Rosaka was a city with a lot to offer, and it had the habit of splitting the Racers apart. Razzy, Rizzy, and Ruzzy had won the Stone Toss together—truly together, with an under-anticipated system of utilising turn order to bait any given opponent into a fatal mistake. Now, even in the same building, they’d split the difference evenly: Ruzzy and Rizzy to the labyrinthine arcade, Razzy and Berry to an illuminated night-garden exhibit overlooking Rosaka’s skyline.
“I’d like to win the League again,” Razzy said, straightforward and unprompted as they wandered through a maze of tall irises together, both hoping the other remembered their last turn.
“Sure. Same here. We haven’t lost it for six years in a row for not wanting to win.” It came out harsher than intended, but it couldn’t be taken back.
Razzy paused, but only briefly. “We have a shot,” they continued, “and I won’t waste it for Indie’s sake.”
“Indie?” Berry sniffed. “Indie’s the least of our worries. I wish I was worried about Indie and Ringo. You saw the look Quickly gave me after Stone Toss.” They shuddered, and not for the Rosakan night, balmy with the promise of approaching summer.
Razzy smiled, Berry’s faltering only water off their back. “I didn’t. Are you scared?”
Berry froze, briefly silent. “I’m not answering that,” they replied eventually, straightening. “I think about it,” they confessed tightly, failing to meet Razzy’s eyeline, “obviously I do. I don’t do my prep thinking—oh, it’s fine if we don’t win, it won’t happen anyway. Then everyone else gets involved and oops, you miscalculated and you’re desperate to just not be last.”
“You’re thinking about last year,” replied Razzy coolly.
Berry couldn’t help but laugh. “Worse. I’m talking about it.”
They passed an artificial haptic fern, which sprang, bounced, and spat scented pollen at Berry’s touch. Razzy was less enchanted. “There’s a vendor here. Takoyaki.”
“Weren’t we getting sushi for dinner? At the nice place, with the others,” Berry grumbled. There was sushi at the hotel restaurant already, all-you-could-eat—and Razzy could eat a lot—but no well-meaning artisan could stand up to the CCE like a conveyor belt could. They’d been lucky to get the oddball cuts—sea critters that proved too challenging for the unrefined landlocked Rubovian palate anyway.
Razzy didn’t see the contradiction. “I’m hungry,” they declared plainly; as soon as they were briefly out of Berry’s sight, their money was spent on six glistening fried octopus balls.
“What? I got a small. We can share,” Razzy offered in defiance of Berry’s judgemental side-eye.
“It’ll ruin my appetite,” Berry huffed, abstaining and continuing down the crunchy gravel-lined paths as fantasies of creamy uni and fatty tuna weighed on their mind. The paths took them past a grove of hybridised, willowlike cherry blossom trees and through to the final promenade of oscillating synthetic azaleas, genetically modified into a thousand subtle shades, using the same technology that kept cherry blossoms flowing on tap long past the season’s natural end.
“Some tech they’ve got here,” Berry mused out loud, though Razzy was too preoccupied with the last of their octopus balls to comment. They rolled from red to green to purple to white, then to the end where one could pay and wait in line for a professionally-taken commemorative photo with a lifesize cutout of Saku-reimi.
Two could make them late for dinner. Not deterred by having met the real deal, Berry joined the queue. Five minutes later, ushered up beside the flat cardboard replica, Berry thought not of Rosakan pop stars or flowers or even sushi, but of the last-second tiebreak that had decided between the O’Rangers and the Speeders long after the Razzies had safely qualified, and smiled with rare sincerity as the flash went off.
–
It’s enough that we won Iron Marble.
It’s enough that we qualified.
It’s enough that we won a medal.
It’s enough that we won a gold.
Where do you go when “enough” runs out?
The 2026 Marble League was half completed, and the Indigo Stars were—somehow–in the lead. Pundits Marblearth-wide had thrown away predictions and renounced their expectations while a small selection of cranks and hardcore fans had been proven unexpectedly right, and fans waged arguments about their ability to keep the momentum going long into the night. Indie vacillated between elation and fear on the hour, the combined efforts of Diego and Ringo only going so far in keeping them grounded.
The standard Stars victory retreat was on the mainland, just a few steps up from a dive, a relic from before the League and Ringo and the last seven years of triumph and defeat in unequal measure. Tinny speakers played optimistic interpretations of nostalgic favourites over twitchy neons and couches that had seen better days, everything was cheap and free-flowing, and their patronage was such good marketing that the room rate was magnetically low.
The Pinkies had invited them somewhere vastly different. Besides the front desk and the kitchen, it was futuristically unmanned. Little hatches in the wall delivered food and drink, while thick and soundproofed walls reminded Ringo of a recording booth (and Indie of a journeying submarine). They sat in rough order on the ultra-modern couches encircling the central table and fed their drink and food orders through the same tablet that picked songs for the karaoke machine. Bingo put their order in last; two servings of glossy fried chicken and one of Ringo’s band’s old songs on the screen.
“You’re kidding,” Ringo huffed in complaint as “Going Better” loaded into the queue.
“One rule,” Montoya concurred, rolling their eyes.
“I never said coach had to sing it,” retorted Bingo, outing themself as the one who’d picked it as Diego glared at them across the table. Gogo picked up the bill and microphone, sparing Ringo the indignity of having to remind everyone that they were the band’s instrumentalist, not a singer, thank you very much.
“Testing, testing,” they repeated, tapping gently, and the mic rumbled to life. “I’ll do it. Bingo, you owe me a drink.”
It was Gogo’s turn to draw Diego’s ire. “Don’t tire each other out before Javelin.”
Gogo grinned. “Spoilsport. I’ll get my vitamins in by then, don’t you worry.”
Indie did the honours of doling out drinks and food to the table before reclining in place with a bright-blue fizzy novelty drink full of twinkling jelly stars; a picture-perfect scoop of lemonade sorbet melted gently atop the heart-shaped ice cubes. Their captain had said nothing all night, nodding and smiling in lieu of words, their expression dazed and far away. Diego watched them for answers, but none came.
“I suck at singing, just in case you don’t remember,” said Gogo, the closest they’d come to humble since unexpectedly topping the MVM charts. “So if you roll out of here with hearing damage, it’s Bingo’s fault.”
“Booooo,” Bingo heckled, followed by peals of laughter and the gradual kicking in of a familiar guitar-drum backing track. “Just sing the song!”
“Whatever. Hey, how about I give you an encore when we win the League—”
“Gogo, it’s started! Catch up!” Indie called, loud over the first lines’ instrumentals.
–
Cyberpunk was an understatement. Despite the many phone calls they’d had with Speedy and Swifty in Rosaka on tour, no amount of verbal description could have prepared Rapidly for when they stepped out of the cab and into the city that threatened to swallow them whole. Speckled lights in windows, each of them teeming with life, spread vastly across tall, skinny buildings that shot towards the sky, reminiscent of the stars that loomed just above. Cherry blossoms lined the streets in brilliant bursts of pink, genetically modified to shrug the seasons off, indifferent to how Marblearth spun. And even though they’d reached the halfway point, the city mesmerised Rapidly as if they’d arrived the very same day.
It was so dense that the athletes had been squeezed into shared rooms. But Rapidly didn’t mind: the stadium’s prime location and the city’s innate need to exploit vertical space meant Rapidly’s view captured the bustling city in all its tall, cherry pink glory.
A snore from their right seemed to nag: Rapidly and Speedy’s view. Rapidly rolled their eyes. Yes, Speedy, they thought, our view. Their eyes drifted from their sibling on the other bed towards the window beside them, which they’d been staring at for the past ten minutes while refusing to budge from their own mattress.
It was pretty remarkable that they’d come from some small town out from Accellaise to here, they thought. The tallest building in their hometown was a whopping three stories tall, and entertainment involved pushing each other into the sea of questionable water quality surrounding it.
Perhaps that was why they wanted to escape so badly.
Beside them, Speedy looked peaceful. Rapidly watched as their chest rose and fell. The knot of unacknowledged feelings sat clenched in their stomach at the sight, but there was no doubt that it brought relief. Rapidly had seen Speedy after Bowling: they’d never been good at hiding things, and Rapidly knew their sibling better than anyone.
They tore their gaze from Speedy’s sleeping self and allowed it to wander around the—you guessed it—cherry-themed hotel room. In 2023, they’d managed to win two medals in hurdles and sprint, by themself. In 2025, they’d failed in both. Now, Speedy had lifted the burden and placed it upon their own shoulders; and it seemed to have paid off—Speedy’s silver had singlehandedly diverted them from their nosedive of a League run, comprised of Whizzy’s tears and their own lacklustre showing, yet the knot clenched harder.
How many times had they been there before? How many times had Rapidly walked in on their sibling slumped against the floor of a locker room or abandoned office? How many times could Speedy have won another silver and saved them from the same cyclical fate? Last year, in Orlango, the year before that, in Glidavik… the years flew by, and Rapidly found themself in Felynia’s team garage.
Maybe Speedy couldn’t always bail them out.
They forced themself up from the bed and stalked towards the window. The night breeze brushed against their surface, cool and indifferent. Behind them, Speedy shifted in sleep, mumbling something unintelligible before settling again.
Gradually, the Felynian fireworks faded. Beneath them, the cherry trees swayed.
–
“Though I felt we had adequately covered the tactics of Bocce before the actual event, it is—undesirable—to all immediately swerve directly past the target. Now, even though the Bumblebees did the exact same thing…”
Red Eye slumped across the table with a sigh, but White Eye droned on with seemingly more passion. Red Eye’s teammates seemed to have more patience, sitting flat-faced and only slightly drooping in their chairs.
Red Eye frowned. They weren’t sure why White Eye had decided to save event debrief for last; perhaps to rub salt in the wound for plunging 5 spots to the bottom four, which they’d already analysed in excruciating detail. After all, they’d reached halfway, and they needed to step up their game.
In their periphery, Orange Eye was unmoving, gazing up at their coach. Cute, Red Eye thought, to actually pay attention. Did I do that as a rookie? Bet I—hold on…. you’re getting up!
They were disrupted by the screeches of chairs against the floor, and Red Eye jolted to discover that the meeting was over. Yellow Eye had already bolted—perhaps Red Eye had underestimated their tolerance.
Just as they were about to depart, Orange Eye approached, somewhat skittish. “Hey, Red?”
Red Eye turned. “Yeah?”
“So… you still think I should be in the back for Javelin, right?” They hesitated. “‘Cause I asked Coach and all, but you’ve done Snow Snake, so—”
“Oh, yeah. I talked to Yellow too, so, just stick with it.”
“Okay, thanks.” Orange Eye turned, but Red Eye felt off.
“Orange?” They called.
“Yeah?”
“Listen, I know White Eye can be… a downer sometimes, but don’t stress yourself out, okay?” The words felt a bit foreign, but Red Eye kept going. “We’re in a rough spot, but it’s not on you. I mean, you’ve already podiumed on debut!” Orange Eye couldn’t help but grin.
“So don’t be too hard on yourself. You’ve worked hard. And you’ve got this.”
Orange Eye nodded firmly. “Thanks, cap!” Cheerfully, they rolled off, bouncing slightly.
Even though Red Eye meant to leave as well, they couldn’t bring themselves to follow; with a foggy mind, they sat back down. Only a knock on the door snapped them back, and they looked up to see Green Eye peering in.
“That was nice of you,” they offered, rolling past them into the room.
Red Eye stopped. “Why’re you back?”
“Left my phone,” they responded, now coming back having found it. They glanced at the door, then at the slumping Red Eye, and sat down next to them.
“So… have you talked to Cyan recently?”
Red Eye sighed, grimacing. “Not really. No.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know.” Red Eye couldn’t bear to face them. “I just… feel bad. I know how much they didn’t want that. I didn’t want that. But when coach asked me, I just—I couldn’t…”
Green Eye softened. “It’s not your fault.”
“But still, we’re here now.”
Green Eye paused, then nudged Red Eye gently. “With how management operates, we’ve got no control. It sucks. But we’ve just gotta move forward, right?”
Red Eye nodded, and Green Eye smiled slightly.
“But Cyan… misses us.”
Something flashed across their face, and suddenly, Red Eye realised: this was bigger than them.
“I’m sorry. I knew you guys were close.”
It was Green Eye’s turn to look away. “I don’t know. We’ve gotta move on, right?”
The silence seemed to scream, so Red Eye pushed themselves up. “Let’s head out?” They gestured to the door and mustered a smile.
“Yeah.”
–
Panther didn’t expect HQ’s door to come open without a key when they arrived in the early hours of the morning for prep, or for the light of a screen to shine through the doorway from the cluster of tables they’d requisitioned as a command centre for the League. Pinky Toe sat at the same table they’d been sitting at when Panther clocked out early the night before, laptop open in front of them with its fans whirring into the silence. The pre-dawn darkness mostly obscured them, but Panther didn’t need to see any more than the sagging, tired eyes between sips of lukewarm barley tea that the screen glare illuminated.
“Cold with melted ice, or warm that you’ve left too long?” Panther asked, gesturing to the jug as they set their bag down and rolled over.
The question buffered in Pinky Toe’s mind. “What?”
“The tea,” Panther repeated, pouring themself a glass. “Tastes like cold-gone-lukewarm to me. It’s diluted. You like it strong.”
“I suppose,” Pinky Toe muttered noncommittally. It had barely occurred to them that someone had traipsed in through the door and started drinking their tea. For all they cared, Panther could have been a stranger.
Panther pulled their chair up behind their captain and glanced at the screen. They liked to flatter themself with the thought that they were good at the ugly admin side of being an athlete, but what Pinky Toe was looking at might as well have been written with a cypher. They had given up changing anything—if they ever had been—and were just clicking between cells to inspect them over and over again.
“You haven’t slept tonight, have you?”
Pinky Toe ignored them and wrote another inscrutable jotting on a digital sticky-note. Panther chose a different angle of attack. “What are you looking at?”
“Javelin practice stats,” replied Pinky Toe, between two more mouthfuls of weak tea. Panther looked at the document again—it refused to make any more sense even with its purpose in mind.
“Are you allowed to?”
“Someone emails them to me,” Pinky Toe mumbled, not really answering the question.
“Well, are me and Rosa going to win?” asked Panther in return. Pinky Toe made a sleepy, universal gesture that stood unmistakably for you won’t lose, but good luck. “Alright. Who’s going to lose?”
Pinky Toe went quiet.
“Kobalts?” Panther ventured. They took another look at the spreadsheet and found no mention of them, or themselves. It was the Showdown stats. “Cap. You’re still worried?”
They went even quieter, closing the document and shuffling out of the seat. Panther shut the laptop lid for them, but not before sneaking a glance at the specific cell they’d been inspecting.
Balls of Chaos; Final standardised event test: 49.50. One step above rock bottom.
“I’ll go to bed.”
“Cap. It’s not your fault. It’s not our fault, but it’s definitely not yours. You can’t control them. You didn’t even pick the event.”
They’d been down this road before, each word familiar and known, like a stack of blunted arrowheads.
“I’m sorry,” Panther tried. “I know it feels bad. Just close your eyes and wait til the Swarm and Galactic come on, alright?” they joked.
Pinky Toe looked up, distant and tired from portents of unknown doom. Tender rays of dawn poked through half-closed blinds.
“I wish they’d qualified.”
Panther’s humour faltered. “I know. And that’s why, when we win at home, we’re going to dedicate it to them, alright?”
–
Reaching the halfway point of the league, the Snowballs found themselves in the middle of the pack, but when it came to points, they weren’t too far behind. Team captain Snowy knew that, and they figured that a moment of peace under a cherry blossom tree wouldn’t hurt. A marble soon found them relaxing and rolled over to them; it was their teammate Snowstorm.
“Everything good, Snowy?” asked Snowstorm.
“Yeah, just trying to ease my mind for a moment, you know?” replied Snowy. Snowstorm asked if they could relax alongside them, to which Snowy told them they could use someone to relax with.
As they got a nice view of the tree they’re sitting under, Snowstorm noticed their teammate feeling a bit pent-up. They asked Snowy, “Are you sure everything’s good?”
Snowy told them, “I’m not too sure. Something feels off.”
Snowstorm replied, “Whatever it is you need to get off your mind, I’m here to listen.”
Snowy then opened up, “We’re making the same progress as last year, but we’re taking a different path. I showcased my talents and was recognized as the Most Valuable Marble, but our efforts as a team weren’t anywhere close to that.”
Snowstorm responded, “And this year is like a flip of a switch, with the team events going really well for us, and your individual performances…”
Snowy chuckled, “Yep.”
As they paid close attention to the petals falling from the tree, Snowstorm comforted their captain, telling them to look at things from a positive perspective. “There’s a whole half of events that haven’t happened yet, so there’s a lot of time for you to not only find your stride, but to show the rest of the league that you are, in fact, the best captain.”
Snowy felt a smile appearing on their face. “Thank you, Snowstorm. I really do appreciate that kind of sentiment coming from you.”
After they finished relaxing, they rolled over to the rest of their team at a nearby park. Their teammates noticed that Snowy appeared to be more laid back than usual. It was a pleasant surprise.
“You seem to be more relaxed compared to how you normally are,” said Snowblast. Snowy informed them that it was a change of pace that they’re trying to get used to. As the team discussed what they needed to work on in the second half of the competition, Snowy had something to say to their team.
“After how things went for us as a group last year, it feels very delightful knowing that our team events have been going well. I wish I could be doing better for you all as an individual competitor, but I am somewhat at ease knowing that I’m fulfilling my role as captain.”
Coach Blizzard told their captain that as long as they were looking to improve not just themselves, but their teammates, then they would find themselves reaching for the success they once had in 2024.
Snowy called over their team for a group huddle before saying, “Let’s remind them about who we are as a unit.”
–
In the bowels of a department store in downtown Rosaka lay a gleaming maze of capsule machines. They lined the walls, stacked to the ceiling in a sleek, glowing grid, promising susceptible passerbys tiny acrylic stands or novelty magnets or some other collectible trinket, and, in a special promotion of the Marble League, limited edition keychains for every competing athlete and more.
Royal had no luck with them whatsoever. Their noble quest to obtain their desired keychain was currently a table littered with failed attempts, a chaotic garden of empty capsule shells that stood in stark contrast to their Rollstagram-worthy melon soda. Supplemented with teal food coloring and a white straw with a green gradient, it was the crown jewel of the pop-up cafe they were in.
“Bad luck?” Cerulean ventured. They stirred their own drink, a vibrant pink concoction garnished with dried cherry blossoms.
Royal sighed. The reflection in the warped glass of their soda sighed back. “I keep pulling Team Plasma.” They gloomily arranged the keychains to look like their heat in Stone Toss, with a capsule half-shell as the stone.
“We were pretty close.”
“Close isn’t enough.” Royal nudged a miniature Ecto closer to the stone in a curve, mimicking the move that sentenced the Kobalts to a bottom half finish. “We’re dead last, Cerulean. I don’t know how to lead, or how to be a captain.”
“You won the Best Captain Award last year.”
“So?” Royal said. “What’s one award, from one point in time? We were Showdown champions one year, and relegated the next. I used to be good at M1, too, and then I wasn’t. Azure used to be the best of us—“ They remembered to breathe. “—and now they’re gone.”
I miss you. I know you retired on your own and that you’re happy where you are but I miss you anyway. Now I have to do it all without you. Lapis looks up to me. I don’t know why they still do.
The day Meepo had blitzed past the Sand Rally finish line seemed so far away now. It had, in a way, been easier back then, to swim up from rock bottom instead of treading water at the top.
“I don’t like disappointing marbles,” they said instead. “We’re better than this. I want to think we’re better than this. We can’t stay last forever.”
They’d said something similar last year, before they’d qualified, their voice just as weary with frustration. Smokey had simply peered at them in a way that made meeting their gaze difficult, and said, then show them so, as if it was so easy.
And then it actually happened.
Cerulean stirred their drink again, this time lifting the straw to see the liquid spiral inside the glass. “I can’t promise a gold in the next event, or the next one after that, or in this League at all, because it’s the future,” they said. “But I can promise that we’ll get through it together.”
To that, Royal could manage a nod. “Okay.”
Credits
- Writers: Detro, Io Twelve, Millim, Toffeeshop
- Copyeditors/Editors: Io Twelve, Millim, Toffeeshop
- Graphic Designers: Toffeeshop
- Reference: Stone Toss | Event 8 | Marble League 2026 🌸
- Release: 6/6/2026
Project Marblearth 