Once he felt Julia securely on his back, Snacker gave the Ranger a light flail before expelling a strong stream of water from his rear. He bounced around the water's surface like a jetski at full throttle before rejoining his trainer. "I know you're excited, Snacker, but we need to stay focused on the task at hand," Josh said to the fanged dark-type. "Now, let's get down there."

Forming air bubbles around the two to allow them to breathe while underwater, Josh's Pokémon descended as quickly, yet as safely, as possible. "Heh, my Glaceon's name is Inky," he remarked as he felt Keiga continue to sink. The light around them continued to dim, the water getting colder and colder the further they sank. Thankfully, the Kingdra and Sharpedo were used to depths like these!

After riding downward for what seemed like minutes, their environment became pitch black, and there was still a long way to go. "Illumina, need your light!" With that, the Leader sent out his Lanturn, whose natural lightbulb provided a cone of light for the duo to see with. "You see the wreckage yet? According to my Vision, we're a couple thousand feet below the surface, and I don't see it yet."

"Yup!" Josh confirmed, making small talk as they continued the long descent. "Once we're done, you can race around on Snacker to your heart's content. Oh right, have you seen I got four more where those four came from? Kairi, Janus, Kamuy, and Basil. They're a Vaporeon, Espeon, Umbreon, and Leafeon, all just as big as those four are! I even have a special racing challenge at my Gym if someone brings one of those eight. I've caught so many Pokémon for my Gym now that it would take a whole weekend for you to properly meet them all!" He had spent an entire day doing that with Ettie once, and he had even more Pokémon now. It was a good thing he had such an expansive property to take care of them all on!

"Awesome! Let's follow her," Josh chirped, Keiga and Illumina descending for several more minutes before at last reaching the wreckage. There were no signs of human remains other than blood spattered about the inside of the passenger cabin, presumably from how violent the crash was. "Remember what we're looking for. The black boxes will be red or orange on the outside, and they'll be labeled." Keiga and Illumina began searching the hunk of twisted metal. Even through their dive bubbles, the pungent scent of jet fuel still wracked the senses of smell of the divers, both human and Pokémon.

Julia may have been able to feel a rumble of approval, the aggressive swimmer already starting to build a bond with Julia. Snacker fired up his AQUA JET, though on a very low setting, accelerating just enough to make a vertical loop. After the fun maneuver, she could feel tension in the shark's reins decreasing - a sign that he trusted Julia with full manual control.

Once they reached the seafloor, Josh answered Julia's questions about his Eeveelution team while they did their preliminary search for the black boxes. "Kairi is named after a Kantonian mythological dragon. Her name means 'Swirling Sky' even though she's a water dragon. Janus and Kamuy are named after video game characters. Janus is a prophet, and Kamuy is a young, misunderstood boy's pet dire wolf. They were just the first names that came to mind."

"From what I understand, in the very early days of commercial aviation, they were black," Josh shrugged. "While the big airlines haven't been hurt, it's the regional alrlines that have suffered, since riding Pokémon to travel shorter distances is so popular in modern times."

The smell of jet fuel also washed over Josh's nostrils. He was no stranger to the awful odor, having handled multiple plane crash rescues as a Ranger. While Josh didn't initially hear the impact of the Dragalge's corrosive poison, part of the fuselage collapsing as the venom ate through it got his attention immediately. "Julia, Dragalge!" he pointed, sharply reining Keiga away from the poison-type to get into position for a charge.

"That's exactly why!" Josh confirmed as his eyes shifted, tugging Keiga's reins to maintain control of her. "Before we had Pokémon that could dive with riders, the government used to use submersibles to bring the boxes up from the seafloor. Aren't Pokémon amazing?"

As the battle went on and the Huntail struggled with the Dragalge's venom, Josh got his Kingdra mount involved in the battle. 'Keiga, use DRAGON BREATH!" the Gym Leader commanded. Underwater, the breath weapon was not in the form of purple dragonfire, but instead in the form of corrosive ink. It was still a bane to dragons either way! The cone of black breath convinced the wild to back away.

With the intruder gone, Josh and his Kingdra mount made his way to the plane's tail to continue his search. He grinned when he caught a glimpse of orange underneath. "Torvie, come on out," Josh said as he sent his Swampert out. The water-type looked a little uncomfortable in the cold waters, her trainer noting it and only keeping the female out as long as was necessary. "Can you lift some of this debris out of the way?"

With a nod, the four-legged swimmer got to work. It only took removing a few large pieces of metal before an orange box labeled "CVR" came fully into view. "That's one of them!" he cried. "Can one of your Pokémon take this to the surface, Julia?" he asked.

"Great work, Julia!" Josh replied. "Torvie, we got 'em both! Let's take these up to the surface." With that, Josh's Swampert grasped the voice recorder and began floating upward. Illumina, Josh's Lanturn, floated beneath him with Keiga serving as security. It was a long ascent to the surface, the water-types going as fast as they could while still keeping the riders safe. The bends were a real threat to divers who tried to surface too quickly, and it was an incredibly painful condition to be in.

As long as it was, the ascent was uneventful. The recorders were both pretty banged up and showed signs of fire damage, too. Once they were at Ever Grande's port, Josh recalled all his Pokémon except for his Swampert. "Alright, Julia, let's get this over to HTSB headquarters. It's up to the fine men and women in their lab now. All this fire damage is not a good sign, though. This must have been far from sudden." He called down to the building's headquarters and explained that the two were able to recover the recorders. They would be dropping them off shortly.

Once they dropped the recorders off at the government building, Josh breathed a deep sigh from Torvie's back. "Mission accomplished. How about we go to some Unovan place for lunch? I'm rarely in Ever Grande and haven't been able to dine here much."