Finally the last class of the day and it's none other than gym class for Ash Ketchum. Now don't get him wrong, gym might be the easiest class to pass; participate and you get the grade after all... No the problem is the teacher; Lt. Surge, the strictest teacher other than Mr. Rowan in the whole school

"Hey Ash! Ready for gym class?" asked Gary as Ash snapped out of his thoughts

"Wha? Oh ya, ready as I'll ever be for that new obstacle course that Lt. Surge must have made for us" Ash sarcastically said with a frown as he remembered the last time they had to go through an obstacle course and was filled with dread at the thought of having to crawl through spiky fences. Sometimes he wondered what the girls would go through, since some also had Surge as a gym teacher too

"The way you two make it out to sound, I'm glad I have Mr. Wulfric as my gym teacher" Brendan commented as both boys sent him a glare "Oh look there's Blue! Me and him need to present a presentation for Health! Don't want to have Mr. Brock on my back or get a detention" he said and ran away from the two childhood friends as fast as he could

"Let's go I guess and get changed fast before Surge makes us do 50 pushups again for being late" Ash said and dragged Gary into the boys' room, where many of their classmates were already inside

Once changed into their gym clothes, both teens only had to wait for a couple of minutes as Lt. Surge appeared with an expression that scared many of them "Listen up soldiers!" he shouted and everyone straightened up with full attention on their maniac of a teacher "Today I have a new obstacle course waiting for all you children outside" he declared, earning many groans out of the boys "This will count for a very big amount of your final grade. Now everyone line-up and after you hear me say your name, give me 3 laps around the field! First up Silver!"

A few minutes later

After everyone was done their laps they all stood in shock at the course before them. Many felt they were going to faint at what they were going to have to go through

'Is he trying to make us fail on purpose?' Ash thought as soon as he saw the course they would each need to complete, especially those already failing gym class to begin with

The obstacle course consisted of 14 different obstacles they would all need to get through. The first obstacle they saw they would need to get through was the low wall, followed by the tire run, stepping stones, water jump, rubble, tunnel, dodging panels, low rope, ditch, corridor, balancing bridge, windows, apex ladder and terrace

"Judging by the looks on your face you are all ready for testing. Remain below 15 minutes and you'll pass. Mr. Gold, go!" Surge yelled as Ethan jumped up surprised at being called first "Do I need to repeat myself Gold, or would you like a fail" the teacher threatened as Ethan shook his head and made his way towards the course

Many could only stare in pity as Ethan fell into the water after he let go of the rope during the water jump. He kept going of course, but kept on running into various problems, causing many to become worried. If a student like Ethan, who was on the Soccer team and the team captain of the Pool team was having trouble, what chance could they possibly have? Well at least he did get below 15 minutes which was good

Soon all that was left was Paul, Ash and Gary to do the course. Many had unfortunately been hurt in some of the obstacles that they needed to be rushed to the nurse's office "Oak, you're up!" Surge called out as Ash sent his friend a small nod of encouragement which helped Gary relax a bit. Although in the end, Gary also messed up in certain places, he was able to complete the course without any injury and got a good time with him taking only 12 and a half minutes

"Shinji you're up next!" as Paul made his way over, he passed by Ash and got an idea "Hey Ketchum, how about a bet?" he asked as Ash turned towards him with a confused expression "If you can beat this course with a blindfold on, I won't bother you or your loser friends for a whole 2 months" Paul challenged with a smirk

"What! Ash have you seen that course? No way will you be able to do it with a blindfold on" Gary exclaimed as the other students still in the field nodded in agreement. They may not get along with Ash, but they didn't want him to get seriously hurt by doing this

"Ash, no one will blame you if you back down later" Ethan added in. While he wasn't the best of friends with Ash, he knew that the raven haired teen was someone Red hung around and acted like an older brother to him when they were all younger before he moved. After that day, Ethan remembered the promise he made Red once that should something happen to him, that he had to look after Ash and Ethan has done his best to keep that promise so far... but it was hard at times, especially since the accident

"Have a little more confidence in me" Ash mumbled to himself as they all watched Paul complete the course in 10 minutes exactly

"You're up Ketchum… unless your chicken?" Paul mocked with a blindfold in his hand as Ash narrowed his eyes and grabbed the blindfold from the purple haired teen roughly

The raven haired teen made his way towards the start and saw Surge, who seemed somewhat hesitant to allow him to do the course with a blindfold, but in the end didn't stop it from happening.

He looked back at Gary and Ethan, both of whom seemed nervous and had worried glances present on their faces, while Paul stood of to the side beside Trip with a smirk on his face

Ash took a deep breath as he placed the blindfold over his eyes and got in position to start the course

Unknown to him or his friends, Paul had texted to everyone about what was about to happen as many students soon started ditching their classes to come out of the school and watch

"What's going on here? Paul mass texted something about watching Ash fail in an obstacle course" a voice commented from behind the duo as they jumped up surprised to see Dawn, May, Blue, Brendan and Leaf all of a sudden

"Leaf?" Gary asked surprised at seeing them outside and was about to respond until they all heard Surge "Alright Ketchum, on your mark… get set… GO!" Surge yelled

Ash took off, knowing right away the low wall was first. He made it up without any difficulty, got down with no trouble and ran over towards the tires on the ground and did it so perfectly it was almost as if he knew exactly where each tire was placed

"Is he doing this… with a blindfold?" Dawn asked as the ones who didn't know about the bet saw that Ash did have a blindfold over his eyes "How is he doing all this with a blindfold on and not tripping or falling over anything!?"

"It's almost as if Ash is seeing through the blindfold… or he actually just knows where everything is" Brendan commented as they all turned and saw as Ash was just finishing off the tunnel and moving onto the dodging panels

Everyone kept staring at the teen with awe and soon he finished the last obstacle being the terrace as he took of the blindfold to see jaws dropped

"What?" Ash asked confused as he turned and saw Paul glaring at him and Surge looking at his watch with wide eyes "This… this is impossible" he heard his teacher say as everyone turned to the blonde teacher, who looked back up at Ash with shock written all over his face "According to this… you finished a 15 minute course in 6 minutes with a blindfold over your eyes and not messing up somehow"

At hearing this Ash also looked surprised; he still didn't understand what just happened while he was doing the obstacle course. To be clear, once he put the blindfold on, he could suddenly see the obstacle before him but in a blue hue instead for some reason. At the time he didn't think much of it, instead focusing on winning the bet so Gary and Leaf would get a whole 2 months free of bullying... something was better than nothing after all

'I must of just been lucky, no way can anyone really see anything blindfolded… even if what I saw was a glowing blue outline instead' Ash thought, but even he could tell he wasn't convinced and instead in denial, after all he did finish the course in record time and without out slipping up once, while others before him had and that was without the blindfold!

He glanced down at his hands and closed his eyes in frustration at not having any answers to what had occurred. However he suddenly once again found himself seeing the same blue glow from before, except it coming from his own hands and was even brighter than everything else around him

Shocked, Ash opened his eyes and snapped his head back up at everyone, all of whom were giving him worried looks. Not wanting to stick around anymore, the raven haired teen suddenly took off in a run

Ash didn't notice the look May gave him as he ran back into the school, knocking into a few other people along the way. The brunette could only wonder what could have happened just now and how Ash was able to do what he did. She was going to get to the bottom of things one way or another, whether Ash wanted her help or not… oh well

Alright time for some backstory. So while Ash was growing up, he met Red one day, who befriended him and acted as an older brother figure to him. However as Ethan said, Red moved away for unknown reasons at the moment and before he left, Red asked Ethan to look out for Ash for him a year before he moved away.
Now as to why I choice for Ash's aura abilities to show up here, I wanted to slowly build up to when they actually do appear. This here is introducing Ash to his aura sight ability (one which I thought would be the first to appear) and what better than with an obstacle course and a challenge Paul made him do. Besides in many shows I've seen, people's powers seem to appear randomly. Anyway for the obstacle course I got the idea from an image I found on google, by searching up 'military obstacle course design'
P.S. I don't know if people can see their own auras, but in this case pretend they can if people usually can't. Also while no AdvanceShipping moment is added, May is clearly worried with what just happened and will do whatever it takes to help out Ash