- Giratina -
"We're just the place where their problem is happening, aren't we?" Gazimon asked, as Janice's Zoroark uncle and the Charizard that showed up the day before quietly spoke about the messes that had happened the day before.
"That honestly is the main thing that happens to us," Shawn noted. "After all, the majority of the problems we deal with are other people's pokemon having issues with each other. This is just odd because most of them should be humans, and none of them live in our Boxes."
"Except for Magmar and Albert, they both have lived in them now," Serperior added with a helpful tone.
"We can probably take the Greninja with the rest of the group for an interview. Maybe even get him a spot as an extra somewhere," the Dark type special effects expert said slightly louder, clearly wanting the room to hear. "If you think he's going to be safe to try that?"
"Giving his current form another name, like we usually do, could have some downsides," the Fire/Flying pokemon admitted. "However, will all that happened he's going to need to worry about that anyways. I'll be able to tell if it would impact his condition a bit better in my workshop than here."
"And Jane's situation?" Janice asked walking over, still a Lucario with metal foil on her sensors. "Do we have a solution to that one?"
"My son has been traded to her team, but until the curse's duration expires we won't know if that was enough to make her return to humanity," Shinespark added, and her wings drooped. "I don't know what to do if that happens."
"With my mother no longer using it, I might be able to provide her with the medication that keeps me human," the Team Lead offered.
"There is unfortunately still the issue of her possibly wanting to be a Char from time to time," Serperior said with consideration. "Although between Delta 2 and Alpha 45 we can probably find something else that would work."
"Mom has some other options too, but those would need checking first," the jackal pokemon considered. "Gazi, how has the power use for the transfers gone so far?"
"I've got some starting figures, but it already looks like using a pad will cut it down a whole lot," the digimon noted unhappily. "I want to talk with your grandfather a bit more about seeing if I can connect to the old pad on their side somehow to see if that reduces the usage from there, but I might end up making one from the Node instead. I've got some basic plans I can use the Node to fabricate, and the energy to build one would be easily saved after just a couple of weeks of sending them. Given that, we should definitely set one up at the studio too for this day to day travel plan."
"I think we can handle that much for this sort of thing," Daniel Fairview agreed easily, and ran a claw through his long red hair. "Can you manage the transfers today, or do we need to sort out the power usage first?"
"We should probably hold off at least another day for that so I can get things sorted out with management," Janice informed her uncle. "I'm looking forward to being human again for that."
"I'm still dealing with the idea that there is another place that has that issue at all," the Charizard noted a bit nervously. "It was a fun bit of movie magic, literally, before, but seeing it happen to a family from a curse is different."
"I hate to admit it, but my siblings are close enough to Legendary pokemon that it probably was also a factor," A-0 said unhappily. "Charlie 13 has told me that he's fairly sure the fact that Mismagius had such a hard time controlling the curse because she was trying to act for him. Apparently it was worse than just 'complaining' about what had happened to our other sibling, and she was more familiar with how the actual Giratina would have reacted to such a thing and wanted to head it off." It then floated over to Janice. "Also, we need to deal with his issue of getting out of his Box. Gazi has said that he should be okay, but I want to test what happens if he fully enters the physical world to be sure."
"I'll call the police to let them know we'll be having another Legendary scale pokemon out and about. At this rate I suspect people will get used to it happening," the Team Lead agreed, while behind her the Charizard mage shifted uneasily at the mention of Legendary pokemon. "Right back to piles of work," Janice then quietly complained.
"We should probably be waiting for Serperior or Shawn to start this," Tyranomon noted from the edge of the DSS facility's small outdoor patch for berries and other small plants to be grown. "Or perhaps have provided one of them to the Administrator that has been making digital variants on these."
"Grant wants to try and grow them on his own, and we are doing both of those too," Quagsire told the digimon, and then looked him over critically. "You really didn't want to try and stay over in that other world until we find your original one?"
"I am quite sure. If I end up staying in a pokemon world, I would prefer one with humans as well," he confirmed while looking over at the two fossil pokemon planting the fruit. The pair was arguing quietly about something.
"You remind me of that grandson of mine I always threatened to eat," Grant said in the ever more common tone of a really old pokemon.
"Funny, you remind me of my grandfather who always threatened to eat me," Kabutops counted, in a very rare case of being lost in long forgotten memories himself.
Silence echoed across the patch for a good minute after this statement.
"I really don't want you to be my actual grandfather for a number of reasons," Kabutops noted unhappily. "Least of all because spending some time in a relative's body is weirder than I like."
"I didn't pay enough attention to my son's children, so I really can't be sure about that," the Armaldo admitted, sounding unsure of the statements himself. "Back then I was too mad about him 'loving food wrong'," he continued disgusted with his past self.
"You had kids, grandkids?" Quagsire asked her former trainer carefully.
"Had," the reincarnated pokemon admitted roughly. "I'm not sure I'm up for that topic yet."
The gathering to see Charlie 13 attempt to enter the physical world ended up a bit larger than A-0 had originally planned. Shawn and Gazimon were there for support in case the Administrator needed to get back into his Box quickly. TyranoGazimon was on hand to check the result of the transfer and see if there were any side effects from one of them becoming physical in nature, something that had not been at all planned for. The Felsic siblings had been brought along by their mother, who had heard that the pokemon in question was Giratina shaped and was curious what that actually looked like in person. Shinespark the Charizard had then decided to tag along due to the still fresh trade of her son Pyre to the currently transformed Jane, clearly there mostly to see if the two Charmeleons were getting along well.
"So, do we wait for the police to show up now, or is the crowd big enough already?" Shawn complained to the original DSS Porygon.
"I'm just going to signal him now," A-0 dryly replied. Just after a large black polygonal shadow appeared on the ground, which rose up into a massive sauropod form. The black color then shattered away revealing a six legged version of the Ghost/Dragon, with a pair of thick three clawed wings instead of the six tendrils from before. "What is that appearance for?"
"I, I didn't program in the form change?" Charlie 13 said worried. "I know it is what the real one does, but I didn't actually implement one. I don't know why I look different."
"Tyra, Gazi, how's he looking?" A-0 quickly asked the two digimon.
"Box is stable and still fully under his control, although he probably could have told you that," the purple rabbit monster noted. "Looks just like me with the Dark Network, only his connection is a lot more vital to his survival."
"His body is unusually solid actually," the red rabbit-lizard said uneasily. "Far more than a Porygon, and honestly a bit more solid than the data I have on most Ghost types."
Any further comment on this topic was interrupted by the sudden formation of another, far less blocky, shadow on the ground just a short distance away. Once again a massive form appeared out of this, identical to the Administrator save for actually having curves.
"Ah, I had thought I was feeling my own powers being used somewhere," the actual Giratina noted with a rumble. He then spent a moment looking over Charlie 13 while the large group could only stare at the sudden arrival of one of the creators of the universe. "And look at you, another of my kind. Did the creator decide to make me another sibling, or are you from another source?" he asked sounding rather happy about the prospect.
"Um, I'm not actually a real Giratina, Giratina," Charlie 13 responded slowly, causing Shawn to start quietly laughing. "What?" the Administrator quietly asked of the trainer.
"You're acting just like Charlie 16 did when he ran into a real Latios," the red eyed trainer said. "It's always nice when we see you guys acting like siblings."
"You seem to be a real one to me," the other hexapod noted thoughtfully. "I'd almost say you'd even managed some resurrections, but that's a bit rare of a thing to be able to do."
"The fact that I've done that does not mean I'm a real Legendary pokemon," the probable Porygon-Z complained. "I'm an artificial pokemon that takes care of a world that houses Ghost types and caters to their needs, while also having a hobby of manipulating the barriers between reality. All of that is just how I was made."
"So, you're me only with the priorities the other way around," the member of the creation trio noted. "Because I was made to manipulate the barriers between bits of reality, but took up the hobby of taking care of Ghost typed pokemon."
"Uh, guys, the two of you are actually really close to each other when it comes to how you are made," Tyra noted uncertainly. "I think he might be sort of right."
"Are you saying you made a new Giratina?" Jane Felsic asked with a good amount of horror, her newest teammate clinging to her at the sight of both the larger pokemon.
"I really hope not," A-0 sighed. "Charlie 13 is one of my literal hundreds of siblings. He is, the last we thought, a Porygon-Z that decided to look like your species."
"A-0, that's kind of not what I meant," the patchwork digimon interrupted the explanation. "I actually meant that Giratina here kind of looks really close to being one of our Porygon. So if he's genuine then it is a sort of really odd comparison." She frowned at the Legendary. "Biggest thing is actually how his body isn't quite right compared to what I have from normal pokemon."
"This form is sort of just an avatar for my true self," Giratina noted. "It is still me, and damage to it will do about the same to me as any other pokemon's true body, but it was something I had to make in order to exist in this reality."
"Okay, that is uncomfortably close to what I'm doing right now, with most of my body being the alternate world that I control and am a part of," the Administrator admitted. "And that would probably also describe most of our siblings as well to some extent. Maybe it is just a case of similar implementations of the same idea?"
"Oh what now?" the voice of Officer Jenny shouted as she walked up to the group. "You said one Legendary scale pokemon. One!" She pointed between the two towering grey and gold pokemon. "There are two of them as far as I can see," she continued to complain. "What's next, you two changing into the snake one again?" she asked pointing at Shawn. "Or maybe another trainer getting a trainer card for their starter?" she continued eyeing the Felsic family. "Or have you found yet another town in an alternate world that wants to start trading with this one?"
"Ah, I'm quite sorry miss," Giratina said turning to face the police officer, with a strongly embarrassed look. "I sensed what they were doing and showed up unannounced. I have been trying to adapt to the modern world, but I miss things often. Perhaps we could take this inside somewhere?"
"You're an actual Legendary pokemon," the police woman sighed. "Yes, I would greatly prefer it if you could all do this somewhere else."
"They both felt like Legendary pokemon," Shinespark commented to the Venusaur quietly as the pair held back from the group moving back inside.
"So does the snake pokemon and his trainer," the other mother pokemon agreed uncertainly. Then she turned to look seriously at the mage. "Would that have had as much impact as they implied?"
"It would explain why she lost control of the curse that badly," the Charizard confessed. "The Chansey felt like it too, so if the one your husband basically attacked was also a Legendary pokemon-"
"Then she would have been responding to an attack on a Legendary pokemon," Ms. Felsic continued uneasily. "And being cursed by a Legendary is far worse than if it was just a normal pokemon."
The two fully evolved pokemon turned back for a moment to watch the two Ghost/Dragon types return to the shadowy portals they had used to arrive.
"So, Jim should still have some human roles even if he ends up stuck, right?" the Venusaur asked uneasily.
"I should be able to turn him back at least temporarily," the Charizard confirmed.
"In that case I'm going to go bother that Jenny about how I might just need to be a talking pokemon full time then," the Grass/Poison type declared.
A-0, Shawn, and Tyra were the only members of the group to travel back to Box 113 to continue the discussion. Both of the larger pokemon then twisted into the broken polygonal landscape of the recreation Distortion World.
"Uh, okay," the actual Giratina said uncertainly. "We are in your world right? Because it is really, really close."
A number of Ghost types nervously floated at the edge of visibility for a moment to consider the Legendary pokemon's arrival, before scattering.
"I'm glad I was able to do a good job?" Charlie 13 replied nervously. The polygonal pokemon carefully inspecting his counterpart while clearly prepared for an attack of some kind.
"You said you had hundreds of these worlds?" Giratina asked, for some reason equally nervous about the meeting.
"We do. The size is actually quite a bit more limited than this appears visually," A-0 noted, then let out a ping of energy to display the true dimensions of the location.
"Oh. That is rather small," the smooth serpentine pokemon noted a touch unhappily. "More in line with the younger Legendary Locations I have visited so far. I guess that makes more sense as a size that humans could figure out how to make."
"Is this going to be a problem?" Shawn asked cautiously. "Our making these worlds and the Administrator pokemon to control them?"
"No?" the Legendary pokemon questioned clearly confused by the inquiry. "Why would that be a problem?"
"Because you're presumably in charge of the stability and safety of the universe?" TyranoGazimon asked, clearly comparing him to similar creatures from her own world.
"Not this universe, or the other one we were just in for that matter. Actually only my own, and my creator still gets a bit upset with me for going too far with protecting that," Giratina responded. "I'm not sure we have anyone to do 'stability' at all really. I've been out of the loop, but Arceus never seemed that concerned with things being stable to me."
"That, sounds far too much like something one of my siblings would say," A-0 said uneasily. "Is that a typical outlook for a Legendary pokemon?"
"I, don't actually know," he admitted reluctantly. "I've kind of been in a sort of restricted level of access to the human world for, um, a large part of civilization?"
An awkward silence followed. "You've never really met that many other Legendary pokemon, have you?" A-0 asked after allowing it to pass for a bit.
"No, I have not," Giratina admitted, and then cautiously moved closer to the group. "You said you had other siblings, are they also shaped like the other Legendary pokemon?"
"Some of them are, but most look like other creatures," A-0 confirmed. "Although it seems the more we test it the more it turns out we have been making them as Legendary pokemon. I'm not even sure how that is possible, as nobody seems to have called me one yet and I'm the first of us."
"Having somewhere that you are in charge of is the more important factor," Giratina said confidently. "From what I've heard from Arceus it is mostly the ones where the first had a place to rule that had the ones that came after who didn't still remain Legendary in nature. Otherwise they are Legendary members of an otherwise mundane species." He then looked over the Porygon-2 with a great deal of consideration. "Would it be possible for me to try and meet your other siblings? To try and talk with some other Legendary pokemon some more to get into practice?"
"Who's the human?" Jane quietly asked as their group returned to the Troubleshooter Lab, after being held back to try and wait for her mother. It had taken some time to learn that the older transformed human had found some business she needed to do in town.
"You're still growling," Janice said as the translator in the center of the room repeated the pokemon's words, the device once again necessary to allow the Team Lead to understand. "And I'm still Janice, just finally back to how I prefer to be." The redhead looked over at the Charmeleon unamused. "Have you managed to figure out what you want to be yet?" she bluntly asked, emphasizing the word 'want' heavily.
"Janice?" the Fire type asked with a similar surprise to when she learned of the transformations involved in the movie industry. "That's your human form?"
"Sis, you're being a bit too pokemon again," Jim complained, while the traded Pyre looked nervously at both the recently converted Lucario and his trainer who was currently his own species.
"She's allowed to be as pokemon as she wants to be," the Team Lead noted. "I personally prefer humanity, but if she wants to be a Char then I'll help her as much as possible with that."
"I don't know," the female Charmeleon admitted uneasily, and the admission made her newest teammate uneasy as well. "This, this just wasn't even the kind of thing stories ever had happen. You either get cursed into being a pokemon for good, like dad, or you end up going back to normal when you learn your lesson. Having a real choice isn't the kind of thing that happens."
"I think you mean having a choice that isn't made for you," Shinespark noted. "We actually filmed the results of the spell for one movie, about just that kind of thing. One of the kids decided to stay a pokemon to be the other's Starter, but in the film the spell never turned him back so it wasn't like he actively had someone change him." The former actress noted that the two Felsic siblings had looks of embarrassment from the reference. "Wait, have you two actually seen that one? We ended up pulling it from circulation because of some outcry over that ending."
"Dad complained that the one kid decided to work for humans," Jim said unhappily. "Although, now that I think about it he also seemed mad at the other one too. Which makes sense now, but that's its own issue."
"We have figured out what is going to happen to your father," Janice said, reminded of the other issue. "After hearing a recording of his rant, and a questioning session that confirmed he can still speak human pretty well, it was decided that he isn't viable to be given to a trainer to reform. There are too many powerful artifacts in my mother's home world to trust him there, as there would be a risk that he could attempt to get rid of humanity here from over there."
Most of the room blinked at that statement for one reason or another. The people unfamiliar with DSS looked at that statement with worry over the serious nature of the possibility being given. The DSS Troubleshooters present looked annoyed at the possibility, and their simply acceptance of the idea only made the other side of the reaction worse.
"That means there is only one real thing to do, they treat him like he's still human, or at least they treat him like they would a human while adapting things for his new form," the Team Lead continued. "The fact that he is really small, poisonous, and rants a lot about the superiority of pokemon all means that there is a lot of issues there, but his pokeball also gives more options on that front."
"His pokeball," Jane said quietly, then turned to look at the Charizard mage. "Would getting a pokeball decide things for me?"
The former actress gave her an entirely unimpressed look at this question. "I'd say that is an answer to your question on what you want to be, but I'd need to double check on that one," Shinespark said bluntly, and turned to the only human present. "Can humans have pokeballs at all?"
"Shawn prefers humanity too and has one, and she very nearly had one herself," Janice noted. "Actually, I might need to double check something myself, did either of you have Ultra Balls that seemed to malfunction and stop working after handling them for a bit?"
The two trainers looked at each other uneasily at this question, and then sorted through their bags. Jim held out two such pokeballs, and Jane one. "It should be something different for one of these," the Greninja noted. "After all, you can't catch a pokemon twice."
Everyone else in the room, Jane included, flinched at this statement. "Yes, you can in fact do so," the Team Lead said while Metagross walked forward to check the devices. "There is a reason that you are taught how to block trainers from throwing pokeballs at your pokemon, and in our cases special gloves and such to keep from getting caught ourselves while doing so." At the looks that last part got her she continued. "They are mainly made for high end martial artists and psychics, who can also be caught by pokeballs this advanced."
"You mean I might have two different pokeballs?" the Water/Dark type asked horrified.
"Confirmed, they are both linked to you," Metagross noted unhappily. "Also further confirmation that the effect is large enough to make casual handling of them around tainted devices can cause captures. Two other local humans, and at least one half dozen pokemon, have been captured in this manner."
"Their father has gotten humans captured?" Shinespark questioned with a groan. "Right, I think you're safe to have your pokeballs. If you've had them for a while then it should be okay for your ability to return to humanity. It actually happens a lot of the time for us on the set, so we can properly show retrieval and sending out of such forms." She looked over at Jim thoughtfully. "Actually, having two might help for some situations if you start working with us."
A beep from Janice's console then interrupted the group. "Shawn, what's the issue?" the human asked her mostly human teammate as he appeared on her personal monitor.
"Giratina wants to practice interacting with Legendary pokemon by talking with our Administrator Porygon," the red eyed trainer noted dryly.
"Please tell me we aren't adopting one of the creators of the universe," she replied unhappily.
"You might be?" said pokemon questioned from the other side. "I kind of got told to make friends, and well, you guys are the closest to knowing what I've been through that I've found so far."
"I'll double check with management, but I think we will make all sorts of exceptions for a pokemon as notable as yourself," Janice said with a sigh. "Gazimon, can you watch out for things while I go to speak with them about this directly?"
"Sure, fine. Your grandad says hi, and that he still doesn't like being human," the digimon bluntly said, only halfway paying attention to the rest of the room.
