ASH COMA THEORY(a piece of it-)As he utters his final words, he barely opens his eyes and sees the silhouette of his mother, her face hidden by her hands wiping away tears. They make eye contact and one final realization fills him before he loses all strength.
He sees that his mother was holding out hope that he’d recover all that time. He sees her and finds that her hope had been broken as she’d come to the realization that she’d outlived her only child. He dies knowing that he is loved, but that it means the one person closest and most real to him is utterly crushed.
Still, there are other possibilities. The fountain of time flows in mysterious ways. One could not go back against the current, such as Gatsby. However, one could never see what is waiting for him downstream. Ash finally defeats Lance, only to be confronted by not Gary Oak, but a mute mirror image of himself.
The voice of the narrator speaks to him, telling him that now he can finally escape the prison of his own mind. One by one, his friends appear and melt away into more copies of himself, cheering him on. After a long, tough battle against himself with the assistance of all his Pokémon he had ever befriended, he jolts awake.
In his hospital room, he sees his parents, asleep. He finds himself unable to speak.
Ash pushes forward toward his recovery. He goes through physical therapy, training harder and harder with rehabilitative Pokémon until he can walk on his own again. This time, an older and wiser Ash sets out on a journey.
Just like last time, he’s late getting to Professor Oak’s laboratory. When there’s only one Pokémon left…he suddenly recalls all his memories of his “life” and realizes all his friends are gone forever.
As he sets out with his new companion, he finds the world is darker than he imagined. More “real.” Pokémon and people die. He, too, has aged.
He vows to become the Pokémon Master he dreamed he was. He vows to himself. He vows to “them.”
“I WILL be the very best!”
