"There you are!" Josh waved to Alex, gesturing toward the table he was sitting at, which had front row seats to perhaps the greatest game of the season. "I actually don't drink. You know what they say; 200 miles an hour and alcohol don't mix. What I'm here for are three things: food, football, and poker. Isn't that what you're here for?" Well, maybe not the poker part, but they had made enough small talk for Josh to guess, from the Birdfather's heritage, that he was more into Unovan football than Laurence Anderson was. Maybe he'd actually call it what it was and not "handegg". What a funny name.

Josh smirked as he idly watched the offensive and defensive lines crash into one another for four straight possessions. This was going to be a game of defenses, and every point mattered. Even a missed PAT could make the difference between going to the Ultra Bowl and going home. "And speaking of 200 miles an hour, oh boy do I ever have a story for you. One you might not believe right away."

Josh smiled at Alex's comment on how crowded the bar was. "I mean... between poker night and the PFL postseason, of course it's gonna be busy." When he heard Alex ordering something adult after Josh ordered a tall glass of lemonade, he asked, "Mind if I get a whiff of that Gravedigger before you get started? It's about the only way I can enjoy them. For some people, one drink puts them over the top. And I'd rather not find out."

Alex seemed to be more fired up than Josh was about the football game. "That should have been a penalty on Heahea. I dunno how the refs missed that hold." The teams' defenses were too good; neither could even get within field goal range for the entire first quarter. A touchback on a Heahea punt gave Goldenrod decent field position going into the second quarter, but gains were short against the best passing defense in the PFL.

"It's a bittersweet one. Remember when I told you all roads to my dream led to kyle lopez ? It turns out that was more direct than I could have ever imagined. During Meteno, I found out he had command over the Great One. I never could have imagined he had such an incredible Pokémon at his beck and call. I found out, and later reinforced this when I went on a brief vacation to Johto, that Entei was... the only survivor of the Kanto war. Raikou and Suicune didn't make it."

Officiating was hard, but ever since the Great Shutdown, PFL referees had become significantly more questionable in their jobs than that of other sports. "As much of a tinfoil hat as that is, it may not be far from the truth." Goldenrod's offense was able to slowly march down the field, mostly sticking to running plays and causing the clock to run almost constantly. A critical third-and-short was coming up for Goldenrod. If they were stopped here, they could still attempt to kick a field goal, but 55 yards was a tall ask for a kicker that wasn't Hall-of-Fame material.

"About as certain as you can get with legendary Pokémon. Kyle's testimony and a memorial erected in the tower's ruins, dated 2017, is as much confirmation as I'm realistically going to get. So unless another Raikou appears in Hoenn, my chase... is over. But it's not all bad news." He showed Alex his new phone wallpaper: a photograph of Josh sitting on Raikou's back, holding the outer tufts of his cloud as though they were reins. The backdrop was Trainer Hill, specifically Josh's old Racing Grounds from when he was a Minor League Leader.

Josh had heard that about sports referees in general, but in the PFL in particular, rumors were rampant. He supposed it was due to each individual game mattering more, given that there were only 17 weeks in the season. "As tinfoil hat as it is, it does explain some of the more egregious calls. But you have to remember that they're human too, and making those calls in real time is hard. I think an expansion of the review process would be the best way to go about it. Make some of those 15 yard penalties part of the review process, especially player safety fouls." Goldenrod's run play was quickly stopped just short of the first down, forcing their kicker to attempt a season-long 54 yard field goal attempt. The kick was up and away... and good! Cheers erupted from the bar and tables nearby as Goldenrod scored the first points of the game, including cheers and raised arms from Josh.

"This was taken on my birthday, December 12 of last year, at Kyle's Minor League facility. You know, where my Gym used to be before John Sullivan retired. It's not the real thing, though. It's a... familiar, for the lack of a better term. But he said it was just like the real thing. And it showed when it ran. I've never felt such an adrenaline rush in my life. The whole experience, and his words after, led me to believe that even if it's not Johto's, there is a Raikou in Hoenn somewhere. I can't help but feel this is the year we find each other. I want the real thing more than anything else in the world. But until I have a lead, I have to hang up my chase and redirect my efforts elsewhere. I could go on about the experience all night--"

His story was interrupted by laughter from a nearby table, and he knew exactly why: a rare miscue from Heahea's center also left the announcers laughing.

"False start, offense, everyone but the center. Five yard penalty, first down."

Even Josh was reduced to tears.

"72. Snap the ball."

The laughter was contagious.

"You know, Alex... you put a new center in the game... you need to snap it. You gonna snap the ball or not?" He had to take a couple minutes to compose himself, after which his own food arrived: a juicy-looking steakburger, grilled to perfection, with his own side of fries and dips for them. "Yeah, they're pretty rare. It's just funny that they call that penalty on the entire team except for the center, when the penalty is usually the center's fault."

As he took a whiff of the Gravedigger cocktail, something in Josh wished he didn't have to abstain from alcohol completely as part of being Mauville's Gym Leader. "It's not because I'm a Gym Leader that I have to abstain. It's specifically because of my racing challenge," he remarked as Heahea completed a big passing play right as the two-minute warning sounded. Goldenrod's defensive line managed to stop them within the red zone, leaving their kicking unit with a 25-yard chip shot to tie the game with a minute left. Goldenrod still had all their timeouts, meaning that a minute would be long enough to have a chance at one more score before the half.

"Yeah, a familiar," Josh confirmed. "I don't know how he did it, but when I asked Kyle if I could go for a ride on Entei to prepare for my chase, he broke the news to me, then called on... that. It materialized in front of us and was as friendly as a legendary can possibly be. I had near full control over it when I was on him. And it was just... exhilarating. Blissful, even. I even had one of Josh Dragomir 's gadgets on during the run, so I could see how fast Raikou was going. You know how fast Arcanine's EXTREME SPEED gets? Well, it was going even faster than that. No QUICK ATTACK, no nothing. Effortless, sustained speed."

"Exactly," Josh agreed with the Birdfather, who seemed especially ravenous tonight; was he even enjoying his food? The Mauville Leader was, contrary to his name, eating at a much slower pace. "The ironic thing about that penalty call is while technically the center is the only one that didn't foul, the blame usually rests with that center." After Goldenrod had run through all their timeouts, quarterback pressure led to a half-ending sack. "I dunno about you Alex, but I find these defense-dominated games boring to watch."

Once the halftime show had started, Josh answered Alex's question about his experience with Raikou, even going as far to share the peak speed value with him. "Nowhere close, but you have to remember, this is land speed, not air speed. Sometimes, I wonder if the super smooth flight of birds distorts one's concept of speed." While he didn't exactly have the best words for it, having to adjust to a land mount's constantly moving back, as well as the effects of terrain, made it much easier to handle extremely high air speeds than land speeds.