Participants are tasked with exploring the submerged areas of Sea Mauville to salvage valuable resources and artifacts.

saskia might be clueless when it comes to anything outside of platonic intimacy, but she is still at the whims of herself, and her gaze lingers just a tad too long on him after he gets down to his swimsuit. it's not her fault, really. she reads too many YA novels and all of the protags are brooding bad boys.

she thinks nothing of it and stares down hard at the choppy water lapping at the side of their boat. 

"are you new to the rangers?" she says with a laugh, trying to envision him at the annual ranger potluck with some mashed potatoes in hand. 

"'cause sorry, roy, but i'm gonna have to make sure i got your back. no one's gonna get hurt on sasky volosenkova's watch!" she snatches the waterproof earpiece from his hands and tugs up her diving suit's hood around it. the waves become muted; her internal voice gets lower. 

she hums and feels the vibration in her throat. WEIRDDD.

frogger resurfaces and then paddles to the side, waiting expectantly for sasky. she wriggles her flippers, rights her gear, and says, "see you in the deep, bestie," and falls backward into the water. 

Roy Aker

21. Use technology to assist in the operation.

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frogger and dmitry swim alongside her and every once in a while, when something cumbersome and dangerous drifts by them, dmitry extends his buoyant tail so sasky can hold on and get a bit of a boost to her swimming. but unlike roy, she doesn't have a water dragon companion, or a water mount companion for that matter. 

dmitry and frogger are the best she's got, hence her own flippers, and it's good enough to get the job done. 

his voice is tinny in her ear, but she makes out what he's saying anyway and nods towards her pokemon. the shifting structure groans nearby, echoing down the depths, and sasky watches octillery, remoraid, and a few mantine pull themselves free of their prison. 

the octillery scrabble and the remoraid seek shelter under the rays' wings. when the mantine swim as fast as possible in one direction, sasky turns in the other. bubbles explode out from around her mouth as a large head swings towards her. 

the giant gyarados' jaws narrowly miss her feet as frogger swims up and punches her in the stomach, shooting her ten feet back. she goes frozen, fearing the worst, but then the gyarados screeches and thrashes. 

"it's stuck," she says into her mask, horrified. the latter half of its body is crushed between two chunks of land mass. dmitry does a couple of somersaults over her head and a lightbulb goes off in her head.

"can you distract it? i got an idea and we need to get closer."

Roy Aker

27. Handle encounters with hostile individuals or pokemon.

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it's hard to see a nod in the water, roy. some might say impossible. and when no reply comes, she goes to ask if he's on earth with her, but then he shouts and the gyarados turns and she's left scrambling. 

frogger and dmitry dive deeper beneath her and she tries to line up the shot around the thrashing gyarados. 

"okay. teamwork makes the dream work, buddies," she says and frogger swims into saskia's waiting arms, braces all his flippers against her, and waits for dmitry to get in position. 

"a little to your left. a little to yourrrr - perfect. super soaker mega tumble, go!" dmitry tucks his tail and spins in the water in a rollout and after a couple of seconds, frogger sucks in a breath and lets loose a powerful hydro pump. 

saskia "oofs," and somersaults backwards in the water, but on the opposite end is dmitry, racing forward with a trail of bubbles in his wake, slamming with full force against one of the boulders. 

the gyarados snarls, fangs coming down near roy and his kingdra. it thrashes in pain when the rock shifts, but then, with enough wiggling, it manages to free itself. 

saskia squeals with joy, but that abruptly turns into a shriek when she realizes the gyarados' anger and frustration have not, in fact, magically disappeared. 

Roy Aker

whichever one is to handle non-violently smile

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and this is what it means when she says teamwork makes the dream work. without him, she'd be sleeping with the fishes. literally! the gyarados zooms past her, intent on going after the real threat and she swirls in its wake, heart thumping like a jackrabbit in her chest. 

frogger is shaking in the water, floating upside down, and dmitry is busy inflating his tail to zoom back up to the surface. 

this is what a real ranger is supposed to be. she stares, awestruck, as he anticipates the gyarados' next move, trapping it in a whirling vortex at the behest of his own dragon. 

frogger finally rights himself and swims over to her hip, waiting for orders. overhead, rolling over the white-capped waves, is a rocket vessel. if she weren't already submerged in the deep and cold her face would've gone white as a sheet. 

"roy, look up!" she says. "let it go!"

Roy Aker

YIPPEE

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