Cass didn't think she'd meet Shalin - now the captain of Petalburg - again like this. "Nice doing the simulation with you today," she says, nodding respectfully at the older woman as they enter the first scenario. She doesn't expect the messy workshop, and even less ... "I've never seen that logo before. Does it look familiar to you?" she asks, carefully taking the broken PokeGear into her hands.

"Do you think we could fix it using the materials here? Where are we, anyway?" There doesn't seem to be anyone around - no helpful NPC to tell them where they are and what they could do.

Shalin Nariya
choice? find materials to fix it

While Shalin was happy to be back in the simulation, she didn't seem too thrilled with the first scenario she had rolled. Where was the one where she was a Gym Leader? That way she could share her greatest experience with Cass. Given what happened with silverio delfino , though, it might be for the best; even after Queen Zing's warm-up, he looked ready to vomit. Unsurprising, given the nearly invisible speeds her wings got to.

"Never," Shalin admitted, though the PokéGear at least looked familiar. "I'm not too tech savvy -- let's see if we can find a manual and some spare parts. If we follow directions, I'm sure we can get this thing working again." Her confidence was very much surface only; deep down, she had serious doubts on her getting it fixed. "Without a single window in this workshop, telling that is impossible, too," she added as she walked toward a shelf full of device manuals.

Cass nods at Shalin's words, seeing if there might be anything that they could use ... Shalin walks towards the device manuals, so Cass decides to have a look at the piles of spare parts that are lying around. She squints at them, trying to see if she could maybe guess which part belong to the PokéGear by being a Tech Savy Teen TM, but it's only with mediocre process.

"Did you find a manual?" she asks then, and once they found the correct one, finding the spare parts and where they belong is definitely way easier. Eventually, it is repaired and ... she stares at the device.

"... what?"

A cold shiver runs down her spine and she feels the urge to leave. Her hand grabs the nearest hammer- but she stops before she could actually go to destroy it, looking at Shalin. "Do you know ... what do they mean?" She had had the feeling that these simulations are very eerie, but it turns out, they're even more unsettling than she thought.

Shalin Nariya
choice? open really! :eyes:

Purely on instinct, Shalin hurled her Zeraora's Poké Ball to the ground. Savanna burst out of it in blue and white bolts of electricity, the Ranger's hair standing on end. "PLASMA FISTS, Savanna!" she ordered, the feral feline roaring before rearing and slamming her electrified front paw into the squawking PokéGear. The brackets holding up the workbench's surface gave way, landing with a loud thud and scattering dust everywhere.

Shalin looked like she wanted to say something, but she could not stop sneezing while there was still dust in the air. Once it had cleared, she breathed in and out a few times before voicing her concern. "That woman is with Hoenn's true enemy. The enemy is not Rocket. It is them. DRK Triad, they're called. And we won't defeat them unless we work together. That's what Rocket doesn't understand."

The device is swiftly destroyed, but not without a cloud of dust that Cass quickly shields herself from with the sleeve. Still, the conversation only continues as the dust settles on broken machinery, broken equipment that they've just repaired ... but should've left untouched. Shalin's words make her eyes go wide as she vaguely remembers having read about the DRK triad ... "Yeah, I think ... it's going to be really hard to actually team up in this regard," she agrees, as the scenario shifts once more.

It's dark now. And there's a split stone that she recognises ... and surely enough, a Spiritomb emerges, and she flinches, taking a step backward. Cass frantically tries to recall if Vespa Baskerville might have ever mentioned this ghost before-

Her hands reach out forward, seemingly trying to grasp a spirit-

Shalin Nariya
choice? steal a soul

Shalin remembered the scene of this tomb all too well. Beneath Mount Pyre was a graveyard where she fought the Four Headed Dragapult with THEO BECKETT , long ago. The PHANTOM CAPE's shreds were visible beneath the stone projecting the Spiritomb and its one hundred and eight souls spinning to form the apparition part of its body. This Pokémon was a dangerous one, and one she couldn't bear to see Cass wiped out by, even if it was just a simulation.

"Cass, no! It's too dangerous!" the Captain urged, trying to pull her hand away, only to end up cupping her own over one of the souls herself! The Spiritomb laughed and shook, its soul ring spinning faster and faster as it appeared to be preparing some sort of retaliation. "Now look what you've done..."

Shock immediately creeps upon Cass' face as she sees Shalin reaching for her hand, just to end up cupping a soul instead. There's no question that her being hit with consequences is the better outcome, but as always, the worst comes to happen. Cass looks with horror as the other begins to shift, as Shalin's got more contact with the soul now than herself ... "No, don't do that-" she calls out, but it's already too late.

What to do ... she calls for the only ghost pokémon in her team, her Frolass Xuan. "Xuan, do you have any idea how we get out of there-?" she asks. Hopefully the ghost type would have an idea what to do, though she is truly unsure ... the ghost herself seems to be a bit baffled by the situation, but goes attempt to pull out the malicious ghost with a Destiny Bond - trying to establish something to grab the other ghost by so it would get pulled out of Shalin.

Shalin Nariya

Under control of the Spiritomb, a blank-eyed Shalin grabbed the Poké Ball on her belt, letting Savanna the Zeraora materialize beneath her. Pulling on the thundercat's reins and squeezing her sides, the possessed Captain commanded her mount to ram and trample Cass and her Froslass. The trust between the two worked against Azelf's wielder, the feline building up disgusting speeds that made Shalin's face turn red.

The entranced girl zipped back and forth like a master jouster before lunging toward Xuan at QUICK ATTACK speeds, PLASMA FISTS sparking brilliantly. Were the electric blow to take the Froslass down, Shalin would wake from her trance and fall limp in her cocoon, vomiting and dry heaving from the sickening sustained speed. Though she had learned a lot from practicing with Thomas Benoit 's Arcanine, Savanna's speed was on a whole different level!

Cass yelps as Shalin not only calls her Zeraora out, but also mounts it - the speed nothing that she could hope to dodge out of the way. She's lucky the first time, and then hides away. Unfortunately and fortunately, Xuan is not fast enough to do so, her floating speed being slow and majestic ... but her being defeated also means that Destiny Bond activates and knocks out Shalin. Almost immediately, the scenario starts shifting upon Shalin being freed from the spirit.

"Are you- are you okay?" she asks, hesitantly. "Sorry, I didn't mean to ..."

An actual admission of guilt as she's seen the dire consequences.

Then, the Alolan winds greet them as well as a Xatu that seems to simply look out. And it seems to offer ... a vision. But she's not exactly sure what this vision actually tells her ...

Shalin Nariya
choice? up to you, impartial about either!