Pokemon: The Journey

(AN: Sorry for the late update. I was crying while writing this one. It is raining while I am posting this chapter.)

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The trees filtered the light that fell through.

The beams of light illuminated and cut through the dim forest lighting.

The distant echoes of the birds' and bugs' calls could be heard.

Squish...swish...snap...squish...swish...snap...

They walked in silence, enjoying the atmosphere with the wet grass and breaking twigs beneath their feet, the subtle warmth of the sun's rays on their skin, and the cool, soft breeze caressing them, accompanied by the sound of rustling bushes and leaves.

The earthy smell of the wet earth in the morning.

Neither Ash nor Pikachu had experienced this calmness and serenity when they had gone through this path previously. They had other important things to consider and do at that time.

That thought had them somber and quiet. They prepared to see what had become of their 'distraction'.

Yellow was resting quietly and looking at the surroundings, and Eevee raised his eyebrows at Ash's and Pikachu's behavior but stayed quiet.

They parted the small bushes to enter the small clearing and came upon the aftermath of what they had done here previously.

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The spot where they had found her was littered with bone fragments, torn pieces of cloth, little pieces of flesh, and all of them and the surrounding grass and soil were stained with the diluted fake blood.

Ash prevented Yellow from turning her head in that direction as the back of her head was facing that spot, and Pikachu covered her eyes with his tail when they entered the clearing.

Standing for a few moments to take in the result of their actions, they felt the living, breathing, and alive girl in Ash's arms, reminding themselves that they had done so for a reason.

They looked around the clearing one last time when they found the hole dug at a small distance.

"What's that hole doing there?"

Suddenly, Yellow stilled in his arms and started squirming.

"You do not want to go there?"

She took a moment and shook her head negatively.

"So, you want to go in that direction?"

She shook her head positively while gripping his shirt a little harder than before.

They started walking in that direction.

When they passed the hole, he saw that it was digging out in the very direction they had found her.

He did not have a good feeling about this.

About 30m away, he saw that there was another hole in the ground facing away from the clearing as if it had been dug in.

He narrowed his eyes at that and kept walking.

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Nearly half an hour later, they came across a small pond with a broken wooden cabin.

They gagged at the weird, foul stench that filled the air, and looking around the place, it looked as if this place had seen a fight.

The ground was littered with a few holes, lacerations, and had a few small patches of dead grass.

Some trees appeared to be dying and had parts of their trunk melted off and were rotting. There were also some black spots on the ground as if ink had been spilled there and dried off.

Something was telling him to turn back now, but seeing Yellow's eyes widen upon seeing this place and looking at something, he looked at the spot where she was looking and walked towards there.

The stench was getting stronger.

Beside the shore, there was a patch of rust colored grass with pieces of something that looked as if they were the parts of wings of a bug.

Yellow suddenly stilled in his hands and tried to extend her hands towards something.

"U-u-u..."

Looking in the direction of her trying to extend her arm, Ash, Pikachu, and Eevee looked at the pond from where the stench was from and saw it with widened eyes.

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Something bloated was floating in the water amidst the reeds and algae.

He had Pikachu and Eevee bring out the others from their balls.

"Metapod, use a wide range string shot on that thing in the pond. Everyone, tug at the string when it is captured, and be careful. It can be anything."

Metapod cast a wide range of String Shot on the spot where the thing was located in the pond. His range and strength of the string had improved after training and evolving.

After it had been confirmed that it was caught in the webbing, everyone else started pulling the net towards them. Pidgeotto and Spearow grabbed the string in their talons, Pikachu, Chansey, and Ash in their arms, Eevee and Doduo with their mouths, and Metapod retracted the string.

He had set Yellow on the ground beside them while they pulled.

After a few minutes, the thing had been pulled to the shore and onto the ground by them. The pungent, sour stench was nearly unbearable now.

They gathered around the body, and Ash started heaving and vomited all of his stomach contents on the ground after looking away from them. They would have called their trainer out on it if they could not sympathize with and understand where he was coming from.

The thing was somebody's body.

The clothes were torn, waterlogged, and discolored, tangled with the pond reeds. The body was noticeably swollen in the abdomen and the face. The skin appeared greenish gray to black. The veins in the arms showed a black marbled pattern. One of his eyes was missing, with the other bulging in the socket. His lips were retracted, and his nose flattened. His hair was matted and nails detached, and discolored. His fingers and toes were bleached. One of the feet was not even there, as if it had been melted. The body was covered in something that resembled a waxy, soap-like structure. Their pulling of the body had led to the outer layers of the skin on his hands and feet to be peeled and detached, revealing the raw, rotten tissue beneath. The body was tinted a very faint purple color, with nearly invisible strangulation scars in the neck.

Yellow was looking at the body in horror, and with desperation in her eyes, she started nudging the body using her aching arms, not caring that she might end up breaking them. Doduo also joined her in doing so.

In a soft, trembling voice, she says, "Wake...up...wake...up..."

Ash and his Pokémon remained silent at the scene and did not know what to do.

Stopping for a second, she perks up and turns around to look at him in desperation and hope in her eyes.

"P-please-e...save him too cough...cough...cough"

Doduo, upon hearing her, also looked at him with hope.

Ash knew that it would be impossible to save him, but he still asked the person whom he trusted the most in this situation.

'Roshi?'

'No. You cannot bring back a dead body. It has been days since he died. We should let him rest in peace.'

Mentally nodding to the words, Ash went near Yellow, hugged her, and spoke in a soft, caring voice,"

"I am sorry. There is nothing we can do to bring him back."

"No...nononono"

Shaking her head, Yellow at first tries to deny it at trying to speak in her broken voice that it is not possible.

"No-o. H-he was just sleeping, see. He will wake up any moment from now."

She started shaking the corpse even harder while tears were streaming down her face and remembering the last time she heard him speak.

"Yellow, take Dody and run. I will catch up to you after stalling them. Now, go!"

Ash just hugs her while the Pokémon look away. After her uncle does not wake up, she starts crying openly while Ash just hugs her more tightly and remains silent while comforting her.

After some time, he speaks in a soft voice, "Yellow, let's bury him. It is the least we can do."

She had started to calm down after her bawling into his shirt and weakly nodded hesitantly.

He had Metapod use string shot to cover the corpse, and Pikachu and Eevee to dig a hole in the ground to bury it.

After the hole had been dug enough to fit the body, he had Pidgeotto and Spearow lower the body and the bug wings into the hole slowly in silence.

Ash started covering the body with dirt and helped a crying Yellow to place the last of the dirt after taking her from Chansey's care.

The forest was silent along with them as if it understood the sacred and painful ritual going on in this part of it.

He brought a rock of suitable size from the pond's shore and placed it at the head of the grave. Using Pikachu's activated and sharp Iron Tail, he started engraving a headstone on it after talking with Yellow about what to write on it.

All of them had been quiet during the entire thing, with only Yellow's sobs as the source of any sound.

After writing the headstone, he came back to hold and hug Yellow's trembling body.

"Vee."

Turning to look at Eevee, he saw that he had something like a fishing pole in his mouth. Upon their looks, he pointed towards the cabin as if to say that he had taken it from there.

He would have scolded Eevee had Yellow not been trying to hold out her hand towards it. Eevee brought it to her and gave it. He recognized it.

It was a brand-new Super Rod.

The person they buried must have been a fisherman.

Yellow was holding the rod tightly in her hands when she fell asleep in his arms, tired after going through that emotional ordeal.

He returned all of the Pokémon except Pikachu and Eevee and set out from there afterwards.

While leaving the spot, they all looked back and promised to protect Yellow to the best of their abilities while looking at the gravestone, which read in jagged lines,

Here lies Uncle Wilton.