ErazonPo3
Junior Trainer
- Pronouns
- She/her
I got a strikethrough for the middle row, and a couple extras! https://forums.thousandroads.net/threads/erazons-drabble-series.1709/post-74946
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Thousand Roads has been around for six whole years! We're running a number of events to celebrate--check out drabble bingo, our mini review blitz, or TR writing buddies special prizes, going on for the whole anniversary period, and keep an eye on the announcement thread for updates as we add more to the lineup! Happy sixth birthday, TR! -
Join us for a round of Speed Catnip, a lightning-fast feedback exchange! Swap short pieces of writing with your fellow community members to get quick feedback and sample bite-sized pieces of other people's works. Great for showing off your bingo drabbles, sharing a scene you're especially proud of, or getting feedback on a scene you're unsure of.
Sixth Anniversary Drabble Bingo
- Thread starter Negrek
- Start date
Cresselia92
Gym Leader
- Pronouns
- She/Her/Hers
- Partners
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Howdy! I wanna try to give this a go! :D
For me, I’d like heartwarming and fluffy themes and / or unlikely pairings and meetings (preferably platonic).
For me, I’d like heartwarming and fluffy themes and / or unlikely pairings and meetings (preferably platonic).
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ShiniGojira
Multiversal Extraordinaire
Got top row done!
Post in thread 'Dabbling in Drabbles' https://forums.thousandroads.net/threads/dabbling-in-drabbles.1144/post-74966
Post in thread 'Dabbling in Drabbles' https://forums.thousandroads.net/threads/dabbling-in-drabbles.1144/post-74966
- Pronouns
- She/her
- Partners
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Filled the bottom line! Good time for me, bad time for Drake and Marcel
forums.thousandroads.net
Pokémon - Welcome to the World of Pokemon! (Drabble Collection/Bingo)
Heya, swinging by for some light reading and to chip away at my authorial hitlist while dinner’s cooking in the background. I didn’t realize that you had a drabble collection story, so that sounds like a thing worth checking out a couple installments of: [Prompt 1] [Prompt 2] [Prompt 3]...
forums.thousandroads.net
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unrepentantAuthor
A cat that writes stories.
I'd like to request a bingo card! Some kind of 'What If?'/AU theme would be neat – What Could Have Been. Dealer's choice if that proves tricky. Apologies for the late request, no worries if I don't get a card by end-of-event.
Allllright, I really should try to be creative. Let's go with encounters between gods and mortals (both in the literal and figurative sense--a centuries-old Alpha might as well be a legend when you remove those pesky game stats from the equation). Not expecting to finish anything before the end of the event, so no rush.
Phoenixsong
beh!
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Got a right column bingo! Still need to grab some older drabbles to crosspost before I can update my actual thread, so for the sake of checking this off within the time limit (and having just the three relevant fills by themselves so it's faster to verify) I'll post them here directly for now.
Hard to believe, towering over us like you do, that we used to keep you warm in a little drawstring bag. Newborn kangaskhan are tiny—if I was knee-high to a jellybean, I'd hide in my mom's pocket, too. But she was gone, and we found you, and you curled up in that homemade pouch until your armor grew in and you were raring to explore.
You've got your own jellybean now. She's impossibly small, next to you, but snug, safe and sweet. Almost as cute as the little face that once smiled at me from a cozy drawstring bag.
You've got your own jellybean now. She's impossibly small, next to you, but snug, safe and sweet. Almost as cute as the little face that once smiled at me from a cozy drawstring bag.
Juliana's cyclizar was unusual, fire-engine red with a great, sweeping crest, but he was the sweetest cyclizar Mom had ever met. And she'd been a bit lonely, lately, so it was a welcome surprise when he dropped home to visit while Juliana was in class. (Literally dropped, out of the sky, square into the garden, which would've been a sight even with a cyclizar of normal size.) Flattened flowers aside he was well-behaved, and darling company when they rode to Los Platos for shopping... although, when they returned, her bag of sandwich fixings was mysteriously lighter than it had started.
Delphox held out two sticks. "A green twig, fresh and pliable, or a dry twig, quick to kindle. Which should you choose for a wand?"
The four fennekin sniffed, then pawed, then scratched their ears in thought. "Uhh... the dry one?" Newt guessed. "More fire faster's better, right?"
"It will burn heartily," agreed his mother, "but it is also faster to burn away. Green wood burns slowly, but when seasoned with a steady flame it is reliable, and will guide your spells for—"
Snap. The green twig broke away in her paw. "Tastes better, too," said Trouble, crunching with relish.
The four fennekin sniffed, then pawed, then scratched their ears in thought. "Uhh... the dry one?" Newt guessed. "More fire faster's better, right?"
"It will burn heartily," agreed his mother, "but it is also faster to burn away. Green wood burns slowly, but when seasoned with a steady flame it is reliable, and will guide your spells for—"
Snap. The green twig broke away in her paw. "Tastes better, too," said Trouble, crunching with relish.
EDIT: nvm found enough to post, lol. Proper thread/post is here!
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Spiteful Murkrow
Busy Writing Stories I Want to Read
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
- Partners
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Whelp, it's finally here. Took a surprising amount of work for roughly 1250 words per fill even with heavily curtailed quality control, but I'm back with a fresh blackout this year. The drabbles are provided in chronological order and there's giant S/V spoilers in some of them. I made an attempt at giving warnings in the particularly frontal ones, but consider this a caveat lector.
Anyhow, let's get right into this year's set of fills in which I continue my running tradition of drabbling about dragons, just differently:
There’s an electronic trill and then piano notes. You turn your head past your companions, all gathered together on this little island with palm trees, off towards where Juliana is.
Chispa’s put the phone he indwells on speaker again floats by Juliana in the air by her as she spreads a purple, grape-patterned cloth over a folding table under the shade of a nearby palm tree. Juliana’s lab gave it to her when she was new, along with the blue cup and water bottle resting on it. No matter where you’ve gone, they come out whenever it’s time for a picnic—even in places like this little island in the East Paldean Sea.
But what’s really grabbing your attention is the basket.
Juliana pulls it open and pulls out a green plate, then a set of bottles and some plastic containers with various odds and ends inside as you raptly and your Hadron Engine hums in excited anticipation:
She’s going to make a sandwich
She fetches a split loaf just as the music picks up from Chispa’s phone. The Rotom briefly blinks for a moment as Juliana sets the bottom half down.
“... No recipe card this time?” he buzzes, giving an askew glance.
Juliana shakes her head and carries on, her hands moving in a flash. She takes a glass bottle filled with olive-colored liquid and dashes it against the bread and reaches for a squat jar colored a darker shade of purple. She grabs a spoon, scooping its contents out just as Lucas walks up to the table and stares blankly.
“... Is she putting jam on that thing? With olive oil?”
Juliana is indeed putting on jam. Then she adds mustard and mayo, before using the spoon to blend them together on the bread. The Quaxwell leaves his beak hanging open and scrunches his brow with an incredulous scowl—not wholly unlike one from a Scorbunny clip that Chispa recently played on Juliana’s phone.
Is it really that strange? All of these ingredients are ones that Juliana’s used to make sandwiches in the past that everyone liked… even if she didn’t mixed them all together at once like this.
“It can’t be that bad, can it, Lucas?”
“That’s what you said about that ‘banana butty’ last time,” the Quaxwell scoffs.
You let out an involuntary shudder as the words ‘banana butty’ stir up unwelcome thoughts in your memory banks. Juliana apparently got the recipe from Penny and it sounded simple and tasty enough…
Or at least it did until you and your teammates were left lying in a daze on the ground.
You still don’t know what even happened there. Maybe there was just a bit too much banana in it. Maybe there’s just something different about the food humans like to eat in whatever region Penny comes.
It was probably just a fluke. Since the sandwich Juliana’s making now smells tasty, at least.
The music takes a turn after an electronic chime, turning your attention back to Juliana and her in-progress sandwich as she starts adding a layer of cheese on top.
It’s not quite Herba Mystica, but you’ve been holding out hope that maybe another combination of ingredients will make a sandwich that’ll get your old strength back. After all, the one she gave you when you two first met on that beach did… for a little while, at least.
“Hup!”
You turn and see your other teammates in the background, kicking around a ball in the grass. A Pawmot, ‘Canela’, gives it a stiff header and sends it flying…
THUMP!
The ball bounces of the table, making Juliana lose her balance and send the cheese slice in her hand flying up into the air. One thing leads to another as you jump up, snagging the morsel out of the air and gulping it down in a flash.
“Bzzt! Hey! Watch it!”
You see Chispa floating up, the bouncing tune he’s playing doing nothing to shake that unamused scowl on his eyes. Juliana doesn’t look particularly happy herself, either.
You pin your horns back and lower your head and avert your gaze, giving a low whine. It makes Juliana’s expression ease up, but also surprises your other teammates.
“Wait, what are you doing right now, Trueno?” the Pawmot asks, as Pokey the Lechonk and Ascua the Charcadet trade glances behind her. “What’s with the big dog act?”
You blink in reply. You suppose you are acting like one, since Oso would do things like this whenever Arven was upset. You remember that it used to work well for you, for making Arven to grow friendly when you two still didn’t really know each other…
You don’t know how Oso would fix whatever you did to make Arven stop liking you. Assuming the Mabosstiff could fix something like that in his current condition.
You feel fingers cup under your chin and perk up, seeing Juliana stroking at you. Her expression’s eased, but she points away from the table, and down a ledge to a beach, where the team ball is laying on the sand.
You missed much of what she said, but you think you got the gist well enough.
“Right, I’ll go grab it.”
You lumber along, briefly spotting Juliana grabbing a container filled with… strawberries, while another nearby has potato salad in it. You try not to think too hard about it and focus on getting the ball back instead, since now you’re starting to get doubts about her sandwich.
You jump over the ledge and hit the beach in a crouch, taking a moment to shake some sand off your metal scales when you grab it in your jaws and extend your dewlap and tail to re-enter Ride Mode.
A woosh of your thrusters, and you’re off retracing your path up a shallow slope inland, slowing as you reach the top. To your left, there’s a quintet of towers looming over the horizon, along with a blue-and-white lighthouse in the distance.
Levincia. The next stop on Juliana’s journey. And another place where you’ll be unable to do anything but watch Lucas and the others from the sidelines.
Time and again, you just can’t help but wonder how things would be different if you had your old strength to help your friends right now. They’d never worry about another Gym Challenge again. And instead of just looking at those towers from afar, you’d be able to fly everyone to their tops...
A whistle carries over the air. You see Juliana at the folding table, and everyone else making their way over. A sign that food’s ready.
You dart over, slowing and unfurling your dewlap and tail back into their resting state in the last few paces over as you set the team ball down amidst uneasy murmurs.
“Uh… are we sure that that sandwich is even edible?” Canela asks.
“I’m good, thanks,” Pokey chimes in, fighting back a gag.
“I’d sooner eat another ‘banana butty’ first,” Ascua grumbles.
Everyone except Lucas is voicing their disapproval about the sandwich, and from his expression, it’s not because the Quaxwell likes it.
You’ll admit that the sandwich looks… strange. You know you’ve seen ham and pickles and cheese together on sandwiches before. But not with eggs. Or with potato salad. And definitely not with strawberries.
Even Juliana looks uneasy about it. But she worked hard on it. And maybe, just maybe, it’ll surprise you somehow.
“Let me have some, Juliana.”
You nose up against her as she takes a knife and cuts the sandwich into parts, going around to distribute the pieces. You hesitate briefly as Juliana closes her eyes and bites down on her chunk, as you stuff yours into your mouth.
There’s a sweet and savory tang across your tongue, your eyes widening along with Juliana’s.
Somehow, the mix of ingredients all just works.
Human words fill your ears, as snarling guitar mix with human and Pokémon cheers and whooping in the background. It takes you a moment to remember that the music’s coming from the headphones Juliana gave you to hold onto since weirdly enough, it’s not that out of place from where you’re at right now:
You’re at a place in Levincia where Gym Battles are held. A circular arena linked by a pair of bridges like the one you’re on that lead to an outer ring lined with billboards. The tang of sea salt hangs in the air and there’s a long cliff with a waterfall behind you, with buildings every which way elsewhere—including those five towers and the lighthouse you saw from afar back on that island at sea.
But the surrounding scenery isn’t what brought everybody here today.
Juliana calls out onto the field as an orange and cream blur shoots forward—Canela, who’s only recently evolved into a Pawmot. The Electric-type closes the gap with a green and black toad thing called a Bellibolt guided by the local Gym Leader. An… animated type who you thought you heard call herself ‘e-Nigma’ a couple times.
Canela springs up and lands a flurry of straight-armed punches, peppering the Bellibolt from behind. You wonder if this Gym Leader ever knew your old friend, since even if there’s less metal on him than you or the other Pokémon like you at your old lab, the Bellibolt isn’t all that different.
He certainly hits like some of those other Pokémon from the way he zapped through half the team earlier, with Canela and Lucas being the last Pokémon standing. Somehow, every time someone hits that toad, he just throws things back harder right afterwards. Almost as effortlessly as the way you’d electrify your surroundings in a battle.
A sobering reminder that Canela’s ability to shrug off sparks is probably the one reason why this fight isn’t already lost.
A Water Gun from the Bellibolt sends Canela flying towards the edge of the field. A couple Magnemite floating in the air briefly twirl their magnets as a barrier of light forms between. She bonks her head against it and falls, before cricking her neck and springing back up.
“Boy, Iono’s really not making this easy,” Chispa murmurs.
Clearly. Though even if Canela’s fatigued, she’s still holding her own. And for the first time since taking the field, the Bellibolt sways in his steps.
From the flash of realization on her face, Juliana sees it, too.
“¡Empujón!”
Canela’s off and darting forward again, winding up a punch as she nears. There’s a brief flash of alarm from Iono as she calls out to the Bellibolt, for another Water Gun, but the Pawmot’s already on him.
One punch. Two punches. Three…
Canela’s foe lets out a pained bellow as he slumps to the battlefield. Everyone’s tense and waits for him to get up, as the Pawmot breathes heavily, but the Bellibolt doesn’t get up.
There’s cheers from the surrounding humans and Pokémon on the platform and the outer ring, mixed with disappointed groans. Probably from those ‘groupies’ Iono has, while the Gym Leader herself visibly recoils in shock.
“OMG! La cosa pinta un poco chunguilla, ¿no? ¡Más vale mandar ánimos, electrolitos mios!”
Cheers suddenly break out. Why, you’re not sure until you see Iono’s expression go back to normal. So it was all just an act.
The music starts to pick up again in your ears. You’d expect Juliana to be confident now since her teammates outnumbers their last foe, but she still looks tense. As Iono reaches for her last Pokéball, Juliana motions for Canela to come back and much to Chispa’s buzzing surprise, she reaches for another Pokéball of her own.
“What on earth is she-?”
Juliana cuts him off by sending out Lucas, who materializes in a flash of light. The Quaxwell emerges in a crouch and looks around in blinking confusion as he looks towards the other end and sees a Mismagius taking shape.
“Wait, a Mismagius?” you murmur. “But why-?”
“... ¡Muestra tu brillbrilli, bolballita! No me falles!”
You didn’t follow what Iono said just before, but the part you did catch about a ‘sparkle’ and ‘little ball’ makes your eyes shrink. Chispa’s and especially Lucas’ eyes do the same as Iono fishes out a black sphere, striking a pose as blinding, crystal-like light gathers in it.
A passing toss of the orb at the Mismagius, and brilliant crystals overtake her and pile up before dashing into shards. Her ghostly body gleams with a jewel-like sheen, and for a fleeting moment, you can see what looks like a lightbulb linger over her head, her face curling into a growing smirk.
“I believe this show’s just about over, Quaxwell,” she says. “Though do be dramatic when you faint. The subscribers eat those moments right up.”
You stare blankly. Could Juliana really have just forgotten about the last Pokémon in this Gym?
“Oh, come on!” Lucas complains. “What am I supposed to do here?!”
You briefly hear Juliana call out for Lucas. It’s not an order to attack, but to ‘hang in there’. You see she’s turned aside, arms rooting through her bag.
“Make this quick, Juliana. I don’t know how long Lucas is going to last out there.”
When you look down and see that Canela is still out, and it clicks:
Trainers are allowed to heal up their Pokémon during Gym Challenges as long as it doesn’t break the flow of battle, which with how distracted humans usually get while doing that, typically means the Pokémon on the field has to stall or fight on their own. Often not particularly well.
There’s a cry from Iono’s end of the battlefield as electricity starts to gather and crackle about the Mismagius, while Lucas is visibly freezes. He needs help, but if you just charge onto the battlefield, you’ll get Juliana disqualified. Even roaring to try and throw your teammates’ opponents off-balance has gotten them all in trouble before.
You faintly hear a phone chime in the background over the music. There’s only a brief moment, but you notice the Mismagius isn’t reacting. That’s when it hits you:
Juliana sometimes uses these songs while training with Lucas. Maybe. Just maybe, you can still help him…
“Chispa, play the song on speaker!”
Chispa shakes the phone and the next thing you know, the music cuts out from your headphones and you hear it coming from outside them. It’s enough to make Juliana turn from a Potion bottle, and from how Lucas perks up and the sudden spring in his step, he hears it too.
A sharp crack splits the air as the Mismagius throws an electric beam forward, though right as it comes at him, Lucas sidesteps and springs back, bouncing on the heels of his webbed feet. The Mismagius’ eyes briefly widen, before she fires off another Charge Beam, the Quaxwell springing aside to the beat once again.
“Hey! Stop bouncing around like that!” she hisses.
A grin spreads over your jaws. It was a shot in the dark, but the Quaxwell’s always fastest on his feet in a dance, exactly what he needs right now. Based on the way the onlookers are gawking, they’re also getting into things too.
“¡Mira! Mira! ¡Álla!”
You blink after faintly hearing a vaguely familiar voice, and look out to see on the outer ring to your right. There’s a girl with a black ponytail wearing a uniform like Juliana’s, pointing out the scene to a woman in a black-and-blue suit that resembles her flowing hair.
The woman in the suit’s new, but that girl…
“Is that Nemona-?”
A loud crackle jolts you to attention, where Lucas’ luck on the field finally runs out. The Quaxwell’s on the ground, panting heavily as he tries to get up.
“¡Lucas, cambio! ¡Vuelve aquí!”
You both look back towards Juliana as she raises Lucas’ Pokéball to recall him. He smiles at you as he returns, as do you. Happy your help worked.
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.
A pair of rental Cyclizar with human riders flank you. You stood out a bit after coming here, one thing led to another, and Juliana and Lucas got roped into a race. The tan-scaled one blinking at you to your right is new. The left one, you recognize: you literally ran into him on the road a couple days ago.
“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 dart off, the green one fuming after the tan one up ahead.
“Sanglas! No fair jumping the gun like that!”
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 flops open in stunned surprise.
“He can roll on those rings, Montesa?!”
“He sure can! Eat our dust, buddy!”
Lucas is sure getting into things more than you were expecting right now. 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 tangible way to show it off.
Juliana tugs your harness rightward and you follow her guidance, heading down a gentle slope leading down to in front of a Pokécenter on an overlooking bluff to a path branching left up to it, and right down 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 you do so, but you land closer to the stony bluff. She yanks your harness rightward, and you slide, drifting across the dirt path as you slow to steady yourself.
And much to you and your riders’ astonishment, the Cyclizar both run past, hugging the edge of the path and darting 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 to your annoyance.
If you had your full strength, this race would already be over: you’d just fly down to the market entrance you’re racing towards.
No matter, you can still turn things 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 replaced by empty air, with orange tiles below you and then grass.
THUMP!
Your rings touch grass 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 mechanical heart races in your chest.
“... Wait, are we on a roof?”
A quick glance around confirms that, 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 those rental Cyclizar are running into town.
Your horns droop as a crushing realization comes over you: you failed, and this race is lost.
You hang your head, when you hear voices past the eave. You see Cyclizar and the red roof of a rental station… along with a low-roofed house right across the street, and the market just behind it.
It’s a little crazy to consider in your diminished state, but maybe there’s a way to still win.
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 as you push air out 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 chunks flying around, you probably don’t want to linger 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 like that.”
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 check 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.
She 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, 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 an 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 screamed and ran, blindly charging to the opposite side of the Pokécenter.
It stirred up memories you wish you could just delete from your memory banks—of burning pain, of the way you had to flee your last lab.
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 know you’re not supposed to be afraid of Hyper Beams like that. You’re supposed to be stronger than that. 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. You’ll prove it right now.
You spring onto your feet and curl your dewlap and tail into your Ride Mode’s rings and charge off along the beach, your Hadron Engine whining louder and louder as you pick up speed and your limbs coil with tension.
Something changed in you after you ate that sandwich with that last Herba Mystica in it. Since then, you’ve been able to shift back into what your old friend used to call ‘Glide Mode’—not fully accurate, since in the past, you could do more than just glide in it.
And your Hadron Engine sounds like it’s running strong enough to prove it to yourself.
You spring up and spread your horns wide, warmth running along them you feel resistance holding you aloft—the energy membranes that help you fly fully taking 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 is running almost as well as how you remembered it. You can hear it. Feel it.
You turn towards the cliffs, trying to bank, only for your eyes to widen as you start losing altitude. You quickly stop and level yourself out, trying to focus on climbing 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 land and slump over into the sand as the crushing realization that all your practice with Glide Mode the past few days hasn’t helped.
Are you just somehow broken for good? Your mind turns back to everything that happened before you ran away from your last lab. The day when he came to your lab on his own. Your old friend specifically set it aside for you because he kept pushing you around whenever you two were together.
Your friend didn’t seem to understand how bad things were. You didn’t either the day he insisted you give your place up to him. Because he was stronger and could protect it and your friend’s research better as a guardian.
To just get out of the way since you’d never measure up.
Something snapped in you, and you attacked and didn’t hold anything back. He’d pushed you around since the day he came to your lab. He’d spent years pushing you further and further away from your friend in front of your eyes as you tried to pretend otherwise to make your friend happy.
That day, you’d finally had enough.
You felt so satisfied after that first blow, and for a moment, you thought you’d finally emerge victorious. It didn’t last, and came to a hard stop when he hit you point-blank with a Hyper Beam. You remember being lying against a collapsed pipe, the smoke curling up from your scales, the way your Hadron Engine sputtered and you couldn’t do anything other than brace for the end as that awful light gathered in his jaws.
It was all a mistake. If you hadn’t started that fight, none of that would’ve happened. Your friend never would’ve had to shield—
You kill the process there and notice your eyesight’s wavering. Electrical pulses are interfering with your optical diodes right now, ones that normally come whenever you’re in severe pain.
Your vision wavered like this back then, too.
Just then, your surroundings abruptly melt away into light. As your eyes adjust to the surrounding orange hues of evening, you see you’re on a stone platform. One of those ancient towers in the countryside that Gimmieghoul like to hang around.
Your eyes fall towards the ground as Juliana reaches for you, headphone in hand, only to falter just after she slips it over your ear.
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 Juliana’s voice speak up.
“Trueno, ¿estás bien? Te vez triste ahora mismo.”
You blink and turn your head up to her, where she’s staring worriedly, only to have a brief flash of realization and hastily repeat the first part, this time calling you ‘Miraidon’ like your old friend 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 catch.
“She was asking if you were lonely,” the Rotom phone chirps. “Since you’ve been in your Pokéball for a while.”
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 you’re embarrassed about what happened at the Pokécenter, it’s alright,” he says. “These things just happen sometimes.”
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 alright 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 wouldn’t hurt…”
A gentle, rolling chime comes over your headphone, followed by human words and a thumping beat that you find yourself idly batting a foreclaw against calm blue waters along with the beat.
It’s twilight and you’re bobbing up and down in the waters 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 the 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 Lake Casseroya 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 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 that 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 everyone from those Houndour that attacked when you first met. But Juliana already has enough partners that she has to rotate spots 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 approaching island 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 they’d react to knowing how some of your lowest moments have 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 Ride Mode, with your thrusters quickly pushing you back up to speed.
You zoom along, your Hadron Engine humming along in the night. The cliffs of the southern shoreline pass to your right, and an ancient watchtower and the towering heights of Mount Glaseado in the distance ahead…
With 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 Chispa and the others’ protests and lower your head, barreling ahead over their cries of protest.
There’s water ahead, and an inclining path up to your left 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 skid 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 Oso 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 your old friend sees you that way. 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.
“Did 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 for once you wouldn’t have to worry about being hounded by aggressive wilds, and 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 more. 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 notice 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.
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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’s bathing 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 helped Arven find that last Herba Mystica he was looking for. It healed Oso. He’s back to his old self you remembered—if a bit bigger.
But not you.
You got some of your power back, but even after eating all the same Herba Mystica that Oso did, you’re not back to normal. You can’t get back into Ultimate Mode. Or even fly like you used to.
You just don’t understand why. Oso couldn’t even walk originally, so why did he get fully healed at the end but you didn’t?
It’s 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 because of that…
“Trueno, you doing alright there?”
You turn your head right and see Lucas staring at you, his head held at a worried tilt.
“You’re drooping your horns right now.”
You peek up, and sure enough, they really are drooping. Your teammates have been around you long enough that they know that’s a sign you’re not feeling well. From the left, Juliana turns after Chispa points you out, as her expression takes a worried turn of its own.
“Trueno, ¿qué te pasa?”
So much for not ruining everyone’s fun. You get up onto your feet and shake your head, trying to brush the matter aside.
“It’s nothing, really-”
“It’s clearly not from your reaction,” Lucas says. “Seriously, what’s going on?”
You don’t know how to respond, when Chispa turns the music down and floats in front of 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…”
You feel patting against your neck as Juliana’s there stroking 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 Mabosstiff was 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 Ride 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 in the midst of his protests, as it triggers 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.”
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You’re watching waves roll in on the simulated beach inside your Pokéball, faintly hear strangely familiar-sounding human words in a foreign tongue.
Then come the pulsing, bouncing beats. From one of those songs Juliana’s had Chispa been playing lately. For a moment, you think that you’ve 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 dormido!”
Then comes the hand clamping down on it from above that blocks the view. You tense up alert as you hear crashes, 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 you feel 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 slept through the alarm 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 popping on from beneath the doors you pass and the darkness outside the scattered windows, it’s nighttime. You know everyone needed a rest 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 furniture for their dorms, 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 are 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.
“¡Pare! ¡Pare!”
And 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 push yourself back onto your rings, wrenching around and throwing all the strength you have into your Hadron Engine and your hips’ thrusters to rocket you 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 en 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 as 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 you, the glow of your rings and your thrusters’ contrails, and the blue of your eyes adjusting to low-light mode to 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 ended 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 in 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 put 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 hold 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 back, 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 her, 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.”
She pulls her hoodie back, and confirms the suspicions you’ve had all along.
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You perk your head up at the sound of keyboard clacks and beeps from outside your Pokéball. At first you think that Penny must be bypassing another set of computers and surprised that you can hear that when you normally have to focus to follow conversations outside it.
A musical swoosh reminds you that it’s just Juliana’s phone again, either Chispa’s doing or it just bumping things inside her bag again.
Probably. It could also be in your memory banks as well since you’d been trying to get your mind focused on just about anything but the present, including music.
“Autentificación biométrica finalizada. Acceso autorizado.”
You faintly hear an unseen voice as the music ramps up—almost like your old friend’s but with a tone like your own. It’s probably just an artifact from the speaker system, but a loud clatter and mechanical whir makes it hard to tell.
All the while, your attention stays fixed on the wall ahead, which splits along a hexagonal seam at its top and bottom. You can only see so much from your Pokéball, but Juliana, Arven, and their classmates’ presence here aside, everything here’s uncomfortably familiar, and for very good reason…
“Cuando crucéis esa puerta, os encontraréis encima del Área Cero.”
You’re at the entrance to your last lab, even if you didn’t know it had lower levels. You suppose that it shouldn’t be that surprising. Before you left, even your friend didn’t know everything about your lab and its surroundings, and he’d spent years studying it.
“Juliana… ¿Vienes acompañado de Miraidon?”
You zone out a bit after hearing your friend’s voice ask if you’re coming with Juliana. You stiffen up as she nods back, only to tell yourself that Juliana surely meant while inside your Pokéball. It was beyond a bad idea when you couldn’t fight.
The others passed that along to Juliana… right…?
Even if you had your old strength, it’d still be a terrible idea. You don’t know how you’d ever manage having to face him again.
“Gracias por hablarle dejado vivir tantas aventuras a tu lado.”
You blink and drift in your memory banks at the unseen voice’s words as it continues on and the others talk a bit.
You suppose you really have been through quite a bit with Juliana in the past few months. When you flew back for your first lab, you never imagined you’d wind up travelling all across Paldea, much less with a human and other Pokémon you didn’t know and wound up befriending.
All of a sudden, your surroundings melt away into light and you’re back outside again. There’s a nipping chill in the air as it dawns on you you’re on that metal platform open to the sky you saw when the doors opened.
“Huh? This is how we’re getting to the lower levels?”
You turn your head left, and then right. Lots of fog and tips of crater walls, but no stairs in sight.
It’s when you look over the edge, that a sinking realization comes over you:
There are no lower levels to this place. You’re the way down.
“A-Ah…”
You cringe and shrink back from the edge. You just know everyone’s disappointed with you, but you can’t go back. Not here.
“¡Yo diría que tiene miedo!”
You jolt up and whirl your head back after feeling sudden weight on your back. Much to your surprise, Arven’s on you and gripping your harness.
“A-Arven?! Wh-What are you-?!”
“¡Ahhh! ¡Ya veo!”
You barely have time to turn and see Nemona running before she too clambers onto you, sending you stumbling forward from the extra weight.
“... ¡que vamos a bajar todos contigo!”
“¿Y eso ayuda cómo?”
A third weight on your back, Penny from the voice, sends you lurching ahead again, your clawtips touching empty air as your eyes shrink in a panic.
“W-Wait! Wait!”
You almost bowl over the ledge entirely and frantically try to jump back from the ledge, except the added weight keeps your hindlegs from rising, leaving your foreclaws flail in the air as Arven cries out.
“¡Venga, arriba!”
You fall headfirst from the ledge as you hear a chorus of yelps, your eyes shrinking as one voice above them stands out.
“Juliana?”
You run your Hadron Engine as hard as you can, reflexively clamping your claws onto your rings as your horns fan out, and energy membranes fill in between.
You pull up sharply and push air from your thrusters as hard as you can, glancing back just in time to see Arven pull Juliana onto you as she takes over your harness.
You’re still scared, but somehow everything feels possible. Because you’re not going alone.
And you know that you two are a team.
You bank your body into a descending turn, and for the first time since you were hurt, you catch the air properly and enter a descending loop. The layer of fog gives way and you hear your riders gasp as it clears:
Everything’s just as you remembered it. The grassy terraces among natural arches and bridges, sheer waterfalls cascading along with them in uneven drops towards a mist-shrouded hole—the source of what you assume to be that ‘Foso de Paldea’ you’ve sometimes heard humans call this place. ‘Pit of Paldea’, indeed.
A chill goes down your scales just looking at it. You’re definitely not ready to go down there. If there is a safe place in this crater, it’s someplace up on the upper levels. The dish arrays your old friend and his assistant would use to take readings are still there, so are hexagonal modules that made up your lab’s outer facilities—’Research Stations’, he called them.
You resist Juliana’s tugging to go deeper and turn back towards Zero Gate. A part of you wants to try to fly up and leave, but you fight the urge back after a glance over your shoulder.
You still don’t fully trust your flight abilities, and Juliana and the others are counting on you.
White flowers come into view as you pull into a grassy meadow hemmed in by abandoned modules lying ajar and sheer stone cliffs. Your rings land against them with a thump and sharp jolt, Juliana jerking sharply left on your harness with a sharp cry to stop.
You throw your body out, skidding sideways to rest as your rings leave lines behind in the grass, and even out with your riders letting out surprised yelps.
They shuffle off around you, panting in disbelief as they gawk about in awe.
“Otra vez aquí…”
“Arf... Arf... Casi me da un infarto... O dos…”
You briefly overhear Arven and Penny talking as but your eyes drift towards one of the modules on the right, you see something that makes your own heart stop:
There’s a set of claw marks in the metal that didn’t used to be there. Ones that look just like yours.
You cringe, your breaths coming out hitching as the others stare at you, Juliana patting you worriedly.
“Tranquilo, no pasa nada.”
It’s not nothing. There really is nowhere safe here and you can’t take it anymore.
You dive back into your Pokéball, leaving the surroundings to melt away into light.
- YouTube
Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.
www.youtube.com
You faintly hear music starting to play from your headphone propped up against your Pokéball. Juliana left her phone on autoplay to try and cheer you up after the whole incident just outside this lab, and for the most part it’s helped.
It just isn’t coming at a good time right now.
The world outside in the virtual sky is awash with purple and there’s an alarm blaring. Lucas is out there, still panting from exertion from an earlier battle as Juliana’s there—her other friends there too, looking around wildly as a voice makes announcements over a PA system.
But what worries you most is the horrified look on the lookalike to your old friend by the machine in the distance, along with their garbled cry.
“¡Nǒ əs… þosißlε!”
You know better than to assume it’s him. It’s merely his assistant. You suspected it in some past calls since his voice sounded just a little too much like yours every time you heard it.
But they worked with Turo on almost everything, and if they’re reacting like this, things can’t possibly be good.
“...Iniciando el programa Defensa del Paraíso…”
‘Paradise Protection Protocol’? There’s some more confusion and the assistant says something that’s too garbled and distant for you to make out over the alarms.
“Todas las Poké Balls no registradas con la identificación de Turo han sido bloqueadas.”
“Wait, blocked? What does that even-?”
You and Lucas both get the answer as the Quaquaval abruptly returns to his Pokéball in a flash of light. Juliana goes for it, but even after tapping the center, he doesn’t come back out. You look past as the announcements continue, the assistant spasms and reaches out, crystalline coatings flecking their body as their last garbled words reach your ears:
“¡¡SåliĐ de aquí!!”
Your mind goes blank. As garbled and distorted as it is, it’s almost exactly what Turo told you before you ran away as he lay dying:
To get out of here.
You stare vacantly as the room shakes, its entire center rising as the assistant jerkily grabs a Pokéball and slips from view.
There’s a droning shout as a ball falls from above, and in a flash of light he appears.
Your rival—Turo’s second Miraidon.
“I see the threat. Target acquired.”
You freeze up in a panic and cringe, watching as Juliana throws out Lucas’ Pokéball and it does nothing.
H-How on earth is that even fair?! Juliana doesn’t even have a Pokémon to help her fight right now!
… Until it slowly dawns on you that she does. You. Your Pokéball is registered to Turo. You managed to draw out your strength once in the past.
Except, you don’t really know how you did it back then, or how you could do it again right now…
“Time to delete you.”
Your rival’s drawn closer now and a chill goes down your spine at his words. as your memory banks turn back to Turo’s fate. Turo stepped in the way of your rival’s Hyper Beam. If he did that to Juliana and the others, they’ll— they’ll—
No. You can’t let that happen. You won’t let that happen. Even if you’re still scared right now, there’s no more time to run away, and you turn up to the virtual sky. As ready as you’ll ever be.
“Juliana! Let me fight!”
At first, she doesn’t seem to hear you, when a hand grabs your ball and moves it around, and then Juliana’s eyes look down at you through the simulated sky. You honestly don’t know what you’re doing right now or if trying to fight will even work, but it’s the only option right now.
You briefly flinch from an ear-splitting roar coming in from the world outside, only to dig your claws in.
Only you can protect Juliana and her friends—your friends—right now.
And whatever happens, you won’t run away again.
She throws you forward, the world outside spinning before the surrounding environment melts away into light.
As it fades away, the dark steel and purple lights of the time machine’s chamber fills in all around you—still in Low-Power Mode as look back and see Juliana cheering you on.
“¡Te puedes, Trueno! ¡Sé que puedes!”
You nod and face down your foe, sure that you can do this, too.
You’re not in Glide Mode, but your Hadron Engine’s already louder than it is even while in the air. Blue light gathers about you as you feel your thrusters pushing you higher and higher off the ground, stray static arcing along your scales.
Then it’s like a weight’s suddenly lifts from you, and your Hadron Engine’s whine turns into an overpowering roar.
You throw out your limbs as a startled gasp leaves your throat, blue static and blinding light flying every which way. A quick glance down reveals your dewlap flared and glowing electric yellows and purples, while your horns have reshaped themselves into tendrils that crackle and spark like little lightning bolts.
You briefly catch your friend’s assistant recoiling and your rival’s jaw hanging ajar in disbelief as you begin falling to the ground. You push out air as the ground approaches, just barely stopping above it as your thrusters whip up air and Electric Terrain all around.
And then you throw your own head back and roar.
It fills the chamber all around as it takes a moment to register that your optical diodes and other sensors aren’t deceiving you. Your Hadron Engine really is running this strong. You really are floating off the ground. You’re really back in Ultimate Mode again, wielding your old strength that at times in your adventure you feared you’d lost for good.
“You really would just ruin everything Turo worked for to make a point?” the dragon in front of the platform snarls. “Fine! I’ll fry you again and decommission you permanently!”
He roars and you brace yourself, static crackling around you. Even with your strength back, much hasn’t changed. Your rival’s still stronger than you, and even now, a part of you’s still scared of him.
But this time, you won’t face him alone.
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Rusting Knight
Bug Catcher
- Pronouns
- he/him
- Partners
-
Here are my bingo fills: https://forums.thousandroads.net/threads/sixth-anniversary-drabble-bingo-evolution.1892/
Sorry for the delay in getting cards out! I have the next batch here; Windskull is working on the remainder. Since it took so long to get these posted, all bingo cards in this set have a one-week extension on the deadline to submit and receive a forum companion.
@yooloo33
I love big action setpieces, and my sense is you do, too! Hope you enjoy!
@Panoramic_Vacuum
Always happy to see more Hoenn! I hope some of these inspire you.
@Starlight Aurate
I focused on "adventure" here, but I think some of these prompts would easily work for "Rocket" if you wanted!
@Cresselia92
A few of both options for you! Hope you enjoy.
@yooloo33
I love big action setpieces, and my sense is you do, too! Hope you enjoy!
| Daring Escape | Underwater Battle | Hidden Enemies |
| Walking Away from Explosions | Jumping from a Moving Vehicle | Traitors |
| Knife Fight | The Doomsday Device | High-Speed Chase |
@Panoramic_Vacuum
Always happy to see more Hoenn! I hope some of these inspire you.
| Summer Thunderstorm | Jirachi | Secret Base |
| Soaring | Wailord | Watmel Berry |
| Captain Stern | Message in Braille | Meteor Falls |
@Starlight Aurate
I focused on "adventure" here, but I think some of these prompts would easily work for "Rocket" if you wanted!
| Waylaid by Thieves | The Winding Road | Sleeping Rough |
| New Friend | Into the Unknown | A Fresh Start |
| Pinnacle | Dark Alleyway | Horizon |
@Cresselia92
A few of both options for you! Hope you enjoy.
| Meeting Another You | Lazy Mornings | Karaoke |
| Messaging All Night | Dancing | Adopting a Pokémon |
| Unexpected Reunion | Previously-Unknown Twin | Friends Across Time |
kintsugi
try as I might I couldn't bring myself to hold you
Redenne_Moon
Trainer Enthusiast
- Location
- Australia
- Pronouns
- They/She
Hi! I've not done drabbles before, but I'm keen to try ^^
Unfortunately I didn't see this thread until now, so I don't know if I can finish in time - but it would be a good way to inspire writing regardless.
Could I please get a bingo card related to the theme of little moments, domesticity, and tenderness? (If it's not too late--) Thank you <3
Unfortunately I didn't see this thread until now, so I don't know if I can finish in time - but it would be a good way to inspire writing regardless.
Could I please get a bingo card related to the theme of little moments, domesticity, and tenderness? (If it's not too late--) Thank you <3
- Partners
-
| Something better, something worse. | Hope for a better future. | What if you'd said yes? |
| What if you had more time? | It didn't have to end like this. | Lovers in another life. |
| What if you stayed? | What if you'd stopped them? | We could have had it all. |
| A plea for assistance | An ancient story proven true. | Little god, big mortal |
| Overwhelming power | Rescuing each other | Kidnapped by god |
| Looking down upon the mortal. | Offerings | God hunter |
| Trying a new hobby together | A quiet evening | Stargazing |
| Cooking for each other | Dancing | Daily chores |
| Movie night | "I have to go now." | On a walk |
- Partners
-
And here it is, this year's blackout bingo fic.