Note: Sorry for the super - late upload. Work and school have been keeping my busy, a common story when it comes to fanfiction authors I am aware. I hope to upload the last few chapters for the Alola arc in the next few days.

Anyhow, enjoy.

There was no stone, nor cave, nor anything else. There was no floor, or ceiling. There was no up, no down, no left, no right. Just an endless expanse of stars. Giant orbs of blue and red fire crashed and merged into each other, painting the void in a dazzling array of ethereal hues. It was beautiful, beyond anything Ash had ever seen before.

A moment ago he had been in the depths of mount Akala, crawling through a darkened cavern back ended by a mysterious stone door, and suddenly he was… here. He had placed his hand on the stone door and in less than a second, the entire world had collapsed around him. He wasn't dreaming or having another vision… or at least he hoped he wasn't. No, this was different. The void in his visions felt like a true loss of self, a place that existed outside the realms of tangible reality. This place was far from that. He just knew… this place was real.

But where am I? What is this place?

He looked around to find… anything, really, but the expanse seemed as empty as it was endless. Until he suddenly felt a presence behind him, and a friendly voice.

"Ash? Is that you?"

It was Gladion. Ash sighed in relief.

"Gladion! How did you get here? How did I get here?!"

"When you touched the wall you just… disappeared."

"Disappeared?!" Ash guessed that he shouldn't be surprised, considering where he currently was. At this point, anything was possible.

"Just like that, and the hand-sign on the door was still glowing. So I followed, and I told the others to stay back, no matter what."

"I'm glad you're here too. Don't like the idea of being stuck in here all by myself."

"Well, someone's got to keep an eye on you. You're honestly more immature than the actual children," Gladion said with a somewhat humorous scathe.

"Oh… uumm… I'm sorry," Ash said sheepishly.

"Ash… where are we?" Galdion asked, finally taking in his surroundings.

"I have no idea," Ash responded, plainly.

"Perhaps… I can help."

A third voice, the voice of someone who was clearly much older than they were. Even stranger, it sounded a bit like… Gladion? Not a look-alike, but a close relative. Someone like…

"Dad?"

Gladion hadn't heard that voice in years, yet the memory of it was so clear. The voice he had heard when Lillie took her first steps, all those years ago. The face it belonged to had hardly changed either, sporting the same green eyes and blonde hair as the rest of the family. The man named Mohn, dressed in the same lab attire that he disappeared in, stared at Gladion with an expression of joy, tempered by unending pain.

"Gladion… yes… my son," Mohn said, his voice somewhat coarse, like he hadn't spoken in a very long time.

"Dad…" Gladions voice trembled. How could… but he thought… it couldn't…

"I never thought I'd see you again, here of all places."

"Is that… really you?" Gladion asked, his eyes glued to the older man. He knew that this was impossible. Maybe he was getting the same sort of visions that Ash was, the ones that were leading this very quest. That's all this had to be. Just a vision. This couldn't be…

"It's really me, Gladion."

Mohn took a single step forward, and in the blink of an eye he was right in front of Gladion. It was instantaneous, as if he hadn't even taken a step. As if time hadn't passed at all.

"Dad...? What are you doing here? Where… are we?"

"We don't have a lot of time for you… or your friend here," Mohn finally looked at Ash. "I don't recognize you young man. What might your name be?"

"Ash Ketchum… from Pallet town." Ash's voice was shaky as well. He was almost as surprised as Gladion to see the man standing before them.

"So, my son has made friends… good. He was always a friendly boy, but I was worried he might have some trouble after I… left."

"Dad, I… we…," Gladion finally took a deep breath. "We were looking for you for years. The whole family, Lusamine and Lillie…"

"Lillie? My little princess… well I guess she isn't so little anymore…"

"You can see her again, dad. The whole family. If you can just come with us…"

Mohns face sank. Ash could feel it, a shift in the air, like they've been engulfed in a cloud.

"Gladion, Ash, come with me…"

Another blink, and the stars began to dance around them.

"You have them, don't you?" Mohn asked. "The shards of the distortion ball."

"Yes…" Ash answered.

"And you're here for another one. The shard you're looking for is here, I can assure you, as well as the answers you seek."

"Answers? Dad, what answers?" Gladions asked, his breath becoming shakier with each passing word.

"To everything."

This was… different.

When Yellow had first discovered her powers at a young age, it took her a while to get used to them. The healing part of it was easy enough, if anything she was overjoyed to learn that she could help any person or Pokémon with a single touch. The mind reading however, was something else entirely.

Pokémon didn't think like people did. She couldn't 'hear' their thoughts in any sort of comprehensible sentences. Rather it was a purely emotional response, but emotions that were directly focused on a certain person, place or thing. She could then translate these emotions in her mind, being able to articulate these thoughts into a human language. She would be lying if she said that she fully understood how it worked.

Never had she ever experienced anything like this.

She had intended to find out the intentions of this strange Onix, yet she almost felt like the table had been turned. It was almost like her mind had been entered by a foreign presence, and she didn't like it.

As she looked around, she quickly realized that she wasn't in the same volcano anymore. She could still see the mouth of the volcano above her, but the strange, purple lava below was gone. Instead, a thick layer of pitch black smoke hung to the ground. That's when she realized… it wasn't just underneath her. It was everywhere, creeping from the corner of her very vision. As for herself, she was still floating, but it wasn't against her will. It wasn't some unseen gravitational force that was keeping her up. It was… nothing. Any concept of up or down was absent from this place. She simply was, and the Onix itself…

Perpetual darkness, a longing for something, or someone?

The large Pokémon was now floating right in front of her, a loud booming voice echoing in her mind that she could very much tell was his.

"What? Where are...? How…?"

Confused. Communication is undeveloped. Strange humans, strange world.

"You're… you're that Onix? From Mount Akala, right?"

Correct. The mountain of fire, Great Akala, it's my home. Once I was a stranger, but a stranger no longer, only to strange humans.

"You're not like other pokémon… I'm not reading your mind, but…"

This realm isn't of my mind, but of yours. Your mind, clouded in shadows of longing. Longing for something, or someone.

Yellow stood silent. She was well aware that they were in the recesses of her mind. The dark, cold fog was far too familiar for her not to realize.

Who does this human long for?

The question felt as inescapable as the all-consuming dark.

"Another person. His names Red… he's… my fiancé…"

Fiancé?

"We're in love."

Ah… yes… an intimate connection, once lost, leaves one in deep longing.

"He's not lost!" Yellow's voice was hoarse, and she could see a ripple within the dark as she spoke. "He was taken from me!"

Yet, the absence remains, unfaltering and continuously unwinding. If the longing persists, then it will be your undoing.

Yellow took a deep breath, trying to steady herself. She didn't even know where she was… could this really be her own mind? But… how?

You're confused? Confused by your underdeveloped communication. I apologize.

"Underdeveloped what? Can you…" another deep breath. Now was the time for answers. "Can you please tell me where we are, and what you are?"

As I said, this is the recess of your mind, shadowed in a deep longing.

"I can see that…" she looked around at the darkened fog. The more she looked, the colder she felt. "It certainly feels like it. But how did we get here? Why are we here?"

You can touch minds. You reach out, to know the thoughts of the unknowable, but you have yet to meet a Pokémon that can touch minds in the same way.

"Oh… right…" so this is what it feels like. She never thought her powers were so… invasive.

In my world, such communication is commonplace, but not here. Here, your minds, humans and Pokémon, are closed.

"Your world… but everyone from Ash's world… they can't…"

I am not of your world, or the other that has joined yours to become one. I am from elsewhere, a place much different from this one. A world unheard of by your ears and minds.

Another world? Guess she shouldn't be surprised. Clearly there were a universe's worth of possibilities out there. Even so… this was a lot to take in.

"Then how did you get here?"

The worlds, all the worlds, are not inseparable, and there are some places where the connection is strong. So strong that they pull towards each other, particularly in the event of calamity.

"Calamity? What calamity?"

For something that couldn't exist, it seemed so clear.

Ash and Galdion gazed at the 'sky', the stars continuing to swirl into seemingly impossible shapes, ebbing between images familiar and alien all at once.

"It is difficult to describe what this place is, but by now you are well aware that different worlds exist out there, containing versions of ourselves that are as alike as they are different," Mohn said.

"Yes… a bit too well actually…" Ash replied.

"There are places in our world where those worlds are 'connected'. In these places we can see the space between these worlds, places that exist outside of space and time. It was here that I sought to learn the secrets that eluded me."

"The ultra-wormholes," Gladion said.

"Yes," Mohn motioned toward the swirling vortexes in the sky. "My research brought me to this place, though this was far from what I was looking for. Instead, I found this place, the space between our world and the one that has joined it. Here, in the space between, where memories are etched into the stars."

The stars continued to swarm and contort, turning into a haze of black and red. Finally, the clouds coalesced into a form that they could recognize, a Pokémon that Ash was all too familiar with.

"Giratina…" Gladion broke the silence, saying the name that had begun to send shivers through Ash's spine.

The stars continued to coreless into even more shapes, forming giant spheres of green and blue. Each one unique in their own ways, but all of them undeniably the same.

Earth.

Giratina, with its long serpentine body that arched across the sky, slithered between the worlds, each time coming all too close before rapidly jolting away from each one.

"Giratina, a Pokémon that has been banished to its world, the distortion world," Mohn said. "It found a way to escape the distortion world, and existing outside the realms of reality, traveled through time and space. The memory doesn't say how, or why, but travel it did."

"Sir… how do you know all of this?" Ash asked, trying to keep himself together.

"Every time you witness the memory, you understand a bit more of it, each time. I've lost count of how often I've witnessed it myself," Mohn looked down, an aching disappointment etched on his face. "So many times, for so many years, years I should have been home with my family…"

"Dad…" Gladion reached out, placing his hand on his father's shoulder. "You just…" Gladion paused. There was so much he had to say, but he steeled himself. Regardless of what he wanted to say, there was only one thing that had to be said. "Please, continue. Tell us what's happening."

"Of… of course," Mohn raised himself, once again motioning to the sky, as Giratina continued to comb around the Earths. "It traveled to different worlds, and each time it was chased off."

"Chased off by what?" Ash asked.

"By their worlds Giratina. Some were stalwart defenders of their earths; others were violent recluses simply defending their territories. All were too much for Giratina to handle, so it continued to search. All until…"

A final Earth, their Earth. From the earth formed another Giratina, the one Ash befriended years ago.

"Like the others," Mohn continued. "Our Giratina fought against the invader. It battled bravely against the other Giratina, carrying its own memories of the people it sought to defend." Mohn looked at Ash, who couldn't help but smile at the thought.

"But this time was different…"

The Giratina of Earth was suddenly pierced by the vicious spikes of the other. Its body went limp as it was hoisted up, far above the planet, even beyond the starry sky. Its form began to disassemble, becoming a formless mass of ethereal light once more. The energy was then enveloped by the other Giratina, before disappearing altogether.

"Giratina… it lost," Gladion said.

"Yes. Our Giratina was not only defeated, but its very essence was consumed by the other. That is what caused our worlds to conjoin."

Ash felt the air leave his lungs and his veins run cold. Though they had only met a few times, Ash considered the legendary Pokémon to be as much of a friend as any other that he has met on their travels, and now it was gone. Gone in an act of seemingly needless cruelty. As he watched the remnants of his friend being absorbed into the visage of malevolence, he could feel a piece of his own soul disappearing with it as well.

"But… how?" Was all Gladion could ask, his mind at the brink of overloading.

"Another mystery, though I suspect that it has to do with Giratina's relation to dark matter. It is something that cannot be observed, and yet it is suspected to embody almost everything in existence. Perhaps when it merged with the other Giratina…" Mohn pondered for but a moment. "Regardless, you now understand what caused the merging of the worlds, and what you are up against."

"Giratinas strong…" Ash said. "Really strong, but how is he able to take control of people, like all those people on Ula'ula?"

"It's a power it gained from one of the other worlds. Though he would lose against the other Giratinas, it would learn and accumulate its own power over time, until finally it managed to defeat one here on our earth."

The odds felt insurmountable. Ash could feel the sweat on his brow building. Could they really stop… all this.

"Why… why all this?" Gladion said. "What does it want?"

"It wants our world, in its image. A world where every person and Pokémon is trapped under its control, to do as it sees fit."

Silence, as the stars began to dissipate and return to their neutral positions. The vibrant colors that once painted the scene above were gone, replaced by an unending, black void. As their vision turned dark as well, Ash and Gladion saw Mohn reach into his pocket.

"This is what you have come for," Mohn said as he placed the black shard into Ash's hand.

The trainers tried to respond, but they felt their bodies become weak. Gladion felt his muscles collapse and his eyes droop, an inexplicable fatigue washing over him and Ash as they fell to the ground. He could feel his mouth open, and he watched Ash do the same, but not a single sound came out of either of them. Mohn knelt beside Gladion, now collapsed on the nonexistent floor. The image of his father huddled over him was the last thing he saw before his vision went black.

"Gladion, take care of our little princess and your mother for me. Perhaps one day, we will meet once more, and become a family again. I love you, son."

Dad… no…. His final thoughts before oblivion.