The air in Region 3 didn't just burn.
It remembered.
Teo stepped across the border—a simple line of ash marking where the Verdant Maw ended and the Scarlet Wastes began—and the heat hit him like a physical blow. Not dry. Not clean. Thick with the scent of ozone, burnt marrow, and something older: the metallic tang of dried god-blood.
His left eye—still grayscale, but now threaded with faint amber from Lucario's evolving dragon aura—saw the truth.
The wastes weren't sand.
They were ground bone.
Millions of tons of pulverized skeletal matter, fused by ancient cataclysm into a desert that shifted with each gust of wind, revealing glimpses of colossal vertebrae, shattered wings, the hollow eye sockets of long-dead titans.
[ REGION 3 DETECTED: "THE SCARLET WASTES" ]
[ ENVIRONMENTAL HAZARD: LEGENDARY REMNANT RADIATION — PSYCHIC FEEDBACK IMMINENT ]
[ WARNING: PROLONGED EXPOSURE MAY TRIGGER ANCESTRAL TRAUMA IN POKÉMON ]
Lucario shuddered at his side, aura flickering.
"It's screaming," their shared mind echoed. "All of them. The dead."
Teo placed a hand on Lucario's shoulder. "We hear them."
They weren't alone.
Yumi walked behind them, her satchel holding a single Synkairo pup—the first to bond with a human, its leaf-fins trembling. Rin scouted ahead, her Conclave sensors blinking red with every step. Veyla brought up the rear, her pre-cognitive Haki scanning the horizon for threats, her expression grim.
And in the center of their formation—twenty-three Seedlings, hands clasped, breathing in unison, their collective aura forming a faint silver shield against the bone-dust haze.
They'd come for one reason.
Stop the Ascension Bloom.
Intel from Veyla's recovered data core confirmed it: the Cult planned to use the Wastes' Legendary graveyard as a catalyst, fusing human, elf, and divine DNA to birth Homo Deus—a being who could command Pokémon through sheer will, rendering bonds obsolete.
But as they marched deeper into the wastes, a new threat emerged.
Not the Cult.
The bones themselves.
On the third day, the wind changed.
It didn't howl.
It sang.
A low, harmonic drone that vibrated in Teo's teeth, resonated in his ribs, made his left eye bleed thin trails of black static.
Yumi dropped to her knees, clutching her head. The Synkairo pup whined, its crystalline core dimming.
[ PSYCHIC FEEDBACK DETECTED — SOURCE: COLLECTIVE LEGENDARY DEATH CRY ]
Rin's voice was tight. "It's not random. It's a choir. The bones are harmonizing."
Then—movement.
Not Scorchclaws. Not hybrids.
Figures.
Tall, skeletal, woven from fused bone and scarlet dust. Their eyes glowed faint violet. At their cores pulsed fragments of stolen Legendary essence—shards of Rayquaza's rage, Dialga's sorrow, Palkia's regret.
Bone Revenants.
Not undead.
Echoes.
Souls of the dead Legendaries, twisted by the Cult's experiments into guardians of the graveyard.
The lead Revenant stepped forward, its jaw unhinging not to bite, but to speak.
"FLESH-THING," it intoned, voice layered with a thousand dying breaths. "YOU CARRY A BOND. IT IS A LIE."
Teo didn't flinch. "Bonds aren't lies. They're promises."
The Revenant tilted its skull. "PROMISES BREAK. WE REMEMBER."
It raised a bone-clawed hand.
The desert rose.
Not dunes.
Walls—of femurs, ribs, shattered skulls—slamming together to form a labyrinth around them.
"PROVE YOUR PROMISE," the choir droned. "OR JOIN US IN THE SILENCE."
The ground beneath Teo's feet cracked open.
And from the abyss, a new voice emerged—cold, regal, ancient.
"This reality is impure."
Teo's blood ran cold.
He knew that voice.
Giratina.
Not the twisted fossil in the Citadel.
The Origin Forme—the true Renegade Pokémon, guardian of the Distortion World.
It had come to purge them.
Because in its eyes, bonds—especially artificial ones like theirs—were abominations.
The Bone Choir wasn't the enemy.
It was the symptom.
And Giratina… was the cure.
"Don't fight them," Teo ordered, as the Revenants closed in. "They're not attacking. They're testing."
He stepped forward, aura flaring gold-amber, not in aggression, but in invitation.
"I hear you," he said, voice steady. "All of you. The pain. The betrayal. The loneliness."
He placed a hand on the nearest wall of bone.
And remembered.
Not his own memories.
Theirs.
—Rayquaza's fury as its sky was torn apart.
—Dialga's grief watching timelines collapse.
—Arceus's despair as its children turned on each other.
He poured it all into the bone.
Into the choir.
"I'm not here to use you," he said. "I'm here to witness."
For a long moment—silence.
Then—the wall bloomed.
Not with flowers.
With light.
Silver shoots pierced the bone, leaves unfurling with the faces of the dead Legendaries—not in agony, but in peace.
The Bone Choir staggered back.
"YOU… REMEMBER US," the lead Revenant whispered.
Teo nodded. "And I won't let them erase you."
The labyrinth dissolved.
The Revenants bowed—not in submission, but in recognition.
But their respite was short.
From the heart of the wastes, a pillar of black flame erupted.
And Giratina's voice boomed across the desert:
"ENOUGH."
"THE IMPURE WILL BE UNMADE."
The sky split open.
Not with violet static.
With anti-reality.
The Distortion World bled into theirs.
Gravity reversed. Sound became color. Time stuttered.
Teo grabbed Lucario's arm. "Grove of Remembering!"
Lucario slammed its palms into the bone-dust.
Their Domain Expansion flared to life—a pocket of black soil and silver saplings, where time flowed true and bonds held firm.
The others stumbled inside just as the distortion wave hit.
Outside, the world unraveled.
Inside, they stood together.
Breathing.
Remembering.
[ DOMAIN EXPANSION: "GROVE OF REMEMBERING" — ACTIVE ]
[ TIME DILATION: 1 MINUTE OUTSIDE = 1 HOUR INSIDE ]
[ WARNING: GIRATINA (ORIGIN FORME) — HOSTILE — PURGE PROTOCOL INITIATED ]
Teo looked at his team—Yumi clutching the Synkairo, Rin gripping her sensors, Veyla scanning the shifting walls of their sanctuary, the Seedlings holding hands in a tight circle.
"We can't fight it," Rin said. "It's not just powerful. It's fundamental."
Teo nodded. "Then we don't fight it. We show it the truth."
He turned to Lucario. "We go deeper. To the heart of the Wastes. To the Ascension Bloom."
Because if Giratina saw the Cult's ritual—the ultimate perversion of bonding—it might just see them as allies, not abominations.
Veyla's eyes narrowed. "It's a gamble."
Teo met her gaze. "All we have is each other. And that's enough."
Above them, the Distortion World howled.
But in the Grove, the saplings glowed.
And the dead Legendaries sang—not in sorrow.
In hope.