Disclaimer: I do not own Pokémon. Or any of the characters that are not oc in this story.

A/N this is a new Pokémon story partially inspired by the aura of the forgotten, which is a great story and you should check it out. It will be very different in places however and will be violent at points. You have been warned. I do hope you enjoy the chapter and the rest of the story.

Chapter 1 (The beginning)

Ash's POV

I dived to one side to avoid the katana swinging at my head. I heard my opponent curse in anger. I got to my feet and jabbed swiftly at his torso. He brought down his blade to block it. I backed up a few feet.

I was currently fighting the best fighter in Pallet Town Gary Oak. He was an almost flawless sword fighter. We were both at sixteen years old and had trained with a sword since we could hold one. We were both now ready to join the town militia. He was the best sword fighter in Pallet Town with, unfortunately the sole exception being me. My best friend was a natural sword fighter and was good at a very young age. I on the other hand was unnaturally good at combat. This was due to my affiliation with Aura. It strengthened me and let me see what his move would be. I was trained for a short while with Sir Riley, an aura guardian, until he was forced to leave Pallet Town. According to him I was unnaturally quick at picking it up.

I was broken out of my thought process by Gary closing the distance between us rapidly. He jabbed at my head and I ducked. He slipped forward off balance and I swept out my leg and he fell flat on his face. I put my katana to the back of his neck in an instant. He tried to roll to one side and I put my wakizashi to the back of his head.

I heard him grunt in annoyance. I guess that it did not do the prince of Pallet's pride any good to be beaten by his adopted brother.

I pulled back my swords and he rolled over. I gave him a hand up. I looked around and the small crowd of soldiers that had gathered to watch clapped us.

Gary nodded to them and then strode off to the town hall.

The way that the Pokémon world was run, was each city and town was its own nation or clan. The smaller ones such as Pallet were under the protection of larger ones, in our case Viridian. They would come to our aid on the conditions that we did what we were told, about whom to trade with etc. I decided against following the prince and walked over to the walls were the guards were patrolling. There was always the risk of bandits or worse a rival city. In our case Cinnabar island. Fortunately for us they were mostly a peaceful nation and although having the one of the most advanced armies spent most of their time defending themselves from the orange island empire. The Orange islands were a group of individual states until the naval power known as Pummelo Island; led by their king, Drake, conquered the whole Archipelago. They now had their eyes set on Cinnabar Island and they launched attacks frequently on the island state.

As I walked up the steps up the ramparts I saw the king of Pallet Town and my adopted father Professor Oak. He was called professor Oak as before he was the king, his older brother was and he went off to study in Saffron city.

"Ash, Pikachu has been looking for you." He said.

I nodded and asked, "Where did you last see him?"

I saw the professor smile and gesture to behind me. I turned around and there was Pikachu. "Pikapi." He said.

"Ash can you let Riolu out, I wanna play"

"Yeah I kind of forgot." I explained talking in by aura to him. I could do this but only to Pokémon that I was really close to. I grabbed a pokéball from my belt and released Riolu.

He appeared in a flash of white light. Pokéballs were a brilliant creation that harnessed the power of aura that all Pokémon possessed to capture and contain them. It only worked on willing or weakened Pokémon however.

"Hello master, how are you?" Riolu asked.

I shook my head. "I thought that I had asked you not to call me that." I complained.

Riolu just smirked at me, not responding to what I said.

I looked up to see the professor smiling at me. "I am going to do one more patrol of the walls and then I will return home." He said. "I hope that you and Gary will be there as well." I nodded

"Yes I will be there." I said.

He smiled and walked off. His armour clanking as he walked. He was one of the few people in Kanto that could afford armour. Unfortunately in the culture of Kanto there was little metal amour. Most of it was leather. We only had limited mines and most of the metal we made went to weapons. However in Sinnoh they had an abundance of metal and therefore fought differently as their armour was far cheaper.

I myself was wearing hardened leather armour. I had my two swords at my side, they were the swords left behind by my father when he left Pallet Town. I did not know much about him other than he was very wealthy and had his own personal bodyguard. He had told my mother that he would always keep an eye on me. I was yet to see proof of whatever it was that he was doing to look out for me though.

I walked once round the walls talking to the guards as I went. After a few minutes I climbed down and jogged over our house with Pikachu and Riolu in tow. As I jogged past people yelled greetings and gave me nods. I, unlike my brother was not one for respect from the people of Pallet. As I got to the centre of the town I came to our house. It was much larger than those surrounding it and was one of the few houses in Pallet that was not made from wood. It was mostly stone. It was built as a small defence and could hold the entire people of Pallet Town in if it needed to. I walked up to the front door and the two guards who were outside smiled at me. They waved me in. I walked in through the door and straight ahead to where the dining hall was. As I entered I saw Gary sat down talking to the Professor, not talking to either of them was Daisy, my adopted sister. She smiled when she saw me.

"Hi Ash, these two were talking about sending some men out to get some revival herbs." Gary said when he noticed me sit down next to him. "We are running short in the town and need them to keep the guards Pokémon up and running." The professor nodded reinforcing the point.

"If you want me to go I will do it." I said.

I was often the person around town to get things like this done. I was one of the only people at ease with the wild surroundings off Pallet Town.

Gary sighed, "I knew that you would say that." He said. "It is not fitting for the third in line for the throne of Pallet to do menial jobs like that."

I smirked, Gary thought of himself and the royal family as slightly superior to everyone else. This was backed up to an extent by Daisy. I however had no problem with mixing with people and knew almost everyone in Pallet.

"Don't worry yourself brother." I said, "I will get it done," I paused for a second, "This way you will not lose any of the guards," I explained.

Gary nodded knowing that I would most likely go anyway. Daisy and the Professor were watching us with amusement.

In came one of the cooks with some food. Pallet always had a lot of food as it was a very wealthy town. It had huge reserves of wood around it, in our territory. We sold this to lots of the larger city states such as Viridian, Pewter and Cerulean City. We even sold a little to the newly formed state of Lavender. It was the largest state in Kanto and encompassed, Vermillion, Saffron and Celadon City. It also encompassed Lavender City, which is where it originated from. It was an age old empire that only recently conquered Celadon City. Since then we had been trading with it.

As soon as the food was on the table we dug in. It was tauros meat, there were a lot of people who refused to eat Pokémon, but none of the royal family was that way inclined. We talked over the meal and then went to bed. As I walked up the stairs Pikachu and Riolu followed me. I pushed open the door and the two of them shot through.

"Where will you look tomorrow?" Riolu asked me.

"I will most likely go up Route 1 and look around there. I shall try to keep on the outskirts of the forest though." He nodded in agreement and jumped up onto the small bed. I kept the same bed that was in my mother's house and refused to sleep in the same beds as the rest of the royal family. I had to keep some difference from them. As I lay down Pikachu curled up next to me, and Riolu lay at my feet.

The next morning I got up. I walked over to the closet and got dressed in a simple kimono. I added my armour on top and picked up my ever present swords. I walked out and walked downstairs.

I walked into the kitchen and made myself some food. I had made the chefs teach me how to cook from a young age and often made food for them when I woke up in the morning.

I walked out the front door and I walked out of the town. It was too early for many people to be up. Pikachu got bored of walking and jumped up onto my shoulder. Riolu just jogged at my side. I waved to the men on guard and they opened the gate to let me out.

After a while of searching through the outskirts of the forest I heard a yelp in pain, it sounded quite close. I considered ignoring it but decided against it. I drew my katana and then my wakizashi. I slowly crept through the undergrowth. Pikachu jumped down to the floor and started to do the same. Riolu jumped up to the trees and started to jump through them. I raised my hand and both Pokémon stopped still. I closed my eyes and tried to recall some of Riley's teaching. I pushed out my senses and tried to identify what it was. I felt it. It was a Pokémon. I could not identify what it was. It was however badly hurt.

I opened my eyes and spoke to the two Pokémon, "it is badly injured and is in this direction. Follow me." I said.

I started to walk slightly faster with less caution having felt nothing nearby. As I walked on I came into a clearing. It took a second for me to realise it but the stench hit me hard. I started coughing and gagging. I stepped back out of the clearing and then braced myself. I re-entered the clearing and almost started to gag again. I looked around and I noticed why there was such a smell. There was an entire pack of Growlithe scattered around with differing wounds. At the very centre were two Arcanine. One of whom was still breathing just. I slowly made my way over to it. I put my hand on its head and it flinched. Using the contact I tried to speak to it. "What happened?"

"Human, take him please." I tried asking different questions but always got the same answer. Eventually I realised why. As she rolled over a small Growlithe cub was revealed. It was perfectly fine and did not seem to have any wounds on it. I slowly bent down and picked it up. I looked over to the mother and put my hand on her. After a second I realised that she had stopped breathing. I put my hand over her eyes and closed them. I looked down at the Growlithe cub in my hand and tapped it with a pokéball. If she wanted me to take care of it this was the best and easiest way for me to do it, and look after the little guy. Well at least I thought it was a guy. I looked round at the two Pokémon with me. They both looked at me and ran out of the clearing. I was not hugely surprised; their noses were most likely more sensitive than mine.

I swiftly followed them out.

A/N I hope you liked the first chapter to the new story.

I will be trying to put out longer chapters for this story, and it will be uploaded less frequently because of this. I also do request that any suggestions for a better title, could be put in the reviews section.

Thanks to my beta reader Mangobean

Thanks for reading.

HCs signing off.