Cashe opened his eyes, bolting upright from where he lay on the ground. The sky was bright with stars and the moon illuminated their small camp. The first hints of light were peaking over the horizon, the dark purple of the night sky transitioning to violet, orange, and red.
A Primeape was standing over his body, snarling in rage at a dark figure hiding in the shadows. Cashe could see glowing eyes and a pink tongue in the shadow and he shook his head as the images of his dream merged with reality.
Mankey - no Primeape - was fighting a Haunter. A Haunter that had invaded his dreams? He tried to focus on the fading memories, but they slipped away as he tried to hold onto them, like water slipping through the cracks in his fingers as he made a fist.
“APE!” Primeape stepped forward once again, her fists glowing with gray light as she lashed out at the Haunter. Haunter fled into the shadows, leaking a thick plume of gas as it left the campsite, retreating quickly into the woods surrounding the cemetery.
Cashe stood, looking around the camp as Primeape seethed in her spot, searching for other dangers. He was surprised she didn’t find any, since Cashe was pretty sure he spotted a couple.
Lindon and Emilia and all the pokemon, excluding Primeape, were still fast asleep. Lindon was curled up in his sleeping back, unmoving and breathing shallowly. A Drifloon was hovering above him, its long, stringy arms wrapped around his hand. It was pulling on him, but lacked the strength to even lift his limb above his body. The balloon-like pokemon was essentially just that, a balloon, pulling fruitlessly against Lindon’s mass.
In the center of the camp, a Misdreavus hovered, making eerie tinkling sounds as it laughed in delight. Cashe was not sure what it was so amused by, but it had a grin on its little mouth and was laughing as though it had just pulled off the prank of the century.
Emilia was curled up on Charmeleon, both still breathing slow and shallow. Emilia’s blanket had fallen off her and into a bundle on the ground. Cashe frowned and walked over to her, but instead of picking up the blanket, he shook her by the arm and attempted to wake her up.
She didn’t stir.
“Hypnosis,” Cashe muttered to himself. He placed the blanket back over Emilia. The Haunter must have caught them all with the move, lulling them into a deep sleep before doing whatever it was Haunter’s did. Cashe turned his attention back to Primeape. She was still seething in rage, her eyes tracking over the area around the camp. Cashe felt a tinge of his own anger well up as he looked around the camp, but stuffed it down. Cashe tried to approach her but she growled at him when he got too close, spinning around and snarling at him, her fists, brought up, ready to fight.
“Whoa there,” Cashe took a step back as Primeape assumed a boxer’s stance. He kept his hands low, palms facing up and out to show he meant no harm, “I just wanted to thank you, Primeape. You saved me, right? Maybe Lindon and Emilia too.”
Cashe gestured to where his friends lay on the ground. Drifloon was still doing whatever it was doing to Lindon, but Primeape didn’t seem to think it was an issue, so he wasn’t concerned.
“Primeape,” Primeape’s tone was wary. She didn’t lower her hands, but the fury in her eyes abated somewhat.
Cashe took slow steps back, until he stood beside his backpack. It was open and laying beside the kindling, which was out for some reason. He reached inside the pack and took out his berry pouch, returning to stand in front of Primeape. She watched him closely as he moved, her eyes recognizing the berry pouch at the very least.
“You like Duran Berries, right?” Cashe said, keeping his tone gentle. He reached into the berry pouch and retrieved the bitter, green berry. He knelt in front of Primeape and she snatched it out of his hand, her fist moving too fast for Cashe to see.
Cashe smiled as Primeape munched loudly on the berry and reached into his pouch for another one. She snatched that one up, too, and plopped down on the ground, her body relaxing as she chewed.
“There. I’m not so bad, remember?” Cashe provided another few berries and moved closer to Primeape, eventually sitting right behind her as she ate. He ran his hands through her fur as she had done to his hair many times before, searching her fur for parasites. He didn’t find any, of course. He took good care of Mankey, after all, but it was the process that counted. Besides, the methodical movement helped him relax his own mind and go over the events of the evening. Primeape relaxed with him, moving into a comfortable lull as they sat and watched the sun rise.
Misdreavus flitted through the camp as they waited for the sun to peek above the trees, moving things around and laughing in delight as it made objects float through the air. Occasionally it would make sounds. A woman or child crying, the sound of distant shuffling or footsteps, and once even a light moaning that made Cashe blush. Each time Cashe glanced in the Misdreavus’s direction it quieted down immediately, before erupting into its tinkling laughter. Cashe let the small ghost pokemon have its fun. As long as it wasn’t hurting anything or trying to do whatever it was the Haunter wanted to do, he didn’t mind.
Eventually, Cashe realized he could probably figure out what the Haunter wanted to do, what the Misdreavus was doing, and whatever it was that was going on with Drifloon if he looked at his pokedex for a minute.
As he read up the night’s encounters, the sun began to poke over the horizon. The light poured over the camp slowly, inching away the shadows of the night. As it did, Drifloon let go of Lindon’s hand with a disappointed look on its face and floated away. The Misdreavus simply disappeared.
Not long after, the light made its way onto Emilia’s face and she stirred, waking with the sun as the forest came to life around them with the morning cries of pokemon. Emilia groaned and blinked herself awake, surprise passing over her features as she noticed her situation.
“It’s morning already?” Emilia sat up, looking down at Charmeleon with a confused glance, “I thought I had second watch last night.” She moved her eyes to Cashe and Primeape and jumped at the unexpected pokemon, “What the heck did I miss and how?”
“Well, let’s see,” Cashe stood up and stretched. It looked like Primeape had finally fallen asleep with the rise of the sun, so he returned her to her pokeball, “You wanted to sleep in a haunted cemetery, so we did. Turns out haunted cemeteries are haunted by ghost pokemon. Who knew? Anyway, we all got put to sleep and were haunted by a Haunter, go figure. It wanted to eat our dreams for sustenance, at least according to the pokedex. It’s not supposed to be harmful, but since Mankey was the only one that didn’t fall asleep, she attacked the Haunter once it revealed itself, as far as I can tell. It seemed to be a difficult fight, since she apparently evolved into Primeape and used Rage Fist a bunch on Haunter. Also a Misdreavus was playing pranks all night which is why the camp is a mess and a Drifloon tried to kidnap Lindon.”
Emilia’s mouth opened in mild shock as Cashe rattled through the events of the night, her face taking on guilt with each new sentence. His tone started light, but he could feel the accusation rising in his chest as he continued to speak.
“Oh, and I think I had a weird dream, but I can barely remember it,” Cashe finished with a flat expression, “It was maybe eaten.”
“We got attacked?” Emilia said, her face falling.
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
“No one noticed anything,” Cashe said in a low voice, forcing himself to calm down. He went to therapy specifically for things like this. “I think we might have been under some sort of hypnosis before we even made camp." He pointed to the empty spot where there should have been a fire and shook his pokedex in the air, “It says here that Haunter are scared of light and we didn’t make a fire at all. Not to mention I can barely remember anything before we decided to enter the cemetery. There was definitely something weird going on before we fell asleep.”
“It’s all my fault,” Emilia sat back down on the ground and leaned against Charmeleon, causing him to twitch. A low rumble escaped his throat at his slight discomfort. “I just wanted to find a Litwick.”
Cashe watched Emilia as her brow furrowed in distress. She bit her lips and her eyes flicked to the side as she ran through the events of the previous day in her head. With each passing moment she became more stressed.
He hesitated, feeling his own frustration with the situation rise, bitter in his thoughts. But Emilia was beginning to panic. She curled up into herself staring at her hands as they began to shake. Cashe swallowed his frustrations.
He walked over to her and sat on the ground beside her, “You hold some of the blame, but not all of it,” Cashe said, “And nothing really went wrong. Even if my dreams were eaten, the pokedex says it’s not harmful.”
“It could have been!” Emilia said, clenching her hands together into fists to stop their shaking, “I know how dangerous pokemon can be! I went to school for this! I chose the region we would start in! I could have gotten us killed.” The last words came out as a whimper.
“Just because you are educated doesn’t mean you don’t make mistakes,” Cashe said, “This is just something to learn from, like when I agitated those Mankey.”
“You didn’t know any better,” Emilia said, her voice close to panic, “I did! It’s completely different!” She took a deep, shuddering breath, “We need to go back to Kanto. We’re not familiar enough with Alola. In Kanto I can guide us better. I shouldn’t have insisted we start here, it’s too dangerous-”
“Stop being ridiculous.” Cashe said.
Emilia fixed him with a gaze, “I’m not, I-”
“You are,” Cashe poked her in the side hard enough to make her flinch, “You’re way too arrogant.”
“Ow!” Emilia rubbed her side, “What was that for? And how am I arrogant? The battle stuff? I’m confident. Ow!” Emilia flinched again as Cashe poked her a second time.
“I wasn’t talking about your confidence in your battling ability,” Cashe said. He pointed to his chest, “What am I?”
“What?” Emilia frowned, flinching back as Cashe tried to poke her again.
“What am I?”
“I don’t know? A trainer? A person? A man?”
“Good. Close enough,” Cashe said, “How old am I?”
“Old,” a ghost of a smile teased Emilia’s lips, “Like thirty or something.”
“Exactly.” Cashe poked her in the leg this time, causing her to jump again, “I am old enough to make my own decisions. You are not leading around a lost puppy. I agreed to come here. Even Lindon did, though he complained about it.”
“You don’t know-”
“I do, Emilia,” Cashe said, “I have been here for months now. I might have been slow on the initial uptake, but I’m an adult. I’ve learned some things since coming here. I can make my own informed decisions. I have autonomy of choice. If I agree with you to do something, it isn’t because you tricked me into doing it. You didn’t use a pokemon to control my mind or drug me into obedience. I agreed because I decided to do so. Unless you have a big secret that you haven’t shared with me?”
Emilia flushed and looked away, “Nothing we haven’t already discussed.”
Cashe swallowed. He didn’t want to rehash that so soon. “So, what I’m saying is that this was not your mistake alone. It was our mistake. Don’t act as if you are the only one making decisions here. That’s your arrogance. You may have convinced us, but you did not decide for us.”
“But Lindon is a kid-”
“We are both looking after him,” Cashe pointed out, “And he started his journey well before we ever met him. If he gets hurt, we are both at fault, but if he gets hurt with us, it's also probably a lot less serious than if he got hurt on his own.”
“Okay,” Emilia said, looking calmer now, “You’re not mad?”
“I’m frustrated.” Cashe admitted, “With you and myself. But I’m not mad. Mistakes happen. If we got mad at each other every time they did we would never have time to learn from them.”
Emilia blinked, “I never thought about it that way before. That’s a really mature way of looking at things.”
“You did just call me old.”
Emilia snorted.
“Besides,” Cashe said as he stood up and started to get ready for the day, “Can you imagine if Emilia Oak and Blood Money were caught running away from a region? Say goodbye to any chance of getting a Gym Leader position or anything of the like. People would be making fun of us for years.”
Emilia gave him a small smile, “Jirachi wouldn’t give you the time of day, even if it did have some wishes left.”
“Exactly. Now get Lindon up,” Cashe ordered with mock seriousness, “That little brat slept through all the excitement! He needs to put some effort in! Make him gather firewood until his nails fall out!”
“What?” Lindon exclaimed, bolting upright where he was laying, apparently not asleep at all, “No fair!”
***
“Oh, that’s so good,” Connie moaned as they materialized in Mossdeep. They appeared in the middle of the square that lay at the center of the Space Center campus and people turned to stare. Not because they appeared out of thin air - that was fairly common for big cities - but because of the noises Connie was making.
Daryl, despite his size, age, and the fact he was used to Connie’s antics, couldn’t help but blush, “Connie,” he warned.
Connie had her eyes closed, a look of bliss on her face, “I cannot believe how good that feels,” she said loudly, “How could you have a teleport pokemon this entire time and never use it once to travel?”
Daryl sighed as people turned away, a few chuckling after hearing Connie’s words, “You know I only travel for work. Teleport can only bring us places we have already been. I haven’t visited Kanto or Alola.”
“We need to get you to visit places more often,” Connie said, wrapping her hands around his arm and leaning against him, “Instant travel is so much better.”
Daryl flushed again and shook Connie off his arm, “Connie. There are people here.” He started walking toward their building.
“Are you embarrassed by me?” Connie pouted as she rushed after him.
“Of course not.” Daryl grumbled.
“You don’t want our coworkers to see us together,” Connie complained.
Calling the other employees of the Space Center coworkers was a bit of a stretch, since only he and Connie were the only people in their department, but Daryl understood what she meant, “You know that’s not it,” he said, “There are forms to fill out and things to do, or else we’ll get in trouble.”
“I don’t care about that,” Connie whined.
“I know you don’t, but I do,” Daryl sighed as Connie pouted at him with her big, blue eyes. He held out his hand. Connie’s face instantly split into a wide grin and she grabbed it happily dragging Daryl back to their lab.
The lab in question had been untouched for months. All four computers sat there, gathering dust, the large anomaly detection machine beeped softly, the only piece of equipment left on during their absence. Connie rushed over to it, pressing her face against the screen on the machine and flicking through the options.
“Oh, yeah, there were definitely three,” Connie said, eyeing the marks on the world map. She looked over her shoulder at Daryl who was sitting down at his computer, “Please tell me you’ve been to Unova.”
“You know I haven’t,” Daryl said, clicking through the data recorded while they were away.
“Well? The third was Jirachi, correct?”
“Looks like it,” Daryl said, frowning, “but…”
“But?” Connie walked over to the computer and reading over Daryl’s shoulder. Even sitting down, Connie had to stand on her tiptoes to see the screen.
“But I can’t tell what it is,” Daryl frowned, “Look at the readings,” he pressed a finger on the screen, smudging it, “As much life energy as with Mr Cashe or the tree, but none that you would expect from a pokemon, Ultra Beast, or animal. Well, maybe a pokemon or Ultra Beast. There are some really weird ones. But this would have to be truly strange.”
Connie joined him in his frown, a rare sight to see, “I don’t know what this is. It’s like a pokemon, but not?”
Daryl snorted, “Well said.”
“Shush.” Connie smiled again, “It's just another adventure.”
*****