Mars awoke to find herself in what appeared to be a somewhat strange location with her Pokémon back in their Pokéballs. There were floating rocks everywhere, each with platforms on them. The odd thing about the platforms is that they were all facing different directions, as if gravity couldn't make up its mind.
As odd as it was, Mars had actually expected the Distortion World to be even more bizarre. That is, if this really was the Distortion World and not something else. With that said, the way gravity seemed to work here was still very strange.
Standing up, the red-haired woman looked around for some sort of path to take. The place was enormous, or at least looked that way. How was she supposed to find Cyrus in here? She didn't even know how to get from one platform to the other, let alone comb the entire area for one man.
Still, she wasn't about to give up. There had to be some way to get to the other pieces of terrain, she just needed to figure out how. If she had to, she would look on and under every single floating rock.
Walking around on the platform, Mars found what appeared to be a blue rock wall sitting in her way. She approached the wall, but before she could consider how she would climb it, the wall just vanished. Maybe it had turned invisible?
Reaching out to touch the spot where the barrier had disappeared, however, revealed that there was now nothing stopping her from progressing past where the wall had been. She walked forward cautiously, but got to the other end of the platform without anything stopping her. However, once she had looked back, the wall was once again there. Strange indeed.
Now there was a new problem- how would she get to the other platforms? She could see one to her side, but it was facing towards her. If she tried to jump to and stand on it, she would just fall downwards into the abyss below, right?
Her question was soon answered. When she approached the edge of the platform she was currently standing on, she started sliding off of it. Alarmed, Mars scrambled to sit down, hoping that would make it more difficult to fall off. This, however, was no use, as a split second later, she got a strange sort of weightless feeling.
The feeling only lasted a fraction of a second before she started to fall downwards, landing on the ground below. It wasn't far of a fall, but Mars was nonetheless startled.
Once again getting to her feet, the red-haired woman found herself on a completely different platform than she had been standing on before. Furthermore, a turn to her right revealed that the platform she had appeared to be standing on before was now on its side in the air next to her.
Had gravity just decided to switch directions? It appeared so. Well, that would explain why the other floating platforms around her were facing all different ways. Was this how she was supposed to get around? It also occurred to her that she had no idea how to actually leave the place.
That would be worked out with time, she told herself. For now, she needed to find Cyrus. Even if it meant dealing with strange and potentially lethal gravity anomalies.
As Mars forged ahead, the place seemed to get progressively stranger. Giant, towering objects like dead flowers, water that flowed upwards and upside-down, and of course obstacles that seemed to just disappear when she walked up to them, while others would suddenly appear and block her way.
After what felt like far too long navigating the place, Mars came upon what looked like a human -shaped object on a far-off platform. Could it be Cyrus? It was hard to tell from the distance she was at, but who else lived in the Distortion World but Giratina?
Once the red-haired woman had gotten closer, there was no mistaking Cyrus's blue hair and grey coat. She rushed towards the platform he was on as quickly as she could. He was right there, he was-
Just lying there face down. What if-
Suddenly, the realization hit her that she had gone off of a different platform to get to Cyrus than intended. Thankfully, she still managed to land on the right platform, just a little harder than she otherwise would have.
No matter, she had made it to Cyrus and he could be... she would check for injuries on herself later. This couldn't wait.
"Master Cyrus! I'm here!" When the man gave no reply, the former commander dropped to her knees in front of her fallen leader, gently flipping him onto his back. She didn't come all this way to find him dead- she couldn't have!
"Cyrus, please." Putting a hand on the side of his neck, Mars tried to detect a pulse. His skin felt cold to the touch, and his face was far paler than she had remembered. Could she be too late?
"Cyrus, no!" He was alive, he had to be. Cyrus wouldn't leave her like this. She wouldn't allow it.
Wait. Was that a pulse? Or was she simply feeling her own pulse as her heart raced? No, it was a lot slower than that. It was his! He was alive!
"We're going to get out of here, Cyrus. You- you're breathing, right?" It was hard to see if his chest was moving under his loose clothing, so she pressed her ear against it.
It was faint, but Mars could swear she could hear his lungs working under that worn shirt he had on. He was alive, and that was what mattered.
"I'll carry you out, and we'll go back to Veilstone." Holding him in her arms would be no small feat considering the heavy backpack she had on, but that wasn't about to stop her. To make things easier, he seemed to have lost a considerable amount of weight in the past four years. Either that or he had been a lot lighter than he had looked.
As soon as she had gotten her arms under his back and lifted herself into a standing position, however, she heard something that stopped her dead in her tracks.
It was a shrill cry, the same one she had heard that fateful day on Spear Pillar. The same sound that had proceeded Cyrus being taken away from her. Now it was going to happen all over again.
She immediately dropped to her knees, frozen in place again. She could only watch helplessly as Cyrus slid from her shaking arms and back onto the rocky ground.
The cry sounded again, this time sounding as close as it had been on Spear Pillar, shaking her to her core. She was failing him again. Once again, he was being pulled away from her, and she wasn't doing a thing to stop it. She had to act, had to…
Then came the chilling rush of the shadow creature speeding towards her. It was truly over this time, Giratina would kill them both.
The collision she expected however, never happened. The shadow moving at her seemed to stop centimeters from her face. What was going on? It seemed that the monster had decided to separate them again instead of just letting the two of them die together. How cruel.
"Mars."
Somebody was saying her name. That voice, she had heard it before.
"Mars, I'm here. You don't have to be frightened."
Somebody had put a hand on her shoulder. The red-haired woman slowly turned her head to look at the source of the voice. Could it be?
She found herself looking at a face she recognized, the same one that had been haunting her dreams for the last four years. The same face that she thought she'd never see again, at least not looking down at her, eyes locked on hers.
"Master Cyrus." It was him, it was really-
No, there was something wrong. She had just seen him lying on the ground half-dead, and now he was perfectly fine? How could that be? Was this some sort of trick of the Distortion World?
"It's okay, Mars, it's really me." The hand on her shoulder tightened its grip slightly. She wanted to believe so badly, but...
"I-" She put her hand on his, maybe if she touched him she would know whether he was real or not. That was how illusions usually worked, at least as far as she could remember.
His hand was solid, but felt cold as ice. Flinching, Mars pushed his hand off of her shoulder and stood up, never taking her gaze off of the man's face. His eyes were still the same piercing shade of blue, just as she had remembered them. At the same time though, there was something different about him, somehow reflected in his eyes.
"This was what you want, isn't it? You came for me, did you not?" Was it his stay in the Distortion World that had changed the man? Maybe it really was him, and Mars was simply letting her emotions get in the way of her reason.
"Master Cyrus, I..."
The young woman swallowed, trying to hold back tears. She couldn't let him see her show weakness, not now that she finally had him in her sights. They would make it out of this world alive, they had to.
"Shhh..." The blue-haired man reached up, putting a hand on her cheek. This wasn't right, not at all. He was there, but he wasn't real, couldn't be.
"You-" Mars stepped backwards, slowly pushing the man's hand away from her face as she made distance between the two of them.
"What is wrong with you, Mars? Pull yourself together. You've finally found me. Do not be overcome by your emotions." Okay, that actually did sound like Cyrus. Could it be that Mars was being foolish, looking a gift horse in the mouth?
"Cyrus sir, I... we need to leave this place. This place isn't right. I don't like what it's doing to me, and I certainly don't like what it's done to you." However, Mars's former leader just shook his head, smiling in an unnerving way. It was an expression that she had never seen cross his face, at least as far as she could remember.
"No, Mars. We don't need to leave. We can stay here together, forever. Don't you want that?" The young red-haired woman continued to stare, transfixed on the man's face as her own expression turned to one of sheer horror.
This wasn't right. Cyrus wouldn't want to stay in that awful place any longer, and certainly not just to be with her.
As they stood there with eyes locked on each other's, Mars could swear she saw something flicker in the blue-haired man's eyes, something that surely hadn't been there before. It was something she could only describe as a brief flash of color, the color red. Somehow she knew that she wasn't just seeing the reflection of her own irises. This was a different shade of red, but still one she recognized. It was the same red color she had seen before, identical to the glow of another set of eyes which had been haunting her dreams for the last four years.
It was the intense color of the eyes that had stared out from the formless shadow that had appeared that day on the very top of Mount Coronet. The same soulless gaze that had taken what she valued most from her. Now it was back, to steal him from her again.
"I- I won't let you take him again! I'm bringing him back with me, and you can't stop me this time."
At these words, "Cyrus" frowned.
"What makes you doubt me? How could I be anybody else, let alone a ghost like Giratina? I'm not an illusion, I've already proven that to you."
Mars, however, wasn't convinced. Maybe illusions could be solid in the Distortion World. Or... wait. If this wasn't Cyrus, then where was the real one? This one looked like her leader, but was clearly not acting as himself, almost as if he were somehow possessed...
Wait, that was it! That report Mars had read back in Galactic's old Eterna base had said that all ghost-types were capable of possessing humans, including Giratina!
"Get out of him this instant, Giratina! I'm not going to let you kill him." Mars's hand flew down to her Pokéball belt. Maybe a super-effective move like Night Daze would be able to flush the creature out.
"You're clever," the possessed former leader of Galactic remarked with another unsettling smile.
"But far too rash. If you attack us, you'll only be hurting your dear leader. With his body as frail as it is now, you would surely kill him, which is obviously not what you came here to do. As for me, well, being attacked by another Pokémon means little to nothing to me. Even a powerful dark, ghost, dragon, or ice-type blow could be shrugged off."
Giratina might be the last obstacle in the way of getting Cyrus back, and as much as Mars wanted to force the thing out, the creature had a point. Mars's hand slowly moved away from her belt, a look of defeat crossing her face.
"Fine, then. What do you really want from me?"
"What I want," the possessed man stated, placing a hand on his chest. "...is a promise."
A promise? The creature wanted Mars to commit to an action? Maybe Giratina wanted her to stay in Cyrus's place? That would be horrible, but Mars wouldn't put it past the legendary dragon ghost.
"I'm listening." The red-haired woman was trying her best to keep her posture upright and to not break eye contact. It wasn't easy when her legs felt as if they were going to collapse under her from stress and panic. She had to stay strong for Cyrus.
"As you probably know, I brought this man here to stop him from ripping the spacetime continuum apart, which would put the entire fate of our world in jeopardy. Possibly more than that even, I do not know how much damage he would have accomplished before Dialga and Palkia ran out of energy or the chain broke. Threatening the very stability of our world's foundation, and for what? Some petty half-brained scheme to somehow gain power that no man was meant to have, just to satisfy his own foolish delusions of grandeur, that's what."
Giratina made Cyrus shake his head before continuing. It was odd to see Cyrus speaking against his own plans, even while possessed. Mars let the Pokémon who had taken over her leader's body continue speaking through him.
"Of course, such an act would not be survivable by a mere human being. The force of creation would rip him apart, along with everybody else standing on that mountain. From there, the cataclysm would spread, not content until there was nothing left in this world but empty space. Eventually, Palkia and Dialga themselves would break, assuming that the red chain he made was well-enough built. Though it certainly wasn't, considering how easily I destroyed it."
"What do you want of me already?" Mars demanded, trying her best to keep the fear she was feeling out of her voice.
"Yes, I suppose I should get to the point, as I'm not sure how long this body can hold me before dying completely. The point is, I risked myself by leaving this place just long enough to take the idiot down and bring him here. I will not allow this foolish excuse for a man to repeat his mistake. I will take the precautions necessary to send him out without the chance of him doing so, but I will need your cooperation."
"So you want me to stop him from trying to make a new world again?" The sooner this was over, the better. Mars wasn't sure how long she could hold up, and Cyrus's body and mind were even more of a concern. Why did Giratina have to drag the conversation on with unnecessary words? Did it have something to do with the creature possessing Cyrus? She had loved her leader's long-winded speeches, but now was not the time.
"In so many words, yes. I want you to watch him and ensure that he will not repeat his mistakes. If you break this promise, I will have to come out of here again and kill this man, then drag you back here for a permanent stay. With that said, you did pass all of my controlled trials. I will give you back your desired human and bid you farewell. Human language, or at least the way this man expresses it, tires me greatly."
Mars didn't even have time to reply before the creature left its temporary host, pulling itself from the man like a particularly large, three-dimensional shadow. There was a sudden rush of what felt like cold, wet air, and the shadow was gone, leaving Galactic's leader as well as what appeared to be a small portal behind.
Now to leave this awful place. The redhead caught Cyrus in her arms as the now unconscious man fell forward, then carefully placed him on the ground while she grabbed her backpack and put it on again. Once this was done, Mars once again picked up the blue-haired man and carried him through the portal before collapsing herself.