Josh had been to the Ultra Sea many times, extracting Dynite Ore from within Eternatus' bowels; he was familiar with the horrors within that part of the alien realm specifically. Outside that... it was anything goes. And he wasn't holding back, either. The tension in his arms was visible as he held Suicune's reins, the Walking Wake swimming through the half-liquid, half-gas environment. The RAINBOW FEATHER was pinned to his Ranger uniform, Swift ready to deploy at a moment's notice.

Josh reined the prehistoric Beast upwind as Nikita lit a cigarette. "Not anything different than when they had me in the salt mines," the Champion answered. "Those mining operations to manufacture our first Dynamax Bands were brutal. I'm glad I'm assigned more--"

He stopped speaking as a disembodied voice echoed through the deep. "EnVoY... OuR EnVoY... DeLiVeR uS... fRoM hIiIiIiIiIiMMMMMMMMMMMM..."

Though he did flinch or shriek in fright, the rider's hair stood on end. "Did you hear that...?" he asked the detective.

"Sorry, I had to move upwind. I'm allergic to nicotine," Josh apologized, revealing one of his weaknesses to the sleuth as he headed toward the source of the voice. As much of a curse as it may have been, in his eyes, it was a blessing.

The acidic floor reminded Josh of the mining operations inside Eternatus. Lifeless husks of Ultra Beasts, half-embedded in its bubbling ground, made the rider's skin tingle. "It is, but we also need to remain vigilant," the Gym Leader reiterated. "You need a ride, or can you swim on your own?" he offered. Regardless of his response, he and his Walking Wake would swim through the stale, half-liquid air above what looked like completely living walls. Even a large cave mouth in the distance looked alive...

It was a common allergy, yes, but not to the extent the Gym Leader suffered from it; it could easily be weaponized against him for those in the know. When he noticed Nikita did not put out the cigarette despite Josh indirectly telling him to do so, he rolled his eyes and continued to maintain his distance from the detective.

Seeing the Alakazam TELEPORT the detective across the acidic soil and inside the large opening made Josh appreciate the capability more. As fun as riding legendary-adjacent Pokémon was, the utility his teleporting Arcanine provided made Braver equally valuable. He wished he had brought the hulking dog with him instead of Saber.

"Suicune, HYDRO STEAM!" Josh ordered, calling the move by its true name rather than Tailwind, now that he understood more of the nature of Walking Wake as a species. With a steam-fueled running leap, Suicune began to swim through the buoyant air, crossing the large span and floating around Nikita to take the lead again.

Josh's skin tingled; the cave mouth before them reminded him of mining Dynite Ore from within those accursed caves. Afraid of losing his mind, the Champion grew increasingly paranoid, his eyes shifting from side to side farther than they did before. He couldn't feel the pulsating, whirring core nearby, though he could feel some kind of eldritch presence. Or so he thought; was this his paranoia setting in?

It was only their strange environment that allowed Suicune to swim in midair, crossing the fleshy, muck-laden ground beneath. He may have been a bit reckless and even a bit stubborn, but the Mauville Gym Leader was smart and resourceful.

Even in the tunnel itself, he could hear Suicune's talons squishing against the soft ground beneath. "Just like with quicksand," Josh remarked. "The worst you can do is stay still and let yourself sink into it." He had experience; there was plenty of quicksand within the Great Desert, one of his romping grounds for his ultrafast Pokémon that would be a hazard to train without completely closing his Gym for the day. Mauville Racing Grounds wasn't just a Pokémon Gym anymore. It was a for-profit business that placed food on his retired family's table and let them live a comfortable, but not extravagant, lifestyle.

Trusting that the Nihilego, familiar with the depths, would lead them down the correct tunnel out of the trident-shaped cavern, Josh guided Suicune in the same direction. "My Gym is open-air, and thanks to Kyurem making the region's climate colder, there's less demand for challenges during the winter," he replied. "So I help the Rangers more, or assist illeana reyes with collecting data about--"

Before he could get too much farther, Josh felt a dread presence in the air around him. From within the depths of his mind, an illusion of one of Hoenn's most wanted criminals formed in the next large cavern. It was of Cillian Quinn and his Lugia, the purple, draconic bird DYNAMAXING in the light of the very Power Spot he had urged Commissioner dahlia goode to disable. "What are you doing here?!" Josh asked the false copy of the Harbinger, instinctively reaching for his RAINBOW FEATHER. "Stop! You can't just take all these innocent lives! What do you want from me?!"