(Hello, everyone. This is Xybur7. I'm new to and this is my first ever attempt at a fanfiction so please don't set your expectations too high #^,^#. Thank you for taking the time to read my story.

DISCLAIMER: I do not own ANYTHING but the plot of this story. Any and all characters/places/objects belong to their respective owners.)

Prologue 1: A New Beginning

Light shone everywhere. There was nothing but a shining vast and empty void. Nothing existed there but a blue figure, lying in the middle of nothingness. Slowly, details began to take shape on the spirit-like blur. It had a white torso with a round, white spike above where its heart should be. Short, pointed blue ears twitched a bit and the ghost moved its bent blue tail. There were black markings over its jackal-like face, like a ribbon mask over its eyes and snout. Its blue paws, with black glove-like markings, flexed to reveal two more thorns on the back of each paw. Slowly, the jackal-like creature opened its deep orange eyes and tried to sit up. It glanced from side to side as if looking for something. The spirit figure stood up on its two black hind legs and looked around quickly, emitting a sense of worry and panic.

"Sir- Sir Aaron?" The creature called in a somewhat deep male voice. The ghostly blue figure turned around, looking again.

"Sir Aaron!" He cried with despair. No one answered him. No one was there in the light. The blue spirit closed its eyes and concentrated. Four ribbon-like lumps from the back of his head rose as the light went dark. In the blue jackal creature's mind, the world was black. He could not sense anyone out there. The ghost opened his eyes again and the blinding light returned.

"I'm… all alone…" The blue jackal ghost looked down at himself and shook his head. "Where am I? What is this?" He looked in all directions again but to no avail. Nothing had changed. He was alone. Slowly, the ghost sat down cross-legged and took a meditation pose, attempting to swallow the enormous feeling of loneliness.

After a long, long time of slow, calming breaths, the light got brighter in one area. The blue jackal spirit jumped up and rushed toward the bright light, shielding his eyes as he ran. He made it to the spot but the light died away back to its normal brightness. The jackal spirit looked at the thing the light shone upon. It was another spirit, a goldish-green blur. The blurry new ghost grunted with a young man's voice. The blue jackal bent beside him.

"Are you alright?" He asked the gold ghost. The new figure pushed himself up with his arms and stood quickly. It was much taller than the standing jackal. The new spirit also did a look-around before finally speaking.

"So, I'm back here again…" He said somberly.

"Excuse me, are you okay?" The blue jackal repeated its question. The gold-green ghost finally looked at the blue jackal and gave a blurry smile on his faded face.

"As good as I'll ever be dead. I just wish I could rest in peace."

"What?" The jackal spirit jerked back at the comment. "What do you mean 'rest in peace'? What is this place? I don't understand…"

"This is where souls go to pass on or be reborn." Then the new ghost tilted his head. "When- how long have you been here?"

"I've lost track. I- before… I was…I remember-" Flashes of scenes shot through the jackal's mind: two armies of strange creatures battling, a man in blue throwing a scepter, a similar boy with a red hat and a yellow mouse-like creature, a pink cat-like creature with large feet floating in a bubble, a gigantic stone tree, light blue crystals. The blue jackal put one paw to his head as so many memories overcame him. The gold ghost leaned forward with worry but the jackal put up his other paw and shook it side to side.

"I'm fine," the jackal huffed out. The gold ghost bent a little to be face to face with the black-masked jackal.

"How did you die?"

"I- I-" The jackal closed his eyes again to try to sort out the rapid flashbacks. "To save my friends… I did what I was there for, my duty, to save someone's life at the expense of my own. And I was the only one who could do it." He looked at his paws sadly. The jackal tensed a bit and a small, faint blue fire appeared in his palms. "I gave my aura… I gave my life…"

The gold ghost cursed and half-turned away. The jackal looked up abruptly.

"Yeah, right… Duty… Did you ever get to decide how you wanted to live? Or did the deities pull the strings of so-called destiny?" The gold-green ghost spat out the word 'destiny' with much disdain. "I understand completely now. You were only reserved, then used when the 'world needed you' and afterward thrown away like a broken tool. I hate it… I hate that!" The jackal took a tentative step back as the gold-green spirit began a raging rant.

"'They need you!' We need you!' 'The world needs you!' That's all I've ever heard! Why is my life, my path chosen for me? Why am I chosen? Those despicable deities could choose anyone. I'm only a child… I'm always a child! Never! Never do I get a future. I'm always killed off then reborn over and over again. An endless cycle. Fate always kills me off. Getting lost in the woods, drowning, monster wolf attack, falling… And I never remember it unless I'm in here. Dead. Then they bring me back for the same purpose over and over and over…" The spirit slowed. "I wish I could live. Just once, with no strings attached." Then the gold ghost plopped down on the glowing ground, his anger and stress released, and started to gain more detail, slowly turning a shade of green. He glanced up at the blue jackal.

"Have you been here alone all this time?" he enquired.

"I, at least, I thought I was with a close friend for a little while. But now he's gone," the jackal sullenly answered.

"Perhaps he's moved on. Was he human?"

"Yes."

"Did he die before you or after?"

"Much before me. Many years."

"Your friend's definitely been reborn already. Human souls usually are reborn and don't take too long to be either. I just go faster because someone reaches their hand in and pulls me out. No offense, but you're definitely not human. I don't know how long it takes for souls like you to be reborn or if they even can."

The jackal's orange eyes widened. "Do you mean… I'll be trapped here forever?" Despair began to pervade his voice again.

Suddenly, light erupted from above and, like a heavenly hand, reached to the bottom, grasped the gold-green ghost, and began lifting him upward. The ghost made a short, cynical laugh.

"Time to go already, huh?" At this point, he sounded exhausted.

"Wait! But-" The blue jackal cried, panicked. 'I'll be alone again!' he thought. The ghost's hand briskly extended in front of the jackal's snout.

"Come on!" the ghost shouted. The jackal grabbed onto the helping hand and became engulfed with the same shining light. Astonished and grateful, he looked the ghost eye to blurry eye.

"You deserve a second chance." Once again, the ghost gave an unfocused smile. The light got brighter and brighter until the blue jackal could barely see the ghost. A low hum sounded overhead and slowly got louder.

"You're helping me and I don't know your name!" the jackal gasped.

The ghost laughed again. "Neither do I know yours. I won't remember anyway."

"You can try."

"Heh, true enough. I can try."

The blue jackal tried to open his eyes one last time to catch a glimpse of his new friend. A deep red flame sparked in his feral, orange eyes as his blue-violet aura encircled his paws.

"I am Lucario!" He declared with confidence and pride. Not even the heavenly light could obscure his violet fire nor could it completely erase the last blurry smile of the young, green ghost.

"Honored to meet you!" The ghost got out as the light got blindingly bright and the hum turned deafening.

"My name is-"

/

A cool breeze flowed past Lucario's face as he gasped awake. Light blue sparks floated around him as he blinked a couple of times to make sure he wasn't dreaming. Five blurry, shocked figures started coming into focus as the blue sparks faded. One of them, light blue on the bottom, dark pink on top, bent down and offer its hand.

"Hey, uh, are you okay?" it asked in a teenage boy voice. A yellow figure leaped onto his shoulder.

"What happened? That's was... just… Whoa," the yellow blur squeaked in a female voice.

"I'm fine." Lucario shook his head and blinked his eyes, still recovering from his own shock. He reached for the extended hand and looked up. "Thank you-"

A young boy with worried brown eyes stared questioningly at Lucario. He had spiked dark brown hair stuffed under a red-pink cap and a tough, yet childish face. The small, yellow creature was mouse-like, with long, pointed ears with black tips, a little black nose and big dark brown (almost black) eyes. Her cheeks had red circles on them that sparked with electricity as her lightning bolt shaped tail wagged back and forth. A memory surfaced in Lucario's eyes and overlapped the two new figures.

"Ash… Pikachu." Lucario could see so many similarities in the young new boy and the past image: a boy with a red hat and a yellow mouse on his shoulder.

"Uh…" the young boy interrupted Lucario's reminiscing. The yellow mouse tilted its head to the right.

"Well, I am a Pikachu…" She confessed softly.

"My name's not Ash," the boy said. "You've got me confused with someone else. The name's Red." Red pulled Lucario to his feet. "I'm a pokémon trainer. Pikachu, my gang, and I came here to find some new pokémon."

Pikachu leaped from Red's shoulder to the ground and propped up on her hind legs. "We got up here and at first there we couldn't see anything." She started waving her tiny arms to illustrate her story. "Then there was a bright blue light right here. A big crystal appeared and was glowing! We took a closer look and… we saw you in there! You looked like you were sleeping inside. Then the crystal dissolved into pretty blue light. You woke up after that." Lucario finally took the chance to look around while he listened to Pikachu's tale.

It was a large circular room with a blue, broken crystalline pillar in the center, to the right of where they were standing. Green crystal arches and pillars filled the room while diamond formations lined the side of the wall and on the dome-like ceiling. The room itself glowed green save for a faint pink light in between the crystal stalactite and stalagmite. There were many passages blocked by cave-ins. Lucario felt at home and lost at the same time. 'How much time has passed?' He thought then told himself. 'Heh, you've been asleep for a long time, Lucario.'

"Okay, Pikachu! Don't talk his ears off! Maybe we should introduce the others now?" Red cut the electric pokémon off from her exciting, non-stop chatter. He reached behind with one hand and started rustling through his backpack as he motioned to the other three creatures behind him. A large, orange, long necked dragon nodded slightly and flapped its blue wings.

"This is Charizard," Red introduced. Then he motioned to a four-legged turquoise dinosaur with a pink bud on its back. A pair of vines came from the bud and wrapped around a squirming blue turtle with a swirled tail.

"That's Ivysaur, the plant one, and- Squirtle, chill out for a sec!" The blue turtle still squirmed and started shouting.

"Come on, Ivy, come on! I just wanna go explore! I'm not gonna touch anything else! I swear! Come on, Ivy, lemme down! Lemme down!" Squirtle pleaded as he flipped upside down in the vines' grasp. Lucario tilted his head down to hide a small, amused smile.

"Man," Red sighed, still rummaging through his pack. "Squirtle, why're ya keep flailing like that?"

"He says he just wants to explore," Lucario translated.

"You understand 'em?" Red exclaimed then mumbled, "There it is…"

"Yes, I am a pokémon as well. I'm-"

"LUCARIO, THE AURA POKéMON," a metallic voice broke in. "LUCARIO CAN SENSE AURAS TO IDENTIFY AND TAKE IN THE FEELINGS OF CREATURES OVER HALF A MILE AWAY." Lucario calmly focused on the small, red mechanical booklet the boy finally managed to find in his pack.

"Sorry, just had to record the data. Gotta catch 'em all!" Red smiled apologetically and clapped the metal booklet shut.

"Definitely a trainer," Lucario sighed in disbelief and shook his head side to side. "I cannot believe this…"

"We're about to leave. Wanna come with?" Pikachu piped.

"I have nowhere else to go," Lucario confessed.

Red's face lit up with another smile. "You can come!"

The aura pokémon blinked, taken aback by the trainer and other pokémons' generosity. He nodded and started along behind the group through one of the stable tunnels. Lucario took one last look behind his shoulder with a genuine look of somber remembrance as the group stepped further and further away from the crystal chamber. The group followed the dark tunnel until the sunlight started reflecting off the small blue-green crystals lining the path. Outside, the sun hung in the center of the sky over a thick green forest. Lucario closed his eyes and the ribbons on the back of his head rose as he concentrated. The sky turned dark and the world glowed. Lucario could see the electric cloud of aura around Pikachu, the fiery aura of Red, the excited auras of his partners, and the auras of every rock and tree surrounding them. Lucario sent his mind's eye the furthest he could reach to relearn the world but he hit a wall of darkness and could not see as far as he meant to.

"I can't see as far as I could…" Lucario mumbled.

"Eh?" Pikachu slowed down to walk by him. "What's wrong?"

"On second thought," Lucario announced to Red and his gang, "I would like to go by myself for a bit and train. It has been a long time since I last used my power and I want to hone it but I'm afraid I would slow your progress if I did that and accompanied you. I appreciate your offer but I am going to decline."

"You want to go alone? After you just woke up?" Red inquired.

"I will be fine. I won't take forever. It's not that I want to be alone, though I feel I'm used to it, I just don't want to hinder you. When my self-training is done, I'll find you again… if you really want me to go with you," Lucario answered somewhat shyly.

Red rubbed the back of his head. "If you want to go, I won't stop you. I'm not your master nor do you look like the type that wants to be caught." He pulled out a small, empty pokéball and tossed it up and down a few times as reinforcement of his words. "Neither am I Pikachu's master. I let it be up to you to decide what to do."

"Thank you… Red." The aura guardian bowed his head appreciatively. He turned so that the far away tunnel was to his right. From where the tunnel was, above the horizon, as high as the sky was an enormous tree with crystal gems sparkling on the trunk and branches. Lucario took one step forward and felt something jump onto his shoulder. He looked left at Pikachu whose eyes were wide and glittering like sparks.

"You look so sad. You're going to leave?" Her voice was soft but anxious.

"I'll come back if you want me to," Lucario gently reassured her.

"Of course I would! Why would anyone not?" Peppiness returned and Pikachu became her sparky self. "You may not be right there with us, but that doesn't mean you'll be completely gone. No one ever has to be alone."

"You're right."

"And you won't be alone either, 'cause you got friends."

"I…do?"

"Us, silly! So what, we just met. Doesn't mean we can't be friends."

From beneath his chest's steel spike, a slow warmth started to spread inside Lucario. He nodded and gave a subtle smile. Pikachu returned the smile with a huge grin across her tiny face.

"I'll always be your friend, so don't look so down, m'kay?" She cocked her head to the side as she prepared to jump.

"Okay," Lucario answered quietly and watched Pikachu leap off his shoulder and join Red. He waved goodbye to his new friends as he, himself, started down another path. Walking at a steady pace, he took his time to study the gigantic tree in the distance. He soon began to jog by himself along the curved trail and soon the magnificent tree was behind him. The sky began turning orange and pink, as a large, snowy mountain appeared far, far ahead of him, framed and peaked with lavender as the sun sank in the sky behind. Lucario stopped to take a break and admire the sunset with the tree.

"The Tree of Beginning," he called it. Even from his distance, he could still see the crystals dotting the tree, now sparkling gold in the setting sun's light. What a coincidence that I am beginning a new life from that place. Lucario sat, silent, in a meditating position, still watching the sun's rays frame the far-off place of origin. The distant golden light pulled out another memory in front of the aura guardian's eyes.

"You deserve a second chance."

Lucario's auburn eyes reflected the memory and light from the tree. He let the golden shine glint and sparkle with life as he stared back.

"…A second chance," Lucario repeated. He slowly closed his eyes.

"… I will not waste it…Thank you… my friend." He stood, admired the distant tree one last time, then turned his back and started down a new path as the sun set behind him.

(How'd you like it? The ambiguity is for a reason so if you know something about part of the story's mystery then please don't tell anyone. Some may not notice so think of it as a spoiler alert; No one wants to spoil a surprise.

Please review but no flames. I welcome any and all constructive critisism. If you don't like it, write a review too but give a proper reason why so I can learn from my mistakes and make my story better. Again, thank you very much for reading my story at all!)