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Squirtle didn't know how he ended up here, his arms wouldn't move and his body was dried. He wondered if he was dead, if his life was fulfilled. Though it didn't feel like heaven, more like hell, with the rough dirt between his toes and the itch under his shell.
He let himself groan, the only noise he could make when his voice became too dry to call for help. He felt like a living corpse. He wondered where the trainers were, where the lake he fell asleep next to was, where more took place.
There was no god to help him here, his heartbeat slowed and soon he stopped trying to call.
He felt like it was hours, and with each and every moment he worried the comparison to hell was more than an analogy. When he heard a pair of voices, he worried it was demons coming to punish him.
"Ditto, wow, look! It's a Squirtle!"
He didn't know how he was able to muster up such newfound energy, his head lifting up but his blurry eyes caught nothing before collapsing. "Please, help me. It's so dry."
"Ditto, you can copy things right? Could you copy water spout to rehydrate Squirtle?"
There were squishing sounds, awful and awful squishing sounds. They made Squirtle wish they would kill him already, remove this false hope growing in his lungs.
A cataclysm of water crashed over his head, the water rejuvenated his throat, his legs began to crawl onto the now damp dirt and growing grass. The grass feels nice. He thought.
When his eyes cleared, a taste of salt against his lashes, a Human and Tangrowth stood tall overhead. "Are you alright?" The Human asked, leaning down. Or they at least looked like a human at first glance, any competent Pokémon would recognize the face of a Ditto.
"Yeah." Squirtle painted. "A lot more moist. Thank you."
"We are glad to see you, Squirtle." The Tangrowth leaned down, placing a hand on his shoulder. "But, by chance, do you know how you got here?"
"I was just laying down next to a lake like always, but this doesn't look like the lake. It's all dry and baren, except for this patch you squirted water on to save me. "
Squirtle looked around, spotting dead weeds and a gray world around him. "Where is everyone?"
"All humans and Pokémon disappeared years ago, I thought I was the only one left until our dear friend arrived."
That is how Squirtle met Ditto, the one who came to slowly fix the poor place up.
Despite the Tangrowth's constant shock and insistence on the Ditto's 'special powers', the ground was slowly growing back with their combined efforts, and more Pokémon began to arrive.
The next to appear was from a patch of tall grass. The top green bulb popped out of the habitat and cheered out in annoyance.
Hearing the voice sent Squirtle back to his memories, the voice of Bulbasaur. The last time they had met, Bulbasaur left for the mountains to find himself a trainer. Squirtle chose to stay back, and live among the wild Pokémon still.
It had pained them both, but it didn't matter now, because with no pokéball or human in sight, Bulbasaur returned to him.
"Hey! I was sleeping here!" At first his face showed only anger, looking over the faces of everyone before softening at the sight of Squirtle. "Squirtle?"
"Bulbasaur." Squirtle didn't know how to respond, it had been years since they separated. "How did you get here?"
"I just went to sleep on my way to get a trainer, but this isn't where I went to sleep. Why is everything so dead?"
"We are fixing it up with water!" Tangrowth announced, swaying from side to side with happiness. "With the help of Ditto here we have made excellent progress!" Ditto pulled up their flappy human arm for a way and smiled. "Say, Bulbasaur, do you know any moves? Maybe you could help us regrow everything around here!"
"I suppose I could. But I will be returning back once everything is clean." Part of Squirtle's heart sank. Only nodding his head and then moving along to continue watering the ground.
He could hear Ditto and Tangrowth chatting across the small field, laughing with every remark the Ditto managed to speak in their human form. "So, how did you get here?"
"The same way you did, just a lot closer to being dead. This place was much drier before you got here."
Bulbasaur didn't seem to know how to respond, pulling more grass through the ground with his vines. "Are you alright?" He seemed almost hesitant to ask. And Squirtle was unsure how to respond.
"I'll be better when we figure out what happened." He decided to say, continuing to dampen the dried up dirt.
"Is this because of me?" Bulbasaur suddenly asked, causing Squirtle to pause. "Are you mad because I left?"
"Of course I am mad! No one knew where you were, or knew you were leaving! We knew what you were thinking of doing but you basically vanished!"
"I told you that I wanted to leave!"
"That you wanted to leave! You never said a word about acting on it, how do you think that impacted me!? Everyone thought I had chased you out, or that I attacked you, or just one of a million things!" Squirtle shivered at the memories, the way the other Pokémon chased him, even their old friend, Rattata, had attacked him. He wasn't sure if it was for Bulbasaur's disappearance, or for everything else about them.
"I didn't want to cause you more grief."
"More grief??" He understood the way Charmander described anger, as wanting to spit fire. "I didn't care about being a societal reject, I cared that you left!"
Squirtle caught the sight of Ditto and Tangrowth, both looking over at the noise. "Do not bother with it. Just, don't talk to me for a while."
He didn't care for their reactions, waving them away with a sign to let him be. They seemed to take a moment, silently communicating before moving back towards their things.
It had been a few days, and Charmander had arrived just that morning. Ditto had made progress in upgrading the area, going around like a happy little toddler. Squirtle didn't mind, Charmander was much younger than any of the other Pokémon here, and she deserved to have fun in such confusing times.
"Why don't you and Squirtle hang out anymore?" She asked, playing in a patch of mud.
Squirtle didn't know what to say. He didn't want to get Charmander involved in their drama. "Because he did something." He decided.
She let out a gasp. "Something bad?"
"Yes, something that can't be fixed."
"How could something be unfixable?"
For a moment Squirtle thought about how she didn't know that, given how often she would tumble around and set the grass on fire as an infant. Then he remembered that grass grew back. "Because it's something that happened before we all woke up here."
"Really? Wow, you guys remember a lot about that time period!"
"We do, but remember, if you want to hear about humans..."
"Got to professor Tangrowth!" Her face glowed with pride. "What did Balbasaur do?"
"He left."
"How did he leave? He's over there." She pointed her tail in his direction, where he was blissfully unaware and talking with Ditto.
"He left a long time ago, and he can't fix what happened before he came back."
"Oh. So then, you're mad at him?"
"You could say that." Squirtle shrugged.
"Why don't you forgive him?"
"What reasons do I have?" He asked.
"He came back?" She reverted.
"Ha, sure. Not because he wanted to. He just woke up here."
"But then why don't you take the time to try and talk?"
"Because, it's better for everyone we don't."
"Why?"
"Just, trust me on this Charmander. Please."
"Okay..." Charmander dipped her head, with a look to Bulbasaur across the field she rushed the other way to go play near the sand. It left Squirtle only one place to go, damn why did she have to be so smart while so young?
He began to walk over, pretending to be making a request to Ditto. He wanted to see if they could get him something to sleep on, he didn't enjoy the grass as much as Bulbasaur.
"By the way Balbasaur," Professor Tangrowth stepped into the conversation, "what do you think of building something for the old religion? We were thinking some humans practiced it, and so building some churches might help bring them back."
Bulbasaur felt his tail freeze, and his shell grew cold. Before he knew it, his body was shaking like he was dehydrated again. Like he was in hell again.
He wondered if his shell would crack if he hid inside it, he wasn't one to creep away from a situation, but his emotions took over before his mind. The last thing he heard was Bulbasaur's scream of horror.
As his eyes unopened, he placed over a variety of leaves. Sticks outlined a roughly sized bed, he figures that Ditto had gotten around to making it while he was asleep.
Why did I go to sleep? He wondered, unable to fully put together the situation.
"Squirtle! You're awake!" His head snapped over, spotting Charmander run up towards his resting place. Bulbasaur walked behind her. "You're okay!"
"Why would I not be?" He asked, patting his paw against her head.
"They said you fainted! You were talking about—" Bulbasaur pulled Charmander back for a moment. "Do not stress about what happened for now. How are you feeling Stormy?"
"Do not worry about me Charmander, I'll be fine. How have you been?" He tried to avoid giving Bulbasaur an angry look in front of Charmander.
"Oh I've been helping Ditto a lot, we built a house! And I get to set the fire every night!"
"Speaking of," Charmander pulled Bulbasaur from the wooden and soft bed, pointing out towards the center of their little homes, "I think it's time to start the fire for lunch. Why don't you get a run along before you're late?"
"Right, bye Squirtle! Make sure to come by and eat!"
Charmander ran off, waving to Squirtle who couldn't help but return the gesture. "What do you want now?" Bulbasaur wasn't the easiest of the Pokémon to read, but Squirtle knew some of his tells; for example: He never called Squirtle 'Stormy' unless he was stressed or teasing. This didn't feel quite like teasing.
"To tell you they will not be building that church."
This caught Squirtle off guard. "What?"
"They saw what happened, and I explained everything. Only to Ditto and Tangrowth. I was just as terrified as you were about the idea, I just didn't have a shell to hide in."
For a moment, Squirtle wished time would stop so his brain could think. "Without ever consulting me? That stuff involves me too, you know!"
"I didn't tell them about that! Just that, your parents were shit and used it to hurt you. I told them about mine and your name was left out of it."
Squirtle began walking towards the now burning fire. Ditto was wrapped around with food, chatting with Tangrowth and a few of the newer arrivals. "Good."
"Sorry, by the way."
Squrtle tried to continue moving, but his legs paused and his torso twisted around to match the words of his mouth. "You're saying sorry, now?"
"Well when else would you want me to say it, never?" Bulbasaur's vine whips were limp against the ground, for once, it was hard not to imagine the old him from all those years ago.
Squirtle pushed those thoughts from his mind, preparing a water spout. "Maybe before I was abused out of our home!"
"I wish I did. How could I have predicted what they would do?" Small sprouts of grass began to grow from where Bulbasaur's whips stressed into the ground. "I thought that, if I wasn't there, then they might have moved on. Done something else with their useless lives! I didn't think they would focus on you."
"Who else could they have made the scapegogoat? I was the only one left!"
"But you could have gotten a life, live with another Squirtle and have little Squirtle babies."
Squirtle had long deflated the water spout, instead fighting with every word he had. His mouth moved before his brain and it was only a matter of time before someone revealed something they didn't want to. "And I didn't want children."
"Why? When you never could have had any children with me, you never would get to live with another of your kind!"
"I don't care about kids! I do not care if you are not another Squirtle. I do not care that you are another man. As much as I did then I do not care anymore. That church, those stories, are nothing but lies to me. I would rather die than follow that religion again. And I would rather yell that out to the entire living world than let Charmander follow our fate."
"You really would do that?"
"What else should I say?"
"I, don't know... You know I was not good with these things. Is this where we try and make up?"
"No." Squirtle stepped back. He was able to talk to Bulbasaur, to walk and live around him, but he couldn't go back to that. "Not now, maybe in another world we could. But we need to focus on other things."
"Maybe later? When the humans find us?"
Squirtle didn't know how to reply, feeling his tail limp against the ground and his stomach knot. Something told him to try, but another wanted to leave it all behind. "Maybe."