He opens his eyes. He's laying on the forest floor. There's a cool breeze blowing, in the distance he smells an open meadow. It's around noon. He pushes himself to his paws, wondering distantly when he got paws and how he came to be some small. He looks around for any nearby Pokémon to talk to. There's only one... a curious looking Absol. Because he's laying down it looks like she's looming over him. "Hey are you okay? Did you faint here or something?" she asks.

He blinks up at her. Even standing, she's still taller than him. "Um... I can't remember? Who are you?"

"Wow, that must have been a really tough attack," she blinks. "I haven't seen you around before, but I'm Abby, Abby the Absol. I hear there's been a lot more attacks here recently so perhaps you should come with me. You can rest up some more at my shack. It's nothing much but I like it."

"Oh, thanks!" he scampers up next to her as they head out. "My name's Arceus, by the way."

Abby laughs. "That can't be true. That's the worst joke I've heard all week. You're just a Cyndaquil."

"Wh-what? I thought you were just really tall!" Arceus glances around for a pool of water - he dashes over to one and looks at his reflection. "No... this can't be happening! How did I become a Cyndaquil? That's impossible!" he steps away. "I... I can't even turn myself back..." Arceus concentrates, but no dice. "I swear to me I'm Arceus! Please do call me so."

"Um, you're kind of weird but it'd be considered blasphemy by all the towns people. They're evolutionists, I hope you know. Some don't even believe in Arceus so you ought to stop with that or you'll get beat up worse than you already were. Perhaps that's why you got pummeled so bad. Anyway, I'm going to call you Arcy okay?"

"Okay..." he was having a mental breakdown, when his stomach rumbles. "Oh! Perhaps we should eat something?"

Abby goes to her side pouch and pulls out an oran berry. "Every good explorer always has these on hand all the time"

Arcy takes a bite out of the berry. "Oh, so you're an explorer?"

"Of course, got my badge right here. Actually I recently lost a large portion of my team and have been looking for new members avidly. Would you like to join?"

"In that case, yeah! I would like to join! Maybe along the way we can find out why I turned into a Cyndaquil!"

"You're a little weird, but if you're joining, then you're a keeper."

"Hey, thanks! ... Wait... Hey!"

"What? It's hard to come around help and even harder to come around good help these days, and greedy help is everywhere masquerading as good help so you can't trust anyone that doesn't sound a little insane."

"Well... then I guess that's a complement?" Arcy was so confused now. "Who else is on the team, anyway?"

"Um, me, a few other choice individuals. You'll meet them. I'm currently Guild Master because the last three died... We've got a total of ten members including you. Three are off on a mission."

"And they all live in a shed?"

"Naw, the shed is just closer, and we meet there. You look like shit though so I figured you'd want to stop there and take a proper rest. If you think you could make it to the guild we could go to the guild."

"Yeah, I could make it!" He puffs up the flames. "I don't feel all that terrible.

"That's good, a spunky kid."

"...If I may ask, why did the guild die?"

Abby goes silent at the question. "Well. It's a long story but we've got a long walk. So basically I was a new recruit when it first started. Fresh off the line, ya' know? I started as an apprentice and had to give next to all my money to the guild and occasionally that sucked but I loved it. I'd wake up go on a mission and then go to bed dead tired just to wake up and help someone else the next day. After about two moons that all changed though. First it was the guild master who got sick, and this sickness eats away at you. First it goes for your throat making it sore but very soon you can't talk at all, and it spreads from there. Eventually we had to kill him. It was too sad to watch him writhe in agony like that but for some reason it's a very selective disease. It seems to not even be a disease but some people were theorizing it was a curse.

"Long story short, everyone from ten moons before I arrived and younger was safe. It took two long years though to see everyone die. At first we thought people could pull through it but eventually... We learned that it was impossible and painful... My first mentor was the last person we had to kill. All the others killed themselves. But as a guild we need to stay because without a guild the town would fall apart. With so few people though it appears we're being overwhelmed with missions, and they're more dangerous than we should be handling. It's kind of painful to think about. I should probably say more but just…" Abby whimpers slightly.

"Oh, I'm sorry... " Arcy pats her side sympathetically. "I didn't know..."

"It's okay, but you need to know that there are some dangerous things going on recently." Abby stands up straight. "I'm the new Guild Master because I've proved myself over the past couple years."

"I'll keep it in mind... By the way, what was his name?"

"His name? Um... Abby pauses for a bit to think. "His name was Dia, I know it's weird for a guy but he was a Scizor and claimed to have an exoskeleton as shiny as diamonds."

Arcy sighs in relief. "For a second I thought you were going to say Dialga... I'm sorry for your loss, Abby."

Abby shrugs. "He use to claim to have dreams about Dialga, but that was just before the disease affected him. Actually, I've been meaning to find someone to answer this question, but who's Dialga?"

Arcy hums to himself, reminiscing. "Dialga's my son. He's a steel-dragon type, and rules over time. I wonder how he's doing? I haven't seen a lot of him ever since he got attacked by Giratina that one time..."

"You have a son? You look like a hatchling yourself. Also a son with the ability to control time? That's funny."

"Hatchling? Ha! I'm Arceus, remember? I'm as old as the universe."

"Anyway, we're here Mr. Universe. This is the guild" It's tall and ancient looking with spires almost challenging those of the Hall of Orgin, and the entire building is covered in marble, who's dust covered face doesn't mask it's elegance or beauty. The tower like structure in the middle does look rather ominous, but the area around it just looks fancy and regal. "In the center of our guild is the local cemetery. It's almost full at the moment. It's called the Tower of Souls. We like to think that we can commune with our guild mates some times, but of course, all we can really do is keep their memory alive."

"I see... Hey! It looks kind of like my home!"

"Your home is fancy and in some disrepair if that's true. We haven't been able to take proper care of the guild since the massive loss in members."

"No, I mean the structure looks generally the same..."

"Anyways," Abby bangs on giant door. "HEY MUDDY OPEN UP THE GATE. IT'S ME." Suddenly the door opens and shoves a startled Abby back and she soon gives it way to open.

A cute little Mudkip smiles up at Abby. "ABBY YOU'RE HOME!"

The two have a short little embrace. "I brought back the item from my mission and a new friend" Abby turns to Arcy. "Would you like to introduce yourself?"

"Oh, um, I'm Arcy! It's nice to meet you, Muddy, was it?"

"Yeah! It's short for Mudita. Abby gives everyone nicknames! Is your name really Arcy?" Abby gives him a short look.

"Um, yeah, I guess Abby doesn't think I need a nickname because my name's so short. Right, Abby?"

Abby smiles. "Yes, your name is nice as it is." Mudita is a little confused but believes it. Abby turns to Mudita. "You want to show Arcy around and get some bedroom arrangements for him?"

Mudita smiles widely "YES, YES, YES! Can I be his mentor!? He looks so small!"

Abby chortles softly before replying, "Perhaps. We'll have to see if he stays. Anyway we're in need of money and food. We'll be taking a guild large trip to Big Apple forest soon, and I need to turn in my findings for rewards. Hopefully we'll get enough money to start bringing in more members. You two should rest up after you get him something to eat and somewhere to sleep. Maybe you should show him to Alice and the others."

Mudita grabs his hand and goes running in the opposite direction, pulling Arcy along. Abby nods bye to Arcy before she goes off in the other direction.

"Hey, is it really okay if I call you Muddy? I don't have to call you Mudita?" Arcy asks

"Just call me whatever comes to mind first. Oh and Abby always forgets to mention that her actual name is Abigail but she hates when people call her that so don't call her that, k?"

"Mudkip?"

"You can call me Mudkip if that's what you want." Muddy frowns slightly. "But that's kinda like me calling you Cyndaquil. There's more than one."

"Where I come from, we always just call each other by our species names because we are the only ones of our species."

"That's weird. I mean I don't really care what you call me. I'll respond but it would be awkward if we ran into another Mudkip. I guess then would be when you'd just call me Muddy or whatever. Anyway here are the sleeping chambers" It's a huge room that could fit sixty or seventy Pokémon even if they were all rather large. "We usually all sleep here in that corner" The only corner with fresh moss and grass. "There are only 9 fresh spots, so you'll likely need to grab some moss from the center fountain." Muddy also shows Arcy to the cafeteria, which is a magnificent thing which must have been able to hold ninety Pokémon. "Sometimes other Pokémon join us for dinner but recently we can barely feed our selves. So recently it's been just us."

"Oh... Is there a famine or something? Why? Do you think it's connected to the disease?"

"No, we just don't have much money despite all of us working. And we have to go to the forest to restock our supplies. We use to go every month and just bring half the guild but now we can't afford to have the free day even every two months. It'll be nice to have even a little help carrying all the apples. Hope you're strong enough to carry your weight because Abby can be kind of strict on eating. We're probably going there tomorrow."

"I see... Yeah, I can carry my weight!" Arcy yawns. "If I could get some sleep first... Let me ask you a question real quick, though."

"Yeah of course! And the best thing is as long as we're in the forest we can eat as many apples as we want that we can't carry! Oh right, shoot what's the question?"

"Abby tells me you're all evolutionists. Is that true?"

"Of course! Arceus is just a legend that people who aren't strong enough to support themselves use. Besides there's no evidence of Arceus ever existing. I mean big bang theory etc. Maybe there was a god but he didn't create everything, and there's no such thing that will manipulate time except space, and there's no such thing that will work on space except time. And thus you have space time. It all just makes sense if you think about it. Anyways if we go to bed now maybe you could meet Alice, Biff and Jethro."

"But suppose those who manipulate time and space were twins? Would that work?"

"Hah, that's supposing anything can just manipulate space and time. The only one I can think of that makes sense is Giratina but she probably can't even travel to our dimension and it only works because of infinite dimension theory. I mean I suppose they exist, but probably not in our dimension, but that also is to say there are a million me's only slightly different. One of me is even flamboyant pink! Can you imagine that? A pink me? Hah, outrageous."

" Haha, that is a little outrageous... See, I'm still on the fence about this issue, and where I come from everyone is a creationist. I thought it would be nice to hear the other side for once." Arcy nodded.

"Anyway, to the fountain and back to the bedroom yeah? I need some new moss too."

Arcy yawns again. "Yeah. Thanks for the great conversation." They head to the fountain for some moss, then make a new bed near the other nine. It's not too long before he's curled up and asleep.

A/N: This story came from a role play I had with one of my friends. It's been converted from chat form to story form, so I apologize for any inconsistencies that may arise. Please do tell me if you find any mistakes, whether it be with grammar or spelling. We role play in first person, so if there's any I's, me's or my's where they don't belong, please do tell me! Please review if you liked it; reviews make me smile!