"Sometimes, the only way out… is through the version of you that gave up."
---
Ash stepped forward, every bone in his body aching, blood drying on his skin like guilt crusted into memory. His fists clenched not because he was ready—but because he refused to fall quietly.
The Other Ash—the Alternate—stood bathed in shimmering veins of reality, each thread behind him glowing with the faint cry of a different world.
Somewhere in one, Misty lived.
In another, Pikachu never left.
In one, he never lost his mother.
In all of them… he made a different choice.
But here—this world—was the consequence.
"Who are you?" Ash asked, his voice cracked open from screaming, from grief, from too many days without rest.
The Alternate smirked.
> "You. If you'd accepted what needed to be done. The Ash who didn't play the hero. The one who chose peace… by forgetting everything."
A silence fell between them, long and sharp.
Ash glanced at Pikachu—his body flickering in and out like corrupted code, ears twitching as if stuck in a loading screen.
"You forgot him?" Ash whispered. "You let him go?"
> "No," said the Alternate, stepping closer. "I killed him."
The words didn't echo.
They hit Ash like a meteor.
---
He lunged.
Not with form.
Not with skill.
But with the fury of a boy who lost everything.
Ash tackled the Alternate through the flickering threads of time. Memories shattered like stained glass. Glimpses of parallel lives flashed around them as they tumbled across collapsing timelines—each one a reminder of the lives he could've lived.
In one, he was crowned Champion.
In another, he was a father.
In one, he died at age twelve, clutching a Poké Ball he never got to throw.
But here—now—he was a fury unbound.
His fists collided with the Alternate's face again and again, but each punch was met with one just as fierce.
Because he was fighting himself.
Not the kind, naive boy.
But the version who grew cold.
Who accepted the lie that forgetting pain was the path to peace.
"You abandoned him!" Ash roared, driving his forehead into the Alternate's nose with a sickening crunch.
Blood exploded.
The Alternate stumbled, but he didn't fall.
He laughed.
> "I set him free."
Ash charged again—but this time, the Alternate summoned the memory-blade.
It wasn't steel.
It was grief forged into form. Shards of forgotten laughter, old journeys, static-saturated goodbyes twisted into a weapon that could erase.
With one slice, it tore open Ash's jacket—and with it, a flash of a memory bled out.
Misty's voice.
"Come back safe, okay?"
Gone.
Ash screamed—not from the wound, but from the loss.
"You're cutting me from the inside out," he gasped.
> "Good," the Alternate hissed. "Let's see what's left when the past is stripped away."
---
The battle wasn't about fists anymore.
It was about memories.
Each strike from the Alternate's blade carved away a piece of Ash's soul.
Brock's laughter. Gone.
Oak's first gift. Gone.
Charmander huddled in the rain, waiting to be saved. Gone.
One by one, his anchors disappeared.
His knees buckled.
He couldn't remember why he was fighting.
Then—
> "Pika…"
The faintest sound.
Ash turned.
Pikachu, flickering like a candle in a storm, forced himself to stand.
His cheeks sparked.
Just once.
One tiny flash.
The light hit Ash's chest—and with it, one memory remained.
Pikachu laughing, riding on his shoulder, during their very first sunrise as partners.
Ash gasped.
And he remembered.
---
He stood again.
Not with strength.
But with clarity.
"You made your peace by killing what made you human," he said, voice ragged but calm. "But I'll carry the pain. I'll carry him."
The Alternate raised the blade again.
Ash didn't flinch.
Instead, he reached into his bag—and pulled out the cracked, half-shattered Poké Ball.
Pikachu's first one.
The same one he never kept him in.
Ash held it forward like a shield.
"Pikachu. One last time. Thunderstorm."
---
It wasn't Thunderbolt.
It wasn't anything Ash had ever seen before.
Pikachu's body burst with light—not lightning, but raw memory energy.
Images poured out of him—every journey, every battle, every time Ash whispered "I choose you."
The ground split.
The threads behind the Alternate burned.
The memory-blade cracked, shattered.
The Alternate screamed—not in pain, but in realization.
He saw it then.
What he had cut from himself.
Why he felt empty.
Why no matter how many timelines he mastered, none of them felt alive.
The light swallowed him whole.
---
Ash collapsed.
Pikachu fell with him.
Both breathing.
Both broken.
But whole again.
---
When Ash awoke, they were back in the forest.
Not the city.
Not the alternate reality.
Just a quiet, sun-drenched path.
Pikachu curled beside him, sleeping.
No sparks.
No corruption.
Just… peace.
For now.
But somewhere in the distance, a storm still brewed.
Because the worlds he touched were not finished with him.
And the ones who pulled the strings behind the Alternate… were still watching.
---