UPDATE: Nothing much was changed here as well. A couple things, including Esteban's thoughts about his teacher were removed.

Hello...again! Thanks to everyone who has read and review. There is now a total of four (count them: four!) people who have reviewed! (complete silence) ...yay! But seriously, thanks for reviewing. It makes me believe someone actually cares to read my story.

To Lateral Ganon: You were afraid that my story would be a self insert where Altomare Latias falls in love with me. You, and others who are worried about the same thing, would be happy to know that that is not the case. I have my own plans for my character in the future, and there is no OC x Latias shipping now or ever in my story and never has been. It just seemed that way. Sorry about that.

Notes: "This is normal talking" 'This is thinking. Italics with apostaphes' "this is telepathy. Italics with quotation marks"

Disclaimer: Do I have to do this every time? (Lawyer nods his head) Okay, fine. I don't own this. Except my OCs. You should know by now.

This is chapter 4, so now on with it!


Chapter Four: Aura

Lorenzo led us through some dark, secret passageways from his shop leading us to some secret garden. After a few minutes, we made it back out into the light. It was amazing. I set my backpack down and started wandering the garden, and I was looking around the whole place in awe. It was a large space filled with huge trees and bushes all wonderfully landscaped. There were fountains, water features, and pools. Bird and insect pokémon were thriving in the garden. Scattered throughout the garden were interestingly shaped little wind chimes. The sounds were amazing as well. The birds chirping, the bugs buzzing, the water splashing, and the chimes chiming all together in harmony was one of the most beautiful sounds I have ever heard. There was a part of the garden that was elevated above the rest. There seemed to be a small water feature there, and it looked very special. It also seemed to be glowing a bit, but I was too focused on the rest of the garden to investigate any further.

I was too immersed in what I was seeing, that I didn't notice the girl standing next to an easel until I walked right into her. I could hear Latias and Lorenzo laughing a bit as I stumbled into her. She seemed too immersed in her artwork to have bothered to have gotten out of the way as well. She fell down and said, "Hey, watch it!"

I looked down and saw the girl. She looked exactly like Latias did in human form, except this girl was wearing a white beret. "Oh, sorry," I said and offered my hand to help her up. She grabbed it and pulled herself up, and she didn't change like Latias did when she grabbed my hand. "You look just like Latias, or, well, Latias looked just like you."

She fixed her beret a bit and patted some dirt off her before responding. "Latias and I are best friends. She likes to look like me when she explores the city. Mind if I ask who the hell are you and why you ran into me in the middle of my sketching?" She did not try to hide the annoyance in her voice on her last sentence.

I sweatdropped a bit. "Oh, uh, I am, well, uh…" I muttered. 'I need to work on my talking skills,' I thought.

She rolled her eyes and muttered something under her breath. The then yelled out to Lorenzo, "Grandpa, who the hell is this?" She was pointing to me.

I turned around and saw Lorenzo walking closer, laughing a bit. "Bianca, this is Esteban. Latias trusts him, and he helped save her from a rather unsavory character a short while ago. Esteban, this is my granddaughter Bianca."

I put my hand out to shake hers, but she ignored it and went straight to asking, "Wait, Latias was attacked?" There was some concern in her voice. Lorenzo and I started telling her about what happened that day while Latias started playing in the garden.


When we had finished, Bianca turned to Lorenzo and said, "I hope it doesn't happen again."

"Me too," Lorenzo sighed. I could tell they were referring to five years ago as well as what happened today.

I didn't want to ask depressing questions, so I just went over to sit on a swing next to a pool. Even though it was the middle of June, Altomare seemed to have a very mild climate. Even though I was wearing a heavy duster coat, I still felt comfortable. I started swinging lightly and I held onto my golden cross. "Oh, Teacher," I said, "you would have loved this."

"Who's 'Teacher'?" I heard in a telepathic voice. It startled me, so I jumped off the swing and nearly fell over. I turned to see Latias levitating next to the swing. She had a small smile on her face.

"She is, well, she was my teacher…obviously." I said. "Her real name was Azalea, but I always referred to her as Teacher."

"Why do keep talking about her in the past-tense?" she asked.

I sighed. "I…well…I don't like to talk about that." Latias seemed to know what I meant. I started thinking to myself about my Teacher and reliving some memories. I didn't notice how hard I was holding onto my cross until it actually started to hurt. I let go of it. I then said to Latias, "You were trying to listen to my thoughts weren't you?"

Latias seemed to be taken aback by my question. "How did you know?" she asked.

"You're a psychic. You're also very curious. Two plus two equals four. Therefore, you were probably trying to read my mind. Oh, and you just told me by you reaction," I answered.

"Okay, I was trying to read your mind," she admitted. "I promise not to ask any more questions about your Teacher unless it is relevant." She then flew over towards me and said, "So I will ask you this, is an Aura Guardian like a psychic?"

"No, being an Aura Guardian does not make me a psychic. They are two completely different things. I should probably be insulted by that." I answered.

By that time, Lorenzo and Bianca had come over to us, and Bianca asked, "Then what is the difference."

"Psychics deal with the mind," I said. "But Aura, that's all about the soul, literally. Aura is your soul and life energy. All life makes it and all life gives it off. Just like how only a few people can manipulate the mind, like psychics for example, only a few people can manipulate aura. I am one of those people. So that means I can't use telepathy, or telekinesis, or read minds, or make things happen just by thinking about it. That is psychic stuff. I can; however, do this." I focused my aura a bit, making my gloves glow. I put out my right hand. What looked like a small, bluish purple flame was burning above my hand.

The three looked in awe at the blue fire that was somehow floating above my hand. Out of curiosity, Bianca reached out and touched it. She seemed shocked by the fact that it didn't burn her. "It's not hot. It's just…warm"

"That is because I am in a good mood right now. Try and touch it when I am angry, and you would not like it." I said in response. She withdrew her hand. "As you can see, this is my aura, and I can do a lot with it." I then closed my hand on the small fire, turned around, and threw it out at the water as an aura sphere. There was a large splash where the sphere hit. I then reached my hand out to a rock that was few yards away. I used aura to lift the rock into the air and have it fly to me. "Watch this," I said as I was tossing the rock in the air. I then threw the rock at a nearby tree.

"That wasn't aura," Bianca complained. "You just threw that rock."

"Just wait for it," I responded. Then a flock of angry spearows flew out of the tree's branches and flew straight towards us. Bianca and Lorenzo were shocked that I purposely angered a flock of birds that were about to attack us. Latias was about to fend them off, but I told her not to. They looked confused and worried a bit. The birds were about to hit when I put out both of my hands and formed a shield of aura. They all just suddenly hit an invisible wall that glowed a bight whitish blue as they all hit. Everyone, except me, flinched when they hit. They tumbled to the ground and didn't bother to try to attack the invisible shield again.

When it was safe, I lowered the shield and grabbed a loaf of bread that was in one of my pant pockets. I broke it into little pieces and gave it to the pokémon as payment for letting me use them as guinea pigs. They found it suitable and started eating the bread crumbs.

"Like I said, aura is energy." I turned to the three behind me and said, "I know that you shouldn't anger a flock of birds, but I thought this was safer than having Lorenzo shoot me again." Lorenzo laughed a bit, and everyone relaxed. "So that is what I can do with aura. I could explain how it works, but that is a long and boring lecture for some other time."

Latias then asked, "Esteban, how did you follow me to Lorenzo earlier today? I was invisible."

I then explained about aura-sight. I tried to demonstrate it, so I closed my eyes and opened my aura-sight. "Lorenzo is here. Bianca. Latias." As I said their names, I pointed to them, but that was easy. "Sprearows are there. Pidgeys are in that pool. Butterfrees are in that other tree." I pointed to those as I said them. I heard sounds of amusement. I must have been right. "And that is a…" In my aura-sight I saw a bright spot of aura. I could tell that it was from the special water feature I noticed earlier, but the aura was extremely similar to Latias'. I could only come up with one explanation. I opened my eyes and said, "That is Latios."

Everyone became quiet. I then started walking to where it was. The water feature was a large basin of water with a glowing sphere in the center of it. I stared at it. The three came up to where I was. "That is the Soul Dew," Lorenzo explained. "When an Eon Pokémon dies, they can leave behind their soul in a Soul Dew. This is Latias' brother. He left this to us when he died five years ago; just like his father."

I looked closer and harder at it. I could see that besides glowing, the Soul Dew was also showing tiny, faint images; Latios' memories. You could barely notice it even if you were looking for it. "I would expect that any pokémon can leave a Soul Dew, but only a few choose to do so," I said. "It's just a sphere of extremely concentrated aura, but it's more than just aura. It has his memories and, I'm willing to bet, it also has his consciousness in it. It is quite amazing, actually. It is literally just radiating large amounts of aura. Luckily, it still finds a way to make more aura, but you must keep it in water or else more aura would be lost than made, and, I would say, in about a few hours it would die. If anything uses its entire aura, it would die, but luckily all living things also usually make more than they use."

I walked back away from it and turned to the three and smiled. "It is just beautifully amazing. With that much aura just given off like that, it could power a small city or a large machine. After all, aura is energy. It is like an aura-battery or something." Then I realized something. "That is what you are doing, isn't it? This water feature is gathering the aura it gives off and powers the city, and you are keeping it in water so it doesn't release too much at one time. Brilliant. I am also willing to bet that this is what powers the D.M.A., right?" Everyone looked dumbstruck at me. "What?" I asked.

"It took years to discover the potential of the Soul Dew, but it took you only a few minutes!" Lorenzo exclaimed with surprise.

"Well," I said, "It was just staring me in the face. Well, you couldn't see it, but I could see it with aura-sight. It was like a big, bright…thing of aura right where the Soul Dew is. I bet I could help you design a method of collecting the aura more efficiently, if you want. I must say it again, it is just brilliant!"

My felling of jubilation probably would have lasted longer if it weren't for one tiny problem. I heard someone landing in the garden near the wall. I looked. It was the Red-head from before who had jumped from on top of the wall right next to us. She had her .40 caliber pointed right at us.

She said, "Thanks for all the information. You gave me just what I needed to know. Now, if you would please hand over the Soul Dew, I might actually consider letting you live."


Well? Was it good? Tell me what you think in a review. I accept all kinds of reviews (positive, negative, constructive criticisms, etc.), except flames or spams. I don't like flames or spams.

I also want to know how I can improve this chapter, so please tell me.

Also, if you are confused about the whole aura thing, don't be. You don't need to know how it works to understand the story, but I tried to explain a little bit of it in this chapter. If you have read The Dresden Files, then try to combine how the magic is in that series with aura from the 8th pokemon movie (The one with Lucario), and that is the basic idea of aura for my story.

Chapter 5: I have a basic idea of what happens in it, but nothing is written. I may or may not upload it in the next week.

I hope you liked it!