"I didn't ask to be born a legend… but I'll end this story on my terms."
---
The Network trembled.
Wires pulsed like veins. Code flickered like fireflies caught in a storm. And in the Glitch King's chamber, a single child stood before the throne—eyes burning with the inherited wrath of two destinies.
He had no name. Not officially. The world never knew he existed.
But in whispered prophecy, they called him:
The Flameborn.
---
MEANWHILE — PALLET TOWN
Ash sat in the old lab, silent, watching a hologram flicker. His knuckles were bloodied. His aura—unstable. Feral. Grieving.
"Red said he's alive," Oak muttered. "The child. Yours."
Cynthia sat beside Ash, her fingers clutched over his. She was shaking. Not from fear. From memory.
Ash closed his eyes.
"I watched her die, Professor. I watched our son vanish with her."
"You saw a body?" Oak asked gently.
Ash didn't answer.
Because he hadn't.
Just the flames. Just the scream.
Just the way the world fractured that day.
---
FLASHBACK — THE LOST FIRE
It wasn't Team Rocket.
It wasn't the Glitch King.
It was something else. Something ancient. Something angry.
The Ashvattha Flame.
One of the five Divine Fires once kept locked by the Old League—stolen, twisted, and turned into a ritual.
Cynthia had tried to stop it.
Pregnant. Bleeding.
Ash had arrived seconds too late.
But as the ritual consumed her body… something inside her resisted.
A heartbeat.
A scream.
And then—
A burst of fire so pure it burned time itself.
The child vanished.
Cynthia's body was never found.
---
NOW — THE NETWORK
The Flameborn stood in a digital coliseum, surrounded by broken champions and virus-laced Pokémon.
"I am Ash's son," he whispered, looking up at the Glitch King. "You raised me in lies. But I know what I am now."
His right eye flared gold.
His left? Crimson.
"Flame of the Champion. Echo of the Code."
The Glitch King leaned forward. "So what will you do with that power, boy? Burn the world? Or save the ashes?"
The child clenched his fist.
Behind him, the data-glow of a team never registered in any Pokédex formed:
A Charizard born from the remnants of the Ashvattha Flame.
A Gardevoir infected but awakened.
A Lucario with Aura cracked but unbroken.
A corrupted Zeraora redeemed through pain.
A broken Pikachu—Red's last fragment.
And a final, unknown entity—shrouded in fire and glitchlight.
"I won't save the ashes," he said.
"I'll resurrect the truth."
---
MEANWHILE — ASH AND CYNTHIA'S SAFEHOUSE
Cynthia stood alone now. Her hand rested on her stomach out of habit, even though that part of her life felt like a dream.
Ash stared at the photo Oak had pulled from corrupted records. The child looked just like him… but with Cynthia's fire.
Cynthia whispered, "He's alive. He's fighting alone."
Ash's jaw tensed.
"Not for long."
---
THE CHILD'S FIRST STRIKE
The Flameborn raised both hands.
From the shattered networks, reality began to twitch. Firewall barriers burst apart. Deleted code turned into physical terrain.
He was reshaping the Glitch World.
A power only possible from one with Champion blood… and divine inheritance.
He whispered a name.
"Mom."
A hologram sparked behind him—Cynthia's last psychic echo, stored in the Ashvattha Flame's memory.
She smiled.
"I'm proud of you."
And he—he who had no name—finally spoke it aloud:
"My name is Ares."
---
FINAL SCENE — RED AND ASH MEET
Mount Coronet.
Ash stood before Red, both men silent as the snow fell around them.
"He's alive," Ash said.
Red nodded. "He's more than that. He's the reset. The Firewall. The Flame."
"Then we go to war."
Red adjusted his cap.
Pikachu sparked beside him.
Ash lifted his own Pokéball.
And for the first time in decades—father and ghost stood side by side.
--
"A child forged in fire will burn the lies of the old world."
---