Chapter 9, rewritten and modified slightly. I added a "deleted scene" so to say, that involves Calvin and Mesprit. Enjoy!
Rain. Nothing but thunder, lightning, and penny-sized rain droplets since we left Veilstone a few days ago. In the rush to get out of town, I had failed to look at a weather advisory while purchasing the pair of binoculars, so now we--actually I, was getting soaked now. Mesprit was sleeping on my backpack in pokémon form, protecting herself from the rain with a psychic shield. Mismagius, whom I'd swapped out with Staraptor in fear that he would get clipped by lightning, went intangible from time to time, the rain passing harmlessly through her.
"You're so lucky," I said to her. She chuckled.
We came to a fork in the road. I opened up the map, which unraveled to my legs. It was laminated to protect it against the rain. "Let's see....we must be here, at the junction of route 215 and route 210. If we keep walking....north, we should reach Celestic Town." The first stop on our list after passing through Celestic Town would be Eterna City. That's where the most kidnappings were and a liable place to start looking. I took the route to the left and headed north. Shortly after, I came across an impasse.
"Oh, great," The route had flooded over. I looked up to the sky, and filled my lungs with air. "Why are you doing this to me?!"
I picked off a long tree limb and stuck it into the tater. I almost fell in myself. "Damn, that's deep!" I released Millie from her pokéball. "Millie, we need a lift across this....lake. Could you lend us a hand?" She nodded. I climbed onto her back, trying to displace as much weight as possible. When that was done, she strode across the water.
Mesprit woke up. 'Calvin....where are we?'
"Uh, route 210--crap!" The map slipped out of my hand and floated on the surface of the water. "Hold on a second Millie, I dropped the map."
'Wait....Calvin, don't go back there,' Mesprit said.
"Why not?"
'A portal is opening!'
Just then, the surface of the water flashed and soon the map started swirling around, as if someone just pulled a drainage plug underwater. By now, Millie had turned around and went back towards the map. I reached out towards it when it came around the swirl. "Almost got it...." I grabbed the tip by the edge of my finger. "Yes!"
I reeled my arm back in, when the water congealed itself, and wrapped around my arm. "What the hell?"
'Calvin, quick, pull your arm back in!'
"I'm....trying!" I tugged at my arm, but it didn't budge. "Mismagius, use psybeam!"
That didn't help at all; instead, it made it worse. The water crept up my arm, almost consuming it whole. Then, without warning, I was yanked off of Millie's back and was pulled underneath the water.
'Calvin!' Even with telepathy, Mesprit's voice was drowned out.
I opened my eyes, which didn't make much of a difference, because it was still dark. My head was resting on a rocky surface, probably the inside of a cave or something. The others must have rescued me. "Mesprit? Millie?" I called. "Mismagius?" No response. I pulled myself up, and started to walk by using the walls as my guide. I could hear running water nearby, so that's probably where they went.
As I walked, I noticed that my bag was becoming increasingly lighter, and I soon started to lose my own grip on the ground. The sound of eater grew louder, so I reached into my backpack and pulled out a flashlight. No water on the ground. Something told me to look up, and when I did, the water was flowing harmlessly above me.
'Must've hit my head,' I thought.
I was almost floating now. I let go of the flashlight, and watched as it hovered in midair in front of me.
"What in the hell...."
'Calvin, there you are!' Mesprit appeared, making me jump back. In the process, I accidentally hit the flashlight, and it floated up into the stream of water and short-circuited. Everything went dark again.
"Mesprit!"
'Sorry.'
"Okay, so you're in this hallucination too?" I asked.
'This isn't a hallucination, Calvin,' She said. 'Remember that portal I mentioned before? Well it looks like it must've lead to the Distortion World.'
"What?!" I had heard about the Distortion World once or twice from Arceus, and from the way she described it, it wasn't exactly what you would call "the world's best vacation spot". Just getting here was tricky; since it was on the reverse side of our world, portals would usually open in mirrors, or surfaces that make very good reflections. That's what Mesprit must've been talking about before. The water served as a mirror, and so a portal opened. There were only two ways out of here. Either find another open portal, which could've been anywhere, or find Giratina, the only one who lives here.
"I've come too far to get sidetracked now!"
'Follow me.'
She led me back to the exit, where Millie and Mismagius were waiting. I greeted them, and they were relieved that I was okay. I looked around. From the forest that we previously traversed, this world shaped it in a different way. Trees were scattered all around, but some were twisted, or floating on rocks. The mountain range went on as it regularly did, but then mirrored itself, similar to how it does on water. The sky was endless, spread out far and high, and even below us. Thunder crackled across the overcast, but no rain fell. Speaking of water, the water from inside the cave flowed out, and turned at a 90 degree angle and kept running upwards at the same pace.
'I've been here once or twice,' Mesprit said. 'I think I might know where Giratina is.'
She and Mismagius flew out. 'Come on Calvin! Gravity isn't a factor in this part!'
Figuratively, since time didn't move in this dimension, we searched for hours, mostly on one path so that the gravity bomb wasn't dropped on us. No sign of Giratina anywhere. If he was helping us, he had to have been somewhere around northern Sinnoh, so that's where we went, a journey that would've lasted weeks if it hadn't been for this mishap. The temperature dropped rapidly. Soon trees started appearing again, but with snow on them. We stopped on a rock, covered in snow.
Despite the fact that time stood still, my watch kept going at a regular pace. It read 10:33. "We should stop and get some rest."
'Rest?' Mesprit asked.
"As much as I want to get out of here, we can't find Giratina unless we're at full strength," I set my watch. "We can start looking again when my watch starts beeping."
Millie, unaffected by the weather, lay down on the cold surface. I cleared a spot of snow next to her, unraveled my sleeping bag, and fell into an uneasy sleep. I only reawakened three hours later, to a darkened sky. Maybe time didn't completely stop in this dimension, but it moved a few times slower than in the regular world so that it wasn't visible.
"Whoa," For a moment, it felt like I was standing on a rock in the middle of space. The moon and the stars filled the 360 degree sky. For a place that was so unwelcoming for humans, it sure portrayed beautiful views. The sight calmed me of my anxiety, and replaced it with curiosity and amazement.
'It's beautiful, isn't it?' Mesprit asked, floating by the edge of the rock, for a better view. I walked to her.
"Mesprit, how long have you been awake?" I asked.
'A few minutes,' She was shivering.
"Here, let me help you," I unbuttoned my coat, and wrapped her in it. Her body was pretty cold for just a few minutes. "Any better?"
'Very. Thanks.'
I nodded, and continued to look at the sky.
"Mesprit, if you had one wish, what would it be?" I asked.
'For more clothes,' We both had a good laugh from that. 'What about you?'
"For me," I said. "I wanted to wish that Emmy never died. Our family would've been as it should be, and I would probably be serving customers in a few hours. But now that I think about it....it's just not worth it. If I made a checklist and wrote down all of the good things that would have happened if I made that wish, in general, I would have only come up with two things. If I didn't make the wish, I'd lose those things, which meant Emmy and Danielle's trust, but look at what I would have gained. A job I never asked for, but turned out for the best, and friends that are...almost...like another family to me. Plus, The chances of me saving you like I did four years ago are very slim, and that would've meant that you would be held captive all this time."
'True.'
"Danielle...." I went on. "Her trust is something I'm going to have to re-piece over time. I'm going to make it happen one way or another. And Emmy....she told me four years ago that she never left. And I kind of believe her. It doesn't really feel like she has."
Mesprit yawned. I walked back to my sleeping bag, still holding Mesprit, and laid down. Maybe this world wasn't as bad as I thought....
'Calvin, get up!' Mesprit relentlessly nudged at my side. My watch was beeping like crazy. Overcast clouded the 'morning' sky just like it did the day before.
"What's wrong, Mesprit?"
'I just saw Giratina!' I sprang to my feet, and quickly rolled up my sleeping bag.
"Where?"
She pointed across the endless belt of snow and rocks, until I saw the ghost of a dragon, maneuvering his way trough it. "Giratina!" I yelled. No use. "Dammit, he's too far away!" I returned Millie and Mismagius to their pokéballs and walked to the opposite edge of the rock. She followed me.
'Calvin, what are you going to do?'
"Mesprit, you may want to grab hold," She opened a compartment in my backpack and slipped inside. "I'm going to try something."
I ran towards the edge of the rock, front-flipped, and darted down into the snow belt. Anti-gravity was on my side.
"Mesprit, can you control where I'm headed?" We were on collision course with an excessively large rock.
She did so, and I swerved around the rock, barely missing it, and not losing any speed at all.
'There he is!'
But gravity took its toll. Out of nowhere, we started falling into the endless void. "Staraptor!" I released him. He looped, and caught us on his back. "Thanks for the save!"
Giratina perched himself on a rock. From this view, we could clearly take into note his change of appearance. His six massive legs were reduced to gold-tipped spikes protruding from his sides, four more on the tip of his tail, and his head plates wrapped around where his mouth should've been. His wings were replaced by six black streamers, tipped in red spikes. He looked a lot more terrifying here than he did in the other world.
'Calvin?' He called out. 'Is that you?'
"Yes it's me!" I jumped off of Staraptor's back and slit to a halt on the rock. Mesprit jumped out of my bag. "We've been looking all over for you."
'...why?'
'Because, a portal opened on route 210, and it sucked us in, and dropped us off here,' Mesprit said. 'Can you take us back?'
'Of course.'
"Thanks again, Star," I returned him to his pokéball. Giratina lay down so that I could climb onto his back. Once settled, he took off, going back in the direction we came from.
'Oh, by the way Calvin,' He continued. 'I've finished my part of the search. Your answers lie in Eterna City.'
"I knew it," That would explain the large number of kidnappings there. "Did you see anything suspicious?"
'Yeah, they were carrying a teenager into a unusual looking building there.'
I was on a roll right now. All of my theories were proving right after all. "So....it turns out that those men in suits do have something to do with the mass abductions. And my search just got a bit easier," Now that I knew where the teenagers were, there was a good chance that Danielle would be held captive there too. "Thanks for the lead, Giratina."
'Anytime,' He stopped and opened up a portal. 'This is your stop, Calvin. Good luck.'
"Thanks," I jumped through the portal. Mesprit followed. We came out on the edge of a small town. The sun was just rising. Thank god there was no more rain.
'No map,' Mesprit muttered.
"That's okay, I don't need it. Judging by that shrine at the center of town, this should be...Celestic," I replied. "Come on, let's get something to eat."
She changed into her human form, and we both walked into town.
Now that Calvin knows where to look, it's only three more chapters before he finds Danielle, and gets the shock of his life! Please review!
