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.

"It's more that every person's suit is a unique manifestation of the bond between Pokémon and wearer," Shalin elaborated. "Two people with the exact same Pokémon can have very different suits. Even another person with a Venusaur suit would be unlikely to use it to travel by Vine Whip, for instance." It was really a combination of her two Sygna Pokémon that made that possible, her Venusaur flinging her forward on one of her giant vines, her Flygon catching her before she hit something at ludicrous speed and suffered real harm.

It may have been best that Raju sought to capture the Palafin; behind the creature was a Sharpedo on the prowl, looking to make a meal out of the Pokémon. Shalin had other ideas, though. Brazen ones. While the predator was busy fighting its prey, Shalin slid down the slippery, steep slope toward the lake, landing on the shark's back! She palmed an empty Poké Ball before grabbing onto the dark-type's tall fin with both hands. The way she held it, it would fall onto the wild as soon as it would dislodge her, or she felt it was going to buck her off imminently.

The shark entered a RAGE, upset that there was a pesky human sitting on it. Bucking and writhing to try to unseat Shalin, her blood was pumping from her first-time aquatic rodeo. She pushed on the wild's steering fin, finding she had limited capability to control her unruly mount's direction. Shalin looked like she was having the time of her life fighting against the strong sea creature, though it was difficulty to see from the mist and spray of the splashing water.

That laughing and giggling stopped when the Sharpedo fired up her AQUA JET, zipping around the lake faster than the quickest speedboat in Hoenn. The first sharp turn the water-type made felt like it was going to tear her apart. When raw strength had failed to unseat her, the Pokémon used speed instead. A second turn caused her to lose her grip on the Pokémon, the Poké Ball in her palm dropping to encapsulate it. Whew, what a ride!

In a secluded corner of a park on the northwest side of Rustboro, Shalin was ready to blow off some steam after the Vital City Tournament and her harrowing experience in Oldale. Leaving her required January paperwork to some Elite Rangers, she took the opportunity to spend some time with Pokémon she had captured in a very special way. Every one of the Pokémon on her belt she had caught by enduring the worst bucking, kicking, and thrashing they had to offer.

It was a memory her adrenaline-addicted body wanted to relive.

The excited Ranger Captain climbed up to the back of Grimmie, her Houndoom, and grasped her horns tightly. "Alright, do your worst!" she egged the black dog on. With a loud howl, Grimmie started to buck and writhe, just like she did when she was a wild Pokémon. The saddle made it no longer be painful for Shalin by virtue of not having to worry about her hard bones slamming into her rump, but it still didn't make holding on easy! Both her Ninetales, Caprice and Letheia, cheered her on, her Type: Null mildly interested in the action.

Eddie's reaction to the mystic palace was understandable: it looked like it came straight out of the endgame of a video game or novel. "Oh, boy, is this ever a long story. A story I'd rather not tell until we go to a place that's a lot cooler," Shalin answered with a laugh. "The short of it is, this place once housed a Medallion that was one of eight keys to open a proverbial Hoopa's Box I never should have opened." Not only did opening the Halls of Origin give Rocket a resource they otherwise wouldn't have had, but it had cost her the life of her precious Kiara, a Pyroar that was near and dear to her heart.

Only its grand, bottom floor was visible; other floors above it were shrouded behind clouds so thick that there was zero visibility through them. What was perhaps most intriguing, though, was a seemingly floating sign in the middle of the space between the end of the canyon and the building itself, bubbling magma covering the chasm beneath.

Though Shalin heard Nabi's question, it would go unanswered for the time being, the VINE WHIP getting faster and faster as Saria built up a great big loop with it. "NABI, COVER YOUR EARS!" the Sygna Suited girl shouted as an equally large pulse raced down the vine from a quick flex of the Venusaur's hips. As Shalin saw part of the loop overtake her, she knew this VINE WHIP was going to be big. Bigger than it usually was. With white-knuckled hands, she gripped the tip of the vine with all her strength, bracing herself for a ride only her suit let her withstand.

CRACK!!

With a deafening snap that seemed to cleave the air around her, Shalin was yanked about with jaw-dropping force that her Sygna Suit drastically softened the impact of. Even so, she felt herself being yanked about harder than the kicking of the wildest Tauros in the world. As the Vine Whip's cracker flicked, her hearing completely left her for the brief moment it moved at peak speed. The shockwave she and her Venusaur created made grass stand sideways and even caused whole trees to sway in its wake.

Shalin was screaming. Not in panic, not in pain, but bliss. There was nothing that made her adrenaline pump more than being drunk on the Infinity Energy that let her withstand physics-defying forces. Just as the whip began to slow down after being cracked, Saria sent a second big pulse down the vine, this one vertical. The Captain and the vine tip she was sitting on sliced the air with the speed and ferocity of a whipcrack, the girl's hair a complete mess as the vicious winds blew it about.

When the Vine Whip came to a rest, the red-and-white-knuckled Shalin looked like she couldn't be happier.

A QUICK ATTACK too fast for Queen Zing to follow ended Shalin's tournament run. With registration closed, she checked the standings. ollie morales had bumped her off the podium and into fourth place. Still quite the performance for a Ranger and not a Gym grinder. She was happy with her result, and would take home quite the paycheck.

"Good match!" she chirped, recalling the Beedrill. "I couldn't help but notice you had your eyes on Queen Zing's saddle. Are you a Pokémon rider, too? We might have to get to know each other better!" With her being out of the tournament now, she would sit down next to Seb if he wanted and spend some time with him.

The saddled Mega Beedrill may have been a fascinating sight for Seb to see. Extreme agility meant they could zip around curves, the bottleneck shifting to the rider's strength. Between gut-wrenching turns and the constant vibration, one had to be brave to sit between the wings of a Beedrill.

The display of ACROBATICS left a hole in Queen Zing's hard carapace from a nasty talon blow. The wasp's compound eyes flickered rapidly. Not holding anything back anymore, all four of her stings glowed purple with energy from the somewhat nearby Dragon's Den. She thrust them toward Alpha, trying to pound him into the ground with four DRAGON HAMMERS.

Witnessing the PSYCHIC blast detonate, Shalin knew it was over; the coins not only blocked her stinger, but slammed her to the ground, belly-up. Without even waiting for the Pokémon to revert, the Captain recalled her. Her run was over. She just had to hope her last few points would hold against Ollie.

"Guess that's it for me," Shalin said, stepping forward to shake Priam's hand again. "If only there were more time in the tournament, I'd offer you a rubber match. I like your Sygna Suit, though; if you want to meet up after the tournament, I can show you mine!" Regardless of arrangements, the tired Captain would turn the match slip in and sit in the commons, awaiting the tallying of the competitors' points...

The wall of treasure not only completely blocked the Beedrill's venomous assault, but the high gravity made the coins strike harder, several being lodged between plates of her carapace. They began to grind away at her as her entire body shook from the recoil of her own wings. Shalin had to do something, or she was going to take a loss and never be able to catch Ollie on the rankings.

Raising her right hand to her MEGA CIRCLET, Shalin showered her Beedrill with the light of MEGA EVOLUTION, the golden objects falling off her as she assumed her apex form. Though it took quite the effort to do so, she had limited flight capability in her Mega Evolved form, even in the high gravity field. Hovering low to the ground, she extended her FELL STINGER a second time, determined to pluck the Espeon with it and ravage it with the pain of burning venom.

The exchange of blows was brutal, Queen Zing's body alight. With how fast she was flying and Alpha's trajectory, Shalin could only assume her Pokémon's Poison Jab was just as effective. With the blaze spreading to her wings, though, the Captain had to make her move now. She raised her right hand to point the light of her circlet's MEGA EVOLUTION toward Queen Zing, putting out the blaze and rejuvenating her.

If the noise from her wings vibrating wasn't loud before, it was downright deafening now. Though she sported four foreleg stings instead of two now, she wouldn't put them to use yet; instead, she raised her frightening rear end toward the Talonflame, extending her FELL STINGER and attempting to stab the bird anywhere she could.

With the incredible power of the Espeon's mind, gravity sharply intensified, making it impossible for the saddle-wearing Shiny Beedrill to stay in flight. It was a crippling blow, and one that even Mega Evolution could not fix. Despite her Pokémon's plight, Shalin's arms remained idle, leaving her Mega Circlet alone for the moment.

With the wasp down to slow ground movement, all she could do was raise her foreleg stings and shoot a TWINEEDLE volley at her foe. She raised the spears to a higher angle to compensate for the higher gravity. Those needles, while not as strong as the barb on her rear, could still imbibe the purple Pokémon with quite a bit of venom!