This one I pulled from part of Maria's Jhoto expedition - pretty early on, if you guys can guess from the title. Kind of...how she first heard of the Mobians after her memory loss at the hands of Darkrai. Or claws. You can probably guess who's being referred to in this chapter.

Just an added warning: I tried to underline all of the PokeSpeak used, but not all of it might end up coming out in the story. So, sorry if it seems like Jaws is speaking in plain English sometimes. :/

The Ruins of Alph

Maria looked around as she stepped through the gate, a two-legged blue crocodile - a Totodile - walking beside her, looking a little bored with the sight.

"Do we really have to have a look around here?" the Water-Type asked in a disgruntled fashion.

"Mom said that it would be good for us to have a look around," Maria responded. She adjusted the red baseball cap on her head, then absently rubbed that blue buzz saw-shape on the front of it. "Something about the symbol on my hat being connected to the ruins." She looked down at the Totodile. "You might not find it interesting, Jaws, but I do. C'mon - maybe we can slip into one of the buildings and have a look around."

"Do you think they'd let you?"

Maria smirked, her blue eyes sparking with mischief. "I can always pull the 'I'm the Kanto Champion,' you know. It might let me have a look around in at least one of the buildings." She turned her head as a figure approached: a gray-haired man in what appeared to be a safari outfit, which, in the Trainer's opinion, was highly out of place in the ruins.

"Greetings!" the man stated. "I'm the head of the research department here at the Ruins of Alph. It's been quite some time since a Trainer had set foot in this area."

"Really?" Maria raised an eyebrow at this. "My mom told me that this place was crawling with Trainers looking for the mysterious letter Pokemon that were said to haunt the place."

"Those Pokemon have long since disappeared for other places, I'm afraid," the man replied. "I've been hearing rumors that there are other ruins that they call home in other regions, but I haven't been allowed to go in search of these other places."

Maria let out a sigh and shook her head. "Oh, well." She gave the man a curious look. "Are Trainers still allowed to look inside the ruins?"

"Of course! Just don't destroy anything - these ruins are not as sturdy as the once were." He motioned to one of the buildings. "I'd suggest starting there - there's a puzzle that we've been unable to solve. Perhaps you'd know how to solve it?"

"A challenge? I'm up for that." Maria motioned for Jaws to follow her to the building the archeologist had pointed out, which was the closest one of the four to the entrance. "Maybe fresh eyes will be able to pick something out that you didn't see." The Trainer took off, the Water-Type following behind.

"That's what I'm hoping for!" the man called after her.

Maria jogged into the building, then slowed to a stop as she looked around at the inside of the stone construct. "Wow. The ancients sure were busy with their carving habits."

Jaws sniffed the air. "I smell Pokemon nearby," he muttered. "Be careful, Maria."

"I'm not worried." Maria walked over to one of the walls and started going over the carvings. "It's a good thing that they modeled their words after the Unknown...or is it the other way around?"

"Don't think so much. In my opinion, the mysteries of the universe are meant to remain mysteries."

"I think those mysteries are meant to be solved." Maria reached out, absently tracing a letter "b" in thought as she frowned. "This is weird..."

Jaws frowned as he looked up at his Trainer. "What?"

"These carvings...they're talking about creatures that look like Pokemon and act like humans." Maria's brow furrowed. "I haven't run into anything like this before in the history books Mom let me borrow. Let's see... 'The Legendary PokeMorphs were creatures that controlled great power, capable of flight when others of their species weren't allowed it, teleportation, and speed that was far greater than anything at that time, or anything that lives today.' PokeMorph, huh?" Maria turned her gaze to a podium-like object that stood in the center of the room. "I wonder..."

The Trainer strode over to the object, stopping directly in front of it. As Jaws toddled over, Maria got down onto her knees in order to inspect the design on the front of the stone podium.

" 'Blue Blur,' huh?" Maria looked over the strange design. "It looks like some sort of sliding puzzle..."

"Do you really think we'd be all right, messing with it?" Jaws asked, looking around at the stone wall.

"The director said it was all right; I don't see how you should be so nervous." Maria reached out with her left hand and started to mess around with the panels, moving them around one way or another in order to figure out what the puzzle was supposed to turn out as. "Well, that looks like a hand... Why would a creature have feet like that? Are those shoes and gloves?" A frown slowly made its way onto her face as the pieces were continued to be slid around.

"Why would a creature have need of anything like those?" Jaws jumped up on his Trainer's back in order to get a better look at what Maria was doing. "I mean, you don't see me wearing human articles of clothing."

"It's a given that Pokemon don't have clothes," Maria responded, glancing over at the Water-Type on her shoulder. "And the ones that appear to we're actually born with them." Her gaze returned to the puzzle, which appeared to be almost complete. "But this creature - it clearly looks like the gloves and shoes are artificially made..."

There was a resounding click as the last piece of the puzzle was moved into place, revealing a creature that distinctly looked like a Sandslash - if someone only concentrated on the spines. The rest of the form was completely unfamiliar - a strange, black nose, the pointed shoes with a single stripe that ended in a buckle of some sort - right down to the confident smirk and delighted look in the carved eyes.

"Whoever had put this up did a pretty decent job for a carving," Maria noted, her eyes scanning the puzzle.

Then the floor below her suddenly gave way, and the Trainer fell into the darkness.

Line Break

Maria let out a groan as she got up from the ground, Jaws jumping away from her face as she sat up, looking around to get a better feel for where they were.

"Where are we?" the Trainer asked, looking around. "So many Unknown carvings..."

"We're still in the Ruins of Alph...I think." Jaws pointed upward. "We fell from up there."

Maria looked upward, catching sight of a perfect square of light above them. "Sure enough. There must have been a trap door that was activated after solving the puzzle." She got up from the stone floor and looked around again, Jaws choosing to stay close. "May as well have a look around down here before we try to find a way back up using the Escape Rope." The girl reached into her backpack and pulled out a flashlight, flicking the on switch.

The beam came on in a flash of artificial light, going over the wall in front of them, revealing the carving that looked so much like the Unknown Pokemon that seemed to have once wandered around the ruins.

Jaws let out a noise that was akin to a human whistling. "That's a lot of carvings."

Maria nodded in agreement. "Yeah. It'll probably take weeks to get all of this - months, maybe." She stepped forward and started to read the carvings more carefully. "This is a weird section. 'The servers ... the seven Ch... Ch... is power, ... the heart. The controller exists to unify the Ch...'." Maria frowned. "There's something missing here. From what's here, though, it looks like it could be some sort of chant."

"There you are!" Maria turned her head, catching sight of the archeologist they had seen at the entrance to the Ruins of Alph. He, too, was armed with a flashlight, and was jogging from a square of light that actually had stairs coming down from it. "I was starting to wonder when you didn't come out. When I saw the hole in the floor, I thought that you might have ended up down here by accident." He stopped beside her, panting a little. "I saw that you managed to solve it."

Maria nodded. "Yeah, I did. What kind of confused me, though, is that the creature that was shown doesn't look like any sort of Pokemon that anyone's come across. The Unknown script called it 'Blue Blur.' Would you happen to know anything about it?"

The archeologist thought a moment before nodding. "We managed to translate most of the writings down here - at least, what script was readable. A lot of it talks about myths of some sort - but the carvings claim them to be true." The old man shook his head. "I'm not exactly sure what to make of it, honestly."

"Hmmmm..." Maria frowned slightly, a hand moving to her chin as she thought. "I don't really know what to make of it, either, but it seems to be the only explanation for how a carving like the puzzle I solved could even exist. But...what sort of name is 'Blue Blur'?"

"There is evidence up there that the creature was referred to by another name, but unfortunately, it's name is presently unreadable," the archeologist responded. "Perhaps, in time, if we manage to update our technology, we may be able to figure out what the creature's name was. After all, if a creature is referred to as a 'blue blur' and is renown for his speed among the ancients, there might be something in its name that hints at that, as with the others."

Maria looked over at the archeologist in surprise. "Others? You mean there wasn't just this creature?"

"Oh no, certainly not." The archeologist motioned for the Trainer to follow him out of the ruins. "It might be better is you had a look at what we've managed to translate."

Time Break

Maria scrolled through the translated text on the laptop screen, her eyes scanning it as she went. "This is some pretty interesting stuff. A man who created robots - some capable of sentient thought? Creatures like Pokemon, but that have the intelligence of humans?" She looked over at the archeologist. "I'd really like to have a more detailed look at this."

"That can be easily arranged." The old man turned and dug through a large box of mechanical parts and devices, eventually coming up with a flat blue, rectangular device. "Just let me find the...cord...aha!" He pulled out an equally blue cord, which he promptly plugged into the USB port on the laptop. A progress bar popped up on the computer's screen. "I had a few of these made so that those working on this could read on the go, rather than trying to read over each other's shoulders."

"I can imagine the difficulty in that," Maria noted. "And I'm sure that each one of them reads at different rates and finds different things important, as well."

The archeologist chuckled. "Indeed." There was a chime from the computer, and he unplugged the blue device from it, handing both the device and the cord to Maria. "Here - I'm going to look for the plug that allows this to charge."

"Thanks..." Maria watched as the old man practically dove for the box again.

Jaws climbed up onto his Trainer's shoulder, inspecting the strange device curiously. "So, how are you going to use that, anyway?"

"It's a touch screen device," Maria explained to the Pokemon. She touched the screen of the pad with her right finger and moved it, causing the text to move with it. "See? I can control it simply by touching it."

"Huh. I guess it's a more compact way of carrying around those books you're so interested in?"

Maria smiled sheepishly and ducked her head a little. "Yeah. But even these devices can have their limits - the data storage probably doesn't allow for much to be out in."

"Indeed." The archeologist handed Maria a blue plug that clearly went with the cord. "These specific devices were designed only for what we found here, in the Ruins of Alph." He frowned slightly. "You...you can understand your Pokemon?"

Maria nodded. "Yeah. It's a gift that I've had for a while." Mentally, she added, Since I was turned into one...

"Well, you are one of the lucky few," the archeologist responded with a chuckle. "If you come up with anything, make sure to come back here as quickly as you can - or give me a call, if you're detained." He dug through a pocket for a moment before pulling out a slightly rumpled business card with a PokeGear number on it.

"Thanks!" Maria took the card, then stated, "And if you want to try to contact me about a progress report, here's mine!" The Trainer quickly relayed the number to the archeologist, who's quickly wrote it down in the laptop so that he could put the number in his PokeGear later. The old man then frowned as though a thought had occurred to him.

"You know, I never got your name," the archeologist stated, turning to look at Maria.

"It's Maria," Maria responded. "Maria White."

The archeologist's eyes widened. "The Kanto Champion?"

"Until I was beaten by Blue and Red," the girl responded with a delighted smirk. "I still hold the title, though, whether I'm at Indigo Plateau or not."

"Incredible. A member of the new generation who is as into our history as I am." A smile came over the old man's face as he recalled something - most likely from his own past. "I wish that others could show this kind of curiosity, Maria."

"I may find someone - you never know." Maria shrugged, then got out of the chair she had been sitting in when she had been going over the text on the laptop, Jaws readjusting to the sudden movement. "I'll make sure to keep this close and go over it whenever I can."

"Don't let me stop you from getting stronger," the archeologist replied, chuckling. "You have a lot of potential for that - I can tell."

"So a lot of people have already told me." A smile crept onto the Trainer's face. "Again, thanks for letting me have a look at this. It's a lot more valuable than finding one of those elusive Unknown at this point."

"It was no problem." The archeologist made a waving motion. "No, go on! I'm certain that your next destination is not a place to be kept waiting!"

Maria's eyes widened, and she nodded. "You're right! Faulkner said that Bugsy's Gym wasn't going to be open for long this week! I gotta go before he goes off on vacation!" With that, she turned and dashed out of the building, making a beeline for the exit from the ruins.

"Kids these days," the archeologist muttered to himself, shaking his head and smiling to himself. "Always on the run."