Chapter's a bit short, but there's a reason. See bottom A/N for details.
Thanks to Adol25 for pointing out that Ash's lack of a wand would lead to... other assumptions being made about him.
With the conclusion of Ash's duel with Guiche, the Pokemon trainer thought he would be immediately dragged into the nearest corner to receive a tongue lashing from Louise. To his surprise, Louise quietly led him up to her room. She kept an iron grip on his arm, but didn't speak a word during the entire walk. Silence was better than yelling, but that just made Ash wonder if Louise was building her words like steam in a pressure cooker, ready to violently burst once at a moment's notice.
The students they passed stared at the duo but made no move to stop them or strike up a conversation. Unlike the scornful looks the students shot Louise in the past, they now looked in awe and confusion, especially towards her familiar. Word traveled fast in the academy. Since the duel was clearly visible from some windows, even students of other years had witnessed it. It was only a matter of time before every student in the academy learned of what had occurred.
Once the two finally reached Louise's room and the girl shut the door, Ash readied himself for Louise's tirade. To his surprise, when the young mage spoke, her voice was perfectly level.
"Are you hurt?"
Caught off guard by the kind question, Ash fumbled in response, "Yeah, I mean, only a little. Probably a few bruises at worst, nothing I haven't had before."
"Take off your clothes."
The initial question had lowered Ash's defenses, but the following order smashed a gaping hole into Ash's composure. "I can't do that!" he exclaimed, jumping away from Louise. "I don't know if you realized, but I'm a guy, and you're a girl. We can't just be taking off clothes in front of each other!"
Louise's was unmoved by Ash's bashful display. "How else am I going to make sure you're uninjured?" she asked firmly. "Stupid boys like you will say you're fine even if you break a few ribs, just because you want to sound tough."
"Oh." Ash felt a little foolish. He should have guessed Louise was more sensible than that. "Personal experience?" he asked as he shed his jacket and began pulling his shirt over his head.
"Not exactly," Louise confessed. "My childhood playmate was a girl, and I only interacted with other children in official gatherings."
Ash nodded his head. "That explains a lot."
Louise's expression soured as her face flushed in embarrassment and indignation. "Sh-shut up! And why did you stop?"
Ash stared at her in all of his shirtless glory. Louise couldn't help but notice that despite his youthful appearance, Ash's body was in the peak of physical condition. His physique was slightly on the lean side, but the solid muscles under his skin were clear to anyone who took a close look. Like she was.
"You want me to take my pants off too?" Ash asked, trying to understand her question.
Louise sent him a deadpan look that clearly conveyed her answer. With a sigh, Ash pulled off his pants as well and threw them to the rest of his clothes. While he'd been in front of girls with roughly as much on—he'd been on a stage in nothing but a loincloth before—being in a girl's room wearing nothing but his underwear felt very uncomfortable. The way Louise examined every inch of his body did not help settle his nerves in the slightest.
Ash didn't put particular care into building his body for appearances, but his body was clear reflection of his lifestyle. His skin marred with light scratches too faint to even be called scars. They were unnoticeable from a distance, but on close inspection they were an indicator of someone who was used to rough environments. His muscles were on the leaner side but had clear definition.
Louise had Ash move his arms and legs to prove that he had no crippling injuries. Not only did he show how fine he was, but he also showed how fine his muscles were. Louise narrowed her eyes. While she wasn't like Kirche, chasing after boys for whatever reason under the sun, she knew the Germanian's tastes. If Kirche realized that Ash was as fit as a knight, it didn't matter how young he was. The harlot would try to steal Louise's familiar.
Louise met Ash's eyes. "You're not allowed to go around without a shirt," she ordered gravely.
"I wouldn't…?" Ash answered as he looked at her questioningly.
"And wear long pants too," Louise added.
"I already do?"
"A long shirt would help too… wear one when we go out."
Ash pointed to his clothes that were hanging off a bedpost. "I don't own one," he reminded her.
"Hmm… I suppose we'll have to go shopping when I have the time."
"Why are you suddenly interested in my clothes?" Ash finally asked.
Louise gave him a solemn look. "It's nothing you should concern yourself with," she said with certainty.
Resuming her examination, she observed that Ash's arms and legs weren't even bruised, so she moved onto his hands. The hand with the runes looked normal, but his right hand was red around the knuckles. She poked his fingers. Ash let out a small hiss.
Louise let a triumphant grin spread across her face. "I knew you couldn't have felt nothing from that fight!"
"Okay, you win, I did get a little battered," Ash admitted with an exasperated sigh. "Punching a walking set of armor wasn't my smartest idea."
"But you destroyed them easily with your…" Louise's voice trailed off. She had no idea what Ash had used to get stronger and faster.
"Aura," Ash supplied. "At least, at first was only Aura." He held up his left hand, examining the markings. "Then these kicked in and made my Aura better."
"Any other injuries?"
Ash looked at Louise in surprise. Her rosy eyes shone with overwhelming curiosity, but the rest of her face was schooled into a look of professional disinterest. "I thought you would grill me right off the bat," he admitted.
"Oh, I'm definitely going to grill you," Louise promised. Her tone of voice slightly shifted to one Ash was quickly learning to be her "rage mode". There was that extra flavor of sizzling icy chill that made every word that passed her lips sound like a threat. "But first, I need to make sure you're not going to die on me. Any. Other. Injuries?"
"I'm a bit sore where that Valkyrie hit me in the chest," Ash quickly responded. "And I'm tired, but that's probably due to my Aura and stuff."
"Right." Louise's curiosity burned, but she forced herself to reign it in just a little bit longer. "Here's where you got hit, right?" She poked a spot in Ash's chest. It wasn't red like his hand, or even bruised despite the blow, but by the wince Ash made, she had remembered the injured spot correctly. Louise prodded around the area with unnecessary fervor, ignoring Ash's pained groans. "I'm surprised it hasn't got a mark on it. It doesn't feel broken, so it's probably not serious."
"Are you sure?" Ash asked with a grimace. "It feels painful."
"You're not coughing up blood and your body looks fine," said Louise. "If it was really serious, you would have mentioned it in the first place."
"Point taken," Ash conceded.
Inspection concluded, Louise pulled forward one of the chairs in the room and sat down, motioning for Ash to sit on the floor. He did so awkwardly, wondering if he would be able to put on his pants now, but not willing to risk Louise's ire and ask.
"You fought Guiche, one of the strongest students in our year, and managed to decimate all of his Valkyries," Louise began. She spoke with a light, conversational tone, but there was something in her voice that made Ash wary. "Not only did you beat him, but you did it soundly. You're not even seriously injured. An academy healer would be able to heal you within seconds."
Seeing Louise pause, Ash ventured to ask, "Is that where we'll be going next?"
Ash immediately knew he had made the wrong choice when a vindictive grin appeared on Louise's face. "No. We'll be going there after you answer all of my questions. And if I'm not satisfied, you will stay in this room until I see fit to release you. Understand?"
"Can I at least take a nap first?" Ash asked. "The fight took a lot out of me." He was being honest. He felt like he could sleep away the rest of the day.
"Do. You. Un-der-stand?"
"Yes!" At this point Ash could practically see a malignant aura radiating from Louise. She could tell him to jump out the window and he would do gladly, if only to get away from her.
"First!" Drawing a pen and notepad from who knows where, she began her questioning session. "What happened that match?"
"As in?"
Louise gave an irritable growl. "You were glowing with blue fire and began moving like you were enhanced by a wind mage!" she shouted.
"That was my Aura."
"You keep saying 'Aura', but what does that mean?" Louise pressed. "Is it one of your strange words like Pokemon?"
"It might be a strange word to you, I don't know how the translation spell works," Ash replied with a shrug. "But Aura is basically the life force of everything. Living creatures have a very noticeable amount, but trees, water, and even rocks have at least a little bit of aura in them."
"And how do you know how much Aura is in something?"
"I take a look and see," Ash replied.
"But I can't see your Aura anymore," Louise said. "Where did it go? How come I've never seen it before?"
The questions lit up the lightbulb in Ash's fatigued mind. "Oh, I forgot to mention. Aura can normally only be seen by people who can sense Aura, like me. Otherwise, you can only see it when it's being used."
"And how come you can sense Aura?" Louise asked suspiciously.
"Because I learned how to; a Lucario showed me."
"Leu-carrayo?"
Ash winced at Louise's butchered pronunciation. "Is that what it sounds like to you? No wonder you can't understand me sometimes," he said with a shake of his head. "Lucario is a Pokemon that are known to be one of the best users of Aura. This one in particular was the companion and pupil Sir Aaron, a legendary Aura Guardian."
Seeing Louise frown at the new term, Ash quickly explained. "An Aura Guardian is someone who's learned how to sense and manipulate their Aura. They can use Aura to see without their eyes, communicate telepathically, or even use it for attacks. There are other uses too, but that's all I can remember from the top of my head."
Louise accepted his limited explanation with a nod. "And what type of magic is it?" she asked. "Wind Magic?"
Ash shook his head. "It's not magic," he said. "And didn't you say I couldn't learn magic?"
"That was before I knew you could shatter golems like clay pots and move faster than any non-wind mage," Louise shot back. "Your Aura has to be magic, there's no way you could have done all that otherwise."
"I don't even know what you consider to be magic!" Ash said, raising his arms in the air. "You have so few types, and you even admitted that your magic doesn't even count as one of them!"
"You really don't know anything," Louise huffed. Ash noticed a particular lack of bite to her words. The pinkette sounded more embarrassed than snappy. "Fine. I'll start with the basics." She cleared her throat and began her lecture, sounding every bit like a young teacher.
"There are four main elements: Fire, Earth, Water, and Wind. The fifth, Void, was only usable by the Founder, and no one else can utilize his element. As I told you before, a mage's class is determined by how many elements they can combine into one spell, regardless of whether the mage is layering the same element or mixing different ones. All mages have the ability to use any of the four elements, but it takes training and certain bloodlines to reach a high level of proficiency in different elements.
"Let's take Guiche, who—like most students in the Academy—is a dot class earth mage, as an example. He has a special affinity for golems, which is why they are almost as strong as a line mage's, but aside from that, he can only use basic earth spells. While he could also fill a cup with water, create a gust of wind, or light a candle if he applied himself, he would need a lot more training to use a proper dot spell of another element. For example, Listening and Whisper spells are dot class wind spells commonly used by wind mages trying to eavesdrop or avoid being overheard. While Guiche could use those spells to prey on unsuspecting underclassmen, he lacks the ability to do so." Louise paused, seeing Ash raise his hand like a student in class. "Yes?"
"Do you give different names for elements that are mixed?" Ash asked.
"Sometimes," Louise replied. "Tabitha, the blue-haired girl with the dragon, is a triangle class wind mage, but she's more specifically an ice mage. I believe her rank comes from using two layers of wind and one of water. She's doesn't look like much, but she's probably the strongest student in our year, with that Germanian cow coming up behind her.
"Cow?"
Incorrectly assuming Ash was questioning the nickname instead of the word itself, Louise replied, "Kirche von Zerbst. Our families have been rivals for years. She takes every opportunity to taunt me. So what, she's a triangle class fire mage and all my spells blow up? At least I don't have ridiculous cow udders and act like a common whore! That barbaric harlot is a disgrace to the very idea of nobility!"
Ash blinked as Louise reached the peak of her rant before deflating. "Any other questions about magic?" Louise asked, her calm demeanor partially restored.
"A few," Ash admitted. And many more about Louise's language, but the mage didn't need to know that yet. "How common is magic?" Ash asked.
This question made Louise frown for a half second before she returned to a neutral expression. "Every noble can—should—be able to use magic," Louise replied, a bit of sullenness leaking into her voice. "We trace our ancestry to the Founder, who granted magic, and with it, the power to rule."
"Magic gives you powers that make you better leaders?" Ash asked in astonishment. "That's amazing!" And convenient.
"It doesn't work like that," Louise corrected with a shake of her head. "Our parents and mentors teach us to be leaders, if we choose to take such a position. Some mages serve as knights or researchers, but magic is the proof that we can trace our ancestry to the Founder. This is why nobility rule over the peasants. The Founder gifted us with power, so it is our duty to rule over the masses who lack his blessings!"
Ash frowned when he heard this. "So, everyone in higher power is there just because they have magic?"
"Magic is the reason we have power over the people," Louise said firmly. "This is the structure the Founder set for us. Only in barbarian countries like Germania do they let anyone become a noble. I've heard some families buy their way into nobility. Ridiculous!"
"Why is that so crazy?" Ash challenged. "Nobility are supposed to be rich leaders anyway, so it's not like anything changes."
"But they don't have magic!" Louise insisted.
"Who cares about that?"
"Everyone!"
Ash could only sigh. "Never mind," he said dismissively. Ash could tell by the insistence in Louise's voice that he was going to get nowhere with this. Class systems were fixed back in those days, or these days, as he found himself. Though, Ash didn't remember hearing about any of this in Kalos's history. Maybe he should have spent more time visiting museums?
"Are you paying attention?"
"Yes!" Ash immediately replied. "Nobles rule because you have magic, got it." That didn't mean he had to like it.
"We have magic," Louise corrected.
Ash gave her a confused look. "That's what I said."
Louise shook her head. "We have magic," she emphasized. "That includes you."
"Aura doesn't follow the whole element layering thing you use to rank mages," Ash stated. "Besides, Aura comes from manipulating life energy, so it's not the same as magic."
"All magic is done through channeling willpower," said Louise. "I saw your eyes literally glowing blue in that fight. The power radiating off you was the strongest willpower I've felt in my life. You used your willpower and accomplished a feat that only a mage could do. Therefore, you used magic."
"Aura barely works in the type system I know, and it doesn't match your elements," Ash countered. "Aura Sphere is a fighting type move, and I've seen Aura used for Bone Rush, a ground type move. Ground sounds similar to earth, but fighting doesn't fit under any of the four elements."
Louise scrunched up her face in confused distaste. "What kind of magic element is fighting?"
"Type, not element," Ash corrected. "And I don't have a clue."
"Why not?" Louise asked. "How do you not know?"
"I'm a Pokemon trainer, not a researcher," Ash remined her. "I know what types are effective against each other, and which Pokemon are in each type. It's not like I know what makes one type different from another."
"That makes you little more than a brute," Louise huffed. "Fine. Show me."
"Show you what?"
"Show me this 'fighting type magic' so I can figure out what it is."
"It's not magic," Ash grumbled under his breath. "But fine."
Ash stretched out his arms and held his hands out. His palms were faced away from his body. His hands were very slightly apart, with all of his fingers stretched flat and upright. Closing his eyes, Ash searched for the feel of his Aura. It was weakened, still recovering from the fight, but he had more than enough to pull off what he was attempting. He willed his Aura to flow through his arms and materialize from his hands.
Louise looked curiously as faint wisps of blue began emanating from Ash's outstretched hands. While she could not cast a Detect Magic spell, she didn't need it to feel and see the willpower Ash was radiating. Surprisingly, she still could not identify what Ash was using as a focus.
"Aura Sphere!" As Ash uttered the words, the Aura trickling from his hand grew into a steady stream. The Aura wrapped around itself and condensed into a sphere roughly the size of his head. It wasn't the biggest Ash felt he could make, but he figured it was better to start with a small example, especially since he didn't want to accidentally destroy Louise's room.
Louise rose from her seat and circled around Ash, examining the orb from every angle. Just like Aura in its raw form, the energy in the sphere was wild. She could see the Aura surging like a raging typhon, only held in by the invisible barrier that gave the sphere shape. "Where's your wand?" she asked.
"What wand?" Ash asked, puzzled.
"You need a wand as a focus to cast spells," said Louise. "It's impossible to properly utilize your willpower otherwise. So, where's yours?"
"I don't have a wand," Ash informed her. "I've seen staffs and gloves be used to improve Aura control, but Aura can be used barehanded."
"Using magic without a wand?" Louise said suspiciously. A staff was a common focus, a glove was unusual but not unbelievable, but casting without any focus at all? That was impossible. At least, for a human.
For a second, Louise at Ash fearfully. "What are you?" she asked in a deadly tone, trying to conceal her budding terror.
"A human," Ash answered in honest confusion. "What else would I be?"
Louise continued to look at Ash with intense scrutiny. He didn't seem to be a human eating monster, and his ears were normal, but there was only one way to know for sure. "Hold on a second," she said.
Ash wasn't sure what to expect as Louise leaned closer to him, but nearly having his ears pulled off was definitely not on his list.
"Ow! Ow! What are you—Ow! Doing? OW!" Ash twisted his head to try to break free of Louise's grip, but the mage was holding him with surprising strength. He also had to keep his focus on the sphere to make sure it didn't fly from his hands. To his pleasant surprise, despite the suffering his ears were going through, he able to maintain the sphere's hovering without with little trouble. Which was good, because he really didn't want the attack to go flying off in the room, or worse, into Louise.
No matter how much of a pain she was.
"So, your ears are really," Louise said plainly as she released her hold.
"Of course, they're real!" Ash snapped. He desperately wanted to rub his ears but didn't want to risk losing control the sphere. "What else would they be?"
"Illusions."
"Who would waste their time putting an illusion on ears?" Ash asked incredulously.
Louise raised an eyebrow, then her mouth opened in a large O. "You really are uncultured if you don't know that much," she said. Moving on from the matter, she went back to observing the Aura Sphere, ignoring Ash's grumbling. "This is your fighting type spell?" the mage asked.
"It would be called a move or an attack, but yes," Ash responded irritably.
"It's obviously a spell," Louise scoffed. "Look at it. Unusual color aside, it looks every bit like a wind spell."
"I wouldn't really know, I've never seen a wind spell before," Ash pointed out. "Closest comparison I have to wind spells are some flying-type moves."
Louise looked at him incredulously. "You have an entirely different set of spells for flight? No wonder you have eighteen different types, they're redundant!"
"No type is redundant. Every Pokemon trainer knows that there are strengths and weaknesses for different types," Ash retorted. "It's important to know what type your Pokemon are, otherwise you could do something bad like use a Sudowood in a water type gym."
"A what?"
"A rock type Pokemon that people usually think is a grass type."
"People would think a rock creature is made of grass?"
"Never mind, bad example," Ash amended. "The point is, different types exist for a reason. I wouldn't be surprised if the reason you probably don't know what type your magic is because your way of sorting types is too simple! Don't you have anyone who tries to discover new types?"
"There is no reason to discover new types of magic when the founder gifted us with four," said Louise stubbornly.
"Guiche's golems were obviously steel-types, but calling their creation earth magic makes them sound like ground or rock types," Ash said. "There's a huge difference!"
"He's Guiche the Bronze, but that doesn't mean anyone's going to make a new title for earth mages that create metal. That's stupid!"
"It's not stupid, it makes sense!"
"No, it doesn't!"
"Yes, it does!"
"It doesn't!"
"It does!"
"Doesn't!"
"Does!"
"Doesn't!"
"Does!"
At some point, their argument ended, and Louise finally allowed Ash to go to an academy healer.
To Ash's credit, it took him only three seconds of walking down the hallway for him to remember his pants.
Like every story with AU elements, there comes a time for filler. Technically, this is worldbuilding, but since it doesn't advance the plot, it's still technically filler. It was originally supposed to be a part of a longer chapter, but just like The Duel, I ended up splitting the chapter in half. To compensate, next chapter will be coming next week. It's mostly done, since I wrote most of it in tandem with this chapter. Hopefully, this chapter satisfied some curiosity about how Aura and Magic work. It's not much, but more details will come to light as Louise and Ash investigate. Specifically, next week's chapter will shed some more light on spellcasting.
Now to respond to something people have been pointing out since last month. Fair warning, I'll try to keep it short, but it'll take awhile.
Statement: Runes messing up people's mind is disproven by canon.
My response:
I have problems with the way canon "proved" that the runes did nothing. I'm not sure if it was intentional by the author or a failure on his part, but the "proof" in canon is laughable in the darkest way possible. TVTropes has an analysis, but I'm going to be taking my own understanding for this.
Our primary evidence comes from Saito, a complete idiot who's own parents were considering shock therapy to boost his intellectual capability. Weigh his brain against a bag of cotton and his brain will fly to the moon. After Tiffania removed the mental effect from the runes, he admitted that he didn't have any changes to his attraction to Louise or his bravery in dire circumstances. The main difference is his newfound homesickness. Thus, the runes only suppress homesickness.
That's a stupid assumption.
First of all, the runes are mostly used on non-sentient creatures. Who would remove homesickness from a Salamander or a gryphon? Even if you did, does that guarantee them to be docile? It's unheard of for a mage to be intentionally harmed by their familiar, most of the time, the familiar would risk their life for their master. While you could argue that a bond was formed, it's way too consistent over a 6000 year period for that to be likely.
Secondly, let's look at our source for this information. Saito has been beaten, starved, and whatever else Louise did as "punishment" to him. And yet, he always went back to her, and felt physical attraction to her. Not even a "stupid dog" would come back to a person like that. If Saito was simply stupid, he would go to Kirche, who would treat him like a pet, but at least it would be a step up from Louise. Or he would cling to Siesta, who would feed him and shower him with love, even if she couldn't house him without getting in trouble with a noble.
Saito has Stockholm Syndrome or something. He's a terrible reference. Let's look at some other sentient familiars. Sheffield was infatuated with her master, and killed him and herself when they lost. Sasha (what's with all the S's?) was Brimir's familiar, and killed him when he discovered a way to exterminate the elf race. BTW, she was an elf and his wife. Sylphid (another S seriously?) is a child who views Tabitha as an older sister. Tabitha treats Sylphid well.
So, the rune doesn't make sense to only suppress homesickness, and the examples of sentient familiars don't help matters. What makes more sense is that the runes use a more subtle way of pressuring loyalty. First, they make sure the familiar do not harm the master (not sure of the specifics). Second, they make the familiar want to stay close or seek companionship to the master. For an animal, this results in a docile pet, as long as the mage doesn't do something stupid and cause their familiar to rage out of control. For a sentient, let alone sapient creatures, this is much harder to implement.
Sapient people can think beyond what a rune would suggest. This is probably why the only familiars that have been confirmed to purposefully harm their masters were Sheffield and Sasha. And even then, Sheffield probably did it out of selfish love from someone who neglected her. Sasha might have done it because she saw her husband going down a slippery slope. She didn't act when he fought a war with the elves, only when he found a mass genocide spell/technique/weapon. Saito displayed a disregard for his life but an insistence of Louise safety, which is probably stupidity + protagonist protectiveness. Sylphid/Irukuku... she's a child and Tabitha treated her nicely as far as I can tell. With no other family around, I can't see why she wouldn't be completely obedient.
Basically:
The runes only suppressing homesickness makes no sense and is only supported by sources that are unreliable in-universe. It makes more sense that they make the familiar wish to protect their master from themselves and others, and they are emotionally manipulated to be closer to their master.
This explanation is probably unsatisfactory for some people, but I had to cut it short, it was already running WAY too long. I try to keep my AN's roughly 1/5 or less of chapter length, and this monster is probably 1/3. Next chapter will be longer and hopefully have a much shorter A/N to compensate. If enough people want to see more of this, I'll write up a more detailed explanation and put it on my profile or somehow make a story out of it. IDK.
If you had a comment on anything in the chapter, shoot me a PM or a review. Aura, Magic, Runes, I covered a lot between the chapter and A/N. If you think I messed up somewhere, I'd love to discuss it. For those making guest reviews, I'd like if you'd make an account so I could answer you directly. But if you can't that's fine, I'll try to cover anything missing in the next chapter's A/Ns.
And remember, review's are food for a writer's soul!
