"Yep, that's my name! Wildest Pokémon rider this side of Hoenn!" Shalin chirped, not one bit reserved even in front of the Professor. "Prance, can you let me down, please?" she asked her mount, who was quick to let the psychic harness around her fade. She slid down from her partner's back and shook the woman's outstretched hand. "Great to meet you, too!" Despite being from Ecruteak, her voice had a touch of Southern Johtonian accent to it. She took note of the Arcanine in her peripheral vision stirring, waving toward the large fire-type before he resumed his nap. "Must have had a long day!" she mused.

"So the reason I'm here is I got a referral from Lilycove's Gym Leader to talk about Prance. She was a Stantler, but she evolved into this form I've never seen or heard of before." The Wyrdeer's head bobbed, but the Pokémon was otherwise eerily calm. As a Stantler, she had always been easily excitable, but since her evolution, she had become much more reserved. "Mind taking me to your lab?" she requested. If Eva granted the request, she would withdraw the Wyrdeer if she was too tall to fit in the hallways.

Regardless, she would share her story of how Prance evolved. "I wasn't even aware Stantler could evolve at all!" She thought back to her training session with the Lilycove Leader. The Wyrdeer had some interesting applications of psychic powers, but apparently not the ability to teleport. She didn't know too much else about it. "I don't know much about her new form, other than that I think it's a Psychic-type. Do you know what this evolved form is called? And can she teleport like other Psychic-type Pokémon?" She was sure she would have plenty of follow-up questions, but she didn't want to overwhelm the Professor.

Shalin listened to Eva's story. "The distortions are really dangerous!" she interrupted after the professor mentioned it was a phenomenon new to Hoenn. "There were these enormous, red-eyed Pokémon that Poké Balls don't work on, and they're vicious!" While she had only seen the Druddigon and Garchomp in that state, those two Pokémon towered over her, even mounted. They were also somehow more aggressive than their normal counterparts...if it was even possible for wild Druddigon and Garchomp to be more aggressive.

"I figured Prance became a psychic-type when she spoke to me in my mind," Shalin continued. "Is it unusual for them to have a huge personality change after evolution? It's like she became a totally different Pokémon after she evolved. Wait, did you say extinct evolution? Now I'm really confused. Stantler is not an uncommon Pokémon; I wonder why they would suddenly stop evolving?"

The young explorer reviewed a Pokédex-like page for the Pokémon standing before the two of them. "So Wyrdeer is its name?"

"That is indeed what your kind call us," the noble, feminine voice of the Wyrdeer projected to her trainer's and to the professor's minds. "It is a pleasure, Dr. Eva. If there's anything I can do today to help you further your understanding, let us know. So much knowledge has fallen through the sands of time..."

Shalin frowned when she heard of not a single report of teleportation. That would explain why she couldn't teleport when she was training with Callan Young and their psychic-type Pokémon. Apparently, merely being psychic-type didn't automatically make a Pokémon able to teleport. "I haven't battled with her, but I think I know what you're getting at." Provided the ceiling was high enough, Shalin would mount her Wyrdeer. "Can you strap me on with your PSYSHIELD real quick?" The Wyrdeer did as asked, a noncombat application of her PSYSHIELD BASH keeping her trainer from falling off, even in the worst of conditions. "This, right?"

Shalin scolded Prance as Eva was clearly startled. "You can't just barge into others' minds like that!" The Wyrdeer, now linked with only Shalin's mind, apologized and told Shalin she would ask her trainer before reaching out to a stranger telepathically again. "I'm so sorry about that; she's still getting a grasp on her new powers. As it turns out, psychic powers can be a real Ursaring to control. She's still learning what she can and can't do."

Shalin listened to Eva's hypothesis as to why Stantler stopped evolving. What she said made perfect sense; every evolution had a trigger. For many Pokémon, it was a certain level of growth. For others, exposure to a specific wavelength and intensity of radiation, most commonly induced by the presence of an Evolution Stone. For others still, a specific type of relic. There were others, too. "Do you think it might be related to other formerly extinct Pokémon, like Yanmega? I have a Yanmega, but he's resting; I flew him all the way from Mossdeep City, which is barely within his range. Bug-types aren't meant to cross seas like that."

The Wyrdeer dismissed her Psyshield and let Shalin dismount; her head was uncomfortably close to the ceiling, and she could have singed her head on an overhead lamp if she wasn't careful. "Thanks! I'm still exploring psychic-type ride Pokémon myself. They are truly few and far between, but can they ever can do some remarkable things."

"Then my understanding of Psychic-type Pokémon has been totally wrong this whole time," Shalin sheepishly replied, a big shrug following. "I thought just about any fully-evolved Psychic-type Pokémon could at least speak to their trainer mentally like that. For every answer, two more questions. It just never ends, it seems." She listened to the Professor's explanation about Yanma's and Stantler's evolution. It seems she was barking up the wrong tree about trying to get an idea why Prance evolved specifically while inside the Space-Time Distortion. Clearly, a lot more research had to be done.

"You are correct in that they are quite rare. Have you gotten any more reports of giant Pokémon inside these distortions?" Shalin asked. "One of my friends has this giant Jolteon, and I wouldn't be surprised if it came from one of those." She described it as bring at about the proportions of a Zebstrika, maybe a little smaller. "An Espeon like that would be a great example. Other than that, Girafarig is the only other example that comes to mind."

"Do you know of any other Pokémon that evolve like Prance did? It would be great to see a few of them!" Little did she know just the can of Wurmples she was in the process of prying open.

"Wow, they're big," Shalin gasped, her mouth wide open. From what she could tell, the Ursaring evolution was more quadrupedal than bipedal. The Ursaring she knew was the opposite, which was why she had held off so long on catching one. Plus, the species was fickle; though the professor's one had to be well-trained, Ursaring in general were quite hostile toward humans. "I'd love to go for a run on one sometime. Looks like it would be fun!"

The second Pokémon Eva released was unlike anything Shalin had seen. "Wow, really? A split evolution of Scyther? It looks almost nothing like Scyther or Scizor!" They did slightly resemble one another in body shape, but it was hard to believe evolution could drastically change body structure like that. "I'll need to keep Kleavor in mind when Hayabusa, my Scyther, clears customs."

"Oh, back to the giant Pokémon thing," Shalin interjected. "I've been noticing them outside distortions, too. I haven't seen any with glowing red eyes outside distortions, but I've been noticing an unusually large number of giant Pokémon in the wild of late, just in general. Oh! That reminds me!" She showed Eva a photograph of a giant, saddle-wearing Espeon. Unlike each other Pokémon Shalin had shown Eva so far, this one was not fully tacked. "This is Starr, my Espeon waiting to clear customs. I have a handful of giant Pokémon like her. If you have a field area and a place I can access my storage, I can let you study some of them in return for answering my questions."

"That bad, huh?" Shalin asked Eva. The Kleavor had only been out of its Poké Ball for a few seconds and apparently that was too much. Yes, some Pokémon species were more aggressive and violence-prone than others. There were, however, always exceptions. Queen Zing was one of them; without seeing her, it was almost impossible to imagine a Beedrill that fought its instincts enough to behave sensibly in public, let alone one docile enough to hug people and be careful not to sting them in the process.

"For every typically violent species, it seems like there is one of its kind that just wants to give you a hug. It's amazing." She described the Beedrill she flew to Ever Grande on as a giant queen with the heart of a Skitty, as well as a Lapras of hers that was uncharacteristically aggressive for its species. "Every Pokémon is different, and it's up to us to be able to adapt to them."

"Dr. illeana reyes huh?" Shalin asked, happy to receive the referral. "Gonna have to pay them a visit...and you, of course, when things calm down. I imagine what's been in the news has kept you quite busy." While she didn't fully understand why Eva was so busy, there were a lot of new, unexplained phenomena in Hoenn. Shalin herself had taken an interest in the Distortions and the influx of extremely large Pokémon that had started appearing in Hoenn.

"Absolutely! Thank you so much for your time," Shalin answered. "I'll definitely make another appointment for you to check them out. Perhaps closer to the holidays. Maybe I'll have learned more myself about Pokémon like my Beedrill by then. I'll have walked away knowing a lot more than I did before. Hope we meet again!" With that, she waved goodbye to the researcher before turning toward the lab and campus exits. With her bug Pokémon still tired, she was going to have to find lodging in Ever Grande tonight before returning to the mainland.