Broken Souls

Fracture Point

Red found his hole in the cosmos.

I get to my feet, but find that despite the movement, I'm not standing on anything. We're perpetually falling, or at least it feels that way, but I'm able to walk over towards the boy slumped against the nothingness even with my hair flying up through the air that isn't there.

"Where are we?" Red asks. His voice echoes outwards into the void, which shimmers in response. It's like the giant eye of an insect, a series of infinite mirrors going on and on forever in every direction, reflecting nothing.

Celebi's voice layers over mine. They know this place better than any mortal, but the pit in my stomach lets me know that even Celebi fears it.

"The end." I reply.

The walls light up again, if they can be called 'walls', and I see everything. Infinite universes fold out around us, many of which hold the same exact motions and others which are vastly different. Ethan's on the mountain. My team changes. Other trainers engage in civilized, one-to-one battles with a Red who might even be smiling. In many worlds, there's no one up here at all. Some hold simply a red hat and a few footprints that lead over the edge.

"There are so many voices." Red whispers.

He's not wrong. These worlds murmur with their own voices, their own sensations. If we weren't so far removed from the clamor of it all, it would be overwhelming- is this what Ethan was tapping into, before he could control it? If I could ever fully inherit Celebi's powers, is this what I would see? Sound reverberates out of every facet of this place, every plane of existence, and in between the cracks I can hear something that almost sounds like... answers. There is something here that exists past what we're seeing, something we can't see even when we're as far out as we can go.

"Are these yours?" I ask. "Your voices."

"I don't know." Red says. He doesn't get up to his feet. Instead, he stares down at the cosmos, the infinite worlds beneath him, and millions of faces stare back. Other versions of him carve out their own voids, which look even more like cracks in a giant monitor from here, but those are too blurred and glitched out to make anything out of.

"There is something out here," I mutter.

"I don't know." Red whispers. "I had no clue what was out here. I just needed to get out."

"Of course your plan was never going to work out. You were trying to escape when really, all along, the only thing out here was this."

Red finally lurches to his feet, intense and furious as he stares me down. "And then what are you? Your kind has to come from somewhere. What are Goldeneyes supposed to do if not tear this apart, tear the boundaries between Pokemon and humans apart, tear realities apart? You're a reincarnate of a Pokemon from a different world."

I make a sweeping gesture to the infinities around us. "I came from this and I'm going back to it. Goldeneyes aren't knives, Red, we're needles. We weren't meant to cut through the fabric of this game into a bigger, more glorious picture- this is the big picture. Worlds connected to worlds, people connected to Pokemon, everything interwoven into one grand narrative."

"It's the same every time. Do you want to be part of that?" he asks. "What's the point, if every action we make is another step in the will of some outside, pre-recorded fate and the malicious beings with dominion over it? Doesn't that seem futile to you?"

"'Futile' is the worst word possible for all of it. Of course we start with similar circumstances. Of course there will be rules, pre-scripted events, whatever... there are some things that just happen. Life isn't about the lines, it's about what we do in between them. It's about the stories and friendships we make together." I say, feeling more and more conviction. Something else is growing within me- an idea. A terrible one.

I close my eyes and sense it- all around me are the bonds I've made with my Pokemon, even here. My whole team, dead and alive, and every team from Kalos or any other world left behind, they're all here. I sense a golden ring of threads, strong as Bronze's flame, steadfast as the ocean, and feel an overwhelming joy choke me.

Red's staring at me when I open my eyes, and I realize that the light isn't just in my head, as it always has been. The golden string is stretching from every world, every dimension, and here, where nothing exists, it is real and tangible as we are. With seamless grace, inherited from Celebi, the I who is not I, I raise my hand and manifest my sword again, cleaving open the void. I trace a long line around us, creating a door in the air, and I feel the twenty bonds closest to my heart pulling me home. My bonds. My team.

Even though I walk completely alone, I can't be lost with them at my side.

I am going to live, I think. The door is open. I only need to walk towards it.

Like how I started this whole thing.

This time, it's my door.

Behind me, Red closes his eyes, too, but it's not to sense for any bonds, even though there's no doubt in my mind that there has to be something for him, in some world. Instead, he falls back to his knees.

"Ashley Hart." he says, "I need you to kill me."

"You're not going back," I say, but it's not a question. It's definite.

"I can't." he says.

"We won't exist here long," I say, just as sure. Already, I am well aware that the hold my Pokemon have me is the only thing preventing me from falling to the grip of the void. I can't hold out on them forever, and Red's form is already flaking away like the shadow forms of his Pokemon, when he siced them on us earlier.

"I've wanted to die for ten years."

I remain silent.

"You can't bring me back," he threatens.

"And I won't, Red."

Red's face is peeling away now into the gray of the void, and I see the shell of a young boy in a coat and hat ready to go on his adventure. I see a man who was played by gods, unable to move forwards. I see me, reflected in those awful brown eyes, and what I could have become after my first failure. I see me without Reginae, Bronze, Lilly, or anyone I ever cared about, and I see the trainer, alone without Pokemon.

Red whispers, "Tell my Pokemon I said goodbye."

I turn towards the door, and though each step is agony, I follow the pull of my team into the light.

Sensation, glorious sensation, seizes me and threatens to shake me like a poorly-trained Houndoom. Next come the hugs (did I say hugs? I meant DEATH HOLDS) of my team as I step from the air, the void sealing itself back around me without any code to perpetuate it. Suicune nods to me, It appears the cause of error has been resolved, thanks in no small part to the invention of several Legendaries.

"Yeah, thanks, legendaries!" I yell to the air through the smothering embrace of my team, making a rather crude gesture. "You guys have been a real help!"

The team laughs, but beneath is all they're cold, shaking, and exhausted both physically and emotionally.

"What happened?" asks Bronze, and though I know I have a whole lifetime to tell him, I still open my mouth in an attempt to process it now. Just thinking about it is making me dizzy.

Meekly, I say, "I followed you all home."

Red doesn't have to say anything to his team- his Pokemon are gone. Six Poke Balls lie open on my return, and my Pokemon stand alone in the snow, confused and terrified. There are no corpses and no signs of blood save for the wounds on my own teammates.

Besides another patch of crimson snow, Red's coat still lies on the ground. Right behind him, a few footsteps lie in the fresh snow, and they continue on to the edge of the cliff. I pick up his coat from the ground and fold it into my bag, my breath like a white cloud around my face.

The sky bursts open in bright white, and a coat of diamond dust descends on the land.