I wrote this one-shot back in September of last year and even after all this time, it's still one of my favourites. It's based very loosely on a movie I once watched, combined with a poem I read, combined with something that happened to someone I used to know, but you won't be able to identify any of it because I only used it for inspiration.
Never Forgotten – A One-Shot
Fate is cruel. I have known it for a long time, but now the truth has hit me with more intensity than a rampaging Rhydon. Just the thought that I still live and breathe, while you lie cold under the ground, brings tears to eyes already swollen from weeping. Each shuddering breath is agony and each moment brings more memories of you to torture me.
Why? How could something so terrible happen? Why couldn't I have at least had a little more warning?
Then again, I guess I had all the warning in the world.
You always strived to please me with every fibre of your being. I cared for you, raised you from an egg I was given. I was so pleased when you evolved. No, I was more than pleased. I knew you wouldn't evolve until you trusted me entirely. I didn't force you to like me, didn't give you the wrong impression of myself so you would evolve faster and then neglect you. No, I always loved you for who and what you were. In my eyes you were already perfect.
I can't believe I didn't see it.
I remember the day you hatched. I watched you struggle to break out of the egg that was once your entire world. I watched you emerge into the real world, red eyes blinking in the sudden light, tiny paws gripping the hand I offered you. You were the cutest baby I had ever seen and I still remember exactly what you looked like back then, right down to the last detail.
How could I miss it?
And the day you evolved was the most wonderful moment ever for me. I treated you gently, even babied you a little. I admit I was rather overprotective of you at first. But you were still little, no more than a few months old, when you decided I had earned your trust. My eyes nearly bulged out of my head when I saw it happening. I remember screaming with joy and diving on you. Unaccustomed to your new weight, you tumbled over backward and we both ended up on the ground. I was laughing and crying at the same time.
But that's all in the past…
Dressed in my new black suit, my hair slicked back with gel that my mother forced upon me, I walk slowly through the scattering of graves. It has rained overnight and the ground is covered with puddles of various sizes. I stare blankly into one, taking in my appearance. You would have thought I look ridiculous. Of course, I know I do, but that same overprotective mother insisted that I was in no shape to dress myself. Anyone would have thought I had just come back from a full lobotomy. Even the fact that I'm eighteen and old enough to care for myself had no effect on her. Still she sent me out looking like a complete idiot.
I continue walking. My hands convulsively clutch the bouquet of flowers; these are another pointless addition of my mother's. Neither of us either liked flowers. Most of them made me sneeze and you saw them only as something to walk on and crush. You delighted in stepping on as many flowers as you could. These ones are a painful yellow colour, like the weeds that line the paths and fill the fields in spring.
My shoes squelch unpleasantly on the muddy ground. I begin to shake as I approach your newly filled-in grave. It's hard to believe or even understand that you lie under the ground, that your heart has ceased to beat and your brain no longer thinks, that your body has long since grown cold.
My steps have grown less neat and I have begun simply dragging my feet along the ground, allowing mud to splash up in front of me and saturate the cuffs of my pants. They are ruined anyway, so I fall to my knees with a splash. I look at the flowers in my hands. My grip on them tightens, crushing the stems. My hands begin to tremble and the petals flutter helplessly to the ground, shaken loose from the plants. With as much strength as I can muster I fling the bouquet aside. You would never have wanted it.
How could this happen? How could Arceus let this happen? If it really created all Pokemon and controls their destiny, how could it treat you so badly? You were barely seven years old. You were my best friend.
I whisper the words to the uncaring gravestone, then shriek them at the sky. "You were my best friend! How could Arceus… how could it do this…?"
I grind my hands into the mud, forget that I have just done it and use them to wipe my eyes, smearing mud all over my face. My hair gets some as well but I don't care any more. Nothing matters to me except the simple fact that you're gone.
My muddy finger traces the words carved into the gravestone. "Much loved partner and friend." I chose them myself, but they're only words. They don't give the slightest indication of what your life was like. They don't explain your joys, your sorrows, your triumphs, your failures or anything else even remotely important. If it were up to me your inscription would have been a mile long, describing every moment of your seven years right down to the last intricate detail.
A raindrop hits me right between the eyes and suddenly it's pouring down again. Why is it that it always rains after funerals? Of course, if the sun were shining it would seem almost disrespectful. At least in the rain most Pokemon would be miserable, hunched over and shivering in their homes.
I raise my hand again, grinding the palm against my forehead. I still can't believe I didn't heed the warning. How could I fail to notice the way, in your last few months of life, that you became more listless? You slept more heavily, ate less and began to lose weight. You could withstand attacks less and less well and your own attacks became weaker. You started losing almost every battle. I tried to encourage you, I bought Iron and Protein for you until I could no longer afford food and we were living off berries, but it made no difference to your performance. Eventually I stopped sending you out in battles.
I was worried for you, naturally. I didn't keep you in your Poke Ball unless I couldn't help it. I didn't understand why you had suddenly given up trying in battles. I didn't notice the way your eyes dulled, your tail and ears drooped and you started losing patches of fur. I refused to acknowledge your growing weakness.
How could I have been so stupid? If I had paid attention to the sudden change in your character I would have rushed you to the Pokemon Center right away. You would have detested the weeks spent in a hospital bed but at least you would have survived. I guess I thought you were invincible just because you couldn't get poisoned. I guess I thought nothing could touch you. How stupid could I have been to forget that Steel types get sick too?
Near the end I finally began to fear for your life, but by that stage you were beyond help. You spent your days asleep and most nights sitting outside the cave we were staying in, gazing up at the moon as though wanting it to be your last sight. I listened to your wracking cough and often cried myself to sleep. You had already told me not to take you to hospital. I can't believe I didn't realize there was something wrong until those last few days, when it was already too late.
By the last day of your life your illness had sapped most of your strength. You couldn't even take a few tottering steps without leaning on me for support. My heart ached for you. During your last hours you were confined to the bed of leaves I had made for you. I was coming back in from a walk when I realized it was happening. I rushed to your side, ready to provide the last support I could give you.
You reached for my hand. You had never been one to show weakness or affection openly; if you were doing this there was definitely something very wrong. Your lips drew back one last time in a faint, humourless smile, revealing pointed fangs. Your dulled ruby eyes lingered for a few seconds on the young man you had called a friend and master before you closed them. And then, with one last convulsive gasp and a rattling sigh, you died.
Each memory causes me great pain to recall. I wish I could have left them inside that coffin with you, to be hammered in and buried forever. But then you would have been forgotten and I could never let that happen.
I never wanted you to be buried. I wanted you to be cremated so I could keep your ashes forever, but then you would never be at rest. I would never find the strength of will to scatter your ashes so you could rejoin nature. The only thing I could do was allow you to be buried in the graveyard near my home. I will never leave this town now. I will live with my mother until I can buy a house of my own. I will visit your grave every week for the rest of my life, even when I am too old to remember most of the things I can remember now. I will always call you my best friend.
I will never forget you, Lucario.