The enormous golden ring of fire hung silently above the Bell Tower, like an eye a god had opened in the night sky.
The frequency of that exquisitely imitated "Sacred Fire" spread throughout the Johto Region and into the wider world at a speed beyond sound and light.
The sky was the first to react.
Without any warning, winds rose and clouds surged across the previously clear night sky.
Countless brilliant rays of rainbow-colored light gathered and intertwined amid the roiling clouds, finally forming an enormous vortex that radiated a soft halo.
At that moment, the weather systems of the entire Johto Region fell into unprecedented chaos.
On the weather station's monitoring instruments, every needle jumped wildly, and streams of data refreshed like waterfalls, yet none could offer a reasonable explanation.
Then.
A crisp, melodious phoenix cry, filled with supreme majesty, rang out from the center of the rainbow vortex and resounded throughout heaven and earth.
The sound seemed capable of cleansing souls, making everyone who heard it feel an involuntary urge to prostrate themselves in worship.
An enormous, sacred Legendary Pokémon slowly descended from the center of the vortex, trailing incomparably dazzling tail feathers made of rainbow light.
Every beat of its wings left beautiful, fleeting rainbows in the air.
Ho-Oh.
The symbol of life and rebirth, the true guardian deity of the Johto Region.
It had descended.
Yet when its gaze fell upon the enormous generator below, which was emitting false energy and profaning its sacred aura, the love and majesty in its eyes were instantly replaced by towering fury.
To its senses, that thing was the most shameless, most inept imitation and desecration of the two laws of "life" and "rebirth."
"Screee-!!!!"
Ho-Oh let out a roar filled with rage.
It beat its wings and, without the