"A child born of thunder cannot afford to cry. His tears would drown the world."
---
The cradle was silent.
Too silent.
Cynthia moved through the collapsed ruins of Ecruteak's hidden vaults, her breath coming in shallow bursts. Her Champion's uniform was torn, soaked in ash and memories. Behind her, the ancient seals that once kept the world safe were broken—split by a single name that should not exist anymore.
Ash.
He was gone.
Not dead.
Not alive.
But… elsewhere.
And now, every horror that once feared him turned its gaze toward what he left behind.
Their son.
She found him in the center of the underground temple—a boy no older than three, seated calmly in a field of broken stone and feathers. The remains of a fallen Ho-Oh loomed in shadow behind him, its body torn apart not by battle—but by fear.
He hadn't screamed.
He hadn't run.
He had watched the god die.
The boy turned as she approached, golden eyes rimmed with silver. Not crying. Not smiling. Just… existing. With the stillness of a deity. And the weight of a thousand futures clinging to his shoulders.
His name was Auron Ketchum.
"Auron," Cynthia whispered, falling to her knees. "We have to go."
He tilted his head. "Papa said not to be afraid."
"I'm not afraid," she lied.
But she was.
Because she saw it in his eyes.
He wasn't human anymore. Not completely.
He was born of the last spark of Ash Ketchum's soul, and tempered by the divine pulse of Pikachu's final discharge—a moment of thunder so raw it had cracked the boundary between life and myth. Auron was not meant to live. And yet, here he was.
Alive.
Untouched.
Watched.
Cynthia scooped him into her arms.
Above, reality shivered.
They were coming.
She could feel them—broken Champions, corrupted Pokémon, exiled gods. All drawn not by the child himself, but by the legacy that created him. They wanted to test him. Break him. Twist him.
She ran.
The temple shook behind her, pillars collapsing as ethereal wings beat through invisible dimensions. She knew this wouldn't be a simple escape. They would chase her across regions, across planes, across truth itself.
But she'd protect him.
Even if it killed her.
Even if it tore the world down again.
---
Elsewhere…
In the Black Cathedral that slept beneath the Sinnoh Divide, a man carved from shadows opened his eyes.
He wore a robe of flickering glitches—his fingers long, bone-white, veins pulsing with error codes. Behind him stood Red, the true Red, locked in eternal silence, his body a husk chained to the cathedral walls.
The man turned to a screen pulsing with static.
"Auron…" he whispered. "The name that shouldn't be. The son of thunder. The glitch child."
The shadows trembled.
"Bring him to me."
---
Meanwhile…
Auron stirred in Cynthia's arms. They were high in the mountains now, surrounded by winds no human could survive—but the boy did not shiver.
He raised one hand.
Lightning danced across his fingers like playful spirits.
"Mommy," he said softly.
Cynthia froze.
He'd never called her that before.
"Yes?" she managed.
His eyes met hers—serene, infinite.
"They're watching," he whispered. "But it's okay."
"Why?"
"Because I'm not alone." He pointed upward.
Cynthia looked—
And saw the sky split.
A figure walked through the thunder.
Not Ash.
Not quite.
But something that remembered him.
Clad in broken armor, eyes burning with eons, Pikachu's tail etched across his chest like a sigil.
The Specter of Ash had returned.
Not to fight.
But to guide.
---
"Some children are born to change the world. Others are born because the world no longer deserves to remain the same."
---