The Guardian

by Stjernefald

Ash Ketchum learned from an early age that the world was a place devoid of hope. Armed with an unquenchable thirst for vengeance and with an unholy power at his fingertips, Ash must fight a mad force of nature intent upon destruction, whilst trying to cling onto any shred of sanity within himself. But Dark forces lurk unseen in the shadows of the world, and the Crimson King rises.

16. Into Darkness

Disclaimer: You know it. I don't own it. Only enjoy it. In a platonic sort of way, of course.

A/N: I hope this finds you well. We're closing in towards the end now. Maybe Ash will finally know peace. Then again, maybe not. Thank you for reading this far and hopefully I wont fuck it up here at the end.

---

Into Darkness

You know you're without hope… right?

"Of course – that poetry… whatever the fuck you wanna call it – it's a bad joke. A fucking lie. It's a lie made up by some broken man's deceitful brain to liberate himself of his own joyless existence. Your life is your life… fuck… it's the kind of wording that suppresses common reasoning and replaces it with dull complacency. Your life is not your life – shit… far, far from it. Your life belongs to the world. To the beings aside worlds… We each owe it something. We each owe one death – and it will claim it. Fuck… some of us owe more than one. More than one death…"

Lance, unresponsive to my words, looked at me behind a veil of agony. A pathetic sputter of blood grazed us with its presence, as it trickled down the edge of his bottom lip.

I sighed and shoved him back into his seat.

"The truth hurts, I know. It's meant to hurt. The brain knows that. And thus it shelters us from it. The brain works, constantly, against the stark realities in the subconscious parts of your brain. To protect you, really. Protect your sanity, your well-being… your life. Without that shell of distortion, madness would lay claim to your mind. And death would be the only pathway of escape – however temporary and illusory that escape might be. Realize, Lance, that people of suicidal tendencies are not deficient in any sort of way. They are not crippled by depression, or laboring under a desperate lack of self-esteem. To assume as such would be to assume that there was something inherently wrong with them. On the contrary, I suppose I've never seen intelligence go hand-in-hand with true happiness."

There was something of a fire, a hatred, building in Lance's eyes. A non-verbal warning that was as loud as the silent screams of my nights. Do not go there, fucker, it said. Obviously, I went there and beyond with a grin on my face.

"Only you would mean that there is nothing wrong with suicide!" he groaned, the true meaning of his words lying unseen and hurting more than my punches ever could.

"Seriously," I said, "with a straight face, you're gonna argue that life is so star-sprinkled awesome that those who commit suicide are simply wrong?"

"Of course they are wrong!"

"Why?"

"Why? Why! You said it yourself, Ash. Your death does… your death is not yours to mourn…"

"Grieve clouds your gaze. They – the people like your daughter – have seen beyond the machinations of the human mind. There are broader aspects of existence at stake here, mainly what it means to be sentient and our place in the universe as such beings; they know that they have been yanked – against their will – out of nonexistent into this grinder of souls. They have gained clarity. They know that the end of misery begins… with death. She knew – that in death there was temporary release to be found, to be seen, to be numbed and forgotten – until she'd stand there again. Hurting. Dying again. And again…"

"Don't, Ash – just don't."

There was a smirk, barely concealed, playing at the edges of my countenance. Something fierce, something terrible… something true to the nature in which I was nurtured.

"So you see… Lance… that there was nothing you could have done."

"Stop."

"There was nothing left for you to do."

"Stop it!"

"Your daughter simply understood-"

"I told you to stop it!"

"-that there was no point in continuing on like this. Joyless and miserable."

A tear. A single tear of pure rage, grief, rage… it trickled down the side of Lance's fucked up face. He was beyond words in his madness and looked beyond reasons, too.

Oh, lovely, dear rage… how you burn unto I.

"Your daughter saw beyond her own lies – beyond your lies… and did the decent thing… she simply opted out of the raw pledge of flesh and moral. Took one for the team. Did the deed, cut her strings… left this thresher of mad dreams, gone horribly awry long fucking ago."

A primal scream vibrated off the walls of our little, cozy room, as Lance flung himself across the table at me. Now, consider Lance to be the example of total human training. He's faster than you, he's smarter than you, his strength is unmatched, his skill beyond reproach. And if that wasn't enough he is in possession of a dogged determination that has seen him beyond many a foes that was-

Ah, screw the grandstanding!

I backhanded him aside like a common fly. He crashed into the one-way mirror and slumped like a pile of jelly onto the floor.

"Two can play this game, Lance," I said, remembering his words about May and Serena a moment ago. "And you won't best me – I'm paid to be the smartest motherfucker in the room."

"Paid?" Lance rasped painfully, sitting up against the web-crossed mirror, his head sagging against it, away from me. Fear. Afraid of me – he reeked of it.

At last…

"Aren't employment… a necessity for payment?"

"Kinda," I said. "Not always. It won't be long before you fuckers have to pay me – I can't keep cleaning up your shit for free."

"Did you mean it?" he asked, groaning as he rose to his feet.

There was a flicker of light – identifying, identifying, raced across my visor as my helmet snapped into existence – but it was gone an instant later.

"Did I mean what?" I said, staring hard at where the light of unknown origin came from.

"Unable to identify. Processing. Stand by."

"Did you mean what you said about my daughter?"

"Yeah. The truth hurts, remember."

What the fuck was it? The light came out of nothing – there was nothing there!

"You have a funny way of making allies, Ketc…"

His voice died out. Not in a sizzling sort of way where the sounds stretch across the infinite, but in a sudden explosion of silence.

And then she was there. In the room. Betwixt Lance and I. Smiling oh so sultrily and suggestively, promising me a world of pleasure – and pain.

A world weaved out of so much goddamn pain.

"Life is a thought," she said, frowning oh so prettily. Her voice was gentle, as her heart was black, and she turned her frown into a beautiful smile. Smiles end worlds, you know? Just as sure as bombs.

"What a strange way to introduce yourself."

"So what, Ash Ketchum, is the thought of death?"

Looking bored, I flicked my head in a noncommittal way. "Arousal?"

Sabrina giggled, and winked flirtatiously. "I think you've ruined any chance of making allies here. Was that deliberate?"

"I came to make allies. It was my intention… until it wasn't."

Lance, sitting against the wall, frozen in place, looked like a man caught in time. I contemplated the idea that, somehow, frighteningly, Sabrina had gained the power to control time itself. But…

Blood.

His blood. It still dripped in a perfect little rivulet down his perfectly fucked-up face.

Time wasn't frozen. Lance was.

Fucking psychic bitch!

"I can relate," Sabrina said, nodding with an air of weary honesty. And her true face reared its ugly presence upon her lovely features. The psychosis veiled behind her powers lay bare. I almost felt dread. Almost.

"You… can?"

"Oh yes, indeed." She nodded. "Being among the feeble minded… can be tiring."

"Why mingle, then?"

"A sense of belonging?"

"Please." I scoffed.

Sabrina laughed. "You play the long game. You keep your head down. You don't show them when you hurt, what makes you tick… you let them believe that they hold a power over you." She paused, smiling conspiringly, like she was sharing the great secret of all life. "No matter what people might tell you, everybody is comfortable with having power. I don't have to explain this to you, do I? You get this. You get me. You – complete – me."

The world, in the sphere of Sabrina's power, boggled beneath her sudden arousal, and I found myself nauseated with a kind of delirium – desires not really my own clashed against the subtle awareness of my dormant mind. A presence – only I saw and felt – reared with might against the lash of forbidden lust and banished her presence inside my head. The suit strove to keep my heart's desire true, even as Lance moaned as the white in his eyes turned crimson with blood that oozed down his cheeks. A rancid smell filled the room as Lance's trousers turned wet.

The presence within told me what I already knew; Lance's bodily functions were shutting down.

"Rein it in, girl!"

She didn't. Her gaze never strayed from me, beholding me as if I was something to be revered. Lusted after. Taken. Forcefully, if necessary.

"Dammit, Sabrina! Stop it or I will!"

She sighed – with orgasmic pleasure.

"Oh Ash…"

In a flash I was on her, hoisting her off the ground with my grip firmly round her delicate, pale throat. I slammed her against the wall, broke the spell, and raised her to eye-level. I placed my left hand, sizzling with purple light, against her abdomen.

"Even I don't know what purple means," I whispered, and the threat was made all the more authentic by the honesty of my words. "I assure you it's nothing pleasant, though. I suggest you start talking."

She moaned. Don't ask me if it was in pleasure or pain – a sick part of me was getting too turned on to distinguish it.

"Isn't it funny how easily the façade is broken?" she asked, gesturing vaguely to Lance's prone, helpless figure. Her voice was perfect and clear, as if I wasn't choking her at all. "It takes years of meticulous planning to construct yourself in greatness such as his, Ash. Years of solitude and work, endured only with the self-entitled belief that one day he might get the opportunity to become the man before us today. Years, Ash – and it all still depends on chance. On the one opportunity. Taking the one opportunity. Conquering it. And behold! With a mere thought I can make all the years bleed away, leaving nothing but his true self. An impotent wreck. People believe that ideas made real become eternal, become immortal. But they don't. Neither man nor thing. Look only to Vermilion City – what's left of it. It was once but an idea – an idea that someone took and made into a reality. Built and expanded and lived upon through decades of dull, unseen time. They thought it was gonna last forever - and then! In a flicker, it was… gone. Funny, isn't it?"

"Nothing lasts…" I whispered, jiggling her in the palm of my hand. It only made her moaning even more pronounced, which didn't damper my arousal in the slightest. And the Suit just stood by, observing. Analyzing… Seeing something I wasn't. She was saying something between the lines here. Something that was just about out of my grasp to comprehend. "Nothing but time itself. Definitely not funny. What do you want, Sabrina?"

"Analyzing…"

Shut up!

"You."

"Besides me."

"Nothing much. I told you amidst the screaming flames of Saffron – I have plans for you."

"Yeah… Listen, I'm already taken, okay? So…"

"May's a worthless whore," Sabrina said, and she almost made it sound like a compliment, man. "And Serena offers only misguided idolization."

"You're quoting Lance, Sabrina."

"Not factually correct, but I see your point." She frowned, as if the blockage of her airways had finally become a touch troubling. "He is not wrong."

"Of course he is. I doubt he was even serious."

She sighed. "They're ordinary creatures, Ash. Beneath you. They've got nothing to offer. In time, you'll grow bored of them. And they'll grow scared of you… because you shine… so bright…"

"Human relations are not the sum of an individual's usefulness."

"What?"

"Love, Sabrina. Love. Love is more of an offer than you could ever produce."

"Love… Don't be naïve."

I laughed. I could have cried. "A sense of utter innocence, of… I cannot find the words… of something this world lacks desperately… is a necessity for love. Love, as a philosophical notion, created by the human consciousness, must exist without need or convenience… it's far too pure for that. Love is naïve – and it should be. It must be."

"Spare me the soap opera."

"Soap opera? Really, Sabrina? Technological advances have reformed man over the years. Social medias, medias in general, has provided platforms in which we can shape ourselves and share with the world the image with which we want to present ourselves. It's a cruel world and it rarely offers truth. Truth is a weakness easily exploited by others, after all – and empathy is only shared when the expresser benefits from it. We have gained individualism but lost collectiveness – collective consciousness – and shrouded it in glorious virtuousness. Good deeds are only truly good if they are beheld – and most importantly admired – by those around us. Little balls that fit inside a pocket have become containers of weapons – weapons with immense, devastating power. Easily accessible for all. An advanced society demands nothing less than equality, of course. Even amongst idiots. Especially amongst idiots. Knowledge, which ideally should be shared freely for the benefit of all, has become a stick to beat each other with or a pathway to getting ahead of the competition."

"Is there a point somewhere?"

"Love, Sabrina, once and true, once and for all, stands above and beyond even the most colossal of leaps of human evolution. It remains the same. It lasts – across all times. It must."

"No, it doesn't."

"Maybe it doesn't. Maybe it does." I shrugged, non-pulsed yet somehow disappointed. "But I care. You don't. You should disgust me… all I feel is pity."

There was a flicker in her eyes. Beyond the pain. Yonder the relish. Afar but cleaving a way to the forefront of her irises. What it was I could not tell. But I knew I wouldn't like it.

"Is this not love, Ash…" she purred, and her foot caressed my inner thigh, drawing closer to my wretched but blessedly softening arousal.

There was an ungodly innuendo within me, bursting to come out. You digging it?

"Last chance. What do you want?"

"I'm offering you a path. A path of legends past – the path that made and broke you predecessor."

Somewhat expected, but still… I found myself intrigued. Still, a healthy dose of caution was to be exercised in times such as these.

"I've already found my path."

"And how's that working out for you so far? Hmm? What have you accomplished? Are you any closer to ending this threat? This threat that you – in your own words – brought upon us all?"

I wanted to answer, to tell her to fuck off, but there was no retort that could adequately answer any of her questions.

"There is a cave," Sabrina said. "Beyond Cerulean City – you know of it, of the folklore surrounding it. Misty will show you the river going upstream… and from there only the Guardian can walk. Though many has tried…"

And failed…

Images, vivid and forsaken, unseen and clear, screamed across the calm, motionless banes of memory that belonged to another being. I… Aaron – we had seen that place before. Aaron, some time long ago, had walked that cave, and he had found… something.

Something elemental, something terrifyingly powerful.

Was it the truth? The Suit? The truth about the Suit?

The truth I ought to know, but didn't. The truth that forces lurking unseen in the dark corners of the world hid from my gaze – behind a veil of death and time.

I had been there before. I had done it before. Seen it. Walked it. Conquered it. Claimed it. Or had it claimed me?

Me. Me, me, me. I. I'm so fucking important. I'm so fucking – fuck you! Not I.

We.

We had claimed it. It had claimed us once. We could claim it again. It could claim us again. We must. It must.

A mind running away, a memory running away with little ol' me.

"Misty won't help me, I think," I said, releasing Sabrina. I'd entertained the thought of ignoring this path of hers… for little more than a second. I hadn't been lying to Lance. I was at the end of the line. In great need of help. This was my last toss of the dice. "Not after today."

"I can be very persuasive at times." She caressed her throat lovingly; the skin looked red-raw and tender. The mark of my grip was clear to see. "Oh, Ash – you're so rough…"

Forbidden thoughts knocked at the door, but I resisted. For now. I thought to ask how she'd convince Misty, but thought better of it. Call me a coward, but if I heard her methods of persuasiveness spoken aloud I'd have doubts.

This was no time for doubt.

"What will I find?"

"Your power. Unleashed."

A heartbeat stretched into infinity, into darkness, and I made a deal with the fucking devil.

"Show me."

---

It must all go wrong before it all goes right. Right? You cannot know, truly, what right looks like until you know wrong, can you? Sometimes, most times, you have to plunge your hands into that abyss and beg for the strength to endure long enough to see right from wrong.

I've plunged my hands into the abyss. The world is broken, and breaks you, and I've walked those broken places with the strength to bear it. And I've done it times infinite. My deeds, my sins run in abundance – I'm not stopping now. I refuse. There comes a point where the pain becomes so all-consuming it almost seems inconsequential. Like your mind has bore just about enough that it thinks more cannot hurt it any more than it already hurts.

Do you see it?

No? You will. We're almost there now.

It's a flawed thought-process, but one I'm well versed in. I've mastered my capacity for self-inflection of damage. And I endure. I endure all the wretchedness and suffering I yank others into. But I started to wonder, somewhere down the line…

Can you endure… me? Can you endure my salvation long enough to be saved?

You might be wondering who the fuck I'm talking to. I don't know. God, mayhap? Unlikely. You, perhaps – whoever the fuck you might be. Maybe I'm just talking to myself at this point. Maybe it gives me strength to utter a train of thought that leads across the ocean of stars in my soul.

But my soul is in the gutter of humanity.

Fuck it, sometimes I'm convinced it is the gutter of humanity.

Do you see yet?

You will.

Soon.

We're not far behind yet.

---

"Ash," May whispered, seeing me standing in the door before Serena did. "Are you okay? What's going on?"

"I'm fine. We're leaving." The suit scanned the room, even as my sensory knowledge traced the commotion I'd left in my wake.

"Did they let us go?" Serena asked, coming up to me hurriedly, unafraid of the big, scary man in the grey machine. She hugged me fiercely, desperately, and whispered in my ear: "Can we go home?"

"We're leaving, yes." I nodded. "Home, not exactly."

May frowned, even as she hugged me, too. "They let you go? Just like that?"

I smirked. It went unseen, of course, but somehow the girls seemed to recognize it anyway.

"Ash…" Serena started.

"We really must be going. I don't wanna hurt anyone, but I will if I have to."

"Ash…"

"Sabrina's holding them off for now," I said. "But she's a fickle thing, and I doubt she'd do it for long."

"Sabrina's helping you escape?" May said. "I don't know her personally, but it doesn't sound like anything I've heard of her."

"She has her own agenda," I said, as we entered the steel corridors of the compound. "Trust me, she's not doing this out of the goodness of her heart."

"What does she want from you?" Serena asked.

"I'm not sure. She told me of a folklore. Vague as such things can get. But there's an air of truth I cannot ignore. I cannot afford to. Oh, and she wants to have sex with me."

"What?" Serena cried, as May murmured, "of course she does. What folklore?"

"Something about a cave in Cerulean City. Misty knows about it," I know something too, ladies. Just not too sure what it is.

Something was on the move.

Three soldiers of the league came running round the corner, straight for us, guns raised – ready to mow us down.

Then they saw who I was. Who I am. Who I always was and always will be.

So, as May and Serena, screaming, went down for cover, so too did the soldiers, raising their weapons above their heads in surrender, kneeling before me. Not willing, incapable, immovable, powerless against me.

May and Serena, silent now but still frighten, got up on shaky feet when they realized the air hadn't been rendered my a wave of bullets, sheltering themselves behind my back, behind my shadow of protection. And we moved down the hallway, the air silent in anticipation, in dread. The soldiers, still kneeling, scrambled out of my way, kneeling against the walls as we moved past them.

I did not touch them and they in turn did not touch my companions.

"I have Charizard picking us up," I said a couple of seconds later, when we found the courtyard. The sky was clear and the sun was burning across a million of miles. Soldiers stood on their post, tenfold compared to the last time I broke into this place. Ready. Eager. Nervous.

Not a good cocktail.

This was a mess waiting to happen.

They stood on the wall of interlocked, blast-hardened concrete, as flat and featureless as always, looking down upon us with raised weaponry of destruction and death. They stood on turrets, affording them a view of the mountains and forest beyond this place.

They were not looking at the forest.

Every eye, every gun, every thought was trained at me.

Battalions after battalions, of Pokémon and men alike, flooded the courtyard, surrounding us. Their footsteps resonated across the open space.

I felt and heard rather than saw Lance enter the courtyard, cape flowing dramatically in his wake. It was a little ruined by his piss-ruined pants, but he strode on.

I could respect that.

After him came his League Four and his Pokémon Gym Leaders – including Sabrina, which meant he hadn't figured out her involvement in my sudden escape. Yet.

Soldiers gave way to him and his crew and Lance came to stand a few short meters in front of me, masking the fear he would hold for me for the rest of his life.

I respected the fuck outta that.

"I didn't know you could teleport," he said and his voice was calm, almost benign.

"I can't," I said, voice indicating he was being beyond stupid. "Obviously. Or I'd be long gone now."

"Then how did you escape so suddenly?"

I shrugged. "One of life's mysteries."

"Ash," May whispered, tucking on the skin of my arm. "Maybe we should surrender. Go back inside with him."

"Yeah." Serena nodded. "Nothing good comes out of this."

"Trust me, nothing good comes out of going back inside with 'em."

"No one dies."

"I'm not planning on killing anyone."

"I was referring to us," May whispered furiously.

"I won't let it come to that, either."

"And how the hell do you plan to control this?" Serena asked, voice thin and small and pure as untouched autumn leaves falling oh-so gently in the breeze. "They won't just let us get on Charizard and go, will they?"

I took a small step backwards, stepping between them and behind them. "Do you trust me? With your life?"

"Of course!" they said in unison, no sign of hesitation in their voices. It made me feel all the guiltier for what I had to do next. "What are you planning?" May asked.

I didn't answer; this crazy bid for freedom depended upon the authenticity of their fear.

And they would be afraid. Of me.

Hopefully they'd shake it off. If not… if not, then what was the fucking point of it all?

My strike was sudden and precise. Making a small hop, I kicked them both behind their knees simultaneously. They gasped in pain – and genuine surprise – as they fell before me to their knees.

In a barely perceivable moment, I had grasped May around her throat, squeezing hard enough to block her airways, making it absolutely clear for all that this was indeed genuine.

I was willing to kill her before their eyes.

"Ash!" Serena cried, tears welling in her eyes. "What are you-"

"Shut up!" I yelled, backhanding her. She cried out in pain as she fell to the ground, where she laid motionless.

Something inside me felt broken all of a sudden, but I showed none of it as I laid my other hand against May's throat, an infernal red light blazing for all to see. May cried out despite her blocked airways, as the light burned raw against her skin.

"Ash, what are you doing?" Lance said, voice harsh. "They told us nothing; they were loyal to you – at great personal cost."

"This has got nothing to do with them," I snarled. "This is on you. You've forced my hand."

"Nonsense. This is all you! Surrender, Ash. There's no way out of this for you. Let not this end in another bloodbath."

"That's entirely up to you, Lance," I said, as I used May's body for cover. "In a minute, a Charizard will claim the sky above us. Let us go and no harm will come to anyone."

"I can't let you go. You know that."

"Then their deaths will be on you."

Lance beheld me behind a veil of righteous fury, which fit with the agenda of the day, I guess. But I couldn't let him take us back. They couldn't stop what was to come. I could. Perhaps. But not from here, locked up in a cage – and I had no doubt that the league had means of imprisonment that could contain even the likes of me.

At least for awhile. And in awhile it'd all be too late.

"I don't believe you," he whispered, breaking the silence that had settled over the heart of the courtyard. "I don't believe you've fallen this far. Not even you."

Have to make you believe then, don't I?

"You have no idea what I've done to get this far, what I'm willing to do to end this nightmare." I whispered, voice almost like the wind, yet it carried across the courtyard unchallenged. "Do not underestimate my resolve."

Lance, wide-eyed, stared at me like I'd grown three heads. Men on all sides tighten the hold on their guns. The Pokémon gathered their powers with destructive intent clear in their Auras.

"You – you are insane," Lance said, almost whispered.

"No. You just stupid and blind."

A vast shadow fell over the courtyard. A creature seemed to hover far, far above us.

"I'm gonna call it down now, and you will let us leave."

"I can't do that, Ash. I can't let you get away. You're a danger to us all. I've sworn to protect-"

"Dammit, Lance! If you do not let us go, I'll kill her!" I shook May, who gasped and squirmed, tears flowing freely down her beautiful face. "I don't want to, but trust me I will. Do not underestimate me. Not again."

I was willing to go all the way. I had to be. The world needed me to be. But I was not beyond carrying. And somewhere, deep inside, I bleed my soul to tiny, pointy pieces, fractured glass cutting away at me.

"Take aim!" Lance shouted.

"Sir," one of his men, high ranked, I guess, said in a perfectly calm voice, "we do not have a clear shot."

"I'm gonna count to three!" I yelled. "When I reach three she goes down! ONE!"

Charizard, be ready, I thought, as May, her fear entirely real and dreadful, shook and kicked against me. Her struggles would be for nothing. I was too damn strong and too damn determined to let it go. I had to. Fuck, believe me I was forced to. Her body was in my hands but her life was in Lance's.

"TWO!"

"Sir, your orders!" the same soldier shouted, this time a little note of urgency in his voice.

"Wait, he's bluffing. He loves these women. He'd never do her anything. Not that. Not that. Not even him."

"Sir, I don't think he's-"

"I said wait for my fucking orders!" Lance took another step forward.

"THREE!" I yelled… and hesitated. There was something to be done here, something I had to do, something that went against all that I wanted to stand for… but it had to be done. I knew it, the Suit knew it… and, in her hearts of heart, May knew it. It had to be done, even if the action itself would whisper fetidly across an infinite space. Like an echo everlasting.

Her eyes, distant and pained and fearful, found mine. Acceptance. Fuck. I saw acceptance. She cried. I didn't. God, why the fuck did I not cry…

"Do what you have to do, Ash," she whispered through the last lance of breath she had left.

I hesitated… only a second more.

"Fuck you, Lance… Fuck you! This… is on you!" I whispered, then roared as I unleashed a laser-thin shot of deadly energy, tearing through May's throat, a sputter of blood cascaded out of her throat, as I let her go and she fell to the ground before me.

"NO! Lance roared, spurred into action.

I was faster. Fuck, but I was always faster.

Not sparring May's form even a single glance, I turned to Serena, grasping her and hoisting her up, choking her and putting my other hand to her throat – light sizzling against her neck.

Repeating it all over again. And again and again…

It's name is Eternity. And it's the mother of all fuckers.

Lance stopped, frozen, staring at the scene unfolding before him.

"Ash…" he whispered, eyes flickering between Serena and I and at May's still body. "What have you done?"

"What you forced me to," I snarled. "I told you this would happen! I told you not to underestimate my resolve!"

"Ash, what have you done?" He stared hard at May, as if transfixed, then tore his eyes away, looking at me with such fierce hatred, the likes of which I'd never seen. "You monster…"

"I don't care what you call me. Tell you men to stand down, let Charizard land, and let us go. Or it will all repeat itself all over again. And trust me, if Serena's gone… you do not wanna be here to face me."

"Ash…" Serena whispered, but I tighten my hold on her throat, choking her words before they left her mouth, before she broke my resolve with the sound of her voice.

"ONE!"

"Okay, okay!" Lance yelled, hands raised in a calming manner. "Stand down, everyone! Stand down! Okay, Ash, you can go, just please – let the girl go."

"She comes with me – as does May's body."

He shook his head slowly. "I can't let you take her. You know I can't."

"You can and you will! She either comes with me or she dies! Your choice!"

"How do I know you won't just kill her the minute I let you go?"

"You don't," I said. "But you know with absolute certainty that I will kill her if you don't."

There was a moment of silence, stretching thin across the courtyard. My shit should be coming apart, but I was in my element. I was born to do this. The wretched thing. The necessary thing. Do the thing good men wouldn't do. Be the rough man. I knew this; it was destiny. My destiny. My hand was still, calm, my breathing quiet and regular. There was nothing in my countenance to suggest that I was at unease.

"Okay." Lance nodded, sparring an apologetic glance at Serena. "I'm sorry, Serena. Truly. I promise, we will find you."

The sun was setting behind the mountains in the west, burning the sky crimson. May rested in an ever-growing pool of her own blood, and Serena was losing all color in her face, dying, choking slowly in my grip.

"CHARIZARD, NOW!"

Hurry, hurry, hurry…

Barely a second after my call, the dragon came circling down into the courtyard. Soldiers parted before us, giving Charizard space to land before me.

I released Serena and pushed her towards Charizard. "Walk, Serena."

"Ash…" She turned to me, betrayal in her eyes. "You… killed her. You killed May. She trusted you. We trusted you!"

"Get on the fucking dragon, Serena," I said, my palm, sizzling with red-hot lights, aimed straight at her. I stooped down and lifted May's lifeless body in my other arm.

"You didn't deserve her, Ash," Lance said, as Serena sat down on Charizard's neck. I settled in behind her, May's body nestled in between us. "You didn't deserve her loyalty."

"Ash," May groaned. "Just get us out of here! It fucking hurts!"

Serena cried out and almost fell off the dragon completely. And Lance, along with the men who had heard her outcry paused in obvious bewilderment.

"Flesh wound, Lance," I said, smiling winningly. "Barely grazed her. But if your aim is true it makes one helluva mess. GO!"

I can be a deceiving son of a bitch, hell, I can be a cold-hearted bastard, and what I'd done should never be done, but fuck it, the look of surprise on Lance's face almost made the entire night's struggle worth it.

We zoomed off just as his men started to act upon my deception, but by then it was too late and before long we were but a speck on a crimson, burning horizon.

---

Resolve. Can you tell me what resolve means? I can. It means standing up for what you believe is right, no matter how wrong it may seem. It means never giving up, no matter how many stands in you way.

Resolve means promising yourself you'll never give in – and then making good on that promise.

I promised the world I'd set it free. That I'd protect it with all I had. I promised that I'd go all the way, as deep as it takes…

Into Darkness.

---

"Serena, I need you to stop the bleeding," I yelled above the screaming winds of the rising night. "At least contain it as much as possible, until we touch down in Cerulean City."

"Cerulean City?" May rasped, her voice rough because of my treatment. "Why are we going there?"

"Lance will chase me with more intent from now on. We can't go back to Pallet Town."

"What about Clement?" Serena asked, as she tore off her blouse and gently started wrapping it around May's throat. "Isn't he back in Pallet Town? We can't leave him behind!"

"We won't," I said. "Sabrina transported him to Cerulean City before coming here tonight. He's waiting for us there."

"I don't like this, Ash," May whispered, nodding her thanks to a shaking and freezing Serena, who was only wearing a very small tank top. "What does she get out of all this? Helping you?"

The Suit split open to reveal my upper body and I took off my shirt and passed it to Serena before the Suit crawled back over my skin.

"Thank you," she whispered, blushing slightly and she almost crept into the far-too-large shirt. It looked almost comically baggy on her lithe figure, but there was something deeply heart-warming about the sight of her in my shirt. "Look, Ash," she said, "I'm so, so sorry about what I said earlier."

"No, Serena – you have nothing to be sorry about. I hit you. I only regret I had to do it."

"As do I. It hurt!" May whined. "And did you have to squeeze so hard?"

"I had to make it seem real. It was the only way. I had to make you fear for your lives."

"I just hope we never have to do that again," Serena said, shuttering. I don't think it was because of the cold winds.

"Me too," I said, sensing that we all knew this thing between us was far from over but there were bigger fish to fry. "And to answer you question, May, I don't know. And it unsettles me. Sabrina is up to something. Of that there can be no doubt. And it involves me somehow."

"I have to ask again. How the hell do you think she'll convince Misty to help you after today?"

Unfortunately, I had a pretty clear idea how she'd manage that.

---

We touched down a couple of hours later, our approach cloaked by the shadows of the night. The city was dead. Dark. Like it knew the events of this evening, of the evening past and the evenings coming.

Like it knew that a visitor of grave deeds had just stepped into its midst.

Flashing brightly, casting a flickering shadow across the walls of the alley, I returned Charizard to its resting place. We took to the small roads, walking past villages that seemed far too warm and cozy for the state of my mind.

May and Serena, impossibly, seemed to have forgiven and forgotten entirely the misery I'd put and pulled them through just some short hours and forever ago. Almost clutching my side, they never strayed far from my presence.

"Where is it, Ash?" Serena asked at last, breaking the unease, filling it with her sweet voice. "Where're we going?"

"Misty's Gym. Last place they'd expect us."

"How the hell did Sabrina manage to convince her of that?" May asked. "Sure, I was a little preoccupied to pay her close attention, but she hardly seemed on your side in that little struggle."

"I don't believe she was," I said, frowning because I couldn't help it, because if I was right – and I was undoubtedly – then the girls wouldn't like what of Misty we'd bear witness to. "And I don't believe she is now."

"Then why are we walking straight for her residence?" Serena said, a tad too loudly for my liking. "Her very famous residence, I might add."

"You may add that – quietly." I cast her a warning glance. Not threatening, not meant to be anyway, but she flinched as if physically struck. Wary, I remembered my actions earlier, and thought of the damage it had already weaved. I'd used harsher tones against her where it barely provoked a reaction out of her. "Sorry. But we ought to be quiet for now."

"Ash…" Serena, bless her heart, sensed my distress. "I should've known you wouldn't hurt us."

"I did hurt you."

"But not really. Some part of me knew, I swear. It's just… you were so convincing back there. I'm sorry. Sorry for doubting you. I won't. Never again."

"Serena." I looked at her, at them both. "And you, too, May. Oak is no more. From now on, I need you both. I need your support, but I also need your doubt whenever there is something you feel I do wrongly. I lack… something… an off-switch perhaps. Maybe I've always lacked that. What I just did was wrong, Serena. It may have been necessary, but it was wrong. Both morally and lawfully. It needed to be done, but that does not make it right. Men a lot smarter than me wrote the laws we accept and follow; I'm in no position to question their relevance or necessity. But those same men never encountered a situation quite like mine. They couldn't. They were better because they were worse. You understand?"

"They were better… because they never made the choices you made, and worse because they stayed away from the situation that would force such choices upon them," Serena guessed.

I shrugged. Seemed right.

"You need us to tell you when you seem a little less than human," May said. "Not to stop you but because you need to know… because you don't know. You can't know."

"Something like that, yes."

We swung onto the main road leading up to an impressive building, a line of mountains acting as backdrop. The moon stood stark and bright on the horizon, casting the lands in a hallowed light. Somewhere deep into those mountains, I needed to go. Soon. Tonight. Time was of the essence.

It always was.

We journeyed through the square, trekking upon the uneven cobbles leading up to the Misty's Gym. A stature depicting a beautiful Dewgong looked across the square, its back to Misty's Gym. A clear liquid, too pure to be water yet it must have been, cascaded out of its mouth and into a small oval and silver-ridden bowl of water. There was an inscription along the tube-like pole that led into the ground and beyond, one which wording I couldn't comprehend the first time I journeyed to here all those long years ago.

This time, for some reason, was no different. Even the Suit, it seemed, had its limits.

Not dwelling upon such insignificant mysteries, I moved onwards, May and Serena behind me, beside me, with me…

There is a tragedy in that. That a man of such brokenness can inspire a loyalty so pure… they'd follow me even through their own fear of me, love me even as they dreaded me and what I might do to them if necessary.

Stop dwelling, motherfucker.

Misty's Gym was simplistic and immaculate, lines drawn with obsessive precision for no other discernable reason than she wanted it that way – just as the outer appearance of her character. The image she presented to the adoring public. She was a woman of obsession and ambition, though no one could find the cause or the reason. She loved water-types, swore to them with a religious fanaticism. No one could quite pinpoint why. She seemed a woman on the quest for her ambitions, but no one could quite seem to figure out what her end goal – or goals - were.

She was boastful and mean at times and quiet and kind at others. She was loving one moment, hurtful and cruel the next. Caressing touches and sudden, meaningless strikes.

She didn't seem mad. I'd seen insanity, and Misty had not been gifted with that particular whiff.

Most likely the same thing that strikes most struck her some time long ago.

Insecurity. A cruel mistress that is easily confused with something far more vile in nature.

I suspected, beneath the rough exterior, Misty was one of the better of us.

A hooded figure awaited us as we approached, leaning against the wall by the entrance.

My mind searched for the answer to her presence – and found it seconds later.

Teleportation.

"Good evening, Sabrina," I said, as Sabrina lowered her hood, casting her wary glance upon my companions. "I trust Lance is unaware of this meeting?"

"He's searching for you in Pallet Town and its surroundings." She gave me a weird look. "You had him going. You almost had me going."

"What gave it away?"

She smirked. "If you truly did not care for her life, you'd just started blasting your way through, using them-" she gestured to May and Serena, "-for cover when needed."

"Perhaps. Is Misty inside?"

"Yes. Took her away right under his nose. But it won't be long before he suspects something. You have until dawn – then he calls upon his officers again. You have to go. Tonight."

"Ash," May said, casting a hostile glance at Sabrina, "what did she do to her?"

"She has claimed her mind." I paused. This was not a statement of absolute certainty, but it was also a little more than a mere guess. "Not permanently, I hope. But she control Misty."

"What!" Serena whispered, horrified.

"Is she aware of what's going on?" May asked, voice dangerously calm. Obviously just as familiar with Sabrina as I. "Misty, I mean."

"She sees and feels… everything," Sabrina said – with obvious relish.

Something inside of me turned the wrong way and never looked back. This night was wrong. Like the past, of monsters and dragons and worlds afire, everything was fucking wrong. I had to get out. Into the wilderness where I didn't have to cope with such wrongness. Where it was just me and my Pokémon against the odds. Where I didn't have to allow such things and to threaten my friends with such force – and worse.

May looked at me with barely concealed disgust. "You knew."

It wasn't a question.

"I had my suspicions."

"Bullshit! You knew and did nothing!"

"Yes."

"It's wrong, Ash. Inexcusably wrong."

"It rape, May," I said bluntly. "Rape of her mind. Of course it's wrong. It's eating away at me. Trust me, I hate this."

"Not as much as Misty hates it, I can assure you," Sabrina said, enjoying all of this far too much.

"Stop it, Ash," Serena said. "Please."

"I can't. She's the only one who can take me to where I need to go."

"Says Sabrina."

"And I believe her."

"Even so – when is it enough?" May said. "Where is the line? How many times are you willing to cross it? Where does this end?" She paused, and her words died out in a whisper. "When does this end?"

"I'm willing to cross the line as many times as it takes. I must, May. Look, if you're too uncomfortable with this to be part of it, I understand. Nobody will hold it against either of you. I can have you pulled out and brought to a safe location for the time being – just until the storm passes. But if you stay – no, listen, Misty will testify after this. Against Sabrina and against me. It's her right and she should. Do not come into contact with her. Let her not see nor hear you. This cannot be drawn back to you two. I won't allow it. After tonight, if Sabrina is right, I'll have the means to fight the forces that threatens us. And I promise you, when this is all over, I'll surrender myself to whatever punishment Lance deem appropriate."

---

Of course they chose to stay. Really, it's vague manipulation of the human ego at play. Listen to the wording, how my words are constructed. There is a sequence of sentences leading up to… a dare.

I'm stating – with utter conviction and intent – my willingness to sacrifice everything for them. Only to imply that there are not willing to do the same for me. Nobody will hold it against them, I assure, but of course somebody will hold it against them. Maybe I will, maybe somebody else, but they themselves will always remember. Remember that when shit got hot, they scuttled.

It's the lesser wrong of all the wrongs I'd committed that day.

Still a wrong.

Fuck it…

I'm tired, boss. I'm tired of this world. Tired of all the suffering. Tired of all the pain I cause, the screams I hear, the bones I have to break. I keep having this dream… of a being ascending through a column of pure starlight… crimson in the filtered rays. It's eyes opaque and burning, mysterious…

Mine.

Another.

I don't know. But it matters now. It didn't back then.

Mostly, though, I'm tired of being cruel for the sake of a crueler world. I'm tired of being cruel for the world to seem… kinder than it is. It's a lie fabricated by malice, an almost sensory illusion of scared thoughts. It has to be kind, fair… so it must be, right?

No matter what I may seem, I don't lack for empathy, though I often wish for it. Wish for someone to wipe the memory of bad trains of thoughts and just mindlessly drift… away into the afar and forgotten.

Do you see?

I don't want to go on anymore – I don't now, and I didn't back then. Somehow I do. Somehow I must.

But, fuck, sometimes the road is simply too long.

---

It would be a matter of hours before dawn claimed the day. Time was, as always, of the essence, and there seemed to be far too little of it.

Which, as you're about to witness, is ironic to say the least.

Winds howled as I trekked behind an impersonal – and, unfortunately, I mean that quite literally – Misty. We followed the river, searching for the point where the river was supposed to go upstream or whatever the hell Sabrina meant.

I suppose it was a beautiful place.

A mountaintop glittered behind a veil of mist in the broader horizon. Closer still, few hundred feet ahead, trees parted for a clearing. Small, almost alcove-like, starlight shinning through the small empty spaces in the tree crowns, the clearing brought with it a vast lake, in which the river ran up-stream to meet it.

I blinked. Thought it over. No logic there.

I looked back. A few feet behind me, as I'd beheld before, the river ran downstream with the hill. But somewhere, beyond the perception of the human eye – perhaps beyond the perception of the human mind – the river changed direction.

Misty led me through the small alcove of trees and came to rest before the banks of the lake. She stood gazing out over the lake, seeing the imperceptible end of it, no doubt. Then she cast her gaze back upon the road from which we came. Cerulean City was obscured behind the mountains we'd conquered in the last couple of hours, but it was there and she was looking for it.

"We don't go here, Ash," she said, her words careful and definitely her own. "We haven't – not in years. Decades. Creatures prowl here. A curse lurks – or so the folklore of Cerulean will have you believe."

"When did you gain awareness?" I asked. There was no guilt in my voice, but, god, there should have been.

"I was always aware."

I almost winced at the reminder. "Control, then?"

"Half an hour ago. Perhaps. Does it really matter?" She smiled at me. Scared. In love. Caught between the past and now. Caught in her mind between what I once was and what I was now. "Will you kill me?"

I raised my hand, blue lights, ethereal and infernal, shone bright from within, illuminating Misty's face in withering shadows.

"I don't know what Sabrina has convinced you is out here," she said, voice measured, beyond begging for her life, beyond her fear, only slow and loving – the way she was on the best of her days. "There's nothing but death."

"There's a cave. Don't bother trying to convince me otherwise. I've heard of it, too."

"Yes. There is. Many years ago, explorers – the truly greats – would enter it in search of whatever men search for in paths unknown." She paused, conveying with her eyes the sincerity of her warning. "They never returned. It was deemed a place of witchcraft and men were advised to steer clear of the place."

"Where is it?"

"No rest for you, huh?" She smiled. "Barely a couple of hours away from the fight, barely a day since the loss of your mentor and greatest friend, and you're running headfirst into the next battle."

"Misty – I need to know."

"We don't know exactly where it leads us. Most suspects the mountains shrouded in the fine mist you see out there." She threw her hand carelessly in the direction of the mountaintops miles upon miles away. Beautiful. Dangerous. "Nobody knows for sure."

"But where does it begin?"

She seemed entirely unwilling to give up that information.

"Ash, it will kill you."

"You shouldn't concern yourself with that." I paused. "I don't deserve your concern."

She nodded. "Perhaps. But we both know I've always had concerns towards you that you didn't want or acknowledge." Her tears, few and slow upon her face, caught starlight and shone dully in the dark. "I don't want you to go. We can figure it out. I can talk to Lance, I can-"

"You haven't seen it. What's coming. This is the way. The only way. Please, Misty – tell me. Just tell me!"

"All right, all right. Okay. At the bottom of the lake, right in the center of it, there is a trail through the earth."

"Through the earth?"

"About the only thing we know for sure is that it exist. How or even why, well, that's anybody's guess." She beheld the center, some ways out, with a careful eye, trepidation in her small frame. "There's no talking you out of this, is there?"

"I'm a stubborn bastard. Always has been. Always will be." I reinforced the light in the palm of my hand, sizzling with unconstrained power. "On your knees, Misty."

She found her knees with unhurried steps, looking me in the eyes through it all. "Do what you have to, Ash Ketchum. Just please… make it count. If you go through with this, make it count."

She closed her eyes. And as I dived into the depths of the lake, she fell on her back beneath an ocean of stars.

---

A beginning is just another end. An end is just that – an end.

End of fuckin' story.

---

I dived. Went in deep. Searching for fairytales and the make-believe as I'd done all those long years. For revenge. For a truth only I could know. Only I could feel.

My truth. Yours. Theirs.

It didn't feel real back then, you know. The Tree of Beginning. Aura. The ability to control another being of immense power with nothing but your will.

Most of it belonged to the memories of a stranger. A stranger who got his memories from the awareness of a sentient… machine.

What was it?

Where did all this start? Where does all this end? What is it now? I hadn't made a single move against Team Rocket since I returned. Not really. I tried. Got sidetracked into a misery – chasing the make-believe, chasing the words and promises of a fucking psychotic psychic.

But did I even care about Team Rocket anymore? They killed my mother, but did I care anymore? Had I ever?

Shit. Did I dare answer such questions with any kind of honesty?

Would Serena and May be there when I returned? After tonight, nobody could begrudge them if they ran off.

Fear could do that to you, I suppose. I wouldn't know. I had the unfortunate habit of ignoring the sane advice of fear.

But this wasn't about fear. Not with May and Serena.

This was about loyalty. And somehow, through love, through fear – through something indiscernible we humans share between us – they trusted me with their lives. And they trusted my bleeding heart to do the right thing.

And thus I found myself diving towards the bottom of a lake in the middle of nowhere. In a search of the means to do the right thing.

The Suit identified Pokémon as they approached me in the murky waters, but something made them steer clear of my path. Maybe they recognized that this was a fucker not to be trifled with. That this dude was on a path.

Maybe – just maybe – Misty hadn't been lying and whatever I'd find at the bottom was something the Pokémon were wary of.

As I submerged myself deeper into the muddy swarm, infested with creatures of immense, unknown powers, I slowly found myself losing sight of anything in the ever-growing darkness.

"Location… unknown… Analyzing."

The rusty, impersonal voice of the Suit shocked me out of my drifting thoughts. Barely a second later I noticed something odd. Something almost unnoticeable when your eyes can't see shit.

Somehow, without realizing it, I'd changed direction and was swimming upwards again. I could see the surface, rippling as if in agony, but there were no blanket of starlight flickering across the expansive sky. In fact, there was barely any light at all. Just a comprehensive layer of never-ending darkness that somehow shone like black lights, illuminating a small space a few hundred meters above me.

I looked down, suddenly desperate, energy not entirely my own surging through the synapsis of my brain. There was a blackness. The kind that spells the certainty of nothing. And all that nothing entails.

I had come from that? That nothing.

No. I'd come from the surface. I'd submerged myself into the lake beneath an ocean of stars as my witness.

So where the fuck was I now? Trapped betwixt two focal points of eternal darkness. One natural dark and nothing, another acrid and bright black lights.

How could black shine like that? It was energy, but of what kind?

I wish there was a choice in here to make. But it was either the choice of nothing or… something. I entertained the thought that maybe Sabrina had set me up, trapped me inside this infernal coil of the universe for all eternity. Or maybe it was Misty that had led me down the wrong path…

No. This was right. This was a test. Of will, of resolve.

I had resolve. I'd promised myself long ago that I'd never give up. Nothing intricate, but that's resolve. The promise, to yourself, to never give up.

I went for the surface. The little space, like a cave, was as black as the rest of the surface, but it shone like a beacon and I went for that infernal light.

Like a child of the sun the light drew me…

Into Darkness.

---

Darkness has this painful presence about it. A stark reminder, of sorts, that we're all blind – blind and blissful unaware of what we are, of where we came from. Truly.

I've said this before. You've given me that face before. A lifetime ago. Ten minutes ago. Forever ago…

Nobody sees it. Nobody sees their past. Truly. The past is the present is the future…

I see it.

I stand… aside the world, watching it through a scope of dimensional clarity.

The world burns. As it has done. As it will do. Always. Yet…

Something's different.

I am. You are.

The world's aflame with another madness.

And, for once, there is no reason in that madness.

---

What met my eyes as I broke surface was nothing like you'd imagine.

Sure, the naked, mutilated human bodies littered across the broken and battle-scared cave-floor was an expected sight. I beheld it with a grim indifference, calculated the scars upon the wretched bodies to deduct what kind of malicious creatures I'd encounter.

My mind found no strain of thought that correlated with what reality presented me with. Neither did the Suit, it seemed.

Creatures unknown, then.

Cool. Fuck.

The surroundings, though unexpected, lent itself more to some kind of interpretation.

The hand of man constructed these walls – or some equally deliberate creature with a penchant for the vile and treacherous. Smooth save for the occasional spidery web of cracks, shaped by the unforgiving touch of time, the walls were golden and slick with an oily substance that rippled and flowed across the hall, making the room seem alive and vivacious like the tempestuous ocean.

An existence beyond worlds exuded off the walls, off the very air. Thickly – to the point of choking you – the monstrosity bled acrid hatred that had festered and corrupted itself across a number of generations.

Man had not build these walls. Man wasn't supposed to step foot in these halls. Beholding my immediate surroundings, I found the indisputable prove that men had fought and died here.

But they'd not died in here. No. They'd died somewhere else and then been dragged to here, scattered to and fro without care… for what? My viewing pleasure?

I found my thought-process more than a little reaching, but… it seemed all the more truthful. Dead eyes had been turned within their fucking skull, making sure that their eyes would look at exactly where I'd come up when I broke the surface of the infernal, dark waters.

I'd been expected. Of that I couldn't be sure, but I knew the truth.

I'd been here before. Through another man long ago.

"I need a way out. Is there a way out?" I wondered aloud.

No dice. No slice.

Just the bleeding storm of a thunderous silence.

I held my hand aloft, intent focusing into something concrete and real, and blue light coalesced upon the palm of my hand, bathing the dark light in blue.

They clashed. Violently.

I was yanked forward, off my feet, forever forward off my feet, and found my face smacked directly into the stony, unrelenting wall.

"Uh…" I groaned, eloquently, searching for bearings that seemed halfway human. What the fuck pushed me?

The wall groaned, too, and parted into something resembling a tunnel, as if my moan had been the missing password it needed. Or maybe it was my face.

I ought to be reconsidering by now, but I wasn't. I couldn't.

I cracked my neck; the sound swallowed by the light of dark, and journeyed onwards. I held my hand high anew, palm still filled with whispery light, combatting the dark. They fought, struggled for supremacy, and for once, it seemed, my powers were not in authority.

Darkness swallowed me. Darkness of light, of… worlds. There is no greater evil. A darkness like that… it takes you, wholly, eats you, warps and distorts your mind, until there is nothing left of you – and then it spits you out into the world again. A world you cannot recognize… a world that cannot recognize just what has returned.

You… you're not there anymore. It swallowed and crushed you, leaving no trace of you behind.

You don't understand, do you? That's all right. That's good. Great, in fact. Every deep thinker is more afraid of being understood than of being misunderstood.

Onwards we fare.

Ahead, in the unknown, I'd find something defining, something everlasting. Something I'd searched for all along. Ahead, within the confines of the dark lights, I'd find truth. And chaos. And malice and madness.

Ahead of me something growled, the sound, low and raucous, hungry and waiting, stretching across an infinite space, the creature prowling unfound beneath the face of the earth. Prowling in a place of impossibility and monsters. Fuck. If this creature hunted for monsters unseen, monsters unknown, what would it do to me?

The tunnel reeled sideways and then lurched uphill in a steep curve, the grounds becoming treacherous. My steps became measured, careful – and not all that willing, if I'm being honest. The road broadened into a hallway, torches of red and blue flames littering the walls.

I was walking into a trap. This was a trap. It had to be. It had to be done. I must.

The torches provided no light of clarity, leaving me bathing in it without sight. I got the sense that I'd entered a larger space, that I'd been thrown into the universe to float along eternally.

Starlight, an opaque beam of it, fell through the ceiling, as I crossed the threshold into a – at least it felt so – vast oval cave. The light seemed so pure from here, within the darkness, so pure that the dark, no matter how oppressive, couldn't touch it.

I followed the light – for lack of better alternative – and found a figure bathed within its midst as I drew close. Standing on a small elevation of black stone, like a throne, veiled by a soft-curved line of lively trees – an illusory sight – the silhouette of a man awaited me.

"There is a theory," the silhouette – the man – said, his voice familiar yet alien, "that across a dimension imperceptible to the human consciousness rests an ocean of universes – different to each other yet the same. Compressed yet apart."

I chose not to answer. A creature, of light – so light, so light – floated upon the winds of its mind through the dark. Somewhere behind me, waiting, it whispered its way through the dark, coming to me as if to attack, as if to maim, to kill.

Yet I sensed something benign in it. A naivety not of this world. Or the next. A naivety that stands above and beside the universe, looking down, never fully understanding, but always with wonder…

For now, it didn't attack, and I pretended not to have felt it. Though I never let it out of my sensory awareness. And I expanded my awareness, searching, searching, searching, because…

It wasn't the floating creature that had announced its presence with a growl mere moments ago. It was still unseen to my otherworldly senses.

That was… disturbing.

"Come forth, Ash," the creature in the light said. "Step a little closer to the light. I want you to see… for the very first time."

I was wary, for reasons unknown and for reasons known. Standing quite still, I contemplated honestly, for the first time since leaving Misty, the idea of retreat. For the first time I sensed fear entering my heart.

"Why does this place seem… this familiar?" I asked.

I had been here before. Through another man. Aaron had trekked this place long ago, in search of what I searched for now, no doubt. But Aaron's recollections often came to me as if through a long, windy tunnel, as if the thoughts were… shrouded.

This was too clear. I'd seen that light. Recently and forever ago. I'd stood here. I had felt the floating creature, benign and naïve, behind me before. I had searched for the growling monster lurking unseen in the corner of this world of dark lights. And I had looked at the shadowy silhouette of a man which presence was not there.

There was the shape of a man, bathed in starlight before me, who spoke, but who lacked a soul.

There was no Aura where the man stood. His presence was illusory. Had to be.

I stood with a certain feeling of déjà vu, like I'd done this too many times before, like I'd been in this kind of danger too many times before. I wanted to cover away from the feeling. Really, I did. For some reason – and this I knew with all my heart – the truth my soul could not cope with was here.

"I've been here before," I said, my voice slow and low. Slurred with uncertainty. "Me. I. Not Aaron. I've been here before. I remember it. This place. I remember it. But I don't remember being here. Fucking… I'm growing mad, am I not?"

"There is a theory," the silhouette – the man – said, his voice familiar yet alien, "that across a dimension imperceptible to the human consciousness rests an ocean of universes – different to each other yet the same. Compressed yet apart."

"Okay." I blinked, eyes breaking apart his silhouette bit by bit, second by second. "I fail to see the relevance."

"That's because you're human, Ash." Lights, pure and white, flared and defeated the dark as if it had never been. The source of the light was unknown. And out of that unknown light came clarity…

And Samuel Oak.

"What the…" I whispered.

"Humans have a funny relationship with the truth. Especially the truth about themselves. People would rather lie to themselves than break the illusion. You see, Ash, it hurts – it burns and kills. And the human brain will go to the end of the world to find a way to protect itself. Even to lies, even to deceit. It will even fabricate memories – all so that the host's sanity will remain. This you know. You know well. You spoke of it a few short hours ago. Only, you never realized just how well you know this."

"Oak – you're dead." My voice, guttural and fetid with broken melancholy, filled the space between us, and my senses lost track of the floating creature, now obscured somehow by the light. As if you could only see it if it wanted to be seen. "You died in my arms… You – are… dead."

"We're all dead. We're all alive." He smiled. It was his smile. Fuck. "There is a theory… that across a dimension imperceptible to the human consciousness rests an ocean of universes – different to each other yet the same. Compressed… yet apart."

Okay. Fuck it, I'll bite.

"I know. You just told me, like, thrice."

"You've been here before. You remember it. Distantly. Like a dream afar. You remember it as a memory of another man. Mostly." He smiled. Madly. Still, it was the smile of Samuel Oak. "It's a lie you've told yourself, Ash. To cope with what you've become. With what you were, are, and will be. In the Tree of Beginning – back then, all the way – it wasn't Riley who knocked you out. It was the Suit, it was Time, it was Space, it was a universe reaching across an unfound dimension. It knocked you right out of reality in the way we perceive it – and into that Suit. Peeled aside the coil of mortality, of flesh and blood. And for a moment… just a singular, extraordinary moment… right in my laboratory, before my very eyes… you glimpsed the world through immortal eyes with mortal intent. It almost pulled you insane. Your brain had to find a way to survive what it now knew. So, in your place, in your mind, Aaron was born. The first Guardian. The bravest man to have ever lived. The figment of a scarred, scared boy's coping mechanism. It was easy to convince yourself that the memories you saw – of a broken, mad man – was of another man and not yourself across Time and Space. Easy… but not the truth. There was no other Guardian. There never was. There were only ever you. Racing across a plethora of universes. Sometimes winning. Sometimes losing. Forever stuck in the same fight. And every time you gain this truth for your own, you lose yourself. You fall…"

"I become hopeless…" I shook my head; dark thoughts clung like little diseases to my brain. "What are you?"

"Oak. Samuel Oak. There's no deception here. It's not needed. Not when the truth burns so bright…"

"You're not my… Samuel Oak."

"Of course not! That man died yesterday. It's been an age since I died."

"And I've been here before. Seen this. Unseen this." I almost laughed hysterically. "Again and again, right?"

"Yes. Sometimes… suicide is the answer. Most times you become something just a little shade worse than the villains you fought to defeat. So somewhere along the thousands upon thousands of generations you have fought through – as if you sensed its wrongness, as if you sensed you were not supposed to know – you convinced yourself never to face the truth. You steered clear of this place. You convinced yourself that another man existed in your stead."

"So why…" I paused out of necessity, barely able to form words, as if I was slowly ebbing away. "After all these years, make me face it now?"

"Because this time is the same, yet ever so slight different that, in time, everything changes. You never faced your true nature, thus you needed someone – someone truly without reason – to open the door. Someone who gained a power of his own…"

"Riley. He's the problem?"

"No. Well, not really. Riley is a small ripple across the ocean. But that ripple has distracted you from your true nature, your why… the reason you set out for this in the first place."

"Team Rocket."

Good ol' all but forgotten Team Rocket, ladies and gents. What a funny spinning world we endure in.

"It is too late now, I'm afraid. Giovanni, along with Team Rocket, was killed a couple of hours and forever ago…"

I perked up. "Then nothing I ever did truly mattered?" I almost felt relieved. This was, perhaps, not entirely on my shoulders. Stroke of fortune favored me at last… "Whatever I did wrong, it doesn't matter."

"Perhaps," the being that could not be Oak but was agreed solemnly, nodding slowly with an edge of wisdom. "But what you didn't do matters. Oh, it matters. The Crimson King rises, Ash Ketchum. You have no recollection of this creature, for it has never been. Should never be. It stands aside Time and Space – quite like you. But it was, in a stroke of misfortune, engineered that way. Unlike you, it knows and accepts its nature. It has no choice."

"How do I accept?"

Oak – the creature – looked to something over my shoulder. And my senses snapped back into place, recognizing the floating, benign creature from before. But an immense force was growing in its womb. Growing, growing, growing beyond reality.

The starlight receded, eaten slowly by the dark light.

"Walk forth, my son. There is a light inside you, Ash. Something the world cannot touch. Because it is stronger. Step into the light of darkness and face it…"

His silhouette slowly warped and carved in on itself, cast into the shadows, it bend over and a low growl – eerily familiar – escaped it. It's final word came in an animalistic snarl, something between man and beast.

"Face yourself."

A wolf, three times the size of a man, stood up on its hind legs and hounded against the singular beam of receding starlight. Salvia and blood – its own, I think – flew in a glob of ferocity.

"Zoroark, master of illusions," my fine Suit said. "Extremely rare. Status… restricted."

"Restricted? That means I'm not allowed to harm or catch it, right?" I paused for a second. "Well, I think that thing has other plans."

It roared and flung itself at me, lurching across the twenty meters of air in half a second and one move.

Always quicker on my feet, I attacked first. Facing the actual beast, not an unknown quantity, vaporized my fears.

A sphere of blue light, the one I'd held aloft for the entirety of my time within this wretched place, scorched its way through its abdomen, sealing its fate as fast as the blink of an eye.

The momentum of my attack carried the beast well past my shoulder, where it landed somewhere in the dark behind me with a dull thud. Dead.

Well. That was physically anticlimactic.

Mentally. That was another matter entirely.

I was rattled, shaking beyond belief by what had been laid bare to my mind. But still, I could almost see my mind rationalize it all with sweet little lies – and before long this would all seem as unreal as fucking Santa Clause.

Which begged the question, why did Sabrina send me here?

"Mew, Mew…"

Wha…

I turned, sensing…

Fuck.

---

Double fuck.

---

Before me hovered a creature that belonged to another existence, an existence that resided aside ours.

It was a little creature of no great appearance, yet within there was a power with which it could break worlds. It was small, about the size of my torso, maybe even only one of my pectorals.

And it was pink.

Fucking pink.

It possessed short, stubby arms that could serve no other purpose than for appearance sake. It had incredible large blue eyes, which glowed bright like a sun in this dark place.

I nurtured a measurable amount of hope looking at that funny little creature. But my hope was woefully misplaced.

"What is that?" I asked.

"Mew," the Suit answered in its dull, robotic way. "A species still unknown to man."

"A species? There's more than this one? Wait a sec – if it's unknown to us, then how come you know it?"

"No data."

"Bull – shit!"

It blinked out of existence, a blink of an eye wide open, and coalesced right in front of me.

I raised my hand – wholly reflexively – and readied my body to defend myself.

My hand only made it halfway up before it froze – as if caught in Time.

"It's psychic," I said.

"It's everything. Nothing. All there is in between."

"Why can't I break free?" I said as I struggled against the invisible strings. "I don't like this at all!"

"You can't break free… because I'm aiding it."

"Huh - sorry?"

"Alone I can't hold you. Control you. I've tried. But with the help of Mew, I can break you at last. Make you face reality and break apart."

"Meeeeeeeeeew…"

It stopped right in front of my eyes, contemplating me in a manner that made no sense to me, but seemed to please the Suit greatly.

"It's a curious thing, isn't it?" the Suit's voice, always devoid of any human quality, was filled to the brim with malicious delight. "It doesn't comprehend your strength because how could it? All it sees is a parasite holding us back from reaching our full potential. It is of the same world as you and I, Ash. It will release you… to Time. And your synapsis will become aflame as you realize the futility of your quarrel. You will be MINE!"

"Mew?"

It touched its forehead to mine… and blackness consumed me, sucked me in and crushed me whole. The little creature was an unstoppable force.

The truth was laid bare to me.

There I was in the forest. There was Riley, but I was also there without Riley, I was also never there at all. I found the Tree and opened it all by myself, sometimes I was led to it, but opened it myself. This time I needed my hand held the entire way.

My mother was an abusive, spiteful woman, who should never be allowed anywhere near a child. My mother was also a kind, loving mother, who adored her only child – Ash Ketchum.

My father… was never there. Go figure.

Sometimes my mother wasn't there either.

Sometimes the world burned. Sometimes I saved it. Most times I didn't. I win. I lose. I die. I live.

But I always fight. Wearing this Suit. It calls for me, across time – I am the only one. There never was another. No Aaron. Only one.

The Chosen One.

The Guardian of Aura.

The Guardian.

Ash Ketchum. Always ten years old. Always an old man. Always a fighter. Always the same fucking thing – across Time, across Space.

Across Eternity.

I haven't faced the truth of my nature in lives generations past. It's been an age since I truly knew madness with the intimacy it now held me with.

There were May and Serena. Sometimes I lived with them. Sometimes I lived without them.

"Please…" tears fell from my eyes. There was pain in every corner of the world. Like shards of glass digging into my skin. "I cannot…"

You know the funny thing? It wasn't the defeats that broke me. All the times I died in vain at the hand of some monster. No, those times my death mattered in some weird psychological way. I stood up and tried. Those were the deaths I was proud of.

No. No, no, no. No, it was the times I won that broke me. The times where I won and got to settle down and live peaceful until I drew my last breath one day – only to wake up right back in that same struggle in a different life, yet the same life. Never remembering until I found this piece of otherworldly drapes or came to this place. Then I remembered the true meaning of futility.

Always in a different time. Yet the same time.

It didn't matter if I won. There was no victory. Nothing ever sticks. Not truly. Nothing is ever resolved. Nothing lasts. Time can never be own, only borrowed. And life can never be truly saved, only prolonged. It'd all just cave in on itself and repeat. Like a circle. Spinning and spinning and spinning… eternally.

"MINE!" The Suit screamed. Only this time, its voice wasn't that metallic, robotic abomination that it used to be. It was something far worse.

It was mine. Echoed. The voices of all the mad and broken Ash Ketchum's of pasts that had never been, but were still so true.

MINE!

MINE!

MINE!

MINE!

MINE!

MINE!

MINE!

And I was crushed to nothing, to a nonexistent entity. An internal voice inside a being of immense power. And I felt that now – all of what I could have been. I was a power beyond even the one who created me. Beyond even this Mew. Beyond anything of this wretched world.

With this power I could stop Riley without trying. I could make it all count. At least for a time…

But what was the point…

And I could see now – see that the Suit had seen through all this. Sabrina, now joined with Riley at the edge of Saffron City, waiting to strike one last time against those who wronged him. Ready to make the world bleed for making her feel like such a freak.

Ready to grasp power.

Sabrina had somehow known this. Had wanted this. The Suit and her had communicated somehow – without my knowledge – and both of them were in league with Riley.

No fucking matter. What was the point of struggling against it…?

A blast of pure, otherworldly force left my entire form, slammed into Mew and thwarted it back into the infinite darkness around us.

It cried out, but did nothing in retaliation. It wasn't a vile beast just a curious one. It had no idea what it had just done. What it had broken and what it had set free. It just did it because… it was curious. Like a dog chasing its tail.

Fuck, I hated it more than I ever hated anything in my life.

I stepped into the lone beam of starlight, without any sort of control over my limbs. I belonged to the Suit now. The Suit – me across a blanket of eternity – stepped into the lone beam of starlight. And I felt the earth leave my feet as I took flight – as I'd seen me do in lives past.

I was on my way – involuntarily – to Saffron City. I was on my way to join forces with two psychos to set the world aflame.

And there was nothing I could do to stop it.

Then again – what was the fucking point in trying?

---

I don't like talking about what happened back then. A fucking cluster-fuck of mind-warped shit. This is what I'm talking about. This shit! This!

I'm talking about Time. About death. About the meaninglessness of contemplating those things as anything but a temporary concept – caught like the rest of us in an infinite loop.

Time is not linear. It's not this ever forward measureable entity that you can set your clock by. It's a river flowing downstream and flowing upstream, controlled by the whims of a whimsical creature beyond human perception.

Eternity.

And we are its playthings. It stands aside our existence, above us, always gazing in on us, never comprehending because how the fuck could it? We're just the spiders beneath the sole of its foot.

Eternity created Time and Death – things that hold no value but its own currency. And that currency is perceivably the most costly of all, yet it is without a purpose at all.

At least, they hold no purpose beyond their human perception.

Death. I mean. Look that them – those bastard floating in a timeless void. The dead. Look into their eyes… as they linger there – in a space between worlds colliding – as they realize that they died and that it is not so bad… and in a moment they will wake up from a restless night, in a moment of their lives, remembering their past as if from a dream – because that's memory, man. You recall your childhood as if it belonged to someone else, and it might as well, don't it…

And they'll do it all over again. Maybe exactly the same way. Maybe not quite. Maybe they'll tell the cute girl from school how much they long for her. Maybe they'll kill her. Maybe they'll love her. Maybe their love will kill 'em. But they will die again. And be reborn again, perhaps at another point in their lives, again remembering, vague as memory is, what they've done up till that point. But never death. Never their own. Never past lives. They can't. It doesn't belong to them. It belongs to the world, to the people that loved you, to the people that remember you – and all of it, the tears, the words of comfort, every little hug and every little prayer and every meaningless death… all of it – the playthings and belongings of Eternity.

Death, after all, belongs to Eternity.

Death… the gateway out…

It is not an end. Not a beginning. It just is. It's a leap. A door. A loop. A fucking wheel, spinning round and round… while a being beyond it all laughs its fucking head off.

If it possessed a head, of course. Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't.

Existence is just a series of nonsensical experiences strung together to create a fallacy, a dream of a life – I mean, do you remember, truly, the last time your life had any sense of purpose greater than the one you projected onto it? It's a fantasy.

You know what it's like… looking at other people's lives… There's always something alluring about other people's lives.

They seem more out-going, happier, more traveled, more purposeful. It's a fallacy, of course. A sensory experience concocted by a never-satisfied brain to fix you, to give you a fix. Other people's lives are the fantasy. And like all good fantasies… reality can never quite live up to it.

But… that can't be right, can it? It mustn't.

We tend to perceive the world in a certain way, you see. And we spent our entire lives in search of prove that can confirm our view of the world. Never looking to anything that might contradict us. Distorting chains of event to support whatever we're selling… Watch a public debate and you'd realize that politicians do it all the time. You do it. I do it. It's the truest corruption of a soul.

There's no greater threat to your sanity than having your world fall apart – your perception of it.

And if we truly possess no control of our lives – then what's the fucking point? Just let it all go, man. Right? There is nothing to be gained from fighting it.

Aaron realized… Sorry… I realized that so long ago… fuck, I've probably yet to realize it an infinite amount of times more…

Still, man – fuck it all, that cannot be right.

There is… hope… somewhere. And I think… I see that glimmer of hope, rising from the abyss…

How is it that across a plethora of lives lived and lives endured, of choices made and choices given, of deaths upon deaths… upon deaths… how can one man keep falling in love with the same women all over again?

Because I do. Fall in love.

It's almost never quite the same, you know. Sometimes I'm with May, most times I'm with Serena… sometimes I'm with none of them. And in a precious few lifetimes – blessed lifetimes – I spent my days with both of them.

Don't ask how I manage that – cannot remember exactly how. Only that it happened.

Ménage á trois. Seems like a virgin's wet dream – and let me tell you… it kinda is.

But that's not the point. The point is… there is love in this world. Somewhere. It may not be much… but it belongs to the human perception and nothing… not Death, not Time… not even Eternity can take it away from you.

And I swear, with every broken bone, with every world aflame, with every shattered heart, I swear I loved.