What the hell? There was no way this was happening. It had to be a dream.

Memories belonging to someone else began to pour into my mind, filling it with that person's dreams, feelings, and past. There was nothing I could do but watch the scenes play out, wondering when they would all end.

We were in a stadium in the first memory and in the center of the stadium was a battlefield that reminded me of the ones used in the Pokemon anime. The symbol in the center of the battlefield even looked like the shape of a Pokeball.

Standing on opposite sides of the battlefield were two men. One of them had black eyes and long purple hair while the other was older-looking, with black eyes and brown hair. To my shock and surprise, standing in front of each them were behemoth-like creatures.

You've got to be kidding me.

One of them had purple scales and looked like a giant scorpion-looking creature, with huge sharp claws, while the other one was a golem-like creature, with its body completely made out of brown rocks. Drapion and Regirock, I realized.

Drapion soon collapsed onto the field, obviously knocked out of battle.

"Turtwig."

Looking to my side and standing on a platform next to me was a small, turtle-like creature, with a brown shell covering its body. Turtwig, one of the three Starter Pokemon of the Sinnoh region, I recognized easily enough.

"No!" The older trainer shouted, who I now remembered to be Pyramid King Brandon of the Battle Frontier. "I think I've seen enough of your battle, challenger! The only good thing about your battle was that it was clever and nicely organized. Where does your own unique strength lie?"

"His own unique strength?" The voice belonged to the person who's memories I was currently watching.

How was this even possible? Why was I experiencing this person's memories?

I wasn't dead, that much I was certain of. So why was this happening? Not to mention that most of these memories were from an anime show for crying out loud! Seriously, I definitely would have remembered watching a real Pokemon battle in real life, but it was impossible because they weren't real. This had to be some kind of prank or I really had just snapped and had completely lost sense of what was real.

Come on, wake up already! Please just let this all be some weird, fucked up dream that I was having.

The scene soon changed and we were in a forest. A small, cicada-like Pokemon, with two pairs of wing, slammed against a tree before a Pokeball was tossed at it, sucking it inside.

Enough with the fucking Pokemon flashbacks already! I was just repeating myself at that point, frustrated that I couldn't do anything but watch.

I wasn't being reincarnated was I? If I was, it didn't make any sense, since I knew for certain that I was not dead yet. Still, it seemed more and more likely as the memories kept pouring in. The person whose memories I was experiencing, only cared about becoming stronger, vowing to become nothing like his older brother.

"Chimchar, look at would you did."

Breaking away from my own thoughts, I was surprised to see a chimpanzee-looking Pokemon, with orange fur, standing in front of me, looking exhausted. There was bits of flames burning around them. Chimchar, I recognized easily enough, another one of the three Sinnoh Starter Pokemon. They weren't very common out in the wild, and were very rare, mostly seen with their trainers.

It was at that moment that I realized whose memories I was experiencing. Of all the people it could have been, this guy was the one I least expected to be.

A Pokeball was raised within my vision, pointed at Chimchar. "Come with me."

"Chimchar?"

Finally the memories stopped and began to dissolve, blinding me as a flash of white light engulfed me.

At least I didn't have to sit through all of these pointless flashbacks anymore. What a weird dream, but at least I was finally waking up.

I wasn't going to mention this to anyone. Hopefully when I woke up, I would forget all of this and never think about this shit again.

It was all just a dream, man, none of this was real.

… If only that were the case.

Are you kidding me?

Of all the people this could have happened to, why did it have to be me?

Gazing into my reflection on the water, I couldn't believe my eyes. Staring back at me was a smug-looking guy, with black eyes and short purple hair. He wore a long sleeved purple jacket and long black pants. This was the body of a young boy, not a man. Aren't you supposed to start out as a baby when you're reincarnated?

I still couldn't believe that I was using the word reincarnation. It was a word I never thought I would use in a situation like this. Not to mention who the person was that I had been reincarnated into.

I had to stop myself from screaming or panicking as I stared into the face of Paul, one of in my opinion, Ash's strongest rivals in the series. The guy could have easily defeated Ash in the Sinnoh League had it not been for the writers of the show holding Paul back from using all of his strongest Pokemon on his team.

The guy was basically like most competitive Pokemon gamers, using strong and fully evolved Pokemon on their teams.

Did I forget to mention that I was in Pokemon, not in one of the cool shows like High School DxD, One Piece, Fairy Tail, or any other show out there? Of all the places I could have been stuck in, why did it have to be Pokemon?

Now I was really starting to wish that I would wake up already.

Sure it had been a childhood fantasy of mine to experience the world of Pokemon in real life, but that was a long time ago. Now though, I couldn't really care that much about Pokemon anymore. But to be stuck in the world of Pokemon now, never thought that would happen to me, especially in Paul's body no less.

This was Paul we were talking about here, the guy who only caught strong Pokemon and released those to be too weak for his standards. Honestly though, I didn't mind the way he did things, just the way he treated Pokemon, especially Chimchar.

Chimchar was wasted on the likes of Ash, as he would no doubt stop using him after the Sinnoh League, but with Paul he could have easily become the strongest Infernape out there if Paul had adapted and learned to treat Chimchar the right way. Paul most likely realized that when he had lost to Ash in the Sinnoh League to Infernape.

If this truly was all real and happening, I wasn't going to make the same mistake that Paul did. He only made Ash stronger by releasing Chimchar and allowing him to capture it.

Sure it was screwing with cannon, but who cares. I was in control now and was going to become the strongest trainer out there.

Why make your rivals stronger when you could become stronger instead? That was a mistake Paul had made when he had released Chimchar in front of Ash, giving him the opportunity to capture it. Ash wasn't even that great of a protagonist anyways, with how the writers made him, always losing and always being set to level one at the start of a new journey.

If anybody ever wonders, I do not care much for Ash at all. He was a lucky S.O.B, and that was it. All the Pokemon that Ash ever caught were wasted on him, especially his Charizard.

It sucked that I couldn't catch Ash's Charizard instead, as it was obvious that I was in the Sinnoh region. Not that it would matter anyways since Ash rarely used Pokemon he caught in a previous region in his league matches.

Luckily I had a while to prepare for the Sinnoh League if the memories of Paul were anything to go by. He had just caught Chimchar, which meant that I still had time to befriend Chimchar and make him mine, not Ash's.

The only problem was the rest of Paul's Pokemon and his older brother Reggie. They would no doubt find it strange with the way I planned on treating Chimchar compared to their original training methods with Paul.

Being someone else was going to be a lot harder than I thought. Man, why couldn't I have gotten thrown into this world as myself and not Paul? It would be a lot easier than trying to act like someone else.

At least I wasn't stuck as Ash for the rest of my life. That was a plus side to this situation at least.

Of course that still didn't really help the situation that I was in. Becoming the strongest would have to wait. For now I needed to figure out a way to be Paul while also trying to change his character to adapt to Chimchar's need without confusing Paul's Pokemon or brother.

Not to mention that Paul also had other Pokemon he had caught and trained other than the ones seen in the show. After all, Paul wasn't a beginning trainer, but one who had already journeyed across the Kanto, Johto, and Hoenn regions. He probably had some more powerful Pokemon in his reserves that he never really used to focus on training the ones he got in the Sinnoh region.

And unlike Ash, Paul would actually use some of those other Pokemon in his Sinnoh League matches and that was exactly what I was going to do as well. Ash wouldn't know what hit him when he met the new and improved Paul.

Whatever being had thrown me into this mess was going to regret their decision.

Ash, Tobias, the Sinnoh League, the Elite Four, and the Champion Cynthia. I was going to defeat them all and show them all just how strong I could become with no one holding me back.

Just like in the games, I was going to conquer the entire region and become the next Champion of Sinnoh. With the Pokemon that Paul caught and the ones we would soon be catching, no one would stand in our way.

It also couldn't hurt if I caught some of the Pokemon that Ash and his friends would encounter like Croagunk, Buizel, and Spiritomb. Seriously, it made no sense that Paul never caught Buizel due to his reputation as a powerful Pokemon. I was going to take any chance I could get to make my rivals weaker than their cannon counterparts.

Sure all of this was rather sudden for me and unexpected, but I was going to make the most out of the situation I was in. Being stuck as Paul was just a challenge I was going to have to overcome.

It certainly was going to be a lot more interesting compared to the boring life I had before.

I think I'm going to like it here.

Look out Sinnoh for I'm about to shake things up a bit!

Hey there guys. This is my first time writing a story in a first-person perspective and I decided to try it out and see how it goes. I've read a few self-insert stories in the Pokemon section and some Ash SIs, but I decided to try something different and go with Paul as the main character.

This is mainly being written for fun as I try to regain my muse for my A Time for Wolves story.

Let me know what you guys think of it and I hope you all enjoyed reading it.