Shalin peered down to see a stranger calling out to her, interdream mist swirling beneath and making it difficult to identify who was below. Feeling her Venusaur's vine tense, she braced herself for the shockwave of an earsplitting crack that would whirl her in a supersonic circle. Instead, the Pokémon quickly lowered her vine, the girl letting out a whoop as she seemingly floated atop the cracker. The adrenaline rush peaked as the vine recoiled like a bungee cord, flicking Shalin upside-down briefly before the vine forced her upright again.

"Yep, I'm fine!" Shalin greeted the young lady, the stranger now clearly able to see the crazy feat she was performing. It had to be a surreal, alien sight, seeing all four of the girl's limbs gripping the very end of the giant Venusaur's VINE WHIP - the part that moved so fast as to gain cutting power from speed alone. "I would ask you if you're okay, too - it's really dangerous in here!"

Shalin grinned at seeing how mesmerized her audience was. Even in a realm as dangerous as the Interdream Zone, she could not help but show off her suit's full strength. "It's probably because I might be the only person in the world who can!" she bragged. "A reporter? Saria here might give you something else to report on, too."

The giddy Ranger Captain could feel the fibers bulging within the thick vine. It seemed her unusual ride Pokémon wanted to show off, too. "It's Interdream Mist," Shalin started to explain. "Not a lot is known about it, but it's been associated with Pokémon found nowhere else in Hoenn. If you can even call them Pokémon, that is." She described one of the robotic Pokémon she saw on a previous trip there. "Stick around long enough and you'll find one. They're really dangerous, though! I would be careful around them!"

With her warning given, Shalin resumed her show, her Sygna Suit and nearby Flygon glowing a brighter green as Saria drew her vine back. Thrusting it forward, a strong pulse flew down the creature's VINE WHIP, the Venusaur skillfully building up a loop at the end of her vine. Squinting, she braced herself for the crack to come...

Shalin could already feel the pulse's momentum moving the bulb from behind her. Though this wasn't her first time doing what she was about to do. Even in her suit, though, this stressed the limits of the supernatural bond the two shared. She felt the bulb lift her sharply into the air, Tensing up, she knew what was imminent.

CRACK!!

The loop in Saria's vine unwound, flinging the bulb and girl seated on it in a circle that was too fast for even a normal camera to catch. In one frame of vision, she was upright. In the next, she was in nearly that same position but at a different angle, the vine uncoiling an entire revolution in that split second.

Sitting on the vine's cracker at the very moment it snapped with power to snap through a tree, brutally slice through flesh, and slice through its own soundwaves was an alien, out-of-body experience for the suited rider. Nothing but an eerie silence reached her ears in the moment her ride reached peak speed. Even in her suit, the crack hurt. To Shalin, though, that pain was well worth the price of admission for the most intense ride any common Pokémon could take her on.

The girl's added weight on the vine made it whirl around in circles much longer than normal post-crack, like an out-of-control spinning ride at a carnival. She relisted every moment of it, dazed by the time it was over. She was blissfully unaware that the noise of the crack may have lured an uninvited guest from within the Interdream Mist...

Shalin was dazed and dizzy at the end of the Vine Whip run, even her Flygon showing signs of fatigue. It was only their extremely close bond with one another, almost like they shared two halved of the same body, that Shalin could pull such a surreal feat off. While Sierra would not get a distressed answer, it was clear that being a passenger on a recoiling Vine Whip had left her winded. "I... should be..." she slowly answered, a look of exasperated joy on her face.

A sudden loud hum from her Flygon's wings brought her attention to what the deafening whipcrack had attracted. From within the Interdream Mist flew a metal-plated, Hydreigon-like creature, its three heads spewing DRAGON BREATH in a wide spread that threatened to engulf Sierra, Shalin, and their Pokémon!

Play time was over; not wanting Shalin to pass out if Saria were to flail the Ranger about on her vine again, she retracted it and let the bewildered rider regain her senses on one of the Venusaur's large petals. She knew the girl's limit was two runs. Even a second would risk leaving Sandy, her Sygna Flygon, too tired to fight.

Having never seen the metallic Pokémon before, Sandy fought it like she would fight a Hydreigon: zipping around it and shredding the around it with her BUG BUZZ, doing her best to disrupt the dragon's flight. The shockwave rattled the flying-type, but not nearly enough to do what she wanted. With the Flygon worn out from previously keeping Shalin from falling off Saria's whip, she had little stamina to withstand a point-blank, triple HYPER BEAM from the Iron Jugulis.

Her Sygna Suit turning inert after withdrawing the Flygon, she urged Sierra to take advantage of the opening the Paradox Pokémon's exhaustion created. "I'll explain later! Hit it with all you got now!"

The retaliatory triple HYPER BEAM, its strength intensified by Bastiodon's METAL BURST, felled the Iron Jugulis. The paradox Pokémon faded back into dream mist, Shalin breathing a sigh of relief that the robotic Pokémon was gone. With the coast clear, Shalin urged Sierra to beat a hasty retreat, withdrawing Saria for Squeals, a Raticate that was somehow just big enough to wear a saddle. The saddle covered most of the tan vermin's back, but the green-ette seemed able to sit in it with little trouble.

"To answer your question, yes, it is," Shalin started, her voice perhaps a bit difficult to understand with how rapid the normal-type's strides were. "I've run into two kinds of these strange Pokémon within the dream mist. Some look like robotic versions of Pokémon we know. Others loosely resemble modern Pokémon, but have frightening, almost primal features to them."