Chapter 322: Ancient History
In the Distortion World, Giratina moved through the inverted space in its Origin Forme — six ghostly ribbon-like appendages trailing behind it like wings, their tips gleaming red, its legs drawn back into sharp pointed forms, four additional golden spines emerging near the tip of its tail. It was built for this place in a way its Altered Forme wasn't, fluid and enormous and entirely at home in the impossible geometry around them.
As Xerneas followed, Giratina spoke through telepathy, its voice filling the space around them without echo.
"This Distortion World, simply put, is the inverse of the natural world. Where the natural world teems with life, this space has none. Where the natural world has barren places, this space has abundance. It exists in opposition — not as the underworld you humans imagine, but as a mirror world, a counterweight." Giratina paused, and its red eyes slid toward Ryan. "It is also the world Arceus specifically built to exile me."
Lillie spoke up thoughtfully. "That tracks with what I read in the Canalave Library. One of the ancient texts described the Creation Trio — but the phrasing specifically referenced movement in time and vastness in space, meaning Dialga and Palkia. Giratina wasn't included in that description. If you were exiled, that would explain the omission."
Ryan sat cross-legged on Xerneas's back, relaxed, studying Giratina as he spoke. "I asked Arceus about this directly, and got the full account. You were created alongside Dialga and Palkia — the three of you appeared at the same moment in the earliest age of creation. But you were exiled because of your destructive nature. Arceus sent you here to keep you from going berserk and unraveling what it had made."
"Hmph. It feared my power."
Ryan found that genuinely funny. "No. No, Giratina, that's not it. You're not reading the situation correctly. You, Dialga, and Palkia were all created by Arceus — you're essentially its children. That's why it didn't destroy you outright, which it absolutely could have done. If you think exile was the limit of what Arceus is capable of, you have no idea what you're talking about." He tilted his head. "And just to be clear — you're not a match for Arceus. You're not even a match for Xerneas."
"You insolent little—"
The pressure hit immediately — Giratina's primal power surging outward in a wave, pressing down on Xerneas with the full weight of a Legendary Pokémon that had been the apex predator of this dimension for longer than recorded history. Xerneas glanced at it with complete indifference. The Life Domain it maintained didn't waver. Giratina's power washed over it and accomplished nothing.
Ryan kept his expression neutral. "Put it away. You've already met the other Giratina — the one that came to us from beyond. You know it surpasses you now. It let go of its old grudges, used them as fuel instead of weight, and trained in conditions that would have broken most Legendaries. That's the gap you're looking at. If that day comes and you're still at this level, you'll be swept aside. That's just the truth."
Giratina went quiet. Its expression — insofar as a creature of its scale had one — shifted through something complicated. It knew. The other Giratina had told it everything. The knot that had been sitting in its chest since Arceus's exile was not the kind of thing that dissolved easily — but the other version of itself had walked through something catastrophic before finally releasing it, and had come out the other side genuinely stronger. That path wasn't invisible to Giratina. It was just difficult.
"...You have nerve, kid. I'll give you that — it's irritating, but I respect it." Something shifted in Giratina's bearing — not quite a concession, but a stepping-back. "Take the Dragon Plate and Fairy Plate. Whatever my feelings about Arceus, I won't be anyone's foot soldier when the battle comes. I'll settle my own debts in my own way."
Ryan nodded. "Accepted."
He let a moment pass, then leaned forward slightly. "While we're here — I want to ask you something. You were there at the beginning, or close enough to it. You'd know things about the ancient world that no one else would." He looked at Giratina steadily. "In the ancient era, the Legendary Pokémon of land, sea, and sky — Groudon, Kyogre, Rayquaza — they existed in great numbers back then, entire lineages of them. Now there's one of each. I've seen the ancient era firsthand, through Celebi. What I saw there has been sitting with me. Why did things change so drastically?"
Lillie blinked. She turned to look at Ryan. Time travel through Celebi was apparently something that had happened and that she was only now hearing about.
Giratina was quiet for a long moment. When it spoke again, something in its tone had changed — older, slower.
"You'd probably be better off not knowing. But given what's coming..." It made a sound that might have been a sigh. "I'll tell you what I know."
Its red eyes went distant.
"I was exiled to the Distortion World early — early enough that I wasn't present for much of what followed. But I know this: in the ancient era, Legendary Pokémon didn't exist as solitary individuals. They lived in family groups, entire lineages. What you see now — one Groudon, one Kyogre, one Rayquaza — that's not how it was. At some point, Arceus took them. All of them. Gathered them up and brought them somewhere. Where, I don't know. But that act created a fracture — between the Legendary Pokémon and Arceus, a rift of trust that never fully healed."
Ryan fell into silence, turning the pieces over. Something about the shape of it felt slightly wrong — not in the sense of being false, but in the sense of a puzzle with a piece that almost fits and doesn't quite.
Xerneas asked quietly: "Then why weren't the Legendaries from the parallel worlds taken as well? If the parallel worlds branched from the main world's nodes, shouldn't their histories have followed the same path? And why do none of us carry memories of what came before?"
The question landed like a stone dropped into still water.
Ryan felt it click.
He let out a slow breath and smiled, though it didn't reach his eyes. "Arceus was really willing to pay that price."
Everyone looked at him. Ryan shook his head and didn't elaborate.
He kept what he'd worked out to himself. It involved Necrozma, and spreading that particular thread of reasoning before the right moment wasn't wise.
But the shape of it was clear to him now. Why had Arceus taken the Legendary lineages from the main world? Why had it been able to sever the parallel worlds — originally connected to the main world through shared nodes — and set them adrift independently? The answer to both was the same thing. Arceus had dispersed those Legendary families throughout the parallel worlds deliberately, embedding them there as anchors, using their own essence to hold those worlds separate and stable. It was an enormous sacrifice of connection to buy an equally enormous structural resilience.
The cost had been the fracture. The Legendaries had felt abandoned, taken from their homes and their lineages without explanation, and the rift that opened between them and Arceus had given Necrozma the leverage it needed — an opening to siphon away Arceus's power while the bonds of trust were thin. But Arceus, even diminished, had responded with a fury that only something defending its own children could produce. It had struck Necrozma hard enough to cripple it. And the other Legendaries, whatever their grievances, had been willing to help seal it away.
Cause and effect, running all the way back to the beginning.
Everything had a price. Arceus had known that and paid it anyway.
(End of Chapter)
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