The Mystery of Aura
Chapter Seven – One Problem After Another

Ash stared at the crystalline flower in his hands. Of course something strange had to happen with it. At least this strange thing wouldn't hurt anyone. That was really the only thing that mattered. Not that he really understood what was happening anyway.

"What's a time flower?" Brock asked, voicing the question they were all wondering.

"Legend has it that Sir Aaron could use it to look back into the past," Kidd said, shaking her head with amazement. "I never actually thought it was real."

"I wouldn't believe it if I didn't see it," May said.

"How does it work?" Max wondered, clearly fascinated by this discovery.

"Well, if the legend's true, it responds to someone who can use aura like Sir Aaron and Ash can," Kidd explained. "That was a small glimpse into the past."

"That's amazing," Misty said as she came up to Ash's side and touched the flower. "I wonder if there are more around, and what we could see." She leaned a bit on him to look closely at the flower. Ash tensed up a little bit from the close proximity before calming down a bit. He knew it was just Misty, but pretty much everything was making him a bit jittery at the moment.

Ash knelt back down, wincing a little bit as his injured leg pressed against the ground again. He made sure that the flower was going to stay put and was glad to see that it seemed stable once all of the dirt was filled in.

"It gets dark pretty quickly here, doesn't it?" Kidd asked as she turned her attention up at the darkening sky. "We can probably get a little closer to the tree before we need to stop for the night, but only if we get going now." She turned around to look at the always present but silent Lucario. "You remember the way we're going?"

"Yes," he answered with a nod. "We should be able to get through that way."

"Okay, let's get going," the young woman said, turning back and heading towards her jeep.

Brock helped Ash to his feet, frowning a little as the younger boy stumbled a bit. "Is your leg okay?"

"Yeah, I've had worse," Ash replied, sounding glum again. "I'm just worried about Pikachu. I can't remember the last time we were apart for so long."

Clapping a hand on his shoulder, Brock said, "We'll get him back. You wait and see. He'll be fine."

Ash smiled weakly and started walking back to the jeep where Max and May were already climbing in.

"What's wrong with his leg?" Misty asked Brock with a frown as she watched him limp slightly.

"Oh, he hurt it when he fell. It's not bad," Brock assured her, knowing how worried she could get, even though she would vehemently deny it. "Come on. We got a bumpy drive ahead."

"I can hardly contain my joy," she quipped sarcastically as she followed him towards the vehicle.

The sky was a deep blue with glinting stars when they finally decided to pull over to eat. Brock was quick to delegate duties to everyone so that they could get their campfire set up as quickly as possible. Once the food was ready, the group of six, plus Bonsly, sat around the campfire eating, with Lucario sitting away from them a bit.

"Hey Ash, I have to wonder, was Pikachu your first Pokemon?" Kidd asked suddenly, her aqua eyes looking at him with interest. "You guys seem really close."

Ash smiled at her words and said, "Yeah, he was. Pikachu's been with me through everything. Believe it or not, we didn't always get along."

"Really?" Kidd asked, sounding honestly surprised about that.

Ash chuckled and said, "I'm pretty sure Pikachu despised me from the moment he saw me. See, I'm from Pallet Town, and the three trainers who are chosen to leave from our town every year had a choice between Charmander, Squirtle, and Bulbasaur. My year, there were four of us. I slept in late. Professor Oak had a fourth Pokemon, but he was still a bit reluctant to give him to me. Pikachu was a little…hostile at first. I hugged him, he shocked me. Then refused to go in his pokeball. That's ancient history now."

"So when did things change?" Kidd asked.

"Yeah, Ash," May agreed.

"How did you and Pikachu get to be such good friends when he didn't want anything to do with you?" Max wondered.

Smiling, Ash's dark eyes looked up at the sky, and he seemed to get lost in thought for a few minutes. Misty, who was sitting to his right, nudged him, and playfully said, "Well, it definitely wasn't by putting on rubber gloves and dragging him around by a clothesline, right?"

Ash sighed and said, "I never should have told you that."

"You actually did that?" May asked, sounding both amused and horrified.

"Hey, he was a little jerk back then," Ash said with a shrug. "Besides, we became friends on that first day."

"After he got a flock of Spearow angry at him," Misty spoke up again.

"Hey, stop telling my story." He waved his hands at her. "Yes, after I got a flock of Spearow angry at me. They kind of…attacked us. I didn't want them to hurt Pikachu, so I was going to take the attack for him, but then he came to my rescue, even though he ended up hurt and exhausted in the end. We both were. At that moment though, I knew I could count on him, and he knew the same thing about me."

"Wow, that's a great story Ash," May said with a genuine smile on her face.

"He wasn't the only friend I met that day who hated me at first either," Ash said, a silly grin appearing on his face.

"You caught another Pokemon on your first day?" Max asked. "Which one?"

"I didn't catch a Pokemon. Someone else caught me, right Mist?"

She was a bit surprised that he mentioned meeting her the same day. They were talking about Pikachu, not her. The stories did tie together though, so it made sense in a way. Sensing curious eyes on her, she focused her gaze on her raven-haired friend, narrowing her eyes slightly as she did. "Who could ever forget the day they fished an arrogant, snarky, little brat with an injured Pokemon out of a river?" She held up her hand, pointing at him, though they were sitting fairly close already. "Especially when he steals and demolishes my bike?"

It wasn't Ash who protested the sentence, but Brock. The groan that came out of his mouth made the two look around at him, as he said, "Please, I beg you, no more bike arguments. You got your bike back, Misty."

"From Nurse Joy, not Destructo here."

"Destr—" Ash started, and just from his tone of voice, Brock knew an argument was going to start.

He shook his head and cut the younger boy off. "No. Besides, Misty, you admitted later on that you didn't care about the bike anymore to both of us. You would have lent him that bike to get Pikachu to the Pokemon Center no matter what."

She couldn't deny that. If Ash asked her instead of just grabbing her bike and going, she probably would have insisted that he use it. That wasn't the point though. She was about to speak up when a rather angry voice interrupted her thought.

"You humans are all alike!" Lucario spat out as he stood up. "You can't be trusted."

At first, Ash was confused about where this outburst came from, but then the words actually sunk in his head. With narrowed eyes, he jumped up, moving after the Pokemon quickly. "Hey, wait a second!" He ran around, cutting off Lucario so that they were face to face. "What was that for? We were talking about making friends, and you just flip a sh-crap." He could hear his mother in his head telling him to wash his mouth out with soap. He really needed to stop listening to those older Pokemon trainers who didn't have good attitudes about losing.

"You purposely ignore your gift that could help people and pokemon. You said yourself how cruel you were to that Pokemon. You're selfish and as cold-hearted as any human, maybe even more. You would turn your back on this Pikachu if you had to. If he wasn't beneficial to you."

Many things could be said about Ash Ketchum, but cold-hearted wasn't one of them. He was an emotional, open person, but that came with a downside too, because when Ash got truly angry (Something that rarely happened. He would be the first one to argue, but he was never truly in a rage when he did), he was unable to hold back his rage. It was one of the ways Misty came to realize that he was never truly angry with her. Maybe annoyed and frustrated, but when he was mad, Ash was more likely to lash out at others either verbally or physically.

The last time he felt this much anger towards a Pokemon was a blurred memory half-hidden in his mind, though he was pretty sure that he took a swing at Mewtwo with pretty bad consequences for himself. He never even got this angry at Charizard when he didn't listen, not even when it cost him the battle against Ritchie in the Indigo League. His hand was shaking as it balled into a fist, and he snapped back at Lucario, "I would never, ever abandon Pikachu!"

Turning his nose up at Ash, Lucario said, "Your words mean nothing. Coward."

Misty and Brock both knew what was coming before it happened, and they both tensed up as Ash watched the retreating Lucario, his temper boiling. "How do we know Sir Aaron really abandoned the Queen like you say? Maybe you ran out on them? Yeah, that's probably it. You up and left when things got hard. Just like you're running away from me now!"

"What did you say?" Lucario snapped as he spun around to face Ash, anger dripping from every audible thought.

"This isn't helping, Ash," May scolded him, but Misty put a hand on her shoulder, shaking her head at the younger girl. She of all people knew how quickly Ash's temper could be transferred from one person to another when he was angry. He would never intentionally hurt a friend, and he would never, ever hit a friend, but that didn't mean he wouldn't say things he didn't mean when he was angry. Misty just prayed that Lucario didn't do anything to push his anger farther.

"How do you know Pikachu didn't run off and desert you?" Lucario asked him before turning to walk away again. "Because it didn't want a coward like you as a Master."

"Take that back!" Ash roared as his temper finally snapped. Brock tried to grab him, but Ash was too quick as he shot after Lucario, tackling it.

Ash didn't really know what he was doing, like someone else was in control of his actions. He wasn't even aware that he rolled down a steep, rocky hill with Lucario, crashing into the stream below. They were fighting, throwing punches at one another. He didn't even see the glow starting to appear on his hand, but Lucario did.

Lucario grabbed Ash, and in a panicked motion, forced him under the water. There'd be less of a chance of someone getting hurt if he lost control of his aura under the water. Ash's aura was far more powerful than the boy seemed to realize, and Lucario didn't want to take any chances with the power lashing out. There were so many crystals around them that would conduct the power that everyone would be hurt. He only intended to keep Ash under the water briefly, keeping a close eye on his air.

Ash didn't notice the aura at all, but it didn't matter, since his panic made it fade as quickly as it came.

That wasn't what anyone else saw though. From where Misty was standing, it looked like Lucario was holding Ash under the water to drown him.

"What are you doing?" she shrieked, skidding down the hill and rushing into the water. Lucario wasn't expecting her, so she was able to push him off Ash without much trouble, causing the Pokemon to stumble back in the water. She helped pull him up, instantly feeling relieved to see that he was conscious and coughing up the water he inhaled. Helping to keep him steady, her sea green eyes narrowed at Lucario as she snapped, "And you call Ash a coward when you just tried to drown him?"

Her temper was notoriously worse than Ash's, though only Brock knew that. She was quicker to snap than he was, but she was just as likely to launch herself at Lucario as the raven-haired boy had. It was an unfortunate day for Brock when he realized that one of their common personality traits was their tempers. He still cringed at the memory.

Ash took several deep breathes, letting himself lean a little bit on Misty. He was having a spectacular week in his mind. He finds out his has some freaky powers he doesn't really want, his first Pokemon and best friend was missing, he hurt his leg, and now his lungs and throat ached because a Pokemon tried to drown him.

Lucario just looked at them for a moment before leaping high out of the water and landing on the hill they just came from. Ash's dark eyes strayed on Lucario for a moment with both anger and confusion. Sure, he swung first and said some pretty hateful things, but was that a reason for Lucario to try and drown him? His eyes turned down, glancing at the water when he caught sight of his own hand. It was clenched tightly, a faint, pale blue light surrounding it. He let out a small gasp and unclenched his hand, all anger for Lucario holding him under the water leaving. He was losing control, and Lucario saw that and tried to help in a way. Not the best way, but a way. As soon at the thought entered his mind, he knew it was true.

That aside, he was not going to forgive Lucario for what he said about Pikachu, a spike of anger going through him at the thought. His anger was fueling his aura, and he was going to hurt someone, he just knew it. That thought alone was able to dim his anger a bit.

Ash quickly pushed away from Misty, taking a few steps away from her in the water. He faced away from everyone else, clenching his eyes shut with frustration. He opened his eyes a moment later, focusing on the Tree of Beginning. Without saying anything to anyone else, he turned again, making his way back up the steep slope, everyone else following him a moment later.

Misty silently took a towel out of her bag and held it out to Ash, who seemed to take a moment to realize it was in front of him. He shot her a weak grin that didn't last long, pushing the towel to dry off his hair as he walked around the jeep.

Misty's green eyes silently turned to meet Brock's, and he nodded towards her. They were both in silent agreement to let him cool off for a moment. Unfortunately, that agreement wasn't out loud, so May had no way to know about it.

The younger girl followed Ash, planting her hands on her hips when she came up behind him, and said, "That was completely uncalled for."

"He shouldn't have said those things about Pikachu," Ash grumbled, rapidly dragging the towel across his dark hair.

"You said some pretty horrible things to Lucario too," she said sternly, sounding like she was years older than him instead of younger.

Ash hesitated, knowing that her words were true, not quite sure what to say about it. He wasn't even sure if he wanted to acknowledge her at all. Luckily, he didn't have to, since he had a red-haired guardian with him that day.

"Lucario didn't have to try and drown him, no matter what he said," Misty said as she appeared by the two. Though May had no way of knowing that she and Brock agreed not to confront Ash, she was still a bit annoyed that the girl did anyway and was slightly angry that May seemed to be lumping all the blame on Ash. Normally, Misty would have agreed with her, but she tended to side with her dense friend a little more after he was injured badly, or almost injured, so she was giving him a little more leeway than normal.

For what it was worth, May didn't seem to have much to say about that either.

"It's okay, Misty," Ash spoke up finally, looking up at the dark sky. He passed her back her towel, keeping his eyes locked onto the ground as he made his way to the jeep.

"Ash?" she called out, sending him a confused look.

"Lucario wasn't trying to drown me; he was trying to protect all of you."

"From what?" Brock asked as he came around the vehicle, Kidd a few paces behind him.

"From me," Ash answered faintly while shaking his head. "This place is…it's doing weird things to me, and I can't control it."

"You mean your aura," Misty said.

Ash nodded. "I just…when I'm angry I can't stop it and…" He trailed off when another wave of anger and frustration rushed over him, and, for a split second, there was a visible glow just above his hand, like a little sphere that vanished. Silence fell through the area as he clenched his fist, a bit surprised by what just happened.

Finally, after what seemed like eternal silence, Ash said, "I'm going to go the rest of the way alone."

Max watched his sister go to confront Ash about his fight with Lucario, and he took the opportunity to slip away. He didn't really have strong feelings about the fight one way or another. It took two to fight like that, and both sides were guilty in some ways. He wasn't going to let that bother him, because he of all people knew that wishing for something (especially changing time) didn't always help. There were only a few things in life that could make a wish come true, and nothing that would be helping them now.

So instead, he set off in search of Lucario. Max was sure that the Pokemon had a reason for his actions, and he wanted to show that at least one of them wasn't going to be hostile to him, like he assumed both Ash and Misty would be.

With his treasure in hand, Max scoured the area around the camp, sure that Lucario wouldn't have wandered off too far. He was proven correct when he found the Pokemon leaning against a tree, staring up at the night sky.

With a smile on his face, Max walked over to Lucario, who glanced over at him silently. He pulled his gift from behind his back and said, "I brought you some chocolate to help cheer you up." Lucario made a curious sound and turned his attention completely to him, which Max took as an encouraging sign. He snapped the chocolate bar, holding a piece out to the Pokemon. "Have you ever tried chocolate?"

"Never," Lucario answered as he took the sweet from his hand, sniffing at it.

"You're going to love it then," Max said happily. "Not only does it make you feel better, but it tastes yummy too." To show that there was nothing wrong with the chocolate, he snapped off a piece for himself and ate it.

Lucario looked down at his own piece and took a bite of him. Max watched, his grin spreading when he saw Lucario smile at the taste, letting out a satisfied sound.

"See?" Max said happily. "Isn't it great?"

Lucario looked down at him again before asking, "Is he alright?"

"Ash? Yeah, he'll be fine. He bounces back pretty quick," Max answered with a nod. "You know, I've never met a trainer like him before."

"What do you mean?"

"I always admired people who learned the rules of battling, who formulated plans based off of type advantages and strengths, and Ash does do that sometimes, but he does something that I never really thought about. He cares for each and every one of his Pokemon like they're his friends. They're not his slaves or servants or even his students; they're his equals. He told me once that they help him as much as he helps them, maybe even more. I don't agree with what Ash said to you; it was mean, but you're wrong about him too," Max spoke quickly, wanting to get everything out before he was interrupted. "He's pretty forgiving too, so don't worry about coming back. I'd avoid Misty though. I better get back before May notices I'm gone. I hope you come back too."

As he walked away, Max felt Lucario's eyes on him, and he was positive that he'd done the right thing by confronting the Pokemon.

"Give it back, Misty!"

"For the hundredth time, no!"

"Give it back!"

"No!"

The scene that Max walked back into was a curious one. Misty was holding Ash's backpack as far away from him as she could with one hand, using her other one to pushing him away as he tried to grab it. They were glaring at one another hotly, and he just knew that it was a bad fight in the making.

"What's going on?" Max asked Kidd curiously.

"Lucario kept Ash under the water not to drown him but to disperse his out of control aura, which is flaring up more the closer with get to the Tree of Beginning. He's worried that he's going to hurt someone and insists on going the rest of the way alone, but Misty's having none of that, and we're in a stalemate now," she explained quickly.

Max blinked. "Oh. Okay."

"That's enough from both of you!" Brock finally snapped, storming towards the two. He grabbed Ash's bag and said, "You are not going anywhere alone."

"What?" Ash stared at Brock with wide eyes. "I thought you'd agree with me!"

"Why would I do that?" the eldest boy honestly seemed confused about that.

"Because I could hurt someone! You always look out for everyone, especially the youngest ones, so you should be telling me to go away for May and Max at least. I'd know; I was the youngest for three years," Ash said quickly, folding his arms across his chest.

Brock couldn't deny that. He'd always seen his traveling companions as younger brothers and sisters, and like his own, he always felt compelled to help them. He shook his head and said, "That may be true, but what do you plan on doing? You hurt your leg, and I bet after that scuffle, it's killing you right now. There's no way you're walking to the Tree of Beginning, and you don't have a flying type big enough to get you there. Besides, what if you hurt yourself again?"

"I won't."

"Except you will!" Misty snapped at him, taking a step towards him with narrowed eyes. "You always do. Every time you go off on your own you get into some sort of trouble. Every time! Then I have to—to swim through stormy, ice cold water to stop you from drowning, and the only reason I even got there in time was because Pikachu was holding you above water, and he's not here now, so what if something does happen?! Huh? You need us to come with you! Besides, we've come this far, to hell we're turning back!"

Silence fell across all of them, and Ash looked away from her. Brock aside, no one else knew what they were talking about, and even he only had part of the story. It seemed to be a strong enough one to get through to him though. He went back to the jeep and threw Ash's bag back in, nodding to Kidd.

"We should get a bit of rest," Kidd said to them all, her voice stern. She pointed up at the sky, where clouds were beginning to form again. "It may rain, so we'll all just stay inside, if that's okay with everyone."

They all agreed, piling back into the jeep. May and Max originally were going to separate Ash and Misty again, but a quick glare from the redhead made them change their minds. Misty wanted to be beside him to stop him from running off at night.

Piling into the car, they all pulled blankets around them, and surprisingly, they were all able to fall asleep.

Sky