"Two singles," Robin repeats back with a nod. She knows exactly what to do. Her ghost types will steal the spotlight effortlessly. She pulls out Gengar's pokeball. Her second-oldest partnership, the tricky ghost type was a good opener to through her opponent off. Gengar, however, did not have a penchant for listening to her, but her pokemon largely fought well on their own without direction. She put her hands on her hips with unearned confidence, ready to watch.

Well, perhaps that went against the spirit of a trainer battle. She straightened up and thought about his moveset. What would be a good first move? "Gen, let's start by leaving 'em unable to think straight." Her instruction was clear enough, but... Without a care for who Annalise threw out, Gengar would use shadow ball as his opening gambit.

"It feels like cheating to get tutoring from you right before a big race." She laughed and led Pazuzu to a good vantage point to watch Josh. She didn't feel brave enough to experience that kind of speed heading to the ground, but she felt like a good dive was in order before she wrapped things up. She didn't make the drop as sharp as Josh's, but she increased the angle as they quickly descended to the earth like an arrow. She leaned to the side so Pazuzu would spin, and the spiral of it made her stomach flip more than ever, but it was a good feeling rather than a dreadful one.

She pulled the reigns up early and fixed their flight path to be parallel to the ground. Her reign pulling had been a little sharper than it needed to be, but it would smooth out with practice. Pazuzu flapped leisurely until she led him to land. Sinistea floated up to her excitedly, chirping. Robin slid off the saddle and stretched her arms overhead. "This was a great crash course. I can't wait to use it on a Ranger mission."

Races were more than just speed; he was right. Still, she had a hard time imagining her Carracosta pulling ahead of anyone... but if everyone else burnt out, maybe he could power through til the end. She would have to think it through. "I'll see what he can do," she decided. A trip out to the sea would show her what he could do.

She found his Sylveon below and remembered that he had such an interesting collection of oversized pokemon. The size variations among different species was the kind of thing she felt Gwen might enjoy studying. "I didn't realize you knew my bestie, Gwen." Robin smiled. "I hope things went well." She pulled Pazuzu beside Josh, looking between Josh and his Skarmony. "I don't mind if you do anything crazy, just don't encourage Pazuzu to follow." She laughed.

Gabites had rougher skin than Dragapults. Robin wasn't sure she cared for it, pushing him away as consciousness fully returned to her, and just in time to see Gwen, too. "Whatever," she croaked. Even still, she was beyond ecstatic to see Gwen. The redheaded Ranger was a saint. "Thank you." She accepted the fresh water and drank like it was the most delicious beverage on the planet. "I'm feeling less cloudy."

Her throat was hit-or-miss, but some honey and gross chesto medicine would help. Her fever was down after the soup and nap, so at least she felt functional enough to take care of herself. "I really didn't mean to make you do so much for me. It seems like you never need to be taken care of anymore..." Not that Gwen had ever been helpless, but the other girl had been aimless, and Robin had been more than happy to adopt her into her life and take her on little adventures growing up.

Now, Gwen was an established Ranger and up-and-coming trainer with a dragon focus. "Gwen, I hope I can make it up to you someday."

Having spent the last two weeks recovering from her sudden sickness, she was eager to be out and about again. She needed to slow down her travels across Hoenn to avoid pushing herself into illness, so she planned on starting in Mauville and looking for direction from there. She always spent at least a full day in the city, usually harassing her favorite gym leader in some manner. This time around, there was a class orientation for rookie Rangers.

Robin couldn't pass up the opportunity to learn something. The orientation seemed to be about battle training, and Robin could certainly benefit from it. She slipped into the outdoor class once she located it and listened for a minute until she heard a prompt for volunteers. "I volunteer!" She raised her hand with a huge grin on her face. "I look forward to learning something about my team." She pushed through the set of student Rangers before her, pokeball in hand. "What's the battle set-up?"

It didn't seem to have taken so long for Josh to get the hang of these other methods of riding. She could only hope to develop her own set of skills so diligently as a Ranger. Still, she couldn't help but laugh as he insisted on his age. Only five years her senior wasn't a monstrous gap, but the experience gap between them was basically the ocean. Five years from now, where would she be? She hadn't set her sights on much besides repairing human-ghost relationships and fixing the reputation of her favorite type. She didn't even know what that would look like.

Pazuzu and her collaborated to get to a smooth cruising speed. She stretched her arms overhead, trusting Pazuzu to keep the course while her hands were off the reign. Activating her core and even tensing out of apprehension for all of this riding was causing some soreness, though she liked that it felt like tangible proof of her skills developing. "Okay, so you're not old," she insisted with a smile. "I've been planning some expeditions with Gwen, so hopefully I can learn something I can teach you."

She thought about the competition coming up, and if she had the time to hone some skills for it. "I'm not sure Carracosta is the right kind of pokemon for that. But, uh, I think it'd be fun. All the cool stuff seems to happen in this city. I'm never bored."

"Thank you." Robin snuggled into her covers as Gwen left to get her fresh water. The drowsiness of the medicine and the fullness of the soup made it difficult for her heavy eyes to stay open. As she quickly drifted off, she could've sworn she felt the bed move...

Fever dreams were always nonsensical. Robin found herself beneath a gigantic tree with unnaturally blue leaves. The tree must've been fifty stories tall, but Robin could see the fruits it bore perfectly from her place on the ground. The tree bore every fruit Robin knew of, and then some, but some sense of dread filled her. Suddenly, Gwen was falling through the leaves and descending quickly to the ground. Robin found herself moving quickly to catch her --

Robin woke up to herself squeezing Gwen's pokemon close, protectively.

Enough was enough. Snorlax marched Robin on his shoulder away from the safari, uninterested in her mumbled and feverish complaints. She beat on his back with balled fists, but her sickly state left the impacts especially insignificant. In her daze, her vision blurred watching Snorlax' shadow while he marched, but something purple seemed to be there. She muttered a few sounds to articulate it to Snorlax, but it was too nonsensical for him to translate. He continued to the entrance of the safari as he retraced their steps. Meanwhile, Robin struggled to secure a pokeball from her waste to toss at the little blob following.

She pulled a face as he mentioned the Fortree gym leader -- not because she didn't like him, (she didn't know him!) but because it was always weird to think about Josh learning something from someone else. "It really is so hard to imagine you as a student." Not that he knew everything, but he had such an easy confidence about the things he talked about. She had a feeling Josh tended to make people around him feel safe and comfortable. Despite her anxieties about a lot of riding, he made it all seem like it'd work out one way or another.

"Like, you're old but not that old." He was enough of an adult to teach her things, but not so old he was like, gross old-person old. Old enough to protect the region, but young enough to enjoy sound-barrier-breaking rides. It wasn't a bad spot to be in by any means, but Robin's youth made it hard to wrap her head around someone like Josh who was just old enough to be considered an Adult to her but not so old as to be someone she should avoid getting lectured by.

"Though, I would pay some money to see someone beat you at riding, even if it's in the air."