A New World, A New Journeyby Serperior2Chapters12341Rick exited the building, ignoring his shiny new Feather Badge, instead assisting his partner Zephyr limp towards the nearest Pokemon Center. "Iv'e already told you, I don't need any help." "And Iv'e already told you, It's my fault you got hit with that aerial ace attack. Iv'e gotta do something to make it up." "Slowing me down like this isn't what I have in mind." "I already told you, you're going to get fat if you eat any more pokepuffs a day." "It's a special occasion." The boy sighed, his sceptile was always a stubborn one, he seemed to think of nothing but food. "How about this, you can have three, if you do more training today. We need to work on your attack, that rock tomb should have taken her swellow out in one hit." "I would have done better if I was battling on a full stomach." "Oh shut up." They arricved at the center, conveniently located just on the other side of a small patch of trees from the gym. "Hello and welcome to the Foretree Pokemon Center, how can I help you." Greeted Nurse Joy. "I need three of my Pokemon healed please." "I would be happy to help, are the others in their pokeballs?" "Yeah here." He handed over the other two. "Chancey please help this Sceptile to room 14." The poke-assistant complied happily, helping support Zephyr as he limped through the doorway. "He doesn't look to be in too bad of shape, it should only be an hour, I hope you can wait. We have a bit of a waiting list. Some group of trainers though it would be smart to attack a herd of tropius with mostly water types." She added with a roll of her eyes. "Sure thing, and also while I'm up here can I rent a room?" "I'm sorry but we're booked, you could try the Center on the East side of town. They tend to get less traffic." "Kay, thanks for the suggestion." Rick took a glance out the window, noticing it was already beginning to get dark. After taking a seat, he took out his buzznav, and took a look at the latest news. "Why does it always seem like half of these stories are about me?" He whispered to himself. He didn't even remember seeing anyone around when he caught his zubat, how are there people who saw nickname it? He was beginning to believe he may have a stalker who works at the buzznav station in Mauville. After some time Nurse Joy came back out and handed him his pokeballs back. "Your sceptile will be out in a minute. I must say, he's a beatiful specimen, I don't think Iv'e ever seen a shiny of his kind before." "Oh yeah thanks." He always became rather uncomfortable whenever someone mentioned Zephyrs rare pigmentation. He knew about the whole process by which he was bred, and it was horrifying. He wondered if he had ever unknowingly passed by one of Zephyrs one hundred twenty six siblings and cousins. He popped the pokeballs back into his belt and sat up. He was a bit sore still from the hike to the city all the way from Mauville. It had taken a whole week, and much of it was rather hilly and rocky. He groaned as his muscles begged for more rest. "I should have waited longer before challenging Winona. Uuuuggghhh." He looked to his right and noticed Zephyr passing through the doorway into the main lobby. "Hey Rick, didja get us a room?" "No, they're booked, were gonna have to go even farther to the Center on the other side of town. Or, we could head over to Robinsons base and camp out there for the night," He smirked, "I'm sure he wouldn't mind, after all, we already took his flag." The forest pokemon smiled too, "Sounds good, cmon, I'll give you a ride." They exited the center, and Rick climbed onto his pokemon's back. Zephyr made good time to the base on route 119 just outside of town. Just as they were entering, they stopped, hearing a voice in their head. “Rest now my children, for when you awake a whole new world shall be your home.” Suddenly everything went dark. ___ Rick woke suddenly. The first thing he noticed was the woods surrounding him. At first he thought it was the trees near Foretree, but then he noticed something off about them. Then it hit him, These aren't the kind of trees that you can find near Foretree, or anywhere in Hoenn. He attempted to stand up and find out just what was going on, but a strange weight fixed to the bottom of his back caused him to fall over, and he found himself laying on something large and firm, that he could feel through. He turned his head around and saw a large green mass behind him. Upon further investigation he realized it was a treeko tail! Rick screamed and tried to get up again, this time falling forward, and throwing his hands out in front of him. It was then he saw that his hands had become green, and each only had three fingers, each ending in a rounded nub without a fingernail. They reminded him of... Oh arceus no. He stood for a third time, this time succeeding, even if he still felt wobbly. He looked around and saw a large electric blue mass just next to him. That must be Zephyr, well at least he doesn't seem to have changed. He wobbled over to the grass type, fall forward just in time to land his hands on the now giant to him pokemons back. He pushed on it a few times, and when there was no response, attempted to climb over to get to Zephyrs face. He found it much easier than expected, his fingers mysteriously sticking where he put them. He made it to his partners head, and poked him a few times between his two crests. When there was no response, he took his new sticky fingers and pried open one of the giants eyelids. The reaction was... less than instantaneous. Zephyr moved his head away from Rick and groaned. He pushed his weight off the ground and looked down at the new treeko. The grass type yawned, holding one clawed hand up to his beak, and finally opened his eyes on his own. He looked around, then glanced down. He was met with the sight of a small terrified treeko staring up at him. "Well hey there little guy, you have a trainer, or parents?" "Zephyr! It's me! Rick! I just woke up like this. We've gotta go find someone to fix this fast! What if it's permanent?!" "Huh?" The sceptile tilted his head and blinked confusedly. "No that's not possible, I've never heard of someone becoming a pokemon, where are your parents?" "No Zephyr! It's really me! Cmon, ask me something only I would know." The larger grass starter was getting annoyed and suspicious at the same time. "Fine, who is my sisters trainer?" "Ha! That's a trick question! You were separated from your siblings in a pokemon ranger rescue raid. You don't know any of your siblings." "Geez, you don't have to be so cold about it. Okay I believe you. But who would we go find to fix this?" "Um... That's a good question. How about the professor? No... to far away... Maybe the people at the weather station could help! They're scientists." "I doubt a meteorologist would have the know-how to turn a human turned pokemon back into a human, Professor Birch too." "Oh... Yeah. Well I think Birch would be our best shot wouldn't he? I mean, he's the most prominent pokemon professor in Hoenn." "Yeah, but how would we get there?" "I know! Now that I have the Feather Badge we can fly there! Just let me get..." He looked down, and to his horror noticed his belt, and thus all of his pokeballs were missing. The only item left being the key stone on his wrist. "B-but, where are they? What..." They looked at each other with a mixture of confusion and horror, they were now stranded in a strange forest, one of them transformed, and all of their friends were missing. What a special occasion indeed. _______ "Okay... Let's see, four pounds to a bucket, a maximum of one hundred pounds to a cart, sixty bits per pound, two carts, total profits should be..." Luster Red scrunched her eyes, she had always been bad at doing math in her head, she usually needed paper to work it on, however, the middle of a cherry farm was not the most hospitable location for working math. "Okay, each cart has twenty five buckets, and thus..." she was cut off suddenly by the sound of screaming and what sounded like trees cracking and falling. She looked around, and saw that all of the other cherry pickers nearby had also heard it. After a brief pause, they all at once rushed towards the noise, including Luster. They all began to crowd around what appeared to be a large clearing in the trees, where a large blue four legged creature and a tall green lizard-like creature were standing in the center. Both looking rather fearful and confused. "All right everyone whats goin' on?" Luster heard the familiar voice of Cherry Jubilee right behind her. She turned to face her. The familiar large maned mare wore a confused and mildly irritated look. The cherry bucking season was one where even a slight bit of slacking could throw off the whole schedule, and it was important that workers stay at their posts at all times. "Um, I'm not sure ma'am, from what I can tell those two... things over there just destroyed all of those trees." Cherry Jubillee's eyes bugged out suddenly when she got a glimpse of the large clear space on the other side of the crowd. "Come with me Luster, I think I might need help of that city brain o' yer's." Luster's face fell. All the ponies out here had a tendency to underestimate their own intelligence. They always seemed to think "Luster is from the city, she must know all about that stuff," when that was almost the opposite of the case. She had always slacked in school and by city standards was probably about the same as a country bumpkin. But that didn't stop them from asking her for help. When Cherry Jubilee had learned of this she had begun to ask her for help too, less in a genuine way but more to mock the fact that they all went to her for their "educated" problems. As they cut through the crowd Luster got a better look at the wreckage. About ten trees had all been knocked down and mutilated, and appeared to be entangled in some strange thorny vine. The vine already seemed to be withering and dying as she walked through, and when she bumped one is snapped off the rest and turned to dust when it hit the ground. Once her boss had surveyed the damage, she turned around and called out a brusque order. "Everyone back to their duties we have a quota to meet!" Once the crowd had scattered she turned around to face the taller green creature. "Explain yourself or I swear to Celestia I will have you both thrown in the stocks for weeks even if we have to make a custom one for the big guy." The lizard thing's eyes widened even further. He waved his hands defensively, "Scep scep, tile, sceptile, sceptile, tile scep tile tile..." he was cut off suddenly by Jubilee. "I must apologize but I can't understand... whatever it is you're saying." The tall ones eyes grew even larger, now seeming to reach their breaking point. He turned around to the metal thing, and uttered a few words to it quickly. It shifted it's torso up and down in a fashion similar to a nod, and it's eyes began to glow for a few seconds before fading away. The lizard turned back to Cherry and said in plain Equish, "I'm sorry, didn't realize you couldn't understand Pokespeak. My name is Gordon. I must apologize for the damages, I must assure you it was purely accidental. Surely we can come to some sort of compromise seeing as I don't have any Yen on me." "I don't know whatever money you just mentioned is, but round here we use bits. I think the only way someone of your apparently destructive nature could repay is to pull some carts to a delivery point and guard in on the way there since you seem to be so apparently powerful." The creature, now known to be Gordon, sank a little at the news. "I suppose that's better than the stocks. Will that cover it all?" Cherry's eyes narrowed. "I'm afraid not, you've caused about five thousand bits worth of damage, and the guard and escort service together will usually pay the employee around four thousand depending on the quality given on the job. But we can't stand to have you causing any more damage on my farm. You will be accompanying Luster Red here, seeing as she has already finished pickin' her zone. You leave in three hours, help her get the carts together. She then looked to Luster, "And please Luster, keep a close eye on these folks." 2Due to his inability to walk properly because of his tail, Rick had to ride on Zephyrs back. This wasn't anything unusual as they often did this, however it was humiliating this time. He wished he could walk on his own, but they both agreed that time should not be wasted teaching him to walk with a tail. The entire dash through the new territory was spent watching carefully for trainers, after all, the last thing he wanted was to be caught. They flew threw the strange terrain for about a half hour without any sort of event. This gave Rick plenty of time to think of the implications of his new form. Was he the only one? Now that the initial shock was over he was left to contemplate the meaning of the words in his mind. "A whole new world shall be your home?” he muttered to himself. "What on Earth could that mean?" His thoughts were interrupted by a loud roar, and a large number of terrified squeaks. Zephyr stopped on a tree branch to survey the event unfolding. A pair of pichu and two pikachu were cowering up against a fairly small cliff of about twenty feet in height. It didn't take long to deduce the source of the more aggressive noise. A large mustard yellow creature was cornering them, looking slightly singed and very angry. It was probably about ten feet tall and fifteen long, it seemed similar to a male pyroar, with a large red skorupi tail and matching zubat wings. It slowly advanced, obviously wary of the shockingly powerful pokemon. Zephyr began to whisper, "Stay in this tree, I'll handle this. Don't get involved you're even weaker than before." Rick clambered off of Zephyrs back as quietly as he could. Once Zephyr was sure he was steady on the tree branch he hopped down to the ground, making a soft thud. The strange creature heard it, and turned to challenge the grass type. "I don't know what you are but you need to leave them alone." The beast showed no signs of understanding, instead crouching low as though it were preparing to strike. "Okay then..." was Zephyrs muted reply. The yellow monster charged, Zephyr easily dodging out of the way, crashing into a bush full of thorns. Once it carefully extricated itself it turned and growled threateningly, obviously not ready to give up. Zephyrs tail began to glow, and before the beast could react he leaped from the tree smashing it into it's face yelling "leaf blade." The creature roared in pain and swiped at the forest pokemon, who easily dodged, now grabbing on a tree limb above the battle ground, holding it with his clawed feet, he then exclaimed x-scissor, jumping down and slashing the anomalies face with his glowing arm leaves. The creature struck with it's tail, not managing to stab him, but instead slamming him sideways after a close dodge to the right. Zephyr flew through the trees before hitting a rock, the pods on his back painfully stretching to accommodate the force applied. He got up slowly, the beast was swishing his tail back and forth in front of him in an obviously mocking gesture. The sceptile grinned, well let's see if that mega stone of yours can work when you're a treeko" he yelled to Rick, who quickly raised up his arm and tapped the stone on the bracelet, which began to glow, as did Zephyr. After the light faded Zephyr stood in place, now changed. The creature was unfazed by the sudden transformation, and charged again. The sceptile waited against the rock up until the creature was almost upon him, he then suddenly grabbed two of the pods from his back and threw them at the beast, exploding on contact as he leaped of the way with greatly increased speed. After he landed he surveyed the damage. The monster was out cold, in a large patch of scorched earth and plants. He circled around it back to the clearing where the battle began. Finding Rick and the rescued pichus and pikachu up on the cliff out of harms way. He grinned, "Don't worry little guys Zephyr has saved the day once again, that big meanie won't be bothering us again." Suddenly the expressions of the smaller pokemon above changed suddenly to horror. Before he could turn around the creature had pounced on him, pinning him to the ground, it's front paws resting on his arms and one of his back on his dangerous tail. He couldn't get it off of him. Suddenly he heard a rumble and a loud wham! The giant fell to his right, luckily not landing on him, and to his left a large stone hit the ground with a thud. He looked up to find the pikachu and Rick both standing over a small indentation in the cliff, where a rock might have been rolled off. "I need to learn to shut my mouth." _____ After moving a distance from the unconscious behemoth, the groups introduced themselves. They learned that the pikachu was named Mila, and she was traveling with her younger brother Brom. They were both transformed into a pikachu and pichu respectively. The rest of their teams and gear was missing too. They agreed to travel together to the nearest town, to see if there were even more humans turned pokemon, and possibly going further to find someone who could help them. They set out, Zephyr easily accommodating all five of the passengers. They didn't go much farther before coming across the edge of the woods. But unfortunately, instead of finding a town, they were instead met with a large expanse of rolling hills to the left, and a deep foreboding gorge to the right. The choice was obvious. As began walking through the fields to what appeared to be mountains in the far distance, they kept up a casual conversation. Rick and Zephyr detailing their journey starting in Petalburg, with a rough outline of the events up to them receiving the feather badge, and Ricks mysterious transformation. Mila and Brom were both from the Sinnoh Region, beginning their journey in Jubilife city. They weren't collecting badges, instead both simply exploring the many wonders of Sinnoh. Mila had begun her journey four years before Brom, and came back to continue her journey with him. They both received their starters courtesy of their uncle who was a prominent breeder in the Jubilife area. They had been in the middle of watching a contest in Veilstone when they found themselves here in the strange forest. "I bet you were shocked when you first heard Zephyr talking huh?" Brom asked giving Rick a knowing look. Rick smirked, he and Zephyr had been able to communicate verbally since he was six years old, it came as part of being shunned by the other kids at school for not having a dad, they acted as though it was so unusual. When they saw him talking to his treeko and carrying on conversation, it just got worse. "You would be surprised about whether or not I was surprised." "Well whats that supposed to mean?" Rick explained about the special circumstances between him and his partner, the new pichu's eyes widening at every word. "Wow I wish I could talk with my pichu. Before now I mean." Mila piped up, "So how long have you been traveling in that story of yours?" "About four years." Brom made a cocky grunt, "Ha! What kind of trainer takes four years to get six badges? What did you leave out of that story?" "Private things," was the brusque reply. Truth was, Rick never liked to talk about his father. He had been a ranger for some time before being disgraced when he was accused of stealing evidence to a case of excessive pokemon breeding. The case had been over for some time, and he had decided to add Zephyr, then a treeko, to his team so he could still have a "normal" life for a pokemon. His commanding officer had disagreed, wanting the shiny treeko for himself, and made a full inquiry into the matter. Although it was decided by the Rager Union Council Rick's father had a right to the treeko, by that time the case had been made public and many felt he shouldn't get Zephyr. In order to save themselves from negative publicity they gave him a dishonorable discharge, but still allowing him to keep the rescued pokemon. Now disgraced and openly despised by the majority of Hoenn, he left the pokemon to his son and left home. Rick had spent the majority of the past four years searching for his father. But he hadn't had any fresh news since two years after he began, learning that he had apparently been traveling with concert crews, using his once noble crime fighting team to work security in large stadiums and amphitheaters. It made Zephyr even happier he had been left with Rick. After they had walked a few miles away from the woods, they finally came upon the first sign of civilization, a run down dirt road. "Well then, it's time to make an important decision. Right, or left." Mila spoke up, "Oh I wish I had my coin flip app on my Poketch so badly!" ___ Despite the lack of a coin toss app, it was decided to go away from the spooky canyon, and head to the left. They traveled several more hours along the road, and as they traveled the greenery slowly seemed to fade, becoming more desert-like. The ground seemed cracked and dry in most places, which was more like what he had heard the desert in Kalos was like, the ones in Unova and Hoenn being much more sand based. They noticed some desert pokemon around them, all seeming to be confused. Some nesting pokemon like trapinch were building new homes. "Hey, guys," began Mila, "Is it just me or are those tall cactus looking pokemon in the distance following us?" Rick, Zephyr and Brom all squinted into the direction Mila pointed. There were indeed a group of four or five cacturne, all standing still a fair distance away. "Oh no, thats not good," muttered Zephyr. "What?" asked Brom, "What are those pokemon?" "Those are cacturne. They're notorious for attacking desert travelers at night. We need to do something to get rid of them." "Like what?" questioned Mila, "They're so far away they would get away before we could attack them." "We're just gonna have to shake em'. Get on my back again." "Do we have to? It's not very comfortable." asked Mila's pichu. "We do not want to be ambushed by a group of cacturne," Rick answered in a serious tone "cmon, lets go." They all clambered back onto Zephyrs back and rode about eighteen miles like that, once Zephyr began to tire they decided they should make camp. The pichu and Pikachu both worked together to find dried out wood nearby while Mila and Brom dug a fire pit, so as not to attract more cacturne. Once it became dark they lit the fire, and huddled around it for warmth in the cold desert night. They exchanged stories about their pokemon journeys, Mila talking about the strange circumstances through which she had obtained her sneasel, who had previously been stealing bungee cords from hikers to make a hanging nest over a canyon. After having some of her tent materials seized she tracked it down and tried to get it back, but had instead ended up dangling over the deep crevice from said hanging nest. The pokemon saved her, and agreed to join her team under the condition that she would buy him a hammock that he could sleep in on their journey. Brom described what he believed to be with the rare pokemon, rotom, in the manor near Eterna city. He had tried to catch it but after several nights of spooks and pranks he gave up and left with his sister. In the spirit of the campfire circle Rick told of his first pokemon catch, a wingull on route 102. It was far from an easy catch do to it's agility and aptness for flying away. He had to track it down five times before getting it with a pokeball. He had named it Ace, due to the fact that two out of the five encounters had ended with Zephyr being badly injured by an aerial ace attack. The wingull was now a pelipper, and he hoped he was doing okay, wherever it is he ended up. Despite the happy atmosphere, they were all unable to conceal their hunger from one another or themselves. They needed food. "Hey Zephyr, you know that thing we agreed never to do again?" asked Rick. "Cmon' dude, we aren't that desperate yet are we?" "We don't know how long this desert could go on, and we can't afford to turn around after the progress we've made." Mila interjected, "What are you talking about?" Zephyr shifted uncomfortably. "You know the pods on my back?" he asked with a grimace. "Yeah, what about em?" "They're full of extra nutrients Iv'e stored up over time, good for an extra boost during battle usually. I can feed off of them for a few weeks before I run out. They can also be... picked, and... eaten," he added with a shudder. "So? What's wrong with that?" questioned Brom. "They taste foul." Rick answered in a flat tone. "But they could be our only option if it came down to it. "Oooooohhh. I think I'd rather wait a bit longer before we resort to something like that." Mila said with a strong blush. "We're going to need our strength though." and then quickly added: "I'm not saying right now but it may have to be fairly soon. Who knows how well our new bodies can cope with no food?" "I don't know, but I think it's longer than one night." "I know, but after most pokemon evolve, they need lots of food to make up for the loss of energy occurring during the transformation, what if it's the same thing with us?" Pichu blanched, "You guys aren't gonna starve are you?" Zephyr quickly interrupted, "Look, you aren't going to starve in the first night, let's just use that as a last resort, okay?" After sitting around for a while longer, they decided it would be best if they got some rest. Zephyr offered to take the first watch. As Rick drifted slowly to sleep, he was wracked with terrible nightmares, all showing strange and horrifying events. First he was hatched from an egg, the breeder said no, and sent him to the wild. He was then captured by a trainer, he was happy, but unhappy. The trainer worked hard and had the best of intentions, but wasn't too bright. He decided to match him up in a battle against Groudon, he was going to die, this was it... Suddenly, the dream was gone. The whole landscape of burning magma disappeared and was replaced by a cool forest glade, the same one he used to train with Zephyr in at the Petalburg Woods. It was calm, a soothing female voice whispered to him, and told him it would be alright. His dreams then took a turn, instead to nicer things, like training, battling, winning, with him, not Zephyr doing it. Maybe this wouldn't be so bad. 3Luster Red trudged along the road. This was a huge disaster. Why had Cherry Jubilee allowed those THUGS to pay off the damage by leaving town, with just her, she would never understand. They had caused thousands of bits of damage, though they claimed it was an accident, she wasn't sure how you could uproot and kill seventy cherry trees by accident. Those freaks should have been reported to the guard, not given a job. Now they had left her in the middle of the desert, pulling two wagons of cherries AT ONCE. Within four hours of leaving Dodge Junction they had stolen her map and left. She wasn't even sure if they had ever had ANY intention of taking her all the way to Ponyville. Now she was stuck in a freaking desert with far more then her fair share of cherries to pull. And it was dark. This couldn't get much worse. The first thing she was going to do when she reached... anywhere, was to find a guard station and report those stupid freaks. "Celestia help us if there are more of those things out there." As she slowly moved along with her half ton of cherries, she noticed a small wisp of smoke rising into the air from a small distance off the road. I could have sworn there weren't any buffalo in the area. Well I guess you shouldn't take things for granted. She turned off the road and headed towards the smoke trail. If there were buffalo they may be hospitable enough to give her a place to stay for the night where she wouldn't feel threatened by the creatures that had been showing up. As she neared she realized it was no buffalo camp, but as she surveyed the group huddled around the fire pit, she began to recognize one of them. Then it hit her. "THERE YOU ARE YOU STUPID LIZARD THING!" Zephyr eyes snapped open suddenly to a loud, female, and obviously enraged female voice. He looked over, and saw what seemed to be the most brightly colored red thing he had ever seen in his life. When his sleepy eyes managed to focus more, he realized it was some sort of odd ponyta looking creature. He then responded with the full power of his pokemon intelligence. "Whuh?" "YOU HAVE BETTER HAVE A GOOD EXCUSE FOR LEAVING ME STRANDED OUT IN THE DESERT WITH TWO WHOLE CARTS OF CHERRIES TO PULL BY MYSELF." "Who are you?" By now the others had woken up too, and Rick was taking a defensive stance against the irate oddity. Of course, the only thing that Luster Red heard when the small green gecko spoke was "Treeko tree?" "Where is that big blue metal friend of yours? I can't understand you." Rick realized that he must have just talked in Pokespeack, and she couldn't. He looked down at the ground, and began writing with his finger. Luster saw and came closer, still glaring at Zephyr with all the force of a mare scorned. "Who are you and what do you want?" "What I want is for your big green friend to finish the job he agreed to and pay off the damage." "We don't know who you are. It's possible you met a different sceptile." "Oh don't give me that, Iv'e never seen anything like, any of you, or any of the other creatures that have been showing up." "There are two pikachus, and two pichus right here, that means that logically there are more than one sceptile." "Fine, you make a good point. But still, how am I gonna get two carts of cherries to Ponyville before they spoil? That big metal fella that was with that other... What did you call him again?" "He's a sceptile." "Right, that other sceptile, Gordon, destroyed thousands of bits worth of cherry trees on my boss's farm. He and his big blue metal friend were supposed to help me get them to market and sell them to pay it off. But he left not long after we got out of town." "Well, we're sorry to hear that." As Rick heard this, a plan began to form in his mind. "Look, we're lost, and have absolutely no food. Do you think, that if Zephyr were to pull the other cart to market for you, we could have some of the cherries to help keep us from starving." Luster considered this. She knew that there was almost no way for her to get the cart to Ponyville by herself. But what if these critters just ate a bunch of her cherries and ran off? Then again, another of the big ones kind destroyed an acre of cherry trees, by accident. If they wanted to, they could take them by force. "Fine, but only a few pounds for the big guy and two for the rest of ya'll to share." Rick and Luster shook on it. "The names Luster Red, I'm from Baltimare up north." "Rick, I'm from Petalburg. In Hoenn. "Uh huh, don't think Iv'e ever heard of either of those. Well I guess Iv'e never heard of a Sceptile either. We can head out in the morning. You want some cherries now?" All of the pokemon nodded eagerly. Luster uncovered the cherries and handed each of the smaller pokemon four, and Zephyr ten. After they had all eaten and licked their paws and claws respectively clean, they helped Luster set up her tent, and went back to sleep, except for Rick. The name Gordon had rung bells, Gordon was his fathers name, and the ponies description of the large blue metal creature that seemed to have been able to communicate with her sang metagross, his father had had a metang when he left. What if his father was here too, and was a sceptile as well? If so, this was his new chance to track him down. He would try to explain the situation to Luster tomorrow, for now he would stay awake, wondering, and hoping. 4The early part of the next morning was fairly uneventful. Luster woke them all up when it was still dark, when they complained she gave them a stern talking to about "rules in the workplace" since they were now in her temporary employ. They were all given a few more cherries, which didn't fill them up all to well, got Zephyr hooked up to the other cart and set out. It was mostly quiet, none of them spoke much as Luster couldn't understand a word they said. After they had been pulling the cart for about five hours, a voice suddenly rang out in their minds. “Greetings citizens of Equus, both old and new.” The group became even more silent. “I am Lord Arceus, creator of the Pokémon realm.” “You have no reason to fear me, I come in peace.” I have revealed myself to inform you that I am the one responsible for the Pokémon’s presence in this world, for the citizens of Equus, the Pokémon are the beings who have appeared over the past few days.” “To my Pokémon, I say this, I brought you, all of you, here so that you could live in peace, do not seek to harm the natives of this world, for I am the one responsible for your displacement. And to the Pokémon who went through changes when I brought you here I say this.” “You are the ones who proved themselves worthy, those who were fair, kind and good in the old world, consider this your reward. And to all of you, as sapients, the laws of Equus, and the varying countries, now apply to you, and only the laws of Equus. “That is all for now, but just to be clear, the Pokémon are not to be harmed simply out of spite, if you have a problem with what I’ve done, feel free to contact me, I currently reside in an ancient temple deep in the Everfree Forest, or a pocket dimension outside of the space time continuum, so if any of you wish to face the sheer power of a god, feel free to come by. Goodbye for now, though I doubt this will be the last you hear of me, and peace to you all.” Luster turned to the pokemon, as though hoping for more explanation, Rick bent down to begin writing in the sand, but was interrupted by Luster "I'd love to chat about this but I have a delivery to make and we're already late. So stop your gawking and lets move!" They continued onward, even though Luster had no time to stop and read dirt writing the rest of the caravan could talk normally, so they did. "So that's why we're pokemon now. Mila seemed to chatter constantly "It all makes sense. I didn't really think I was all that remarkable compared to people like pokemon rangers or gym leaders, I guess I made the cut. How many humans to you think came over? I wonder if he brought all the pokemon too or if he left some of the nasty ones behind. Is there a way to go back? Do you think I could ask to be a different pokemon? Oh sorry Pikachu I didn't mean to offend." "Will you shut up?" Interjected Luster. "I am given the impression that Pika, pi, chu, and Pikachu are the only words in your freaky language, but it's getting extremely annoying.' Milas ears drooped slightly, "Oh, sorry..." She said rubbing the back of her head. After the outburst the pokemon quieted down again, worried about losing their source of food. Rick continued to ponder a way that they could communicate. It had been established that she couldn't understand them, but using a physic or ghost types abilities pokemon and humans could form two way conversations. He needed to find either Gyro or Anne. They could of course also find any other pokemon with these abilities and invite it to the group. He had seen several other baltoy around but had seen no sign of his Claydol, Gyro, and he doubted that Arceus would have sent a ghost type pokemon like a banette to a desert. He would need to keep looking. ___ Several hours later, Zephyr was beginning to tire, he wasn't used to this sort of strain, he usually spent any physical exercise running, and practicing moves, pulling a heavy load of Arceus knows how much was an alien feeling to him, and not because he was pulling one along with an alien. He wished that Rick had become a fully evolved sceptile so he would be capable of pulling the load occasionally. But he was apparently still a child in Arceus's eyes, and so was made into a treeko, small and incapables of doing any sort of hard labor of this magnitude. He considered asking Luster for a break but she seemed to be doing fine with her cart despite being substantially smaller than him, and was being rather irritable. He squinted ahead, seeing something on the horizon to the right of the road. It looked like a second, lighter, higher horizon, which also appeared to be shifting and getting closer. He pulled ahead a bit and tapped his new boss on the shoulder. She snapped her head back towards him in irritation before seeing what he was pointing to. Instantly her demeanor changed from irritation to horror. "Sandstorm!" She shrieked at the top of her lungs. All of the pokemons eyes widened. Brom and Mila had never experienced a sandstorm in Sinnoh, but they knew from books and movies just how destructive they could be. The storm appeared to be moving quickly towards them, already covering a third of the distance between them and its previous location. Luster unharnessed herself began to feverishly dig through the large bag on the side of her cart, pulling out two large red tarps, which she quickly threw over the two carts. By now Zephyr had gotten out of his own harness and used dig, creating a small shelter from the storm out of a barrier of dirt. He knew it wouldn't do much but he had to do something. The storm was now upon them. Everything was significantly darker. Rick was blinded by the sand in his eyes. He heard some sort of pounding, like two pairs of feet. The wind picked up suddenly and he was nearly blown over until he felt a clawed hand grab him and hold him close. He recognized it as Zephyrs, he looked to his left and saw several small yellow shapes huddled agains the wall, and another larger red one just past them. Suddenly he saw something large and red flash by, making a flapping sound as it went, and then another. He realized moments later they were the tarps. Suddenly he felt himself being lifted up, and was set on something large, blue and rocky. He held on tight as it began to move forward at high speeds, shifting up and down. Looking behind him he saw Zephyr, and a large blue mass swinging back and forth behind them, at the end of whatever creature had picked them up and was carrying them. He looked back forward and saw what appeared to be a little light filtering in through the sand. They were moving towards it. With a burst of speed to creature pushed through an made it to the edge. Rushing out into the open air. Rick took a deep breath, now realizing he had been holding it as best he could in the storm. He inspected the creature, and found it to be a shiny tyrantrum. He heard more thudding behind him and turned to find another normally colored one coming up behind. "C'mon Tyrantrum you know I'm not used to this body yet, wait up for me." Rick recognized that voice "Tyler?" he stuttered out. "Huh? Yeah it's me. Your voice is familiar... Wait... Rick? Is that you?" "Yeah! Fancy meeting you on a different planet." "Small new world I guess. Oh and look who we found," he laughed, gesturing behind Rick. The treeko turned to see a large black top creature. "Hello Rick, It is nice to see you again master." It was Gyro! He now had two of the members of his team. And could communicate with Luster now. "Gyro! It's good to see you to. And you know what I told you about calling me master." "My apologies. Is it just you and Zephyr or have you found the others?" "No it's just us three now from our team. Hey can you set up a psychic link between us and Luster over there?" "Of course, Rick." He walked over to Luster, who appeared to be in shock at the loss of her goods. She was looking away from the group, towards the now retreating cloud. In the newly formed dunes there was no sight of the two carts. "It's gone... My delivery, it's a failure. I'm so sorry Cherry Jubilee." Cautious of her now seemingly delicate state, he lightly tapped to pony on the shoulder. She looked back to him. "I suppose you want to know about payment don't you, you stupid gecko." "Well... Actually I was just going to tell you that I found my friend, who can let us talk." Her eyes instantly widened at the clearly spoken Equish words. "You can talk now? How?" "He's a psychic type so he can link our minds and act as a translator." She looked behind him, seeing for the first time the two eight food monstrosities and large black floating top. Realizing how she would likely react to the strange creatures before them he quickly interrupted her, "Don't worry they're friends, they helped us out of the storm." Nodding, she slowly approached the formidable creatures. "Um, hello, th-thank you for saving me, I guess." Tyler smirked. He and Tyrantrum had been chased out of a nearby town by the small colorful locals, and had expected such a reaction from the small red pony. "It's nice to meet you, I'm Tyler. This is Tyrantrum." "Um... Hi I'm Luster." They two stared at each other awkwardly for a moment or two before Brom spoke up. "Now what are we going to do for food."
1Rick exited the building, ignoring his shiny new Feather Badge, instead assisting his partner Zephyr limp towards the nearest Pokemon Center. "Iv'e already told you, I don't need any help." "And Iv'e already told you, It's my fault you got hit with that aerial ace attack. Iv'e gotta do something to make it up." "Slowing me down like this isn't what I have in mind." "I already told you, you're going to get fat if you eat any more pokepuffs a day." "It's a special occasion." The boy sighed, his sceptile was always a stubborn one, he seemed to think of nothing but food. "How about this, you can have three, if you do more training today. We need to work on your attack, that rock tomb should have taken her swellow out in one hit." "I would have done better if I was battling on a full stomach." "Oh shut up." They arricved at the center, conveniently located just on the other side of a small patch of trees from the gym. "Hello and welcome to the Foretree Pokemon Center, how can I help you." Greeted Nurse Joy. "I need three of my Pokemon healed please." "I would be happy to help, are the others in their pokeballs?" "Yeah here." He handed over the other two. "Chancey please help this Sceptile to room 14." The poke-assistant complied happily, helping support Zephyr as he limped through the doorway. "He doesn't look to be in too bad of shape, it should only be an hour, I hope you can wait. We have a bit of a waiting list. Some group of trainers though it would be smart to attack a herd of tropius with mostly water types." She added with a roll of her eyes. "Sure thing, and also while I'm up here can I rent a room?" "I'm sorry but we're booked, you could try the Center on the East side of town. They tend to get less traffic." "Kay, thanks for the suggestion." Rick took a glance out the window, noticing it was already beginning to get dark. After taking a seat, he took out his buzznav, and took a look at the latest news. "Why does it always seem like half of these stories are about me?" He whispered to himself. He didn't even remember seeing anyone around when he caught his zubat, how are there people who saw nickname it? He was beginning to believe he may have a stalker who works at the buzznav station in Mauville. After some time Nurse Joy came back out and handed him his pokeballs back. "Your sceptile will be out in a minute. I must say, he's a beatiful specimen, I don't think Iv'e ever seen a shiny of his kind before." "Oh yeah thanks." He always became rather uncomfortable whenever someone mentioned Zephyrs rare pigmentation. He knew about the whole process by which he was bred, and it was horrifying. He wondered if he had ever unknowingly passed by one of Zephyrs one hundred twenty six siblings and cousins. He popped the pokeballs back into his belt and sat up. He was a bit sore still from the hike to the city all the way from Mauville. It had taken a whole week, and much of it was rather hilly and rocky. He groaned as his muscles begged for more rest. "I should have waited longer before challenging Winona. Uuuuggghhh." He looked to his right and noticed Zephyr passing through the doorway into the main lobby. "Hey Rick, didja get us a room?" "No, they're booked, were gonna have to go even farther to the Center on the other side of town. Or, we could head over to Robinsons base and camp out there for the night," He smirked, "I'm sure he wouldn't mind, after all, we already took his flag." The forest pokemon smiled too, "Sounds good, cmon, I'll give you a ride." They exited the center, and Rick climbed onto his pokemon's back. Zephyr made good time to the base on route 119 just outside of town. Just as they were entering, they stopped, hearing a voice in their head. “Rest now my children, for when you awake a whole new world shall be your home.” Suddenly everything went dark. ___ Rick woke suddenly. The first thing he noticed was the woods surrounding him. At first he thought it was the trees near Foretree, but then he noticed something off about them. Then it hit him, These aren't the kind of trees that you can find near Foretree, or anywhere in Hoenn. He attempted to stand up and find out just what was going on, but a strange weight fixed to the bottom of his back caused him to fall over, and he found himself laying on something large and firm, that he could feel through. He turned his head around and saw a large green mass behind him. Upon further investigation he realized it was a treeko tail! Rick screamed and tried to get up again, this time falling forward, and throwing his hands out in front of him. It was then he saw that his hands had become green, and each only had three fingers, each ending in a rounded nub without a fingernail. They reminded him of... Oh arceus no. He stood for a third time, this time succeeding, even if he still felt wobbly. He looked around and saw a large electric blue mass just next to him. That must be Zephyr, well at least he doesn't seem to have changed. He wobbled over to the grass type, fall forward just in time to land his hands on the now giant to him pokemons back. He pushed on it a few times, and when there was no response, attempted to climb over to get to Zephyrs face. He found it much easier than expected, his fingers mysteriously sticking where he put them. He made it to his partners head, and poked him a few times between his two crests. When there was no response, he took his new sticky fingers and pried open one of the giants eyelids. The reaction was... less than instantaneous. Zephyr moved his head away from Rick and groaned. He pushed his weight off the ground and looked down at the new treeko. The grass type yawned, holding one clawed hand up to his beak, and finally opened his eyes on his own. He looked around, then glanced down. He was met with the sight of a small terrified treeko staring up at him. "Well hey there little guy, you have a trainer, or parents?" "Zephyr! It's me! Rick! I just woke up like this. We've gotta go find someone to fix this fast! What if it's permanent?!" "Huh?" The sceptile tilted his head and blinked confusedly. "No that's not possible, I've never heard of someone becoming a pokemon, where are your parents?" "No Zephyr! It's really me! Cmon, ask me something only I would know." The larger grass starter was getting annoyed and suspicious at the same time. "Fine, who is my sisters trainer?" "Ha! That's a trick question! You were separated from your siblings in a pokemon ranger rescue raid. You don't know any of your siblings." "Geez, you don't have to be so cold about it. Okay I believe you. But who would we go find to fix this?" "Um... That's a good question. How about the professor? No... to far away... Maybe the people at the weather station could help! They're scientists." "I doubt a meteorologist would have the know-how to turn a human turned pokemon back into a human, Professor Birch too." "Oh... Yeah. Well I think Birch would be our best shot wouldn't he? I mean, he's the most prominent pokemon professor in Hoenn." "Yeah, but how would we get there?" "I know! Now that I have the Feather Badge we can fly there! Just let me get..." He looked down, and to his horror noticed his belt, and thus all of his pokeballs were missing. The only item left being the key stone on his wrist. "B-but, where are they? What..." They looked at each other with a mixture of confusion and horror, they were now stranded in a strange forest, one of them transformed, and all of their friends were missing. What a special occasion indeed. _______ "Okay... Let's see, four pounds to a bucket, a maximum of one hundred pounds to a cart, sixty bits per pound, two carts, total profits should be..." Luster Red scrunched her eyes, she had always been bad at doing math in her head, she usually needed paper to work it on, however, the middle of a cherry farm was not the most hospitable location for working math. "Okay, each cart has twenty five buckets, and thus..." she was cut off suddenly by the sound of screaming and what sounded like trees cracking and falling. She looked around, and saw that all of the other cherry pickers nearby had also heard it. After a brief pause, they all at once rushed towards the noise, including Luster. They all began to crowd around what appeared to be a large clearing in the trees, where a large blue four legged creature and a tall green lizard-like creature were standing in the center. Both looking rather fearful and confused. "All right everyone whats goin' on?" Luster heard the familiar voice of Cherry Jubilee right behind her. She turned to face her. The familiar large maned mare wore a confused and mildly irritated look. The cherry bucking season was one where even a slight bit of slacking could throw off the whole schedule, and it was important that workers stay at their posts at all times. "Um, I'm not sure ma'am, from what I can tell those two... things over there just destroyed all of those trees." Cherry Jubillee's eyes bugged out suddenly when she got a glimpse of the large clear space on the other side of the crowd. "Come with me Luster, I think I might need help of that city brain o' yer's." Luster's face fell. All the ponies out here had a tendency to underestimate their own intelligence. They always seemed to think "Luster is from the city, she must know all about that stuff," when that was almost the opposite of the case. She had always slacked in school and by city standards was probably about the same as a country bumpkin. But that didn't stop them from asking her for help. When Cherry Jubilee had learned of this she had begun to ask her for help too, less in a genuine way but more to mock the fact that they all went to her for their "educated" problems. As they cut through the crowd Luster got a better look at the wreckage. About ten trees had all been knocked down and mutilated, and appeared to be entangled in some strange thorny vine. The vine already seemed to be withering and dying as she walked through, and when she bumped one is snapped off the rest and turned to dust when it hit the ground. Once her boss had surveyed the damage, she turned around and called out a brusque order. "Everyone back to their duties we have a quota to meet!" Once the crowd had scattered she turned around to face the taller green creature. "Explain yourself or I swear to Celestia I will have you both thrown in the stocks for weeks even if we have to make a custom one for the big guy." The lizard thing's eyes widened even further. He waved his hands defensively, "Scep scep, tile, sceptile, sceptile, tile scep tile tile..." he was cut off suddenly by Jubilee. "I must apologize but I can't understand... whatever it is you're saying." The tall ones eyes grew even larger, now seeming to reach their breaking point. He turned around to the metal thing, and uttered a few words to it quickly. It shifted it's torso up and down in a fashion similar to a nod, and it's eyes began to glow for a few seconds before fading away. The lizard turned back to Cherry and said in plain Equish, "I'm sorry, didn't realize you couldn't understand Pokespeak. My name is Gordon. I must apologize for the damages, I must assure you it was purely accidental. Surely we can come to some sort of compromise seeing as I don't have any Yen on me." "I don't know whatever money you just mentioned is, but round here we use bits. I think the only way someone of your apparently destructive nature could repay is to pull some carts to a delivery point and guard in on the way there since you seem to be so apparently powerful." The creature, now known to be Gordon, sank a little at the news. "I suppose that's better than the stocks. Will that cover it all?" Cherry's eyes narrowed. "I'm afraid not, you've caused about five thousand bits worth of damage, and the guard and escort service together will usually pay the employee around four thousand depending on the quality given on the job. But we can't stand to have you causing any more damage on my farm. You will be accompanying Luster Red here, seeing as she has already finished pickin' her zone. You leave in three hours, help her get the carts together. She then looked to Luster, "And please Luster, keep a close eye on these folks."
2Due to his inability to walk properly because of his tail, Rick had to ride on Zephyrs back. This wasn't anything unusual as they often did this, however it was humiliating this time. He wished he could walk on his own, but they both agreed that time should not be wasted teaching him to walk with a tail. The entire dash through the new territory was spent watching carefully for trainers, after all, the last thing he wanted was to be caught. They flew threw the strange terrain for about a half hour without any sort of event. This gave Rick plenty of time to think of the implications of his new form. Was he the only one? Now that the initial shock was over he was left to contemplate the meaning of the words in his mind. "A whole new world shall be your home?” he muttered to himself. "What on Earth could that mean?" His thoughts were interrupted by a loud roar, and a large number of terrified squeaks. Zephyr stopped on a tree branch to survey the event unfolding. A pair of pichu and two pikachu were cowering up against a fairly small cliff of about twenty feet in height. It didn't take long to deduce the source of the more aggressive noise. A large mustard yellow creature was cornering them, looking slightly singed and very angry. It was probably about ten feet tall and fifteen long, it seemed similar to a male pyroar, with a large red skorupi tail and matching zubat wings. It slowly advanced, obviously wary of the shockingly powerful pokemon. Zephyr began to whisper, "Stay in this tree, I'll handle this. Don't get involved you're even weaker than before." Rick clambered off of Zephyrs back as quietly as he could. Once Zephyr was sure he was steady on the tree branch he hopped down to the ground, making a soft thud. The strange creature heard it, and turned to challenge the grass type. "I don't know what you are but you need to leave them alone." The beast showed no signs of understanding, instead crouching low as though it were preparing to strike. "Okay then..." was Zephyrs muted reply. The yellow monster charged, Zephyr easily dodging out of the way, crashing into a bush full of thorns. Once it carefully extricated itself it turned and growled threateningly, obviously not ready to give up. Zephyrs tail began to glow, and before the beast could react he leaped from the tree smashing it into it's face yelling "leaf blade." The creature roared in pain and swiped at the forest pokemon, who easily dodged, now grabbing on a tree limb above the battle ground, holding it with his clawed feet, he then exclaimed x-scissor, jumping down and slashing the anomalies face with his glowing arm leaves. The creature struck with it's tail, not managing to stab him, but instead slamming him sideways after a close dodge to the right. Zephyr flew through the trees before hitting a rock, the pods on his back painfully stretching to accommodate the force applied. He got up slowly, the beast was swishing his tail back and forth in front of him in an obviously mocking gesture. The sceptile grinned, well let's see if that mega stone of yours can work when you're a treeko" he yelled to Rick, who quickly raised up his arm and tapped the stone on the bracelet, which began to glow, as did Zephyr. After the light faded Zephyr stood in place, now changed. The creature was unfazed by the sudden transformation, and charged again. The sceptile waited against the rock up until the creature was almost upon him, he then suddenly grabbed two of the pods from his back and threw them at the beast, exploding on contact as he leaped of the way with greatly increased speed. After he landed he surveyed the damage. The monster was out cold, in a large patch of scorched earth and plants. He circled around it back to the clearing where the battle began. Finding Rick and the rescued pichus and pikachu up on the cliff out of harms way. He grinned, "Don't worry little guys Zephyr has saved the day once again, that big meanie won't be bothering us again." Suddenly the expressions of the smaller pokemon above changed suddenly to horror. Before he could turn around the creature had pounced on him, pinning him to the ground, it's front paws resting on his arms and one of his back on his dangerous tail. He couldn't get it off of him. Suddenly he heard a rumble and a loud wham! The giant fell to his right, luckily not landing on him, and to his left a large stone hit the ground with a thud. He looked up to find the pikachu and Rick both standing over a small indentation in the cliff, where a rock might have been rolled off. "I need to learn to shut my mouth." _____ After moving a distance from the unconscious behemoth, the groups introduced themselves. They learned that the pikachu was named Mila, and she was traveling with her younger brother Brom. They were both transformed into a pikachu and pichu respectively. The rest of their teams and gear was missing too. They agreed to travel together to the nearest town, to see if there were even more humans turned pokemon, and possibly going further to find someone who could help them. They set out, Zephyr easily accommodating all five of the passengers. They didn't go much farther before coming across the edge of the woods. But unfortunately, instead of finding a town, they were instead met with a large expanse of rolling hills to the left, and a deep foreboding gorge to the right. The choice was obvious. As began walking through the fields to what appeared to be mountains in the far distance, they kept up a casual conversation. Rick and Zephyr detailing their journey starting in Petalburg, with a rough outline of the events up to them receiving the feather badge, and Ricks mysterious transformation. Mila and Brom were both from the Sinnoh Region, beginning their journey in Jubilife city. They weren't collecting badges, instead both simply exploring the many wonders of Sinnoh. Mila had begun her journey four years before Brom, and came back to continue her journey with him. They both received their starters courtesy of their uncle who was a prominent breeder in the Jubilife area. They had been in the middle of watching a contest in Veilstone when they found themselves here in the strange forest. "I bet you were shocked when you first heard Zephyr talking huh?" Brom asked giving Rick a knowing look. Rick smirked, he and Zephyr had been able to communicate verbally since he was six years old, it came as part of being shunned by the other kids at school for not having a dad, they acted as though it was so unusual. When they saw him talking to his treeko and carrying on conversation, it just got worse. "You would be surprised about whether or not I was surprised." "Well whats that supposed to mean?" Rick explained about the special circumstances between him and his partner, the new pichu's eyes widening at every word. "Wow I wish I could talk with my pichu. Before now I mean." Mila piped up, "So how long have you been traveling in that story of yours?" "About four years." Brom made a cocky grunt, "Ha! What kind of trainer takes four years to get six badges? What did you leave out of that story?" "Private things," was the brusque reply. Truth was, Rick never liked to talk about his father. He had been a ranger for some time before being disgraced when he was accused of stealing evidence to a case of excessive pokemon breeding. The case had been over for some time, and he had decided to add Zephyr, then a treeko, to his team so he could still have a "normal" life for a pokemon. His commanding officer had disagreed, wanting the shiny treeko for himself, and made a full inquiry into the matter. Although it was decided by the Rager Union Council Rick's father had a right to the treeko, by that time the case had been made public and many felt he shouldn't get Zephyr. In order to save themselves from negative publicity they gave him a dishonorable discharge, but still allowing him to keep the rescued pokemon. Now disgraced and openly despised by the majority of Hoenn, he left the pokemon to his son and left home. Rick had spent the majority of the past four years searching for his father. But he hadn't had any fresh news since two years after he began, learning that he had apparently been traveling with concert crews, using his once noble crime fighting team to work security in large stadiums and amphitheaters. It made Zephyr even happier he had been left with Rick. After they had walked a few miles away from the woods, they finally came upon the first sign of civilization, a run down dirt road. "Well then, it's time to make an important decision. Right, or left." Mila spoke up, "Oh I wish I had my coin flip app on my Poketch so badly!" ___ Despite the lack of a coin toss app, it was decided to go away from the spooky canyon, and head to the left. They traveled several more hours along the road, and as they traveled the greenery slowly seemed to fade, becoming more desert-like. The ground seemed cracked and dry in most places, which was more like what he had heard the desert in Kalos was like, the ones in Unova and Hoenn being much more sand based. They noticed some desert pokemon around them, all seeming to be confused. Some nesting pokemon like trapinch were building new homes. "Hey, guys," began Mila, "Is it just me or are those tall cactus looking pokemon in the distance following us?" Rick, Zephyr and Brom all squinted into the direction Mila pointed. There were indeed a group of four or five cacturne, all standing still a fair distance away. "Oh no, thats not good," muttered Zephyr. "What?" asked Brom, "What are those pokemon?" "Those are cacturne. They're notorious for attacking desert travelers at night. We need to do something to get rid of them." "Like what?" questioned Mila, "They're so far away they would get away before we could attack them." "We're just gonna have to shake em'. Get on my back again." "Do we have to? It's not very comfortable." asked Mila's pichu. "We do not want to be ambushed by a group of cacturne," Rick answered in a serious tone "cmon, lets go." They all clambered back onto Zephyrs back and rode about eighteen miles like that, once Zephyr began to tire they decided they should make camp. The pichu and Pikachu both worked together to find dried out wood nearby while Mila and Brom dug a fire pit, so as not to attract more cacturne. Once it became dark they lit the fire, and huddled around it for warmth in the cold desert night. They exchanged stories about their pokemon journeys, Mila talking about the strange circumstances through which she had obtained her sneasel, who had previously been stealing bungee cords from hikers to make a hanging nest over a canyon. After having some of her tent materials seized she tracked it down and tried to get it back, but had instead ended up dangling over the deep crevice from said hanging nest. The pokemon saved her, and agreed to join her team under the condition that she would buy him a hammock that he could sleep in on their journey. Brom described what he believed to be with the rare pokemon, rotom, in the manor near Eterna city. He had tried to catch it but after several nights of spooks and pranks he gave up and left with his sister. In the spirit of the campfire circle Rick told of his first pokemon catch, a wingull on route 102. It was far from an easy catch do to it's agility and aptness for flying away. He had to track it down five times before getting it with a pokeball. He had named it Ace, due to the fact that two out of the five encounters had ended with Zephyr being badly injured by an aerial ace attack. The wingull was now a pelipper, and he hoped he was doing okay, wherever it is he ended up. Despite the happy atmosphere, they were all unable to conceal their hunger from one another or themselves. They needed food. "Hey Zephyr, you know that thing we agreed never to do again?" asked Rick. "Cmon' dude, we aren't that desperate yet are we?" "We don't know how long this desert could go on, and we can't afford to turn around after the progress we've made." Mila interjected, "What are you talking about?" Zephyr shifted uncomfortably. "You know the pods on my back?" he asked with a grimace. "Yeah, what about em?" "They're full of extra nutrients Iv'e stored up over time, good for an extra boost during battle usually. I can feed off of them for a few weeks before I run out. They can also be... picked, and... eaten," he added with a shudder. "So? What's wrong with that?" questioned Brom. "They taste foul." Rick answered in a flat tone. "But they could be our only option if it came down to it. "Oooooohhh. I think I'd rather wait a bit longer before we resort to something like that." Mila said with a strong blush. "We're going to need our strength though." and then quickly added: "I'm not saying right now but it may have to be fairly soon. Who knows how well our new bodies can cope with no food?" "I don't know, but I think it's longer than one night." "I know, but after most pokemon evolve, they need lots of food to make up for the loss of energy occurring during the transformation, what if it's the same thing with us?" Pichu blanched, "You guys aren't gonna starve are you?" Zephyr quickly interrupted, "Look, you aren't going to starve in the first night, let's just use that as a last resort, okay?" After sitting around for a while longer, they decided it would be best if they got some rest. Zephyr offered to take the first watch. As Rick drifted slowly to sleep, he was wracked with terrible nightmares, all showing strange and horrifying events. First he was hatched from an egg, the breeder said no, and sent him to the wild. He was then captured by a trainer, he was happy, but unhappy. The trainer worked hard and had the best of intentions, but wasn't too bright. He decided to match him up in a battle against Groudon, he was going to die, this was it... Suddenly, the dream was gone. The whole landscape of burning magma disappeared and was replaced by a cool forest glade, the same one he used to train with Zephyr in at the Petalburg Woods. It was calm, a soothing female voice whispered to him, and told him it would be alright. His dreams then took a turn, instead to nicer things, like training, battling, winning, with him, not Zephyr doing it. Maybe this wouldn't be so bad.
3Luster Red trudged along the road. This was a huge disaster. Why had Cherry Jubilee allowed those THUGS to pay off the damage by leaving town, with just her, she would never understand. They had caused thousands of bits of damage, though they claimed it was an accident, she wasn't sure how you could uproot and kill seventy cherry trees by accident. Those freaks should have been reported to the guard, not given a job. Now they had left her in the middle of the desert, pulling two wagons of cherries AT ONCE. Within four hours of leaving Dodge Junction they had stolen her map and left. She wasn't even sure if they had ever had ANY intention of taking her all the way to Ponyville. Now she was stuck in a freaking desert with far more then her fair share of cherries to pull. And it was dark. This couldn't get much worse. The first thing she was going to do when she reached... anywhere, was to find a guard station and report those stupid freaks. "Celestia help us if there are more of those things out there." As she slowly moved along with her half ton of cherries, she noticed a small wisp of smoke rising into the air from a small distance off the road. I could have sworn there weren't any buffalo in the area. Well I guess you shouldn't take things for granted. She turned off the road and headed towards the smoke trail. If there were buffalo they may be hospitable enough to give her a place to stay for the night where she wouldn't feel threatened by the creatures that had been showing up. As she neared she realized it was no buffalo camp, but as she surveyed the group huddled around the fire pit, she began to recognize one of them. Then it hit her. "THERE YOU ARE YOU STUPID LIZARD THING!" Zephyr eyes snapped open suddenly to a loud, female, and obviously enraged female voice. He looked over, and saw what seemed to be the most brightly colored red thing he had ever seen in his life. When his sleepy eyes managed to focus more, he realized it was some sort of odd ponyta looking creature. He then responded with the full power of his pokemon intelligence. "Whuh?" "YOU HAVE BETTER HAVE A GOOD EXCUSE FOR LEAVING ME STRANDED OUT IN THE DESERT WITH TWO WHOLE CARTS OF CHERRIES TO PULL BY MYSELF." "Who are you?" By now the others had woken up too, and Rick was taking a defensive stance against the irate oddity. Of course, the only thing that Luster Red heard when the small green gecko spoke was "Treeko tree?" "Where is that big blue metal friend of yours? I can't understand you." Rick realized that he must have just talked in Pokespeack, and she couldn't. He looked down at the ground, and began writing with his finger. Luster saw and came closer, still glaring at Zephyr with all the force of a mare scorned. "Who are you and what do you want?" "What I want is for your big green friend to finish the job he agreed to and pay off the damage." "We don't know who you are. It's possible you met a different sceptile." "Oh don't give me that, Iv'e never seen anything like, any of you, or any of the other creatures that have been showing up." "There are two pikachus, and two pichus right here, that means that logically there are more than one sceptile." "Fine, you make a good point. But still, how am I gonna get two carts of cherries to Ponyville before they spoil? That big metal fella that was with that other... What did you call him again?" "He's a sceptile." "Right, that other sceptile, Gordon, destroyed thousands of bits worth of cherry trees on my boss's farm. He and his big blue metal friend were supposed to help me get them to market and sell them to pay it off. But he left not long after we got out of town." "Well, we're sorry to hear that." As Rick heard this, a plan began to form in his mind. "Look, we're lost, and have absolutely no food. Do you think, that if Zephyr were to pull the other cart to market for you, we could have some of the cherries to help keep us from starving." Luster considered this. She knew that there was almost no way for her to get the cart to Ponyville by herself. But what if these critters just ate a bunch of her cherries and ran off? Then again, another of the big ones kind destroyed an acre of cherry trees, by accident. If they wanted to, they could take them by force. "Fine, but only a few pounds for the big guy and two for the rest of ya'll to share." Rick and Luster shook on it. "The names Luster Red, I'm from Baltimare up north." "Rick, I'm from Petalburg. In Hoenn. "Uh huh, don't think Iv'e ever heard of either of those. Well I guess Iv'e never heard of a Sceptile either. We can head out in the morning. You want some cherries now?" All of the pokemon nodded eagerly. Luster uncovered the cherries and handed each of the smaller pokemon four, and Zephyr ten. After they had all eaten and licked their paws and claws respectively clean, they helped Luster set up her tent, and went back to sleep, except for Rick. The name Gordon had rung bells, Gordon was his fathers name, and the ponies description of the large blue metal creature that seemed to have been able to communicate with her sang metagross, his father had had a metang when he left. What if his father was here too, and was a sceptile as well? If so, this was his new chance to track him down. He would try to explain the situation to Luster tomorrow, for now he would stay awake, wondering, and hoping.
4The early part of the next morning was fairly uneventful. Luster woke them all up when it was still dark, when they complained she gave them a stern talking to about "rules in the workplace" since they were now in her temporary employ. They were all given a few more cherries, which didn't fill them up all to well, got Zephyr hooked up to the other cart and set out. It was mostly quiet, none of them spoke much as Luster couldn't understand a word they said. After they had been pulling the cart for about five hours, a voice suddenly rang out in their minds. “Greetings citizens of Equus, both old and new.” The group became even more silent. “I am Lord Arceus, creator of the Pokémon realm.” “You have no reason to fear me, I come in peace.” I have revealed myself to inform you that I am the one responsible for the Pokémon’s presence in this world, for the citizens of Equus, the Pokémon are the beings who have appeared over the past few days.” “To my Pokémon, I say this, I brought you, all of you, here so that you could live in peace, do not seek to harm the natives of this world, for I am the one responsible for your displacement. And to the Pokémon who went through changes when I brought you here I say this.” “You are the ones who proved themselves worthy, those who were fair, kind and good in the old world, consider this your reward. And to all of you, as sapients, the laws of Equus, and the varying countries, now apply to you, and only the laws of Equus. “That is all for now, but just to be clear, the Pokémon are not to be harmed simply out of spite, if you have a problem with what I’ve done, feel free to contact me, I currently reside in an ancient temple deep in the Everfree Forest, or a pocket dimension outside of the space time continuum, so if any of you wish to face the sheer power of a god, feel free to come by. Goodbye for now, though I doubt this will be the last you hear of me, and peace to you all.” Luster turned to the pokemon, as though hoping for more explanation, Rick bent down to begin writing in the sand, but was interrupted by Luster "I'd love to chat about this but I have a delivery to make and we're already late. So stop your gawking and lets move!" They continued onward, even though Luster had no time to stop and read dirt writing the rest of the caravan could talk normally, so they did. "So that's why we're pokemon now. Mila seemed to chatter constantly "It all makes sense. I didn't really think I was all that remarkable compared to people like pokemon rangers or gym leaders, I guess I made the cut. How many humans to you think came over? I wonder if he brought all the pokemon too or if he left some of the nasty ones behind. Is there a way to go back? Do you think I could ask to be a different pokemon? Oh sorry Pikachu I didn't mean to offend." "Will you shut up?" Interjected Luster. "I am given the impression that Pika, pi, chu, and Pikachu are the only words in your freaky language, but it's getting extremely annoying.' Milas ears drooped slightly, "Oh, sorry..." She said rubbing the back of her head. After the outburst the pokemon quieted down again, worried about losing their source of food. Rick continued to ponder a way that they could communicate. It had been established that she couldn't understand them, but using a physic or ghost types abilities pokemon and humans could form two way conversations. He needed to find either Gyro or Anne. They could of course also find any other pokemon with these abilities and invite it to the group. He had seen several other baltoy around but had seen no sign of his Claydol, Gyro, and he doubted that Arceus would have sent a ghost type pokemon like a banette to a desert. He would need to keep looking. ___ Several hours later, Zephyr was beginning to tire, he wasn't used to this sort of strain, he usually spent any physical exercise running, and practicing moves, pulling a heavy load of Arceus knows how much was an alien feeling to him, and not because he was pulling one along with an alien. He wished that Rick had become a fully evolved sceptile so he would be capable of pulling the load occasionally. But he was apparently still a child in Arceus's eyes, and so was made into a treeko, small and incapables of doing any sort of hard labor of this magnitude. He considered asking Luster for a break but she seemed to be doing fine with her cart despite being substantially smaller than him, and was being rather irritable. He squinted ahead, seeing something on the horizon to the right of the road. It looked like a second, lighter, higher horizon, which also appeared to be shifting and getting closer. He pulled ahead a bit and tapped his new boss on the shoulder. She snapped her head back towards him in irritation before seeing what he was pointing to. Instantly her demeanor changed from irritation to horror. "Sandstorm!" She shrieked at the top of her lungs. All of the pokemons eyes widened. Brom and Mila had never experienced a sandstorm in Sinnoh, but they knew from books and movies just how destructive they could be. The storm appeared to be moving quickly towards them, already covering a third of the distance between them and its previous location. Luster unharnessed herself began to feverishly dig through the large bag on the side of her cart, pulling out two large red tarps, which she quickly threw over the two carts. By now Zephyr had gotten out of his own harness and used dig, creating a small shelter from the storm out of a barrier of dirt. He knew it wouldn't do much but he had to do something. The storm was now upon them. Everything was significantly darker. Rick was blinded by the sand in his eyes. He heard some sort of pounding, like two pairs of feet. The wind picked up suddenly and he was nearly blown over until he felt a clawed hand grab him and hold him close. He recognized it as Zephyrs, he looked to his left and saw several small yellow shapes huddled agains the wall, and another larger red one just past them. Suddenly he saw something large and red flash by, making a flapping sound as it went, and then another. He realized moments later they were the tarps. Suddenly he felt himself being lifted up, and was set on something large, blue and rocky. He held on tight as it began to move forward at high speeds, shifting up and down. Looking behind him he saw Zephyr, and a large blue mass swinging back and forth behind them, at the end of whatever creature had picked them up and was carrying them. He looked back forward and saw what appeared to be a little light filtering in through the sand. They were moving towards it. With a burst of speed to creature pushed through an made it to the edge. Rushing out into the open air. Rick took a deep breath, now realizing he had been holding it as best he could in the storm. He inspected the creature, and found it to be a shiny tyrantrum. He heard more thudding behind him and turned to find another normally colored one coming up behind. "C'mon Tyrantrum you know I'm not used to this body yet, wait up for me." Rick recognized that voice "Tyler?" he stuttered out. "Huh? Yeah it's me. Your voice is familiar... Wait... Rick? Is that you?" "Yeah! Fancy meeting you on a different planet." "Small new world I guess. Oh and look who we found," he laughed, gesturing behind Rick. The treeko turned to see a large black top creature. "Hello Rick, It is nice to see you again master." It was Gyro! He now had two of the members of his team. And could communicate with Luster now. "Gyro! It's good to see you to. And you know what I told you about calling me master." "My apologies. Is it just you and Zephyr or have you found the others?" "No it's just us three now from our team. Hey can you set up a psychic link between us and Luster over there?" "Of course, Rick." He walked over to Luster, who appeared to be in shock at the loss of her goods. She was looking away from the group, towards the now retreating cloud. In the newly formed dunes there was no sight of the two carts. "It's gone... My delivery, it's a failure. I'm so sorry Cherry Jubilee." Cautious of her now seemingly delicate state, he lightly tapped to pony on the shoulder. She looked back to him. "I suppose you want to know about payment don't you, you stupid gecko." "Well... Actually I was just going to tell you that I found my friend, who can let us talk." Her eyes instantly widened at the clearly spoken Equish words. "You can talk now? How?" "He's a psychic type so he can link our minds and act as a translator." She looked behind him, seeing for the first time the two eight food monstrosities and large black floating top. Realizing how she would likely react to the strange creatures before them he quickly interrupted her, "Don't worry they're friends, they helped us out of the storm." Nodding, she slowly approached the formidable creatures. "Um, hello, th-thank you for saving me, I guess." Tyler smirked. He and Tyrantrum had been chased out of a nearby town by the small colorful locals, and had expected such a reaction from the small red pony. "It's nice to meet you, I'm Tyler. This is Tyrantrum." "Um... Hi I'm Luster." They two stared at each other awkwardly for a moment or two before Brom spoke up. "Now what are we going to do for food."
