At long last, Shalin had received approval from her physician that using her Sygna Suit would be okay. It was a strange feeling, being one with her Flygon and her Venusaur once more. It was also a strange feeling having to learn everything from the top once more. Her skin tingled as Sandy's wings hummed not far above the expansive grasslands north of 117's main thoroughfare.

Within the fields, she spotted a familiar face that appeared to be sparring with his Lucario. Such a feat required a tremendous amount of bravery. As she touched down near them, she was about to remark how much courage it took to fight hand-to-hand with such a Pokémon. She kept her words to herself; was it that different from sitting on her Flygon's wing and holding on for her life as it flapped and buzzed too fast to see?

They really were different ways to express the same trait, weren't they?

Sandy touched down near Lars as the Ranger caught his breath. "Hi, Captain!" she chirped. "At least I think you're a Captain now?"

"Thought you would be for sure," Shalin replied. "I still don't get why dahlia goode didn't think you made a good Head Ranger. I never had any issues with you. Then again, I don't think we spent a lot of time together; aside from the Dewford mines, I only think we went on the one job together. One of these days, we should work a ticket together. For old time's sake." It felt so strange that the once-Head Ranger was technically Shalin's subordinate now. Never in a million years did she see herself in a position of authority like she was now.

Fate pulls upon her strings in unpredictable ways.

With a nod, Shalin slid down from Sandy's back, her Flygon stretching her wings wide before lowering them. "The doctors at Dewford finally gave me the clear to start using my Sygna Suit again. Gotta ease back into it." As she stood above the insectile dragon's wing and waited for her partner to lift her off the ground, Shalin asked the Composed, "What brings you so far from town? There a ticket you and your Lucario are working?"

"Four years without going on a single vacation?" Shalin gasped. "That's wild. Did they at least let you cash out your unused PTO?" What in the world did Lars do to deserve being overworked like that? The League treated her Captains much better than that.

A tingling sensation coursed through Shalin's body as Sandy lifted her off the ground and onto the red and green, translucent wing. The flow of Infinity Energy between the two felt almost foreign after not experiencing it for weeks.

"Didn't know you were from Verdanturf!" Shalin chirped as she grabbed onto the wing with all four limbs, ready to put her suit to use. "Sandy's been waiting to do this a while. Seems like we're out here for similiar reasons. Good luck with Alpha! I'm sure I'll need it with Sandy, too." She tilted her head forward. "Alright, Sandy, ease me into it! Not too fast!" The dragon started to beat her wings, both glowing a faint green. Shalin was still clearly visible as they flapped at the pace of a small bird.

Sootopolis was a city Shalin did not want to think about. With the knowledge of the Halls of Origin and Ultra Beast eggs rapidly hatching within its depths, plus the relative ease of acquiring them if one had the right tools, Rocket could pilfer an entire clutch of eggs from the Ultra Wilds and hatch them deep within. All because of the mistake she made of opening that Pandora's Box. The Pandora's Box that cost Kiara her life. She still thought about the Pyroar often enough, as did Scar.

"With me being out of Rustboro as their Captain now, I imagine we'll be seeing each other quite a bit more often. Especially when ollie morales decides we all need to go to Ever Grande again," she mused before things got too intense. And they were about to.

The wing Shalin was on beat faster and faster, making a loud and low hum as Infinity Energy flowed between the two. In just a few seconds, Shalin was a blur of greens and flowery shades of red and pink, the Flygon elements and Venusaur elements of her suit blending in with one another visually. While the feeling of the conduit opening up once again made her shake even more than she did when Flygon vibration coursed through her, it was a good feeling to her. The low hum was Lars' only cue that the wings weren't beating very fast for a Flygon, but they were fast enough to start cleaning and unclogging the metaphorical fuel line!

Shalin and her Flygon began to glow a brighter green, a manifestation of the Infinity Energy link between the two. Even though the vibration wasn't very fast compared to what Lars had seen Shalin withstand, especially if he had heard about what they had gone through in the Galar memory, it still got a blissful shout out of the Captain. It didn't take too much to get her on an adrenaline high after not being able to ride at all for so long!

After a few intense seconds, the hum ceased, the Flygon beating her wings like those of a small bird before lowering them to the ground. She sat there for a few minutes, waiting for feeling to return to her lower body. Her hair was a mess after being thrown about in different directions countless times per second. "That felt so good to do again!" the crazy girl chirped as the glow became more faint, though it still remained for as long as the wing supported Shalin and kept her off the ground. "Still nowhere enough to be useful in battle, but it's so fun! I think we'll have to relearn everything from scratch to get back to where we were, though. Certainly no Boombursts any time soon."

Back in the Galar Memory where she first performed the feat, her bond with her Flygon was nowhere near as strong as it was now. If the feats she could pull off in her suit weren't superhuman already, what she proposed certainly would be. "You know Flygon use Boomburst by vibrating their wings, right? It's like what I just did, but faster!" It may have been difficult for her fellow Captain to imagine.

"In the spring, were you... in Balloonlea? In Galar?" she asked, the strange question coming out of nowhere if he wasn't on Route 120 that day when the Ruinous Beasts appeared.

Shalin's reason for asking was simple. "I was there, and that was where I learned what my suit could and could not do. Before I perfected the bond with Sandy, I... pushed my suit beyond its design limits. You see, one of the things that the suits can do is make Pokémon attacks more powerful. Mine can make certain sound-based attacks stronger. That's why I was... riding Sandy by her wing."

Though the memory was faint, she remembered toward the end of the twenty-year journey how much pain her recklessness had caused her. "In that Galar, I tried to do that with her Boomburst before the bond became perfect, and... I messed up my back doing it. But now that the bond is perfected..." she trailed off, already feeling a tingling sensation in her muscles from the anticipation of Sandy subjecting her to the fastest vibration she had to offer.

"I'll make sure to warn you before she fires it."