Vullaby plummeted off the side of the cliff, wings flapping wildly, to little avail. The pokemon, ostensibly a bird, fell flat on its face, bouncing off the dusty road with a loud thwack. The bounce took it a few feet into the air before it landed and the ground again, facing the wrong direction.

Cashe watched as the disoriented little bird got confused over its suddenly missing foes, twisting back and forth in increasing frustration as it searched for them. Emilia pointed a finger at the pokemon a moment later, however, and Omanyte darted forward, sending a small torrent of water at it.

Vullaby squawked in surprise and spun around, just in time to get clipped by a tiny Rock Tomb that Omanyte dropped on it. The attack did little more than ruffle its feathers, but Vullaby took great offense to the move, whipping its wings through the air and kicking up a large gust of wind.

“Is that Tailwind?” Cashe said, holding his hands in front of his eyes to block the air from stinging his eyes.

“Yes,” Emilia said, “Now get back. I don’t want it thinking we are going to gang up on it.”

Cashe and Lindon retreated a few yards down the route until they were a safe distance away as Emilia harried the Vullaby with blasts of water and the occasional rock from Omanyte.

“I don’t think I have ever really caught a pokemon properly,” Cashe said as they watched the battle, “I don’t think Emilia has either. Is what she’s doing correct?”

“You just want to exhaust it,” Lindon said with a shrug, “We didn’t have to for Slowpoke because he’s a Slowpoke, but yeah.” Lindon gave Cashe a funny look, “I thought you caught Primeape as a Mankey. How did you do that with her if she wasn’t caught the regular way?”

Cashe scratched his neck in embarrassment, “I read in the pokedex that Mankey would often fight each other until they fainted from exhaustion. We came across a troupe in the woods when we were traveling from Saffron to Vermillion. They were all hanging around a watering hole or something like that.”

“You went into a Mankey’s territory?” Lindon said, incredulous, “You caught a Mankey who was with her troupe?”

“Huh, yeah,” Cashe looked away, “Anyway, I thought maybe I could take advantage of the situation and get them to tire themselves out before I tried to fight any of them.”

Lindon stared at Cashe as Emilia tossed out a pokeball behind him. Vullaby dodged it and the battle continued.

“What did you do?” Lindon said.

“Emilia and I were hiding at the top of a waterfall, so I tossed a rock into the group of Mankey,” Cashe said as Lindon gaped, “Primeape was the Mankey that came out on top in the following kerfuffle. Well, brawl.”

“Stupid,” Lindon breathed, “That was so stupid!”

Cashe cringed, “Yeah, Emilia said something similar.”

“And she still traveled with you after that?” Lindon shook his head, “If I tell my parents about this my dad is going to teleport over here and make me go home.”

“Sorry,” Cashe said, “I didn’t know what I was doing, obviously.”

“Duh,” Lindon said with emphasis. He turned around to watch Emilia battle Vullaby to exhaustion. Every dozen seconds or so he would shake his head and look at Cashe again. Cashe was sure he heard the word ‘stupid’ uttered more than once.

Cashe paid him no mind. He understood his mistake now and wasn’t going to argue with Lindon about it, especially when Lindon was right. He had been stupid.

In the distance, Emilia was nearing the end of her battle with Vullaby. The little bird pokemon was drenched in water and floundering around on the ground as Omanyte sat beside it, periodically dropping small Rock Tombs on top of it. It was clear to Cashe that she was trying to do as little damage to the pokemon as possible, likely because they would not see a Pokemon Center for several more days at a minimum.

Eventually, Vullaby stopped moving and Emilia walked over to it, staring down at it as it lay on the dusty ground. She leaned over and tapped it with a pokeball. Light flashed as Vullaby disappeared into its new home and a few seconds later, the pokeball flashed red, signaling a successful catch. Emilia turned around, smiling wide, returning to her backpack and taking out a potion to heal Vullaby up.

Lindon ran off right away and Cashe walked after him. Surprisingly, the first words out of his mouth weren’t questions about Vullaby, but about something else entirely.

“Emilia!” Lindon shouted, rushing up to her, “Did Cashe really throw a rock at a troupe of Mankey?”

Emilia shot Cashe a confused look and chuckled at Lindon, “He told you that? Yeah. It was his first time in the wild and it was kind of an eye opener.”

“And you still traveled with him after that?” Lindon exclaimed.

“Well, I’ve said it before, but he was kind of like a lost Yamper. I couldn’t just leave him to fend for himself,” Emilia shrugged.

“I’ve learned a lot in the past four months,” Cashe agreed.

“Still a lost Yamper, though,” Emilia grinned.

Cashe rolled his eyes, “Are you going to tell us about Vullaby, or are we just going to stand here wondering?”

“You can read over my shoulder if you want.” Emilia said, flipping open her pokedex and scrolling through the functions until she came to her pokemon.

Cashe and Lindon did just that, or Cashe did. Lindon was too short and had to stand to the side and look over her arms to see the screen.

“Roost?” Cashe said, screwing up his face in disgust, “Are you going to become a filthy Rooster?”

“You know it,” Emilia confirmed, “It already worked on you once.”

“No ability, that’s good,” Lindon said, “That means you can train Overcoat.”

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

“I’ll need to borrow Ivysaur for that, if you don’t mind,” Emilia said looking up and over her shoulder at Cashe.

“Anytime,” Cashe said with a quick nod.

“She doesn’t have many moves besides Roost. Good moves, I mean,” Lindon said.

“Tailwind is a good move,” Emilia pointed out.

“She?” Cashe said.

“All Vullaby and Mandibuzz are female,” Emilia said, “They are like the Haterene or Blissey lines.”

“I did not know that,” Cashe said as Emilia started packing up her gear again.

Not long after that and they were on the move again, heading further into Route 3.

***

Cashe grumbled as he set up his tent. Route 3 was a lot more difficult to traverse than Route 2. He thought it would be better because of the entire route being covered in shade for more than half the day, but he was wrong. It was much worse.

Route 3 had two paths to traverse, one that kept close to the mountain and one that kept close to the cliff. Cashe, in his ignorance, had suggested they take the mountain path. It would lead them through a deep canyon and was by far the less popular of the two paths to take through the route, despite being shorter. He reasoned that the path was less popular because it had less pokemon and would be in the shade the entire day, due to the sun now being blocked on both sides by the mountain. Most trainers would not want to give up opportunities for new pokemon, nor the gorgeous views that came with the morning sunrises.

While these may have been two reasons that trainers avoided the path through the route, it quickly became clear they were not the main reason. The route was dusty. Really fucking dusty.

Cashe smacked his lips together, trying to get the chalky taste out of his mouth. Dust was everywhere on the route. It kicked up with each step they took, made clouds when they cooked, and floated in the air for minutes after it was disturbed. And everything disturbed it, including the ever present wind that came from the route being carved into the side of a cliff. Cashe would have guessed that the canyon would block the wind, but no, apparently it only funneled it to the point where it never went away.

The dust got into the food and the water, their clothes and sleeping bags, leaving it all caked in a fine layer of dry dirt. It got into his mouth and mixed with his saliva, building up little by little until his mouth felt full of the stuff.

Emilia and Lindon had it no better, with neither of them bringing anything to block the constant cloud of dust from their faces. It was a good thing the route was in the shade for so long, as they all resorted to covering their heads with spare clothes well before the end of the day.

Cashe finished setting up his tent and waited for the dust to settle. It was tricky with a broken arm, but he managed. A small annoyance of the route was that there were designated camping areas on it every couple of miles. While that did not sound bad, the reality of it was that camping on the road would get you in trouble with the Poke Rangers if they caught you, and the designated camping areas were little more than alcoves carved into the side of the cliff. Alcoves where the dust was free to settle and pile up.

Cashe took a sip of water as he wanted for the dust to drift out of the air, swirling it around in his mouth to remove the chalky saliva from it. He did not swallow, holding the water in his mouth until the dust settled. Carefully, he stepped into his tent, zipping it almost completely closed before he spit the water out and zipped up the tent all the way.

“Well?” Emilia’s voice said from outside the tent, “Did it work?”

“I don’t know. Maybe?” Cashe said. His clothes were still covered in dust, of course, and those had come into the tent with him, but he could just toss them into the near magical Silph Co bag to take care of that, “There’s definitely less dust in here.”

“Good enough for me,” Emilia said. The sounds of her setting up her own tent followed.

“Um, Apollo?” Lindon said from outside his tent.

“Yeah?”

“My tent has big mesh parts, can I…”

Cashe suppressed a sigh. Was this what being a parent was like? Maybe he should have thought it over more with Jen. Or maybe he should have just gone on the other path.

“Sure,” Cashe said, “Just let me know when the dust has settled and I’ll let you in. Why did you get a tent with ‘big mesh parts’ anyway?”

“I thought it would be better because Alola is so hot compared to Kanto,” Lindon said, “But then we just never used the tents on hot nights at all.”

A minute later Lindon’s voice came from outside the tent and Cashe opened it up to let him in. The tent was large enough for four, Cashe choose it specifically in case he needed to share, and he was glad he did.

“Hey,” Lindon said when he stepped into the tent, “You’re in your underwear.”

“You will be too in a second,” Cashe said, “We ne-”

“Should I be concerned?” Emilia piped up.

“Ha ha.” Cashe said to her. To Lindon he said, “Take off your shirt and pants and put them in your backpack, that way we can make sure we don’t get any extra dust in here. After you do that, take out a spare change of clothes and sleep in them.”

“That doesn’t explain why you are in your underwear,” Emilia called out.

“It’s because I didn’t want to get my sleeping clothes covered in dust when Lindon came in, obviously!” Cashe called back to Emilia’s laughter.

Cashe shook his head as Lindon pulled on his pjs, “What is she talking about?” He said.

“Stuff,” Cashe muttered.

“You don’t have to keep secrets from me, you know,” Lindon pouted, “I’m not a kid.”

“Actually,” Cashe whispered looking over his shoulder in the direction of Emilia, “I have a secret I need you to keep with me. Can you do that?”

Lindon looked towards the sounds of a tent being set up and nodded.

***

Cashe emerged from his tent the next morning to an unpleasant wave of dust in his face. He coughed as it found its way down his throat, quickly stepping out of the tent and stretching. A wall of stone greeted him instead of the beautiful ocean sunrise. Why did he come this way again?

Emilia was already up, doing her best to prepare breakfast while simultaneously keeping as much dust out of it as possible.

“Morning,” she greeted.

“Morning,” Cashe said, moving to stand beside her. He did not sit. That would kick up too much dust.

“You and Lindon were up awfully late last night,” Emilia said casually, “Like thieves in the night.”

“We were just chatting.” Cashe said with a shrug.

“About?”

Cashe gave her a look, “Aren’t you nosey this morning?”

“I’m just curious,” Emilia said, looking slightly put off, “If you don’t want to tell me, you don’t have to tell me.”

“It’s fine,” Cashe said. “It was boy stuff.”

“Boy stuff?”

“Boy stuff.” Cashe nodded, “Lindon finally realized that Ashely was a girl and that she thinks he is cute.”

“She does?” Lindon said, poking his beet red head out of Cashe’s tent.

“Well, maybe not,” Cashe shrugged, “But he had questions,” Cashe lowered his voice to a loud whisper, “about girls.”

“And he went to you?” Emilia smirked, “Lindon, I’m pretty sure the only reason this guy got married is his wife is a saint and somehow put up with him. If you have any questions you can come to me.”

Lindon’s eyes were to giant blue orbs as they darted between Cashe and Emilia, his face managing to somehow become even more red, “Well, um- I-”

“Oh,” Emilia made a face like she had just seen a clumsy puppy do something adorable, “I was just teasing, Lindon. I know it’s embarrassing to talk about stuff like that with me.”

Lindon opened and closed his mouth a few times before he found anything to say, “O-okay.”

“Leave him alone,” Cashe said, pulling Emilia’s attention away from Lindon, “He doesn’t want to discuss the nitty gritty with you. Right buddy?”

“R-right.”

“See?”

*****