A New World, A New Journey

Luster 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.