The drilling machinery of the Team Magma drilled to the deepest part of the cave. There was actually a surprisingly large space hidden deep here, and a solemn ruin stood there.
The leading operations captain waved one of his hands, and two rocket launches were fired from the machines sides, inserted into the rock wall above, and then turned on their light source, displaying the entire ruins in front of Ash and his group who were closely following behind the remains of the Team Magma.
Ash was surprised, those two rockets were actually the sources of light instead of the source of destruction.
The new found ruins in front of the group were definitely more than ten stories high, narrow at the top and wide at the bottom, like a huge stone monument. It is hard to imagine just how humans in the past constructed such exquisite buildings in a cave nonetheless.
"So it's all because they managed to find a temple like this made by who knows who and how long. They must have something that was able to help them find exactly this location." Ash thought out as a whole.
The captain from Tram Magma who led his group was very excited when he saw the large ruins in front of him, and then ordered, "Each team once again confirm their preparations and then proceed to rush in find our item!"
"YES!"
Watching the Team Magma's grunts rush into the tall ruin, leaving only the leading operations captain and two other members behind on the outside, Ash chose not to stop him yet because he too wanted to know what kind of item it was that they came here.
This is an ancient ruin built hundreds of years ago, and it was not like of one the Team Rocket's secret base he destroyed where could have just run rampant and destroyed everything in his sight without a second hesitation.
He is very interested in the item that can be here, the one mentioned by the Team Magma Captain just now.
While he could have defeated them now and went to look on his own, why would he just danger his own safety when there are others who are gladly dinging it for him?
Piecing some of the few remaining memories that he still retained and the intelligence that came from the Team Rocket Trio, Team Magma's purpose was to control the Legendary Ancient Pokémon know as Groudon!
Groudon has long been described in ancient mythology as the Pokémon that created the land and expanded all the continents.
According to his guess, Groudon was known to live underground in hot molten lace, does this ruin called the "Cave of Origin" refer to the place where Groudon was currently resting at?
Is there really such a place?
"Ash, what should we do now?" Professor Birch had no experience in these kind of situation. Seeing that Ash was still standing and looked to be thinking something deep, he asked curiously.
No matter what the purpose of this evil organization is, it must be detrimental to the Pokémon world as a whole, right?
Then if that really is the reality of their situation, they must not be allowed to succeed on whatever they are doing.
Ash shook his head, "We can't act rashly yet, there is a high probability that this place is not the place they are looking for."
Ash recalled as he remembers that the Cave of Origin was located somewhere close to Sootopolis City and not near where they currently were, which was Dewford Island.
Sure enough, the members of the Lava Magma took their scanner looking device and walked around the ruins but did not seem to find what they were initially looking for. Instead, they found something else. "The reflected wave here found out that there are several moving objects in the external sea and they are quickly approaching us."
As soon as he finished speaking, several blue figures jumped out of the water around the ruins, it was the Team Aqua!
Team Aqua was the other more evil notorious evil organization in the Hoenn Region along with Team Magma.
The operations leader of Team Maa immediately issued an attack order, "Mightyena, use your Shadow Ball!"
This Mightyena is the evolved form of the Poochyena that had bitten Professor Birch away before into Ash's journey.
This Pokémon looks very similar to a wolf, and the power of its Shadow Ball was also not that bad.
However, the operations captain of Team Aqua on the other side did not panic and showed no sign of weakness and instead ordered an attack of her own, "Hydro Pump!"
They all saw a fish suddenly splashing with a sharp look on its face from the water. The Hydro Pump form it blocked the Shadow Ball.
This is Carvanha, Ash had previously caught its evolved form, a Sharpedo.
"Thank you for your hard work. You guys really helped us so much here!" The operations leader of Team Aqua was a beautiful looking young woman with long and curly red hair.
Ash more than anything was a little curious about how and why her hair was still so fluffy after she came out of the water.
"Team Aqua, it really was you bastards!" It turns out that in the slight confrontation between the two teams just now, Team Magma didn't even know who was coming here, so they launched a decisive attack before any thoughts added.
The operation captain of Team Aqua asked some of her team members to rush into the ruins. "Admin Tabitha, judging from the fact that you were personally dispatched here, your Team Magma must be very interested in this ruins and what's inside of here, correct?"
"Admin Shelly, you should consider yourself lucky that there is water here in this place so that you can use yours Pokémon's, otherwise we would have cooked your team!"
As expected, the two Admins of their respective organizations knew each other well.
Seeing their tense atmosphere, Ash nodded to himself. It was indeed just as he had imagined. The two organizations were very hostile against each other and their end goals.
Team Aqua hopes to expand the ocean, and Team Magma largely hopes to expand the land, so there really was no doubt that they will have many things to fight against each other for.
But now they are each looking for items to realize their ambitions, and so they have not yet taken full action against each other. The purpose of their actions are very clear, the current battle is unnecessary for them.
"This is Team Magma Admin Tabitha. The inside of the ruins has been invaded by bastards from Team Aqua. It still doesn't matter to us that much, continue your scouting mission!"
Admin Tabitha didn't pay attention to the arrival of the Team Aqua and had just warned his team to be on their full alert.
They didn't interfere with each other just yet.
They he just looked at Shelly and said, "Why cause so much trouble when we both know that your Team Aqua has nothing that could control that Pokémon?"
"I also want to ask you the same question, if there is a power here that you or me are both pursuing, do you really have any way to control it?" Shelley was not to be outdone, although these sounded like just regular conversation.
But based on the known information, Ash understood that they were both looking for various ruins to find the sleeping Groudon and Kyogre.
But this ruins looked to have nothing belonging to the two Legendary Ancient Pokémon's.
Sure enough, both parties confirmed that there was nothing they needed here. This was not the Cave of Origin that they were looking for, but instead it was a tower built by ancient people for worship.
After reaching this conclusion, neither party looked that disappointed about it. They were obviously used to such an ending, but they still persevered through it like it was nothing.
The atmosphere became very tense again as both teams withdrew from the ruins, but Tabitha and Shelly put their Mightyena and Carvanha away together and ordered a full retreat.
Shelly led her people to dive back into the sea, and Tabitha and his people also drove the machine to leave the cave they originally dug up.
It wasn't until they were all far away that Ash led his group out of the darkness and headed towards the ruins step by step with a camera.
It would be a huge waste not to record the information and send them back to Lance to investigate more carefully.
"Big Bro, what do they mean by when they said the Cave of Origin?" Max started the mode of questioning him again.
Ash didn't have the patience to explain to him, like he ever had, so he just quietly hit him in his head.
Even if he could, it would be better to not tell Max about what he knows.
When the group arrived at the entrance of the ruins, they saw two circular grooves on the stone platform. It seemed that some spherical gems needed to be embedded in order to activate the main functions of the ruins.
Of course Ash and the others didn't have this item with them, or did they?
But Ash frowned a bit, as if he had seen such a configuration somewhere else before…
Entering the ruins, they can see that it is completely empty and there really was nothing there.
"Ash, this should be a relic where ancient people worshiped some kind of Pokémon!" Professor Birch made the most professional judgment out of the bunch.
In response, Ash also nodded as this is also the final conclusion he came up with.
He led the group directly to the top floor and found a stone platform again, a bare stone platform.
But there was nothing there.
"Professor Birch, do you see anything?" Max refused to give up and couldn't believe that this large ruin that was hidden so deeply was actually just an empty shell.
But Professor Birch smiled bitterly and shook his head a couple times, "Those bad guys have searched everything here with their sophisticated detection equipment. How can we find it just by our sight alone an-?"
However just the moment he was about to continue talking, Ash's body flashed with a mix of blue and pink light, and he was lost in thought while looking at the stone platform. He clearly detected that there was something hidden in the center of the stone platform, but it should not be what the Team Aqua and Team Magma were looking for.
He covered the stone platform with his hands, and everyone behind him was silently waiting for something to happen.
After a while, the stone platform actually began to vibrate, and then opened on both sides, revealing a small green object.
This was a Green Flute!
Although it was not like the Clear Bell, which can summon the Legendary Pokémon Ho-Oh, it was probably used by the ancient people living here to worship Rayquaza.
No wonder this ruins was so high.