Jordan: So, here to disclaim, like usual.

Camilla: All rights go somewhere else.

Jordan: How about we get on with it?

13. Eggs & Ruins

The woman was dressed in a red kimono with green and yellow Chinese dragons swirling around it, she had a pale white face and black hair tied into a tight bun.

I was surprised, an egg? For me?

I remembered the first egg I had, I had no idea what it was when Lance gave it to me aboard the SS Anne, but now I was being offered an egg from this stranger, all because I beat my first gym. It seemed a little weird, then I remembered that none of my friends had an egg before. I didn't know if they wanted an egg instead.

'No thank you.' I replied.

This girl in a Kimono looked a little taken aback by response.

She shook it off and turned to Camilla.

'How about you my dear?'

Camilla looked at the Kimono, she was surprised.

'You're going to give me an egg? For nothing?' Camilla asked.

She was clearly surprised.

'Of course, if you will take it.'

'Um…yeah.' Camilla replied with hesitance.

Was she not sure about taking an egg?

She hadn't had one before, at least not in my experience she hadn't.

The Kimono girl reached behind herself and gave Camilla an egg, it looked different from my Dratini egg and Rachel's Eevee egg. This egg was completely white with small red and blue triangles with smaller white triangles in them.

'What is it?' Camilla asked.

'A mystery.' The girl in a Kimono replied.

My friends and I closely inspected the egg, wondering what would hatch from the egg and when it would hatch.

'No, but really, what is…' We all looked up as Camilla trailed off, the girl in the Kimono had disappeared.

We looked around but couldn't find any sign of her.

Even if the girl in the kimono did know we weren't going to get an answer now.

Neither Brock nor Jasmine had an idea. I certainly didn't, none of us were really knowledgeable about Pokémon eggs.

I had no idea what was in the egg I was given before it hatched. I would never have guessed it was going to be a Dratini.

So we would all have to wait until it hatched to find out what Pokémon it was.

Camilla carefully put the egg in her bag.

I knew she would be great at taking care of the Pokémon that hatched from it.

All four of us made our way to the Pokémon centre, as soon as my Pokémon were healed, I would head straight to bed.

We entered and the lobby was almost empty, I went straight to the counter and my friends headed straight to our room.

I stood by the counter as Cyndaquil and Heracross were being checked on, I had nothing else to do.

I just thought about what we would do tomorrow. I remembered that Leaf said there were some interesting ruins to the west of Violet city, but I couldn't remember the name of them. She told us when Liam was having his battle, but for the life of me I couldn't remember.

Maybe one of my friends knew, but I wouldn't bother them with that now. I would wait until tomorrow morning; they might know about it then.

While I waited for my Pokémon to be restored Camilla's egg came to my mind. I briefly remembered that the egg looked identical to the one that professor Oak took to professor Elm, although he asked us to fetch it for him.

Was it the same one? Did professor Elm give it to the girl who offered it to me?

Maybe I should have said yes, especially if professor Elm was entrusting me with the egg.

I couldn't take it from Camilla, and I wouldn't take it from her either, I know she would be a good Pokémon trainer to whatever hatched from the egg.

Not a second later the sound of my Pokémon being fully restored interrupted me before my thoughts would trail to next.

I took my Pokémon back from nurse Joy and made my way to where my friends were. Jasmine was sitting up in her bed, she looked toward me as I entered.

'Hello Jasmine.' I talked quietly. It seemed as if Brock and Camilla were already asleep.

'I need to tell you something.' Jasmine told me.

I was about to reply, but Jasmine continued to speak.

'I need to tell it to all of you.' She replied.

So, she wanted to tell us something when we are all awake.

I placed my bag down at the end of my bed and heard a rustle from the bottom bunk.

I turned and saw Camilla was awake.

'I'm awake.' Camilla verified.

'Me too.' Brock said from the bunk above Jasmine.

I saw he was also sitting up. I went to sit on Camilla's bed.

'It seems important.' Camilla observed.

Jasmine was looking down at her hands, it was clear she was nervous.

'It's about why I ran away, sort of, where I came from.' Jasmine told us.

She was finally going to tell us what she didn't trust us with before, tell us why she was in such a hurry when we first bumped into her, or actually when she bumped into me.

'I ran away.' She said simply.

That didn't see me so complicated, or something that she would have to hide from us, but to her it seemed like a really big deal.

'My grandfather and I lived in a city quite far away, and I was chosen to do what he had done as he was getting old and could no longer take responsibility, but I didn't want to bear his burden, so the night before I was due to take over, I ran away.' Jasmine told us.

'Why did you hide this from us?' I asked.

'I dreaded to think what you thought of me.' Jasmine said.

'We're your friends, Jasmine,' Brock told her. 'Nothing you tell us will change that.' He continued.

Brock was right, we were friends and no matter what reason Jasmine had we would treat her as a friend.

Jasmine didn't seem like she wanted to give us details just yet, we respected that, it may have been too soon for her, but I was glad we knew some of her story now.

'Thank you for trusting us, Jasmine.' Camilla told her.

Jasmine nodded and laid down.

I got off of Camilla's bed as she and Brock did the same.

I quickly got changed into my pyjamas and also headed into bed into the bunk above Camilla.

I laid there for a few moment wondering what it was that we would find tomorrow in the ruins.

I woke up to light filtering through the blinds

I sat up slowly the morning sun threatening to blind me through the shutters.

I got out of bed and quickly got dressed, my friends were all still asleep.

I clipped my Pokéball belt to my waist and shouldered my bag before I headed into the lobby.

I wasn't the only one up, there were a few tables occupied. Nurse Joy was behind the counter, as usual.

I sat down on a table with nothing to do but wait until my friends woke up.

I put my head in my hands and started to wonder what the ruins looked like, if they were buildings in actual ruins or if they were just called ruins for another reason.

I would probably have to wait until we arrived at the ruins to receive my answer.

'…they're called The Ruins of Alph.' I heard Brock finish.

Well at least I knew the name.

I looked up and saw my friends making their way to the table I sat at.

But why Alph? Why The Ruins of Alph? Was there any meaning to Alph or did it stand for something? These ruins, they sure were clouded in mystery.

I wondered if Leaf and Liam knew, I also wondered if they were still there, but they did want to get to the town that held Liams's second gym battle.

I was glad I had one, my first, also fairly, I didn't like Mareep fighting, but I couldn't do much to stop it, I just hoped that Mareep would be okay. Hopefully I would see her again soon.

My friends sat at the table, at their normal seats.

'They hold many mysteries.' Brock continued.

Hopefully some never seen before Pokémon, it would help fill my Pokédex if there were rare Pokémon.

'Are you exited, Jordan?' Jasmine asked.

'About the ruins?' I asked back.

'Well, yeah, that, but I meant your next gym challenge, it's held in Azalea Town, which is just past the Ruins of Alph, and a small cave called Union Cave.' Jasmine told me.

That didn't seem so far from where we were, but normally places were quite a way to walk, so I had no idea how long it would be until we got there.

'Yeah, I am, but I have no idea who I'm going to use.' I said.

'Well we have a few days at least before we reach Azalea Town, I'm sure you'll figure out a strategy.' She said.

I knew she was right, but I had no idea, but I didn't want to worry about that right now. I would rather think about the Ruins of Alph and the mysteries it held.

Once my friends and I had finished breakfast we made our way west of Violet City and then headed south, these were the directions we were given by nurse Joy when Camilla asked for directions.

As soon as we came out of the gate, I saw this place was covered with sand and not grass.

Maybe these were proper ruins, there were excavations of rocks and big slabs of stone, a lot of these were probably from buildings or maybe from structures that had fallen a long time ago.

We came up to a building that had not fallen, it was made completely of sandstone and was a little larger than a house, but only had one floor, there were also no windows, just a large brown stone door with little markings on it. I couldn't tell what these markings were, but I thought they may be some kind of language.

Brock and I pushed the door thinking it would be heavy, but it swung open quite easily. We obviously weren't the only ones who came here.

Inside it was dusty and dark. There was light that shone on a pedestal in the middle of the room, there was also an inscription on the back wall.

It looked like the inscription on the door, but this one was different and larger.

Maybe it was a language, but I couldn't decipher it.

Camilla and Jasmine rushed to the wall; they were going to try to work out what it meant.

I slowly made my way to the pedestal, when I reached it, with Brock towing behind me I saw there were sixteen square blocks, all with little art designs on the, but they didn't look right, they looked askew and not complete.

'It's a puzzle.' Brock voiced aloud.

Maybe he meant to say it to himself.

'How could you tell?' I asked.

'There are pieces of these that stick together, we just have to place them in the correct order.' He told me.

I looked at some of them and I saw four had a brown outline on two of its sides, they must be the corner pieces, so I decided to place them in the four corners to see if that worked, two of them slid down, that meant that those two were in the right place.

I then switched the other two around and they followed the first two suit.

I then found eight more with borders, I also looked at the outline of some sort of shape and matched them with the already submerged corners. I took me a few tries, but eventually they all submerged too.

I looked to the last four pieces.

The image was not clear yet, I hoped these last four pieces would reveal what I was looking at.

I placed the four pieces down, but only one of them submerged, it looked like the neck of the tail, and I saw the end on one of the edge pieces, so this was a creature then, probably a Pokémon. Maybe a rare one I had not seen before.

I then rearranged the other pieces and only one slid in again, this was two legs, I saw the pieces below it were feet, so this was definitely a creature, quite possibly a Pokémon, maybe it would tell us the Pokémon that lived in these ruins.

I placed one of the pieces down and it showed me part of a wing and the neck, so this creature could fly. I was almost sure it was a Pokémon.

A flying Pokémon? In these ruins? Why would a flying Pokémon be in these ruins?

I then placed the last piece down it was the head with an open jaw as if the Pokémon was roaring. I also saw a part of its other wing. I looked closely at this Pokémon and gasped. I stepped back out of instinct.

I knew Brock was shocked to, my gasp caught the attention of Camilla and Jasmine.

'What is it?' They asked coming over.

'Oh my goodness.' Camilla said as soon as she saw it.

Jasmine looked at it.

'What Pokémon is that?' She asked.

'Aerodactyl.' I replied.

I know my Aerodactyl was fine now, but I still had a bad experience with it.

There can't be those here, wouldn't we have seen them? My Aerodactyl was quite big, I'm sure we'd have seen them flying around here, sure I probably had the first resurrected old amber, that I knew of, so maybe now it was classed as small and other trainers had larger Aerodactyl.

There was clunk on the pedestal, and I saw another inscription, it was the same language as before, so I didn't understand it, but before anyone could start to decipher it the floor gave way and we fell.

We didn't fall far, but it was far enough for us to hurt ourselves.

None of us landed on top of one another.

I slowly got up rubbing my backside, the pain slowly receding.

I looked around and saw that this place was dark and had a brick wall and a brick floor, there were also four pillars holding up the roof, which is what we had just fallen through.

Brock took out two torches from his bag pack. That was Brock for you, always had resources, you'd always need something he had packed.

He handed me one and used one for himself. The girls would have to stay close to us, so they'd be able to see their way, it wasn't completely pitch black, but it was dark enough that these torched helped us see a bit more.

I heard some echoing wails, and I wasn't sure I wanted to meet what was making those sounds, they sounded like distress calls, sure I knew we would help if it was a distress call, but it didn't seem like it was distress of something I was so fond of meeting, clearly my friends felt the same way as none of us rushed toward the sound, but we kept walking in the direction as silently as possible.

The wails continued until they got so loud, I could swear we would be able to see what was in distress.

A few second later lots of high-pitched laugher filled the air behind us.

We saw loads of grey symbols with eyes bobbing towards us, they were floating in the air.

Was it a Pokémon?

'Unown, the symbol Pokémon. Unown can be found in many different shapes that resemble ancient writing. It's not known which came first.' My Pokédex informed me.

So the symbols that were in the room we entered first was writing, a language and it was an ancient writing. Maybe that was the mystery that the Ruins of Alph held.

I still didn't understand what did Alph mean and how many symbols were there? Would you have to obtain every single different Unown to uncover this ancient language and learn how to read it?

The Unown then floated away into the darkness before I could catch one of the symbols, but the one that was shown on my Pokédex had two small protrusions sticking left and right but at a ninety degree angle from one another then up its slim body it had a small protrusion to the right, which looked like it could be its arm, then it had a round eye on top and a scalene triangle protruding from the right-side of its eye, everything was thin and grey apart from its eye which was large and white with a black pupil.

I wondered what symbol this was and if it represented anything from out Alphabet.

Wait a second.

'The Ruins of Alph!' I exclaimed.

It took all my friends by surprise.

Once they got over their shock, they regained their composure and stopped.

'Yes?' Brock asked. He knew I had figured something out.

'Alph, alphabet.' I told him.

It made perfect sense, of course Alph would mean alphabet, but you couldn't really call this the ruins of Alphabet, not really that mysterious, it also didn't sound as nice.

'That makes sense.' Jasmine said.

'But what about that Aerodactyl puzzle, what was that about?' Camilla asked.

Maybe it should be tricky to get you to find out the mystery, so they placed a puzzle to see if you were worthy enough.

'I have no idea.' I replied instead. 'Maybe it was a test.' I suggested in replacement.

'So, now we've found out the secrets what do you say we find a way out of here?' Jasmine asked.

Sounded like a good plan, although we had no idea how to get out. Maybe if we just followed this path, we would find our way out.

We travelled for a few hours, Unown floated by every few minutes, sometimes it was a few and sometimes it was a whole load, sometimes it was a lone Unown. That was easiest for us to find out what it resembled.

I soon found out that the one in my Pokédex resembled an "F", the sixth letter in our alphabet, but we didn't find out the whole alphabet, we got about eighteen letters if we were right with all of them, and the letters we got were all underused in words, letters like "X" and "Z".

The letter that was in my friends Pokèdexes was the same as mine, maybe "F" was the most commonly seen Unown, or the more unlikely was that all my friends had scanned an "F" like me.

Even if the girls remembered the text in the first chamber, I was unsure if they'd even be able to decipher it.

We were also missing two vowels, so even if they did try it was just a guessing game.

I hoped we found a way out of here soon none of us had spoken for a while, the silence turned eerie, and I was a little terrified of what else was down here. These Unown were psychic types, so it was possible that they could probably cause all kinds of chaos that I didn't want to be trapped in, they could cause us to see things that weren't actually there. They could make things move, not that there was much to move down here, or there wasn't anything that we could see. The noises were probably made by the Unown to freak us out, it was probably the same with the eerie silence, that was probably the Unown too. I knew there was so much more that psychic types were capable of. The plan was to get out of this place as soon as possible. The ruins of Alph was not the best idea, I wondered if Leaf and Liam had the same experience we did.

'This was a waste of time.' Jasmine piped up making all of us jump. 'Sorry.' She quickly apologised.

'Not true.' Brock countered.

'We had an experience that not many people have had.' I agreed.

'But this has been a frightening experience.' Jasmine reminded us.

'And it's not over yet.' Camilla chirped in.

Jasmine didn't understand the inside joke Camilla was making, but she knew Camilla wasn't agreeing with her.

'I know you guys never have an easy day, but…'

'We, Jasmine, you're part of our group now.' I interrupted her.

'Okay, we never have an easy day, but how it this experience good?' She asked.

'Any experience is good; it helps us learn and grow.' Brock told her.

'Nothing we do is a waste of time.' Camilla added.

Jasmine took that information in.

No-one said anything for a while after that, it was clear that conversation had ended.

I knew Jasmine was thinking hard, we had finally told her that she was part of our group, she was probably trying to accept that and the fact that this-not preferably good-good experience was worthwhile.

'I noticed that Jordan is the leader of our group…' Jasmine started that.

I stopped when she said that.

'…why is that?' She asked.

I turned to face her.

'I'm not the leader.' I told her.

'So, if I wanted to lead where we went…' she started.

'I would follow.' I interrupted, giving her an answer before she could finish her question.

'So why do we follow you?' She asked.

'If you want to lead Jasmine.' I offered her gesturing to where I was.

'I didn't mean it like that.' She said.

I had taken her question the wrong way, I immediately felt guilty.

'Why did Brock and Camilla decide to follow you?' She asked.

'I wanted to become a Pokémon breeder.' Brock told her.

'No. Why did you follow Jordan?' Jasmine asked.

'I guess it was because he asked me in a way.' Brock started. 'Jordan battled my gym and as soon as he won my father came back, he said he'd changed, and he was taking care of my family and when I got home, I saw he did. Jordan and his friend, Rachel waited for me to see if I would travel with him to follow my own dream. After I had packed, I joined him on his journey through Kanto. I guess I just tagged along on his journey through Johto without the invitation, since I had travelled with him through almost his whole journey, I guess he wouldn't mind.' Brock explained.

'We missed you through the Orange islands, Brocko.' I told him.

He looked grateful that I told him that.

The Orange islands sure would have been fun with him.

'What about you, Camilla?' Jasmine asked.

'I started in the battle Château and my second challenge was against Jordan, I won against him, and I was amazed by his skill to take more than one hit with a type of disadvantage. I then told him I'd meet him in Cerulean City next. I waited for him in Cerulean for a few days, because I wanted to see if he recognised me from Oaks summer camp.' Camilla told her. 'He didn't, but that's complicated, so I'll skip that. We had a three-on-three battle in front of the battle château, it ended in a draw. He told me to accompany him to watch his Cerulean gym battle and eventually I did and I just kinda tagged on from there. Things then got complicated as soon as Jordan remembered me from summer camp at the end of our Kanto journey.' Camilla explained.

'Can you un-complicate it?' Jasmine asked.

Before we could answer Brock jumped in.

'They've never wanted to.'

Camilla and I blushed deep red, and I guess I blushed deeper when I saw Camilla blush.

'Oh, that sort of complicated.' Jasmine said mostly to herself.

'It's not like that.' Camilla said definitively in a "drop it" tone.

'What about you?' I asked Jasmine. 'Why are you travelling with us?'

'It'll be easier… to travel in a group instead of by myself.' Jasmine told us. It was as if she was going to say something else, but we didn't press her, she was part of our group now and we trusted her.

We kept on walking, but this time Camilla walked next to me. I didn't want Jasmine to think of me as the leader, she should have been with us in the underground underneath Saffron.

Camilla, Leaf and Rachel walked a few metres in front of us chatting animatedly while Brock, Liam and I were behind them, chatting amongst ourselves.

The only time I really led was when I was having a gym battle or when I was getting us through a tight spot, my friends did let me lead on, they could have taken charge if they wanted to. And I needed them too, they'd helped me out a few tough spots loads of times, the most recent was Camilla helping me when I was depressed and feeling guilty about Mareep.

There was a light a good distance ahead, that was hopefully the way out.

We kept waking towards it, no longer feeling bad, the eerie silence had left since Jasmine had spooked us by accident. We no longer felt terrified.

I tried not to get my hopes up, but every step I took brought me closer and closer to outside and I would be glad to be out of this place.

It was something I did not want to experience again.

As soon as we got to the light, we saw that it was not in front of us, but above us. I didn't see a way out, how were supposed to get up there?

'Look a ladder.' Camilla pointed out. Sure enough there was a ladder against the wall leading up to the light. I couldn't see outside as my eyes had trouble adjusting to the light.

I turned my torch off and Brock did the same, he put his back in his bag and I put the one he gave me in mine, I might be needing it again.

We all went up the ladder, Camilla went up first, followed by me and Jasmine followed me, and Brock was the last up.

Once we got to the top, we were outside.

I looked back once we got out and saw that the building, we came out of looked exactly like the one we had entered.

Once we were all out a stone door blocked the exit. It looked almost identical to the one that was blocking the chamber that we entered through except it had a different inscription.

We decided that it was best to leave the ruins now, did not want to experience more here, not with the trouble we'd endured.

'Maybe we should leave.' Camilla suggested.

None of answered, but we were all in agreement.

We walked away from the Ruins of Alph and found the exit within a few minutes.

We walked out and found ourselves on the route where we saved the Mareep.

I knew where we saved the Mareep, but the wiring mesh had been removed, I don't know who removed it, but it was good that they did, now there were no more traps, so the Pokémon were safe.

My friends and I continued on this route. Nothing came up that was interesting, there were Pokémon, but I already had them registered when I met them on Butwal, one of the islands in the Orange islands archipelago.

There were Wooper, Hoppip, Bellsprout, Ekans and Mareep. I had seen all these Pokémon somewhere before. These Mareep looked happy and healthy, running around in the grass, playing with one another.

The Hoppip sailed in the light breeze. Being blown in all different directions, I was curious to how light they were, but maybe I'd look it up later.

Ekans were alone slithering in and out the tall grass, minding its own business.

Wooper were squirting water at each other, running around playing. And Bellsprout were just standing there in the sun.

I wondered if they were showing off for us.

We continued, no other Pokemon had been seen, maybe there were rare ones in this grass, that would be good to see, a rare Pokémon, it was less likely to be in my Pokédex.

We hadn't seen any other Pokémon, then we saw a bridge and we saw a few fisherman along the bridge, I dare not talk to them, I'd have to spend the rest of the day catching a Pokémon. I did not want to do that again, sure it was a good experience, but it was pretty boring, just standing there, waiting for something to nip at the end of your line.

We walked past them, thankfully none of them paid us any attention. If I wanted to fish, I'd probably do it in my own time.

'Hey, Jasmine, have you ever fished?' I asked her as soon as we'd walked off of the bridge.

'No,' she replied. 'I've never held a fishing rod.' She continued.

'Would you like to try and fish?' I asked her.

'Now?' She asked.

'No, not now, I meant in the future.' I replied.

'Maybe.' She said thoughtfully.

She didn't seem like the person to fish, but it would be an experience for her to gain, who knows she might even like it.

The sky began to darken as we continued walking.

It had been a few hours since we entered the route and just like in the ruins, nothing interesting had happened.

'Maybe we should set up camp here.' Brock suggested.

It was good idea. Who knows when we would get to the cave?

'But first I'll cook us dinner, then we can set up the tents.' He continued.

'I'll see if I can find a water source close by.' I volunteered.

I quickly ran ahead and after turning a few corners I saw a faint orange glow behind a few trees.

I walked around and saw that it was a Pokémon centre.

There was a Pokémon centre around here?

Before I did anything else I ran straight back to my friends.

'Guys.' I said. 'There's a Pokémon centre not too far up ahead.' I told them.

They all looked at me skeptical.

I wouldn't make something like this up, there wasn't any point in me making this up. It would benefit me in no way.

Brock had just started to unpack, I felt sorry for him as he now had to put the stuff back.

Once he did and he shouldered his bag we headed toward the Pokémon centre.

We asked nurse Joy for a room key before we went to the buffet for our dinner.

There wasn't much to do until tomorrow, maybe Union Cave would be as eventful as The Ruins of Alph.

As soon as my head hit the pillow I was out.

Jordan: *yawn* since, for some reason I have woken up in the middle of the night *yawn* I will be signing off.

Camilla: Hope you enjoyed this chapter, keep a look out for next one.

Jordan: Have you been awake *yawn* all this time, Camilla?

Camilla: Of course not, only a few minutes…

Chapter Fourteen: Union Cave