"Some monsters wear masks. Others wear badges."
---
The morning came, but the sun refused to rise.
Cynthia stood at the summit of Mount Coronet with Auron beside her. The sky overhead still bore the faint scar of Ash's departure—an aching rift that pulsed like a healing wound.
But something else had arrived in its place.
They came without warning.
Twelve figures descending the mountain path. No sound. No breath. No soul.
Each wore remnants of championship glory—tattered cloaks, fractured league symbols, twisted remnants of the regions they once ruled. But their eyes—
Their eyes were not human anymore.
They glitched.
Literally flickering between realities—eyes filled with static, coding lines, and corrupted data.
The leader stopped in front of Cynthia. Her voice was calm, clinical, and inhuman.
"Cynthia Shirona of Sinnoh. Surrender the Timechild."
Auron flinched.
Cynthia narrowed her eyes. "You'll have to drag him over my corpse."
The Tainted League leader raised her hand.
A Pokéball dropped from her sleeve.
It didn't open—it screamed.
A mechanical, distorted shriek tore through the silence as the Pokéball cracked mid-air. The creature that emerged looked like a fusion of Gardevoir and Banette—arms stitched with code, eyes made of spinning Pokédex entries, body shifting between fairy and ghost types in erratic bursts.
Its name blinked in corrupted text: /GΛRDE-VOID/.
Cynthia's hand moved to her own Pokéball.
But Auron stepped forward.
His voice was quiet.
"I'll fight."
---
THE FIRST CLASH
The corrupted Garde-void struck first—teleporting behind Auron and launching a Psychic attack fused with Glitch-type energy. It wasn't a move. It was an algorithm—a rewriting of the battlefield itself.
The ground under Auron disintegrated into pixelated ash.
But Auron didn't fall.
He floated.
Not through power—but will.
His back glowed—the Sigma Origin Mark surging. His Pokéball lifted into the air without him touching it.
And it burst open—not revealing a creature, but a storm.
Lightning cracked the mountain as the shadow of a forgotten Zapdos screamed from within the stormcloud. But it wasn't the Zapdos of lore.
It was a Specterclone—resurrected from the corrupted Zone where Ash had died.
Auron whispered, "Your name is Arashi."
And the storm obeyed.
---
THE BATTLE WASN'T FAIR.
Because neither of them fought like trainers anymore.
Garde-void glitched through reality, shifting between phases, her limbs cracking and reforming every second.
Arashi countered with thunder spears and wind blades so sharp they carved through time.
Cynthia watched, stunned.
This wasn't a Pokémon battle.
It was a war ritual.
A fight between broken gods and their inheritors.
Auron took a hit—Garde-void's claw sliced his shoulder open, blood spilling across the snow.
But he didn't cry.
He bit down on the pain and commanded the sky.
"NOW!"
Arashi's storm condensed into a singular bolt of quantum lightning. It struck Garde-void directly, her form glitching, screaming in six different voices.
And then silence.
She collapsed, dissolving into static.
Dead? No. Just… deleted.
---
THE TENSION WORSENED
The other Tainted League members stepped forward.
But then a new voice cracked the horizon.
"You touch my grandson again, and I'll remind you why they banned me from the League."
Cynthia turned. Her breath caught.
Professor Oak stood behind them.
But he wasn't alone.
Red was with him.
Cloaked in black. Eyes hidden. Pikachu on his shoulder.
And he looked ready to kill.
---
MEANWHILE — IN THE DIGITAL ABYSS
The Glitch King grinned as he watched the feed.
"Auron's awakening begins. Good."
Behind him, hundreds of corrupted souls—Pokémon and humans alike—screamed within Pokéballs made of bone and code.
He turned to his throne, where a woman with silver hair lay unconscious.
His voice softened.
"My dear Cynthia… your bloodline ends with a bang."
---
"This is no longer a journey. This is an extinction event."
---