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Hard Enough - Chapter 392 - Train like time is running out

“Shit! Shit! Shit!” I growled as I thundered down the flattened path leading to a target that was on a swivel.

My lance, couched in my arm and held as firmly as I could manage, wobbled as I closed. 

I thrust when I closed with the target, only to whiff by an inch.

Sadly, with the way a lance was shaped, that meant I ended up nudging the target shield and causing the bag of sand to swing around with me barely having the time to duck.

Not that I could with the a...

Hard Enough - Chapter 391 - The Medal ceremony

The Medal ceremony was originally planned to occur upon Vermilion City’s docks.

Then organizers got wind of just how many people were interested and quickly came to understand that it would be a nightmare, even with the use of pokemon to speed run construction. In contrast, others fought back the screams of people demanding that proper OSHA be observed.

The organisers quickly shifted goals, knowing that such wasn’t a good idea. 

So instead, the medal ceremony was pu...

Hard Enough - Chapter 390 - Home again

My return home took longer than the planned week that I’d allocated for my trip to the Battle Frontier. 

I hadn’t gotten anything that I’d initially planned when I set off for the Battle Frontier done beyond meeting Bradon, Noland, and Lucy. Spencer, the representative of Rota, hadn’t left his palace and instead sent a trainer to act as a diplomat for Rota in the discussions that were still ongoing.

Which I had come to learn, was pretty much par for the course with di...

Hard Enough - Chapter 389 - Letting go of power

The talks continued to progress.

Both in that they occurred, and that agreements took place on how to move forward with the Crusher Tribe. The Diplomats seemed giddy at this, if one listened to the, simply sitting down and meeting was a good day, forget getting anything signed and actually done.

That had been one of the rare instances Lance and I had shared a look that spoke of making sure we continued to move things along.

Still, progress.

Rangers and diplomats arrive...

Artwork - Aura training through the ages!

A double drop for the weekend featuring Ash and Lucario and Sir Aaron and Riolu!

Red Riot - Chapter 46 - Red Defeat

Matsu Uzumaki:- person of high interest to other Shinobi Villages. Jonin. Medical/Taijutsu/Ninjutsu/Sensory speciality. Chief Medical Officer of the Kiri Medical Program

Gengetsu Hozuki:- The second Mizukage and trickster Lord of Kirigakure. Master of Illusions and torment. Defeated Mu, the Second Tsuchikage in combat. Lost his left arm and left leg in the fight. Matsu healed him.

Fuguki Suikazan:- Leader of the Seven Swordsmen. Wielder of Samehada.

Kushimaru Kuriarare:- One...

Hard Enough - Chapter 388 - Lorekeeper

Meeting the sunrise after an hour’s training was a fairly common routine for me.

It oddly took different styles of effort. In summer, the morning sessions were nice to train in with the cool of the morning being rather relaxing with the sunrise heralding an uptick in heat. There was also the issue that the sun rose earlier, so I typically got less sleep in summer.

Winter, for all the cold and winds could be horrible to train in, allowed me to push the sleep clock back and enjoy ...

Hard Enough - Chapter 387 - Interlude - The new Guardians

“— and this report details how criminal activity has been increasing within the surrounds of Porta Vista due to the impact of the Giant Tentacruel incident.” Janine tapped on the projection with a pointer stick.

Visquez sighed. “So we go in there and bust heads! Right?”

Erika coughed. “This isn’t a simple case. The people are resorting to crime due to their livelihoods being disrupted. We need to support them and steer them away from criminal activities, not crush th...

Artwork – Janine and Shiny ninja Bulbasaur!

Bulbasaur learns Iron Leaf no jutsu!

But seriously, I thought this was a good prompt and decided to see about making it happen!

Thanks go to Ryot_ryot for this artwork!
As always, throw any thoughts or prompts you might have my way, either here or on Discord!

Hard Enough - Chapter 386 - The family reunion - Interlude

Yolanda stared at the older girl. No. She was a woman grown.

“So I’ll look like you if I wear that much leather, fur and claws?” she murmured.

“If you’re lucky,” Agate’s lips twitched in amusement as she tossed her head.

It wasn’t very effective.

Yolanda wasn’t impressed. 

Agate was trying to play it cool, Yolanda could tell, but when you have Sabrina as a big sister, your standards for cool were much higher.

Terra wiggled in her arms...

Hard Enough - Chapter 385 - The weight carried by Crushers

Screams of shock jolted me from my sleep, and I sat up groggily only to blink uncertainly at the hide walls of the tent I’d bunked in.

Huh? This wasn’t my state of the art… oh, right, the Crusher Tribe. We were in their tent right now.

“Who’s screaming?” I said as I prepared to head out and get into another fight.

“Heh, Lance and Lorelei, they both just woke up in each other’s arms,” Sabrina murmured from her position in our sleeping bag.

That had me ...

Artwork - Forrest doing some simple tricks

Some of Ryot's artwork. A simple one with Forrest on his bike doing a jump. I've got some others that I'm holding off on posting until certain chapters are released, or I will double post some artwork as they link together quite well!

Hard Enough - Chapter 384 - Dark night for dark deeds and songs

My guide was quick to lead me and a few of my pokemon towards the altercation, not that I needed their direction upon exiting my tent.

“Death to the thief!” “False Overlord!” “Bastard!” “Coward!” “Egg thief!” 

A few chants stuck out to me as I was led through the ensemble of tents towards where the shouting and where the fires were being waved back and forth.

When I entered the space before the tents, I found several ninja standing around the tent wi...

Hard Enough - Chapter 383 - All hail... Brock?

It took all of a minute for Lance to land and end up staring at me. He had his hands on his hips, but I pointedly ignored him in favour of smiling at Sabrina who’d practically moulded herself to my side. A large part of me was just enjoying having her safe in my arms while another part was doing the male caveman equivalent of beating his chest as I resisted the urge to either go for a victory lap or challenge Lance.

Lance turned away from me to inspect the still kneeling crowd of Crus...

Author note - Good news everyone! With a touch of potential for disruptuon...

So, in IRL news my wife and I have had our third child, a healthy baby boy weighting in at 3.17 kg, or 7 pound for the imperials.

All is healthy, mum is sore due to surgery, but looking good. This week hopefully won't have too much in the way of disruptions but I thought I'd inform people that I'm going to be a touch more sleep deprived and under time crunches.

At the moment the first chapter is scheduled and I need to edit and schedule the second, so it might be late, ju...

Artwork - Brock's wrath

Commissioned Ozlyk for this and Tyranitar's specialised Mega Evolution to have something a bit Plus Ultra for this chapter. Here are some of the different iterations. I will be posting these on Discord as well.

Artwork - Titan Mega-evolved

Another by Ozlyk featuring Titan's altered/synchronised Mega Evolution.

Hard Enough - Chapter 382 - Dark avalanche

“— you are a small-minded man who has stood upon a dirt pile who thinks himself impressive for his meagre achievements. I do not need to view your mind to know who you are Overlord Granite,” Sabrina mocked. 

Her words carried across the clearing.

Granite’s eyes dilated slightly as he sucked in a breath in surprise.

It was rather wonderful to pop a delusional man’s bubble.

Behind Granite, the people stirred. 

Someone laughed, only for ...

Hard Enough - Chapter 381 - The Crusher Tribe

Sabrina’s message stared back at me from the screen. I’d read it and the words were known to me, but for some reason I failed to compute their meaning.

I blinked and looked away only to look back, hoping that it had changed, but it hadn’t.

‘I’ve allowed myself to be captured… follow me back to their base,’ it read.

“Of all the ideas to have,” I started to say only to cut myself off. No, that wasn’t fair. Perhaps there had been extenuating circums...

Red Riot - Chapter 45 - Red success

Matsu Uzumaki:- person of high interest to othe

Poll - Ursaluna name vote

So it looks like Normal Ursaluna has won the vote! It was a surprisingly close vote percentage-wise. Sorry for those who didn't get their choice! That being said, there were some great points regarding Bloodmoon Ursaluna that were raised. When Brock eventually goes to Kitakami I think we'll have some fun with that!

• Anyway! Now we need a name that works best for Ursaluna! I've grabbed a few that I liked along with some suggestions.

• The taglines I added are just fo...

  2025-11-20 03:52:17 +0000 UTC View Post

Hard Enough - Chapter 380 - Into the Fire

I had a good deal of experience fighting fires.

Surprisingly enough, my experience didn’t just come from this life with pokemon. I’d certainly done it more, but the basics of a fire were still relevant. 

You could throw earth and water on smaller fires, but when a fire evolved into an inferno, you needed to get ahead of it and backburn to deny it future fuel. 

This usually resulted in its spluttering out.

You could still have issues with embers being born...

Hard Enough - Chapter 379 - The trap is set.

“You know, I don’t think I’ve ever said this about a salad before, but that was delicious,” I said, offering Noland the praise he was due. “It made no sense to me when you offered a salad with this being winter, but…” I waved a hand at my bowl.m

A quick look over my shoulder revealed my pokemon were licking their bowls clean. Articuno was hopping back and forth like an oversized parrot, trilling happily.

“What, did you feed Articuno your salad to befriend it?” I ...

Artwork - Clair and Olga whipping up some styles.

Another from Ryot_ryot. I'm quite amused with the OG they cooked up when I gave them a general description. I have to say I quite like the way Olga came together.

As always tos your thoughts my way or post any suggestions you might have here, or in the discord channel and I wil lsee what I can come up with.

Poll - Ursaluna type

Hi everyone! So in my chapters coming up, Brock is going to be evolving Ursaring.

Now the question becomes, which way should this go? Brock does know of Ursaluna, but doesn't know of Bloodmoon Ursaluna, so he doesn't know of the difference between physical and special stats that each has.
- Now, in the story, a sudden Bloodmoon will have impacts on the kids, with Ursaluna being pretty scary looking. There is also some potential for this to be seen as a 'sign' of things to c...

Hard Enough - Chapter 378 - A cold trail

With Tiffany abducted, Guardian agents swarmed the town of Battle Pike.

It was rather interesting to see the uptick and know that they were here in response to one of our own being stolen away.

Despite the increased presence and Sabrina herself combing the likely abduction site, we were no closer to getting a lead.

The security cameras that overlooked the roads coming into and out of the area all happened to break down in the period leading up to Tiffany’s disappearance. 2025-11-11 19:00:07 +0000 UTC View Post

Hard Enough - Chapter 377 - On the road again!

I’d been willing to hold back my strongest moves and pokemon against Brandon.

He’d done something similar by not using some of their stronger moves as well. It felt perfectly reasonable that he had to have a wide area attack like Sand Blast for both Regice and Registeel.

I wasn’t counting Explosion as, while insanely powerful, upon reflection, I suspected he’d only done that to get both of our Regirock off the field while making it impossible for people to claim that he wa...

Red Riot - Chapter 44 - Red Peaks

Matsu Uzumaki:- person of high interest to other Shinobi Villages. Jonin. Medical/Taijutsu/Ninjutsu/Sensory speciality. Chief Medical Officer of the Kiri Medical Program

Gengetsu Hozuki:- The second Mizukage and trickster Lord of Kirigakure. Master of Illusions and torment. Defeated Mu, the Second Tsuchikage in combat. Lost his left arm and left leg in the fight. Matsu healed him.

Kuroiwa Karatachi - student of Matsu. Karatachi clanswoman. Chunin. Medic. Capitalist! Primed to bein...

Artwork - Karen, Ash, and Pikachu off on another adeventure!

Not precisely how it would go down, but we're allowed some creative leeway, I believe. Or, you can just imagine this is how Sabrina likes to think it is going down.

Hard Enough - Chapter 376 - Out of the swamp and into the Muk!

Knight surged forward with intent blazing through him.

He’d always been a passionate pokemon full of heart. His emotions had only grown stronger with the introduction of Link, and Gawain, who were steadfast friends with him.

But the biggest change had been when Empress started to ‘court’ him. From casual observation she’d witnessed his ability to interact with much younger, weaker pokemon with ease and through a desire to interact with her future eggs she had observed him ...