Darkness. Devoid of any light.

Silence. An unspecified amount of time.

This is to be expected, right? What else would there be?

More darkness.

But not really a "bad" kind of darkness. It was more of a sweet release, an emptying, from all of the pain and hurt and guilt that had constantly gnawed and torn his insides apart.

The freedom he now felt from the ever-present turbulence inside him was both grand and wonderful - it was luxurious.

'Finally. It's all over.'

The young man exhaled with his entire being and rested a rest that he had not had in a very, very long time.

. . .

. . .

. . .

"...-'re awake."

A voice full of presence echoed through the void.

'What..? Who?'

The man opened his eyes slowly, squinting through the faint light, and searched for the unidentified person.

Darkness still lay all around him, but there was light coming from one place. To his right, where the source of the earlier voice was. Except, it was not a person. At least, not in the traditional sense of a human being. The young man was not sure exactly what he was looking at, actually.

It looked like some sort of massive horse-like beast with jagged white and gray armor. Its burning crimson eyes felt like they could blaze straight through your soul if you met its gaze for long enough. This was accentuated by the pure gold sheen from the horse-beast's hooves, crest, and strange, huge spoke encircling its back.

As if its appearance alone was not enough, the horse-beast also emitted an ethereal, translucent glow, belying an unimaginable amount of power that was near-suffocating to be around. The aura energy of the horse-beast was so strong, so vigorous, that it practically challenged others to defy it, to see the fate of those that dared to blaspheme in its proximity.

"I know I am quite handsome. You must be speechless," the horse-beast spoke directly into the man's mind.

Flabbergasted, the young man indeed was speechless but not for the same reasons. A million questions that he had no answers for came all at once and resulted in the confused expression on his face along with a healthy amount of fear.

A fleeting thought passed through his mind, wondering if this existence in front of him was a deity of some sort.

"That is correct."

'The existence can also read minds!?'

"That is also correct," the existence repeated.

"I apologize. All of this must be quite a shock to you as it was for many of your predecessors. Please, let me explain first."

The man, still sitting on the ground and stunned, wisely decided to listen first instead and ask his endless questions after the beast deity, which could probably crush him faster than he could blink, finished its explanations.

"Let me first introduce myself. In my world, I am known as the Progenitor, the Thousand-Armed Creator, as well as my more colloquial identity given to me by the humans of my world, Arceus."

'Arceus...why does that name sound so familiar? W-wait, that Arceus!?'

"Yes. That Arceus. The one those from your world call the God of all Pokémon, which, in a way, is true."

The man only felt like he had more questions instead of answers after hearing this introduction. A headache slowly emerged.

"Please be patient. I will do my best to get to all of your inquiries. Hopefully, I can cover most of them in the following explanation."

The young adult eventually received much information about what happened to him, where he was, and other miscellaneous knowledge from God Arceus.

First, he learned that he had already died and left his old world of Earth, which considering everything that led up to the end was not too surprising.

The man also learned that his soul was taken out of the normal cycle of his world and called to this realm by God Arceus, which overlooks its own world, Terazón. The reason being is that there is a complicated system where the gods switch souls around occasionally to keep their worlds "fresh.”

Apparently, the young man was lucky enough this time to be a part of God Arceus' quota, who actually sends out more souls than it receives; the god has more than enough on its plate dealing with the souls of the lesser life forms - sorry, the Pokémon. Supposedly, the label Pokémon, short for Pocket Monsters, was given by the Terazón humans after they found methods to combat, tame, and eventually capture the very monsters risking mankind’s extinction since the dawn of time.

According to God Arceus, the reason why Earth humans even know about the world of Pokémon is because the god of Earth is a very lazy one. Instead of using a tiny portion of his godhood power to supply and generate original ideas in the minds of his men, he just plagiarizes from other worlds as it takes much less effort for him.

Ignoring the fact that some of Earth's fictional characters may or may not potentially be based on actual real ones, the crux of the matter for the young man now is to figure out his next steps and what exactly God Arceus has in store for him.

"I am most pleased that you found that explanation satisfactory."

"Now, let us discuss what happens next. I will soon release your soul into Terazón's reincarnation schema, which will subsequently reborn you as a newborn human, the lifeform most compatible for your soul in this world," God Arceus introduced.

"That process is supposed to completely eliminate the memories of your previous world, but I have not really gotten around to 100% correcting that particular oddity - it is not like there are many human souls I receive anyway - so you can think of the memories you do manage to keep as a bonus of sorts." The Pokémon God continued.

The man pondered this new information.

'I don't know if keeping my memories will be useful at all. I barely watched some of the anime and played only the Yellow and Gold versions of the Pokémon games when I was younger. And that was only because it was before everything happened.'

"Do not fret. Your version of my world is vastly different from how it actually is. The underlying premise is there, but you will get to personally experience the discrepancies themselves." God Arceus noticed his concerns.

"In any case, based on your Karma, I am also supposed to grant you a corresponding blessing. Please give me a moment to check...oh my. I see, you have suffered from quite a tragedy. For that, I am truly sorry. While I cannot do much about your past life, I can give you a great boost in your next one. Please, look forward to it."

The young man felt...weird as a hot sensation rose from within, his body becoming a thermos insulating its contents from the outside world. Other than that funny feeling, there was not any other indication that he received the beast deity’s blessing.

The god and the man exchanged dialogue a few more times afterwards as the mortal felt much more comfortable than he did previously. The deity tried to assuage the man's anxiety of being thrown into such an absurd situation.

"Alright. I believe that is more than enough,” the god finally said.

“As for the rest, you will soon discover for yourself. I must take my leave now," the god looked in an unknown direction, "My demigod descendants are causing trouble once more, and I must ensure that it does not get too far out of hand. Farewell for now, and may your path forever be an auspicious one."

The man thanked the god for everything and said his goodbyes. He then laid back down and closed his eyes. Shortly afterwards, the burning feeling rose again in his chest as darkness entombed his body and overtook him.

. . .

. . .

. . .

Arexio

span>

Author Rex here. Just wanted to say 2 things:

1) Really enjoyed/inspired to write this piece by these amazing creations: Pokemon: The Origin of Species by DaystarEld, Traveler by The Straight Elf, and Sacrifice and Subjugation by Metal Dargon.

2) Usually, I'm more on SH Discord hanging out with peeps instead of ScribbleHub proper, so if I'm not updating as frequently, that's probably why haha.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy this darker, bleaker world of Pokémon!