"To bring something back, something else must be buried deeper."
---
One year after the Last Stand.
The world didn't recover from the war.
It mutated.
Regions tried to rebuild. But beneath the new architecture, the world whispered of something wrong—like a song being played backwards.
Children born after the war carried strange marks—hexagonal pupils, strange affinities, dreams of a boy with spiked hair and thunder on his shoulder.
They called them "Threadborn."
And every night… they heard a voice.
"I'm still here."
---
Mt. Silver — Midnight
Snow fell like ashes.
Serena stood before a jagged monolith of obsidian-black rock. Embedded deep inside, pulsing like a slumbering vein—was one of the Seven Threads.
Ash's memory. His legacy. His curse.
She wore his gloves, still blood-stained from that final battle. Her breath fogged the freezing air. She had not aged in a year—not naturally.
Grief had preserved her.
She whispered, "Ash…"
The thread shimmered. Faintly. Like it recognized the sound.
Then it screamed.
Not aloud—but inside her skull.
---
Visions flooded her mind.
Ash, broken and screaming, falling through time.
Ash, laughing with Pikachu on a warm Kanto road.
Ash, chained in a place without color.
Ash, watching Serena cry… from the other side of a mirror.
She collapsed, retching. Blood trickled from her nose.
A voice echoed.
> "The Resurrection Clause is broken."
She turned.
A man in a black cloak stood on the edge of the cliff. No face. No shadow.
"Who are you?" she asked, trembling.
"I am what remains when a legend is forced to rot."
---
Elsewhere — Across the Regions
The other threads ignited.
In Unova, Iris saw the skies bleed red.
In Kanto, Oak woke from a year-long coma—screaming only two words: "Don't remember!"
In Alola, Tapu Koko wept lightning.
And in Galar, a boy named Hop watched his Pokémon disintegrate mid-battle as a golden thread in his chest snapped.
---
Ruins of Alph — Johto
The stone walls cracked open.
The glyphs of Unown didn't rearrange—they twisted, forming faces.
Not letters.
Faces.
All of them were Ash.
Happy. Angry. Empty. Dead.
And from within the blackest glyph, something began crawling out.
An arm.
Pale. Veined. Etched with scars from other timelines.
The air froze.
Unown spiraled around the figure, whispering the same line in every known language:
> "Ash Ketchum remembered. Therefore, he must return."
But one voice spoke in reverse.
> "Not this version. Not this time."
---
Kalox — The Hall of Memory
Clemont's machines malfunctioned.
The central thread burst into flames—not heat, but psychic fire. His hands melted into circuits trying to stabilize it.
Bonnie screamed, clutching her head as memories not her own assaulted her mind.
She saw Ash on his knees in a dimension of glass and blood.
She saw Serena's kiss. Then watched it be erased.
She saw the smile of a Champion—then the howl of a monster behind that same face.
Then came the voice:
> "He is breaking through. But not alone."
A figure emerged from the broken thread.
Ash?
Not quite.
He had Ash's eyes—but hollow. Burned. With glyphs tattooed across his skin like shackles.
And behind him…
Dozens more.
Each a failed Ash.
Each cracked, like porcelain dolls stitched back together with regret and rage.
---
Mt. Silver
Serena rose to her feet, blood dripping from her nose.
The cloaked man had vanished.
But in his place… a Poké Ball sat in the snow.
She picked it up.
It was charred. Ancient. Yet it clicked open with a hiss.
Inside was not a Pokémon.
It was Ash's first badge—the Boulder Badge.
Except it was twisted. The metal writhed, trying to remember what shape it used to be.
And then she heard it.
Ash's voice.
> "Serena. If you can hear this… I need you to kill me before I return."
The Poké Ball snapped shut.
---
In the Void Between Worlds
A boy walked barefoot over broken memories.
Pikachu limped beside him, one eye stitched shut.
Ash gritted his teeth.
He could feel them clawing at his back—the other versions.
They wanted his body.
They wanted to return.
But he knew one thing:
If he didn't return first…
They would.
And the world wouldn't survive them.
---