“I can’t believe I didn’t make it to quarterfinals! I really wanted a prize! Your advice wasn’t very good.” Ashley complained to Cashe. Cashe was sitting with her, Emilia, and Lindon in a small cafe a single deck below the stadium. The cafe was empty, with the only other person present being a distracted employee who had her eyes glued to her phone screen. From what Cashe could tell, she was watching the True Rookie Tournament.
“You didn’t listen to my advice. If you listened, you would have led with Snivy.”
Ashley stuck a spoon deep into an enormous bowl of ice cream. It was the reason they were there at all. Despite the heartwarming end to the interview, Ashley was still understandably upset at losing her match. Ice cream was a universal coping mechanism, however, and the cafe had an excellent supply.
Lindon mirrored Ashley, glancing at her periodically as he worked on his own enormous bowl. He was trying to keep up with her, but being several years younger thank her and not motivated by a loss, he was falling behind.
Cashe had abstained from snacking apart from ordering a small coffee, but ended up sharing a plate of pastries with Emilia, who had overestimated her own appetite upon ordering. He was currently picking at a warm croissant as Emilia leaned back in her chair, her eyes shut in stuffed contentment. The cafe had been her idea to cheer up Ashley after her loss, but it looked like she was enjoying it more than anyone else.
“You told her to lead Snivy?” Emilia said.
“No. I told her to use her strongest attacks against you only.”
“You did really well,” Lindon said through a mouthful of ice cream, swallowing hurriedly at a disapproving glance from Cashe. “You did a lot better than me.”
“You’re a kid,” Ashley groaned.
“I’m not a kid.”
“And you only have one pokemon, and you got all the way to the top thirty-two.” Ashley took another bite of her ice cream and made a little noise of happy pleasure.
“You both did very well,” Emilia said, “And you both could have made it further, you just got unlucky in your matchups and paired against tournament favorites.”
“I was a tournament favorite,” Ashley complained, blushing slightly at Emilia’s compliment.
“Eighth through fifth place aren’t great prizes anyway,” Cashe said, “Only three thousand pokedollars.”
“And automatic admittance to the Kanto, Johto, Hoenn, and Alola Third Circuits,” Ashley said, “That’s the real prize.”
“Is it?” Cashe said, glancing at Emilia.
Her eyes were still closed, but she apparently sensed his glance and answered the question, “It comes with a bunch of perks.”
“Perks?” Ashley forgot about her ice cream for a second, staring flabbergasted at Emilia, “They’re more than perks.” Her eyes went wide and she blushed further as she realized she was arguing with Emilia.
Lindon nodded in agreement, “My dad says admittance to a region’s circuit separates the trainers from casual battlers.”
“I thought you got onto the Third Circuit by challenging a gym?” Cashe said, “My designation switched from True Rookie to Third Circuit with my first win at the tournament.”
“What region did it say?” Emilia said.
Cashe checked his pokedex and trainer profile, “It says, ‘Designation: Third Circuit (Kanto, Johto, Hoenn, Alola).’”
“That’s only because you made it to the top eight,” Ashley said, “Mine still says ‘Region Undetermined’.” She held up her pokedex for Cashe to see as proof.
“Okay, so what’s the difference?”
Ashley frowned at him, “How are you a trainer?”
“Being a Third Circuit trainer is easy,” Emilia said, eyes still closed, her hand reaching out to the table and searching for a pastry. Cashe reached across the table and pushed one into her path. She stuffed it in her mouth and continued to talk with her mouth full, “All you need to do is challenge a gym trainer at the Third Circuit level. You don’t even have to win. To be admitted to a region’s circuit you need to beat three of that region’s gym trainers. That’s a lot harder.”
“Most people challenge the Second Circuit after they beat three trainers on the Third Circuit,” Ashley informed him, “Once you are affiliated with a region, you are also considered a professional trainer in that region. You get all sorts of benefits from that, like access to competitive items at Marts and priority registration when signing up for gym battles. They even start allowing you to enter more dangerous areas of the region and catch rare pokemon. It’s a really big deal.”
“Lots of cities will have designated hotels for traveling trainers that only they can use, or practice areas for circuit trainers,” Emilia said through a mouthful of puff pastry, “There are a bunch of other little things like that, mostly just to improve quality of life for trainers in cities since they spend so much time running around the routes.”
“I see,” Cashe said. That did sound like a big deal, “Too bad you didn’t get top eight then. Pretty sure you will do just fine in whatever region you start in though.”
Ashley didn’t look comforted by the thought. “At least I still get to go to the party,” she mumbled over her ice cream.
“Which party?” Emilia said, “I thought those were going on all the time with most of the trainers knocked out.”
“She means the party before the finals,” Cashe said, “Right?”
“Yup,” Ashley said, “They’re going to show the prizes they have for the tournament as well as reveal the prizes for the betting tournament.”
“Oh, that party.” Emilia grunted.
“Not excited?” Cashe said, raising an eyebrow, “Didn’t you like that the True Rookie Tournament had a lot of parties?”
“It’s not that,” Emilia sighed, “It’s that I’m going to be in the finals so everyone is going to want to talk to me about my plans, and whether I think I can win and everything. Half those people will try and tell me what to do and the other half will be cheering for me to lose. It’s going to suck.” Cashe nodded at Emilia’s complaint, but Ashley looked doubtful.
“Can’t you not go?” Lindon said.
“Technically. But it’s not worth it.” Emilia said.
Stolen story; please report.
Lindon scrunched his brow in confusion, “What does that mean?”
“Sometimes you do something that is annoying to avoid doing something else that is even more annoying,” Cashe said, “If one of the finalists missed the big party that was put together specifically to celebrate them, lots of people would complain. It would be a whole thing.”
“It’s not just to celebrate the finalists,” Ashley said, “It’s for everyone who got far in the tournament. It’s a celebration of accomplishment.”
“Not everyone is expected to walk around and talk with celebrities.” Emilia grumbled. She was still leaning back in her chair with her eyes closed. It made her look like she was mumbling in her sleep.
“No, we just want to,” Ashley pouted.
"If you see me there, come talk to me," Emilia said, "I can introduce you to Sasha Firesong."
"You know her?" Ashley's eyes went wide in awe.
"We've met," Emilia said, "But be warned, if you join me, you join me the entire night. You don't get to talk with only the interesting people. We talk with everyone."
“I have another question,” Lindon said, interrupting and pushing his unfinished bowl of ice cream away from him and towards Cashe. Cashe sighed and picked up a spoon. There was no point letting it go to waste. “Where did you get a Kubfu anyway? Aren’t they super rare? Like really, really rare?”
Emilia opened her eyes at the question looking over at Ashley. Ashley bit her lip under the attention.
“I guess I just got lucky,” she said.
“You got lucky and happened upon a legendary pokemon?” Cashe said, incredulous, “How did that happen?”
Ashley blushed, “I’m not supposed to say.”
“You’re not supposed to say how you found him?” Lindon said, “That’s dumb. Why aren’t you supposed to say?”
Ashley blushed deeper and stared at her ice cream, poking it with her spoon.
“Lindon, it’s rude to pry,” Emilia said, “Especially if you know something is supposed to be a secret. If Ashley can’t tell us, she can’t tell us.”
“Thanks,” Ashley said, expression downcast.
“Don’t worry about it,” Cashe said with a small smile, “Lindon still won’t tell us who his dad is.”
“Who’s his dad?” Ashley said.
Lindon’s eyes went wide, “Apollo! I told you!”
“You told him?” Emilia gasped. Her the edge of her lips twitched as she struggled to hold back a smile, “Lindon, you still haven’t told me!”
“Oh my gosh,” Cashe shook his head, “Lindon, keeping secrets is rude, you know.”
“What?” Lindon had the look of a man who was the victim of a great injustice, “She just said prying was rude!”
“That’s for Ashely,” Cashe said, rolling his eyes as if Lindon was being deliberately obtuse, “For you it’s different.”
Lindon gaped as Ashley giggled at his expression. Cashe grinned. Emilia laughed.
***
“What are you going to do for the next few days?” Lindon said as they walked back from the cafe.
“Light training, probably,” Cashe said, “The gym has been pretty empty for the last few days, and Bulbasaur and Mankey will finally have the opportunity to rest up and solidify what they’ve learned from the last week.”
“You can’t train all the time!” Lindon complained as they walked. The halls of the cruise were mostly empty, the day’s battles were still going on and the vast majority of the cruise was in the stadium watching them.
“We are in the quarterfinals,” Emilia said with a shrug, "It's important if we want to win. I am going to be training too, once Omanyte recovers from her battle.”
“I know it’s important,” Lindon said, “But you said light training, right? You can’t spend all day in the training gym if it’s light training.”
Cashe glanced at Emilia. They both knew what Lindon was getting at, “Well I don’t know what else there would be to do on this cruise ship,” Cashe said in a noncommittal tone.
A small smile found its way to Emilia’s face, “I know. It’s like, what even is there to do?”
“We’re on a cruise!” Lindon exclaimed, “There’s so much to do!”
“I don’t know,” Cashe hesitated, “Training is pretty important.”
“We can go to the water park!” Lindon said, ‘We haven’t gone at all and everyone is watching battles right now. It’s the perfect time to go.”
Cashe shared a quick look with Emilia, “Sure, why not?”
“Really?” Lindon blinked, unsure if Cashe was teasing him again.
Emilia nodded, “My mom used to take us to water parks all the time. Well, she would take us to open areas and then her pokemon would make an improvised water park for us, but it's the same thing really.”
“Yeah we can go,” Cashe said, “We just have to get changed first.”
They walked back to their rooms, dragged along by Lindon, who suddenly seemed to remember the way. They changed quickly and headed out, making their way to the water park.
The water park was not a very good one, more like an indoor pool than anything. Space was limited and there was little natural light, the entrance was on the lowest passenger deck of the ship and the entire area of the park was built with a higher ceiling. Cashe tried to picture what part of the second deck was missing to compensate for this, but he was unable to picture it in his mind.
The water park had slides and pools, but the slides were of the long and wide variety, and the pools were open and shallow. There were a few people meandering around the area, but by far the most common people they saw were on duty lifeguards. A lazy river ran in circles and there was a section of unused hot tubs hiding in the corner of the park.
Unlike most water parks, there was no changing area. The cruise understood its guests were on a cruise. They would be wearing bathing suits most of the time anyway. Instead there was a wall of lockers where guests could store their things
“Yeah, this is just about what Mom would make for us,” Emilia said, pulling off her shorts and tee-shirt and stuffing them into the locker.
“She really did that?” Cashe said, tossing his shirt in the locker as well.
“Yeah, her Gyarados knows Dig so it was easy for her to make a pool. After we were done Gyarados would Dig again and put everything back the way it was, more or less.” Emilia bent down and picked Lindon's clothes up off the ground. He was long gone, having ripped off his shirt and shoes as soon as they got to the lockers.
“I never liked water parks back home,” Cashe said, walking towards the lazy river, “They always felt busy and gross. But Jen loved them for some reason, so we ended up at them a lot. She was like a little kid. Or Lindon.”
Emilia looked at Cashe out of the corner of her eye, “I guess if pokemon were like pets, it might be hard to get them to help clean things up,” she nodded to the edge of the pool where a few Vaporeon lounged in the water, almost invisible where they were partially submerged.
“Ah, yeah,” Cashe scratched the back of his head and knelt down, slipping into the lazy river. Emilia joined him a moment later. The water was clear and warm, relaxing after the long week of battling.
“Ah, that feels good,” Emilia sighed, letting herself float on her back, a small foam board in her arms, the slow current dragging her along, “Mom’s pokemon never got the temperature right. Vaporeon and Gyarados knew Scald, but the hot water to cold water ratio was always wrong, so the water was either near boiling or not even warm.”
Cashe grinned, drifting along beside Emilia in the water, “On our honeymoon we stayed in this big fancy hotel. There was a big bath in the bathroom that we tried to use the first night we got there. It would have been great, it was four or five feet deep, it had places to sit, jets, everything. It was basically a hot tub,” Cashe sighed as the water carried him around the river, “The problem was only the hot water tap worked, and it was boiling.”
“Wouldn’t you want a hot bath in a tub like that?” Emilia said.
“Sure, but when I say it was basically boiling, I mean it, it was way too hot.”
“So let it cool?”
“Do you have any idea how long it takes for a tub that deep to cool down when all the water in it is boiling hot?” Cashe laughed, “We filled the damn thing up, went to dinner, and when it got back, it was still too hot.”
Emilia smiled, “So what did you do?”
“We were newlyweds, we figured something else out.” Cashe let out a long breath. “God, I miss her.”
Emilia stayed quiet for a moment, letting Cashe sit with his thoughts for a moment before steering the conversation away from the unpleasant topic, “Why didn’t you find someone with a water pokemon in the hotel to cool off the tub? Surely someone would have one, right?”
Cashe floated for a long moment, staring up at the ceiling of the deck. Water lapped over his ears, distorting the low hum of the ship’s engines and the echoing splashes of people using the pool.
“There are no pokemon where I’m from, Emilia,” Cashe finally said, “They aren’t real. Pokemon is a children’s game. Stuffed toys, TV shows and video games. That’s it.”
*****