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Ash stared out at the ocean and grinned madly. This was it- the end of the world. He'd been waiting for this. From his position atop Rayquaza's back, he couldn't have had a better view.
He raised his arms, and at his command, legendary Pokemon from all around rose up and prepared for attack. The sun was just setting over the horizon. It was the last time the sun would set upon this world. In the end, there would be nothing left but charred and smoking ruins.
No one on this earth would be left alive; not even Ash Ketchum himself. They would all, as the prophecy had stated, turn to ash.
They'd turn to Ash Ketchum, faces wide with shock and terror, as he screamed the order of attack. He'd race over the land and sea, taking it all in, waiting for the moment when Ho-oh's fire and Lugia's song of catastrophe and Palkia's Spacial Rend tore the world apart.
Waiting for the moment he, along with the rest of the world, would draw his final breath.
And then, after they'd turned to him, after he'd relished the fear and utter control he harnessed, they would turn to ash- not "Ash" as in "Ash Ketchum," but "ash" as in dust. And that's all that would be left of them. Ash. Dust. Lifeless remains.
And as he visualized all this, as he stared out at the sparkling water, he knew in his heart that this was what he'd been meant to do. This was his destiny. The prophecy of the Shamouti Islands had not one, but two meanings, and he had been born with a name that sealed his fate. To end the world was a task that was his and his alone, a task fated to be his since the very begging.
And now here he was, ready to fulfill that destiny.
His heart skipped a beat when he thought of all the people in this world whose lives would be cut short. All the other destinies that were not meant to continue beyond this day.
This is the way it must be, he told himself. The words were not his own; they had been spoken to him many times over his life, in his dreams and visions, and from the mouths of powerful mythical and legendary Pokemon such as Arceus itself.
The Three Fates had cut the last of their strings. Today, every destiny would be fulfilled: Ash's destiny to end the world, and each living creature's destiny to die.
This is the way it must be...
And when it was all over, destiny itself would have met its end.
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