By the time Lars received Josh's message, the Mauville Gym Leader was already visible, a white comet of ice to the south a sign of his arrival at the tundra-like beaches outside Shoal Cave. Charging toward him at an acute angle was a Glastrier, a bundled-up Josh at the ice horse's reins. The legendary species was not known for speed, yet Hylda's gallop was far faster than a Glastrier had the right to run. Though his power wasn't divine, it was clear now that Josh had an uncanny ability to draw out every bit of speed a Pokémon was capable of, and then some.

Yanking back on Hilda's reins as she transitioned from sea to beach, the equine reared, mist and snow flying from her before she at last calmed down. "Hylda and I got here as fast as we could," Josh huffed, the rider looking worse for wear than the mount. It seemed Hylda, like many Glastrier, had seemingly boundless wells of stamina.

Josh was not number one when it came to physics-melting nonsense; that was Shalin Nariya . It still bewildered him how she could sit on her Kommo-o with his scales rattling at full power. Shouldn't vibration that powerful reduce her to mush? He was close, though; with the young Leader's love of going fast, he did hop on some crazy Pokémon no one else would dare to.

"There's something unusual about that, Lars?" Josh asked in pure innocence. "Hylda's hooves are so cold that she flash-freezes water underneath her and just gallops across the ice!" The young lad relieved pressure on the cold equine's sides, slowing her to a trot as they entered the spacious, cold environment that was Shoal Cave. "If Shalin Nariya 's route on Rondez-View is to be believed, Articuno is four levels down from the entrance, right?"

"I mean, if her route is to be believed, the fourth level is way below the third," Josh recalled. He had seen the upper levels of the cave during his journey there with ever blackwell , and the descriptions in the phone game were strikingly similar to what little he had seen. He had played his own route once, too, everything about it strikingly reflective of his own ambitions. Just how much did Macro Cosmos know, anyway?

"Just because I survived an Extreme Speed run on dog boy's Raikou-familiar?" Josh asked half-jokingly as he entered the cave, a familiar-sounding set of clacking hooves not unlike those of his own steed echoing from the lower levels. He waved Lars toward a translucent, frozen waterfall overlooking frozen mortars beneath, a relic of a civilization lost to time. "They're in the ice prison at the very bottom of that place's dungeon, right?" Josh further questioned the Composed as he pointed toward an ice ramp leading to the first basement level.

It was true; Macro Cosmos' information on the frozen mortars beneath Shoal Cave could have been incomplete. He didn't question Lars riding Hengroen bareback; with his identity as the Composed known to the Gym Leader, he assumed his powers over the Iceborne Mirage kept him safe against the cold that otherwise required a very special saddle for a human to ride. "Though the lead on Raikou ended with him, I'm glad I at least got to experience it. Several times. I still see Kyle and get to ride his Raikou about once a season. Looking forward to battling him in the future."

So they had a six hour window to meet. "Alright, let's ride." The way down was as vivid as Josh remembered it from the phone game. Behind the bottom of the icy staircase was a slide, and beside that was a frozen guard tower. Lars wouldn't give him time to explore, though; down the slippery slide they went, the two Glastrier picking up amazing speed as they descended through tunnels to the castle level. He estimated they were three levels below the surface, seawater visible on the opposite end of a small ice arena's thick, frozen windows. "Whoa... Shalin Nariya wasn't kidding. This place is extraordinary. Feels like it's out of a video game almost."

"About every three months," Josh corrected; perhaps once a season was too vague of a term. He meant a season as in the seasons of the year. Tropical regions like Hoenn, particularly far south, experienced more wet and dry seasons, rather than the traditional spring, summer, fall, and winter of Johto. "And I relish it every chance I get. There's truly nothing like riding so fast that your skin stretches over your bones." He wasn't kidding, either; Raikou's Extreme Speed was extraordinary. He believed there to be nothing faster on land.

As the two left the small arena, they passed a staircase leading upward to the observation level, seeing remnants of an explosion. It had to be a powerful one to shatter an ice wall as thick as the one they passed through. "I've wondered a lot of things about this place," Josh replied as they beheld a long, shallow, spiraling ice ramp downward. The slope was shallow enough that there was little rick of sliding out of control, but was it ever long. The other option would be jumping down the center of the chasm and landing on the cave's lowest level.

That was a long way down, though; the elevation difference from the third level to the fourth level was greater than the rest put together. "I imagine it has to be due to your god's influence, if they make their home down here, like you say." His horse looked ready to race Lars' down the path to the prison level.

When asked to clarify, Josh was put on the spot for a bit. Lars was one of the few people the Gym Leader truly trusted. He could share his wild speculation with the Composed and not feel uncomfortable. He was one of the first he talk to about his serious aspirations for divine power. "You know that phone game Macro Cosmos put out earlier this year? I got to play my friend's route on it. Was really addicting. It's just that... one of the paths you could go on in that game has an uncanny resemblance to this place. Ice castle, ice prison, everything." Josh winced as the Avatar toughed his icy steed's body without so much as a shiver.

"While not as familiar with them as you are, I have to be careful where I ride Hylda here," he tried to relate the care of the closest thing he had to an ice-type legendary Pokémon of his own.

As the two equines made their way through the last laps around the circular ice staircase, Josh asked a burning question. "So, is Articuno's lair through the tunnel straight ahead once we hit the bottom of the stairs? When I played my friend's route, that's where I went. Then the route ended because I died. Froze to death."

Yes, it was pulled because of data security issues, but was it ever addicting. Josh still played it on occasion, but only while he had to wait somewhere for some reason. Most of the time, it was at an airport. "Deeper than this, even? That's really--" Suddenly, Hengroen bolted forward upon reaching the bottom of the spiral, bounding ahead of Josh by a wide enough margin that the Composed had to scream just to be heard.

"After him, Hylda! Use TRAILBLAZE!" Trailblaze was certainly an odd move for a Glastrier to know; any foliage the grass-type move created was instantly flash-frozen underhoof. It was, however, the only move a Glastrier could learn that was capable of making it run faster. It was certainly on brand for what may have been the fastest Glastrier in the world, skating on the ice to catch up to Lars.

Just how deep was he going to lead the Mauville Leader, anyway?