Pokémon: A New Verse
Disclaimer: I do not own Pokémon, nor any manga, anime, or games whose elements/cameos/mentions of which I may make mention of in this story.
Q/A at the end you may wish to briefly skim through.
Normal Speech: "What is up, my dudes. Whoa, is that a Mudkip you have there?"
Pokéspeech/Telepathy: "Boy am I glad that humans can't understand what I'm saying. Cursing wildly and violently during battles would be much less cute than Pika-pika-pi!"
Thoughts/Flashback: 'Whether I'm a human or a Pokémon, flashback or thought, you shall need to deduce from context my friend.'
Legendary/Mythical Speech and/or Loud Speech: "Human, are you insinuating that I am loud? I will have you know, this is my natural voice and that hurts my feelings. "
Chapter 1
In the wonderful world of Pokémon, a fabulous realm filled with wondrous creations of life and beautiful lands, there existed one entity who watched over the world and prevented its destruction. Born from a mysterious egg in the beginning of all things, a sole being created the world as it was known and protected it.
Or so he would have hoped.
As it happened, said green-eyed, red-pupiled being wasn't actually quite as omniscient, omnipotent, or whatever other omni-prefixed words existed in the human dictionary. As legendary as they made him out to be, he sadly could not measure up completely to the embellished tales.
From the moment he hatched from his egg in all of his full-grown glory, the world around him was fully created. Within his mind were instincts from deep within that compelled him to explore all that space had to offer and inspect the vast and various planets, stars, and other objects that dotted his new home.
The same instincts led him to create life on the most suitable planet he could find. Beings shaped inspired by his own image at first, then simpler, smaller creatures were formed. They became the species known as Pokémon.
At the same time, he decided on his own moniker, which would only – much – later be translated into what humans knew as Arceus.
The Pokémon flourished at first – adapting to all the environments that their world had to offer, creating homes, feeding off of nature. Arceus watched over the world fondly for a short time – a small stretch of nearly a hundred thousand years in his eternal lifespan – but all good things came to an end.
As resources dwindled, the Pokémon on the planet began to grow agitated. Disputes broke out all over the world and, soon, war. With their powers, the world as a whole was soon brought near ruin as Arceus simply watched, any plausible action deterred by his hesitation and lack of control over his own powers.
After some time pondering his mistakes, he set out for the nearest planets. He refused to simply be a bystander the next time. He would gain control, restraint, and precision no matter the cost.
After this period of time, Arceus moved on to the nearest life-bearing planet and gave it his best effort at manipulating the environment into one similar to the first, original biosphere. And then he began anew.
Arceus sprouted the seeds of life on the planet and watched as time passed and his creations grew. This time, he considered what required balancing to preserve the planet.
Through trial and error, he did his best to account for all that occurred. He made modifications and tweaks to his children, granting strengths, weaknesses, and affinities so that they might keep one another in check.
A certain equilibrium was met, but it simply was not enough. The planet itself seemed to rebel against the changes that his creations could bring and he simply could not do enough. It was thus that another world of wonder failed.
He had no choice but to move on.
Soon, he gained enough control over his powers to create entities that each reigned over different aspects of the world. The weather, the forces of nature, the primal elements, and so much more.
Some were never meant to be at peace with others, clashing in brilliant and terrifying ways. They overturned the world themselves for some time, but Arceus held faith in them. His efforts came to a fruition as he now had assistants who could keep the deterioration of the world at bay alongside him.
Content in the capabilities of his creations, Arceus closed his eyes and rested for some time.
When he awakened, by some miracle of life, the species known as human had settled themselves into the world.
Overcome with curiosity at this new and foreign lifeform, he sent clones of himself down to the planet to interact with the humans more closely. He wanted to know all about them.
His free-will clones spread out all over the world and discretely observed the humans in an attempt to understand the newly-appeared species. How similar, and how different, were they to Pokémon? What were their intentions, their goals in life? How did they live?
Perhaps most importantly, did they mean Pokémon any harm?
While some provoked his wrath in treating his creations like slaves, toys, and mere sport for hunting, others quelled his anger.
They treated his children like comrades-in-arms, friends, and even family.
He considered them relatively simple beings with few goals in life but to survive just as all life did. He did not begrudge the evil some held within their hearts, as he could not claim that all of his children were thusly kind.
The day that one of his clones was wounded severely in protecting the world from a shower of meteors preluded his discovery of the truth.
His clone met the human named Damos, who returned to him one of his Plates and helped him recover his health. In his gratitude, the Jewel of Life was forged and a friendship was struck up between them.
And when the clone suffered betrayal at the hands of the man he would call friend, his wrath suffered no bounds.
Yet Arceus himself, who watched over all of his clones, did nothing to act. He vaguely knew the truth behind the matter and wished to see how it would all pan out.
Even he was surprised when, with the help of Dialga, a group of children appeared from what seemed to be the distant future.
That was his first meeting with the boy he would come to know as one of his most chaotic chosen. Ash Ketchum.
In the subsequent settling of the situation at Michina Town, Arceus himself came to understand two very important things that he overlooked in his first appraisal of the humans.
Their vast potential for growth, development, kindness that Damos and Ash displayed.
And the seeds of chaotic ambition and greed that wasn't the slightest bit weaker, as represented by Damos's subordinate, Marcus.
Thousands of years passed after that discovery and he was content to let the world develop on its own. The humans expanded fluidly and evolving in their interactions with Pokémon.
It was in the Kingdom of Rota that Arceus discovered the first human entwined within the strings of fate.
Sir Aaron of Cameran Palace. His first chosen, of sorts, and one of the Aura Guardians that he had only seen infrequently in the entire history of the human species.
Many humans had gone their entire lives without awakening the potential for Aura, but Sir Aaron was a tried and true Aura Adept.
And a two thousand years after his sacrifice to protect his life-long companion, Lucario, and save the Kingdom of Rota, the boy who inherited some of his Aura was born.
Ash Ketchum.
Arceus had never seen a boy so enshrouded in the fates as he. The Original One watched as the boy, in his love for Pokémon and his quest to become a Master Trainer, accidentally stumbled across more of his Legendary and Mythical creations than any individual could ever hope to purposefully seek out in their lifetimes.
And at the same time, he had never seen one child become mixed up with plots to take over the world or bathe the planet in chaos as much as him either.
He watched all the way up until a man named Cyrus, seeking to create a world without spirit or emotion, succeeded in summoning Palkia and Dialga and controlling them with the Red Chains.
It all came to a head when Ash and his friends did his best to stop the Galactic Leader's plan, but ultimately failed. Giratina arrived from the Reverse World in order to free its fellow trio members, but it was too late.
The clash between the Sovereigns of Time, Space, and Antimatter splintered the Pokémon world and soon enough, it was all gone.
Arceus then made it all anew. He didn't simply float around idly while he watched the passing of time, after all. But he would never claim that he perfected the process.
Time and time again, he remade the Pokémon world and watched its story unfold. In some worlds, certain types of Pokémon didn't exist, such as the Dark, Steel, and Fairy typings. In other variants, brand new evolutionary chains of Pokémon were developed and the mysterious process of Mega Evolution was born.
Sometimes, he would even create worlds where humans were but a thing of the past. Pokémon eventually became the sole species on the planet and would form organizations called Guilds and Rescue Teams.
In a few occasions, Ash Ketchum never came into being. Instead, he followed the adventures of a trainer named Red. Following his life, Arceus discovered a group of children, scattered across the regions, who would grow to develop special abilities in relation to the Pokémon that filled the world.
Arceus continued this for some time, having long grown accustomed, and even somewhat numb, to the passing worlds and lives. Some worlds were filled with crime, wrought with darkness, as each living being on the planet fought to survive. He'd seen many things.
In the end, he decided to do his best to spare his creations of such cruelties of life.
He sometimes lost track of why he even lived this life of isolation.
It didn't take him long to remember the reason – he simply wanted a good, natural life for his children.
And one random day in the vast expanse of time, came an answer to his problems. A being from another universe, another realm of creation in its entirety.
The lifetime of observation came and went, but the memory never left the Alpha Pokémon. He had finally accomplished his lifelong goal of finding a peaceful end for his children.
When all was over and done with, he felt a tad lost in what he would do moving forward. A single departing sentence from his most recent friend solved his issue.
'Why don't you try living for yourself a little bit now?'
And so Arceus did. He worked to create a brand new iteration of the Pokémon World, one where he would tweak around and have a little fun. At the same time, he would try to give the boy named Ash Ketchum a hopefully more successful life.
As for all the efforts of the boy to become a Pokémon Master in the middle of saving the world a number of times, he never quite succeeded. It was enough to plant an inkling of pity in the Alpha Pokémon's heart.
He never expected such a simply stated task to be so impossibly hard. Any little tweak he made directly to Ash's fate just always seemed to turn horribly wrong.
The most recent attempt led all the way up to one of his newly created Mythical Pokémon, Hoopa, ripping a hole through the dimensions while imbued with far more power than even his Unbound Form could handle.
Said Mythical was currently in his Confined Form, with as apologetic a face as the Mischief Pokémon could make. Hoopa took another peek at the being that he ripped from the other time-space continuum before ducking his head down in shame once again.
Arceus stared down at the being and simply let out a sigh as he glanced to the human lying to the side of him. His eyes scanned over the rest of the Legendaries and Mythicals dotting his Hall of Origins.
The questioning gazes of his most powerful children and their own creations were obvious, but they knew better than to speak when uncalled for.
"Leave my chambers for the time being," Arceus spoke, his voice reverberating through the halls. "I will explain at a later time."
The imposing figures before him, that would have had any normal human stunned in awe or cowering in fear, simply accepted that answer and left the main hall in an orderly fashion.
One of Arceus's eyes locked onto one of the small, retreating figures with a glare. "We shall discuss your punishment later, Hoopa."
The light purple Pokémon chuckled nervously as he continued his escape.
Arceus watched the door shut firmly. His eyes, hooves, and wheel flashed dark pink as a layer of formless energy settled over the room, sealing it tightly.
"I believe you can stop pretending now, old friend."
The figure lying on the ground at his side sat up smoothly and opened his eyes, scratching his head with a chuckle.
"I guess I am getting pretty old now if you could tell that I was faking it," he spoke. "It's been a long time, Arceus. How's everything going?"
"Well enough," Arceus responded with a small smirk. "A lot has changed since you left. I think even you would be surprised."
"Have at it then," the figure responded with a challenging raise of his brow.
Arceus chuckled. "I will indeed, but we have plenty of time for that later. First, answer me this. How would you feel about going on another adventure?"
…..
A/N: General Q and A
Q: If you're here for news about Harry Potter: Divergent Paths. If not, you can skip this first Answer:
A: Refer to my profile. TLDR, I'm rewriting it and hoping to get back to it eventually. Hiatus occurred cause of real-life things, cause it just be like that sometimes.
Q: Did you mention Pokémon Mystery Dungeon and the Pokémon Adventures manga in that long part with Arceus?
A: Why yes, yes I did. You will definitely see some characters of Pokémon Adventures (Pokédex Holders, primarily) make appearances like Ruby and Sapphire. I will not be using all of them, as I simply don't have the ability within myself to make as cohesive and complicated a storyline as Pokémon Adventures totes.
I'll likely try my hand at some plotlines, altered of course, from the manga, though definitely not all of them. Best not to make any assumptions on how any characters will act based on the manga/anime/games, because it could be any of the three versions or a mixture of them.
And if you have no idea what I'm talking about, don't worry about it! You won't need prior knowledge to know that some good ol' Pokémon battling is going on.
Q: What was that about new evolutionary chains? Mega Evolution?
A: I'll probably be adding third/final evolutions all over the place as I feel like it, but mostly thirds/finals. Some because I think said new form would be cool, others just cause. I'll try not to go too crazy with it. They'll be everywhere, including enemies, rivals, friends, etc. Might even make a new Legendary/Mythical or two.
Mega-Evos are a yes, new ones are a possible. Won't be doing any in-depth stat stuff, just for fun really.
There'll even be variant typings for the occasional Pokémon as per 'I think it would be cool if…' and the altered universe. Maybe new moves as well. Definitely move combinations.
Personally, I'm going to try to utilize Double Battle, maybe even Triple Battle, a bit more since those are gimmicks I typically see less utilized in Pokémon fanfictions, given that most start from the beginning, and even the games themselves.
Feel free to leave suggestions for your own ideas for different evolutionary chains in the reviews if you want to, there's a good likelihood of me using them. Especially if you have interesting ideas for teams/Pokémon that friends, rivals, and enemies like May, Paul, Team Bosses and Admins, and the like could use.
Q: What was that about "old friend"?
A: If you know about me as a fanfic writer, you might know that this is my second time visiting the Pokémon universe.
If you're new to me, welcome! Also, in that case, treat this like a reincarnation fic where our main character lived his first life as Ash, and is now living a second life as a different person.
Q: What type of fanfiction is this going to be? Why are you writing this?
A: It'll probably be semi-crack, for my personal enjoyment which I hope others might like as well. Our MC is relatively overpowered. Storyline will vary, anywhere from chilling with Ash to exploring new regions, but those details will be worked out as we continue along.
This fic is mostly arose out of a desire to explore some cool Pokémon ideas, characters, and a re-lighting of the Pokémon fire within me. Inspiration credit given mainly to the amazing RPGMaker-based game known as Pokémon Insurgence and the team behind it, as well as the well-known fanfiction, Ashes of the Past, by Saphroneth amongst countless others.
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