good. "What about it?" She knew she had to be mindful of her own stamina; once that second wind ran out, she was going to be out cold for hours. They might have needed to rest up where they were at and make it back to Fortree later.