Cashe silently fumed on his way back to the training area with Lindon. What kind of freak gave a twelve year old child alcohol in a situation like that? Was it supposed to be a joke? Get a child drunk surrounded by people he didn’t know and ruin the tournament for him? Who found that funny?
“Apollo, are you okay?” Lindon said as he hurried to keep up with Cashe as he stomped down the hall.
“I’m fine,” Cashe said, slowing to allow Lindon to catch up.
“I’m sorry.” Lindon said quietly.
“I’m not mad at you,” Cashe sighed, forcing himself to relax, “I’m upset that someone gave you alcohol.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault,” Cashe was having a hard time keeping the frustration from his voice, “Come on, let’s practice some moves against each other.”
Cashe and Lindon arrived at the training gym and entered. The gym was empty, as expected, considering the late hour and ongoing party. Cashe and Lindon picked the closest battling area and released their pokemon. Cashe sent out Bulbasaur since he still didn’t quite trust Mankey to go easy on Lindon’s Magnemite. They were just training, he didn’t want anyone to get hurt.
As they threw not very effective moves at each other, Cashe began to slowly calm. The anger was still lying under the surface, but he was able to loosen up enough to smile and laugh when Bulbasaur somehow managed to hit himself with a Vine Whip or when Magnemite spun in a tornado of frustration as seven Supersonics missed in a row.
His good mood was not to last, however, as the training room doors buzzed and another trainer entered. Cashe narrowed his eyes. It was a woman in a crop top and short shorts. One he recognized.
“Hollis?” Cashe said, staring at the woman as she stumbled into the gym.
Hollis paid him no attention, instead gazing around the gym in wide eyed amazement. “Wow, this place is big.”
“It’s great!” Lindon said enthusiastically, “Do you want to train with us?”
Hollis snorted and giggled at Lindon’s question, taking a few unsteady steps into the room, “I don’t think so, sweetheart. Why don’t you run off to bed? I want to have a special talk with Mr Cashe here.”
Cashe held up a hand to stop Lindon from leaving. “I didn’t expect you to leave the party, Hollis. What about your friends? What were their names, Candice and Gracie?”
“Oh, I told them I was coming,” Hollis giggled, “They wished me luck.”
“I’m training with Lindon right now,” Cashe said. He could feel his temper returning, the slow, simmering frustration once again beginning to rise at the interruption, “You can join us if you want.”
Hollis blinked in confusion as she took a second to process what Cashe said. “You’d rather train with this little kid than be with me?”
“There’s a tournament coming up,” Cashe gritted his teeth, “We are making the most of our time.”
“By training him?” Hollis looked affronted and laughed. Lindon hung his head.
“Please leave,” Cashe said, “I’m not going to stop training with Lindon.”
“I can’t believe you!” Hollis scowled in frustration, but perked up a second later, having come up with an idea. She opened up her purse and rummaged through it, pulling out a Trainer ID, complete with its challenge device. She pointed it at Cashe and pressed the button. Cashe’s own device chirped in response.
“You’re challenging me?” Cashe said in disbelief, “I’m not going to battle you. You’re drunk!”
“Here’s the deal,” Hollis tittered, “If you win, we’ll train with the kid. But if I win you ditch the kid and come with me.”
“No.”
“Come on! It will be like the old days,” Hollis leaned forward and pouted, affecting a high, innocent voice, “You beat me Mr Man, but I don’t have the money to pay. Maybe if you get rid of the kid, I can find some other way to pay you?”
Lindon made a sound and Cashe glanced over at him. He was crying. For the second time tonight.
“Fine,” Cashe growled. If she wanted a battle, he would give her one. He pulled up Hollis’s trainer profile. Growlithe-H and Mantyke. A relatively rare couple of pokemon, but not something that would give him trouble, “Bulbasaur, return. Mankey, let’s go.” He turned to Hollis, “One vs one. Fight to first faint.”
“You’re using Mankey?” Hollis said as she took Lindon’s spot in the arena.
“Yes.”
She grinned, “Mantyke go!” She tossed out a pokeball and it cracked open, revealing the fat body and stubby wings of the little flying manta ray.
“You ready Mankey?” Cashe said.
Mankey glared at Mantyke as if it had offended her personally. “Mank.”
“Don’t hold back.”
“Mank.”
“You’ve got this Manny,” Hollis said with a little giggle.
Cashe turned his head to Lindon, “Act as official for us?”
Lindon wiped his eyes and nodded. He turned to Hollis, “Are you ready?” His voice was thin and meek.
“Yep. Let’s go.” She giggled again.
“Apollo?”
“Ready.”
“You may begin,” Lindon waved his arm through the air.
“Mantyke, Water Pulse!” Hollis shouted, right before Lindon’s hand fell. Mantyke charged up and a pulse of water fired towards Mankey. She easily dodge out of the way, but it gave Mantyke the time to get into the air.
“Dirty trick,” Cashe said, “Mankey, Scary Face.”
Mankey scowled and shrieked at Mantyke, a ferocious amount of energy rising from her. Mantyke shuddered in the air, almost falling out of it in response.
“Shake it off, Mantyke! Wing Attack!” Mantyke dove through the air towards Mankey, though it was visibly hesitant to do so, its dive slow and clumsy.
Cashe snorted. “Acrobatics.”
Mankey leapt into the air, flying high over Mantyke. Mantyke swept through the air, spinning around as Mankey fell. The maneuver allowed the Mantyke to continue the attack but left it open for a split second. One Cashe did not plan to miss.
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
“Mankey-”
Cashe could use Swagger. A confused pokemon was easy to take down. But it might give Mantyke the opportunity to win if it dealt with the confsion.
He could use Rock Tomb. It would be super effective if it hit, and slow Mantyke down even further. But Mankey was already much faster than it.
He could use Cross Chop. It was newly learned, and would be a powerful attack, even with type disadvantage. But he wanted to make a statement.
“-use Thunder Punch.”
“Mank.” Mankey spun in the air, her fist igniting in waves of electricity. It was another newly learned move, but having already known Thunderbolt, teaching Mankey Thunder Punch was trivial.
“Mantyke, look out!” Hollis screamed, but it was too late. Her instructions had moved Mantyke out of position and Cashe had the advantage.
Mankey’s punch came crashing through the air, slamming into Mantyke. Mantyke flew across the battlefield and into the barriers erected by Kadabra. It bounced off and crashed to the ground where it lay, twitching, a scorched fist burned in the underside of its chest.
“Mantyke!” Hollis screamed, her voice breaking.
Somehow, Mantyke was still conscious. It responded to Hollis’s cries with a feeble flop of its wings.
“Okay,” Lindon said, “Apollo is-”
“Mankey, Thunder Punch again.” Cashe said, interrupting Lindon, his voice cold.
Mankey jumped across the battlefield, her fist again glowing with sparking bursts of electricity. She attacked Mantyke, brutally punching it while it was down. Mantyke whimpered in pain with the hit, falling still as electricity danced over its skin.
“Mantyke, no!” Hollis screamed in pain and rage. She whirled on Cashe, “You bastard! I’ll kill you for hurting him!” She threw her entire purse at him. It missed badly, falling well short and scattering its contents all over the battlefield.
“What the fuck is going on here?”
Cashe turned towards the door. Emilia was stomping across the gym in her swimsuit, her face a contorted mess of indignant rage. Her two friends, Candy and Grace, followed her in, concerned and huddled together.
“That filth is trying to kill my pokemon!” Hollis screamed, “He attacked after the battle was over.”
“I didn’t hear a ruling,” Cashe said, crossing his arms.
“Neither did I!” Emilia shouted back, “You’re supposed to be a trainer! You know what a battle is, you know what it means! Yet Mantyke was still moving, no call had been made, and you threatened to kill him? After a simple loss?” Emilia was shaking in her spot, “Get out of here! Get out!”
Hollis gaped at Emilia, shocked at her response. She looked to her friends for support, but they said nothing, glancing nervously between Emilia and Hollis.
“You bitch!” Hollis snarled. She stomped across the stage, returning Mantyke to his pokeball and gathering up the spilled contents of her purse, “You two deserve each other!”
She marched out of the room, fuming, her friends trailing behind her. Emilia watched her the entire time, staring daggers at her until the doors of the gym shut behind the group. She spun on Cashe as soon as the doors closed.
“What the fuck were you doing?”
“You said it yourself, the battle wasn-”
“The battle was over!” Emilia shouted, “Anyone could see that.”
“It’s my fault!” Lindon interrupted with his own shout, “I didn’t call it in time.”
“Lindon, honey, it was not your fault,” Emilia turned to the boy, her face still a rictus of anger but her voice somehow turning soft and sweet, “What Cashe did was cruel and unnecessary.” She turned back to Cashe, her voice low, “And he’s going to tell me why he did it.”
“It’s the persona,” Cashe said, glowering back at Emilia, “Blood Money. This is what you wanted, right?”
“That’s Tauros-shit, and you know it. You did that because you were mad. Out of pettiness. You lost control.”
“Someone gave Lindon alcohol! To a kid! And at a party like that? Anything could have happened!”
Emilia’s face darkened, but she didn’t relent. “So you decide to all but kill someone else’s pokemon? Not even someone else - a drunk woman who could barely walk out of here, let alone battle.”
“She pissed me off, alright?” Cashe said, “She was bullying Lindon!”
Emilia glanced at Lindon for confirmation.
He nodded and sniffed, “She wanted me to leave so they could be alone.”
Emilia’s eyes brightened with understanding.
“Really, Cashe?”
Cashe pursed his lips and rubbed his face with his hands. “I just lost her.” Cashe said quietly, “I couldn’t- I had too much to drink and she was flirting and I couldn’t-”
“Go to bed, Cashe.” Emilia’s voice was hard and unyielding, “We can discuss it more in the morning.”
Cashe bit back a retort and returned Mankey to her ball. He left without a word.
***
“Well that’s it,” Daryl sighed as the SS Ambition blew its horn, releasing a monstrous blast of sound as it made its way from Vermillion City harbor, “We missed them.”
“Yep,” Connie said, wearing a wide grin.
Daryl turned towards his boss, narrowing his eyes. “That did not sound like a ‘we missed them and I’m agreeing with you’ yep.” He took a step towards Connie and scrutinized her closely, “That sounded like a ‘I’m hiding something from you and secretly very pleased with myself’ yep.”
“You’re crazy,” Connie said, not looking Daryl in the eye as he leered over her, “I don’t have that kind of yep.”
“Oh really? Have you already forgotten the Vermillion Gym issue?”
“You won that battle!” Connie countered. She turned her head to the side and sniffed, “Plus, that was a ‘yup’. That’s different than a ‘yep’.”
Daryl clenched his jaw, “Explain to me how.”
“Well, yep has an ‘e’, not a ‘u’-”
“Explain to me how you tricked me!” Daryl almost shouted. He didn’t shout, they were in public. He couldn’t shout at his tiny boss in public anymore. Officer Jenny had made that very clear. People got upset when a large man with crazy hair shouted at a tiny woman wrapped in a child's blanket. Especially with all the swearing.
Connie craned her head back and looked up at Daryl with a little frown, “I don’t think so. You don’t look like you’re going to take it well.”
“I’ll handle it fine.”
“I don’t know, Officer Jenny said you’re already at two strikes.”
“I’ll handle it fine!”
“Okay!” Connie smiled, “We didn’t miss Mr Cashe. You did. I saw him a whole bunch.”
“You didn’t,” Daryl scoffed. Connie kept smiling. It was her ‘I’m telling the truth smile’. His face fell, “You didn’t!”
“He walked behind us every day when we were staking out the gym, he walked right past us when we were speaking to Mr Takayaki, and he was staying at the same hotel as us.” Connie bit her thumb, “Oh! And that man you saw getting dragged away by security earlier today? That was Mr Cashe as well.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?” Daryl said, air rushing from his lungs in defeat. She would be the death of him. He knew it.
“He was so obvious that I thought you were pretending not to see him, just like me!” Connie scowled, “I didn’t know you weren’t doing that until you said you didn’t recognize him as he was getting dragged away!”
Daryl took a deep breath. Then another. It didn't help.
“CONNIE!”
***
“What did I tell you, Mr Arbutus?” Officer Jenny said as she unlocked the door to the drunk tank jail cell. Daryl groaned and got to his feet, rolling off the bench. Vermillion City didn’t have a crime problem, so the cell was empty, but it still stank of stale beer and emptied bladders.
“It’s Dr Arbutus,” Daryl mumbled, rubbing crusty gunk from his eyes.
“People don’t like it when a large man shouts at a little woman like that. You’re lucky Dr Elliot insisted on not pressing charges.”
“I feel blessed,” Daryl groaned, working his stiff muscles. He was not forgiving her this time. He hadn’t had that poor of a sleep since the Iron Tusk incident.
Officer Jenny grunted and grabbed him by the arm, leading him out of the holding area and into the police station proper. Connie was waiting for him, an apologetic smile on her face. It was cute and sweet, but he still wasn’t forgiving her.
“Sorry. I told them they didn’t need to hold you overnight.” she said, handing him a cup of hot coffee.
Daryl took it with relief, taking a long sip of the drink. It was the best damn coffee he had ever tasted.
“I forgive you completely,” he said, “You didn’t make me yell at you. That was all me. The arrest was just Jennys being Jennys.”
"A.J.A.B.," Connie laughed and patted him on the arm, leading him out of the police station, “I still feel bad about it though.”
“Then can you at least tell me why?” Daryl said.
“I’m having fun with you,” Connie shrugged, “I don’t want it to end.”
Daryl paused mid-step. Oh. That was an interesting reason.
“Besides, now we get to wait on a beach in Alola for a full month for Mr Cashe to show up with all our expenses covered and with nothing to do.”
“The True Rookie Tournament stops at Olivine and Slateport.”
“I thought of that,” Connie said, “But I think we will just end up missing them there, too. Might as well wait on a beach in Alola.”
Daryl considered it for a second. “You know what? I think you might be right.”
*****