Disclaimer: Not mine… obviously. But it would have been awesome if it was.

A/N: Chapter five is up. It was oddly dificult to write this time, even though I knew where I wanted it go. Oh well, it's done now. Thanks to all that have put this on their alert/favorite. It means more than you'd think it does knowing that there is someone reading your story. Please, leave a review and tell me what you think or if you have any questions.

To Zatch Bell-01: Drew is the psychiatrist "interrogating" Ash as he gives his story to Lance. What exactly is going on will be revealed as the story progresses. I don't want to spoil too much. And thank you for your review.

To Mercenary Flyer: I didn't know there was a trope about Ash going on a journey because of his mother's death, haven't read all that much fanfiction yet. I have a plot for this story and sequel lined up, but if you could tell me some other tropes to avoid that would be great. And thank you for your review.

And thanks to you, Smu. You stand for half of the reviews alone. I've changed the summary a little, taken out what wasn't needed.

I don't know if May or Serena's surnames has been revealed. If they have, I missed it. So I made some up.

PS: Thanks to Pyrrhos Nightmare Dragon I've been made aware of a mistake I made. I've changed that. Again, if you've already read this chapter then there is no need to do so again. And thank you to Pyrrhos Nightmare Dragon for the review and pointing it out for me.

Enjoy the chapter.

Future and Past Collide

I'm not your fucking son, bitch!

Ash Ketchum "Red"

You're mine, Ash Ketchum…

You are different. Special. You're gonna go far, kid.

You're one boy against an entire army! Just what did you think was gonna happen?

You're beyond human perception, Ash…

This isn't a war ordinary humans can win! We need more – we need you to evolve…

You can save us; you have to… you have to.

Memories… my memories danced through my mind. Memories I barely remembered living flashed in front of my eyes like I was seeing my life on a screen. I saw the day Oak gave me Pikachu; I remembered every detail of the day like it had been yesterday. It was a Sunday, and it had been raining.

That Pikachu is gonna be the death of you, Ash.

This little thing? It wouldn't hurt me.

How did you do that? Last night it almost zapped me…

The day I met Pikachu I was eight. It was over sixteen years ago, and I could remember what my mother was wearing like it was fucking yesterday. What the hell was happening? Where the fuck was I?

You can save us, you have to – you have to, Aaron…

Aaron…? I'm Ash Ketchum, you delusional woman.

Memories define you, man, makes you who you are. But what happens when something use your mind as a dumpster, when memories and feelings not your own swirl in your mind? What happens then?

You change, Drew. The question is into what…

I wasn't human, I didn't feel human. A being so different yet so alike me was invading me, incorporating what made it who it was into me. There is nothing more frightening than getting your identity stolen, expect getting your identity erased… just who the fuck was I, man? I was afraid I didn't know it anymore.

"I have to do this!"

"You'll never be the same again. Can't someone else take this burden? Does it always have to be you? Let someone else take the risk for once…"

"You know I have to, Karen. I'm our only chance – the Tree is our only chance."

"It will be your death."

"Then I'll die. I still have to try."

"I'm pregnant, Aaron. You're gonna be a father! Have you forgotten that?"

"I'm sorry… so, so sorry…"

Memories define you. Our choices define us. I had a certain feeling of déjà vu, like I had done this before, been in this kind of danger too many times before. I found it difficult to care anymore. And that could be very, very dangerous.

Ash Ketchum, give it back to me. You're not worthy of this power.

It's funny, the first thing you think about when you hear voices is not how fucked up it all is, or how fucking crazy all this is making you. No, the first thing you wonder is who that mysterious person is. It hits you a second later, of course… the stress, the fear. I realized that I was sharing my soul with an alien force, and then I got angry – fuck it, my mind was for me alone!

"Who's there? Get out of my head!" I said, trying to turn my head around and look for the voice. The only problem was I didn't have a head anymore, didn't have any limps or nervous systems. The cords running through my body, sending signals when I should move or when I should hurt were gone. I was a man without a body, only pure memories and soul.

Give me back the suit!

The suit – what suit? "Who are you? Where are you? Come out and face me!"

ENOUGH TALK! GIVE ME MY SUIT! GIVE ME MY POWER!

"What suit? What the hell are you talking about? Get out of my head, you fucker!"

I was having an out of my body experience. Ha! I was dust on the wind, the other being taking me along for the ride to the everlasting misery. We were surfing through Aura and memory, and suddenly the being was pushing at me, gnawing at my mind. I felt like I'd been here before, done this before… ah, man, you get the fucking point.

Insanity! I was being pushed aside by darkness never-ending; I was being suffocated by Aura all-consuming. It snuck up on me; it throttled me from behind – am I not human? Was that mine or the other one's thought? I should have been scared out of my fucking mind. Maybe I already was because I could barely even feel my own thoughts anymore. I wasn't in any state of mind at all.

I love you, Ash Ketchum. Is that not enough?

Ah, why was it those memories that were picked out? The memories I tried to forget every day. But dammit it should have been enough, she should have been enough. I mean, who could reject a girl like that? The kind of girl all guys dream about. She chose me and I turned my back to it all. But I was just so blinded by my rage and my pain and my guilt, revenge was all I could see. Love could never measure up to that kind of hatred…

I was slipping, my memories and regrets working as a more potent weapon than any Hyper Beam ever could. Love can make men stronger; can make us go through the fires of Hell just to do what is needed of us. But it can also tear you apart at the seams, Drew. It can fucking break you like nothing else…

I was slipping…

Yes… let it all go. Give me your body, let me take control. I can make you powerful… or I could give you peace…

Peace…? Peace was for the weak, man, for those without a backbone. I was many things, but weak was not one of them; yeah, I'm talking to you back there. No, not you, Drew…

Ahem, peace was for weak men without a backbone – men who didn't have the sheer balls to do what I've done. Its words ignited some of that age old brave – but oh so foolish – defiance in me. My body and mind and Aura were not for rental. I fought back, I didn't know how or what but I fought, clawing and slashing at everything that wasn't Ash Ketchum.

We fought through a maelstrom of darkness, feeling like I was in the eye of the fucking storm that raged over Unova all those years ago. But it wasn't your typical fight with arcs of destructive forces flung around; I wasn't sure how I was even fighting back. We were flying. I was flying. I was finding it harder and harder to see – feel – where Ash ended and where Sir Aaron began.

But I was Sir Aaron, of that I was sure. No! I was fighting Sir Aaron, of that I was sure. I don't even… never mind. Memories of courage and sacrifices and love and being fucking human were bleeding into me, joining me; it all changed me in some way, or at least tried to.

Give it up! Do you really think you can stand up to me, Ketchum? I've waited ages upon ages for this… You'll not be in my way. The Suit of Aura is mine! You hear me? Mine!

Oh yeah, fucker, coming in loud and clear! Our wills clashed into each other, one minute we were me, the next we were Aaron, and in between we were a fucking new person all together. It was weird, but I slowly got a sense of how this worked, fighting without a body, flying with nothing but my intent. It was like controlling your Aura, all it took was belief – and a jump into the unknown.

It's that jump that set us apart, man. There're two kinds of people in this world, the ones that have the stones to jump into the unknown, and the ones that turn their back to it all and pretend nothing is happening. What person are you?

Jumping was the bravest thing I ever did, man…

GIVE ME YOUR AURA!

"IN HELL!"

YOU'RE ALREADY THERE, YOU IMBECILE!

Not yet, I thought, pushing back with my soul and blood and Aura. I was winning now, my mind becoming more distinctive from the other being, I could see the difference between me and the other guy. And then there was a world beneath us, and there was a face on my enemy. Its skin was blood red and looked devoured of all humanity, dead – its skin was dead. Its eyes gouged out of its socket. It was screaming sheer insanity at me from beyond an invisible boundary I couldn't breach.

The face seemed familiar, I had seen it somewhere… but when? I could remember all, and yet I couldn't place that face. But I knew who it belonged to.

DIE KETCHUM! I screamed at me. No, it screamed at me, Aaron screamed at me. Ah, fuck it all to…

"This is my mind!" I snarled, circling the insane being in front of me that tried to take over my body and soul. I took in every little detail about the… man in front of me, every tiny detail about the shield between us, looking for a way through. This was the fabled hero we still whispered about to this day? This was the hero we worshipped as the greatest hero of all time?

NOT ANYMORE! YOU ARE MINE TO COMMAND!

Would it stop screaming all the goddamn time? I still didn't have any limps to focus my Aura with; I was only a blue blob of energy. The world beneath me was all messed up, too. Crimson oceans as far as the eye could see, a sky in a forest green color above me, screaming down at us with intense beams of destruction, as if telling us that it was one second away from killing us both. I tried to find something normal, something that was supposed to be there, but everything just looked so wrong.

But nothing of it mattered; I might only have been a bubble of energy, but I was my own bubble of energy now. I could feel myself again – feel my Power and my mind. I searched for a smile – I obviously found none. My mind looked for that special something deep inside me, that something that could set the world on fire with my intent alone. It was there just beneath the surface, as it always was.

I had won!

I sucked in a breath and the very fabric of reality bent to my fucking will. Flicking and growing, my blue bubble of Aura flared up like a withering sun, banishing darkness never-ending, I overpowered the hostile Aura like it was a little Meowth. My energy rose within me, pillars of crystal-blue forces blazed to life, lashing out like fucking explosions. I was the sun, I was life; I was the fucking Boss again.

What are you doing? Stop this… this madness! Arceus gave me that suit, only I can wield it to its fullest potential.

I didn't answer him; too busy gathering the immense amount of potent power inside of me. The ocean under me was moving away from me, great quantities of waves running away because of the blazing Aura; I created a vacuum of stillness around Aaron and me. A beam of Aura surged from the sun I was creating and into the waters, working as an anchor for me – a link between me and this fucking world.

This was my mind, and I would make damn sure I was the only thing left in it when I was done.

This was me unleashed, man, this was me when I decided to roll the fucking dice – roll it and already knowing the outcome. I was the Alpha and I was the Omega. There were no we anymore, Drew, only I. And I was about to kick some serious ass…

Lighting thundered above, the winds I had created turning into a vortex with me as its epicenter. My form was flicking with powers of Old Days turned real. Blue flames – which should have been so hot they would burn me to ash – danced around me. And then something clicked, the last piece of the puzzle settling into place.

I was ready; I felt it swift and sure.

"You wanted my Aura?" I asked, my voice almost a whisper in the thundering chaos. He would hear me – somehow I knew he would. How the fuck do I talk without a mouth? Ah, fuck that, too! "Well, then FUCKING HAVE AT IT!"

I released the Sun of Aura upon the motherfucker that tried to eat my soul. Like fucking ecstasy, my blood was pumping pure fire through my veins as my intent guided the monstrous impossibility that was my power. An infinite power surged through the Globe of Aura, tendrils of energy crackling along the surface of the Ball as it reached for Aaron.

YOU CAN'T DO THIS TO ME! I'M AARON KALANOVSKI! I'M THE GUARDIAN OF AURA!

"You're dead meat, pal," I said, as if we were only discussing the weather over a cup of tea. "There's a new kid in town, and this place is not big enough for the both of us…"

BOOM!

My attack surged through Aaron, blowing up like a fucking nuclear bomb. He vaporized instantly, his body and soul becoming nothing but dust in my self-made chaos. I set the world ablaze in blue flames; I set my mind ablaze in blue flames.

Aaron was gone, his demonic presence disappearing from my mind. I could breathe again, I could feel again. His memories were still coursing through my mind, though. I was seeing Arceus again, but this time I was standing in front of the thing, this time it was me those godforsaken eyes were staring at. This time the power bleeding of the Deity was pointed at me. It judged me. It turned me inside out, sifting through my memories like we humans turn a page of a book.

"Ash! Ash, are you there! Come on, son – wake up!"

Someone was screaming into my ear. The voice sounded familiar, but my mind was too groggy and sleepy to make the connection. Arceus was still gazing into my soul, and I was still pretty out of it. I mean, here was Arceus, the God of Pokémon – it wasn't supposed to be real.

I still didn't think it was real, Drew. It would destroy the purpose of our very lives. It had to be a vision, something that was playing tricks with my mind again. So I fought that, too, lashing out at the memory of a memory with my Aura. I sprung up in the memory, going from kneeling to suppressing fucking Aura Spheres at the delusion in a microsecond.

"Ash? Are you there? What's happening?"

Arceus blinked at my defiance like I had only tickled it, brushing of every arcs and orbs of vicious blows. Then it narrowed its eyes at my show of resistance. Sorry, fucker, but my mind is a one man's land. Ha, biggest lie if there ever was one.

"ASH! STOP THIS! THE WHOLE BUILDING IS COMING DOWN!"

The Arceus imposter tilted its head to the side, taking me in like a curious child. Then it righted itself to its full height, towering over me like a fucking skyscraper, and released its power upon me…

I sat up with start, an Aura Sphere leaving my hand on pure instinct; Oak dived out of the way. Luckily for him, the Sphere was without a target. Otherwise it would have been professor no more…

The Sphere shot up, my eyes tracking its progress as it cleaved through the reinforced steel roof like a scissor through paper. I noted a lot of things in my confusion, holes like the one I had just made was fucking everywhere in the roof, the building was shaking and groaning, and debris was falling around me everywhere.

Oak rolled under his desk, probably saving his own life from one of the steel plates that missed him by an inch. I had to admire the agility he showed for a man his age.

I blinked in confusion again, noting for the first time that I was buried under a fuck ton of steel plates, that the steel plates were raining down on me. I couldn't feel any of it. Moving my limps, I checked if my cord of nerves running down my vertebra had been damaged. Everything worked and moved and felt as it should – or that's to say it felt fucking awesome.

Then something beeped in front of my right eye, a warning sign of some kind flashed, and my arm just acted is if it had a mind of its own. Breaking through the heavy steel, my arm literally flashed blue; I could see the energy working its way up just beneath my dark-grey skin before it released into the sharp-edged steel plate that had direct course towards my head.

The thing vaporized before I even knew what I had done, what it had done.

I broke through the steel, stood up and spread my arms like they were fucking wings. The very atmosphere seemed to sizzle in the room, an air of tremendous power settling around me. Then I brought my hands together and clapped.

You have to realize that I had no idea what I was doing – or why I was even doing it. It felt like something was guiding me, not really controlling, but giving me whispers of encouragement and guidelines.

It was manipulating me, man. It doesn't do that anymore, though – at least not so often anymore.

I brought my hands together and clapped, the air of tremendous power coalescing into something tangible. I breathed Aura into the room, making everything stop. The falling plates were all vanished – blown away by an otherworldly power.

My otherworldly power - oh yeah, that felt fucking majestic!

Oak moved out from under the desk, gingerly looking at the roof. Then his gaze snapped to me, and whatever he saw most how scared him shitless because he jumped back, almost falling head-over-heels over his desk in his eager to get away from me. He grabbed his desk for support, looking at me with so obvious fear I didn't know if I should be proud or sad.

"Ash… is-is that you?"

I blinked, quite confused. Then I remembered the dark-grey skin surging up my arm, my eyes snapped down and looked at my body. A tight dark-grey… weave of some kind was rippling over my form, crystal-blue wisps of Aura running to and fro like lighting upon my body. It looked alive…

"Oh…"I uttered, but it wasn't my voice, at least not entirely my voice. There was something metallic to it, like it was going through some kind of vocoder, voice enhancer. You know those things that makes you sound like somebody or something else. It made me sound like this, Drew – a robot… "Yeah, I'm here… I think."

Oak removed his hand from the desk and walked closer to me, his every step looking like a war with himself – he wanted so badly to turn around and run away from me. You couldn't really blame him, could you?

"What is that thing?" he whispered, coming to a halt. I couldn't help but notice the distance was a little bigger between us than it had been all morning. Couldn't blame him for that either…

"He called it a Suit of Aura," I murmured, noting just how much damage I had done to the room while being… out of it. "Guess the vertebra works as it should…"

"The skin, Ash… it's moving."

"It's incorporating with my nervous system, it's adapting to my Aura signature."

Samuel Oak looked confused – and more than a little scared. Smart man. "How do you know that?"

"It's telling me." And it was, small blue letters were blinking in front of my eyes, initializing new DNA profile… connecting with nervous systems… scanning for Aura-code functions… and a bunch of other technology talk I didn't understand shit of. "It's joining me…"

"Joining you?" Oak was considering running away from me more and more.

"Aura-code sufficient. Beginning visor transmission to Aura Guardian…" the thing said aloud, I didn't think Oak could hear it. He didn't act on it.

Suddenly, I could use my eyes again; Oak's concerned face appearing in so high definition that I could see every single wrinkle on his old face like I was right beside him and not two meters away. Eagle eye, man, eagle eye…

Since the very beginning of my training with Riley, I had always been able to feel my Aura, always been left in awe every time I searched for that power. But what was surging through me now was so immense that it left me breathless. I could take on the Birds of Nature and come out on top, man. Fuck yeah!

Yeah, I know. It was a stupid thought. Heh… it's kinda ironic, don't you think?

"Wow…" I whispered, quite amazed at my new power – and quite irritated at my new voice. "This feels fucking awesome!"

"Ash," Oak said, gaining my attention. He pointed at something on the wall. "Take a look at yourself."

It was a mirror. I walked up to it, seeing myself growing closer and closer in the cut reflection; a great crack was running across it, probably caused by my actions before. It didn't matter, I could see myself just fine, and what I saw made me realize why Oak was so scared – it made me scared. I recoiled from the image, the big humanoid thing in the mirror staggered with me.

But somehow through the surprise I felt, another voice was telling me that I really wasn't all that surprised. That what I was seeing was actually exactly as it should have been. It was right.

My form looked as if it had been cut out in stone; every hard-earned muscle was amplified and highlighted to superhuman perfection. I looked like the bodybuilders on too many steroids. I tensed my right arm and watched the muscles bulged so powerfully I thought the grey weave was gonna burst. It didn't, it expanded like real skin, stretched along the muscles.

It flickered as I watched; waves of light and shadows chased each other like a movie on fast forward. Somehow I knew it was waves of Aura that the suit was leaking into its systems to keep it going, my Aura worked as a battery to power up the weave. How the fuck do I know this?

Aaron knew, and therefore I knew, as well. Pretty fucked up, huh?

My body was the battery powering this thing up, and in return it powered my body and Aura up to epic proportions.

Blue and red lines ran along my thighs, different markings kept flicking in and out of existence with my every breath upon the red and blue tissue.

My brain got a power up, too. I was remembering – but not lost this time – old experiences again. Every flimsy half-remembered thought jumped to my mind like something was highlighting it for me.

The suit highlighted it for me, of course.

With my mind in a spiral of old and new thoughts, experienced in new and old ways, I stared into my eyes – or I stared into where my eyes should have been. The crimson visor, shinning and completely opaque, on the helmet covering my face looked more like something you'd find on a Pokémon. The helmet was so dark you could almost call it black. The stubby snout beneath the visor looked like some advanced gasmask. I felt like I breathed fire through the damn thing. If I could just open the mask I could probably bealch my own Flamethrower.

I looked ugly as hell and felt awesome as fuck.

I turned around, my full attention on Oak again. But it wasn't just my attention that was on him…

The moment I turned my eyes on Oak's face, the thing I was wearing started acting up. A thin line scanned Oak's eyes and face, and I could see data run along the edge of my vision. A picture of a DNA structure flared to life in the lower corner of the left side, the word unknown blinking below the image.

Scanning failed… identity unknown…

Ah okay, that was more than a little unsettling. But the fucking suit wasn't done trying to perform miracles. Suddenly, it started telling me other nonsense, like the subject's body temperature was above the normal levels, or the subject's eyes were wandering too much around, suggesting nervousness.

Kind of like what I did with you earlier, Drew. And then came my personal favorite:

Identity – unknown:
Probability of staying: 75 %
Probability of running: 25 %

Ah, it can't do that, I thought, looking with my perfect vision at Oak. I took in every detail the suit had shown me, the eyes that kept flicking all over the place like he was looking for escape roads or weapons to defend himself with, the thin sheen of sweat on his brow that suggested the nervousness.

I have to test this, I thought; quite giddy all of a sudden.

"This is power!" I exclaimed, dramatizing my every word for more effect. Oak was so nervous he probably wouldn't notice how bad an actor I was. "With this power nothing will stand in my way. I'm gonna fucking massacre everything, and build a new world in my image!"

Okay, maybe not a performance worthy of an Oscar, but it got the job done. Oak was too scared to notice anything else than my words and the suit that had consumed my body. My suit beeped again.

Identity – unknown:
Probability of staying: 35 %
Probability of running: 65 %

"That's fucking awesome!" I whispered excitedly, as Oak etched closer and closer to the exit, trying to get away from the raging lunatic in the muscles suit…

You could call that a rude awakening. It could have been so much smoother if the old owner would've just let go of the past and let another man take up the mantle. He wouldn't have been who he was if he did that, of course.

Yes, Sir Aaron still resides in this suit, but that day I took control of the suit – however much he detested it. We're still fighting; I still fight for supremacy of the suit. But he's slowly losing power, in the near future he will be nothing but a memory upon a memory.

But can I really blame him for going mad? His intentions were good to begin with, he wanted to use the suit to save people. And he did. He stopped the Dark War, ended the bloodshed and brought peace to the land. But… power like that changes you, experiences like war and loss changes you.

He sacrificed everything to get the Suit of Aura, to get the power to stop the annihilation. He saved us. But he was never the same again, like all other great and powerful men he wanted more. That want, that need drove him mad. He started fighting wars that wasn't there; he started seeing enemies that wasn't there.

Sometimes, I wonder why I haven't turned out like him yet. Maybe it's because I have allies, friends that can help me reload when things get tough. Maybe that's gonna save me. Save us…

I got the suit that day, got the power to change the tide. What chance did Giovanni have against a power that could do the thing I did to the Lab? But then things escalated, the enemies became bigger, the challenges became tougher. Suddenly, I wasn't the only overpowered being in this fight. As the fight in Vermillion showed you, I wasn't even the strongest being in this war.

But this was how it really started; the suit was like a gift sent from heaven, at least initially. Nothing is without a price these days. I embraced the power the Suit gave me with relish like any man would; I could be the difference now. Innocent people didn't have to fear because here is their savior, man.

It was a lot easier in the beginning when I could make myself belief that there wasn't a downside to it all, that Aaron was easy to ignore and forget. Hell, he became easy to forget, but he was never the problem. Power can become a sleeping bag. If you think you're already perfect, then you'll never be. Seeking perfection means never letting yourself become satisfied – always strive for new heights.

But that isn't the problem either; I have the resolve and determination to see this through to the end. I've been through too much not to…

No, the biggest problem, the greatest bump in the road was the suit itself. I know that sounds weird, the suit gave me all those badass powers, why would it be the problem?

I feel like a schizophrenic sometimes, Drew. On one side is the logical part. The computer… the suit. I see patterns and sequences; I make calculations based on probability – cause and effect. On the other side is the illogical part – the human. I see hope and dreams, I see a man of faith in me, believing in a better tomorrow, that I can give the world a better tomorrow.

These two sides are in a constant war with each other, fighting over what to do next, who to save, who to spare… who to kill. I want to be the best man I can possible be, I want to be that beacon of hope that people so desperately screams for. But then there is this… this voice that keeps – and no I'm not talking about Aaron. This is the suit itself – that keeps telling me that the good human is just an illusion, that the best man I could ever hope to be would tear everything down and start over again. Rebuild the world in my vision – fairness, logical… cold… inhuman.

You humans are flawed; every human has flaws and strengths. It makes you human, different, and that's alright, that's… right. But I can't help thinking: if humans weren't so flawed, if every human had the same gig and rights, the same beliefs and hobbies, wouldn't we be free of conflicts. A guy like me, the horrible but fucking necessary monster in the shadow wouldn't be so fucking necessary anymore.

But then again, everything would be so fucking boring. It would take everything out of what it means to be alive. And even though I have a computer that tells me I shouldn't, I can't help but fall in love every time I see the pretty girl, or jump in front of a bullet every time someone innocent is in the crossfire.

Imagine a world where every woman had to dress and look the same, Drew. There would be no ugly duckling, but there wouldn't be any May Hutton or Serena Corneau. No Sabrina either – crazy bitch that she is. And wouldn't that be a shame?

Oh, Sabrina is looking at us from the next room, right? Oops…

But I'll tell you one thing: taking a leak in this thing is pretty epic. It was build for a man, let me tell you that. My tiger is in a leash. Still don't get it? Ah, man. My cock is wired to a tank so that I can relieve the pressure, Drew. I can understand that cringe; I imagine mine looked the same when I found out. But it's not that bad actually; it sort of hugs you – kinda like when you're having…

Get on with the story? Get on with the story he says.

Sir, yes sir.

"Would you hold still?" Oak snapped. "This is hard enough without you squirming like that."

"Usually when somebody holds a knife to my head they're only looking for trouble," I said, trying, and failing miserably, to sit still and let Oak cut my hair.

"This isn't a knife, though," Oak said, grabbing a lock of hair and pulling it taut before cutting it off. I could almost see my forehead again, the human Ursaring gone, gone, gone from my sight, man. I felt clean for the first time in… four years, three months and twenty six days.

Ah, fuck me.

When you have been gifted with an unexceptional brain like I had, living with the ability to forget the simplest thing you whole damn life like a fucking human, how weird do you think it is to suddenly realize you mind has been upgraded, Drew? That your mind went from having difficulty remembering what you had for dinner last night to suddenly remember what you had for dinner on this date fucking ten years ago.

It's called eidetic memory, man. You ever heard about those child prodigies? You ever heard about that wunderkind that solved the storage problem in the Ultra Ball when it was still on the drawing board? Eric Anderson was his name, I think – I know. I saw it on a news article out of the corner of my eye just before getting my ass handed to me by Team Rocket all those years ago. Good memory, man, oh man. Little Eric solved the problem we couldn't at the tender age of five because he could remember every single fucking sequence like a computer – a computer with a human mind.

I had become like that, expect Mr. Anderson was born with that gift. It was normal to him, he had been used to it his whole goddamn life – and later you found out he took his own life because it drove him mad anyway – but for me it was… wrong. I was Ash Ketchum; I was the guy that had trouble remembering everything. I wasn't some computer that could recall every little detail of my life.

Until now.

Even as I said there in Oak's bathroom, face in the mirror, still raw from that Flamethrower the Heatran had almost unwillingly killed me with, my mind was being upgraded like a computer. It all happened in the back of my mind, of course. If I didn't focus on it I could almost forget about it, but it was there alright, working, filing… remembering.

It worked like a computer, man. I was a computer…

"Ash?" Oak shook me a little, snapping me out of my memories.

"Sorry," I said. "Just spacing out…"

He had been a little shaken up by the madness of this morning, but he had taken it better than I had expected. Hell, I had taken it better than I had expected. The suit had glided of my body on command – just a simple thought and the suit was nothing more than a ring again.

We hadn't talked much after that. Oak had ordered me to take a bath – apparently I smelled foul – and shave myself. And now we were here, him cutting through my mane and me feeling awesome and terrified at the same time.

"Is it… you know…?" Oak gestured piteously to my hand, lost for words.

"Oh yeah," I sighed.

Oak gulped and focused on his task again. We acted as if nothing was wrong, as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. We hoped, as people often do with their problems, that it would solve itself and disappear.

But when you stop to think about it, Drew, when you stop being too chickenshit and plunge your hand into the filthy matter, then you realize that my mind was working exactly as it had been doing when I wore the suit. Taking off the thing hadn't meant a goddamn difference. I was still just as inhuman.

Live and learn, live and learn. All you can really do.

We both knew it, but none of us brought it up. Avoiding the problems, man, we were just avoiding the problems.

But one day those problems are gonna blow up in your face, and then you'd regret not confronting them sooner. Trust me.

"Thank you for saving me back there," Oak finally said, most likely just to break the awkward silence between us. I had often been good at small talk back before I went into the unknown dangers of the world. A typical class clown, you could call me. Now I wasn't sure what to say, I didn't feel like I had anything to say. It's funny, the more thoughts you have running through your mind, the fewer things you have to talk about.

"It's no big deal, and I was the one that put you in danger to begin with, wasn't I?"

Oak nodded, seeing no sense in lying about it. "One minute you were looking at the ring, the next you were down and screaming and shooting those… ah, Aura Spheres – still can't believe you can actually do that – shooting at everything with that abomination on your body."

Heh, you could always count on Oak to get excited about these kinds of things. His life had been in danger, and still he was fascinated by my abilities – you couldn't take the Professor out of him, I guess.

"I can't believe it either, really." I turned my head downwards, letting Oak get to my neck. "I spent most of my search through Sinnoh feeling sorry for myself. Thinking about giving it all up, go back to Pallet and live the rest of my life in anonymity. But… I couldn't do that. I had a responsibility, you know. I had a commitment."

Oak stopped cutting through my hair, catching my eyes in the mirror. "Why did you come back now, Ash?" he sounded almost sad. "Why come back to this? I always thought you ran away because you didn't want anything to do with it?"

I licked my suddenly dry lips; I hated these kinds of conversations. "I didn't want to… but… we both know I had to," I finally said. "You can see the work of Giovanni almost everywhere. Do you really think it was Lance's idea to limit a person's party of Pokémon to six? No, Giovanni knows that a person with only six Pokémon is a lot less dangerous than a person with ten or twenty."

"So you're here to stop him?"

"I don't think I can," I said honestly, frowning quite heavily. "I could kill him whenever I wanted, but would that stop Team Rocket? You've heard about his Executive, right?"

Oak cringed at my careless speculation about killing another man, I wasn't the same little boy that came crying to him after mommy and daddy was having a bad day. "A man named Archer," he said, shaking his barely disguised fear off his face. "Yeah, I've heard about him. He was on the news last night. A very, very bad man…"

"Yeah, that he is." I could tell you stories abou little ol' Archer that would send you home with nightmares. "If I take out Giovanni another man – possible someone like Archer – will rise in his shadow. It would be an endless circle, a war without an end."

Oak began cutting again; his eyes seemed lost in thought. "What can you do then? I mean, Lance – for all his good qualities – doesn't seem to want to defy Giovanni."

Lance with good qualities? He hid them well if he had any. Nevertheless, I let the subject be for the time being, Oak and Lance had always been good friends, and I didn't want to make a conflict of interest in this situation. But even Oak wasn't that glad for Lance anymore, not after he let Giovanni go. "I'll make him; force him to take a side." I said. "If I can force Giovanni out in the open, if I can dig up enough evidence, then Lance has to make a choice."

"And what if Lance chooses Giovanni's side again? Like he did last time."

I caught Oak's eyes this time, wanting to make sure he understood just how serious I was. "Then Lance is a liability to the people of Kanto, and then I will terminate him from his position if I have to… by any means necessary."

Oak swallowed my words, probably deeming them words of craziness. But I could see the brilliant mind behind the man working them over, accepting the harsh words as the hard, unforgiving truth. "Hopefully it won't come to that," he said, putting down his scissors at the table. "There, all done. So what's next?"

I smiled, standing up and admiring myself. I looked like me again, didn't feel like me, but I looked like a handsome Ash Ketchum again. "Now we'll do some training. I have a new Pokémon to show you," I said, stepping past Oak. "And then we will go after Giovanni."

"A new Pokémon?" Oak breathed excitedly, following me out of the bathroom. I'd go back and clean up after us later. "What kind of Pokémon?"

"Oh, you're gonna love this one…"

It changes me. The suit. It changes me all the goddamn time. Sometimes I only notice it after I make a decision I wouldn't have made before – it's subtle the little fucker. I'm a supercomputer in a human body; it's all kinds of fun and mortifying at the same time. I am a superhuman with an ordinary man's conscious. I am the Alpha and I am the fucking Omega, man. Do you hear me laugh at the irony of it all, Drew? No, and that's because I don't laugh at a fucking misery, no matter how fun it might sound.

You look confused. No reason to be confused all will be explained in time.

I jump out of a burning building at 79 stories after stumbling on my words in front of the pretty girl. Explain this to me, please? How do those two actions fit together? Let me tell you how it fits together, one of the things is something I want – in the worst and the best way – the other is something I have to do.

Three guesses which is which. You're only gonna need one.

But I'm making it all sound like it such a bad thing, don't I? That's just the little kid in me, still seeking sympathy. Old habits die hard, I guess. I remember every little detail of my life now, the good and the bad. I remember coming to late, brother. I remember crash-landing in Pallet Town on Charizard, screams and fire fucking everywhere – the bad. I remember Lance and Steven brushing off my pleas for justice, protecting Giovanni even though everybody knew without a shred of a doubt that he was fucking guilty – the really bad. And I remember the hopelessness of defeat when I didn't even breach the outer security line of his base in Hoenn in my quest for revenge. Blastoise, Meganium, Rapidash all died due to my failure – the really, really fucking bad.

But there I go again, making it all seem like one big, fucked up tragedy. As I said, I remember the good times, too. I remember the sex with May after the Hoenn League so clearly now it almost makes me feel like the old, perverted teenager again. I remember Sabrina coming on to me at a party, showing an inch more cleavage than she had to. And Serena – gentle, warm, kind, beautiful Serena – that made me sound too much in love, right? I mean, nobody is perfect. Ah, she has her bad sides. But I like them, too…

Okay, I am in love with Serena… and May – definitely not in love with Sabrina. She's just too crazy. I get the feeling she just wanted me for the sexual satisfaction. It's all part of the story, Drew; I can see you're intrigued – and aroused. Heh… we men have a one-tracked mind when it comes to those things. Ah, no need to be shy about it, it's natural. They're both hot as hell – you only know May, of course. Journalist and model – brains and beauty. That's a dangerous combination.

But you begin to see a picture now, right? The story I weave. Lance just texted someone called Pierre Bognan – funny name. Give me a sec… ah, here it is. Thirty-two years old, worked his way through the ranks in the G-men force unit. He lost his left arm in an accident involving the evolution of his Charmeleon. He was demoted after that to a simple errand boy for Lance – Mr. Bognan is on his way to pick up the girls now. Lance hopes that May and Serena knows who I am.

They both do, but they won't tell you anything.

Breaking point? Yeah, everyone has a breaking point. Serena is a nurse, she'll break first under torture. But if you start torturing them I can assure you that none of you'll leave this building alive. Well, you might survive with a missing limp or two – just because you had the balls to talk to me.

We both know you won't lay a finger on them…

Moving on, I showed Tyrunt to my… accomplish – still won't say his name to you. He didn't really care all that much, he never was that into Pokémon.

Oh, by the way, I'll tell you later how I did that with Pierre Bognan. Most of what I said about him is classified information, right? You'll find, Drew, that there is nothing classified for me.

"Okay! Tyrunt, come on out!" I said, almost shouted excitedly as I threw out the Poké Ball. Tyrunt coalesced out of the brilliant white light, form hunched over and snout opened and panting. The dinosaur seemed happy to see me. I hadn't trained with it much since I caught it, but we had established a bond.

Or it didn't want to eat me anymore at least.

"A Tyrunt?" Oak asked, face filled with excitement at the possible meeting with a new Pokémon. "I've never seen one alive…"

"This one is, and…" Tyrunt sniffed the air, looking around the field. We were standing in Oak's backyard, different kinds of Pokémon in every direction. Some of them were my own, some of them were Oak's, but most of them I had no idea where they were from-

-Tyrunt stopped sniffing around, its eyes locking in on Professor Oak. Suddenly there was bloody murder and hunger in its eyes. It growled in the back of its throat and grouched on its hind legs, and Oak was already moving the fuck back, getting his distance between him and the beast.

I stepped in, cutting the Pokémon off. "Hey! There is dinner later," I said, almost growled. Tyrunt seemed ready to attack me to get to Oak, not backing down in the slightest. "Hey!" I snarled, putting more emphasis on the word. "You don't want a repeat of what happened last time we fought, do you?"

That seemed to snap it out of its bloodlust. It probably remembered the ass kicking it got. Okay, our relationship wasn't that great. I should have put more work into Tyrunt, but I had just been so caught up in my own training I'd forgotten all about the little beast.

"Sorry," I said, turning to Oak when I was sure Tyrunt wasn't gonna attack. "Thought I had gotten further with it than that."

"That's okay." Oak looked out of breath, still holding his sides. "How long have you had it?"

I scratched the back of my head, trying to recall just how long it had actually been. The answer popped to my mind like I had been running a search on a computer. "Six months… three days… twelve hours and… twenty-two minutes right about… now. Wow…"

Oak looked more than a little put out by my display of the impossible, looking unsure if he should comment on it or just ignore it. "Well… six months – you said six months, right? – is not that long, really. I've heard that Tyrunt is a very difficult Pokémon to train from Lance."

"Yeah, I've heard that, too. Imagine how it's gonna be when it evolve into a Tyrantrum."

"I'd rather not," Oak said, probably thinking about a twenty-five feet tall Pokémon trying to cook him for dinner. "They're dangerous enough when they're like that." He gestured to Tyrant's small size. That Pokémon would go from reaching my waist to reaching the fucking skyscrapers when it evolved – almost like the transformation a Magikarp went through when they evolved.

"You're right, of course," I said. "Which is why I'm gonna deal with it from the start before it evolves into something uncontrollable. Hopefully when it finally does evolve, I've shown it who the boss is."

Oak frowned at me. "What are you planning?" Did I imagine the exasperation in his voice? No, I didn't.

I frowned right back at him. "What?"

"I remember your kind of Pokémon training, Ash," Oak reminded me. "Most of your opponents called it insanity…"

"There's a purpose hiding behind the chaos, man," I said. "If you want to be the best, then you have to take a chance. Why do you think I'm the youngest winner of a League Championship – without killing any of my opponents Pokémon, as well?"

He's exasperation was clear as the sun now, but I could see the affection behind it – he was proud of me. That made me kinda proud of myself, too. "Just don't get yourself killed. Okay?"

"Yes mom."

Oak rolled his eyes, and I turned back to Tyrunt, finding him looking curious and attentively between me and Oak. I'd kept my other senses on him, Drew, don't worry. The Pokémon was at a stage in its training I liked to call… puberty. It was starting to get an interest in – the interesting things around it, but it knew that some of them were hands-off stuff. Those things are most often those that were the hardest to leave alone. It wanted to eat meat – humans – but it knew that I wouldn't allow it.

This was also the perfect time to test the capabilities of my other new thing. I rolled my shoulders, craned my neck, popping a joint or two. All part of the show, man. "Okay, here goes nothing… the Aura is with me," I said, knowing with absolute certainty that it was the password that triggered the damn thing.

It happened instantaneously this time, no drawback, no other being hell bent on tearing my mind the fuck apart, no integration between flesh and machine needed this time – I was just Ash Ketchum in new gigs, man. The dark-grey tissue, which looked and felt so much like skin it seemed unreal, twisted its way from my finger to the rest of my body in a fucking flash of a second. One minute I was human and all white skin, wearing my clothes and shoes, the next I was naked and grey – but without my thingy dangling around, of course. Heh, couldn't shook the ladies into coma, huh, Drew?

You really are a girlyman, you know that? So sensitive…

My feet and head were covered by some material – light and fucking strong to the touch. I felt light in this thing, as if gravity had stopped working around me. My Aura – oh, man, my Aura – it was on fucking fire, going directly into my veins like a drug. Blue lights ran down my body, illustrating just how much energy I had coursing through me.

I felt good, like really, really good, man.

Oak walked up to me and touched my new skin, his face set in stone. He pushed his forefinger into my abdomen, and we both looked as the skin drew inwards like real human tissue. "It feels like human skin," he said, quite amazed. "Extraordinary… can you feel this?"

"Yeah, it feels normal, but when I was buried in steel that felt normal, too."

"Hmm, I've no idea what can do this, Ash. I'll have to analyze it to see what it is." He shook his head. "You're standing with the future on your body, son."

"I'm pretty sure it's a relic from the past. Actually, this thing is ancient if I'm right," I replied. "But enough about this. I have a Pokémon to train. Stand back, if you please."

I turned my eyes on Tyrunt and went into a fighting stance. The little dinosaur was staring at me with obvious interest. "Do you remember when I caught you?" I asked the poor bastard – I was gonna kick some scaly hide ass, man. It grunted at me. I took it as a confirmation. "Good, fight like that again. You can begin when you're ready."

I barely finished my sentence before it was moving. Faking a left and going right, it released a ball of dark matter at me, hoping to catch me off guard.

I was never caught off guard anymore. Suddenly, as the ball of darkness came flying at me, the suit beeped and writing appeared in the lower left corner of my visor screen, flashing by my eye so fast that I almost didn't catch it even with my new upgrade. My super brain caught it, of course. Dark Pulse – the user releases a horrible aura imbued with dark thoughts. It may also make the target delusional for an extended period of time.

The Dark Pulse had barely reached half-way to me when I acted – or the suit acted. I'm still a little unsure about that. I jumped into the thing, probably looking like a crazy and suicidal maniac to Oak, and slapped the thing away with an open palm – it didn't even tickle, Drew. It should have killed me or driven me crazy, but it didn't even fucking tickle.

Dark Pulse – when performed on humans – could put its intended victims into a coma where they either woke up some time later after having suffered traumatizing nightmares, or they never woke up at all.

Tyrunt had taken the words fight hard very literally, but he couldn't have foreseen just what he was up against.

I never broke my momentum, fucking blurring as I ran. Tyrunt's eyes went wide with surprise and fear and goddamn pain as my fist collided with its snout, making it tilt over backwards. I mowed it down with my fists again and again; it felt like the suit was edging me on. I didn't even have to think before my arm moved, hitting the beast with a power and precision that I didn't even understand myself.

Tyrunt never stood a chance.

As I said, Drew, it felt good. Too good.

I stopped myself, feeling oddly sad about having to break off the fight already. Tyrunt was lying on the grass, panting and hurting, but otherwise fine – I had only roughened it up a little. Then an icon on my visor of some sort zoomed in on the panting form at my feet. I wondered for a moment what was going on before my suit beeped again, and an image of a Tyrunt flashed to life on my screen's upper right side. Tyrunt – a Pokémon rumored to exist over one million years ago, mostly considered extinct today. Little is known about the Pokémon except that it evolves into a Tyrantrum and is a Dragon/Rock Type.

I blinked. Had it just identified Tyrunt – and why did the words look like something that could have come out of my Pokédex? Then I started to remember again. I realized that I hadn't seen my Pokédex since I accidently put on the suit. The thing had been in the inner-pocket of my jacket before, but when I had taken the suit off it was gone…

Did – oh. Shit.

Yeah, that's right, Drew, the suit absorbed my Pokédex into its systems. It found something useful and took it as if it was nothing. I admit I felt a little scared when I realized that, too. I mean, if it could absorb something from my jacket, without taken the jacket, what else could it take from me?

But the fear was quickly replaced by excitement, the suit was awesome – and it had just given me a grand idea.

"Professor," I said, helping Tyrunt to its feet again. The little fucker wouldn't do me anything again. Not until it evolved, at least. "Does Lance still have that secret database with the identities of people living in Kanto?"

Oak had been standing a little ways off to the side, acting as a spectator to my first fight in this thing. "Yeah, he asked me to make a checkup on its systems two months ago. Why?"

"Is it still located at the Indigo Plateau?"

Oak was confused with where I was going with this… and a little suspicious. "Yeah – why?"

I smiled, feeling more excited about the idea of breaking into the most secure base in the region than I probably should. "I have… kind of a crazy idea."

"Coming from you, those words make me feel so comforted."

This time I definitely didn't imagine the exasperation.