"...God?" I found myself repeating to the odd creature.
"In a manner of speaking," the white thing said. "Not quite the middle-aged, full-bearded, glow-stick of a man you were expecting, huh?"
"Not in the least," I managed to say, slightly recovering from the shock.
"Seems you haven't noticed yet, then. So, nice guy that I am, I'll fill in the gaps for you. I am called Arceus," he started, motioning toward himself. "And you, Mister "I-can-make-life-too", are under my jurisdiction. Basically, it dumbs down to "I am your creator" now. Well, in part. You gave it form; I just gave it life."
"Wait wait wait..." I stammered out, trying to make sense of it all. "You're Arceus," I started, getting a nod from the quadruped. "The Pokemon that, according to mythology, shaped the universe with its thousand arms." Another nod.
"Never said that they were mine, though," he added.
"Actually, it does," came my reply. This seemed to warrant a sigh from Arceus.
"Figures...Somewhere along the line, some blockhead decides that it'd be cool to add a fib or two to "spice" things up a bit. It's that idiocy that turns fact into fiction, 'cause then that lie, buried in truth, becomes part of the story. Story becomes tall tale, tale becomes legend, legend becomes myth, and I wind up sounding like a freak of nature. I mean...who's ever heard of ANYTHING with a thousand arms. All I had was four legs, and a hell of a lot of time on my hands...figuratively speaking." A small pause followed behind the small speech. "Sorry, I ranted. You were saying?"
"And, all of a sudden," I started again, taking a moment to try and beat back the notion that this thing wasn't quite right in the head by remembering what I was gonna say next, "I, a human, fall under your care now?"
"Close, but not quite," came Arceus's final reply to my questioning. "Think of it more like a transfer over anything else." That managed to confuse me a bit. I can only guess that the confusion was evident on my face due to what Arceus said next. "Lemme try it this way; Why, do you think, you, a human, can understand what I'm saying?" he asked, almost grinning. Reminded me of a kid who was trying to hold back a secret, what with that 'I know something you don't' grin.
"Because you can speak in human dialect?" I answered, probably not sounding too sure in it. Can you blame me? This thing was confusing.
"Ah...not quite. I can, but it's pretty bad...lack of practice and all, but that's beside the point," he said. A bright light flashed in front of him, causing me to shield my eyes, while Arceus continued to speak. "You can understand me not because I'm speaking you're language...Quite the opposite, actually. You understand me because we're both Pokemon," he announced, the light fading away to reveal a mirror.
The form that was staring back at me through the mirror was not one I was familiar with. The face that looked back at me, for starters, was in the middle of his chest, with no "head" above it. A row of teeth lined up around the stomach, providing its mouth, with slightly elongated canines poking out from under, what I assumed to be, the lips, traveling a short ways. The eyes that stared back at mine were located where the chest muscles were, their exact color hard to make out with only the night around us. The arms and legs, while not directly attached to the torso, were marked in part with metal bands, reminiscent of medieval knight armor, though missing any joint coverings. The forearms/hands and lower legs/feet were gauntlets and greaves respectively, each with four and three digit places (also respectively), the hands having three fingers and a thumb each. "This can't be right," I spoke, the metallic face that stared back at me mimicking my dismay flawlessly. "I'm..."
"Your little pet project's end result," Arceus finished for me. "Well, second project, really, but I'm fairly certain that you're wondering "How'd this happen?" or "Why?" too much to have corrected me." My mind was still trying to wrap itself around this newest development to give any actual response, though that hardly stopped him from continuing. "Remember that Eevee you had studied in order to harmlessly force a new evolutionary reaction from? Injecting it with synthesized Ghost Pokemon DNA, which I imagine must have been rather hard to create...You remember what happened afterward, right? You got your reaction, creating a currently one-of-a-kind evolutionary branch for it, though at the cost of several worker's lives when it went berserk, stopping only after it had tired itself out, to the point of exhaustion. What was it you called him again?"
I was too stunned to really answer...how was it that this creature knew about that incident? My head was beginning to hurt from how hard I was working it, trying to understand what all that was going on. A few seconds passed before an answer crawled out of my mouth. "S...spectreon," was all I managed to speak.
"That's right, though it goes by "Spook", if I'm not mistaken. Not the most original of names, but I've heard worse. Good thing it calmed down, huh? We wouldn't be having this little chat if it hadn't. Anyway, back to why you're here. You see, many groups in the past have tried to step into my territory by artificially creating new creatures or mucking with ones that I've already created. Naturally, I can't allow such actions to go unpunished, so-"
"What about Porygon?" I asked, telling my mind that I'd figure things out later. Seemed to work, for now at least.
"Porygon was created in cyberspace, which is a man-made realm. I've no control over what happens there."
"And Castform?"
"...Okay, you got me on that one, but the damn thing's cool. How many Pokemon do you know of that can change like it does just because of the weather? Now stop trying to disprove my point, or I won't be so nice!" Enter a small pause, followed with Arceus clearing it's throat. "You've trespassed twice into my realm, and for that, I'm gonna do something I've been wanting to for a while now, dear scientist. You lived your life as a human studying us Pokemon, focusing primarily on those of the Ghost cast. You've pondered over how their daily activities, and a few not-so-daily ones, are carried out. But what you did todeserve this is that you forced the creation of, not one, but two new Pokemon breeds. It is because of that that you have been charged with living one lifetime AS a Pokemon."
"...That's it? You're going to make me live the life of a Pokemon?" I asked, not really sure that this would count as a "punishment". "Seems kinda light to me."
"You keep telling yourself that. Dialga! We're done here; begin the rewind!"
I was about to say something else, but the smirk that graced Arceus's face stopped me. A bright light sudden enveloped me, and then...darkness.
The sound of a humming machine, dulled by the sound of churning liquids was the first thing I had heard. I felt light...almost weightless. Muffled voices were the next thing that I heard, though they were drowned out by the machine to really make anything out at first.
"You'd think that a smart guy like him would have known to be careful when crossing a street, but no. He was too damn focused on his notes to notice anything. Not a pretty sight, or so I heard. Mandatory closed casket, so you know it had to have been messy," a slightly deep voice said, fading in and out of clarity as he spoke, more and more sounds, like those of machines going to work started filtering out the voice more and more. The sensation of weightlessness began to leave my body as I felt a slight pulling force from beneath me.
"The draining sequence is complete," a new voice, lighter then the first, declared as the weightlessness faded completely. The feeling of movement quickly followed, filling the absence of the weightlessness, though it was short lived, as my head hit something hard with an audible "thunk". Movement now halted, all I felt now was cold and wet.
