#Either upon entering Hisui or coming back or both: maybe they remember everything! How would that change things?

[tiffanylilalayorlestron]

Mmm. So I've been watching a silent playthrough of Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Sky while I work recently and it churned up an AU idea that I can't get out of my head. I'm sure it's been done before but the potential for a story will not leave me alone.

So, the human from PMD Sky, the one from the future, who jumps back in time w/ their partner Grovyle, gets batted around in that time storm and separated, right? Same old, same old.

HOWEVER.

Instead of getting transformed into a Pokemon and going on their adventure in the Mystery Dungeon world, Arceus (the old goof) senses an opportunity and plucks the human from their current place outside time and space claw machine style, and throws them head first into Hisui, right smack dab into the events of Pokemon Legends: Arceus. Why pick a random qualified human from the real world when a different one has basically offered themselves up to the task?

Hero, who is still somewhat memory-less (and also, Arc Phone-less since I'm sure phones are rather hard to come by in Primal Dialgas apocalyptic time period), is now forced to play the confused and unknowing savior of Hisui at the behest of some mysterious unknown force, battling it out with crazed nobles and weaving their way through the ranks of Team Galaxy.

I like the idea that Hero IS qualified for it. They more than have the survival skills necessary to brave the Hisuian wilds, learned from a lifetime of navigating the harsh world of a post apocalypse, constantly on the run. Do you think they find it weird that Pokemon can't talk? What do they think of other people, other humans? They can't remember anything, but I'm sure they get feelings.

Imagine the uses the Dimensional Scream would give them. What does it feel like when the peak of Mt. Cornet opens and shrouds the entire sky in an undending red? Imagine their witnessing of a crazed Origin Form Dialga, the primal, unexplained fear that would well up within them upon witnessing the extreme power of the entity who threw their entire world into paralysis. Do you think being a part of Team Galaxy, of helping people in Hisui, of working towards a greater goal to help people would feel familiar? They may not remember working with the Planetary Exploration Team, but do you think when they talk to Adaman and Irida or Rei or Akari they get this warm, familiar feeling? That they're reminded of someone, but they can't quite remember who?

Do you think saving a different world, when so much of their life has been about saving their own, has any effect on them?

Who knows? But, finally, when it's all over, when all of Arceus' herculean tasks have been completed. and Origin Dialga has been calmed. The plates collected, Volo defeated and Giratina soothed at last. When the Pokedex is finally done, everything is back to relative peace and normalcy, and Hero ascends above the peak of Mt. Coronet, Arceus returns their memories and grants Hero's wish. It sends Hero back.

(Do you think, upon encountering Arceus and regaining their memories, they would beg the deity to save their own world?)

It sends Hero back to exactly the same moment it took them from. Amidst a roiling time storm, spiraling between fractals of whens and wheres with no idea where they'll come back.

For the second time in their life Hero, who is now a Pokemon, awakens on a beach confused and alarmed by an overwhelming sense of familiarity that they just. can't. place. Alongside this terrible sense that something is deeply, deeply wrong, that something incredibly important is missing. Like this exact thing has happened before. But they can't remember when. In fact, they can't remember anything!

Because wouldn't you know it!? Their memories are gone. Again.

Cue Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Sky!

There are so many similarities between PMD:S and Legends Arceus. Waking up with no memories on a beach outside an unfamiliar town by a stranger who recognizes your skills and asks you to join their team? Joining a community, tasked with exploring, learning and helping others who need it? Meeting different interesting folks and Pokemon across the world and befriending them? Time travel shenanigans? Meeting a helpful stranger who ends up betraying you and you find out they were, in fact, just the pawn of a much more powerful entity who was the true cause of the current state of the world? Like, besides Darkrai and Arceus in Sky and Legends respectively, even the legendary Pokemon that are focused on are the same too. < and I'm aware that's because PMD:S was a gen 4 game and Legends Arceus takes place in ancient Sinnoh, but like, still.

Do you think the Hero sees themselves in Grovyle at all? Someone in an unfortunate situation being accused of and punished for something they didn't do, and despite all that still striving to help? Do you think they're surprised by Dusknoir's betrayal? When the truth comes out on those stockades, do you think Hero takes it in stride? Do you think that Hero sees Rei and Akari in their partner? That nervousness slowly diminishing over time as the two work together? That need to be dependable?

Lots to think about.

Anyway, all this is because I like the idea that a Hero who put up with Kamado's shit would absolutely NOT put up with Chatots.