Remember: We’re Catching Him

Bulbasaur kept alternating between staring at the map and looking at his surroundings frantically, the grass type's frustration was obvious, even though he was trying to hide it to the best of his abilities.

"I don't understand- I was sure we were going on the right path, but I don't recognize anything!", the map is beginning to get somewhat crumpled with how tightly the older pokémon's vines were holding it. Turtwig, who was following close behind him, was becoming increasingly worried that his guardian might accidentally rip it.

"Hey it's okay, dad. We'll find our way eventually, we always do!", the young turtle remarks with an unsure smile. He wasn't used to comforting others, much less his father, but he still wanted to help.

Bulbasaur takes a big breath, trying to regain himself as best he could. This trip- finding this place, was important to him, but he wasn't going to make that the kids' problem.

Sure he was scared of never finding the tree Squirtle had told him about, of forgetting this location that his old friend had given him directions to years ago, but he couldn't let it consume him.

The older grass type glanced at Turtwig's direction with an apologetic smile, patting the child's head with one of his vines.

"I know, sorry, I'm just a little nervous- "

Bulbasaur is interrupted by a loud voice calling him from afar. Chimchar.

"Hey, dad! I found someone that can help us!" The child said as he ran out of some bushes, heading towards his guardian. Bulbasaur turns to the kid with obvious relief, quickly stepping closer to him.

"That's great, little flame!" He remarks, trying to look for this helpful stranger, "Who-"

When Bulbasaur sees the so called friendly pokémon, he freezes. In a heartbeat one of his vines wraps itself around Chimchar and pulls him away from the stranger and behind himself protectively.

A bird.

It was a bird pokémon. A Fearow.

The flying type looks somewhat surprised with the interaction, tilting his head. "Tough crowd huh" he says, trying to lighten the mood.

Bulbasaur does not even blink, too frightened to allow the bird out of his sight. He falters slightly when he notices that he was seemingly not recognized.

The whole caterpie and bird fiasco was still a somewhat fresh wound in the Kanto region, especially to those who were around to see it. Too many innocent pokémon had been slaughtered, too many had been left scarred.

This Fearow didn't look all that young, so he had probably seen at least some of it. Looking closely at him, Bulbasaur also noticed a significant amount of scars throughout his beak and wings, a mismatched pattern of Keratin and feather making the damage somewhat obvious.

He needed to be careful.

Bulbasaur finally allows himself to blink, switching into a polite smile as soon as his eyes opened once again. He remains in front of the children however, just to be sure.

"I'm sorry, you just surprised me is all. I'm used to only seeing prevolves around here." The older grass type says with a small chuckle.

The Fearow visibly relaxes, giving the three pokémon a prideful grin, "Nah, no need to worry, little dude, I get it. You small pokémon need to be careful, after all."

As much as the grass type was annoyed at being called small by someone who was clearly younger than him, he said nothing, wanting to keep the peace.

Chimchar taps at his guardian's shoulder and points at the bird pokémon, "he said he can recognize pretty much any pokémon, tree or stone from around here. Maybe he knows how to find what we're looking for."

Bulbasaur nods, unfolding his map and showing it to the Fearow. The bird however, barely looks at it before shaking his head. "Nah, dude, I don't know anything about maps, sorry. If you tell me how the place looks like I can try to locate it, though."

The grass type takes a few moments to reply, trying to not meet the bird's gaze when he did. "It's a tree. It has an x on it's trunk, an… Old friend of mine was burried there."

Fearow falters slightly at that, somewhat unsure on what to respond. "Oh- uhh, sorry for your loss, man."

Bulbasaur doesn't reply.

"Well, there are a few that fit that description around here, I can walk you through some of them if you want. Maybe we'll be able to find it- follow me."

Xx

The four of them had been looking at random trees for hours.

No really, how many trees with a manually written "x" on their trunk could there possibly be in one forest? Why did humans like putting their names surrounding it so much? Did they really not have any better hobbies? This was starting to get ridiculous, even the Fearow was beginning to get annoyed.

"So…", the flying type starts, "could you maybe tell me a bit about this burried friend of yours? I mean, I know where a few wild pokémon from here were laid to rest, so it might help."

When Bulbasaur stays silent, the bird glances at Chimchar and Turtwig awkwardly. He wanted to help, but that was gonna be difficult if everyone stayed so ambiguous about it all.

"Well, he's a Charmander, but apparently only his head was burried, and another one of our dad's uhh, friends picked the location. A Squirtle."

Spearow showed slight amusement at that information, not managing to fully contain a chuckle. "Wait, so a Bulbasaur, a Charmander and a Squirtle? That's kinda neat, were you guys starters or something?"

Bulbasaur stays quiet, but gives a slight nod to his question, not bothering to even glance at his direction.

"Wow! Huh, who would have thought. Well I haven't seen any squirtles here since…" Fearow's expression quickly sours and he stops suddenly.

"Did you say that just his head was buried?"

The bird's previous warm voice suddenly turned low and cold, uncomfortable. His eyes were unfocused, expression unreadable.

Bulbasaur stops, his gaze follows the fearow like a hawk, trying to find the slightest indication of a threat, but nevertheless, he nods. Reluctance immediately turns into confusion when the bird finally decided to reply.

"Damn, man, I'm sorry. It was those damn worms wasn't it?"

…

What?

"Worms? You mean..?" Bulbasaur doesn't even finish his line of thought before the bird pokémon nods.

"Yeah, it was the caterpie army, right? I mean, they were known for decapitating their enemies during battle. Pretty vile stuff. Their leader even had a-" Fearow stops himself, seemingly having remembered something.

Chimchar and Turtwig stare at both of them confused. While they had heard stories from Bulbasaur about it all, some details had clearly been left unsaid, either because the older pokémon didn't remember it or simply because he didn't want to talk about it.

This seemed to be a case of the latter.

"Gods, was your Charmander friend the one the leader-"

Bulbasaur sighs, giving the Fearow an annoyed look that he hoped showed he lack of interest in continuing the subject.

"Yeah, it was him." He responds bluntly.

The bird pokémon grows quiet after that, staying in the same spot, deep in thought.

"I think I might know where it is."

Xx

It was a tree deep in the forest, out of sight of those who were not specifically looking for it.

An x was written on it's trunk just like Bulbasaur remembered, with a big patch of mismatched grass right in front of it. It wasn't all that pretty, just a random tree in a random, darker part of the forest, but it brought him some peace.

He had found it. He had at least found one of his friends again. He found Charmander.

Bulbasaur walked towards it almost mesmerized. It had been such a long time since he had been able to go there.

He was here when Whiskers had been able to sneak away the Leader's 'lost hat' and given it to Squirtle. When his two friends found an excuse to bring him outside so they could at least give Charmander a small burial.

The older grass type can't help but smile at the memory. It was a bittersweet one, but he was still so grateful to Whiskers for everything she had done. She hated the lizard, but she cared about him and Squirtle.

She was a good friend. A great one, actually. He remembers how even Squirtle had been grateful for her small act of kindness.

He recalls how they had brought him here a few times after that, lying to the Leader about 'giving him some sunlight'. How Squirtle had told him to come here in case anything happened and he had to run away, how Whiskers began to bring him there even more after Squirtle started his mission.

Bulbasaur could feel his vision become unfocused as tears welled up in his eyes. It had taken him so long, but he had found this place again. This was a start, things were finally starting to look up! He dries the moisture from his face with one of his vines, and turns to Fearow with a grateful smile.

"Thank you. Thank you for helping us."

The bird in question flashes him a grin, "No problem, dude! Do you three need help with anything else?"

Bulbasaur shakes his head. No, the bird had already done quite enough, besides if he told him about Squirtle he could-

"Actually, can you just tell us one more thing?"

Goddammit Chimchar.

Fearow simply chuckles, "Of course, little dude! What is it?"

"Chimchar we don't-"

The small fire type simply ignores his guardian.

"Have you seen any Squirtles aroud here recently? Maybe one who talks like this ?" Chimchar asks, the last part having a very poor impersonation of Bulbasaur's old friend.

The Fearow smile drops slightly.

"Uhh, you okay?", asks Turtwig, somewhat uncomfortable with the bird pokémon's change in posture.

"Yeah", Fearow replies, trying to contain his voice. "Yeah, it's just…"

" 's been quite a while since I've seen a Squirtle around here. Uhh, I think the last time I ever saw one was during the Caterpie War."

Bulbasaur stiffens.

This could be bad, he had to stop this conversation from going any further.

"The Squirtle we're looking for fought in a war! It might be him!"

Oh no.

The older grass type had no idea on how the bird pokémon's stances after the war. He could attack them.

Bulbasaur is already planning an escape with the best of him abilities, trying to remember where he had kept that one greatball in his bag, or what kind of attack would be best to stunt the flying type in case he became violent.

Because heexpected him to get violent, to realize who the Squirtle they were talking about was, to-

The Fearow starts to laugh. No sign of resentment in his frame, on his actions. It was as if the child had told him some stupid, but innocent thing, instead of what he had actually been implying.

"Hahaha, well I doubt it. I don't think anyone would be able to care for that… thing enough to search for him." The bird says. Most of his speech was quite laid back, but the last part had a bit of venom laced on it.

"And, well, i don't know about his voice, the guy was pretty silent. Only really spoke when that damn leader talked to him. Kinda made all the stuff he did even creepier, honestly"

Bulbasaur couldn't help but be curious at that last part. Squirtle barely told him anything about his battles, barely talked at all for that matter.

He had heard that it was bad , but he still wanted to know. Anything could be a clue to what happened, even an enemy, especially an enemy.

And even if it wasn't, he was sick of being shielded on everything. He wanted to know what happened, had his friend bad done.

He wanted to know who Squirtle was.

"How so?", Bulbasaur asks, trying to humor the bird into giving him as much information as he could.

The Fearow lets out a bitter chuckle, seemingly resenting whatever memories this conversation had brought to him.

"Well, that guy was a damn killing machine. He'd rip his enemies apart limb from limb and not say a thing. Downright cruel. A bloodthirsty animal, that's what he was."

Both of the younger pokémon stare at their guardian. Bulbasaur couldn't tell if it was from confusion, worry or both, he wasn't paying them much thought at the moment. He felt such a strange sense of dejá-vu with it all.

He knows that his friend had to do some… Unpleasant things during the conflict, but he wasn't expecting something like that.

It almost felt like they weren't talking about the calmer water type, but instead about-

Bulbasaur didn't finish that thought. He didn't want to. It wasn't true. It couldn't be.

He couldn't trust that Fearow.

Yeah, that's right, he couldn't trust him. He was a bird, he was one of the enemies against the caterpies, against him.

Of course he'd say something like that, something so terrible about his lost friend. He fought against them-

But he's sure that Squirtle wouldn't do those things, even in that state. His friend wasn't bad, he wasn't evil, and he definitely wasn't a killing machine.

He was a good pokémon. He gave Bulbasaur's favorite berries to him whenever he could, he stayed with him when he felt lonely, he- He wouldn't do these things. Not his friend, not Squirtle, he was sure of it.

So Bulbasaur just gave Fearow a polite smile and a chuckle, ignoring the children's looks of uncertainty.

"Yeah, I guess you're right. We're definitely not talking about the same Squirtle."

Fearow's grin comes back, "See, I told ya! So don't worry about him."

The bird notices the sun starting to come down, the sky now a beautiful mixture of yellow and orange. "Shoot, I should get going. Don't wanna worry my family. Welp, I hope you find that friend of yours eventually!"

Fearow gives them a small wave and flies off, heading to the same direction they had previously come from. When he is out of sight, the three of them can finally relax fully.

Turtwig hits Chimchar on the head with one of his paws with a smack, giving his brother an exasperated look.

"What were you thinking?! You could've gotten us killed you know?"

The fire type glares at him annoyed, but doesn't hit back, choosing instead to simply rub his new injury with one of his paws.

"Hey- I didn't know that this Squirtle guy was apparently a frigging war criminal! I mean-"

Both of them stop when they notice their dad. He seemes somewhat pale, looking at nothing.

He looked uncomfortable. Scared. It was disturbing to see him like this.

The kids glance at eachother, unsure on what to do. They might think this Squirtle guy was a complete jerk, but their dad cared about him. He cared about him alot.

Turtwig gets closer to him, trying to offer some kind of support, "Hey, uh, dad, are you okay?"

Bulbasaur snaps back into reality.

He didn't want to scare the two. He was their guardian, he couldn't be like this.

He's supposed to protect them, to shelter them, not the other way around.

The older grass type, in a flash, changes his posture. If they didn't know any better they might have thought that the whole exchange with the bird pokémon hadn't even happened.

"Yeah, don't worry. Like I said, we weren't talking about the same Squirtle."

Turtwig and Chimchar still look a little unsure. The more they hear about their dad's old friends, the more confused they get. It was becoming increasingly difficult to keep track of what was and wasn't true. Especially when it came from Bulbasaur.

"Well, this was a pretty long day, huh? You two must be really tired. How about we try to find a good place to settle for the night. I think there's a cave close by."

Well, this was a conversation for later, that was at least something that both of them could agree on. Their guardian was clearly not in the mood to talk, so them pushing him wouldn't end all that well- it would probably just make the older grass type sad.

So, for now, they'd stay quiet, and not ask him any more questions.