Meanwhile, in a distant land called Hoenn…
There are many kinds of silence in the world—silences born of reverence, of dread, of waiting. But the one that settled over Route 111 that morning was the silence of renewal—the kind that follows a long, violent night when, against all odds, the world chooses to turn once more toward the sun.
And into that silence walked a boy who had no right to be seventeen.
His name was Riven, and though the land called him young, his soul had already lived through the end of everything.
---
He moved like a ghost in daylight, not out of shame but necessity. The League didn't permit Trainers under eighteen, and though his bones remembered war and loss, his documents claimed he was still too young to hold a Poké Ball.
But Riven didn't care about rules made by people who hadn't seen the world burn.
He cared only about one thing.
Preventing that fire from ever beginning.
---
He had arrived in this timeline three months ago—waking up in a ditch outside Oldale Town, head pounding, throat scorched, blood under his fingernails and memories that didn't belong in the breathing world.
At first, he had thought he was dead. Then he thought he was dreaming. It wasn't until he saw the date carved into a weathered newspaper, flapping lazily against a fence post, that he understood the truth.
He had been sent back.
No warning. No instruction. No ally waiting with a map or mission. Just him. And a second chance the universe had handed him like a loaded revolver and whispered, "Do better this time."
---
The First Pokémon
Her name was Echo.
A Ralts, barely hatched, frightened of the wind and sunlight. He found her in a collapsed ravine near Petalburg, buried beneath the remains of her kin, whose minds had shattered under the pressure of the timelines they were never meant to hold.
But she was different. Quiet. Resilient. She clung to Riven like he was the last warm thing in a frozen world, and in return, he gave her the only thing he still had:
A purpose.
"I can't promise we'll win," he had told her one night, under a sky smeared with constellations he now mistrusted. "But if we can just make them listen—Red, Blue, anyone—then maybe we don't have to lose everything again."
She had answered by climbing into his hood, her psychic hum syncing with the rhythm of his heart.
---
Learning the Past
In this world, Rocket was dead. Or so the League claimed.
Red and Blue had buried them in the wake of the FireRed conflict, scattering the remnants like ashes over the region. But Riven knew the truth. Team Rocket hadn't died.
They had gone underground.
Because the war wasn't just about power. It had been about discovery. A lab under Pewter. Code names whispered like curses—Project Genesis. Project Alpha. Experiments on Pokémon that didn't evolve with time, but with data.
And at the center of it all—Arceus.
Not the holy figure carved in shrines. Not the Creator of All, but a fail-safe built to enforce balance, like a divine immune system.
Rocket tried to rewrite that balance.
And Arceus responded the only way a god-machine could.
By deleting the infection.
---
Present – Jagged Pass
He hiked in silence, climbing rock by rock toward Mt. Chimney, where rumor spoke of a seismic lab that once held a data core tied to Genesis. His muscles ached. His breath stung. But he climbed anyway.
He hadn't cried since the regression. Not even when Slateport collapsed in his memory. Not when Pallet Town blinked out in golden fire. But now—here, with ash beneath his boots and Echo nuzzling his neck in concern—he felt it again.
The need to feel. To hope.
Because for the first time, he wasn't chasing shadows. He had found a lead.
---
The core was buried in melted stone. It took hours to dig, to clean the charred data port, to plug in a cracked League dex he'd "borrowed" from a careless hiker.
What he saw made him fall to his knees.
> PROJECT GENESIS – TERMINAL RECORD, YEAR 0:
"Subject: Arceus [Classified]. Adaptability threshold breached. Rocket directive: Transcend biological evolution. Status: Error. Retaliation incoming."
"Backup plan: Inject regressor data into pre-collapse vessel. Time loop in motion. Probability of success: 0.7%."
He stared at it. The words burned.
They knew.
They sent him back.
Not by accident. Not as a mistake.
He was the failsafe.
---
A Flame Reborn
It hit him slowly, like dawn over a frozen valley. The realization didn't feel glorious. It felt heavy. But it mattered.
He had power.
Not power like a Gym Badge. Not like Hyper Beams and Mega Stones.
But the power to know.
To move in ways no one else could.
To see threats no one else had the scars to recognize.
To speak truths no one else would dare believe—until it was too late.
And most importantly…
He had time.
Not much. Maybe just months. But he had it.
He had what the last world never did.
---
He stood at the mouth of the mountain, staring down at the Hoenn wilds sprawling below.
Echo hummed at his side.
'Ral…'
"I know," he said. "We're not ready yet."
But as he looked out over the land—still whole, still safe—his heart didn't ache the way it used to.
Because for the first time since the end of the world…
He believed he could stop it.
---
End of Chapter 11