Disclaimer: I do not own Pokemon in any way, shape or form. Just the plot and OC of this story.
He ran along the rooftop of an apartment block dodging between air con units and antennas. He was running towards the edge of the rooftop at close to full speed, a pair of Pidgey lifted into the air after being startled by him running past. He felt the lip of building underneath his bare foot as he launched himself into the empty air beyond the lip. He back flipped off the lip without stopping and began falling downwards. After a full rotation he stopped for long enough to see another rooftop rushing up to meet him and he braced for impact. When he hit the rooftop he launched forward into a roll, displacing the energy from the impact throughout his body. After the finished the roll he tried to pop himself back into a standing position to continue running but when he placed his foot down to right himself he put it in a puddle of liquid causing him to slip and fall shoulder first into one of the air conditioning units on the new roof. He shook off the pain that was coursing through his shoulder and shifted his current position of lying on the roof to having his back leaning against the air con unit. He looked up at the building he had just jumped from and counted out the number of floors between the two buildings, the building he had just jumped from was three floors taller than the building he was currently on. He pulled himself up into standing position and rubbed his shoulder.
"Well that was definitely not worth it." He said looking up at the star filled sky and locating a constellation of stars that indicated the direction of south. Using the constellation he turned to the east and located the Pokémon Center. Once he had plotted a path to get there he decided to jump off the building, which turned out to be single stored, and walk along the footpath to the Pokècenter.
He didn't know how long it took him to reach the Pokècenter, as he didn't have a watch and had left his Pokénav in his room in the Pokècenter, but it still being dark was a good sign, especially being the beginning of spring. He moved towards the entrance of the Center but stopped when he saw the night staff mulling around inside, none of them had seen him leave so it would be hard to explain how he had entered without leaving in the first place, so he decided to get back inside via the window that lead to his room. He walked around the side of the 'center and after his second look he found his room, he squeezed his fingers under the window, which he had kept slightly open, and slid the window up. He dropped quietly into the room making sure not to wake Sarah; he tiptoed around her bed and into the bathroom. Once he had closed the door he switched on the light and walked to the toilet. After he finished he caught himself in the mirror while washing his hands, he inspected the shoulder that had hit the air con unit, and he concluded that it was fine and switched out the light. He tiptoed over to his bed to see his Pokémon all sleeping in a pile, that was how they slept when Diego wasn't there, he smiled at the scene and thought about sleeping around them or on the ground but decided against it. He gently nudged each of them awake and picked them up. After lying down on the bed and allowing his Pokémon to rearrange themselves into their usual sleeping positions; Dea curling up on Diego's chest, Ferno lying in-between this left side and his left arm and Ripas had the most awkward position, he had positioned himself underneath Diego's neck acting like an extension of the pillow, the only good part was that Ripas had his spikes pointing into the pillow preventing Diego from stabbing himself. In a few moments of everyone stopping moving the Pokémon were out and a minute later Diego fell into unconsciousness.
Diego woke up with a dull throbbing in this shoulder, dammit. he thought as he opened his eyes and the roof of the room focused into recognition. He raised his head slightly and took in that Dea and Ferno were still sleeping and that there was a soft growl-snoring coming from beside his ear. He slowly rotated his head right to look out the window and noticed that the sun was already up. 7 o'clock? he predicted before reaching out and picking up his Pokénav from the bedside table and checking the time, the display flashed 7:36am. So close he placed the Pokénav back on the table and lowered his head back onto Ripas/his pillow, do I need to go for a run? Nah I did training last night I should be fine. He glanced to his left when he heard Sarah mummer in her sleep, she was facing him and she clutched Tle in a death grip under her chin, she was twitching and mumbling in her sleep. Diego shifted his eyes to focus on the bird that perched on the headboard attached to Sarah's bed; Spera obviously had just woken up because she was pruning her feathers back into an orderly fashion.
"Morning Spera." Diego whispered to which the Spearow turned and looked at him, that Spearow barely ever talked to him she just stared, it really creeped Diego out.
Suddenly Diego's focus was torn from the staring Spearow to Sarah who had just shot up into a sitting position, clutching Tle to her chest. Sarah was breathing heavily and was whipping her head around as if trying to find something. Diego quickly slid Dea off him and shot to Sarah's side. He crouched down and began rubbing her back, "Sarah. Sarah it's alright, you're fine. It was just a nightmare." Diego said reassuringly while Sarah looked around bewilderment thick in her eyes. After a few moments she looked at Diego, still breathing heavy, and her eyes grew large. "Sarah i…" Diego started but was cut off mid sentence when Sarah dropped Tle and threw her arms around his neck, crushing him in a hug.
"Thank Arceus, you're alright." She mumbled.
Diego scoffed and patted her back, "Of course I'm alright. It was just a dream."
"I thought you had…" she trailed off before pulling away and looking down.
"I had what?" Diego asked trying to make eye contact.
"Nothing, don't worry about it." She blushed. She swung around to the other side of the bed and stood up. "It's nearly 8 o'clock why were you still in bed?" she said checking the time, keeping her back to Diego.
"I decided not to go for a run. Sarah…" He said confused.
"Aren't we leaving today," she interrupted him, "we should probably start packing up."
It took the group half an hour to pack away and check out of the Pokémon Center, after three and a half weeks staying it Violet City Diego was more than glad to moving on with their journey again. They had already decided that they were heading south from Violet to Azalea Town, Sarah had been over ruled. They walked along the main street of Violet City towards the main southern exit of the city. Diego was grinning and it was starting to annoy Sarah.
"What are you so happy about?"
"I'm happy that we're back on the road." He answered.
"You know you're probably the only person that I know who actually enjoys being away from civilization."
"I guess you're either a wild child or not. Speaking of wild children have you spoken to Sapphire lately?" Diego asked adjusting the bag strap on his injured shoulder.
"Yeah I spoke to her a couple of nights ago, when you were checking out the Sprout Tower, I called everyone then."
"Oh I see you talked to our friends while I wasn't there eh, what were you complaining about me or something." Diego raised an eyebrow.
"No I don't need to tell them about how annoying you are they already know, plus I was complaining to my parents about you." Sarah smiled.
"Pff what do you have to complain about I have been amazing. You couldn't of made it this far without me." Diego laughed.
"I so could."
"Nah you couldn't."
"Could!" Sarah said loudly.
"Couldn't." Diego said calmly.
Sarah was about to reply when Ferno interrupted, "enough you two. It's like listening to a couple of new borns.", Tle nudging Ferno with his tail before they both laughed.
"What did they say?" Sarah asked glancing from the pair of Pokémon to Diego.
Diego gently chuckled, "Don't worry."
Sarah looked back at Tle who had ran ahead with Ferno and Ripas to investigate a sign. She leaned close to Diego and whispered to him "Do you think those scars will ever heal fully?"
"I don't know," Diego whispered back, "though scars do last a lifetime." He said thoughtfully running his thumb along the scar on his jawbone. The scars that had been left on Tle's shell from Ferno's Dragon Claw had begun healing but before they could heal completely the tissue had harden into the same tissue that covered the rest of Tle's shell leaving three groves in his shell. Diego had to admit that it made Tle look pretty badass. "Pokémon are different though, when he evolves tissue might reconstruct itself. It isn't entirely unheard of." Diego said as they arrived at the sign the Pokémon had been investigating.
"What does it say?" Ferno growled looking up at Diego because the sign was too tall for any of the Pokémon to read.
Diego looked at the sign: it was a medium sized sign with a white arrow pointing to the left,
SOUTH: ROUTE 32
ACCESS TO: RUINS OF ALPH 5KM
UNION CAVE 120KM
NEXT TOWN: AZALEA TOWN
"It says that we're heading in that direction." Diego pointed down a soil pathway paced hard by previous travelers. When all the Pokémon knew where they heading Diego nodded to the sign, "We're stopping there."
"Where? Azalea town. Course we are stopping there that's the next gym battle, remember." Sarah said shaking her head.
"No I know we are stopping at Azalea but that wasn't what I was talking about. The Ruins of Alph. We're stopping there." Diego said.
"Fine if you want to go and check out a bunch of eroded rocks we can do that but you're cooking 'til we get to Azalea." Sarah shrugged.
"I was going to have to cook anyway, wasn't I?" Diego smiled walking onto the path.
After a little over an hour of walking the group was within a kilometre of the Ruins of Alph. The Pokémon were happily talking amongst themselves, they were having an argument about who had fought the best during the battle against Falkner. Dea was sitting on Diego's uninjured shoulder while Diego and Sarah walked silently listening to the Pokémon talk.
Dea had kept looking at Diego at random intervals which was beginning to confuse him, "Dea, is something wrong?"
Before Dea could answer Ferno interrupted; "why do you ask her questions? No offense Dea, but it's not like you can understand her."
"Because she is my Pokémon and if she looks at me with a question I'm gonna ask her what it is. So?" Diego raised one of his eyebrows.
Dea began talking and Diego listened intently, even though he couldn't understand her. Once she finished he looked down at the Pokémon walking along the ground.
Ripas looked up at Dea, "what type of question is that?"
"Just translate it, alright." Diego said rolling his eyes, in the corner of his eye he saw Sarah smile at Diego arguing with his Pokémon.
"It's a retarded question though." Diego nodded, "she asked what colour your eyes are?"
Diego stopped walking and looked at Dea. Sarah took a few steps before she turned and asked Diego why he had stopped walking. "Dea just asked me what colour my eyes are."
"Well it is a legitimate question, they are pretty weird." Sarah shrugged.
"Okay then." Diego started walking again while he ran his hand through his hair. "Well they are red and black."
"Diego you're going to have to give her a bit more than that." Sarah said rolling her eyes.
"Okay then, you see the eyes are one of the easiest ways to identify a Guardian, they show what their typings are. The outer rings of my irises are black along with the inner ring, that represents my Dark typing, and in between the two rings there is red, Fire. It actually looks pretty cool when the two colours meet, like two differently coloured liquids merging." Diego explained.
"Before I absorbed the Charmeleon, which gave me my fire, I had pure black irises. Just like a solid pupil." Diego looked at Sarah "Do you remember that?"
"I think I do, it was a while ago though." She replied looking thoughtful.
"Yeah well does that answer your question Dea?" Dea nodded. "If you want to know why Sarah has grey eyes that a very easy answer; she's a weirdo." Without looking Sarah punched Diego in the arm, hard. Diego groaned rubbing his left shoulder "Was that really necessary?" Sarah nodded.
"That must be the front gate." Sarah said nodding towards a single storey building blocking their path. Diego grunted and began picking the pace while the Pokémon race ahead. A further five minutes and the group were inside the building.
A single guard sat at a reception desk and when the group walked up to him he silently produced two sheet of paper and pens, "fill these in please and please return your Pokémon into their pokéballs." He said disinterested focused more on what was happening on his computer than actually guarding the place.
This is who they have protecting this place. Diego thought while he filled out the form.
After filling out the forms and retiring the Pokémon, and Diego struggling to get Ferno back in his pokéball, Sarah and Diego walked through the doors leading to the Ruins. Sarah huffed when she saw the Ruins of Alph, "Well this is not what I expected." She said looking around at the pile of rocks and eroded rock structures. She began walking towards a modern building off to the right of the entrance but she stopped and turned back when she noticed Diego wasn't with her instead he was still standing at the entrance, smiling. "Come on, nutcase." Diego began walking with her.
Once inside the building Diego's smile faded. The building had two men in lab coats walking around; talking to people, there was also about ten people, split into four groups. There were bookcases lining one of the walls full of books on the subject of the Ruins of Alph. Diego began walking towards the bookcases as one of the lab coats walked up to Sarah and struck up a conversation.
Diego looked at the bookcases, which reached up to the roof, and began scanning the spines of the books. Some had the title of the book printed on the spine, with titles like: 'Mystery of the Unown', 'Science of the Ruins of Alph' and 'Pokémon Environments: Ruins of Alph', while others had their covers removed so to Diego they were just leather spines. Diego stopped at one of these unlabelled spines. It was a faded dark green colour with a couple of golden stripes at the top of the spine. Diego gently pulled it out and looked it over: it had yellow tinted pages showing off its advanced age and a couple of the golden letters on the cover had faded to a dull yellow. Diego whispered the title aloud; 'The Unown, Friend or Foe?' he opened the book and began flipping through the aged pages until he reached the contents page which he quick scanned over. It had many chapters detailing the physical and social characteristics of the Unown but within the last 100 pages of the book the chapters changed from science to myths. He flicked to a chapter labeled 'Unknown Myths about the Unown.' Diego couldn't help but smile at the wording. The chapter had some tales that Diego quickly scanned over which made the Unown sound like creatures from outer space or other dimensions, probably written by whack jobs Diego thought, he was ready to put the book back when he came across one of the myths labeled: 'The Unown: Ancient Civilization.' Diego scanned the myth and was so deeply immersed in the story that he didn't hear Sarah come up behind him.
"Hey, whatcha reading?" she said causing Diego to seize up in fright. Sarah rested her hand on Diego's shoulder "you alright?" his responds was to snap the book shut and she saw marks that looked like Diego had punctured the covers of the book with his fingertips, before he shoved the book back in its place.
He spun around and looked at her "Are we done here?"
Sarah stared at him with a slightly open mouth for a moment before shaking her head, "do you mean with the Ruins altogether or just here?"
"Just here." Diego answered calmly.
Sarah nodded and Diego dodged around her and began walking towards the door ignoring one of the lab coats who tried to talk to him. Sarah rushed after him. Once outside Diego checked the time before he began heading toward the main ruin, to the right of the research building. Sarah had to jog every couple of steps to keep up with Diego fast pace, she also tried to find out what he was doing but the only response he would give was a simple "just wait.", Sarah must of heard that response three times before they reached the main ruin. Diego walked inside and began weaving between the small groups of people that were taking photos of the some of the marking on the wall and the statues while Sarah moved slowly a few metres behind him making sure she kept him in sight. He passed the last of the groups and began walking down a set of modern stone stairs leading to the underground part of the ruin. Sarah was getting sick of how rude Diego was acting so she ran after him, well jumped down the steps to catch him, by the time Sarah reached him Diego was a metre from the foot of the stairs and was about to walk straight through a group of tourist being shown around.
Sarah grabbed his arm and pulled him to a stop "Diego enough what has gotten into you?" Diego whipped around, growling at her and glaring like he was about to rip her to shreds. Sarah just looked at him. Diego blinked and his eyes seemed to soften and Sarah took full advantage of this, "come on, let's look around." She looped her arm around his and led him towards the wall.
The wall was made of some kind limestone that had been surprisingly unweathered by time. Sarah inspected the wall which seemed to be covered by some kind of markings, "this must be the marking the scientist was talking about." she said to Diego, each marking seemed to have a large circular centerpiece and they were set in perfectly straight lines. Sarah was so mesmerized by the marking that she didn't realize that she had raised her hand to touch them until Diego's hand reached out and stopped her.
"No touching." He said nodding towards a sign that had 'NO TOUCHING' on it. "Come on we have to keep moving." He pulled out his Pokénav and tapped it a few times before pocketing it and he began moving towards one of the openings that was positioned far to the right of the staircase. Diego wasn't moving as fast as he was last time but he was moving with the same determination as before. Sarah kept glancing around looking at the walls of marking and looked at a statue that had its head removed. They passed a few more these incomplete statues in a new hallway that Diego had lead them to before Sarah stopped at one that was mostly complete, it was just missing a hand.
Diego came back and stood next to her, tapping his foot impatiently, looking everywhere except the statue. It resembled a Rhydon but it also looked like nothing they had ever seen, the statue seemed to be made of a granite-like material that hadn't eroded much. "What do you think it is?" Sarah said nudging Diego; his respond was a deep throated growl that made Sarah look at him, Diego was glaring at the statue with what seemed to be hatred. Realization dawned on Sarah as she began looking between Diego and the statue, "you know what it is don't you?" she said.
"Time to keep moving." Diego growled as he slipped his arm from Sarah's hold and began moving down the corridor towards another faraway opening. They passed more statues but they all seemed to be the same creature. As they moved further from the staircase the amount of people decreased rapidly until the duo was the only people in the corridor. Sarah also noticed that the lighting had decreased, as back at the staircase there had been plenty of lights hanging from the roof by wires but as they reached the next opening the number of lights decreased to one every twenty metres and they were very low powered leaving a large section of darkness between each.
Diego stopped so suddenly that Sarah walked into him, "stay here and keep watch," he instructed Sarah, "and if anyone comes close shout out, alright." With that he began walking along the far wall, studying it. Sarah leant against the corner of the opening and watched for people coming.
Diego began moving methodically along the back wall, he knew it was here but the wall was a big thing and would take forever to find the marking he was looking for. In fact it didn't take that long to find the marking, it was on the third section of wall from the opening, Diego walked up to it let's hope I remember how to do this. he thought.
Don't sweat it I remember, I think. the voice said.
Diego stood in front of the marking and put a finger on it before he pressed down. The marking glowed a ghostly electric blue before it shot a pulse of the colour out to the rest of the wall, colouring it blue for a moment before the pulse faded and the wall returned to normal except that one of the markings was still glowing.
Good now let's find the next one. the voice said.
I think I saw it this way. Diego thought moving back towards the opening.
"Diego what was that?" he heard Sarah call from the opening; she had obviously seen the pulse.
"Don't worry, keep look out." Diego hurried along the wall until he found the next marking which was in a very unfortunate position. It was positioned near the roof of the corridor. Diego began moving closer to the wall to climb it when the voice rang through his head;
Do not try and climb it if you touch any of the other symbols they'll activate and we won't be recognized. it said.
"Well how else do you expect me to get it?" Diego growled.
Jump. Diego growled at the simple solution and readied for the jump. Hurry up we don't have that much time to screw around. Diego growled as he jumped easily reaching the marking and hitting it with a fist. As he landed another pulse shot through the wall and another marking glowed. Before Diego moved off to find the next marking he noticed a low droning sound.
"Is that…" he began.
Yeah they're starting to wake up, we need to finish this. the voice finished.
It took Diego a further couple of minutes to hit the rest of the symbols at which the droning had became almost a scream in his ears, because of his enhanced hearing. Diego looked down the corridor when he heard feet thumping against the floor and Sarah ran into the closest pool of light. "Diego where are you? Seriously what the fuck is happening here?" she shouted into the darkness that surrounded her pool.
Diego stepped into the pool of light from the darkness, "Sarah what happened? Why aren't you looking out for people?" he said grabbing her shoulders.
"What happened, the Unown happened, and they came out of nowhere and started attacking me so I ran here. Diego what is going on here?" she said close to tears.
"You'll find out soon, now how far behind you were they?"
"I don't know I didn't look behind me." She began blinking rapidly to push the tears back.
"Alright, Sarah trust me, you'll be fine I will rip them apart before I let them hurt you." pulling her into a hug. Diego looked in the direction Sarah had come and saw the Unown. They came at the pair as a wall, a black staring wall. Diego glanced in the opposite direction and saw another wall approaching. "Stay here and don't move, also don't look at them." He whispered into Sarah ear as he let her go and she looked straight down. Diego walked towards the wall approaching from the direction Sarah had come from. He stopped a few steps from the edge of the pool and stood as straight as he could. A metre from the pool the Unown stopped and watched Diego, hundreds of eyes stared at him and Diego stared back. One of the Unown broke formation and floated over to one of the glowing markings that was next to the pool of light. It buzzed for a moment while it studied the marking before it shot out of Diego's view. The standoff continued until the Unown returned a minute or so later and began droning to one of the other Unown, probably the leader. A moment later the droning abruptly stopped and the leader Unown floated closer to Diego into the pool of light.
"You have awoken the guards of Alph, you have touched the symbols and you have formed a name that we recognize, do you propose the possibility that you are a Guardian." The Unown droned at him in a voice that reminded Diego of metal grinding on rock.
"Yes." He replied holding his head higher.
"Prove it." The Unown droned. Diego realized what it was asking. Diego removed his backpack and set it on the ground before he pulled his black t-shirt over his head revealing a tanned, toned, scared body, some of the scars had been there since he was five but the Unown ignored all of these marks and focused on the mark he had on his left chest, above his heart. The marking consisted of three black dots set in a diagonal, two small and one large one, and two squiggly lines acting as borders. It was this marking that marked him as a Guardian and that showed the Unown what he was.
"The marking is one of a Guardian but that is not enough, what is the name you have placed on the wall?" the Unown droned.
"Nuparu." Diego announced full of pride.
All of the Unown stopped swaying and bobbing and floated in a stationary position, none of them moving. They lowered themselves down to Diego's hip level reducing the wall to a raised floor.
"Guardian." The Unown droned collectively.
Diego stood there looking at all the Unown for a moment before he remembered what he was here to do, "I wish to enter Alph. Where is the entrance?"
The lead Unown rose back to Diego's eye level, "We will lead you to the entrance but there is a problem."
"And what is that?" Diego asked raising an eyebrow.
"The human, it cannot come with us to Alph."
"She will be coming with us to Alph." Diego said emphasizing the 'she'.
"But it is a rule; humans are not to find out about Alph, what if she tells other humans." The Unown droned anxiously.
"I am the Guardian and I say that her seeing Alph is fine, she won't tell anyone." Diego commanded.
The Unown sighed, "Then follow me." It began floating around the pool of light through the raised floor of Unown. Diego turned back Sarah, who had stood behind him with her head down the whole time only hearing half the conversation, and gently grabbed onto her forearm.
"Come on, time for you to find out why we came here." Diego whispered into her ear.
"Can I look up?" she said.
"Yeah just stay close." Diego began leading her through the sea of Unown that had parted to let them through, some droned to each other while other looked away as they passed. Diego felt Sarah's fingers begin to pry his hand loose from her forearm, Diego let her go to stop her fidgeting only to feel her hand interlock his.
He glanced back at her with a raised eyebrow, "it felt awkward." She shrugged. Diego just turned back smiling to himself. The lead Unown had reached the far wall of the corridor, the farthest wall from the opening, and was waiting for them, even though they were only a few steps behind it. When Diego stopped in front of the wall the Unown moved itself into a slot on the wall that was its same shape as it and there was a click, like a door unlocking. A section of the wall began to shake and slowly began to slide to into one of the other walls revealing another corridor. He heard Sarah quietly gasp at this. The new corridor looked brand new, there were no chips in the limestone, and there were torches lining the walls of this corridor.
"Come on." Diego tugged Sarah towards the corridor following the Unown, who had removed itself from the slot in the wall. The corridor wasn't very wide and Diego would occasionally knock his shoulders into one of the torches. They were a few metres into the corridor when he heard a grinding sound behind them; he turned his head to see that the wall had returned to its previous position sealing them in the corridor. He heard a small whimper and looked at Sarah who was looking at the wall, scared.
"Everything will be fine." He smiled to her when he caught her eye, he saw a small smile. He turned back and sighed before he called to the Unown, "why did you shut the door?"
"Security measure, we don't want any humans to find Alph." It turned and looked at Sarah. "Not anymore that is." It turned back and continued down the corridor, "We will be at Alph soon." It droned while Diego explained to Sarah.
Diego continued behind the Unown, after a few metres Diego craned his neck to see around the Unown, surprised how much space it took up, and saw that the corridor opened up to a larger area. Good this corridor is starting to get cramped he thought. Once out of the corridor the Unown drifted to the side to allow Diego to exit without problem and Diego did the same when it was Sarah's turn. When Sarah saw the space beyond the corridor she gasped and Diego smiled.
In front of them spanned stone footpath that stretched until it was cut off by a large granite building. The building was three storey's height making the roof attached to the ceiling of the cavern. All along the sides of the footpath where granite buildings each varying in height, some were brightly painted while others were left to their natural grey but a majority had scorch marks randomly marking them. Some had vines and plants growing from the windows that had turned feral and wove around the buildings. All the buildings were perfectly cut like they had been made by machines but for all the potential damage that had been dealt to them there was not a single chip or scratch on their surfaces.
The area in front of the group was teeming with life, Unown droned around, some were talking to each other, some were helping another with painting its house, and Diego smiled as he saw a group of smaller Unown charge about under the larger Unown before being chased by one larger Unown droning loudly at the group. The area in front of Diego could have been mistaken for any street in any town in any region except that instead of people there was Unown moving around.
Diego finally heard Sarah breath out and his smile grew, Diego could see that she was astonished by what she was seeing and he was overjoyed to finally be able to share this with someone, he leaned closer to her and whispered "Welcome to Alph, home of the Johto Guardians." into her ear causing her to gasp again look at Diego only to see him smile.
Welcome home Nuparu. He thought.
It's good to be home, Diego, it's good to be home. The voice said.
Diego hadn't been in Alph since he was eight and even then he hadn't really been in control, as he had let Nuparu take charge. Diego and Sarah had been ushered to one of the buildings by the Unown who had brought them; the unfortunate thing was that the building was one level down from the entrance. When they had been walking to the building they had passed a lot of Unown and the whole time they had been overjoyed to see their Guardian, it was when they saw Sarah walking behind Diego that the cheers of happiness changed into murmurs of confusion. Diego had reassured her that they were just curious because there hadn't been a human in Alph for about 300 years, so they were just a little confused but mostly curious. His reassurance hadn't helped Sarah, she at the moment using the shower, and now he was starting to regret bring her.
Diego walked back inside from the balcony he had been standing on into a familiar looking bedroom. The room looked a lot like a modern hotel room, minus a TV, any electronic lighting or outlets and there were no dresser or closet, but the room had a certain homey feeling, even though a majority was made of stone. Diego turned as the door to the bathroom opened and Sarah walked out, fully clothed, toweling off her hair. She glanced at Diego before looking away, Diego felt a stab of guilt, and she threw the towel at him.
"Can you dry this for me?" she asked as Diego caught the towel.
Diego pulled his t-shirt over his head and wrapped the towel around his chest and shoulders before raising his body temperature. After a moment of silence Diego spoke, "Sarah if you don't want to be here we can leave."
She looked up at from checking on her Pokémon's pokéballs, Diego had told her not to release them, and stared at him "Diego we're here because you have to be, if I didn't want to be here I would of left before the Unown brought us here.", she when back to checking on her Pokémon.
"But you feel uncomfortable and I don't want you to be uncomfortable."
"I don't feel uncomfortable, I feel confused." She raised her arm indicating to the room around her, "You have shown me a whole different world under mine, a world that makes no sense to me, but that's fine with me because that's part of being your best friend; I tend to find out stuff that most people could search for their whole lives and never find. So yeah I feel a little confused." She sighed.
Diego sighed too before an idea came to him, "What if could tell you about this world, everything major at least." He said excitedly.
Sarah began rummaging around in her bag before she answered, "what do you mean?"
"I could tell you The Story." Sarah looked at him with a raised eyebrow, "granted it's a long story but a good one."
She stopped moving for a moment considering the proposal. "Do I have to do anything?" she asked.
"Just do a bit of walking, that's all." Diego smiled.
"Why do I have to walk don't you know the story?"
"Only fragments, it's a long story."
Sarah stared at Diego and realized that he was really trying to make an effort. "Fine I'll hear this story but if it involves fairies and pixies I'm walking away." She smiled making Diego smile.
They walked towards the gateway leading to the bottom floor of Alph.
"How big is this place?" Sarah asked looking around.
"You know how big Rustboro is?" Sarah nodded, "well each level is that size and there are four levels and each level is about three storey's height. This place is a pinnacle of Unown engineering." Diego looked at Sarah and she looked astonished. "We're here." Diego announced as they reached the gateway.
"What is this place?" Sarah asked looking around. In front of them was what appeared to be a giant library, there were bookshelves that reached all the way up to the ceiling and each bookshelf was full of books, each bookshelf was made of a solid black material. There were bookshelves reaching into the distance both to the left and right.
"This whole level is dedicated to knowledge and education; Unown are basically a race of nerds. This is the library," Diego explained before pointing down one of the rows, "That way is the schools, like I said nerds, and down that way is the parks/sports arena." Diego pointed to the right of the gateway.
"Sports arena? I thought you said you guys were nerds?"
"Oh we are, sporting is a way to educate your body. Come on this way." He began leading Sarah to the left.
It took them five minutes to reach the far left wall of the level. It was a three storey high wall so Sarah had to crane her neck to see the top but that wasn't what interested her, running from about a storey high to the floor was a block of the same material as the bookshelves, it spanned as far as she could see. The block was covered by the same symbols that had covered the corridors in the Ruins. Now that she thought about it she had seen the symbols all around Alph.
"This is The Story." Diego announced gestured towards the wall.
"Wait, can you read that?" Sarah asked.
"Yeah it's the Guardian alphabet." Diego nodded. "Anyway, where to begin," Diego scanned block for the beginning of The Story. "Ah here it is. Alright you ready because it is one long story?" Sarah nodded.