Chapter Forty-five: Decree

The Next Step

The hazy shadow moved forward until it was right in front of me. I sat up and crossed my legs under me. The hand was still placed on my shoulder. Chills ran throughout my body; stopping at the back of my neck. I gulped.

"Do not be afraid." The voice rang in my ear, or was it my head? I couldn't tell. And I didn't care when the overwhelming peace coursed through my veins. I took a deep breath and absorbed all the peace I could. I felt like I could do anything. Having no bad feelings; only good? You feel on top of the world. Nothing could hold you back. Not even your greatest fear.

I swallowed. "What do you want?"

"We're here to give you your answers." That was easy. But…We? "Correct, we." I froze. You're listening. "We always listen to your thoughts, it is a much more convenient form of conversing." So tell me who 'we' is?

"We would rather show you." The peace intensified, and I got very sleepy. "Ready?"

I took a deep breath. "I'm ready." I laid on the bed and closed my eyes. I instantly was sucked into a dream. I was sitting on a cave floor. I looked up, I was in the ruins. The painting was directly ahead of me. I tried to move, but I couldn't. I was glued to the floor. If I didn't have great peace, I probably would have been worried. The three circles on the painting lit up, and light orbs came out of them. They morphed into the shape of Pokémon and materialized. They were the Pokémon from the statues.

"We are Uxie, Mesprit and Azelf." Their mouths weren't moving, so I assumed they were talking telepathically. "Uxie, the Being of Knowledge, Mesprit, the Being of Emotion, and Azelf, the Being of Willpower. Together, we are The Beings. We are extremely powerful. That is why we stay hidden. But, we need your help…Quite desperately." The scene changed. We were in the back part of the ruins, but I noticed it was before the wall was knocked down. Two Pokémon appeared in front of me. One was the weird Legendary from one of my previous dreams. Purple, six legs, a pink and blue gem on its chest, and huge shadowy wings. The other had the same body shape as Uxie, Mesprit, and Azelf, but a blue head, pink tail and a yellow body completed with three gems on its forehead. I thought back to my previous dream, this Pokémon had been represented by a giant gem.

The Beings appeared beside me. "That Pokémon, is us." I looked back at the mystery Pokémon. What? "Listen."

"Danger…" The purple Pokémon said. "Danger draws near."

"I know." It was The Beings voice.

"Arceus' decree has been put to order. You know what you must do."

"I do. I will obey immediately, I don't want it to happen again. Stay safe." They disappeared and I was facing the painting on the wall again.

The Beings faced the wall. "We were once one Pokémon…Byti was our jointed name." The three circles in the triangle on the painting lit up. "Have you ever noticed that there are three Legendary Pokémon that complete each other? Take Raikou, Suicune and Entei for example. Three, a trio. Such as the three of us. Long ago, every trio was one very powerful Legendary Pokémon. Every Legendary you can think of has two partners which complete it, even if they're great at hiding and you don't know about them. When people started to pursue disrupting the Order and capturing us Legendries, Arceus sent out The Decree that all Legendries must separate into three partners. We, The Beings, got someone trustworthy to build us homes…The statues. We hid in there until our homes were disrupted, that's when we needed you."

It sunk in rather slowly. "What do you need me for?"

"Sometime after The Decree was ordered, a Pokémon, Shaymin, separated into three parts. He was one of the most powerful, even after being separated. But, he was not smart, and his three parts were captured, and put back together. He escaped that trainer, and that's when we had our homes built…But, there is a very dark man who wants to put the three of us together."

"Lea?"

"Yes, he is very, very dark."

"How so?" I wondered.

"He has been corresponding with a very evil Pokémon, one who, when separated, was all the darkness and no light of the trio. He's close to putting us together, and if he does, he'll be the most powerful trainer. Mesprit has the power to manipulate emotions, hence why we can get you to trust us, Uxie is the wisest being that ever was, and Azelf can manipulate anyone into doing anything, hence how we got you to eat Pokémon meat even though it was totally against your will. Imagine us put together…It would be chaos."

"How am I supposed to stop him? I don't know the first thing about practically anything!" I felt myself slipping away. "Oh no…No!" Everything started to fog up.

"We are starting to lose contact with you completely...We have told you everything you needed to know. You know everything else. We have faith in you, Cynthia Marie Eve…" The voice left and I sat up in my bed.

"Sinnoh!" I yelled. I took deep breaths. I looked around. I couldn't feel The Beings anymore. I felt dreadfully tired. I couldn't fight it. I laid back down and sunk into a dreamless sleep…

Someone started to shake my shoulders hastily. My eyes shot open and I sat up quickly; so fast I ended up hitting Annie in the face. She grabbed her cheek. "Watch it, Cynthia."

I smiled sheepishly. "Sorry." I looked around. Volkner, Annie, Oliver and Ember stood in my room. "Ember." I said. He smiled.

"Good morning, sunshine. Glad to see you're a lazy Snorlax." He grinned.

I frowned. "Thanks." I rubbed my head, a little bit of a headache still there, and then the dream came back to me. I gasped. Everyone looked at me weird. "My presence came to me last night, and gave me another dream." They crowded around my bed and I told them everything. That The Beings were the same 'possessors' that bothered Loony McWeirdo, as we all started to call him, and how they were once Byti, one Pokémon, and that Lea wants them and is conversing with an evil Pokémon.

They were all silent. They probably felt the same thing I felt: Defeat. Lea has been a step ahead, and we're three steps back.

Oliver was the first one to speak. "What do you think The Beings meant by losing contact completely?" He asked. I shrugged.

"Simply that." Annie said. "They are losing contact completely. They are, obviously, Psychic Types, and they are pretty powerful for being able to keep up contact this long, but the time has run out."

"It probably didn't help that I tried to send them away supernaturally so many times." I muttered. I didn't actually mean to say that out-loud, but it sort of slipped.

"No, they're Psychic Types, they were probably unaffected by all of that. If they were Ghost Types they would have been gone long ago." She scratched her head. "Being of Knowledge, Willpower and Emotion…How amazing. They are, most likely, the most powerful Pokémon put together."

"We can't let that happen, then." Volkner said, stating the obvious.

"Oh no, we cannot. We better start researching…" She pulled a large folder from her bag. "This is everything I've got on the statues, gems, and such. It's a bunch of nothing, now that we know practically everything, but it may come in handy."

Oliver took off his backpack and unzipped it. He pulled out his familiar notebook. "This is my notes on the statues and Loony McWeirdo…More nothing." He tossed it on the floor and sat down, everyone else did the same.

They seemed to be getting discouraged, so I decided to pipe-in. "Well…One thing we need to know is which Pokémon is with Lea, and another thing is where Lea is."

"What about the lakes?" Volkner added. "He could be there. The Golden City Research Lab has that all sealed off."

"That's a great possibility." Annie said. Then her eyes widened. "The lakes, why didn't I think of this before!" Everyone perked up. Then she slumped down again. "Oh, I got too excited, when you said the lakes…I thought about an old story my mom used to tell me."

"What's the story?" Ember asked.

"It's just a dragon-tale…But it mentions The Being." She thought hard. "It says something along the lines of The Being, who had three sacred lakes made for it, because it needed hiding places that were connected to the Otherworld. The lakes had great powers, making it so no others could enter them. The Being hid in the lakes, until one day had to be banished into stone." That sounded about right. "But, this talks about one being, and The Beings were not banished to stone, and they said nothing about the lakes, right, Cynthia?" I nodded. "So…This dragon-tale means nothing."

"Hey, I used to hear the same one." Oliver said. "My mom loved those dragon-tales, I bet I still have the book at my house." He stood up. "It could be helpful." He shrugged. He left the room.

"It's a good idea to look into the lakes." Annie said. "I'll go to my house and go through my personal library, I'll see if I can dig up anything on the matter." She stood up. "I'll hurry, I know we only have a short time." She walked out of the room, leaving Volkner, Ember and I.

We looked at each other. Awkwardness set in. I knew it must look weird to Ember, because I came here with Volkner, again, and I knew Volkner must be angry because he was in the same room with Ember. That left me feeling incredibly awkward.

"So, Cyn, how's it going?" Ember smiled. Volkner frowned.

"You mean apart from being involved with three of the most powerful Legendries, learning that I have to stop the man I fear more than anyone else, who is also involved with one of the darkest Pokémon ever, and having to figure it all out before complete chaos explodes? Then, I'm pretty good."

He laughed. "Pessimist, much? The glass is always half-empty with you."

"Only when this is happening." We laughed.

Volkner grunted. "Don't you think we should be putting this time to better use? It's sort of up to us to figure out everything here. Annie is working, the other one is working, and we should be working too."

"How? I can't leave during the day." I said. "And his name is Oliver." Volkner rolled his eyes.

"Yeah, there's not much we can do." Ember added.

Volkner cut his eyes at him. "Then maybe you should—"

"Volkner, I don't want to deal with this today." I snapped.

"If we children are going to play together, we best behave." Ember said.

"You're the only child here." Volkner hissed.

"Enough!" I yelled. "They'll be back soon enough." I said that, and I did think it was true, but I was wrong. It took about two hours for Oliver and Annie to return. That meant two hours of awkwardness and small-talk with Ember while Volkner pouted.

Finally, the two of them returned. They brought in sandwiches. I was surprised to see that Annie only had two books. "Two?" I asked.

Annie noticed the discouragement in my tone. "Yes, I'm sorry. It was out of my collection from Canalave Library, though, so it should be helpful." She took a bite out of her vegetable sandwich. She flipped open the book and held it in front of her face. The cover read The Three Lakes of Sinnoh. Oliver took his book and thumbed through it. That cover read Legends of Legendries and had a bunch of designs covering it, an average dragon-tale-filled book.

"Here it is. Legend of The Being." Oliver took a deep breath.

"Long ago, when the moon and sun corresponded, and there was only light, never darkness. There was once a Pokémon like no other. It had a body form that didn't mimic that of any kind, four legs that it never needed, and two arms that were there only to hold together sanity. This Pokémon could make itself scarce whenever it needed, it held all the abilities of psychometrics. The Being was that of light, and not of dark. But that is not how the commoners viewed The Being. They looked at its wisdom and feared it. The Being created three places of sacredness for meditation. It needed to be able to connect with greater powers, unlike any other Pokémon, and legend says that the only way to connect to greater powers is by going through yourself. The Being used the most peaceful places in the land, three lakes. It put bindings on each lake, so no one, except ones who are worthy, could enter. One lake, you must be wise, so wise you can work like an abacas. In another, you must have the heart of a warrior, one so warn you can withstand the greatest of misery. In the last, you must have a powerful and stubborn soul that can withstand even the greatest of temptation. Many people tried to break the bindings of the lake to capture The Being, but none had the brains, heart or soul. The Being did this to show the commoners that they needed to be better people, but instead it made them distrust The Being even more. Feeling as though it failed, The Being left the land, but left its bindings so all could remember the time the world was so light, and weep as the darkness swallowed them whole." He looked up. "Well, that escalated quickly."

"That's not the story I remember." Annie said as she read through her book. "Although, it was quite a long time ago when I heard it."

"That doesn't help us…At all." Ember said. "Yay, we know how the three lakes came to be, awesome." Sarcasm leaked from his voice.

"It is somewhat helpful." Annie said. She grabbed the other book she brought. "This is my book on old languages, when you said Bytí, I thought it could be helpful to learn what it means." She shrugged and opened it. "B…B…B, ah! Right here. Bytí, it means…The Being." She smiled. "Who would've guessed."

"So? That still means little. This is just a dragon-tale." Oliver held up the book. "Dragon-tale, made-up, fake, el-not-realo." He sighed and turned the page. "And here's the Legend of The Great Tooth Monster. I remember this, it's Caylie's favorite, it talks about the Pokémon who steals your teeth. Maybe that'll help." He threw the book down. "This is helpless."

"Maybe we should go to Canalave." Volkner suggested.

"We're low on time, that would just be a major waste. Besides, Lea probably destroyed anything useful." Annie said.

"So what does your book say?" I asked her.

She looked at the pages again. "It says something very different. It talks about the silent lake guardians who protect it. One of knowledge, one of emotion, and one of willpower. The lakes are sacred and mess with your mind. Kind of like the story said, you need to have a good brain for one, heart for another, and soul for the other. They're just peaceful places of meditation. But there are some places where it refers to them as the portals to the Otherworld."

"What is the Otherworld?"

"Well, most believe it's the place the Greater Ones live in. Like, the Legendries of the Legendries."

My eyes widened. "Those exist?"

She shook her head. "I don't believe so. But, they're lakes of meditation that the GCRL has on lockdown."

"Then why don't we visit one? They obviously have something to do with The Beings, everything points to it." Ember said.

Annie shook her head. "Again, we're low on time, and again, the GCRL has them off-limits. Plus, there's no point. The Beings won't be there, and it's just a lake."

I groaned. "This is so dumb!"

Annie went back to reading her book, Volkner and Ember went back to eating and glaring at each other, and Oliver got out his notebook and flipped through it. I just sat on my bed, still in my pajamas, and waited for practically a miracle. "I just need my presence to come back." I muttered.

"No, we just need to figure this out." Oliver said. He studied a page. "Cynthia, didn't you say that there's Unknown Writing in the ruins?" He looked at me. I nodded. "What did it say, again?"

I tried to recall. "Whispers in the wind, spots in the sand…Something about the decree and worlds end."

"Hey, that's the Arceus Decree thing, right? And worlds end is what'll happen if Lea puts The Beings back together…So, maybe the statues poem means more, too." He cleared his throat. "The power of three, united we stand. Whispers in the wind, spots in the sand. The power of one, united we stand. Come together, only in The Tinkers right hand. Broken are we because of true power, we come together in only one holy hour. Broken are we, the power of three." We all looked at each other.

"The Beings were broken because of true power. But, what's the come together in an hour thing?" Ember wondered.

"I have no idea." Annie muttered. She sighed. "Maybe we should go to one of the lakes…But which one?"

It got silent again. Then something occurred to me. "Oliver, the two statues pointed to the third statues with the poem on it, right?" He nodded. "Which Pokémon was the poem statue?"

He shrugged. "I wasn't the one who saw The Beings, but…" He flipped through the pages. "This one." He turned it around. There was a carefully drawn sketches of the three statues. Two pointing, and one standing there proud. I noted the head shape.

"That's Uxie. We need to go to Uxie's lake, and fast."

Authors Note: HAPPY ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY, TCB! What a year this has been...This is, by far, the longest thing I've ever written! So far it's about 430 pages on Word, and if you ask me, that's quite impressive. This year has had its rough edges, but this story has been amazing...All of you have been amazing! You guys keep me going and writing. All your positive energy, it's amazing. Truly amazing. I could go on and on about your amazingness...But I won't, and I'm sure you're all thanking me for that. You guys are fantastic! I want you all to tell me your favorite chapter, character, Pokémon, part, why you like this story, etc. (So far...Because we're not done...Yet.) I can probably estimate three chapters left. So...Yeah.

My big question: Was this confusing? If so, any tips? I'm dreadfully worried about confusing...ness?

Another question, the cover art, how do we feel about it? I love it, and the artist is spectacular, (Who is also my good friend) so please let me (and ultimately her) know how you feel about it!

Thanks for reading...You guys make me smile!