The Unova region, the last pure sanctuary of humanity, was obliterated in the wake of a battle waged by the mythical Pokémon, as if the gods themselves were playing a cruel game.
The last remnants of uninfected humans and Pokémon in the world were reduced to dust.
The old man who had once built the Pokémon League into the greatest force on Earth now stood amidst its ruins, his spirit utterly broken.
He had once pinned all his hopes on Arceus, believing the Alpha Pokémon would protect humankind. But he now understood Arceus's true goal: to absorb its fragmented selves and reclaim its divine dominion.
He glanced at Cresselia and Darkrai, sensing their weakening auras. And yet, they still struggled to shield him.
Humans, compared to the mythical Pokémon… were still far too fragile.
In that moment, Goodshow suddenly recalled the desperate days of the last era, how hopeless the people of the ancient world must have felt watching Kyogre and Groudon clash.
Who could possibly stop these gods now?
With a trembling hand, he reached into his cloak and pulled out a unique Poké Ball.
The upper half was yellow, the lower half white. Etched above the button were two letters: "GS."
Goodshow stared at the ball. This had been handed to him in secret by Ash, a future champion who had returned to warn the League of an emerging virus.
In this timeline, the truth behind the GS Ball had yet to be uncovered. But in Ash's future, he had already mastered it.
Goodshow closed his eyes and muttered to himself, "No matter what happens, it can't be worse than the end of the world."
When he opened them again, resolve burned within.
"Go, GS Ball."
The strange Poké Ball arced through the air and opened mid-flight.
No brilliant light of a Pokémon emerged. But something had definitely been released.
All at once, the eyes of the mythical Pokémon snapped toward it. They sensed it, something had shifted in time and space.
A distortion beyond description began to unfold, not just of space and time, but of everything itself, as if even this single moment were being stretched thin.
Crack.
Bolts of lightning tore across the sky.
Blinding and bizarre, the lightning twisted unnaturally, flashing with every color conceivable, and many that weren't.
And when that dazzling light faded, the streaks remained.
They were not lightning. They were cracks, a spiraling fracture in space-time itself.
A massive rift now loomed in the heavens, like a piece of the sky had been struck away, revealing what lay beyond.
The mythical Pokémon and Kyurem halted their battle in unison, gazes piercing the rift.
They could sense it, eyes from the other side staring back.
[Warning! Emergency mission initialized.]
[Emergency Mission A: Annihilate the parallel world. Eliminate the parallel world and its World Will within the allotted time.]
[Emergency Mission B: Fuse with the parallel world. Replace the World Will of the parallel world and unify both worlds within the allotted time.]
[Select mission: A / B]
Elsewhere, Lucius, who had been leading the blockade of Unova, received the system's alert simultaneously.
Another emergency mission?
Lucius remembered the last one vividly: the Ultra World's invasion. That mission had earned him the role of World Will over that dimension, and a treasure trove of power.
This time, it was another alternate world. But unlike before, there were two missions, and clearly, they were mutually exclusive.
Last time, he didn't destroy or merge the Ultra World, he conquered it.
So now… should he choose fusion or annihilation?
Lucius weighed the options. Fusion would mean uniting the other world with this one. Since he had already conquered nearly everything here, fusion would massively expand his domain.
Annihilation, on the other hand, would give him genetic data, but little else.
He was about to decide when the system chimed again:
[Selection window expired. Defaulting to Mission A.]
[Emergency Mission: Annihilate the parallel world. Destroy the parallel world and its World Will before the spatial distortion is stabilized.]
(⊙▽⊙)#
WTF?!
System, what the hell!? When did you say there was a time limit?
Couldn't you at least flash a countdown or something?
Do you even respect me anymore as your high-authority host?! ヽ(#`Д´)ﾉ
Lucius fumed for a moment, then accepted it with a sigh.
"Enough games. All units, focus fire on Kyurem."
He gave the order without further explanation. These mythical Pokémon had lived for eons, long enough to recognize what that rift meant.
But beyond Kyurem, Lucius had another target in mind: the old man who triggered this chaos.
Silently, the conceptualized virus spread across Unova in a heartbeat, infecting every remaining living human and Pokémon.
Lucius had originally planned to let these stubborn survivors rot. But the new circumstances called for full mobilization.
From Goodshow's memories, Lucius uncovered something no one else knew.
Before Ash left Indigo Plateau for Cinnabar Island in the future, he had a long, secret conversation with President Goodshow.
They had discussed the virus, breakthroughs in future tech, and monumental advancements in Pokémon biology.
And then, Ash handed him the GS Ball.
Lucius, having read the original storyline, knew this ball, rumored to capture time itself.
But in canon, after Ash gave it to Kurt, the plot thread vanished. Even before Lucius transmigrated here, the official story never resolved it.
However, in the parallel world Ash came from, the League had cracked its secret.
Before returning to the past, Ash had used the GS Ball to store a single second of their world's time.
Opening the ball would bind their timeline and this one through that one second of distortion.
Of course, if Dialga or Palkia interfered, the connection would collapse quickly. Even without interference, the distortion wouldn't last long before being naturally stabilized.
Still, any such opening would influence both worlds.
Ash had given Goodshow the GS Ball with the hope that, if this world managed to defeat the virus early, they might reconnect with the future world, to help fight back against the virus swarm.
But now, Goodshow had used it for another purpose: to unleash the future virus into the present, hoping the two strains might clash.
Because the virus now rampaging across Unova was clearly something else entirely.
Two worlds.
Two viruses.
And a war between them… was just beginning.
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