StolenMadWolf
Loony Moony
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Howdy folks, since the current Review Blitz is running into it's third week - the week of oneshots, I decided to do something a bit different than normal as both a personal challenge to increase my writing speeds as well as for a little bit of fun. I mean, after I thought of the idea when considering different PMD settings, I realised I had to give this one a try. It also doubled as a good opportunity to try writing in first person - something I don't really do that often in my writing but have recently got more interested in trying out.
As a bit of a disclaimer, this is not set within the Sierran Timeline, which includes my fan-fics PMD: Guardians of Balance and PMD: Mercenaries of Dawn. It's instead set within it's own... unspecified time and location and was originally fully intended to be just a one-off fanfic for fun, running through an interesting idea in a snarky way, whilst still having a few heart-warming and tearjerker moments. However, I will admit the last few days writing this did get more than a few creative juices flowing for a pseudo-follow up in the form of a series of short fics. You might have an early idea on who some of these potential characters are at the end of the one shot. It's likely something I won't write. At least not straight away and with a huge amount of regularity, but the possibility is there.
As you would probably expect, there are usual general content warnings, and then some.
I will also leave a brief blurb down below as well before the fic starts... but I encourage you not to read it, and instead just go straight on to the one shot itself. It'll make it feel that little bit more impactful...
With that all being said and done... let us begin...
Hope you enjoy this!
Word Count: 9568 Words
Sleep for me was a bit strange, if I was honest. I had a bit of a reputation amongst my family and friends that I could sleep better than a corpse once I was down under. Well, not a corpse per say, a rock would probably be more appropriate, but it did seem darkly funny in my head. What most people didn’t know was that this only really applied once I had slipped into unconsciousness. There were times where I would spend the better part of a few hours tossing and turning under the bed cover, itching from heat or just from discomfort. Sometimes I would be worrying myself shitless from something that would be coming up the following day, wondering if I was ready for the task ahead. Sometimes I would wake up hours early, and end up struggling to get myself back under again, less I head off into the day a stumbling wreck.
And hell, nevermind when I was properly sick and crippled from one of the recurring colds or flus with that bile coming my - okay, I’m going to stop there.
This… was one of those nights. I’d been tossing and turning, feeling too hot and too cold. Too constrained. Too uncomfortable, hell, I couldn’t work it out! Maybe I was indulging in my daydreams too much. It hadn’t been the first time I happened. I had self-diagnosed myself as a maladaptive daydreamer. I mean, it made complete sense. My brain was far too active a lot of the time as it was, especially when I started writing or drawing in the middle of the night. Yeah, I’ve had way too many late nights staring at a computer screen for some kind of fun. Or just for general browsing at werewolf or Pokémon pictures. Afterall, life was frakking boring at times, and the escapism did put me in a better mood. Got the creative juices flowing.
I didn’t even realise I had finally fallen asleep. Or rather, if I did. Because when I opened my eyes… I didn’t see my bedroom.
Well, that was when I recoiled from the fluid stinging my eyes. Fluid!? Was the roof leaking? Hell of a bloody time and place for it to happen. I started to lift my head up, and it was only then did I realise. My neck… my neck felt wrong! What? Did I break it? How the hell did I break it?! My heart began to race, but when no pain came through, I forced myself to calm down. No, no no no, it wasn’t broken. It felt… elongated? Was I just stretching it? I suppose it made sense. I took a breath… and it was at that point I realised… well…
My mouth wasn’t opening.
Okay. What!?
I snapped my eyes open, and gave my body a shake. Maybe this was just another weird, creepy as hell nightmare again. They had happened! Hell, I’d admit having used some good ideas from them! But my eyes stung again with pins and needles, I’d always been terrible with opening eyes under water, even when I got used to it as an adult. I was as blind as a mole in a trashcan! But not this time. Instead, my vision was clear, unblurred. Instead, the world around me pulsed with red translucent light, strips – no, veins running across this throbbing surface. It reminded me of a picture of a retina.
So, I’ll admit I have two failings. A fear of falling was one of them. Heights I could put up with, falling from them? Nope, that made me feel too hopeless.
The second was that whilst I could put up with a motherload of gore and guts… eyes shattered that limit.
As you could probably imagine, this was the point I started panicking. I immediately kick my limbs out to the side, themselves feeling wrong, pushing against the fluid that surrounded me. My legs, they felt crooked, bent out of shape! My arms wouldn’t move freely! I shook myself wildly, kicking against the walls of this fleshy container I was stuck in! I headbutted the damn thing! At first, only I felt was a quiver through the surface and a painfully faint, almost comical BOING! In the fluid, but then, my limbs started punching through, allowing a pale light to shine through. Keep going I told myself, keeping kicking and punching and all that jazz, more headbutting!
When my cage my finally broke, it broke fast. It shattered around me almost in silence, the fluid pulling itself away from the surface of my epidermis and with a silent roar, I pulled myself clear, a bit too hard I admit as white-gold fragments and bubbles of lightly red fluid floated away from me. I spun, the world flashing black, blue, yellow and green before my eyes in a blur. It was like I was in a SCUBA dry suit for the first time all over again, doing cartwheels across the swimming pool like a drunken circus performer! I forced in some cold breaths; I should be able to reorient myself at least! I’ve done enough diving and played enough KSP to do that!
I still don’t exactly know how I pulled it off, as I felt nothing flow through around my body. Nothing for me to grip onto either, especially when I couldn’t feel my fingers, but soon enough, I managed to stabilise myself.
At this point, I couldn’t help but gasp. Colourful clouds swirled around me, drifting past in a faint glow of light. Well, a single light. A bright flaring star that I could make out in the distance, pulsing as it seemed to push the clouds away by some unseen force. It was like I was in space… wait, this… literally looked like space! Oh god, that was a heavenly sight! I barely got to see much cool space stuff back at home due to the shitty weather!
But if that was the case… no…
I immediately look down, but instead of seeing myself in my clothes, I instead saw a flash of white and grey, smooth and… inhuman. I tried to lift my arm… only to find some weird white form to drift in front of m- my hand! It was gone! A single golden point in its place! WHAT!?
I wildly shook my head; this was totally a dream. It had to be some dodgy dream yet again… and then… I saw it. Whatever was in the clouds of gas, at least, I figured was gas, was reflective. It was a white and gold creature, floating around on four legs with golden points. A cross like wheel flanked it on all sides, studded with jewels, and atop a long neck, a grey face with green and red eyes stared back at me.
As you can expect, what happened next was totally predictable. I recoiled in shock, and the creature copied my movement exactly. And the truth became immediately apparent.
I was staring at the Original One. The closest thing Pokémon had to a god.
Arceus!
And… no… no no no no no nononononononononononononononnononono! This was not happening!
Arceus… I was Arceus!
I’m sure you could imagine I had a huge, unexplainable rush of feelings through my body. Joy? Awe? Terror? Fear? Bliss? Well… allow myself at the time to detail my feelings whilst both me – and my gas reflection – were shaking their heads wildly at each other with a simple, classic statement:
“OKAY, WHAT THE ACTUAL FU-“
After I… calmed down a little… it soon became apparent that this was not a nightmare or a dream. I would have long since snapped out of it now, tried to make a mental note of it so I could share it on the internet, and immediately get back to sleep again. This was real. Extremely real. Somehow, I had been isekai’d – at least, that’s what some folks would have called it – out of my body and into… well… this! I looked over my new quadruped body, seeing how regal it was, yet remarkably simple at the same time. A part of my mind drifted back to what had happened back home, naturally. What had happened to my body? Was I dead and buried? A vegetable in a hospital, drooling my days away? Or did I simply disappear? What about my friends and family? Could I even go back? If it even still existed?
I already know what you are thinking. That I would be spending my time rolling around endless in circles as I struggled to work out how to even walk or float… but no, it wasn’t. My initial discomfort had already started fading away. I had always been pretty comfortable with the idea of changing forms, and strangely enough, movement slowly became natural to me. I drifted through the space clouds. At least, that’s what I figured they were. Dust, gas, particles, the building blocks of the universe. I trawled my memory and knowledge as I let myself drift through the clouds. I wasn’t the craziest Pokémon fan; the multiplayer drove me mad more than anything else. But I knew enough about the lore to know some details about the wider setting… okay, putting aside that 1000 arms rubbish, Arceus was supposed to be the closest thing the Pokémon setting had to a god. And not a cheap god either, depending on who you’d ask, it created the entire universe after from an egg, which explains my cage.
Oh, I didn’t mention I also somehow managed to get to grips with telepathy too. Good thing too, given the lack of digits to grip stuff with. I focused my attention on the shell piece that floated by my side, willing it to drift in front of me. The fragment was white and gold, and seemed to sparkle in the light. Yep, I’ve just been born again. That’s… going to stick with me for a while, I reckoned.
I directed my gaze towards the cosmos that surrounded me, and most notably, the bright star at its centre. I’m not a betting man, but if I was going to hazard a guess… that was the Big Bang.
Which meant I was literally at the beginning at time. I would have been cheering at being the first lifeform in existence if it wasn’t for the fact that I had no idea about the fate of where I had come from. For all I knew, it could have just poofed out of existence. Or rather, my world hadn’t even been created yet.
The gravity of that thought finally seemed to hit me harder than someone dropping a wrecking ball on my head. Created. This was the very earliest days, hours or even minutes of the universe. There weren’t any planets, stars or even larger atoms. Only me.
Only Arceus.
“Am I… am I going to have to create the universe?” I whispered to no one, feeling a shiver run through this body. If this really was some kind of PMD-style stuff, then… was I stuck here entirely? Was it my job to put everything back together? To be the god who created the universe? The Pokémon Universe? Or something else?
Or heck, was it goddess? I mean, what gender was I supposed to be? I had questioned that as a human despite being born male, but that was a pain in the ass to work out even when folks were telling me I was genderfluid, even when I reverted to saying I was a bloke. Now being something that was very much not human was proving to be an even bigger pain in my godly behind.
Yes. I looked.
No. I’m not telling you.
I frankly didn’t know the answers to these questions, but as I looked towards the Big Bang, I noticed something concerning, but not entirely unexpected. The gigantic flare of light was slowly beginning to fade. Even the brightest of novas had to cease glowing at some point. I had a feeling that sooner rather than later, it would disappear entirely, engulfing the universe in darkness until the first stars formed.
“The first stars…”
I took another shaky breath – somehow despite the vacuum – and straightened my neck, and willed myself to move towards the nearest dense cloud I could spot. If I really was stuck here, even for a while, the least I could do was try and… well, make stuff.
My skin shimmered as I drifted into the cloud, closing my eyes and reaching out, trying to imagine the hydrogen atoms floating around in here, plus all the quarks and what forces I could think off that would be critically important in creating a star. The very first one.
My first star.
Yeah, that sounded just as silly in my head as one of those kids toys that has the word ‘First’ added at the very front of the packaging label. My first explorers’ kit! My first teddy bear! But either way, putting aside that silliness, it was working. Particles of gas and dust started to follow me, like kittens and puppies begging for attention. Albeit with less noise, and less fluff. A little packet began to brighten as it took form, a little ball of gas – not a fireball mind you, but a ball none the less.
As I reached the depths of the cloud, I willed the ball to float in front of me, bringing myself to a halt. I knew the basics of star formation; my earliest favourite topic was space after all. Christ! I wanted to be an astronaut as a kid!
I chuckled quietly to myself at that thought, “Guess I am an astronaut now.” Sighing, I focused my green-red eyes on the orb that I held before. “Alright… need to ram enough of this gas into one space for gravity to take over… just basic stellar formation. Nothing to worry about!”
Assuming this is hydrogen! I thought and hoped.
So, I mentally reached out. Slowly, more of the gases began to drift towards me. I could feel the little particles move, almost as if they were an extension to myself. Every little vibration their atoms made as they moved… it was almost like a small massage being done from a few metres away! Bonkers as that sounded, it did achieve one thing. It helped me focused, kept me stimulated. I focused my efforts on that little ball, feeding the gas further and further into it into it couldn’t contain anymore. Forced it grow, stuffing it with more and more. I was so focused on its shape, its form, I failed to recognise my body was growing with it, automatically keeping pace with the ever-ravenous ball of particles.
I didn’t even blink as it started glowing brighter. Brighter and brighter, denser, and denser until it started to glow a muddy orange. Only then did I notice the increasing heat, flooding through my face and across my chest, just like those firepits I used to sit next to from time to time. This was it! The ball was that dense it was starting to heat up, starting to ignite the hydrogen within it! All that was needed now was-
Suddenly, the gas cloud began to swirl around me, falling onto the now pulsing orb. The heat striking my face grew more intense, the light even more so. My calm focus began to fracture as the gas started to howl, rushing through into the orb. Before I knew it, I was desperately trying to stop it, my eyes widening as the gas orb started to turn a brilliant yellow. I willed the particles to stop, tried to mentally throw them away, but they kept on trucking in. I couldn’t stop it!
That’s the weird thing about gravity. It’s an extremely weak force. It must be, otherwise I’d end up slamming into you along with any apples that happen to be in the same room. But get enough mass into play… well, that becomes a very different story. Gravity was now pulling that gas in, superheating it. I was a frakking Pokémon god, and I couldn’t stop gravity.
That would have been hideously embarrassing on its own!
I could feel my mind straining, a headache coming on as I physically started wafting my legs around as best I could, trying to throw the gas aside with my… hooves? It didn’t matter, all I was doing was leaving pretty patterns in the gas – at least, I would have noticed if I wasn’t so focused on the literal fucking nuke that was floating in front of my face. It was now glowing a brilliant white, the gas not far behind it in colour and fire.
“Crap! Crap!” I yelped. I didn’t feel pain, but my alarm coursed through my entire body, my heart about ready to explode as the tiny orb flared bright. In my desperation, I had one card left to play.
“STOP!” I roared.
In that second… time stopped. All sound ceased. In fact, every sense seemed dulled. I blinked finding the space around me much darker. Had the Big Bang faded away without me noticing?
But there was one source of light nearby. And it wasn’t the remnants of the Big Bang. In front of me, close enough to touch, was a tiny ball of light, frozen in time, surrounded by a thin halo which contained not only the ball, but tiny little specks, smaller, but no less intense. It was almost like a snow globe without a base, but lighter, airier, and more… I couldn’t really work out the right kind of word.
Instead, I craned my neck forward. The light was intense, and in my former human body, I would have probably been blinded by it – especially given how light sensitive I had been. But in the form of Arceus, it didn’t phase me in the slightest. Instead of raw heat, I felt a gentle warmth slowly worm its way through me. A pleasant warmth that filled me from top to bottom as I stared at this seemingly fragile and beautiful thing before me. I had no idea how I did it, but I had managed to stop everything just as the proto-star before me was about to full ignite. A nuclear fusion reaction that’d last for millions, if not billions of years. Once it had fully started of course, I could just keep the clock stopped forever, right?
For a solid two minutes – for what would occur when time was frozen for that matter – I stared at the frozen star, basking in its brilliance with pure wonder. It was at this time, of all times, that I really understand exactly how powerful Arceus really was. How powerful I am. The ability to control reality with but a thought. The whole universe was like a canvas, and I was the artist.
I felt a heavy weight settle onto my shoulders. With this, I knew with this amount of power at my disposal… I had a huge amount of responsibility.
Great power comes with great responsibility, right? Great quote.
But I knew I couldn’t hold the new orb there forever. I couldn’t just turn the clock back either. What would be the point in that? So, with a pang of sadness, I mentally pushed the orb away, and slowly drifted back until I felt I was far enough back to not get engulfed in the ensuing fireball. As it turned out, a tiny spark remained in the distance, the last light of the Big Bang.
I glanced between the old and new light sources, creating shadows from the dust clouds in the ever-darkening space, shuffled on the spot – or rather, lack of a spot – and, perhaps wanting to play a bit of drama to the scene, opted for some thoughtful words. You know, to mark the occasion.
And I was… not very original.
I coughed, “Ahem… let there be light! Err… still!”
With a thought, I willed time to start again.
A bright flash of light engulfed the cloud in front of me, shunting gas and dust aside in the process. Spellbound, I watched as the young star flared for the first time. The first one.
My first one.
I didn’t have a mouth, but if I had one, I would have been giving one hell of a shining smile in that moment.
Despite getting to grips with time and space, there had always been one problem. I was never really good at keeping track of the former. Especially when I lacked a watch, not that I could wear one of course. Again, I didn’t have fingers or a decent set of arms. Unless my own mental, if not borderline psychic abilities counted as the 1000 arms that Gamefreak had written into their Pokedex entries counted as something.
I knew a fair degree of time had passed since I first arrived. I had spent a lot of it bringing more stars to life across the cosmos, slowly getting more attuned to the power that I had at my disposal. At first, I would throw out many stars of the same type, with only little fluctuations in size and brightness. Then, as some of the first stars started dying, I used some of the newly formed material to create the next generation. One with far more variety.
I had been saddened of course, I mean, I guess you could have called me the stars parent. I had nurtured the things after all, and whilst I knew the stars weren’t alive in the same way I was, it still stung. I couldn’t help but sniff a little bit after the third star, No. 4, died in a blaze of glory.
Save the first one of course, I kept passing by it every so often, siphoned a bit of the iron out and pumped in some fresh hydrogen, extending its life and letting it settle firmly into the main sequence. Couldn’t let that guy go up in smoke, that would have really hurt, deep down.
After all that time messing around with stars, planets were a piece of cake. Literally in fact, it was almost like making cake mix, whisking a bowl full of left over dust, gas and rock to encourage gravity to take over again to create a few rocky spheres, ovals and unevenly shaped rocks. Some I left be, others I… well. When you are a god travelling around the under-construction cosmos on your own, you’re going to get bored, and soon enough I was occasionally smashing rocks together with as much care as a pair of kids playing a conkers game, cackling all the while.
Hey, don’t judge me! I only did it on dead rocky planets! And I was trying to make a moon more often than not! I wasn’t doing it to life itself!
Still, struggling to contain my laughter, I would rein myself in, trying to keep my head together. I had a lot of work to do still. I mean, do you have any idea on how big space is?
It’s motherfucking massive!
And speaking of life… well, that was something I was now looking at. Not for the planets mind you, this was far more important.
Floating within a green and gold nebula, under the light of a cluster of young yellow dwarfs, I inspected a trio of perfectly round eggs, each one distinctly different from the others. One was a scaley blue and steel in colour, with a blue gem on top. A second was a smooth silver and pink, with a similarly coloured gem. The third was black and gold, complete with ribs, spikes and no gems at all.
Okay, so it’s said that Arceus created the creation trio of Pokémon. Dialga, representing time. Palkia, the master of space. And Giratina, the antimatter Pokémon.
Everyone even remotely familiar with Pokémon, or Gen IV at least, knows this. Myself included. I knew it was only a matter of time before I would have to create these guys. If the canonical Arceus made them, then I was going to have to do the same. I mean, if this is supposed to be even remotely like the actual Pokémon world, then they would be needed.
And speaking of need, that was my second reason. I hadn’t slept since I woke up as Arceus, and by extension, my power and strength hadn’t faded away. But as I started to shape the first galaxies… I started to feel the strain. There was more ground to cover for one, the universe was still expanding, but I hadn’t got strong enough to slow that down. Further still, I would create a star, turn my attention towards some new planets for a minute, only to suddenly find the star I had just made had become 20 billion years older and on the brink of blowing up in my face.
Space and time had been warping and twisting. My senses had improved a lot over these… long periods of time. I could feel every star breathe in and out as they burnt their hydrogen. Every planet fly through the vacuum. Each orbit I could recall within a split second. I swore that if I had not become Arceus, I might have gone mad trying to comprehend it all. It’s… difficult to explain it as it is.
But it was becoming more difficult. I seemed to stumble into Arceus’ equivalent of an old enemy of mine from my writing and drawing days as a mortal human.
Mission Creep.
I was stretching myself too thin trying to get everything built. I was growing stronger, but with so much to do, I felt compelled to keep working onwards.
Frankly, I needed help, and having my own legendary kids floating around to control time, space and antimatter would make a whole load of difference.
And thirdly… well, I was getting kinda lonely.
I won’t deny I had a habit of talking to myself since being a child. That child embarrassed my modern self to hell and back, but that had still been a habit I never quite broke. It did help with creativity after all. I was also used to being alone for much of my life. But even that had slowly got boring, and the universe wasn’t ready for life. Not yet.
There was still so much work to do…
So much…
I shook my head, cursing myself for turning into a workaholic before focusing my attention back on the eggs. I felt slightly dizzy, it had taken a great deal of effort to form them, even more than the stars themselves. But now was going to be another big moment on a big list of grand moments.
“Well, here goes nothing…”
I willed heat to surge through my body, my eyes flashing red as I willed another inch of my power into the eggs. I could sense them quiver, tiny heartbeats starting within in sync with my own heart. They were tied to me. And I was to them.
The eggs began to sparkle with blue, magenta, and gold light respectively, and so I withdrew, leaning back to watch as the eggs began to shake, faint tron-line like cracks forming across their surfaces, light glowing from within. As I did, I felt a strange sense of… melancholy? Relef? I couldn’t quite describe it. A part of me always wanted kids at some point… I just, didn’t expect it to occur like this.
And definitely not with dragon kids, Game of Thrones style. Damn, that show ended so badly.
My thoughts ceased with a triple flash; the eggs were engulfed in light. My throat tightened as I braced myself for what would emerge. Would they be completely identical to what they were supposed to be? Or twisted into some weird set of tentacle monsters? In that moment, I realised what that sense was.
Fear for those Pokémon.
My eyes had already adjusted seconds before the light actually faded, and my fear quickly faded away… to be replaced with a moment of confusion. Before my eyes, three Pokémon had emerged… but I knew they didn’t look like what I was expecting.
Instead of the draconic looks I knew them by, Dialga and Palkia looked almost like colour swapped versions of myself, resembling some kind of equines or even centaurs. The former looked more crystalline and angular, whilst Palkia seemed to be missing their arms entirely, swapping them out for actual hooves and a similar wheel to my own. My mind raced, W-What? What did I do wrong? Why are they looking like this!? I can fix this! I can-
I nearly gasped in shock, until I looked towards Giratina. That promptly shut my thoughts down. The Renegade Pokémon at least looked the same as what I recalled, albeit in it’s more serpentine form with shadowy black wings. I mentally forced the panic aside as I connected the dots. They were all in their Origin Formes, not their classic ones. The sudden chill that ran through my chest quickly faded away, and I suddenly felt light enough that I could have floated away like a balloon. Success! I had made the creation trio! I had… well, kids! Ish?
The three Pokémon looked over themselves, their faces a mixture of expressions, even behind their face plates. Confusion, surprise… perhaps some kind of curiosity? I was beaming to myself so much, I almost missed them turning towards me, their eyes wide with interest. They were smaller than I imagined, looking surprisingly young, albeit still big compared to what I imagined a human would have been. Or would be rather.
Jaysus… the poor guys must be confused as all eck.
I had taken the time beforehand to try and get some words worked out. Something to say to them for the first time. I had already seen the first Pokémon movie enough times to know how bad things could get if someone as powerful as these guys didn’t get an explanation for their existence. I even had a whole speech lined up, but figured that might have been a bit too… haughty. No, I had to try and connect with these guys, and yet, I also knew how fragile a thing authority really was. In my experience, without some means of enforcing rules and making sure of consequences… well, rules were just air.
I quietly coughed to myself, hoping the three newborns wouldn’t notice, straightened myself up and started to project my voice – even if I lacked a mouth, of course.
“Welcome.” I started, my voice deep and resonant. “To the cosmos. All of time, space and the realms between.”
The three mons gazed around their surroundings, their eyes sparkling as they took in the view of the stars shining behind me. “It is well thou art here.” I continued, trying to make myself as regal as possible. “I am which many will call… Arceus.”
I hesitated before I said that word. You’d think I was being over the top. I mean, I do love my drama even I have to ram my head into the wall more than a few times when watching them. But in truth… I wasn’t sure what they should know me as. Who I was? Or What I was now?
I chose the latter in that moment with a sense of hollowness. No turning back from that now.
As the dragons turned their attention – and their gazes – back towards me, I pressed onwards. “You shalt have many questions. I shalt provide thee with them. For there is much for us to discuss and-“
Giratina suddenly spat a black blob downwards, letting it float away before glaring mischievously back at me. “Come on! Cut to the chase!”
I recoiled at the sudden jab. What the fuck!? I knew the original Giratina had some kind of beef with Arceus, but I wasn’t expecting them to have a go at me now of all times! I could feel my face flush, my body stiffen and before I knew it, I was already uttering: “…what?”
Palkia seemed to drift forward a little bit, a feminine voice coming from their shielded mouth. “I wouldn’t… embellish so much with what we are.”
Are you bloody-
“I thought it was actually kinda cool.” Dialga chimed in with a little bit of spirit, leaning over to get a better view of their fellow legendaries. “Those thous and thees do add a bit of… gravitas?”
At least Dialga wasn’t being some snarky twat, nearly huffing to myself at the comment. Giratina flashed a glare back at the Time Pokémon. “Dude, we already kinda have an idea of what we are! And I’m a fricking badass.” He replied smugly. “We’re not babies.”
Dialga somehow managed to roll their eyes, “Well I can see in to the past believe it or not, so believe me… technically we are?”
Giratina groaned in response, and finding a good moment to punch my head into the conversation, I leaned forward to make my presence more known. “Babies?” I blurted out with a bit more force than I planned, “Gravitas? Embellishment? What are you all on about?” My entire planned first words to them were completely in tatters, and in my own shock, I had promptly broken what was left of my speech into dust on the wind. Ironic, I know.
The black and gold legendary was about to speak, but Palkia beat them to the punch with a wave of their (her?) hoof. “To get to the point, you did imbue us with your power. Shaped us like the space around us. It is safe to say that some of that… rubbed off us.”
“Yyyyyeah, what they said.” Dialga added cheerfully, “I mean, we did get a bunch of extra knowledge too plus some power right?”
For a moment, I was both speechless and frankly, confused as a cat in space until the light bulb went off inside my skull. I had to channel a fair degree of power into the trio’s eggs to even make them live in the first place. I did shape them into what they are… of course! Of course they’d know exactly what they are! Otherwise, they’d be bumbling around aimlessly, turning planets inside out or setting off explosions by accident! Does that mean they knew what their purpose was as well? Or why I had made them? I decided to change tac.
“Oh… oh!” I said, “Ah, of course… I-that makes complete sense. I guess I was expecting… less mature questions…”
That was of course the point where I would rammed my head into the metaphorical sand in the realisation of what I had also unwittingly done. Giratina’s snappiness, Palkia’s refined restraint, Dialga’s friendliness… in my excess focus on giving them power to actually be born in the first place, I ended up transferring not just knowledge… a bit of myself into them as well.
Namely… my incredibly variable autistic personality, and mixed that all up.
FUCK.
Well, not really, autism can be a pain in the side but it’s also great at times, it does offer a unique perspective and well, I guess without it I probably would be who I am now. Well, both as human before being turned into God, of course.
That was when I felt the connection. It was subtle, but distinct. Or rather, three of them. I could feel the free dragon’s heartbeats, and catch a flutter of what they were feeling. Was it just a perk of being Arceus or their creator? “So…” I started again, “Can you feel… well-“
“Our very confused and concerned parent?” Dialga replied, their face mask snapping back to reveal… the closest thing they could probably to do a grin. “Sorry, I’m getting a hint of that.”
“As am I.” Palkia confirmed.
“Yeah, could hurry up and tell us what we’re doing here anyway?” Giratina grumbled, though through the connection, I didn’t sense malice. Only a lack of – ‘It’s not like we’ve got all millennia, you’ve had plenty of that!
…patience…
A low growl rose from my throat, “I was just getting to that!” I countered, managing to prevent it from coming out as a whine before clearing my throat once more. Now, to get a bit of a rhythm going again…
“Thou shal thee-“
“Arceus!” All three dragons cried out at the same time.
“FINE!” I snapped back, bristling as I stamped thin… err… vacuum with a golden hoof. Looks like I wasn’t going to get to make my big speech after all. Fighting my reddening face, I scanned the three Pokémon before continuing. “The point is… I’m trying to create this universe. Build it into a place for life to exist in peace. Or at least, give the opportunity to do so.”
I had spent a great deal of time thinking on what universe I wanted to create. The Pokémon World with Kanto, Johto, Sinnoh, Galar with some new additions? What about the PMD World with Air, Grass, Water, Mist and Sand? Something original? That would have been a blast. Or what about… about my Earth? The one I had called home. What would be worthy of existing?
Well, the answer became very clear. I’d either try and create alternate universes or failing that, just put all those worlds in different locations across the cosmos. Then they all get to exist! Hey, I’d like to think I’m benevolent.
I hope.
Nevertheless, I pressed on. “But I can’t do it alone. Maybe given enough time I can finish all of this off. But with your help, we can not only get the job done faster, but also make the worlds we’ll watch over better. More peaceful and filled with a bit more hope. I might be connected to all of this, and I’m sure you are too.” I gave a little nod at that one. “But I can only look over so much at once. You all have dominion over one aspect of the universe. Time, space, and antimatter. I’ll help you with this to the best of my ability too.”
I paused for a moment, reading their expressions. Dialga was nodding in approval, whilst behind their mask, I could still see Giratina narrowing their eyes at me. Palkia meanwhile betrayed no emotion at all, in fact their stare was almost completely blank, with only a little flicker confirming they were paying attention.
“That and… well, I could with the company.” I took a sharp intake of breath, feeling my chest tighten as I did. “I…” my voice cracked a little bit, “I’ve been alone for a long time… and… this is actually the first time I’ve talked to anyone since…”
My ribcage felt like it was about to collapse, the memory of those I knew creeping forward from a little dark corner of my mind. I… I couldn’t say anything more. Even if I wanted to. Instead, all I could do was bow my head, letting my eyes close for a moment.
I didn’t see their initial reaction. But I could still sense them. One nodding, another two looking at each other.
But none of them moved. Instead, I heard the clamp of metal swinging aside.
When I opened my eyes again, Palkia and Giratina’s mouthpieces had split open, revealing their full faces. Palkia might as well have still been unreadable, which kind of troubled me. But Giratina couldn’t hide it. Their eyes were no longer narrowed, and whilst it was clear as day they were trying to hide it. I could see the faintest flicker of a toothy smirk.
“Right…” Giratina started, “I guess we can try that.”
“You’ll have my support.” Palkia stated again without a drip of emotion.
The tension in my body quickly crumbled away, and I had to catch myself from drooping with relief. Success! It was touch and go for a minute there, but I was glad to-
“Oh! This is going to be awesome!” Dialga cheered loud enough to make Palkia flinch with a touch of surprise, “Come on Gira! We coul-“
“What the fuck just you just call me!?” Giratina snapped, his eyes flashing a brilliant red.
At this point I wasn’t even taken aback anymore. I just stared back at the three mons, watching Dialga try to explain what they meant whilst the now recovered Palkia carefully positioned themselves in between the two… even if Giratina looked about ready to shoot across to their… brother, I guess?
Kids. Am I right?
Giratina spat out a curse, “To hell with it! I’m off!”
The serpentine dragon boosted past me in a blink of an eye, and having to swing my head aside to avoid it. “Where’re you going!?” I barked out, moving to track them.
Luckily, they spun on a dime to look back at me, drifting on their back into the cosmos. “Building a world or two!”
Well at least he’s not buggering off! I figured.
“Well, don’t go too far! It’s a big universe!” he shouted. This time, I couldn’t quite hide my concern. In that instant, I suddenly felt this urge for the dragons to stay close to me. So I could make sure… they were safe. Was this what being a parent felt like? It was… a strange feeling, even now.
“Kinda the point Arcki!” they bellowed back, rolling onto their front again.
And immediately that feeling evaporated as I felt blood rush into my cheeks as I quaked. Arcki!? What- that’s not- “You did not just call me Arcki!” I roared, unable to keep my gob shut.
“Whatever Arcki!” Giratina snarked, rolling onto their front and with a flash of their wings, shot off into the universe.
Palkia strode by me, tilting their head at the rapid departure of their sibling. “I’ll get started on some of the black holes… we won’t want them getting too big.”
Without another word, they floated away at a much slower pace in a different direction. That left Dialga. The blue and grey Pokémon stopped as they came by my side, looking towards me with a warm smile. “I wouldn’t worry about them.” They said with a surprisingly reassuring tone. “They’ll make a big difference.”
I looked towards the time Pokémon, letting the anger drain away. On one hoof, I was kinda taken aback at the sudden support. That was supposed to be my job! At least in the social environment for sure. But at the same time, that very same reassurance filled a soft warmth through me once more. I couldn’t smile, not without that damn lack of a mouth. But I did let my eye gleam as he looked down on them. “I’m… grateful.” I quietly said. “Truly.”
“I know.” Dialga replied neutrally, scraping a foot back. “Well come on! Got a pretty universe to make!”
And then they were on their way, galloping past Palkia with a moment into this universe. I watched them go for a moment, feeling that little spike of pride form inside me. Speech ruined aside… this had gone… rather well.
Feeling some of my strength return, I set off to follow them. We had a lot more work to do…
“And so together we finished creating the planets, dropped off some plants, I made Mew to float around in a few of those worlds, then Mesprit, Uxie and Azelf… plus a few other legendaries and all the Pokémon, plus some humans, and then took a nap for a few thousand years.” I quickly ran through, “The end.”
Below me, sat on my front right leg, a little yellow and black creature looked up at me with bright black eyes. Her pink cheeks weakly sparked as she frowned at me. “But I want to hear the whole story…”
I was lying down on my front inside a small room, only a few metres across. Indeed, I had to shrink down to fit, but even so, I was still working to make sure I didn’t just slam my head into the ceiling by accident. Through the room’s singular window, a small village slept soundly at night with wooden and brick huts and cabins, under the watchful eye of a beautiful crescent moon. Lunala was certainly working a treat tonight.
I directed my gaze downwards, trying to contain the faint pang of guilt. “It’s just… a very long story. If tried to tell you the whole thing… we’d be here until next week. I can’t keep you here for ever and I have a lot to do.”
The little Pichu rubbed her eyes, taking care to avoid the tube that ran by her nose. “Y-You are that busy?” she quietly asked.
I turned away from her, only to get another reminder about her presence. The room had a few chairs, a single nest or bed of some kind suitable for a tiny mon to sleep comfortably in, and the little medical unit hooked to the electric type. Another uncomfortable reminder of where I was.
You are probably wondering how I ended up in this situation. In a hospital room with an ill girl. And the fact of the matter is… I don’t really know either. It had been a stressful few weeks. I had to put down a resurgent eldritch abomination on one of the worlds populated solely by Pokémon for a start. Necrozema went nuts briefly for a time in this one. That needed solving as Zygarde again took their fricking time getting here! I nearly snorted at that one. And that’s before someone tried running off with one of my plates. Did they any idea how dangerous that was!? Forget that Ultimate Weapon in Kalos, they must have been begging to have their world freeze over!
Perhaps I just needed somewhere to vent for a few minutes, away from the other Legendaries. Maybe I was overdue a break, I hadn’t had a nap for a few hundred years, it took a lot of power just to make this universe as alive and active as it was. I don’t know. I was just drifting around when this little Pichu spotted me just… standing there outside her window. Before I could really stop myself, I was in her hospital room. Talking.
Talk. Even after all this time and speaking to so many legendaries, including my kids… well, I guess I never really lost that desire to speak with someone more… mortal.
I already knew this little Pokémon was dying. Maybe deep down, she knew as well.
Maybe that was why I came in. With so much to do… I guess I needed… grounding.
“Yeah.” I admitted, “I am. I created almost everything around us. The stars, the seas, the ground. Even the little atoms in the floor.”
“W-What’s an a-tom?” the Pichu asked, her ear dipping a touch.
I looked back down at her with a slight chuckle. She was just a few years old after all.
“It’s like… a really a tiny thing. Like a brick in this building.” I explained, “And they can be used to build everything you see.”
I was never good at explaining stuff in a really simple way.
“So… I’m made of these a-toms?”
“Yes.”
“That means you are made of a-toms!” she weakly exclaimed, a few more sparks crackling from her cheeks.
I still missed my mouth. I couldn’t smile. So instead, I bowed my head in acknowledgement. “Yes. That’s right.”
Her eyes sparkled with delight. “Wow!”
She coughed, her throat sounding dry and haggled. I could sense her heart flutter as it works to get more oxygen pumping. She looked back up at me, frowning again.
“Did you… ever go home?”
That one made me tilt my head, the rest of me feeling too heavy to do much else. “Home?”
“To your friends and family?” she quietly asked.
I felt myself go cold, if only for a moment. I’d had a long time to work through that. A part of me hoped that one day I’d just… wake up. Back in my human body, hurrying to get myself ready for a long day at work or to put up with parent’s sending messages urging me to make sure I had packed everything. Or me sending messages out to very close friends and… someone more than that an ocean away.
And yet… every day. Every year that passed. Every millennium… nothing changed.
And with so much to watch over… I…
I shook my head sadly, “No… I haven’t.”
“So you can look after them?”
“Yes.”
“Did you… meet yourself?”
“Huh… no. Not directly.”
I let out a sigh, “There are versions of me running around. One of them lives not far away from here actually. He’s been writing a story about his journey.”
The Pichu slid herself off my leg and took a few shaky steps towards me. “I’d like to write something one day.” She weakly admitted, leaning against my chest. “I just need a name. For me… but no one can work out a good one…”
“You… don’t have a name?” I asked.
“Na-na…” she sadly chimed.
I had long since forgotten my own name. The one I had before becoming who I am now. Arceus. That was who I was now. I couldn’t go back to the way I was before, even if the opportunity presented itself. But even so… I couldn’t help but feel that chill run through me again. People come and go so quickly. Some doing a huge amount of harm despite my best efforts… and yet some people still never get the chance to shape their world. Or even work out who they are.
The fact that the Pichu was in this kind of state with no name… no… I cannot allow this.
I looked over the little girl, looking for some kind of feature I could use. It became obvious. On one of her ears, there was two tuffs of fur that looked rather like spikes.
“Have you ever thought of Spike?” I asked softly, “Or Spiky?”
The Pichu frowned for a second, and as if by instinct, reached up towards the ear and stroked it between her tiny digits. At first, I thought she was going to say it sounded horrible, or unfeminine. But what I got instead, was a little smile. A smile accompanied by the same precious sparkle in her eyes. “Spiky…” she whispered. “Spiky… I like that.”
I bowed my head at her again, feeling a faint warmth flutter through my chest. “I… I’m glad to hear it.”
Suddenly, before I could even do anything, the little girl wrapped her arms as much as she could around my chest, enough that even I briefly flinched. “You’re a good mon.” she quietly said, her eyes shut with that smile still growing. “T-Thank you for making this a nice world…”
My mind nearly went blank. This wasn’t a nice world. Someone just tried to destroy it. I couldn’t stop people, humans, Pokémon, aliens and all from dying. Some people were in incredible pain. I couldn’t give them those perfect worlds! I couldn’t lift a finger to stop the shit from happening either! The moment I tried, I nearly flooded a planet! All that power! All that power to alter and shape creation, and I couldn’t do that when it really mattered! It was that reason I went to sleep in the first place!
Snapping myself back to attention, I brought my gaze back down at the girl, ready to put the truth to the myths. “I-“
But my words failed me. Looking down, Spiky, the little Pichu, was softly breathing against me, cuddling my side.
She had fallen asleep.
That warmth briefly filled me again, if only for a moment. She did really care about people. Maybe… maybe that was why I came in after all. A god couldn’t know everything right?
So, I merely sighed warmly. “Thanks little one.”
I lowered my head down. I figured… I’d give her a little more company I thought, letting my eyes drift clos-
Something squeaked from across the room – the door!
My head sprung up, thumping into the ceiling hard enough to shake the light bulb dangling from the ceiling and to shake loose a faint layer of dust. God fuckin-
“Err… dad?”
Leaning through the door, a human was poking his head through the door. He looked rather mundane in his appearance, with grey jeans and boots covering his bottom half and a blue fleece jacket for his upper half. He had pale, but not unhealthy-looking white skin and a thick mass of brown hair. But as he looked towards me, he didn’t react in terror. Instead, he frowned, his blue eyes looking over my self and the Pichu – incredibly still asleep by my side.
As he did, in a brief shimmer of reflected light, his eyes went briefly red.
“Diall.” I realised, “What are you doing here?”
Diall slipped through the door and closed it behind him, “I figured I’d find you out in the world somewhere. I wanted to see if you were alright.”
I narrowed my gaze at the new arrival. “I’m fine.” I replied firmly. As much as I wanted Diall gone, at the same time, I could help but appreciate his concern.
“You know how I perceive things right?” Diall replied, unconvinced. “I know how bothered you are with the state of things.”
Rolling my eyes, I audibly scoffed at that. “I didn’t do enough.” I countered, “All the battles – not the fun ones I mean – the wars, the diseases and the disasters… all I achieved was making a universe where innocents have suffered.”
“That’s not your fault and you know it.” Diall interjected, his eyes flashing red again. “We all had a hand to play in creating this place. We could have turned it into a living hell. And yet we didn’t. You encouraged us to leave these worlds to their own devices.”
“Then why the fuck are mortals screwing up so badly!?” I growled, feeling energy crackled around me, “Maybe we should interject more, give them a little piece of our minds…”
My words teetered off as my body went weak. No… I couldn’t say that. That would just turn me into a tyrant. I didn’t spend an incomprehensible amount of time building a universe only to turn into a rambling psycho!
Diall raised a brow, “Well… not of all them.” He mused.
I glared back at the human figure again. “Like who?”
He smiled back and pointed towards myself. “Little Spiky there, for a start.”
Still nestled against me, completely oblivious to our presence, Spiky slept soundly against me, still completely at peace. I was flabbergasted, how on earth did she not wake up and start screaming in a massive panic? Was she that weak from her illness? Just that exhausted?
I thought back to her last words before going under. How she thanked me. Even with all the issues in the world, she still had it in her heart to say that. She was dying, how could she even thank me for that? And yet… that compassion still warmed my heart. These worlds… they needed a little more than that.
“You’re right…” I admitted with a new warmth, tearing my eyes from the sleeping form of Spiky and towards Diall. “Perhaps we should-“
“You know you can do that yourself.” Diall interrupted with a frown. “And it’s not always a good idea to fiddle with t-“
“It’s your domain.” I interrupted back. “Therefore I’m asking you. She’s earned it anyway.”
Diall chewed on his lip, considering the outcomes of what I was asking. What I was suggesting. But something won inside him and with a flick of his hand, a pair of blue clock hands, fixed to a central point materialised in thin air. “Eighty years?” he asked.
I only gave it thought for a heartbeat. “Eighty years.”
Nodding, Diall place a finger and spun the dial back with a smooth, well-practiced motion. Then, with a click of his fingers, the dial vanished.
Spike’s heart stopped for a moment… and then restarted. Beating harder, more regularly. Stronger.
“Done.” Diall confirmed, as I telekinetically lifted the little Pichu away from me and back to her bed, allowing the humanoid to pull the cover back over her. When she woke up tomorrow morning and the doctors found out her illness was gone – literally as if it was never there - the whole hospital would be in uproar. Both in shock, relief and joy. Her partner more than anyone else.
She was going to have a long time to enjoy life.
“Come.” I called to Diall, shrinking myself a little bit so I could stand up again. “I’m ready to get back up there.”
“The work never ends?” he replied with a smirk.
I chuckled again, “The work never ends.”
As we left through the window and ascended back towards the cosmos, I couldn’t help but feel a warm smile form on my – well – otherwise featureless face.
Yeah, these worlds and the universe weren’t perfect. But it’s not like being a Pokémon god was perfect right? I mean, I was human once.
And you know what? Seeing little sparks of light like that little Pokémon living in them? Made building a universe feel so fucking worth it.
As a bit of a disclaimer, this is not set within the Sierran Timeline, which includes my fan-fics PMD: Guardians of Balance and PMD: Mercenaries of Dawn. It's instead set within it's own... unspecified time and location and was originally fully intended to be just a one-off fanfic for fun, running through an interesting idea in a snarky way, whilst still having a few heart-warming and tearjerker moments. However, I will admit the last few days writing this did get more than a few creative juices flowing for a pseudo-follow up in the form of a series of short fics. You might have an early idea on who some of these potential characters are at the end of the one shot. It's likely something I won't write. At least not straight away and with a huge amount of regularity, but the possibility is there.
As you would probably expect, there are usual general content warnings, and then some.
Somehow, I created the Universe is aimed at mature audiences, with plenty of swearing and F-bombs present in the dialogue. As a big content warning, there is also a section featuring a terminally ill individual near the end that some readers may find upsetting. Unlike the Sierran Timeline though, there is no combat, gore or anything like that.
I will also leave a brief blurb down below as well before the fic starts... but I encourage you not to read it, and instead just go straight on to the one shot itself. It'll make it feel that little bit more impactful...
I ask you one simple question. What if a PMD protagonist did not end up in a classic starter in a pre-established world? What if they ended up at the dawn of creation, as the Original One...
With that all being said and done... let us begin...
Hope you enjoy this!
Word Count: 9568 Words
Somehow, I created the Universe
A OneShot by StolenMadWolf
A OneShot by StolenMadWolf
Sleep for me was a bit strange, if I was honest. I had a bit of a reputation amongst my family and friends that I could sleep better than a corpse once I was down under. Well, not a corpse per say, a rock would probably be more appropriate, but it did seem darkly funny in my head. What most people didn’t know was that this only really applied once I had slipped into unconsciousness. There were times where I would spend the better part of a few hours tossing and turning under the bed cover, itching from heat or just from discomfort. Sometimes I would be worrying myself shitless from something that would be coming up the following day, wondering if I was ready for the task ahead. Sometimes I would wake up hours early, and end up struggling to get myself back under again, less I head off into the day a stumbling wreck.
And hell, nevermind when I was properly sick and crippled from one of the recurring colds or flus with that bile coming my - okay, I’m going to stop there.
This… was one of those nights. I’d been tossing and turning, feeling too hot and too cold. Too constrained. Too uncomfortable, hell, I couldn’t work it out! Maybe I was indulging in my daydreams too much. It hadn’t been the first time I happened. I had self-diagnosed myself as a maladaptive daydreamer. I mean, it made complete sense. My brain was far too active a lot of the time as it was, especially when I started writing or drawing in the middle of the night. Yeah, I’ve had way too many late nights staring at a computer screen for some kind of fun. Or just for general browsing at werewolf or Pokémon pictures. Afterall, life was frakking boring at times, and the escapism did put me in a better mood. Got the creative juices flowing.
I didn’t even realise I had finally fallen asleep. Or rather, if I did. Because when I opened my eyes… I didn’t see my bedroom.
Well, that was when I recoiled from the fluid stinging my eyes. Fluid!? Was the roof leaking? Hell of a bloody time and place for it to happen. I started to lift my head up, and it was only then did I realise. My neck… my neck felt wrong! What? Did I break it? How the hell did I break it?! My heart began to race, but when no pain came through, I forced myself to calm down. No, no no no, it wasn’t broken. It felt… elongated? Was I just stretching it? I suppose it made sense. I took a breath… and it was at that point I realised… well…
My mouth wasn’t opening.
Okay. What!?
I snapped my eyes open, and gave my body a shake. Maybe this was just another weird, creepy as hell nightmare again. They had happened! Hell, I’d admit having used some good ideas from them! But my eyes stung again with pins and needles, I’d always been terrible with opening eyes under water, even when I got used to it as an adult. I was as blind as a mole in a trashcan! But not this time. Instead, my vision was clear, unblurred. Instead, the world around me pulsed with red translucent light, strips – no, veins running across this throbbing surface. It reminded me of a picture of a retina.
So, I’ll admit I have two failings. A fear of falling was one of them. Heights I could put up with, falling from them? Nope, that made me feel too hopeless.
The second was that whilst I could put up with a motherload of gore and guts… eyes shattered that limit.
As you could probably imagine, this was the point I started panicking. I immediately kick my limbs out to the side, themselves feeling wrong, pushing against the fluid that surrounded me. My legs, they felt crooked, bent out of shape! My arms wouldn’t move freely! I shook myself wildly, kicking against the walls of this fleshy container I was stuck in! I headbutted the damn thing! At first, only I felt was a quiver through the surface and a painfully faint, almost comical BOING! In the fluid, but then, my limbs started punching through, allowing a pale light to shine through. Keep going I told myself, keeping kicking and punching and all that jazz, more headbutting!
When my cage my finally broke, it broke fast. It shattered around me almost in silence, the fluid pulling itself away from the surface of my epidermis and with a silent roar, I pulled myself clear, a bit too hard I admit as white-gold fragments and bubbles of lightly red fluid floated away from me. I spun, the world flashing black, blue, yellow and green before my eyes in a blur. It was like I was in a SCUBA dry suit for the first time all over again, doing cartwheels across the swimming pool like a drunken circus performer! I forced in some cold breaths; I should be able to reorient myself at least! I’ve done enough diving and played enough KSP to do that!
I still don’t exactly know how I pulled it off, as I felt nothing flow through around my body. Nothing for me to grip onto either, especially when I couldn’t feel my fingers, but soon enough, I managed to stabilise myself.
At this point, I couldn’t help but gasp. Colourful clouds swirled around me, drifting past in a faint glow of light. Well, a single light. A bright flaring star that I could make out in the distance, pulsing as it seemed to push the clouds away by some unseen force. It was like I was in space… wait, this… literally looked like space! Oh god, that was a heavenly sight! I barely got to see much cool space stuff back at home due to the shitty weather!
But if that was the case… no…
I immediately look down, but instead of seeing myself in my clothes, I instead saw a flash of white and grey, smooth and… inhuman. I tried to lift my arm… only to find some weird white form to drift in front of m- my hand! It was gone! A single golden point in its place! WHAT!?
I wildly shook my head; this was totally a dream. It had to be some dodgy dream yet again… and then… I saw it. Whatever was in the clouds of gas, at least, I figured was gas, was reflective. It was a white and gold creature, floating around on four legs with golden points. A cross like wheel flanked it on all sides, studded with jewels, and atop a long neck, a grey face with green and red eyes stared back at me.
As you can expect, what happened next was totally predictable. I recoiled in shock, and the creature copied my movement exactly. And the truth became immediately apparent.
I was staring at the Original One. The closest thing Pokémon had to a god.
Arceus!
And… no… no no no no no nononononononononononononononnononono! This was not happening!
Arceus… I was Arceus!
I’m sure you could imagine I had a huge, unexplainable rush of feelings through my body. Joy? Awe? Terror? Fear? Bliss? Well… allow myself at the time to detail my feelings whilst both me – and my gas reflection – were shaking their heads wildly at each other with a simple, classic statement:
“OKAY, WHAT THE ACTUAL FU-“
After I… calmed down a little… it soon became apparent that this was not a nightmare or a dream. I would have long since snapped out of it now, tried to make a mental note of it so I could share it on the internet, and immediately get back to sleep again. This was real. Extremely real. Somehow, I had been isekai’d – at least, that’s what some folks would have called it – out of my body and into… well… this! I looked over my new quadruped body, seeing how regal it was, yet remarkably simple at the same time. A part of my mind drifted back to what had happened back home, naturally. What had happened to my body? Was I dead and buried? A vegetable in a hospital, drooling my days away? Or did I simply disappear? What about my friends and family? Could I even go back? If it even still existed?
I already know what you are thinking. That I would be spending my time rolling around endless in circles as I struggled to work out how to even walk or float… but no, it wasn’t. My initial discomfort had already started fading away. I had always been pretty comfortable with the idea of changing forms, and strangely enough, movement slowly became natural to me. I drifted through the space clouds. At least, that’s what I figured they were. Dust, gas, particles, the building blocks of the universe. I trawled my memory and knowledge as I let myself drift through the clouds. I wasn’t the craziest Pokémon fan; the multiplayer drove me mad more than anything else. But I knew enough about the lore to know some details about the wider setting… okay, putting aside that 1000 arms rubbish, Arceus was supposed to be the closest thing the Pokémon setting had to a god. And not a cheap god either, depending on who you’d ask, it created the entire universe after from an egg, which explains my cage.
Oh, I didn’t mention I also somehow managed to get to grips with telepathy too. Good thing too, given the lack of digits to grip stuff with. I focused my attention on the shell piece that floated by my side, willing it to drift in front of me. The fragment was white and gold, and seemed to sparkle in the light. Yep, I’ve just been born again. That’s… going to stick with me for a while, I reckoned.
I directed my gaze towards the cosmos that surrounded me, and most notably, the bright star at its centre. I’m not a betting man, but if I was going to hazard a guess… that was the Big Bang.
Which meant I was literally at the beginning at time. I would have been cheering at being the first lifeform in existence if it wasn’t for the fact that I had no idea about the fate of where I had come from. For all I knew, it could have just poofed out of existence. Or rather, my world hadn’t even been created yet.
The gravity of that thought finally seemed to hit me harder than someone dropping a wrecking ball on my head. Created. This was the very earliest days, hours or even minutes of the universe. There weren’t any planets, stars or even larger atoms. Only me.
Only Arceus.
“Am I… am I going to have to create the universe?” I whispered to no one, feeling a shiver run through this body. If this really was some kind of PMD-style stuff, then… was I stuck here entirely? Was it my job to put everything back together? To be the god who created the universe? The Pokémon Universe? Or something else?
Or heck, was it goddess? I mean, what gender was I supposed to be? I had questioned that as a human despite being born male, but that was a pain in the ass to work out even when folks were telling me I was genderfluid, even when I reverted to saying I was a bloke. Now being something that was very much not human was proving to be an even bigger pain in my godly behind.
Yes. I looked.
No. I’m not telling you.
I frankly didn’t know the answers to these questions, but as I looked towards the Big Bang, I noticed something concerning, but not entirely unexpected. The gigantic flare of light was slowly beginning to fade. Even the brightest of novas had to cease glowing at some point. I had a feeling that sooner rather than later, it would disappear entirely, engulfing the universe in darkness until the first stars formed.
“The first stars…”
I took another shaky breath – somehow despite the vacuum – and straightened my neck, and willed myself to move towards the nearest dense cloud I could spot. If I really was stuck here, even for a while, the least I could do was try and… well, make stuff.
My skin shimmered as I drifted into the cloud, closing my eyes and reaching out, trying to imagine the hydrogen atoms floating around in here, plus all the quarks and what forces I could think off that would be critically important in creating a star. The very first one.
My first star.
Yeah, that sounded just as silly in my head as one of those kids toys that has the word ‘First’ added at the very front of the packaging label. My first explorers’ kit! My first teddy bear! But either way, putting aside that silliness, it was working. Particles of gas and dust started to follow me, like kittens and puppies begging for attention. Albeit with less noise, and less fluff. A little packet began to brighten as it took form, a little ball of gas – not a fireball mind you, but a ball none the less.
As I reached the depths of the cloud, I willed the ball to float in front of me, bringing myself to a halt. I knew the basics of star formation; my earliest favourite topic was space after all. Christ! I wanted to be an astronaut as a kid!
I chuckled quietly to myself at that thought, “Guess I am an astronaut now.” Sighing, I focused my green-red eyes on the orb that I held before. “Alright… need to ram enough of this gas into one space for gravity to take over… just basic stellar formation. Nothing to worry about!”
Assuming this is hydrogen! I thought and hoped.
So, I mentally reached out. Slowly, more of the gases began to drift towards me. I could feel the little particles move, almost as if they were an extension to myself. Every little vibration their atoms made as they moved… it was almost like a small massage being done from a few metres away! Bonkers as that sounded, it did achieve one thing. It helped me focused, kept me stimulated. I focused my efforts on that little ball, feeding the gas further and further into it into it couldn’t contain anymore. Forced it grow, stuffing it with more and more. I was so focused on its shape, its form, I failed to recognise my body was growing with it, automatically keeping pace with the ever-ravenous ball of particles.
I didn’t even blink as it started glowing brighter. Brighter and brighter, denser, and denser until it started to glow a muddy orange. Only then did I notice the increasing heat, flooding through my face and across my chest, just like those firepits I used to sit next to from time to time. This was it! The ball was that dense it was starting to heat up, starting to ignite the hydrogen within it! All that was needed now was-
Suddenly, the gas cloud began to swirl around me, falling onto the now pulsing orb. The heat striking my face grew more intense, the light even more so. My calm focus began to fracture as the gas started to howl, rushing through into the orb. Before I knew it, I was desperately trying to stop it, my eyes widening as the gas orb started to turn a brilliant yellow. I willed the particles to stop, tried to mentally throw them away, but they kept on trucking in. I couldn’t stop it!
That’s the weird thing about gravity. It’s an extremely weak force. It must be, otherwise I’d end up slamming into you along with any apples that happen to be in the same room. But get enough mass into play… well, that becomes a very different story. Gravity was now pulling that gas in, superheating it. I was a frakking Pokémon god, and I couldn’t stop gravity.
That would have been hideously embarrassing on its own!
I could feel my mind straining, a headache coming on as I physically started wafting my legs around as best I could, trying to throw the gas aside with my… hooves? It didn’t matter, all I was doing was leaving pretty patterns in the gas – at least, I would have noticed if I wasn’t so focused on the literal fucking nuke that was floating in front of my face. It was now glowing a brilliant white, the gas not far behind it in colour and fire.
“Crap! Crap!” I yelped. I didn’t feel pain, but my alarm coursed through my entire body, my heart about ready to explode as the tiny orb flared bright. In my desperation, I had one card left to play.
“STOP!” I roared.
In that second… time stopped. All sound ceased. In fact, every sense seemed dulled. I blinked finding the space around me much darker. Had the Big Bang faded away without me noticing?
But there was one source of light nearby. And it wasn’t the remnants of the Big Bang. In front of me, close enough to touch, was a tiny ball of light, frozen in time, surrounded by a thin halo which contained not only the ball, but tiny little specks, smaller, but no less intense. It was almost like a snow globe without a base, but lighter, airier, and more… I couldn’t really work out the right kind of word.
Instead, I craned my neck forward. The light was intense, and in my former human body, I would have probably been blinded by it – especially given how light sensitive I had been. But in the form of Arceus, it didn’t phase me in the slightest. Instead of raw heat, I felt a gentle warmth slowly worm its way through me. A pleasant warmth that filled me from top to bottom as I stared at this seemingly fragile and beautiful thing before me. I had no idea how I did it, but I had managed to stop everything just as the proto-star before me was about to full ignite. A nuclear fusion reaction that’d last for millions, if not billions of years. Once it had fully started of course, I could just keep the clock stopped forever, right?
For a solid two minutes – for what would occur when time was frozen for that matter – I stared at the frozen star, basking in its brilliance with pure wonder. It was at this time, of all times, that I really understand exactly how powerful Arceus really was. How powerful I am. The ability to control reality with but a thought. The whole universe was like a canvas, and I was the artist.
I felt a heavy weight settle onto my shoulders. With this, I knew with this amount of power at my disposal… I had a huge amount of responsibility.
Great power comes with great responsibility, right? Great quote.
But I knew I couldn’t hold the new orb there forever. I couldn’t just turn the clock back either. What would be the point in that? So, with a pang of sadness, I mentally pushed the orb away, and slowly drifted back until I felt I was far enough back to not get engulfed in the ensuing fireball. As it turned out, a tiny spark remained in the distance, the last light of the Big Bang.
I glanced between the old and new light sources, creating shadows from the dust clouds in the ever-darkening space, shuffled on the spot – or rather, lack of a spot – and, perhaps wanting to play a bit of drama to the scene, opted for some thoughtful words. You know, to mark the occasion.
And I was… not very original.
I coughed, “Ahem… let there be light! Err… still!”
With a thought, I willed time to start again.
A bright flash of light engulfed the cloud in front of me, shunting gas and dust aside in the process. Spellbound, I watched as the young star flared for the first time. The first one.
My first one.
I didn’t have a mouth, but if I had one, I would have been giving one hell of a shining smile in that moment.
Despite getting to grips with time and space, there had always been one problem. I was never really good at keeping track of the former. Especially when I lacked a watch, not that I could wear one of course. Again, I didn’t have fingers or a decent set of arms. Unless my own mental, if not borderline psychic abilities counted as the 1000 arms that Gamefreak had written into their Pokedex entries counted as something.
I knew a fair degree of time had passed since I first arrived. I had spent a lot of it bringing more stars to life across the cosmos, slowly getting more attuned to the power that I had at my disposal. At first, I would throw out many stars of the same type, with only little fluctuations in size and brightness. Then, as some of the first stars started dying, I used some of the newly formed material to create the next generation. One with far more variety.
I had been saddened of course, I mean, I guess you could have called me the stars parent. I had nurtured the things after all, and whilst I knew the stars weren’t alive in the same way I was, it still stung. I couldn’t help but sniff a little bit after the third star, No. 4, died in a blaze of glory.
Save the first one of course, I kept passing by it every so often, siphoned a bit of the iron out and pumped in some fresh hydrogen, extending its life and letting it settle firmly into the main sequence. Couldn’t let that guy go up in smoke, that would have really hurt, deep down.
After all that time messing around with stars, planets were a piece of cake. Literally in fact, it was almost like making cake mix, whisking a bowl full of left over dust, gas and rock to encourage gravity to take over again to create a few rocky spheres, ovals and unevenly shaped rocks. Some I left be, others I… well. When you are a god travelling around the under-construction cosmos on your own, you’re going to get bored, and soon enough I was occasionally smashing rocks together with as much care as a pair of kids playing a conkers game, cackling all the while.
Hey, don’t judge me! I only did it on dead rocky planets! And I was trying to make a moon more often than not! I wasn’t doing it to life itself!
Still, struggling to contain my laughter, I would rein myself in, trying to keep my head together. I had a lot of work to do still. I mean, do you have any idea on how big space is?
It’s motherfucking massive!
And speaking of life… well, that was something I was now looking at. Not for the planets mind you, this was far more important.
Floating within a green and gold nebula, under the light of a cluster of young yellow dwarfs, I inspected a trio of perfectly round eggs, each one distinctly different from the others. One was a scaley blue and steel in colour, with a blue gem on top. A second was a smooth silver and pink, with a similarly coloured gem. The third was black and gold, complete with ribs, spikes and no gems at all.
Okay, so it’s said that Arceus created the creation trio of Pokémon. Dialga, representing time. Palkia, the master of space. And Giratina, the antimatter Pokémon.
Everyone even remotely familiar with Pokémon, or Gen IV at least, knows this. Myself included. I knew it was only a matter of time before I would have to create these guys. If the canonical Arceus made them, then I was going to have to do the same. I mean, if this is supposed to be even remotely like the actual Pokémon world, then they would be needed.
And speaking of need, that was my second reason. I hadn’t slept since I woke up as Arceus, and by extension, my power and strength hadn’t faded away. But as I started to shape the first galaxies… I started to feel the strain. There was more ground to cover for one, the universe was still expanding, but I hadn’t got strong enough to slow that down. Further still, I would create a star, turn my attention towards some new planets for a minute, only to suddenly find the star I had just made had become 20 billion years older and on the brink of blowing up in my face.
Space and time had been warping and twisting. My senses had improved a lot over these… long periods of time. I could feel every star breathe in and out as they burnt their hydrogen. Every planet fly through the vacuum. Each orbit I could recall within a split second. I swore that if I had not become Arceus, I might have gone mad trying to comprehend it all. It’s… difficult to explain it as it is.
But it was becoming more difficult. I seemed to stumble into Arceus’ equivalent of an old enemy of mine from my writing and drawing days as a mortal human.
Mission Creep.
I was stretching myself too thin trying to get everything built. I was growing stronger, but with so much to do, I felt compelled to keep working onwards.
Frankly, I needed help, and having my own legendary kids floating around to control time, space and antimatter would make a whole load of difference.
And thirdly… well, I was getting kinda lonely.
I won’t deny I had a habit of talking to myself since being a child. That child embarrassed my modern self to hell and back, but that had still been a habit I never quite broke. It did help with creativity after all. I was also used to being alone for much of my life. But even that had slowly got boring, and the universe wasn’t ready for life. Not yet.
There was still so much work to do…
So much…
I shook my head, cursing myself for turning into a workaholic before focusing my attention back on the eggs. I felt slightly dizzy, it had taken a great deal of effort to form them, even more than the stars themselves. But now was going to be another big moment on a big list of grand moments.
“Well, here goes nothing…”
I willed heat to surge through my body, my eyes flashing red as I willed another inch of my power into the eggs. I could sense them quiver, tiny heartbeats starting within in sync with my own heart. They were tied to me. And I was to them.
The eggs began to sparkle with blue, magenta, and gold light respectively, and so I withdrew, leaning back to watch as the eggs began to shake, faint tron-line like cracks forming across their surfaces, light glowing from within. As I did, I felt a strange sense of… melancholy? Relef? I couldn’t quite describe it. A part of me always wanted kids at some point… I just, didn’t expect it to occur like this.
And definitely not with dragon kids, Game of Thrones style. Damn, that show ended so badly.
My thoughts ceased with a triple flash; the eggs were engulfed in light. My throat tightened as I braced myself for what would emerge. Would they be completely identical to what they were supposed to be? Or twisted into some weird set of tentacle monsters? In that moment, I realised what that sense was.
Fear for those Pokémon.
My eyes had already adjusted seconds before the light actually faded, and my fear quickly faded away… to be replaced with a moment of confusion. Before my eyes, three Pokémon had emerged… but I knew they didn’t look like what I was expecting.
Instead of the draconic looks I knew them by, Dialga and Palkia looked almost like colour swapped versions of myself, resembling some kind of equines or even centaurs. The former looked more crystalline and angular, whilst Palkia seemed to be missing their arms entirely, swapping them out for actual hooves and a similar wheel to my own. My mind raced, W-What? What did I do wrong? Why are they looking like this!? I can fix this! I can-
I nearly gasped in shock, until I looked towards Giratina. That promptly shut my thoughts down. The Renegade Pokémon at least looked the same as what I recalled, albeit in it’s more serpentine form with shadowy black wings. I mentally forced the panic aside as I connected the dots. They were all in their Origin Formes, not their classic ones. The sudden chill that ran through my chest quickly faded away, and I suddenly felt light enough that I could have floated away like a balloon. Success! I had made the creation trio! I had… well, kids! Ish?
The three Pokémon looked over themselves, their faces a mixture of expressions, even behind their face plates. Confusion, surprise… perhaps some kind of curiosity? I was beaming to myself so much, I almost missed them turning towards me, their eyes wide with interest. They were smaller than I imagined, looking surprisingly young, albeit still big compared to what I imagined a human would have been. Or would be rather.
Jaysus… the poor guys must be confused as all eck.
I had taken the time beforehand to try and get some words worked out. Something to say to them for the first time. I had already seen the first Pokémon movie enough times to know how bad things could get if someone as powerful as these guys didn’t get an explanation for their existence. I even had a whole speech lined up, but figured that might have been a bit too… haughty. No, I had to try and connect with these guys, and yet, I also knew how fragile a thing authority really was. In my experience, without some means of enforcing rules and making sure of consequences… well, rules were just air.
I quietly coughed to myself, hoping the three newborns wouldn’t notice, straightened myself up and started to project my voice – even if I lacked a mouth, of course.
“Welcome.” I started, my voice deep and resonant. “To the cosmos. All of time, space and the realms between.”
The three mons gazed around their surroundings, their eyes sparkling as they took in the view of the stars shining behind me. “It is well thou art here.” I continued, trying to make myself as regal as possible. “I am which many will call… Arceus.”
I hesitated before I said that word. You’d think I was being over the top. I mean, I do love my drama even I have to ram my head into the wall more than a few times when watching them. But in truth… I wasn’t sure what they should know me as. Who I was? Or What I was now?
I chose the latter in that moment with a sense of hollowness. No turning back from that now.
As the dragons turned their attention – and their gazes – back towards me, I pressed onwards. “You shalt have many questions. I shalt provide thee with them. For there is much for us to discuss and-“
Giratina suddenly spat a black blob downwards, letting it float away before glaring mischievously back at me. “Come on! Cut to the chase!”
I recoiled at the sudden jab. What the fuck!? I knew the original Giratina had some kind of beef with Arceus, but I wasn’t expecting them to have a go at me now of all times! I could feel my face flush, my body stiffen and before I knew it, I was already uttering: “…what?”
Palkia seemed to drift forward a little bit, a feminine voice coming from their shielded mouth. “I wouldn’t… embellish so much with what we are.”
Are you bloody-
“I thought it was actually kinda cool.” Dialga chimed in with a little bit of spirit, leaning over to get a better view of their fellow legendaries. “Those thous and thees do add a bit of… gravitas?”
At least Dialga wasn’t being some snarky twat, nearly huffing to myself at the comment. Giratina flashed a glare back at the Time Pokémon. “Dude, we already kinda have an idea of what we are! And I’m a fricking badass.” He replied smugly. “We’re not babies.”
Dialga somehow managed to roll their eyes, “Well I can see in to the past believe it or not, so believe me… technically we are?”
Giratina groaned in response, and finding a good moment to punch my head into the conversation, I leaned forward to make my presence more known. “Babies?” I blurted out with a bit more force than I planned, “Gravitas? Embellishment? What are you all on about?” My entire planned first words to them were completely in tatters, and in my own shock, I had promptly broken what was left of my speech into dust on the wind. Ironic, I know.
The black and gold legendary was about to speak, but Palkia beat them to the punch with a wave of their (her?) hoof. “To get to the point, you did imbue us with your power. Shaped us like the space around us. It is safe to say that some of that… rubbed off us.”
“Yyyyyeah, what they said.” Dialga added cheerfully, “I mean, we did get a bunch of extra knowledge too plus some power right?”
For a moment, I was both speechless and frankly, confused as a cat in space until the light bulb went off inside my skull. I had to channel a fair degree of power into the trio’s eggs to even make them live in the first place. I did shape them into what they are… of course! Of course they’d know exactly what they are! Otherwise, they’d be bumbling around aimlessly, turning planets inside out or setting off explosions by accident! Does that mean they knew what their purpose was as well? Or why I had made them? I decided to change tac.
“Oh… oh!” I said, “Ah, of course… I-that makes complete sense. I guess I was expecting… less mature questions…”
That was of course the point where I would rammed my head into the metaphorical sand in the realisation of what I had also unwittingly done. Giratina’s snappiness, Palkia’s refined restraint, Dialga’s friendliness… in my excess focus on giving them power to actually be born in the first place, I ended up transferring not just knowledge… a bit of myself into them as well.
Namely… my incredibly variable autistic personality, and mixed that all up.
FUCK.
Well, not really, autism can be a pain in the side but it’s also great at times, it does offer a unique perspective and well, I guess without it I probably would be who I am now. Well, both as human before being turned into God, of course.
That was when I felt the connection. It was subtle, but distinct. Or rather, three of them. I could feel the free dragon’s heartbeats, and catch a flutter of what they were feeling. Was it just a perk of being Arceus or their creator? “So…” I started again, “Can you feel… well-“
“Our very confused and concerned parent?” Dialga replied, their face mask snapping back to reveal… the closest thing they could probably to do a grin. “Sorry, I’m getting a hint of that.”
“As am I.” Palkia confirmed.
“Yeah, could hurry up and tell us what we’re doing here anyway?” Giratina grumbled, though through the connection, I didn’t sense malice. Only a lack of – ‘It’s not like we’ve got all millennia, you’ve had plenty of that!
…patience…
A low growl rose from my throat, “I was just getting to that!” I countered, managing to prevent it from coming out as a whine before clearing my throat once more. Now, to get a bit of a rhythm going again…
“Thou shal thee-“
“Arceus!” All three dragons cried out at the same time.
“FINE!” I snapped back, bristling as I stamped thin… err… vacuum with a golden hoof. Looks like I wasn’t going to get to make my big speech after all. Fighting my reddening face, I scanned the three Pokémon before continuing. “The point is… I’m trying to create this universe. Build it into a place for life to exist in peace. Or at least, give the opportunity to do so.”
I had spent a great deal of time thinking on what universe I wanted to create. The Pokémon World with Kanto, Johto, Sinnoh, Galar with some new additions? What about the PMD World with Air, Grass, Water, Mist and Sand? Something original? That would have been a blast. Or what about… about my Earth? The one I had called home. What would be worthy of existing?
Well, the answer became very clear. I’d either try and create alternate universes or failing that, just put all those worlds in different locations across the cosmos. Then they all get to exist! Hey, I’d like to think I’m benevolent.
I hope.
Nevertheless, I pressed on. “But I can’t do it alone. Maybe given enough time I can finish all of this off. But with your help, we can not only get the job done faster, but also make the worlds we’ll watch over better. More peaceful and filled with a bit more hope. I might be connected to all of this, and I’m sure you are too.” I gave a little nod at that one. “But I can only look over so much at once. You all have dominion over one aspect of the universe. Time, space, and antimatter. I’ll help you with this to the best of my ability too.”
I paused for a moment, reading their expressions. Dialga was nodding in approval, whilst behind their mask, I could still see Giratina narrowing their eyes at me. Palkia meanwhile betrayed no emotion at all, in fact their stare was almost completely blank, with only a little flicker confirming they were paying attention.
“That and… well, I could with the company.” I took a sharp intake of breath, feeling my chest tighten as I did. “I…” my voice cracked a little bit, “I’ve been alone for a long time… and… this is actually the first time I’ve talked to anyone since…”
My ribcage felt like it was about to collapse, the memory of those I knew creeping forward from a little dark corner of my mind. I… I couldn’t say anything more. Even if I wanted to. Instead, all I could do was bow my head, letting my eyes close for a moment.
I didn’t see their initial reaction. But I could still sense them. One nodding, another two looking at each other.
But none of them moved. Instead, I heard the clamp of metal swinging aside.
When I opened my eyes again, Palkia and Giratina’s mouthpieces had split open, revealing their full faces. Palkia might as well have still been unreadable, which kind of troubled me. But Giratina couldn’t hide it. Their eyes were no longer narrowed, and whilst it was clear as day they were trying to hide it. I could see the faintest flicker of a toothy smirk.
“Right…” Giratina started, “I guess we can try that.”
“You’ll have my support.” Palkia stated again without a drip of emotion.
The tension in my body quickly crumbled away, and I had to catch myself from drooping with relief. Success! It was touch and go for a minute there, but I was glad to-
“Oh! This is going to be awesome!” Dialga cheered loud enough to make Palkia flinch with a touch of surprise, “Come on Gira! We coul-“
“What the fuck just you just call me!?” Giratina snapped, his eyes flashing a brilliant red.
At this point I wasn’t even taken aback anymore. I just stared back at the three mons, watching Dialga try to explain what they meant whilst the now recovered Palkia carefully positioned themselves in between the two… even if Giratina looked about ready to shoot across to their… brother, I guess?
Kids. Am I right?
Giratina spat out a curse, “To hell with it! I’m off!”
The serpentine dragon boosted past me in a blink of an eye, and having to swing my head aside to avoid it. “Where’re you going!?” I barked out, moving to track them.
Luckily, they spun on a dime to look back at me, drifting on their back into the cosmos. “Building a world or two!”
Well at least he’s not buggering off! I figured.
“Well, don’t go too far! It’s a big universe!” he shouted. This time, I couldn’t quite hide my concern. In that instant, I suddenly felt this urge for the dragons to stay close to me. So I could make sure… they were safe. Was this what being a parent felt like? It was… a strange feeling, even now.
“Kinda the point Arcki!” they bellowed back, rolling onto their front again.
And immediately that feeling evaporated as I felt blood rush into my cheeks as I quaked. Arcki!? What- that’s not- “You did not just call me Arcki!” I roared, unable to keep my gob shut.
“Whatever Arcki!” Giratina snarked, rolling onto their front and with a flash of their wings, shot off into the universe.
Palkia strode by me, tilting their head at the rapid departure of their sibling. “I’ll get started on some of the black holes… we won’t want them getting too big.”
Without another word, they floated away at a much slower pace in a different direction. That left Dialga. The blue and grey Pokémon stopped as they came by my side, looking towards me with a warm smile. “I wouldn’t worry about them.” They said with a surprisingly reassuring tone. “They’ll make a big difference.”
I looked towards the time Pokémon, letting the anger drain away. On one hoof, I was kinda taken aback at the sudden support. That was supposed to be my job! At least in the social environment for sure. But at the same time, that very same reassurance filled a soft warmth through me once more. I couldn’t smile, not without that damn lack of a mouth. But I did let my eye gleam as he looked down on them. “I’m… grateful.” I quietly said. “Truly.”
“I know.” Dialga replied neutrally, scraping a foot back. “Well come on! Got a pretty universe to make!”
And then they were on their way, galloping past Palkia with a moment into this universe. I watched them go for a moment, feeling that little spike of pride form inside me. Speech ruined aside… this had gone… rather well.
Feeling some of my strength return, I set off to follow them. We had a lot more work to do…
“And so together we finished creating the planets, dropped off some plants, I made Mew to float around in a few of those worlds, then Mesprit, Uxie and Azelf… plus a few other legendaries and all the Pokémon, plus some humans, and then took a nap for a few thousand years.” I quickly ran through, “The end.”
Below me, sat on my front right leg, a little yellow and black creature looked up at me with bright black eyes. Her pink cheeks weakly sparked as she frowned at me. “But I want to hear the whole story…”
I was lying down on my front inside a small room, only a few metres across. Indeed, I had to shrink down to fit, but even so, I was still working to make sure I didn’t just slam my head into the ceiling by accident. Through the room’s singular window, a small village slept soundly at night with wooden and brick huts and cabins, under the watchful eye of a beautiful crescent moon. Lunala was certainly working a treat tonight.
I directed my gaze downwards, trying to contain the faint pang of guilt. “It’s just… a very long story. If tried to tell you the whole thing… we’d be here until next week. I can’t keep you here for ever and I have a lot to do.”
The little Pichu rubbed her eyes, taking care to avoid the tube that ran by her nose. “Y-You are that busy?” she quietly asked.
I turned away from her, only to get another reminder about her presence. The room had a few chairs, a single nest or bed of some kind suitable for a tiny mon to sleep comfortably in, and the little medical unit hooked to the electric type. Another uncomfortable reminder of where I was.
You are probably wondering how I ended up in this situation. In a hospital room with an ill girl. And the fact of the matter is… I don’t really know either. It had been a stressful few weeks. I had to put down a resurgent eldritch abomination on one of the worlds populated solely by Pokémon for a start. Necrozema went nuts briefly for a time in this one. That needed solving as Zygarde again took their fricking time getting here! I nearly snorted at that one. And that’s before someone tried running off with one of my plates. Did they any idea how dangerous that was!? Forget that Ultimate Weapon in Kalos, they must have been begging to have their world freeze over!
Perhaps I just needed somewhere to vent for a few minutes, away from the other Legendaries. Maybe I was overdue a break, I hadn’t had a nap for a few hundred years, it took a lot of power just to make this universe as alive and active as it was. I don’t know. I was just drifting around when this little Pichu spotted me just… standing there outside her window. Before I could really stop myself, I was in her hospital room. Talking.
Talk. Even after all this time and speaking to so many legendaries, including my kids… well, I guess I never really lost that desire to speak with someone more… mortal.
I already knew this little Pokémon was dying. Maybe deep down, she knew as well.
Maybe that was why I came in. With so much to do… I guess I needed… grounding.
“Yeah.” I admitted, “I am. I created almost everything around us. The stars, the seas, the ground. Even the little atoms in the floor.”
“W-What’s an a-tom?” the Pichu asked, her ear dipping a touch.
I looked back down at her with a slight chuckle. She was just a few years old after all.
“It’s like… a really a tiny thing. Like a brick in this building.” I explained, “And they can be used to build everything you see.”
I was never good at explaining stuff in a really simple way.
“So… I’m made of these a-toms?”
“Yes.”
“That means you are made of a-toms!” she weakly exclaimed, a few more sparks crackling from her cheeks.
I still missed my mouth. I couldn’t smile. So instead, I bowed my head in acknowledgement. “Yes. That’s right.”
Her eyes sparkled with delight. “Wow!”
She coughed, her throat sounding dry and haggled. I could sense her heart flutter as it works to get more oxygen pumping. She looked back up at me, frowning again.
“Did you… ever go home?”
That one made me tilt my head, the rest of me feeling too heavy to do much else. “Home?”
“To your friends and family?” she quietly asked.
I felt myself go cold, if only for a moment. I’d had a long time to work through that. A part of me hoped that one day I’d just… wake up. Back in my human body, hurrying to get myself ready for a long day at work or to put up with parent’s sending messages urging me to make sure I had packed everything. Or me sending messages out to very close friends and… someone more than that an ocean away.
And yet… every day. Every year that passed. Every millennium… nothing changed.
And with so much to watch over… I…
I shook my head sadly, “No… I haven’t.”
“So you can look after them?”
“Yes.”
“Did you… meet yourself?”
“Huh… no. Not directly.”
I let out a sigh, “There are versions of me running around. One of them lives not far away from here actually. He’s been writing a story about his journey.”
The Pichu slid herself off my leg and took a few shaky steps towards me. “I’d like to write something one day.” She weakly admitted, leaning against my chest. “I just need a name. For me… but no one can work out a good one…”
“You… don’t have a name?” I asked.
“Na-na…” she sadly chimed.
I had long since forgotten my own name. The one I had before becoming who I am now. Arceus. That was who I was now. I couldn’t go back to the way I was before, even if the opportunity presented itself. But even so… I couldn’t help but feel that chill run through me again. People come and go so quickly. Some doing a huge amount of harm despite my best efforts… and yet some people still never get the chance to shape their world. Or even work out who they are.
The fact that the Pichu was in this kind of state with no name… no… I cannot allow this.
I looked over the little girl, looking for some kind of feature I could use. It became obvious. On one of her ears, there was two tuffs of fur that looked rather like spikes.
“Have you ever thought of Spike?” I asked softly, “Or Spiky?”
The Pichu frowned for a second, and as if by instinct, reached up towards the ear and stroked it between her tiny digits. At first, I thought she was going to say it sounded horrible, or unfeminine. But what I got instead, was a little smile. A smile accompanied by the same precious sparkle in her eyes. “Spiky…” she whispered. “Spiky… I like that.”
I bowed my head at her again, feeling a faint warmth flutter through my chest. “I… I’m glad to hear it.”
Suddenly, before I could even do anything, the little girl wrapped her arms as much as she could around my chest, enough that even I briefly flinched. “You’re a good mon.” she quietly said, her eyes shut with that smile still growing. “T-Thank you for making this a nice world…”
My mind nearly went blank. This wasn’t a nice world. Someone just tried to destroy it. I couldn’t stop people, humans, Pokémon, aliens and all from dying. Some people were in incredible pain. I couldn’t give them those perfect worlds! I couldn’t lift a finger to stop the shit from happening either! The moment I tried, I nearly flooded a planet! All that power! All that power to alter and shape creation, and I couldn’t do that when it really mattered! It was that reason I went to sleep in the first place!
Snapping myself back to attention, I brought my gaze back down at the girl, ready to put the truth to the myths. “I-“
But my words failed me. Looking down, Spiky, the little Pichu, was softly breathing against me, cuddling my side.
She had fallen asleep.
That warmth briefly filled me again, if only for a moment. She did really care about people. Maybe… maybe that was why I came in after all. A god couldn’t know everything right?
So, I merely sighed warmly. “Thanks little one.”
I lowered my head down. I figured… I’d give her a little more company I thought, letting my eyes drift clos-
Something squeaked from across the room – the door!
My head sprung up, thumping into the ceiling hard enough to shake the light bulb dangling from the ceiling and to shake loose a faint layer of dust. God fuckin-
“Err… dad?”
Leaning through the door, a human was poking his head through the door. He looked rather mundane in his appearance, with grey jeans and boots covering his bottom half and a blue fleece jacket for his upper half. He had pale, but not unhealthy-looking white skin and a thick mass of brown hair. But as he looked towards me, he didn’t react in terror. Instead, he frowned, his blue eyes looking over my self and the Pichu – incredibly still asleep by my side.
As he did, in a brief shimmer of reflected light, his eyes went briefly red.
“Diall.” I realised, “What are you doing here?”
Diall slipped through the door and closed it behind him, “I figured I’d find you out in the world somewhere. I wanted to see if you were alright.”
I narrowed my gaze at the new arrival. “I’m fine.” I replied firmly. As much as I wanted Diall gone, at the same time, I could help but appreciate his concern.
“You know how I perceive things right?” Diall replied, unconvinced. “I know how bothered you are with the state of things.”
Rolling my eyes, I audibly scoffed at that. “I didn’t do enough.” I countered, “All the battles – not the fun ones I mean – the wars, the diseases and the disasters… all I achieved was making a universe where innocents have suffered.”
“That’s not your fault and you know it.” Diall interjected, his eyes flashing red again. “We all had a hand to play in creating this place. We could have turned it into a living hell. And yet we didn’t. You encouraged us to leave these worlds to their own devices.”
“Then why the fuck are mortals screwing up so badly!?” I growled, feeling energy crackled around me, “Maybe we should interject more, give them a little piece of our minds…”
My words teetered off as my body went weak. No… I couldn’t say that. That would just turn me into a tyrant. I didn’t spend an incomprehensible amount of time building a universe only to turn into a rambling psycho!
Diall raised a brow, “Well… not of all them.” He mused.
I glared back at the human figure again. “Like who?”
He smiled back and pointed towards myself. “Little Spiky there, for a start.”
Still nestled against me, completely oblivious to our presence, Spiky slept soundly against me, still completely at peace. I was flabbergasted, how on earth did she not wake up and start screaming in a massive panic? Was she that weak from her illness? Just that exhausted?
I thought back to her last words before going under. How she thanked me. Even with all the issues in the world, she still had it in her heart to say that. She was dying, how could she even thank me for that? And yet… that compassion still warmed my heart. These worlds… they needed a little more than that.
“You’re right…” I admitted with a new warmth, tearing my eyes from the sleeping form of Spiky and towards Diall. “Perhaps we should-“
“You know you can do that yourself.” Diall interrupted with a frown. “And it’s not always a good idea to fiddle with t-“
“It’s your domain.” I interrupted back. “Therefore I’m asking you. She’s earned it anyway.”
Diall chewed on his lip, considering the outcomes of what I was asking. What I was suggesting. But something won inside him and with a flick of his hand, a pair of blue clock hands, fixed to a central point materialised in thin air. “Eighty years?” he asked.
I only gave it thought for a heartbeat. “Eighty years.”
Nodding, Diall place a finger and spun the dial back with a smooth, well-practiced motion. Then, with a click of his fingers, the dial vanished.
Spike’s heart stopped for a moment… and then restarted. Beating harder, more regularly. Stronger.
“Done.” Diall confirmed, as I telekinetically lifted the little Pichu away from me and back to her bed, allowing the humanoid to pull the cover back over her. When she woke up tomorrow morning and the doctors found out her illness was gone – literally as if it was never there - the whole hospital would be in uproar. Both in shock, relief and joy. Her partner more than anyone else.
She was going to have a long time to enjoy life.
“Come.” I called to Diall, shrinking myself a little bit so I could stand up again. “I’m ready to get back up there.”
“The work never ends?” he replied with a smirk.
I chuckled again, “The work never ends.”
As we left through the window and ascended back towards the cosmos, I couldn’t help but feel a warm smile form on my – well – otherwise featureless face.
Yeah, these worlds and the universe weren’t perfect. But it’s not like being a Pokémon god was perfect right? I mean, I was human once.
And you know what? Seeing little sparks of light like that little Pokémon living in them? Made building a universe feel so fucking worth it.
Fin
