The wind howled across the plains where Delia had once escaped.

  With a flicker of psychic energy, Alakazam’s teleportation pulse faded, and Champion Samuel Oak stepped into the scorched aftermath.

  Smoke clung to the ground like a second skin. Charred grass. Shattered stone. The metallic scent of ozone still hung heavy in the air, mixed with the stench of burnt fur and blood.

  Oak took a slow breath.

  “Stay close,” he murmured to Alakazam.

  They were alone.

  And yet… it felt like something ancient was watching.

  Each step cracked brittle ash beneath his boots. The wreckage around him was not just ruin—it was a message.

  Fragments of battlefield carnage lay strewn in every direction: torn Pokéballs, scorched terrain, the unmistakable gouges left by Last Resort, and craters seared with electric discharge.

  He paused.

  Bent down. Plucked a shard of crimson scale from the dirt.

  Charizard. Aerodactyl… Salamence.

  Blackthorns were here. And Hoenn?

  His stomach twisted.

  Oak stepped over a charred body—Delia’s Charizard, wings twisted, jaw frozen in a final roar. Nearby, the remains of Arcanine, Rapidash, and Flareon lay in a formation that told Oak everything.

  They hadn’t run.

  They had stood their ground—facing a threat he had yet to meet.

  He straightened, throat tight.

  “Phoenix…” he whispered.

  He found him in the heart of it all.

  Phoenix Ketchum, lying beside the shattered corpse of a Salamence, surrounded by the bodies of six enemy trainers and a ring of fallen Pokémon.

  The ground was scorched in a perfect radius—like a storm had exploded from where Phoenix stood.

  And at his side, curled and faintly sparking, lay Raichu.

  Still alive. Barely.

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  Oak didn’t move for a long time.

  He didn’t weep.

  He simply looked.

  At the boy who had no name, no legacy—but became the greatest of his generation.

  At the partner who refused to die without him.

  “You burned too bright, my boy,” Oak whispered. “Too bright for this world.”

  He knelt. Pressed two fingers to Phoenix’s eyelids, closing them gently.

  Then turned to Alakazam.

  “Take them home.”

  A pulse of psychic energy shimmered outward. In an instant, Phoenix, Raichu, and the remnants of his fallen team vanished.

  Gone from the battlefield—but not from history.

  Oak stood.

  His hand gripped the hilt of a Pokéball at his belt.

  “Dragonite.”

  A flash of light.

  Wings unfurled.

  “Take me to my son.”

  The skies had turned gray by the time Oak reached the second battlefield.

  Dragonite descended into silence. No more roars. No more screams.

  Just the rustling of wind through bodies.

  He dismounted slowly.

  And walked toward the center.

  Ryder Oak lay amidst the wreckage, arms outstretched, eyes half-lidded toward the heavens.

  At his side: his Blastoise, shell split. His Nidoking, speared through the chest. Alakazam and Pidgeot, fallen in defensive stances.

  A dozen enemy trainers and their Pokémon were strewn around them—cut down in every direction.

  He didn’t go quietly, Oak thought.

  He made them pay for every step.

  Oak dropped to one knee.

  Rested his forehead against his son’s chest.

  No words.

  Only silence.

  Only grief.

  The sound of boots on stone pulled Oak back to the present.

  He rose as a figure emerged from the smoke—a man in dark blue robes, eyes shadowed beneath his hood.

  He bowed his head.

  “Champion.”

  Oak tensed, but then nodded.

  “Leader Natsume,” he said.

  The head of the Natsume Clan, Gym Leader of the Psychic line. Father of Sabrina.

  The man’s expression was solemn, voice quiet.

  “We found Portia outside the city gates. My Alakazam brought her to safety.”

  Oak’s eyes sharpened.

  “She’s alive?”

  A single nod.

  “Barely. She’s at the hospital in Saffron. In critical condition. Comatose.”

  A pause stretched between them.

  Then Oak looked around—at the dead, the ruined.

  “The attackers?”

  Natsume gestured to the corpses strewn across the battlefield.

  “Most are here. The rest fled when they realized what they’d done.”

  Oak’s jaw tightened.

  “They came to kill the future.”

  He turned to the lifeless field once more.

  And realized—it wasn’t just his children, it was a whole generation of Indigo’s most promising trainers.

  There was a flicker of movement.

  Then, from the mists, Agatha appeared.

  Her cloak billowed behind her like a mourning shroud. Her expression—usually stern, unreadable—was broken.

  Tears streaked her weathered cheeks.

  “Sam…” she said softly, voice shaking. “They went after my daughters.”

  Oak froze.

  He hadn't realized.

  Not about Agatha’s line.

  Not about others.

  How far did the clans reach?

  How many targets? How many families?

  He thought of Blaine.

  Pryce.

  No word from either.

  And then… Alastair.

  His final Elite Four.

  A Blackthorn.

  A traitor.

  Oak’s breath turned to ice.

  He turned toward Agatha.

  And for a long moment, the two legends stood in silence—two of the last pieces of an era, surrounded by the shattered dreams of the next.

  Then Oak reached forward.

  And pulled her into an embrace.

  No words. Just the wind. Just the grief.

  When he let go, he looked back over the battlefield.

  “We bury them. We honor them.”

  He stepped forward, the wind catching his coat.

  His voice dropped.

  “Then we finish what they started.”

  He paused.

  The storm inside him building—not of power, but of purpose.

  “The clans wanted war…”

  He looked to the horizon.

  “They will have it.”