Chapter 1
...several years later...
There was mostly darkness. Light came from the mushrooms that illuminated the ground, the lums that gave off their own light, and the two moons that hung in the sky, just above the horizon. They sank lower and lower until they were gone.
But in their departure, another source of light peaked out over the horizon. A single beam stretched out between the trees and hit a target.
Rayman closed his eye tighter. He was not quite awake enough to merely turn over. Then a shadow blocked the beam of light. Normally, this was not enough to wake him, but it did this time. His eyes opened just in time to see a fist coming at his head.
His heart leapt and he rolled over. The hand hit the ground where his head had been. He jumped to his feet, hands in fists, ready to fight. But what he saw made him hesitate.
The figure looked just like him, except for its colors. Mostly shades of blue and purple covered its body and its eyes were an almost glowing yellow. Rayman recognized the enemy from his first adventure: Dark Rayman. And if Dark Rayman was here, then Dark, his first villain, had to be somewhere.
"Miss me?" Dark Rayman asked.
"No, not really." Rayman answered.
"Scared?"
Rayman smiled. "Of you? No."
Dark Rayman ran at Rayman. He merely jumped over his opponent. Dark Rayman skidded to a stop and turned around. He took a swing at Rayman, who ducked. While he was down, Rayman picked up a long nearby stick. He could not punch Dark Rayman because all it took was a touch from Dark Rayman to kill him.
Rayman swung the stick at Dark Rayman. TO his surprise, Dark Rayman caught it. He swung Rayman off his feet and into the trunk of a tree. Then he dropped the stick and it and Rayman fell to the ground.
"Dark gave me an upgrade, I guess you'd call it." Dark Rayman said as he walked toward Rayman. "I'm stronger and faster now."
Rayman picked up a rock about the size of his hand and threw it at Dark Rayman. Without staying to see if the target was hit, he turned and ran. He hid behind a tree next to a small cliff. If he could keep surprising Dark Rayman, he could weaken him enough to beat him.
Dark Rayman ran past the tree. Rayman picked up another rock and threw it at his evil twin. It hit Dark Rayman on the back of the head. Rayman cheered as Dark Rayman fell to the ground and his body began to dematerialize, becoming small orbs of light until the process was complete. The spell was broken.
But instead of fading away, the orbs fused back together, creating the body of Dark Rayman once again. Dark Rayman stood back up, a dark smile on his face.
"Part of the upgrade," he started, "is the part where if you beat me, I come back even stronger than before." He turned towards Rayman. "Your turn!"
As a fist shot at Rayman, he jumped back to avoid it. Instead of landing on solid ground, however, he went over the edge of the cliff. He fell about five feet and began rolling down the slope. Dark Rayman jumped down to follow.
Once Rayman was back on his feet, Dark Rayman immediately began shooting his fists at him. Rayman back flipped a few times and found himself in shadow. Another back flip and he realized he had gone into a cave.
When Dark Rayman's fists stopped coming, Rayman stopped flipping and prepared for his next attack.
Dark Rayman brought his fists high up into the air and then jerked them down, causing the earth to shake. Rayman realized what was happening and tried to run out of the cave, but boulders from the ceiling fell in his path, closing up the opening forever.
When the dust settled, Rayman looked for any hole in the rocks to go through. There was not even a small hole for light to come through. The entrance was sealed, throwing Rayman into pitch black darkness.
He felt along the wall, hoping to find another way out of the cave. Sure enough, the wall seemed to stretch on as a tunnel. He stumbled into a few stalagmites, but otherwise, going through was pretty smooth.
After a few minutes, he saw light up ahead. It was a soft, blue-green light that could not have been from outside. There was a source of light inside the cave itself.
His theory was proven correct when he reached an enormous cavern. The ceiling seemed as though it was made of nothing but blue-green crystals that produced the soft light. The cave had a certain feeling to it, as though no one had been inside it for centuries.
Rayman looked around for the next way out, but found none. The cavern was a perfect circle with no exits other than the one he had come out of. He would have to go back through and feel the other wall to see if there was a way out he missed.
As he turned to go back, something caught his eye on the part of the wall to the right. He took another glance and saw runes carved into the rock. The runes were made up of slashes, crosses, shapes, and swirls. He recognized them as the runes of the Ancients, the ancient people who had created every prophesy billions of years ago. Most of them were dead, but there were a few that still lived. No one had seen them simply because o one knew where they were.
Rayman moved closer to the runes and studied them. Although he had never been taught how to translate them, he seemed to know exactly what they said.
The day the hero dies at dawn
The day the glory is not won
A new legend will begin
This time the evil will not win
Fight to the death one last time
Until the Ancient's time to shine
One who is not earthen bound
Shall come forth and make a sound
The day the sun dies violent red
The legend will come to an end
An image flashed through Rayman's mind as he read the last word. There was a blood red sunrise. The black letters of the prophesy ran over the clouds as if they were the paper blowing away in the wind. He was incredibly tense. The sound of people screaming rang in his ears.
The vision was gone as quickly as it had come. It seemed familiar, like a long forgotten memory. It as completely possible, for he could not remember anything before he woke up under the palm tree before his first adventure.
"The trouble with prophesies," said a female voice behind him.
Rayman jumped and turned around. A tall woman stood behind him. He could not see her face, for it was behind the hood of a cloak that covered her entire body, except for her hands, which were on her hips. The hood was positioned so that it seemed she was looking at the prophesy with him.
She continued, "is that the Ancients make them up, not realizing what effect it will have on the people in them."
"Where'd you come from?" Rayman asked.
The woman walked gracefully to the wall and put her hand on the rock. The wall instantly looked less like hard stone and more like chocolate pudding. It swirled like a whirlpool on its side and disappeared, leaving a hole leading to another tunnel.
She looked at him. "That prophesy is the cause of your stolen memories."
Rayman looked at the runes on the wall. "What? You mean my memories were stolen? How--" He looked back at her only to see that she was gone.
He went into the tunnel to try to follow her. The same blue-green crystals were on the ceiling of this tunnel, which stretched on in the distance. The woman was nowhere to be seen.
Without much of a choice, Rayman went into the new tunnel.