Servine's first hint that something had gone wrong was the sound of crashing rocks from the cliff next to them, but she did not fully process the meaning of that noise until after her trainer shoved her harshly away from the steep stone wall. The push sent her stumbling to the ground moments before the loud crash of the broken stones hitting where she had been, smaller rocks still reaching far enough to batter her body.
Shocked by the sudden event she turned to her trainer, and was horrified to see only part of his body sticking out from under a pile of large sharp edged rocks. In a rush she slithered more than ran to him from where she had landed and rapidly began to lift the rocks away as best she could. Her hands and vines grew slick with red as she did so, and it was soon clear that he wasn't moving at all.
"Lars?" she asked shaking the body a bit. "Lars wake up. Please, wake up." She began to remove his bag and belt of pokeballs, both scuffed but not badly damaged as they had been mostly underneath him when the rocks fell. "Please, you can't- You can't be," she fumbled unable to quite say anything as she began crying.
"Please! Help!" she cried out looking around with unfocused eyes. "Please somebody! My trainer is- My trainer is hurt and I need help!" she lied desperately. "Please, there has to be something someone can do!" A black shadow crossed overhead while slowing down. Not truly seeing what it was she called out to it. "Please, anything!"
The shadow's owner set down in front of her heavily. It was a massive grey pokemon, with six legs and a pair of black wings that seemed to be made out of shadows. Black lines with red bands broke up its grey coat, and large golden ribs circled its neck and legs. Its head was armored with a golden set of horns as if it had a massive helmet. From it Servine could feel a sort of pressure, the sensation of a powerful pokemon out of legends being present. The Legendary pokemon looked over the Grass type, her fallen trainer, and the bloodstained stones she had removed from him.
"Why do you cry out for this human?" Giratina asked with a hint of curiosity in his ominous sounding voice.
"He's my best friend," the starter pokemon declared brokenly. "Please, he pushed me out of the way. Please," she pleaded her voice becoming lost in tears.
"It is within my power," the dragon replied calmly nodding. The Grass type looked up with a hint of hope in her eyes. "However, there is a cost to such things," he said looking over the mangled corpse.
"I'll do anything, pay any price," she declared strongly. Blinking at her tears she nodded. "Anything at all."
The large pokemon looked somewhat sad at the statement even as it curled a wing into a claw just above where her trainer had fallen. "Unfortunately, the cost will be for him," Giratina replied.
"What? But," she said in shock at the clarification. "I can't just say he will do something. Please, I'll do anything at all so he doesn't have to. Can't I pay the price instead?"
The Legendary pokemon shifted on his legs and once more looked at the body of her trainer. "The cost is due to the limits of my power, not what I require from either of you," he confessed not meeting her eyes. "I am able to place his spirit into a new form, even to craft one from the materials around us, but I do not have the power to repair the damage done to his old form. I dare not put him back into it, and even with the living, healing wounds is not an ability I possess."
Seeing the difference Servine looked around desperately. "Can someone else? Another Legendary?" she asked quickly. "Could you go ask someone else to help instead?"
"I have not traveled this world in a long time," the renegade pokemon said sadly. "I do not know what other creatures exist within it, as I have just begun to explore it once more." Looking at the starter he narrowed his eyes, then looked to the pack beside her, and finally at the body once more. "However, while I cannot repair his old form myself, I can preserve it from the dangers of time and space, and should you find someone who can heal it so that your friend is safe to live inside it, I can return him from a body I created."
"What do you mean?" Servine asked hopefully.
"I can create a body for your friend, and place his spirit into it for now. Then you both can search for one who does have the power to truly restore his form," Giratina explained. "Once that is done I can assist in moving his spirit back into his repaired body."
"Yes," she replied nodding. "That could work. I can agree to that. Yes," she said with a laugh of relief.
"Remove anything from his body that you will need," the Legendary instructed. "I will seal anything left with the body away for you so no further harm will come to it." She quickly and uneasily checked the still form of her trainer, slipping a few items from his pockets into the bag, before moving away holding the bag and pokeballs. Giratina then wrapped the body entirely in his other wing, the darkness seeming to shrink in a strangely distorted way until it was around an inch across. Then he pulled the wing away, revealing a shiny platinum sphere hanging in the air between the red claws. "This will contain the body for you safely while you search."
The massive pokemon then looked around thoughtfully, examining the rocks and plants around the path before his gaze moved over Servine. "There is another thing I will ask of you," he stated calmly, getting a nod from the snake like pokemon. "I wish to take some of your energy, it is the power of growing things and life. That would allow me to craft a form for your friend that truly is a living thing." Somewhat unsure the Grass type nodded, allowing the claw like wing that was still holding the metal sphere to approach her. She gasped as a green glow was extracted from her body to float around the stone, the process stopping moments later and leaving her looking somewhat tired.
Giratina then held the stone and glowing green energy above a nearby patch of grass. The glow intensified into a shape, a long oval shaped body with thin arms and a thick tail of the same length. He then brought the other wing, still seemingly clamped upon nothing, over until both encompassed the same area. As he did so the glow intensified for a moment, the shape rapidly changing in a way that had the Legendary blinking. "Oh? Your spirit is powerful enough for that then? Very well," the pokemon said to the shape with a laugh.
The glow then faded away to reveal a pokemon between his wings. The main body was in the shape of a reptile with two claws on the end of each of its thin limbs. It was made out of bark covered wood, as if someone had sculpted a living tree, with one long leaf extending from its head, three smaller ones out from either wrist, and two more at the base of where the spine would be on a normal creature, as if they were tails. The bark of the creature was worn and rough, giving an ominous appearance to the pokemon, and the platinum sphere was embedded into the wood at the base of its neck.
The wooden Grovyle blinked for a moment, seemingly frightened, until its eyes found the other plant pokemon. "Servine!" it shouted in a male voice just before charging forward to wrap the starter in a hug. "You're alright!"
"Lars?" the other pokemon questioned quietly as she returned the hug. "Lars!"
"I wasn't sure if I had got you away in time," the former human explained with a hint of confusion. "I. Wait." He looked around seeing that his starter was now nearly the same size he was. Then he saw the bloodstained rocks among the others in the pile of fallen stones. "What happened?" he asked quietly.
"You are both very lucky," the Legendary pokemon interjected. "I was traveling through the area, and heard your friend's cries for aid." The new Grovyle turned to face the speaking pokemon with a shocked expression. "I am Giratina, the first Ghost. I have some ability to manipulate the spirits of the dead."
"I was dead?" Lars asked shocked. "Am, am I a ghost now?" Servine shifted uneasily at the question.
"You are likely able to use the power of a Ghost pokemon, but your current form is truly alive, thanks to the assistance of your friend," Giratina answered nodding at her. "Your old body was damaged badly. While I can do nothing to repair it, there is the possibility that another might have that power. So I have given you a way to take it in search of such an other." The new pokemon unconsciously lifted a claw to touch the metal sphere. "And I shall also give you this for that task," the Ghost/Dragon continued holding forward one claw like wing. In the center a small golden bell formed, then floated down where Lars could take it. "When you find a place where a Legendary pokemon is said to live, ring this bell three times. Its tone will attract their attention, and the material will show that I have sent you. You many then ask if they have the power you seek."
"I don't know how to thank you enough," Servine said to the Legendary while Lars rubbed the bell thoughtfully.
"Should you find you need my aid again, ring the bell twice. I will come," the pokemon replied with a bit of a chuckle. "The tone may attract other ghostly pokemon though, so unless you need it it should likely remain silenced."
The new Grovyle absentmindedly wrapped the bell with a thin vine to prevent it from chiming. "Two will bring you, but you want us to try three times for another Legendary?" he asked before looking at what he had done with some surprise.
"Should they have the power to repair your body, I may be needed to place you back within it," Giratina answered with a nod. "It will also allow me to better explain why I have given you such a gift."
"We owe you a lot," the resurrected trainer said seriously. "More than I thought possible."
"I have much that I have not done," the Legendary pokemon replied. "A great span of time that I have not been in this world. To spend some of it doing a good deed is a better way than I managed the last time I was able to do so." He then gave a flap of his shadowy wings and began to fly off. "So do not worry about such things."