Silence.
Ash stood at the edge of a place that shouldn't exist.
The sky overhead bled twilight. Colors no longer obeyed the rules of the spectrum. The ground pulsed, not with life, but with memory—the memory of battles fought and lost, victories erased, friends forgotten.
He clenched his fists.
> "Where are we?" Ash asked, his voice barely audible through the stillness.
Pikachu stood beside him, electricity humming faintly around its scarred cheeks. One ear was nicked, a mark from a battle that time had tried to erase. But not even that could erase Pikachu's loyalty. The bond between them—unwritten by any god or editor—was the only truth left.
Then, the air rippled.
And the world began to answer.
---
They came from the edges.
Not walking—but returning.
First: Red.
The original. The silent warrior. Ash's shadow, mentor, mirror.
He stepped forward, each stride heavy with presence. His red cap cast a shadow across his eyes. A lone Pokéball spun silently around his finger before vanishing back into his belt. His Charizard loomed behind him, monstrous and weathered, eyes glowing like dying embers.
Ash's breath caught.
> "You're… still here?"
Red didn't respond. He only gave Ash a curt nod—and for Red, that was a thunderous declaration of unity.
Then came Serena, running across the field as if through a dream she never thought she'd wake from. Her eyes were red, but her smile broke Ash open.
She threw her arms around him.
> "They tried to make me forget you," she whispered.
"But I held on."
Ash held her tighter, whispering back:
> "I never forgot you. Not even once."
One by one, more arrived.
Brock—his face weathered, a long scar trailing down his jaw. His Onix was made of living crystal now, glowing with a light forged in forgotten worlds.
May, eyes harder, hair shorter, walking beside a Blaziken whose fire was almost blue.
Gladion, cold and calculating, his Silvally cloaked in shadow and light.
Even Gary emerged from the mist, tossing a Pokéball and smirking.
> "You're late, Ash."
> "You're still cocky," Ash shot back, grinning.
More kept coming. Every rival. Every friend.
Those who had been cut from the story, rewritten, left behind by a universe obsessed with reboots and profits.
> "The broken remember."
"The erased do not forget."
Ash stood in the middle of them all.
And for the first time in what felt like forever… he wasn't alone.
---
Then, the void opened.
Like a wound in the sky. A tear in reality.
And from it stepped a monster wearing Ash's face.
The Editor.
A god wearing nostalgia like armor, eyes empty, lips curled into a mockery of a smile.
> "You assembled the broken. How poetic."
"But poetry doesn't stop progress. And progress… demands endings."
He raised his hand.
And behind him, they emerged:
Corrupted Pokémon. Echoes of Ash's team—Pikachu with blackened fur, a warped Charizard with six wings, a Gengar that dripped ink like blood, a Greninja with eyes stitched shut, its tongue-scarf trailing dark mist.
> "Your memories are weapons now," the Editor sneered.
"Your bonds—rewritten into tools."
Ash stepped forward.
He raised the golden pen—the last gift from Arceus. The divine ink flared.
> "You forgot one thing."
> "What?" the Editor asked, amused.
> "I'm the one who never quits."
And he stabbed the pen into the sky.
The words Chapter Five: The Gathering of the Broken carved themselves into the heavens—burning gold.
---
Then the battle began.
Pikachu roared—yes, roared—and became a bolt of thunder given form. It blasted forward, colliding with the corrupted version of itself. The two clashed in a storm of lightning and darkness.
Red's Charizard ignited the sky with a firestorm so hot it bent space, meeting the six-winged corrupted Charizard midair.
Brock slammed the ground. His crystal Onix coiled like a tidal wave, smashing into shadow-Snorlax.
Gladion vanished into a blur, his Silvally shifting types with each strike, shredding through hordes of corrupted Pokémon.
Serena stood at Ash's side. Her Sylveon—a ghostly remnant, summoned from pure will—sang a melody that shattered the illusions around them.
---
Ash and the Editor met in the center.
The pen vs the void.
Their voices overlapped.
> "You were made to be forgotten."
"Then why does everyone remember me?"
The Editor's hand twisted—worlds rewound, skies inverted. He tried to erase the battlefield.
Ash screamed, driving the pen forward again—
> Chapter Six: The Rise of Flame and Thunder.
The battlefield erupted.
Charizard and Pikachu fused.
Not physically—but in purpose.
Their attacks aligned—flame wrapped in thunder, thunder cloaked in flame. They struck as one.
The shockwave tore through the Editor's illusions.
But in the smoke, he laughed.
From behind him, a new being formed—a monstrous fusion.
Pikachu's ears. Charizard's wings. Gengar's eyes. Arceus's halo.
A creature built from the best parts of every Pokémon Ash ever loved—twisted into a weapon.
> "The Final Rewrite," the Editor whispered.
Ash's eyes widened.
And in his chest, something cracked.
But then Serena took his hand.
> "This is your story. Not his."
And Red stood behind him.
> "Then let's end his version."
---