Splashfest was over. It was a fun celebration for Shalin; she got to try a lot of new things and found she enjoyed Mantine surfing a lot more than she thought she would. She would have to capture a Mantine some day! But all good things had to come to an end. She had checked out of her hotel for the week and was ready to make the move back to her Secret Base in the much quieter Petalburg Woods. The best part was not having to worry about noise ordinances!

Once she had reached the outskirts of the city, where noise laws were a lot less stringent, the explorer popped her earplugs in and sent out Queen Zing, her Beedrill, who was quick to raise her foreleg stings and hug her trainer affectionately. The enormous queen let her trainer scamper aboard. The reins tingled in the adventuring girl's hands, bug-type mount's wings droning loudly as the two started bobbing up and down in the air.

The curious queen caught sight of a Rockruff sniffing around as Shalin made the occasional command to zip in one direction or another, the force of the air displaced by her buzzing wings uprooting dead blades of grass when the two hovered close to the ground.

Though Shalin could see Sacha's mouth moving and his arm slowly waving, the noise Queen Zing was making was drowning out anything he was saying. She tugged sharply with her right hand, the Beedrill buzzing with only one wing to rapidly turn and face the Rockruff. She landed in order to give Shalin a good look at the rock-type and its trainer.

Popping her earplugs out, Shalin greeted the traveler with a simple "Hi there!", followed by her mount waving a foreleg sting much like a human would their hand. The gentle giant's wings reflected blinding sunlight much like a strobe light, trying to keep her wings warmed up in anticipation of the two taking off again. "You're a brave one to not flee Queen Zing's sight immediately."

It took a certain amount of bravery, or possibly just foolhardiness, to not flee at top speed in the presence of a giant Queen Beedrill. At Sacha's compliment, the insect opened her mandibles in the closest fashion she could to a human smiling, then beat her wings at an angle where what little sunlight shined through the woods would reflect off them like a strobe light. She took care to beat them fast enough to create the lighting effect she wanted, yet slow enough that they wouldn't drone. After all, she didn't want to ruin her trainer's hearing! "Thanks!" the green girl answered with a smile of her own, her voice perhaps coming out slightly distorted from the insect's exoskeleton vibrating beneath her. "Come to think of it, neither have I. I might be the only one."

"Shalin, wildest Pokémon rider this side of Hoenn!" The giant insect reached toward Sasha with a foreleg sting turned sideways, much like a greeting human would extend a hand. It had to be puzzling to see a Beedrill with the personality of a common house Skitty. "A Ranger? While I'm not formally a Ranger, I help them a lot with their work. I've thought about joining, though!"

The girl lobbed the Poké Ball several feet away from her, and a second bug-type, this one a little larger, emerged from it. This one was a Yanmega, also wearing full riding gear. "These two are Queen Zing," she pat her mount's hard, yellow armor, "and Flit," she gestured toward the Yanmega easily capable of carrying even a heavy-built human in flight. The curious Pokémon crawled toward Sacha in greeting. "They're two of my closest partners, and they're how I get around Hoenn."