Cashe awoke early, the sun shining through the curtains of the suite and into his eyes. He blinked blearily and sat up. He was in a small shared area of the suite. Lindon had indeed booked a large room for them, but it only had two bedrooms, so Cashe found himself on the couch. Luckily it had full pullout functionality.

Cashe rolled out of bed, or out of couch, and pulled a tee-shirt and a pair of sweatpants from his bag, throwing them on. He made his way over to the kitchen and began preparing breakfast.

Emilia was up a few minutes later, staggering out of her room, half awake. She joined him in the kitchen without a word, and also prepared breakfast, but for the pokemon.

Half an hour later, breakfast was done, and Lindon was finally out of bed, called to the kitchen by the smell of cooking.

“What’s the plan for today?” Cashe yawned.

“We have almost a month until the tournament. So how about some training?” Emilia said as she watched Omanyte attempt to strangle her breakfast. It was a little disconcerting, like watching a raccoon habitually wash its food before eating it, but, well, creepy.

“Um,” Lindon looked up from his breakfast, “Do we have to train? I heard the Gym facilities here are bad.”

“I doubt that’s true,” Cashe said, “Vermillion is a major city and - ow!”

“What?” Lindon tilted his head to the side.

“Nothing,” Cashe said, shooting Emilia a glare. She had kicked him under the table, “I just accidentally stubbed my toe on the floor.”

“I was thinking we would find some trainers who were open to friendly battles,” Emilia said, returning Cashe’s glare, “So we wouldn’t be going to the Gym at all. We’d just have to find a nearby practice area.”

“Oh, okay, that’s fine then,” Lindon said, returning to his meal.

They finished up breakfast and Lindon went off to shower as Cashe and Emilia started to clean up. Once Cashe heard the shower running for a minute, he spoke, “What was that for?”

“Jan Stroute is the Gym leader of Vermillion City,” Emilia said.

“So?”

“So, Lindon’s surname is Stroute and he doesn’t want to go to the Gym at all. Does that tell you anything?”

“Ah, family,” Cashe nodded.

“Probably his dad,” Emilia said as she washed the plates, handing them to Cashe so he could dry them out, “He must have set out on his journey yesterday or the day before since he only made it to Campton. He would probably feel embarrassed by coming back home so soon.”

“I get it, I was young and dumb once, too.” Cashe said.

Emilia looked up from the dishes, “You think it’s dumb to want to make it on your own?”

“Not that,” Cashe said, shaking his head, “Getting embarrassed about something so insignificant.”

“Look at it from his perspective. The tournament is only a few weeks away and he left. I bet his parents wanted him to wait until the tournament and start there, but he insisted on starting sooner. Now he’s come back and is joining the tournament.”

“It’s not easy for a preteen to admit his parents were right all along,” Cashe said, “I remember thinking I knew so much better than my parents.”

“It’s the same for everyone,” Emilia said.

“Of course I was right, in my case,” Cashe grinned.

Emilia laughed and they finished washing up.

***

The practice yard they visited was not what Cashe was expecting. In his mind, he saw a huge arena. With bleachers around dozens of low stages set for for battle, with a variety of different environments to select from so trainers could practice in all types of conditions. He saw Nurse Joys on staff and a Poke Mart on site.

But the reality was somewhat different. The practice yard was a yard of concrete, plain and simple. It was large, probably the largest spread of concrete that Cashe had seen since coming to Kanto since there were no parking lots. Dozens of courts were painted onto the concrete, making rough outlines for trainers to battle. There were bleachers, but they were low and dirty, made of old wood and covered in faded paint. There was a Pokemon Center, but it was down the street from the practice yard, and there were no Nurse Joys in sight.

The yard was largely empty this early in the morning, with only a few children present. They weren’t even battling, just playing a convoluted game of tag with their pokemon.

“I guess this works,” Cashe said, looking out over the disappointing field, “We’ll just have to practice with each other until some more trainers show up.”

“Sorry,” Lindon said, looking down at his feet.

“For what?” Cashe said, “This will be good practice for Bulbasaur. It’s really hard to poison steel types, right? I can practice against Magnemite to get used to a different style of battle.”

“Charmander doesn’t have enough experience with a type disadvantage, too much battling Bulbasaur,” Emilia said, with a shrug, “I was going to pit him against Omanyte anyway.”

“Sounds like we can get started,” Cashe said, giving Lindon a friendly pat on the back.

Practice went well. Cashe discovered that while steel types were all but immune to his Poison Powder, they were still susceptible to Sleep Powder and Leech Seed. Magnemite was an especially good training partner for Bulbasaur since both Bulbasaur’s and Magnemite’s attacks were not very effective against each other. It meant they had more room for experimentation and mistakes.

Cashe didn’t pit Mankey against anyone for the time being. After battling the Golduck, she was much less resistant to his orders, but he saw no evidence that she had found her chill. Cashe had an inkling that she never would either, considering the reputation Mankey, and especially Primeape had.

Lindon proved himself to be a clever battler. His Magnemite was not particularly quick, but he had wonderful timing with his attacks and movements, much better than Cashe had with Bulbasaur. The result was Magnemite led Bulbasaur on a merry chase around their small courtyard, with only the occasional hits landing, usually at the cost of a mutual strike from Magnemite.

On a separate court, Emilia was putting Charmander through the ringer. Even without orders, Omanyte was well trained enough to know what to do, and was keeping Charmander on the back foot with both water and rock attacks. The little fire lizard could barely get an attack in edgewise, and by the time they took a break for lunch, he was a panting mess.

The afternoon brought more trainers as school ended and students were released from class. Lindon had no trouble finding a slew of friendly battles, his wide eyed innocence fooling many potential trainers into thinking he would be an easy win. Despite the battles being friendly, Cashe only saw Magnemite lose a single one, and that was to a trainer with a Numel, which walled the little magnet completely.

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Emilia, too, attracted much attention, though mostly from high school boys, all of whom wanted a ‘real battle’ with her. Needless to say, Emilia swept through them one and all, with neither Charmander nor Omanyte taking much damage.

Only Cashe was left out. Not being an attractive young woman or innocent child hurt his situation significantly, and very few people went out of their way to challenge him. Plenty of registered trainers showed up, Cashe could see their Trainer IDs hanging from their necks, but he hesitated at the idea of challenging them. He didn’t want to come across as someone who was going out of his way to win against a bunch of kids.

Eventually, he decided to challenge a trainer for the first time, a young man with a Drowzee. The young man accepted the challenge, but when Cashe asked for them to keep the battle friendly, the teenager apparently took that as evidence of weakness and refused, declaring the battle a six vs six until fainting. The result was a one sided affair, easily won by Cashe. Despite his pokemon both having the type disadvantage, Drowzee was largely untrained and its trainer was just a teenager.

Unfortunately, the same situation would repeat itself several times until the people he challenged finally figured out that, yes, he really did want a friendly battle, and no, he wasn’t just saying that because he was weak. He had to use Mankey for the last few battles, but once he got his point across, people were much more receptive to his requests. A few non-trainers even approached him for a truly friendly battle, and he spent the last half an hour of the day putting Bulbasaur in a wrestling match against a preteen girl’s Tangela.

“Hey, what’s this?” Cashe said as he, Emilia, and Lindon made their way back to the hotel. Cashe held up his pokedex so Emilia could see.

“What’s what?” Emilia said, squinting at the screen through the dimming, late afternoon light, “It looks like your trainer profile.”

“It has a new section on it,” Cashe said, “It says Challenges: 13.”

“That means of the battles you fought, thirteen of them were ones you initiated.” Emilia said, “Some trainers make it a point of pride to get the ratio as high as possible since challengers are at a disadvantage.”

“People argue about it in the pokenet a lot,” Lindon informed him. He was Carrying Magnemite in his arms, the small pokemon too tired to float. Cashe didn’t ask why Lindon carried it instead of returning it to its pokeball. Mankey was clinging to his back, after all.

“It doesn’t matter either way,” Emilia said, “Rankings aren’t affected by it. It’s just for bragging rights, at the end of the day.”

“It wasn’t there before though,” Cashe said.

“The trainer profiles are updated in real time,” Emilia said, “See where it says you haven’t beaten any significant opponents? If one of those trainers becomes significant through the course of their life, it will update.”

“My mom beat my-” Lindon paused and bit his lip before continuing, “beat someone I know who eventually became a significant trainer a long time ago. She mentions it all the time.”

“They actually had to add a feature that tells you when you were beaten because of that,” Emilia said, “A lot of famous trainers got upset that random scrubs were saying they beat them.”

“That happens?” Cashe said, “Why would trainers care?”

“Do you remember Marty?” Emilia said.

“No.”

“The guy who works at the Pokemon Center in Pallet Town. On the Mart side.”

“I didn’t even realize it,” Cashe said, slapping himself in the forehead as if he had missed something obvious, “The guy who works at the Mart is named Marty.” He gazed at Emilia suspiciously, “This place is weird.”

Emilia laughed, “Well Marty is my sister’s age. They got their pokemon around the same time and he beat her in their first battle.”

“He beat Selena?” Cashe said, incredulous, “I doubt that.”

“Selena had Hippopotas and he had Squirtle,” Emilia shrugged, “It was their first battle out of trainer school. Losses happen.”

“So he wouldn’t stop talking about how he beat her I take it?” Cashe said.

“It got really bad right after she stepped down as an undefeated Champion,” Emilia said, “The Gym leader position in Viridian City had just opened up and she really wanted it, but Marty was online insisting that she wasn’t that tough and he beat her with just his Squirtle. It became a whole thing.”

“So they fixed it after that?” Cashe said.

“People were already calling for it, but adding a former Champion to the mix made the League actually do something about it.”

“Now it shows the circuit level, the trainer designations, and you can click on the battle to see what pokemon were used,” Lindon said, “My - the person my mom teases is always pointing that out.”

“That makes sense,” Cashe said, “I have another question about my profile. My ranking-”

“It’s for True Rookies only,” Emilia said, “Don’t get excited.”

“That also makes sense,” Cashe said as they entered the hotel lobby. He bumped into someone making their way out, “Sorry.”

He did a double take. It was a couple, a woman and a man, but the woman was wrapped up in what appeared to be a child’s blanket and was hopping forward in order to move. The man was in a lab coat of some kind and had wild, frizzy hair that reminded Cashe of pictures he had seen of Albert Einstein. He had a single hand gripped around the blanket and was clearly both trying to pull it off and helping the woman stay on her feet.

The man didn’t even look up from the woman as he waved off Cashe’s apology, “Definitely her fault, don’t worry about it,” the man said as they left the hotel.

“That was strange,” Cashe said, watching the pair walk/hop away.

“I saw them yesterday,” Lindon said, “I think they might be a bit funny. They were checking into the hotel and talking about big boobs.”

Cashe exchanged a glance with Emilia and she put a protective arm on Lindon’s back, “I think we’d better avoid them as best we can,” Emilia said.

“Yeah,” Cashe said, glancing down at Lindon, “Lindon, if they try to talk to you, ignore them, okay? If they keep trying, you get away and find another adult, understand?”

Emilia gave him a look, “You think-”

“I don’t want to take any risks,” Cashe said, “If you see them, point them out and we will stay out of their way.”

***

“You can’t stay grumpy with me forever,” Blue said as Dragonite brought them down to Blackthorn City. It was the city Red frequented for his clothes and his haircuts, so Blue felt it was the best place to get their pokemon healed up without being noticed. New Bark Town was closer, and they wouldn’t have needed to stop overnight to get there, but everyone would recognize them as outsiders. Here, they would be two faces in the crowd.

Red harrumphed, crossing his arms and hopping off Dragonite as soon as she touched down. A few people pointed and murmured at the rare pokemon in their midst, but not many. They were in the City of Dragons, after all.

“I told you strategies had improved over the years,” Blue said, returning Dragonite to her pokeball, “You figured out Mega Evolution on your own, which is impressive as hell, and I am definitely going to interrogate you about it later, but did you really think you could beat me? You were fighting as though you had never seen a battle from another region in your life.”

Red scowled at him.

“You’re kidding?” Blue said, “You haven’t?”

“No.”

“We should visit the Gym, catch a battle,” Blue said, “You have no idea how much things have changed.”

Red met the suggestion with a flat look.

“Fine.” Blue rolled his eyes, “Let’s go get your pokemon healed up.”

Blue wandered until they found a Pokemon Center and waited in line until the Nurse Joy could see them. Red handed over the four pokemon he used in their battle and Blue did the same. His pokemon didn’t really need the healing, but it would make them more comfortable in the long run.

“Oh! These pokemon,” Nurse Joy paused as she evaluated Blue’s pokemon and their injuries, or lack thereof, “I hope you don’t mind me asking, but are you Professor Oak? Blue Oak?”

“Um, yeah,” Blue sighed. The Nurse Joy didn’t even look thirty, how did she recognize him?

“Oh my gosh,” Nurse Joy’s face split into a huge smile, “I’m such a big fan. I’m Sally, Sally Joy, obviously,” she giggled and pointed to her bright pink hair, “Did you just come from a battle? Are you rejoining the circuits?”

“I-” Blue started.

“Oh my gosh,” Sally Joy noticed Red’s significantly more injured pokemon and his proximity to Blue and made the obvious connection, “He battled you. Sorry about the loss, but what can you expect against a former Champion.”

Red opened his mouth to speak but Sally wasn’t done talking.

“I’m so sorry, that was so rude of me. I didn’t even ask you your name,” She gave Red a brilliant smile and held out her hand, “I’m Sally Joy.”

“Red,” Red said, shaking her hand. Blue groaned and hid his face in his hands.

Sally’s eyes went wide and her mouth popped open. Her head slowly turned from Red to Blue and back again. Red gave her a warm smile.

She fainted.

“Damnit,” Blue swore as several more nurses ran to see what had happened. A Blissey wandered over and dropped an enormous, soft boiled egg directly on Sally Joy’s face. Red grinned at Blue’s misery. This was going to become a whole thing.

*****