EVERYONE: - Ongoing Trueno

Spiteful Murkrow · Apr 18, 2026

Hi, everybody. At the time I posted this preamble, it was the twilight of one generation of Pokémon, with the dawn of a new “7.8/10 - Too Much Water” one just starting to come over the horizon. With everybody set to be moving onto the new windy and wavy hotness in the not-too-distant future it felt like as good of a time as any for me to throw my hat into the “game novelization” ring with a retelling of Pokémon Violet… sort of. As those who follow my other stories have likely gathered, there’s two things that generally apply to me as an author: 1) I usually steer my writing efforts towards stories with offbeat premises since I’m biased to doing “something different” with my free time, 2) I’m kinda busy writing a trio of other serial stories serial stories at the moment, which together left me with neither the time, patience, nor desire to attempt a by-the-numbers novelization that would easily crack a six-digit wordcount just getting through one of the four official storylines in the game.

Which was why I decided to square that circle and by turning that Pokémon Violet retelling into a vignette series from the perspective of the player character’s Miraidon… as ~~an extended Initial D reference~~ a songfic set to a (mostly) Eurobeat soundtrack.

Yes, you read that correctly. For those of you who follow me on Thousand Roads, this probably won’t be much of a surprise, since I entered its onsite Magical but Mundane One-Shot Contest in 2024 there with a significantly shortened version of this story built around seven vignettes, and then built out an additional nine in extended rough draft form for the site’s Sixth Anniversary Drabble Bingo, then another nine in a similar state for the site's Seventh Anniversary Drabble Bingo, and have been talking about my experiences working on it on-and-off ever since then. Those earlier versions have also been uploaded on AO3 as Trueno α covering the original contest release (once the main version catches up with it in full) and Trueno β for the initial rewrite for the (not yet published) post-contest Zine and Drabble Bingo versions.

Now, as a songfic, I made some assumptions about the intended reading experience for this story that don’t apply to my usual work. First and foremost, the story’s chapters are meant to be read set to music, with each chapter title containing an active link to the quite literal background music of the chapter. The other big consideration was length, with each chapter being roughly text-synced to the song it’s titled after (some fudge a bit here or there or else run on slightly past a fadeout) assuming a reading pace of 250-260 words per minute and clocking in at between 1000-1500 words each. As such, narratively, that means that there’s less focus in this story on trying to capture each and every moment from the official campaign in favor of more of the ones you might have had “in between” going around Paldea. That said, while there’s a healthy amount of offscreening and skipping ahead involved, there are some major campaign moments depicted, which barring a few minor tweaks to better accommodate the premise or some character beats, play out exactly as one would expect in a Violet playthrough. Due to the nature of the viewpoint character, it should go without saying that there are unmarked spoilers for Pokémon Scarlet / Violet's campaign narrative from almost the very beginning.

As a story that exists in large part as a mixture of authorial self-challenge and self-indulgence, there’s also Spanish-language dialogue scattered across various chapters of this story, which is how this story renders the human characters’ dialogue as heard by Pokémon from across language barriers. The chapters are written in mind with the readers not needing to understand them any more than the titular viewpoint character does, though translations and commentary are provided at the end notes for your reading pleasure in case you decide you want to know more about what’s going on and some meta behind a chapter after reading through it.

I don’t really have much to say regarding content warnings that isn’t already covered by this story’s tags on AO3 beyond that Eurobeat as a music genre is known for racing beats and often racy lyrics. While I made a point of avoiding pairing any songs with scenarios that I felt made for obviously awkward undertones, there will be some degree of “eye of the beholder” involved on that front. Aside from that, it has everything one would expect from a telling of Pokémon Violet as seen through the game Miraidon’s eyes.

As is the case with every “third wheel” story that I work on, this story operates on the stable and predictable™ updating schedule of “whenever my life and personal motivation allows”. Now, Scarlet and Violet as games weren’t exactly light on content, especially after their DLC started coming out. While I’ll admit I’ve spitballed some scenarios from those much later parts of the narrative in my head, my only promise regarding the final length of this story is that there will be “3 discs with 15 songs each” on the tracklist covering the pre-credits campaign’s events. If all goes well and as planned, at least that much will be done before the release of Pokémon Wind and Waves in late 2027, and ideally with a healthy buffer of time to spare. That’s not to say that things might not wind up running on longer, as those of you who follow some of my other works have seen. In the event that I wind up definitively running out of ideas or interest in ever adding additional content to this story, I will be rounding things out with a very specific song / chapter title on the tracklist. More meta-aware readers will likely get some ideas as to what said song would be as the updates start filling in a bit.

Special thanks goes to the judges of the Magical and Mundane One-Shot Contest from Thousand Roads, and to @VeniaSilente from here on Bulbagarden and Eric566 from FFN/AO3, who beta read this story at various stages, edited the Spanish-language dialogue in this story, and helped with nailing some of the details of this story’s portrayal of Paldea. I’d also like to extend a shout out to the various artists whose music feature in this story, since without their creativity and devotion to Eurobeat as a music genre, this story quite literally wouldn’t exist.

Though seeing as we’re getting up there into the average length of an average chapter in this story, I suppose that’s as good a sign that that’s enough preambling. So let’s get straight to those good vibrations and start zooming and grooving across Paldea:

Trueno

Your old friend used to call you ‘Miraidon’. You used to stay by his side, until that fateful battle which ruined everything and forced you to run away. Wounded, you crashed to earth and met a girl—one who calls you a new, strange-sounding name.

This is the story of the journey you started with her a few days later. And of the music you two shared together along the way.

Tracklist

Disc 1

1. Space Boy /

Extended Mix

Dave Rodgers

2. Spark In The Dark /

4:40 Version

Man Power

3. Get Me Power /

4:50 Version

Mega NRG Man

4. Heartbeat /

Extended Mix

Nathalie

5. Break The Night /

4:50 Version

Tommy K.

6. My Only Star /

Extended Mix

Susan Bell

7. Don't Stop The Music /

4:50 Version

Lou Grant

8. Back On The Rocks /

Extended Mix

Mega NRG Man

9. Killing My Love /

4:56 Version

Leslie Parrish

10. Burning Up For You /

Extended Mix

Sara

11. Supersonic Fire /

Extended Mix

Atrium

12. Dancing /

4:50 Version

Vicky Vale

13. Love & Money /

5:00 Version

Za-Za

14. Dancing Queen /

Extended Mix

King & Queen

Disc 2

1. around the world /

Dave Rodgers Remix

m.o.v.e.

2. This Time /

Extended Version

Derreck Simons

3. Lonely Love /

4:48 Version

Sophie
4. 1 2 3 4 Fire! /

Extended Mix

Fastway

Spiteful Murkrow · Apr 18, 2026

Space Boy

A strumming then snarling guitar, beating drums, and then electronic thumping underlining it all. You blink and glance rightwards, your feet pattering against the cobbled streets in this square as the guitar wails.

“How’s the music, Juliana? Everything coming through clear?”

You look past the red clip-on headphone and the band holding it in place at your present rider: a brown-haired girl with pigtails, a hat, and the other headphone thumbing up to a Rotom Phone strapped to your body’s natural harness.

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

An electronic beat chimes in with the guitar in your ear. The music’s certainly coming through loud and clear for you. This human you’re currently with is called ‘Juliana’. She’s from a much more crowded lab than yours called ‘Uva Academy’, while the Quaxly seated in front of her is her partner who she keeps calling ‘Loo-kas’ for some reason.

You turn your head back after a male human’s voice begins singing along in a strange language, saying words that the gray-suited teacher from Juliana’s lab—‘Silvio’ or something like that—might use. Something about this song sounds familiar for whatever reason, and it’s surprisingly catchy. Your thoughts turn back to your old territory and if your old friend ever had it playing—

You sigkill that thought. You don’t want to think about Turo or your old lab right now. You already got your hopes up after seeing his face on that screen in the white-haired human’s room… until it spoke and barely reacted to you.

It’s too soon, too hurtful to think about everything that happened. Enough so that a part of you was glad when Turo’s child—a gray-haired boy humans call ‘Arven’, sometimes ‘Damián’ for whatever reason—gave away your Pokéball to Juliana. He stopped liking you years ago, and even if he still did, you don’t know if you could bear him constantly reminding you of your friend.

There’s tension along your natural harness, and you glimpse Juliana tugging at you from your back. Your body’s dewlap and tail are already curled up, so it’s time to get going from this little hole-in-the-wall wedged in one of the southern corners of this public square, though Juliana seems to want to go westward instead of south like you expected.

You clamp onto your rings and begin to make your way forward towards the square’s western entrance in stops and starts amidst crowds of people and Pokémon. There’s a lot of humans and Pokémon in Mesagoza, this ‘Ciudad Meseta’, enough so that even in a wide and open space like this, it feels like it’s boxing you in.

Which is just as well since no matter how you tried, ever since the last of your strength gave out after leaving that beachside cave near that ‘Cabo Poco’ town, it just hasn’t come back.

A few of the passers-by turn and stare at you, and some of the Pokémon amongst them make comments in passing to the effect of how you’re “the strangest Cyclizar they’ve ever seen”. You recall Fito—Arven’s partner Pokémon—said something similar the first time you met.

The comparison is probably not all that inaccurate in your present state. You can’t fly, your Hadron Engine is barely running, and all you can do is just plod or slowly roll along. A bit faster now after making it past the arch since the crowds have thinned a bit.

You enter a circular plaza laid out around a star-shaped planter when a flash of green crosses your path. You hastily step aside, and see it’s a rental Cyclizar ducking out of your way with a startled yelp. She runs off out of your field of vision, faster than you can keep track.

Faster than these legs of yours carried you here up from the lighthouse. Faster than you’re going now on your rings. You hang your head briefly when you notice that electronic refrain from the song you heard back in the square is playing again. It’s just occurred to you that Chispa’s been playing this music the entire time, and you turn your head back towards him with a puzzled frown.

“Wait, what’s the point of playing this song?”

“Why not? Humans like listening to music while they’re traveling since it makes the time fly by,” the Rotom answers. “Juliana has been getting into these songs lately since they’re apparently meant for going fast.”

… So even this song is a reminder of how far you’ve fallen and how pathetic you currently are. Great. Your only consolation is that he isn’t here. Your rival, who chased you off from your old territory back when you were strong.

A brief shudder runs down your scales. You can only imagine what he’d say and do if he met you like this. And now, you couldn’t run away from him again even if your life depended on it.

Juliana tugs rightward at your harness and says something strange before motioning towards the right of the circular plaza. You see that you’ve almost overshot a street. You break your rolling stance, your claws scratching the stones underneath, as you change direction and get back onto your rings. You’re headed down a road running along a wall, which as you follow it, gives you a clear view of a gate.

Have you really gone that far already? Mesagoza looked huge from the stairs in front of that ‘Uva Academy’ lab, so it’s a little hard to believe that you’re so close to leaving it. The road’s a bit clearer now, and you can pick up speed again.

As you roll along, the electronic chiming gives way to guitar snarls in the music through your headphone when the foreign voice joins in again. Maybe you really do have a bit of Cyclizar in you, since just being able to run a bit freer along with this music’s helping to lift your mood a bit.

It seems to be infectious as Juliana sounds happy, too. She says something in human language in a cheery tone and pats at the back of your head. The first part you recognize as a congratulations, but it was followed by something that you didn’t understand. Something she started calling you not long after Arven gave away your Pokéball.

“Wait, what is that word that Juliana keeps calling me?”

“‘Trueno’. You know, ‘thunder’? Like the move?” the Quaxly answers you. “It’s the nickname she wants to call you. Kinda like how mine’s ‘Lucas’.”

‘Thunder’? It’s a bit on-the-nose, but you suppose when you had your strength, it wouldn’t have been that unfitting. Except…

“But my name’s ‘Miraidon’.”

It was the name that Turo gave you. Back in happier times, back before everything went wrong at your last lab…

The electronic ditty kicks up again and snaps you to attention. There’s a sharp buzz as Chispa zips out of the phone and briefly floats alongside your head.

“Don’t worry about it too much, just focus on moving around. Maybe a bit of practice will be just what you need to work your strength u-Ro-to-to-to.”

The chiming of an incoming call from Chispa kicks up and Juliana briefly stops as you see you’re at the gate now. You briefly hear Juliana exchange words with a student—that peppy one who was also from ‘Cabo Poco’ who you’re also struggling to name... ‘Mencía’, maybe?

The conversation ends almost as quickly as it begins, enough so that you barely noticed the interruption in the song as the electronic beat and guitar are back, if now fading. You’re not sure what that was about, but you decide not to question it as Juliana prompts you forward. After slinking past the opened doors, you walk ahead past it, out onto a bridge with water to your left and right and plains going up to bluffs up ahead.

You re-enter your travelling stance and roll off towards them. Maybe Chispa’s right, maybe a bit of exercise will get that energy in you flowing again.

That song did make the trip out of Mesagoza fly by. What would a few more do?

Commentary:

Yeah, yeah, a bit on the nose for the song choice, I know. But it just felt right to kick off a very Eurobeat journey with Space Boy. The chapter was written in mind with the Extended Mix that first released in Super Eurobeat Presents Dave Rodgers Special Collection Vol. 1, since it gave more space to jam in words while staying text-synched.

Also, if you found the character names groaners, congratulations, you’re probably a native Spanish speaker. I apologize for exactly nothing regarding them since most of the Pokémon names in this story were deliberately intended to be very “a 12-year old came up with this” in vibe.

Translation Notes:

I’ll generally skip over providing notes for Spanish-language content that is blindly obvious (‘Silvio’, ‘Damián’, and ‘Mencía’ are the Spanish localization names of Salvatore, Arven, and Nemona respectively). Though I decided to throw in a note of a part that should hopefully already be clear from context to give an idea of general format of these sections in this story:

- Ciudad Meseta - Spanish localization name for “Mesagoza”. lit. “Plateau City”

Spiteful Murkrow · Apr 25, 2026

Spark In The Dark

Daa-Daaaa-Daah… Daa-Daah-Da-Da-Da-Dah…

At once, the headphone over your right ear fills with howling guitar riffs, and much to your surprise, the night air does too. You blink as Juliana sidles onto your back with Lucas as you rise from the asphalt underneath onto your feet. You turn your head as the music continues and starts to pick up pace, stealing a glance at the neon-bathed counter of the Pokeémon Center. From the reactions of the other humans and their Pokémon nearby, you aren’t just hearing things from your left ear right now.

Juliana tightens her grip on your natural harness. Your tail and dewlap curl up into rings as the music picks up, and you clamp your claws in place when Juliana beckons you forward. Your Hadron Engine lets out a low hum as you roll forward slowly off the tarmac and onto the dirt path as the melody picks up and goes faster and faster.

Until finally, the jets on your hips woosh to life.

An electronic beat takes over your headphone and the surrounding night air, as you head off further down the dirt path. Much slower than you’re used to, not that your faltering Hadron Engine can manage more right now.

Even so, your mind’s not all the way there as you glance up puzzledly at Chispa’s mount.

“How are you doing this anyways, Chispa?”

“Multi-output audio!” the Rotom buzzes over some foreign-sounding lyrics. “Just about every phone made for Rotom like me can do it these days.”

You’ll have to take his word for it. The quality’s not as crisp as the music from your headphone and it mixes with the wind and sounds of the night, but it carries it well enough as you continue on the dirt path.

It apparently goes to a bunch of olive orchards and a town that humans call ‘Cortondo’, or sometimes ‘Pueblo Pirotín’. You’re not fully sure what that’s all about. Do humans also give places nicknames, too?

You haven’t gone all that far from Mesagoza—you can even see the Western Gate lit up in the distance if you look back and squint. Most of the day was spent training with Lucas and a couple of his teammates, either in the grasslands, or with battling other trainers here and there. You even tried to join in while fighting some office worker with a Wooper... only to wind up having to unceremoniously retreat with a snout caked in mud, stinging from the dull pain, along with your pride, as you managed to do little more than just roar and slowly run around.

You snap to attention after the music picks up with staccato chimes, and glance up ahead after feeling Juliana tug your harness. The path curves off to the right up ahead, while off to the left, there’s a tall stone tower with a pair of circular balconies—one at the top, one halfway up.

It’s on a ledge that looks perfectly jumpable, so why does Juliana want to take a detour? When you were in the old lighthouse, Fito taught you that lights from human towns bleed into the night sky, which they’re doing from the direction of the tower and not where the path turns.

You know you can’t fight right now, but there are different Modes your body can be in that let you do all kinds of things like helping you get around easier… like when you ran away from your old lab.

You interrupt the thought there before it gets too painful. At the same time, even while Juliana’s tugging your harness to go right, it gives you a few ideas of how to get to this ‘Cortondo’ a bit faster.

You ignore Juliana’s prompts through your natural harness, and plant your claws against the ground. In a swift motion, you spring up—and your riders, human and Pokémon alike, let out a shared outcry.

“Bzzt! What are you doing?!” Chispa buzzes.

“Taking a shortcut!”

You try to swivel your horns out for their gliding stance to fly off, but much to your alarm, you barely get off the ground and start falling back to earth much earlier than expected.

You land on your rings with a wobble, a Yungoos hurriedly diving out the way with a yelp as you roll past and Lucas’ voice squawks in a panic.

“Trueno, you’re headed for a cliff!” the Quaxly protests.

“That’s the idea! I can fly us there! I just need to get high enough! Look!”

You jump again, but you just can’t get any faster or higher. Juliana’s tugging at your harness again—much more sharply. The tower and ledge are a lot closer now, and you feel a flash of anxiety. Your Hadron Engine’s supposed to run harder than this when you’re flying, and you should be able to jump much higher than this.

Juliana’s calling out that strange name, and her tugs at your harness grow more and more frantic. You’re just about to pass the tower and you’re almost at the cliff’s edge, but your Hadron Engine still sounds pathetically weak.

She calls out ‘Miraidon’ like Turo would, and with the cliff now fast approaching, your nerves fail you. You yield to her direction and she steers you around the tower’s base, Cortondo’s lights visible in the distance. So close, and yet so far away.

They slip from view as Juliana steers you back the way you came and back onto the dirt road, when Lucas lets out a sour huff.

“Nice shortcut there. Why don’t you just steer us into a wall next time?”

You hang your head and keep rolling on, barely acknowledging your surroundings as a sinking realization comes over you and your voice comes out in a defeated whine.

“B-But I really used to be able to fly—”

“♫ Dah-Dah-Dah… ♫”

You hurriedly dig your claws in for a stop as a cream blur alight with fiery light dashes across the road ahead from the right—it’s a Rapidash followed hot on his heels by an Arcanine, their voices trailing off into the distance humming a song weirdly in sync with Chispa’s one…

Wait. It is the same as Chispa’s song! Which catches just about everyone by surprise. You suppose it’s not just humans who like these songs.

As the surprise wears off, you notice both sides of the road are lined with trees with small, tapered leaves. So these are those olive orchards. You look off the way that the Rapidash and Arcanine went and notice a gap in the fence where their footprints continue on.

Past the boughs, there’s the glow of neon lights in the distance. They make you gasp in realization as clamp your claws back onto your rings:

Maybe you did find a usable shortcut after all.

You woosh your jets and jerk hard to the left off into the orchard down a gentle slope. Your rings dig into loose soil as Juliana tightens her grip on your natural harness. Her hands tense, only to slacken as the trees drift by as she looks off towards the light you see and turns you towards it.

There’s grass brushing against your scales now as you look around and see that you’ve exited the orchard into a wide, rolling plain. There, in the direction you’re rolling towards, there’s a Pokémon Center’s neon sign and the lights of buildings behind it.

Exactly where you wanted to be.

Commentary:

The version of Spark In The Dark used for scoring here is the 4:40 version from Super Eurobeat Presents Initial D Millennium Box. If you remembered the song being a bit longer, you’re probably thinking of the 4:43 version that first released in Super Eurobeat Presents Initial D ~D Selection~ or else one of its two Extended Mixes.

Also, thar be some character cameos in this chapter. If you’ve read some of my other stories or else some of Venia Silente’s and noticed some familiar faces, they’re cameos of exactly who you’re thinking of.

Translation Notes:

- Pueblo Pirotín - Spanish localization name for “Cortondo”. In Spanish, a ‘pirotín’ is a small pastry mold for making sweets that’s functionally equivalent to a cupcake liner. A bit catchier than “Cupcake Liner Town”, if I do say so myself.

Spiteful Murkrow · May 2, 2026

Get Me Power

You blink and jolt your head up as you hear snarling guitars mix with a drumbeat that bounces between your ears. You didn’t know that these running songs could do that, but you suppose you wouldn’t have known. Normally you’re only wearing one and Juliana the other.

Things are different today. You’re not running along a route, but sitting in an open field in Cortondo. There’s spiderweb-patterned fences all around you, along with a large fake olive that’s supposed to be pushed along to a goal.

Up ahead, Juliana’s latest obstacle blocks the way: a human woman grasping a Pokéball in front of a small line of Smoliv.

The music suddenly picks up in volume and speed as an electronic beat fills them, still quiet enough to hear Juliana grab a Pokéball, aim, and cry out. Red light shoots out from the ball as a Lechonk abruptly materializes in front of her, pawing the ground and snorting in challenge.

Human lyrics join in the music as the woman does much the same, sending out a Kricketune, who announces his presence with a whooping chirp. The meaning is clear: the only way forward in this fenced-in space is through a fight.

“Seriously?”

You look down at your side after a quacking huff towards your fellow spectators. Chispa’s there, having left the phone on your harness on ‘shuffle’ to take a break outside to watch the battle. And there’s Lucas, who’s clearly less than enthused from how he’s tapping his foot with his bill turned up.

“Why’s he leading?” the Quaxly fumes “I’m the one that knows Wing Attack!”

Right, the Lechonk’s a partner that Juliana got with help from that ‘Nemona’ classmate before you met—‘Pokey’ or something like that. And when he lunges ahead towards his foe, you notice his movements do seem a bit clumsy. He’s definitely slower on his feet when following Juliana’s battle commands than Lucas, let alone compared to how you used to be before you got hurt.

Maybe Juliana was trying to be nice? You assumed that’s why she let you wear that other headphone while watching from the sidelines. Since whenever you hear these songs, it’s easier to forget all the ways you’re currently a shadow of your old self.

Chispa twitches his tendrils briefly, before shooting a sharp, sidelong frown at Lucas.

“You can’t fight all your battles yourself, featherface,” the Rotom says. “If none of your teammates catch up with you, what are you going to do when you get into a battle where you’re the one fighting at a disadvantage?”

The Quaxly hesitates briefly and you almost reflexively pipe up—that Lucas could just get stronger. Except, you yourself know that that’s just not enough sometimes.

Since the last time you tried ‘just getting stronger’ for a battle, it ended with you hurt and helplessly staring down a Hyper Beam meant to decommission you.

“Yeow!”

A sharp cry turns your eyes back to the battlefield. The Lechonk staggers from a hacking swipe from the Kricketune. He totters a couple paces away as the Kricketune raises his claw again and your eyes briefly shrink as you reflexively spring onto your feet and start forward to intervene.

Your efforts prove unnecessary: a call from the woman on the other end makes the Kricketune hesitate. There’s a flash of red light as Juliana recalls the Lechonk to his Pokéball. She then calls Lucas forward, much to the Quaxly’s sighing annoyance.

“Oh, that’s totally a good sign for our chances at that Gym,” he mutters. “Maybe we should help out Arven get those herbs or whatever he was looking for before actually battling the leader.”

Lucas takes his place on the battlefield as you stare blankly, trying to process what just happened:

“How come the Kricketune just… stopped, Chispa?”

“Because it’s a sporting battle? After you beat the other ‘mon, you back off.”

Just as the music picks up again, a sharp cry from Juliana fills the air and Lucas picks up right where his teammate left off, lunging ahead with a furious swipe of his wings. Even as the battle returns to normal, something’s still off from the sidelong frown that Chispa’s shooting you.

“Didn’t Arven teach you that back when he trained you?”

You hesitate at Chispa’s question as the music continues on in more muted tones, your mind drifting back to old memories—of your second lab at that lighthouse. Arven had Fito, his Maschiff partner, back then. You remember playing with them there when there weren’t others to see you. How they’d share snacks while looking out to the sea.

Along with how the local Wingull would come to steal them, even after being chased off beforehand…

“... Not really, no.”

Chispa’s brow raises and you grimace. You really don’t want to retell that story. He’ll probably react badly…

Arven sure did…

A cry rings out from the battlefield ahead, from Lucas just barely sidestepping a Fury Cutter. A welcome distraction from the topic of conversation.

You still don’t feel better. Even without your power, isn’t there something you can do to help with Juliana’s ‘Gym Challenge’? Something aside from sitting and patting your claws to this beat…?

You glance at the fake olive behind you when it dawns on you:

Nobody said you couldn't bring it to the maze’s goal for Juliana, right?

You turn around as Chispa’s distracted with the battle, curling your tail and dewlap into rings as your Hadron Engine comes alive with its low hum.

You roll for the olive, lowering your head. The thing’s mostly air and canvas, so if you give it a good ram, maybe you can knock it past those Smoliv—

BONK!

It glances off your shoulder and your eyes widen. Instead of going forward, the mock-olive bounces rightward, over the spiderweb-patterned fence.

You can’t do anything but stare dumbly at the fake olive through the spiderwebbed fence for a moment. Does everything you do to try to help others just wind up failing? You were failing even in your second lab… back when you decided to stop those Wingull from constantly stealing Arven and Fito’s food in your second lab.

You were so proud that day when you eliminated the threats, until you saw Arven’s face afterwards.

You remember the way he screamed, how scared he looked.

It was the failure that made you and Turo have to leave the lighthouse lab. The one that made Arven stop liking you.

The music snaps you to attention as those words that keep repeating come back and something sparks within you. No. You know you can do more than just fail. You wouldn’t have gotten Juliana here to Cortondo if that was so.

And you won’t be defeated by an olive of all things.

You hop the fence, landing on your rings and loop around the olive from behind. There’s a ramp next to Juliana’s battlefield. Surely that will get it onto the shortcut.

And with that, you lower your head and charge.

As you roll forward, your heart sinks after hearing a faint hum—your Hadron Engine, still pathetically weak.

BONK!

Even so, the olive sails over the ramp after ramming it. Everything happens so quickly afterwards: the human Gym worker ducks aside, then the Smoliv do, then the olive comes to a rolling stop.

The battle’s over now and everyone’s staring at you. Not mad or scared, but definitely confused.

“S-Surprise?”

You smile back sheepishly, happy you’ve had some success.

Commentary:

Get Me Power was one of those songs that was a bit of a pain to find versions of that were publicly linkable, which led me to go with the ol’ reliable 4:50 mix from Super Eurobeat Presents Initial D ~D Selection~. The full Extended Mix clocks in at 5:10 which you can kinda make fit with the chapter text, good luck doing that with the original 3:59 version, though.

And yeah, the Gym Challenges will mostly be brushed-past in this story, but the Olive Roll sequence from Cortondo’s was enough of a meme that I just had to work it into this series in some capacity. The backstory of bike dragon ruining some unfortunate wild Pokémon’s day in canon material actually differs slightly depending on the localization you play Scarlet/Violet in. For example, the English localization implies that it involved multiple Pokémon while the Spanish one implies that it involved a singular one.

Spiteful Murkrow · May 2, 2026

Heartbeat

Bum-bum. Bum-bum.

“Trueno, what on earth is going on?”

Lucas’ quacking voice goes in one ear and out the other. You don’t know what on earth was in that sandwich that Juliana gave you back in that cave, but you’ve felt something stirring in you ever since. An electric feeling flows down your limbs as a faint hum lingers in the background. You suddenly gasp in realization as electronic chirps join in over your headphone as the throbbing beat grows faster and faster.

Your own heart begins to race as the music in your headphone grows louder still. Your Hadron Engine is running stronger! Why, the low hum sounds the way it did when you used to sprint around on your rings in Drive Mode!

If it’s like this right after eating that sandwich, then maybe…

You grab at your dewlap with your foreclaws and your tail curls in on itself as the rings they form come alight in electric yellows and purples. The music continues pulsing as your rear claws tuck into place under your hips, your Hadron Engine’s whine growing louder and louder as your passengers let out small cries in surprise.

Static crackles as the rings spin, as you rear up onto your curled-up tail. Juliana’s grip on your natural harness tightens as air pushes out the jets from your hips. You lurch forward and just a little after a human female’s voice joins in with the music, the ring that was your dewlap touches the ground and spins and you take off into the desert.

Like most of the words the human singers from these “running songs” Chispa’s been playing lately, the lyrics are a foreign garble to you, if different from the garble that most human words here in Paldea are. Even so, there’s something about it like all the others that made you wish that you could move like you used to.

And now, you finally can.

The human singer’s refrain repeats as the arid scrublands and surrounding bluffs fly by and the wind blows over your metallic scales, just like it used to. Those herbs that Arven found really were special, and your own heart begins to flutter along with the beat of the music as it dawns on you:

“T-That sandwich healed me! My Hadron Engine’s running like it’s supposed to!”

“Your what now?!” Lucas quacks.

It’ll take too long to explain to the Quaxly, since Turo’s explanation of how exactly your ‘Hadron Engine’ works would mostly go in one ear and out the other even with humans. You just know that when it runs at full strength, you enter your true form—‘Ultimate Mode’, Turo used to call it. It gives you the strength to fight. Strength that makes lesser foes like those Houndour that attacked Juliana when you first met quake and flee at its mere sight.

Those herbs that you fought past that giant Klawf to get have somehow put a spark in you which fixed it. Maybe all you need to do to get your full strength back is to put yourself through your paces.

You tear along and push air from the jets on your hips as you wait for your Hadron Engine to run stronger still.

Except its hum hangs and stubbornly refuses to go past its low whine. Your rings touch the ground again and you roll along the desert dust and your heart skips a beat and your electronic irises shrink in dread.

Your Hadron Engine remains stuck in its diminished state. There’s no sparks or static about the ground about you and instead of levitating, you remain rolling along the ground. Your breath tightens and your mind goes blank in shock.

“I-I don’t understand, it should’ve-!”

“Ack! Go right! Go right!”

You snap to attention at Lucas’ startled cries and feel Juliana tug sharply against your harness. Your eyes turn up from the ground, barely in time to see the fast-approaching ledge and the rocky outcropping just past it.

You briefly pull your claws away from your rings and touch the ground and vault upwards, shooting up into the air. Except your Hadron Engine still refuses to run harder. Your jump’s not anywhere as high as you remembered and the energy membranes that would form around your horns that would get you airborne aren’t—

SKRRRCH!

Your rings hit the ground unevenly as a startled figure jumps out of the way—a Makuhita jumping out of your path. You fight to stay on your rings as your balance wobbles briefly and Chispa joins in in alarm as his voice crackles with a buzzing start.

“Whoa! Slow down! Slow down-!”

There’s a twisting stone pass up ahead and you freeze in a panic. Suddenly, Juliana tugs your harness rightwards. Without thinking, you jerk the front of your body sharply to follow it. Your tail-hoop starts to skid as for a brief moment, it slides out and you can see the opposite wall of the pass.

“A-Ack!”

You slide along as Juliana twists your harness against the direction of your spin. You follow along and your body evens out just in time for you to enter a sharp left turn just ahead, which you don’t even need Juliana’s prodding to continue turning your forward hoop left to try and clear it.

You lose traction again. It reminds you of that slipping feeling you have whenever you lunge at foes and throw lightning ahead of you.

Except right now, you’re not throwing much of anything other than dust in your wake.

Your rings finally regain traction and you level out, taking the upcoming turn right and up an incline more steadily. It takes you back to the main road overlooking the desert, the one you all took on your way over to search for that ‘Titan’.

Your excitement fades even as the music continues in your ear and you slow to a stop and get back on your feet, hanging your head slightly with a low whine.

You were so sure that you’d gotten your strength back. But your Hadron Engine’s still not working properly. All you’re able to do is just sprint, and not as well as you used to be able to.

“Where on earth did you learn to do that?!”

You glance over your shoulder at Lucas with his beak agape, staring at you alongside Chispa and Juliana in a mix of shock and disbelief.

“Wait, do what-?”

“You were drifting back there!” Chispa buzzes. “And if you could get through that canyon like that, you’re clearly quite good at it!”

‘Drifting’... that’s what humans call that sliding feeling? The startled reaction on Juliana’s face fades into a widening smile. She says something excitedly in that language of hers before motioning off ahead. Then Chispa echoes it.

“Juliana wants you to keep riding around a bit. Are you down for it, Trueno?”

You’re still not used to that nickname, and you’re not really sure why they’re so impressed by you when you’re not anywhere as strong as you’re supposed to be…

But they’re happy. And even if it’s only a shadow of what you used to be able to do, there’s something about running the way you used to that’s freeing.

“Yeah, I think I can do that.”

Your Hadron Engine hums back to life. Your claws slide in place around your rings and you’re off, tearing down the road as Juliana laughs and hollers all the while.

Maybe you just need some time for your strength to come back to you. A few more of those sandwiches probably couldn’t hurt.

Commentary:

Surprise! I was in a double feature-y mood tonight since I felt that this was a better place thematically to leave things off on for about a week. You might see me do back to back updates for this story occasionally, since barring a complete and utter collapse in my publishing pace, there was a very specific date in December I was targeting for pushing the the last chapter from the 3 originally planned "Discs" out the window.

For the more musical trivia end of things, the version of Heartbeat used for scoring here is the Extended Mix from Bratt Sinclaire Eurobeat Style Vol. 4. The song’s original release is quite a bit shorter at 4 minutes long, which was a bit too little runway to work with for wordcount.

Also, I did say that there’d be Initial D references in this story, so what would it be without a healthy helping of drifting thrown in? And yes, you can indeed drift a motorcycle in real life. It looks and works roughly the same as it did for our robot anole buddy here, just with fewer jet engines involved.

Spiteful Murkrow · May 9, 2026

Break The Night

You raise your head after hearing a low, lingering chime, your half-eaten sandwich still in your jaws. You at first thought it was another Hadron Engine’s hum, but a distorted melody starts kicking in which grows louder, before a strange human voice joins in.

Ah, it’s another of those songs. You don’t have headphones on either ear right now, so Chispa’s surely playing it through Juliana’s phone on speaker.

As the towering roof and windows above the walls separating this grassy space from the night sky remind you, you’re in Juliana’s lab right now—in that ‘Schoolyard’ place. Far, far away from your old lab where your Hadron Engine’s hum would be one of many similar sounds in the background.

It’s sometimes a little lonely not having any other Pokémon like you around. Though given how being back around them would mean inevitably seeing him again…

You’ll stick with feeling lonely. Things are better this way.

Juliana cries something out in her language just as the music kicks up with a bouncing, electronic beat. She repeats it, when you realize she’s calling you by that ‘nickname’. When you turn towards her, you see that she’s waving from a blue pitch alongside Lucas and Chispa to her sides.

And she’s calling you over.

Your rings aren’t formed right now, so you plod your way over grass and some reddish thing called a ‘track’. During the last few steps over, you throw your head back and gulp down the sandwich mid-stride, as Lucas furrows his brow at you with an askew look.

“You’re eating another sandwich?”

It wasn’t that many, was it? It was only the sixth and they’re not particularly big… Besides, it’s all for a good reason!

“What? That one sandwich at the beach also helped my Hadron Engine run better, so more can’t hurt, can it?”

“Right before battle practice? Sounds like a recipe for cramps.”

You notice Juliana going and taking her place behind you at one end of the battlefield. You droop your head as you suddenly feel a lot more deflated.

“B-But I can’t battle…”

“Well, not with that attitude, you won’t,” Chispa crackles. “You were ready to throw down back at that grotto and-”

“I wasn’t in this Mode for it! This one can’t battle!”

And it really can’t. Turo called this form ‘Low-Powered Mode’ for a reason. It’s the one your body enters into when it’s weak or tired.

You thought everyone understood that…

“... Just try things out?” Lucas insists. “I usually need to warm up before battling. Maybe it’s just what you need to get into that other ‘Mode’.”

Juliana calls out again and points off down the field, pointing like she might in battle. You… don’t know what she’s expecting right now, but you crouch as tension builds in your throat. You dig your claws in, your Hadron Engine faintly humming as you open your mouth and let everything out as forcefully as you can…

Gwaaaooor!

Which once again is nothing but a roar. It’s loud enough that everyone around you is jolting up and recoiling, but that’s not real strength. Your Hadron Engine’s supposed to be humming as clear as day, with heat at the back of your throat, or electricity crackling along your scales, or- or something!

You let out a defeated whine and hang your head. Juliana calls out for you again, but your eyes remain fixed on the blue pitch below your claws

Does any of this even matter? When you had your old strength, it felt like it either wasn’t good enough or just caused problems…

Especially at the very end.

Juliana’s calling out again and you see her walking up with a worried tilt to her head. Chispa floats her phone away from her and over towards you, as he peers at you from your side through the back of its case.

“Let’s try a different tack here, Wheels,” the Rotom buzzes. “What exactly would you need to go back to that ‘Ultimate Mode’ of yours?”

“My Hadron Engine to be running properly,” you murmur. “To enter Ultimate Mode, it needs to run at full strength, and—”

“And you normally just went straight into it without warming up at all?”

You shoot an askew glance back. Where’s Chispa going with this?

“I mean, normally I’d run or–”

Suddenly, much to your surprise, just as those trilling chimes from the song Chispa’s playing come back, the Rotom zips over. There’s suddenly weight on your back, and something gripping your natural harness. When you glance back over your shoulders, you see Juliana seated on your back, along with a visibly tense Lucas.

“Um. Juliana? Do I really need to join in for this?” the Quaxly begins. “Since there’s a podium right there’s that’s meant for—”

“Don’t be such a downer, feather-face!” the Rotom scoffs. “This is a team effort here!”

“Oh come on! We’re probably not even supposed to be doing this anyways!” Lucas huffs. “Juliana already got in trouble riding Trueno through the hallways, what are the odds her teachers would like him racing around here?”

Er… yeah, you supposed you all learned that loud and clear since those teachers voiced their displeasure forcefully enough that they almost sounded like you when you were roaring.

Still, Juliana’s classmates and their partners battle in this place. And the Schoolyard’s teacher does do battle studies—‘Kendra’, you think her name was. And you won’t have to worry about other students, either. At this time of night, it’s just the four of you on this field…

You still don’t know what difference it’ll make, but it can’t hurt to give Chispa’s idea a shot.

Whatever doubts you have fade as that staccato, electronic beat fills the air. You brace yourself, tucking your dewlap and tail in to reform your rings and clamp your claws in place one by one. You can hear your Hadron Engine start to hum as faint crackles of static arc along them.

And as soon as the words leave Juliana’s mouth, your hips’ thrusters roar to life and you’re off. You zoom off down the battlefield, Juliana guiding your harness rightward as you roll over the edge, onto a spit of grass, and then onto that red-and-white ‘track’. The bend’s coming up, and you start turning right—

“Gah! Too fast! Too fast!”

Lucas lets out a startled cry of protest, as your rings touch grass and your eyes widen after seeing you’re no longer on the track and headed straight for a planter. Juliana wrenches your harness right, and as you follow it, your rings start to lose traction again.

Fortunately, this time, the two of you have a much better idea of what to do.

Juliana turns your harness leftward as you keep sliding, the track and battlefields in their middle slipping off to the right of your vision as that little pond and the playground equipment on the west end of the Schoolyard takes up space on your left.

Much as you thought, your Hadron Engine still hangs in the same place it does after eating that last Herba Mystica after Lucas and the others fought that giant Klawf. But your heart still flutters in excitement since for a moment, it’s almost like you’re back in Ultimate Mode, skidding along just above the ground and leaving sparks in your wake.

As you even out, Juliana guides you back onto the track, but this time, you don’t need her prompting to go around the turn at the other end, and enter another slide that spins you around again to the opposite end of the track.

Your Hadron Engine’s still hanging, but that can wait a bit. For now, you’d like to get in a few more of these ‘drifts’.

“EYAAAAAH!”

Assuming Lucas’ heart doesn’t give out, anyways.

Commentary:

The version of Break the Night used for scoring here is the 4:52 version from Super Eurobeat Presents Initial D Millennium Box. I waffled a bit while writing this out between scoring it to that or the Extended Mix, but I couldn’t quite square the circle thematically for the electronica section that starts at 4:36 in the Extended Mix so the shorter mix won out.

It should go without saying, but ‘Kendra’ is the Spanish localization name for ‘Dendra’. I waffled a bit with how to render Trueno’s roar as heard from his perspective since the two default options of “Agias!” or some clipping and/or rearrangement of “¡Miraidon!” both didn’t really speak to me. I took a bit of a goofy third option instead. Kudos if you know where it comes from.

Spiteful Murkrow · May 16, 2026

My Only Star

Ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-tak-tak.

The drums snaring in the headphone mounted over your right ear give way to a pulsing bassline and a bouncing melody. Your Hadron Engine hums to life as your dewlap and tail rearrange themselves into the running rings that are part of your Drive Mode.

A voice begins to chime in along with the music as you clamp your claws in place around your rings. You breathe in, stealing glances at the hilltop windmill whose shadow you stand under. Sparks crackle around them as your body’s strength rises with the music as it picks up pace.

Then it crescendos. Juliana calls you forward, and the jets on your hips roar to life.

You rocket forward along the downhill path, the music chiming with electronic tones that race much like the wind blowing past your face.

“Whoa! Slow down! Slow down!”

Lucas’ protests slip in and out of your ear as you fly down the dirt path and the voice of a human female joins the melody. You zip along amidst twilight tones on the surrounding hills and long shadows from the windmills that are starting to fade into approaching twilight. A part of you worries a bit whether you’re going a bit too fast for how far you can see with your blue eyes lighting up the dark, but you suppose you have help for that right now.

From your back, Juliana tugs the spikes of your body’s natural harness leftwards. When you look up, you spot a sign marking a fork left and right in a script you can’t read.

Though the message through Juliana’s grip is simple enough.

You twist the front of your body as the music repeats a set of seven syllables in human language that you guess is the chorus to this song. Your snout and head follow your looped-up dewlap, while your hindquarters and curled tail swing out wide. They slide and skid along the dirt as you lean your body rightwards—to the point the back of your left claws almost touch the ground.

Your body’s momentum carries you along around the bend and you keep going across a wooden bridge over a small brook, skidding along all the while. You’re ‘drifting’ right now, as Chispa calls that sliding feeling that reminds you of when you’re lunging forward in Ultimate Mode. It’s apparently part of some old TV show Juliana started watching after a classmate recommended it to her back at her lab. Some human girl with an Eevee backpack whose name eludes you, maybe it was ‘Noa’?

You’re honestly surprised that such a seemingly shy and quiet girl would like a TV show about something like that, but clearly she’s got more to her than meets the eye. Juliana must’ve taken quite a liking to that TV show, too. Since judging from her excited cheers, she’s having quite a bit of fun whenever you slide around corners like this. Chispa seemed to have fun with these slides himself, even if he sometimes complains it’s too limiting compared to zipping through the air on his own.

“Eyaaaaah!”

And then there’s Lucas. The Quaxly still hasn’t made his peace with these slides, as his screams of protest remind. You initially just dismiss it as more of the same and that Juliana will return him to his Pokéball if things get too out of hand, when you briefly feel your harness tense and Juliana abruptly jerks it right. You look up, and your eyes widen after you see that you’ve pulled onto an earthen clearing, headed at the pole of one of those windmills at a glancing angle.

“Gah!”

You hurriedly turn right to follow Juliana’s grip and briefly feel your forward hoop spin through empty air. You look down and see you’ve gone over a small drop when you hit the ground. Your grip on your rings briefly slips as you fight to keep your balance as you roll ahead in a flattened space with another windmill.

Another sharp tug right sends you skidding out wide. There’s a small connection back onto the main path, which you even out and zip towards, a turn left sending you drifting leftward as you drift back onto the main path.

Pebbles and dust kick up in your wake as you fight to straighten out, your breaths coming in and out in startled pants as an annoyed buzz comes from the phone mount on the back of your neck.

“Bzzt! Hey! Watch it! I feel every bump through this mount!”

Oops.

You suppose that your mind has been drifting lately. Either that, or you need to rebuild your skills running alongside your strength. You know that you weren’t as strong as you could’ve been when you flew away from that crater, but you somehow didn’t remember yourself being this clumsy.

If you’ve fallen this far, it’ll likely be a while before you get your full strength back. Even aside from Ultimate Mode, there were a number of things that you used to be able to do that you currently can’t.

You should probably feel more disheartened, but somehow, right now, you don’t.

You stick to the road again and follow Juliana’s tugs along a gentler curve, losing just enough traction to slightly slide along. There’s something about that feeling that makes you feel free and like you’re your old self again. You can almost feel the electricity crackling around you and your old strength.

And there’s something about those happy cheers Juliana lets out during them gives you a sense of satisfaction you can’t place your claw on.

Maybe it’s because it’s so much like the times when Turo was happy.

“Um, Trueno? You missed the Pokécenter back there—”

Lucas’ voice is suddenly cut off by Chispa buzzing in alarm and Juliana’s voice joining in with a startled cry. She pulls up on your harness sharply and you look up and see that you’re careening straight towards a tree. You hurriedly plant your feet to try and jump over it, but it’s closer than you thought and—

WHUMP!

Something hard smashes across your head and you bounce off your rings and onto your feet. You stagger about as the world spins in your vision, your Hadron Engine’s whine cutting out and your dewlap and tail reforming as the pulsing music and singing still continues in your right ear…

“Sh-Shine for me and forev—Ow!”

You recoil after feeling a sharp blow against the side of your cheek that snaps you to attention. It’s a Mankey beside you, glaring daggers and shaking his fists.

“Stupid overgrown newt! I was sleeping!”

You crouch and growl back. The Mankey freezes, as you brace yourself for your Hadron Engine to whirr to life and bring your fighting strength back.

Except your claws remain firmly planted on the ground. No electricity crackles about your head or tail or anywhere else for that matter…

All as the shock of things wears off and the Mankey’s glare returns to his eyes.

“... Uh oh.”

He encroaches and you back away nervously. Soon enough, Juliana calls out and raises an arm past you as Lucas waddles ahead, burying his face in an outstretched wing.

“Ugh, again? Seriously, how hard is it to stay on the road?”

You don’t know when you’ll get your strength back. But at least for today, someone else will need to fight your battles.

Commentary:

Yeah, I kinda needed every last word for this one, which is why the Extended Mix of My Only Star that debuted in Super Eurobeat Vol. 99 was used for scoring. If you remembered the song being a bit shorter you’re probably thinking of the original 4:11 release, or the 4:48 version from Super Eurobeat Presents Initial D ~D Selection~.

And yes, ‘Noa’ is exactly who you think she is, with that being Penny’s name in the Spanish localization of Scarlet / Violet. Considering how she’s strongly implied to constantly be online from her characterization in the games, she felt like a pretty natural candidate for helping to push this story’s Juliana and the gang down the Eurobeat culture rabbithole.

Spiteful Murkrow · May 23, 2026

Don’t Stop The Music

Daah-Daah-Daah-Da-Da-Da-Daaaaaaaaah…

You blink as the evening air around you’s suddenly filled with snarling guitars and a foreign human voice—a good enough sign that Chispa’s playing another of those songs from that ‘playlist’ he uses when you’ve all been travelling around.

Except, you’re not going anywhere fast just now. Chispa’s floating right beside you as you’re seated and fidgeting impatiently in a grassy park. You’re beside some blue and purple… you dunno what that’s supposed to be. Some kind of keyring, maybe?

There’s a tall tree to your left and a red-and-white windmill to the right. On the grass in the foreground, Juliana and Lucas are standing side by side, raising their arms and wings as the music gets faster and faster…

The melody stops and strange human words take its place.

Juliana cries out as the music comes back just as quick as it left with a thumping electronic beat. She brings her arms down, and then brings her left up for a twirling spin. She does the same with her right, calling out words that Lucas echoes in your shared language.

“Down. Up. Spin left. Spin right…”

Another cry, and this time Juliana jumps and blows out. Lucas follows her cue, spitting out a stream of water into the grass. They take off and dart off together towards the tree. You stare and tilt your head puzzledly, since you’re not sure what those two are even doing right now.

“Chispa, aren’t they supposed to be practicing for a Gym battle?” you ask.

He tilts the phone he’s in slightly, before floating up beside you with a cheery buzz.

“Yup! And that’s exactly what they’re doing!”

You glance back towards Lucas and Juliana—both closer to the tree now. Those human lyrics from earlier repeat as Juliana calls out and jumps, Lucas following after her so quickly that they’re practically moving in unison with each other. There’s a zig-zagging run off to your right, before they pivot on their heels and Juliana brings her arms up again…

“Are you sure? It looks more like they’re dancing.”

“That’s because they are,” he explains. “Feather-face and Quaxly like him dance as part of the way they battle. So when Juliana found out that those songs she’s gotten into were actually meant to be danced to, well…”

The melody stops, and the strange human words return again.

Then comes that electronic melody. You bob your head along with its pulsing beat, equal parts strange and infectious. Juliana and Lucas are doing that thing with their arms and wings again. Except this time, they’re making big, sweeping circles, almost like the way that towering red-and-white windmill in the background is rotating…

Maybe that has something to do with that feeling, since a part of you wishes that windmill wasn’t there. It doesn’t help that it startled you and made you look silly when first coming into Artazon, this ‘Pueblo Altamía’. You’d thought it was another one of those ‘Titan Pokémon’ and roared at it.

You would’ve just laughed it off there if that was all it was, except, that wasn’t the first time you saw that windmill. You have other, earlier memories of it. Ones that no matter how you try to delete them from your memory banks, just keep coming back again and again.

It was one of the places you remember from the day you ran away from your old lab. Right after you last tried fighting him…

Your vision was wavering and you were losing altitude. You were careening towards it, and had to fight to even out and steer rightwards to avoid crashing headfirst into it. You remember your wings almost clipping the blades, and their shaft passing just underneath your rings.

Most of all, you remember the scorch marks along your scales.

The connective fluid leaking from torn-up patches of your hide that hadn’t self-annealed yet.

The way that everything hurt.

Da-Dah-Da-Da-Da-Dah-Dah.

The pulsing, electronic melody suddenly returns. Not a moment too soon, either. You don’t want to think about that awful day or what happened to Turo. That video call at Juliana’s lab more or less confirmed your fears. You knew the voice sounded off, but you wanted the caller with your friend’s face to really be him so badly…

And then he barely acknowledged you. After everything that happened...

Turo wouldn’t have done that.

“Yah!”

A quacking cry turns your attention to Lucas as he and Juliana bring their upper limbs out into a sweeping motion. Except Lucas’ wings leave a familiar, faint contrail after them…

“Wait, Wing Attack?”

Juliana points off ahead with a sharp cry. Lucas mirrors the gesture, before diving ahead into a water-wreathed lunge that sends him zipping down the path ahead of you. You stare blankly for a moment as Juliana runs to catch up after him, when it dawns on you that that wasn’t normal:

That was Aqua Jet. A move that Lucas had been having trouble with before now. And he just went and made it look so natural!

Is… that because of this whole ‘dancing’ thing that he’s been doing with Juliana for this practice? Does it really work that well at making him stronger?

Maybe it’s a bit silly when you already know that those Herba Mystica Arven’s looking for are supposed to make you get better after you eat all of them… but that sandwich Juliana gave you when you two first met on that beach didn’t have any Herba Mystica in it. You were able to get into your Ultimate Mode for a little while back then… enough to help Juliana when she needed it most.

Most of this dancing Lucas and Juliana are doing is just moving their upper body and foreclaws around anyways. Sure, you can’t hover like you’re supposed to right now, but you see Cyclizar get onto their hindlegs all the time, and it’s not like you’ve never done it yourself before…

It can’t hurt trying this, can it? You make your way over as the two point arm and wing out pointing off at the stars before speaking up.

“Juliana. Lucas. I want to try joining in, too.”

The two turn towards you, Juliana tilts her head puzzledly, while Lucas gives a skeptical cock of his brow.

“... Are you sure, Trueno? It’s a bit harder than it looks,” Lucas says. “Since the point is to try and stay in perfect sync with each other.”

You waver briefly at the mention of ‘perfect sync’, but no. You won’t know if this will work or not if you don’t try.

You rear up onto your hindlegs. You wobble a little after shifting your balance onto them, but you’re standing, at least.

Juliana calls out again, repeating that same routine she did earlier with Lucas: arms up, arms down, twirling her left forearm and then twirling her right one. You stare for a moment, when you see that they’re repeating the sequence, and you throw your foreclaws up to try and match them, reaching as high as possible…

When your balance suddenly wavers. Your eyes widen, as your hindclaws slip out from under you.

“A-Ack!”

You yelp and flail as the stars in the sky pass by your eyes. The tree and windmill come back again, this time upside down.

Whump!

You hit the ground, landing flat on your back in the grass. You lay there, and shakily raise a claw up as Juliana and Lucas poke their heads over and peer down at you.

“Okay, it really is harder than it looks.”

Commentary:

Super Eurobeat Presents Initial D ~D Selection~ came in clutch as a song source once again, with the 4:50 version of Don’t Stop The Music included in it being used as the basis for scoring. Once again, the Extended Version didn’t quite work for where things needed to be thematically towards the end, in this case due to the sequence that version has starting at 4:42.

And for those readers wondering why Juliana wasn’t cast with a Fuecoco in a series where music is as big a component to the premise as it is, this chapter has your answer. Juliana and Lucas’ dancing antics in this chapter are a modified version of a Para Para routine, a big component of the Eurobeat scene historically. It won’t be the last time you see antics of this sort in this story.

Translation Notes:

- Pueblo Altamía - Spanish localization name for “Artazon”. In Spanish, an ‘altamía’ is a type of small bowl used for eating and drinking that was widely used in Spain in medieval through to early modern eras.

Spiteful Murkrow · May 30, 2026

Back On The Rocks

An eerie, deep melody chimes in your ears as you stare down the ledge ahead of you. If you had your strength, you’d make short work of it even without having to outright take flight: you’d just jump over it. Unfortunately, it was just out of reach for you when you tried earlier, and as you jump up and try to dig your claws in and grip into the stone.

Skrrrch!

Except, they fail to find purchase. And you slide to the ground panting. Again. The music in your right ear’s picked up in tempo with a high-pitched instrument, maybe some sort of trumpet. In spite of being in Drive Mode right now, your curled-up tail and dewlap aren’t carrying you anywhere fast. There’s simply nowhere to run between here and the ledge.

You let out a dissatisfied growl and scowl back at your stony nemesis as a human voice joining the melody in the speaker over your right ear. There at its edge, you see Lucas staring down at you with a sighing shake of his beak.

“I told you the ledge was too high for you to jump,” he says. “That’s why I said we had to make that turn further north and approach these bluffs from that direction.”

Lucas changed quite a bit during this ‘Treasure Hunt’ already. He’s a Quaxwell now, about twice as tall as he used to be with deep blue feathers on his head and wings that he didn’t use to have.

Now that you think about it, a lot of things have been changing for everyone: Juliana’s been picking up more partners beyond Lucas even if he still normally rides along with her. You’ve stopped journeying further west and started heading back eastward in Paldea. Why, the entire reason why you’re here in… you’re pretty sure it’s Cabo Poco even if hearing it called ‘Pueblo Cahíz’ threw you a bit, is because Juliana wanted to visit her 'home' along the way.

“But it isn’t!” you protest. “I don’t understand why I’m having such trouble keeping my footing!”

Everyone has been changing, except you.

You can run around like how you remembered, but the rest of your strength just stubbornly refuses to come back to you. Your Hadron Engine doesn’t run as strong as it used to. No matter how hard you try, no matter how many of those sandwiches you pester Juliana into making and feeding you, it just refuses to run any better.

You’ve been growing increasingly worried that this might be as much of your past strength as you’ll ever recover.

You feel a pat at the back of your neck and crane your head back to Juliana. She sighs and says words that sound apologetic from their tone. Chispa pokes out of his phone a bit, before zipping around and motioning off rightward.

“Come on, we’ll take the long way around,” he says. “I’m sure there’s another path up.”

You see Juliana reach for a Pokéball and aim it at Lucas on the ledge when you nudge at her to stop. Maybe it’s the music getting you in a determined mood, but you’re not ready to give up on getting to the top this easily.

“Wait. Let me try something first.”

You pace back and study the ledge carefully as the trumpet-sounding instruments return to the music. There’s a small flattened part up above that looks a bit shallower in slope. You probably can’t reach it by jumping from right here, but if you had a bit of extra speed…

A glance rightward, and you see a tree at the edge of the bluff. That should be enough distance to work with. You bring your rings to rest along the ground, without prompting from your rider.

“Hold on tight!”

You zip ahead towards the tree as Juliana and Chispa cry out in surprise. Juliana tugs sharply at your harness to turn, and by reflex you oblige, your rings sliding along the ground sharply enough that you swear you hear them screech. You hear the woosh of your jets as you launch yourself back the way you came, jumping as you near. You can see the shallow portion of the slope there almost underfoot.

“Wheels! Hit the brakes!”

You land and skid ahead, your claws digging in with a tenuous grip as you come face-to-face with a bunch of tree branches… and the ground a good distance below you. You feel your claws start to slide forward, and your mind briefly goes blank as you put your weight down on your foreclaws and spring backwards.

You feel air under your belly, and then grass and turf under your claws as you stumble and unceremoniously pratfall on the ground. You stay in place for a moment, sucking in air as Lucas waddles up to you, holding his head askew at you with his brow furrowed.

“That’s seriously how you used to jump up ledges?” he asks.

“Well, no, but it got me up here, didn’t it?”

Juliana’s voice calls you, first by that ‘Trueno’ name, and then after a moment’s confusion, by that ‘Miraidon’ name that Turo used to call you by. There’s one last ledge in your way, and it similarly has a shallow slope that leads up to a steep incline. One that looks about as tall as the one you just got up.

“Bzzt! Hey, Wheels! Do you think you can-?”

“Yeah, I’m on it, Chispa.”

You pace ahead and jump up onto the ledge, your claws finding grip against the slope until you get to a part where their hold starts to grow shaky. Juliana has a moment of shared realization with you and tugs at your harness to turn you around, calling for you to jump. You dutifully plant your feet, crouch, and then spring back. Once again, your hindlegs just clearing the edge as your forelimbs tumble onto the grass.

Your Hadron Engine spins as your rings dim and they merge back into your body, the forward hoop becoming your dewlap again, the rear becoming your tail. You take a moment to brush some dirt and stray grass off you when you see a flash of red light. Lucas right next to you tapping a foot with a small frown. Juliana must’ve gotten him up here with his Pokéball, since there’s no way he could’ve climbed or jumped up that ledge on his own.

“... You looked ridiculous getting up here,” the Quaxwell scoffs.

“Is it really ridiculous if it works?” you harumph. “Though what was it that Juliana wanted us to see…”

You trail off as you see lights below you, along with the moon reflecting off the sea in the distance.

It’s Cabo Poco, the place where your journey began.

You never realized how different it looked at this time of day. You didn’t exactly spend a lot of time in it before going to Juliana’s lab, but from the view, you can see why she wanted to come back here.

“Bzzt! Look alive, Wheels! It’s picture time!”

You turn back and see Chispa floating in the air inside Juliana’s phone as she leads Lucas up to a spot overlooking the bluff. She calls you over, and already begins to reach for the other Pokéballs on her belt.

… You seriously went through all this trouble just for some pictures? You’re not sure how you feel about that, but you suppose it can’t hurt to join in.

Commentary:

If this version of Back On The Rocks feels a bit long to you, it’s because I used the Extended Version from Super Eurobeat Vol. 77 - Extended Version Rodgers & Contini Edition for scoring. You’re probably thinking either of the 4:47 version that first appeared in Super Eurobeat Presents Initial D ~D Selection~ or else the 3:47 original release.

And yes, Trueno’s doing that backwards jumping trick for getting up to high places in-game. While some of the events in this series are firmly impossible to pull off in the actual game, this isn’t one of them and completely doable as long as you’re good with your timing.

Translation Notes:

- Pueblo Cahíz - Spanish localization name for “Cabo Poco”. In Spanish, a ‘cahíz’ is a type of historical unit of dry measure roughly equivalent to 666 liters or 18.5 bushels of volume.

Spiteful Murkrow · Jun 6, 2026

Killing My Love

You slow down and suck in a sharp breath as you pass a spread of stones that jut out of the ground almost like fangs. There’s gravel and hunks of broken rocks lying around some of them, while Juliana’s grip on your natural harness is stiff and tense.

Arven called just beforehand through Chispa. You missed most of his conversation, but Chispa helped fill in the gaps: the next ‘Herba Mystica’ and Titan guarding it are here, but just getting to them’s not going to be easy.

Lucas clings to your scales for dear life as Juliana beckons you forward. Your Hadron Engine hums as you rocket ahead, trying to let the music in your headphone and surrounding air calm your racing heart.

Arven said there’s falling rocks here and you specifically needed to move fast to avoid them. You reach the base of a dusty slope, when you look left after a low rumble and see them:

Round boulders. Slowly rolling downhill.

WHAM!

A deafening crash briefly drowns out the music as its volume and tempo pick up along with your heartbeat and your eyes shrink. Further up this mountain path flanked by two stony outcroppings, a rounded boulder bounces off the dirt and barrels down the slope.

Straight for you.

GWAAAAAAAAH!

You scream. Your riders scream. And Juliana sharply jerks your harness rightward. You follow by instinct, dust and whooshing air brushing your hindclaws.

A female voice joins the music as you pant from fright and Juliana tugs at you to stop. You throw your rings out and lean back. They audibly screech and you beeline along your new course for a rocky outcropping to hide.

You all gasp for air for a moment, but there’s still rumbling noises. And as you look back, your mouth flops open from astonishment.

There’s more of those boulders, rolling past your hiding place, one after another. W-What on earth is even happening?

A glance skyward answers the question: against its blue, there’s a huge white bird, letting something go with its beak.

What looks like a giant sling attached to its breast drops and dark objects fall from it. Shortly afterwards, a loud crash comes from further up the mountain. A second follows. Then a third, along with the same low rumbles you’ve been hearing along with the music playing in your headphone the entire time.

You gulp as it dawns on you that you know exactly what this Pokémon is.

“I… think we found the Titan Pokémon for this place.”

There’s a moment of silence as the rumbling grows louder and more of the boulders pass your hiding place. Lucas stares after them, before grumbling and shaking his head.

“Is Arven nuts?! He expects us to get crushed by rocks over some stupid herbs?!”

You space out a bit as Lucas argues with Chispa and Juliana tries to calm him. These ‘Herba Mystica’ aren’t stupid since the last one noticeably healed you, but what on earth is Arven expecting right now? If you had your old strength, maybe you could handle things, but…

The singing continues in your headphone as you look down at your claws and let out a low whine. It’s not like you can just fly up to look for that Herba Mystica now, or even climb up these rocky walls.

Arven didn’t do this on purpose, did he? You know that he doesn’t like you, and even after you saw him again after returning to the lighthouse lab, just the way he looks at you and the rhythm and tone of his voice every time you’re together makes it obvious. B-But surely he wouldn’t go so far to intentionally try and get you hurt…

You snap to attention after a pounding noise, which at first you thought was one of the boulders, but it was just a note from the ongoing song. Even as thumps and growling stone continue to linger in the background, the jolt snaps you from those thoughts.

No, at the very least, you’re sure Arven likes Juliana. And he apparently specifically mentioned you when advising her how to get up this mountain.

He may not like you, but he genuinely believes you can handle things, at least.

More boulders roll past. Just how many of these things is that bird throwing? Shouldn’t it have run out by now?

You poke your head out, when you suddenly see it: the way ahead is clear right now. If you want to make it to the top, this is your best chance. Juliana seems to think so too, as she points ahead and says something that makes both Lucas and Chispa’s eyes shrink.

“Bzzt! Juliana?! You sure about that one?!” the Rotom buzzes.

You don’t know about this either. You can run fast again, but as a quick glance up reveals, the Bombirdier’s still up in the sky. And its sling-like extension of its breast is furled up with objects in it again.

You whine and uneasily shrink away. M-Maybe it’s better to just turn back, maybe you can get your strength back some other way…

You feel tugging on your harness and look back at Juliana. There’s a determined glint in her eyes as it dawns on you that however scary she finds all this, that she trusts you too.

You owe it to her to at least try.

You get up onto your rings, forcing air through your hips’ thrusters as hard as you can as you rocket out past your hiding place. You pass the snapped logs jutting out almost like ramps, another stony ledge, and round the corner, seeing a sheer cliff just off to your right.

A heavy thump and the grinding of stone turns your gaze leftward. Much to your astonishment, there’s a boulder rolling up against the mountainside, before gravity takes over and begins dragging it down.

You turn your head forward and try to stay focused. There’s a wide, flattened ledge up ahead that looks like it’s out of the path of these boulders. The top’s just a little further, and—

WHAM!

Much to your horror, a boulder hits the ground up ahead and bounces off of it in an arc. Your eyes shrink and you hastily throw your foreclaws out to stop. They dig into the earth but your front ring’s still rolling, and it tips your snout groundwards with the rest of you hoisting into empty air.

The boulder’s still coming, you can hear it. And your mind blanks in panic.

Suddenly, Juliana yanks your harness left. By reflex, you turn your forward ring, and much to your astonishment, your entire body pivots around it. Before you know it, your body’s turned around almost completely reversed—just in time to see the boulder rolling past your face as you coast backwards…

Towards where you remembered the cliff being.

You frantically plant your hindclaws, but your left hits the dirt a little earlier and sends you spinning around again. The cliff and the open air beyond briefly pass your eyes, then the last stretch up to the ledge.

The moment you feel flat ground, you plant all your claws down, coming to a skidding stop. There’s dust caking your scales. Your body’s shaking, and your breathing’s shallow and uneven.

There’s patting against your neck. It’s Juliana, telling you that everything’s okay.

“Little runts! Get off my mountain!”

Well, maybe not from that booming voice drowning out the fading music. Ditto with how Juliana and Lucas are hastily dismounting you and bracing for battle.

But you trust they’ll pull through. Just like they trusted you to do the same for them.

Commentary:

The version of Killing My Love used for scoring is a slightly clipped version of the 4:56 release from Super Eurobeat Presents Initial D ~D Selection 2~ where it was included as a bonus track, with the opening jingle and announcer cut. Could’ve gotten more words to work with had I gone with the 6:20 Extended Mix, but eh. I liked the pacing of this version better.

Yes, I know that the rocks that the Titan Bombirdier chucks at you in game are significantly easier to avoid, but that’s boring. Also, I was able to make drift lizard get in a slightly modified version of some motorcycle stunts this way.

Spiteful Murkrow · Jun 13, 2026

Burning Up For You

Dun-dun-DUN-dun-dun-dun-DUN-dun-dun-dun-DUN-dun.

In retrospect, you should’ve just headed back west to the bridge. But there you were, full of confidence from finally having a little more of your strength come back after that last sandwich Juliana made with Arven. Somehow, it re-enabled what Turo would call ‘Aquatic Mode’ and, excited to show off your regained power, you tried to jump across the river to try and skip backtracking through half of Tagtree Thicket.

Once again, you overestimated just how much of your strength you regained, and here you are: in the thick of this river. You were able to stay afloat, or at least the tops of your claws and jets could. As to be expected from Aquatic Mode, the ridges on your rings have deepened and fling water along as they spin much like paddles.

Your movements are not quite as fluid or fast as when you’re running along the ground, but you’re able to power along this river, flinging watery sprays behind you as easily as you would plumes of dust on the road.

Now if only you could just find a riverbank with a gentle enough slope to climb out of, or even a low enough ledge to jump out of.

“Trueno, hurry it up! They’re gaining!”

The sooner the better, as the school of angry Basculin that you accidentally rode through a little ways upstream have been nipping at your curled-up tail, as Lucas’ yelp reminds you.

A jet of water zips past your head as Juliana tugs at your harness to go faster. You try to oblige, but there’s only so much you can do in the water. If that ‘Herba Mystica’ or whatever Arven calls it happened to secretly bring back any more of your old strength, now would be a really good time for it to come out again.

Juliana suddenly calls out for you and you look up, your eyes widening as you see that you’re barrelling straight towards a Psyduck in the water. She jerks back on your harness and by reflex you pull your claws from your rings and feel your body leave the water and air pass underneath.

It takes all of a split second for you to realize that in spite of the hum of your Hadron Engine, that you still can’t fly and there’s nothing but empty air between your horns. You swear that in spite of them not being fleshy, you can feel your eyes shrink as your claws and snout fall back down to the water’s surface.

SPLASH!

You go under and after a frantic spin of your rings, pop back above the water. The headphone over your right ear briefly cuts out and you can hear Juliana coughing.

Your mind freezes up as the sound is uncomfortably familiar: a cough like that was one of the last things you heard from Turo before fleeing.

You come to a stop in the water to look back at your riders. She doesn’t look hurt. Just soaked and surprised.

Do-doo-doo. Do-do-do-do-do-doo-doo.

Your headphone crackles back to life as Lucas pokes his head out from behind Juliana. His beak doesn’t exactly move much, but it looks almost like the ends of his mouth are curled up into a beaming grin.

“Phew! I think you lost them!”

“Bzzt! Speak for yourself, featherface!” Chispa snaps. “Just because electronic gear’s made water-resistant these days doesn’t mean it’s good for them to be soaked!”

Your heart sparks and flutters in your chest as you let out a sigh of relief. Chispa floats up off his mount on your harness and motions ahead.

“That looks like a way out,” he says.

The river’s headed towards a natural arch. A little ways before it on the right bank, there’s a spot in the stony riverbank that looks a bit shallower. The jump up might be a bit dicey, but—

“There he is! Get him!”

Splashes and growls turn your eyes back upstream. At once, your jaw flops open and your thoughts go straight from your mind to your mouth:

“Oh, come on!”

Those Basculin are still coming after you. If you’d had the strength you’d had after waking up on that beach outside Cabo Poco, you’d be able to make short work of them.

But you just don’t have it and there’s too many of them for Lucas to handle. As humiliating as it is, there’s nothing you can do but swim away and carry your riders to safety.

You trade glances between the rocks and the arch up ahead. You don’t know what’s downstream, but the water looks clear, and if you can just build up speed along a decent stretch, you should be able to slip away.

You know you can.

“Hold on tight, everyone!”

You grip your rings tight and without prompting from Juliana, you plow ahead through the river. Water flies in your wake, and the shouts and errant jets of water land farther and farther away from you as you go under the natural arch and the water roars around you.

“H-Hah! I’m doing it! I’m really doing it!”

“Wheels, look out!”

Chispa buzzes in alarm and Juliana and Lucas let out a shared yelp. It suddenly dawns on you that the water’s roar is growing louder the further you go ahead.

And then you feel your rings spinning in empty air.

You look down and see that you’ve gone over a waterfall, as that shrinking feeling comes over your eyes and it dawns on you that you’re falling. Fast.

GWAAAAAAAAAAH!

You flail and scream as the others scream with you. Juliana lets go of the harness and grabs onto your neck for dear life as you fall. You hurriedly throw out your foreclaws in front of you, much like after the jump in the river earlier

SPLOOSH!

You hit the surface and go much deeper this time, enough that you can briefly feel your rings touch the riverbed before you dig your claws in and push up. Everything is murky beneath as light from above grows brighter and brighter until you breach the surface.

The music’s cut out and Juliana’s coughing again, and you look back to see that she’s drenched hair to toe, dripping water from her pigtails. She’s still clinging to your neck and breathing in and out unevenly, as you hurriedly crane your head back to try and nudge at her.

“J-Juliana, are you okay?”

The music in your headphone suddenly crackles to life as that human voice repeats a refrain. She looks up and pats you and says something that you recognize from things Turo and Arven said before to be a thanks.

An excited quack snaps you to attention, as there off in the water is Lucas floating along, staring at you with his eyes glinting and the ends of his mouth curled up into a beaming grin.

“That was awesome! Come on, let’s go back up to that forest and do that again!”

Chispa lets out a sharp buzz of annoyance and glares daggers, and all of a sudden, you see Juliana look back towards the waterfall and the smile slides off her face.

You quickly see why: the waterfall where Tagtree Thicket was is surrounded by tall ledges all along its left and right. Tall enough that even that backwards jumping trick wouldn’t get you up them.

There’s a moment of awkward silence, before you shake your head and give a sheepish smile back.

“Let’s wait until I’m a bit stronger before then.”

Commentary:

Ah yes, Extended Mixes, my beloved. In this case, the extra 34 seconds from the version from Eurobeat Masters Vol. 2: Remastered over the more widely known 4:50 version that debuted in Super Eurobeat Presents Initial D ~D Selection 2~ helped a lot for cramming in everything that I wanted to from this chapter.

This is another one of those updates where the swarm of pursuing Basculin aside, you can actually do the stuff that happens in it in-game. If you ride off the waterfall exiting Tagtree Thicket, your bike dragon’s character model will indeed go far enough beneath the surface of the river downstream that you’ll touch the riverbed.

Spiteful Murkrow · Jun 20, 2026

Supersonic Fire

There’s blinding light. A high-pitched riff lingers in your head, with a beat that’s racing like your heart. Except this time, Chispa hasn’t left the playlist on.

As the lack of headphones remind you—it’s all in your head right now. An ‘ear worm’, Lucas called it, but it’s almost as real as your Hadron Engine’s agitated hum as the overpowering light fades and reveals your surroundings. You’re in a small burrow of sorts with walls caked in reflective crystals, with the just-ridable path you came from right behind you.

Up ahead, there’s Juliana’s there. With three other students she’s partnering with for a ‘Tera Raid’.

“Bring it!”

So’s the Rolycoly on the stony pedestal ahead. His hide’s carrying a fiery, crystalline sheen as you swear you briefly saw candles on his head.

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

As the song picks up in your head, Juliana and the other students all at once send out their Pokémon. Lucas is there, so are a Magnemite, a Growlithe, and a Skwovet, all hurriedly trying to gain their bearings and bracing themselves for a fight.

Everyone lunges ahead one after the other—except the Skwovet, who stays and curls up for some reason. Your attention quickly turns to Lucas just as he lands a watery tackle amidst the fray.

This isn’t your first Tera Raid. You know that battles inside these crystal-caked dens don’t work like normal ones—as the bags slung over your back and how the Rolycoly’s barely fazed after everything reminds you.

“Take this!”

The Rolycoly lunges ahead and strikes the Growlithe with a spray of dirt, as light much like the one from Juliana’s Tera Orb swirls in the air. Earth-colored orbs form around the Rolycoly, before shooting out towards everybody.

You fall back to keep your distance, and Lucas sidesteps as one of the orbs just misses him, Juliana’s call to dodge coming just barely in time. The other yelps lets you know the others were less lucky, with that Magnemite from these teammates plummeting limply to the ground.

You suppose there’s another way these ‘Tera Raids’ differ from other battles—you’re actually able to help fight…

Sort of.

“Hang in there!”

You hop onto your rings and dash forward up to a girl in an outfit from Juliana’s lab. Even before you fully stop, she’s already fishing for a Revive from your bags.

The student recalls her Magnemite and falls back to try and rouse the Steel-type from a safer distance in the cave. You hurriedly roll off, seeing the others still battling the Rolycoly back as your mind drifts…

Turo used to spend hours studying this crystalline energy. He even helped you wield it yourself a couple times.

… So why couldn’t you do the same things this Rolycoly can? Especially when you two needed it most?

Burning pain on your shoulder jolts you to attention as you see a small scorch mark. It didn’t hurt that much, but it’s a sign you’re too close to the fighting right now. You turn back for the entrance and dart over on your rings, skidding and turning around as an exasperated quack fills the air:

“You’re kidding me!”

Lucas’ beak is hanging open while the Skwovet’s still balled up and the Growlithe’s grimacing with a blank stare… A look at the Rolycoly, reveals why:

There’s a glinting barrier in front of the Rolycoly. One like a Light Screen, except much, much stronger. Pokémon affected in these dens can apparently form them somehow while inside, which from his expression, this Rolycoly is very familiar with that fact.

“What’s the matter? Can’t deal with a little shield?”

Juliana visibly hesitates and you quietly grimace. The Rolycoly doesn’t look all that worn-down. The fiery, crystalline sheen is still on his body, and he still looks energetic rolling around while Lucas’ teammates look increasingly worn down.

If only you still had your old strength to help battle right now… surely you could’ve broken that shield like it was nothing…

«¡Al ataque!»

Another one of the students, the boy with the Skwovet lets out a battlecry. Maybe it’s just the lighting, but you swear a red aura washed over Lucas and the others. The Skwovet zooms ahead in a rolling ball as the others join with attacks of their own, suddenly filled with newfound vigor.

“Let’s see you intruders deal with this!”

The Rolycoly growls in annoyance and zips along, before flinging a rock that strikes Lucas’ head. Your eyes widen as the Quaxwell staggers back and the strange energy in the air swirls again, sending light balls towards the Growlithe and Skwovet.

They both hit. The Growlithe crumples to the ground, and you reflexively dash over to spot his trainer a Revive. As he rummages for it, you see the Skwovet visibly panting and struggling to stay in his Rollout.

The air looks increasingly agitated. Maybe it’s time to run, since things aren’t going well right now—

All of a sudden, light comes from Juliana’s hip as she grabs at a glowing sphere on it. The tension about her suddenly fades as you realize that she just might be able to turn things around after all:

“Ah! Juliana, your Tera Orb!”

She quickly puts things together and raises it up as light gathers in it from the surrounding air. It honestly surprises you how she can grasp that thing and look straight into it without flinching or even budging, when you never remembered Arven and even Turo managing to do that.

The light settles down, and she throws the Tera Orb in an arc over Lucas’ head.

There’s a brilliant flash of light Lucas’ body disappears into glowing crystals. They shatter as he emerges from it, his body covered in a blue crystalline sheen as what you swear looks like a waterspout lingers above his head.

It fades away after a moment, but the crystalline sheen remains—the telltale sign of ‘Terastalization’, as Turo and the others who live in this region call it.

You didn’t get to wield this power many times back when you were strong, but you remember enough about how it works to know that both the growing smirk on the Quaxwell’s face, and the Rolycoly’s startled, widened eye are well-founded.

“Try hiding from this!”

The Quaxwell runs ahead, water building up on the tip of his wings as he jumps up and brings it down in a swipe. His Aqua Cutter sails ahead, slicing through the air like a scythe as the Rolycoly tries to hide behind his shield.

CRASH!

It punches through, dashing the crystalline shield into dissipating shards as Lucas’ Aqua Cutter breaks through and launches the Rolycoly back. You stand in a moment of astonishment when you hear a Pokéball opening to your left:

The Magnemite’s back out and floating forward again, as Lucas looks back at his two teammates still standing.

“Hit him with everything you’ve got!”

The Magnemite and Skwovet both dive in for the attack: a crackling stream of electricity, a rolling, somersaulting tackle, each making the Rolycoly reel under the blow. By the end, the Rolycoly’s visibly winded, and the Growlithe is rousing a little further back much to Lucas’ satisfaction.

“Is that the best you can do-?!”

Lucas gets cut off midsentence by a desperate fiery burst from the Rolycoly. It knocks him back, but doesn’t faze him much, when reddish, fiery orbs fly out for his teammates. The Magnemite is able to dodge it this time, but the Skwovet…

“Gack!”

Doesn’t. He loses his grip and flops onto his belly, fainted, before his trainer returns him to his Pokéball. The Growlithe runs to take his place, but partway over, she freezes.

You and everyone else do much the same: there’s light gathering over the Rolycoly’s head, along with a knowing smirk.

“No, this is.”

The Rolycoly aims the light down and everything goes by in a blur: the brilliant beam he casts against the ground with a blinding light. Juliana and the other humans hastily clambering onto your back. You barreling up the dirt path for dear life when your Hadron Engine hangs yet again…

FWOOOSH!

Your rings leave the ground. There’s sunlight and then grass, as you land on your side and hear your passengers yelp.

Everybody’s sprawled out on the grass with you—alright, if a bit startled. The music in your head finally fades as you pant, shaking your head with a sigh:

“L-Let’s take a break from more Tera Raids today.”

Commentary:

I was honestly a bit surprised I managed to squeeze in something coherent here even with the Extended Mix of this song from Super Eurobeat Vol. 75 Extended Version Time Edition considering how much stuff was flying around in-chapter. Probably wouldn’t have managed that with the original 4-minute release of Supersonic Fire that people would probably be more familiar with.

I went out on a bit of a limb here with the depiction of the Tera Raid since “raid events” in Pokémon games have always been quite “video game”-y in depiction (to say nothing about the persistent “hats” from Terastalization). I made a few attempts to square that circle here, along with a potential explanation of how and why KOs are basically just lost time in such battles. No apologies for the ear worm background music, since these songs can get catchy, and if they could get stuck in my head as a writer, I figured they could also get stuck in the head of a fantasy anole.

Translation Notes:

- «¡Al ataque!» - “On the attack/offensive!” The Spanish localization equivalent of the “Go All Out!” cheer in Tera Battles.

Spiteful Murkrow · Jun 27, 2026

Dancing

This was a mistake.

You pin your horns and squirm as wooshing and menacing laughter fills your headphone. Chispa must’ve left Juliana’s riding music on autoplay again, but even if the current melody didn’t sound weirdly creepy and ominous, it wouldn’t really help that sinking feeling that you should’ve stayed in your Pokéball.

Things sounded so easy when Lucas described the challenge in this ‘Segin Squad’ Base. Defeat thirty Pokémon in ten minutes, and everyone here would yield.

“H-Hey!” Lucas squawks. “What sort of challenge is this?!”

Except you didn’t realize how they were supposed to be fought. From his visible grimace, Lucas hadn’t either. All around this enclosed field with scattered metal huts, there’s helmeted humans in star-shaped glasses approaching… alongside snarling Pokémon.

This was a mistake. This was a–!

“Get them!”

A Pawniard lunges at you from the corner of your eye, sharp claw raking your hide. By reflex, you yelp and leap forward, your dewlap and tail curling up into rings before you hit the ground.

And like so many times before, you spin up your Hadron Engine and run.

The music in your headphone now races along with your heart. You shoot ahead and wheel around in a drift to look back towards Juliana. She hurriedly sends out Canela and Rosa—those newer Pawmo and Tinkatink teammates—all as Lucas throws a watery swipe forward and bats away a yelping Nymble.

And in between you, there’s at least a dozen snarling Pokémon in the way. You let go of your rings, and plant your feet with a bellowing roar. Some like a closer Pawniard and Sableye briefly freeze in fear, but others like a Sneasel call your bluff and charge ahead undaunted.

“Take this!”

The Sneasel rakes a set of claws with a metallic gleam across your snout. You yelp and get back onto your rings as blows pepper your flank. None of them really hurt, but there’s so many of them. And from your Hadron Engine’s low hum, you already know you can’t do anything.

You charge ahead blindly, your thrusters carrying you along the grass—to where you haven’t figured out. Your pursuers’ voices grow distant as you fly past one of the huts, when your eyes widen at the sight of a group led by a Zorua and their trainers coming to cut you off.

That’s when you notice it: off to the left, hugging a stony cliff face: a wooden ramp with arrows painted on it leading up to a platform held up by metal pipes. You push air out of your thrusters and shoot ahead, your rings clunking against them before rolling onto metal.

You’re barely onto the platform when you see there’s not much of it left. You briefly glimpse another platform further out and jump by reflex. There’s air underneath you when your rings land unevenly against hard rods and something that flexes under your weight as you slide your body out to stop.

Your mechanical heart races as you process your surroundings: you’re on the rooftop of one of those canvas huts, with two crossed black banners on an overlooking ledge. Much to your surprise, there’s still pulsing beats and human singing in your headphone.

But how? Normally it stops working whenever Chispa’s not nearby—

“YEOW!”

A pained cry answers your question as you look past another hut towards a large grassy space, just in time to see a Sandile flop over from a watery spray by Lucas. Canela and Rosa are fighting at his side, but they’re all visibly tired and worn down from this ‘challenge’.

“Come here and fight, coward!”

You whirl your head back and see the Zorua and his buddies have caught up on the platform. Too far away for their attacks to reach you, but close enough to hear their heckling over the music.

You hang your head, pinning your horns back with a low whine.

As pathetic as it is, you can’t fight them right now. You need your strength in Ultimate Mode to do that. Without it, all you’re good for is bellowing and roaring out threats that you can’t back up and then running away when they don’t work...

You just want to go back to your Pokéball right now. It was stupid to think that you could somehow help. What could you have possibly done to help when back when you had your old strength, you could barely do anything to him?

And you couldn’t protect Turo from harm when he needed you most…

There’s a cry from below as those helmeted humans hurry leftward past you since “someone’s at the gate”. You look over, and surprisingly enough, there really is someone there. You glimpse at the human hurrying away, and much to your surprise, it’s not that white-haired teacher from Juliana’s lab in his terrible costume…

It’s a girl with red hair and an Eevee backpack. Wait, isn’t that…?

“There he is!”

Your glimpse ends almost as soon as it starts as cawing cries and wingbeats fill your ear. Black feathers fill your vision, as pecks pepper your head from every direction. Of course they couldn’t be happy just chasing you away!

“Eyaaaaaah! Get off! Get off! Get off!”

Your own cries come out shriller than you’d intended as you thrash your head to shake your attackers loose. ’Murkrow’, they’re apparently called.

A sharp peck strikes your right eye. Your nerves finally fail you, as your Hadron Engine frantically spins up.

Your hips’ thrusters come alive and rocket you forward. There’s air under your rings and then grass, as you wobble and almost lose your balance. Your cries mix with startled caws as the Murkrow fall behind, save one straggler who clings to one of your horns and beats her wings in a panic.

Tall grass smacks your snout and your optical diodes in your right eye stabilize just as a wooden ramp fills your vision. It’s too late to turn, as you feel them thump under your rings, then air, then clattering metal.

“Ahh! Stop! We’re gonna crash!”

And that stupid Murkrow’s still not letting go.

From the corner of your eye, you see another canvas hut—this time with wooden boards set on top. Desperate to shake your hitchhiker, you dash ahead as fast as your thrusters will let you, veer right, and jump.

She finally loses her grip and flings away in the air with a squawk.

You throw your rings out and screech to a stop at the opposite edge. As your mechanical heart and Hadron Engine slowly settle, there’s still music playing, even if the singing’s skipping here and there.

There’s a rocky ledge to the left and another hut in front of you. Past them, there’s a sign in front of a much bigger hut with loudspeakers. There’s a loud racket and a flash of light there as a slumped-over Stunky returns to a Pokéball. Much to your astonishment, you see Lucas and his teammates, still standing after all this time. And there’s Juliana standing behind them, pointing out weaknesses and cheering them on…

And for once, there’s finally a clear path between you and her.

You dash and jump ahead. First to the next hut’s rooftop and then to the grass beyond. A few of the Pokémon run towards you, your eyes widen, and you let out a bellowing roar.

The bluff works. They scatter, and before anyone can ask, you dive back into your Pokéball.

You’ve helped out enough for one day.

Commentary:

The version of Dancing used for scoring this chapter is a slightly cut-down version of the 4:50 version that debuted in Super Eurobeat Presents Initial D ~D Selection 2~ (the fadeout is attenuated by a few seconds). Using the 5:26 Extended Mix might’ve made my life a bit easier wordcount wise, but I wasn’t quite able to make the extended section between 3:30-4:10 work thematically.

It always bugged me that the games force you to bench your bike dragon for Team Star raids, so I decided to use “well, what if he was out for it?” as the basis of today’s vignette. Also it gave the ramps and scaffolding in the Segin Squad base a bit more use, since you won’t exactly be doing many high-speed jumps off them in the canonical game until after you defeat Giacomo.

Spiteful Murkrow · Jul 3, 2026

Love & Money

There’s an electronic trill and then piano notes. You turn your head past your companions, gathered all together on this glorified rock with palm trees, off towards where Juliana is.

Chispa’s put the phone he indwells on speaker again. He’s floating in the air by Juliana as she spreads a purple, grape-patterned cloth over a folding table under the shade of a nearby palm tree. She got it from her lab when she was new there, 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 really grabs 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 watch 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, then 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.

“... Are you putting jam on that thing? With olive oil?”

Juliana is indeed putting on jam. And olive oil. And mustard and mayo, before mixing them together on the bread with her spoon. The Quaxwell leaves his beak hanging open and scrunches his brow with an incredulous scowl that resembles a Scorbunny picture that Chispa recently showed on Juliana’s phone—some ‘meem’ thing.

Is it really that strange? These ingredients are all ones that Juliana’s used to make sandwiches that everyone liked in the past… even if she didn’t mix them all together at once like this.

“Come on, Lucas,” you say. “It can’t be that bad, right?”

“That’s what you said about that ‘banana butty’ last time,” he scoffs.

You let out an involuntary shudder as the phrase ‘banana butty’ stirs 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 it left you and your teammates lying in a daze on the ground.

You still don’t know what went wrong there. Maybe there was just a bit too much banana and butter on it. Maybe something’s just different about the food humans like eating in whatever place Penny comes from.

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 Tinkatink, ‘Rosa’, gives it a stiff header and sends it flying…

THUMP!

The ball bounces off the table. It makes Juliana lose her balance and sends the cheese slice in her hand flying up into the air. One thing leads to another, and you jump up, snagging the slice 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.

A Lechonk, a Pawmot, a Charcadet, a Tinkatink. Pokey, Canela, Ascua, Rosa. All staring at you like you did something weird just then.

“Wait, what is with that big dog act, Trueno?” Canela asks.

You blink. You suppose you are acting like one, since Fito would do things like this whenever Arven was upset. You remember that acting like him used to work well for you, since it made Arven grow friendly when you two still didn’t really know each other…

Though you don’t know how Fito would fix how Arven’s so bitter towards you now. Assuming that the Mabosstiff could in his current condition...

You perk up after feeling fingers cup under your chin, and see Juliana’s 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 didn’t catch everything she said, but you think you got the gist well enough.

“Right, I’ll go grab it.”

You plod 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. You go and grab the ball in your jaws, extending your dewlap and tail to re-enter Drive Mode.

A woosh of your thrusters, and you’re already retracing your path inland. You go up a shallow slope, and slow towards the top. To your left, there’s a quintet of towers looming, along with a blue-and-white lighthouse in the distance.

It’s a place humans call ‘Levincia’. Sometimes ‘Ciudad Leudal’. The next stop on Juliana’s ‘Treasure Hunt’. And another where you’ll just be watching everyone from the sidelines.

At times like these, you 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… assuming nothing went wrong again.

B-But you could do other things with it! Like flying everyone to the tops of those towers, or—!

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.

“That thing’s really a sandwich?” Rosa asks.

“Is that even edible?” Canela adds.

“I’m good, thanks,” Pokey says, 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, pickles, and cheese together on sandwiches before. But not with eggs. Or potato salad. And definitely not along 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 try 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, as strange as it is, her mix of ingredients just works together.

Commentary:

I blame the Initial D influence for pushing me towards casting this song for a sillier moment, but the melody just genuinely works quite well with this sort of vibe. The mix used for scoring this chapter is the 5-minute mix that first debuted in Super Eurobeat Presents Initial D ~D Selection 2~, which I stuck with since it was the one I was most familiar with while providing a full minute of extra time over the earlier release that appeared in Super Eurobeat Vol. 84 to work with.

And yes, you really can make a 1-star banana butty in the games. Just go heavy on the butter and banana and don’t add anything else to it. If you want to make the alleged sandwich Juliana puts together in this chapter for yourself, the ingredient list consists of:

Ham
Eggs
Strawberries
Pickles
Potato Salad
Cheese
Jam
Olive Oil
Mustard
Mayo

Hilariously enough, this unholy abomination makes a 3-star sandwich in the actual games. Top bread optional.

Translation Notes:

- Ciudad Leudal - Spanish localization name for “Levincia”. “Leudal” is generally accepted among the fandom to be a play off of ‘leudar’ meaning ‘to leaven’ and ‘Ciudad Condal’, a nickname meaning ‘Comital City / City of Counts’ that is used for a few locations in Spain with the best-known being Barcelona.

Spiteful Murkrow · Jul 4, 2026

Dancing Queen

Human words fill your ears, as snarling guitar mixes with human and Pokémon cheers and whooping in the background. It takes you a moment to remember that the music’s coming from those headphones Juliana gave you to hold onto since it fits surprisingly well with the place you’re in right now:

You’re at the battlefield in Levincia where Gym Battles are hosted: a circular arena linked by a pair of bridges like the one you’re on. At their ends, there’s an outer ring lined with billboards and packed with spectators. The tang of sea salt hangs in the air and a waterfall cascades down a tall cliff behind you, as buildings fill the view in all the other directions—including those five towers and the lighthouse you saw from afar yesterday.

But this 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 Turo and this Gym Leader knew each other, since even if there’s less metal on this Bellibolt than you or the other Pokémon like you at your old lab, he’s not all that different.

He certainly hits like some of those other Pokémon too from the way he zapped through half the team earlier, leaving Canela and Lucas as 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 battle.

It’s a sobering reminder that Canela’s ability to shrug off sparks is probably the only reason why your teammates haven’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 and form a barrier of light between them. 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 while tired, Canela’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 saw 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 Arm Thrust. Two. 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 those ‘groupies’ Iono has. Closer to you, 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 outnumber 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 beforehand, 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’. She’s turned aside right now, arms rooting through her bag.

“Make this quick, Juliana. I don’t know how long Lucas is going to last out there.”

You glance down and see that Canela is still out, when it all 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 typically get while doing that, usually 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 visibly freezes. He needs help, but if you just charge onto the battlefield, you’ll get your friends 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 to it. Then it hits you:

Juliana sometimes plays these songs while training with Lucas.

Maybe. Just maybe, you can still help him…

“Chispa, play the music 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 her 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 arcing, 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 Lucas is 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 themselves.

«¡Mira! ¡Mira! ¡Allá!»

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…

“Wait, 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.

Commentary:

Yeah, I was in another double-feature mood today, so I’ll be sending this weekend off with a chapter that builds a bit more firmly off the previous one than normal. The frequency of these will pick up a bit in later discs of this story.

From the musical trivia end, we’ve got another Extended Mix this time around, this one first debuting in Super Eurobeat Vol. 74 - Extended Version - Rodgers & Contini Edition. With how much things went down to the wire, I was already having trouble with the 4:56 version from Super Eurobeat Presents Initial D ~D Selection 2~ let alone the original release’s 3:54 runtime.

This is probably the most direct look that we’ll be getting at a Gym battle in this story, and it’s just as well that it’d be Iono’s Gym, since it has one of the most memorable backdrops in the game and lent itself well for the background music. Also just went and squeezed in a Nemona and Geeta cameo here, since let’s get real, it’d be more surprising if Nemona wasn’t stalking the player character in some capacity with how often she pops up right behind you in its story.

Translation Notes:

If some of the human dialogue in this chapter looked familiar to you, then you just might have played Scarlet / Violet in Spanish where Iono is better known as ‘e-Nigma’. Iono’s dialogue in particular this chapter pulls from her in-game battle quotes from that localization, complete with its localization-specific characterization quirks.

- Empujón - Spanish localization name for “Arm Thrust”. lit. “Shove”, “Push”, “Jostle”.
- «OMG! La cosa pinta un poco chunguilla, ¿no? ¡Más vale mandar ánimos, electrolitos mios!» - “OMG! Things are looking a little dire, aren’t they? Better send some encouragement, my electrolytes!
- «¡Muestra tu brillbrilli, bolballita! ¡No me falles!» - “Show off your sparkle, little ball! Don't let me down!"
- «¡Mira! ¡Mira! ¡Allá!» - “Look! Look! (Over) There!”
- «¡Lucas, cambio! ¡Vuelve aquí!» - “Lucas, switch! Come back here!”

Spiteful Murkrow · Jul 11, 2026

Maybe Tonite

«Iré porque yo quiero competir. Es mi decisión, ¿entendieron? Volveré hasta que termine la carrera».

You blink as a song with what sounds like chimes joined by almost moaning beats plays through your ear. It's one of the same songs that Juliana has had Chispa play during your recent travels, even if you're in a place that's very different from when you normally have been hearing it. You're here resting next to a folding table on this dusty rise overlooking a spiral-shaped pit, with the lights of a small human town off in the distance to the west. Juliana's here alongside you, propped up against your flank and looking at the screen of her phone as Chispa floats it above the ground.

It's a cartoon of some sort in between black bars on the left and right. The current scene shows a group of young male humans talking with each other around some boxy-looking cars in a parking lot and talking about some sort of race. All of them seem quite worried about it, aside from one space-y looking human that seems strangely indifferent.

The sound quality is much worse than what you're used to hearing through your headphones, and the talking sometimes drowns out the music in the background, but something about this scene is strangely compelling.

Compelling enough that you still haven't finished the half-eaten sandwich by your feet as you watch the conversation play out.

«Ya lo decidí. Lo único que quiero es correr lo más rápido posible en esa cúspide que no conozco».

"'Race as fast as possible on that peak I don't know'?" You blink after hearing engine noises mixing in with the chorus of the song coming through your headphone and look back at the screen. There's a new scene showing cars driving along a highway.

You must be learning more of Juliana's language than you realized. A few of the show's words sound strange, but it's recognizably the same. Turo also spoke this language, too. Except you barely understood it back then.

Footsteps pattering against arid dust turns your attention from the screen as Lucas walks up as your other teammates kick around that ball in the background. He pauses briefly, before giving a double-take at the phone floating in the air.

"Chispa, what on earth are you showing through that phone right now?"

"Some old TV show," the Rotom replies. "It's that one Penny recommended to Juliana after they talked about the music she's been listening to while traveling."

Oh, so this is that TV show. The one that apparently got Juliana interested in 'drifting'.

The sound of the voices in the cartoon talking over the music turns your attention back to the phone's screen. Things have cut to some of the worried humans as they talk a bit about the hero, the spacey human, not being ready for this race he's headed off to.

You freeze and hang your head as something about the conversation hits a bit close to home for you. You've been going along and helping Juliana as your strength returns to you so far, but for what? Back when you had your full strength, he still ran you off from your old home. All your fighting accomplished in the end was getting Turo hurt.

A part of you wants to go back when your strength is back to avenge your friend, but the prospect of returning there sends a shiver down your metallic scales. He's surely still waiting there for you, and you're completely unready to face him again.

Especially since he won't be defeated just by some race down a mountain.

You look down uneasily, when a voice from Chispa's screen pricks your ears:

«Correré lo mejor posible, confía en mí. Sé que nosotras somos un equipo».

You tilt your head towards the phone Chispa's indwelling and see a pair of women clasping hands in front of a blue car with determined expressions. 'I know that we are a team'...? You hadn't been paying that much attention to the show earlier tonight, but you remembered that one of the women in this scene turned some sort of harness for the blue car while the other helped spot things in advance.

"... You alright there, Wheels? You're kinda spacing out."

You blink and look back up at Chispa, who's staring at you. So's Juliana, who's turned away from the phone and is worriedly stroking under your chin. There's a moment of uneasy quiet, as a dawning realization comes over you.

The sort of teamwork that those two women from the TV show have isn't all that different from the teamwork you've all had during this 'treasure hunt'. You still don't have the strength to enter that 'Ultimate Mode' which allows you to fight, but Lucas and his teammates have been stepping in to fight for you when it's needed. This 'Paldea' region is still very much a new place to you, but Juliana and Chispa's knowledge help guide you past what you can see for yourself.

You don't know how much Juliana or even your Pokémon teammates who understand you fully grasp what you're going through, but they've always been there to help you chase it. To get used to your old abilities again as your strength returns little by little, as the claw impressions from the high jump you took to make it up here remind you. Same for the sandwich by your claws. You figured out a while back that only sandwiches made with some of that 'Herba Mystica' seemed to make a difference with helping you regain your strength, but she still happily makes ones for you whenever you're hungry or even just feeling down.

And your strength, as incomplete and diminished as it is, has been the key to allowing your companions to get as far as they have in this treasure hunt. Why, if it weren't for your running, they'd likely have run out of that 'money' of theirs hiring Cyclizar by the time they reached Artazon.

A small smile comes over your face. Even if you wished it could have come together differently, you too, are part of a team.

"I'm fine. I'm probably just a bit tired from running all day," you answer the Rotom. "Though is this what 'treasure hunts' are like in whatever region this TV show is from? Since I swear that I sometimes heard the humans in it saying the name Juliana sometimes calls me."

"No, you're not hearing things," Lucas tells you. "They're talking about the hero's car. It's apparently called a 'Trueno' something-or-other."

You blink and tilt your head as Lucas drifts off with his teammate. That little boxy car in the show is a 'Trueno', too? The same one that other characters in the show supposedly make fun of for being weak and slow?

You don't know what would compel humans to name it 'thunder'. Or why it keeps winning in spite of being so outmatched or in impossible situations.

You're curious now, and settle in and snarf up your food as Juliana settles in against your side. You tilt your head, and as you chew over the sandwich in your jaws, you keep your eyes focused on the TV show playing on Chispa's screen, this time in rapt attention.

Maybe it's nothing, but a part of you can't help but see a bit of yourself in that old cartoon.

And you want to see what will happen next.

Commentary:

And closing out Disc 1 with a bit of a slower song today. The version of Maybe Tonite used for scoring this chapter is the Extended Mix that first debuted in Super Eurobeat Presents Initial D ~D Selection 2~. While there's some chapters with some discrepancies between the music provided for readers and the one heard in-setting, my official handwave is "something something it's in Trueno's head while the cartoon's playing".

Maybe, anyways. As some readers likely put together, this is one of the more naked Initial D references in this story, with the cartoon Juliana and the gang are watching being strongly implied to be their equivalent of the Latin American dub of First Stage – Act 17. For the purists looking to 1:1 Trueno's experience in this chapter, try pulling this link up in a new window while reading along.

Translation Notes:

As hinted at in passing in the chapter, the quotes from the gang's cartoon are in Latin American Spanish, and as such are different from the Peninsular Spanish that is used as the default for this story's Spanish-language content. There's also a Peninsular Spanish dub of Initial D as well, but it's significantly more niche and more importantly for this story, the dialogue it has in the sequence this chapter samples couldn't be thematically linked to the viewpoint character's experiences as nicely. My official in-setting handwave is that it's a side effect of some combination of Juliana canonically moving in from outside Paldea and getting anime recommendations from a L2 speaker of her language.

- «Iré porque yo quiero competir. Es mi decisión, ¿entendieron? Volveré hasta que termine la carrera». - "I'm going because I want to compete. It's my decision, do you understand? I'll return once the race is over."
- «Ya lo decidí. Lo único que quiero es correr lo más rápido posible en esa cúspide que no conozco». - "I've already decided. The only thing I want is to race as fast as possible on that peak I don't know."
- «Correré lo mejor posible, confía en mí. Sé que nosotras somos un equipo». - "I will race as best I can, trust me. I know that we are a team."

Spiteful Murkrow · Jul 18, 2026

around the world

You look up from your rings and the water underneath them. There’s trumpets in the air, part of a melody just loud enough to hear above your wake in these unnaturally still seas.

Something about it seems vaguely familiar to you. Maybe it’s one of those songs you’ve heard on your journey with Juliana and her friends, but you can’t quite put your claw on when you heard it.

You bank towards the island as a snarling guitar riff joins in the music. A glance up into the sky reveals a translucent outline of a red disc partly covering it—the headphone Juliana shares with you while riding.

A reminder you’re in your Pokéball, a place where almost everything around you’s an illusion.

The human voice cutting in isn’t, though. Neither are those electronic riffs joining in. Those sounds are very much real, as are the glimpses of Juliana moving her arms at a desk. She’s apparently studying for an exam in that library at the very entrance of her lab, for her math teacher’s class whose name you don’t remember—you think you heard her get called ‘Mila’ before.

You push air out of your thrusters and barrel along towards the mock island: all cliffs with sandy beaches and palm trees at the bottom. If it wasn’t for the lack of a lighthouse or other Pokémon in general, you could almost mistake it for the surroundings of that lab in Cabo Poco… where you first met Arven and Fito.

Turo got this Pokéball for you there after you accidentally broke your first one—which is why it filled in its simulated environment based on those surrounding beach cliffs instead of that crater where your first lab was.

After Turo left it behind in the chaos following the whole incident with those Wingull, you never expected to ever see it again.

A part of you’s surprised Arven held onto it. Even if he didn’t yell at you again last time, he’s surely still mad at you from the way he avoided talking to you.

… Maybe that’s why you’ve been restless in your Pokéball lately, since you were expecting these beaches and cliffs to bring back happier memories for you.

A female voice joins in from the headphone outside right as your rings touch sand. You brace yourself as the cliff approaches and tense your limbs. One of the things you liked about the space around your second lab and inside this Pokéball is the number of ways you could get around with your different Modes.

It’s been a convenient place to practice getting used to them again.

You spring up at the cliff face as your Hadron Engine whines, throwing your claws out. Your grip’s not as strong as you remembered it, but maybe it’s enough to let you climb these cliffs again.

Your foreclaws hit the not-rock first, and then your hindclaws do. But much to your dismay, no matter how you swipe or try to dig them in, you just can’t support your weight, and flop back onto the not-beach.

“Figures…”

You roll onto your feet and let your Hadron Engine spin down. Just like every time you’ve tried since returning to this Pokéball, you’re no closer to getting to your favorite vantage points and perches you used to be able to just fly up to…

Suddenly, above the chiming music in the background, you hear a growl of frustration. It’s not as loud, but something about it reminds you of your own. When you look up into the mock-sky, you see Juliana, slumped forward onto her desk.

“Juliana?”

Your pupils shrink. She’s not normally like that. Something’s really wrong right now.

You stomp the ground with all your might as your surroundings melt into blinding light. Before you know it, you’re back in the outside world, by a wooden desk placed along a curved wall with partitions on either end.

Juliana’s there, the other headphone on her ear, and her head in her hands. Staring blankly at book pages filled with numbers.

Something about this moment feels familiar. And without thinking, you bring your snout down and nudge her.

“A-Are you okay?”

She perks up when you nudge her and turns in her seat, when it suddenly occurs to you why this feels familiar. It’s like those times when your old friend was stuck on something while working on his research, especially before he built his assistant.

You remember what lifted his spirits during those times. Maybe something similar would help her.

“Why don’t you take a break, Juliana? If I’ve been going crazy inside my Pokéball, I don’t know how you’re handling just sitting there all this time.”

You never understood that about humans, honestly. They way they just spend hours in one place barely moving sometimes, even at a young age. Much less how sometimes they’re expected to do that. Is that even healthy for them?

A sharp buzz snaps you to attention, as you turn and see Chispa floating up.

“Trueno. Give her some space. I’ll admit it’s been slow, but Juliana does need to focus on her studies.”

“But she looks miserable right now!”

You motion for the door, and Juliana hesitates briefly. After a moment’s pause, she goes through her belongings, fishing out your headphone and its mount and slips them over your head. The music’s you heard in your Pokéball’s still playing on it, and a small smile crosses her face.

“I think you convinced her,” Chispa says. “Go on ahead and meet us at the door.”

You wait a moment as Juliana closes the book and starts to shuffle it into her bag as you turn and make your way off—by walking. The last time you ran around in Ride Mode inside Juliana’s lab, both she and you got an earful from her teachers afterwards.

As you make your way forward, you wonder why you don’t come to this place more often. Even if you can’t run around, there’s plenty of humans and Pokémon passing by—and they don’t stare at you as often as they used to—

THUMP!

Something jostles your shoulder, when you see you’ve bumped into one of those kiosk-shaped bookshelves. Much to your alarm, one of the books has flopped to the floor face-down. Hard.

“A-Ack!”

You try to nudge the book back before anyone notices. You don’t trust your claws or mouth to handle its battered purple and gold cover, but maybe you can at least prop it up against—

“H-Huh?!”

You see its violet cover and freeze. There’s a black, serpentine figure on it, whose shape looks just like your Ultimate Mode.

It looks just like that book that Turo and Arven have. But what’s it doing here? Wasn’t the whole reason you went back to your first lab to stay hidden—?

A hand enters your vision as Juliana scoops up the book from the ground. She sees the cover herself and blinks, briefly glancing between it and you.

And just as quickly, she shelves it, before tugging at you with words you make out this time:

«Trueno, vámonos».

You’ll worry about it later. You’ve got places to be right now.

Commentary:

Yeah, so remember how I mentioned that this series was set to a mostly Eurobeat soundtrack? Today’s installment kicks off Disc 2 by starting to get a bit further out onto that limb with the Dave Rodgers Remix of around the world which was included as a bonus track to Super Eurobeat Presents Initial D ~D Selection~. The original non-Eurobeat version of the song has a bit more notoriety as the music used for the original opening for Initial D, and first commercially released in its full length as part of m.o.v.e’s debut album electrorock. Unfortunately, there was not a public upload of the Dave Rodgers Remix of the song without the show’s title catch jingle at the time of posting trimmed, so it remains here for this chapter’s music.

While it is probably obvious from context, ‘Mila’ is the Spanish localization name for ‘Tyme’ for all your fun times™ you spend in math class at Uva/Naranja Academy. Also, this marks the first time in this series where we get to see the inside of a Pokéball, which those of you who follow my other trainerverse fare will likely find its depiction quite familiar. It was a particularly convenient way of allowing Trueno to get up and zip around even though he’s technically not going anywhere fast. You’ll be seeing these simulated cliffside beaches in a few more chapters in this story.

Translation Notes:

- «Trueno, vámonos». - “Trueno, let’s get out of here.” Note that while “vámonos” is commonly translated as “let’s go” in English, in Spanish it very specifically carries an implication of going and leaving a place, unlike the similar “vamos”.

Spiteful Murkrow · Jul 25, 2026

This Time

A guitar riff reverberates in your memory banks. One of the songs you’d been listening to on the way over, except it dawns on you that it’s not actually coming from your ears this time.

It’s another one of those ‘ear worms’—a moment where the music you’ve been listening to will stick and resurface again and again much like a memory even after being sigkilled.

Da-daaaah Da-da-da Daah-da-da Da-da-da-dah

You suppose that it’s somewhat fitting that it’d also happen someplace you also have memories of. Even if you wish that it wasn’t this song. It always struck you as sounding strange—sadder than most of the songs Chispa’s been playing lately. You weren’t really sure why until you asked him about it.

He said that from what he’d gathered of what humans said about it, it was a song about being rejected.

You suppose that’s not wholly unfitting for this place, either. This was where you fled to after your fight with him went so horribly wrong. The place you saw Arven for the first time in years.

And the place where you found out that he’d grown to hate you since you were gone. To the point where he told Juliana he was eager to get rid of you.

“Did we not go to the right place? I thought you said this used to be your home.”

You’re in front of the lighthouse at the very north of Poco Path—tall and banded white and red. Down at the base and at the first door to the left is where your second lab was—still firmly locked up based on the way that Juliana and Chispa are testing the doorknob only for it not budge.

It’s not like your first one. It’s just one little set of rooms instead of a whole system of research stations, and you almost never got to run and fly around outside it without your Pokéball while the sun was up…

Not that Lucas knows anything about that.

“No, it’s the right place.”

“Could’ve fooled me with that reaction.”

For a brief moment, you hear human voices, only to realize that it’s still that ear worm. You glance up and see that Juliana and Chispa are making their way over, with their expressions both looking puzzled. You awkwardly paw at the ground, and avert your gaze.

You should be happier here, but you just aren’t…

One of the things that you’ve learned since traveling with Juliana is that humans often like bringing their partners back to their old homes to visit. It’s supposed to help them get to know where their friends came from better, and keep them from getting homesick. Kinda like the way Juliana herself sometimes goes back to Cabo Poco.

You suppose it’s technically not your old home. But you’re not sure if it’s worth trying to explain that when you yourself don’t remember anything from where you came from before Turo brought you to your first lab with that machine of his…

And you definitely don’t consider that place home anymore...

It’s just that for Lucas and all of Juliana’s other partners, they always looked like they were having fun going back to the places they came from. And you surely don’t look that way right now.

“Did you not like it here, Trueno?” Lucas asks.

You hesitate, as he holds his head at a worried tilt from the corner of your eye.

“I did… it’s just… complicated.”

It’s not as if you don’t have any good memories here. You have plenty of ones about watching Turo scribbling glyphs and sketches in the lab. Of learning from Fito about how to make it obvious that you were friendly and wanted to have fun with others. Of watching the sunset at the top of the lighthouse with Turo or Arven. Occasionally with them together on the few rare occasions where Turo wasn’t busy with his work.

Except it was also the place where you’d get summarily recalled to your Pokéball if you tried to sneak out. Where the whole incident with the Wingull happened which you just know ruined everything between you and Arven. The place that Turo fled so quickly that he left behind that Pokéball and that purple-covered book that Arven now has…

Times that make you remember his hateful snarling about how you were a mistake…

There’s a patting on your snout as you see Juliana looking worriedly at you, asking you if you’re okay. You waver a bit since you know you’re surely letting everyone down, when Lucas chimes in.

“Is there an old place that doesn’t have a complicated past for you, Trueno? We could always go there instead.”

… You’re not sure where that would be. It’s not as if your first lab’s any better. Turo trusted you with being a guardian of that paradise he was trying to build, except he kept forcing you out of more and more of it and Turo just didn’t seem to understand what was going wrong.

You turn your eyes away from the lighthouse and southwards down the path. There, on the right side of it, you see a small cave mouth. The same one you exited out of on your trip up to the lighthouse after you first met Juliana…

Actually… maybe there is an old place that’s not complicated for you. Sort of.

You nudge at Juliana, before turning your head and nosing off at your back.

“Juliana, let’s go,” you tell her. “It’s… not quite home, but there’s someplace I’d like to see again right now. It’s not far, either.”

She blinks at you for a moment, before Lucas goes and clambers onto your back.

Just as the music in your head swells, Juliana clambers aboard. You don’t even wait for her to put her hands on your harness before reforming your rings and zooming off. She lets out a brief cry, hurriedly grabbing on and returning Chispa to his phone mount as you charge ahead, your Hadron Engine whining.

It takes all of a small hop to clear the ledge leading up to the cave entrance. Darkness and green light in the distance take over—that moss on parts of the walls, as you suddenly feel air under your rings.

You reflexively fan your horns out. If you had your full strength, energy membranes would fill in, but—-

SKRRRTCH!

You land hard with a chorus of yelps from your passengers—you didn’t realize those ledges you’d jetted up while carrying Juliana out of here originally were this high. Your balance wobbles and your rings start to lose traction as your forward ring starts drifting leftward. A sharp jerk right guides it towards a stony pillar, where there’s an uneven set of step-like stones down.

You throw your weight behind your foreclaws, letting your tail-ring slide out wide to make yourself parallel to the steps. Another boost forward and you unevenly jolt down them as Juliana tugs on your harness and prompts you to come to a skidding stop.

“Trueno! Give us some warning before you do that!”

To your left, there’s a patch of green, glowing moss… and a ledge leading to a sharp drop just beyond it. On your back, you see Lucas visibly fuming. Juliana doesn’t look much happier, as you slowly realize that you don’t know where you are.

“Hey! You there!”

Your friends’ eyes widen as you look back at the sound of snarling growls and see black and orange dogs running up. Crouched and fangs bared. Houndour like the ones that chased Juliana through here the first time, with a larger one leading the rest.

“What do you think you’re doing coming into-!”

There’s a sudden flash of recognition in the leader’s eyes that the other Houndour mirror. This time it’s their eyes that widen. A few of them tremble and one squeaks out a whining “i-it’s the monster”.

They… must not realize that you can’t fight right now. Further behind them, there’s a tunnel aglow in green.

Okay, you know where you are now. And how to get where you want to…

Gwaaaoooor!

You let out a bellowing roar. The Houndour scatter, as you push air out your thrusters and barrel ahead. The tunnel flashes by your eyes, the surroundings getting more and more familiar in reverse as you go down in a leftward spiral: the big chamber with the tall stalactites drooping down into it, the taller tunnel with glowing moss just past it that leads into the big chamber with stony pillars…

When you see the pool of seawater and the light at the end of the tunnel ahead, your friends see have that moment of realization about where you’ve taken them even before they can see the palm trees and golden sands:

To the beach where you washed up. Where your journey together began.

Commentary:

This installment was definitely on the harder side to fit into the background music’s run length, with the version of This Time used for scoring being the Extended Version from Super Eurobeat Presents Derreck Simons Special Collection, it definitely wouldn’t have been doable with the 3:50 original release.

There’s some degree of going out on a limb as part of assuming how Trueno would parse the lighthouse since the game implies bike dragon sees it as enough of a safe place to reflexively flee to and leaves it pretty open as to what’s going on inside his head with Arven’s outwardly unfriendly reactions to bike dragon in the in-game cutscenes. For narrative purposes, I figured that narratively for a character that I’d made a decision to have a bit of a shaky understanding of what the humans around him were saying, that it made sense that he’d both take Arven’s reactions at face value and have some conflicting feelings about the lighthouse given that Turo/Sada depending on your version of the game are implied to have had fairly fraught family lives while staying there.

Spiteful Murkrow · Aug 1, 2026

Lonely Love

Strange words in a human tongue, followed by an electronic chiming DUN-dun-dun that repeats in your headphone and through Chispa’s speaker. Part of a tune that bobbles up and down almost like your body is right now.

You’re currently in Aquatic Mode, somewhere in the South Paldean Sea. To your left is a line of rocky cliffs that seemingly stretch on for forever, to your right is an equally endless-looking sea.

The music’s starting to pick up now. In the water, a stunned Finizen hurriedly swims off, while closer to you is a still-dripping Lucas clambering onto your back fresh from his latest battle. Juliana gathers the floating pad back into Lucas’ Pokéball, and tightens her grip on your harness.

And beckons you forward.

Your Hadron Engine spins up and your hips’ thrusters roar to life as you jet forward, your rings flinging seawater in a spray all around you.

That wasn’t unexpected. You’ve done that in lakes and rivers in Aquatic mode. What is unexpected, are these choppy waves your rings keep bouncing off like when running over particularly rough land.

It means that as you go along, Juliana’s constantly tugging your harness this and that way to fight the waves shifting your bearing. You can’t get a clear view of Lucas on your back right now, but you can already visualize his less-than-thrilled expression just from his tone of voice.

“Most direct route, my butt,” he huffs. “Chispa, that’s got to be the dozenth battle with a wild Pokémon we’ve had on the way over!”

“Look, feather-face, the map doesn’t lie,” the Rotom snaps from the phone on its mount. “Short of flying, going by sea is the fastest way to reach Secluded Beach from Cabo Poco!”

You try to stay focused on plowing ahead as the music picks up in the background, but Chispa’s not wrong. Even from the brief glance from the air that you had of the area while fleeing your old lab, there’s only open wind and waves along the whole southern stretch of Paldea.

You suppose that Juliana could’ve hired one of those Air Taxis, but the flyer wouldn’t take her without a drop-off point that she didn’t already know about. If you could still fly, you’d have gotten there even faster, and without running into a bunch of battles along the way.

Except… you just don’t know when that’ll happen at this rate…

As you charge along, the water suddenly guides you upwards and there’s air under your rings. Your eyes briefly widen, as you look down and see you’re above the surface of the sea. You splash down, seawater going over your shoulders as your passengers cry out in surprise.

“Hey! Hey! Watch the electronics, pal!” Chispa buzzes.

Oops.

You don’t know why the waters here are like this right now. During those times when you snuck out of your first lab with Arven and down to the beach below the cliffs, the water was always calm once you got past the breaking waves that came up to the shore.

Are… not all parts of the sea like that?

You slow down to a stop and crane your head back with a grimace. Lucas doesn’t look particularly fazed since his feathers are more or less built for water to roll off of them, but Juliana looks drenched.

«¿Eh? ¿Trueno, por qué te paras?»

Except she looks more worried than upset like you feared, and as the song starts repeating lyrics, she calls for you to keep going. You pick up the pace and push yourself forward with your thrusters. Your body bounces amidst choppy waves in the water, when Juliana tugs rightward along your harness.

“You want me to turn here?”

You steal a glance back towards her as she’s trading glances between Chispa and the waves you’re plowing into. You follow along with her guidance and start turning right, except about halfway through, she stops and holds your course steady.

You’re still going as fast as you were, but now you’re not constantly feeling the waves crash against you.

“Ah!”

Their cadence feels different now. As you plow ahead in the sea, you can feel yourself leaning rightward as you climb the wave ahead of you. As you reach the top, you even out briefly, before the water makes you start leaning left while descending down the other side of the wave.

You wouldn’t have expected such a little thing like the angle you were approaching the wave to make such a big difference. Her grip seems more relaxed now, enough so that she even lets a hand go from your harness briefly…

«Mira, allá».

Her hand briefly passes the right of your vision and she points off. You feel Lucas shifting on you, and you turn your head to follow her finger, only to briefly freeze at the sight:

It’s a flock of Wingull flying past in the distance…

You turn your attention sharply ahead to the waters ahead and keep charging forward, all too eager to move along.

Your Hadron Engine hums louder with an agitated tone before it hangs in the place it’s been hanging since eating the Herba Mystica that that Titan Orthworm watched over. You know that those aren’t the same Wingull from that day you ruined everything back at the lighthouse lab, but you just wish they were gone.

If you’d just never attacked them, maybe you’d all still be at that lab. Maybe Arven would still like you. Maybe Fito wouldn’t be hurt right now since Arven wouldn’t have tried to go through the crater to see Tur—

Your thoughts hang there—and a sinking feeling comes over your stomach.

Does… Does Arven blame you for Fito’s injuries? B-But they’re not your fault…!

Are they?

“Wheels!”

A sharp buzz from Chispa snaps you to attention. Your eyes widen as you see that the wave up ahead is noticeably tall and starting to crest.

“Ack!”

Juliana steers you towards the wave and calls for you to speed up. There’s no time to question it, and you follow her guidance, running your thrusters harder and harder for dear life. Your Hadron Engine’s hum grows ever louder as your body tilts further and further horizontal, when Juliana turns your harness leftward.

You follow it and run your thrusters with all your might. The world goes right-side up and the wave breaks just behind you with an audible crash.

Your forward ring hits something soft but firm and you almost fall off of them entirely as your forward progress suddenly feels sluggish as the surf washes past your claws.

Wait, you know exactly what causes this!

You deflate your rings and shift back into Drive Mode, coasting to a stop. Sure enough, you’re on a beach.

A racing melody kicks up as your surroundings fill in. You’re on a little island of some sort. There’s precious little of anything here beyond a few Wattrel hopping and flying around and a lone woman a little ways off who’s turning and staring curiously.

Your own heart starts to flutter along with the music. You’re finally—!

“I thought the Secluded Beach was supposed to have palm trees,” Lucas suddenly says.

“It does. That’s it over there.”

As the music starts fading, Chispa pokes out of the phone strapped to your harness and points a tendril off into the distance, where there really is another beach. With palm trees. And a Pokémon Center. And lots of humans and Pokémon on it.

You blink slowly before getting back onto your rings. You don’t know how ‘Secluded’ that beach really looks, but it shouldn’t take long to get there.

Commentary:

Not much to say about the song choice today other than that it got its casting primarily because it just vibed right with bobbing up and down along with some sea waves. In this particular case, I opted to score the chapter to the 4:48 Version from Super Eurobeat Presents Initial D ~D Selection 2~ since it was both noticeably longer than the original 4-minute release from Super Eurobeat Vol. 87. There’s also an Extended Mix of this song that runs for 5:38 which first debuted in Super Eurobeat Vol. 87 Extended Version Time Edition, but I didn’t quite click with the extended sequences in it.

And yeah, the central premise of today’s chapter was essentially “reality ensues” for going off into the sea with Aquatic Mode, since no sea is ever as still as the ones in-game. It’s to be determined as to if the ones in Wind and Waves will be a bit more wave-y than the ones around Paldea. As for the trick that Juliana stumbles into to make the gang’s journey a bit less choppy, that’s a common boating technique for more smoothly traversing waves on large bodies of water, which is probably an artifact of me having over a million words of oceanpunk antics under my belt as part of a writing duo.

Translation Notes:

- «¿Eh? ¿Trueno, por qué te paras?» - “Huh? Trueno, why are you stopping?”

Spiteful Murkrow · Saturday at 5:44 AM

1 2 3 4 Fire!

There’s a chiming beat in your memory banks, one of the songs you’ve been listening to on the way to this “Schedar Squad”’s Team Star base that Juliana got put up to challenging in battle.

You should be less nervous right now. As a glimpse up at silhouettes in the simulated sky above this simulated island remind you, all the battling in this base is happening outside of this Pokéball you’re in.

But something’s wrong, especially after seeing another red light of a recalling Pokéball crossing the sky. Is everyone alright…?

And then much to your surprise, Juliana’s hand comes down. For your Pokéball.

Everything happens so fast afterwards. Her hand blotting out the sky, your surroundings melting into light, and a loud, raucous din as you see grass underfoot, and Juliana behind you, staring wide-eyed.

“Juliana, what’s-?”

Then there’s a loud roaring noise that reminds you vaguely of your Hadron Engine, and something heavy and hot slamming into you.

You yelp and go tumbling back, landing on your side. D-Did Juliana send you out into a battle?! She should know better that you can’t battle now!

You hear her calling out for you in that nickname she gave you. A quick glance reveals that she’s hurriedly picking up a Pokéball from the ground.

You stumble back onto your feet as the pieces start coming together. Juliana must’ve sent you out by mistake. But what even hit you? It didn’t hurt that badly, but it’s the first time since that last fight in your old lab that you’ve been knocked off your feet and—

“Time to run you over, you overgrown skink!”

There’s a deafening roar as a Revaroom attached to an orange and pink wall comes barreling at you. You scream and leap backwards by reflex, coiling your tail and dewlap into rings as a pink blur fills the space where you were in a couple seconds ago and your rings touch the ground again.

Your surroundings start filling in after landing. You’re in a grassy place ringed by canvas structures with gawking Pokémon and humans in starry sunglasses, with a big one to the right in front of a sheer cliff with sliding doors left open.

When you follow the sound, you see a red banner with flames, speakers and strobing lights, as something like a bus mixed with a music stage enters a hovering skid just above the ground.

There’s a Revaroom attached to that… thing, with a redheaded girl in a black outfit with a gigantic set of red boots, glaring fiercely from its very top.

“Wha-?! They’ve got another Starmobile here?!”

Back beside you, you see Lucas running up, beak agape as Juliana hastily pulls a Pokéball off in the background. All the while, you splutter and your voice comes out in more of a startled squeak than you care to admit.

“‘A-Another Starmobile’?!”

You know you retreated into your Pokéball after how badly your attempt at battling at the last Team Star base went, but “Casiopea” or whatever they’re called seriously made everyone fight one of these things last time?!

No, this is insane. Someone else can fight Team Star. You’re taking Juliana and lea—

“Hey! Having two Pokémon out at once is cheating!”

You hear a loud rev as the ‘Starmobile’ starts lumbering forward, fire swirling in the maw above the Revaroom’s eye after a «¡Pirochoque!» from the girl up top in a voice that’s almost like your own roars.

You don’t know what that attack is, but you’re definitely not sticking around to find out.

You run your Hadron Engine as hard as you can, sending yourself barreling for Juliana. She calls for Lucas to use Aqua Cutter as you grab her by her backpack and throw her onto your back. She lets out a startled cry, and briefly scowls at you, before jerking your hardness sharply rightward.

You push air out of your hips’ thrusters as hard as they will go, as you follow Juliana’s prodding. Much to your horror, your rings lose traction and you hastily twist your head and forelimbs leftward as you slide along the grass, the back of your left claws almost touching the ground before evening out.

You almost hit a small group of spectators in the process. They jump away with startled cries as you rocket past them. A quick glance back over your shoulder reveals that back in front of the big tent, the Starmobile is also turning around, in a much wider and slower arc.

Up ahead, there’s the scaffolding along the sides of the path back to the entrance. Good. You hope Lucas’ Pokéball can recall him from here, since it’s about time to leave this stupid ‘base’ behind and—

VROOOOOOOOOH!

The pupils on your optical sensors shrink and your jaw flops open. You don’t know how it’s possible, but that ‘Starmobile’ has closed the gap and is visibly gaining on you.

“I-Is it getting faster right now?!”

The sneer on the Revaroom’s eye and maw says it all. But Revaroom can’t do that, can they? Then how on earth is-?!

Juliana turns you right again as you enter a skidding drift. The Starmobile hurtles past you as you’re now facing down the length of the battlefield, as a watery orb suddenly zips in past your right. It’s Lucas. Bracing himself just after a Water Pulse a little ways down the field when a vrooming bellow fills the air.

“That stung, you stupid bird!”

Lucas’ eyes widen. Your own do too, as much to your alarm, the Starmobile rockets forward towards Lucas. Juliana calls out for him to dodge and you run your thrusters as hard as you can to reach him, but somehow, in spite of its bulk, the pink contraption outspeeds you.

Straight into Lucas.

He lets out a sharp squawk and goes tumbling to a stop on the ground. You race over as fast as you can as he staggers up with a dizzy wobble to his step.

“Oh, so that’s what it’s like to get hit by a bus…”

You don’t wait for him to finish as you force your head under his chest, and all but throw him over the top and onto your shoulders and take off towards the path back to the entrance.

Maybe you could help and it’d be different if you were still strong, you just can’t do anything right now!

Ro-to-to-to. Ro-to-to-to.

You briefly glimpse Juliana fumbling through her pocket on your back as she grabs Chispa and a voice comes from him.

«Hola, esta es la Liga. Necesitamos verificar su contraseña—»

She frowns and hangs up, before prompting you to jump to the side. The Starmobile blows through the empty space where you just were, and almost crashes into one of the scaffolded platforms. You freeze and grimace—the thing’s cut off your escape!

It’s right then when Chispa buzzes over the din.

“Looks like this battle could be going better,” he says. “Let’s put a spring in your step, feather-face!”

He jolts his phone as you suddenly hear numbers like Salvatore would use and it that song that’s been in your head on-and-off fills the air. The Starmobile up ahead backs up from the scaffolding as a flash of recognition comes over Juliana’s eyes and she points ahead.

«¡Lucas, trepalo!»

The Quaxwell briefly shoots an incredulous look. Something calms him and he takes off running—towards fender flares on the Starmobile’s right by a set of large speakers.

Juliana calls out to you to run. You turn falteringly and dash forward as she guides you back down the battlefield as the spectators keep jeering and egging the girl with the boots and her Starmobile on.

You just don’t know what she hopes to accomplish.

“Chispa, what is Juliana doing?! Lucas can’t beat that!”

“He and the team beat the last one! Just keep them distracted!”

They… did? But how? Juliana jerks your harness leftwards and sends you into a skidding stop. The Starmobile’s rumble grows ever louder as it bears down.

Then she prompts you to jump. Backwards.

Like you’ve done so many times on this journey, you vault up and backwards into the air. And right as the Starmobile barrels through, she cries out:

«¡Tajo Acuático!»

Watery crescents suddenly fly through the air. There’s a sharp pop as Lucas drops off to a crouching stop in front of you. The Starmobile skids to a stop—speakers now sparking, and its Revaroom seething and panting.

Except you’re not afraid anymore.

Since right now, you’re sure your friends can win.

Commentary:

The version of 1 2 3 4 Fire! used for scoring in this chapter is the Extended Mix that first appeared in Super Eurobeat Presents Fastway Special Collection, Vol. 1. Which is just as well, since the song’s appearances prior to in mixed compilation albums that were considerably shorter such as the original 2:43 version that debuted in Super Eurobeat Presents Euromach 9, and the 3:42 version that debuted in Super Eurobeat Presents Euromach 10 ~Non-Stop ParaPara Mix~, which would’ve been… uh… impossible to score anything to considering how I was fighting for every last word at the end of this chapter.

This is another one of those chapters that gets a bit further off onto a limb from the canonical source material, but I figured that I wanted some excuse to show off a Starmobile in this series given how big of a thing they are in a normal playthrough. The fact that it also helped solve the “standing on the sidelines” issue that said battles have in with the official games’ turn-based gameplay and provided a narrative excuse to get Trueno a bit more used to zipping around in the middle of battles was an added bonus.

Translation Notes:

- Pirochoque - Spanish localization name for “Blazing Torque”
- «Hola, esta es la Liga. Necesitamos verificar su contraseña—» - “Hello, this is the League. We need to verify your password—”
- «¡Lucas, trepalo!» - “Lucas, climb it!”
- Tajo Acuático - Spanish localization name for “Aqua Cutter”, lit. “Aquatic Cut/Slash”

EVERYONE: - Ongoing Trueno

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