Chapter 24: A Deal With The Devil

Dark, so dark… John couldn’t see anything. It felt almost like he was in an egg again, trapped and with no light in sight. He felt weird, it was like reality shattered all around him and now he was left in the deep dark abyss.

What happened to him? Where was he? Was this a dream? If so, why couldn’t he wake up? The Joltik tried to speak, but his mouth wouldn’t open, possibly being blocked by something. Not only that, but he felt his whole body being blocked, his eyes, his mouth, even his… oh god, he couldn’t breathe!

The greenish spider tried to struggle, trying to break free from his prison. He was slowly but surely losing oxygen, he needed desperately to escape or else he was gonna die of suffocation! 

“Hold on a bit more, little bug. We’re getting there.”

A voice snapped John out of his thoughts and he started thinking frenetically. ‘What’s going on, who the hell is talking!? What is happening to me!?’ Before he could panic even more, he felt all of his body loosen, a feeling of an ethereal touch leaving his body. The Joltik opened his eyes, blurriness fading away from the vision as started breathing again, coughing a little bit as well. “Man… what the hell…?”

John looked around and saw that he was in some kind of… what the hell was this place? There were floating islands everywhere, some sideways and others upside down, all having some kinds of dead trees and teal-colored bushes. Some farther islands had some twisted and tilted buildings on them, looking back where he was standing, there was a twisted building as well. The skies around him appeared in the color of the ocean, with purple vortexes swirling around them as well. In some places, there was purple smog clouding the air. 

The Joltik looked absolutely frightened in the nightmarish world he just entered. “W-what is this place… where the hell am I…!?”

“So what the duo said was true…” A voice reverberated throughout the place, deep and ethereal. John glanced around frantically, trying to find the source of the voice. “Your soul is unusual from other Pokémon… to think that they found a human, huh? You’re a unique one, that’s for sure.”

John started shaking as he asked while stuttering. “W-w-who are you? W-what is this place…? If-if this is a damn prank, it ain’t fucking funny!”

A big and long figure passed right above John, leaving a monstrous-looking shadow, however, once John looked up, nothing was there. “Before I show myself to you, let me clarify one thing before you faint like some humans who have met me. No, I will not hurt you, no matter how scary and intimidating I look. And two, my goal here is just to have a friendly conversation because you intrigued me, are we clear, little bug?”

The greenish spider looked around hesitantly as he slowly nodded. Now he was finally getting what that interview from yesterday was all about- wait… was that the so-called Great One talking? It’s actually fucking REAL? “U-uh… y-yeah… sure.” The Joltik took a deep breath, he promised the twins he wouldn’t freak out once he saw the Great One, it’s alright, he could do this. “I… I promise I’m gonna be different from… whoever… came before me…”

Another shadow passed by John, making him flinch again. “Good. Well then, allow me to introduce myself.” Suddenly, the menacing shadow stopped in front of John and started getting wider and bigger. John looked up and saw something that made his heart almost come out of his body. From above, came a massive gray, black, and red-striped serpentine creature. And by massive, he meant it, as it looked like they were the size of one of those twisted buildings. The creature had six yellow-tipped spikes coming out from the sides on the middle of its body and four minor spikes on its lower half, six black tendrils with red pointy tips, and six golden rib-like body parts on the upper half. Their head had a golden face plate on their mouth that also acted as some kind of helmet to the entire face while having two black and red eyes. John looked at the creature in wonder and absolute fear as he took in its body features- 

Wait a second… six, six, six… John’s eyes widened as he stuttered. “ T-t-t-t-THE FUCKING DEVIL!? ”

“Incorrect.” The giant serpent lowered itself, levitating some meters above the ground. “My name is Giratina and I am the owner of this realm.” John tried to stutter something before Giratina interrupted him. “Before you say the word hell one more time, as humans usually say once they find out about this place. This isn’t the hell in your religion. This is the Distortion World. A word that mirrors the normal one, the reverse side of the original one. Everything that happens here has an effect on the other side as well, so it is my duty to keep everything in order.”

John wanted to scream, piss himself again, absolutely get the fuck out of there, just be away from everything related to this world and whatever it is that this devil wannabe is- John simply slapped himself in the face. ‘Man the fuck up, John! Stop being absolutely scared of everything like some kind of bug rat and start facing things like the man you fucking are!’ The Joltik, not only took one deep breath but multiple as Giratina just waited until he was done. John looked back at the legendary, opening his mouth, hesitating a bit to speak. “I…….” He took another deep breath and forcefully smiled at Giratina. “Hello… Giratina… name’s John and… nice uh… nice to meet you… O G-Great One…” Mentally, he started panicking a bit. ‘I can’t believe those damn mice actually worshipped an actual eldritch fucking horror!’

To the bug’s surprise, Giratina sighed and crossed two of its tendrils together. “Wow, way better reaction than the other humans who first saw me. Look, no need to treat me like I’m some kind of god. Yes, I may have immortality and own a world but, I honestly do not care about respect like some other legendaries do. So you can say whatever you have on that little mind of yours, I won’t care.”

The Joltik shakily asked. “S-so… you’re not gonna take my soul or eat me if I said like-”

The serpentine started laughing with a sound that reverberated across their location. “Almost every human who met me said that, and it’s too damn funny!” It calmed down from its laughing fit before looking back at him. “I can’t do that. I am the deity of antimatter, not souls. Now thinking about the previous humans… you’re actually handling better than the others. The Tandemaus were right about you.”

John sheepishly laughed as he looked away. “Gee… thanks…” He then looked back at Giratina. “Uh… I’m sorry but… I have too many damn questions on my mind…”

The antimatter deity nodded. “It is understandable. But since I answered many humans like you, I may know what certain questions might be. So… there are other beings like me, but I treat them as my… spoiled brothers. One controls time and the other controls space.” John shivered at the thought of having other gods like it around the world, he hoped he wasn’t as unlucky to meet one of them. “Another answer is yes, I know that you are a human because I looked at your soul. And since there were others of your kind that came here, I do know how to tell the difference between a normal Pokémon and a human that turned into a Pokémon.”

John slowly nodded his head at that. “R-right… and who were these humans before me? And what happened for them to be here…?”

Giratina tapped its chin with a tendril. “Well, if my memory doesn’t fail me… some humans wanted to test their strength against me, so I agreed, and joined their exploration teams for a short amount of time because I simply had nothing better to do. There was another time that I helped a human cross the world by using the Distortion World, they said that it wasn’t really a pleasant experience. Oh!” Its body shifted as it did a small twirl. “There was also a time I summoned a human as well since I felt a disturbance on the other side that was going to get worse. Yes, she was a recent one, once I looked at her red eyes, she looked like she lost all hope… quite a sad one indeed.” It then looked back at John. “Ah, sorry, I was too caught up in the past.”

John waved a nub off as he looked away. “It’s… fine.” He then looked back at the large deity who was leaning closer. He instantly took several steps back. “A-anyways… uh… about the mice twins uh… what is their deal with worshiping you as some kind of God for their… cult? You um… really don’t act like a godly figure that wants “ vessels ” for sacrifices.”

The serpentine deity chuckled as it landed on the ground. “Ah, Popo and Nana… you see, I am actually their guardian.”

“WHAT!?”

Giratina frowned behind its helmet and looked away. “You see, their story is kinda sad… their family was slaughtered on the spot, right in front of their eyes, by wild Arbok…” its tone shifted to a serious one. “They were going to be the dessert if it wasn’t for me stepping in when I was just wandering around.”

John looked down. “Oh…” He didn’t know that something like that happened to those mice. It kinda explains a bit about their full cult-like devotion to Giratina. “What… happened next?”

“Well… I took them in. And this is the part where they started thinking that they should worship me for some reason.” The deity opened its mouth plate, revealing its big maw and releasing a sigh. “After I gave them free access to the Distortion World by giving them a tiny spec of my powers and increased their lifespan, they started leaving and coming back with dead Pokémon, all wild ones, for me to eat. Yes, I may be grateful for them as I am an omnivore myself. However… it was incredibly alarming once they brought a live and civilized Pokémon in here. I told them that is not right so they put him back in their place. Now, all I hear about is that they want to find a perfect “ sacrifice ” for me. They thought about using you for that.”

John rubbed the top of his head. “Yeah, I noticed that… wait a second, if you’re… well, an antimatter deity or something, wouldn’t Pokémon be afraid of you if you enrolled those two in Obelisk High?”

The Jotik could see Giratina smiling now. “Heh, well, I knew that. So yes, I figured that would be the case, so I searched for a school that is relatively less populous. And I found a perfect one, being led by an Ultra Beast from the incident from cycles ago would be perfect. But since I didn’t want to reveal myself to the whole school, I asked Popo and Nana to bring the director here and told him about their situation.” The dragon shrugged with the tendrils. “It went better than expected as the director not only accepted them and also took them in so they had a better place to live!”

John looked at one of the twisted buildings around the place. “Yeah… I don’t see any creatures living here… although probably some weird type Pokémon would find it here quite comfortable…”

“Heh, they just might…” Giratina looked aside before looking back at John. “I believe it is time for my own set of questions… it is the first time that I saw a human turn into a Joltik… it never happened before.” It leaned closer to the small spider, lowering its head and trying its best to get to the Joltik’s level.  “Is there something about you that relates to that?”

“Well…” John looked away, really embarrassed. “Uh… I don’t know if it’s because of this or not but… I have this… fear of bugs that I cannot explain to anyone without looking like a whiny baby. Had this when I was, like… six years old or something around that time.” He saw that the dragon deity stared at him with a confused look. “Yeah… uh… weird fear, right?”

“No, it’s not that. You’re saying that… you remember your childhood?”

“Well of course my memory is a bit blurry for when I was a baby, but yes I remember my childhood perfectly fine, why do you ask?”

The giant dragon stayed silent for a moment. “Your memories… how were they kept…?”

“Huh…? What do you mean?”

Giratina started circling around the small bug, worrying him a little as he kept an eye on it. “Every human that comes to this world has their memories erased. Either the deity who summoned the human erases them themselves by possibly thinking it would hold the human back from doing the mission, or by the side effects of changing into a new body.”

John tilted his head with a frown. “Wait, I should’ve gotten my memories erased?”

The giant serpent nodded as it stopped circling. “Indeed. But not to worry, some humans recovered their memories later on in their journeys. But you…” Giratina looked away in thought before looking at John. “How much do you remember from your human past?”

The Joltik looked aside, hesitating for a little if he should tell the antimatter deity or not. He decided to go with the former. “… everything…”

It hummed before fidgeting with a big rock on the ground. “Could you tell me how you came into this world? Some humans come here by either dying or getting pulled into this world. How did you come here?”

John put a nub on his chin. “Well… if I remember correctly… some ethereal girlish voice grabbed my soul after I died wanting me to stop someone. Then… I woke up in an egg. I was basically born again, for… some reason.” He shrugged as best as he could.

“Huh…” Giratina leaned closer to the Joltik, startling him a little as it analyzed him. “Yes, the aura around your body feels… like a baby…” It leaned back, rubbing its head with a tendril. “You really are unique indeed. Other humans that came before you, always woke up in a new body by either falling out of the sky or just waking up anywhere close to their objective. But this… hm… actually this will make answering the other question a bit easier… come with me.”

“Wait wha- EEK!” Giratina quickly snatched John with one of its tendrils and put him on top of its head. The small Joltik was shaken up before he recovered a little. ‘I thought they were gonna eat me…’ He thought before Giratina started flying through the massive world of creepy floating islands. The last thing John expected in his weird life was to ride a god dragon, that reminded him of Satan, through a parallel dimension. John looked down at the giant dragon and hesitantly asked. “W-where are you taking me…?”

“Don’t worry, I’m only taking you to a place which you may find interesting…” The Joltik was unsure if that was the case, his anxiety was slowly getting to him. What was so important to show for a question? No, he shouldn’t let that get through his head, panicking was the last thing to do at the moment. After a certain while, Giratina stopped near an upside-down island and looked around with its eyes closed before opening them. “Alright, this is the place.”

“So… what do you want to show me?”

The dragon looked upwards, not quite looking at John. “Around some weeks ago, I felt some kind of disturbance with the Distortion World, so I went to check it out. Once I arrived at the disturbance, I realized that it wasn’t a disturbance but rather… an expansion.” John tilted his head in confusion. “John… is this your world?” Giratina put its tendrils in front of it, and with a lot of force, started tearing up the fabric of space.

“WHAT THE!?”

The dragon finished tearing up a hole in the air, making a portal that radiated dark energy to the other side. The dragon went through it along with John with his eyes closed, leaving them on the other side with dark blue skies surrounding them. They were floating in the air, clouds surrounding them as birds fle- wait, BIRDS!? No… don’t get hopes up, not enough proof that those were actually birds or just Pokémon John had never seen before. John looked down and a lot of lights from what looked like a city before realizing they were a bit too high for his comfort, making him look away from the massive fall. “U-um… could you… go down a bit… I need to see the city down there a bit better…”

Giratina, already in its altered form, looked down as its eyes widened a little in surprise. “Oh, a city.” It looked up again. “Alright then. Hold on to me.” It held John on one of its wing claws tightly and started to slowly descend.

“W-wait a second! When or… how did your appearance change!?” John asked in surprise as he saw Giratina’s new form. It kept the usual color scheme, sprouting six legs, black wings with six red spikes, and a tail while also keeping the six golden ribs and helmet, although now John could see the creature’s mouth.

The dragon deity chuckled. “I have two forms for each dimension.”

“Oh… I see…”

They descended a bit more before Giratina landed on top of an illuminated skyscraper, its six legs making the roof tremble a little. It put John on the ground and turned its claw into three red spikes again. “Alright, here we are, John. Can you tell if this is your world or not?” 

John looked around the roof of the building, there was an elevator door standing close to the edge while in the middle of the roof, there was a large rectangular pool. Around the pool, there are white pool chairs and parasols. It seemed like they were in a luxurious building. “Hm… I don’t know, since the Pokémon world is so similar to mine, I need to at least see one human.” He looked at the edge of the building and started walking towards it. “I’ll take a look at the edge.”

“Alright then.” The antimatter deity looked at the filled-up pool beside it. “Meanwhile, I’ll drink a little.”

The Joltik looked back and shouted. “Wait, don’t!” Giratina looked at him while tilting its head. “If it’s uh… my world, then I wouldn’t recommend drinking the water, there might be some chemicals that-”

The dragon chuckled. “What do you take me for? I can’t get sick, I’m the literal embodiment of antimatter, dummy. And also, before you ask, yes, I am a being that needs to drink and eat. However, I don’t need sleep.” With that, the antimatter deity lowered its neck and started drinking the water from the pool, taking large gulps as it refreshed its throat.

John couldn’t help but sigh as he walked towards the building. He hopped on the glass surrounding the roof and looked down. As the Joltik looked down, his stomach clenched as he realized they were so high up. “Geez, this place is so high…” He muttered as he narrowed his vision, however, the place was so high that he couldn’t really tell if there were humans or not. It really looked like a human city, that’s for sure. However, he needed to make sure that this was indeed his world and not some parallel copy of it. John looked back at Giratina. “So, I can’t-”

Ding!

John and Giratina looked at the elevator as the doors automatically opened. From the elevator, came a brown-haired man wearing a white robe. He froze at the sight of Giratina. When the antimatter looked aside before letting out a simple “Hi?”, the man screamed “WHAT THE FUCK!?” as he started pressing some buttons on the elevator.

John panicked at the sight of a human and hopped on the ground again. “Wait! Ugh, forget it! Giratina, take us out of this world now!”

In an instant, Giratina nodded as John jumped in the air. Giratina snatched the Joltik off the air with its wing claw and started flying away, leaving a gust of wind and small waves on the water as it flapped its wings. The antimatter deity clawed through the fabric of space once again and opened another portal to the Distortion World, entering it. Giratina put the Joltik on its head after changing to its original form. “So… was that your world?”

After panting for a bit, trying to calm down from the high-paced moment, John responded. “Yes… from the reaction and that guy alone… I can definitely confirm that’s indeed my world…” John sighed. He couldn’t believe it, he thought that he would never be able to go back, but now… he found a way to go back to his world! If… the giant antimatter deity allows, that is. “Geez, I can’t believe that’s actually true…”

“Well then, that really answers some questions…” The dragon rubbed its chin with one of its tendrils. “But why is my world suddenly connected to yours…? It has never happened before since humans always come to this world.”

John thought about it for a second before a realization hit him. “Wait… when did you say your world was expanded…?”

“Like I said before… some weeks ago.”

John facepalmed himself with his nub as he muttered. “Fucking Asuri…”

“Wait, that company that brought a lot of technological advancements to this world?” Giratina asked as it picked up John and put him on a floating island. “What about it?”

“Wait, you know about it?”

“Well, of course! Popo and Nana show me everything. So, there is this thing called the internet, and did you know? There is a lot of art of me in there! I look amazing in those!” Giratina gloated and John scratched his side sheepishly. “What?”

‘How the fuck he didn’t reach the porn section? If my knowledge of the internet is right, there is porn for every Pokémon… right? … Hopefully not…’ John rubbed the top of his head before speaking. “So you see… the internet might be the cause of the expansion since… this internet is the same in my world.” 

Giratina stared silently at John. “Holy distortion… how did I not notice that before? It’s all connected! But… how is that possible…?”

John shrugged with his forenubs. “Hell if I know, Asuri must be hiding something, all of their techs are exact copies of my world.” He got on all fours again and looked around. “So… is that all you wanted to talk about?”

“Yes, I believe that is it…” Giratina looked in the distance with a serious look. “I will investigate Asuri to see what else are they planning behind their public image.” It looked back at the Joltik. “Once my investigation ends, I will come back to you with information while you get me more info on what is happening on the other side. I won’t involve Popo and Nana in this, it will be a deal between us. Understood?” 

John nodded. “Understood. I also want to get to the bottom of this. Thankfully, Obelisk High was invited to visit one of Asuri’s buildings on Friday next week. I think it’s the main one but I’m not really sure. But, I might be able to get more info there.”

“That is good. Then it is a deal.” Giratina extended one of its big tendrils towards the tiny spider and stopped in front of him.

John flinched a little before nodding and pressing a nub on Giratina’s tendril. Upon further inspection, he saw how tiny he was compared to the tip of the tendril. It made John’s stomach clench a little. After all, he is making a deal with what seems like the Devil, or something. Giratina retracted its tendril and John rubbed the top of his head. “So uh… thanks for explaining everything and all but uh… could you please take me back? To the house you took me from in the Pokémon world, I mean.”

Giratina nodded and grabbed John with its tendrils again and started to fly again. After flying for a couple of minutes, the Joltik and the antimatter deity reached a reflective mass of land. “Alright, here we are. This is where you were before I took you.”

“Oh yeah… I kinda entered through a mirror… didn’t I?”

Giratina nodded. “Well, I’m afraid that it is time to go our own ways for now. I will contact you again on Saturday next week, understand?”

John nodded. “Alright.” john looked aside before looking back at the big serpent. “You know, for a deity that owns a realm, you don’t… really act like a god…” Which made him a bit more comfortable when speaking to such a big and horrifying deity.

Giratina shrugged with its remaining tendrils. “Heh, why the need to act like a god since I’m just considered “Arceus’ rebellious child” by historians.”

“Wait, wha-”

“Goodbye John, see you.” The big serpent said before shoving John into the reflective surface, making him appear in Claire’s room again. The tendril released him and the Joltik fell on the ground.

“Ugh…” John looked around as he rubbed the top of his head. He saw that Claire and Elsa were still asleep and that it was still kinda dark. He looked at the clock on the wall, it pointed at 3:33 AM. John sighed and looked back at Claire. “How the hell am I gonna explain all of that to everyone…?”