Indigo Plateau – 20:00 hrs.

  The war room was silent.

  No flickering lights. No aides. No chatter from League officials. Just four figures gathered beneath a vaulted ceiling of steel and glass, where the moonlight shone faintly through storm clouds above the mountain summit.

  A map of Indigo burned on the central holo-table—its routes bleeding red.

  Champion Samuel Oak stood at the head of the table, motionless. His lab coat, heavy with the weight of the day, hung loose over his shoulders. His fingers rested on a scorched field near Saffron City.

  Behind him, the Elite Four stood in tense silence.

  Agatha, arms folded tightly, her red-rimmed eyes glaring at the map.

  Blaine, fists clenched so tight, his knuckles white, his face hard with fury.

  Pryce, half-shadowed, his icy gaze fixed on the table.

  The fourth seat—Alastair Blackthorn’s—remained empty.

  Of course it did.

  Oak didn’t look up as he spoke.

  “They struck everywhere at once.”

  He tapped the holo-map. Saffron, Pallet, Lavender, Viridian, Cerulean, Pewter, Mahogany, Cherrygrove, Olivine, Azalea. Red flares blinked across the grid like open wounds.

  “Coordinated. Precise. They didn’t just come for my son. They came for ours.”

  Blaine slapped a data pad onto the table. It flickered briefly before projecting the image of a young woman—Blaine’s daughter—her face frozen in a smile. A painful contrast to the empty space that would never be filled again.

  “My daughter,” Blaine’s voice cracked. “They ambushed her while she was on patrol. I found her body myself.”

  His hands trembled slightly, but he said no more. He didn’t need to.

  Pryce spoke next, his voice as cold as the peaks he ruled.

  “My eldest is dead. The younger is traveling in the Orange Islands. The only reason he’s still alive.”

  Oak nodded once. “I’m sorry.”

  But Pryce’s jaw tightened. “Don’t be sorry. Be angry.”

  Agatha didn’t speak right away. She stood in the far corner of the room, staring at the shadows stretching along the walls. Then, her voice, strained, but unyielding.

  “Three daughters. Gone.”

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  She exhaled slowly.

  “And my husband kept me away from Lavender. Just long enough for the clans to kill them.”

  Her hands trembled at her sides, but she held herself together. Barely.

  A tremor passed through her shoulders. Not from weakness. From rage.

  Oak exhaled slowly, trying to steady himself.

  “It’s worse than we thought. They didn’t go after me. They went after the next generation.”

  He turned to the table and pressed a command. More names appeared.

  “Aqua and Mars of Cerulean Gym. Slain defending their daughters. The four girls survived, barely. They’re in the care of their grandfather—the Old Dragon. But the man is near the end. He won’t last more than a couple of years.”

  “In Pewter, the Old Mountain fell buying time for his son and daughter-in-law. Flint now is to take over the Gym.”

  “The Koga Clan fought them off. Took losses, but the heir survived. He’s en route to Indigo now—offering his blades for the counterstrike.”

  He paused.

  “Only Celadon stood untouched—saved, perhaps, by the Matriarch’s neutrality… or by the unremarkable weakness of her heirs.”

  Agatha scoffed, bitterly.

  “Imagine that. Mediocrity—our last shield.”

  Oak turned to the final report, his fingers trembling slightly as he read the name aloud.

  “Ander Blackthorn…”

  The name hung in the air like a curse. Oak’s eyes narrowed.

  “Third son of Alastair. Banished for following the League. He was helping with junior trainers in Viridian. He’s dead.”

  A beat of silence. Then:

  “And he had a son.” Oak closed his eyes. “Lance.”

  Pryce’s breath caught.

  “Alastair didn’t…?”

  Oak shook his head. “I don’t believe so. He didn’t speak to Ander. But he’d never let one of his own be murdered like that. And his wife would have—”

  “Killed him first,” Agatha finished. “Yes. She would have.”

  Pryce grunted.

  “Still. Alastair turned down your summons. Sat out the whole war. Neutrality is complicity.”

  “He’s always been like this,” Blaine snapped. “Schemes, positioning, waiting to see who wins before taking a side.”

  Oak said nothing.

  The silence stretched until Blaine finally erupted.

  Blaine, seething, slammed his fist on the table.

  “Damn it, Sam! Why? Why did they do it? What could they possibly have hoped to gain?!”

  He gestured to the map. To the names. To the carnage spreading across Indigo like wildfire.

  “Those greedy bastards couldn’t handle progress. Couldn’t stand a world where knowledge wasn’t locked behind bloodlines.”

  “They couldn’t control Phoenix. Or Ryder. So they killed them instead.”

  Agatha’s voice was venom now.

  “And killed their own along the way. I read the casualty lists. More than a dozen clan heirs are dead. They sent their children to die out of pride.”

  “They culled everyone, Sam,” Blaine added. “Ours. Theirs. A whole damn generation.”

  Oak nodded slowly.

  His face was unreadable.

  “A generation is gone.”

  He looked down at the table.

  “All because they feared what we were building.”

  Pryce stepped forward.

  “So. What are we going to do?”

  Oak turned, finally meeting their eyes.

  “I’ve already begun.”

  His voice was low. Controlled.

  “Alakazam and Dragonite are gathering the Pokémon who owe me favors.”

  Blaine’s eyes widened. “You mean—”

  Oak nodded.

  “Every champion-tier Pokémon, every mythical I’ve helped. Every wild guardian I’ve given territory and purpose. They were given peace. Now... they return the favor.”

  A stunned silence.

  Agatha spoke first, her voice uncertain but sharp.

  “How many, Sam?”

  Oak lifted his gaze to the sky beyond the glass ceiling, thunder cracking like the world itself was rending.

  “I don’t know,” he said softly. “But I will.”

  Blaine stepped back from the table.

  “Sam... we’ll follow you. But you can’t take them all out in one night.”

  Oak said nothing.

  “Sam,” Agatha said, her voice cracking again, “even you—”

  “I can,” Oak said. Calm. Final.

  He turned to face them.

  His eyes were not those of a grieving father anymore.

  They were the eyes of the Champion. The one who ended the last war. Who built a new world.

  And now, who would burn the old one to ash.

  “They started this.”

  He stepped forward, his lab coat billowing as the lights flickered in the wind.

  “Tonight…”

  “I finish it.”