On the other side, an impatient Manny greeted them with arms akimbo.
"Why are your eyes all puffy? Mint, you got snot dribbling down your chin."
The four Trainers stood on reddish rocky ground. Blue-black rocks were floating in mid-air, or mid-space. What mattered was that, somehow, they could breathe. It was cold, but not a debilitating cold. Stretching away from them in all directions was an infinite blue-black abyss. They stared into it, knowing that it was staring right back at them. A trail of black splatters lead from the portal along the reddish road, no doubt left by Giratina.
"This place… Can you feel it?" Cynthia asked. "There are no Pokémon here at all."
Manny leaped with joy.
"Oh, thank sweet Heaven! No stinky Repel spray! No random battles!"
"Time isn't flowing," Cynthia continued. "Space isn't stable. A world where the rules are broken."
"Ha ha ha! I'm running around and no wild Pokémon are harassing me!"
"A space one might call the Distortion World… Let's find Giratina. We need it to stop the spreading distortion at the Spear Pillar."
"Oh sure, we'll just find the vengeful dark dragon god and smack her nose with a rolled-up newspaper. That will teach her some manners!"
Cynthia took a step forward. Giratina zoomed overhead, passing them with an unearthly cry. Hannah picked Manny up from his cringe.
"We have to hurry!" Cynthia ordered, her platinum eyes blazing with urgency. "If something's not done, even the Distortion World will be overcome!"
"Blah blah blah, world coming to an end, yadda yadda. Are we going to talk Giratina to death, too?" Hannah asked.
They jumped over infinitely deep chasms, went down an elevator rock (there was no other way to describe it; the free-floating chunk just carried them down), then found Mesprit who showed them the way forward… along a vertical rock face.
"Mesprit, you can fly. We can't," Mint waved his hands.
"Meeeeeee!" the genderless wonder insisted, bobbing up and down.
"Oh fine, I might as well be the first to go!"
Hannah took a running leap at the rock face, intending to grab onto the top edge with her hands, but instead her entire body flipped ninety degrees. Her feet landed on the platform. She stayed there, offering a perplexed look to her companions.
"Why are you guys sideways?"
Manny tilted his head. "We're not sideways; you are!"
Mint held a hand to his forehead. "I'm getting dizzy."
They followed her. They all then jumped sideways onto a vertical rock surface. They stuck to it, feeling thoroughly disoriented. Mesprit laughed at them and zoomed off.
"This place is Escher's playground," Hanny said.
Cynthia ran on ahead, more accustomed to the impossible than they. When they caught up with her she was muttering to herself.
"Why does Giratina live here alone?"
"Why wouldn't she?" Manny shrugged with upheld palms. "This place is awesome. Gravity is meaningless!"
Cynthia ran off again, feeling a much clearer sense of duty than the children. After some more elevator rocks, Cyrus found the kids. The Trainers were more surprised than he.
"The shadowy Pokémon isn't here. It abandoned me here, then disappeared somewhere farther down… Was it content merely to interfere with my plan…? Incidentally, do you understand the concept of genes?"
Mint nodded. "They're comfy and easy to wear."
Cyrus took a deep breath. "No. Of course you wouldn't. Genes can be considered the blueprints of all life-forms. That includes humans and Pokémon alike. Genes are contained in a DNA strand. A DNA strand consists of two chains of opposing characteristics in a spiral. If one of the chains were to be broken, the other could replicate it. One or the other cannot exist without its opposite. Do you understand where I am going with this? This is a bizarre world. Time doesn't flow. Space isn't stable. Only that shadowy Pokémon lives here. This world is the opposite of our world – our world I wish to change. It is like the two chains composing a strand of DNA. The two worlds must be balancing each other to remain in existence. Without the one, the other cannot exist. The shadowy Pokémon must play a role in keeping the worlds in balance. That is why it must have interfered and brought me here. The shadowy Pokémon must have made this bizarre world. That's why trying to change our world disturbed it and made it reveal itself. But that is all irrelevant."
"Then why did you bore Mint to sleep?" Manny asked, with Mint snoring on his shoulder.
Cyrus sneered. "What matters is defeating that Pokémon and making this world disappear."
"You JUST TOLD US that our world depends on the existence of this one!" Hannah shouted.
"I won't allow it to interfere with me again. With it gone, neither world will be able to revert to its original state…"
Cyrus walked off.
Hannah adjusted her glasses, her grey-green eyes sparkling. "Manny, I thought you and Mint were loopy, but that guy just contradicted himself on a cosmic scale. We must stop him!"
"Why didn't we just stop him here?"
"Pfffft, obviously, this isn't the dramatically appropriate moment. Now wake up Mint so we can move!"
More elevator rocks and disappearing platforms later, they found Uxie (the cutest one, Hanny said) between two pools of water and some freakish plant life. After descending another elevator rock, they found Cynthia again.
"This whole place is a giant puzzle. Giratina is testing us, but the Lake Pokémon are also eager to show us something."
Cynthia just stood there like a puzzled angel, so the younger generation took the initiative. Going up once more, the trio went through a grand maze. Judging by the behaviour of the Lake Pokémon, the Trainers understood that they were to make their Pokémon push boulders into pits. They found Mesprit, saw Giratina's great shadow flying overhead, and even spied Cyrus, who ran away the moment he saw them. After more ridiculous feats of sideways walking and even SURFING upside down, they somehow surfed directly down a waterfall without falling. Every surface seemed to have its own gravitational pull, even the water! Finally, Azelf indicated the final boulder to be pushed in. The Trainers returned to the upper level and pushed the boulders into the pits beside each Lake Pokémon.
They returned to Cynthia after their task. She said the lake Pokémon had probably gone home. An elevator rock appeared behind her, and she alleged that they were "getting close".
Making their descent, Cynthia hopped off the elevator rock and went forward to meet Cyrus.
"So, you were already here," she greeted him.
Cyrus walked towards Manny and company, pushing Cynthia aside, but Cynthia grabbed his arm, almost yanking the taller man off his feet. Her voice was pleading, as were her platinum eyes. "Why do you seek to change the world? If you hate our world, you should just go off somewhere alone. Find somewhere where you can live without seeing others."
Manny snorted. "Like this Distortion World. You'd be happy as a Clamperl in this place!"
Cyrus was as acerbic as ever. "Why should I run and hide from the world and have to wait quietly? My aim is to rid the world of the vague and incomplete thing we call 'spirit'. By freeing ourselves of that, our world can be made complete. That is my justice! No-one can interfere!"
Though Cynthia's grip was vice-like, he shrugged it off. He was no weakling, either.
"That's no justice at all!" Cynthia shouted behind him.
Manny walked forward, confronting Cyrus. The man's cold, quiet demeanour suddenly became furious. "I won't lose! Not to that shadowy Pokémon! Not in any worthless world!"
He summoned Houndoom. Manny countered with Vaporeon who spat a flood of water from his mouth, manipulating it into a giant wave that crashed into Houndoom, almost sending the Pokémon over the edge and into the abyss. Weavile was next, and proved to be faster, but Vaporeon's Acid Armour saved him from Night Slash, allowing him to smash the dark creature with Surf. However, another Night Slash did him in, so Manny summoned Luxray who, although suffering a Night Slash to the face, countered with Discharge and knocked Weavile out. Cyrus's Gyarados attempted to end the battle with Earthquake, but received a Discharge before it could disturb the ground. Honchkrow came next, its tremendous fortitude absorbing a Discharge before finishing Luxray off with Night Slash. Crobat was Cyrus's last hope, so Manny brought out Alakazam to crush it with Psychic.
Cyrus raised both fists to the alien sky with a wounded cry: "My new world, my new galaxy will be swept away by your reality!"
Manny returned Alakazam, breathing a sigh of momentary relief, but Cyrus would not allow him a moment of respite. He pointed at Manny, taunting the boy with a prophecy of doom: "Don't think that you can defeat or capture that Pokémon. This bizarre world is none other than that Pokémon itself! Capturing or defeating it will make this world disappear!"
Manny looked at the Pokéball in his hand. He lifted his head to stare into those awful beady eyes and said, "Cyrus, you proved to us that legendary Pokémon can be captured. If capturing Giratina is the only way to save the world, then we will!"
Cyrus threw his hands into the air. "Very well! Do what you will! Rather than repairing the world, you're going to destroy it for me! Do it. You inherit my legacy."
Cyrus walked past them with the galaxy on his shoulders.
Cynthia held Manny's shoulders with both hands, because the boy was trembling. She clucked her tongue. "Don't believe his lies. It's not possible that a Pokémon can make the world disappear."
Hannah had something to say about that: "Cynthia, YOU told us that Giratina's portal will destroy both this world and ours!"
Cynthia waved her hand. "Forget I said that! The world awaited your birth. Not only yours, either. The Pokémon with you. The people close to you. All Pokémon and people were born because they have a part in the world. I'm convinced of that. Giratina won't go out of existence. The Distortion World won't disappear. Our world won't disappear, either. Let's go meet Giratina."
"D-d-do we h-h-have t-to?" Mint stuttered.
Cynthia grabbed his hand. "YES!"
He whined. Cynthia took a moment to heal Manny's Pokémon with her supplies. Where she carried supplies on that sheer black dress is anyone's guess.
"Either one of you guys want a crack at her?" Manny offered. Hanny and Mint shook their heads vigorously. He grumped. "The LEAST you could do is record this on your cell phones. Giratina may be a Pokémon, but she's fully capable of vaporising me, all the same."
Hanny and Mint held their phones at the ready. Manny walked forward to the edge of the platform. On cue, Giratina swooped downward, quietly eyeing Manny. The boy closed his eyes for a moment. The pressure Giratina now exuded was nowhere near as powerful as it had been on the Spear Pillar, but on Manny's ten-year-old body, it was a terrible strain. Manny summoned his nerve before he summoned Keira.
"Use Toxic!"
Keira's sprayed vile purple poison from her beak, dousing Giratina, the venom running down her obsidian wings. The dragon shrieked, writhing in midair. Manny gaped, speechless, realising that Giratina was not invincible. The dragon countered with a rock-type move, Ancient Power, which floored Keira. Adapting to the situation, Manny summoned Torterra, who suffered a ghost-type Ominous Wind from the dragon's wings. Before he could shout a command, Giratina disappeared. The pressure was still torturing his body, so he knew Giratina was still in the battle. He sprayed Torterra with a Hyper Potion so that the turtle would weather whatever type of attack came next. The dragon emerged from the abyss as a black comet, smashing her body into Torterra. All the hairs stood up on Manny's head. He had never seen that attack in his life!
"I know the feel of that energy! That was a Ghost-type attack!" Cynthia shouted above the reverberations.
"It has TWO Ghost-type attacks? It must be a Ghost-type, itself!"
"And a Dragon-type!" Hanny yelled. "How else can you explain those wings and that body?"
Torterra was badly injured, so Manny summoned Luxray. Giratina smote him with Ancient Power, but by this time she was severely weakened from the poisoning. Her movements had become sluggish, unsteady.
Manny tossed an Ultra Ball. Giratina turned into red energy and disappeared inside the device.
All Manny could see was the ball wobbling back and forth.
…
THOOM!
The ball shattered! Giratina screeched her defiance, knocking out Luxray with another Ancient Power! Fighting to maintain control of the battle and his weakening body, Manny summoned Rapidash and tossed another Ultra Ball. Giratina broke free, but the ball did not shatter, proving her weakness. Manny quickly sprayed Keira with a Hyper Potion while Rapidash suffered a near-fatal Dragon Claw. Manny switched out Rapidash for Keira, who was unaffected by the ensuing Ominous Wind.
Manny used this opportunity to examine his opponent. Giratina barely had the energy to fly; she was hovering erratically, her wing flaps weaker than ever. The fierce red blaze in her eyes had receded to a dull orange. Manny reached for a third Ultra Ball, but his right arm turned into jelly. He dropped to one knee. He heard his friends shouting for him to get up, but he was so tired. He dropped to his other knee. The weight on his body was excruciating, crushing each muscle in his body. Spots appeared in his field of vision.
Then there was a razor sharp pain in his left shoulder. He snapped back to reality.
It was Keira. Her beak had drawn blood from his left shoulder. She glared at him with her left eye. He placed his hand on her wing. He pushed, and she pushed against him, until he was half-standing, blood trickling down his left arm.
"Thank you, Keira."
Manny's third Ultra Ball flew, and with it flew the last vestige of his will and strength. He fell forward, but made sure that his head was upright for him to see. Giratina, that dark colossus, became red energy once more, devoured by the tiny sphere.
The ball wobbled one.
The ball wobbled twice.
The ball wobbled a third time.
The ball was still. The release mechanism flashed, emitting a low thrum as it locked into place. Manny crawled forward. He reached for the ball, but couldn't quite. Keira hopped over, nudging the ball into his bloody left hand. He held his first legendary Pokémon, smearing the white, yellow and black ball with red.
"You just captured a god."
Manny rolled over to look at Cynthia. She knelt over him, placing something hard and spiky in his mouth. It tasted like chalk, but he bit down on it. Indescribable, intense flavour flooded his mouth. He chewed, swallowed, and blissful warmth spread from his stomach to his fingertips and toes, feeding strength into his limbs. When Manny was on his feet again, his shoulder wasn't even bleeding.
"Max Revive works on humans, too."
"I owe you one, Cynthia."
Manny hefted the Ultra Ball in his hand. It felt heavy, which should be impossible.
He then summoned Giratina. No longer was she a scary, unseen shadow. She possessed dimensions and form just like any other Pokémon, and was about to pass out from the poison in her system. Manny sprayed her with an Antidote. Gathering what remained of her enormous strength, she rose to her full height, simply looking at him in silence. No longer afraid, he marveled at her beauty.
Her grey, serpentine body was over twenty-two feet in length, and what he had thought to be wings were actually six black streamers with red claws at the end of them. The streamers were definitely not made of a solid material; they appeared more liquid than gaseous, and dripped that same black substance the Trainers had followed along the ground earlier. A thick black stripe ran down the centre of her belly, broken by equally thick red stripes running horizontally across it. Three gold half-rings circled the back half of Giratina's neck, resembling a ribcage. Instead of legs, the Pokémon had three golden spikes protruding from either side of her snakelike body. Her golden head-plate bore a strong resemblance to both Dialga's and Palkia's, confirming the connection among the three.
Without a word, Manny returned her to her ball.
"Why didn't you use a healing potion?" asked Hanny.
"Dark goddess or not, I'm not wasting my items when there are perfectly good Pokémon Centres waiting for us in our world."
Cyrus appeared behind them. The mixture of shock and dismay on his pale face was rather refreshing.
"How… how could a child capture a god? You doing so means this irrational world will remain in existence! Does that make it impossible for me to create a new world? Even if I made new Red Chains, the new world can't be made! Why?! What compels you to protect the two worlds?"
Manny looked him square in the eyes. He was no longer afraid of Cyrus, either, and could answer him: "Nothing compels me. I protect them because I choose to."
Cyrus flinched. His haughty voice was reduced to a whisper as he asked, "Is 'spirit', a vague and incomplete thing, so important to you?!"
Cynthia had an answer to that. She gestured to the children while saying, "The places we are born. The time we spend living… The languages we speak… We are all different, but the presence of Pokémon unites us. We share our lives with our Pokémon, and our happiness grows as we all become greater than we were alone. That is why we can battle and trade with anyone we choose…"
"SILENCE! Enough of your blathering! That's how you justify spirit as something worthwhile?! That is merely humans hoping, deluding themselves that they are happy and safe! The emotions roiling inside of me… Rage, hatred, frustration… These ugly emotions arise because of my own incomplete spirit!"
"We all have our own way!" Cynthia shot back.
Cyrus dismissed the notion with a wave of his hand. "Enough. We will never see eye to eye. This, I promise you: I will break the secrets of the world. With that knowledge, I will create my perfect and complete world. One day, you will awaken to a world of my creation. A world without spirit."
He walked off - as he had so many times before - alone. He and the roiling abyss blended and became one, and he was gone.
Cynthia sighed, speaking to his shadow, "Since there is sadness, we can feel joy. When there is anger, compassion is born." She turned to Manny and company, trying to smile, and waved her hand. "Let's go back home. The portal where Giratina was should lead back to our home."
After the much shorter return trip, they leaped into the portal to reappear at the Sendoff Spring. Mint jumped into the clean, clear water, overjoyed to be alive with sunshine in his golden hair. According to the map, they were just east of Route 214; their otherworldly adventure had transported them many kilometres from the Spear Pillar. Cynthia mentioned that this spring was the secret fourth lake of Sinnoh, and rumoured to be where the deceased journeyed to 'the great beyond'. She thanked Manny and his friends on behalf of Sinnoh, then advised the three Trainers to visit Professor Rowan, as he was "very worried" about them.
888
Within the Distortion World, Cyrus was walking aimlessly. He walked for so long along the reddish rock that his shoes became worn through to his socks, but he kept walking until his socks were in tatters and his feet bled. He ran out of road, and contemplated taking a short fall into the infinite. However, dissolution would not quell his raging spirit; he knew that suicide was not an option. He had considered and dismissed the idea too many times before for it to have any meaning now. He stared forever, feeling neither hunger nor thirst, staring into the depths of something he did not know, searching for meaning in the midst of nothingness.
"You still haven't found what you're looking for."
"Who are you?"
Something appeared in the void. Though it seemed an impossible distance away, though he could not make out any discernible features, he could feel eyes boring into his. The pressure he felt was not just directed at his body, but at every point in the universe around him. Floating rocks shifted and changed direction, pushed away by the intensity of the gaze.
"I am… what I am. To know me, you must know Dialga, Palkia and Giratina."
"I captured Dialga and Palkia but Giratina captured me, allowing them to escape. That boy captured Giratina."
"Then he knows death. Do you wish to know death, Cyrus?"
"I am become death, destroyer of worlds. I will break the unbreakable spirit in this life or the next."
"Then you seek to break the cosmos, because life is a way for the cosmos to know itself."
"You said 'a' way. What are the other ways?"
Cyrus felt the pressure of its gaze ease. Whatever it was, he knew he had caught it by surprise.
"To know the other ways, you must relinquish your physical body. However, you seem to be attached to it."
"You are not a man, or a Pokémon. What are you?"
The voice's body slid into focus, but with it, the pressure rose exponentially. Cyrus was forced onto his hands and knees, his head pushed to the ground, forbidden from rising even a little to see the smallest part of the Being.
"Know me, Cyrus. If you wish to rid the world of spirit… if you wish to break the unbreakable… you must first break me."