Crimson Mirends (for real this time)

  >COLLECT EVERY POKEMON<

  (24/237)

  This might actually take forever.

  And to be completely honest, Joshua is not a fan of the Crimson Mirends.

  Don't get him wrong, it's beautiful, but good GOD is it rough.

  He isn't sure how a single region can go from actual snow covered tundra to bzing hot bogs in just a few hours of distance.

  As a Californian, he's used to going outside and immediately bursting into fire, but the Crimson Mirends SUCKS.

  It's just swamp, rge bodies of water and expanses of hot mud and bog. It's humid, and the heat REALLY lingers here.

  Knowing that he'll have to catch every Pokemon in this zone fills him with dread.

  But at least the ruins are cool though.

  Overarching pilrs of ft stone and carved details just barely visible from the decay of time. These ruins are seemingly pced randomly across the Mirends.

  Cynthia is screaming at him again, so it's time to give them a look.

  “Let's stop here, Love. Before Cynthia finds a way to travel through time to rip my head off”

  [I<3Gible: Don't tempt me]

  Joshua chuckles, dismounting from Jophiel he walks his way over to a set of ruins. It's mostly destroyed, but what remains is vaguely in a square shape, making him believe it was some kind of building.

  A broken archway sits in the “front”, with several engravings carved into it, weathered by time.

  Pulling out his notebook, he jots down his thoughts and makes a quick sketch of the structur- RUIN, a sketch of the ruin.

  “Any idea what material this is?”

  [StevenStoneOffical: Knock on it, please.]

  Raising an eyebrow, he shrugs and walks over to the archway, knocking his knuckles on it a few times.

  Almost immediately, Steven comes back.

  [StevenStoneOffical: Andesite.]

  Joshua blinks, guffawing at the man as he turns to chat.

  “There's no way you can just do that”

  [StevenStoneOffical: I have been an Archeologist for a long time, Joshua.]

  [I<3Gible: Geologist]

  [StevenStoneOffical: Are we seriously doing this again?]

  [IonoZone: plz no not again (゜_゜;)]

  Joshua rolls his eyes and takes a look at the carving, with quick sketches he copies what he can see down.

  They aren't in any nguage he can recognize, some of them are simir to hieroglyphics where they're just straight up drawings.

  Drawings he can't really understand but hey, that's for Cynthia to bash her head against, not his.

  It's kinda insane that even Hisui has extremely old ruins from civilizations even less documented than they are.

  Maybe the Celestial People have some kind of Hollow Earth type thing going on, that certainly seems like a thing Pokemon would do.

  Oh, there's a small string of Unown script underneath it.

  “C…H…U…R…C…H again, I think. Church? Okay, this pce was a church”

  He writes that down and turns back to Jophiel.

  “Alright, I think that's everything, let's get to camp first to boot up, then head to Soceon Ruins, easy enough”

  (“There has not been any Pokemon too troublesome that we have encountered so far… but be careful, Beloved”)

  “Unless they make Mama Goodra angry again we should be fine”

  “Um… Mr. Joshua?” Akari croaks out, atop Uriel once more. She's looking at the carvings on the archway.

  Joshua hops on Jophiel and looks back.

  “What's up?”

  “Where does it, um… where does it say ‘Church'? There's no writing on here…”

  …can she not see it?

  “It's underneath the fancier stuff, at the bottom. Some of it is damaged though”

  Akari squints her eyes, looking lower down the archway. A confused expression spreads on her face, and she looks back at him.

  “I uh… I still can't see anything”

  Huffing slightly to himself, Joshua directs Jophiel over and points at the Unown directly.

  “Right here”

  She blinks, looking down and furrowing her brow in aggravation.

  “Those aren't words, Mr. Joshua. Those are Unown, Professor Laventon told me about them but they don't mean anything…”

  Joshua stares at her, making the young trainer squirm in uneasiness.

  Is… what?

  His eyes flicker to the side.

  [Yeah those aren't words dude]

  [Someone just likes Unown I guess]

  [Oh Arceus it's the Unown argument again…]

  [Every historian around the world all simultaneously got a headache lol]

  “Professor Laventon says that they spell out something but…”

  “You don't believe him”

  She shakes her head a bit guiltily.

  “I don't think anybody does…”

  Joshua freezes.

  Through the link, Jophiel is as confused as he is, but even she didn't know the deal with Unown was either. She's only able to read it because HE can.

  “Wait wait, hold on” Joshua stops.

  He points at the Unown.

  “You can't read this”

  Akari shakes her head.

  “No… I'm sorry”

  He pulls out his notebook, flipping to a random page and showing it to her.

  “How about this, can you read this?”

  Akari leans forward to read…

  But to his dismay… she shakes her head.

  What the fuck?

  Flipping to a bnk page, he hands the notebook and pencil over to her.

  “Write down the word ‘church’, please”

  She blinks in confusion, but she does what he asks. Joshua notes it takes significantly longer than he expected.

  Handing it back to him, Joshua freezes at the script.

  He can't read this at all.

  (“Church”) Jophiel's voice rings in his head.

  It looks like Japanese Kanji, but there's characters he doesn't recognize at all. It seems rounder, much like Korean, but it still has the ‘liney’ look that Japanese has.

  His eyes flicker to his chat.

  [Church]

  [Church]

  [Church]

  [STOP SPAMMING]

  [Church]

  “...”

  “Um… Mr. Joshua?”

  He blinks.

  “Hey, Akari, I uh… I have to speak with Jophiel for a second, do you mind sitting here for a little bit?”

  “S-Sure!”

  He walks off.

  As soon as he gets far enough, he whips the notebook out again.

  “Okay guys, are you messing with me?”

  [???]

  [I missed the joke! WAAAA]

  [IonoZone: Nooooo…?]

  [What are you talking about Josh?]

  [StevenStoneOffical: Apologies I had a call, what is going on?]

  [Definitely missed something]

  [SabrinaOfficial: No]

  [TulipOfficial: Nada]

  He quickly writes the word ‘Church’ underneath the strange script and holds it out.

  “What does this say?”

  [It just says ‘Church’ twice]

  [Church ×2]

  [Church2 perhaps]

  [StevenStoneOffical: What is going on?]

  Joshua is stunned.

  “There's no good way how to ask this… but what nguage have I been speaking this whole time?”

  [StevenStoneOffical: Standard Common Tongue.]

  [SCT]

  [Standard Common]

  [Common]

  The answer leaves him baffled.

  Slowly, he points to the words again.

  “And… what nguage is this?”

  [StevenStoneOffical: Standard Common Script.]

  [SCS]

  [Common again]

  [Standard Common]

  “...”

  Joshua takes a deep breath.

  “Y'all… I can't read this”

  [I<3Gible: You've been writing in it this entire time pipsqueak]

  “No, you're not getting it. I'm speaking in ENGLISH, from my world, I'm not using your version!”

  [StevenStoneOffical: Joshua we can see what you write…]

  This… what?

  Wait.

  Joshua opens the stream settings. He scrolls down the various options and toggles, having a sneaking suspicion about something.

  After a moment, he finds it.

  [WRITTEN TRANSLATION FILTER (ON)]

  Oh my God.

  This entire time… they've been speaking in another nguage?

  There's no spoken transtion filter, does that mean that verbally that their nguage is the same as English?

  On a whim, he decides to test something.

  Writing on the same page, he copies the series of Unown down, spelling the word ‘Church’ once more.

  “What does this say?”

  …

  [POV: CYNTHIA]

  Leaning back in her chair, Cynthia sighs as she takes a sip of coffee.

  Joshua's going on about something, she's not sure. She's not sure what ‘English’ is, but he's been speaking in Common this whole time so it must be a weird dimensional culture thing.

  [Unown church church]

  [idk church church]

  [??? Church2]

  She leans over to type her own message. The idea of Unown being some kind of nguage or alphabet is a theory that is NOTORIOUS.

  Linguists and Historians have tried for decades to prove it, but there's absolutely nothing to show for it aside from old murals and whatever that swarm of Unown does around Palkia.

  It sparked a LOT of debate, but most, including her, have given up on the admittedly interesting theory. It's funny how even a Professor from another era still argues about it.

  [“I think the stream is transting what I write down… because this is all the same word”]

  Cynthia raises an eyebrow. Huh, that's weird, but it wouldn't be the craziest thing she's seen tech d-

  She freezes.

  Looking at the notebook, she locks on to the series of Unown Joshua has written down.

  The same word.

  The same word…

  THE SAME WORD.

  WAIT A MINUTE.

  Cynthia spits out her coffee, dousing her desk and ruining paperwork. She flings herself forward, stumbling in her chair as she grips the keyboard, not caring at all about the mess.

  She mashes into the keys, excitement filling her heart.

  There's no way, there's NO way…

  If this is true, Cynthia doesn't know much else she could give to the man if he could provide her with what she THINKS he has.

  The message is sent, and she prays to Arceus he doesn't miss it.

  [I<3Gible: YOU CAN READ UNOWN???]

  He looks over.

  [“Uh… yeah? It's simir to my alphabet”]

  *SLAM*

  She bashes against the table, cracking it.

  “M-Miss Cynthia?!” Her assistant cries out, but she doesn't care.

  Cynthia throws herself back and cackles like a madman, she can already see people in chat freaking out, but she still doesn't care.

  [StevenStoneOffical: Wait WHAT?!]

  She cackles even more.

  “IT'S TOO LATE STEVEN! YOU CAN'T HAVE HIM!!! HAHAHAHAHAAAA!!!”

  And if he tried, she would absolutely battle him. She doesn't care what affects that might have on their regions' retions.