[ti]solo[/ti][S][REFRESH] Shalin's Romping Grounds

With all three of her barbs freshly cleaned of any gunk blocking them, the Beedrill was ready to deliver some mean stings -- ones even poison-type Pokémon might have a hard time shrugging off. "We'll be raid ready before you know it!" she encouraged the killer insect. "There is one thing I wanted to practice, and it's a shame I'm not quite high enough level to practice it with you."

Going into the Refresh menu, there was quite a long list of mini-games Shalin had to choose from. One was a flight mini-game that consisted of soaring through rings while spearing or otherwise popping balloons holding crates. Once the game was loaded, she and her Beedrill were warped to the shoreside starting location. Putting her hand on the floating insect and taking a stance to mount up, Shalin was greeted with a red UI message:

Error> You must be at least level 9 to mount this Pokémon.

"Don't remind me, game..." she sighed, stepping away to give the insect some room to buzz and take off. With a noisy drone, the yellow Pokémon bobbed upward, then tilted her wings to fly forward as the countdown ended. All Shalin could do was watch the timer count up as her Pokémon noisily weaved through the center of every ring, making a complete circuit around the lake... with all the balloons and crates completely untouched.

Her time didn't even make the daily leaderboard. "Queen Zing, I think you're supposed to shoot or stab the balloons..." she mumbled, looking forward to the day she could take on the course with her Pokémon.

Tiny as Olivia's wings were by comparison to the rest of her body, they created quite a bit of thrust propelling the Buzzwole forward. This was going to take a lot of getting used to; when the bug-type jumping and smashing her fist into a yellow crate was the most natural-feeling part of the run, Shalin knew she was astride a creature that was truly alien. Running on two legs gave her the sensation of riding a dinosaur, but skittering about on four made it feel like she was on a crab the way the fighting-type turned.

Even by her standards, this was unusual.

Without the ability to communicate with one another directly, Shalin had only the reins to command the red insect. She pulled hard to the right, Olivia dropping to all fours to make the sharp turn before her. Facing one way and traveling a different direction was an out-of-this-world sensation to her. Despite the dizziness traveling sideways at such high speeds induced in her, she was at least able to maintain control of her Ultra Beast mount's direction. Furthermore, she seemed to be more apt to obey her than before. Slow as progress was, they were at last getting somewhere!