A New World, a Fearful Way

by Votederpycausemufins

ch. 5 hardships

It had been two days since Lea had met Caddi, almost two weeks since the pokemon had arrived on Equus. The pokemon center the two had made, had quite a few pokemon. Most were younger pokemon that had gotten into some bad situations. Currently, Lea was tending to a minccino. She had been climbing around a slippery area and fallen off a ledge. For the most part, she was fine, but on landing, she had twisted her back leg and it hurt for her to walk on. Caddi, going on her scouting job, had found the Minccino and brought it back.

When Caddi entered the building from the underground route, Lea immediately rushed over. The two of them agreed that the sewer route would only be used for the badly hurt pokemon that couldn’t be brought easily or for pokemon that needed to be brought without being seen.

“What happened?” The pokemon Caddi had brought was a torchic. Caddi could have brought this little guy through the normal entrance.

“An earth pony stallion was chasing after this little guy. From what I could tell, the torchic got frightened by him and used ember. He got angry and tried to grab him. Torchic is fine, just tired from the chase. I used the sewers because it was a smoother ride so Torchic could rest and out of sight from that pony. You go back to whatever you were doing.”

Lea started to go back over to the minccino when Caddi spoke again. “And once you’re done with that, I have a surprise for you in the bedroom.”

---

When Lea was done tending to the minccino and checked on how the torchic was doing, She went up to go see what the surprise was in the bedroom. When Lea opened the door, she didn’t see Caddi in there. “Caddi? Where are you?”

Lea looked around, and in the corner of the room was an umbreon. A shiny umbreon. Lea knew what the surprize was. Caddi Must have found… “Matrix!” Lea ran over and pounced on the umbreon. “How did she find you! I’ve missed you so much! I have so much to tell you! Have you found anyone else?!”

“Ummm… what?” Caddi’s voice said. “Surprise, maybe?”

Lea stepped back, crying. ‘Stupid!’ She thought, ‘How could I be so stupid! I’ll never find Matrix!’

“I’ll always be alone…” Lea sniffled.

Caddi changed into a ponyta (the easiest for her to do). “What about me? I’m here. You’re not alone.” She placed a hoof on Lea’s back. “But what’s wrong? What just happened there?”

“You know how I’ve told you I had some pokemon friends back on Earth. One of them was an umbreon. Instead of normal umbreon, he had blue rings instead of yellow because he’s a rare shiny pokemon. To me, he… he’s sort of like a brother to me.”

“Oh my gosh! I’m so sorry! I- I didn’t realize… since when I change to pokemon, some parts are blue… I can’t believe I just… *sigh* I’ll make it up to you. Somehow…”

“Yeah,” Lea started. “After my father disappeared, my pokemon were my only family. Matrix and Angela sort of became my brother and sister. Looking out for me when I was in trouble and me doing the same for them. When one of us felt down, we’d cheer them up. I don’t really know what I am to Kya or Sparks though. It was never a relationship like that. It more felt like any normal pokemon trainer partnership to me. I guess I’ll never know.”

“I’ll go down and start dinner for the pokemon, join us if you want.” Caddi changed back to normal and flew out of the room, leaving Lea alone.

Lea walked over to the pile of sheets she had been using as a bed. Next to it was one of the few unbroken windows. Lea looked out, hoping maybe to see one of her pokemon out the window, but all she found that night was sleep.

---

“Posters! They’ve got wanted posters for you!” Caddi held a poster in her magic. “I saw them as I was out buying supplies today!”

Caddi had gone out that morning to pick up some more supplies, food mostly. She had be gone for only an hour before she ran into the building yelling that she had really bad news for Lea.

“WHAT?!” Lea yelled. Even though, they were upstairs, Lea’s question could be heard from downstairs. She ran over and took the poster from Caddi. Lea read the poster out loud.

"Wanted: Umbreon. Distinct features: Wearing a brown belt with a rainbow gem. This pokemon has been seen attacking multiple ponies and other pokemon for no apparent reason, yeah right, and is the cause of the fire at the old dog pound. If you see this pokemon, be cautious and alert authorities. If you can apprehend this pokemon, there is a reward of 3,000 bits and 5 gems.

“What a bunch of lies! Yeah, maybe I accidentally started that fire, but I just meant for the lights to go out. The ponies have always attacked me first!” Lea turned to Caddi, “Let’s take down these signs!”

“Uh, huh? Oh! Give me a second!” Caddi changed into a ponyta. “Repeat that.”

“Let’s go take down these signs.”

“Got it! Do you need me to be any pokemon in particular?”

“Anything flying. You’ll be able to spot the posters better and you can also keep an eye out for nearby ponies.”

Caddi changed into a yanma. “How’s this? The only thing that changes is that the eyes are blue instead of green, and that’s close enough.”

“It’s perfect Caddi! now let’s go. I’ll stand out if it gets dark.”

---

Lea and Caddi had been out for an hour and a half gathering posters. Already they had collected enough that Caddi had to change back to normal and burn them with her magical fire. Caddi, while she was great at changing, couldn’t use magic unless she was disguised as a unicorn.

“It’s getting close to one and we’ve already cleared half of the city.” Caddi started as she finished burning another pile. “I think we’ll be done before dark, but what about tomorrow.” Caddi changed back into a yanma.

“What, you think they’ll put up posters already? If it’s anything like where I’m from, they’ll just ignore the poster for a while, check on them, find them gone and about a week from today they might be back up.”

“Well as long as we don’t have to do this everyday…”

“Boss, I’ve found her, she’s with another one takin’ down the posters… yeah, I’ll grab ‘em”

Lea and Caddi turned around to see an unicorn stallion with a walkie-talkie headed straight towards them.

“Uh, time to get out of here.” Caddi grabbed Lea with her legs and started to fly them off. They were able to get up to the top of the building next to them before Caddi had to stop flying.

“I… am not… used… to carting… anypony… around! I’m glad… you weigh less… than me… right now!”

It was then a few pegasi flew up and found them. All of them seemed to be working with whoever the unicorn was working with. ‘Why do they all look familiar?’ Lea thought. She couldn’t get the chance to try and remember as the pegasi all flew straight towards her and Caddi. Lea and Caddi ran and flew away in two directions. It was obvious after they split up who the pegasi were after. All but two or three went after Lea.

Lea dodged all their attempts to try and grab her, jumping on at least one during her escape. Lea jumped from ledge to ledge on the nearby buildings, almost falling off of a few. Slowly she tried to make her way towards ground level. She was about two stories up when a pegasus mare threw something towards her. Lea was startled by whatever it was and fell to the ground. She landed on her previously hurt leg. ‘What made Arceus think that bringing us here was a good idea.’ Lea thought as she lay on the ground in pain. ‘I need to find a sewer entrance.’

She slowly got up and started to get away from the pegasi, many of whom had landed. “She’s back on the ground!” One stated into their own walkie-talkie. Lea could hear some sort of response through it before the pegasus talked again. “They said to call in the others!” A few pegasi flew off to grab said others.

‘Just what they need, reinforcements!’ Lea thought sarcastically. Fortunately now Lea had an advantage. She was smaller than the ponies so she could fit into smaller places. Lea pushed through her pain as she kept running away, getting the pegasi, and slowly some other unicorns and earth ponies too, to go into obstacles they wouldn’t notice until too late. As Lea ran, she could tell that the longer she ran, the worse her injury would be later on. From previous experiences, she could tell her leg bone was most likely cracked but not broken.

Slowly the group of ponies was gaining on her. Lea took a chance and turned down a street hoping for an entrance to the sewers only to be met with a dead end. “No! No! This can’t be happening. Please tell me I’m having some kind of dream!”

“We’ve got her cornered!” Lea turned to see the large group of ponies behind her. “Who’s gonna grab her?” One pony asked. “I think I do!” Another replied

“Uh, none of you are going too. The bosses are here.” A third spoke. The pony was interrupted by a pegasus flying to the front of the group. A pegasus stallion. A green pegasus stallion. A green pegasus stallion with a blue and black mane! When Lea saw him, she started to growl.

“Oh look! She’s happy to see me!” The stallion replied to her growl. The group behind him started to laugh. Then the group started to move as if they were letting someone through. Eventually, the pegasus’ unicorn partner was at the front of the group and joined him. “Ugg, this thing had been more than enough trouble for us. Can’t we just turn her in for the reward honey?” The mare asked.

“She get us more than that, Bright Ire. The ponies will pay more to see her beaten up now that she’s a criminal.”

“But Quarry, I’ve had enough of her. You saw how she barely fought before. She might get us a bit more money, but not much.”

“Quarry Arrow, what should we do?” A pony asked.

“I still want her. Grab that umbreon!”

The group of ponies were almost on Lea when another umbreon jumped in front of Lea from a window of one of the buildings next door. The umbreon had blue rings on them instead of yellow.

“Caddi! Get out of here, I can get escape from them again, but I don’t want them to get you too!” Lea called out.

The umbreon turned it’s head slightly. “Who’s Caddi?” He asked.

Author's Note:

So, that ending, huh? Guess what, I'm going ahead and stating right here that next chapter we get to learn about lea's history, and not see what happens next.
your own fault for not wanting the chapter earlier!
also, they don't have cutie marks yet, but here's what the two ponies look like: