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Trueno




A low, electronic hum lingers in the air. At first you thought something was wrong with Chispa’s audio, but then a pulsing trill suddenly cut in.

Ah. You’ve heard this song a few times on your journey, most recently while Juliana rewatched the earlier parts of that old cartoon along with you that you missed out on. It played while brown-hair was racing some arrogant jerk driving a red hatchback.

It was just a cartoon, but something about the hatchback driver really rubbed you wrong. Enough so that you growled at the screen of Juliana’s phone a couple times.

Maybe it was silly, but that sort of personality doesn't just exist in stories.

You know that all too well…

You shake your head and sigterm those thoughts. No, you need to stay focused right now…

“Yah!”

You snap to attention as you hear the cries of your teammates coming, kicking around that white-and-violet ball Juliana’s lab gave her. Lucas manages to get one of his feet under it as the Quaxwell kicks it off the ground…

“Hup!”

You jump up in its path, the ball bouncing off your flank and onto the ground.

A sharp check of your hip sends it back out past your teammates as they chase after along a grassy knoll under an evening sky. You’re presently at the bottom of a cliff running along the northern fringes of a mostly blue-and-white town—one built on tall terraces acting as human-made falls:

Cascarrafa. Or ‘Ciudad Cántara’, maybe. Juliana wanted everyone to have a bit of a break before taking on the next gym—that tall, boxy building just across a small lake to your left that you’re pretty sure you’d be able to jump over with a running start in Drive Mode.

Clearly everyone still had plenty of energy to burn after the day’s training, especially with how forcefully Pokey—now an Oinkologne—headbutts the ball. It’s a game Turo would occasionally watch on television during breaks from his research. ‘Fútbol’, you think...

Well, kind of, anyways. The games Turo watched were played by humans and not Pokémon like you. But the way you’re playing it is kinda similar. Your friends try to get the ball past you while you try to block it.

And something you quickly discovered was that surprisingly enough, playing this game was easier when your tail and dewlap weren’t curled up in Drive Mode as long as you reacted quickly.

Overlapping cries turn your attention to your teammates, as they come charging from under the shade of the tall, ancient trees behind them. Ascua kicks the ball this time, as it comes speeding along the ground and you throw your foreclaws out to block it…

Only for it to slip your grasp.

You fall and hit the grass on your side with a yelp, and hear a sharp buzz and a stifled cry further behind.

“Bzzt! Watch where you’re all kicking that thing!”

You turn around and see Juliana over at the team’s picnic table, grabbing an open book that Chispa’s floating in midair.

Your teammates catch up with you with shared, uneasy grimaces as Juliana surely won’t be happy about that. Pokey’s attention drifts over to Lucas, as the Oinkologne all but shoves him forward.

“Lucas, you’ve been on the team the longest,” he says. “You go and smooth things over.”

He shoots an annoyed scowl back, but quickly relents with a sighing “fine” as the others’ attention falls on him. He makes his way over and goes up to Juliana, who thankfully doesn’t look as annoyed as you were expecting, even if there’s still something that doesn’t quite make sense to you…

Is Juliana doing homework right now? Otherwise, what’s with that book she’s got out?

You make your way over yourself as the music grows louder as you near. Juliana throws the ball back, but you don’t pay it mind since you can’t help but worry a bit…

“Juliana? Shouldn’t you also be taking a brea-?”

You trail off after looking down at the book, when you see that instead of line after line of those human glyphs that Juliana’s textbooks have, there’s a bunch of stickers and pictures on it.

«¡Ay! ¡Cuidado, Trueno!»

You turn and see Juliana hurrying up, and surprisingly, she looks visibly worried. Lucas trades looks between you two, before he sees the book himself.

“Oh, you found Juliana’s scrapbook.”

“‘Scrapbook’?” you ask.

“It’s a book humans collect pictures and stickers in,” Lucas explains. “Juliana’s been doing that since she started attending Uva Academy.”

You’re not sure how you never noticed that up until just now. Why, there’s a picture of that town you all just got back from returning a wallet to this town’s Gym Leader! ‘Pueblo Marinada’ and ‘Fuco’, you think. There’s others, too. A white boat with pink palm trees, a cut-up picture of that ‘Colonnade Hollow’ cave and its pillars, purple sunglasses, a sandwich—

A low growl comes from you, not from your throat, but from further down your body. You look down as Juliana blinks at you, before patting at your snout.

«Comeremos algo cuando se seque el pegamento, ¿vale?»

You frown briefly. She’s not talking about eating the sticker, is she? You’re kinda hungry, but not that hun—

She points off at your friends as they kick the ball around in front of those ancient trees up ahead, whooping and hollering. A punt from Ascua sends the ball rolling over, when Lucas steps in. He kicks it back to the Charcadet, nodding at you.

“Come on, let’s go work up an appetite.”

The music from Chispa’s racing now, and you briefly steal a glance back at him and Juliana over at the picnic table before your friends’ cries and the thumping of their ball game win out. Except this time, your Hadron Engine’s humming from excitement. Enough that you can faintly feel sparks on you.

It’s probably just excitement. You dash all fours. Rosa spikes the ball high up into the air with her club—it’s probably cheating, but whatever. You plant your feet, vaulting up after it for a headbutt.

“Gotcha!”

It’s only after your eyes are halfway to the treetops that you notice your rings are curled up. The ball bounces off your head, far above your teammates’ widened eyes and across the clearing.

… Straight for that little brook where the waterfall coming down the cliffs feeds this lake.

“Ack!”

You hastily clamp your claws into riding position. Just barely after you touch the ground, you push air out your hips’ thrusters and zoom ahead after it.

The ball passes your vision to your right, as you wrench your body and skid along the grass with a surprising screech. You don’t even wait for yourself to fully stop as you break your stance and get onto your feet, just as the ball catches up with you and hits the side of your foreleg.

You breathe a sigh of relief, uncurl your rings back into your dewlap and tail back into Low-Power Mode to dribble the ball back—carefully. Except there’s a strange glow to your left.

“... Huh?”

Up, tucked against that tall tree towering over the others, there’s a black spike with a loop up top and an orb dangling from it with a faint, eerie orange glow. You stare at it for a moment and can’t help but feel a chill go down your scales.

The sort you’d get when he’d glare at you...

“Hey! What’s taking so long?”

You turn your head at Lucas’ cry from further in the clearing and notice Chispa’s music has fully faded out. You shake your head, leaving the spike behind and returning to your friends.

It probably wasn’t anything important, anyways.


Commentary:

This chapter tripped me up for a while finding a song that would fit as background music, but in the end I Need Your Love felt good enough for a chapter where the main action was kicking the ball from the picnic minigame around. The version rolled for scoring was the 4:50 version that first appeared in Super Eurobeat Presents Initial D ~D Selection 2~, a fair bit longer than the 4:08 original release in Super Eurobeat Vol. 84. There’s a few Extended Mixes of this song out there, with the longest one presently commercially released being the 5:22 version from Super Eurobeat Vol. 84 - Extended Version - Time Edition, but in this case, I felt like I told everything I wanted to with this version.

And yeah, the games won’t let you picnic in this particular part of the map in the actual games, but I figured that was dumb and just ignored it since you can happily picnic three meters away on top of the cliff overlooking the park area behind Kofu’s Gym—or ‘Fuco’ as he’s known in the Spanish localization. Also, thar be some cameos today for things that don’t happen until the credits roll, literally in the case of the scrapbook and the photos and stickers shown off in it. Though it helps that the Chien-Pao stake in Cascarrafa is literally right there behind the local gym, which felt like as good a reason as any to have it pop up here.

Translation Notes:

- Ciudad Cántara - Spanish localization name for “Cascaraffa”. In Spanish, a cántara depending on context is a type of earthenware jug or a historical unit of liquid measurement traditionally used for wine that is roughly equivalent to 16 liters.
- Fútbol - “football”/”soccer”
- «¡Ay! ¡Cuidado, Trueno!» - “Ah! Careful, Trueno!”
- Pueblo Marinada - Spanish localization name for “Porto Marinada”, lit. “Marinade Town”
- «Comeremos algo cuando se seque el pegamento, ¿vale?» - "We'll have something to eat when the glue's dry, okay?"
 



That playlist from Chispa’s going again, this time the song’s got a thumping beat which intermixes with high-pitched chimes. You’re in Ride Mode, but not going anywhere fast in this search for clues, as you stand and tap your claws impatiently, eyes trained on a blue Squawkabilly resting on a helmeted human.

Juliana’s grip on your harness tightens and can hear her and Lucas grumbling. You can’t really blame them, it’s late at night in this town and the local gym’s about to close. Juliana apparently has to order food to start the next challenge, except the last thing she ordered wasn’t good enough.

«¡Pa dos! ¡Pa dos!»

Juliana suddenly lets out a cry before tugging you forward. She doesn’t even get the words out before you spin your Hadron Engine up and rocket off.

You zoom along down a largely street lined with mostly brick buildings. You’re a little curious how that Squawkabilly learned to speak human, but now’s not the time.

“‘Fire Blast’ and ‘for two’? Seriously, how are those even hints?”

You glimpse back briefly at your second passenger, Lucas, as he pinches his brow. You don’t think that that’s entirely fair. You figured out that it was other students from Uva Academy that had hints for what the Treasure Eatery’s secret recipe was.

And as the brief glimpse of that ancient theater where Juliana apparently found that last clue behind a grated-off section reminds, those other students from her lab aren’t just making things up.

… Except you all still have no idea what the gym wants Juliana to order.

And there’s not much time left to figure it out.

Juliana tugs your harness right, as you see a corner by the local gym’s reception building and enter a skidding slide. You lean in as you round the corner and even out just in front of a set of bollards that whip by you—belonging to a park that apparently continues off into wild plains outside this town.

You push your Hadron Engine as your thrusters roar and the scenery flies by, along with a couple passersby who turn their heads after you. Even if it’s not necessarily convenient for this gym challenge, you certainly wouldn’t be able to race around like this if it was earlier and more crowded.

All the while, your attention keeps drifting leftward and off into the park and wilds beyond. Could there be another student with a hint for the secret dish out there?

Except, Juliana got her eyes trained in the opposite direction. Deeper into… ‘Pueblo Mestura’. Or Medali—the town’s called one of those two.

There’s a crackle from the mount along your right harness, as Chispa pipes up with a sharp buzz.

“Given the time, I think we’re better off checking someplace closer to that Treasure Eatery,” he says. “Maybe there’s others with the same idea.”

You can’t see his screen, but just you approach a tall warehouse, you see her:

A little human girl—probably just a hatchling—in Juliana’s school outfit. Maybe it’s a bit desperate of you, but…

“Hey! Wait!”

You hurriedly turn right and down the street, the surroundings flying by until you’re coming to a rolling stop by a small plaza the girl’s in. Juliana dismounts and runs up after her, when the tyke suddenly turns around with a Pokéball in her hand and a determined glint in her eyes.

«Oye, ¿tú también estás haciendo el examen de gimnasio?»

The two trade words with each other, before backing away and clearing space, as Juliana turns her attention back towards you and calls for Lucas to come forward.

“Right, looks like that’s my cue,” the Quaxwell says.

He hurries over just as the little girl sends out a Gumshoos and your heart suddenly sinks. Of course. She’s not going to let that hint go without a battle.

You’re not worried about your friends winning, but do they have time to?

A quick glimpse right reveals Chispa’s and Juliana’s phone are still on your right harness’ mount. She clearly was in a rush if she just out-and-out forgot about him.

“Chispa, aren’t there any other places we can find hints?”

“I mean, maybe a Pokémon might know,” he answers. “Since that Squawkabilly knew a hint, didn’t he?”

Right, he did. Except, where would other Pokémon like that even be?

You briefly glimpse Lucas hitting the Gumshoos with a watery pulse, as your attention drifts elsewhere—the street you came from, the Treasure Eatery on the other side, and off down the road, a tall white neon light shaped like a Pokéball.

Wait, that’s it! Pokémon Centers always have a bunch of trainers around them! You get back on your rings and wheel around, zooming ahead with a booming woosh. The distance flies by in a flash, and before you know it, you’re screeching to a stop in front of it.

But… there’s barely anyone there right now…

“Whuh? What’s that racket?”

You turn around and spot a pair of Cyclizar rousing from under a steel awning, one of whom’s a strange tan color. Wait, that’s a rental stand—you learned from a Cyclizar you quite literally ran into that the humans who hire them often get around a lot.

Maybe… just maybe, one of those two would know something about it.

“Hey! Hey!”

You hurriedly roll over on your rings, and come to a rolling stop as the two’s eyes widen and their mouths flop open in shock.

“You’re from around here, right? Do you happen to know anything about that secret item at the Treasure Eatery?”

There’s a moment of stunned wordlessness as the tan Cyclizar’s stiff as a board, while the other trades a befuddled stare.

“Uh… not… really?” the green Cyclizar says.

“I mean, it’s called ‘secret’ for a reason,” the tan one adds.

… Oh. You droop and pin your horns back. You knew it was a long shot, but—

“How about places where challengers go to find hints?” a buzzing voice cuts in.

You look to your right, as Chispa’s floated out of Juliana’s phone and is zipping about beside your snout. The tan one blinks, before speaking up.

“I mean, there’s those ice cream stands in front of the Treasure Eatery,” he says. “They apparently take turns hiding clues for the Gym Challenge.”

Maybe you jumped to conclusions a bit too fast.

“Thank you so much,” you say. “You might’ve just saved my trainer’s Gym Challenge.”

You pop back onto your rings and race off again, going around the bend and down the street to the plaza.

You come rolling up just as Juliana’s talking with the young girl again, as you go up and nudge at her, your voice coming out in an excited titter.

“Juliana! Juliana! There’s a clue—!”

“At the ice cream stands, we just found out.”

You see Lucas walking up, his feathers a bit mussed and scuffed. Did… he get through that battle in the little time you were gone? But it’d just been a minute!

“I don’t know how we’re going to narrow things down,” he sighs, shaking his head. “Since there’s multiple ice cream stands right here.”

He motions off at the other end of the square. Sure enough, there’s two ice cream stands flanking one selling crepes.

You pace over, and as you near, catch the scent of something savory with a hint of lemon coming from the rightmost one. You make your way up, Juliana following after you as she sees what you do—

There among the ice cream, there’s grilled rice balls with lemon wedges.

“I… think we know what to order now.”


Commentary:

Once again, the Initial D soundtrack was a pretty target-rich environment for picking out mixes, with the Extended Mix that debuted in Super Eurobeat Presents Initial D ~D Selection 2~ being the most widely known version of Night Fever and the one that is used by this story. For those looking for a different listening experience (even if it doesn’t quite sync with the text), try out the 2024 Remaster version from Mega NRG Man’s Greatest Hits album.

If the Cyclizar in this chapter struck you as being familiar, chances are that you likely read A Mythical Dragon from Like a Dragon, where these are the viewpoint character’s buddies from the opening scene of that oneshot. It won’t be the last time you see faces from it in this story.

Translation Notes:

If the Medali Gym Challenge hints looked a bit unfamiliar, it’s because this story’s rendition of it leans on the hints for it from the Spanish localization, where the first two parts of the secret menu item are different from the ones in the English localization. In it, the Squawkabilly hint is “Pa(ra) Dos” (as in a serving “for two”) and the rice balls are explicitly identified as onigiris.

- «Oye, ¿tú también estás haciendo el examen de gimnasio?» - “Hey, are you taking the gym exam, too?”
 
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“You alright there, Wheels? You’re kinda spacing out right now.”

You shake and lift your head as Chispa’s buzzing lingers over human words saying something about a ‘disk’ and a thumping beat that fills your ears from the pair of red headphones over them.

Right, Juliana left them with you before this last battle started, as a sharp cry from just ahead reminds you as you get back onto your feet amidst morning drowsiness.

You’re just surprised this couldn’t wait until later in the day. The sun’s not even all the way up yet! Today’s battlefield’s that street beside that big park in Medali. Nemona’s to your left, Juliana’s to your right, while Rosa—now a Tinkatuff—and that Pawmo with Nemona grapple in between.

«¡Carantoña!»

The Pawmo barely has the time to react as a sudden swirl of pinkish dust kicks up and there’s a sharp clang. He goes tumbling back as Rosa follows through with her hammer’s swing. That drowsiness is gone now as you brace for the Pawmo to spring up, when he raises a paw with a dazed groan.

“Boy and I thought Doll-Eyes threw a mean punch…”

You’ll take that as a sign that he’s down for the count, which is confirmed just afterwards by a ray of red light recalling him back to a Pokéball in Nemona’s hand. It was a victory hard-fought for Rosa.

She pants slightly from fatigue, before Juliana recalls the Tinkatuff herself, her own actions being followed by a woman in a black suit with long, flowing hair that reminds you of the Glimmora you’d see around your old lab—’Ságita’, you’re pretty sure.

«¡Ja, ja, ja! Súper, ¿está viendo esto? ¡Me tiene acorralada!»

The music picks up, with lyrics and an almost roaring chime as Nemona fetches a last Pokéball around her waist, laughing and smiling.

… But why? She and her team are about to lose. Again. Her team’s outnumbered by Juliana’s and everyone knows who she’ll send out next…

«¡Adelante, Julio!»

She sends out her own starter—’Julio’, she calls him like how Juliana does with Lucas on her end. It only takes a moment to realize that something’s wrong as Julio materializes—not as a Crocalor, but a much larger red-and-white creature on all fours with almost skeletal markings and something like a fiery bird perched on him…

“Whuh?! When’d you evolve?!”

On their end of the battlefield, Lucas is staring with his beak agape, the Quaxwell’s expression is mirrored by Juliana, which Julio’s just eating right up.

“What, no background music this time, Lucas?” the Skeledirge says. “Shame, since Skeledirge were made for fighting to a beat!”

That… would explain Nemona’s earlier confidence.

«El cuerpo me pide teracristalizar a mi pokémon ¡Hay que impresionar a la súper!»

Your attention goes back to Nemona’s end of the battlefield as she pulls her arm down from a cheer and to her side, that glowing Tera Orb in her grasp as your breath catches briefly. She briefly recoils from the light before tossing it forward over Julio as glowing crystals overtake him.

They shatter, a second crash coming from Juliana and Lucas’ end as he Terastalizes, too. Those shapes over their heads fade, leaving a blue crystalline sheen on Lucas’ body, and a fiery orange on Julio’s.

There’s still a hint of unease to Juliana and Lucas’ face, but the Quaxwell looks much more focused now, as he bounces on his feet as Nemona’s voice cuts through the air with a cry:

«¡Hora de darlo todo! ¡A ver si eres capaz de aguantar el tipo!»

She gestures ahead, Julio’s Pokéball in hand, before calling out again:

«¡Canto Ardiente!»

That one catches everyone off guard, even Chispa, as he bobbles with a startled buzz.

“Bzzt! What sort of move is-?”

The ‘bird’ on Julio’s head suddenly flies up and an almost fiery spike extends down. Lucas runs up, water starting to wreathe his wings but the Skeledirge just ignores him, rearing up as he sings out a bellowing note.

And much to your astonishment, the “bird” suddenly zips forward and hits Lucas in the chest. He stumbles back briefly, brushing back some singed feathers with a dismissive scoff.

“Spitting fire at me? Really, Julio?”

Lucas takes off, lunging ahead with an Aqua Cutter at Juliana’s command, throwing watery blades before falling back.

Maybe you worried over nothing, since that does seem like a strangely clumsy mistake for Nemona and Julio to make. Though why have they kept coming back when they haven’t won a single battle since Juliana and Nemona first met…?

Since nothing good came of things when you tried doing the same…

“Yeow!”

You snap to attention as Lucas shoots back from a stream of dark-colored rings. He hits the ground and rolls onto his knees past the woman in the suit, panting wide-eyed as he looks across the battlefield.

“H-How?!”

“Torch Song,” Julio smirks. “It always gets my fighting spirit burning!”

The suit lady remarks something about things being impressive and grimace. So Julio’s first attack wasn’t a mistake. From the wide-eyed expression on Juliana’s face, it caught her off-guard almost as much as it did Lucas.

Your friends are in a corner now. One that you’re not sure how they’ll get out of.

Except, you know that they can win. And the way forward’s in your ears and floating right beside you. You turn to the Rotom in Juliana’s phone, and speak in a hurried tone.

“Chispa, can you—”

“Way ahead of you, Wheels,” the Rotom buzzes. “Just help me get up high.”

Up… high? You could jump, but you’d just come back down…

Unless…

Just as Chispa switches over the song to speaker, you rear up, sweeping the Rotom Phone up in your foreclaws as you hold him up in between your claws and over your head with a clear view of the entire emptied street.

The suit lady’s blinking and shooting you a puzzled glance.

«... Fascinante…»

The music’s starting to fade out, but you can already see it having an effect on Lucas. There’s an extra spring in his step, while Julio looks strangely happy himself.

“Oh, so there’s the music. Hah, you’re playing with fire there, Lucas!”

The Skeledirge might fight with music himself, but you doubt it’s the same music you’ve all been hearing during your journey.

“Put on the next song, Chispa.”


Commentary:

Surprise! I was in another double-feature mood tonight. The version of Night Of The Tiger used for scoring is the original version of the song from Eurobeat Flash Vol. 22. I actually wavered a bit over what version of Night Of The Tiger I wanted to score things to, and until very late in development, it was actually intended to score it to the song’s Extended Mix which runs for around 5:37, but figured that the overall cadence of the original release worked a little better for a battle-focused chapter. If the voice clip starting with ‘This record is being played’ sounded vaguely familiar to you, it’s a snippet of Doowutchyalike by Digital Underground that has a tendency to pop up as a sample in other songs.

And yeah, even if Nemona’s quest arguably ties in the least with your antics with bike dragon, I figured that it was worth showing something more prominent from Nemona’s questline. This is probably the most direct appearance that she’ll make in this series up until Disc 3, and given how Medali in a by-the-numbers playthrough is the fifth gym in the Paldea League, it felt like as good a reason as any to slot an appearance once her starter starts getting legitimately tough if you’ve been rushing through the game underleveled.

Translation Notes:

There’s some more localization-specific antics this time around than normal in this chapter. In the Spanish localization of Scarlet / Violet “La súper” is the equivalent title of “La Primera” with regard to Geeta. In context, it’s a clipping of “Súpercampeona”, or “Super/Great Champion”. For ease of translation, it’s just been remapped to ‘(La) Primera’ since ‘(the) Super/Great’ didn’t quite land in context even if it would technically be the more accurate translation for those lines.

Minus the line sending out her Skeledirge, Nemona's lines here are yoinked straight from her fourth battle from the Spanish localization, and as such carry some slight differences in nuance here and there from her lines in the English one.

- Carantoña - Spanish localization name for “Play Rough”. In Spanish, “carantoña” is a term that can be used depending on context to refer to flattery or physical gestures of affection such as caresses.
- «¡Ja, ja, ja! Súper, está viendo esto? ¡Me tiene acorralada!» - “Ha, ha, ha! Primera, are you seeing this? She’s got me cornered!”
- «¡Adelante, Julio!» - “Go ahead, Julio!”
- «El cuerpo me pide teracristalizar a mi pokémon ¡Hay que impresionar a la súper!» - “My body is telling me to Terastallize my Pokémon. We have to impress La Primera!”
- «¡Hora de darlo todo! ¡A ver si eres capaz de aguantar el tipo!» - “Time to give it your all! Let’s see if you can hold your own!”
- Canto Ardiente - Spanish localization name for “Torch Song”, lit. “Burning Song”
- «Fascinante…» - “Fascinating…”
 

Da-dah. Da-dah. Da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da.

Your ears fill with a beat that rolls from your right ear to your left and back. You’re currently in front of a lighthouse much like the one where your first lab was, except with orange instead of red brickwork.

There’s a pair of rental Cyclizar with human riders flanking you. You stood out a bit after coming here, one thing led to another, and Juliana and your normal companions got roped into a race. You recognize these two—you literally ran into the left one on the road a couple days ago. The tan-scaled one to your right, blinks in disbelief at you.

“Go!”

The music picks up right as Juliana leans in to take back one of your headphones, her eyes widening along with yours as the Cyclizar are off, the green one fuming after the tan one up ahead.

“Sanglas! No fair jumping the gun!”

There’s no time, you’re already losing ground.

Some sort of inner spark inside you clicks and you clamp your claws onto your rings, already rolling down the grassy path as your Hadron Engine spins up and your hips’ thrusters kick in with a satisfying woosh.

Their lead lasts up until the first tree, when you blow past the pair. The green Cyclizar isn’t particularly fazed, his counterparts and their riders are another story as the tan Cyclizar’s jaw flopping open in stunned surprise.

“He can do that, Montesa?!”

“Sure can! Eat our dust, buddy!”

For someone who’s supposed to be training right now after how tough that last battle with Nemona was, Lucas is sure getting into things. The music’s picking up human singing in a strange language that swells along with your pride. Even if you’re still nowhere as strong as you used to be, it’s nice having a way to show it off tangibly.

Juliana tugs your harness rightward. You follow her, heading down a gentle slope for a Pokécenter on an overlooking bluff to a path branching leftwards towards it, and rightwards to Porto Marinada.

So far, everything’s going smoothly. Just you, your friends, and the wind and grass brushing against your scales. At this rate, you’ll win this race with your eyes closed-

“Aaaaaah!”

There’s a shrill cry as you see a Kirlia staring frozen in place in your path. Juliana prompts you to jump and after doing so, you land closer to the stony bluff. She yanks your harness rightward, and you let your body slide, drifting across the path as you slow and steady yourself.

And much to your and your riders’ astonishment, the Cyclizar blow past you, running down the path and hugging the edge of the path for a section of road paved in blue tiles down a cliffside switchback.

“Wha-?!” Chispa buzzes. “They already caught up?!”

You dash off after them, but the tiled path is crowded, forcing you to hug the right shoulder next to some lightposts as your rivals block you off downslope.

If you had your full strength, this race would already be over: you’d have just flown over to the market entrance you’re racing towards.

No matter, you can still turn this around.

Juliana tugs your harness right slightly. You don’t fully catch her words due to the music in your ears, but you see it: between the shoulder and the cliff’s edge of your switchback, there’s a grassy space, more than big enough to pass the Cyclizar up ahead of you.

You can work with that.

You lower your head and let your thrusters carry you forward. First past that tan ‘Sanglas’ Cyclizar, then past ‘Montesa’ and cut ahead of them. For a brief moment, you feel that flash of pride again:

“Bzzt! Wheels, look out!”

Then you see the purple and white pinstriped house at the end of the hairpin you’re barreling towards.

«¡Salta!»

In a panic, you follow Juliana’s yelping call by reflex. Your claws hit the ground—hard—and you leap up with all the might you can muster. The pinstripes are suddenly gone, replaced by empty air, with orange tiles below you and then grass.

THUNK!

Your rings touch the ground and Juliana jerks your harness right again, sending your tail ring drifting out. The back of the house and a tomato planter blows past, when you see a fast-approaching ledge. Another call to jump and you’re airborne again, as the grass under your rings gives way to air, then concrete.

She jerks your harness again and calls out to stop. You hastily oblige her, sliding your body out and curling it rightward. Your rings audibly screech, leaving lines of dust and pebbles trailing their wake.

You finally stop and even out. Hadron Engine still humming as your heart pounds in your chest.

“... Wait, are we on a roof?”

A quick glance around confirms Lucas’ question. Sure enough, you are on a roof—big and flat, overlooking the rooftops of that marketplace in town and the houses around it. Along with the last hairpin of the blue-tiled path, where your rivals are running into town.

Your horns droop as a crushing realization comes over you:

You’ve failed, and you’ve lost because of it.

You hang your head, when you hear voices past the eave. You see other Cyclizar and the red roof of a rental station… there’s a low-roofed house right across the street, and the market just behind.

It’s a little crazy in your diminished state, but maybe you haven’t lost just yet.

You dash forward unprompted, rolling off the edge and for the Cyclizar station’s roof. Your friends cry out, your rings thump against the metal roofing.

And then you push air out of your thrusters with all your might.

The push forward lasts for just a moment, but it gives just the boost you need to jump up right at the edge. The blue-tiled street passes below you along with a Cyclizar and her rider staring up wide-eyed, then somebody’s lawn…

CRUNCH!

Then the clatter of tiles under your rings. From the ceramic chunks flying around, you probably don’t want to hang around here, but you’re still moving and the roof to the market’s fast approaching.

«¡Salta!»

You jump again, leaving the tile roof behind and landing on metal with a sharp thump. Your eyes briefly widen as you see glass panes up ahead, as you plant a foreclaw down and spring up again, this time angling left.

The panes pass under you as you land on a metal strip to its right with another thump, now diagonal to the market’s roof. Another jump vaults you over its glassy ridge.

This time, Juliana steers your harness and directs you to jump again. Her guidance takes you to the next metal strip, then the next one. You see blue-tiled streets ahead, and a house’s tiled rooftop as a stepping stone down.

CRUNCH!

Your last jump lands you in the street. You briefly note the staring passersby, and turn left for the market’s entrance.

“Wha-?! How on earth are you here already?!”

And there, darting up across an empty battlefield for the top of the steps is that ‘Montesa’ Cyclizar and his rider, both staring mouth agape.

“I’m quick on my feet?” you reply. “Though my rider definitely helped, too.”

His tan-scaled friend is right behind him, and as the music in your ears dies down, he levels an unamused scowl.

“Next time, no fair jumping around while racing.”


Commentary:

Today’s background music was definitely one of those more standout and memetic songs this time around, with a slightly trimmed version of the 4:47 release of Running In The 90s that first debuted in Super Eurobeat Presents - ~ Initial D - D Selection ~ serving as the backdrop. The extra 50-ish seconds certainly helped quite a bit with cramming everything in over the original release from Super Eurobeat Vol. 85, but a bit tauter-feeling than the longer Extended Mix that first appeared in Super Eurobeat Vol. 99. In the end, I think that it worked out pretty good, and it’s definitely a better placement for the music

Definitely laying on the game references a bit thick this time, since sparks flying off from your robot anole’s rings while Akira sliding aside, you can actually do everything Juliana and Trueno do here in the actual games. And yeah, the A Mythical Dragon cast makes its appearance again, this time featuring some proper names. If something about their names felt a bit particular to you, you’d be correct: Sanglas and Montesa here are named after historical motorcycle brands from Spain (even if Montesa is still around and kicking these days as Montesa Honda). Could've done worse for Cyclizar nicknames, really.

Translation Notes:

- «¡Salta!» - “Jump!”
 



You turn your head as an electronic trill and echoing words fill your headphone and the surrounding desert air. Was it really a coincidence that Chispa started up the next song on the playlist? Your claws are in the sand but tense, as your attention follows what’s almost like a big, silver-and-red wheel racing along the dunes.

“The heck is that?

As the music picks up, Lucas—now a Quaquaval—gives a baffled quack from your back. You can feel from their movements that both he and Juliana are turning to try and get a better look at the figure racing off.

One that you’re already familiar with:

“That Titan we’ve been looking for, hang on.”

You clamp your claws in place onto your forward ring and hips, before spinning your rings and rocketing off after it. It’s an ‘Iron Treads’ as Turo would call it. One of the Pokémon that he brought over to live around your last lab in that ‘Paradise’ he was working on building.

You know a few things about them from the ones you’ve seen, and the ones you would sometimes chase off when they were interfering with the Research Stations. They have power sources similar to your Hadron Engine. And they don’t battle for fun like your friends do.

And they’re not supposed to be anywhere near this big.

The Iron Treads slows and spins in place, as the red blur becomes perceptible bands of red and black. It suddenly pops up, its weight hitting the desert sand on four short, steely legs with a loud thump as the treads encircling its body split and unfurl into a trunk and tail.

You’re just noticing it, but those ‘Donphan’ that roll around this desert look weirdly similar to—

A startled cry from Juliana and sharp tugs at your harness prompts you forward. You quickly see why: the Iron Treads’ zooming along and passing large rock formations in a leftward arc. Faster than you can hope to catch up with…

If you chase directly after it, anyways. Juliana’s already steering you leftwards as you wrench the forward half of your body to follow, leaning in as your rear ring swings wide and skids and throws a plume of sand behind. You briefly hear Lucas cry out but he stifles it as you blast your thrusters forward.

Sand and desert rocks fly past as the hum of your Hadron Engine almost drowns the music in the air. You throw your body out into a skidding stop and plant your feet as the Iron Treads approaches. You squint and crouch, before throwing your jaws open with a loud roar.

GWAAAAAR!

The Iron Treads comes to a dead stop and unfurls. For a moment, you think it’s wavering like the smaller ones might’ve back at your last lab after a roar like that. Except it digs in and raises its trunk, revealing red optical diodes narrowed into a harsh glare.

“Shut your face, you stupid skink!”

He answers your roar with his own, metallic and forceful enough to make the ground shake, along with you as Lucas and Juliana slide off you.

… You’re suddenly getting doubts. An Iron Treads isn’t anything that you couldn’t handle back then. But you still can’t fight. And this one’s so big. A-And—

Ro-to-to-to!

«Hola Juliana, soy Turo».

You sigterm your thoughts. Chispa’s floating before Juliana as that voice that’s not quite Turo’s speaks up.

… Why’s he calling again? And why does he keep pretending he’s Turo?

«...Ten mucho cuidado te enfrentes a él, de acuerdo?»

And almost as quickly, he’s gone with a dial tone.

“No wait! Chispa! Call him ba-!”

«¡Lucas, Danza Acuática!»

The ground’s rumbling as you look ahead and everything happens so fast. Lucas peppering the Iron Treads and Lucas is hopping back after peppering the Iron Treads’ side with watery feathers. The Iron Treads’ seething buzzing as it barrels forward in a straight line.

Straight for Juliana.

“Juliana!”

You bite down on her backpack and yank her out of the way and all but throw her onto your back. The Iron Treads zooming just past before it pops up again and stomps the ground with a sharp tremor.

Sand and stones fly up, you definitely felt that attack.

You shakily get onto your rings and rocket forward, almost toppling from a few lingering tremors, your breaths coming uneasy and tense. Off to your right, you feel rumbling again and hear Lucas cry out. He jumps out of the way of a headbutt carrying a steely glint from the Iron Treads, and answers with a parting Water Pulse that doesn’t quite hit its mark as the Titan Pokémon skids and awkwardly stomps in place to try and turn around.

You follow Juliana’s tugging and skid to a stop onto your feet, doubt nagging at you. Maybe it wouldn’t have made a difference if you had your strength. You don’t know if it could handle a foe like this…

«¡Trueno, acércanos!»

Juliana calls out and points ahead, and you stare a moment before she repeats herself with the name Turo gave you. Your attention drifts over to Chispa, as you pipe up with a startled splutter.

“Chispa?! Wh-What on earth is she-?!”

He looks a bit lost himself, when in Juliana’s right palm, you see glinting light underneath it.

It’s her Tera Orb, shining and brimming with energy. The Rotom lets out a buzz in realization as he maneuvers Juliana’s phone, clamping it onto the mount on your harness.

“Looks like she wants to give feather-face a boost. Maybe you could use one, too!”

All of a sudden, the music in your ear and the surrounding air’s much louder and crisper. Is this the boost he meant?

A sharp squawk reveals Lucas jumping aside again, this time not cleanly enough to avoid a graze. It makes up your mind for you:

You will get your friends there.

You shift into Ride Mode and Hadron spins to life with an almost roaring hum and air shoots out of your hips’ thrusters. So hard that your rings spin in the sand as you rocket forward. You shoot in between the Iron Treads and Lucas and feel Juliana let go of your right harness as you near.

And from the very corner of your eye, you see her throw her hand forward and the Tera Orb sail off from it.

You wrench your head back and see the brilliant flash of light as Lucas starts to Terastalize. Much to your alarm, the Iron Treads is whirling around towards him. No! Not right now! Lucas just needs a bit longer!

A thought crosses your mind. It’s more than a little foolhardy, but it’s the one thing you’re sure will work. You wrench your body without prompting. Towards the Titan Pokémon, and you race forward, you let out a bellowing cry.

“Hey! Over here, you stupid wheel!”

The Titan falls for it, and lets out an angry bellow that shakes the ground and makes you wobble and fight to stay on your rings. You enter a skidding drift, aiming to race rings around the Iron Treads as you go from its trunk to its tail—

Where Lucas is running up, his body coated in a blue crystalline sheen.

Juliana cries out for another Aqua Step as Lucas throws himself forward, hitting the Titan with a swipe of his foot that makes an audible clang, and incredibly, knocks it off its feet entirely with a loud crash.

The music fades out with an echoing voice, as suddenly, the ground shakes and sand fills the air. You and your passengers cough as the dust settles and a sharp squawk rings out.

“Hey! Get back here!”

… And see your foe rolling off in retreat. Juliana hurriedly recalls Lucas as you growl and rocket off after the Titan.

You’re not letting him get away that easily.


Commentary:

Not too much to say about the choice of track this time since it came from one of the usual suspects as the 4:50 version of Love Is In Danger that first released in Super Eurobeat Presents Initial D ~D Selection 2~. If you want to try out some deeper cuts for this song, try listening to the original release from Super Eurobeat Vol. 84, or else the Extended Mix that first debuted in Eurobeat Masters Vol. 2.

Yeah, you don’t get to do anything anywhere near this obviously fraught and life-threatening while taking on the Titan Paradox in Scarlet / Violet, but that would make for a much more boring chapter. Realistically with an opponent that big, simply not getting run over would already be a hazard in its own right, so I took a page from some of the Titan encounters in the Violet chapters of Pokémon Adventures and made drift lizard get a bit more proactive in this Titan fight.

Translation Notes:

As is a bit of a running trend, the Spanish localization was the source of the character quotes for the humans in this chapter. The content is directionally the same as in the English localization, with the biggest difference being that Turo / Sada pre-emptively assumes the player character will fight Iron Treads / Great Tusk without asking.

- «Hola Juliana, soy Turo». - “Hi Juliana, it’s Turo.” lit. “Hi Juliana, I’m Turo.”
- «...Ten mucho cuidado cuando te enfrentes a él, de acuerdo?» - “...Be very careful when you face it, okay?”
- Danza Acuática - Spanish localization name for “Aqua Step”. lit. “Aquatic Dance”
- «¡Trueno, acércanos!» - “Trueno, bring us closer!”
 

Stay​


You glance up from the sand of the beach of the simulated island in your Pokéball as faint piano notes hang in the air. A quick look at the sky reveals the translucent outline of the headphone you usually wear overlapping about half of it while from the other half, you see Juliana’s climbing a ladder of some sort.

Juliana must’ve noticed your mood lately, since it’s harder for her to keep the headphone balanced like this while travelling since she has to stop periodically to put it back into place.

Even as the song starts ramping up, you just can’t muster the will to even get onto your claws. It’s not as peppy as the average song of this sort Juliana plays through her phone, but you’re sure that normally, the melody would rub off on you and you’d wind up all but racing around your Pokéball’s environment.

Except, things feel anything but normal this time.

An electronic beat ramps up in the background, as you stare off at the simulated sea and your memory banks turn to how this all started:

You were at a Pokécenter not far from here visiting with your teammates, and there happened to be some trainers battling in the common area next to it.

It was between a Clodsire and a Pyroar. You were even getting into the match alongside your friends… up until you saw that white light in the Pyroar’s jaws.

Everything fell apart after seeing that Hyper Beam. You shook like a leaf and your voice started hitching and whining.

The whole episode stirred up things you wish your memory banks would just delete.

Of burning pain. Of desperately taking to the air as your Hadron Engine sputtered.

Of him.

By the time you calmed down and started seeing straight again, everyone, even your friends, was staring at you. At how pathetic you were.

You’re not supposed to be afraid of Hyper Beams. You’re supposed to be strong enough to endure them. You even felt some of your old power come back after Juliana and Arven fed you those sour herbs a couple days ago…

No, you are stronger than that. You’ll prove it right now.

You spring onto your feet and curl your dewlap and tail into the rings you use in Ride Mode and charge off along the beach, your Hadron Engine whining louder and louder as you pick up speed and your limbs coil with tension.

After you ate that last sandwich with the Sour Herba Mystica in it, something changed in you and you’ve been able to shift back into what your old friend used to call ‘Glide Mode’—not fully accurate since you could definitely do more than just glide in it.

And your Hadron Engine sounds strong enough for you to prove it to yourself.

You spring up and spread your horns wide, warmth running along them you feel resistance holding you aloft as the energy membranes that help you fly fully take form. You turn your eyes up towards the cliffs. This time, you know you can finally make it back to their tops like you used to.

Your Hadron Engine’s running almost as good as you remembered how it used to, you can hear it. Feel it.

You turn towards the cliffs, trying to bank, only to widen your eyes as you start losing altitude—your thrusters aren’t getting enough power! You quickly level yourself out, trying to climb vertically instead.

Except, for the life of you, you can’t manage that either. You frantically try to climb, but your Hadron Engine hangs and stubbornly refuses to budge further. From how fast you’re approaching the cliff, you won’t make it to the top, and you throw your claws out to cling to its face.

They touch, but they don’t find purchase, sending you plummeting with a yelp.

You fall for about a second, hurriedly spreading your energy membranes out as you shakily come to a landing and slump over into the sand as the crushing realization your practice with Glide Mode these past few days hasn’t helped.

What if you’re just permanently broken somehow? Because of him?

When you came back to your first lab in the crater, Turo trusted you with being a guardian of a paradise he wanted to build there. He searched for others who could help you with that machine of his…

And he came from it.

You two started fighting more or less from the moment you met each other. And you quickly learned that he was stronger than you and not afraid to remind you of it. Every time you were together, he would keep pushing you around—to the point Turo just tried keeping you two apart.

He had his assistant help deal with him, and specifically set aside one of the research stations for you to watch over as your own special place.

Turo didn’t seem to understand how bad things were. You didn’t either the day he came and demanded you give your station up to him. To just get out of the way.

Because he was a stronger guardian who’d protect it better.

Because you’d never measure up.

Normally you’d get Turo to intervene. But after years of him making you a stranger in your own territory, in that paradise Turo worked so hard on, something finally snapped.

You attacked him. Hard enough to tear his hide. For a brief moment, you were sure you’d finally defeat him.

And then he hit you with that Hyper Beam point-blank and flung you against a collapsed pipe. He cornered you, leaving you flinching and bracing for the end as that awful light filled his jaws.

I-It was all a mistake. If you hadn’t started that fight, Turo would’ve never stepped between—!

Sigkill. Sigkill. Sigkill!

The thought process mercifully stops, but your eyesight’s wavering—from electrical pulses interfering with your optical diodes. It normally happens whenever you’re in severe pain.

They were also there when you fled your old lab…

Suddenly, your surroundings melt away into light and reveal orange evening hues, and that you’re on a stone platform. One of those ancient watchtowers in the countryside.

Your eyes drift towards the ground as Juliana reaches for you, headphone in hand. She slips it onto your ear, and then only to falter.

The music’s playing its chorus again, but you don’t lift your head. You feel a pat at the top of your head, and then hear a voice speak up.

«Trueno, ¿estás bien? Te veo triste».

You blink and turn your head over towards Juliana. She’s there staring worriedly at you, when she has a brief flash of realization and hastily repeats her words, this time calling you ‘Miraidon’ like Turo would.

Chispa floats up briefly and begins to speak only to hesitate as Juliana grabs a Pokéball from her waist and scratches under your chin, saying something that you don’t quite follow.

“She asked if you were feeling okay,” the Rotom phone chirps. “Since you look, well… miserable.”

You avert your gaze. You don’t know how you would even begin to explain things to Chispa, or if he’d even believe you. You hear a Pokéball release, and see Lucas materialize in front of you.

“If it’s about what happened at the Pokécenter, you don’t need to hide over it,” he says. “Everyone has moments like that.”

You can’t find the words to respond. The Quaquaval makes his way over to you and sidles onto your back, Juliana following right after.

“It’s okay if you don’t want to talk about it,” he says. “But can we do anything to make you feel better, at least?”

You look out and see rolling plains and clear skies all around you. It dawns on the reason why Juliana climbed all the way up here, and you shuffle your claws in reply.

“Maybe a little flight practice would help…”


Commentary:

Another one of those chapters where I was fighting for every last word in the end, with Stay’s Extended Mix coming in clutch, which also happens to be the most widely known mix of the song by virtue of it first debuting in Super Eurobeat Presents Initial D ~D Selection 2~. The original release from Super Eurobeat Vol. 89 can be a bit punchier, but… uh, yeah, at only 4 minutes long, it simply wasn’t long enough to accommodate what I wanted to go for this chapter.

The official games are pretty nebulous about what exactly is going on inside of your bike dragon’s head during Scarlet / Violet’s campaign, so there’s a bit of taking a leap of faith for what felt like it’d make for the most interesting story after taking the tack that Trueno was cognizant of Turo’s death. If you’re wondering about this depiction as being afraid of Hyper Beam, it’s a nod to a very specific scripted series of attacks you deal with in the final battle in Pokémon Violet, where the Guardian of Paradise attempts to use it as a finisher. As for why this story chose to make Trueno the main escalating party for the fated territorial dispute at Research Station Four, it just felt fitting enough for the parallels the games already draw between bike dragon and Penny. His attempt at standing up to his bully just happened to go horribly wrong instead of horribly right.

Also, hug your bike dragons, people. Just from the officially canon events they go through, they need it.

Translation Notes:

- «Trueno, ¿estás bien? Te veo triste». - “Trueno, are you okay? You look sad.”
 
Last edited:



There’s a strumming melody in your ears that bounces left and right between the headphones over your ears as you listen along with it—like Juliana does for you sometimes while you’re watching your teammates battle from the sidelines.

Except the only battle you’re watching right now is with your own restlessness.

The guitar picks up and starts snarling as your claws tap against hardwood, before your right one thumps against something soft. A small green throw rug with a Skwovet plush and a couple odds and ends, with a window looking out over that vegetable garden planted in front of Juliana’s house, along with Juliana’s mother and Lucas as they tend to it.

Electronic chimes kick in as you give an impatient paw at the floor. It’s the end of the weekend and Juliana’s visiting her home again. Except the only bits of the outside world you’re seeing right now is the sliver of Cabo Poco beneath a waning sun through the window, along with the posters at the foot of her bed.

They’re apparently of distant lands she’s dreamed of visiting someday: one of a white tower in a crowded cityscape lit up by spotlights under a full moon. It’s a place somewhere far off to the northeast… ‘Ciudad Luminalia’ or something like that. There’s another of palm trees framing a mountainous island at sunset.

Maybe you couldn’t get her to either of those places, but you could at least take her down to the beach, or drift around on the trails, or try to find someplace new as part of her Treasure Hunt…

Someplace where she’d actually be having fun instead of being cooped up in this room doing homework.

You turn around back towards the other end of the room. You haven’t been here too often, but it’s still recognizable: the TV and game console. The shelves with books and knicknacks like a plant in a Hoppip-shaped pot. The white wardrobe plastered with Pokémon stickers…

And Juliana sitting at the little desk on its right, staring down at an open book and looking like she’d rather be anywhere but here right now. Why, she doesn’t even have Chispa with her—he’s busy floating by the shelves at the moment.

You shake your head.

No, she’s studied enough. And for whatever reason, something about this doesn’t sit right with you.

Those electronic chimes come back as you walk up beside her, and nudge at her with your snout.

“Juliana?”

She turns her head over towards you as you hesitate. Something about this whole encounter is eerily familiar when it dawns on you:

It’s almost like how you’d walk in on Turo’s research.

“Wheels, we’ve been over this,” a buzzing voice chirps. “She’s doing her book report.”

You turn and see Chispa, now closer and floating up in front of you. Yes, you know that Uva Academy sometimes gives Juliana homework, but…

“But she never does homework on the weekend!”

“She does when she needs to return the book her report’s about tomorrow,” the Rotom sighs. “I did try to warn her she was biting off more than she could chew.”

You look over at Juliana as she pats you. She says the same “Terminaré pronto” she did half an hour ago, and something about friends downstairs.

“... If you’re sure…”

You sigh and shuffle off leftwards, carefully making your way down the steps going down the red-painted wall down to the ground floor. The steps are a little tricky while you’re in Low-Power Mode since you have to mind the bend to not knock over the potted plant with your tail.

But you make it down there, and soon enough, you’re passing the front door into the living room. Pokey’s there, talking with that Skwovet partner of Juliana’s mother who hangs out here.

Except your thoughts are still upstairs. If you could just get Juliana outside and moving, you know she’d be so much happier…

“Eh? You’re still out of your Pokéball?”

A quacking voice turns your attention up towards the side entrance of the kitchen. It’s Lucas, coming in holding a small bundle of carrots. He sets it on the counter, before giving a puzzled glance at you.

“I’m surprised you didn’t go stir-crazy just walking back and forth inside.”

Wait, maybe that’s the break that you need. Lucas was Juliana’s first partner and she’s got a bit of a soft spot for him, so…

“Lucas, can you get Juliana to stop doing her homework?”

“Trueno, why would I do that when she needs—?”

“Because she’s been unhappy the entire time and won’t listen.”

The Quaquaval hesitates. His eyes dart over to the loft where Juliana’s bed is, before shaking his head with a sigh.

“I’ll go check up on her, but I don’t think she’ll stop,” he says. “Right now, I think that we should try and make her happy where she already is.”

He makes his way off as you let your eyes drift down towards the counter with an uneasy whine. You just don’t know how you can make her happy right now. There’s not even enough space to run circles around her in Low-Power Mode!

And then you notice it off to your right:

There’s a sandwich set out on the counter on a plate. From the smell and sight of it, it was made with that recipe Juliana’s mom gave her after defeating Iono’s Gym challenge.

Maybe it’s silly, but maybe that’ll cheer her up. You carefully nip the edge of the plate and pull it off the counter. It’s a little awkward at first, but after a couple steps, you keep a rough balance and little by little, you retrace your steps amidst electronic beats.

You pass the front door. Then the steps. And before you know it, you’re walking up to Juliana talking with Lucas at her desk.

You set it on the desk with a tak, and turn to her. She doesn’t notice you right away, so you opt to get a bit more direct.

You lick the side of her face, much as Fito taught you to do with Arven years ago. That one gets her attention as she whirls in her seat and her eyes stare up blinking into your optical diodes.

“Juliana? I brought you something to eat,” you say. “Though can’t you take a break at all? Even a little o—?

Only to suddenly trail off after getting a good look at the page the book on the desk’s open to.

On it, there’s a black-and-white drawing of a floating serpentine figure with lightning crackling about it. One that looks just like you do when you’re in Ultimate Mode.

The illustration reminds you of ones that would in that violet-colored book Turo had. The one that Arven’s been using to find the Herba Mystica.

It’s not just you who sees the resemblance, as off at Juliana’s left, Lucas is peering down over Juliana’s shoulder himself with a puzzled frown.

“Wait, Chispa. What is that thing and why’s it look so much like Trueno?”

“Some ‘Iron Serpent’ thing that the book’s writer claimed to have seen” the Rotom buzzes.

Wait a minute, this is that same book that Turo used to have! Memories of walking in on him poring over it flicker across your memory banks. But all those times, you never actually read more than a couple pages with him.

It’s too late to do that with Turo. And probably with Arven, too…

Will it one day be too late with Juliana, too?

No, you’ll make sure it won’t be.

You sit down and settle in as Juliana tears a hunk of the sandwich off and brings it up to your snout. You gobble it down, and quickly follow her eyes back to the Violet Book she goes along the page as Lucas and Chispa gather around.

She’s not tense and unhappy-looking like she was earlier. Even if you still wish she wasn’t doing homework, you think you’re okay with this.

The place you want to be the most right now is here.

With her.


Commentary:

Extended Mixes coming to the rescue once again by giving me precious extra time to squeeze in words. In this case, 24 Hours A Day With You’s Extended Mix is actually the oldest version of the song, which first debuted in the ABeat 2021 B2 vinyl single by A-Beat-C in 2001. If you remembered the song being shorter, you’re probably thinking either of the 3:57 version that first debuted in Super Eurobeat Presents Initial D Battle Stage which was used to score the original Drabble Bingo entry version of this chapter, or if you’re a more offbeat type, the 3:02 mix that was included in Super Eurobeat Presents Euromach 11.

And yeah, I didn’t feel cruel enough to end the weekend on that last chapter, so instead let’s end it with some cute fluff in Juliana’s bedroom. Everything here’s just about how you remembered it, except for the two posters that were added to the wall that the game’s camera prevents you from viewing. If you find their designs familiar, you might just own a set of Destinations Posters, since they’re based off the ones from Kalos and Alola in that set—a little nod to the places that didn’t quite make it into Scarlet / Violet’s DLC that we now know from leaked materials were once considered as settings for it. If you didn’t remember this page of the Violet Book being around, then don’t feel too bad, Game Freak didn’t either since it only exists by implication from Miraidon’s Pokédex entry. It felt like as good an excuse as any to explore where that in-game dex blurb wound up coming from.

Translation Notes:

- Ciudad Luminalia - Spanish localization name for “Lumiose City”.
- “Terminaré pronto” - “I’ll finish soon.”
 



You tense up, digging your claws into the dirt as an electronic beat tapers into a low bouncing hum and suddenly, malicious-sounding laughter echoes off the surrounding cave walls. A faint shiver goes down your scales as a worried quack comes from your back.

“Chispa? This is part of the song, right?”

A shriek suddenly lingers in the air and mixes with the laughter, where you can’t tell where the music Chispa’s playing is beginning and the cave around you ends as your Hadron Engine intermixes with shaky breaths.

No, this is silly, you shouldn’t be getting scared about going through a cave like this.

You went through others like that ‘Inlet Grotto’ just fine before!

Sure this place is much bigger and you don’t know where you’re going. And it doesn’t have the Luminous Moss the grotto had to help your optical diodes see ahead. And there’s a worrying number of growls echoing…

And the sharp tug from behind at your tailtip.

GWAAAAAAAH!

That last one’s just what you needed to lose your nerve as you vault up. Your yelps intermix with your passengers’ and some others you don’t recognize as you loop up your dewlap and tail in mid-air. They come alight with yellows and purples before touching the ground with a sharp crunch.

Your thrusters roar to life and you zoom off ahead in a blind panic. Juliana tightens her grip on your harness, guiding you gently rightward as your pounding heart starts to slow down, and you hear a sharp buzz from the phone mount on your harness.

“Again, take things slow and steady, Wheels,” Chispa buzzes. “I’m running off a cached map right now!”

Right, Chispa said that ‘reception was terrible’ in this cave, so it’s easy to get lost down here. Especially when the only tip Juliana got for getting through here was to ‘follow the torches’. You ease up a bit, when Juliana’s grip on your harness suddenly tightens:

«¡Trueno! ¡Salta!»

You hastily plant your feet and spring up from the ground. Air wooshes beneath your claws and rings as you spread your wing membranes to break your fall. The next torches are up ahead on broad stony ledges—one to the right, and another further off in the distance to the left.

Your guideposts forward… You hope. You still remember how following lights earlier wound up getting you all into a nasty surprise encounter with a Houndoom that was weirdly full of Tera Ener—

SKRRRTCH!

Your rings hit the ground unevenly as you see glowing eyes dead ahead. They and your own mutually shrink.

You wrench your body rightwards, entering a skid as you slide out. The presence brushes past with a yelp as your hip clips something that feels like sandpaper. You skid sideways along the cave floor to a stop, when suddenly there isn’t ground beneath you. Your eyes widen as you feel yourself fall.

THUMP!

Not very far, but it’s enough to knock you off your rings and make you throw your claws out for balance. To say nothing about the yelps it draws from your teammates. A quick glance behind you reveals Juliana wide-eyed and startled, as Lucas brushes his feathers with a sour huff.

“Trueno, you can tell us that there’s a ledge!” he snaps.

“Aaaah! My treasure!”

There’s a sharp cry from above, and you see the glowing eyes’ owner from earlier: a Gabite—staring down blankly at your feet. As you follow, you see you’re standing on what look like glass beads and shiny rocks.

A snarl turns your attention back up to the ledge—the Gabite’s blank shock is gone, replaced with bared fangs and a seething rage.

“You stupid metal clod! You’ll pay for that!”

It’s nothing you couldn’t handle if you had your full strength. But right now…? While carrying your friends…?

“S-Sorry!” you cry. “We were just going!”

You hurriedly stand back on your rings, as it dawns on you that Chispa’s still playing that song and the beat’s picking up again. You push air out your thrusters, lurching ahead as you feel dragonfire just miss your hindquarters. A watery splash follows along with the Gabite yelping, as Lucas’ voice cuts out over everything with an impatient squawk:

“Leaving any day now would be nice, just saying!”

“I’m trying!”

You start to pick up speed, except Juliana’s tugging your harness leftward. You’re about to ask why when you can hear from other cries that the Gabite’s not alone anymore, but you sigterm those thoughts.

When Juliana does this, she almost always sees something you don’t. And so, even if you don’t fully understand it, you opt to follow her guidance.

You wrench the front of your body forward, sharply enough that your tail ring starts to lose traction and skid when things become clear—Juliana’s steering you towards the next torch!

You spin your Hadron Engine up as hard as it’ll go and rocket forward as things go by reflex. A sharp tug at your harness and call to jump and you’re already planting your feet and vaulting forward. The torch passes by the left side of your vision as you land on your rings.

It lights up the surroundings well enough to see an uneven earthen ramp heading up to where the other more distant torch is, as well as the short ledge near the top that needs to be jumped over. Those obstacles pass by in a blur, and soon enough, you’re racing over to the next torch and rolling to a stop.

You slide back onto your feet, panting. The cave echoes with that malicious laughter and those screams as you glance over your shoulder and see Juliana looking off worriedly as Lucas levels a piercing scowl towards the Rotom.

“Chispa, why are you still playing that?!”

“Seriously, feather-face, get your priorities straight!”

It’s a quieter moment in the music, and you can hear other growls. You can hear other growls closing in. A quick glance beyond the fire reveals a hulking, bottom-heavy figure that your heart skips a beat at thinking it’s somehow one of those Pokémon Turo called ‘Iron Hands’.

Except this one’s cream and orange where it should be steely gray, and leading a troop of smaller yellow and black creatures that are similarly glaring.

“You interrupted our sparring with that racket!”

Maybe Chispa should’ve stopped the music earlier. From the grimacing expression on your friends’ faces, the Iron Hands lookalike must be similarly strong. You start to turn around and go back when—

“There he is!”

The Gabite catches up… with others like him and shorter teal creatures, snarling and growling as Lucas quietly gulps---a sign he thinks you’re in over your heads.

It’s hard to disagree. That’s a lot of Pokémon, and they don’t look weak.

Except for all their snarls and flashing of fists and fangs, the Pokémon drag their feet getting close to you. A few have visible flashes of worry over their eyes.

It’s then that you notice the ledge to your right and the torchlight up in the distance.

Maybe you won’t have to fight to get out of this.

You crouch, and throw your jaws open with a bellowing roar that splits the air as startled cries follow. You don’t bother to check the wilds’ reaction as you hurriedly get back onto your rings and race for the ledge, leaping into the air as you approach and landing on inclined stone.

You charge up the slope, running your Hadron Engine harder and harder as Chispa calls out just as it evens out and starts to flatten.

“Hang a right!” he buzzes “We’re just about out of here!”

You oblige him and skid rightward, as there’s a stony passage heading up. When you enter it, you see another torch posted around a leftward bend.

Juliana guides you around it, sending you skidding around the bend when you all see it:

Sunlight. And the cave’s exit.


Commentary:

Another case of opting for the most popular mix of today’s background music, in this case, the 4:55 version of Lost Into The Night that first debuted in Super Eurobeat Presents Initial D ~D Selection 2~. Unlike much of the tracklist, this song didn’t first appear in a Super Eurobeat album, with its first commercially released version appearing in Eurobeat Flash Vol. 18. For those looking for a little extra length, try listening to the Extended Mix that debuted in Vibration Eurobeat 6.

No translation notes today since all the Spanish language content is stuff you’ve seen before. This song actually took a little while to cook up an actual scenario for, since my original direction I considered was built more in mind with someplace around Montenevara. But “encountering things that go bump in the dark” still felt decently fitting given the vibes of the song, and we'll be seeing Montenevara in this story soon enough.
 
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A human voice, and then a guitar melody that joins it both in the headphone over your right ear and the frigid air around you. Chispa’s clearly not wasting any time at all after that team selfie for hitting the road again, and neither’s this song from the way a thumping beat joins in the melody.

Your breath’s fogging in front of an icy pillar under orange evening skies, a small sign with human glyphs labeling it a scenic lookout—“Mano de Napada” or something like that. Juliana shifts on your back as she slips Chispa back onto his mount. Lucas settles in behind her, your Hadron Engine spinning up faster and faster…

And with a cry and a tug at your harness, you’re off.

Your thrusters roar to life and your rings spin, briefly in place as your curled-up tail wobbles, but it flattens out and you tear along an incline with scattered scrub and the occasional pine tree.

All of it wreathed in white.

It’s apparently called ‘snow’, and it forms in places that are very cold or high up, or both like this Mount Glaseado you’re currently on. You know the air gets brisk at high altitudes, but from how frigid things are, you must be even higher than when you flew from your last lab.

It’s cold, wet, and winds up caking your body when you sprint through it for long enough.

You’re not sure you’ll ever get used to it.

Juliana tugs your harness rightward, and the moment you turn your forward ring, you can feel yourself already sliding as Lucas squawks.

“Trueno, you’re skidding again!”

Your irises widen and you lean right as sure enough, you’re sliding, your rings spinning but not actually pulling you forward as you drift towards a rocky face. You wrench your torso leftwards to keep yourself from falling over, pushing out more and more air from your thrusters as snow flies all around in your wake.

Your rings finally find traction and you can feel your body start moving forward, first slowly, then all at once as you fight against your tail ring as it slides left and right before it finally straightens out.

And in spite of it all, it always leaves this stupid grin on your face.

«¡Salta!»

Juliana’s cry cuts above the racing, electronic beats, and the wind in your face as you feel through your harness that she wants you to jump. It’s not hard to see why: up ahead, there’s a whole pod of Cetoddle wandering about the path, just gaping at you instead of making way.

Fortunately, it’s been a bit easier for you to avoid running into Pokémon ever since that last Herba Mystica. You break sprinting stance and briefly plant your feet, vaulting into the air as the Pokémon below let out a chorus of startled cries as you wait until you’re at your very apex.

You spread your horns wide, warmth running along them as they trap air underneath. It’s not the most impressive thing you’ve done in Glide Mode, but it lets you clear the Cetoddle all the same.

You coast until your rings touch the snowy path, and you rocket ahead.

The icy ledges to your left slip from view as Juliana prompts you to turn left this time. You enter a slide, leaning left as you reach your left claw out to skim the snow and glance off at your surroundings.

At first you just see your claw and the snow. But as you start evening out, the rest fills in: Lucas clinging to Juliana with his feathers puffed out—hadn’t he gotten over you drifting like this a while ago? More squarely in your vision is the Pokécenter you stopped at before that scenic detour… along with a couple humans and Pokémon who gape and stare at you as you pass.

And up ahead is a broad, snowy plain in between rising peaks to the right and a dropoff to the left. There’s a trainer in a delivery outfit, and a few groups of wild Pokémon like Snover and Bergmite milling around…

With enough open space between for you to race ahead freely.

You tear along ahead, the snowy landscape with its grasses and scattered trees flying past the corners of your vision like the snow you can feel flying up behind you as you zoom along.

Why if the rest of this journey up the mountain’s like this, you’ll be at that ‘Montenevara’ in no time—

«¡Espera! ¡Espera! ¡Para!»

Juliana cries to stop as you plant your claws and skid to a halt as your Hadron Engine spins down into a lower hum and Juliana then tugs Chispa off that phone mount. When you look over your shoulder, she and Lucas are staring puzzledly at the screen of her phone.

“Chispa, you’re sure we’re headed the right way?” he asks. “The map says Montenevara’s east and past a lake.”

“And what else is, feather-face?”

The Rotom motions a tendril off at the peaks. Right, you’d surely have to fly or climb up there. And you can do neither right now…

Juliana suddenly calls for you to get going, you spin up your Hadron Engine and start to head along, only much to your surprise, she’s tugging your harness towards those rocky peaks.

“Whuh? Juliana? Why are we going–?”

Your words trail off as up ahead and to your right, you spot it:

There’s a broad ledge up at the very top of the incline, and about halfway down, there’s a small ledge with a lone pine tree on it… along with a shallow-looking seam running almost in the opposite direction that looks like it’ll lead up to it.

“Ah! I get it!” you cry. “Way ahead of you!”

You wrench your body and bring yourself to a sliding stop as the words in the song start repeating with broken, staccato words. You briefly note a nearby Cubchoo blinking at your presence, as you even your rings out to align with the shallow rise, now dead ahead…

And launch yourself forward.

You rocket off, your Hadron Engine’s whine growing louder and louder as you reach the incline and start racing up it—except as you near the top, you realize something’s wrong:

Even though you’re running your Hadron Engine as hard as it can, you’re going slower and slower. Until the point you’re not going forward at all.

A-Ah! Your rings! They’re not holding traction! Why, you’re starting to slip back do—

Juliana calls for you to jump. You don’t think and plant your feet, vaulting forward and up into the air, except the ground beneath you still doesn’t look even. You spread your horns by reflex, entering a glide onto flatter land just in front of the tree.

You pant briefly, your breaths coming out in small, foggy puffs as you look leftwards. The slope here is noticeably steeper, but you already know a way around that.

You backpedal up against the incline, until your claws start slipping…

“Hup!”

And vault backwards as high and far as you’ll go. Once. Twice. Until you feel flat ground underneath you again. Juliana briefly glances off, before tightening her grip on your harness and steering you rightward.

You’re not really sure what she sees, but you trust her. You turn around, hugging the ledge to your left as up ahead, there’s what looks almost like a path in a bare, sloping stone leading up to the next ledge.

It almost comes to you instinctually now—zoom up the first section of stone until your rings won’t take you forward, then jump and keep going.

You do it twice, but after the last jump, where you expect another incline, you land on a downslope. This ledge is much bigger and there’s rushing water somewhere…

“Ah! That’s the lake!”

Lucas dismounts and points off ahead, where sure enough, there’s that lake from the map. The Quaquaval looks proud of himself for a moment, before Chispa floats up with a tired buzz.

“You’re celebrating a bit early, feather-face.”

You and Lucas follow Chispa’s tendril and your eyes both widen:

There’s a towering waterfall going up, cascading down steep, frosty slopes.

“Let’s… pace ourselves trying to get up that one,” you murmur.


Commentary:

There’s been an awful lot of Super Eurobeat fare in this series, so here’s a combo breaker with the Extended Version of You Take Me To The Top from Hi-NRG Attack’s Oldies Goldies Vol. 1. Well, that’s a half-truth, since the first ever appearance of this song in a commercial release was from Super Eurobeat Presents 哀愁 Euro Special Vol. 3, but given how things still wound up running slightly past the song fade out even with a full five minutes to work with, it’s probably a good thing that I didn’t attempt to score things to all 2 and a half-ish minutes of that release. If you want to have a bit of a different listening experience, give the Happy Hardcore remix from Age of Techno Remix 2 a go.

And we get to see the backwards jumping antics as players likely would be familiar with after picking up the Salty Herba Mystica. It’s definitely a lot easier to make those jumps afterwards! Though for the stubborn and determined, the daunting climb ahead of Trueno and the gang is actually doable even without unlocking your bike dragon’s climbing ability. With some careful placement, it is actually possible to jump your way up the slope between Montenevara and the lake at the bottom of the waterfall that cascades just outside of town entirely with jumps. Just expect to redo things a few times to make it up there.

Translation Notes:

For some background context for one of the location names that gets dropped in today’s chapter, but the Spanish-localization name for Glaseado Mountain is ‘Sierra Napada’, which carries a bit of a different food-related name. ‘Glaseado’ is the Spanish term for ‘icing’, while its Spanish localization name roughly translates to “coated (in the sense of spreading a sauce or cream) mountain range”.

- “Mano de Napada” - “Napada’s Hand”, Spanish localization name for “Glaseado’s Grasp”.
- «¡Espera! ¡Espera! ¡Para!» - “Wait! Wait! Stop!”
 
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You’re in a little fenced-in plot just north of Montenevara’s Pokécenter, whose Pokéball-shaped light stands above a small copse of trees in the foreground—the backs of timbered buildings to your right and a snowman in front of a snowdrift to your left.

An eerie, chiming melody fills the air, as you blink in surprise. Isn’t this that same song you heard while climbing the bluffs overlooking Juliana’s house?

And then all of a sudden, there’s an almost electronic-sounding human voice and a thumping beat that wasn’t in that song.

You turn your head back to the source, Chispa, floating aside as Juliana steps forward along with Ascua the Ceruledge and your newest teammate, Nevada the Arctibax. Juliana brings her arms in front of her and they mirror her pose, Nevada a bit more awkwardly.

An electronic riff suddenly comes alive as Juliana bounces on her heels before bringing her right hand zigzagging from her face and down to her hips, repeating the gesture with her left. Ascua’s mirroring it as well as she can, Nevada… not so much.

You blink in befuddled surprise as the human voice in the music says staccato words, repeating the last one faster and faster…

«¡Garra Umbría! ¡Colmillo Hielo!»

Just as the music swells, she cries out for a Shadow Claw and an Ice Fang, throwing her arm out. In a flash, Ascua and Nevada lunge forward, slashing and biting at empty air. Almost like how she’d train with Lucas.

Except the Quaquaval’s waiting behind with the others and looking on.

Juliana runs up to catch up with Ascua and Nevada as the music starts chiming and they quickly return to formation, this time thrusting arms out and slowly swiping them from one side to the other.

You look on as Nevada seems to be getting a little more in sync, before glancing down at your claws.

You get what Juliana’s trying to do. She recently took her first loss to a Gym at the one in town against… ‘Lima’, you think the name was. It’s not that your teammates never fought multiple opponents at once, but ones that were just as strong as them…?

Juliana clearly believes that the team needed to work on its coordination more, and thought her exercises she normally does with Lucas might help. Except Lucas is the Pokémon on the team that actually benefits from dancing.

Would it really make a difference for everyone else?

Another cry to attack. This time for a Flame Charge and a Dragon Tail. Once again, Ascua and Nevada are off, lunging ahead with bladed arms trailing fiery embers and a lagging tail swipe trailing dragonfire respectively.

The Arctibax’s balance wobbles a bit as one of her feet slips on the snow, but she hastily corrects it as Juliana catches up again… and reminds you why you’re not there with your friends right now.

You’re not any less clumsy at these synchronized dances, and unlike Nevada, you can’t actually throw any attacks forward right now.

All you’d do is just get in everybody’s way.

«¡Ascua, cambio! ¡Vuelve aquí!»

You briefly see Ascua ducking back off the field as Juliana calls Lucas forward, before settling on your claws with a deflated whine. Maybe it’s just the cold, but even with the music in the background you can't shake the feeling that you should’ve just stayed in your Pokéball.

“Huh. I knew I was hearing music coming from down the hill.”

You jump up with a start after hearing an eerie, ghostly voice from just beside you. As you land, you whirl your head right and down, and see there’s one of those Greavard peering up at you.

“H-Huh?! Who are-?!”

“Oh, I’m from the gym here in town,” the Ghost-type explains. “I’m just on break from my normal duties right now.”

You blink slowly. The snow doesn’t look deep enough for him to have hidden in it like the Greavard you’ve run into in the past days, but…

“You seem a bit lonely right now,” he says. “You’re not joining in with your buddies?”

Even without seeing them, you can already tell from the cries mixing in with that chorus that’s playing in the background that Lucas and Nevada are attacking and regrouping in sync with the music right now…

“But I can’t fight like them...”

Somehow, in spite of not being able to see the Greavard’s eyes, you swear you can see him raising a brow.

“That’s surprising, since you don’t look particularly weak,” he says. “Though it seems your buddies are more dancing at the moment—”

“I can’t dance the way they’re dancing either.”

You avert your gaze, your voice coming out in a low mutter.

“There’s no point in me trying to join in. I’d just get in their way.”

“Don’t be so sure about that.”

The Greavard points off, just as a cry comes from the field: Juliana calling out for an Aqua Step and a Take Down. Lucas throws his leg forward as watery feathers zip around, while Nevada jumps and suddenly throws herself forward upside down.

“Oof!”

You wince as the Artibax hits the ground and lays there in the snow stunned for a moment. Juliana and Lucas hurry over as the Arctibax rights herself with a small grin.

“So, when are you going to do a dorsal flip, too, Lucas?”

“Sometime after I learn to use Dragon Tail.”

The two break out in laughter, which after a moment, passes along through the language barrier and sweeps up Juliana too. You look on for a moment as your other teammates come off the sidelines and gather around, joining in.

A prod turns your attention down, to the Greavard looking up at you.

“Half a battle is won or lost in your head no matter what you do,” he explains. “You can be the toughest ‘mon out there, but if you go onto the field telling yourself that you should just give up, well… good luck pulling out a win afterwards.”

You turn your attention back to the others as Juliana pats Nevada’s head, before the Arctibax and Rosa the Tinkatuff trade places. You’re not sure how she’s going to match those dance moves with her hammer, but both her and Nevada seem to be in good spirits as Juliana begins the routine again.

“Don’t worry so much about what you can and can’t do for your friends,” the Greavard tells you. “Just get out there and be at their side.”

… He’s got a point. You can literally think of moments like the Gym challenge in Levincia where just lifting your friends’ spirits made a difference.

“Heh, to be honest, half the time I’m throwing down beats with the sound team in the Gym instead of actually taking the field and battling challengers.”

You shoot a sideways glance. This pup’s on a sound team? You know the Gym leader sings, but…

“Who did you say you were again?”

“I kinda go through a few names depending on my gig, but you can call me ‘Nitxo’.”

… Isn’t that a word humans have for places where they put 'dead' things? That’s really a name?

The Greavard doesn’t notice your reaction, and turns to leave as he steals a glance back.

“Also, whenever your trainer comes by next time, tell me the name of this song she’s playing,” he said. “It’s catchy, and it’s close enough to my trainer’s vibe that I might be able to slip it into the battle playlist.”

You watch the Greavard drift off, before turning back to your teammates.

The music’s at a bit of a slower moment, right now, and they seem to be taking a break from the way Juliana’s talking with Ascua and Lucas is brushing some stray snow off his feathers.

You hesitate briefly, before putting a claw forward and then another, and another. Until you’ve walked up and are there beside Juliana, as you lower her head and nudge her from the side.

She turns and blinks at you, as you shuffle your claws against each other.

You don’t really expect to do well, and you’re not sure what difference it’ll make, but…

“Is… is there room for me to dance, too?”


Commentary:

Yeah, yeah, veering off into ‘suspension of disbelief’ territory, I know. But hey, if the series could start out namedropping Indian Elephants and actual space shuttles, I figured the name of a public domain composer would be fair game. The version of Bach Is Back used today first was released in Newfield-Moroni Productions Presents Eurobeat Masters Vol. 18, with the original release from Super Eurobeat Vol. 179 being a bit too snug for me to work with length-wise at 4 minutes long. If you thought the opening to today’s song sounded a bit similar to Back On The Rocks, that’s not just you or Trueno there. The two songs both sample the same portion of Toccata and Fugue in D Minor as part of their openings.

Today’s chapter actually went through a few iterations before settling on getting in another round of Para Para silliness, with the original concept being to show off the Montenevara Gym Challenge. It didn’t quite pan out since as prior chapters have likely shown off, battle sequences add up in words fast, but it still informed the premise of “the team licking its wounds from defeat and prepping for a rematch”, which considering how different Montenevara Gym’s format is from all the others… yeah, that’s definitely one of the leading candidates for taking an L while working your way up the Paldean League.

Translation Notes:

It should go without saying, but ‘Lima’ is the Spanish localization equivalent of ‘Ryme’. In case it wasn’t obvious from what he says about his background and day job, Nitxo is one and the same as DJ G-Rave. In the Spanish localization, the same background Greavard is referred to as ‘DJ Nitxo’ by the game, with his name intended to be read as a homophone to ‘nicho’, or a funerary alcove.

- Garra Umbría - Spanish localization name for “Shadow Claw”. lit. “Dark/Shadowy Claw”.
- Colmillo Hielo - Spanish localization name for “Ice Fang”.
 
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A thumping beat fills your right ear as your eyes’ electronic irises blink back the frosty chill against your face. You’re on this barren peak, and aside from the curious Cetoddle gawking, the footprints from your jumping trail up, and the ‘Paldea’s Tallest Peak’ sign, it’s just you here with Chispa, Juliana, and Lucas on your back.

You’re all but touching the sky already, maybe it’s the push you need to finally fly again.

Everything comes together by instinct. Your claws clamp against your sparking hoops. Your Hadron Engine hums to life, and you barrel ahead past the sign and the ledge with empty air beyond.

You spring into the air, and as you begin to descend, a foreign-sounding human voice joins the beating in your earbud while warmth runs along the metallic horns on your head.

Your fall abruptly stops as you feel air blowing against you and sail ahead, and you look up to see energy membranes filling the gaps between your horns and spreading wide. ‘Glide Mode’ as Turo would call it, an old friend you’ve been sharing more and more with your companions.

“For crying out loud, Trueno, unfurl your wings at the top of your jump and don’t scare me like that next time!”

Lucas quacks with a critical huff much as he has many times before during your journey, even if you still have a hard time wrapping your head around how quickly he’s changed. It’s hard to believe sometimes that that gangly bird covered in blue plumes that’s clinging to Juliana’s shoulders for dear life and scowling at you was really once the little Quaxly you met on that beach. Or even that Quaxwell you’d been growing used to when he’s taller than some of Juliana’s teachers now. And where Juliana once had just him, Chispa, and you for partners, now she has a team so large that she finds herself often juggling which Pokémon can be out at a given time.

“Hah, keep this up and we’ll have to update your nickname to ‘Wings’, buddy.”

You briefly blink at Chispa’s chortling buzz from your neck’s phone harness. Wasn’t ‘Trueno’ what Juliana and the others were using as a nickname for you? Is it normal for humans to give multiple nicknames to Pokémon? Since it sounds like it could get confusing quickly.

But maybe it’s not such a bad thing, since if this works out, you’ll have more than earned ‘Wings’ as a nickname.

“Here we go, hold on tight!”

You focus and try to push out all the power you can through your Hadron Engine. Maybe you’re just hearing the things you want to, but its hum now sounds tantalizingly close to the sound it made when you had your old strength.

Ha-ha-ha-ha.

A high-pitched voice repeats in cadence that sounds almost like a Bullet Seed as you sail along rock steady amidst the crosswinds. The thrusters are a little weak, but you’re actually surprised you haven’t had more trouble easing back into Glide Mode so far. Maybe it’s because you’ve grown used to those other recovered abilities that your strength used to give you or it’s because your riders’ warmth are keeping you focused amidst the cold surrounding you.

And it’s just what you need to work up the confidence to try and take things a step higher.

Juliana tugs at your harness to turn left. You’ve gotten the hang of changing your direction by forcing more air through one or the other jet on your hip, but this time you try to do something different. You try to crane your head up and bank your body, to climb upwards in proper flight.

Your heart swells when you see yourself rise relative to the peak you’re on, when suddenly the air underneath you feels like it gives out. Your eyes widen as you abruptly lose altitude, and you hear startled yelps, including your own.

You hurriedly hold your head flat as the air under your membranes tugs against your horns. You aim your hips’ jets down to steady yourself and see an uneven, snowy slope approaching. You aim them back and your Hadron Engine briefly whines as you push away from the slope out into the open air, panting from your close encounter.

“Wheels, what the heck was that?!”

Chispa’s voice rises above the music with an annoyed crackle, with Lucas’ joining in with a snippy huff.

“Whatever happened to taking things slow and steady in the air, huh?”

You bite your metal tongue and look downwards. You were so stupid. In your rush to push yourself farther, you completely ignored your surroundings. What if you’d crashed again like you did flying back to the lighthouse? What would’ve happened to Juliana and the others?

The song’s still playing through your earphone, but you’re unable to get into the mood for it right now.

“I- I just thought that this time, I’d finally be able to fly again…”

You trail off after hearing a cry from Juliana. You briefly freeze and start to point your jets down to descend, when it occurs to you that while her voice is excited, she’s calling out to look ahead.

You lift your eyes as you see Paldea unfurl in front of you as you glide along and you realize that you recognize a lot of these places. The snow-covered drifts running down Mount Glaseado. The broad waters of Casseroya Lake, and then the plains next to them running up to Dalizaya Passage wedged in front of the rim of the crater where your old lab was…

Somehow, even though it’s not your first time being high up above Paldea, there’s something magical about looking down and having the memories of the times you’ve spent in those places. Times you spent together with your new friends and songs like the foreign melody in your ear right now.

“Hey, sorry if I was being a bit harsh earlier, it’s just… there’s so much that we don’t know about you,” Lucas says. “Just pace yourself a bit so that way we can learn along with you how to get you back to the way you’re supposed to be, alright?”

“Right, sorry for scaring you all like that,” you reply.

You turn in a shallow arc as the region passes your eyes, drifting along as the song playing through Juliana’s phone winds down for another to begin.

All those earlier anxieties fade away as you grow surer that one day, you’ll have your full strength back.

And you’ll be able to share it with the others on your team.


Commentary:

And rounding this disc out with another song with some surprise Japanese lyrics with the mix of Wings of Fire that first debuted in Super Eurobeat Presents Initial D ~D Selection 2~, as performed by Michiko Neya and Yumi Kakazu, who were credited as ‘Mako & Sayuki’ after the Initial D characters they did VA work for. This mix is itself a remix of Taguchi Rie’s cover of the same song that was released a year earlier as part of Eurobeat Flash Vol. 13 ~Non-Stop Mix~, which is itself a cover of Jee Bee’s English-language song that first debuted in Eurobeat Flash Vol. 5. You can kinda make Taguchi Rie’s cover fit the content of this chapter since it’s fairly close in track length, though good luck doing that with the original version.

And that wraps up the last of the installments that were published as part of the original contest submission, which can be read in its original presentation as Trueno α, which went live shortly prior to this chapter's posting. As for this story's depiction of Glide Mode, it takes the same angle as the games that Trueno's Glide Mode works much as seen in the game under normal circumstances. So gliding in a slow descent, with his range of mobility as seen in the opening cutscene being something that's another region and another batch of herbs away from being consistently doable, as those who have played far enough into the games' DLC content can surely attest.
 
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You’re right in front of Uva Academy’s main entrance, breathing in and out as a guitar riff reverberates in your headphone. Juliana sidles onto your back and grabs your harness. Lucas joins in, the music picking up more and more alongside your Hadron Engine’s hums as static starts arcing along your rings.

Then foreign words you don’t understand, plus one that you do:

«¡Vamos!»

Your Hadron Engine suddenly roars to life. Your rings spin as you rear up onto your curled-up tail and lurch forward underneath an evening sky. There’s a clear path to the school gate and those steps beyond, and nobody’s in the way.

Your forward ring hits the pavement again, drawing a brief squawk of protest from Lucas as you rocket ahead. You fleetingly see a few students gaping at you as you pass, but others barely acknowledge you.

It’s the start of the weekend, and for them and you, the start of these trips home have become second nature.

“Was the wheelie really necessary, Trueno?”

Well, mostly anyways, as Lucas’ testy huff from your back reminds you. But there’s no time to argue back now.

The steel gates whip past and the tile strip passes under your rings. Your cue to jump since Lucas probably won’t appreciate jolting down all those steps now that you’ve got an alternative way down.

“Hup!”

You plant your claws and spring up, vaulting higher and higher as that main square and the approach to Mesagoza’s southern gate sprawl out in front of you, lit up with the first lights of the evening. And right as you start falling again…

«¡Vuela!»

You spread your horns wide, energy membranes filling their gaps as Glide Mode takes over and keeps you aloft. You turn your body leftward by degrees at Juliana’s prompting as the city spreads out below you in a curiously familiar sight.

It suddenly dawns on you why this is all so familiar:

You flew through almost this exact same spot that day when you fled your old lab. You were even almost exactly this far off the ground, too.

Your rings touch something hard with a firm chunk as you see you’re now on a rooftop. You run your thrusters harder as Juliana calls for you to speed up, and almost as quickly, she calls for you to jump again.

A quick plant of your claws and leap up, and you’re back in the air.

The male voice between those foreign human singers is chanting something sharp and staccato as Juliana steers you over a street—just to the left of those yellow buildings with the black-spired roofs surrounding the main square. Mesagoza’s east sprawls out to your left, just as a buzz comes from your harness.

“You really have been coming along nicely, Wheels,” he says. “At this rate, you’ll be back to your old self before you know it!”

“... I sure hope so.”

The Rotom gives a puzzled buzz, but you opt not to explain. Partly to focus, partly because it’ll ruin your mood.

Yes, you’re closer to how you’re supposed to be, but there’s still so much that you can’t do.

You still can’t enter Ultimate Mode. You still haven’t figured out how to climb rocky faces again. Why you still haven’t figured out how to properly fly like you used to in Glide Mode.

And a part of you doesn’t know what you’ll do when your strength finally does all come back. If something goes wrong yet again because of it…

Juliana’s tugging at your natural harness. You’ve passed that park by the cliffs and the river’s now under you. Up ahead’s your destination: an earthen ramp running up to the bluffs on the other side.

You’d normally just bank and swoop down, but opt not to chance it, letting Juliana guide you in a slow, circling descent.

Your rings touch down on the ramp just as the male voice comes back. The female one and the snarling guitar follows as your Hadron Engine roars to life. You rocket up it, its crags and bumps jostling against your rings as you zoom towards the covered bridge that Mesagoza’s southern gate is built into.

“Gah! Ledge! Ledge!”

Lucas squawks with a start from your back. Sure enough, there’s a drop-off just before the bridge that goes quite a ways down, but Juliana surely already has a way around that. She yanks your harness sharply leftward and you follow her, throwing your rings out wide. You lean left against your momentum, your rings screeching as you slide past a gap in a low stone wall.

Past it, there’s a Pokécenter, along with a couple trainers whipping their heads around and staring at you. Juliana calls out for you to dash, and you figure it’s time to give them a show to remember.

You run your thrusters as hard as you can as the woosh of them sprinting ahead kicks in and

you shoot past them. You briefly hear a couple surprised cries as you zip over a paved-over corner and charge ahead through the grass and shift your forward ring by degrees until you’re definitively southward.

The most direct path home, you just need a little help clearing the way forward to run, and you’ve got just the thing to do it:

Gwaaaaar!

Your roar dies down just as the music slows and the female singer’s voice comes back along with a few groans of protest from your riders as you start heading up a hill.

“Trueno, give us some warning before you roar!”

Whoops. You… should’ve done that, yes. But there’s already lights coming from up ahead. Los Platos, and—

… your second lab.

«¡Salta!»

There’s only a brief moment for you to see the rapidly approaching pond. You hurriedly plant your feet and vault into the air. You don’t bring them back against your rings in time, and land against the grass with a faint crunch as Chispa buzzes in annoyance.

“Bzzt! Wheels! What’s with the sudden stop?!”

“Sorry, I just got distracted...”

That lighthouse shouldn’t be bugging you like this. It’s the closest thing you had to a home before meeting Juliana, and you have happy memories in it… except it just feels like more recently, you can only think of the ones you regret.

Of Arven rejecting you that day you came back.

If only you could just fly like you used to… at least you’d be able to get into Cabo Poco without seeing it right now…

There’s suddenly patting against your neck. A glance back reveals Juliana worriedly looking down at you.

«Trueno, ¿estás bien? ¿Qué te pasa?»

It’s not just her. Lucas and Chispa are looking over at you with uneasy expressions.

“Did you not land right?” the Quaquaval asks. “I didn’t think it was anything out of the ordinary, but…”

… No, there’s been happy memories from that lighthouse since then, too. It’s next to where you first joined her. Where you made your first friends from her team. Where you had that first sandwich she gave you.

“I’m fine, really,” you insist. “I had some things on my mind, but I think I’m good now.”

Lucas and Chispa look a bit wary. Maybe you should just take some time to explain everything to Juliana and the others, but you’ve got places to be. And you genuinely do feel a bit better…

You clamp your claws onto your rings and run your thrusters again. Your body picks up speed, breaking off into the night.


Commentary:

And putting the ‘mostly’ in the ‘mostly Eurobeat’ soundtrack to work again, even if the Dave Rodgers Remix of BREAK IN2 THE NITE (as stylized in its official title) used here technically still counts. For you Initial D fans reading along, you’re likely intimately familiar with the original non-Eurobeat version of this song as the second opening theme from First Stage, and debuted commercially in m.o.v.e.’s second studio album, worlds of the mind. If you didn’t remember hearing the more Eurobeat-y mix used for today’s background music from the show or on that album, don’t feel too bad since it never made an official appearance on either of them, and was instead a bonus track to Super Eurobeat Presents Initial D ~D Selection 3~. There will be a few songs that flatly break the Eurobeat mold on this disc, but today’s song wasn’t fully one of them.

Today’s installment is one of the more “gameplay and story segregation” chapters since thanks to the games loading Mesagoza in a whole different map from its immediate surroundings, you can’t quite pull off the gang’s route canonically. I decided that that was dumb and hit a few snags making a sequence going through the gate that didn’t drag and break the figurative and literal momentum in the story, so casually flying through area barriers it was. It won’t be the last time something like that happens in this story.

Translation Notes:

- «¡Vamos!» - “Let’s go!”
- «¡Vuela!» - “Fly!”
- «Trueno, ¿estás bien? ¿Qué te pasa?» - “Trueno, are you okay? What’s going on?”
 


You’re back beneath that simulated sky in your Pokéball. The not-sea’s to your left and simulated palm trees and cliffs fly past you to your right.

Dah-da-dah-da-da. Dah-da-dah-da-da…

What is real is you humming along with that song currently stuck in your head. So’s your Hadron Engine’s whine as you shoot forward in Drive Mode. Surely a sign you’re not all that tired right now.

You enter a skid, your rings matching a shallow curve heading off for a small, sandy outcropping. You run your Hadron Engine harder and harder, picking up speed as you approach the edge, and throw your rings out sideways.

SKREEEEE!

You come to a screeching stop and settle onto your claws, looking up at your Pokéball’s sky and the faint glimpses of the outside world in it. Juliana’s headed back for the gate of that ‘Ruchbah Squad’s base, the Team Star base of some boy with a scepter and Fairy-type looking clothing named… ‘Gus’, you think.

You just got through helping your teammates battle against another one of those ‘Starmobiles’ like you’ve done at the past few Team Star bases. It noticeably wore down your teammates, and Juliana must’ve thought it did the same to you even though you just raced around since you got hit a few times…

Except from a glance down at your claws, the little scuffs on your hide have already self-annealed. Maybe you’re not as energetic as before, but surely enough to leave the base in Drive Mode.

Maybe something was going on? Since Juliana was talking with that fairy boy for a long time…

Ro-to-to-to.

«Juliana…»

Your attention shoots back up towards the sky at the sound of an electronic-sounding voice. The approaching gate to the base is gone and replaced with meadows and distant mountains—and up at the very top of your Pokéball’s field of vision, Chispa floats in the air a short distance from Juliana’s face.

Oh. Penny’s calling again.

Well, you suppose you don’t know that, since the one who always calls right as Juliana leaves these bases calls themself… ‘Casiopeia’, you think. But even if the voice isn’t the same, you’ve seen Penny lurking outside these bases in the middle of past challenges.

That can’t all just be a coincidence… right?

The caller says something about the fairy-boy you don’t follow, and you opt to focus on the little world around you, standing back up on your rings.

Your thrusters roar to life as high, electronic trills reverberating in your memory banks. You can’t help but hum along as you rocket back down the beach, and start making your way to the other side of the not-island.

Maybe it’s just wishful thinking, but you swear you’ve been improving lately. Yes, you still can’t fly properly, but you think you’ve been getting the hang of banking on aerial turns again.

There’s some mock rocks in the not-sea coming up on the left. You can only get so high at the moment, but doing a quick loop around them ought to be a quick way to find out.

You turn your foreclaws leftwards, waiting just a moment for your eyes and snout to face the not-sea as you plant your claws and vault up into the air. The wind feels flat and not as exciting as real wind does, but your heart still flutters as you reach your jump’s apex.

You spread your horns and the energy membranes fill in between them as they always do while transitioning into Glide Mode. They catch air briefly and you bank, seeing the rocks pass by your vision with the world tilted like while in a drift—

SPLOOSH!

And then you hit the not-water’s surface. There’s a jolt through your body as the membranes dissipate and you flare your horns. Your rings inflate and you clamp your claws back into place, coughing as your Hadron Engine briefly sputters.

So it’s still happening even after your practice. Every time you enter Glide Mode, your thrusters lose power compared to your other modes.

Maybe you could make it work if you could get up higher. Like if you were jumping from off those plateaus up above in this simulated beach…

Your eyes drift down towards your claws and linger there for a moment, before turning up to the cliff faces going up from the not-sands. You sink a little lower into the water. No, you already know enough that it won’t work trying to climb them. Not yet.

“Just one more Herba Mystica…”

You sigh and bob in place. Yes, it’s disappointing, but it shouldn’t be much longer until you’re all better and back to your old self again… when you can help battle and face down challenges just like everyone else.

Assuming that you don’t wind up just causing problems for them…

You hope.

«Según él, ya os conocíais de antes, ¿no??»

It’s the caller again, fresh off a question about… that name that white-haired teacher from Uva Academy uses when he’s going around in that student outfit and terrible wig. ‘Cael’, was it? Towards the top of the sky, Juliana’s face hums in thought briefly, before she answers:

«Sí».

«En cualquier caso, es alguien de fiar, como los miembros de antaño...»

«... De antaño?»

There’s a pause, as for a moment, you don’t hear anything but those foreign human lyrics in your head. Something about this conversation’s strange…

“‘Members of old’?”

«... Originalmente, el Team Star fue fundado por estudiantes víctimas de acoso escolar...»

Wait, those Team Star humans you’ve all been fighting were bullied, too? Those same loud and aggressive ones who sic their partners on you at every base?

«Inmediatamente, los lideres del Team Star les plantaron cara a sus matones, y el resultado fue una victoria aplastante para el equipo.».

Your eyes drift down towards the mock-beach as the rest of ‘Casiopeia’s conversation goes past your ears. For a moment, you thought you’d just misheard things, but…

They stood up to their bullies. Just like you tried to.

… Except, unlike you, they actually won.

You have so many questions right now. If that really is Penny talking with Juliana through Chispa, does that mean that she was bullied, too? It would explain how timid and unconfident she’s seemed in the past, but…

Why are you trying to break up Team Star for stopping that?

«Al poco tiempo, los matones dejaron la academia. Sus padres citaron que ellos eran las verdaderas víctimas, y que tenían miedo del Team Star. De ahí su mala fama...»

… How would scaring your bullies away be a bad thing?

It’d have been a dream come true if you’d managed to do that to him… Maybe you’d still be with Turo right now…

Why does Penny—assuming that electronic voice is actually her—talk about what happened like it’s something she regrets?

When Team Star scared their bullies off, did… did something also go wrong ?

A glance up reveals that Chispa’s gone and Juliana’s standing at attention. The reason why is quickly apparent, that ‘supply officer’ is walking up—Eevee backpack and all.

«H-Hola otra vez…»

Penny’s tense and shy as usual. And if that was her on the phone, she’s probably in low spirits right now.

Whatever the cause, you think you know a way to lift them. It always worked on Arven, and it seemed to work on Penny in the past.

You stomp the ground and your surroundings melt away. One thing leads to another, and you’re outside your Pokéball, sitting upright and calling out in greeting.

“Hey!”

«¡Aaaaah! ¿No podrías quedarte quietecito ahí dentro?»

Whuh? You weren’t staying still inside there at all.

But it’s no matter. That startled reaction’s nothing you also can’t fix with a playful lick.


Commentary:

A bit of a quieter chapter this time around, but I figured that it was a good enough setpiece for Don’t Stand So Close to work as background music, especially given how it ties in with that running gag involving Penny from the Starfall Street plotline. The mix used for today’s chapter is the 4:52 version that first appeared in Super Eurobeat Presents Initial D Special Stage Original Soundtracks, which made things a little tight with available time, but I figured that picking the mix I preferred more outweighed the extra hundred and twenty-odd words I could’ve dropped in with the Extended Mix that appeared in the original DELTA 1064 LP release and its extra thirty-ish seconds to work with. It was certainly a lot easier than trying to score things to 4-minute mix from Super Eurobeat Vol. 88.

This was one of those chapters where it took me a good, long while to finally settle on a definitive scenario. I knew from the jump that I ultimately wanted to tie it in with one of the later bases from the Starfall Street plotline, with the main point of contention being deciding where to put the ‘Penny gets licked’ gag. Setting things beforehand ultimately won out since it made it a bit easier to keep him mobile in his Pokéball, and a bit easier to give some passing acknowledgement of what our drifty boy’s been doing to consistently tire himself out after stumbling out of the second base onwards. The backdrop should hopefully be a bit obvious from the background description, but in case it wasn’t clear enough, this story assumes that Juliana tackled the Ruchbah Squad’s Base fourth, with ‘Gus’ being the Spanish localization name for Ortega in all his fabulous glory, ‘Casiopeia’ being the equivalent of ‘Cassiopeia’ and not a typo, while ‘Cael’ is the equivalent of ‘Clive’.

Translation Notes:

This is one of those chapters that went out on a bigger limb since much of the dialogue you see in the aftermath of defeating the Ruchbah Squad’s Base and after defeating your fourth base in general was revised from the original script to sound more apt when spoken in Peninsular Spanish, and in a few cases add additional information that is not explicitly communicated in-game. For completeness, the original lines from the games have been included for comparison with comments about any larger departures between the two.

- «Según él, ya os conocíais de antes, ¿no?»- "From what he said, you already knew each other... For a long time?" In the original game script, the equivalent line is «Por lo que había dicho él, ya os conocíais... Desde hace mucho?», which is largely the same barring asking the ending question if you’ve known each other for a long time.
- «Sí». - “Yes”
- «En cualquier caso, es alguien de fiar, como los miembros de antaño...» - "In any case, he is someone trustworthy, like the members of old..."
- «… Originalmente, el Team Star fue fundado por estudiantes víctimas de acoso escolar…» - "... Originally, Team Star was founded by students who were victims of bullying..." In the original game script, the equivalent line is «… Sabes que el Team Star se formó originalmente por estudiantes que estaban sufriendo acoso…»
- «Inmediatamente, los lideres del Team Star les plantaron cara a sus matones, y el resultado fue una victoria aplastante para el equipo». - “The Team Star leaders immediately confronted their bullies, and the result was a crushing victory for the team.” In the original game script, the equivalent line is «Al poco de formarse, hubo un enfrentamiento entre los jefes y los abusones en cuestión. El resultado fue una victoria aplastante del Team Star».
- «Al poco tiempo, los matones dejaron la academia. Sus padres citaron que ellos eran las verdaderas víctimas, y que tenían miedo del Team Star. De ahí su mala fama...» - "Before long, the bullies left the academy. Their parents claimed that they were the real victims and were afraid of Team Star—hence their bad reputation…" In the original game script, the equivalent line is «El Team Star les metió tanto miedo en el cuerpo que, al final, dejaron la academia uno tras otro. Y es la razón de que el Team Star terminase por ganarse tan mala fama…», which lacks the detail regarding the bullies’ parents claiming their children were the real victims.
- «Hola otra vez». - “Hello again.”
- «No podrías quedarte quietecito ahí dentro?» - "Couldn't you just stay nice and still in there?"
 



A gentle, rolling chime comes over your headphone, followed by human words and a thumping beat that you find yourself idly batting a foreclaw along with against calm blue waters all around.

It’s twilight and you’re bobbing up and down on the surface of a lake big enough to fit the Asado Desert inside, with it falling to you to ferry your friends around it from place to place.

“Ugh, stupid Veluza. You’d think that we’d get some quiet after fighting off that Gyarados earlier, but no…”

You glance over your shoulder towards Juliana on your back, applying a potion to Lucas’ arm as he sits on an inflatable platform that your teammates sometimes use for battles out on open waters.

You quickly learned that the placid waters here can be deceptive. A lot of Pokémon in and around this lake are quite strong. Enough so that many of them don’t even flinch from the roars you let out to try and scare off would-be troublemakers.

And somewhere in these waters, there’s a still-greater power swimming around.

According to Arven, the Titan Pokémon guarding the last Herba Mystica, the one needed as part of that remedy to cure any ailment, lurks somewhere in this lake. Except you don’t know what you’re looking for, since no human’s ever seen this Pokémon.

You feel extra weight on your back as Lucas clambers back onto you, water rolling off his plumage as Chispa peeks out from the phone on your mount.

“So… any other brilliant ideas?” the Rotom asks.

“I can’t think of any place left to look on this side of the lake,” the Quaquaval says. “Let’s look around in the east again.”

Just as the music picks up, Juliana voices her agreement in her own way with a tug at your harness and a call to get going. The Veluza eying you off in the distance and turning their body towards yours is all you need to spin your Hadron Engine up and leave.

You push air out of your thrusters, and in a flash, you’re off, the lake’s water churning in your wake. You focus your optical diodes to light your way forward and plow ahead, leaving the handful of islands on the west of Casseroya Lake further and further in the distance behind you.

Juliana keeps her grip on your harness steady, occasionally tugging it to guide you past wild Pokémon that she spots up ahead. You catch a couple stares, and a couple more aggressive ones growl after and try to give chase, but you’re moving fast enough to shake them, leaving just you all and the music right now.

“So what are you going to do when you’re all back to normal, Wheels? Planning on joining in with everyone for Juliana’s League challenge?”

You hear a crackling voice over the music and glance rightward. Sure enough, Chispa’s glimpsing curiously from his phone’s mount on your harness, waiting expectantly on your answer.

You suppose that it makes sense that everyone would want that. Your last flickers of power were enough to protect Juliana from those Houndour that attacked when you first met. But she already has so many partners that she has to rotate between them now, and there’s other things that make you hesitant…

“I… don’t know, honestly.”

Your remarks go over Juliana’s head as she points off towards a larger island nearing in the distance. Lucas shifts on your back, before tilting his head with a puzzled quack.

“Why’s that?” the Quaquaval asks. “You’ve been looking forward to getting your strength back for so long. What’s there not to know?”

“I just don’t know if I’d use it well.”

There’s a noticeable quiet afterwards and you almost immediately regret not just pretending that you didn’t hear Lucas over the music. You don’t know how your friends would react to knowing how some of your lowest moments happened because of your old strength.

“¡Allí!”

Juliana’s cry is a welcome distraction as you see you’re approaching a rocky shoreline leading up a grassy slope that snakes along in a narrow path. Your rings hit solid ground, briefly slowing as their shape changes to shift into Drive Mode, with your thrusters quickly pushing you back up to speed.

You zoom along, your Hadron Engine’s hums echoing in the night. The cliffs of the southern shoreline pass to your right, with an ancient watchtower and the towering heights of Mount Glaseado in the distance ahead…

And Arven in his vest looking out at it in the foreground.

Your eyes briefly widen, and you sharply dig your claws in to stop, hearing your friends yelp. You briefly spot a path to your left, and without thinking you barrel down it.

“Hey! Wait! What are you doing?!”

You can’t deal with this right now. You ignore your riders’ protests, barreling along over their cries.

There’s water ahead, and a path up to your left inclining in a rough hairpin. This time you heed Juliana’s guidance, and enter a drifting skid to take the hairpin, your rings screeching along the grass. The path you took to get here’s now below you on the left, while a cliff takes up your right.

There’s another hairpin up ahead with empty air beyond. You skid along again, this time to your right. As you leave the turn, Juliana wrenches your harness right, as you allow yourself to slide to a stop on the grass. Your Hadron Engine’s spinning down, and your breaths come short and fast.

“¡¿Qué te pasa?!”

For the first time in a while, you hear Juliana snap at you and her face is clearly unhappy. So are Lucas and Chispa’s. You turn your head away after a couple fumbling attempts, and finally find your voice.

“... There was a Pokémon rushing at us. Sorry, I should’ve said something first.”

You know that that wasn’t convincing but at the same time you really don’t want to have to explain what’s really going on:

Arven doesn’t like you. From the way he acted towards you those times you met shortly after he gave you away to Juliana, he probably hates you. Even if he’s gotten less mean about it lately, and you’re happy that he’s been helping Fito get better, it’s obvious that his feelings haven’t changed.

A part of you just can’t bear knowing that the one human who constantly reminds you of Turo just wishes that you weren’t around.

And you don’t see how it’ll ever change.

You feel a pat at your head and glance back at Juliana. Her face has eased a bit and there’s a visible twinge of worry to it that spreads to both Chispa and Lucas.

“Do you need a break, Wheels?” the Rotom chirps. “We have been going around the lake all day.”

… Maybe it wouldn’t hurt. It’d be nice to have a place where you wouldn’t have to worry about being hounded by aggressive wilds for once. If Arven spots the Titan on his own on this island, you’re sure he’ll call Juliana through Chispa soon enough.

There’s a small mesa topped with grass just ahead. The surrounding escarpments are steep enough that it ought to buy you some privacy, since only fliers or particularly strong climbers will reach it…

“What about over there?” you ask, nosing off ahead. “It looks like it has a good view of the surroundings just in case we wind up seeing something.”

Lucas and Chispa both murmur their agreements and pass the message along to Juliana. One thing leads to another, and before you know it, she calls for you to jump.

You vault into the air, entering Glide Mode to gently drift back to earth. You point your thrusters down as you reach the mesa’s eastern ledge, when you see pink shapes in the air up ahead.

It’s a flock of Flamigo, making their way eastward when something strange happens: partway through their flight, the flock abruptly turns north into a sharp detour, as if there were an invisible cliff there.

“... Did we ever check that island today?”

“Nope,” Lucas replies. “I didn’t even know it was there.”

There’s something odd about that island, especially since you can’t see Pokémon in the waters around it. Juliana must’ve noticed it too from the way she’s staring at it.

You spin your Hadron Engine up and get ready to glide over to check.

Just in case.


Commentary:

It was surprisingly hard to squeeze everything down to fit the amount of words to work with today, which is why in the end, I deferred to the Extended Mix that first debuted in Super Eurobeat Vol. 91 - Extended Version - Time Edition. If you remembered the song being a bit shorter, you’re probably thinking of either the 4:56 version that first appeared in Super Eurobeat Presents Initial D ~D Selection 2~, or else the initial release from the original Super Eurobeat Vol. 91 which was just under 4 minutes long.

This was another one of those chapters where the scenario wound up informing the song choice, since Everybody’s Warming just vibed well for a quieter chapter focused primarily around lake antics, some inner emotional turmoil… well, that and a spot of impending giant fish problems at the end, but that one won’t be appearing on-screen in this series.
 
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There’s an electronic chime lingering in the air as you transition between Aquatic Mode and Drive Mode coming in from the surf.

You can’t tell if it’s all in your head or if Juliana left one of her headphones beside your Pokéball again after noticing you weren’t in a good mood.

Either way, it’s not helping it now. Or doing anything for your Hadron Engine’s agitated hum.

You plant your claws against the not-quite-sand beneath the blue daylight of a not-quite-sky, as not-quite water rolls off your body without lingering and you look down at your claws.

Even if everything around you is all fake, the way your claws are trembling right now is very real.

So is that feeling inside you that you’re going to scream.

«Tengo que pediros un favor».

You faintly hear that voice and look up. In the sky, there’s faded images of monitors in the translucent glimpse of the world beyond. Turo’s face is on the center one in front of some whiteboards.

Except that’s not really Turo.

You wrench your body and spin your thrusters up, zooming off along the beach and for the cliffs. That’s Turo’s assistant, who all this time has had the utter gall to just pretend that he’s him. To not say anything about what happened to Turo. About what happened to you.

He’s even doing it to Arven! How could he just go and do that?!

…Considering the way Turo made him, does he even know he’s getting others’ hopes up for nothing?

A loud, chiming beat comes from that music on your mind just as you plant your claws into the mock cliff. ‘Turo’ is still speaking in the background, but you thankfully can’t really hear him in between the music and your claw crunching mock-stone as you climb upwards in faltering, uneven vaults.

The only thing that’s changed since eating that last Herba Mystica.

You’d tried to put on a brave face for the others and insisted that maybe that it just needed a little time to kick in, but it’s been an entire day since everyone fought the Titan at Casseroya Lake.

And no matter what you’ve tried either inside or outside your Pokéball, your Hadron Engine still hangs. Just below the strength needed to enter Ultimate Mode.

One last leap takes you up over the edge of the simulated cliff, as you spread your horns and enter Flight Mode to descend with your thrusters until you’re on the mock-grass. A part of you should be happy. Before yesterday, you literally weren’t able to get up here...

«Necesito que me traigáis algo que perdí en ese laboratorio: el Libro Púrpura».

But as the empty mock-skies remind you, you’re supposed to be able to do so much more. You spin your engine up as the music you’re hearing swells with a strange human language along with piano and thumping beats. You rocket along the top of the little grassy plateau, your Hadron Engine’s sound a stifled scream until you’re at the edge.

And then you spring up, vaulting into the air. Everything afterwards plays out much as it has more times than you can count in the past day: you spread your horns, the energy membranes fill in and catch air…

And your thrusters lose power from your earlier sprint. Then, the moment you try angling upwards to climb higher, you almost immediately stall and begin falling.

Your eyes widen as you see the water fast approaching. You swiftly even out until you stabilize in the air and glide your way back to shore, touching down on the mock sand and coming to a skidding stop. You get off your rings, looking down at your body as one thought fills your memory banks the entire time:

“I-I don’t understand, why am I not better?”

You know you were in bad shape leaving the crater, but you couldn’t have possibly gotten hurt worse than Fito had, could you? H-He couldn’t even stand or speak when you first saw him afterwards! And now he looks stronger than ever!

«Puede que esta misión sea algo peligrosa. Os recomiendo que encontréis gente de confianza para acompañaros. Dos o tres más, si es posible…»

Turo’s assistant is still going on about something, but you block it out as you make your way back for the mock-cliff and start climbing again. You don’t want to hear his voice right now, but it stirs up unwelcome thought processes in you as you realize there was something special about how you’d gotten hurt:

You’d been fighting and not holding anything back right beforehand.

It’d started from the very beginning when you threw that first blow. You hit him hard enough that it broke his hide along his dewlap and he started leaking connective fluid. He recoiled for a bit in pain and got really angry afterwards.

You should’ve known then that something was wrong. That things wouldn’t be like those past times he bullied you.

That chorus is playing again as you stumble after your last jump runs out of cliff for you to climb. You’re back on the grassy plateau again, and eager to push those thoughts from your mind, you take off sprinting forward on your rings again.

Its length flies by, except the entire time, those memories of that awful day race along inside your head.

As you plant your feet and spring up, you remember the connective fluid dripping down you as you looked away and braced for the end. It takes all your focus to spread your horns as a memory of that horrible, blinding light flickers across your optical diodes. Faster than you can sigkill it.

And as the air passes around you, you remember Turo’s voice.

Saying words that you didn’t understand back then, but you do now.

«¡¿Qué estás haciendo?!»

«¡Dejad de pelear! ¡Está herido!»

«¡Sal de aquí!»

You shudder and your breath catches at that last one—the last words Turo told you. Your Hadron Engine suddenly loses power and you plummet, crashing into the shallows of the mock-sea. You grope about as you stumble onto the mock-beach, slumping over.

Your dewlap and tail are unfurled again. You must’ve entered Low-Power Mode sometime after you fell. You’re not hurt, but your breaths are ragged and uneven and your vision is a blurry mess. Your voice is hitching and artifacting and it just won’t stop.

Maybe you’re just better off being stuck like this. At least you and your power won’t ruin anything else this way…

The surroundings suddenly start melting into light, but you dig your claws in and hold on. You don’t want to go out. Not like this.

The light fades as the environment returns to normal, and a pair of puzzled voices come from outside.

«¿Eh? Trueno no va a salir…»

«Probablemente esté cansado, déjadlo descansar.»

Juliana and Arven’s, saying something about a battle. Your voice cracks. You’re surely letting Juliana down from not cheering her on, but you just want to be alone right now.

Arven would be happier not seeing you again anyways.


Commentary:

Aaaaand we have our first definitive departure from Eurobeat for this story’s background music with this chapter. It’s not quite blowing up a budding romantic relationship and getting last-minute regrets, but I needed music for an “emotional low point” chapter, and Wanna fly to be wild just happened to work thematically for a few different reasons. The version used for scoring is the version that debuted in m.o.v.e.’s first commercial album, electrorock, which for those of you who didn’t remember its appearance in Initial D First Stage being as long, there’s your explanation.

And yeah, there’s a healthy amount of “for want of a nail” happening in this chapter, since this story assumes that like in official media, Trueno takes his eventual trip to Area Zero well™ in a way that would be hard to justify if he fully knew what was coming. Him being a bit busy tuning out the guy who would’ve otherwise give him an idea of what to expect and emotionally spiraling too hard to follow human dialogue was sure a convenient means to an end for that, and also to get in some very uncomfy vibes.

Translation Notes:

As some readers likely suspected, a good chunk of the lines from ‘Turo’ there in the background are based on the sequence in which he calls you at the end of the Path of Legends story arc in the Spanish localization of Pokémon Violet. This is another one of those moments where things strayed a bit from the original script, with departures being specifically highlighted with their counterpart original lines provided for comparison. There is also one added line that calls forward to a moment that we haven’t quite gotten to yet in this series, but we’ll get there when we get there.

- «Tengo que pediros un favor». - "I have to ask you a favor." In the original game script, the line is rendered as «Tengo un favor que pediros».
- «Necesito que me traigáis algo que perdí en ese laboratorio: el Libro Púrpura». - "I need you to bring me something I lost in that laboratory: the Violet Book." In the original script, the line is rendered as «Me hace falta un objeto que se encuentra en algún lugar del laboratorio. El Libro Púrpura», which frames the Violet Book as “located somewhere” in the laboratory instead of being lost.
- «Puede que esta misión sea algo peligrosa. Os recomiendo que encontréis gente de confianza para acompañaros. Dos o tres más, si es posible…» - "This mission might be somewhat dangerous. I recommend that you find people you trust to accompany you. Two or three more, if possible..." In the original script, the line is rendered as «Es posible que esta misión requiera más de dos personas. Os animo a reunir a más aliados antes de partir, gente de vuestra confianza…», which inverts the ordering of the talk of team size vs. “people you trust”.
- «¡¿Qué estás haciendo?!» - “What are you doing?!”
- «¡Dejen de pelear! ¡Está herido!» - “Stop fighting! He’s hurt!”
- «¡Sal de aquí!» - “Get out of here!”
- «¿Eh? Trueno no va a salir…» - "Huh? Trueno isn't coming out..."
- «Probablemente esté cansado, déjenlo descansar». - "He's probably tired; let him rest."
 
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Electronic beats kick up over the surrounding bamboo canopy, so fast that you can’t count them individually. Even for the songs on Juliana’s phone, this is definitely up there in pacing. It’s almost some sort of cruel joke that you’d hear a song like this at a time when you aren’t running and don’t want to.

You look down past your claws at red metal, the rooftop to a Pokécenter here in this valley in the northeastern fringe of Paldea. Ahead of you in the distance, there’s a set of double waterfalls cascading down a sheer cliff and sunset above that bathes it and the bamboo forest all around in warm tones.

Off to your left, you can see the flags to the last Team Star base you and your friends haven’t dealt with. And Juliana, nodding along to the music Chispa’s pushing out his speakers and soaking in the surroundings.

They probably think you’re just tired now, and you don’t have the heart to ruin their fun. Not when there’s a big challenge ahead of everybody that you know Juliana’s been nervous about…

It’s just that… you just can’t get over what happened with that last Herba Mystica. It healed Fito. He’s back to his old self you remembered—if a bit bigger.

But not you.

You just don’t understand why. You ate all the same Herba Mystica that Fito did, but even all this time later, you can’t get back into Ultimate Mode. Or even fly the way you used to.

It really is because you weren’t holding back right before you got hurt, isn’t it? It feels like everything wrong that’s happened since then is all from—

“Trueno, you doing alright?”

You turn your head right and see Lucas staring at you, his head held at a worried tilt.
“You were crying earlier. Or at least it you sounded like you were.”

“... Crying?”

“That hitching noise you were making,” the Quaquaval. “I didn’t see you shedding any tears, but you looked really sad…”

You didn’t realize there was a word for that whining, artifacting noise your voice sometimes does. But you’re not hurt now, so there’s no reason why it should happen.

“It’s nothing, really. I’m fine-”
“You’re clearly not,” Lucas insists. “You’re drooping your horns right now.”

You peek upwards. Sure enough, they really are drooping.

Your teammates figured out a while ago that it’s a sign you’re not feeling well. From the left, Juliana turns towards you after Chispa points you out, and her expression grows worried.

«¿Estás bien? Te veo con mala cara…»

… So much for not ruining everyone’s fun.

You falter, as Chispa quiets the music and floats before you.
“You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to, Wheels,” the Rotom says. “It’d just be easier for us to help if you did.”

You hesitate briefly, before looking out over the surrounding forest with a glum murmur.

“I just thought I’d finally be back to normal after everything…”

There’s patting against your neck as Juliana strokes at you. Lucas is visibly weighing his words, before he speaks up.

“Maybe you just need to ease back into things a little first?” the Quaquaval suggests. “Remember how stiff Fito was first standing up again? He got better at it with time, right?”

“Haven’t I been doing that all this time, though?”

“Well, yes. But maybe you just need to do more of it.”

The Quaquaval clambers onto your back and settles in, patting your back with a hand.

“Juliana, come on,” he says. “The base can wait until tomorrow.”

She blinks briefly, before settling in herself on your back. She tightens her grip on your harness, as you crane your head back with a sputtering cry.

“W-Wait, where are we even going?”

“Rock climbing. Now, come on, let’s go.”

Juliana beckons you forward as Chispa turns the music back up. You blink briefly, before settling into Drive Mode as your Hadron Engine spins up, still not sure just where this is all going.

You jump, entering Glide Mode at your apex as your energy membranes unfurl and your thrusters push you along above the tops of the bamboo stalks. Occasionally, you spot Pokémon staring up at you incredulously from between gaps in the canopy. A Scyther, a Passimmian, a Falinks Column…

“Over there, between the branches of Fury Falls.”

Lucas raises a hand and motions off to a cliff face in between the two falls you saw from the Pokécenter roof. Things seemed to get through to Juliana since she tugs your harness to steer you its way. You continue on, gliding over the falls’ base as you brace your claws.

CHUNK!

You briefly screw your eyes shut after landing, when you notice that you’re not moving. You look down, and see your claws dug into the cliff face, with your passengers behind you clinging to you and the pool about the canopy’s distance below.

“Hey! Hurry it up, Wheels!” Chispa pipes. “We’re getting vertigo right now!”
Chispa turns up the music further in between his protests, triggering a spark in you. You hop up, feeling air underneath you before your foreclaws find purchase again. You plant your hindclaws to keep yourself from slipping, and come to a stop, just like you did climbing the cliffs around your past labs.

You do it again, your start and stop coming more naturally this time as your riders let out a collective yelp. Then a second time. Then a third. Every time comes smoother to the last and even Juliana and Lucas seem to be getting used to it as you climb further and further up.

The cliff’s growing a bit uneven, so you throw your weight leftward to head towards a flatter section of rock. Another jump, and you can already see the ledge of the cliff, while another onto a flat ledge you’re able to stand on.

You pace along it, seeing a waterfall that forks ahead and behind to your left, and to your right…

“Huh?!”

There’s the whole bamboo forest nestled in the valley, sweeping out below you. You see Juliana look on in awe as Lucas turns to you.

“Hope the view helps with your mood a bit?”

You turn your head towards it, a small smile crossing your face.

“A little, yeah.”


Commentary:

Yeah, I wasn’t cruel enough to leave things off for the week with that last chapter, so I opted for something a bit more upbeat if still not quite as chipper as the norm. Black Power’s Get Ready For Loving was a convenient means to an end on that front, and fit surprisingly well with a premise of “drift lizard in a down mood gets a pick-me up”. The specific mix used for scoring today is the Extended Mix from Super Eurobeat Vol. 75 Extended Version Rodgers & Contini Edition, which ultimately won out since in the end, I needed every last one of those words that I wouldn’t have gotten from something like 4 minute mix in the original Super Eurobeat Vol. 75.

And yeah, this is the big… well, it was originally the debut of Trueno’s rock-climbing ability, but then I wrote another chapter beforehand, even if it gets stronger billing for actually getting around here. I figured that a chapter in which the gang was doing responsible things™ like loafing around on the rooftop of the Pokémon Center right outside the Caph Squad Base also lent itself well to them getting to see Fury Falls from a bit closer and higher up. We’re not quite done with the Starfall Street-themed chapters in this story, but the next one that comes along in this story will be a pretty big change of pace from the ones we’ve seen thus far.

Translation Notes:

- «¿Estás bien? Te veo mala cara…» - “Are you okay? You don’t look so good…”
 



Dee-Dee De-De-De De-De-Dee-Dee

You blink from a chiming, high-pitched noise from the headphone over your right ear. You suppose that’s one way to tell that Chispa’s hasn’t changed that playlist. Full of songs meant for racing down trails or drifting around corners with your friends.

“For crying out loud, can’t this go any faster?!”

This music starts picking up, and as Lucas’ quack reminds you, you’re not exactly racing along right now. Instead you’re inching your way past another set of broad doors that for some reason seem to have been purpose-built to slow down humans and Pokémon entering Mesagoza.

He and all your riders are tense and impatient. For good reason.

You’ve spent all day racing back from that Team Star base in the mountains after ‘Cassiopeia’ told Juliana to meet back at Uva Academy, and now the sun’s already setting. Your limbs feel stiff and tired, but even before fully cresting the gate’s threshold, your Hadron Engine’s already spinning up.

A voice joins in along with the melody as you decide that you all have waited long enough, and you force air out of your thrusters to send you shooting forward.

Juliana yelps as she tightens her grip on your harness and you hear scolding shouts from the gate as you jerk your forward ring left and slide around a corner in front of a Pokécenter. A sign that you probably shouldn’t be running like this right now, but you’ve got bigger worries at the moment.

‘Cassiopeia’ told Juliana to meet her at school tonight. And there’s not much time left to make it to her before then.

“I told you we should’ve hired an Air Taxi.”

You already know that Lucas has the world’s most tired and annoyed look on his face right now. But taking one back to Mesagoza apparently wouldn’t have been cheap or any faster.

The most frustrating part is that if you had your full strength, you could’ve made it back hours ago.

Fortunately this path is usually pretty open, or more accurately the grassy knoll between it and the bluffs down to the river to the south are. Here, you can charge ahead as the trees and lightposts whip past you to your right without having to worry about passersby like the human students and the Pachirisu stopping and whirling after you as you blow past.

Juliana’s tension seems to have relaxed a bit, as she’s put two and two together about what you’re trying to do: this knoll leads almost straight to the main square and the steps leading straight up to her lab.

And she trusts that you can get everyone there.

“Bzzt! Your turn’s coming up, Wheels!”

And indeed it is. There’s one of those two towers just north of the southern gate, growing taller by the moment. So’s the end of the grassy knoll, as the gap between the path and the wall between it and the bluff narrows just up ahead.

Juliana guides you rightwards as your rings go from grass back to stone with a sharp thump. And then again as you leave it almost as soon as you cut back onto the grass in the shadow of the tower. Juliana jerks your harness right again, hard. You don’t question it and let your body follow, your rear ring swinging out as you lose traction and lean in rightward as your rings screech and that weightless feeling you always have while drifting kicks in.

You make it past the round watchtower and as your rings go from grass to pavestone again, you can hear yourself skidding. Uva Academy’s spires and the steps up are right there, but—

«¡Trueno, espera!»

Juliana calls out to you and you have the briefest moment to see there’s people and Pokémon ahead of you. Lots of them. You take your claws off your rings and throw them out, digging them into the stones to a stop as you see yourself staring at that balloon stand tucked to the right of the stairs, along with a small crowd of humans and Pokémon gathered around it.

It’s not any better along the steps, either. Everywhere you look, there’s humans and Pokémon making their way up and down the steps, and from what you can see at their tops, things look even more crowded as there’s strange machines like a giant metal wheel....

“Hey, what the-?!” Lucas splutters “What’s going on here! Even when the square’s busy, it’s never this packed!”

Chispa briefly detaches himself from his mount and floats in place in front of Juliana. You can see text and images pull up from the corner of your eye, as he gives a sheepish buzz.

“Right, there was that PokéPark thing that was in town this week,” he says. “I knew I was forgetting something from the calendar lately.”

You look ahead blankly and feel your Hadron Engine’s hum start to quiet and you feel a sinking feeling in your stomach. There really isn’t a way to get past this, or at least not right now. If that last Herba Mystica had fully healed you like it was supposed to, then you could just fly over everything, but…

«Mira, allí».

Juliana points off rightwards. When you follow, you spot a path heading up an incline in front of a bunch of stone-and-plaster buildings where everyone’s coming towards you.

Wait a minute, you think you recognize that path. From some ‘Poké Job’ thing Juliana once got through Chispa to deliver tofu.

It… was a lot harder than that cartoon made it look. But you know you can get to Uva Academy that way.

You turn and pick up speed as Juliana jerks your harness left at the first intersection. You screech around the corner and barrel forward down a narrower street with an overpassing bridge dead ahead.

“Wheels! Get us some airtime!”

Between Chispa’s buzzing cry and a tug at your harness, you jump, and the ground suddenly grows noticeably farther down with a set of steps. When Juliana calls for you to glide. You unfurl your horns to break your fall, and as your surroundings fly by, you leave things in Juliana’s hands

Your rings touch the ground when there’s another call to jump. When you heed it, you vault up another set of steps. Just barely after you touch the ground, Juliana guides you into a sharp left turn, sending you skidding towards yet another set.

You inflate your rings to smooth the bumps as you race up them and hear the call to jump once more. You do it again, just clearing a steel railing as your rings touch the ground and…

“Ah!”

There’s the walls leading up to Uva Academy towering above. Juliana prods you to turn left again. But this time, you don’t listen and instead leap straight at the wall, your claws digging into it with a sharp crunch.

You linger there as your passengers yelp and stare at you, and you turn your head back with a determined grin as the music in your ear comes to a stop.

“It’ll be faster this way, trust me.”

Their expressions ease and you dig your claws in and jump up. Towards a fateful meeting that you won’t miss after all.


Commentary:

The mix of Save Me used as this chapter’s background music is the 4:36 version from Super Eurobeat Presents Initial D ~D Selection~. A bit basic and ‘to type’ for this series, but I needed the extra 15 seconds of runtime from the original release in Super Eurobeat Vol. 77, while I wasn’t quite feeling the extensions that the Extended Mix that first appeared in Super Eurobeat Vol. 98, so good enough there.

This chapter went out on a bit of a limb relative to canon, since there’s not exactly scripted seasonal events that happen in Mesagoza’s main square in the actual games. I wanted an excuse to force the gang to take a bit more of a roundabout route, and a travelling pop-up fair felt like something that would plausibly happen on occasion there. It just so happens that there’s effectively been franchise-licensed ones in the past via the PokéParks that were around in the mid-2000s, so it felt like as good an opportunity as any to nod to it and have Trueno and the gang just happened to run into it with the world’s worst timing.
 



You’re watching waves roll in on the simulated beach inside your Pokéball, faintly hearing strangely familiar-sounding human words in a foreign tongue.

Then come the pulsing, bouncing beats. From one of those songs Juliana’s had Chispa playing lately. For a moment, you thought that you’d gotten it stuck in your memory banks again when you look up into the sky and amidst the night and mock stars, you see light and the translucent outlines of Juliana’s dorm room.

«¡Aaah! ¡Me quedé dormida!»

Then comes the hand clamping down on it from above which blocks the view. You tense up alert as you hear crashing sounds, when your surroundings suddenly melt into white. The next thing you know, you’re out in a corridor lined with familiar-looking doors…

Da-da-daa-da-da. Da-da-da-daa-da.

You only have a moment to register that you’re hearing music without headphones when there’s suddenly a weight on your back. You look over your shoulder and see Juliana grabbing your harness as Chispa floats beside her.

“Chispa, what on earth’s-?”

“Cassiopeia! Juliana fell asleep while waiting to meet them!”

Everything clicks afterwards, and as soon as the word leaves Juliana’s mouth, you’re off, barreling down the hallway.

You really shouldn’t be doing this right now. The last time you dashed around inside Juliana’s lab like this, Jacq gave you both an earful. But from Juliana’s expression, she’s not worried about any later consequences right now.

And if ‘Cassiopeia’ is who you think they are, you really don’t want Juliana to miss her.

From the lights turning on from beneath the doors you pass and the darkness outside the scattered windows, it’s nighttime. You know everyone needed a rest from battling ‘Clive’ earlier, but is it really that late…?
Juliana tugs for you to slow down as you see the elevators approaching on the left. Right, the entrance to the schoolyard’s on the fourth floor of the lab’s wings. They’re big enough for students to move dorm furniture in them, but she doesn’t expect you to cram yourself inside, does she?

Except, she doesn’t stop. Right as you pull up, she notices a sign on the elevator doors with human writing on it, and sharply tugs at you to turn around.

“Wha-? But the elevator’s right-!”

“Bzzt! It’s closed for maintenance!” Chispa replies.

Right, that would be a good reason to move on.

You get onto your feet and squeeze around, throwing yourself back onto your rings as you get straight with the hallway again and dash as fast as your Hadron Engine will let you. The rooms fly past, as you see the double doors leading into the main entrance hall left slightly ajar.

And it’s just what you needed, since it’ll allow you to keep pace if you use your head.

“Hold on! This is gonna get rough!”

You pull your horns back and lower your head as the doors approach. You feel them smash against the top of your skull, and your thrusters briefly sputter.

You briefly spot the turnstile and hop up by reflex, clearing it at the last second. As you land on your rings, your balance wobbles as the entrance hall’s bookcases and balconies go by in a spinning daze.

«¡Para! ¡Para!»

With Juliana wrenching your harness left and calling for you to stop.

You throw your rings out leftward and lean in, hearing them skid as you come to rest. You stumble onto your claws afterwards, fighting to keep your balance.

“Oog…”

You wait for the room to stop spinning. There’s a painting of a mountainous landscape to your right, along with a set of study desks up ahead.

More importantly, the stairs to the ground floor are just behind you and the Entrance Hall’s empty.

You don’t need prompting to get back onto your rings. You wrench around and throw all the strength you have into your Hadron Engine and your hips’ thrusters to launch yourself forward down the steps.

They fly by one bump after the other, as Juliana guides you leftward and you enter a drifting slide past the front desk, where the gray-haired receptionist and her Gengar stare in disbelief as you pass, a spluttering cry reaching your ears as you pass the first bookcases on the east side:

«¡Ey! ¡No se corre por los pasillos!»

You ignore it, so does Juliana as she guides you over to the blue wing where her classroom is as you roll to a stop in front of the turnstile. She grabs a Pokéball from her belt, light erupting from it before she can aim.

“I see them. I’m on it.”

The quacking voice is your first tipoff that Lucas is out and about as the Quaquaval hops the turnstile and pulls the door back. You follow suit, your rings spinning against the tiles as Lucas clambers aboard while you pass and you charge down the hall.

It’s a bit strange seeing the hallways this dark and empty. Beyond you and your riders, it’s just the glow of your rings and your thrusters’ contrails, and the blues of your optical diodes adjusting to low-light mode. They illuminate the path ahead, lighting up the doors and lockers flying past you.

If ‘Cassiopeia’ is still out there on the schoolyard, this is as good a chance as you’ll get to catch up with them.

Or you suppose with ‘her’ if that hunch from all those little things you noticed around those Team Star bases is indeed right

“That’s it. Up on the left!”

Juliana calls for you to stop and you plant your claws, coming to a slowing trot in front of a set of steel doors like the ones back in the dorms—the elevators for this wing of the Academy.

Your riders are already off your back before you stop, with Juliana furiously mashing the button on the panel. The music’s still pounding as you glance at the phone mount along your natural harness and notice that Chispa’s still playing that song through the phone’s speakers.

“Chispa? Shouldn’t you have stopped the alarm by now?”

“Probably. But it seemed to keep everyone moving, so good enough.”

A low chime rings out and the doors open, Juliana and Lucas are already past the door as you look ahead blankly.

“Uh… I’m not sure I’ll even fit in the-”

“Just suck it up and get in, Trueno!” Lucas snaps.

You look back at the elevator and blink, when you notice it’s almost ceiling height.

You dart forward, rearing up on two legs as a Cyclizar might and place your foreclaws against the back of the elevator, your snout almost touching the ceiling. You hear a ding, then the doors closing as the elevator slowly starts ascending.

You try to relax and unfurl your tail, only to feel the doors holding it firmly in place.

“Um… how long is this going to take?”

“Next floor. Hang in there a little longer, Wheels.”

Cyclizar really just go around like this normally? You don’t know how you’d ever manage rearing up in Ultimate Mode without your thrusters keeping you aloft.

Ding!

The doors open behind you and your balance gives way as you slip backwards, hurriedly backpedaling out into the hallway. You barely have a moment to right yourself as Juliana and Lucas clamber onto your back.

A quick glance around reveals you’re on the fourth floor. The schoolyard’s just a straight shot ahead.

As Juliana tightens her grip on your harness, you’re off, barreling down the hallway as fast as you can. The lab’s Director was insistent that Cassiopeia was strong and needed to be beaten in battle to knock sense into them.

If Cassiopeia’s who you think she is, you’d never have guessed that.

Perhaps there was a reason why since the day you met Penny, there was something about her you couldn’t place that felt an awful lot like you.

Juliana calls for you to slow down, and as you do, the light from your eyes falls on your destination: the teal and white doors leading to the schoolyard beyond.

She doesn’t wait for Lucas to get the door this time, and throws them open herself, all but hopping over the turnstile as you look out over the schoolyard under the moon’s glow and your heart sinks.

“... Nobody’s here.”

You droop and hang your head. After all your efforts, it just wasn’t enough.

You don’t know what you’re all supposed to do now. Will you all get another chance to meet her? Have you just ruined things forever?

«Juliana…»

Lucas tugs your harness and points down the field. There’s a figure in a gray hoodie making their way across, your eyes widening as you see the Eevee backpack on her shoulders.

«Gracias por venir».

They pull their hoodie back, and confirm the suspicions you’ve had all along.


Commentary:

Yeah, you (unfortunately) can’t be a little terror and ride your bike dragon through the hallways in the games. Fortunately, Hidenori Kusaka thought that was dumb and had Violet Lang, the protag of the S/V chapters of Pokémon Adventures casually violate that. I figured it was a good enough excuse to imply that Juliana in this telling of Violet’s events had been getting into spells doing much the same. Naturally, it was only fitting to actually get to show that off at some point onscreen.

This scenario was one of those that fell into place after stewing on a playlist for a song that would vibe with being in a hurry, which between the overall melody and the title… yeah ‘Emotional Fire’ was a decently apt title for this one. If you didn’t remember the song being quite this long, you’re probably thinking of the original version that’s just over 4 minutes long and first appeared in Super Eurobeat Vol. 68. This chapter used the Extended Mix from Delta Ultimate Collection Presents Denise for scoring, which is 2 seconds longer than its initial LP release on the DELTA 1011 single, as readers probably gathered, this chapter needed every last second of that extra time.

Translation Notes:

- «¡Aaah! ¡Me quedé dormido!» - “Aaah! I fell asleep!”
- «¡Ey! ¡No se corre en los pasillos!» - “Hey! Don’t race in the hallways!”
- «Gracias por venir». - “Thank you for coming.”
 
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