The wind whistled through the pillars at the summit of Mount Coronet. Magnus, Cynthia and the Galactic team members were in utter disbelief, staring at the place where Galactic leader Cyrus had stood just seconds ago, but where a maw had opened up, unveiling nothing but darkness.
"What was that?", asked one of the Galactic commanders with such a shaken voice that Magnus could not help but feel sympathy for her. But he could not answer her question either.
"Is our boss...", the other commander asked, making a small pause after each word and slowly raising a finger to point towards the dark abyss in front of them, "inside there?"
As if a switch had been turned on, panic erupted amongst the Galactic team members, who were frantically trying to contact their headquarters. When the first grunt tried to sneak away from the horror that had emerged at the Spear Pillar, the others followed.
"H-Hey!", one of the Galactic commanders shouted, "That's treason! I will make you pay for that!"
With that, she stormed after the grunts. The other commander, Mars, did not seem to notice any of this, but just kept staring at the dark hole in front of them. She took some slow steps towards it and, stopping within arm's reach of Magnus, asked again: "Is he inside there?" Her eyes were still fixated on the darkness. Was she talking to Magnus? Or to herself, trying to make sense of the situation? But even if she expected an answer from him, what was he supposed to say? Just looking at this thing made his head spin, but getting dragged into this maw... He gulped. That must have been something else.
"I think he is", Cynthia finally gave Mars an answer, who didn't seem to notice her at all. The three of them kept staring into the void, not even briefly looking at each other.
"In the forbidden legends", Cynthia continued with a low, whispering voice, almost as if she was feeling terrifying awe, "they write about the Distortion World, ruled over by Giratina."
"Giratina?", Magnus asked, briefly glancing at Cynthia's stern face – unlike him, she really showed no sign of nervousness – then back at the entrance to the Distortion World. His shoulders started to feel heavier than usual.
"As Dialga rules over time and Palkia over space, Giratina rules over this... counterpart to our world, where space and time do not exist."
"What!", Mars screamed and the other two turned towards her. Next to her, a large boulder had started to levitate a few feet into the air, surrounded by the same purple-black aura as the maw. It gently descended onto the ground again, before starting to gleam on its upper surface. Magnus took a closer look at it, but he really did not hallucinate it: grain by grain, the boulder's surface started to vanish.
"I'm sorry!", the Galactic commander collapsed to her knees and desperately started to shake her head, "I didn't... We wanted to create a better world! Really! We couldn't... What is this..."
Not bothering with her, Magnus pointed at the boulder and asked Cynthia: "Did you just see that, too?"
She nodded and a shiver went down his spine.
"If Giratina rages in its own world, then the damage will spread to our world, too. We have to contain its wrath."
His heart was beating so strong that his fingers started to curl uncontrollably in the rhythm of his pulse.
"And looking at this...", Cynthia's gaze wandered over the Spear Pillar. The altar and two pillars had already started to disintegrate. "I don't think we have much time left."
She took a few steps towards the maw and, standing just one foot away from it, turned to Magnus.
"Let's go", she said. Magnus's heart stopped for a moment that felt like an eternity. When he came back to his senses, he needed a second to remember where he actually was.
"Shouldn't... shouldn't we wait for the Elite Four to arrive?", he muttered, "They can surely help us, right?"
"Look around", Cynthia said and reached out a hand to Magnus while staring him down, "There is no time to wait."
Reluctantly, Magnus dragged his body step by step closer to the Champion. When he finally grabbed her hand, she pulled him right towards the edge of the maw. Standing next to her, he looked down at the void in front of them. A circle of white light, flickering like tongues of flame around a thick purple ring that started to get darker the further it was away from the white circle and finally, about four feet into the circle, descended into a colour that was even darker than black. His head started to spin.
"Wait!", the frightened Galactic commander shouted, "Are you gonna leave me alone here?"
"Sorry", Cynthia remarked and Magnus could sense a cold tone in her voice, "But you need to stay here until the Elite Four arrive. Tell them to follow us inside."
With that, she took a large step into the darkest part of the void and, still holding his hand, dragged Magnus behind him. They both stood knee-high in the darkness. Even Cynthia seemed to be a bit unsettled, which Magnus failed to notice because his mind had almost completely blacked out. Pulling him alongside her, the Sinnoh Champion and her assistant descended into the void.
When the void's surface had almost reached his eyes, Magnus instinctively closed his eyes shut, as if diving into a deep and dark sea. Getting dragged by the Cynthia's firm hand, he just followed along for what felt like an eternity, until a sudden rush pulled him off his feet. After slamming onto the floor, he needed a few moments to gather himself, wishing that if he just kept his eyes shut, all of this might just sort itself out. He took a deep breath, braced himself, rammed his hands into the ground, lifted his tense body in a push-up motion and jumped to his feet. Finally, he opened his eyes. His brain needed a bit to... process what was going on. The void stretched out as an ocean in front of him and little islands floated within it, below and above him. But below and above had lost all meaning. Not wanting to believe his eyes, he let his gaze wander from left to right – or whatever those direction meant here. Waterfalls ran between the islands – but in opposite directions. Trees stood upright just next to Magnus, but on the neighbouring islands, they were horizontal or even flipped upside down, going downwards like exposed roots. He really wished to be back in Hoenn.
Cynthia made a few careful steps towards another island. Standing just two feet away from it, her face was mirrored in a puddle of water that seemed to be... hanging on a wall without ever flowing? Magnus finally pulled himself together and stepped next to her.
"How does this... work?", he asked.
"I don't know", she answered and turned her head to face him, "But maybe, time just doesn't work here fast enough for the water to flow down? This is Giratina's realm and time is Dialga's domain. Maybe, it just doesn't apply here?"
Hesitating for a second, Magnus buried his hands in trouser pockets and pulled out a coin. He held the coin in front of his chest and opened his hand. It made a clanging sound when it fell onto the floor just between his feet.
"If the coin falls down, then the water should also flow", he mumbled and Cynthia, who had observed his experiment with a concerned look, nodded in agreement. Magnus then picked up the coin and, looking at their reflection in the water hanging in front of them like any ordinary mirror would on a wall, tossed it into the puddle. Concentric waves distorted the peacefully flat surface and a few droplets of water jumped out of the puddle towards them. Most of them fell back into the puddle, but the one drop that reached the furthest suddenly jerked and changed its direction: it dropped onto the floor between them, just like any drop in the real world would. They both needed a moment to process what had happened.
"It's as if...", Magnus spoke up despite his doubts, "every island seems to have its own gravity."
Cynthia looked at him, then back to the puddle. It had almost calmed down completely and their mirrored selves just looked a bit fuzzy. Slowly, she reached out a hand until a sudden rush almost pulled her off her feet.
"I think you're right", she concluded and stretched out her left leg as high as she could. Like dipping a toe into the sea to test the waters, she placed the tip of her boot onto the island and immediately, her leg was pulled towards it, planting her sole firmly grounded onto the island. She stood there for a second in an almost gymnastic position, before withdrawing the other leg. From Magnus's perspective, she had just started to walk on the walls.
"It works", she said, "You were right about the gravity!"
Magnus didn't notice that she smiled like a little girl who had just learned to perform a new trick because merely looking at her sticking vertically out of the "wall" made his head dizzy. Cynthia sent out her Togekiss, but when it tried to fly too far away from their current position, the gravitational pull of another island jolted it through the air and she immediately withdrew it.
"So flying on our Pokémon isn't an option here", she mumbled.
A screech echoed over the void from the distance, but it was loud enough to send shivers down Magnus's spine. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see something move in the darkness. Something very far away and very large.
"Giratina", whispered Cynthia and her eyes started to jump from her island to the neighbouring ones, the next-nearest neighbours and beyond.
"We have to go there! That's a path to Giratina!", she pointed into a direction below Magnus, before he had even managed to adapt his thinking to navigate through their nearest surroundings. Magnus followed her lead and jumped onto the wall next to her and as soon as the wall's gravitation got hold of him, his stomach started to turn. His mind struggled to piece the new sensations together and whenever he leaped on a different island, his head tried to go into one direction, his legs into another. He was lagging behind, he knew that the Champion would be faster without him. Looking over her shoulder to check on him, Magnus tried his best not to look Cynthia straight into her eyes. With every step, his legs felt heavier and weaker. A sudden jolt in his flank made him stop in his tracks. Clenching his teeth, he tried his best to find the strength to keep on his feet, when he felt the presence of... something. In the corner of his eye, something blue and white appeared, levitating through the air with such an ease that it almost looked playful. The red orb on its forehead stood out in this world of darkness and Magnus eyes were drawn towards it. A red flare blinded Magnus when light was reflected on the orb's surface and he moved his head just enough that his eyes met the Pokémon's gaze. Staring right into his soul, he could feel his legs strengthening, his back straightening up and his pulse calming down. Magnus blinked and the Pokémon was gone.
They had leaped over a few more islands when Magnus remembered something.
"What about the Elite Four?"
Cynthia just raised an eyebrow.
"I mean", he organised his thoughts, "Shouldn't they have arrived by now? Do you think they will find us in this maze?"
"The legends say that this place is a world beyond space and time", Cynthia said, "Where Giratina rules supreme, space and time have lost their meaning. Who knows how much time has passed on the outside since we entered here? If any time has passed at all?"
While he tried to wrap his mind around what her answer meant, Cynthia's eyes darted around the depths of this worlds descending maw, jumping from one island to another.
"Where...?", she muttered. First, she moved her head in an attempt to see a direction to descend further down, but her movement soon turned into shaking her head in disbelief. Nowhere to go. There were no islands next to them, only the one they were standing on. While Cynthia was trying to figure out how her path lead to this dead end, Magnus was relieved to stand still for a moment. After he had panted enough, he raised his head and looked around. Nothing to the left, nothing to the right, nothing in front of them. When he turned around to face Cynthia, a sudden shock jolted through his body – there was no island behind them anymore.
"What in the name of Arceus...", muttered Cynthia.
"How?", he stuttered and shook his head.
Should this really surprise him anymore? When nothing here works the way it does in the real world – should he really have expected that the islands just... continue existing? He looked down on the floor of the island that they were standing on. Will this island also just... stop existing?
But before he could panic over this, something instinctively made his head turn sidewards. In the distance, he could see something yellow moving around. The way it floated through the void did not feel threatening to him but almost inviting him to join it. A red shimmer flashed up on the Pokémon's head.
"Uxie", uttered Cynthia, "the bringer of knowledge."
Magnus could not hear her as he was too focused on following the Pokémon with his eyes. Its movements were so lightheartedly, almost childishly playful. He had almost forgotten the dreadful place where they were right now, when Uxie suddenly flew behind an island, nowhere to be seen. That island, however, seemed familiar to Magnus.
"Isn't this", he pointed at the island, "where we came from?"
Cynthia squinted at the distance.
"Yes... I think it is."
So at least the other islands didn't just vanish. But why are they now in the middle of nowhere? Then it suddenly occurred to Magnus.
"The islands move!", he almost shouted, "We can probably move them along, too!"
"Do you think so? But how?"
"Let me think...", he said and tried to remember his Physics classes from school. But this world doesn't even have time, so what good should Physics do? Maybe what he needed was intuition.
"I've got an idea", he finally answered, "Maybe if we both jump onto the same spot, the impact will push the island around?"
Cynthia was taken aback, but as she did not have any better idea, she went along with his plan.
"That spot", she used her shoe to make a cross into the soil of the island, "That's our target."
"Why?" Now it was Magnus's turn to be confused. Cynthia needed a few seconds to organise her thoughts before answering him.
"The impact will probably make the island move downwards. And if you look down at the next layer of islands", she pointed on her cross and then changed her arms angle just a tiny bit so that it now pointed at another island, "This is the closest island we have."
Although neither of them could have explained, why their plan should work, they deeply felt like it should. The Champion grabbed his hand and took a step back.
"At one", she told him and counted, "Three, two, one!"
They leaped with all their strength onto the cross and as they landed on their feet, they could feel the ground moving. The island had started to drift.
"It worked!", shouted Magnus, still almost in disbelief.
"It worked!", Cynthia exclaimed and the joy in her face made Magnus smile. As the island moved around, he had to tilt his foot in order to keep balance, but when he moved his foot just a little bit, he felt Cynthia's shoe touching his. Only then did he realise how close they were standing next to each other on the tiny cross and he coyly took a step backwards to get some space between them. Cynthia, however, had discovered that rebalancing the weight on her legs made the island drift to the left or right and used this to steer right towards another chain of islands. They finally bumped into the next island and got off of their raft. As they were looking around to figure out where to go, the ground below them suddenly turned dark. In the blink of an eye, it was gone.
"That looked just like the... thing at Spear Pillar", muttered Magnus after he regained his composure.
Cynthia just nodded. Her calmness almost frightened Magnus.
"That must mean we're getting closer", she said, "Let's descend further."
She grabbed his hand and practically had to drag him behind her for the first few stumbling steps before he proceeded to walk on his own, following her footsteps. What had he gotten himself into? The further down they went, the darker it seemed to become. Cynthia had identified a path across the islands and Magnus was glad that he could just follow her lead. His mind wasn't in the right place to make decisions himself. When they set foot on the lowest level of islands, a large shadow flashed by. It was here.
"This almost looks like a staircase", said Cynthia and pointed at a few islands in the distance. They were so neatly aligned that it just had to have been intentional. It would have to face them exactly there.
Walking towards the staircase, Magnus had already stopped asking himself why he ended up here, how they were supposed to calm the legendary Pokémon or what they planned to do. He felt neither hope, nor fear; just emptiness. When they jumped onto the first island of the staircase, something dark and gigantic rushed by. He could feel that it had placed itself on the top of the staircase, waiting for them. But he would not dare to look up.
"We have to calm it down", muttered Cynthia, "Show it that our world is worth to fight for."
They made another step upwards. Something else rushed by, something rosy and white. Surprised, Magnus turned his eyes sidewards and saw another Pokémon. It looked just like Uxie, but with a light-red head. Its crystal blinked in the familiar crimson red and Magnus was mesmerised for a second. A roar erupted from the top of the staircase and just with that, the other Pokémon was gone. Suddenly, fear, determination, dread and eagerness to do something streamed into Magnus's heart. Finally, he turned his head so he could see it. Now, he felt nothing but awe. A huge serpentine body, decorated with golden rings of armour, almost like a shell, but bright as the sun. Six shadowy wings sticking out of its back, thin and almost like a finger with an enormous red claw at each of their ends. He was just glad that this was a two-versus-one fight.
"What's the plan?", he asked shyly. He couldn't turn his eyes away from the creature – and neither did it, but stared right into his eyes.
"I think", Cynthia said, but as soon as she started to speak, the Pokémon's eyes darted into her direction. If he didn't know better, Magnus could have almost believed that the Pokémon's eyes briefly looked startled.
"If our Pokémon fight against Giratina", she continued after a tense moment of silence, "and prove how strong our bond with them is, it will understand that there is goodness, kindness in our world. It might stop its rampage..."
"There you are."
A cold, almost mechanic voice echoed through the Distortion World. Giratina cried out in anger, trying to scare off the latest intruder. Cyrus drew his Pokéballs.
"Get away there", commanded his monotonous voice, "Giratina is mine. And so is this world."
#~#~#~#~#~# author notes #~#~#~#~#~#
If the chapter title is the same as the whole story's title, you can probably guess that this chapter is at the heart of the story. I hope I managed to capture the feeling of confusion, disorientation and fear that anyone brave enough to enter the Distortion World will inevitably experience...
