- Location
- not doing my homework
- Pronouns
- He/They
Wait till Erika meets Mary's childhood friend who is currently travelling...
Trails of Tera Steel (Kiseki-inspired Pokemon Academy Quest)
- Thread starter ArvisPresley
- Start date
Wait till Erika meets Mary's childhood friend who is currently travelling...
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Kali sweep for sure. She's the hidden underdog but still a strong contender.
SolarGemX
The Crystalized Sun
- Location
- Somewhere in the Cosmos
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Huh..... it really is like that. R names from multiple frachises...
- Location
- not doing my homework
- Pronouns
- He/They
Ngl my vote is for her. Always liked a good underdog story.
StattStatt
Supplier of suspenders for your disbelief
- Location
- On one of your shoulders
- Pronouns
- He/Him
It will never cease to amuse me how people talk about potential love interests in this threat like they're sports teams to root for
- Location
- not doing my homework
- Pronouns
- He/They
It's my blood, my friend. My heart yearns to be at a football stadium chanting with the lads, than get into a fight alongside the lads when it goes to penalties.
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Oh is that just a this thread thing? I do that in every thread.
If you're not treating a ship like your favourite Team then what's the point?
StattStatt
Supplier of suspenders for your disbelief
- Location
- On one of your shoulders
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I look at them more like animals in a pet shop/zoo.
Tbf though, this is basically one of the only/the first thread, quest or otherwise, that I've been this active in and have read through in its entirety so it's very possible I've just missed a hell of a lot elsewere lol
- Pronouns
- She/They
Ah balls, Moon Doors are regular threadmarks. I'm falling behind again.
You did this to yourself and you damn well know it.
Actually I do like how Mary's "Team Mom" status has all been vote-driven (between the background choice, Ostia befriending, and two out of three Pokémon choices being atypically young) but it still hangs together really consistently with her character. Arvis does a damn good job dovetailing votes and character writing.
The edge of the "civilized" part of the frontier. Also I find the numbered sections naming scheme somehow interesting. It's reminiscent of Scarlet/Violet's Area naming scheme (which mostly got dropped in favor of named locations and municipalities in the crossover) and gives the vibe of a kind of industrialized and impersonal modern agriculture which...the social structures of Paldea are all over the last three centuries here, which is also accurate to Trails, but I just find it an interesting indication of how organized and vital the Cortondo breadbasket is that it has names implying central planning of some kind when most of the rest of the country doesn't.
Most Water-types: "Boy I hope there's a convenient pond for me to deploy in."
Staryu: wheeeeeeee levitation
We're obviously going to be seeing a lot of Bug-types on this field exercise, but the first two identified as the most common are Nymble and Nincada. Nymble, which eventually evolves into Lokix, is a pure Bug-type based on a grasshopper or locust, so definitely something you'd expect to be a pest to human agriculture even without the circumstances we're learning about here. Nincadas are, of course, based on cicadas (and ninjas), which are another bug known for swarming inconveniently, although my understanding is that most people dislike the noise more than their impact on the food supply. And obviously, we're going to fight evolved versions of both later.
As a game note, Nymble are extremely common in the southern quarter of Paldea in Scarlet/Violet, while Nincada aren't available at all in Gen 9. As usual the games are at best a vague guideline and in general have little to do with quest Pokémon distribution.
So there's some interesting logistics here about using Pokémon as scouts or otherwise independent operators - you either need to Speak Pokémon a la Erika, or have a Psychic-type to translate, or otherwise do some extensive communications training. Worth noting, since Pokémon are useful partners, but we see here that communications delays in needing an interpreter can potentially make a difference. Presumably, the ARCUS is meant at least in part to circumvent this with its combat link feature, but it's not quite there yet.
Please see a psychiatrist about that time some wild (?) Pokémon killed people in front of you, Mary, I think we've got at least that part of your childhood trauma pretty established now.
Who am I kidding nothing involved in this crossover has psychiatrists.
Our first example of one of the Triad - about to be introduced - using precision lockdowns against humans. Canny tactics to the point of uncanniness.
And this is why you can't just faceroll things with a type advantage - the downside of non-white room combat. Sharon has the advantage against bugs here, but she can't just fire indiscriminately due to the potential for collateral damage.
This is how you motivate him, Elise.
Although I guess that'd get her license revoked in a League battle, huh.
The first of the trio, Spidops. We can see here as well as in the latest post that she's the brains of the outfit, tactical coordinator as well as an incredibly precise webslinger. A Pokémon that can command other Pokémon like a general isn't really a thing we see in the mainline games, although we do in the lore with certain species, but this one is clever and respected enough that it's not surprising it's later suggested that she's developing a Domain.
And then there's the black shadow in the trees...
I guess if it was Fire Emblem we'd keep Leaf's Pokémon benched just so non-promoted ones could earn XP but you know what I mean.
We know now from our omniscient audience point of view that this Lokix is partially a Shadow Pokémon, which...I'll get to that when I get to it, but even without the power boost that comes from channeling all of a Pokémon's energy into rage, this is a real threat. Lokix has a relatively high evolution threshold for a Bug-type, it has quite powerful physical moves, and is as a bunch of people referenced at the time based upon Japan's long-running Grasshopper-themed superhero franchise, Kamen Rider. This one showing up and nearly kicking our head off in the middle of a battle even feels like the introduction of a new antagonist on a tokusatsu show, although I'll leave any specific commentary on that to members of KR's small but uh...extremely dedicated English-speaking fanbase. The point is that between that power and being able to naturally Terastilize, this is a very powerful Pokémon, and he probably could have taken our head right off.
Shoutout to Elise for doing the self-sacrificing cover move, being smart enough to not just take the hit on the chin, and then being shown to be insane enough to just willingly get her lifeforce sucked by Rin as part of her fighting style. Honestly, I have even more concerns about this woman than I do about Mary. Only a Trails protagonist can be this level of concerning tbh.
Please get help, have a starlight heart-to-heart with a girl, something.
Swarm is one of several Abilities in Pokémon that power up moves of certain types when at low hit points - it means Lokix's Bug-type moves get a power boost when his back's against the wall, appropriately enough. Also Mary continues to have PTSD.
Anyway, Beedrill and Vespiquen are both bee-themed Pokémon, Beedrill being from Generation 1 and Vespiquen from Generation 4. There's not much to say about Beedrill other than being one of the prototypes of Bugs that evolve through larva (Weedle) and pupa (Kakuna) stages, and the only Bug Type who was even kind of useful as a damage dealer in G1 (also TIL I learned they can Mega Evolve). Vespiquen are interesting in that they're a little closer to a queen bee - they evolve only from male Combee and were designed with the flavor of having swarms of little helpers doing their moves (hence the floating Bug TE). It makes sense that you'd combine the two to make a breeding/hive project, since Yuri Science has not yet reached the level where two Vespiquen can produce an egg.
But really, I do hope that Thea finds a way to add Lokix to her team. The "something that calls to" her is empathy, I think. They're both people who have seen the world around them crash down due to the ambitions of humans who don't care if they live or die - Thea with the invasion ten years prior, and Lokix with the poachers - and both have wound up under the control of worldly powers trying to mold them into tools for their own use - the poachers and the Duke de Medali, if the description of Noblesse Oblige is at all accurate to Thea's life. I think they could do a lot to help each other, and a lot of damage to people who would hurt them and others.
Also Mary being a hypocrite as usual. At least our Pokémon are around to call us on it.
That said this is the cutest little TK bubble setup I've ever seen.
The votes here are things we agonized over in detail in the most stressful vote of the thread so far, so I won't go into it except to say they're all good kids. Unlike the Pokémon Den captures that led us to Renne, these Pokémon all exist in the world of the thread rather than being a quantum superposition collapsed by the winning vote, so I'll point them out during the battle itself next time.
Next time: the artist eventually known as Ruby
You did this to yourself and you damn well know it.
Actually I do like how Mary's "Team Mom" status has all been vote-driven (between the background choice, Ostia befriending, and two out of three Pokémon choices being atypically young) but it still hangs together really consistently with her character. Arvis does a damn good job dovetailing votes and character writing.
The edge of the "civilized" part of the frontier. Also I find the numbered sections naming scheme somehow interesting. It's reminiscent of Scarlet/Violet's Area naming scheme (which mostly got dropped in favor of named locations and municipalities in the crossover) and gives the vibe of a kind of industrialized and impersonal modern agriculture which...the social structures of Paldea are all over the last three centuries here, which is also accurate to Trails, but I just find it an interesting indication of how organized and vital the Cortondo breadbasket is that it has names implying central planning of some kind when most of the rest of the country doesn't.
Most Water-types: "Boy I hope there's a convenient pond for me to deploy in."
Staryu: wheeeeeeee levitation
We're obviously going to be seeing a lot of Bug-types on this field exercise, but the first two identified as the most common are Nymble and Nincada. Nymble, which eventually evolves into Lokix, is a pure Bug-type based on a grasshopper or locust, so definitely something you'd expect to be a pest to human agriculture even without the circumstances we're learning about here. Nincadas are, of course, based on cicadas (and ninjas), which are another bug known for swarming inconveniently, although my understanding is that most people dislike the noise more than their impact on the food supply. And obviously, we're going to fight evolved versions of both later.
As a game note, Nymble are extremely common in the southern quarter of Paldea in Scarlet/Violet, while Nincada aren't available at all in Gen 9. As usual the games are at best a vague guideline and in general have little to do with quest Pokémon distribution.
So there's some interesting logistics here about using Pokémon as scouts or otherwise independent operators - you either need to Speak Pokémon a la Erika, or have a Psychic-type to translate, or otherwise do some extensive communications training. Worth noting, since Pokémon are useful partners, but we see here that communications delays in needing an interpreter can potentially make a difference. Presumably, the ARCUS is meant at least in part to circumvent this with its combat link feature, but it's not quite there yet.
Please see a psychiatrist about that time some wild (?) Pokémon killed people in front of you, Mary, I think we've got at least that part of your childhood trauma pretty established now.
Who am I kidding nothing involved in this crossover has psychiatrists.
Our first example of one of the Triad - about to be introduced - using precision lockdowns against humans. Canny tactics to the point of uncanniness.
And this is why you can't just faceroll things with a type advantage - the downside of non-white room combat. Sharon has the advantage against bugs here, but she can't just fire indiscriminately due to the potential for collateral damage.
This is how you motivate him, Elise.
Although I guess that'd get her license revoked in a League battle, huh.
The first of the trio, Spidops. We can see here as well as in the latest post that she's the brains of the outfit, tactical coordinator as well as an incredibly precise webslinger. A Pokémon that can command other Pokémon like a general isn't really a thing we see in the mainline games, although we do in the lore with certain species, but this one is clever and respected enough that it's not surprising it's later suggested that she's developing a Domain.
And then there's the black shadow in the trees...
Overpowered legacy characters only intervene when the cutscene demands it. What do you think this is, Fire Emblem?
I guess if it was Fire Emblem we'd keep Leaf's Pokémon benched just so non-promoted ones could earn XP but you know what I mean.
I just want to ignore the jinxing for a second here and appreciate Mary appreciating her girl even mid battle. Renne's a life-saver on this Field Exercise and deserves all the Mishy merch.
And the antihero of this chapter: Lokix.
We know now from our omniscient audience point of view that this Lokix is partially a Shadow Pokémon, which...I'll get to that when I get to it, but even without the power boost that comes from channeling all of a Pokémon's energy into rage, this is a real threat. Lokix has a relatively high evolution threshold for a Bug-type, it has quite powerful physical moves, and is as a bunch of people referenced at the time based upon Japan's long-running Grasshopper-themed superhero franchise, Kamen Rider. This one showing up and nearly kicking our head off in the middle of a battle even feels like the introduction of a new antagonist on a tokusatsu show, although I'll leave any specific commentary on that to members of KR's small but uh...extremely dedicated English-speaking fanbase. The point is that between that power and being able to naturally Terastilize, this is a very powerful Pokémon, and he probably could have taken our head right off.
And he's going to just fucking solo our entire group to cover the rest of the bug-militia's retreat, using powerful kicks because of course.
Shoutout to Elise for doing the self-sacrificing cover move, being smart enough to not just take the hit on the chin, and then being shown to be insane enough to just willingly get her lifeforce sucked by Rin as part of her fighting style. Honestly, I have even more concerns about this woman than I do about Mary. Only a Trails protagonist can be this level of concerning tbh.
The Psychic/Pokémonese term for a Dark-type is a "Null" because they are (in the games) entirely immune to Psychic moves, and both Dark and Bug type attacks are super effective against Psychics, so Renne's at a huge disadvantage here and stepping up anyway. It helps that Phantasmal Feline gives her an attack of every type, but still, without numerical advantage she'd have been in real trouble here, and I appreciate her support.
Bug-types moves are also super effective against Dark types (it, like Lokix's entire existence, is a Kamen Rider joke), so human-aligned bugs showing up ruin this guy's day a bit. Our interloper hitting Lokix's targets with a healing move to reposition them is a funny bit I didn't notice the first time, though. Heal Order was formerly Vespiquen's signature move, and was generally pretty useless as a support move, but it actually doesn't exist in the last couple generations of the video games. Arvis seems to have taken the alternate route of just buffing it to make it usable on other Pokémon.
I was going to write something about Alice's age here before I remembered Mariana has two brothers. Michel is a busy guy so I forgot about him for a bit. Also interesting that Pressure affected Mariana...does it normally do that to humans? I'm mainly asking because Mary acts that way half the time normally.
Ninja vanish!
Two Beedrill named Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum, trained by a girl named Alice, are excellent. I can't be sure where Iri comes from as I'm not all that familiar with Through the Looking Glass and it could be short for any number of things otherwise.
Me, Mary, and Theodora:
Please get help, have a starlight heart-to-heart with a girl, something.
Reviewing this with clarity now: Spidops didn't get pushed out by a territorial dispute with another Pokémon, she (and presumably Ninjask) got pushed out by the poachers. She got aid from Lokix, a subject of theirs half-turned into a Shadow Pokémon, to build up resources to take the forest back. They do so at the expense of the farmers, and the garrison is controlled by local noble interests, who are on the side of the poachers and are uninterested in cleaning up their mess now that it's someone else's problem - someone up the chain of command was probably counting on this conflict to cause problems for Katie and the Trainers Association, since they're their political enemies. A neat little package that benefits the people in power behind the scenes and screws over everyone else.
Naturally, Theodora's concerned for her supposed enemy - Marina Marinedo's been through a similar political rigamarole, hasn't it? His missing arm is likely a result of either his imprisonment or his escape.
Swarm is one of several Abilities in Pokémon that power up moves of certain types when at low hit points - it means Lokix's Bug-type moves get a power boost when his back's against the wall, appropriately enough. Also Mary continues to have PTSD.
And Ostia continues to be part of our platoon of panic attack alert dogs. Love you kiddo.
Anyway, Beedrill and Vespiquen are both bee-themed Pokémon, Beedrill being from Generation 1 and Vespiquen from Generation 4. There's not much to say about Beedrill other than being one of the prototypes of Bugs that evolve through larva (Weedle) and pupa (Kakuna) stages, and the only Bug Type who was even kind of useful as a damage dealer in G1 (also TIL I learned they can Mega Evolve). Vespiquen are interesting in that they're a little closer to a queen bee - they evolve only from male Combee and were designed with the flavor of having swarms of little helpers doing their moves (hence the floating Bug TE). It makes sense that you'd combine the two to make a breeding/hive project, since Yuri Science has not yet reached the level where two Vespiquen can produce an egg.
I'm just copying out the worldbuilding exposition because I love it, especially the implication that Pokémon in a domesticated and protected situation can thrive in ways that wild ones can't, because the needs of the two environments are completely different. Still wonder how she was using two Kakuna in combat, though...
Hopefully the needed callout I asked for earlier happened here.
A subplot that's come up again in recent posts - as I said before, Thea sympathizes with the damaged half-Shadow Pokémon, which is great because [5.7 million words of meta mystery thriller visual novel unskippable]
I like how we're just having this conversation in the middle of a stock delivery sidequest.
But really, I do hope that Thea finds a way to add Lokix to her team. The "something that calls to" her is empathy, I think. They're both people who have seen the world around them crash down due to the ambitions of humans who don't care if they live or die - Thea with the invasion ten years prior, and Lokix with the poachers - and both have wound up under the control of worldly powers trying to mold them into tools for their own use - the poachers and the Duke de Medali, if the description of Noblesse Oblige is at all accurate to Thea's life. I think they could do a lot to help each other, and a lot of damage to people who would hurt them and others.
Also Mary being a hypocrite as usual. At least our Pokémon are around to call us on it.
This reads suspiciously ambiguously to me, btw. She doesn't say that she's not going to do it if her Pawniard idea doesn't work out, only that she's going to see how that goes first.
Well I guess we know the answer to this one now. Also interesting that Asado and Casseroya are specifically sources of Wild Hunts, rather than the general weidness foreshadowed in the hometown descriptions. "They don't happen spontaneously" indeed - what's going on up there to provoke them?
I've definitely gone over this before, but Route Lamps are both a handy explanation for why roads like...exist in a setting where humans are the minority intelligent species, as well as being an element imported directly from the Trails series, where they serve the same purpose of creating zones where monsters just don't bother going, so people can hoof it from town to town without all needing to be JRPG heroes (although most people these days take the train/bus/airship anyway). A lot of Pokémon fiction goes into different explanations for why certain Pokémon stick to certain areas, and why prior to the Switch games you only saw wild Pokémon in concealed areas like long grass and caves, but this is one that's pretty effective for the setting Arvis is building here - there's a doohickey that repels Pokémon from certain areas and into others. Theoretically.
Mariana's hyper empathy coming through again, considering that of all the Pokémon we could have caught here, all of them but Nacli did in fact want to eat or otherwise consume the damn lightpole.
Mary we just reminded you that Renne almost murdered you. You understand the extenuating circumstances. Roland does not and might never.
That said this is the cutest little TK bubble setup I've ever seen.
And then we set up for the fight next post.
The votes here are things we agonized over in detail in the most stressful vote of the thread so far, so I won't go into it except to say they're all good kids. Unlike the Pokémon Den captures that led us to Renne, these Pokémon all exist in the world of the thread rather than being a quantum superposition collapsed by the winning vote, so I'll point them out during the battle itself next time.
Next time: the artist eventually known as Ruby
Last edited:
- Pronouns
- They/Them
If it was FE there'd be a criminal lack of a red and green cavalier pair so far, though maybe something could be arranged with Manuel and Jacinto.
(Also it is useful to bring your prepromote along, you must gotta make sure they don't solo the map, but instead use them to soften up the enemy troops so your lower level units can get at the kill xp more easily)
With the way Lokix is still holding on to his former trainer's possessions, my money is on the arm having been lost in the fight to defend their trainer to the last. Lokix seems like he'd be the kind that'd lose an arm before going down when his trainer's threatened.
Toaster cult
I Am An Imaginary Living Body
- Location
- Tokyo
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Look not doing the best friend hangout event at the start of the quest put her on the backfoot this season but she can still turn it around she just needs a good showing, uh, whenever we end up at the same gym as her.I think letting her and Erika commiserate over how dense Mary is.
- Location
- England
There probably won't be very many Cavaliers. Considering there are, like two outright Cavalier Pokémon and they'd be... a bit much. As much as I'd love a bickering Shadow Rider Calyrex and Ice Rider Calyrex they might break the game balance so hard it will never recover. Best stick to just one and remain VGC legal.
But the class isn't actually necessary, sometimes the Christmas Cavs are Ninja. Roland's green with a speed focus, so all we need is a strong and sturdy red one to match. Will Charcadet fill the role?
From the earliest days when it was Ship vs no-ship for Mulder and Scully. To the modern days when it's a dozen waifus. It's always a war.
- Pronouns
- She/They
You're forgetting Escavalier, however. Someone who only exists with their inevitable complement, Accelgor.
Although I guess neither of those is really green...
- Location
- England
It's got the name and the lances, sure. But no horse? No cavalier. Those are the rules.
(Also the idea of the pair of early game cavaliers being two of the most broken Pokémon ever designed was not something I could ignore, while Escavalier was something I absolutely could.)
- Location
- Australia
Lokix actually doesn't fit the newly introduced antagonist mould.
Generally, in a Kamen Rider show, a new antagonist wielding the same power as the Kamen Rider will show up and style on the monster of the week that was just handing the protagonists their ass. This will trigger the protagonist to be super impressed, at which point the antagonist will turn around and attack the protagonist too, soloing them with minimal effort, and only be stopped by the intervention of an outside agent or by their own motives that have them see killing the protagonist as a pointless waste of time.
So yeah, it doesn't fit Lokix.
Ironically, there's a role that does fit Lokix here, though.
As the victim of experimentation who gained a great power from those experiments and then escaped and set himself against the people behind those experiments, there's another character who Lokix actually fits the role of really neatly;
Takeshi Hongo, the very first and OG Kamen Rider.
- Location
- Plato's Cave
From another angle, the way in which Lokix was introduced "on-screen" doesn't really track with how modern Kamen Rider (and more broadly modern Tokusatsu) does character introductions. Since Toku very much draws from dramatic stageplays in terms of presentation, new characters aren't usually introduced with them butting into fights like this. Either they get to walk into the fight with sufficient timing for the camera to linger on them, they've been hanging around dramatically watching from a distance so the audience has seen them already, or they get a transformation sequence of some kind. This tends to give the audience enough time to look at the character and see them properly before we move into the action scenes where it might be harder to get clear body shots.
This is, of course, completely aside from the bit where a character in the current Kamen Rider season was, in fact, introduced in exactly the manner Lokix is - via hitting a monster the protagonist is too strong to defeat with an attack that manages to damage it, and then after that we get obligatory "look at the cool suit" profile shots.
SolarGemX
The Crystalized Sun
- Location
- Somewhere in the Cosmos
- Pronouns
- He/Him
After all the different analysis i think there are 4 options for our "Way above our level" boss.
A. Vigoroth/Slaking for angts and Lokix resolution
B. Gliscor (since apperently there been multiple hints)
C. A Ceruedge/Armorougue for the whole poacher/chargecadet sub plot
D. Most unlikely) Type null (probably a chapter 3-4 unwinnable boss, but eh could happen)
A. Vigoroth/Slaking for angts and Lokix resolution
B. Gliscor (since apperently there been multiple hints)
C. A Ceruedge/Armorougue for the whole poacher/chargecadet sub plot
D. Most unlikely) Type null (probably a chapter 3-4 unwinnable boss, but eh could happen)
Also noting its an impressive risk, because due to how their circulatory systems work, an insect IRL has great difficulty surviving lost limbs. Pokemon are tougher but still chonky risks.
- Pronouns
- She/They
I think the Type:NULL belongs to a third party who is probably Ostia. They didn't seem to be directly part of the operation here, coming in mid-week to either rendezvous with or fight the poachers. That means they're most likely gone by now, one way or the other.
StattStatt
Supplier of suspenders for your disbelief
- Location
- On one of your shoulders
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Adding into the list of names that start with R for potential future friends: Ranni, Renna, Rennala, Radagon, Radahn, Rykard, Roderika, Rya, Rogier.
Yes, I do like Elden Ring, why do you ask?
Yes, I do like Elden Ring, why do you ask?
Ren, Reiji, Rise, Ryotaro, Ryuji, and Rei are my provisions to the 'R' names as a Persona Fan.
SolarGemX
The Crystalized Sun
- Location
- Somewhere in the Cosmos
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Reyn, Riki , Rex, Roc (Xenoblade Chronicles 1 and 2)
Riku (Xenoblade chronicles 3 and KH)
Roxas, Remus, Rhyme (lol) (KH)
Roy, Raphael, Rosado, Ross, Rhea, Ranulf, Rhys, Reyson, Rajaon (FE)
Rune, Raguna, Raven, Radea (Rune Factory)
......did i really just go through some of my games to look for names that start with R? I have way to much free time.....
Riku (Xenoblade chronicles 3 and KH)
Roxas, Remus, Rhyme (lol) (KH)
Roy, Raphael, Rosado, Ross, Rhea, Ranulf, Rhys, Reyson, Rajaon (FE)
Rune, Raguna, Raven, Radea (Rune Factory)
......did i really just go through some of my games to look for names that start with R? I have way to much free time.....
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I'm glad that I asked for a list of R names from different franchises and that people actually provided. There are some good names in here for sure.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
.. Damn, now I want Mary to have her own Mismagius and call them Ranni.
I blame you for this.
Or maybe Hatterene? Closer in colour scheme but Mismagius has that sassy witch energy..