Rose and I stepped through the street of the small resort town, our feet clacking on the concrete pavement, although you couldn't really tell since as there were lots of other tourists around as well. Behind us, Cyan, Erin, and Cara were engaging in a lively conversation, with Erin occasionally stepping between the Dewott and the Vulpix if they got too argumentative. Turning backwards as I heard a yelp, I saw Cyan rubbing his forehead, where Erin had bopped him, and I exhaled a chuckle at both Erin and Cara's triumphant looks.
"Heh, you'd better make sure you don't get any more bruises, buddy!" I said as I stroked the bump, and he winced. Reaching into the medicine pocket of my messenger bag, I drew out a simple Potion and sprayed it, and the misty concoction landed on the bruise, which cleared up almost immediately. Soon enough, Cyan perked up, letting out a pleased "Dewott!", and he clambered up my torso, zipping up my jacket in the process, before slacking his grip and letting himself flop around in my jacket, as if it was a bag to carry him in. Quite a few tourists began to give me weird looks, and I sighed in slight frustration.
"Cyan, you're hopeless sometimes." He ignored me and waved at another tourist, when suddenly Rose stopped, nearly causing me to crash into her. Only Cyan's well-timed push of his arms stopped me. "Rose?"
I heard her stomach grumble, and looked up. There, in front of us, was a building, the sign up top reading 'Undella Cafe'. I suddenly heard another grumbling, and looked down to see Cyan's confused face, before he looked down as well. I scratched the back of my head in embarrassment, before Rose turned to look at me, burgundy eyes pleading.
"I'm hungry..." I again sighed in frustration before walking past Rose into the cafe - I didn't feel like dealing with her stubbornness today... hopefully, at least, she wouldn't buy anything too expensive. We weren't low on cash, at least since the last time I had checked, but there was always that chance of not having enough at the worst time. Rose's let out a gleeful cheer and followed me inside, along with Erin and Cara. A waiter walked up to us as soon as we had closed the door, his spotless white shirt gleaming compared to the three dark walls of the cafe, and the smell of seaweed popped up, causing me to cringe a little.
"Shall I bring you to a table, or are you here to meet with others?" I gave the guy a thumbs-up.
"Just bring us to a table, please." The waiter grabbed two menus and nodded at us.
"We have a table for four that's just about to be freed up now. Follow me." Rose and I followed the waiter, weaving through countless patrons and employees, either waiting on tables, leaving tables, or getting seated at tables. I noticed that almost every table was outside, and when I remarked about this, Cyan grew very excited. And as soon as I made it to the table the waiter was leading us to, I stopped right in my tracks and stared at its previous (or rather, current) occupants. one was a familiar wavy-haired girl - Caitlin, of course. The other was a golden-blonde haired girl, dressed in all black, cutting a striking figure compared to the rest of the people eating in the cafe. In front of Caitlin was a half-eaten Cheri pie slice (I smiled inwardly at her good taste), and the other woman was chewing on her Pomeg tart. The other woman's dull-gold eyes flashed as they peered into mine, and she stood up, offering her hand to me, while Rose immediately let out a happy yelp and embraced Caitlin.
"Oh, no way."
"Well, well, well. I never expected to find the trainer who faced down Giratina to be wandering around here." Smiling, I warmly shook Cynthia's hand, and she gestured towards an open chair at the table, which I gladly sat down in. Cynthia turned to the waiter. "They'll be paying separately from Caitlin and I." The waiter nodded before handing Rose and I menus and walking away. Rose thumbed through the menu while talking to Caitlin, while I absentmindedly handed my menu to Cyan. Cynthia eyed me knowingly, and I was a bit unnerved.
"Caitlin here has been telling me about... recent events." Her eyes flicked to the wavy-haired girl, then back to me. I gulped audibly. "It seems you've been busy, busy, busy here in Unova." Caitlin abruptly stood up, bowed slightly, and walked out of the cafe, her steps slightly wobbly and her hair flowing behind her, and I looked at Rose.
"Where's she headed?"
"Oh, she's heading back to her house. Did you pick something to eat?"
I gave Rose a confused look before remembering I had given Cyan, who was now occupying Caitlin's former seat alongside Erin, my menu. As I made a move to take it back, he spat a weak Water Gun at me and continued to read. The attack hit me head on, soaking my hair and face. I put on a grumpy look and wiped at myself with my napkin before leaning over Cyan's shoulder to see what he was looking at. I could hear Rose giggling from behind her own menu, and even Cynthia had let out a chuckle, while Erin simply smirked. I grew red with embarrassment, and I immediately glanced towards Cyan's paw as he pointed to a choice on the menu. Looking over it, my eyes lit up. He wanted a plate of fried Magikarp. We both grinned.
"Heh, alright then, Cyan." I laughed as I waved my hand. "Waiter!"
As Cyan, Rose and I plucked strips of fish from our shared plate (Rose and I with forks, Cyan with his paws), we chatted with Cynthia. Mostly we talked about what we had done since the last time we had met up with each other, which... now that I think about it, it had indeed been a while... I think the last time I saw Cynthia was in Snowpoint almost a year or two ago, and Rose had seen her about six months ago, when she had visited the Frontier. Deciding to drop the talk about our pasts, I struck up a new conversation topic.
"So, Cynthia. What brings you to Undella?" I asked, trying to sound casual. Or, uh, at least as casual as you can sound around a Champion. Her dim yellow eyes peered into mine before she spoke.
"I'm here... ah... I suppose you could call it a vacation from my Champion duties, but it's more of an expedition. Caitlin's letting me use one of the Villas here during my stay." Rose let out an 'ooh!', and I tilted my head. An expedition... I knew Cynthia, as an archeologist, sort of, loved history, but Undella seemed to be pretty modern. Not as modern as, say, Castelia, but definitely not an old city. My curiosity had been piqued.
"An expedition in this built-up resort? Really?" I joked, giving Cynthia the skeptical look to egg her on. She sighed and ran a hand through her hair.
"You of all people should know that ruins can pop up anywhere. After all, you've seen the Celestic Ruins, even if you were surprised that the town had ruins at all." She shot back, and I smirked inwardly.
"Well, yeah, but Celestic was a pretty small town. This... this is a big, built-up resort! If there are any ruins here, they'd have to be under the sea!" I smiled disarmingly... and frowned when Cynthia began to laugh. "What's so funny?"
She didn't answer, instead going into full-blown hysterics, laughing loud and long. I looked at Rose worriedly, and she gave me the same look. This wasn't like Cynthia at all. Cyan simply sat in his chair, eating Magikarp and watching the spectacle unfold.
"Uh, Cynthia? Seriously, what's so funny?" Cynthia finally began to stifle her laughter as she looked me straight in the eye. I shrank back a bit, still unnerved.
"Hoohoo... hah... oh, it's just you hit the nail on the head with that comment." She wiped at her eyes and breathed, and nearly burst into giggles again at my confused face.
"Hit the nail on the... Wait, you're not saying that the ruins...!" I glanced over Cynthia's shoulder to stare at the open bay. She nodded, finally regaining her typical composure.
"Yeah, the ruins are underwater. The only way to access them is by using Dive." I coughed a bit, and I saw Rose's eyes sparkle.
"Really? Underwater ruins?" She asked, giving Cynthia an excited look. Cynthia smiled at her and nodded.
"Yep. Apparently there's lots of treasure down there that collectors buy for high prices. Personally, I was going to go down there so I could study the ruins themselves, but finding treasure to look over would be just as good." She took a sip of her after-meal tea and sighed into it, a tiny plume of steam rising from the cup. Rose looked over at me and gave me a wide, pleading look.
"Bill, underwater ruins! Doesn't that sound so exciting?" Cara leapt up into her lap and barked at me, and both Cyan and Cynthia gave me expectant looks. I turned away to avoid their gazes, instead opting to stare at the bay and think. Rose obviously wanted to go exploring in the ruins, and she knew I knew it - we could easily get down there with Tidal, her Mantine, but I hadn't ever doing Diving all that much with my Pokemon. On the other hand, I hadn't planned to do anything today, and I didn't want to sit around the resort bored off my ass for the rest of the day. Our Pokemon wouldn't enjoy it, Rose wouldn't enjoy it, and I definitely wouldn't enjoy it. I turned to Rose.
"Alright, fine, fine. After we pay for the food." Rose pumped her fist in the air in triumph, and Cynthia gave us both a sly smile.
"If you find anything, would you bring it to me? I'd love to go down there myself, like I said, but I need to teach Milotic to Dive first, and I don't own that particular HM." Cynthia took another sip of her tea, then spoke again. "A friend of mine from Hoenn is coming to give me one, but he won't be here for a few days. So for now, I'm relying on you."
As the waiter handed me the check, I looked at it, slipped in a small wad of bills, and handed it back to him, scooting my chair back as I did so. I whispered "Keep the change." to him, and I stood up as he left to calculate the bill. Rose immediately grabbed my wrist and dragged me out of the cafe, eliciting strange looks from the other patrons, and she didn't stop until we had made our way into the shallows of the beach.
The main part of the beach was filled with tourists, swimmers, and children playing with their parents and Pokemon. The side we were on was relatively deserted, with only a stray swimmer stretching near the far end of the sand. As Rose and I waded into the warm, ankle-deep water, I rolled up my jeans so that they wouldn't get soaked when we got farther out. Rose, wearing her typical outfit of comfy shorts and a too-big orange t-shirt, strode out into the surf confidently. Cyan swam around us, along with Erin, who could only manage to do a dog-paddle (albeit a pretty good dog paddle) to follow him. Cara, as a fire-type, was only fond of the paw-shallow water, and she preferred her Pokeball to the deeper waves. As we made it out to the knee-deep water, Rose tossed up a Pokeball, which exploded in a flash of light, and a large, stout manta ray crashed into the bay, splashing all of us with water. Rose moved over and stroked the Mantine's waxy back before climbing onto it. I returned Cyan and Erin to their Pokeballs and looked at Tidal's back.
"Uh, Rose... are you sure about this?" She looked at me, frowned, and yanked me onto Tidal with a strong tug. "Ow! Why are you always so stubborn?"
She smiled sweetly at me. "Oh, no reason." She gave me a wink before guiding Tidal out to the deeper water. I grunted angrily.
"You know I hate it when you do that. You could just as easily have said, 'Yes, I'm sure!', but no, you'd never do that." I snapped, and Rose shrank back a bit. "You've been like this since we were kids." She wiggled over to me and hugged me, and my angry tension faded a bit.
"...Sorry, Bill. You're just so... not-reckless sometimes, and when that happens the only way to get to you is..." She paused, and I looked at her. She gave me a small smile. "Forceful persuasion."
My anger fully dissipated and I shoved her playfully. "I'm sorry, too. I shouldn't have snapped. Now let's find a place to dive down, shall we?" Rose's smile widened a bit as she guided Tidal, who blew out a few bubbles in a muffled cry, towards a large, dark blue patch of water that marked a good diving spot. As we made our way to the middle of the water, the Mantine blew a large, viscous bubble that surrounded us and just barely reached over my head, and as soon as the bubble was sufficiently large enough, we submerged, making our way closer and closer to the bottom of the bay.
It took a while - well, fifteen minutes at most - but we finally ended up finding an old, dirty, stone-brick building in the middle of nowhere. As Rose guided us inside, Tidal let out a cry of panic, and nearly bucked us off of his back.
"Woah! Tidal! Chill out, woah!" Rose yelled as she hung onto the Mantine's right fin. I hung onto its left fin and looked behind us. What was it so panicked about? My eyes widened as a large stone slab crashed down behind us, sealing off our exit, and Tidal swam over to the tile.
"What...?" The tile was covered in strange markings, sort of like the Ruins of Alph back in Johto, but... "These aren't Unown runes... they're obviously writing of some sort, but I've never seen this language before."
Unown runes. Hah, part of the history class taught to every trainer at the Violet City school. I'd spent many a day there as a kid taking the classes. But, like I said, these weren't Unown runes. "Damn... if we weren't underwater, I'd try and sketch some of these down. Cynthia'd love to get her hands on this."
"I know. Maybe we can find some treasure or relic down here that we can bring back to her. C'mon!" Slowly, Rose eased Tidal back the way we were headed before, and we swiftly glided through the mazelike ruins, stopping occasionally to look at the inscriptions that dotted some of the walls. As much as I hate to say it, Rose was right, I was having a good time. But it was still a tense time - the fact that we were stuck in there, along with the fact that the place was deserted other than us, was more than a little creepy.
"Man, this place is weird. It's too empty for a normal ruin. There's no good loot!" Rose muttered. I chuckled nervously.
"Well, let's keep looking. We should look for another way out of here, too, since our first way in's a bust." My eyes scanned the area we were in, which had changed from blue-toned walls to a darker, oddly purple-hued environment. The halls and corridors began to blend together, and soon we were hopelessly lost. Taking a turn down another purple alley. I stopped and stared.
"Rose! Look!" I pointed excitedly. There, at the end of the corridor, was an small, ancient, writing-covered statue. Rose grinned as she urged Tidal forward, and as it got in range of the statue, I reached out and grabbed it. It was soaking wet, but it was still in one piece. Success!
"Man. At least we found something." I shook it a bit to get the stray droplets off of it, and pushed my fingers into the fine chiselwork of the symbols that covered the priceless item. "These ruins must have been inhabited once, like Alph. I wonder how the hell they got this far sunk under the bay, though. Crazy."
I held tightly to the object as we exited the corridor... only to find ourselves in the main area of the ruin. "Dammit, we're still totally lost."
"Don't say that. We'll find a way out somehow." As soon as the words escaped Rose's lips, the ruins violently shook. I immediately tightened my grip on both the statue and on Tidal's fin. The shaking gradually stopped, and I slackened off a bit, leaning forward. I tensed right back up again as the writing on the walls began to... glow?
"Oh no. These letters aren't actually Pokemon, are they? I don't want to start encountering Pokemon in here, we'll never get out." I whispered, and Rose seemed to glare at the wall before going blank. I looked at the gibberish, fruitlessly trying to figure out what it all meant, before I felt... wind? I guess wind's the right word, but there really wasn't any other way to describe it other than a fell wind blowing on me, and Rose and I both crumpled onto Tidal's back, vision growing dark.
The cries of Wingulls woke me from my slumber, and my eyes slowly made their way open to see a dark blue sky devoid of clouds. I sat up, rubbing my head, feeling a great weight on my lap, and I looked down to see the statue rolling around in between my knees, the waves slowly carrying Tidal - and by extension, Rose and I - in to shore.
"I see you woke up." I turned my head to see Rose, hair slightly frazzled, looking at me, exhausted. "Somehow we got kicked out of the place and were sent back to the spot where we dove down in the first place."
I looked down at the statue, processing the information in my head. Kicked out of there... does that mean that... "You think there's some sort of time limit to how long people can be down in the ruins? Is that what the letters were glowing for?" Rose nodded tentatively, and I frowned.
"Strange... but does that mean...?"
"No, I think we can go back in there." Rose finished for me, and a hush fell over both of us. "But if we ever do decided to go back in, we'll need to keep the time limit in mind."
"Well, whatever. We got Cynthia something for her to look at, so I guess we should go deliver it to her." As the Mantine under us let out a cry of contentment, we washed back up on the beach, where Rose returned Tidal to his Pokeball, and we both began the short trek back to the main area of the resort. We found Cynthia sitting out on the front porch of one of the Villas, where she stood up and waved to us before quickly striding over and plucking the statue from my grasp.
"I... Wow!" Was all she could sputter out as she looked over the artifact, slim fingers feeling their way around every last detail of the strange item. "This... this is amazing! I've never seen anything like this before!" She flipped the thing over and continued to examine the symbols that dotted its surface. Her eyes narrowed.
"And this writing... this is ancient stuff!" Hoisting the statue into a firm, one-handed grip, she used her other hand to shake both Rose's and my hand warmly. I chuckled as she did so.
"You're not normally this excited, Cynthia. Or this excitable, for that matter." She shrugged her shoulders.
"I can't help it! This should really help out with my research! Thank you!" As she shook our hands again, I glanced up at the now star-filled sky before looking at my Pokegear. I was surprised - it was almost midnight.
"We should probably head to the Center before all the rooms are taken. See ya later, Cynthia." She waved to us as Rose and I headed for the Center. I yawned and stretched my arms up in the air, and Rose rubbed at her eyes, both of us tuckered out from exploring the ruins.
"Ugh. Busy day, wasn't it?"
Rose looked at me and smiled, eyes twinkling. "Yep. Wanna do it again tomorrow?"
I shoved her playfully, and she took a few steps to the side from the momentum. "Now, I wouldn't go that far..." We bantered back and forth all the way to the Center.