The 2nd Verse Of The Prophecy

Kibou and Maria stand in the entrance of the ruins. The name of this set of ruins is carved into the stone above the entrance and thanks to Kibou being able to understand the ancient symbols, he tells Maria that the name is "Ruins Of Ideals and Spirit". Of course, Maria is also a bit surprised that he was able to read the ancient symbols as if they were nothing to him, but this also hints to her that perhaps he's a bit more than what she previously thought. They stand in the entrance, Maria telling Kibou something important.

"Alright Kibou, since we don't know if these ruins are rigged to a trap, we have to be extremely careful when we go inside." she says.

He nods with a wide smile on his face. He's very excited to see what these ruins have to offer since the last one gave him a very interesting part of a prophecy that didn't make too much sense to him. Perhaps the other half will be contained inside. Maria flies down the staircase and Kibou follows. The light from outside quickly vanishes and is replaced with the light from dimly lit torches with blue flames burning. Seems to match the whole blue hue theme going on outside.

They reach the bottom of the staircase and Maria takes a close look at the walls and the floor. After about a minute of careful looking around, she quickly flies all the way over to the altar at the end of the room. She turns around and calls to him. "It's safe to cross!"

Kibou flies towards her but as he does, he takes in everything he can see in the room. The inside of these ruins is different to the inside of the other ruins he discovered a while back. This time, while the same materials were used to build the ruins and everything is the same design wise, the paintings and murals on the walls depict something extremely different happening. Last time, it depicted ancient Pokemon fighting against humans in vivid detail, this time, the paintings and murals seem to depict two Mew-like Pokemon holding hands with each other and a strange, baby Mew floats over them shrouded in a bright light, sleeping with the entire world in the background, flourishing and lush as it usually is.

While it looks cool, he has no idea what it means and it makes absolutely no sense to him, but regardless, it seems to have to do with what the other ruins painting showed. On the wall opposite of him, another painting can be seen, showing a massive human with a blacked out face stepping on a massive pile of Pokemon bodies and bones. They seem to have blood all over them and it could be assumed that they're dead. The human in question seems to be laughing and a massive plume of flames stands behind him, showing the world in pain and burning away. Leaving all to ash and dust, never to be seen again for the rest of time.

Kibou raises his eyebrows at it. He thinks about the first painting he saw and what he was told by that Marowak. "At the darkest hour, a single soul, pure, kind, caring, and innocent, will rise up from the ashes to do battle with a fierce and all consuming evil. I'm not too sure of what it means either, but from what I remember, I was told that 19 years ago a child was said to have been born with frightening powers capable of rivaling even Arceus' strength."

He thinks harder about the picture he first saw. The painting depicted a whole bunch of Pokemon fighting against humans in what seemed to be a giant battle for something. It wasn't ever shown what they were both fighting for but the little bit of prophecy that was revealed in that altar said something about a person or Pokemon rising up from the ashes to battle an all powerful evil. Looking at the paintings he just found, there seems to be some sort of connection. The two Mew-like Pokemon, could they be part of the ancient Pokemon species? They seem to be joined together, paw in paw, to create some sort of being that's… divine?

He can't quite make much out of this and instead focuses on the other painting. This one is a little bit easier to understand, and it seems that a single human has managed to take control of the world and kill hundreds of thousands of Pokemon with some sort of weapon or attack that consumes all in a blaze of flame. The human seems to be laughing in a victorious and taunting way. Kibou doesn't like this human, he seems scary and very dangerous even though he's stuck in the painting and can't do anything to him. He goes back to the other picture, perhaps the creation of that divine being was the last thing the ancient Mew-like Pokemon could do as they took their last breath.

It doesn't make sense so he simply puts it in the back of mind and simply heads towards Maria. She took notice of how long it took for him to get to her and she questions him. "Were you looking at those paintings?"

He nods. "Yeah, but they don't make that much sense… what's up with that weird, human stepping on those Pokemon and the two Pokemon that look like me?"

She chuckles. "Hehe… well you see, it's a very long story."

He takes a seat near the altar. "I wanna know more, this seems all cool and stuff."

She sits next to him and smiles. "It's quite a long tale, so I hope you can understand everything I'm about to say."

He nods. "I'll try my best!"

She clears her throat and then begins. "These paintings depict events that had supposedly happened in the past, a thousand years before you or I were born. According to what I know about doing my own research into them, they're linked to the age-old prophecy that some Pokemon today are saying that will come true. Nobody knows for sure if this prophecy is truly going to happen, but with how bad things have gotten for all of us, many are starting to believe that it's only a matter of time before it happens."

He raises his paw to speak and she lets him. "Hey, that prophecy… does it have anything to do with what I'm about to say?"

She shrugs. "Well, if you tell me, I'll be able to say if it does."

He clears his throat and tells her what he knows. "At the darkest hour, a single soul, pure, kind, caring, and innocent, will rise up from the ashes to do battle with a fierce and all consuming evil."

Her eyes widen. She's heard this before from someone but she can't quite remember who it was that told this to her. "How… how do you know this?"

He tells her. "I met a Marowak a few days ago and we both explored those ruins I was telling you about. He said that he was looking for them because he was interested in the prophecy as well."

"A Marowak…" she says while trying to think of the Pokemon that told her but she draws nothing but blanks. She shrugs it off as nothing and goes back to the story. "Well, according to what you just told me, the prophecy got split up into three different sections, three different parts, and were scattered about the different regions. I guess two of those parts ended up in our region because if you look behind us…" she points to the altar with a stone that has some sort of inscription on it. "This altar holds part of the stone that the prophecy was written on."

They both look at it, and just like the first one, the symbols are faded and difficult to read. Maria is able to read them though. "These two beings, their ideals polar opposites, fighting for what they believe is right but only one shall survive. World peace or assured destruction, no matter which fate is sealed, silence will follow."

Kibou silently puts this together with the first verse he found. "At the darkest hour, a single soul, pure, kind, caring, and innocent, will rise up from the ashes to do battle with a fierce and all consuming evil. These two beings, their ideals polar opposites, fighting for what they believe is right but only one shall survive. World peace or assured destruction, no matter which fate is sealed, silence will follow." Now having two thirds of the prophecy, it makes a little more sense.

Maria continues with her story. "From what I know, the entire prophecy told of someone who would end up bringing an end to the dark life all Pokemon have been living in for the past 10 years. There might be a link to the 100 year great war and the last war we had and the prophecy foretold of that second war, but it didn't foretell the darkness we'd be living in today. If what you said about the first verse is true, then what I can take from it is that when the world is shrouded in darkness and seems to have lost all hope, the chosen one will appear and light the way to do battle with them."

The whole thing is very interesting to him, but it still doesn't make complete sense yet. His tiny little brain can only comprehend that at some point, this person or Pokemon will have to battle a great evil. Considering that Marowak's story about the 100 year war and what humans today have started to do, it all seems to be connected somehow, but who is this Person or Pokemon the prophecy keeps mentioning?

"Hey maria, do you know who that chosen one is? The prophecy keeps talking about it but it never says who it is."

She thinks for a moment. "That's what wasn't stated. However, there is a part of the prophecy that only a few Pokemon knew about, and that was the birth of a Pokemon 19 years ago who was said to contain the anger and fury of his ancestors who were betrayed by humans at the start of the great war. Who this Pokemon is, I don't know, but we'll know soon enough if everything is falling into place like it says things will."

She then floats up and starts flying towards the exit. Kibou follows her, still trying to make sense of everything but because it just doesn't make any sense to him, he eventually stops trying. They fly up the stairs and in the time they spent, the sun had started to go down. It doesn't even feel like they were in there for that long, but looks can be deceiving. Maria turns to him and speaks. "Well, it's starting to get late. I think you should head home before darkness sets in, you don't want to be caught out here at night, bad Pokemon roam the forest."

"I probably should, I don't want Emma and Plush to worry about me for too long." he then realizes they might've gone out looking for him and with those bad people still running around, they could've gotten into trouble. "Ah! I need to get back to them now! Those terrible people might've found them!"

He places two fingers between his eyes but before he teleports away, he turns to her and waves. "Thanks Maria, I hope I see you again soon!"

She bows. "Good luck! See you later!"

Kibou turns his attention on focusing on where he needs to go. He thinks about Emma's house and empties his entire mind, focusing on exactly that and he instantly teleports out of Serenity Forest and back to her home. He looks around and notices that something is very wrong. The Door to her house is gone and the windows seem to be all broken. His heart sinks and a bad feeling wells up within him as he flies into the house to find that the whole place is in shambles. Everything that they spent cleaning up has been undone and it would seem that the PCU had raided and trashed the place.

He doesn't want to believe that Emma and Plush were taken away by them, so he calls out to them to see if they're hiding. "Plush! Emma! It's me, Kibou! Come out come out wherever you are! I promise those bad guys aren't here anymore!"

He waits for a minute or so but he gets no response. His lips quiver for a moment and a quick flashback of his parents graces his vision. He couldn't do anything to help them but he still has a chance here. He teleports back outside and only now notices that the entire block is wrong. All of the houses are trashed and some of them are even on fire. Seems a few people either went all out to protect their Pokemon, or someone or something started destroying anything in its way.

Kibou can only fly up over the town of Fairview and take in the massive destruction that was caused. "W-what the heck!? How'd this all happen!?" is all he says to himself as his pupils reflect the all the destruction, as well as the distant houses that have been set ablaze throughout the rather small town. The PCU did all of this, but he doesn't know that it was them. He remembers that there were some wild Pokemon in the park by Serenity Forest and if there was anyone that could tell him what went wrong, it would be them.

He flies off towards the park and lands in the fountain plaza. This was where Plush and him fought the PCU for the very first time. Thanks to them, they ended up saving the civilians' Pokemon and the wild Pokemon from being caught. He calls out to the wild Pokemon in hopes that they would come out upon hearing his voice. "Hey! Are you guys still here!? It's me, Kibou! I'm the one that helped protect you from those bad guys! I need your help now!"

His voice echoes through the park, but nobody comes to him. He doesn't know that in the time he spent with Maria, all of the wild Pokemon in the park were captured by the PCU. His ears droop down slightly and he begins to get discouraged. "Where is everyone? Why is this place so lonely?"

His thoughts are left unanswered, for he slowly floats out of the park and looks down the road. He can't even sense that any Pokemon are in the town at all. The only thing he can think of now is to find out where Plush and Emma went on his own. He doesn't know where to start, but the sign that's on the corner of the road he's looking at tells him of a place called "Pastoria City" and that if he follows the signs with this label, he'll be on his way to the next city. "Perhaps Plush and Emma are there. I gotta save them!" he flies off as fast as he can to try and rescue them.

While his friends are in danger, he's also learned a bit more about the prophecy thanks to Maria. This brings him much closer to his final goal, and of course, his destiny. For now though, he makes haste to protect his friends. Hopefully he isn't too late to save them.

PD: More lore! The next chapter will probably be much longer than usual, so be prepared for that when it drops next week! seeya in the next chapter!