Shalin's Sygna Suit had changed since the last time she toured Johanna Joy 's carnival. Previously, her suit made her look like an insectile dragon. This time, it had flower and vine motifs weaved into its supernatural fabric. For those who had seen her before, she had a new trick that would wow even those who had an idea what to expect. For those unfamiliar, perhaps even more so. That, or a look of grave concern for Shalin.

Her Pokémon were lined up much like the last show: Sandy the Flygon, Queen Zing the Beedrill, Bass Boost the Seismitoad, Treble the Kommo-o, and Olivia the Buzzwole all stood behind her. A new Pokémon few had seen loomed in front of them: Saria the Venusaur. The grass-type, almost a story and a half tall, extended her thick and long vines toward Shalin. She gently stroked the end of one of them. Saria raised one of the vines to waist level, Shalin sitting on it and holding onto the tip of it like she were riding a Pokémon conventionally.

A slow circle for the Venusaur to get warmed up with her trainer aboard gave the cheering crowd a good look at the wild, speedy, and dangerou-looking feat she was pulling off. The girl was sitting almost right on the end of the vine, with just barely enough room for her to hold on with her hands. She was right on the vine's cracker - the part of it the Venusaur weaponized in its attacks. She would be sitting on something moving so fast that almost anything would boast a cutting edge from the speed alone.

Her own body would slice the very air before them.

Saria extended her vines a little more, giving her observers a close look at her as she whistled through the air. Cameras flashed as her audience tried to capture her in the middle of her act, only those with the quickest shutter finger able to get a good shot as the vine danced past them. With every change in direction, the vine's end flicked, making it look like she had warped as a teleporting Poémon would.

With her blood and adrenaline pumping. Shalin gave the signal for her Venusaur to start the real show. With the most serious-looking face Johanna had seen from her, Johanna may have been able to tell that this was truly going to push her suit's capabilities to their limit. With a vigorous shake of its big flower, launching pollen and spores into the center of the big top, Saria sent a giant pulse down both her vines, including the one her Sygna Suited trainer was seated on. The speed and power of that pulse would be multiplied by both the thick pod near the end of the vine, and by Shalin's own weight before it reached the cracker soon to be a cutting edge.

Her white-knuckled hands held onto the Vine Whip with everything she had.

The size of the pulse racing down the vine was so great that it overtook Shalin briefly, the faint glow of her and her Venusaur growing in brightness. As the loop caught up to her, the acceleration force on her body rose exponentially. Suddenly, her surroundings went silent as her audience would hear a massive, deafening CRACK!

At the moment the giant wave of movement reached the cracker, Shalin and her Venusaur flashed a brilliant, almost blinding green for the duration the vine's edge slashed the air. The recoil caused Shalin to twirl in almost incomprehensibly fast circles, the whip's passenger once again able to hear. Saria kept her momentum going as long as she could. When she has slowed enough for her face to be visible, she looked flush, but with the happiest look on the face of the planet.

Only Shalin would turn a brutal torture weapon into a thrill ride. With the power of her Sygna Suit, she left swaths of onlookers stunned.

Had this been part of her show at Funtasia, Shalin would have only been able to do it as part of the finale -- the very last show of the carnival. She had done this once with wren rourke 's Venusaur before her powers had been perfected, and even one lash of that vine left her exhausted. With her Sygna bond in its apex form, though, she felt invincible. While she still had her limits, a single lash of her POWER WHIP wouldn't leave her gasping for air any longer.

With another bellow, Saria swiveled her legs vigorously, swinging her vines in a series of brutal-looking, sidearm-style lashes that flung Shalin in her seat laterally instead of vertically. With every crack of the thick, green vine, the Captain's very body became an extension of the whip, gaining a cutting edge just as dangerous as the vine itself.

The applause was raucous once the vine beneath Shalin at last slowed to a stop, Saria simply keeping her lifted upward for all to see the most joyous facial expression anyone had ever seen from her. Even Johanna Joy herself had never seen Shalin so happy, like she had conquered the wildest carnival ride in the world.

Once most of the crowd had dispersed, Saria extended the vine Shalin was seated on toward Johanna. "If only I could share such a thrill with others!" she exhaled, still on the adrenaline high that came with being flung around in supersonic circles.

Shalin's grin remained wide, trying hard not to laugh at Johanna's answer. What the Captain had just done, thanks to her Sygna Suit, was physics defying. The vine had yanked her in circles too fast to follow. "It's more that me being able to do that at all is the result of the Sygna Suit peaking in power," she clarified. "It's the one way I have to outdo Mauville's speedster Gym Leader, hehe!"

Even once Shalin recovered enough feeling in her limbs, she voluntarily remained seated on the Vine Whip, though she had no intentions for her Venusaur to put it in motion for the time being. Even sitting on the natural weapon, capable of going so fast as to cleave the air itself, was skin-tingling, and in a way the Captain loved.

"If you're planning on going on tour with Funtasia again, I'd love to help you design a version of that ride that is safe for anyone!" The hardest part would be to replicate the motion of a whip without actually giving its riders whiplash. Of course, it would have to be slowed way down from a real whip, but the sudden whoosh from it reaching peak speed could still get quite intense with regulated limits.

It seemed like the fair might be making a tour of Hoenn again; even if it wasn't, having a permanent version in the Ever Grande location would be stellar. When she had a weekend, she would love to spend some time testing it. She wanted to share her Sygna Suit's abilities with other thrill-seekers, and this seemed the best way to do so. Not to mention another chance to go on that bucking Tauros and the legendary Pokémon carousel again. She loved that!

"The thing that's most important for the experience is the... flicking motion," Shalin pitched her idea to the joyful owner. "Fast enough to make the ride feel like sitting on a whip, yet not so fast that it actually gives people whiplash, of course! If you need to see it one more time, Saria and I can show you! I think I have one more in me!" It was unclear how helpful a second round would be; in real time, the motion was so fast that it couldn't be discerned easily. Perhaps a way to play the footage back in slow motion would help.

Shalin's grin grew wider; it seemed Johanna saw how much joy bring flung about brought to the Captain's heart. Having recovered her senses after the Infinity Energy high, she slid down from her seat on the vine, hugging the plant Pokémon's thick leg the best she could. She was too short to cuddle the enormous creature's face.

"I can only imagine," Shalin sighed as Saria retracted her vines. "The blueprint, the theory-crafting, making sure both the riders and the machine itself can withstand stresses... not to mention the construction process itself. I certainly hope it's ready for Joyland's next run. Would love to test it out for you!" It would certainly give her a taste of what the rush would be like without her Sygna Suit. Without that suit, the whiplash of the real thing would leave her badly hurt.

With that, the demonstration, and the sales pitch, would come to an end. "Any high speed camera with a good shutter speed should work," she half-speculated, unsure just how fast the Venusaur's vines got mid-crack. It was extraordinarily thrilling - that was all she knew. Nothing got the Infinity Energy flowing more than that. "Looking forward to seeing the end result!" With a wave goodbye, Shalin switched to her other Sygna Pokémon. Hopping aboard the Flygon, she took off to the west in a noisy, but pleasant hum.