Author's Note: Oh, hey, some Giratina POV! This chapter was fun to write, since it let me play around with what I was trying to do with him here. Basically a "problem due to not thinking things through / being too stubborn" kinda thing, so hopefully that shows through.

Chapter Eleven: New Developments

It was risky, Giratina knew, but it was so tempting.

He really shouldn't be doing this—he'd already gotten in trouble for it once before. But thanks to that (very fascinating) Darkrai, he was determined to see what he could do with Dimensional Holes. Giratina just wanted to try it… He swore he wouldn't "misuse" them again.

All Giratina wanted to do was see if he still could open them. Well, that, and if he really could combine them with Palkia's abilities. After that, he'd stop. Giratina insisted he would.

He'd made good progress with his practice, too. While he was rusty, Giratina had managed to open a few Dimensional Holes over the past couple days. The portals were small and didn't last very long—they flickered out so quickly—but he could do it. He remembered most of the basic formula; the problem was getting them more consistent.

If he could do that, it shouldn't be too hard to add what he knew about Spacial Rift's properties. Palkia's domain was surprisingly similar to Dialga's home, after all. Both were in their own special dimensions; they were just hidden in different ways. Dialga's was inside a literal twist in time, while Palkia's distorted the space around it to make it bigger than it "should" be.

And that had given Giratina an idea. What if he could force a Dimensional Hole to behave like the entrance of Spacial Rift? It would be tricky, but he could probably do it… He just had to figure out a way to make its time properties overlap with some complicated spatial formulas. Giratina needed to make it an area instead of a time period.

It had been frustrating at first. Giratina had more experience with the time portions; he hadn't gotten as far in his studies with Palkia before Arceus stepped in. But he remembered some of it—just the tiniest amount, but it was there.

If he could figure out a little more… Giratina was close; he could feel it. There were bits and pieces that were starting to make sense. He could add a little twist there, or take out a few things here…

Finally, finally, Giratina made a more stable portal. The ones where he tried to mix up properties usually fizzled out instantly. But this one—he finally had a Dimensional Hole that stayed open for more than a few seconds! (Perhaps he should call it something else, but that was beside the point right now.) Giratina eagerly glanced inside it, trying to see if his changes had worked.

For the briefest of moments, he could see a dungeon-like area. There was a large chamber inside, though with odd stretches in the floor that faded out into nothingness. The empty patches were right beneath large chunks of dirt and rock that floated above them, as if they'd been ripped straight out of the ground and thrown upwards. So maybe it wasn't a perfectly-formed cavern, but he'd made the room exist.

Giratina was eager to try more and proud of his progress. But then the portal flickered and closed, and he sighed. Well, that was the best he'd done so far; maybe he should accept that and stop now. He had done it; he'd proven that he could, hadn't he?

But he wanted to do better. Giratina wanted to get it perfect. He was so close now; Giratina couldn't give up.

"Ah, hello, friend; am I interrupting something?"

Giratina nearly jumped when he heard the voice. He promptly eased up when he turned around, though. Darkrai was back! Giratina shook his head and strode towards him.

"No, no; your timing is excellent," he replied eagerly. "I've spent the past few days practicing, and I've made some good progress."

"Oh, really? I would love to see what you've come up with."

Giratina nodded. "All right, then; I believe I've found a way to make Dimensional Holes take on spatial properties. It's what I'd tried to do before, but it's been so long that I was rusty on it."

"Congratulations are in order, then," Darkrai replied, bowing somewhat dramatically. "I thought you could do it. Care to show me what you've done?"

"I think I can replicate it. Stand back for a moment!"

Darkrai nodded and obligingly floated back several feet. Giratina took a deep breath and closed his eyes. He'd just done this; he could do it again.

Soon, a large portal flickered to life in front of him. Giratina opened his eyes, carefully stepping towards it and peering inside. The dungeon still didn't look stable; it had those off floating chunks of land, and gaps separated pathways from each other. But, again, it was lasting for much longer than normal, and Giratina quickly turned towards Darkrai.

"Come—hurry and see! I can make them lead to small dungeons now."

Darkrai moved towards him and looked into the Dimensional Hole. Sadly, he only had a few seconds to observe; it closed up not long after he peered inside. Still, it was clear that he'd gotten a decent view. After the portal fizzled out, Darkrai glanced up at Giratina with an impressed look on his face.

"Your progress has been good indeed," he said. "I'm sure you could get them more stable with just a little more practice."

"Ah, your praise is appreciated." Giratina laughed. "Granted, I'm not sure what I would do with the portals if I can perfect them, but…"

Darkrai rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Hmm, a good point… You had treasure here before, yes?"

"Just the Rock Horn, but yes," he replied. "That was the only one big enough to attract attention, at any rate."

"Well, regardless…perhaps you could use them for storage, in a sense? They could hold any other treasures you wanted—or even be used for extra living space! There's no limit to what you could do, really."

Giratina mulled it over. He did like collecting things—he had a few personal trinkets of his own, and he'd never had a good place to store them. And Palkia did live in his own distorted home… World Abyss certainly wasn't a bad place, but having his own special area…

Giratina felt his excitement rising again. The ideas Darkrai had given him were basic on their own, but there were a variety of ways he could apply them. Besides, there were probably other things they could come up with besides just those two.

"Excellent ideas, my friend," Giratina agreed. "I can show you the formula I've been using for these, if you'd like. Perhaps together we can figure out the last details I need to finish them. And then we can think about more ways to use the portals after that?"

"I'd love to try that. Shall we begin?"

Giratina nodded and scratched the calculations out on the floor. Darkrai leaned down to look them over, rubbing his chin again as he processed it all. He nodded, muttering to himself, and Giratina could barely contain his eagerness at this point.

He was close now, so close—and he'd finish this project if it was the last thing he did.