Pokemon: The Unknown Continuum
Chapter 14: Earth Day
Giratina, or 'The Watcher in the Great Beyond', as the creepy tribesman called him, must have only been ten meters away now as it continued to close in on me. Dealing with that groudon illusion, fleeing for my life away from the vicious pack in the Amp Plains, thinking I was about to die from suffocation a mere minute ago...those incidents had absolutely nothing on the sheer, distilled terror that was racing through every artery and vein. Death felt like a comfort compared to the things I imagined this abomination could do to me. Would he put me in a permanent state of mental hell while joyously and slowly pulling my body apart over the course of hours? I could not tell what he was capable of doing to me, and I merely stared back with a pale expression with a shivering jaw, with nn chance of me keeping a straight upper lip. It was even a wonder why my heart didn't just stop and have me die out of preventing me from suffering a fate worse than death. The rest of my body was frozen, my breathing becoming absolutely minimal as I stared right at Giratina, awaiting his next action. He seemed to remain quite still, surveying me subtly for about half a minute before I heard the most disembodied and nerve-freezing voice inside my very head.
"Mortal...I sensed a 'visitor' in The Great Beyond." The voice said, sounding completely hollow, as if all of its humane substance got completely removed as it travelled through ghostly winds. "Why are you here? Speak, I will understand your communication methods." It commanded as I panicked, being in too much mental stress to initially figure out that it was Giratina himself speaking to me, but I did know that it was probably for the best to just go along with whoever it was that was inside my head.
"...If it's you, Giratina...I..." I stalled for a few seconds, shivering, and starting to break into mild hysteria at the massive being of cosmological power right in front of me. While only explicitly stated in Arceus related scriptures, Giratina was pretty much made of pure malicious spite, which gave signals that this was the start of him toying with me until a hellish demise.
"I came...to...I..." I started breaking down even further as tears felt like they were squirting from my eyes in absolute terror. My body felt completely drained of energy from the fear-driven shivering and the occasional spasm, knowing that I was completely and totally at his mercy. "I wanted...I...to..." Upon my struggled stutters and my seeming inability to form sentences, Giratina, again, spoke from inside my head.
"You're clearly frightened. Perhaps it is because you have heard of my existence and some of my actions I have committed since the beginning of time itself, but there something I wish for you to tell me. How has that knowledge reached the first world in such detail that your body almost ceased to function out of such a high level of hysteria? It is something I should be aware of, unless an exchange of information happened within the past Earth year. I will say one thing before I let you speak – notice how your lungs are still respiring? There is no air here aside from the bubble of air I put around you as I detected your presence. If I had wanted you dead as the distortions of truth and outright lies placed on me in the second world likely have you believe, I would not have saved your life. Keep that in mind for when you next speak. Now, continue, mortal." Giratina's voice said, using some kind of telepathy in such a way that it felt like it was coming from both within my head and from Giratina himself. Perhaps it was some kind of attempt to make his telepathy feel like it was physical speech, and while it still had nothing to do with my ears, he seemed to be planting the idea that I was 'hearing' him in front of me, rather than being totally inside my head.
It was still extremely hard for me to believe that Giratina didn't at one point aim to cause total chaos across the world and to rip apart existence itself as told in scriptures on multiple faiths, even in the Palkian doctrine, but he did have a point about how he did save my life, and considering he must have been able to send the previous humans back home, it added up logically.
"I...came here to be sent home...to the human world. You're my last hope and chance of that happening." I said, trying to be efficient when talking to the behemoth in front of me. I tried to force myself to calm down, in which I did with surprising efficiency, though I was still shuddering so hard that it just about physically hurt me.
"Yet, you came from the first world, the pokemon world...very well then, I shall fulfil this request. Keeping denizens in their own world was something I stood with great fervour, as it was one of my duties given to me by Arceus himself. However, given your reactions upon seeing me...I think a moment of education is in order, much like I gave the three humans who found me here over a hundred years ago. This shall not be a distraction from my duties, however, as I'm using 99.872% of my mental capacity to keep the walls of the dimensions stable at this very moment. Now, I shall tell you the truth as I perform a slow mental scan for me to send you through the dimensional weaving of the world after your education on the truth of the origin of existence is understood. Come." He said, but it turned out I never had to do anything, as I seemed to float right behind him as he made his way back the way he came to find me using some kind of telekinesis.
"The second world, the world of the humans...did you happen to come across any inactive bodies of scaled aquatic organisms when you arrived here?" He asked me, his voice still sounding highly unearthly.
"Yes, I did – they seem quite human shaped." I responded, and he replied so quickly it caught me off guard.
"Those were the last discarded design for humans Arceus made. I was sure for many months that those would end up becoming his master creation, that is, until he discarded thousands of prototype humans in here, and changed his mind to develop the humans to purely live on land rather than under the sea with land-travel capabilities. For you see, this 'Great Beyond' or 'Distortion World' or 'Torn World' or 'Reverse world' or 'The Void' or 'The Abyss', going by many different names that scripture give this place, is also a disposal site for Arceus's unwanted creations. He went through a lot of trial and error to make both worlds the way that they are." He told me as I looked at one of the aquatic humans as I floated by it – to think that I very nearly could have looked like that for all my life! I was sure glad Arceus changed his mind!
"The origin of existence started long before that though, for there was once a time where existence was the all in one of Arceus. Only he existed back then, and he was existence itself. A being of borderline absolute power, and yet the reality is that he is still fallible, and I would compare his mental attitudes of that to a human. Can you figure out why you, this world, and I exist? Why Arceus created everything that you've ever detected with your senses?" I shook my head – he wasn't looking at me, but he could tell that I couldn't put two and two together this time.
"Well, as perplexing as it might sound to you, he created the universe and the different dimensional plains out of, well, boredom. What happened before Arceus created Dialga, Palkia and myself, not even I can comprehend, but throughout boredom, or as Arceus put it, 'artistic expression', he started creating each and every part of existence, starting with the three lesser gods in the space of a few Earth years. All of this happened nineteen million, four hundred and twenty thousand, seven hundred and ninety eight years ago, all of this for his own personal entertainment. I guess you should hope that the mortals are not boring him, since a bored Arceus could be the most dangerous thing to happen to all planes of existence. Aside from installing his own faith group that over half the humans in the second world follow three thousand years ago, he has not once had any form of intervention, which you should be thankful for. I believe that it will stay that way, as his fascination with his most prized creation continues to amuse him. It might seem arrogant for those who follow Arceus's word to assume that they are the height of creation, but Arceus would agree with that himself."
My mind was simply not wrapping around this at all, even though I could have guessed half of what he said to be true, even if I didn't have this encounter with him. Giratina was the last entity I ever wanted to trust, and yet, what he said so far was actually adding up. How my brain was still in check only lead to another possible revelation – could Giratina be putting on the the most subtle form of mind control on me? The odd thing is, I was wondering about the humans and pokemon as well and how they came to meet, and in the most creepy fashion, Giratina then started speaking about just that.
"I can tell you're wondering how humans and pokemon came to meet. It started with the greatest failure in being the one who keeps the walls of the dimensions in tact. Half a million years ago, my carelessness allowed huge rips to form between the first and second – the pokemon and human world to you – which allowed many pokemon to seep through, whether by accident or on purpose, and migrated to the human world. I thought that this would be a disaster, leading to mass extinctions, and tragically, I was correct . The animals, which Arceus made for use by the humans, were mostly driven to extinction by the pokemon, for they were simply more adept at surviving in the wild and pushing out their competition. I sent word down to humans to separate themselves as much from the pokemon as much as possible to try to make up from my grave mistake, which ended up becoming a minor religion among human kind, however their integration made it impossible for me to send them back safely without severe damage to the dimensional linings, which could have, at worst case scenario, caused both the worlds to fall into one another and eventually crumble into instability. Yet, in spite of all this, humans and pokemon alike seemed to benefit one another, and could have even made the second world a better place. I had a prophet to tell all the followers I accumulated – by accident, of course – to tell them that there was no need to pursue their goals of segregation, but alas, he convinced almost no one."
"Unlike Arceus and the other lesser gods, I did not actually intend to start my own faith group or religion. Arceus told me that he only really started his own religion to get people to know that he created the existence in which they live in and for himself to get the due credit for it. While I can't be sure, knowing Arceus, he probably only let Dialga and Palkia start their own faiths to make conflict, which he has taken quite a liking to, since he claims that it breaks up any mundane happenings in the second world. The many forms of afterlife that he promised were also completely fictional, which was, again, to try and accumulate more praise and worship to bolster his own ego, and to create even conflict to entertain him. It's a wonder, really – Arceus's mind is really not that different from the minds of some humans, for better or worse, which seems to justify the claim that Arceus made humans in his image, not to mention that he himself spread his religion under the guise of a human."
"His real appearance also may not what you expect it to be, for the images he telepathically handed down to people is just his favoured form. The one with a thousand arms that shaped the universe is just another form of Arceus, and it is the first form I ever witnessed him to be, and not even I dare attempt to comprehend what lay before that." For reasons I couldn't understand, I felt compelled to just go with what he was saying. Being equipped with additional knowledge was also good, and it almost seemed that Giratina thought that equipping me with knowledge like this would benefit me – this was, oddly enough, also a Dialgan philosophy. Giratina seemed to be rambling on a bit somewhat, changing subjects with an almost disorientating frequency. I guess he wasn't too well versed in human conversation, and as many questions as I had – particularly whether I could be sent home or not – I did not dare interrupt him.
"I was curious to find out Palkia's and Dialga's opinions on what would be good for humankind with the faith groups they installed in the second world, and it all fell down to Palkia thinking that happiness and well being is the ultimate for human life, while Dialga believed that it was truth and justice to put it in its most basic terms. I think about it so rarely, but seeing Arceus allowing – no, asking them to set up their own religions based on over nineteen million years of experience is quite possibly the only thing I know about the other lesser gods. We do not speak, we do not communicate, as Arceus has forbidden us to ever contact each other, and it's...wait." Giratina suddenly stopped for a split second before suddenly going incomprehensibly fast through the extra-planer tunnels of The Great Beyond for a fleeting moment, with me in tow, before suddenly stopping and he seemed to gaze at one of the 'walls', which looked slightly darker than the rest of the linings of this alien place. He seemed to open his mouth and breathed some sort of dark gas onto the corrupted looking wall, and it soon returned to the sickly purplish colour scheme like the rest of the linings.
"That was required to prevent another possible tear – it is my unrelenting purpose to do this until the end of time. My mental scan of you is nearing it's completion, but there's one other thing I am going to educate you on before I can decide what to do with you. As a pokemon who's seemingly more intelligent than most, much like humans are – I trust you don't know why." Giratina asked me, as I continued to observe him with curiosity in his black void of a form. Perhaps this was just my mind's interpretation of Giratina, and I simply couldn't comprehend what he really looked like – it was certainly a possibility.
"...Actually, I do know. Uxie told me – Uxie, along with Mesprit and Azelf were pokemon made by Arceus to fully bring about what he called 'the human spirit' or the mental capacity to help make humans intelligent. Uxie theorized that their influence on mankind leaked to the pokemon to an extent, and this, alongside the fact that three explorers who found their way here encouraged these human-like behaviours among pokemon, they became sentient and civilized. I also think there are similar reasons why the pokemon in the human world are far more intelligent than animals." I said, taking a deep breath between each pause, and while we weren't making eye contact, we did seem to see eye-to-eye in the metaphorical sense. I assumed the reason why pokemon didn't display human intelligence outright on the human would could have been due to mankind's collective subconscious not wanting any competitors that could bump their place as top-dogs on Earth. Can't say I blame them if that were the case.
"You know more than I had anticipated." Giratina stated, slowly coming to a stop in this geometrically unsound place. "The three humans were sucked through to the first world through, once again, my fallibility as the custodian of The Great Beyond, and yet, it all seemed to amount to the further amusement of The Eternal Patriarch. I can occasionally get glimpses into what he thinks as I approach the only end in one of these passages, which I could assume is near where he watches over us, but as to where it actually is, it is beyond even my conceptions of the dimensional laws, much like how it is impossible for a human to understand the true nature of any kind of physical location of each world to another." Giratina paused for a moment and suddenly turned right around and stared right at me, being a mere meter away. Being this close to him filled me with an unnatural sense of emptiness, leading me to wonder if Giratina was purely a gaseous entity, and that such close proximity could even make it contagious, and strange, wild thoughts about antimatter sprung to mind. I felt as though I had to catch my breath again before he continued.
"The scan of you is complete, and has yielded information I have not seen in any other single organism. When you arrived in this world, you seemed to go through some sort of corruption, however, I can undo some of it, involving turning you back to your physical form not long before you passed into the first world. The result I found for the matching organism in the second world is, in fact, a human being, as you said." A mental tingling in my head seemed to flicker and then, to my right, I could see an image of my human self, standing tall, proud, and with a sense of nobility. The narcissist within me liked what he saw – it was the real me, that I would become once more! Although, he did look a bit hairier and quite injured than I usually looked, but I was hardly complaining!
"That's me!" I suddenly yelped in happiness, as the tingling joy in the nerve fibres were starting to dance in every part of my body. "I don't know how I got here, or how I became a pokemon, or...can I really go back to being me again?" I said, almost in disbelief that my quest had finally reached its end and that I would reap the sweet rewards. My excited tone suddenly calmed down, just to make sure the reality of my grail would not be shattered – it all depended on what Giratina would say next. I was so exhilarated that I wasn't even complaining that Giratina would be the final judge of this!
"...Yes, you can. The corruption you obtained is likely due to the fact you became a pokemon somehow. I trust you are a follower of the word and way of Palkia?" I gave him an exasperated look by mere accident, but the thought of being suspected of being a delusional Palkian...or maybe they weren't that delusional after all.
"No, I was a proud Dialgan! So, surely, even if Palkism is actually pure and complete fact, I would never be chosen to live a second life!" I said, raising my voice automatically – I wasn't even aware of it, but thankfully, Giratina didn't seem to notice or care.
"But you said that you didn't remember how your predicament came to be. If you developed partial amnesia, would it not be possible that you converted?" Giratina asked me. The very idea of this made my mental receptors flare in confusion and anger – no, this would never happen to me – never in a thousand billion years! Betray Dialga?! The nauseating thought wasn't going to get to me!
"...And besides..." I said, calming myself, taking a couple of deep breaths, hoping my air bubble wasn't going to run out. "...Doesn't Palkia, if this whole soul stuff is true..." I said, pausing for a second. The idea of each and every member of mankind having a pokemon soul was no longer as ridiculous a notion as it used to be, and I was becoming dangerously close to accepting it as something I believed in. "...Doesn't he revert them to newborns?" I continued, shivering slightly. Part of me wanted to confirm this with Palkia if I ever got the chance, and yet, I was now far more afraid of Palkia than I ever was of Giratina.
"Did it say those exact words in his Tome of Enlightenment? Would you not consider other possibilities? Can you not be sure that you didn't die in the second world and have yourself reborn in this one at the age in which you died?" Giratina suggested, and I couldn't take it any more. The emotions and thoughts seemed like they were pounding at my body's inner linings, wanting to burst out in a violent explosion, and I was no longer sure if I could contain them well or not anymore.
"...Please...just send me home. I'm begging of you." I spoke softly to him, trying to sooth myself, in which Giratina seemed to understand.
"Very well. I hope the knowledge and truth I have given to you will shape your views on existence for the better – Dialgans do place an extremely high value on truth, after all." He said to me, and it was the last I heard from him, as he wasted no time in sending me home. Before I could stutter and shudder with excitement and euphoria, I felt myself briefly fly through The Great Beyond at speeds I could only take a guess to be at Mach ten. It seemed like I was flying past existence itself when my vision blurred out, almost passing out, being very surprised I was surviving the sheer velocity what was happening, and after fleeting seconds of incomprehensibility, and strange paresthesia all over my body before eventually passing out.
I firmly felt myself land on what must have been grass after some time, but whether that look me mere seconds or hours, who could tell. All the suppressed nostalgia came through as I felt a body shape that felt strange yet oh so familiar to me, a smile spreading itself across my face. Slowly standing up on my now far longer legs using my far longer arms to help get me to my feet. I wobbled ever so slightly, having gotten used to a Snivy body after all this time. An ecstatic look at my hands almost made me fall over in delight. I even recognized the patterns of the veins that went over and under the bones of my hand, and right then I even kissed them out of delight, not caring that there were quite a few cuts on them, or caring how silly I looked.
It was rather bright and sunny, with clouds being seemingly absent, which was unusual for Scotland, and thus cherished when possible. How fitting of the weather to be like this in quite possibly the biggest burst of sheer unrestrained joy I have ever experienced! I just had to look at myself in a mirror or other reflection, and it wasn't like my legs were giving me any choice, as I ran around from behind a tree that I must have landed behind. Humans! Look at them all! I was like them once more! I was truly home as I realised that I had wound up in Prince's Street Garden in the centre of Edinburgh! I can't remember how my screams of joy I let out as I ran across the wet grass, indicating that it must have been raining earlier, completely ignoring the occasional funny look I got. Upon reaching the children's playground on the west side of the gardens, where I got yelled at for accidentally knocking over someone's oddish by accident as I ran by, I experienced the polar opposite reaction and feeling as to when I looked at myself in the rock pools where I first woke up in the pokemon world. I approached a puddle and got on my hands and knees, staring into it.
Instead of a huge pointy nose with huge, cynical looking eyes and and seeing green on the top of my head with a surprisingly dangerous leaf on top of it, I saw think brown, untreated hair that reached slightly beyond my shoulders and all covered in dirt. It was quite a bit longer than I remembered, which was unison with my beard, which was longer and messier than usual, and seemed like it hadn't been trimmed or organized in months as it's bushiness tickled my throat. I guess I didn't decide to trim it much before I wound up in that long-gone asshole world. As much as I liked a good beard, this was getting a big trim when I'd get home, and the hair as well for that matter. The hazel eyes and largish nose remained in tact, and my lips seemed a little more chapped than usual, but what was most striking was how cut and broken my face looked! I must have been trying to batter some wild pokemon, or even an assailant with a knife before this! My jaw looked almost misshapen with a couple of fairly large scars to boot, and I continued to wonder what on earth could have happened, or what attacked me, or whether I should take a visit to a doctor or not. Minor ones were sparsely coating my nose and left cheek, with what must have been a nasty gash over my forehead, and three very nasty looking gashes parallel with each other running down the left side of my face.
There wasn't any bleeding, but the scabs and marks told me that I must have got into a very touchy situation before ending up in the pokemon world. I doubted it was a freak distortions of the dimensions as Giratina often said was the cause of 'visiting' different worlds. As for what caused it, it was anyone's guess, but they were most certainly foul bastards. Perhaps it was Giratina's underground cult who kidnapped me and did this as a form of ritual sacrifice, but no matter how it happened, it didn't matter. Even though I only just realised the aching pain on my face and on other parts of my body, it didn't stop me from knowing that I was truly Floyd again and not some snivy. I must have looked extremely up myself as I gazed into my own reflection for what must have been several minutes, and I had to stop myself from giving that a kiss too out of embarrassment, as much as I wanted to out of sheer delight out of my reclaimed human form.
"Are you ok sir? You're not ill, are you?" A woman said from behind me, in a very polite and formal way of speaking, upon which I got up and turned around. She looked around middle aged, and fairly well of as well.
"I've never been better! I honestly wasn't in a drunken fight yesterday!" I said quite loudly and shook her hand without her permission. "Anyway, I have people to see, ta ta!" I said and ran off, leaving her with a confused expression. Getting home would be a little tricky when I shoved both my hands into my pockets and found nothing to pay for a bus fare, and it'd take at least an hour to walk there, not that I really had much of a problem. Even more of a problem, is that there was no key either, so guess I'd just have to go to my dad's place for now, and besides, I'm sure he'd be overjoyed to see me! Prince's Street was probably the busiest and most central street in all of Scotland, even if it wasn't actually in the biggest Scottish city. Packed with cars, buses and people as it always was, complete with shops, call charging high street prices.
The old and the new clashed here at all directions, with glittering skyscrapers here, and an ancient castle over there. The city just oozed with good proper standards, but never compromised it's friendly atmosphere. I always felt as though I could walk around here safe at night unlike Glasgow where my grandparents on both sides of my family originated from. Even above all the banter, and the noise of the vehicles starting and stopping, I could still hear my footsteps sounding rhythmically like a slightly broken metronome as I returned into a joyful run once more, carelessly bumping into a few people as I passed. I had got used to my human body again so fast, it was almost like I was never a snivy at all. Perhaps the whole snivy experience could have all been part on a mixed drug mixing experience that was all but forgotten, but those accumulated memories lasted well over a month, so I somehow doubted that. Having almost got hit by cars twice along the way due to my clumsy haste, I eventually made my way to my dad's house, taking almost an hour to get there at a joyful run. Though the joyful run, while being complete mental euphoria, was physically very painful with stabbing pains in both my legs and my left arm almost flopping a bit as it felt numb. As a result, I slowed down a bit, not wanting to risk additional injury.
"Alright then!" I said, knocked and entered without waiting for my father to respond. The reunion was upon me! I breathed so fast, that the first thing I heard was:
"Floyd, is that you? You sound exhausted, did you run here or something? I recognize even the sound of your breathing!" He seemed to be fairly casual to my sudden re-appearance after I essentially went missing without a trace. "Longer hair? It was long enough before! Please, get it cut! The beard too – it's so untidy and scruffy!" This caused one eyebrow of mine to frown, and one to raise – I vanished for over a month and this is how he reacts? I'd have surely attended the church services weekly, so something must be up if he didn't ask why I missed at least five in a row.
"Dad...I'm back! It's a long time, and I'm glad I'm home, right here again!" I said, still with a wide open smile, and yet, something reeked of unfamiliarity. The way he was acting didn't seem like the sort of father I knew, since he took to my sudden return way too much in his stride, which was most unlike him since he usually made a big deal out of everything. However, he had other questions on his mind.
"...What happened to you last night?! Look at yerself! Cuts and full blown gashes on your face! Did you get violently mugged by neds or other lowlifes with knives after the church service a couple of days ago? Looks like your clothes took a beating as well. Your t-shirts torn, much like your fleece and jeans! And your jaw...oof, maybe you should make an appointment with your GP." While paying attention to the most obvious visual problem with me, he still seemed to be skirting the whole vanishing for six weeks thing. Why?! Surely he'd say something! I'd just have to bring it up myself somehow.
"...I haven't been to church in at least five weeks. I wasn't at the last church service." My dad was looking just as baffled as I was, yet I was beginning to get disturbed – it was like I never left the human world at all. Fidgeting rapidly, I started sweating slightly as my mind raced like rolling thunder, and in each and every direction.
"And you didn't get amnesia of some kind with the accident or vicious mugging? Seems like you bashed your head on concrete, but I'm no doctor. Look, maybe I should phone one in – you were definitely, and I mean definitely at church last Monday midnight. I'll make us some coffee if you're planning to stay for a bit. Oh, and you also left your phone here, might I add." He said, sounding slightly irritated as he handed it to me – I almost always left it here by accident. Unlike me, my dad looked exactly as I remembered him. He had a lot more beef on him than I did, though he was quite a far way from being outright fat, and dressed in his fairly smart and conservative manner – jeans that were never too tight or too baggy, and smart black boots and plain, fully buttoned shirt. Unlike me, she shaved, but was never exactly clean about it. Good for him tough, I ought to say that facial hair gives men character! At least in my views anyway, since I've heard a lot of people disagree with that. His short, tidy, yet somewhat uneven greying hair also contributed to his formal, no nonsense, yet outgoing ways, as did his redder-than-usual skin complexion. I looked barely anything like him personally, more following my mother's appearance, which was ironic since we seemed to agree on just about every issue known to man.
"I'll be going in about five minutes I think." I replied after a short delay. This was just discomforting on quite a few levels – unlike in the pokemon world, where was was wrong was obvious, this was less so, and I couldn't think of an explanation for it. It was even more inexplicable than how that Groudon statue worked, and it left this presence so uncomfortable that I felt urges to high tail it out of here.
"Ah, I see. Oh, by the way, I am deeply worried for you regarding those nasty looking gashes, really! I just remembered all the times where I worried for your safety, and pestered you with too many questions and the sort, but considering you can't remember whether you attended church or not last time, I'm guessing you can't remember how you got those injuries?" I shook my head at this, and Kirk carried on. "Think you got drunk straight afterwards? Stupid, stupid thing to do, but I really hope that's the case! You might even have got brain damage – sorry, that was me jumping to harsh conclusions, I really doubt it's the case, I don't know why I said that..." I stared at the friendly man with his short, tidy greying hair, and his slightly small size with a smaller nose to match – I was often told my looks came from my mother, and they were probably right in that regard.
"Oh, dad, I couldn't have a few pounds? I don't have any for bus fares...I've become...very disorganized lately..." I just couldn't do it – I couldn't tell him what happened to me. I felt horrible keeping this from my dad, considering that we like to share information freely among ourselves as a sign of trust, but much like the pokemon back in their world, I really didn't want to say I had visited other worlds. The thought of my dad thinking I was mad would tear me badly, and he didn't need to know about this. Yes, I can discover here why it seems like I had never gone in time, and besides, my main mission had been achieved! I was back home! I was in my old body! Perhaps settling back in would take a few days, which is not a problem whatsoever in the overall story of my life!
"Oh, Floyd, you're better than this!" He said, but he seemed to take my perceived clumsiness in forgetting to bring enough money as naive and almost cute, rather than stupid. "Ah, you were never that good at being prepared, but you've came a long way since you were a child! Here's five pound coins, and it doesn't even look like your in pain right now! I guess they look worse than they are then! See you soon!" He said, gesturing to my wounds before seeing me out the door.
"Oh, and Floyd, don't worry about your dreams, or my own." He called out to me as I was about to leave. "They're just dreams, nothing more, and the worst that they can do is make sleep a little less comfortable. Hey, it's tricky for me too Floyd."
The question of how my dad claimed to see me at church within the last few days, I had no idea. I couldn't stand staying there. Something was definitely wrong here, and I was beginning to wonder whether it was even my dad or not, considering his ramblings about dreams. The sky was now starting to host a few clouds, by this stage, as the light breeze from earlier was starting to blow a little more. Two nut-jobs outside my dads house were bickering over who knows what, stirring up quite a bit of noise. However, perhaps Omar could tell me something about the last time he's seen me, hence I was thankful my phone was at my dads.
"Hey Omar, it's me, Floyd." I said as I initiated a call with him.
"Floyd? Thought you'd have been here by now man. You usually arrive by five for gaming night, then it's off to the pubs – it's my birthday after all, man, there's gonna be like twenty of us doing a pub tour of Edinburgh, haha! Glad you decided to come along, even though you're not much of a drinker yourself. Sorry if I already thanked you for that, huh huh!" I did remember about gaming night, sure, but I had no idea what day it was – odd coincidence for it to be Omar's birthday! I also had something to celebrate, so this could be a truly amazing celebration. If only I could find my debit card...
"...I'm heading round there now." I said with unnatural pitching in my voice in confusion.
"Huh huh, looks like you're the ditzy one for once! Wait, someone's buzzed my flat, I'll see you when you get round, bye man!" Omar said and hung up. If I could get hold of my own money, I'd happily drink myself stupid tonight, but first thing's first – Omar's place.
Upon getting on the bus, I began to notice the aches and pains from my injuries more and more now, but it never got to the stage where it was really holding me back from anything physical, and was not dampening my lofty spirits. Albeit, I was still highly confused as to how my dad treated me as if I never left, as with Omar, but figuring that out was a secondary objective to getting settled back into the beautiful life. Everything so far upon my return seemed to smell slightly of uncanny valley, but I knew I was due to find out more when I was going to meet Omar, and I was absolutely on the money on this one.
I pressed the '11' button to let Omar know I was here, and he let me in about ten seconds later, not bothering to check who it was, but then again, he never did. This encounter with Omar, unlike my father who at least acted somewhat like his usual self, showed Omar acting in a way that I could never see coming. As I knocked sharply on the door and waited, I could hear quick footsteps running to the door, and then there was an ominous pause. He never took this long to look through the spyhole for me – a one second glance was all it usually took for him, and yet, he stood there for almost a minute. He opened the door ever so slowly and peeked round the edge, treating me as if I was his ex-girlfriend, afraid of her taking out a wooden club and whacking him with it.
"...Uh...Floyd...eh...how are you here when...you are Floyd...right...?" He said, stuttering and looking utterly perplexed, and rather frightened to boot! His hands shook at the door, as he constantly looked at me, then back into his flat, then back at me again. His stubble and tufty brown hair remained, but the smile that came from not only his mouth, but also his cheeks and eyes that was synonymous with Omar was replaced with a wide eyed, wide mouthed expression of shock and disbelief.
"Hello, Omar, I have come for game night, I am sorry that I am late, shall I come in?" I said in a very formal tone, making sure to get all the information clearly across to him. "Please, do ignore these scabbed-over gashes, they are only mildly painful, please don't let it ruin your birthday man! Look, I'll even give you a hug if you really want – it is your birthday after all!" I said, trying to act friendly, but Omar looked utterly spooked before slinking back inside his flat, saying 'stay there', leaving the door open very slightly by mistake. I briefly inspected my injuries again, and it also seemed like my chest had suffered from fairly bad burns across mildly blackened skin, but why this wasn't extremely painful, I had no idea. Maybe my pain tolerance had become almost superhuman, or the constant fighting as a pokemon made me shrug these off. All my clothes were very damaged and torn, though thankfully, they weren't falling off.
Omar was taking a while, and with impatience growing within me, I decided to do something about it. I pressed my ear carefully against the small gap between door and frame and listened hard to what Omar was saying, and what I heard was by far the most horrifying, nauseating, and out right disgusting discovery I had ever come across that rivalled even the discovery that I had become a snivy.
"...Yeah, he looks just like you! I even called him by your name, man!" He said, sounding absolutely panic stricken. "Covered in wounds and everything! Didn't seem to care about them though!" The voice that responded really helped me to understand why my dad said I was at all those church services, and I almost coughed up my stomach acids in response.
"Omar, look – I'm right here, it's obviously not me out there, calm down. I'm Floyd, surely! And you even said he looked a bit different in a few ways – less spots, longer and bushier hair and beard, and being a bit bulkier! You're surely not mistaking him for me! Just ignore him, I really don't see why someone would want to pull some kind of doppelgänger prank on me, but I assure you...eh...just ignore him and you'll be fine...but on second thoughts, I wouldn't mind seeing how this fake Floyd looks – colour me impressed if you got scared by it!" Absolute horror. Replacement. Emptiness, and no purpose. All the gifts I took and shared, all replaced by another me apparently, shunting the real me outside my well earned roles in life. Maybe, though, just maybe, he would look different enough for me to stand up and fight for my place in this world.
I could hear 'Floyd' get up from inside, and looking through the keyhole, I saw my worst nightmare in physical form – complete and total replacement. He looked even more like the me I remembered than I currently did! This transcended all forms of replacement – potential replacement in a band, or a job, or as a close friend? Nothing compared to what I was thinking right now – this revolting, false me I was looking at had completely replaced my entire life! I practically didn't exist anymore! No, this didn't rival the experience of when I became a pokemon! This surpassed it in sheer terror so much, that I didn't even realise that I now had a nasty mouthful of vomit leaking over my lips. I was too aghast to beat the living shit out of that false life thief as he jogged quickly towards the door, and instinct started to fling my down whole steps of stairs at once.
"...Sounds like he's running away! Hey, come back here, I wanna see! And don't puke outside Omar's door again, will you?" I heard that carbon copy say as I heard him try to follow me down the flights of stairs, but since I had more reason to move, I managed to escape his sight. This revelation was reducing me to a miserable coward. I could have found out everything by confronting him and asking, but I just couldn't bare to even look at him. The mere thought of him made me shiver as I continued to run away from the block of flats, and eventually out of the city. The sheer bliss that occurred three hours ago had now become pure, concentrated misery, as I continued running, vomiting in small doses occasionally, sweating, and even crying slightly – I now had no one! Everyone I knew would now know the false me – that festering, cunt-ra...actually, mere words couldn't even describe it anymore. He had stole everything good in my life, so much so that I missed the prospect of being back in the pokemon world there – I at least had an identity and niche there!
I fell over due to exhaustion on a grassy field outside of the city after running for so long, and was a damn dirty one as well, feeling it inside my shoes as I was left to contemplate about my voided existence. No more playing the band, no more church going, no more relaxing, no more games, no more productive and stable work. Even thoughts of outright murdering my doppelgänger flashed over my mind, but I knew it'd be extremely immoral, not to mention it'd completely bastardise all of my efforts to stick to Dialga's law, and I'd never have it in me to do such a thing. And all I could tell to myself was that I was strong to not give into murderous urges.
"I'M FLOYD! FLOYD FUCKING MUNRO! ME! THE ONLY ONE! Why..." I screamed in the air, almost tearing my vocal chords out of sheer force, as I completely broke down and sobbed like a small child, my lips trembling as I lay down in a pathetic heap on the grass. I knew I couldn't prove I was the real Floyd in this state, and considering my mental and physical well-being, I couldn't argue against the fake Floyd that I was the real one. It felt like I had taken two giant leaps back in life rather than one back and forward again. I can't believe I'd ever think this, but right now, I'd be grateful to return to the pokemon world. The only thing I was clinging onto now that this here could just be a terrible nightmare that I'd soon wake up from. Come to think of it, seeing a borderline god with my own eyes did seem rather far-fetched, and wasn't as hard to access as I thought. I did absolutely nothing from this point, barely even moving as the sun started to vanish over the tall proud buildings that lined Edinburgh, with the castle standing right in the centre atop the extinct volcano, which I saw as a symbol of mankind's triumph over nature, and a grand historical artifact. I had grown as attached to the city as much as I had been to my friends and family, and yet, I could not return to it. Not with that fiend there.
As the sun continued to sink, it darkened the buildings to mere silhouettes, and the regret of me finding Giratina started to sink in, but I knew that it was not his fault whatsoever. I brought this terrible decision upon myself, I couldn't blame Giratina for it. I started to miss Serge already, and even the guild for that matter, as I slowly started to accept that I couldn't return to my friends here. I slowly started growing very sleepy as I continued lying on the grass, feeling a couple of insects crawl over me as my eyes started drooping. Something a bit odd was starting to happen though – before I closed my eyes completely and fell asleep, it had already started to feel all like a dream. The strange exhaustion that always seems to happen as a dream reaches its finale as you struggle to even speak, as vision blurs in strange wave-like motions, before falling asleep for real.
Perhaps it was all a dream or an illusion, for I awoke in a familiar place. The gentle, heaving, humming drone, the bizarre colour scheme, the strange, unearthly objects too...oh, and Giratina as well. Unlike when I first saw him, I experienced a lot of relief instead of fear. The truth was horrible, but perhaps I was getting my wish to return to the pokemon world – if so, I hope I could reclaim my niche there.
"I should not have done that." He stated almost immediately, still using that strange telepathy technique which seemed to echo of the walls of my skull. I turned to look at the beast, hovering fairly close to me once again, making absolutely no noise in the physical world. After picking my words wisely I once again spoke in a timid and submissive manner.
"Did you know of there being a false me?" I said, worrying that he might have taken that as a way of underestimating his intelligence, and also wondering exactly what he shouldn't have done.
"I see many things, but I did not notice this until now, and yet, I was referring to why I brought you back instead of putting you in the human world in the first place. My earlier scans of you brought about your state as when you were last human and returned you to how you were just before you entered the first world. I consider it my duty to keep all denizens in their original dimensions, and yet, against that, I returned you, and will put you in back into the first world for a second time. This goes against my duty."
"Why did you do it? And do you know why there's another me there?" I asked. "Sorry if this is bothering you." I continued, not daring of accusing him of screwing up my own mind for a cruel joke.
"...I felt pity for what you had come across in the second world. I have never felt pity before, not even for the millions that died during the floods of China about a hundred Earth years ago, and I fear that I may have suffered from some sort of corruption in one way or another. I believe I had an emotional experience of some kind, and yet I was not designed with emotions to make myself more efficient at my duty. As for what is causing this change, or what exactly this change is, I have no idea, but given the fact that I, for the first time ever felt pity for something, spells disaster. Observing either of the world's events could prove dangerous. I must now look only at the dimensional linings, as the sight of death could cause me to do something irrational later down the line, and I cannot allow this until this corruption lifts. I will need to scan myself to see if I can get the answers." I was of course interested, and very slightly horrified at what Giratina was saying. His voice in my head also sounded less hollow and empty, which would have been less creepy on paper, but given the fact that he could be experiencing some kind of emotion now, it could spell disaster if it causes his steady judgement to falter.
"Do you think Arceus will get involved and help if you mess up because of this?" I said, sounding worried, almost forgetting about my incident in the human world at the sheer thought of possible turmoil in the fabric of reality itself.
"He won't interfere. He didn't when my carelessness let a lot of pokemon through to the second world, and like I said before, he'd likely find this interesting and wait and see what happens with excitement, rather than concern. Don't count on him to do anything about this. Needless to say, I don't think this will amount to anything. I can hopefully suppress and remove this change, so I suggest that you do not concern about this. I should feel no need to tell you any of this, I should have no obligation to waste both of our times with matters than does not concern you at all..." He said, sounding, ironically, concerned within my head. Another hint of emotion, but I just had one last question to ask considering a brainwave that I had about my own predicament.
"What about Palkia? Can you not take me to see him if this human pokemon soul stuff is to do with this emotion you're having by any long shot?" I suggested. I really had no faith in the idea there'd be a connection, but I guess it was worth a shot. However...
"The lesser gods do not speak to each other, or make any form of contact. The Eternal Patriarch outright forbids us to do so, as I explained earlier. I am in no position to go against the will of my father, as being a caretaker of existence also includes not risking invoking my father's wrath. He may not interfere, but I do not wish to find out if disobedience from myself or my two brothers would change that." Arceus seemed, from Giratina's perspective, like an extremely eccentric and egotistical 'person' to me, and my views on him being a do-nothing seemed to be correct. The concern in his voice was dissipating slightly, as he sounded more in control now. I would have pestered him to try and leak more information out of him or to convince him to let me talk to someone who might know, perhaps even Dialga himself, but having a being of cosmological power hovering mere meters in front of me reminded me of something important. In spite of arguing and standing your ground is an important aspect of life and a person's character as Dialga taught me, doing so to Giratina was probably not a wise idea.
"I, as I did with the three humans that visited The Great Beyond, have told you all that I know on anything that concerns you within my vast knowledge. If Arceus asked me to start my own religion, I believe freedom of information would be a staple of it. I shall transport you three hundred meters north of Treasure Town. Remember what I said, but do not obsess over what you have seen – it almost drove one of the humans who called himself Harvey to madness. There are things I now have to devote more attention to now. Farewell." He said, and before I had a chance to say goodbye to the almost friendly shadowy monstrosity, I felt myself pass out in that strange manner once more. I had almost got used to the ghostly echo of his voice in my head at this moment before I awoke back, as he said, three hundred meters north of Treasure Town. Gazing up at it sorrowfully, I realised the ultimate truth. This was my true home now. Edinburgh and the rest of the human world now felt long gone. Edinburgh may have been a far friendlier and more comfortable place to live, but it matters not when you had been completely replaced. I even felt sickly about it right now, but that was now a world apart. I knew I would not have the confidence to debate with my false self, considering the overflow of emotion that would surely happen, let alone actually prove that it was the real me.
My eyes gazed across to the guild – that was where I needed to be now – that was my niche. If I am indeed resigned to spend some years there and have a career as an explorer, then so be it. I could never appreciate it before, but now, I just hope that I'd be allowed back. The sun was very low in the sky, and the building in Wigglytuff's image appeared black minus the lights that shone through the window, making the building look alive with it's shining 'eyes' that circled periodically around the ground floor. It was tough to accept and deal with, but even if I could not find happiness in this world at all, I could at least do my righteous duty of bringing justice to wrongdoers. I could at least please my lord for it if the satisfaction of doing my duty did not sate me. All this time, and I had barely even noticed that I had become a snivy once more, clearly working on Giratina's data that he must not have discarded just yet. It felt natural so fast to me once more, so maybe it was just the way it was meant to be.
"Serge, I just hope you can forgive me..." I muttered to myself as I slowly approached the guild headquarters once more, hoping copiously I wasn't going to be replaced here as well as back home. I really don't know what I'd do if that were to happen, but I knew it wouldn't be pretty...