Reverse World ~ Core

[Namohysip]

Deep in the blue void, away from all the islands that were now decidedly above them, was a place where not even the ethereal light of the Reverse World reached. The surroundings darkened and went from deep blue to midnight to complete darkness. Any trip here required a fall, where even normal flying and wings would not be enough to escape the gravity well that pulled them down.

And yet, at the same time, any passerby's fall would also slow and slow and slow until, with little more than a gentle thud, they would crash onto soft, black ground that was neither mud nor water, but something in between. Solid, singular, impregnable, but jelly-like. It moved and shifted on its own. Those in these depths glowed at any part of this ground that they contacted, like it was reacting to their very energy. It was also the only illumination they would provide for themselves, aside from elemental attributes.

Otherwise, this lumpy flatland seemed to be completely empty.

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Starr and Brisa arrived with that similar characteristic thud, the cool ground welcoming them. Without any sound or light, it was like the cave all over again, only this time without any water. But Boulder and Pebble wouldn't lie to them, would they? This was surely where they would be saved! It wasn't... some void of nothing at the depths of the Reverse World, right?

In the total darkness, left and right was meaningless. It all looked the same.

All except for a pair of red dots in the distance--eyes?--looking at them... and coming rapidly closer.

 

[Chibi Pika]

Starr hit the ground with a thud that knocked the wind out of her and jolted her into alertness from the Radiance-induced stupor. She slowly picked herself up from the dirt and shook herself off. Her eyes opened to darkness, and for a single heart-stopping moment she thought she was back in the pit again (god no, not that again) until she saw it.

Red eyes. Rapidly approaching.

"Whoa, hang on, what the hell?" she cried, flames lighting up across her back.

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

Brisa stuck the landing, and the jolt of impact was nearly enough to make her retch, were there anything in her stomach to void. She was beyond being fazed by the absurdity of their new environment. Just add it to the tally of stressful experiences.

She decided, somewhere in her crackling, exhausted mind, that this was the being that Pebble and Boulder had mentioned. Bizarre as this plane of existence was, she had to trust them. She didn't really have a choice.

"Starr," she growled weakly, "keep your fuckin' hackles down. This is Giratina: she's our ticket home."

 

[Namohysip]

In no time, Giratina was closer, the details of her eyes and the golden, gleaming features of the wyrm coming into view. Her intense eyes softened into something that might have been relief.

"Finally! I've been looking all over for you guys!" Giratina said; despite her huge size, her voice was higher in pitch, more like a teenage adolescent than anything. "Okay, sorry, I know you guys must be really tired. My place is a mess and I can't really clean it up. I'll--stop talking now. Ready to go back? I'll just throw you wherever I think your friends are."

Already, a hazy, black fog collected around the two of them, and it seemed like the ground was trying to swallow them up.

 

[Chibi Pika]

Starr took a step back without thinking. A Legendary? Yeah, definitely a Legendary, without question. She glared at the huge dragon. "Yeah, that's great, amazing job at finding us--now get us the hell home."

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

Brisa sighed. She was at her goddamn limit.

"Yes, Ma'am. Please send us to Cibus, thank you."

Shut up, Starr, oh my fuckin' gods.

 

[Namohysip]

"All right," Giratina said, though she did look them over a little longer than necessary. She looked like she wanted to do something with them, but never said it out loud. Instead, she sighed and let the ground take them.

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[Namohysip]

Giratina landed with her siblings like before, looking left and right. With three heads, it was basically impossible for them to miss anything... not that it would be very hard.

"Whoa..." Cal looked around, testing her feet on the strange semisolid ground. "What is this place?"

"The very dark depths of the Reverse World," Giratina said. "The center of chaos, like the eye of a storm. It's difficult to get out of a place like this alive... without my help, at least. Even flying won't take you up. But..." Giratina looked around. "It seems being able to shift through reality itself isn't enough to stop Darkwhite..."

She gestured with a wing-claw ahead. There was a cluster of embers there, huddled together like they were looking for warmth. Each individual ember disappeared, one by one, very slowly. They looked like Charmander...

 

[Virgil134]

Pleo looked at all the Charmander worriedly. "Is there anything we can do to help them?"

 

[Namohysip]

"Maybe," Cal said. "C'mon, let's go take a look. And not just because I'm kinda-sorta the same species." It probably had a small amount to do with it.

Further ahead, the Charmander were huddled together and shivering. Ethereal, their faces were in perpetual smiles, but their eyes were riddled with fear.

"Shield... why did we hurt him so much? Why are we like this...?"

"Sword..." Cal winced. "Are... you here? What's--no, you guys are more illusions, but..." She looked back at the others, not sure what to make of it.

 

[Flyg0n]

"Sword! If you're here, show yourself! We want to help you!" Koa shouted. He had no idea if calling out would work, if Sword could even here him or if they were even really here...

From what he understood, Sword had been appearing everywhere, all over the place. Somehow.

"Is there anything we can do to get past the illusions?" He racked his brain, but came up with nothing.

 

[Namohysip]

"Koa," Cal said, "these Charmander are Sword. She looked like a Mew before, but before that, according to Shield, she had been a Charmander. These... are projections of her, or something. Look--it's gonna be okay." She turned back to the huddled illusions. "We're gonna help you, alright? Where are you right now?"

The Charmander all looked away. They listened to Koa. "I'm somewhere dark... A place called Worldcore... if I stay too long... I don't know what'll happen..."

 

[Flyg0n]

Ok... so they weren't illusions, but projections. Somehow she was projecting herself everywhere. But what now?

Maybe however she had gotten trapped could offer a clue on how to get out? He lowered his voice, trying to speak as comfortingly as he could, like talking to an injured Pokemon. Which, in a way, she was. Just somehow a Pokemon that was both a Mew and Charmander. "It's going to be okay, we're going to get you out. Tell us how you got there. Are you trapped by something?"

 

[Phoenixsong]

"Worldcore? Is that connected to the Reverse World's Core at all? Is that why so many of the Sword-things are coming through here? Can we get to her from here?" Araun asked Giratina. He whined a little before tentatively approaching the fading phantasms. "Sword, did Giovanni do this to you? Or did you get away and this seemed like a good place to hide? What happened?"

Skara hung back, not quite as comfortable getting near the things after whatever-that-was. But... hm. She frowned a little, then managed to scoot herself back a ways, near where the slaking was standing. Once again she tried to watch S'more. Any sign of any reaction to Sword's answer, to Araun's mention of Giovanni... it was hardly likely that he'd start panicking, given he'd managed to remain cool for so long, but... anything at all? Any kind of angle she could use to try asking him something...?

 

[Namohysip]

S'more looked contemplative, like he was mulling over every word being said. This wasn't unlike how several others were behaving, though--certainly trying to solve the mystery presented to them. S'more didn't appear to be acting suspicious at all.

"It's going to be okay, we're going to get you out. Tell us how you got there. Are you trapped by something?"

"I don't remember... I was... taken. When he took me..."

"Giovanni, when Giovanni captured you..."

"I remember... I was picked up... I was still inside that... thing... Someone set a Charizard free... I don't know..."

A dark realization passed over the team. "Wait, the person who stuffed you in the Worldcore also freed Red?" Cal asked.

"Then it was a spy," S'more said. "Someone sabotaged Giovanni. Perhaps he was also responsible for destabilizing Joule enough to rebel..."

 

[Flyg0n]

What would Kitto do in something like this? Koa frowned, his gaze drifting across the group and stealing a brief glance at S'more, who he recalled the team had wanted to keep an eye on. Nothing seemed to be off. He turned back to Sword. Kitto probably would have known the right questions to ask.

"Please," Koa said. "Do you remember anything? Maybe something about who freed the Charizard?" Could she have meant Red? "Like a voice... or a smell or something."

 

[Phoenixsong]

"How can we help you?" Araun asked, reaching a paw toward one of the flickering charmander. "Is there anything we can do? Anything else Giovanni or this other person did to you that we can undo?"

 

[Namohysip]

"I don't know... It was so hard to tell... I don't think it was anybody, but I knew someone was there. I didn't see anyone..." Sword huddled as even more of the Charmander disappeared. There were only a handful left. "They saved us from Mewtwo but then put us... there... I... I feel myself... spreading more and more... where will I go...? when there's nothing of me left..."

 

[Flyg0n]

Koa listened intently to Sword's swords, trying to figure something out, anything. A clue or detail that could help. "You said 'put us there', do you mean someone put you and Red into the Worldcore? Were you trapped with someone?"

He paused, contemplating. More of the Charmander were vanishing. Was Sword fading away? He had a distinct feeling they were running out of time. "Do you mean you literally didn't see anyone, like they were invisible?" Not many Pokemon could become invisible, he was pretty sure.

 

[Phoenixsong]

The phantasm that Araun had reached for winked out of existence just before he touched it. "No!" he cried. He lunged for another one that was starting to fade, tried to grab it as though he thought he could pull it free even though it wasn't really there. "Please hang on, please hang on a little longer!"

Skara frowned. S'more had thoughts about the spy, did he? If he really was involved... had he done that, she wondered, and was now just trying to maintain the veneer of not being involved? Or was he speculating about one of his (former?) allies? No way to tell at the moment, and not much to be gained by pressing that angle directly, she imagined, but maybe Sword could remember something about at least one spy, from before... whatever this was.

"Sword," she asked quickly, "I know it's hard right now, and I promise we're going to find a way to get to you, but if you can... do you remember anything at all about what the mewtwo and his allies were doing? Before all this happened, before this person took you to the Worldcore. Anything about who was there? We know there was a second, strange mewtwo, and we think there were at least two others—one of them might have been a small pokémon and one a little bigger. Maybe one of them might've sounded masculine, and the other difficult to identify? Does that ring any bells? If there's any chance one of those people did this to you, then figuring out who they are means we can figure out what they did."