"Charon," Cyrus said, stepping out of his helicopter. "Report. I assume this is the Spear Pillar?"

"This is the gateway to the Spear Pillar, yes," Charon said. "The Pillar itself is in an extra-dimensional space. We've got all the equipment ready, we're just waiting for your go-ahead."

"Run through the plan one more time," Cyrus requested. "I know the general thrust, but I want to hear the moving parts."

Charon checked a tablet computer. "The first step is to use the Spear Key to open the Spear Pillar itself," he said. "That will take the form of a stable portal. Once that portal is energized, we'll take our equipment inside and begin setting up for the summoning."

He listed the points off. "We managed to successfully recreate the Red Chain based on study data. I was worried about being able to do that without having actually captured the Lake Trio, but I agree with you – we couldn't provoke Ash Ketchum at that point."

"Of course," Cyrus said. "And I'm aware that you recreated the Chain. Did you make two of them?"

"One each for Dialga and Palkia," Charon agreed. "We tried for a third, but there just wasn't enough in the way of raw materials – it was hard enough getting two – so we'll just have to hope Giratina doesn't show up."

That got him a frown, but then Cyrus shook his head.

"We couldn't have prepared for anything else, I suppose," he said. "So once the summoning is complete?"

"Then we can begin making Dialga and Palkia do what we want," Charon confirmed. "The Red Chains will attach straight away, we've already prepared one for Dialga and one for Palkia. Then, well… it's up to you, sir."

Cyrus smiled. "Good."

The Spear Pillar opened, and Mars and Jupiter supervised several Galactic Grunts carrying the heavy equipment inside.

Then, just as the techs were setting everything up, Saturn came running over.

"We've got a problem, sir!" he said. "A big one."

"Like what?" Cyrus demanded. "We're busy with the culmination of our work!"

"Toxicroak just shuddered hard enough to hit his head on the ceiling," Saturn explained.

They all looked up at the Spear Pillar's ethereal insides, which were very high up.

"Oh," Cyrus said. "That probably means Ash Ketchum is on the way, doesn't it?"

"I would say that's almost certain, sir," Saturn said.

"In that case-" Cyrus began, then chopped the rest of the sentence off. "Charon. Can we do the summoning right now?"

"Not for at least thirty minutes," Charon told him. "We're simply not ready yet."

Cyrus thought furiously.

"Abandon the equipment," he said. "And leave Spear Pillar. We'll come back once Ash Ketchum is no longer in the area, but I do not want us to be caught here if he comes this way – and if he doesn't, then we can just go back to the great work with a little delay."

He paused. "No, wait. Charon – hide the equipment, if you can do it in the next two minutes. Everyone else, get out of Spear Pillar, and Charon, your team should follow us."

"Huh!" Ash said, several minutes later. "Is that normal? Dawn?"

Dawn shrugged. "I've never seen anything quite like that before. It's a bit like one of Hoopa's Hyperspace Holes, isn't it?"

Hoopa's head appeared in a portal. "Hoopa takes offence to being compared to inferior worksmonship!"

The Psychic-type then saw what Dawn was actually looking at, and went oooh. "Hoopa supposes Hoopa will not take offence this time."

"Do you know what it is?" Ash asked. "I was wondering if it was a tourist attraction."

"Why would it be a tourist attraction?" Pikachu said. "It's a hole in space."

"Yeah, but I was thinking that – you know how we've seen places that are beauty spots, right?" Ash asked. "Places which look good, and so that's their tourism selling point – they look cool! And what's on the far side of that looks pretty neat, so it could be a tourist attraction. Or maybe it's just something nobody's ever found before, in which case it might be Legendary business and not something that should be a tourist attraction."

He shrugged. "I don't know, so that's why I'm wondering… maybe I should ask Entei. Ibid, can you get Entei? Or his sister, if they've swapped out."

"Working," Ibid said, and a moment later the Safari Ball appeared.

Raikou jumped out, then did a double-take and fell over.

"That's the Spear Pillar," she said, shaking herself and getting back up again. "I am… much confused. Very staggered."

The Electric-type blinked a few times. "Wow."

"I guess then we should ask Giratina if it's okay to have a look around," Ash decided, getting his bag down so he could look for the mirror.

"You get on that!" Whitney advised. "I'm just going to squee for a bit about how cute Raikou was there. Because that was really adorable!"

"Have they gone?" Cyrus asked.

"No, sir," Saturn replied, adjusting his binoculars. "In fact, they're going into the Spear Pillar."

Cyrus rubbed the bridge of his nose.

"This is terrible timing," he said.

"You'd think it was possible to try and ambush and control the masters of time and space without anything going wrong," Mars agreed.

Cyrus gave her a look.

"What?" Mars asked. "We know what Pokémon can detect danger, and none of the options is either Dialga or Palkia."

"Yes, this is definitely the Spear Pillar," Giratina said, looking around.

He had his Griseous Orb with him, and swam around through the air a bit. "I haven't been here in a very long time. It's funny what it's like doing that… you see it, and it seems smaller, but really you're bigger. That kind of thing."

"Wow," Dawn breathed. "You were here that long ago?"

"I'm more interested in the confirmation that you grew up and got bigger," Whitney said. "You mean you were tiny and adorable? Was Arceus tiny and adorable too? Actually don't answer that, I've got a mental picture and I don't want you to prove it wrong."

Giratina rumbled a laugh. "I understand the concept, mostly. But yes, I was not always this size."

Whitney made an ultrasonic noise.

"What's more concerning, though, is the litter," Giratina added, peering down next to one of the columns making up the internal landscape. "Someone's left two Red Chains here, and what looks a lot like computer equipment as well."

"Huh," Ash frowned. "So, do you think those are from Arceus?"

"The Red Chains, almost certainly," Giratina said, inspecting them very closely. "They don't quite feel like the real thing, which I've only seen once. So possibly they're the prototype versions? But all the computer equipment looks like it was just left here in a jumble, and that might be humans."

"Are humans even supposed to be in here?" Dawn checked. "I don't quite remember exactly how important the Spear Pillar is, but I know it's a big deal."

"The Spear Pillar is where Arceus stood when they wrought the universe," Giratina confirmed. "In a sense, it is the First Place, and everything else is defined in relation to the Spear Pillar. It is the datum point of Creation itself."

He rotated upside down. "And yes, it's supposed to be closed off. It's not just that humans aren't supposed to be in here. It's that nobody of any description is supposed to be in here without explicit permission, and neither I nor Palkia nor Dialga may gainsay that rule alone even if we wanted to."

Ash frowned, thinking hard.

"So… do you think maybe Arceus forgot to lock it, after last time they were in here?" he said. "They got the Jewel of Life back only recently, but also thousands of years ago, so maybe that confused them and they were a bit absent-minded. Can Arceus get here if they want to, no matter what anyone else does?"

"Of course," Giratina nodded.

"Then I guess we should move all the stuff in here into a neat pile just inside," Ash suggested. "So it's easy to see, but out of the way. Then we can leave a note and lock it behind us, and that way we've made it as easy as possible for Arceus to sort through and work out what they need to get rid of and what they need to keep."

"That does sound like the polite thing to do," Rapidash said, thinking. "Isn't that in the Galarian Country Code, the bit about closing gates behind you? I didn't grow up there but I think Articuno mentioned it once."

"How were you planning to close the door?" Giratina asked.

"Well…" Ash frowned. "I'm pretty sure Unown can do Fairy Lock? That's a start, anyway…"

"Ah, there they are," Saturn reported.

Cyrus looked up from where he'd been fiddling with a puzzle cube. "They're leaving?"

"It looks like it," Saturn said. "They're all coming back out of the portal, including Giratina… now they've stopped, and Ash Ketchum has sent out his Unown and his Mew."

Saturn was silent for a bit, and Cyrus didn't demand an explanation. Saturn would report when there was news.

"They just did something, and the portal's closed," Saturn said. "It looked like the reverse of when we opened it."

"That's good," Cyrus said. "Or, not as bad as it could be. We can just open the door again. Jupiter, get the Spear Key ready."

Jupiter coughed nervously.

"Uh…" she began. "We… left it in the Spear Pillar, because it had already been used and it got put down."

Cyrus didn't say anything for at least twenty seconds.

"Right," he said, finally. "Charon, new plan."

"Before you ask, I had no luck whatsoever searching for the Azure Flute," Charon warned. "I don't think it even exists, in fact."

"Not what I was thinking of," Cyrus told him. "Instead, what I want you to do is to start work on survival in space."

The whole of the rest of Team Galactic's leadership team looked collectively baffled.

"I have heard the moon is quite nice this time of year," Cyrus explained. "And I would like to be quite a long way away from Ash Ketchum from now on. It will be good for my nerves."

AN:

It's only polite, after all.