A New World, A New Journey

The 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."