Candy

From Everland to Reborn ~ Episode 83B HA! As back-to-back as you gon' get, frendos The next day, we woke up when the sun was already quite high up in the sky. My blisters were miraculously mostly gone. That ointment from the ‘abroad’, as Europa called it, wasn’t hyped for nothing. Yet, we couldn't just idly lie on the dusty and sandy train seats forever. We had to make arrangements to go exploring the desert once again, as though we hadn’t had enough of that already. I was in a fowl mood because of that, while I removed my bandages one by one. “You don’t seem to have had a good night’s sleep,” Taka said when he saw me. “I know the seats aren’t the most comfortable things, but I’d say they’re much softer than the ground.” Even though he said that, his eyes’ dark circles didn’t seem to have lightened up overnight. Meanwhile, on the other side of the train car, Archer was trying to wake Julia up. She had had too much fun last night, apparently. We left them and went outside. Al and Bill were there, but neither Brenda or Europa were anywhere to be seen. “Good morning, peeps. Europa’s busy waking Brenda up,” Bill said. “She’s always terrible at waking up. That’s why we wanted to end the party early, but well… I guess we can’t be unreasonable when the one being celebrated is the one who wants to keep partying until dawn.” Pikachu hopped off my shoulder and scurried to where the other pokemon were doing morning exercises with Zekrom. About half an hour later, Julia sprang out of our train car, followed by Archer. At least it was comforting that I wasn’t the most tired-looking out of our group. Another ten minutes, and Brenda jumped out of her car together with Europa. “Oh hi guys! Sorry for the wait,” she said. “Are you ready to go?” “Yep, we’re ready,” Julia shouted. “I was thinking that maybe I could bring one of you up Zekrom with me, so that I can show you all where the caves are.” Julia’s arm shot up instantly. “Me, me, please please pick me,” she said, hopping. She was obviously the only one volunteering from our group, so up she went not without screaming like Tarzan all the way. “God, Archer. How many cups of coffee did you give her,” I said. “Bold of you to assume I even poured it in cups,” he replied. One hour later, when Zekrom’s tour of the desert was over, Julia told us that since the caves were in roughly opposite directions, we could check one first, come back and then check the other if it was necessary. “Brenda thinks that it’ll take us at least a day of walking to and from each cave,” she said. “It’d have been much faster had we any flying or dragon types that could fly us all over, but alas.” I somewhat regretted not asking Candy to come with us, for Rayquaza would’ve been large enough to carry all 5 of us to those caves. However, it was no use lamenting things, especially when it was probably my storming out of her shop that scrapped the chance of bringing her with us. “I peeked the insides of the caves too,” Julia continued. “The one in the east seemed to be much larger than the one in the west. The one in the west seemed like a small rocky cavern, so maybe it’d be useless to go to that one. The one on the east was quite sandy, because it’s pretty much covered with sand? I don’t know how to explain it.” “Well, we can check that eastern cave first. We can think about whether we’ll go to the other one if we don’t find water on the first try,” Archer said. So our course was settled, and that meant it was time for Brenda to leave. “Good luck, friends,” said Brenda, as she got on Zekrom and pulled Ren up. “I hope you’ll successfully find water. It was great meeting you all, even if it was just for one night.” “Bye-bye, Zekrom! And Brenda and Ren and Zo. Hope we meet again someday,” Julia said, waving with her whole arm. “Good luck finding your trainer, Zo,” said Taka, also waving but more modestly. “Thanks for everything,” said Europa. Zekrom took off and, in just a few seconds, they had turned into nothing but a speck in the blue sky. “Well, we should get going too, if we want to make it to that cave before day change,” Archer said. “Good luck, and a thousand thanks for volunteering to help us,” Europa said and the three of them waved at us. I hadn’t missed traveling under the scorching heat, at all. It was worse this time, because I no longer needed to bother Bambi with the task of carrying me places, so I had to rely on my two legs and shoes that weren’t optimal for walking on the sand. However, just as it had happened on the first day I had arrived in Tourmaline Desert, the exhaustion started to increase to the point that I could no longer be bothered by the mild discomfort of my feet. “We should rest a little before continuing on,” Archer suggested when even Julia was falling silent. “Ack, I think I didn’t drink enough coffee for this,” Julia said as she collapsed on the ground. “My head hurts from the heat.” “I think it’s more of a coffee crash,” Taka said. “Staying hydrated is important, especially in the hot desert,” Archer said, filling our cups with water. “And I’m not saying that because I’m biased.” “Whatever, as long as you don’t give the coffee-addict anymore coffee,” I said and took a sip from my cup. We resumed walking when the sun was starting to set. This time we didn’t take any more breaks but we kept drinking water whenever necessary. As the temperature gradually went down, Julia’s energy seemed to return. “Yesterday’s party was quite fun, didn’t you think? I just wished I could’ve cut some more hair. It’d been a while since I last did it… I think the last time was when I was still a student in OTS. I used to cut Rini and Amy’s hair. Tania wouldn’t let me touch hers, though.” “Well, I honestly expected the haircut to be worse than what it was in the end,” Taka said. “Really? Do you think that?” “Yeah, considering it was dark out, I was pretty impressed by the end result too,” Archer added. “I’m so very flattered! Does that mean you two will let me cut your hair?” “Uhh, no thanks,” Taka replied. “My hair is good as it is. Maybe when it stops looking good, alright?” Julia pointed her lips but accepted Archer’s answer for not being a plain “no”. “Scary how flexible the definition of ‘good’ can be,” I whispered to myself. “But I honestly would love to cut Vanini’s into a bob of sorts,” she said, not very subtly eyeing me. “Forget it,” was my reply. “Vanilla’s hair should be left like that,” Archer said. “It completes the look, from the back.” Taka snorted at this, but Julia begged to disagree. “Well, I think she’d look just as cute in a bob,” she said, sulking. “I don’t think that was Archer’s point, but it was a dumb point either way, so just ignore him,” I said. “Scary how flexible the definition of ‘dumb’ can be,” he said, and smiled when I glared at him. It had already been hours since sunset when we arrived at the mystical, possibly-water-containing cave. We nearly missed it, too, because it wasn’t so much a cave “covered in sand” than a giant hole in the sand, which was difficult to discern in the dark. The inside of it was dark, not only because it was nighttime, but also because it was a cave. Fortunately, we had an electric-type Gym Leader and a water-type trainer with a Lanturn, so we could light our path pretty well. “I don’t know why, but this place feels eerily familiar,” Taka said, probably to himself but I heard him because I was walking next to him. Yet, even with the plenty of lighting, we couldn’t predict that there were quicksand pits on our way. Archer got stuck in one and let go of the Lanturn he was holding. “Careful. It’s quicksand,” he said. I could tell he was trying to sound calm, but his voice broke near the end, signaling his emotion was far from it. “Archie, no! We won’t let you sink*. Take my hand,” Julia said, extending a hand to him, but the weight of them threatened to also drag her into the pit, so Archer let go of her hand. When his calves were half-burrowed in sand, I clicked my tongue and asked Pikachu to grab him with his long arms, like he had done with Shelly when she nearly fell through a large fissure in Iolia Valley. That was effective. With Julia and Taka pulling on me and me keeping a tight grip on Pikachu, we finally managed to drag him out of the quicksand. “Thanks guys,” Archer said between panting. “It’s so scary to get stuck in one of those.” “Your Pikachu was so great, Vanini,” Julia patted Pikachu’s head, and he squeaked with pride. Archer looked at them two, then glanced at me but said nothing. Instead he told the rest to line up and follow his lead. The farther we went into the cave, the more it seemed like it was built by man. I could tell because, in contrast to the sand-covered entrance, the parts we were now passing had ancient engravings on the walls. They varied from words in a language I couldn’t read to drawings that I couldn’t decipher the meaning of… save for one. That is, when we went down a flight of crumbly stairs, we found a large wall with a painting of one Pokémon I recognized. “Arceus,” Taka said. “Arceus? You mean the god?” Archer said, taking a good look at the picture. I wouldn’t forget the pokemon god, for I had fought it, albeit a bootleg version of it. “I think I am piecing out why this place feels so familiar to me,” Taka told us. “I’ve been here before. I came here with my father.” That grabbed my attention. “What? I wouldn’t have chosen a place with quicksand pits to bring my kid to, but I guess your dad was quite a character?” Julia said. Indeed. What could Solaris have possibly brought Taka to such a remote, literally deserted place for? If it were a Team Meteor base, I would’ve expected to have run into grunts already. Perhaps it was another “sacred” place, like the one we found under the Grand Stairway? In any case, I was going to find out what it was, regardless of whether we found water on the way or not. “He was a… character, in a sense,” Taka replied, looking at me. “Do you remember if you found water here?” Archer asked. Taka shook his head. “My memory of this place is shaky at best. I think my father said he was leaving me some treasures that I could come get them anytime I wanted, though.” “Doesn’t sound like it’s water-related, then.” “But we should check what those treasures are,” I said, perhaps a little too eagerly. Archer and Julia seemed surprised to find me unusually motivated to continue the exploration, but we allowed Taka to make the ultimate decision. “Sure, why not?” he said. “I doubt it’ll be anything worthwhile, but we’ve come all the way here. We might as well finish checking the place out.” The cave was more convoluted than I expected, perhaps in an effort to make it difficult for intruders to find Taka’s treasure. However, we eventually made it to what clearly looked like the gates to a “sacred” place. By the time we got there, though, we were exhausted. We had been walking most of the day and night, and it was then way past midnight. We decided to call it a day and find the treasure room when we awoke. Julia never had any trouble falling asleep, and this night was no exception. Archer, too, fell asleep pretty quickly due to exhaustion. I thought I’d be the only one having trouble going to sleep, but Taka was also kept awake from anticipation. Given only the two of us knew Solaris, we were the only ones that could expect something more than water or old gadgets covered in sand. “What do you expect we’ll find?” Taka whispered to me. “It beats me. However, I hope it’s something useful. Like a secret Solaris doesn’t want anyone except you to know.” Taka thought of his response for a minute. “I think you’ll be disappointed if that’s what you expect,” he said. “My father has always been a transparent man. Honest in what he wants to do, and honest in telling others why he’s doing the things he does. I think I have many more secrets I’ve kept from him, than he’s kept from me.” “For such an honest man, I don’t think I’ve heard him talk much about himself or his organization,” I said. “Most of what I know about Team Meteor’s aims, I owe to his grunts and admins, but not to him.” “That’s because you never asked him. If you did, I’m sure he’d have told you.” I didn’t say it but I had a hunch that however honest he might be with his son, he wouldn’t extend such charitable hand to his enemy. “Do you know why Team Meteor was destroying the city?” “Something about wanting to drive people away? Because Solaris and Lin think Reborn City has desecrated the holy stuff that is beneath the city?” “Yeah, well, I wouldn’t know about Lin. I’ve never understood what she has in mind, and- if anything- she’s corrupted Team Meteor’s means and ends,” he said. “But yeah. What pretty much happened was that the Champion of Reborn created the League and advertised it across the world like some kind of fairground. She closed up the old city's wounds, hiding the Citadel again, which upset my father and everyone who revered our world’s creator. What Team Meteor wanted, at least when my father was the sole leader of it, was to destroy the city and return things like they were before.” “Well, whatever Team Meteor’s aims are or were, they’re not relevant to me.” “What?” “From the very beginning, I’ve only battled you all because I wanted to gain strength, and at the time, siding with the Gym leaders seemed to be an efficient way to do so,” I explained. “I was nothing but an outsider who meddled in Reborn’s politics… at least until your father’s garchomp sliced through my friend. Since then, Team Meteor became my personal enemy too.” We fell silent, but I had my suspicion that Taka wasn’t planning to leave the conversation there. As I expected, he eventually woke his body up, and sat looking into the void that surrounded us. “You told all of us the story of how you met your little Pikachu. Ever since I learned that my father was responsible for his death, I’ve been meaning to apologize to you. I’m sorry, on behalf of him.” “Why do you apologize? You shouldn’t treat yourself as an extension of your father. He’s responsible for all the evil he’s done to me and others. That’s not something that would change because you apologized.” “I… Perhaps I’ve been alive too long,” he said. “I don’t really know if I’m my own self or just an entity that’s just repelling my father.” “Who knows?” I shrugged. “But if I were repelling that psycho, I wouldn’t think that’s a bad thing.” Taka chuckled. “A psycho, huh? That’s true. He must’ve become one along the way. Otherwise, I couldn’t explain how he could kill people and pokemon with such ease,” he said, and I could sense irritation in his voice when he said the latter part. He then threw himself back to the ground. “I know when he became a psycho. In his youth, there was a time when he didn’t want anything to do with the shrine keeper family duties, which were to protect the meteor and the keys that led to it. ‘Every young person tends to mistake their way,’ he told me, and he wasn’t the exception. Because of that, though, a robber snuck into his home to steal the crystal keys, and killed his parents, my grandparents, in the process. That must’ve triggered something in him. When he narrated the way he incapacitated the robber until he killed him at last… he seemed to take pleasure in describing every detail of what he did. Even if the robber had done a terrible deed… I wouldn’t take pride in stooping to the same level as them.” “I see.” I said no more than that, for I wasn’t qualified to preach about mercy given that I had rarely shown any to my enemies. Besides, the thought of equating myself with Solaris was too reprehensible to voice out loud. “He thinks the ends justify the means. That whatever happens to Reborn City is its own fault, for insulting our forebearers' culture. Even if he kills innocents with the PULSEs to get the crystal keys, he considers those dead people and pokemon as necessary sacrifices. Maybe he can have such a mentality because he’s a psycho like you said,” he continued. “But I could never sink into that mindset. I hated setting up the PULSEs and protecting them while they destroyed Wards and forests. I hated seeing the pokemon fleeing their homes, only to fall through fissures or die entangled in the thick vines.” “That just means that you’re more of an individual with opinions and values than you give yourself credit for,” I said while taking a large yawn. “Thank you,” Taka said, and it made me cough. “Uh, it’s nothing.” Taka laughed, even though I hadn’t said anything funny. “You might not understand it. I’ve always felt like there was a weight on my shoulders… that I had to be a certain way, just because I was born as my father’s son. In fact, my father hired a woman to have me, so honestly my purpose by default was to keep his legacy and pass it on to future generations,” he said. “But these past days, I’ve felt like I could forget who I was, or rather, forget who I didn’t want to be. Traveling and exploring the desert with people who didn’t care who I was, playing games, building a campfire and talking about random things that aren’t related to the future of this region… All was new to me and yet felt so natural, as though this was what I should’ve been doing from the beginning.” He took a pause here, probably to make up his mind to say something he couldn’t take back later. “I’m forever grateful. I’ll never regret making the decision to leave Team Meteor, even if it’s just because that allowed me to experience ‘fun’.” “I see… But why do you tell me that? You should say that to the other two. They’ve pretty much taken the lead in this trip.” “I’ve been talking to you the past hour, because I wanted you to get to know me better,” he said. “Isn’t that how Julia said one makes friends?” The next time we awoke- and I say this because we couldn’t tell whether it was morning or not due to the darkness of the underground- our bodies ached as usual but we were ready to continue the exploration. It didn’t take us long to find the room of secrets. That was to be expected, for the gates that looked important really turned out to be, and just beyond them we found a doorway adorned with golden bricks. I wondered whether those bricks were made of gold, and if so, whether that alone wouldn’t amount to a “treasure”. When we had taken some steps inside, the torches that were placed on the walls lit up by an act of magic, practically blinding us folk that had gotten too used to the darkness. The space was not the treasure room, yet. It was a room, however, and full of statues that were modeled after garchomp. “I’m guessing Solaris was in charge of the decorations,” I whispered to Taka. “Yeah,” he replied kind of absent-mindedly, but with furrowed eyebrows. “But I don’t know… Something about this room makes me feel uneasy.” “You aren’t the only one,” I said. I could feel Pikachu was shivering on my shoulder, and no amount of patting was enough to make it go away. We started walking through one of the two paths that were separated by a row of columns, but just as we got close to one of the statues, Taka gasped. “I remember now, everyone, run!” We were bewildered by that, but even more by what happened next. The garchomp statue began vibrating on the spot, and dislodged itself from the wall. Then, it raised one of its bladed arms and swung it down full force. It would’ve hit Archer’s head, had he not tripped and fallen backwards. “Archer, hurry we have to go,” Julia said and pulled his arm, but he was immobile as though the garchomp statue had exchanged life forces with him. The statue raised its arm again, and swung it down to the man who was sitting on the ground. Except, I sent out Bambi to run against it and block the blade with his antlers. Bambi pushed through, and the statue fell down. Its fall, though, activated the next couple of statues, and they started slowly creeping towards us. I looked at Archer, who even after what happened, was still on the floor with his eyes wide open. He looked at me, too. “Do you want to die? Hurry up and get out of here, idiot,” I said to him, and sent out more of my party so that we could deal with the next wave of statues. Archer finally snapped out of it and scurried away with Julia. “Vanilla, what are you doing? Come,” Taka said from the doorway. “I’m not going anywhere. I’ll fight them all,” I replied. “These monsters must be guarding the treasure. I’m not retreating until I’ve seen it!” “Vanilla, don’t be stubborn. You’re vastly outnumbered.” On Taka’s saying this, I noticed that there were other statues moving on the other side of the row of columns, and they were also headed my way. “You cowards can watch from the safety of that doorway,” I said, and did not hear or respond to anything else Taka said. I was too busy to do so, since I had to command my whole team of pokemon at the same time. We weren’t doing too badly at first, but as my teammates lost energy, we began losing ground. There just were too many statues. “Your team can rest now,” Archer said, startling me. When I glanced behind, all three of them were standing with their pokemon out of their pokeballs. “Huh, so your pants dried up?” I smirked. “That thing just caught me off guard, that’s all. They aren’t actually a threat,” he said. “After all, they’re just whimsy pieces of metal.” Then, he commanded his Sharpedo to jump onto a statue and crush it with its jaw. The statues went down three by three, until we were standing among nothing but metallic shells. “Great! Now we can head to the next room,” Julia pointed out another doorway. “I hope that one isn’t full of other dragon statues. That’d have no end, literally.” There was only one way to find out. We headed into the next room, and it, too, lit up automatically. This one was not full of statues, as Julia had theorized, but it did have a few of them, this time made of stone. Most of them were half-buried in the sand, and if not, broken into pieces that made it impossible to tell what pokemon they had been modeled after. “This one says something about a ‘guardian legacy’?” Taka said while poking one of the statues. “I don’t know what’s that about, though.” We searched the room some more, and found a few items that were also mostly buried in sand. I picked up a pink stone, and looked closely at it. It wasn’t a gem, but it wasn’t just a regular stone either. “That’s a Medichamite,” Taka said. “What?” “A Medichamite.” “Whatever that is, it appears that this room is the treasure room,” I said, making no effort to hide my disappointment. “Nothing of worth, no water. It seems this was a massive waste of time.” “I wouldn’t say that,” Julia said, jumping. “It was a fun adventure! It reminds me of when my friends and I would look for hidden treasures when we were young. We’d find coins on the floor, an earring, or a pair of broken glasses… anything, really. But it was fun because we’d find them after exploring.” She then threw herself between Taka and I and placed her arms on our shoulders. “A Ward like Peridot or Onyx, back then, felt so huge. Yet, the world was even more huginormous, with so many more fun places to explore! So I had a blast looking around this cave, even if we didn’t find water after all.” “Yeah. It’s not all lost, anyway,” Archer said. “We still have that other cave in the west to check out, so let’s head back.” Archer and Julia walked towards the exit. “Here,” I said to Taka and offered him the Medichamite. “Whatever it is, it’s a treasure your father left you.” “Actually, I won’t be needing it. You can keep it.” “I don’t have a use for a plain rock either.” Taka scratched his chin. “Do you happen to have a Medicham?” “Yeah, why? Is it an item for Medicham?” “It won’t be useful as an individual item, but maybe it’ll be down the road if you get a bracelet to go with it. So yeah, keep it.” Taka brushed my hand and told me to come. The other two were already entering the statue-less statue room. I put the stone in my bag and ran after them. *Some internet peeps say sand is denser than human body so you can't sink in quicksand. I think that's true but we all know you can actually fall in the quicksand pits in Reborn so that's why I've kept it unrealistic. VANILLA RATES: REBORN CHARACTERS QUICK LINK TO NEXT EPISODE

lol Sasha's not from this story (Corso's reacting to my reply to Sol) Hair related stuff reminds me of that one time Aster and Eclipse painted Vanilla's hair with cheapass paint lmao Also, I did say back-to-back but no one works on the weekends so let's say if I upload the rest today we're gucci

Hmm I don't remember a haircut reference but maybe I did it unintentionally lol And this was what I imagined Julia's glare would be like:

When I posted my April Fools post, this showed: And I was like, "geez Forums, I don't need to be reminded of how un-often I update this thing"

From Everland to Reborn ~ Episode 83A Now, the promised episode... It's actually ~1/3 of an episode I wrote but since the episode was long I said "why not post them back to back" (As someone who isn't fond of reading, this is preferable to getting a yuge block of words). So Episode 83B will be coming tomorrow if I finish editing images on time lolol This one finally ends the Zorua subplot. Yeah since we're quickly approaching Pokemon Reborn's end, I gotta start tying all the loose threads... Europa acted as though she was obliged to be our hospitable host. She guided us to a train car, which she said we could use to rest up until Brenda eventually came back. We thanked her and went inside it. The first thing Archer did was to lie down on one of the benches. “I’m so tired, though it’s not even close to night yet,” he said. “I’ll have to take a nap if I want to be awake for the party.” “It’s not like it’d make a difference whether you are awake or not,” I said for the sake of saying, but was also making myself comfortable on a bench, and let Zorua and Pikachu sit on my stomach. The ointment was numbing the ache of my burns, so I felt I could sleep nicely if it was now. “Look who’s talking. You barely even talk when you’re awake.” “Well, I’m also going to take a nap. After that wild train ride, and all the walking we’ve done in the heat, that’s the thing I want to do the most right now,” Taka agreed. “What? Why are you guys all so tired? I can’t relate,” Julia said. “You run on coffee, not on actual physical endurance,” Archer replied. “Ehh, bummer. What am I going to do while you all take a snooze?” However, everyone was too tired to make anymore reply, so Julia left us be and exited the car. I don’t know how many hours passed since I fell asleep, but I was woken up by the sudden increase in volume of the chatter outside. This was quickly followed by Julia’s completely loud shout, which scared off the two pokemon who were sleeping on me. “Everyone, wakey-wakey! Right now! You don’t want to miss the sight outside,” she said, and then, since everyone didn’t seem to want to move from their places, she went from bench to bench to shake us awake. “Come, Vanini, Tacos and you too, Archie,” she said and pushed us. There was nothing outside. Or that’s what I thought initially. The sun was setting, but there was some blurry shadow zooming from one side to the other and, really, in every direction. “Look up,” Julia said. I did as instructed, and saw a black thing far up in the sky, but coming down to where we were. It’s blurry shadow grew larger and more defined as it made its descent to this sandbox. As it got closer, I could discern that it was a large dragon pokemon. Not as large as Candy’s Rayquaza, but quite large nonetheless. Once the dragon made a touchdown, not without exposing us to a cloud of sand, its trainer and a pokemon jumped off of it. Their backs were facing us, but whoever the redhead was, I had never seen someone’s hair as tangled and uneven as the bundle that was sticking out of her white cap. “Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, it’s Zekrom,” Julia said jumping and shaking me by my arm. “Hello, I am back,” the redhead said. “This is Brenda and Ren for you!” The two of them twisted their upper bodies in opposite ways so that both their faces were finally visible. Their arms were stretched out, one in our direction and the other away from each other. Brenda’s face and arms were covered in freckles, and her eyelashes and brows were barely visible against her sun-tanned skin. Ren, on the other hand, was in a contrasting blue color. I remembered that the pokemon was a Lucario. It was one of the first pokemon saw when I had just arrived in the region, since Victoria had used one to fight the bullies that were annoying Pikachu. Their show didn’t end there, however. Zekrom sent an electric shock down to the ground, making the sand behind them explode and shower us yet again. They kept the pose for a few more seconds, but eventually she broke down to the floor. Ren didn’t, and just stretched his back and rotated his torso a couple of times. “Ay ay, my back hurts,” Brenda complained. “What’s this weirdo?” I asked Europa, who was grinning at her and clapping. “Shh, do her a favor and just clap,” she said. “Eh? Weirdo?” Brenda said, raising her head. “Hmmm. That’s not the response I was going for. When I did this at the Alolan beaches, the kids really liked it.” “Y’all, this is Brenda and her pokemon, Ren,” said Europa. “Brenda, these are Vanilla, Taka, Archer and… eh, Julia?” Julia was now attached to Zekrom, hugging him. Zekrom seemed not to know what to do and just growled softly. “New faces! I guess my farewell party will be fun after all,” Brenda said, standing back up and clapping the sand off her hands. Brenda unloaded the food items from Zekrom’s back one by one, showing off each item as though all of them were her absolute favorite food. “Brenda, were you able to find a water source?” Stethoscope asked once she was done unloading. This made Brenda’s beaming facial expression cloud up. “Well, those muddy ponds on the south east are still there, but other than that, I couldn’t find anything, sorry.” “It’s okay, thanks for trying to help.” “But! I did find two caves, one south-east of here and another one somewhat west. I didn’t get off Zekrom to check them out, but maybe they have water hidden inside,” she said with renewed enthusiasm. “If I weren’t leaving tomorrow, I’d have gone exploring in them, but alas. Maybe you can send a group to check those out.” Stethoscope sent a meaningful look our way, especially at me. “I think we can work that out,” she said. Temperature began to drop as quickly as the sun was setting on the horizon. I always found it ironic that daytime in the desert was scorching hot, yet we needed to light up a fire to keep warm at nighttime. As it was necessary, Europa, Bill and Al started building a campfire for us to sit around. Julia volunteered to help out, but Taka pulled her away from it and instead gave her a cushion to sit calmly on. When it was dark enough, Europa asked everyone to sit down. It was time to start the party. “Tonight we’re bidding farewell to our dear friend Brenda,” she said. “Y’all new peeps won’t know this, but Brenda’s spent a month with us and boy did she help us out. First she brought us that magical medicine from the ‘abroad’ which was, and I ain’t exaggerating when I say this, a true blessing for our damaged skin. Then, her mighty strong pokemon helped us move the train cars a lil farther apart so we could have more space to live. Ah, and she’s been mighty helpful bringing us water and other stuff from Reborn City. Not having to carry or pull heavy stuff in the heat has been a nice vacation for us. As for water, she’s also helped us look for a permanent source. Even though that wasn’t fruitful, it’s the intent that matters, y’know. Someone wanting to help us, the outcasts of Reborn City. We’re mighty thankful, for real.” “Well, you guys let me stay here while I surveyed the region. Help and get help, that’s how it should be. Am I wrong?” Brenda, and Ren who was sitting next to her, stretched an arm towards Europa and closed their hand and paw into a thumbs-up. “If that ain’t true. Anyways, that’s enough talking and not enough eating. Let’s get feasting, friends!” “Yeah! Let’s eat!” Brenda said. She pulled out a party popper from what seemed like thin air, popped it and showered us with glimmery confetti. Bits of it fell into the fire, making a satisfying sizzling sound. We stood up to place food on our plates and sat back down to eat. Julia sat next to Brenda, and didn’t miss a beat to ask her some questions. “So you’re leaving, huh? Where are you going?” she asked. “I’m headed back to Unova, my home region,” she said. “It’s been 2 years, I think, since I left. It’s about time I show my face there.” “You’re from Unova! Zekrom is from Unova too, right? How did you two meet? How did you catch him? Have you-” Before Julia could finish asking all her questions pertaining to Zekrom, Taka stood up from his cushion and walked over to Brenda. pretend there's food on those tables uwu “Is this yours, perchance?” he asked, showing her the pokegear-like thing we had found in one of the train cars. Brenda took a look at it under the dim light of the campfire. Then, she widened her eyes and checked her pockets, which were apparently empty save for a few coins and another party popper. “Ahaha, it seems I’d dropped my X-transceiver and didn’t even notice,” she said. “I don’t get signals unless I’m in Unova so I totally forgot about its existence.” Just as Taka returned the device to her, Ren stood up and started sniffling him. Both he, and I, who was watching from a distance, found it weird, but the lucario eventually found what he was looking for. Zorua had apparently burrowed in Taka’s red scarf, but was pulled out of it by the tail. Ren screeched and laughed, holding the little fox. Zorua, on the other hand, didn’t seem all that pleased to be held in the air by his tail. “What. Wait, really?” Brenda said and stood up. She took the Zorua on her arms. “Zo, is that you?” “Zo?” Ren patted Zo’s head but the fox turned around and bit his hand. The two pokemon shouted at each other. “Yeah, that’s you alright,” Brenda laughed. “Do you know this pokemon?” Taka asked. “Yeah, she’s the pokemon of my… friend,” she replied. “I’m actually looking for him, but had no luck in all the regions I’ve visited so far. That’s why I’m heading back to Unova. How mighty funny it’ll be if I find him there, after spending 2 long years looking for him everywhere abroad, don’t you think?” “A friend who’s gone missing for 2 years?” Julia jumped in her seat. “I hope you find him,” Taka said. “Yeah, me too... obviously,” Brenda said to Taka, and then looked down on the pokemon she was holding. “Hey, Zo? Are you looking for him too? I can’t guarantee we’ll find him there, but if you’d like, we can look for him together in Unova.” Zo seemed pleased with the proposition. She snuggled on Brenda’s chin. I was finally able to put 2-and-2 together on the mystery of this Zorua. She had been trying to go back to Unova by crossing Tourmaline Desert, and then passing through Hoenn in a Northeast direction. That would’ve taken her ages on her 4 feet, but that just spoke to me of her determination. Pikachu sat on my lap and snuggled me. He also seemed pleased that Zo was finally on the path to find her trainer. The party just consisted of us eating food while talking, and Brenda showering us with confetti every once in a while when we least expected it. Julia seemed never to run out of questions to ask Brenda, and she in turn seemed never to run out of patience to answer every one of them. Taka and Archer were talking with the three veteran campers, but I wasn’t seated close to them so I couldn’t hear what they were saying. Stethoscope went back to her train car after serving herself a plate of food. I just sat by myself with Pikachu, eating some and feeding him some. “Mummy girl, why don’t you sit closer with us?” Brenda said to me. Mummy girl? I was puzzled for a second, before I remembered that I was practically covered in gauze. I moved an inch towards them. Brenda laughed but Julia spoke before she could say anything more. “Hey Brenda? I’d like you to give you a haircut. Can I? Please, please.” “A haircut? This late at night?” I said. Sure, Brenda’s hair was a mess, but I wouldn’t trust Julia to cut my hair in broad daylight. “Oh, so you noticed?” Brenda said. “This past 2 years I’ve been cutting my own hair to save money, but I really didn’t know what I was doing most of the time. Besides, traveling with Zekrom makes my hair poofy because of the abundant static electricity.” “I’m great at giving haircuts,” Julia said. “I could even give them blindfolded. Want to try?” “Y-” “Let’s just do it like normal, if you must,” I interrupted. The last thing we needed right now was someone bleeding from the neck. “Oh? You’re giving Brenda a haircut?” Europa said, taking notice of us. “Stethoscope has scissors and blades. I can pick some up for you.” While everyone was getting hyped for just a haircut, I stood up from my seat to get some more food and drinks. Archer was there also, and he laughed through the nose when he saw me approaching. “Who doesn’t make a difference whether they are awake or not, now?” he said. “Oh, shut up.” I grabbed some more meatballs and walked over to the bowl of potato salad, which seemed to be from the pokemart Meals-to-go section, but was still quite delicious. “So the tangela-hair girl is getting a haircut? Why don’t you get one too?” he said. “I’ve always found it curious how you keep your hair that long, despite it probably getting in your way… I assume… during fights.” “That’s the reason I keep it long,” I replied. “What? What’s the reason?” I frowned at this showcase of slowness. “You assume it gets in my way, and so do most of my opponents,” I said. “But that makes their movements predictable. They go for the hair, and that movement makes their stance open up. That makes it easier for me to deal them a blow to knock them out.” “Huh, that sounds just like you. Do you ever think of anything other than fighting or rebelling?” I was slightly annoyed that he answered in a belittling tone, when I had been courteous enough to answer his question. I don’t know why I should’ve expected anything else from him, though. “What do you mean?” “A few days ago, you mentioned that you couldn’t achieve what you want to achieve as a one-man army. Are you planning to return to Everland? To continue being a criminal?” “I’m not obliged to tell you my plans.” Perhaps that response was too close to an affirmative answer than I should’ve produced. In any case, that made Archer fall silent. I thought he had put an end to the conversation, and took the opportunity to add a few cherries to my plate. “You could’ve left Everland and your turbulent past behind,” he said after a moment. “Yet you choose to keep dragging it as if it was dogshit stuck to your shoe.” I motioned to say something reactive, but he cut me off. “But tonight we’re having a party, and it would be a shame if it ended on a bad note because of us. Just forget everything I said.” Archer grabbed a napkin from the table and headed back to his seat. Even if he hadn’t asked me to, I was determined to forget his existence for the rest of the evening. I sat back down, in a fowler mood than usual, to watch Julia cut through Brenda’s hair with bold strokes. The process took time- a long enough time, fortunately, for my mood to recover to baseline. The end product wasn’t a professional cut, but her hair looked much healthier and lighter than before. Brenda looked pleased with her new hair, so it was good enough, I thought. Pop! Brenda got us off-guarded again, pulling on the string of her party popper. Julia recovered from the scare and clapped her hands while laughing. “My scissor-hands are itching,” she said and glared at the two boys. They got her message, and started running away from her and a possible mystery haircut. The two were complaining about being chased, but their voices which were mixed with laughter didn’t sound convincing at all. Ren, Zo and Pikachu perhaps misunderstood what was happening and joined the game of chasing one another. On the other side of the campfire, Europa scolded Bill for eating the piece of cake she’d kept for last. Bill said that he hadn’t eaten it and blamed it on Al; however, Europa wouldn’t listen. Al didn’t talk, but wiped a bit of cream from the corner of his mouth. Pop! Brenda popped another one in front of my face, startling me. She laughed at my reaction. They really were having a blast. We were. VANILLA RATES: REBORN CHARACTERS QUICK LINK TO NEXT EPISODE

owo good memory, or was it that memorable xD Haha I'm not so mean as to do an April Fools prank-ception... Although it might've happened without meaning to because I'd forgotten to edit pictures Fortunately the short episode didn't need too many images so I'll be posting it shortly, all according to keikaku :3

Nope I pop in cause April Fools uwu maybe Q-Jei will come next? Edit: you didn't get cake and banana split but got a smol Candy

A little early in my timezone but it's April 1st somewhere in the world so all es good uwu Happy International Candy Day, my dearest loveliest fools Donut fret, this time I actually have the next episode written and will post it right when our annual celebration of idiocy is over. But it'll be a lil short&sweet chapter... But guess WHAT, I actually have the next^2 episode written too so I'll post back-to-back. When has such miracle ever happened? It's almost as if DIO had used ZA WARUDO to give me time or something...

NOM

417

I chose Tara because my dude Simon :( and also

The one time I did a nuzlocke, I lost just before Florinia xD Good luck!

I think the 5IV should be the one holding the power item, since it forces that IV value on the offspring (not sure if that's just a typo). It's probably easier if you get a 6IV ditto (they've been around and I have one too if you'd like one). I do recommend getting the mod if you're planning to shiny breed :p

I feel thee. There was a time when I, too, bred for hours xD Do you have the speed breeding mod? It was a life changer for me

I’ve done several runs to make it more fun when I’ve already cleared the game with my fave Pokémon. Fairytale run: this is pretty subjective but I went ahead and looked up fairytales and Pokémon that I felt would represent those tales. I limited it to 12 mons. Rainbow run: can use only Pokémon that have a rainbow-themed shiny sprite (this is only playable in games with custom shiny sprites lol) Wonder-trade run: I think this is something common. You do a nuzlocke but every catch is exchanged in the WT. Event-only run: I think it was already mentioned but it’s where you can only use mons that can be caught by in-game event. No-evolution run: can only use mons that don’t evolve. Aristocrat run: this is one that I didn’t do but would’ve done instead of the fairytale one in another timeline lol it’s a run where you can only use mons with aristocratic feel (nidoking, dragoknight, escavalier, etc Im prolly forgetting some but those are the ones I remember rn

Idk this is just my improvised feeling:

Ngl I love when people use Ace Attorney for profile pics cause I can easily identify people with good taste Anyhow, welcome back

Yah! I wanted to find a word for someone who likes explosions but this was the closest I could find (in my brain lmao). I’m not sure that all explosions result in fires because I found a paper that says the term isn’t even clearly defined

Pyromaniac = Julia Sadist = Archer Ex-terrorist = Taka these are all in Vanini’s POV (I don’t think terrorists think of themselves as terrorists)

From Everland to Reborn ~ Episode 82 I wanted to make a meme about this part of the story, but I don't have time so maybe I'll hafta make it for next episode lmao The sandstorm came on and off intermittently, probably all throughout the night. I couldn’t make sure of it, however, because once I tucked myself under the blanket, I was pretty much a goner. However, at one point during the night, I woke up to Taka trying to sneak under the blanket. “Ah, sorry. Did I wake you?” he asked. “Yes. What time is it?” Taka squinted and checked his watch. “It’s 2:15 am.” “Why are you awake so late?” “I was actually asleep until Julia’s arm hit my face,” he said, snickering. “She’s as terrifying asleep as she is awake.” “What? We placed Archer between you two so that you wouldn’t have to get hit. I guess she doesn’t stop at anything, even when asleep.” However, as soon as my eyes got used to the dark, I realized there was a better explanation: Archer wasn’t sleeping next to Julia. In fact, he wasn’t in the tent at all. I sat upright, and instantly looked away from where Archer was supposed to be, to where all our bags were gathered. His backpack, which was the biggest of them, was gone. “God damn it,” I exclaimed. “I should’ve seen this coming.” I tried to jump out of the blanket but Taka pushed me down on my shoulders. I was reminded of my stupid sunburn by how much my skin hurt on my knees and shoulders despite the ointment. “Vanilla, calm down. You’ll wake Julia.” “What are you saying? Do you think this is time to be sleeping? That asshole just up and left with all of our water supplies.” I slapped Taka’s hand off of me and I crawled over, not without pain, to where my bag was, waking Pikachu in the process. He watched with drowsy confusion as Taka crawled after me and grabbed my arm. “There’s no need to do that,” he said. “Why would you jump to that conclusion first? Shouldn’t you give him the benefit of the doubt? After all, if it wasn’t for Julia and him, we’d be goners by now.” “You literally know nothing about that guy. Why’re you defending him now? Stop being an idiot and wake Julia up. He shouldn’t be too far gone if we follow him now.” I ripped his hand off my arm, probably hurting his hand as much as I hurt my arm. He held his hand with his other one, and squeezed it a few times. “Calm down. I know where he is,” he said. That made me stop my movements. I looked back at Taka. “What?” “I said, I know where he is,” he repeated. “He’s pretty close by and not escaping by any means.” I moved closer to him. “If you know where he is,” I said quietly, and said the next part louder: “Why the f*ck didn’t you say that right away?” Taka fell back on his butt from being shouted at from a short distance. My shout also reached Julia, for, even though she was very deeply asleep, she twisted and turned a couple of times. “Calm down. I tried to tell you, but you didn’t even give me a chance to speak before you started packing up.” “Fine... alright... I’m sorry. I’m just too on edge when it comes to Archer. I always have to worry about what he might do next to get at me, you know?” “I don’t know. He doesn’t seem like a mean person to me.” I glared at Taka, but I sighed. It wasn’t fair for me to judge him when he was just plain ignorant. Besides, it was also true that Archer was only mean to me, not to anyone else. “Anyway, what on earth is Archer doing at this goddamn hour? You said you saw him. Did you see what he was plo-” “I don’t think he was plotting anything, if that’s what you were wondering,” he said, cutting me right off. “I saw him. He was… dancing in the rain.” “Dancing? In the rain?” I checked the transparent plastic ‘window’ on our tent. There were no water drops on it, which I would’ve expect to see if it were raining. I looked at Taka for an explanation. “Well, it’s naturally not raining here. I mean we’re kind of in the middle of a desert,” he said. “He’s dancing with his water type pokemon to make it rain. He’s managed to accumulate the clouds to a little patch on the sky, and to make them rain.” “So he’s taking a shower in the middle of the night? What an ass. Making it look like our water supplies were limited when he literally could make it rain whenever.” “I think you mistake him, but it’s my fault for not telling the story well. I’m sorry, let me try again,” Taka said and cleared his throat. “He had all the water bottles open and gathered in the center while the pokemon and him were dancing around. In simpler words, Vanilla, I think he was making it rain to replenish our water supplies.” “Oh.” I didn’t know what to say. If this was true, it would mean that I had yet one more thing to thank him for. I wondered if that was his actual goal: to annoy me by constantly putting me in his debt. “Well, it’s obvious he should be getting us water. After all, the whole reason Julia insisted we brought him was to secure a water source and to fight off ground-type pokemon,” I said. “Anyone would try getting water at any cost if it was crucial to keep people alive. Are you going to tell me you wouldn’t?” “No, I would. How about you, Vanilla?” “Of course, I would. Even if the thirsty person was Archer or Fern or Blake or Aladdin… you get the idea.” I felt like I was reaching too far now. I couldn’t be absolutely sure that I wouldn’t just turn a blind eye to at least some of those people. Taka wasn’t convinced about downplaying Archer’s generosity, but let the topic rest for now. Instead, he tucked himself under the blanket, and I did the same after giving Pikachu a couple of headpats to reassure him everything was alright. “Can I ask you something?” Taka asked. “What is it?” “Are you related to Candy Leiderhosen? I mean I saw you two together and you both being from Everland and all. I hope it’s not an impertinent question.” “Yeah. We’re cousins.” Taka didn’t make a comment, but I believed I could guess his thoughts. Most people I met who were made aware of my kinship with Candy had a similar response, so it wasn’t a hard guess. “You think it’s incredible that we’re cousins? Because I’m not the kind-hearted optimist she is?” “I was surprised, but not because of that. It’s just that you two don’t really look related, apart from maybe your hairstyles.” “Albinism is a recessive trait.” “I guess that plays a big part. Don’t mind me.” There was a pause here. I attempted to fall asleep with little success, but was brought back to full awakening when Taka spoke to me again. “Candy was the one who told me to let our battle decide for me what side to choose,” he said. “She’s kind hearted, as you said, but also quite simpleminded.” “It doesn’t surprise me in the least,” I snorted. “But that was exactly what I needed. To think in simple terms. I think I over-thought about my responsibility as my father’s son and my wish for everyone’s peace and safety.” “That’s good to hear.” Here, another pause. I still couldn’t sleep. I shifted positions thinking that perhaps the subtle pain of my blisters was keeping me awake. “You want me to shut up now?” Taka asked. “I don’t know. Do you?” “I think I have a few more questions I could entertain us with.” “Fire away, but I won’t promise I’ll answer all of them.” “It’s mostly about your home region, Everland,” he said. “I heard bits and pieces about it, but I’ve never been outside of Reborn. I hear it’s very nice?” I was surprised that he had chosen this topic, but I assumed he had because he was brainstorming places to escape from Lin’s unforgiving radar. If that was the case, I would have to disappoint him. “Everyone and their mother who has visited Everland will tell you that it is the closest thing to Utopia that exists on this planet,” I told him. “However, they have a very strict immigration policy, so if you aren’t born there the chances of you being admitted to live there are pretty slim. If you were thinking of staying there for more than a month, I’d suggest you look elsewhere.” “No, I wasn’t planning on international travel when I said I’d look for a place to lay low,” Taka said. “I was genuinely curious about a region that isn’t Reborn. Is it true that the region is a literal oasis in the middle of the desert?” “Yes.” “And how about the shape of the region. Is it really roughly a circle?” I explained that the region was indeed roughly circular, with the Queen’s palace sitting at its center. “But there are no pokemon?” I said there weren’t, but there were other types of small animals and plants. “Amazing,” he said. “You know, I hope that one day I can visit Everland, or actually, any region abroad. Maybe I’ll register as a league challenger in Hoenn, since it’s the closest region that has pokemon.” “You do you.” “Yeah. Hoenn sounds nice too, from what I heard from Candy,” he said, and paused before continuing. “Oh? I think I hear Archer’s footsteps. Do you want me to fake being asleep while you talk?” “Huh? Why’d I want to talk with him?” “I don’t know. Maybe about the water? Isn’t it why you’ve kept awake?” I glared at Taka, but I didn’t think he could see it in the dark. “Don’t be stupid. It was just my blisters keeping me awake.” I turned away from Taka and closed my eyes. “Good night, then,” he whispered. A few seconds later, I heard the tent being zipped open very slowly, but I didn’t move an inch. In the end, I didn’t notice when I’d fallen asleep. The next day, we were unable to make a move because the sandstorm raged even stronger than any of the previous days. I thought that the tent might get buried completely in the sand, but fortunately that wasn’t the case: it was only buried two thirds of the way. When Julia opened the tent at night, sand came gushing in and we had to spend the next hour cleaning up the interior, the blankets and some of our belongings. Given that we were all stuck inside a small tent, it was not surprising we were mighty bored the whole of that day. And when I say mighty bored, I mean it. Otherwise, I’m sure Julia wouldn’t have convinced me to play ’Chopsticks’ with them and later ’Drop Handkerchief’ when Pikachu and Zorua agreed to join. “Why am I playing this? I’m not a kid,” I said occasionally. Ironically, though, it was the two eldest that were having the most fun. Even Taka allowed his eternal-insomniac face to smile from time to time. If someone were to pass by and see us, I’m sure they wouldn’t have guessed that we were a group composed of a pyromaniac, a sadist, an ex-terrorist and whatever I was. For better or for worse, the next day was clear of sandstorms, and we were back to our normal dynamic again. My blisters weren’t getting better but at least they weren’t getting worse. The pain had become a little more bearable, which was all I really needed. However, Julia didn’t allow me to walk yet, so I had to keep relying on Bambi for a while longer. Archer led the crew northward. This wasn’t different from the other day, but what was different was that we saw something that wasn’t hills of sand for once. “What is that?” I said, squinting my eyes. It was difficult to make it out, for the day was hot like always and the heat waves never helped my vision. “I think it’s the scrapyard,” said Taka. “I don’t know the reason why, but I’d heard a bunch of broken trains were grouped in the north of the desert.” I squinted harder, but I still couldn’t discern whether those things were trains. “Should we still be heading north? We are looking for Titania’s Gym, not a scrapyard.” “I’ll be honest with you. I don’t really have a clue,” Archer said, and my pull on Bambi’s horns caused everyone to come to a halt. “Hold on. What?” I said. “What do you mean you don’t have a clue?” “I know that Titania’s Gym is in the north, but none of the maps indicate the entrance to it.” He handed me one of the maps, and I snatched it from his hands. I scanned the paper and found Titania’s Gym. It wasn’t marked off as an area, but the letters “Titania’s Gym” were floating on the upper right corner of the 1R253 Scrapyard that Taka was most likely referring to. “See what I mean? I’m not entirely sure whether Titania’s Gym is inside the scrapyard, or right outside of it.” I gave Archer his map back. “Fine. So we should head to the scrapyard first?” Archer nodded. So we resumed our trip northward. “Wowowow, I mean wow! There’s so many of them trains!” Julia said when we reached the southmost edge of the scrapyard. “Yeah, this is larger than what I’d expected,” Taka said. “It’s difficult to believe there isn’t a reason for having this many trains in one place,” Archer added. I didn’t think much of it, other than that it was a pain in the neck to have to navigate our way through the trains to get to Titania’s Gym. Bambi didn’t share my opinion, however. He was quite pleased to be able to walk on something that wasn’t sand. We walked through the narrow path between seats, but sometimes on the windows, if the train car happened to be lying on its side. Whether the car was upright or not, the windows and parts of the floor were cracked or broken, so we had to be very careful not to hurt ourselves. The cars that had damage to their ceiling were more difficult to navigate than the rest, because months or years of sandstorms had caused them to be filled with sand. I didn’t know about the rest of the group, but I never let down my guard. I was sure that an eerie place like this would probably have skeletons of dead passengers, thugs that had nowhere to go, or both. “Waah,” Julia shouted, nearly making me lose my balance and fall off Bambi. When I looked at her, however, she just stuck her tongue at me and smiled. “Did I scare you?” I might’ve punched her if my hands weren’t full of second-degree burns. “Look at that. Someone forgot their… Pokegear?” Taka said, picking up a rectangular thing off a seat. Archer moved closer to him, and took a look at it. “It doesn’t exactly look like a Pokegear. I’m not sure I’ve seen this before.” Zorua, however, jumped off my shoulder and also checked the unidentified object. As soon as he got a sniff of it, he started jumping like crazy. What could this be about? “I’ll hold onto it,” Taka said. “Maybe we’ll find its owner somewhere.” When he said that, Zorua jumped on his shoulder instead of mine. We carried on with our trip, with Julia occasionally jumping from in between the couches to scare us, or exiting the windows and rejoining us from another broken window further away. I started to question Archer’s decision to bring so much instant coffee in his bag. From train car to train car, we went. Some of them were not just any car, they were the ones with an intact conductor area. Julia never missed the chance to sit on the driver seat and pretend to drive the train. Although he didn’t particularly show it much, I could tell that Taka also had curiosity about the stuff that was in the conductor’s area. I guessed there were buttons and levers and what not. However, in one of such instances, Julia somehow managed to start the train. The movement was so sudden that Archer fell to the floor and Bambi and I to a nearby seat. “Julia, what are you doing? Stop the car,” I yelled. “Ehhh, can I be honest?” The car started moving faster. “I don’t know what I’m doing.” I saw Taka and her pressing all the buttons and moving all the levers or something, but the car only knew how to speed up. “Hold on tight,” Julia shouted. I really don’t know how we made it alive out of this one, but we did. The car sped up and tripped, apparently, into a large rock, which derailed it and made it spin round and round out of control. We were holding tight, and I held as tight as I could to Pikachu as well, but when the train came to a stop, we were all dizzy. I tried standing up from the seat, but immediately collapsed on the floor. I couldn't help but miss the times when I had traveled mostly peacefully and safely with Shelly. “Woaaah, okay crazymaker, watch where you’re steering that thing,” Taka said, still clutching the grab rails at the front, even though the train was no longer moving. “I think I’m going to puke,” Archer said, also on the floor but luckily far away from me. The only one that didn’t seem to be affected by the dizzying spell was Julia. “That… was… awesome! I want to try that again!” she said, jumping off of the driver’s seat. “I’ll smack the living daylights out of you if you sit on the conductor’s seat again after this,” I told her. The dizziness slowly wore off, but I called Bambi back to his pokeball because he was hitting himself from the confusion. “Vanini, you shouldn’t be walking. Your skin-” “Yeah, just for now. Bambi needs to rest more than I.” We exited the train and realized that we were standing on a hill of sand, which I believed were just a bunch of train cars buried underneath the sand that our train car had showered the surroundings with. We got off of them, and walked further north. We entered some more trains, but Julia dared not sit at the driver’s seat under my watch. At some point, after going through an endless labyrinth of trains, Julia brought us to a stop. “Waah,” she shouted again, like she’d done countless times. “Don’t you have any more tricks, Julia?” I said. “No no no, that’s not it, Vanini. Hurry up and come over,” she said. “Lookie! There’s people out here.” “People?” The three of us rushed to the exit and joined Julia in being surprised. The people weren’t many but were, in fact, there. Here, in the middle of the desert. I thought they might be traveling like us, but their countenance didn’t make it seem like it. “Well, howdy, partners! Are you guys joining our little community here?” one of the ladies asked. “No,” I replied. “Actually, not all of us. These three are just travelers. The two girls here are looking for Titania’s Gym, and Archer is helping them. I’m looking for somewhere safe to stay a while, though, so maybe I’d like to join if you don’t mind,” Taka said. “Oh! That’s great to hear, friend,” she said to Taka and then looked at me head to toe. “But girl, what happened to you? Don’t tell me. Sunburn, ain’t it? The sun around these parts are unforgiving to a pale girl like yourself.” She then asked me to sit down on her seat, opposite this other man who was just looking at us quietly. “Hey, Bill! Bill!” the woman shouted and waved her hands to nobody in particular. “What’s that?” a voice answered, but the owner of it wasn’t in sight. “Come ‘ere a sec, will ya? And bring some sunburn ointments, ya know, from the stock.” A moment later, a man came out of one of the train cars that surrounded us, and walked over to us. “Here you go, Europa,” said the man and gave her a small hastily labeled container and a roll of gauze. “This thing right here is great for blisters,” Europa said. “And don’t thank us. It was Brenda who brought a bunch and gave it to us from out there in the ‘abroad’. She is surveying the area for us now, but she’ll come back soon. You can thank her then.” Europa carefully removed the gauze from my limbs and started applying a thick layer of ointment. It didn’t look much different to the one Julia and Archer had brought, but I could tell it was a different thing from the potent smell. “And hey, while I slather your friend with this goodness,” Europa said. “What’s your names?” “I’m Taka. This is Julia, the electric type gym leader of the Reborn League, then that’s Vanilla and this is Archer.” “Nice to meet y’all. I’m Europa and this here is Al. Y’know Bill,” she said but Bill had already gone back to his train car. “... Oh well, you saw Bill. There’s also Stethoscope in the back, and Brenda, who is up in the air somewhere, is a traveler like y’all.” Europa pointed at one of the train cars when she mentioned Stethoscope and the sky when she mentioned Brenda. “And that’s it. This is Train Town for you. We’re just a buncha people that couldn’t find our place in society back in the city, so we made our own little place out here in the desert. Make yourselves cozy, won’t ya?” “Now that’s done,” said Europa, covering the last patch of my skin with clean gauze. “But I think we should measure your temperature just to be safe.” She then called for Stethoscope as she’d done Bill. The woman who exited a train car in response to being called was wearing a lab coat. I didn’t remember her name, but I vaguely remembered her face. “What’s the matter now?” she asked drowsily, but one look at me and she was jolted fully awake. “Oh no. Don’t tell me it’s your ultimate goal to see all of us humiliated.” “No, but I’m curious what you’re doing here. Didn’t you have a job to tend to?” “You’re acquaintances?” Julia asked. “Well, I didn’t really care to continue working for Dr. Connal once he decided to team up with the terrorists,” Stethoscope explained. “In short, I’m no longer with them. You don’t need to fight me off.” “Fight? You shouldn’t fight a girl covered in secondary-degree burns, hun. Can you take Vanilla’s temperature?” Europa said without understanding the context of our conversation. Stethoscope took a thermometer out of her lab coat’s pocket and gave it to me so that I could place it under my armpit. While they waited for the thermometer to give a temperature readout, Stethoscope asked Europa a question. “Hey, has Brenda returned yet?” Europa shook her head. “The sun is beginning to set, so I think she’ll come back soon, though.” “Ok,” she sighed. “I hope she bears good news but I am 90% sure she won’t.” “Now now, we got to send good vibes so strengthen that 10% of optimism in you.” “What’s this about?” Julia asked when the rest of us dared not. “Oh, well. As you can already tell, we live in the middle of a desert, so we were hoping that Brenda could find a reliable water source for us,” Stethoscope said. “Huh? You guys are short on water?” Julia asked Stethoscope and then to Archer, “Can we give some of ours?” “Don’t mind,” Stethoscope answered before Archer could say yes or no. “We’re trying to look for a permanent water source, so that we could fully wean ourselves off of Reborn City. However, as you can imagine, it’s not easy to find something like that in the desert.” “Yeah, that’s right,” Julia said, looking uncharacteristically sad. At that moment, the thermometer beeped and Europa took it. “Nope, no fever. You’re all set now, pal,” she gave me a light pat on my shoulder, taking care not to touch the damaged area. I stood up from the chair so that Europa could sit down, when Taka decided to open his big mouth. “How about we look for a water source?” “Taka, don’t give them false hope,” I said. “You can't seriously believe we could find water in a desert. It’s the con of living in a place that people aren’t supposed to live in.” “Vanilla? I can’t believe it’s you saying that. Only the night before last you told me you’d try getting water at any cost if people’s lives depended upon it.” I flinched at this sudden reference to what I had said on a whim. “That… and this aren’t the same,” I complained. “Well, since I’m going to be staying here, I’d like to make sure I and these people won’t die from dehydration,” he said. “I think it’s quite a similar situation, but I can understand if you want to retract what you said back then.” Taka’s expression didn’t betray any malice, but for some reason I could feel there was malice in his words. Retract what I had said the night before last? I looked at Archer and then at Taka. And give Archer credit for volunteering to replenish our water supplies? I gritted my teeth, but I found an escape. “We don’t need to find any such place,” I said. “Archer, you know how to dance and make it rain. Why don’t you teach these people and their pokemon to do it?” Being addressed out of nowhere, Archer was startled but also flustered for some reason. “Y-you saw me? Why didn’t you say anything?” he blurted out. “It was Taka who saw you, not me,” I said. Archer looked at Taka. “It was a… uh, very elegant dance. Yeah, very elegant.” There was a pause there, one long enough for Archer to speak with composure. “Unfortunately, that’s not something these people could rely on,” he said. “The desert just isn’t an environment that supports the creation of clouds, and Rain Dance relies on being able to gather clouds to make it rain. Even with all my pokemon, I could only generate enough rain to fill little less than half of our water bottles.” “Well then, that settles it,” Taka said. “Vanilla, you’re going to go look for a water source for us?” I glared at Taka, and this time he could see it clearly. “Fine. I’ll do it. As I said, anyone in my position would do it if they had common decency,” I crossed my arms. “You really are something,” Taka laughed. And just like that, my plans to beat Titania in a Gym battle had to be postponed for an engagement that my pride wouldn’t allow me to disengage. “Well, I really couldn’t follow what y’all were about, but if y’all gonna look for water in these parts for us, we’re eternally grateful, don’t ya agree, Al?” Europa said. Al nodded. “And so we’d like y’all to join us for the farewell party we’re having tonight for Brenda,” she added. “A lot of food and fun should help y’all relax for your next sandy adventure, I’m sure.” “A party?” Julia’s eyes glimmered. “We wouldn’t want to be a burden to you,” Archer said. “We have enough food left.” “Nonsense. It’s a farewell party for Brenda, and if there’s something we know, it’s that she always likes over-the-top. Soon she gonna arrive with ungodly amounts of food. Am I wrong, Al?” Al shook his head sideways. “Yeah, stay I guess. It’s going to get dark soon, so you wouldn’t be able to find anything even if you departed now. We can also hear what Brenda’s got to say about her survey,” Stethoscope said. “Yay! A party! That’s what this camping thing was missing,” Julia danced. “If you insist, we can stay for the party,” Archer shrugged. Taka only smiled. And I only frowned. VANILLA RATES: REBORN CHARACTERS QUICK LINK TO NEXT EPISODE

As I said idk wtf Mao did (rn anyway, if I remember I’ll check those links xD) but I was just referring to the dynamic of Vanilla-Wolfie duo. Vanilla is not a deep thinker (unlike Gabriel for instance) because she’s a doer and relied on Wolfie’s brain for most of her life. But whether or not Vanilla planned to go full-on Mao, I wonder if the circumstances would even allow that to even happen...

Thanks for the thorough analysis, and you're pretty spot-on on everything you said. I don't know much about Mao, but fiction tends to resemble reality. The duo of Vanilla and Wolfie might've been almost exactly as Mao and that second dude were. I don't know if I have a writing style, but I like to write about raw human-human interactions in their various complexities (as far as the limit of my imagination will allow me to). FEtR is, at the same time, all about morality and not about morality at all. Every major character thinks they are in the right, or at least don't think they're wrong, or think that the ends justify the means, but they're all too young (18-22 y/o) to have enough understanding of politics and sociology to think of anything more than "enemy is bad, I gotta get rid of enemy and everything will be good". :fufu: Jasmin has a tiger in Disney's Aladdin, so I imagine she'd have quite a few felines, if she had the luxury of choice.

I’d written Jasmin as “an unstoppable force” that is bound to be hated due to how merciless she is against the protagonist, but writing her backstory made me like her. It’s interesting to think about how different a story FEtR would be if it had been told from Jasmin’s perspective. The way I’ve written the story, the readers (I’m making a sweeping assumption here) would support Vanilla in her endeavor to get revenge. However whose morality is more correct? Probably neither but these are the types of conflicts that exist and are the reason why wars can’t be avoided. I like your thinking, fren. So far I’ve not gone into what kind of society Vanini wants to create once she overthrows the Queen, and there’s good reason for that which will be covered in a season or two if and when she returns to Everland (wow I’ve used the word Everland so much that autocorrect actually corrected me on its spelling lmao).