Emilia turned over and sat up to look at Cashe from where she was lying on the beach. She was in a swimsuit and resting in the shade of a wide beach umbrella that covered their bags and a set of beach towels. While she relaxed, her pokemon ran around in the sun, creating the exact opposite image one might expect from an expert trainer.

“What moves?” Emilia said, taking a pair of sunglasses that lay beside her on her towel and placing them over her eyes so she could look at Cashe properly.

“Ivysaur needs a wider move pool,” Cashe said, “And I realized how useful it would be if he could set up the sun for himself, so I was thinking Sunny Day for one. Probably Giga Drain and Weather Ball after that, if I can manage it. Since Charmeleon already knows it I was hoping you might have some advice.”

“The pokedex isn’t doing it for you?” Emilia raised her eyebrow.

“It just said ‘encourage your pokemon to channel the power of the sun’,” Cashe grumbled, “It’s normally a lot more helpful than that. I figured you might be able to give me some insight since both your pokemon know weather moves.”

“I don’t know,” Emilia said, laying back down and stretching out like a cat, long and luxurious, “I’m kind of busy.”

Cashe watched her stretch for a moment before rolling his eyes. “That’s fine. I’ll muddle through.” he flopped into the shade of the umbrella and onto his own towel, pulling out his pokedex from the pocket of his swim shorts and flipping through its functions.

Emilia stopped stretching and rolled onto her side, propping her head up with an elbow, “You’re going to give up just like that? You’re no fun.”

“Well, there are other options open for me,” Cashe shrugged as he tapped away at his pokedex.

“You just said the pokedex didn’t have good instructions,” Emilia frowned as her sunglasses slid down her nose a few centimeters.

“Oh, it is,” Cashe confirmed, “It's bad for the other weather moves as well. It’s like they don’t want me to understand how to figure it out.”

“So what are you doing with your pokedex?” Emilia said, squinting at him in suspicion.

“Texting someone. Some battle expert.”

“Who?”

Cashe looked up from his phone, “Your sister.”

“Selena gave you her contact info?” Emilia said with a gasp. She tried to reach over and snatch Cashe’s pokedex away from him.

Cashe twisted away, “Yes, but I’m not texting her.”

“She didn’t!” Emilia said, her face taking on a dark cast. She paused in the middle of opening her mouth and she frowned. “You’re teasing me. You didn’t give up just like that.”

Cashe grinned at her, “You wanted ‘fun’.”

Emilia snorted, “So what are you really doing?”

“Texting you sister.”

“What? Really?”

“Yes. Not Selena though. Elise.”

Emilia sat up, “You should be asking Selena if you are looking for advice about weather moves. It’s what I did. She’s an expert in them. Elise doesn’t use weather at all. Her team isn’t suited for it.”

“And what is her team exactly? Every time I ask someone they tell me to ‘watch the VODs’. What is with your family and not answering a simple question?”

“She’s got a mixed team if you look at all her pokemon, but she favors hyper offensive strategies.”

Cashe gave Emilia a look as she refused to answer the question. She grinned at him. She knew exactly what she was doing.

Cashe turned back to his pokedex. “I’m not asking her about weather moves, I’m asking her about something else.”

“What?”

“It’s a secret.”

“Arceus, you’re so annoying.”

“It really is a secret,” Cashe said.

“And you can tell her and not me?”

“You’ll find out,” Cashe said, snapping his pokedex shut as Emilia tried to read and cover his shoulder. He put the device back in his pocket and stood up, “Let’s figure out those weather moves.”

“Ahh, fine,” Emilia groaned, she held out her arms. Cashe took hold of them and pulled her to her feet, “Let’s go find Ivysaur.”

Ivysaur was playing in the sand with Primeape, Hatenna, and Goomy. It looked like they were playing some sort of bizarre game of keepaway. Goomy was currently wrapped up in Ivysaur’s vines and chirping in delight as he tossed her to Primeape. Hatenna shouted in amusement as the squishy pokemon flew over her head and she hopped up and down in the sand. Primeape failed to catch her, her mucus-covered skin proving too slippery for Primeape’s balled hands. Goomy plopped to the ground and all four pokemon celebrated.

“Alright,” Cashe said, hands on hips as he watched the display, “I do not understand my pokemon at all. Ivysaur, Hatenna, Primeape! Get over here. Time to train.”

“The others can still play if they want to,” Emilia said, ‘No need to stop…whatever that was.”

“Nah, no use giving only one pokemon training,” Cashe said, “Besides, Primeape can learn Sunny Day too, and Hatenna still needs to get her ability figured out. She’s only making it work about half the time.”

“What ability did you decide to go with?” Emilia said.

“Magic Bounce,” Cashe said, “It’s definitely the most useful, but it’s an active ability. I thought it would work passively like Chlorophyll or Defiant. She’s having trouble sensing the energy of the opposing pokemon and reflecting it when the move doesn’t directly affect her. I think.”

Emilia frowned, “What do you mean by that?”

“Well, she reflects things like Leech Seed or Growl just fine, but she is having some trouble with Sleep Powder. I think it’s because the energy is in the powder and it's not as obvious. With the other moves I’ve tried, it either is very obvious what’s going on like with Leech Seed or affects her directly like with Growl, so she can reflect them. But with Sleep Powder it just hits her and she’s out like a light. I’m worried the same thing might happen with Spikes or Stealth Rock.”

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“I see,” Emilia eyed Hatenna suspiciously. Hatenna looked up at Emilia and squeaked in discomfort. “Have Ivysaur use Poison Powder on her, Cashe. I’m correct in thinking you haven’t yet?”

Cashe glanced at Emilia, “I didn’t want to poison my pokemon for training.”

“You have an antidote, right? Try with Poison Powder.”

Cashe hesitated as Hatenna quivered under Emilia’s scrutiny, “I don’t know…”

“Do you trust me?”

“Of course.”

“She’ll be fine. Use Poison Powder.”

Cashe nodded, “Ivysaur.”

“Ivy.” Ivysaur picked up Hatenna with his vines and moved her away from the group, firing a small plume of purple powder at her once she was out of the way.

“Hatenna!” Hatenna cried.

The training Ivysaur went through over the past five days had significantly improved his control over his powder moves, so only the smallest amount flew at Hatenna.

Until it came within a foot of her.

Like magic, it froze in mid air and bounced back at Ivysaur, spraying across his face. Ivysaur snorted as his own attack hit him.

“You did it!” Cashe cried out in celebration, “Congratulations, Hatenna!”

Emilia crossed her arms, “You should be scolding her. She’s been tricking you to get out of training,” Emilia said.

“What? Hatenna, were you letting yourself get hit by Sleep Powder so you could take a nap?” Cashe admonished. Hatenna drooped as Ivysaur put her down on the ground, her long tail flopping onto the sand.

“Hat,” she said.

Cashe shook his head, “Everyone was working so hard. I thought you said you wanted to be powerful?”

“Tenna.”

“Hmmm,” Cashe crossed his arms in doubt, “You’ve got a lot of catching up to do, Missy. You’re going to work extra hard when Ivysaur and Primeape are training. I want you using Life Dew on them both in a loop until you are exhausted. Then you are meditating until you pass out.”

“Hat.”

“You want her to meditate until she passes out?” Emilia said, raising an eyebrow.

“I’ve been trying to get her to learn Calm Mind,” Cashe said, “Mostly because it will be very helpful for her to acclimatize to loud emotions, especially once she starts evolving, but also because it’s just a great move for her to know.”

Emilia nodded in approval, “That’s a great idea.”

“Thanks. How did you know she was letting herself get hit, by the way?”

Emilia placed her hands on her hips, “Cashe, she’s a pokemon that looks like a tiny child in a sleeping cap. Of course she was tricking you into letting her sleep during training.”

“What? That’s it? You used the magical power of discrimination to judge her?” Cashe laughed.

“If it works it works,” Emilia shrugged, “Now, we should really get to learning Sunny Day before the sun starts to set. People do not appreciate a miniature sun rising in the air when they are trying to sleep.” Emilia said. She frowned at Goomy, who was currently trying to get Primeape to pick her up by nudging at her leg, “We should get Lindon over here too so he can take care of his pokemon.”

After a short search and a lot of waving (Lindon kept waving back at them instead of running over) Lindon was with them, Magneton at his side.

“What is it?” He said as he jogged up to the group.

“I’m helping Cashe teach Ivysaur and Primeape Sunny Day.” Emilia said, “Hatenna is working on something else so it would leave Goomy alone. We thought you might want to do something with her.”

“Oh! Can you teach me, too?” Lindon said perking up, “All of my pokemon can learn Sunny Day.”

“They can?” Cashe said, looking at Goomy, “Isn’t that a bit counterintuitive?”

“Do you want a sun based team?” Emilia said.

“No,” Lindon shook his head, “But the option would be nice. Besides, what if I come across a team that uses another weather condition? I would at least want to fight against it, even if I probably can’t overpower their weather completely. And it might help me teach other weather moves later.”

“That’s completely fair,” Emilia said, “I guess class is in session.”

***

As it turned out, ‘encourage your pokemon to channel the power of the sun’ was not the worst description of how to learn Sunny Day. Emilia instructed Cashe and Lindon to have their pokemon feel the sun on their backs and for them to attempt to emulate that energy and bring it forth from their bodies. She had a few more pointers, but they mostly came down to helping the pokemon, none of whom were fire type, separate out fire type energy from the well of energy within them in order to use the move.

The rest was repetition.

Unsurprisingly, Ivysaur was the first of the five pokemon to learn the move, or at least succeed at it. Cashe had already been attempting to teach Ivysaur the move for several days, and Emilia’s insights helped push him over the edge of success. Only an hour after beginning to practice the move, Ivysaur summoned a miniature sun that burned brightly in the sky above them.

“Excellent work, Ivysaur,” Cashe laughed as Hatenna used Life Dew to replenish Ivysaur’s energy, “But cut it off for now. If that sun is up too long, I’m going to need an extra layer of sunscreen.”

“Saur.” Ivysaur said.

“Damn, really?” Cashe frowned, “Maybe I really should put on another layer of sunscreen.”

“Yeah, you can’t turn off weather moves once they start,” Emilia said, “Just be grateful you aren’t teaching them Rain Dance. I thought I would never be dry again.”

Ivysaur took a break while his Sunny Day ran its course. Because he was so new to using the move, it didn’t last long, and after only a minute or two he was back with the group attempting to use the move again. He didn’t succeed on his next try, or the one after, but before long he got it again, which led to success after success. When this happened, Cashe separated Ivysaur from the pack to focus on Primeape, letting Ivysaur work on extending his duration and control over the move.

The next success, to everyone’s surprise, was Goomy. She complained the entire time about actually succeeding, as the extra heat was uncomfortable for her. Lindon let her cool off in the ocean for the duration of her Sunny Day, which cheered her up right away.

Goomy had a lot more trouble using the move a second time, perhaps due to how unpleasant it was for her to use it the first time. Nevertheless, she did succeed on a second, and eventually third attempt, allowing her to join Ivysaur to help practice her control over the move.

As the day continued, Magneton and Slowpoke both managed to use Sunny Day multiple times, to varying degrees of success, but they eventually both moved over to Ivysaur and Goomy, leaving only Primeape behind.

“Don’t worry about it too much,” Cashe said, stroking Primeape’s fur, “Not every pokemon can be good at everything.”

“Ape!” Primeape huffed and pawed at the ground, digging deep grooves into the sand.

“I didn’t expect that either,” Cashe said, glancing at Emilia. She shrugged. When Magneton pulled off the move, Primeape didn’t seem too upset. She got frustrated, but that was fairly normal for her since evolving. But Slowpoke figuring out the move before her was…unexpected. Maybe Lindon really did pick the smartest Slowpoke. Primeape obviously didn’t hold much regard for the dopey pokemon as his success was making her fume.

“Ape! PRIMEAPE!” Primeape clawed at the ground again, taking great scoops of sand out of the beach, so deep that there were little pools of water at the bottom of the holes. She pounded at the sand, causing the two miniature wells to collapse on top of themselves. Her eyes began glowing red and she strutted away from Cashe’s hand, little motes of energy flickering off her body in her wake. Dark gray energy.

“Primeape!” Cashe called out, “Use Rage Fist!”

“APE!” Primeape turned and punched as hard as she could at the crashing waves of the beach. Her fist glowed with dark energies and she punched again, this time slamming her fists down on the ground. The sand buckled and an enormous wave of it flew up around her, spraying Cashe and Emilia with sand. Primeape screeched in rage and pounded the sand again, but this time there was no enormous impact.

“Hey!” Cashe shouted, spitting out a mouthful of sand as Emilia brushed it from her hair and out of her swimsuit, “You used Rage fist again! Only fourteen or fifteen more times to go!”

“PRIMEAPE!” Primeape shouted at the sky and launched her hands in the air, bringing both of her arms together like she was channeling a giant attack in a TV show. No attack came, but light did appear far above her head, Sunny Day successfully used for the first time. Cashe laughed and ran to congratulate her with a hug and a good brushing of her coat (her favorite prize), but as he approached her, she toppled to the ground, out cold.

“Well, at least we know the training is paying off,” Emilia said as Hatenna waddled across the sand to Primeape’s side and used multiple Life Dew’s on her in a row. Emilia glanced around at the wrecked beach and at the trainers around them who were now staring. “But it might be time to take a break.”

*****