nah...the pokemon dont die....but the cartriges sure do...i remember looking in my box and seeing double pokemon and i dont ever use gameshark or any cheating thing...how i got duplicates in my boxes? smh
No Ash is actually 25. The thing is he sucked the life force out of thy holy virgin to keep his youthful appearance. Why do you think we never see Misty, May or Dawn anymore?
But Pokemon can die, I'm assuming it would be of old age or otherwise. If something really bad were to happen they would die. I recall Gary's Raticate suffering death in the first games, so it's not unnatural for Pokemon to die.