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Hard Enough - Chapter 93 - Interlude - Erika Gaiden

Erika knelt in her garden. Golden light split through the trees that had been artfully arranged to allow for optimal light while keeping the clearing temperate with the chance of small gusts of wind. She’d altered her garden this season. Not a large change, merely the addition of the small bridge that rose and fell over a ditch that was currently being dug with trowels.

She was getting some heated looks for ordering it done and assigning it to a group of rather unruly girls. They’d ...

Hard Enough - Chapter 92 - Rocket Raid II electric boogaloo

I told Surge why I was there. It was a long and rather shameful handful of minutes admitting my own failures.

Surge’s grin only held for a few seconds.

Then it morphed into hard lines. It wasn’t a scowl. It was something more calculating. There was an edge there that I wasn’t used to seeing in my once mentor/now friend. He rubbed his chin.

“So, Team rocket set up a base in my city…” He rolled the words around in his mouth as though tasting them. He eyed ...

Hard Enough - Artwork - Missy and her Rhydon

Thanks go to Ryot_ryot for this work from Fivver!

As you can see I have linked together some ace trainer styles to create Missy! The Pewter Gym Trainer looking to empower her Rhydon!

I've got Ryot_Ryot working on some other things but as always throw any suggestions you have my way! I will be trying to do up something for Alexa soon! Not sure if Bethany the receptionist will get much love for a while. 

Hard Enough - Chapter 91 - Planning the offensive

“Brock…” Sabrina stared at the rock that I had laid out on my table. With how she was staring at it in open wonder I knew this had to be resonating with her. It had to be a psychic-type pokemon megastone.

And the first psychic type to come to mind would be—

At her hip, a pokeball opened and Alakazam appeared in the room. He nodded in greeting to me before leaning forward to inspect the rock with Sabrina.

“I think that clinches it as Alakazite.”

“Alakazite...

Hard Enough - Chapter 90 - Confrontation

A sneer can do incredible things to a face. Typically, none of them beautiful.

Daniel’s sneer made his face sharper and more angular. His eyes seemed to sink into his face and become like dark gems that glitter out at the world. His lips twisted and thinned to display all his teeth without an inkling of joy.

The most drastic change, however, was his nose.

It physically remained the same, what changed was how I wanted to push it through his face. I drew on rock energy as he...

Hard Enough - Artwork - Lawrence the Lawyer

Another of Ryot_ryot's art pieces specifically showing off Pidgeot man! Aka Lawrence the Lawyer by trade, biker by hobby!

Very happy how this one turned out. I might have to commission them to do another version with his shirt off to show off his tattoos! What do you think he has tribal or another style of tat?

As always, throw me any suggestions you might have with regards to possible artworks you'd like to see! 

Hard Enough - Chapter 89 - To protect the world!

“Yeouch! Eepers jeepers Jess! Careful with them mitts you call hands! I’m roughed up goods!” Meowth whined as Jess hugged him.

He pushed at her for a bit only to squirm a little as he tried to look at her. “Are you wiping your face on…” He paused when he saw some tears in her eyes, settling and looking around as if for help.

I stopped approaching them to give her a moment to regain her control.

Meowth locked eyes with me and we shared a moment of solidarity. We b...

Hard Enough - Chapter 88 - Make it double!

Jessie lay atop the hill with half her body sticking out of a bush. She had some of the best binoculars that money could buy —stolen from the Rocket stores reserved for the Executives, of course—  at her disposal. In front of her the Pewter city gym sat.

Next to her James and Meowth lay, equally entranced with the gym.

“It’s… really big…” said James from her right.

“That means they must have a ton of good pokemon, right?” said Meowth.

“Hmpf! It...

Red Riot - Chapter 7 - Tentative steps forward

Water lapped across my temples as I floated in the grotto pool. I’d lost count of how many times I’d come here. Of late, it was only when I felt certain that I had lost any tails, both from the clan children and from my own group.

Shoto was still very good at sneaking up on people, but I’d been able to shift a little of my time towards sensory training. I would never consider dropping training my mystical palm completely. I still had so much further to go. There were too many diff...

What should be released next month?

This month's chapter for the Bronze supporter's choice was Red Riot Chapter 7.

Now, as requested previously, here are the options you can vote for with some more context in the comments. Sadly, due to my prior Author Notes, this might not be released this coming month with how things will shake out... So please be aware it is something that is not guaranteed.

I have posted some of the Voidhop series but I might tease with some Oobleck as I think that wo...

A.N. Update on IRL situation

Hi Patreons, thanks for reading this; it is just giving you an update on some things that are affecting me personally. (Warning it's pretty depressing)

Specifically, my wife and I have been told that our baby is guaranteed to not go the full 38 weeks and will be born premature. This has made things very stressful for us with us having to get ALL THE THINGS for baby with capsule, pram, and get what is known as 00000's clothing along with 000000's and such. So it is rath...

Hard Enough - Chapter 87 - Prepare for Trouble!

Cindy’s sonata of awakening roused the pokemon the next morning and I started the routine warm up for them before jogging around the plateau. When I spotted the two rostered trainers on the breakfast shift I jogged up.

“Morning Daniel, Jackson! Ready to start up?” I said loudly.

Both men nodded their heads, and Jackson stretched to the side. “Which ones do you want me to take boss?”

“I’ll give you the tougher job with the first badge pokemon for order practice ...

Hard Enough - Chapter 86 - Terra, Training, and tests

Yolanda had been adamant that they meet as early as possible. Terra, as a baby pokemon had other ideas and had promptly fallen asleep when Yolanda had picked her up causing the plan to be shifted back.

Yolanda had happily accepted the compromise and gone to bed with her new pokemon and starter. On the way to bed, I’d made sure to tap Flint on the shoulder. “You probably need to get Forrest his starter as soon as possible, seeing as Yolanda now has hers.”

Flint nodded. “Do ...

Artwork - Hard Enough - Chibi Sabrina peeking!

This one goes to Ro_arts_Id on Fivver. I wanted to try something a little different, and cute with Sabrina. Enjoy Sabrina peeking in on you and wondering what you're doing! She might one day have the Ralts/Kirlia/Gardevoir at her side!

If you have any other things you'd like to see then by all means toss a message below! Or if you know of a good artist who's style you'd like to see!

Voidhop - Chapter 2 - The Discovery

The spaceship XTC-3-246 slowed with all the grace of a roided up piljack hitting a building. It lurched, once, then sped up a touch before repeating the lurch. Branx keyed the line to engineering.

“We gonna live, or you socket monkeys all dead and we’re gonna die?” There was a moment of silence before a grunt sounded back at him.

“I’m assuming we’re going to live?” All he got was another grunt in reply.

Shirel weathered his look with only a shrug. “Who cares ...

Hard Enough - Chapter 85 - Interlude - Pride on the line

Mia was rather enjoying Cerulean. It had lovely water features, was a nice temperature, and was not nearly as packed as Pewter City. It also hadn’t been nearly as hard to get the Gym badge after Pewter, but then again Brock had said he was going hard on all of them. Oh well, Mia was just glad she and all her friends had so far gotten all the badges they’d tried for. She’d even caught herself another two pokemon with an Ekans and a Zubat that were working rather well with Silly Mouse. Th...

Hard Enough - Chapter 84 - Gift giving and not forgiving

The last trainer for the day ended up being a doozy.

They’d selected the gauntlet run and on paper they looked like they knew what they were doing. They had a good sized team with pokemon of various sizes and types. They even had a grass type with an Oddish, and a water type with a Poliwag.

What they didn’t have was good luck. Yolanda had gone out first leaving me to hold her trembling egg. Perhaps that had resulted in her wanting to end the match quicker. She’d dropped all ...

Hard Enough suit vote

I think I have half an idea which will be voted for, but I'm curious what people will vote for! Please vote for one of the three suits that have appeared to become part of the story in later scenes.

Hard Enough - Artwork - Suit up!

Another great artwork from Dearluna for the more formal looking art piece to go with Sabrina in a dress series!

There will be another vote made up for these, (Bronze tier will get to vote on them!) with the winner being written into the story! These, along with Sabrina artworks, will be featured on the other various websites for people to enjoy so expect to see some commentary on them for people on SB, SV, QQ, and RR. FF doesn't have image options so sadly they miss out!

Toss me ...

Hard Enough - Chapter 83 - Awkward Breakfasts

I was up and about early the next morning. The sun hadn’t yet risen over the horizon, and I was lapping some pokemon around the perimeter with my morning jog. When I was done, I set the pokemon to wrestling each other and warm their bodies up for when the other trainers came out.

I was about to turn towards my Elite pokemon team to work on one or two of them when I was interrupted.

“Woah!” said an unexpected voice. I turned around and found Ash, Misty, and Greta walking towa...

Hard Enough - Chapter 82 - Afternoon Antics

“Poliwhirl, use Bubblebeam to finish it off!” shouted the last trainer for the day.

Moxy subtly gave me a look and I made a face as though I was ‘saddened’ that the trainer had used a pokemon move that was super effective against me. Moxy let the hit graze her and rolled backwards a bit more than strictly necessary. I grimaced and flicked a glance at the trainer but they were celebrating as I made a show of withdrawing my pokemon. They didn’t notice how ham-fisted my pokemon h...

Hard Enough - Artwork - Celebrating awards!

Huge thanks go to Dearluna who suprised me with how fast this got put together! these are to celebrate the recent awards Hard Enough won on SV and will be sent through to there but Patreons obviously come first for sneak previews! 

Hard Enough - Artwork - Trixie

From Dearluna from Fiverr once more we have some artwork to showcase what's going on in my mind when I picture Trainer Trixie! For those that can tell shi is inspired by a F/GO character. This trainer is also considered roughly 2 metres tall so she towers over mere mortals like Brock and others!

I'm thinking of having Lawrence done up next but I also want to get some shots of Brock in a tuxedo made up that you can have a fun little vote on. I'm not sure if I will be able to find somethi...

Hard Enough - Chapter 81 - Dangerously overpowered

The morning’s challenges passed without comment. They came, they challenged, they proceeded for the most part. Of the other five challengers after Greta I had four demonstrate enough skill while the last challenged at the fourth badge level only to not have a deep enough pokemon roster. He’d been close though and I had no doubt he’d get the badge in another week or two once he came back.

Greta had shot a few questions at me each time I came and sat in the trainer lounge much to De...

Hard Enough - Chapter 80 - Gruff Greetings for Greta

I walked through the racks of pokeballs that were on offer for today with a thoughtful hum. It was the first day of the week, so none of the pokemon on these racks needed to be avoided. I walked to the section that was now dedicated to the first badge challenge and noted that it was heavily dominated by pokeball bearing Lileep stickers. I glanced at the information that I had for one Greta Evergreen. Sponsored trainer of Samuel Oak thanks to her high test scores and repeated attendance at his...

Voidhop - Chapter 1 - Branxulto'Mespik

“The void is a cruel mistress,” Branxulto’Mespik said through a cloud of smoke. The noxious smokestick glowed between his thick grey fingers as he looked out. Overhead, the night sky was visible through the transparent visiplate. A mere handful of stars defied the light pollution to shine. He still found himself inspired as he stared at them, his thoughts rolling on with a steady inertia as he took a drag on his smokestick.

“She cares the same for the hapless traveller, the rigi...

Hard Enough - Chapter 79 - The day after

I woke up the next morning and rolled out of bed, smacking my lips and blearily reached for the water bottle I kept near my bed. The alarm had gone off and I needed to get up but today was one of those days that I just wanted to lay back down. The fact that it was a Monday only heightened that feeling. I groaned as I stood up, shaking out my limbs; I’d need to be ready for an annoying day and starting off on the wrong foot wouldn’t help.

It was still early, no one else would be up y...

Hard Enough - Chapter 78 - Flint's return home

The more things change, the more they stay the same. I wasn’t sure how much I wanted to read into that as I stood at the entrance to the arena.

They said a picture could paint a thousand words, but the picture before me could say at least ten times that. Especially if you know all the parties in said picture

Firstly, I had the least guilty but largest in number who were Forrest’s friends. They all wore loose clothes. They had caps on backwards and fake tattoos that mu...

Red Riot - Interlude - Observations

“Alright, the expeditions are done,” said a gruff voice from around a cigar that glowed resentfully out at the world. “What did the trainee Hunter nin see happen out there that is worth being discussed?”

The third-year instructors started first, as always.

Tempora, or as he was known to his brats, Instructor Tempora, settled in to wait. His class would take a while to get to as first years. He leafed through the reports that had been written up with this year’s observati...

What should be released next month?

This month's chapter for the 'Fan's choice was Red Riot Chapter 6.

Now, as asked for previously, here are the options you can vote for with some more context in the comments. 

The vote will end Saturday in two weeks time!