Much faster update! Huzzah!
Goodness, this week was extremely crazy for me, though.

I've decided to keep Amber as a Plusle. It really was a toss-up because it doesn't affect the story whatsoever, but it's simpler this way. I may or may not include a Pichu or two somewhere in the future.

Chapter 54
Recurring Trouble

Marina was out for a few seconds, or maybe a minute. Either way, not much time had passed when she woke. She cringed as she felt the blast of pain in the back of her head. But strangely enough, when she regained her sense of sight, she found herself dangling. She seemed to be suspended in the air, looking down into the dimly lit pitfall.

"Huh...?"

"Hey! Wake up," grunted a voice above her.

Enduring the grinding headache she was developing, she inclined her head. Silver's long red hair had slipped over his face as he was hunched over the edge of the hole, struggling to keep a firm grasp on her arm. Her eyes widened as what had occurred clicked back into her mind.

"S-Silver...?"

"What are you doing, falling into a hole?" Silver scolded through gritted teeth. "Some genius you are!"

Marina spent a few moments longer in shock before she frantically reached for the solid ground above. "It-It's not my fault! It was a trap," she returned softly.

"I can see that!"

With great effort from the both of them, Silver pulled as Marina desperately climbed back up into the chamber. The boy let go of her once she was completely out of danger, sighing to conceal his adrenaline-powered panting. A grateful smile made its way on Marina's face as she looked at him.

"You saved me. Thank you," she said.

"You better be," he muttered, "If it weren't for my reflexes, I would've let you fall."

"But you didn't. I'm glad...falling wasn't so fun last time."

"Last time?" Silver's keen eyes darted to her. But he paused and formed a puzzled expression as he gazed at something over her shoulder.

Marina tenderly rubbed the back of her head. "What?" He remained silent, and she looked behind her, seeing nothing. She looked back at him. "What is it?"

He began frowning again. "Do that again. Look behind you."

"Uh...Okay." She stared, baffled, but listened to him.

"Annon!"

"Ah!" Marina screamed as she heard the high-pitched cry in her ear. She immediately whirled back around, jumping away from the letter-like Pokémon that Silver had in his grip. It squirmed in a tizzy, its single eye winding around at them both. "It's an Unown!" she exclaimed.

"A what?" Silver glared in disbelief. He rummaged through his jacket pocket with his free hand. His Magnemite, still using Flash to light up the chamber, hesitantly flew a little closer to aid its Trainer.

"Unown! They're the Pokémon that live in the Ruins of Alph," the girl explained. With a second's hesitation, she reached out and stroked her hand along the Unown's smooth black skin. The Pokémon shivered at first. But it soon twisted around in a squiggly giggle, the playful reaction making Marina smile.

She was about to turn to Silver and say more about the Pokémon when a familiar robotic tone extinguished her voice altogether.

"Unown, the Symbol Pokémon. Type: Psychic
Its flat, thin body is always stuck on walls. Their shapes look like hieroglyphs on ancient tablets, so it is said that the two are somehow related. Because different types of Unown exist, it is also said that their shape appear to have some meaning and they must have a variety of abilities."

A soundless gasp escaped Marina as she eyed the red device held in Silver's hand, which was directed to the Unown.

It's a Pokédex! She mentally exclaimed. And it looks exactly like the ones that Kenta, Jackson, and I have!

Silver closed the Pokédex with a casual click and put it away. "Huh... I didn't know about Unown. They look weak, though," he mused to himself. He turned to the girl, whose mouth was still wide open. "What?"

"You have a...?" Marina could barely utter out the words.

A distant cry from below distracted her from her surprise. She looked down at the pit, which was still difficult—impossible—to see to the bottom. Marina leaned over the hole and listened.

"What is it now?" Silver asked, keeping his eye on her.

"Shh! Listen," she hushed.

Though irritated, the boy too moved closer. The faint squealing grew louder, but no sign of movement could be detected. "What is that?"

"I don't know..." Marina whispered and peered into the pitfall. "It sounds like..."

"Annon!" the Unown next to them cried out, wriggling out of Silver's grip and spinning around their heads in hysterical excitement.

Marina tensed in recognition. Suddenly, the darkness below was lit up by hundreds of circle-shaped eyes, which soon mingled and scrambled with the same reoccurring cries, like bubbles in a boiling pot ready to froth over.

"It's Unown!"

Her answer was overcome by the volume of the Pokémon, and the Trainers retreated just as a gigantic mass of Unown burst out of the trapdoor's hole. Like a swarm of large flies, the Unown spun around the chamber buzzing gleeful squeals. Marina and Silver stood in the midst of their confused haste.

"Silver! What do we do?" Marina called over the chatter.

Whether Silver had heard her or not, the boy's eyes were focused on the front of the chamber. Disbelief shook in his voice. "What the…? The exit! Where is it?"

She followed his gaze and gasped in terror. Through the black haze of Unown, what should've been the entrance was nonexistent, replaced by a firm wall of matching wall. They were sealed inside.

Oh no, not again. What did I get us into? A wave of panic swelled in Marina's heart as she recalled her previous experiences with the Unown, all of which were unpleasant, and she retreated closer to hold onto Silver's sleeve for meager support.

Silver glanced at her and then around him with intense concentration. The Unown, though loud as ever, had slowed down and resulted to floating weightlessly. They seemed to be waiting for them to make a move, observing them while enjoying their new roaming space. His keen eyes honed in on the passageway, which was untouched from the Unown's intrusion.

"There," he said in the girl's ear. "They left that hallway alone."

"Huh?" Just as Marina managed to look, Silver bolted toward the passage, pulling her along with him. "W-Wait! Are you sure—?"

"There's no time, so just shut up!"

The Unown cheered, thrilled at their sudden movements, and began scrambling around once more. Marina decided to say nothing more in protest, grasping the boy's sleeve tight as they and Silver's Magnemite rushed behind the puzzle's pedestal and ran into the narrow passageway. They were pursued by the Symbol Pokémon right after, though many were held back as a result of all of them trying to squeeze into the same small space at once. The corridor seemed to grow smaller until it finally yielded to another large chamber, which contained four empty pedestals and neglected brick tables built into the walls.

The second Marina and Silver reached the room, Silver pivoted and threw a Poké Ball from his jacket. "Ursaring!"

A brown, shaggy bear stood tall on its hind legs, its drowsy face appearing spooky in the Magnemite's lighting. It looked down at Silver, who gave a glare as he gave his order.

"Back into that wall behind you and block the hallway! Now!"

Though confused as to the purpose behind the command, the Ursaring did as it was told and pressed its back into the hall, successfully sealing it off. It twitched its nose and grunted as it both heard and felt the little Unown behind it. Not a one was let through, and Silver breathed another sigh as Marina fell to her knees next to him.

"Stay there and don't let any of the Pokémon behind you get by," he gave the final order to his Ursaring, brushing some loose strands of hair out of his eyes.

"Thanks, Ursaring," Marina said between breaths and looked back at Silver, "And thank you again. You really know what to do when things get serious."

"You better be grateful. This is all your fault," he snapped.

She giggled nervously, but they soon faded under Silver's upset glare. She looked down in slight shame. "Yeah. I'm sorry," she admitted.

The red-haired boy shook his head and glanced around at the chamber they had escaped into. The room seemed to have no visible extra exit for them to flee to in the case that the Unown were to leak through. Aside from the undecorated and bland furniture and the hieroglyphs that also coated the walls of the chamber, nothing of interest remained.

"There doesn't seem to be much here," Marina trailed off. Standing on her trembling feet, she explored a few steps further and rested her hand on one of the pedestals. She observed, with interest, an uneven hole in the very corner of the chamber. It seemed to have been man-made; forced open rather than from weakness over time.

That's weird...

"Hey."

"Yes?" Marina twitched and faced Silver's scrutinizing scowl, wearing a slight and troubled frown. Silver narrowed his steely gray eyes, which appeared almost black in the dim lighting, and gazed as if trying to see through her.

"Humph. The puzzle, the trap, now the Unown... This has happened to you before, hasn't it?"

"H-Huh?"

"I see now," he snickered, "I get it. You've visited the Ruins of Alph before, and you came back because you wanted to test if it would all happen again." Silver crossed his arms, scowling again but keeping his tone in a rare state of patience. "And you wanted someone else to come with you in case the situation spun out of your control again."

The expression and even the color of Marina's face drained from her.

"Oh," she muttered without realizing it.

I really hope Kenta doesn't pull something like that on me when I talk to him again, was all she could think.

Silver raised an eyebrow. "Well? Am I right?"

At first she hesitated, but nodded very slowly. Marina gawked at him in awe. "You're right... Completely right. How on earth did you figure out all that?"

He managed a smirk. "It's a little thing called—."

"I know, being observant," she finished. She crossed her arms as if to mimic Silver and turned around, looking downward. The bright light coming from Silver's Magnemite was heavily aggravating her small headache, so facing away from it brought her some relief. "But, I wonder if you noticed that there's a hole over here?"

"There is?"

"Yup. Pretty observant of me, huh?" Marina walked over toward the corner of the room and knelt down.

"Just don't fall or anything," he shot back.

It was silent. Silver could still see Marina's figure curled up on the floor as well as the said hole she was presumably looking at. It was quite large and impossible to miss, if one looked down at the floor with ample light.

Then Marina's voice called in a hushed whisper, "Silver, come look!"

The boy didn't seem at all enthusiastic about checking out yet something else in these ruins, but the faint light that poured from the hole brought him some trickling interest. He made his way next to her and knelt like she did. The sight shocked him at first, but it evened out into a scowl; a group of men and women in black uniforms prowled and raided the chamber below with several loose sacks in hand.

"It's Team Rocket, isn't it?" Marina uttered to him.

Not really processing her words, Silver glared down at the thieves. "You have a rope?" he asked.

"Um...I think so." Without bothering to ask him why, the girl took off her backpack and searched the main pocket with jittery hands. She pulled out her gray Escape Rope and handed it to him. "This is all I have."

He examined it and handed one end back to her. "Make yourself useful and hold it while I eavesdrop on them. I can't hear them from here."

"Eavesdrop?" Marina was only answered by an irritated "that's-what-I-just-said" glare, and she looked away to pluck a Poké Ball from her belt. "Well, you could at least say 'please'."

"I've done enough for you in the past ten minutes; it's about time you start paying me back," Silver responded as Marina's Donphan appeared beside them.

"Don—!"

"Hush!" Marina quietly ordered, putting a finger to her lips as she gave the rope to Phany, who took it in his trunk. "We have to be very quiet, okay, Phany?"

"Phan?" The Donphan took a friendly glance at Silver, but raised his trunk a little in surprise. He then looked at Marina, confused as to why she wasn't battling with the boy.

Meanwhile, Silver had taken a firm grip of the rope and tugged it to double-check its strength. Satisfied enough to trust it, he proceeded to swing his legs over the edge of the hole. He glanced back at the girl and her Pokémon, who both held the other end securely and nodded in readiness.

"Good luck, Silver," Marina whispered. "This is why you came here, right? You knew Team Rocket was here. You don't like them, do you?"

Silver turned to her with an intrigued sort of frown. "How'd you come up with something like that?"

"It's a little something called being observant," she replied with a grin.

"Humph." He shrugged, slipping slowly toward the edge and glancing at Marina one last time. "I do hate Team Rocket, but that's not why I'm here," he said with a sneer before disappearing below.

"Oh!" Marina gasped lightly as some of the rope slid through her hands, it slowed its pace as she and Phany tightened their grip. "W-Wait, so I was wrong?" she asked with a childish frown.

Why else would he be here? I thought for sure I was right, she pondered afterward.

Once the extra coils of the Escape Rope was used up, she sat near the edge of the hole, looking down as she and Phany held it steady. She watched the Team Rocket members scurry around and pick up some artifacts; so far, all of them were oblivious to the boy spying above them. Though Marina couldn't see Silver's expression, she could imagine it well as she eyed his cherry red hair.

His hair is really more familiar, her thoughts continued in order to occupy her. Although... In the dreams I used to have, the person with reddish hair had brown-red hair, and it was more shaggy than Silver's.

"Nope. I should just stop thinking about it right now. Silver doesn't remember me, so that's final," Marina ordered herself. "I should be wondering about how he got that Pokédex. I've just got to ask him after this."

"Don?" Phany spoke up from behind her, gently slapping her hair with one of his floppy ears.

The girl Trainer looked behind her, smiling and nudging him once. "We're helping Silver out; he'll care of that no-good Team Rocket. See? Even though he seems like a bad guy, he has to be good on the inside," she explained. With a giggle, she added, "Think he'll tell us what they're saying when he's done?"

"Donphan." The Pokémon nuzzled her back playfully, chuckling at her giggles.

Marina then gazed back down at the hole, witnessing Silver's still composure. Maybe she had just gotten those familiar vibes from him because that's the kind of person he was. No, she had never met someone quite like him at all before. He was fairly intelligent, stubborn, and fun to tease—much like Kenta—but Silver's grumpy and impatient personality was drastically different from the kind and compassionate Kenta.

I said to stop thinking about it; I don't know him!

Abandoning the thoughts once and for all, Marina moved her shoulders and hands to prevent them from getting stiff.

An abrupt groan from Silver's Ursaring whined behind her. She froze, and Phany's grip lightened as he probably turned around to look. Trying her best to think positively and concentrate on keeping Silver safely out of sight, Marina ignored the sounds best she could.

That better not be what I think it is. Time's running out here, she hurriedly thought.

"Annon!"

A thump followed, and her gut churned in her dropping sense of security. Unable to stand it any longer, she prepared herself and looked over her shoulder. Just as she feared, Ursaring was lying flat on the floor, its back scarred with various burns. Her Donphan was absorbed in surprise, gaping at the sheer amount of peculiar Pokémon it had painstakingly been blocking. Marina rose to her feet at once as the Unown spilled into the room.

"Phany," she said in panic. "Use Rollout!" As some of the Unown approached her, she smacked them away best she could. Her first instinct led her to retreat a step, but upon feeling the edge of the hole, she dashed further into the room.

In the rush, the rope burned and slipped instantly from her fingers.

My, these two chapters have awkward cliffhangers...

Until next time, my dear readers, where a pair of bells ring side-by-side…