Final Chapter: The Judgment of Arceus

"Yes! YES! It worked! I found Arceus! I summoned God!" Oak shouts euphorically.

Arceus descends to the ground. It is four legged, and has a golden circle resembling the pokeball symbol around it, while giving off an ethereal glow.

"Who are you?" the Pokemon asks. Unlike the other talking Pokemon, it is able to speak normally.

"I am Professor Oak, soon to be God." Oak replies "I am your master now."

"Oak, I was dreading the day I would have to face you."

"Then don't!" Sato yells "He ruined the lives of countless people, he doesn't care about anyone except himself, please, leave! Leave before he can take your power!" Sato pleads.

Arceus turns to Oak. "Did you say you would soon be God?'

"Yes, although I know that's a bit of an understatement. I will control God!"

"And how do you plan to do this?"

"By capturing you! You created the universe, you control all people and Pokemon!"

"I see."

Arceus appears to be sighing.

"You have overestimated my power. I am not omnipotent, and I do not control everything in this universe. I am far from God."

Shock, then horror, then fury as Sato has never seen any of them contort Oak's face.

"You're lying! You have the power, you're the key to my divinity!"

"I have no reason to lie about this. If I were omnipotent and wished to deceive you, why would I not force you to believe me? Why would I have come at all when summoned if I knew what awaited me and didn't wish for it to happen?"

Oak's face contorts some more as the logic of Arceus' argument sinks in.

"AAAAAARRRRGGGGHHHH! You bastard, you worthless fake, I hate you! You wasted my life, you made me think I could achieve the greatness I deserved! You'll pay for your lie, DIE!"

Oak takes out a gun and fires it madly at Arceus. But the bullets don't seem to have any impact. Arceus looks at Oak and with a slight facial gesture, summons a giant beam of light. It cuts Oak in half. Arceus turns to Sato.

"He continued to make mistakes, that time he underestimated me. I did create this universe, and I am the strongest of all Pokemon."

"You… really did create this universe?"

"Yes. But it took most of my energy, I am only marginally stronger than the beings I created now."

"But… that means Oak was right… this universe was created by Pokemon for Pokemon."

"Why does the idea of a Pokemon creating this universe trouble you so much?"

"Humans have never been allowed to do anything except care for Pokemon. I've never seen any person do anything that wasn't directly related to them. Oak basically enslaved everyone in these regions for the sake of his Pokemon research. Do you think him being gone will change things?"

Arceus sighs again.

"Sadly, I don't think so. Oak had been alive for quite a while, but not long enough to cause the world's Pokemon obsession. Before Oak and outside the regions he controlled, people have been obsessed with the powers of Pokemon, and pressured or forced others to share their obsession."

"Well is there anything you can do to change that?"

"Not really. This universe is a simple but confusing one, a major change like that would effect its stability. I ran out of energy, both physical and mental, while designing this place. There were things I just didn't have time to implement."

"Like what?"

"There are other universes, other realities. The scope and origin of them is far beyond my knowledge, but I have observed some of them. Less than 500 animals is a very low amount for a planet, it can not adequately support such a large ecosystem. More complex universes have millions of animals per planet, and smaller life forms that hold everything together. I created the various Pokemon and gave them illogical amounts of power and importance to try to cover this, to keep things in line. But as human thought grew more and more complex, they began reaching for things that this universe couldn't provide."

Arceus raises the corpse of Groudon.

"Look at it, inside it is no more complex than a plastic toy. No blood, no bones, little more than a living hologram. The taboo against harming a Pokemon stems from this, dissecting one would raise questions about why it does not resemble a normal organism. Long ago, Oak discovered this. He dove too deep into the illogical science of this world, and saw that humanity could never make a significant advancement, my universe just wasn't consistent or stable enough. Originally he had a noble reason for wanting the power to remake the universe, but he soon became corrupted, and only desired power for his own selfish ends."

Sato is sitting now, trying to take it all in.

"So we don't have a choice? We have to focus on Pokemon, everything else is a dead end?"

"After watching how people reacted to it, I can't let that continue. You have given me hope, although I could not give you an adequate universe, the souls of the people here are strong. I'm confident that you'll be able to survive this."

"What are you going to do?"

"I'm going to use the last of my energy to send you into a more stable universe, the one I based your design on. I should be able to send every human here into a new life."

"What about the Pokemon?"

"They would not fit in the world I am sending you to, I will take them with me and try to find a better place for us. Their souls are different, they will not mind being contained. You will finally be free of them."

Sato shakes his head.

"I don't need to be free of them anymore, humans were just as responsible for what happened to our society. I really don't want our memory of them to just be erased, is there any way to take some trace of them with us?"

"Hmm… I think there actually might be…"

Everything disappears in a flash, fading to white. The scene changes to our world, although a little bit in the past.

A boy named Satoshi Tajiri is in a field, tracking a green caterpillar. He sets down a glass jar around it, adding another bug to his collection. Suddenly, he gets an idea.

The End