Ash's Story (Part 5: Modern Sinnoh)

Chapter 49: Summer Lights

Route 210's northern path finally waited in front of us again. The Psyduck still blocked the road exactly as we remembered, huddled together with their heads in their paws while the mountain air moved around them.

I took out the Secret Medicine Cynthia had given us and knelt slowly so I would not startle them. Lillie crouched beside me, her voice soft enough that even the nearest Psyduck stopped trembling for a second.

"This should help," Lillie said gently.

Pikachu stood beside the nearest Psyduck, careful not to spark. After the lake light had called him during camp later, I would remember this moment differently, but even now he seemed to understand what it meant to be pulled by something inside your own head.

Psyduck's meaning came in aching waves. "Head hurts. Light loud. Road too hard."

"We know," I said. "No one is angry at you."

The medicine worked slowly at first, then all at once. The Psyduck blinked, rubbed their heads, and began waddling away from the path in a loose line. One of them looked back and waved before disappearing into the grass.

"Good," Dawn said with relief. "They finally look better."

Then Cynthia stepped from the nearby path as if she had been waiting for exactly that moment.

I stared at her for a second.

"If you were going to be here anyway," I said, "why did you give us the medicine?"

Cynthia smiled like she had expected that question.

"Because helping them yourself mattered more than watching me do it," Cynthia said. "Psyduck often suffer from chronic headaches, but no one has fully learned what triggers them."

Lillie accepted that answer more gracefully than I did, but I could tell she was also amused.

Cynthia reached into her bag and brought out an old carved charm. It looked delicate, but it carried a strange weight, like it remembered more hands than ours.

"I have a favor to ask," Cynthia said. "Please deliver this Old Charm to my grandmother in Celestic Town. She is the town elder, and I think you will recognize her immediately."

Daniel studied the charm carefully without touching it.

"An object with family history and local folklore," Daniel said. "That sounds more important than an errand."

"It is both," Cynthia replied kindly.

I took the Old Charm and stored it carefully.

"We will deliver it," I said.

The Psyduck path behind Cynthia was open now, but none of us moved toward it yet. Sometimes, a road opening did not mean you rushed through immediately. Sometimes it meant the world had made room for the next choice.

Cynthia nodded, then looked toward another side road.

"There is also a Pokémon Summer Academy nearby," Cynthia said. "If you have time before Celestic, it may be worth attending. You might learn more than you expect."

She said it lightly, but Cynthia never placed words without reason. Maybe she wanted us to rest after too many battles. Maybe she wanted us to meet people on the road. Maybe she already knew that learning in Sinnoh was rarely separate from danger.

The words brought old memories back quickly. Summer lessons, strange teams, new friends, and the way a camp could turn competition into something more complicated than a score sheet.

Lillie smiled at me with old camp memories returning.

"We should go," she said. "It might be good."

Dawn brightened at the idea too, while Piplup acted as if any academy would clearly need his leadership.