For what it was worth, Charlie’s journey had been reasonably less chaotic than the others’. Used enough to travelling through Santalune Forest, the journey hadn’t been too difficult to make. Without the false promise of a stupid rock to lead him astray, it hadn’t taken him much longer than an hour and a half to make it through the sprawling green monstrosity.

Of course, his companion likely helped.

“J-just a little longer, Phil,” he said to the ball of gas and ectoplasm floating a short way away from him, as he slumped against a tree at the mouth of the woods to catch his breath; “Aquacorde’s just over that bridge down there.”

In contrast to the human, the Gastly travelling with him seemed far less perturbed by the journey; the lack of legs turning to lead and a host of bugs, birds and monkeys to blast with gas on the way down certainly helped in that regard. As Charlie finally caught his ever-elusive breath and climbed to his feet, the Ghost-type floated down towards him and let out a soft hiss. 

Neither of them really needed to say or do anything after that; the final stretch to Aquacorde was less than eventful, and the bridge in the near-distance was soon at Charlie’s feet, in all its’ rustic glory.
Charlie paused for a moment, thought to himself quietly as the Gastly next to him just watched a Carvanha streak through the water after a small school of desperately struggling Magikarp. 
This was it. There wouldn’t be any going back after he went over the bridge. 

Swallowing his apprehension, he gathered himself up and pulled himself together before taking his first steps onto the bridge…

… and he was less than halfway over it when that all went out the window like a spooked Fletchling.

“Ohnonothim,” The boy mumbled to himself in near-panicked dismay as he saw who was waiting for him over the other side of the bridge with a cluster of other figures; a dark-skinned man in an eyepatch who had sure as hell noticed him too.