Wilson had a smile on his face from shooting the Sawsbuck in the perfect spot with his unique ammunition and Jack was left in awe. That one moment made up for the past minimal hour of walking through the woods. That flash of light, that booming thunderclap of sound, the sheer damage he imagined the shotgun dealt at a distance to make sure there was no more trouble.

"Wow," Jack thought as he stared with a humongous grin on his face, almost as if he was the one that shot it. Okay, maybe the sound wasn't pleasant because of tinnitus. But still, it was a rush for the young man seeing how his grandfather did it. How many Pokémon were shot in a similar spot by Wilson during all of his years of hunting?

Wilson approached the downed Pokémon. He examined the face, seeing zero signs of life. No breathing or even trauma-induced twitching anywhere. It was as dead as it could get; it wouldn't be getting up after that.

"Oh, hohoh, my!" exclaimed Jack as he joined Wilson by the carcass, still hopped up on raw excitement from the gunshot and witnessing a good kill, "That was awesome! You did it perfectly!" Wilson looked up with a softer smile compared to his grandson while kneeling in front of the carcass. He put down his shotgun and pulled out the intimidating knife from his boot.

"Now, we aren't done with it yet," explained Wilson as he pushed the Sawsbuck's belly, "in fact, we're just beginning."

Jack looked puzzled as Wilson immediately pointed his knife at Jack and motioned him over to help him. He noticed the tip was mere inches from the Pokémon's lower belly and above its groin area. The novice widened his eyes at grim, squeamish comprehension of what was to follow suit.

He was to help Wilson get deep in guts to field dress the Pokémon.

"Oh, oh… he's not gonna do that… is he?"

"Jack! Come here and help!" Wilson ordered as Jack reluctantly came to the opposite side of the Pokémon, its back, while Wilson was about to make an initial incision in the body.

"It is time you learn how to do the real dirty work of hunting. This is just as important as learning how to shoot, if not more."

"I… I'm not going to have to touch that stuff, right?" pleaded Jack, feeling sick at the thought of it. Wilson looked up with a critical expression.

"Every hunter has to do this. You came here to learn how to track and shoot Pokémon, and now you'll learn how to field dress one. Really, it's not so bad. We have gloves on. We're all made of the same stuff, anyway. I'm gonna have you do more than just stretch it out for me to start with. Just think of it as a science lab project back at your school."

(You probably could have used a better comparison… I never liked that stuff!)

Jack looked defeated and annoyed that he would have to get his hands dirty. And possibly wrist deep in the ruined, mushy cavity from the gunshot with lots of little metal bits floating around. The aspiring hunter conceded and tried to brace himself for the gross job ahead of them. "Alright, I'll help. Just tell me what I need to do."

"Pull back on its leg so I have a good view of its belly. I'll make a starting cut and work my way up, then I'll let you try. And I want you to pay attention, too."

Jack pulled back on the Sawsbuck 's hind leg to give Wilson access to its underside. Jack uncomfortably watched his grandfather make an opening cut around the groin and sawed around in a circular motion, drawing out a cup's worth of blood. Soft sounds like a sweater being torn apart rung in Jack's ears as skin and fur were cut. The other thought of the knife slipping and sheathing itself into the muscle of the groin only made it harder for Jack to concentrate on how to perform field dressing. And if was going to go hunt on his own, he would have to do something like this eventually…

Then Wilson started to saw the knife upwards a few inches above the groin, being extra sure not to cut any large organs yet. Two fingers wormed their way under the layer of fur and above a large organ and wiggled to loosen up the tissue. He cut about four inches up along the sandwiched incision made on Pokémon and stopped to look at Jack.

"Okay. I made a good start for you. Take the knife and follow like I was doing. Just take it slow and don't work it too low, or you may puncture something you don't want to."

Wilson got up and shuffled over to Jack to give him the knife. The grandson was uncertain about doing the cutting. Watching it and doing it are two very different things.

He hesitated in taking the knife and continuing the dressing. There was already a thing coating of blood on the blade as if he was not squeamish enough.

"Anything else I need to know?"

Wilson cleared his throat to give a couple more pointers,

"Take it slow and find out the path you should follow along. More importantly, don't bring the knife into the guts, we'll want those to come out in one piece. I got it started, so if you were watching me, you should know how to do it. Don't worry about it being perfect."

The apprentice shook his head reluctantly knelt in front of the partially opened belly. He could see the naked muscle tissue parted from the skin and fur of the Pokémon left without a scratch; what he and Wilson would eventually be feasting on. The tip of the knife soft prodded at the tissue layers Wilson opened up. It soon slipped into the furrow Wilson created on the carcass. Jack used his free hand to pull back the intact layers further along the Pokémon's chest and sliced away. He added a full three inches on par with his grandfather with way less force than imagined.

Wilson chose his knife well.

"Is it always this soft?" inquired the grandson. The veteran kept a silent eye on Jack as he continued cutting along the gash. He took his time and gradually got used to handling the exterior of carcasses and the fabric tearing-like sounds made from the knife. More of the Sawsbuck's internals were revealed and slightly sticking out with squishy sounds. They were oddly colored to the first timer. He expected all of them to be various tones of pink, not batter or lavender colored! And he didn't expect the veins running across the surface of them!

Jack swallowed to keep is gag reflex down, though it hardly helped when more of his hand and wrist was touching the squishy, warm internals. Luckily his job was just about to end as the incision started to get less neat and straight. Wilson stopped him right as Jack was about a foot from getting the knife in between the Sawsbuck's forelegs.

"Stop, that's good enough," Wilson called as he got up to get closer to Jack and take back the knife. Jack got up and wiped his hands on the snow to clean them of the blood that splashed on them.

"That wasn't so bad," Jack admitted as Wilson inspected the chubby belly and loosened up Jack's stopping point. Wilson locked eyes with his grandson as both of his arms were slightly widening the large cavity.

"Just one more thing and then you're free."

"Okay, what next?" asked Jack. Wilson added more force in trying to spread apart the separated tissues to help loosen up the carcass. More of its intestines flopped out, making an awful sound. Jack didn't have a good feeling about this.

"Now we pull out its organs and drain it."

Okay, sure. Just get your hands inside the dead body and use them to scoop out the buckets of organs that might rupture at any time and make a mess everywhere as they make produce gut-retching sounds and smells from the body no longer containing them, so the actual edible meat is not tainted. Everybody is itching to do something like this after they shot a Pokémon.

Jack had a natural double take.

"Wait…"

…

"What!?"

Wilson shot a commanding look at his grandson.

"You heard me. Use your hands and help me get those organs out. The quicker we get it done, the better."

Jack did not like where this was going one bit.

He tried to weasel his way out of getting his hands deep in the body to scoop out the guts and other viscera. A plausible thought crossed his mind,

"Wait, you shot it with those expanding slugs, right? What if one of those pieces cut me?"

Wilson sighed and squeezed the end flaps of the carcass.

"Oh, they won't. Now come on and get this over with."

The grandson gave a whimper as he crouched by his grandfather, still prying open the two sides of tissue nicely cut open. Jack closed his eyes and placed his right hand inside the Sawsbuck, doing anything he could to minimize how gross it was.

The inside of the body was surprisingly warm. It was almost comfortably warm, Jack thought, until he scooped his hand backward and felt a fistful of organs. They were almost like moist, leaky sacks of pudding. The fleshy, squelching texture and sounds of the pushing around the organs with blood pooling inside the carcass make his stomach churn in revilement. Jack kept his breakfast down and used both hands to try and push out the gut pile in as much of a uniform mass as he could, realizing just how large the intestines and other body parts were. Not to mention how heavy they were.

Even worse was when Wilson got the knife inside to help jack get the guts out. Wilson cut away the connecting tethers to free up more of the weight as most of it thoroughly flopped out onto the ground. The job got bloodier the further Jack went, because he was now pulling away the section containing the destroyed heart, where all the blood was. His hands were stained red as the pool grew with bathtub-like, drenching sounds.

But the grossest to Jack were the pale colored intestines being rolled out in a sloppy ball onto the snow with an ugly, earthy stench.

(Oh this is so gross and nasty and disgusting like hell!)

Fortunately, the worst was nearly over. Enough of the guts were unconnected and freely floating in the body that Wilson withdrew his knife and gave an extra set of hands to finish removing them. All that was left was the colon feeding into the yarn-like mass of flesh from the rear. Jack buried his hands onto a clean patch of snow, instantly dirtying it and getting most of the blood off.

He couldn't believe what he just did.

Like clockwork, Wilson finished the last of the cutting by making a large opening near the Pokémon's hindquarters. Some of the colon was pulled away, separated by a quick cut, and the rest was funneled away from the carcass. Jack made the mistake of looking towards the gut pile and was almost trembling at how gross it was in addition to Wilson taking the knife to its groin again.

Jack felt disturbed and shaken getting his hands so in-depth and dirty into the body. At least the Pokémon was not alive while it happened and he did not vomit? Tch, like that would help.

(Never again. Never again. Never again.)

"Jack, it's alright." Wilson comforted his grandson as he pushed the carcass to rest on its open stomach to drain the blood, "We're done with the nasty stuff. Now we just wait for it to drain and we can get back. Then I can teach you how to butcher and prepare its meat. That part won't be as gross as this one."

That only raised more questions for Jack.

He pointed to the pile and asked, "Are we just gonna leave all that stuff there?"

Wilson nodded, taking this way better than his grandson.

"Yes. We're primarily after its muscle and meat. Sure, you can eat most of the edible organs, but almost everybody leaves it there for the others to eat. Unless you want to carry a liver for the hour long trip back."

Jack raised another question about leaving behind all the guts, reasoning "But won't that attract stuff like Ursaring? I can smell it from here, and who knows how far it can travel!"

"Not really." Wilson answered as he put his hand near his chest holster, "Pokémon will arrive to clean up by the time we're back at the cabin. Even if we do run into some Ursaring, I've got more than enough protection. It's a good thing it's mostly Sawsbuck, Deerling, and Stantler out here. But you'd be surprised at where you can find other, dangerous Pokémon, no doubt about it."

Jack shrugged in agreement. He cleaned his gloves as much as he could on the snow and picked up his gun, waiting for the blood to drain so he and Wilson could haul it home.

(Gross...)