The bubbling magma of Stark Mountain caused a sweltering and perpetual heat haze to rest upon the area. Pools of the molten rock surrounded the exterior of the mountain, while scorching lava flows heated and illuminated the expansive caves of the interior.
It was in these caves that three strangely-dressed people were currently hiking, making their way from one end of the mountain's rugged interior to the other. Two of these hikers were almost identical in appearance, with matching space-age uniforms and the same green bowl-cut. The third hiker, a short elderly man with purple hair and a lab coat, was leading the other two along the interior's treacherous paths. All three men had the same yellow 'G' emblazoned on their attire. They had been wandering around the inside of Stark Mountain for several hours, moving as swiftly as the rocky terrain permitted.
Suddenly, the leader of the group stopped and leaned against a rock, clutching his chest and panting profusely.
"Master Charon, sir!" one of the green-haired man cried. He ran forward to help the old man, but Charon jumped back up and waved him away.
"It's fine, it's fine," Charon muttered in a strained voice. He straightened himself up and looked at his followers, who were both wearing expressions of doubt. Charon frowned at the sight of this. "I hope you grunts aren't thinking of giving up?" he barked at them.
"We don't mind this mountain heat, sir," one of the grunts said, "but we're worried about the toll it's taking on you."
The other grunt nodded in agreement. Charon snorted, turning his back on the two grunts to hide his renewed look of extreme fatigue. Secretly, the old man agreed with them, he had reached his limit. He was on the brink of collapse and wanted nothing more than to simply turn around and end this ridiculous treasure hunt. Charon was about to give up when the thought of the stone crossed his mind again, and the insane amount of profits it would generate...
Charon spun round with a renewed sense of purpose. "It's stiflingly hot. I'm sweating, I'm suffering, but I'm alive!" he said exuberantly. The two grunts stood gaping at their leader, startled slightly by this sudden shift in attitude. "The search will continue!" Charon exclaimed, leading the way forward once more. The two grunts sighed in resignation and followed in his wake.
After a few more hours of searching, the trio made it to a large set of stairs carved into the rocky wall of the cave. They ascended the staircase and found a small opening at the top.
"Here it is!" Charon cried. He ran forward into the cavernous opening, his henchmen wearing expressions of disbelief but following suit. The opening led into a small chamber, dimly lit and slightly cooler than the rest of Stark Mountain. Large rocks had been arranged in a circular pattern to surround a pedestal in the middle of the room (there was a solitary boulder set apart from the rest, resting inconspicuously near the chamber wall, but the three men paid it no mind). Charon approached the pedestal with mounting excitement, his followers close behind. At last Charon stopped directly in front of the rocky plinth, his eyes gleaming with delight.
Atop the pedestal sat a single stone, large and gray and unassuming. Charon reached out and placed his hand on the stone. It seemed to radiate warmth. Smiling, Charon placed both hands under the stone and lifted it off the pedestal.
"Finally!" Charon cried, holding the stone out in front of him. "It's been a long and tumultuous search, but my efforts have finally paid off! With this Magma Stone I will let awaken the Legendary Pokémon Heatran! I will control the volcano's eruptions to extort money by the millions! Fear me, world! For I am Charon! The boss of the reborn Team Galactic!"
The two grunts looked on as Charon continued his self-aggrandizement by the pedestal. One of the grunts rolled his eyes while his companion continued to stare forward with a slightly skeptical look on his face.
Suddenly, a voice called out from somewhere in the chamber. "Go, go, go!" the voice said loudly.
A blue blur rushed over to the grunt on Charon's left, and delivered a strong blow to the man's stomach. The grunt doubled over in pain as the attacker hurried over to the second grunt. He too received a strong blow to the stomach and collapsed.
The scuffle was over in a matter of seconds. Charon turned to see his men lying on the ground, unconscious.
"What in the..?" Charon stammered, as the Magma Stone disappeared from his hands. "No! The Magma Stone!" he cried in surprise. His head turned wildly to see where it had gone, until his eyes came to rest on a small blue Pokémon standing in the corner of the chamber. Its yellow eyes gleamed with triumph, and it held the Magma Stone in its long arms.
"What?!" Charon spat angrily in the direction of the Pokémon. "What is going on?!"
"Excellent work, Croagunk!" came the same loud voice from before. The voice appeared to be emanating from the boulder directly behind the blue Pokémon. Charon watched with apprehension as the boulder began to wiggle and shake. A few seconds later, a tall man wearing a red tie and trench coat emerged from beneath a boulder-coloured piece of cloth.
"Pah!" the man said, tossing aside his earthy camouflage. "Disguising myself as a boulder for stakeout was not easy!" He turned to face Croagunk, who held out the Magma Stone for the man to accept. The man smiled graciously and took the stone from the Toxic Mouth Pokémon. Croagunk followed the man as he proceeded towards Charon, who was still standing by the pedestal in shock.
The man in the trench coat reached Charon and held out his credentials. Charon could make out the codename "Looker" emblazoned on the badge in shiny black lettering.
"Now, old-timer," Looker said to Charon, "the International Police cordially requests your cooperation. I am sure you have much to tell us about the new Team Galactic. With Cyrus, Mars, and Jupiter gone, you are all that is left."
Charon looked from Looker to Croagunk to his unconscious henchmen and back to Looker. "Gah..." he said miserably. "What a mess..." Looker frowned at Charon, who hung his head in defeat. Croagunk stood poised beside Looker, ready to strike in case Charon decided to make a last-ditch attempt at resisting arrest.
Suddenly, a voice called out from entrance of the chamber. "Honchkrow, Psychic..." the voice said coolly.
A rush of psycho-kinetic energy made its way towards Croagunk, landing a direct hit on the Pokémon. Croagunk cried out in pain as it was sent flying across the chamber by the surprise attack. It slammed hard against the wall opposite, then slid down in a crumpled heap, lying immobile.
Looker quickly turned toward the source of the attack. A tall figure stood silhouetted against the entrance of the chamber, with a giant bird perched on the outline of its shoulder. Looker tried to reach into the innermost pocket of his trench coat, but a second Psychic hit him in the arm and he fell to his knees, clutching his wrist.
"Who..?" Looker asked through gritted teeth. The silhouette stepped into the chamber, and the gaunt face of a man came into view. The light of Stark Mountain's lava flows cast a soft red glow over his spiky blue hair, giving it the appearance of being on fire. The man was dressed in the same strange attire as Charon and the grunts, right down to the yellow 'G' emblazoned on his chest. The Pokémon perched on his shoulder was a giant bird with midnight-black feathers and a large crest resembling a fedora. It glared at Looker with beady, scarlet eyes as its master approached the pedestal to join the two conscious men.
Looker looked up at the man and his Pokémon. "I am presuming you to be Cyrus?" he said as calmly as he could. The man peered down at Looker with a fathomless expression on his face, but Looker did not falter. Finally the man nodded.
"That is correct," Cyrus replied. He continued to examine Looker with cold, piercing eyes. Looker returned his stare with a look of defiance. Finally, Cyrus broke eye contact and took a few steps forward, his back to Looker.
"You show great courage and spirit," he said softly. Looker remained silent, but his eyes began to scan the chamber, looking for an escape route.
"Unfortunately for you..." Cyrus continued, turning to face Looker once more. "I cannot stand the human spirit."
The Honchkrow on Cyrus' shoulders rustled its wings restlessly, as though foreseeing its master's next command. Looker eyed the Pokémon apprehensively, then looked back at Cyrus with a strained expression, the colour draining from his face.
"Honchkrow... Dark Pulse..." said Cyrus dispassionately.
A horrible aura imbued with dark thoughts was hurled right toward Looker. The attack hit Looker right in the chest, and he seemed to glow with a horrible darkness for a split second before he too was sent flying across the chamber. Looker crashed into the stony wall behind him and landed hard on the ground below, and did not move again.
Cyrus observed Looker's body with a detached expression before turning his attention to Charon, who all this time had been standing rooted to the spot in shock, watching these events unfold.
"So this is where you've been hiding, Charon..." Cyrus said quietly. Honchkrow took its place back on Cyrus' shoulder and crowed loudly.
Charon gulped, but then hastily rearranged his demeanour into one of sycophantic subordinance. "Why, Master Cyrus!" he said unctuously. "You've returned! I told those two cretins Mars and Jupiter not to give up hope, I knew you'd never abandon us! I-I've just been acting as temporary leader of Team Galactic until your glorious return, to 'keep the home fires burning,' as it were!" He gestured around at the sweltering Stark Mountain and laughed nervously at his own joke.
Cyrus continued to show no emotion whatsoever. Charon gulped harder and continued.
"A-Anyway, Master Cyrus, I have to ask, what happened to you? The last time anyone saw you was on Spear Pillar, when you were swallowed by an unimaginable darkness! What happened? Where did you go?"
Cyrus removed a Poké Ball from his pocket and returned Honchkrow to its confines, contemplating Charon's words as he did so. "I suppose," Cyrus said finally, "I was in another world?
"Another world?" asked Charon in bewilderment.
"Yes... At first I thought it was the new world, my new world," he said distantly. "But then I was confronted with the human spirit, by evil men desiring power and righteous Trainers desiring to stop them... and there was a Rotom..."
Charon's expression softened slightly. "A Rotom?" he asked, a hint of affection in his voice.
"But it was unlike any Rotom I've ever seen..." Cyrus said quietly. "It was... in a Pokédex..."
"In a Pokédex?!" Charon asked incredulously, "I've never heard of such a thing..!"
"Then I was defeated in battle," Cyrus continued, "and ended up back here. I expected to return to my perfect world, but this world still remains. Why..?"
Charon, who was now over the shock of Cyrus' abrupt reappearance, pushed his glasses a little farther up his face. "Ah, yes, well," he said matter-of-factly, "I've been doing some research on that while you've been gone."
"What did you find out?" Cyrus asked.
"Apparently, the Pokémon that attacked you is known as Giratina." Charon explained. "It lives in a dimension parallel to ours, where the laws are physics are distorted. From what I discovered, the fate of that distorted world is tied irrevocably to the fate of our own world. When you tried to create your new universe, Giratina emerged to stop the destruction of its, and by extension our, world."
"Incredible," Cyrus remarked, staring off into the distance. "That was a variable I did not account for when creating my plan for a new world." He turned his attention to Charon. "Now that we know what to expect, we can make a second attempt at creating my new world, this time taking care to neutralize the threat of Giratina..."
Charon frowned and shook his head in dismay. "Unfortunately," he told Cyrus, "that won't be possible."
"Explain," Cyrus commanded.
Charon looked slightly cowed, but continued. "Well after you disappeared, Saturn thought it would be a good idea to, how did he put it, "see Master Cyrus' marvelous vision for a better world through to completion!" Charon quoted with a hint of disdain. "I wasn't the biggest fan of this plan, but I agreed to help him construct more Red Chains. We had already created one through technological means, duplicating it twice more was easy. But when Team Galactic went back to Spear Pillar to make a second attempt at your plan... The Legendary Pokémon didn't appear."
"Impossible..." Cyrus said quietly.
"Yes, it was most strange," Charon remarked. "We did everything you did, but Dialga and Palkia simply refused to show themselves..."
"When I say it is impossible," Cyrus interrupted, "I do not exaggerate. The Red Chain was designed to control the Pokémon of time and space completely. There was no way they could have resisted its pull."
"Unless..." Charon started, a hypothesis forming in his head. "You were transported to another world," he said to Cyrus, "a world where Rotom can inhabit a Pokédex... What if Dialga and Palkia were also transported to another world, a world where they are outside the Red Chain's sphere of influence?"
Cyrus contemplated this idea. "If your theory is correct," he said, "then that means we must find a way to move ourselves freely between different realities, if my vision of creating a perfect world is ever to succeed."
Charon's face lit up as he strode towards Looker's body, reaching into the man's coat pocket.
"That sounds like a very resource-intensive plan," he said in an oily voice, fumbling around in Looker's pocket. At last he pulled out the Magma Stone and held it up for Cyrus to see. "I know it doesn't look like much, but this stone will go a long way in providing the financial backing we'll need for such a plan."
Cyrus eyed the Magma Stone impassively. "Fine," he agreed, "do what you want with it."
Without another word, Cyrus turned and left the chamber. Charon smiled greedily as he went to rouse the unconscious grunts.
A short time later, four members of the newly inspired Team Galactic made their way out of Stark Mountain towards Route 227. Behind them, the mountain started to rumble and shake ominously. Small white cracks unrelated to the sudden volcanic activity began to form at the base of the mountain.