Anime Adjacent: Catch 'em, catch 'em, gotta catch 'em- Get the hell away from me!
"Very Well." Arceus loomed over the chosen soul, plucked from the moment of its demise. "Let us proclaim your desires that no mistakes may be made."
"Yes!" The formless shape shouted, a tendril of gaseous light waving in what may have once been a fist bump.
"You wish to enjoy the affections of all 'PokeMon Ladies'. To see the world and know its people. To grow and become the best, like no-one ever was. You desire an opportunity to gaze upon my wonders, to explore places untouched by human hands since time immemorial." Around them, glittering like countless stars, thousands of Unown floated. Forming words and defining the reality as the mortal so desired. A great rift formed at the center of Arceus's countless hands, a gateway for the soul before him-
"Excuse me, sorry, don't mind me." A voice called from the side, drawing two eyes and the attention of the soul bound for reincarnation.
A human was in the God's realm. A man, Arceus thought. Dressed in well worn clothing with a mop of curly brown hair and eyes that glowed an electric yellow.
"Just passing through. Sorry, don't mean to interrupt anything." The man continued, sidling around the spectacle, just beyond the the furthest of the Unown. "Just need to get to the other side, that's all."
"Hu- Mortal." Arceus had to correct itself. It rarely had to correct itself.
Whatever the interloper was, it was not human. Not any longer. The soul was... Some horrible, twisted thing made of Dragon and Ghost with deep, deep bones made of Steel.
"How did you come to intrude upon my domain?" The abomination was not violent, at least, so Arceus felt no need to expel it with force.
"Just tryin' to get home. Your domain here is, uh, dense?" The creature struggled to define the realm it intruded upon. Fitting, given the limits it was initially born under. "It's got a lot of, uh, interdimensional gravity. Sort of. So I got pulled in but I think I can kind of use it to swing my way out, too."
"The fuck are you?" The formless soul asked, drawing Arceus's eyes back upon it. "You get hit by a truck, too? Well listen up, pal! I was here first! I'm gettin' all them PokeMon ladies!"
"Good for you, buddy!" The creature shot the soul a pair of thumbs up. Arceus believed the action may have been sarcastic. "Listen, I got some people waiting for me so you just, y'know, get on with what you're doing and I'm just going to get on my way."
"Oh?" The soul drifted over, ignoring Arceus as the god glared at it. "You got somebody at home? Some hottie out there waiting? C'mon, share the deets! All I've got is my Rainbow Dash body pillow."
"Could you... Maybe not?" The abomination backed away as the soul continued trying to get close to it, the swarming Unown slapping against his back and side. "Dude, you're a gas. I don't want to inhale any loser."
"The fuck did you say!?" Arceus brought one hoof to its forehead as the unwanted soul began to shout. "I collected every limited edition PokeMon card when I was alive! I would've ranked world first if those slant-eyed bastards didn't cheat! I even got the super rare pikachu bikini Misty pillowcase! Who are you calling a loser?!"
"You." Arceus regretted letting Palkia talk it into this. So much.
"Man, screw you!" The soul pushed against the intruded, wedging it deeper into the Unown swarm. "You're just like my parents! 'Get a job' 'Go outside' 'Stop leaving crusty stains on your stuffed animals'!"
"Too much information, buddy." The intruder held its hands up in a placating motion but the mistake of Arceus continued pushing against him. "Way too- Ow- Hey- Whoa!"
Arceus paused mid-motion as it was bringing a hoof up to its face, watching in curiosity as the intruder was funneled towards the center of the Hall of Origin as the Unown surged and pushed. The motion was not violent, no more than a simple wave upon the shore but it, like the wave, dragged and pulled the twisted soul along with it.
Towards the portal that would have reincarnated the unwanted soul Arceus had found, drifting outside the afterlives that had rejected it.
"Yeah, that's right!" The nameless soul shouted as the intruder was forced through the portal that would have reincarnated it. "Just like a turd, straight down the toilet!"
"You do realize that was the portal meant for you, yes?" Arceus needed a rest. And it needed to have a stern talk with Palkia about not imitating the things they saw in the multiverse.
"Wait, what?!" The soul shouted, twisting in on itself in despair. "No! My ladies! Quick, we need to fix it!"
"What is done cannot be undone." Arceus declared, refusing to spend the five minutes it would take to fix it. Their patience for this particular millennia was already spent. "The... Traveler shall take your place, and your boons. Perhaps in the future, mortal, you will remember the gravity of your situation."
"No~o!" The soul despaired, its shrill voice driving a wedge further and further into Arceus's growing migraine. "Please! Isn't there anything we can do?! Any way I can still go on?!"
"...Perhaps." Arceus brought one hoof up to rub its chin. "How do you feel about being a Shuckle?"
"...Can I still make Misty love me?" The soul whined as Arceus began to direct the Unown.
The Origin Pokemon paused, briefly, as several things made themselves clear. Key among them being that it had misunderstood the request of the small soul.
Well, Arceus didn't care to try and fix it now. They needed a good, long Rest. At least three rounds worth.
"Matters of the heart, child, are beyond even my ability to predict." Without looking into the future. "Now, go forth Young Shuckle and find your destiny!"
"Wait-" The soul started to say as the Unown opened a new gate. "Can I be-"
Arceus did not care to listen, lashing out with one forelimb and kicking the soul out and into the world.
Never again, Arceus decided. They would never again try their hoof at this foolish 'Isekai' idea!
-----
"...Dude." Alec groaned as he tried to sit up, every part of his creaking and groaning in stiff discomfort. "Where's my car?"
There was no car.
Instead he spent a moment working to roll over, off of a rock that was digging into his kidney and on to a rock that was digging into his ribs.
"...Stupid, freakin' Gate-crashing, llama-humping- Alright!" Alec pushed his hands under himself and managed to get up and on his knees.
Which hurt.
Because of the rocks.
"Status check. Am I alive?" Alec brought a hand up to his neck and pressed against it with two fingers. "Pulse-positive, so I got that going for me. Next question. Where the hell am I?"
There was a paved footpath nearby, which was good. No signs that he could see but Alec could smell salt and just barely heard the deep, droning pitch of a foghorn or shiphorn or whatever the damned things were called.
"...Yeah, I got nothin'." Alec had no idea where he was. The only two things he knew for certain were that civilization was nearby and that he was probably close to the sea. Or he was close to a river that ran next to a salt mine.
Florida had a few spots like that.
Looking down at his hands, Alec breathed a sigh of relief. Looking further down, he was even more relieved.
He had clothes on! And his pants were about to drop to his ankles... But he had clothes on! And Human hands!
That were attached to him!
All in all, things could've been a lot worse. Alec knew he could've been dropped into an infant, or forced to take over somebody else's body.
Again.
He hated that trope.
But instead he was still wearing his own clothes. His hands still had his own scars.
Now, with a reasonable idea of his circumstances, Alec did the first thing that came to mind. He focused on his magic, aimed counterclockwise and a bit to the left, then cast Gate.
Which did nothing. It felt like he just slammed his magic into a solid wall.
"Yep, shocked. Absolutely shocked." Alec said aloud before he cinched his belt and started to walk through the dense grass and towards the paved pathway. "Well, positives. Look at the positives. At least the indecisive dickbag didn't turn me into a pokemon. Like it does to half the other folks he kidnaps. Mystery dungeon, rando-bullshit, go!"
Alec looked left. Alec looked right. Alec... Had no idea if there was any benefit to going in one direction or another. Looking around, he found a stick on the ground. Tossing it up and into the air, it landed-
In an artificial pond, across the road. Blown out of the air by some angry looking brown and cream feathered bird. It was glaring at Alec angrily.
"...Yeah, no. Eeny, meeny, miney left." Alec, as good as his word, turned left and away from the rude little bird. Another foghorn bellowed in the distance, roughly where Alec had turned.
That was probably a good sign.
-----
"Excuse me?" A polite young voice asked, drawing Officer Jenny's eyes up from her paperwork.
And then down. Whoever had spoken ended up being kind of short.
Which made sense, given that they were a kid.
"Well hello there!" Jenny put on Smile #5, polite and interested. "Welcome to the Vermilion City Police Department! Did you need help with something?"
Looking at the kid, dressed in horribly oversized and foreign clothes, Jenny already had several suspicions. Suspicions which had been proven right one more than one occasion.
Living in a port city was never dull and that wasn't a good thing.
Still, the kid looked healthy enough. He wasn't obviously injured and a minute spent looking deeply into his eyes had her fairly convinced that he wasn't concussed.
Could be possessed, though. Ghost types were tricky like that.
"Sure, why not?" The kid sounded foreign, too. His thick brown hair and yellow eyes were definitely not normal features in Kanto. "I need to report a kidnapping."
"...Excuse me?" Jenny asked, hoping for a bit of clarification. She was already putting together an idea before the boy had even started to continue.
"Yeah. I've been kidnapped. Tossed on the side of the road and left with nothing but the clothes on my back." To which the boy tugged on the collar of his shirt as if to prove his point. "I have no identification, no proof of citizenship and no point of origin."
"I... See." Jenny reached down under the desk for two things. The first was a flask that she kept for... Unusual days.
The second was for a binder filled with earmarked pages that was used to reference obscure laws and virtually unused paperwork.
"And do you know who kidnapped you?" Jenny was going to have to get the kid to fill out whatever information he did have. Name, date of birth, address if he had one...
"Yep." The kid said, blunt and short. "Arceus."
"I don't believe I'm familiar with any Arceus gang..." Jenny muttered as she began to flip through the reams and reams of redundant papers. "However, if you can provide a description we may be able to find them and request further information for you?"
"Yeah, sure. Let's just go arrest the One Above All. See how that works out." The kid muttered while Jenny double-checked the form she'd found.
Dimension Traveler Immigration? Sourced from... Ah. Alola.
"So it's about three meters tall. About three-hundred kilograms. White and fluffy, has a big golden ring around its center which might be decorative or it might be a pair of dimensional gates keeping us from seeing anything other than the ass and head. Not sure which end is which at this point. Normal type." Jenny nodded along as the boy spoke, more and more sure that his imaginary pokemon wasn't real.
Kids and their fakemon, these days. She still remembered when Marill was called 'Pikablue'!
"Unfortunately, I'm afraid I don't know of any pokemon matching that description." Jenny guessed it was something he'd made up in transit, a way to keep his mind occupied. "However, I have several forms here that might help you! ...After a quick visit to the local hospital."
"Alright." The kid agreed, shrugging his shoulders.
Jenny packed away the forms she'd found, mostly ones that had to be filled out by her instead of the kid, and stood up to grab her hat.
Then turned back around to grab her flask.
The kid got to sit around for a bit while the doctors made sure he wasn't crazy. In the meantime, she had to figure out if they could even track down where the kid came from!
Her guess? The kid was transported on a cargo ship. Stowaway or cargo, she didn't know. They got at least one of those a month, most of 'em they could just ship back to their parents.
Most of 'em...
Jenny reached up and patted the pocket where she'd put the flask.
It was too early to be day drinking...
AN/ Cleaned this up a little bit, changed a few parts and offered up some expansions. Might not be anything else here, maybe there will be. If it does get expanded, Al's team would never get particularly large. Four pokemon, max.