#my brain has been stewing in pla hcs for so long

[jolynejay]

The pitch black void where Rei/Akari/The player meet Arceus before entering the game's world of Hisui is The Distortion World.

Giratina dragged its marks into the Distortion World where they wandered for an indeterminate amount of time. The Distortion World in turn messes with the people that enter it, as it is theorized to be the anti-matter parallel mirror to its paired counterpart of the material world. And of course matter interacting with anti-matter (the fictional version of anti-matter mind you) will always have consequences.

(wow, it's almost as if the distortion world is some kind of underworld/after-life analogy that might explain how people and items can become pokemon. or how some pokemon become entirely different variations of pokemon by being distorted and twisted. how the world of the dead might twist the living and even its own ruler *cough cough* though that's a headcanon for another time)

Someone forced to wander the Distortion World for a long time might for example find themselves loosing their memories (points at MC & Ingo who are both very disoriented & have varying degrees of memory loss). Or maybe you'd find yourself fragmented into different parts or versions of yourself that reflect your views on yourself which also reflects back onto "the real world" (see: character creation and the rival character, for example.)

And when you wander the Distortion World long enough - a place outside of the realms space and time, might I remind you - you stumble through one of its cracks where the worlds of matter and anti-matter intersect for but a moment on their streams toward infinity. You fall through the void between the worlds.

And only then can Arceus interfere. It may not be able to return you to your original world and timeline, it is after all, not all powerful despite its status as The Original One and abilities of creation. Arceus may create concepts, pokemon, and possibly worlds but it holds no direct control over them.

So, what it can do, for a moment, is to guide you. Give you - the player and the character - a purpose when you have likely lost so much of your "self" already - of the champion that once managed to earn Arceus' respect and favor in battle.

And the crack in the space-time-continuum that looms above Mount Coronet like the Crow of the World, connecting this reality to the distorted mirror dimension, spits you out.

Miraculously unharmed, like an act of apology by a creature that is assigned more power than it holds, you open your eyes in a world that is not your own.

Displaced in space and time through the distorted world that is not slave to these forces. Displaced by a man and a pokemon unendingly desperate and vengeful for being forsaken, cursed, by one they once revered.