Rot
It was clear that I was expected when I approached the "city" as a few armored men stood waiting for me. "Thou art earlier than expected but it is fortuitous timing as her Holinesses health hath taken a turn for the worst. Thine assistance would be of great aid please follow mine lead." One of the men said seriously and I nodded. We rushed through the city and despite the citizens being curious about myself they did not impede us. I got a fairly good look at the city as we went and for the most part it was like what you would expect.-
There were stalls selling various wares and people busy with their work while pokemon could be seen helping or just existing all over the place. The vast majority of the architecture was simple square stone buildings with various plants growing on and around them and hollow windows. The people were just normal people really with a general theme in terms of fashion but the odd outlier that was different. One such person was a man I had to actually check if had an ability as he was easily eight feet tall and looked like a mountain of muscle.-
Unlike most everyone else that had on full robes that covered them fully he only had on a sort of skirt or man dress kilt thing and leather sandals as he hauled a dead Tauros on his shoulder. The man did indeed have an ability by the way, the giant ability. It was a purely physical type ability and a passive one to boot but one that was highly coveted even in the present for a single reason, it allowed a non-aura master to match a pokemon.-
A weaker pokemon species of course but even then it was an ability that closed the gap between people and pokemon which was something many valued. As a result I wasn't surprised to see the man using his strength for manual labor like this as it fit. Anyways we soon arrived outside the palace/temple and I got to see the statues in better detail. The first thing I noticed was that there was none of the origin form from the game which made me wonder if the legendary only got it after it was banished to the distortion world.-
The second thing I noticed was that the sort of tattered ghostly dragon wings that Giratina had from the game in the altered form WEREN'T what was depicted here. In fact the wings shown here were more like those of bat or dragon with feathers covering them but otherwise fairly normal looking. I once again assumed that this was another change that came from being banished to the distortion world though I could have been wrong. Other than those slight changes I could honestly say that it looked almost exactly how I remembered it from the game. Obviously I couldn't tell what colors it had from mere statues but you get the idea.-
The inside of the palace/temple fixed that problem though as adorning the long walls on either side of it were morals painted in exacting detail that told me that the color scheme was not the one I remembered exactly. It was similar as the gold parts were still golden and the black parts were also the same. The biggest difference was that the light gray color that I remembered the skin being was in fact painted as purest white and the red parts were grass green.-
It was hard to explain but seeing this made me a little sad as the Giratina I knew was ominous and evil looking but this one was almost holy and pure. It was only by knowing what the before and after was that I realized just how badly Giratina had fallen. I was correct by the way in my assumption that the temple was also a palace as after this first main hall that was clearly meant for worship I was shown to a second area that was a spacious and well decorated bedroom that would have been a think of beauty if it wasn't for the scent of rot and death that filled the air.-
The source of this scent was the bed in the center of the room or rather the woman laying upon it. Her skin was wrapped in thick bandages but what skin I could see was gray and riddled with weeping wounds. Her breathing was shallow and strained while her eyes were sunken and dim. 'This is no simple disease like I guessed' I thought seriously as I ignored the smell and approached the bed to try and see what I could do. Don't get me wrong I was like ninety percent sure this was far beyond my capabilities but I wanted to take a crack at it anyways.-
I chose to drop all hiding to go all out here and removed my eyepatch before opening and activating my x-ray vision in both eyes. Some of the aura masters in the room guarding the priestess immediately reached for their weapons when I opened my dragon eye but a low old voice stopped them. "Halt men! He bears the blessing of a god and may be our ladies only hope." the old voice said seriously but I ignored it.-
What I saw of the woman's body was not good news at all as forget saving her I was amazed she was still alive. Half her organs were atrophied and decaying within her and her heart was beating so weakly that a small bit of extra strain might cause it to cease entirely. "So be it." I muttered resigned and held my hand above her torso. I channeled my aura into her body and immediately regretted it as despite what her body would make you assume her aura was powerful and retaliated at the intrusion harshly. The backlash of the retaliation hit me and I tasted copper as a vessel in my nose burst and started draining blood down my throat and down my face.-
"I'm trying to help you damn it!" I growled out but pushed my aura back into her body. I wasn't sure if she heard me or not but this time the resistance was much less than before and I soon found the source of the problem. It was a faint as though trying to hide but near the door to her heart I found a sort of presence that made me wary. It was fluctuating wildly between corrupting madness and stubborn resistance and I realized that I had the situation all wrong.-
The priestesses weren't being used to corrupt Giratina and thus appeared diseased but rather they were collectively trying to fend off whatever was corrupting Giratina and losing badly. 'Lets see if throwing my hat into the ring will help at all.' I thought as I stopped holding back and unleashed my full aura into the priestess. There were gasps from the aura masters in the room with me as I did so but I ignored them in favor of following this connection back to Giratina to fight off whatever was attempting to corrupt it.
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