"When gods vanish, legends bleed. And in the place of myth, monsters crawl in their skin."
---
The air on Mount Coronet had gone still.
Even the wind—wild and sacred on this sacred peak—was holding its breath.
Cynthia stood tall, shoulders trembling under the weight of the moment. Auron clutched her leg, golden eyes wide, staring at the rift that had torn open the sky like paper soaked in flame.
From it… he emerged.
The silhouette was unmistakable—and yet wholly foreign.
Ash Ketchum… or what remained of him.
A figure clad in cracked obsidian armor, lined with the bones of fallen timelines. His once-red cap had fused with a twisted crown, burned with runes from battles not meant to be remembered. Scars cut across his face like tally marks on the soul. His eyes no longer held boyish wonder.
They burned like stormfire.
And behind him—drifting, eternal—floated a shadow of Pikachu. Not alive. Not gone. Somewhere in between.
Cynthia couldn't breathe. "Ash?"
The Specter of Ash stepped forward, boots leaving scorch marks where they touched the snow.
"I am… what came back."
---
FLASHBACK — THE FINAL FIGHT
The Primordial Entity hadn't bled. It glitched—it shattered reality each time Ash struck.
He and Pikachu had fought with everything they were—every badge, every bond, every loss, every lesson. He'd become more than Champion. He'd become Myth.
And when he landed that final blow—when he screamed Pikachu's name into the void and felt the thunder pass through them both—
He didn't win.
He became the gate.
Ash Ketchum didn't die.
He was fractured into the multiverse.
Pieces of him scattered across corrupted timelines. His will, strong as ever, stitched them together—one fragment at a time—becoming something new.
Something wrong.
Something vengeful.
---
"Why… now?" Cynthia whispered.
Ash's Specter looked down at Auron, who hadn't flinched.
"I felt him," he said. "The moment he cried. The moment he screamed in that nightmare. My blood. My curse. My hope."
He knelt, removing one glove.
And pressed his palm to Auron's forehead.
The world rippled like water struck by lightning.
---
Inside Auron's Mind
Darkness.
Then—a battlefield.
Mountains burned. Oceans boiled. The stars bled.
And at the center, Ash, fighting gods alone, fists breaking meteors, heart bursting with defiance.
Auron stood among the echoes, a child in a war.
"You were never meant to fight this," the Specter told him.
"But I will," Auron whispered. "For them. For her. For you."
---
Back in Reality
Auron floated, golden energy surging from his chest. Pokéballs materialized around him—some cracked, some glowing, all unfamiliar.
Ancient.
Each one throbbed with forgotten souls—Pokémon lost in the breach, sacrificed in corrupted regions.
Cynthia backed away as the Mark ignited—a golden sigil carved into Auron's spine, glowing through his skin:
SIGMA ORIGIN — BLOOD OF THE STORMBREAKER.
He fell gently, landing in the snow as if weightless.
Ash looked at Cynthia.
"I gave him everything I could," he said. "But this world… it will try to break him."
She nodded, tears frozen on her face.
"I won't let it."
Ash turned toward the sky. The rift had begun to close.
"Tell Red… he'll need the others."
Cynthia reached for him, hand trembling. "Ash—don't go—please."
He smiled—just for a heartbeat.
"I'll always be where the storm begins."
And vanished.
---
Deep Below… The Black Cathedral
The Glitch King stared into a pool of corrupted code—twitching with distorted cries of long-dead Pokémon.
The Specter had awakened the boy.
"The Timechild rises," he hissed. "Then we shall test his blood."
He raised a hand.
The pool shimmered.
And from it rose The Tainted League.
Elite trainers reborn through hacking, warping, and sacrificial glitches. Each held pokéballs that pulsed with data corruption, their Pokémon reanimated as Broken Types—no longer bound by types or moves, but by suffering.
Their leader stepped forward.
She wore a torn Champion's cloak from Johto, face masked, eyes replaced by rotating pixels.
"Who shall we erase first?" she asked.
The Glitch King grinned.
"Erase the meaning of hope."
---
Back on the Mountain
Auron turned to his mother.
His voice was quiet, but steady.
"Dad didn't give me a power," he said.
Cynthia frowned. "Then what?"
He looked up at the sky, where a single crack still remained, glowing red like a bleeding star.
"He gave me a war."
---
"He was born from thunder. But raised in a world where gods no longer answered prayers."
---