Disclaimer: While this is a 2-story AU fanfic idea, it is also going to have lots of speculation in it on the part of the latter story, as it is going to be based heavily in the world of the unreleased Pokemon Legends: Arceus game.
Also will have information from the anime, but I’ve only watch up to the beginning of the Kalos adventures and it’s been a while since I’ve watched the Sinnoh anime (or any of the anime, really), so I apologize for getting details wrong.
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Here’s the idea: Basically, this is based on some artwork I did some weeks ago on DeviantArt of the Turtwig line, but recolored with purples, to reflect Paul’s color scheme, which came to mind after I finished BDSP.
Which then made me think of Paul somehow transforming into a Turtwig and filling the place of Ash’s Turtwig during Ash’s journey through Sinnoh. But he’s not there right away, just finds himself in the same place Turtwig was in the anime and kinda lost, until Pikachu comes around and Paul recognizes Pikachu. He tells Pikachu what he knows (not knowing how he got sent back in time or how he transformed into a Turtwig) and Pikachu suggests that Paul come with him and Ash so they can figure it out together. So, since he has no idea how to be a pokemon and really needs the help, Paul goes with Ash and Pikachu. He also refuses to stay in his pokeball so he travels out like Pikachu and Ash doesn’t mind.
The story after that follows Ash’s journey, but because Paul is now a ‘weirdly-colored Shiny’ and not Ash’s rival, either Ash isn’t really pushed like he was before or Barry comes in earlier to fill in that space. Which makes Paul concerned, because he should have been involved since the beginning, but his other self never shows up. And he doesn’t understand why until they get to Veilstone and meet Reggie.
Brock once again asks Reggie about the missing symbol (I believe that’s what happened in the anime) and Reggie kinda grows quiet and sad. Brock tries to backpedal, realizing that he may have made a misstep, but Reggie says it’s fine and explains so that they understand. Back when he was completing the Battle Frontier, Paul was a new trainer and travelling with him. It was while they were trying to find the Battle Pyramid that there was an accident and Paul was killed, so Reggie never took on Brandon because of the grief and just went home.
And just, Paul is in shock. He was dead? And he runs off to process this, followed by Pikachu to keep him company. Of course, this soon gets derailed when Team Galactic show up to get the meteors and Paul has to push away his feelings to deal with this. And when Galactic is driven off, he and Pikachu return to Ash, but he’s still confused and kinda depressed about his fate in this alternate timeline, so he doesn’t know if he wants to keep travelling with Ash or just stay with Reggie. At least, until Turtwig shows up.
Turtwig (The AU Paul’s Turtwig) recognizes him immediately. The pokemon ends up confused and crying too, until Paul explains his side of the story. And Turtwig understands what has to be done. Because, as much as this is Paul, it’s not his Paul. Paul was made into a Turtwig for a reason and he wasn’t going to get answers staying with Reggie, no matter how comforting it might be. So he urges Paul to keep going with Ash, because going out into the world on an adventure would give him better answers than just staying in Veilsone. And as much as Paul doesn’t want to, he follows Turtwig’s advice and stays with the group.
They continue travelling, following the anime story for the most part, and Paul eventually evolves into a Grotle, then Torterra (also continuing to refuse to be confined to a pokeball even as he gets slower and bigger). As he travels with the gang, Paul also begins to learn things, not just getting answers on his predicament. He learns what it means to be a pokemon, wanting to fight for your trainer instead of being ordered around like he was doing, and that Ash’s training style had merit, just like his own. Ash’s pokemon may not have been able to match Paul’s in pure power, but their belief in their trainer and Ash’s belief in them was what made the pokemon strong enough to eventually topple Paul’s team. And these new ideals help Paul change a bit. He’s still standoffish and a bit cold, but he’s thawed out a lot and now is more willing to ask for help and help others. Which, y’know, surprises him when he realizes the changes.
But his attitude isn’t the only thing that changes. Because he’s a pokemon, he also understands other pokemon and becomes friends with Ash’s team, and he learns just how much pain a pokemon can take before they can’t fight anymore. It makes him empathetic for his own team, and then saddened, because he doesn’t know if he’ll ever see them again. On their journey, he and Pikachu have looked and looked but have been unable to find any kind of answer to what happened to Paul. Until they meet Brandon in Snowpoint.
Pikachu gets the idea to ask the Regis if they have any idea of how to help Paul, since they’re old beings and all, but they have to go through the whole thing with Hunter J and Regigigas first. And after he first met Hunter J and her Salamence, Paul is holding a grudge, so he takes on Salamence by himself after goading it into attacking. It’s a really rough fight, especially since Paul is at a double disadvantage with typing and Salamence’s flamethrower, but he pushes through with some help and eventually gets the upper hand against Salamence before J flees (also might evolve to Torterra during the fight instead of in Sunyshore like canon).
Now that that’s over with, Pikachu and Paul ask the Regis. To their surprise, it’s Regigigas who has the answer, which is Arceus. And Paul has no idea how he managed to incur the wrath of the Alpha Pokemon, so he asks why. Regigigas then answers that it could just as easily be the efforts of Dialga and Palkia working together, being as they control time and space respectively, but they hate each other and neither can turn a human into a pokemon, so Arceus is the likely culprit. As for why this happened, Regigigas has no answer. The only way to know is to ask Arceus itself.
So they keep journeying until Arceus and the Jewel of Life happens. Paul sees this as their chance to ask why...until Arceus starts going on a rampage. So they go through the events of the movie and save Arceus, but because the Alpha Pokemon doesn’t believe in the words ‘stop and smell the roses,’ it leaves right after giving thanks to the humans in present day. And that leaves Paul angry. After all this time, he had the chance to ask, but then it was stolen from him because Arceus decided not to stand around. So Paul kinda has to vent at the forest for a bit after with his moves and is still kinda bitter throughout the rest of the journey, until they get to the Pokemon League Conference.
Paul panics, because he knows that Ash is going to switch out most of his pokemon for the upcoming battles and Paul doesn’t want to be one of them. So at first he asks Pikachu to ask Ash to keep Paul, then realizes Ash might not understand the request and tries running away. It’s not easy as a purple Torterra, but he manages. And when Ash and the gang finally catch up to Paul and figure out what’s going on, Ash lets Paul stay. That’s when Paul learns another lesson: Pokemon who love their trainers REALLY don’t want to be separated from them, and it makes Paul take a major introspection of himself. Was he losing himself because he had stayed a pokemon so long? Why did he want to stay with Ash if they weren’t going to keep looking for Arceus after the League? Why was he so afraid to be forced to leave Ash? And Paul doesn’t know how to answer these questions. But he pushes them into the back of his mind as the League starts and tries sorting them out in his own time with a little help from Pikachu and the other pokemon (who don’t know Paul’s secret like Pikachu does but they do their best to cheer up their friend).
Eventually, Paul ends up being Ash’s final pokemon in his major second-to-last fight, which is up against Barry, and they win, and Paul doesn’t know how to feel with them being so close to ending the League. But then they go up against Tobias and Paul manages to help take out Darkrai but it’s not enough and they still lose but Paul’s not mad about it. He’s been enjoying battling, even though he dislikes the pain that comes with it, but he gets it. You have to give blood, sweat, and tears before you win, don’t you? And Ash has help him achieve it, so he’s not mad. What he’s worried about, though, is what happens next. He knows Ash is going to go back to Kanto now, leaving Arceus and Sinnoh behind and Paul doesn’t know what he wants. Does he still want to travel with Ash, even if it means he’ll never be human again? Or does he want to go looking by himself and risk being caught and sold by people like Team Rocket or Hunter J? Ash answers that for him: They’ll look for Arceus.
Which, Paul is REALLY surprised at, because how did Ash know??? Paul was pretty sure Ash couldn’t understand him, until Ash explains that Pikachu told him everything, because Pikachu was his first partner. And it clicks with Paul, how things make total sense now. Typically people couldn’t understand pokemon, it just wasn’t possible. There were the few that said they could, and then there was the ‘First Pokemon Phenomena.’ It was a thing that typically happened with Trainers and the first pokemon they were partnered with, usually the starters, where the trainer would learn to understand what their partner said but couldn’t with other pokemon. So having Pikachu as Ash’s first pokemon, not just his favorite, it made more sense now. So after saying goodbye to Dawn and Brock, Paul, Ash, and Pikachu return to Michina Town to find another way to ask Arceus for help.
After Ash and Damos helped save Arceus, the Alpha Pokemon is more kind to people than before, and Ash thinks that Michina Town, since that was where they last saw Arceus, would give them to best shot of calling for the Alpha Pokemon. And it works. Arceus shows up, listens to their plea, and offers to take Paul back to his own universe and timeline, though it has no idea why he’s here in the first place. And then Paul says goodbye to Ash and Pikachu, tears in his eyes because he can’t thank them enough for how much they’ve changed and helped him, and blacks out.
When he wakes up, he’s Paul again, but he’s sore. And he’s not at home. He’s- At the hospital? And Reggie’s there, and explains what Paul’s memory is missing, which is that he had gone out to train not far from Veilstone, on Route 210, but something happened and his team ended up bringing a badly injured Paul home, where he’s been in a coma for MONTHS. Torterra’s also in the room despite the rules and leans on the bed so Paul doesn’t have to stretch too far to rub his head and nearly collapses the bed but that’s okay because Paul’s okay and Torterra is happy. Paul takes some moments to sort through the information and sees Reggie’s crying face and he just, he breaks down a bit. He never thought he’d be human again and he knows not to take his brother for granted so they hug and Reggie’s surprised but then they’re both crying and hugging and so no one comments on it.
But then, when they’re done with the sobfest, Reggie mentions that Ash is here, having just finished the Manalo Conference and learned what happened, and came for support. But he hasn’t left since which, y’know, means a bit more than it looks like. And Paul’s not sure how to take his rival showing up for support like this. But he’s stuck in the hospital for a while longer so he has lots of time to sort through things, and he ends up going outside one night to talk with his pokemon and tell them what happened and it helps them understand why he’s being so gentle now and that’s when Paul realizes that he’s got a holdover from his time as a Torterra: He can now understand all pokemon. And then he notices that Ash was around and heard everything, but he doesn’t react and lets him approach.
Ash doesn’t say anything for a while, just standing with Paul and the pokemon, then says that he was a pokemon too, for a short while. Paul asks, Ash answers about his adventure as a Pikachu for a week, and Paul laughs because, if you don’t have to fight or anything, you could enjoy the experience like Ash did. But he wasn’t so lucky, yet he got a better perspective than Ash did about their lives. And Ash laughs too because yeah, he was kind of a silly Pikachu, even if he couldn’t understand other pokemon like Paul could. And they talk a little more about their pokemon experiences, until Ash asks about why Paul’s being so nice and loose and Paul is still prideful enough not to admit it’s because of Ash’s influence and the friendship of the pokemon and so asks him to drop it, and Ash does.
Paul eventually has to go back to his room, but while he’s stuck in the hospital, he explains it all to Reggie and Ash visits more often and then Paul asks at one point if he could see Infernape again and apologize and Ash does. Infernape’s not sure how to take the apology from Paul, of all people, but he does accept the apology and Paul feels better about it, because the whole thing with Chimchar kinda ate him up inside as he grew as a person in the other world. And Ash did get a Chimchar like Paul, it was the same one actually, but Ash saved Chimchar from the Zangoose instead of what Paul did so, yeah.
And when Paul is finally allowed to leave, he stays a while with Reggie and Ash...doesn’t leave. So Paul takes the opportunity to ask to travel with Ash, and Ash agrees. But that’s just the end of the first story.
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Second story: Ash and Paul have been exploring Galar for a while with Goh, but then come across Arceus (different than when Arceus appears in canon), who is going on a rampage and they don’t know why but it triggers something in Paul and he remembers what happened to him in the previous story, that resulted in his injuries and the pokemon adventure: Arceus attacked out of nowhere on a rampage and the only reason he didn’t die was because the Creation Trio showed up and drove Arceus away. And it’s happening again and Paul is left traumatized by the previous experience and can’t do anything, but Ash takes the initiative and tries to help Arceus.
They both get blasted and disappear with Pikachu and Torterra, only to end up in old Sinnoh (Hisui) and have to make their way through this new world as they try to figure out how to get back to their own time, what was going on with Arceus then, and what is happening in the region now because something’s up. And because they’ve been travelling together and have to work together to find a way home, Ash and Paul grow closer and it becomes Comashipping because that’s always been the endgame.
They help the Galaxy Team create the Pokedex (and only Ash accepts one of the starters, probably Cyndaquil because it reminds Ash of his own Cyndaquil/Quilava and because he helped it for some reason) and travel Hisui and they discover all sorts of new things. The crafting pokeballs reminds Ash of the GS Ball and it makes him wonder again what was stuck inside it while Paul actually bonds with the pokemon around the region and experiences the history he’s only every heard about in books.
Eventually they encounter Arceus again at the end of the story after finding out that Arceus has been infected by something that makes it rage out-of-control (that can spread to other pokemon, found out by poor Torterra, and it isn’t Pokérus) and then they save Arceus, who promises to send them back if they’ll cure him again, as the only cure can be made from plants in Hisui who have gone extinct in modern Sinnoh. Which then leads to cultivation in the present of seeds stolen away from that time so this doesn’t happen again and Ash and Paul continue travelling together and leaving Goh confused because, this time, there was no timeskip and so they just appeared in the same place where they left with no time change. And of course they don’t say anything, as nobody would believe them (even Reggie had a hard time believing Paul’s pokemon adventure, so they kinda don’t mention it to him).
AND THAT’S IT.
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Update: I am now writing a drabble-ish series based on this idea on Tumblr. Here’s the first part.
