Disclaimer: I don't own Pokemon. Doesn't mean I don't wish I did, but I'm not that fortunate.

An: Alright! Here we go. I would have had this up sooner , but my computer decided to take a dump, and ate the original draft and a bunch of other stuff. Hah, that's life I guess. Anyway, away we go.

Aug30 midday

~{x}~{x}~{x}~

I buried my mother three days ago. The thought slides into my head like poison. Three days ago I buried my mother in the gutted remains of my home town, the places of my childhood lain open like a bloated corpse before a murder of Murkrow.

The dark thought make me want to scream at the world. To rant at the unfairness, the craziness of it all. Sometimes I still wake up at night disoriented, leaning against the familiar form of Scruffy – My ever faithful Arcanine. A gentle light and heat being cast by Bic – my Charmeleon, and with Lu' – My Lucario sitting at calm watch and wonder if it hadn't all been a nightmare, just a horrible dream and I'll be able to call my mother and tell her I'm coming home, tell her everything I never did, never got the chance to, so sure that we had time, and then it all comes back. The death, the pain, the loss. It's all I can do to keep from screaming, as silent tears slide down my face.

Being careful, it took Scruffy One and a half days to reach Viridian city. We were watchful for the flock of Fearow that had hit Pallet, but we never saw them or any evidence that they were still around.

One and a half days ago, I'd left my home town. Put away childish things and swore myself to a new future. I took up my ancestral blade and swore to use it as it was intended and right as many wrongs as I could. On that steel I swore that no one else would go through what I did, as long as there was still breath in my body. I shake my head to focus on the now.

The midday sun is crossing over head. Halfway through its daily journey through the sky. Bird Pokemon sing in the distance, a low melodious noise. That, I'm sure I found beautiful once, what seems like a lifetime ago, but that now only serves to set my teeth on edge, and make me grasp the hilt of my blade to steady myself. I've seen the desolation that a songbird can deal. The city looks abandoned. It's as desolate as I expected. At this point I know better than to hope for people to be living.

I've seen a lot the last couple of weeks. People eaten alive by Tentacool, a town reduced to ashes and an army of poisonous spiders followed by the death of my friends and family, had to face a siege by Zubats and their line, been tortured by ghost types and faced a town full of corpses left to rot where they fell. Even yet, the smell of dozens of rotting – half eaten corpses, I sigh wearily. It still gets to me. My lip pulls up in distaste, as I think: I wonder if there will come a time when this stink is so common place it no longer bothers me?

On that day. When the smell of the dead no longer bother me. Will I be any better than the ones that killed them? I shake my head violently side to side banishing the dark thought from my head. Letting the tock, tock of the bones at my back firm my resolve as I grasp Arcanine's – Scruffy's fur tighter so I don't slide off his back and order him further into the city.

The only sound the wind, and the breathing of my Pokemon beneath me as we continue towards our first destination.

~{x}~{x}~{x}~

The Pokemon center looms over me as we approach at an easy gait, my mounts claws clicking against the stone of the road with every step. Casting a shadow all around itself in the noon time sun, the center is a sight to see, I'm almost too warm in my multiple layers but the world makes me wary of removing the heavy riot gear I'd picked up during my time with Falkner and his bunch.

Thinking of them sends a pang through my chest, and makes my gut clench in repressed shame and nausea. I'd abandoned them for nothing. My mother was already dead. What about the people of Cherrygrove? They'll be overrun, barely any trainers among them, hardly a man or women between the age of fifteen and fifty in their little town, and for what!? For what? So I could bury my mother? Reclaim my families sword!? A couple of towns full of people for that. I sigh, and bow to the weight of the world for a moment, Scruffy whines beneath me, as he begins picking up on my discomfort, before I grit my teeth and force myself upright to dismount.

It's just another tally against my soul. For my selfishness, for the people I abandoned and left behind. I'll fight for the future of mankind, and all those that will live with them in peace until my end.

As before, the smell tells me enough. No survivors. The shadow of the building makes the darkness inside the center seem especially bleak as I release Bic, and Lu', they look around curiously. Bic's nose curls up in distaste as he whips his tail around him, heating the already hot air to a stifling degree and setting the air around him to shimmering. Lu stands next to me stalwart and ready, his body a taught string just waiting to snap. I sigh, bone weary, but it no longer shakes my resolve and my gaze sharpens as we continue on into the Pokemon center.

I keep a hand lightly resting on the hilt of my ancestral sword as I step through the shattered glass doors of the center. Bodies litter the floor in varying states of destruction but the blood stains don't quite match the positioning of the bodies. They'd been moved perhaps? I turn to my allies and pose a question.

"What do you guys think?' The answers I receive are about what I expected. Scruffy whines, making me look to him. He's turning his nose away from the corpses, tail tucked down, looking for all the world like he wanted nothing more than to wait outside. I sigh at myself for once again forgetting his nose, rubbing a gloved hand over his muzzle before recalling him. Good boy I think, before turning back to the others.

Bic has his body held low near the corpse of a young man. Probably just old enough to have gotten his training license, he drops his snout low over the body as he draws a deep breath in seeming to mutter to himself for a moment before turning towards Lu' and barking out a terse bout of pokespeak. Lu' looks up for a moment. Well he doesn't actually look, so much as he raises his head in Bic's direction. He'd lost his eyes in the same battle three of our other friends had died. I gained a jagged five inch long scar across my forehead that is a constant reminder of the fact. I covered it with a bit of cloth from my dead mothers apron, he'd done the same with his eyes. I would never let myself forget the loss, or my failures.

He(Lu') cocks his head in my direction for a moment as the dark thoughts flood my mind but turns back to Bic when an annoyed growl echoes across the lobby and its glass and body covered floor. His reply is soft but no less firm for it as he gestures to something on the floor.

Footprints. What he found was footprints in the dried pools of blood on the floor, places where people had stepped flaking away and cracking. People had been here. Living people. That made me want to laugh in joy.

After seeing this place, after seeing my home. I hadn't held much hope that there would be any survivors moving from town to town like I was, I'd never done much in the way of competition, or tournaments. So I wasn't very widely known as a trainer. However, I'd payed off the debts of my father while keeping the bills back home paid and kept myself, my mother and six Pokemon fed while traveling constantly around Kanto and Johto. All of that funded by pokebattling. To make something like that pay the bills you had to do it a lot. I liked to think it showed in my Pokemon.

By my estimate I'd say three. It was hard to tell and I'm no tracker but there seemed to be three distinct sets of footprints. I voiced this aloud, Lu' nodded his head in what I took for agreement giving me thumbs up before gesturing towards the outdoors and making a gesture I took to mean as: more out there, but he was unsure as to how many. Bic shrugged, sniffing around a bit more before turning his head up in the way that told me he was done with what we were doing. Whatever had done this was long gone, and whoever had been here was as well.

I continued looking around the center for supplies but it looked like whoever had been here before did a good job of clearing the place out, as there wasn't much to speak of, and nothing I deemed worth the added weight to carry. There wasn't time to bury the dead. Not when every second spent doing that was one I could spend trying to save someone else, we did move them into more respectful positions lining them up in the lobby in rows of five, covering the body with clean white sheets I'd found in the back, it looked little better. However it was important for me to do. To hold on to the small pieces of humanity I have left. Even if in the future I had to spend those pieces of myself to buy others survival, for now I would indulge them. He who fights monsters should see to it that he himself does not become a monster, after all.

~{x}~{x}~{x}~

As I step back outside the oppressive atmosphere of the center seems to stretch out and bleed into the rest of the town, the sun has moved across the sky, causing the building to cast long shadows, like the finger of some beast forgotten to time, reaching out to retake the world. Bic ambles out of the center in a huff whipping his tail around himself to raise the temperature, hiding his sadness with gruff irritation, but I know him too well for that. Lu' is already with me, his fist clenched at his side as his sightless eyes sweep over the horizon.

"Threats?' I question, voice rough near hoarse from the screaming and crying from the days before. He raises his head to 'look' at me though, cocking an ear to the town as he does so, before shaking his head to the negative. No threats.

"Bic?' I glance over at my first companion to confirm, but he just shrugs, before taking a quick sniff of the air. He waves a hand in front of his mouth, before shaking his head. No threats.

Bic and Lu' share a long look, exchanging no words with each other, just a look of relief and weary resolve, Lu' shoots Bic a thumbs up, making Bic scoff, and I can't help but smile.

What a brilliant bunch of conversationalist we are. I think wryly, chuckling softly to myself, feeling a little bad a moment later for being able to still do so. I shake that off though, as I start walking into the city, my Pokemon on either side of me.

We need supplies, or I'd never consider doing what I was about to do. Taking things from the dead was not something I did lightly. I stopped out front of the first residence we came across, my monster's drawing up behind me silently. Waiting. With a tired sigh, I step forward, hesitation is the enemy. I swear I could nearly hear my sword hum in time with the thought. The stress was getting to me.

The door was locked when I got hold of the door knob, the owners must not have been home when the shit hit the fan. Or, at least, I hoped not.

"Lu'," I start, noticing him once again eying my sword. It was somewhat strange how he kept doing that, but I guess I could understand, he'd not seen me use it often in the before time. "get the door.' He nods, with a thumbs up, before blowing the door open with a well placed kick.

I give him a smile as I walk by. Laying a hand between his ears for a second as I step forward into the foyer.

The place was near pristine, maybe a tad dusty but not ruined like most places. It has an open floor plan, the kitchen only separated from the front room by a short bar. My boots leave mud on the once pristine tiled floor as I walk further in, Bic's claws click as he walks across it, the normally deadly weapons not providing him much traction.

I can't help but wonder why this place was affected so little, when it hits me I stumble a little. "No meat.' I whisper out cynically, my upper lip curling back away from my teeth in distaste. Lu' looks at me again, the same way he did in the center as the thoughts circle in my mind. Bic nods as if he'd come to the same conclusion.

A few days ago this realization probably would have infuriated me, but times had changed, and now it just made me sigh, and move further into the house.

I head for the kitchen first, the power was out, had been for a while judging from the faint smells coming from the closed fridge. I wasn't eager to open it. The cabinets yield better results. Dried foods are good, I shove a little bit of everything in my bag. Taking only the lightest most filling foods. Dried meat, breakfast bars and the like. A few water bottles find their way into my bag as well.

Bic gives it all a vaguely contemptuous look, getting a somewhat hungry look in his eyes as he looks towards an outside window, before shaking his head and returning to normal. I could have swore I'd heard him grumble something about meat, but I must've been imagining it.

I pull Scruffy's ball from my belt in the kitchen as I up end a fifty pound bag of feed onto the floor, he goes to town almost as soon as he's loose. He seems to be doing better than before the air is much cleaner in the house, if not a tad stale.

Lu' tears the top off of a box of poke'food, eating it as we leave the kitchen and check out the rest of the house. I'm not overly cautious. Trusting Lu' to sense anything before it gets the drop on us. Two bedrooms and a bathroom, all empty, no signs of anything living there for a while. Nothing else strikes me as useful as we traverse the rest of the house. The clothes are useless to me. As they were for a small child, and a small women. I was neither. I grin a little at my joke and head back outdoors.

~{x}~{x}~{x}~

We got a pretty good haul from the first place, and I don't feel like risking another house. No point in getting greedy. Especially when I still have to carry it all. The day was starting to get along anyway, the sun would be setting in the next two, maybe three hours, I think while glancing up at the sun. It was time to move along. I return Bic and Lu' before swinging up onto Scruffy never giving the town a second glance, I need to look towards the future. Hesitation is the enemy.

We approach the northern edge of town at a quick gait, not quite full out, but quick enough the wind pulls at me as I ride. The wind is at our backs and everything seems to be looking up. So of course it would be now that something would go wrong. The wind blows back to the south for only an instant, there's a strange sweet scent in the air, I can't place; but it stops Scruffy cold, his feet skid across the ground as he goes from a run to a dead stop in an instant. Nearly throwing me from his back. Still, my chest is laying on the top of his head.

"What?' I mutter with a grunt, as I drag myself back into a proper seated position, and not hanging over his head ready to fall. I try to urge him on, patting his head, rubbing his sides, even spurring his flank lightly. Nothing. He just whines, head down, shaking it when I order him forward. Whatever that smell was, it scared him badly.

"Alright, plan B then.' I tell him in exasperation. Deciding to trust my Pokemon. I order him to turn by pulling his fur to the east.

I'd been planning on following the routes, to see if any other survivors had done the same. My reasoning being likely survivors won't have headed out into the woods, wild Pokemon are beyond the kin of most people, especially those without Pokemon of their own. Plan B is Celadon. It's a large population center, with a large source of supply, if I'm going to find people, it'll probably be there.

~{x}~{x}~{x}~

Something doesn't feel right. The thought slips into my mind as Arcanine keeps running towards Celadon. I couldn't place why. There's a smell I was just noticing. The wind was blowing it away from us, and the trees ahead seemed to be off colored, purple among the brown leaves of a dying tree, the earth discolored in places.

"This doesn't feel right,' I say aloud, the wind stealing away my voice. Something catches my eye on the ground ahead. My eyes widen. "Sto-!' I begin ordering a halt, when a noise like a loud thump meets my ears, and Scruffy bucks up, coming to a stop and putting his body between me, and whatever is coming.

His howls of agony rend the air as he falls backwards, flinging me from his back. I roll with the momentum. Going over backwards, and coming up on my feet, my sword exiting it's sheath in a smooth, angry, hiss of steel. What I see is enough to make me freeze.

Scruffy's side is melted to the bone. Purple sludge mixes freely with his blood, hissing and spitting, eating away everything it touches as it devours more and more of the orange canines leg, pitting the bone in places, the white standing out in stark contrast to everything else. I'm frozen in shock. A dozen different impulses firing in my head at once, freezing me to the spot.

Motion ahead of us catches my eye. Snapping me out of my stupor, I start running as the sludgy purple forms of Muks ooze out of hollows in the ground towards Arcanine, and they're laughing. I snarl readying my blade, Scruffy is howling still when I draw level with him, his howls turn to anger when he sees the Muk, and my eyes widen again as I notice the discolored air ahead of us, fire build in Arcanines maw. Burning away the blood with a stinking sizzle. I try to change direction at the last moment, but I skid on the muddy earth, and the flames burst forward in an enraged howl.

The explosion rocks me to my core. It engulfs the clearing ahead of us in flame. The pressure wave picking me up and throwing me bodily, until a tree halts all momentum. Everything goes black.

~{x}~{x}~{x}~

My head aches, and I can feel a goose egg rising even as the vertigo hits me. My vision is blurry as I slowly drag my eyelids open, my mouth taste like burnt rubber. I groan in pain, my joints popping as I attempt to move, nothing broken, at least as far as I can tell, but my back feels like one giant bruise.

As I grab the hilt of my sword from where it's embedded next to my eye, making a shallow cut on my temple. Everything comes into sharp focus, a snarl forms on my face. Lips pulling away from my teeth in a wolfs challenge. A dozen different ways to kill flowing through my head, I drag myself to my feet using the blade as a fulcrum. I pull it from the tree in one sharp tug. Moving towards scruffy with purpose.

The explosion rolled him back. I swallow back the sick feeling in my stomach as I note the pool of blood forming around him clinically. The air in the clearing ahead has mostly cleared. The discolored dirt like glass. Where the heat touched it heat waves roll off the earth. I move to aid my dog, when a stink comes to my nose and a single word draws all of my hate and ire.

"MUK!' A scream of rage, equal to my own in it's intensity. I yell in response a wordless roar filled with all of my anger, gripping my blade tighter. Everything snaps into focus, and two pokeballs hit the ground.

The sludge monster seems to draw back as the red light forms into two enraged Pokemon. Bic lets loose a roar of challenge, and the thing turns to flee. I nod at Bic, and he takes off after it at a slow pace, his growl is wordless, but mocking in the way it sounds, heat rolls off him in waves.

"Lu', with me!' I yell. Running to Scruffy's side, the youngest member of my party comes to a stop by my side as I slide to my knees next to our friend, slamming the point of my blade down next to me I try and staunch the bleeding. The poison is still spreading. Slower now, diluted as it is by the blood. His bones are visibly eaten, marrow visible in some spots.

"No, no, no, no, no!' I'm frantic as I try to hold the blood in, the diluted sludge eats at my gloves and armor, hissing where it touches . "Stop!' I hear next to me, the voice familiar even if it had never spoken words I could understand before. Lu' drags me away from the wound. I don't resist, there's nothing I can do.

"I'm sorry.' I say quietly, a rattling sigh escaping a moment later. Aura shrouded hands drag off my gloves and clean the poison from my chest plate. I can hear an explosion a short ways away, and the sound of footsteps approaching as I grab my blade and stand, what I need to do comes into sharp focus.

Scruffy is blind from the poison, suffering, pitiful whines escape his mouth, broken only by wet coughs that rack his body, my face sets into a rigid scowl as Bic lopes up, his face solemn a quiet conversation goes between him and Lu' but I'm not listening.

I step forward. Kneeling, positioning the blade to pass between his ribs, as the quickest way to do it passes into my mind. Never mind that I'd never studied Poke'anatomy.

"I love you.' I tell him, and drive the blade forward into his heart to end his suffering. I stand without a word, pulling the blade free as I do so. Bic stares ahead, arms crossed. I look at him in question and he just nods. Lu' stands next to me, laying a hand on my arm, we stand like that until the sun settles below the horizon, and the only light left is cast by Bic's tail.

I don't know how long we stood there. Bic and Lu are roused as I step forward, and take one of the braided lengths of Scruffy's mane in my hand, removing it with a single stroke of my blade I tie it around my wrist and walk away, flicking the blood from my blade and sheathing it. I issue only one command while looking at Bic, then I turn and walk away. Lu' following.

"Leave nothing for the scavengers.' The temperature of the clearing rises as Bic nod, his tail flame seemingly pulsing in time with his heart beat, he opens his mouth and a sinister bluish white flame spills forth. Turning even the bone to ash.

~{x}~{x}~{x}~

R&R