Ash woke up in a daze.
Where was he? What was going on?
He stood up to find himself in a field of grass, completely surrounded by trees, a clearing of sorts. He looked around. Strange.
Suddenly, a loud angry noise alerted him to a Nidorino standing across from him. Behind him, he heard a Gengar cry out in reply, and he quickly dove to the side as the two began to battle, slashing at each other and dodging.
Then, he turned his head straight at the audience.
"EmbraceMadness does not own Pokemon, only the OC's he makes in this story."
"That Jinx tho," Human said.
"That human tho," Pokemon said.
I can't believe that Jinx tho, Human thought.
I can't believe that human tho, Pokemon thought.
Ep. 6: Everyone wants to get stronger.
"Memma… I wanna get stronger," Lion explained to his mother, his father nearby as silent as ever. Kick sighed, leaning back on the stump that she had been sitting on. She and her mate exchanged a glance.
"And why, pray tell, do you want to get stronger, Lion?" she asked. Lion lowered his head. He had always answered this question differently in the past, with "I want to surpass you!" Now, however…
"I want to get strong enough to help Ash and be as strong as him too! I don't want what happened before to happen again!" The little Tyrogue proclaimed. His parents grinned as one.
"In which case, we better start training for real now, huh?
"Hey, Uncle Venom! Do you think you can help me learn how to shoot my poison at stuff?" Zack eagerly asked his uncle. Said uncle looked at him, and then looked away.
"Please?" Zack asked. No response.
"Pllleeeeeeeaaaasssseeeee?"
"… show me what you can do right now." Zack whooped.
"O-Okay, it's not that good though, so don't judge me!" Zack concentrated, looking to a rock across the grass. Venom looked over, smirking slightly at Zack's intensely concentrated face. He knew something that Zack didn't. For one, the attack that Zack was referring to was probably poison sting, an attack that Zubat's couldn't learn. And for two, the few poison type attacks that were ranged that Zubat's could learn were incredibly difficult, meaning there was no possible way-
Zack glowed a bright purple. Venom's eyes widened as a massive tendril exploded from Zack, turning the rock into a pile of goo.
"Where in Ho-oh's divine tailfeathers did you learn how to use Venoshock!?" he asked, only to see that Zack was asleep, passed out from exhaustion. Venom stared.
Maybe he would teach him a bit.
"H-hey, AuraSlice? AuraSentinel? Wh-Where are you?" AuraGuardian asked, as she slithered around. The island was pretty massive, and finding her older brothers was not the easiest thing in the world to do. If anything, they would probably find her first-
"Hail, AuraGuardian. What ails you?" AuraSlice asked. She gulped.
"Um… could you two help me learn how to fight?" The two brothers lit up.
"Of course! I shall teach you the elegance of using blasts of the elements to down your foes!" AuraSentinel said with glee.
"Don't listen to my idiot brother, I shall show you the ways of physical combat, using the elements to enhance your strength!" AuraSlice scowled, the two brothers glaring at each other.
"Special attacks dominate over Physical bruteness!"
"Physical attacks show true strength! Special ones are simply for those too scared to get up close!" And so the age long argument of Physical vs. Special began. AuraGuardian sighed. She had forgotten about how these two were, AuraKnight always warned her about this…!
"Can't you just teach me both?" she asked, after the two had quarreled a good ten minutes. The two blinked their eyes, before nodding.
"Ah, she truly is the brains of the family, wouldn't you agree, brother of mine!"
"Of course! Only she would know such an easy solution to this daunting challenge! Very well, which do you wish to learn first?" AuraGuardian sighed. She was
glad the brothers hadn't embarrassed her in front of Ash yet, her family was so weird…
Tadewi scowled as she found her mother, having come back from a hunting trip. She had a bone to pick with her!
"Memma! I have something's to ask you, please," she added upon seeing her mother's annoyed expression. She nodded, and the two moved, bringing the slain Magikarp to the storage caverns.
"Well? What is it, Tadewi?" Ariel asked wearily. She could already guess what was bugging her offspring.
"It's not fair! Everyone else is getting stronger except me! Please train me!" Ariel blinked. Well that wasn't exactly what she had been expecting.
"What do you mean, stronger than you? Last I checked, they're all still around level 9, while you are level 12 at least. Besides, why do you need to get strong? We have all those lovely Elites here to protect us."
"Don't you pull that with me, Memma! I… I know you're a lot stronger than I used to now! You don't have to hide the truth from me!" Tadewi cawed, tears threatening to spill out. Ariel sighed. So this was what the fuss was all about.
"I see. And how strong do you think I am?"
"Strong as the Elites, maybe even more so. I want to travel with Ash when we all get older, Memma. If he becomes a Pokemon Trainer, I want to be his Pokemon, and help him win stuff. I can't stay at the nest forever." Ariel laughed somberly.
"I suppose not. Well, I am your Memma. I'll teach you all I know, slowly. If my estimates are right, you'll evolve before the end of the moon cycle if you train hard enough. You realize doing this will throw away your childhood though… right?"
"I don't care." Ariel laughed.
"You're already acting twice your age, Tadewi. Fine. Consider yourself my new apprentice." Tadewi wrapped her wings around her mother best she could.
"Thanks, Memma."
"Ah… what a wonderful day," Ash said to himself. A month had passed since they had first come to the island, and he had enjoyed it, for the most part. Interestingly enough, he had noticed the Ditto from the first day there hanging around the camp, but never seeming to do anything. He wanted to bug Ariel about it, but she already was busy with getting food and whatnot as is. No need to bug her further, in his opinion.
So imagine his surprise when, while he and Dawn were on one of their walks around the island, the Ditto suddenly turned up in front of them, along with the Riolu, who refused to be named, and told Ash and Dawn he was going to train them?
"You heard me. I'm going to show you how to use your powers," Dits explained again, annoyed.
"I heard you, yeah, but what powers are you talking about?" Ash asked. Dawn just stood nearby. She had realized in the first few days that Ash really could speak to Pokemon, and she couldn't. Rather, she could pick up their emotions, and right now, Dits felt irked.
"Really, nobody ever told you? Well let's go down the list: You can understand me, first of all. You can apparently heal Pokemon, and lastly you threw Lion into a tree. Tell me what those things are if they aren't powers?" Dits spat. Ash recoiled a bit, but nodded slowly.
"What about Dawn?" Ash asked. Dawn perked up.
"What about Dawn?" she repeated. Dits hesitated.
"She can't talk to us, but she can sense our emotions and don't forget, she was there when you healed the Hitmo pair. She has powers too, and I can help you two train, along with Riolu here. You all have powers from the same… thing, I guess would be the easiest way to explain it."
"What is that power?"
"It's something called Aura, Ash." The Riolu replied. Ash scratched his head.
"Aura? As in AuraGuardian, AuraKnight, AuraSlice and AuraSentinel?"
"Yes. Aura itself is a… thing in the world that every living thing has. Trees, plants, humans, Pokemon, you name it, it has Aura. Just most of those things don't know how to use it, or don't have much of it to use. You three, however… have a lot of it, and I'm going to teach you how to use it," Dits explained. The three nodded.
"How are you going to teach us?" Riolu asked. Dits grinned, before shimmering and transforming into a fully grown Lucario.
"Like this." He put his hands together and created a glowing blue sphere, which floated in his palms. (Aura Sphere) The three kids looked in awe.
"Dawn and I can do that? Even though we aren't Pokemon?" Ash asked. Dits nodded.
"What… what can that do?" Dawn finally asked, after the three stared for a good minute. Dits grinned.
He flashed away, reappearing in front of a nearby boulder that was half in the ground, before slamming the Aura Sphere into it.
A small whistle emit as the ball ground into the rock, quickly drilling a decently sized hole into it, before Dits held up the ball again and dissipated it.
"That was me not using all of it's potential. I'm not actually a Lucario, after all, only a Ditto that copied one. As a matter of fact, Riolu can probably do the same amount of drilling as I can, but my evolved form allows me to understand it way better." Riolu nodded in agreement.
"And we… we humans, can do something like that?" Ash asked, bewildered. He gestured to the boulder, which was now beginning to crumble apart. Beside him, Dawn looked amazed as well.
"Yep! And since today is going to be the first lesson, I just want to see if you two can actually bring it out yet, the Aura. Try to summon some, however you want to try. Remember that it is the energy within you, you just need to bring it out." Ash translated for Dawn, and with instructions from Riolu, both adopted a stance with their legs spread, dominant hand up and their non-dominant hand back, with a slight turn to their upper body.
…
"Nothing's happening," Ash muttered. Dits sighed. It would probably take a while for even Aura manifestation at this rate-
A flash emitted from Dawn's fingertips. It was very brief, but it was still there.
"Good job, Dawn. I honestly wasn't expecting you to be able to bring it out so soon-" A tiny ball of energy formed in front of Ash's open palm. WAIT WHAT!?
"Amazing, he can already form some Aura!" Riolu cheered a bit. Dits, however, still was picking up his jaw, an amusing thing to see a Lucario do.
"Hey guys, Memma brought back the Magikarp for tonight!" Ash called to his friends, all of which responded in their own way, before heading over. This was what they ate almost every day, a barbequed Magikarp with the scales peeled off to reveal the more tender meat. They also tended to have some berries with their meals.
Lion groaned from his position. It wasn't exactly the most comfortable one in the world.
"Come on, son. You can hold it longer," his father Punch said soothingly. Lion's face was a bright red from the effort, but he was still doing decently well.
"Change positions again. You can't keep on staying in one, that won't help," Lion groaned again, changing his stance.
Head on the ground, feet in the air, Lion was holding a decent headstand, balancing on a pyramid of balance through two hands and his head, shifting his feet into different stances that changed the balance of everything, while his father stood nearby, looking. He was counting in his head, thoroughly impressed by how long his son had thus far held it. Though considering his passion, Punch considered it wasn't that hard to believe.
"I believe that has now been forty-five seconds of balance, whilst holding your balance with your hands. You've been practicing," the most words Punch had said for a while at once. Lion smiled, before bouncing to his feet.
"Yup! I have to get as strong as Ash, after all!"
His parents exchanged a glance, before sighing. Despite all the signs, Lion still thought Ash was a Pokemon… oh well, if it made him more motivated, there was nothing to complain about.
"Hey, Venom! What brings you to this part of Mt. Moon?" A cheerful Golbat asked the much more intimidating Venom. Venom scowled. While he loved his family above everything in his life, he absolutely hated talking to his somewhat absentminded brother.
"I just wanted to ask when you taught your son how to use Venoshock. He showed it to me whilst trying to convince me to train him."
"He can perform Venoshock! That's great, I guess he inherited it through us being his parents. Oh, you didn't forget, did you brother? You can have such tunnel vision with things, remember hatchlings gain the abilities and attacks their parents performed? Or at least, most of them?"
"I never was one for theory, Sizzle. But I do vaguely remember hearing that… wait, you mean my Tadewi is going to be learning how to do all that I can do!?"
"She likely already can do it, just hasn't learned how. Don't be so shocked, brother. It's not like you had any really harmful attacks… oh Arceus. You'd better warn Ariel." Venom sighed.
"These children are going to give me a migraine…"
"Focus! Let the energy flow through you, AuraGuardian!"
"Don't let up! Control it, channel it best you can!"
"When you're ready, release the power onto that rock!"
AuraGuardian breathed once, feeling the power bubbling underneath her skin, before she opened her mouth and emerged a massive orange ball of energy, containing all of her instinctive draconic rage. She held it up for a moment, before throwing it, in a sense, at said rock, which exploded magnificently.
"That ability that you just used is one of the more interesting Dragon based attacks. Humans know of it as 'Dragon's Rage', but it actually is known as Alkaih's Fury to us, named after the famous Salamance that helped his master conquer parts of the Hoenn region with relative ease. To humans, we don't use the full potential of that attack, and so it does a set amount of damage. However, that is one of the most powerful moves a dragon can learn, depending on their potential," AuraSlice explained. AuraGuardian nodded, panting hard. Alkaih's Fury was incredibly powerful, but the drain… it would probably be a last resort for her, for a while.
"I'm going to teach you something new today," Ariel chirped to her daughter as the two flew over the island. Tadewi looked to her.
"Cool! What am I learning?"
"A little move called Peck. It's one of the weaker Flying-type moves, but it's still useful. Now descend with me, and watch me execute it on that tree," she pointed out a relatively large oak tree. Tadewi watched as her mother's beak glowed a bright white color, before she calmly stuck the tree with it, her beak sinking in to her eyes, before she took herself out.
Tadewi cheered.
"Now you try," Ariel commanded. Tadewi nodded and landed on an oak tree branch, trying to focus her energy to her beak. Slowly but surely, it began to glow white, before she struck the tree with her beak. The beak went into the trunk, but deactivated right after, leaving Tadewi's beak trapped.
Ariel struggled to avoid laughing as her daughter struggled with her talons to remove herself from the tree, finally succeeding a little too well, launching herself backwards towards the ground, landing in a heap.
"Oohhh… That hurt," Tadewi groaned, as she tried to shake the stars out of her eyes."
"You'll get it. Now the issue with what you were doing…"
"Okay, I think I can make it a little bigger than this," Ash said, concentrating on the pulsating blue orb. Dits shook his head while Riolu put a paw on Ash's shoulder.
"You shouldn't try to make it any bigger, so you can continue to have control instead of chaos in regards to the Aura. It's already good now, anyways," Riolu explained, making Ash nod. The orb was around the circumference of a normal clock now, and was a little smaller than the initial one that Dits used, although it grew smaller when Ash only used one hand.
"You should test out how powerful that Aura Sphere is on the ground or something," Dits commented.
Preparing his arm, Ash drew back with both hands, before slamming the sphere into the rocky ground, friction causing his arm to vibrate a bit as the two surfaces rubbed against each other. Slowly, the Aura Sphere shrunk as the energy used to create it was exhausted against the ground, and it phased out, leaving a hole in the ground where Ash had hit.
Dits nodded a compliment, before motioning to Dawn, who prepared herself. While she couldn't make an Aura Sphere quite so big as Ash's, she could still make a decent sized one, around the size of a good softball. With this, she grinded the ground a few inches in, before the sphere dissipated.
"Riolu, you can try if you want, but I don't think you need to. No? Okay. Right then, boys and girl. It's taken a while to get you to the point you are with Aura so I'm going to show you something new you can do with Aura that is different from what you're doing now. After all, in a real fight normally your enemy won't be still. There are three ways of attacking with an Aura Sphere. The first is grinding it, for friction damage. The second is blasting with it, releasing all of that power in one burst. The last is shooting it at an enemy, the most common way to do so. Riolu, if you'd kindly demonstrate?" Riolu nodded, before preparing two Aura Sphere's, one in each hand.
With the left sphere, he slammed the ground hard, causing a crater rather than a hole, creating a veil of smoke that hung around for a bit, before he lifted the palm channeling the second Aura Sphere, and shot it at a tree, blowing a hole through the smoke and exploding on impact with said tree, sending branches flying across the forest. Smoke emitted from that, as well.
Ash gulped in anticipation, while Dawn ran through what had happened in her head, trying to wrap her mind around the concept.
Dits smirked, nodding to Riolu, before turning to his two human students.
"So you guys wanna try it on your own a few times, to see if you can get it?" the process looked much easier than it was, and so he really didn't expect either of them to get how to do it right off the bat.
"I'll try," Dawn explained, after Ash translated for her. Dits raised an eyebrow, but nodded for her to do so.
Elegantly, she raised her hands to either side, creating two identical, slightly larger than usual sized sphere's, before narrowing her eyes at the ground. In one fluid movement, she hit the ground, making it practically explode with a ferocity much smaller than the reaction Riolu elicited, before turning on a dime and firing a textbook perfect Aura Sphere… that flew right past her intended target.
"Darn!" she pouted. Meanwhile, the others were busy picking their jaws up off the ground, something that seemed to happen quite often.
"I think we can chalk her up as a 'learner' as well…" Dits thought to himself in awe.
"Alright then, Riolu-who-refuses-to-be-named, I have some things to teach you today that aren't really things that the two Aura users need to know." Said Riolu scowled, before nodding.
"This is mainly about what causes them to have certain aspects of themselves more powerful than others, in the terms of Aura. I realized this while we were showing them how to channel their power, because I turned my Aura Sight on just a little bit. As you've probably heard, humans have Aura powers when something is different in their brain. These differences make humans have powers, with the more physical strength related powers coming from simply having the Aura in your blood.
As we discussed when Dawn executed her combo marvelously, she's a Learner. Which means she probably has more energy concentration in the part of her mind that process learning, and visuals. On the other hand, Ash is well-known in the Pokemon world for being the only person to understand Pokemon. He likely has the energy concentrated in his ears, or in the part of his brain that is lingual. Do you understand all of this?"
"Yes, but why tell me this? Why not them as well?"
"I'm telling this because your Aura Sight is going to slowly emerge. Right now you are if anything, lucky that your Sight isn't adult yet, for if it were, you might've been blinded the moment you met them. Instead, your Sight is growing, as the three of you grow in power together. Maybe you'll be lucky, and your Sight will be able to filter out how blinding their power is one day. Maybe not. If not, then you'll end up walking around blind. I kid you not the number of colors that come off those two…"
"What do you propose I do then?"
"Oh, using big-Poke words now I see. I propose you be careful. There's not much else we can really do, after all. Speaking of which, remind me how your species evolves?"
"… While under control of a human, we evolve through happiness during the day. However, we're supposed to hold off on evolution until our lives are threatened, or we've completed our Aura training."
"And what do you need to do to have completed it?"
"I… do not know. However, when it happens, I shall know for sure."
"I sure as hell hope so, kid."
Ep. 7: Egg Moves
Lion grumbled to himself, punching the wall as hard as he could. That Specter kid was really creepy sometimes. Sure, he was a ghost type, but that didn't give him an excuse to never talk to the others! Heck, from what Zack had told them, DreamCatcher, Specter's parent, was actually really funny! So why was the ghost so elusive?
When he went to his parents with the issue, they simply ignored him. Well, not really. They told him to accept everyone on the team, and to not make decisions without thinking beforehand. Whatever that meant.
He walked outside the cave, looking at one of the many trees close by. Unlike on Route 1, there were no wild Pokemon here, for security purposes. He roared a challenge and ran as fast as he could at the tree, before punching it with all his might. To his infinite shock, he didn't simply punch the tree. Rather, his fist went through the trunk, actually sending shrapnel flying through the forest, a gaping hole in the middle of the oak. He pulled his fist out slowly in awe.
It was coated with a strange, red light.
"Memma! Papa! I learned a new move! Guys, come here!"
He had finally unlocked his first egg move.
Bullet Punch.
Zack sat in front of his uncle, not truly understanding why he looked so irritated. It was cool that everyone already had super-powerful attacks, right?
"Wrong," his uncle startled him, seemingly reading his mind, "it is extremely dangerous for your safety, and the safety of the others to already have such overpowered attacks. There is a reason why you aren't supposed to learn it until you're older: right now with your young ages, it's possible to exhaust yourselves, and quickly as well. I… I suppose nothing can really be done about it now though. If anything, this does give me the opportunity to train you to be more powerful. Now then, what other attacks do you know how to do?"
Zack thought to himself.
"I can smack stuff with my wings. They glow white before I do, is that a good move?"
"Excellent. That attack is called wing attack, and is one of the more useful attacks that you can learn naturally right now. Anything else?"
"…Can you keep a secret, uncle?"
"Damn it all, yes Zack I can. Unless it's life-threatening to you. What, do you have a crush on Tadewi or something?"
"Eww, no of course not! No it's just… I know something really strong, and I didn't really want anyone to know what it was just yet."
"I can appreciate ace-in-the-holes. But they're only useful if your team knows what they are too, and your enemy doesn't."
"Good point. Okay then, aim me at something!"
"That tree, fifty lengths north."
"Gah, why are there so many trees here!?"
"Stop complaining. We're living in the forest, Arceus damn it, now pull this ace out or I will make you pull it out!"
"A-ah! Alright, uncle! Watch and be amazed!" At that declaration, Zack flew up into the air, exploding into blue flames. Venom's eyes widened at this.
With a loud cry sounding not too unlike that of the Phoenix lord Moltres' cry Zack flew across the clearing, leaving a trail of cinders on the ground before impacting with the tree, causing an explosion that completely destroyed everything within the fifty lengths Venom had designated, leaving him with his jaw dropped even further than normal for a Golbat.
But he didn't see Zack anywhere.
A few seconds of fear later, Venom noticed a little blue ball of fur underneath a few branches. Pulling it out, he noticed that poor Zack was shivering, feeling the intense recoil that attack he had just forced himself had inflicted.
"Zack… that move was called Brave Bird. Now I don't want you to ever use that again, unless it's an absolute emergency, do you understand me?"
At the nod, Venom stopped tensing. Venoshock and Brave Bird. Everyday he feared what Tadewi knew even more.
"AuraSlice, where is our young sister? I do not see her at the usual training spot," AuraSentinel asked, lifting himself up a bit with his long tail to see.
"Neither do I, brother. How strange that she is not here. Perhaps she wishes to not train today?"
Truly, she didn't. Instead, young AuraGuardian was coiled peacefully over Ash, who was slightly bemused as to why the young snake-dragon was with him, but didn't mind. He did remove her, however, in order to practice a bit with Dits, but she stayed coiled in the corner.
"Brother! I just realized something we haven't thought of!"
"What have we not thought of, brother?"
"Last night was the full moon! Could it be possible that she is hibernating to prepare herself for evolution?"
"Have you gone mad, brother? Clearly she is simply resting, after all the exhausting training we've put her through!"
"Exhausting? Alkaih's Wrath is the only thing you've taught her!"
"Tadewi? Hey, little feather ball! Wake up, I have something to talk to you about," Tadewi was interrupted from her sweet, berry filled dream to the prodding and noise.
"What…. Is it?" She asked after a yawn. She opened her eyes blearily to see her Memma looking anxious.
"I want to see you try something. Come on, get up."
"Memma, it's so late right now… can't this wait until morning?"
"I won't be able to rest until I confirm it. Just get up, please, or I'll toss you into a river," Ariel sounded too serious with that statement for Tadewi to continue to sleep. "Come on outside. I need you to try something."
Grumbling, the little Pidgey rolled up, before hopping out of the cave the family called home. She stopped in front of her mother, who nodded, as if assuring herself.
"Alright. Now I want you to try something new. Watch me." She lifted her wingtips together, concentrating. Suddenly, Tadewi saw a slight anomaly in the air. For some reason, it was distorted, giving her a changed view.
"What… what is that?"
"This is an attack known as Air Slash. It sends a ball of compressed air at a target, and later on, it's possible to change how sharp it is, and whether it acts more as a cannon or as a blade. Watch," she gestured, before she flung the orb away. It struck the ground with a small blast, leaving smoke curling away from the new crater.
"Cool, but why did you wake me up this late to see it? Can it only be done at night, or something?"
"Of course not. Your body can already do this attack, Tadewi. You just need to call it forth. You know the power all Pokemon have within them, right?" Tadewi nodded. "Channel that power, but instead of trying to bring it to enhance your wings, just pool it out, slowly, together."
Tadewi tried. She felt the energy that all Pokemon felt as smoothly as their heartbeats throughout their lives and brought it out in the manner that her mother instructed, not really expecting to get the move, especially since it seemed much more high level.
"Memma, I don't think I can-" Ariel squawked in alarm, before smacking Tadewi's wings down. Tadewi looked in shock to see deep gashes in the ground in the direction that Ariel struck them.
"While it could use some work… it's definitely there. Congratulations, Tadewi. You can perform Air Slash."
Riolu awoke silently.
Very, very carefully, he walked out of his cave and sleeping area, before emerging outside. Looking around multiple times, he finally decided to go, running with a burst of Aura to both silence his steps and accelerate them.
He skidded to a stop before diving into a bush, having heard something.
Eyes narrowed, and flickering left and right, he didn't even notice the hands coming behind him.
Or so the other Pokemon thought.
With a Quick Attack to escape, Riolu tumbled out into the clearing, paws up and ready to battle. He sent a barrage of Aura Sphere's in the direction he came in, before firing several scattered ones in a circle as well. His eyes darted back and forth once again, looking for the enemy.
To his left, he felt the air shift and charged a Power-up Punch, before slamming it straight into a massive foot, extended by the leg. He just barely managed to deflect it, but he lost his balance as a result, nearly stumbling.
To his right, he heard footsteps rushing forward, and turned to match Kick's punches blow for blow, neither using actual attacks yet, merely simple punches. Kick was going easy on him, he could feel that. Not that he minded if he beat them.
When he faked a stumble, Kick came in slowly, too slowly to capitalize, and ended up getting caught off guard when Riolu instead ducked to the side, crouched to leap.
With a jump straight up, he released a charged blow with his fist into a Sky Uppercut, barely managing to miss the startled Hitmonchan. Despite the fact that he missed, the attack was startling enough to force Kick to backpedal, which is never something to do against another fighting type in a brawl.
Riolu sprung back, crouched once more, but instead of charging at Kick like what was expected, he leapt into the air, pivoting as he did so, with his foot on fire just in time to catch Punch unaware, who thought he was sneaking up on the tiny Riolu. Punch's eyes widened as he was sent flying back, the fiery kick doing quite a bit of damage, before Riolu landed and crouched again, before dashing forward with a Quick Attack, foot already charged up for a High Jump Kick.
Unfortunately, when he made contact Kick actually grabbed his foot instead, before hurling him in a perfect Counter.
He slid a bit before coming to a stop to see the two already facing him.
"Very good, Riolu. Very good."
"Indeed. I don't know about Punch, but I was not expecting a Sky Uppercut, Blaze Kick, as well as a High Jump Kick to boot. Who were your parents?" Riolu sighed, allowing his Aura to calm down from 'battle mode'.
"My mother was a Lucario as well. My father was a Blaziken."
"I guessed as much," Punch nodded.
"Regardless, great battle. I daresay your pure fighting prowess can already nearly match our own, though to be fair we toned down our power quite a bit." He nodded.
"I inferred so. Could you hold back less next time please? I appreciate you not wanting to harm me, but I can take care of myself." The two adults grinned.
"Don't worry, we were planning to do so already. Anyways, we'd better get back to patrolling the island. Get some rest, Riolu. You've done really well. Is there any chance you'd be willing to train our son a bit?"
"Permission to speak freely…?"
"Go for it."
"Your son is a bit too… energetic, for me."
"Haha, it's fine. then Well, see you later."
"You are ready."
"What are we ready for?"
"You are ready to fight me. Duh."
"What? Fight you?"
"Yes, Ash. You and Dawn are going to fight me now. I'll only use Aura attacks for the fight."
"W-wait, but we can't fight! We're not Pokemon!"
"I really doubt a feral Arcanine hungry for meat will care if he finds you while you're out in the real world! Now fight me!"
"Ugh…" Ash grumbled, as he translated everything to a frowning Dawn. The two as close as ever, to the point where Dawn could actually tell when he was feeling down for some reason, but they weren't ready to fight Dits of all beings.
"Stop being such wimps and fight me already. I didn't train you in the ways of Aura for so damn long for you to just wimp out of a challenge."
"I'm not a wimp, and neither is Dawn. But, we don't want to fight you, Dits! Why can't you see that?"
Just as the transformed Lucario was about to respond, he had to dive left to avoid an Aura Sphere that would've smashed straight into his head. Ash turned around.
"Er… Dawn? You don't want to fight, right?" Dawn smiled sweetly, hands behind her back. Then she brought her hands out, armed with an Aura Sphere in each.
"Of course I want to. It'll be fun!" Ash sighed, before matching Dawn's smile.
"Okay then! Let's do it!" The two humans eyed the pseudo-Lucario for a few moments, before Ash rushed forward, two spheres forming as he ran. Dits grinned, matching him. As they rushed towards each other, Ash suddenly weaved right, firing a sphere at Dits, which missed, hitting the ground and causing smoke to appear.
Taking the chance, Dawn closed one eye before firing both spheres at Dits, spaced evenly to make escaping unscathed difficult. All while Ash rushed forward, Aura Sphere in hand, ready to attack.
Dits dodged the first Aura Sphere sent at him by Dawn, before getting grazed by the second. He then formed two of his own, firing one at Dawn and using one to grind against Ash's own remaining sphere, Dawn barely avoiding the projectile.
Ash formed another sphere, before slamming it into Dits' single one also, nearly being pushed back with the amount of force Dits was using. Dits then formed another sphere in time to counter the two that Dawn tried to attack him with, leaving him semi-trapped, as well as the two humans.
Deciding that Dawn was probably more of a threat, Dits began to force more power into the sphere, pressing her until he managed to make a small blast that sent her backwards.
He then turned to address Ash, only to feel an Aura Sphere explode against his shoulder. Distracted, his other sphere fizzled out against Ash, and just as he was about to get hit with two more spheres, he sighed, smashing his foot into the ground, blue flames trailing it, sending Ash back, before raising his paws up to create a barrier that blocked that two new spheres that Dawn shot at him.
"Alright, alright! I give."
"You cheated, Dits. I thought you said Aura attacks only?"
"I did only use Aura attacks, Ash. Those last two were just Aura attacks I haven't taught you two just yet. Listen, come here for a new lecture.
You didn't really think that all you could do with Aura was compress it into a sphere and fire it, right? There's so many other things you can do with it in a fight. For example, you can both heal Pokemon. You can also create Aura Shield's with it. You can also enhance your physical strength with it, as you just saw."
"So are you going to teach us those now?" Dawn asked. Dits nodded.
"It's time for the next part of your training, kids."
Dawn and Ash sat next to each other, watching as Lion trained with Punch and Kick.
"Hey Ash?" Dawn asked suddenly. The wind was pleasant, the sun shining. It was a nice day.
"Yeah Dawn?" Ash was a bit immersed in the training the fighting family was doing.
"I… I miss my mommy and daddy…" Ash turned to her, and the two stared for a bit, Dawn's blue eyes teary and Ash's brown eyes unreadable. Before he reached out and hugged her close.
"We'll find them some day, Dawn." At that declaration, Ariel sighed from her watching point.
If only we could bring her back sooner… Ariel thought.
"Well then… this is… surprising, to say the least." Ariel sighed, looking at the note written in PokePrint.
"What gave you that notion?" Venom replied sarcastically. Ariel smacked him gently.
"So they want to visit us? I mean sure, we used to be second-in-command at the Flying Squadron, but we've both retired. So why…?
Why would those two want to come visit?"
So I'm a pretty bad writer, and I don't ever update. That's likely not going to change.
Regardless, I hope you all have had a great few months, especially if you went back to school (like me).
Oh and if you couldn't tell, the intro was the intro from Pokemon Firered.
This is the last chapter before a time-skip, so be prepared for much more epicness coming from the group.
Something I'd just like to address right now. Yes, I am aware of the fact that Pidgey does not learn the move Peck. I'm taking some creative license on doing that, because think about it:
Why the eff should it not have the move Peck? It's not like I'm giving it Aeroblast or something (though I was tempted) and honestly, Peck as a move actually makes sense. More sense, in fact, than Goldeen having it. I remind you: a fish has Peck. They classify it as prodding with something so… Yeah, that still doesn't mean it should be called 'Peck', it should be 'Prod' or something, yeesh.
Besides, I've done a crap-load of research as is to make this as game-realistic as possible. Effing egg moves and breeding… I've even sculpted out all of the moves the group can possible learn.
Oh, and if you like Specter, he'll be back next chappy, don't worry.
Until then, I'm signing off,
MG TLE
DBJ JY