Story note: Welcome, dear viewers, to the story of Amber, future Augur of Torren. At this point, I'm looking to focus more on the dealings she ends up having with the cults than the gym challenge, but there will be some gym content.
I do plan on doing some time skip stuff, between major story arcs (in my eyes) as breaks between "seasons" of this fic, where I'll be uploading other, shorter stories, just FYI.
The beginning of Amber's story.
I know that, in the original story, Ambertwo didn't have a body, per se. For the purposes of this work, she was given a body by genetically combining Mew's genetics with those of Dr. Fuji's daughter. There's other things that I changed in order to better tell the story, including the order in which the clones would have died.
Also kudos to whoever figures out where the chant that saves Squirtle comes from before the reveal comes later on.
The nature of the multiverse is such that, for the most part, universes are discrete.
That is, they're separated fairly firmly. Most of the time, Prince Chrom of Ylisse doesn't meet and duel the Augustrian Prince Seliph in Grado's castle, Tony Stark and Ted Kord don't cooperate on a scientific project, and Ash Ketchum normally doesn't meet the Augur of Torren.
Normally, in this case, is the key word.
Helix watched, from their inscrutable throne outside the normal dimensions, as a plane of Insurgence and a world where the foremost hero was Ash Ketchum collided.
While not unprecedented, there was something different about this instance.
Helix brought more of their attention to bear on the worlds in question, searching for the as-of-yet unnamed factor that separated it from a normal crossover event, and then, unfortunately, found the exact cause behind this phenomenon.
Dome had gotten their grubby claws all over the Insurgent world, and from what Helix could glean, nudged Reukra just enough so as to destroy the universe and several that surrounded it several years hence.
This would not do.
Helix scanned the other world in the equation. While incapable of directly undoing Dome's vile manipulation, they were capable of providing a counterbalance. Eventually, they chose their champion, a teal-haired child that had the potential for greatness locked away within their genetics.
The spirit was weak, though. Too weak to properly live-even as Helix watched, it was fading into nothingness.
Casting about in the rest of the multiverse for something to repair and bolster the soul to be able to match the flesh, Helix seized another soul, freshly bereft of a body, then pressed it to the fading spirit and fused them together with a spark of their own power.
After a heart-stoppingly eternal instant, Helix felt the fused entity take hold in the body, and the power they had imbued it with reach out and influence the world around them.
As the demiurge of this particular portion of the multiverse felt the entity begin to influence the lines of fate across the slowly-merging planes, they relaxed. All there was now was to watch and wait.
"... and the stars are the little lights that twinkle all night, just so we won't feel alone in the dark!" Amber giggled, then gasped as she started to vanish in a shower of blue sparks.
"What's wrong, Amber?" asked Mewtwo, worried. "What's happening?"
"It feels… like it's time…" Amber's voice faded out in midsentence as a light began to glow from within her chest, growing in intensity until it made looking in Amber's direction nigh on impossible.
"Amber? Amber!?" Mewtwo's calls became more frantic as he saw Charmandertwo, Bulbasaurtwo, and Squirtletwo start to fade out as well.
The light faded to an aura of visible psychic power around a taller, older body that kept Amber's deep blue eyes (which now glowed), but had longer, curlier hair that darkened from teal through purple to black at the ends framing a darker-skinned face. "Mewtwo?" She blinked, then looked around.
"Amber? What happened?" Mewtwo's eyes were wide and his chest was heaving.
"Mewtwo, listen to me very carefully. The three of them are dying. I need your help to keep them alive." Amber floated forward, then set her hands on Bulbasaur's head.
"Okay? How can I help?" Mewtwo floated forward, placing his hand on Amber's shoulder.
"Just channel power into me."
"O-okay." Mewtwo started glowing with power, and after a moment Amber started glowing too. Gradually, a shell of deep purple crystal grew around Bulbasaur, and her skin started turning an odd pink color.
Once the cocoon stopped growing, Amber turned to Squirtle, then frowned. "Mewtwo, I need you to help me find something in my memories. It's a chant starting with 'For it is in passing that we achieve immortality'."
"Why?" Mewtwo pressed his other hand to his forehead nonetheless, still searching for the memory.
"Because-" Amber shuddered, head twitching to the side, then continued. "Because I need to supercharge Squirtle's aura and this is the best way I know how to."
"Got it!" Mewtwo shouted, then Amber's eyes started glowing.
"For it is in passing that we achieve immortality, through this we become a paragon of virtue and glory to rise above all. Infinite in distance and unbound by death, I release your soul, and by my shoulder, protect thee." As Amber progressed along the chant, she started glowing with a deep purple light, which intensified the longer she had spent chanting.
Once she finished chanting, Squirtletwo glowed with a deep red light as her shell and skin both darkened to black.
"Charmandertwo!" Mewtwo floated over to the transparent spirit of his fellow clone, then put his hands on both sides of the Fire-type's head. "I won't lose you either!"
The both of them glowed with raw power, and even as Amber floated over, reaching out, the two exploded apart in a shockwave of energy. Amber was caught in the backlash and was sent tumbling tail over tea kettle away.
Charmander was much more solid, but as they watched, its flesh grayed and started to flake away while its tail-flame guttered out. Both Amber and Mewtwo stabilized themselves, then turned back and rushed towards Charmander, but Amber stopped when she saw a purple flame ignite at the tip of its tail. She looked over at Bulbasaur, then smiled as she saw it stretch, shattering its crystalline casing and revealing a pale purple bulb and pink skin.
Mewtwo wrapped his arms around Charmander, shaking, then stilled and relaxed when Charmander returned the embrace. "What… what happened? Did it work?"
"Everything hurt, and then you came and helped!" Charmander's voice was cheerful, and her tail undulated calmly.
Amber sighed, and some of the tension left her body language. "Good, I'm glad that worked." Then, she frowned. "Although I'm not entirely sure why I can understand you, Charmander."
"Oh, that's simple! You're psychic!" Amber blinked, then turned her head to the side and angled it down.
"What."
"Yeah, you're psychic! I don't know why, you weren't before, but you are now." Charmander shrugged, then wiggled free of Mewtwo's grasp, dropping for a moment before she managed to become insubstantial enough to ignore gravity. "Hey, that's neat!"
Amber pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed. "Wait, but isn't Squirtle a daaaaagh!" She doubled over, hands clutching at her leg, which twisted before their eyes.
"Amber? Amber, what's happening?"
"Dr. Fuji, the starters…" A white-coated woman stared at the three Pokémon in question.
"What has happened to them?" Had he known more about the variances in Pokémon forms that Torren (or Alola, or Galar) held, he might have been able to identify them as from one of those places. Alas, he was so concerned with Mew and the Pokémon of Kanto that he disregarded the (well-substantiated, even in Kanto) existence of alternate Pokémon forms.
"We don't know, sir. Their vitals started to weaken, and then they started to change. It looks like some kind of spontaneous mutation." She rewound the stored data of their biological processes, then allowed them to play, paired with the security footage showing the three Pokémon changing.
"And what about Amber?" Fuji turned to the tanks the clones were suspended in, then stalked forward, moving to a place where he could see the tank that he was using to reincarnate his daughter.
"Well, she was the first to have massive vitals fluctuations." The young child that Fuji remembered had quite obviously grown to more-or-less adulthood. The next thing that he noticed made him gasp and step back.
"What has happened to her leg?" The appendage in question was twisted, with the foot pointed inwards.
"We don't know, sir. Based on what happened to the other Pokémon, we'd have expected some kind of genetic mutation, we're not entirely sure what happened to Amber."
Fuji sighed. "As much as I hate to admit it, this batch of clones is a failure."
"Ah, sir?" The woman raised a finger. "As a matter of fact, the Mew clone didn't experience any kind of mutations. As a matter of fact, it displayed a nearly unprecedented level of energy channeling. We suspect that that, somehow, caused the mutation."
"Even if that is the case, it speaks to the instability of this method of cloning. No, we will have to dispose of these mutants, then use the serum and make Mewtwo forget." He closed his eyes and clenched his jaw. "Make it so.
"Yes, sir." She scurried away to do his bidding, leaving him alone.
For a time, he stood in silence, looking at the tank that held his daughter's failed clone until it was taken away. Then, he just stood, staring at the wall, before he turned on his heel. "I promise you, Amber. I will get you back someday."
Okay, so I know that the timeline doesn't quite line up with what I've written in the other stories in this universe (since this one links the timeline of Insurgence fairly closely to the events of the Kanto arc of the anime). But there's going to be a… well, I'm not going to say a completely logical reason, but one that's at least consistent-ish with the rules of this particular world. It's gonna be a long time in coming, but it will come.
As of uploading this chapter, I have the next episode fully written, and episode 3 is most of the way done.
First Uploaded 07/17/2020
Edited 07/18/2020 for consistency with future chapters.