Piles of scraps of metal and gutted skeletons of cars twisted around each other and created an accidental maze with no rhyme or reason, and nothing but dead ends. One could try to navigate through the mountains of muted blood-gold for days and never find a clear path to the back end of the junkyard on the far side of that small town near the Southern Border. Rust covered everything and the metallic coppery smell of it hung in the air and permeated every breath.
If one bothered to navigate long enough, one would happen upon one particular pile of junk that had been modified, creatively burrowed into and nested to form a tragic parody of a home.
"Oh, we're lost again!" Jessie shrieked.
A tragic parody of a home, perhaps, but it would've been a nice thing to see.
"I told ya ya should've let Meowth lead," the pokemon scolded, marching just in front of the redhead.
Jessie kicked at him, missing his tail by millimeters. "We did follow you, Meowth!" she snapped.
Meowth blinked, glancing back at her. "... oh yeah!" he said with a laugh, rubbing the back of his head nervously, skittering ahead a few steps to avoid a boot to his tail.
"At least the junkyard isn't neverending," James pointed out, playing with a bit of rusted scrap metal he'd picked off of one of the piles somewhere along the way, working it in his hands as he walked.
"We need directions, not optimism, James," Jessie said with a growl, gritting her teeth.
James smiled sheepishly. "I'm afraid I'm fresh out of those," he said, not stopping his work. "I could always tell jokes to entertain you!"
"Save our sanities da pain," Meowth protested, already clamping his paws over his ears.
James scowled. "Well, I think my jokes are funny," he said indignantly, turning up his nose briefly before focusing on his work again. "I can't help it that you people have no tastes."
"I have plenty of taste," Jessie replied, "but bad isn't part of it."
James razzed her.
Jessie gave him The Look, and James wilted in his uniform, clutching his precious scrap metal tightly. She frowned. "What are you doing with that, James?"
Uncurdling his blood, James looked between Jessie and his project, quickly bent the metal a few more times, then held it out to her.
It was a rose, about three inches long and well-formed for being made from rusty scrap metal while the creator walked aimlessly through a junkyard. Jessie blinked and took it, looking at it. "... you made this out of scrap metal," she said flatly, eyeing him.
He tsked her, putting his hands behind his head and walking ahead of her a bit. "One man's trash is another man's treasure, Jessica, as my grandfather always used to say."
Jessie blinked again, then flushed bright red and glared furiously at his back before hurrying to catch up, holding the rose tightly.