Disclaimer - I don't own Pokemon or any of its characters; only the idea belongs to me.
The Ketchums
Around Northern Ranges, 17th November, 5:00 AM
As the stranger declared his name, five pairs of eyes zeroed on the resident and only Ketchum that was known till the point. Ash, himself was dumbfounded as he kept on looking at the person he just saved; for the life of him he could not recall any relative his mother had mentioned – he always believed he never had any to begin with, besides his Mom.
"Master" A telepathic voice disturbed the thought process of the teens. Their eyes narrowed as their gazes snapped at the Lucario who had just spoke using physic. "I'm afraid we have to hurry; Lady Aurora must not be kept waiting any longer" The Pokémon continued.
After hearing the voice, something clicked in Ash's brain. He had heard that voice before and it did not take long for him to place the voice with a certain event from the past.
No. no, no, no, no; I'm just imagining things. It couldn't be, right? That would be just plain ridiculous – he thought. But he kept quiet, not voicing his suspicion – wanting to first confirm whether he was right or not. Pikachu let out a low 'Pika!' from his shoulder, having come to the same deduction as his trainer.
Aaron nodded at his trusty partner and turned to the group of young ones who had helped him.
"I deeply apologise for the sudden intrusion on your time; but I must take your leave now. A companion of mine must be in dire situation without my aid." he said and bowed to them again.
He then held his staff at arm's length and tapped it twice on ground, a couple of spheres on the staff started to glow and an intricate pattern spread out from where the staff was tapped, A second later, two things happened simultaneously, a Pidgeot materialised in front of them and the Moltres that was still down was captured in the staff.
The six teens were dumbfounded, it all happened so fast that neither of them could utter a single word or ask anything else.
Aaron climbed on the bird Pokémon, followed by Lucario, and they both were off the next second.
"What just happened?" Leaf was the first to come to her senses, not leaving her eyes form the departing Pidgeot, which was clearly larger than hers.
"I think we have got a lot more on our plate than just theories at this point. I really hope we are not hanging on the last chance of whatever calamity is oncoming" Ash said, grabbing everyone's attention once again "But first, we gotta follow him. Let me do the talking."
He told the others and released his Dragonite again. The other's did not argue. With Misty hiking ride with Ash and Tracey with Gary, the six began to follow the Pidgeot. They were quick in their pursuit, as a result, they caught up with Aaron in no time.
"Master" Lucario said, "We are being followed"
Slowing down his Pidgeot's speed, Aaron turned towards the group of teens.
"Is there something you need, young ones?" He asked
"You are not completely healthy at this point" Ash began, his Dragonite halting, "A few more hands to help your companion won't hurt, right guys?"
The others nodded, letting Ash drive the conversation. An unspoken agreement had passed between them when they started to follow Ash. Aaron does not seem like an evil person, but as he was speaking with them earlier, his gaze returned to Ash again and again, the others did not fail to notice that. It was no brainer, that amongst the six, Ash was most likely to yield positive results from this situation, so they let him handle it.
Ash was then able to see Aaron in better light, the pattern on his clothes became more and more familiar to him as he kept on observing the elder man.
Aaron looked at them and then at Lucario. It seemed even they had a silent conversation amongst themselves, after which Aaron nodded and turned to the teens.
"Very well then" He smiled "I appreciate your generous offer." With that, his Pidgeot again took off, flying farther in the Northern direction.
Soon they came across another battle that was winding up. As they reached the site, Zapdos came crashing into a few trees and passing out. They looked in the direction where it came from; there bathing in the moon light and looking almost divine was yellow Altaria, and riding the Pokémon was a young lady.
Aaron and the teens landed where Zapdos had crashed, the young lady joining them soon after.
"You could have been a bit merciful; you know?" Aaron chastised the girl, who just rolled her eyes as she got down from her Altaria. She was dressed similar to what Aaron had worn, only she was not wearing the hat and her dark black hair were flowing freely with the wind. She did the same that Aaron had done earlier, tapped her staff twice on ground as the spheres began to glow, an intricate pattern spread out from where it was tapped, and before they knew it Zapdos was sealed in the crystal.
It concerned Goh how easily they were capturing the Legendries, if you could call it that. He wanted to object, ask questions, make sure they had no ill intentions towards the Pokémon; but no one else was betraying any emotion on their face, and he did not want to be the first one to do so either. He decided to wait for a bit, to understand the situation more before coming to a conclusion.
"And who did you bring?" Aurora firmly placed her staff on the ground and looked at the teens and narrowed her eyes. "I thought we agreed only we will handle this" She sounded irritated.
"Aurora, these young ones helped me tame the Moltres. They are quite strong and insisted they wanted to help our cause" Aaron explained, "Now, we can expect our mission to be done in no time"
"You jest me brother, for I think they will only be a hindrance to us." Aurora glared at the teens crossing her hands. She closed her eyes taking deep breath, as she did so, she found something interesting.
"Brother?" Goh asked, his voice feeble.
"Yes" Aaron smiled and turned towards the group, "This is my elder sister, Aurora Ketchum, and that's her companion Alta."
"It's nice to meet you. We did not get chance to introduce ourselves back there" Ash stepped forward, forwarding his hand to Aaron "My name is Ash and this is my partner Pikachu and that's another friend of mine, Dragonite"
Pikachu greeted from his shoulder, while Dragonite, as always, went to get a hug from Aaron. Ash placed his hand on his Pokémon, effectively stopping her from getting close to the elder duo.
"Later Dragonite" He chuckled and returned his Pokémon. He then turned towards his other friends, "These are all my other friends – this is Misty from cerulean; that's Gary, he is an assistant professor; beside him is Leaf, the three of us – me, Gary and Leaf we all grew up in Pallet town. That's another research buddy of mine, Goh, he is from Vermillion. And that's Tracey, he is from Orange Archipelago, but currently works with Prof. Oak in pallet town."
Ash gave a brief introduction about everyone. Aaron and Aurora though, kept looking at them, their faces blank. Ash knew his deductions were right when he got a good look at Aaron earlier in the moon light, but this was just further confirming as they did not react to the introduction the way everyone generally does. For, centuries ago, there weren't the same cities and towns as there are now.
Aaron prided himself in being perceptive of his surrounding, so the realisation of someone having cracked their identities drew on him pretty quick & he let out a sigh,
"You figured it out, I suppose" He asked Ash.
"You could say that" Ash answered, stepped in front of his group. He knew there was no danger form the two siblings, but he still wanted to keep his friends safe just in case and getting in front of them was his way of shielding them from any harm to come, not that they needed it.
Both were facing each other now. As Misty saw the two face-to-face, their physical similarities were highlighted a bit more, it wasn't difficult to notice. As a natural reaction to Ash facing any danger head-on when she was around, she took a step or two forward, standing close to him but not anyway in his path. The other's also had closed in, now forming a tight circle behind Ash.
"Brother, am I sensing it correct?" Aurora asked, her eyes widened in surprise as she regarded Ash, she had first thought it was interesting how someone had an Aura as strong as her brother's but now that she paid a bit more attention, it's almost identical. Lucario nodded from Aaron's side.
"I noticed it the moment we first ran into them, there is no doubt about it" He replied to Aurora's question.
"Ash, what's going on here?" Gary asked, shifting a bit more towards Ash. The situation was spiralling way out of control and it was getting difficult for him to keep up with the conversation at this rate. Plus, it was a rare sight for Ash to be more aware of their surrounding than most of the people present there.
"Why don't we settle for the night, well what is remaining of it at least and get a few explanations out of the way. I'm sure you all must be exhausted as well" Aaron suggested. Reluctantly they all agreed, keeping their questions at bay till they were back to their abandoned campsite.
Morning rays were staring to light up the sky when they reached the camp. They had been up for almost two hours by now, only getting approx. 3-4 hours of sleep for the whole night; but sleep was the last things on their mind at this moment.
Like others, Tracey was suspicious of the two individuals, they had seemingly come out of nowhere and were fighting two of the three legendary birds; but Ash seemed to trust them – or at least Aaron, so he decided to let the event unfold first before making any judgement.
After settling down, Aaron began the conversation.
"Where do you want us to start from?" He asked, to Ash in particular.
"Why don't you start by where you came from" Ash answered
"We are citizens of Rota, specifically Cameran Palace." Aaron replied. Before he could mention anything else, Aurora interrupted and asked "First, why don't you tell us what you think you know, Kid?"
The group turned to Ash. Misty had heard about Cameran Palace from Brock, and all that happened when they were there. And if she is correct, it was something related to Aura and a talking Lucario and mew. But –
"You are Sir Aaron, Aura Guardian and a Knight of Queen Rin." Ash started, interrupting Misty's thought process, her eyes widened as Ash said that; "And this Lucario, he is your disciple who you are training to use Aura." Ash stopped, and looked at Aurora "But I know nothing of you, you were never mentioned."
"Sounds about right" Aurora muttered and turned her face away.
"But Ash, the one you are talking about –" Misty said "didn't they exist centuries ago? Brock said –"
"That just means –" Ash cut her off, his eyes conveying a message to not bring that up and not reveal too much "They are not from this time" he then turned to the siblings "Are you?"
A few gasps were heard around the camp. When they started this journey, neither had thought they would come across someone from centuries ago.
"You can't be serious! That can't be possible" Leaf said, completely in denial of a phenomenon like time travel, actually happening.
"I am afraid Miss Leaf, what young Ash has stated is true." Aaron affirmed. "We are creatures from a time very different than this, but situation was such, we had no other choice but to transcend time barriers and invade your peaceful times. We mean no harm though; our goal is to protect what is – the peaceful times." He explained the group.
"So, if we believe that you actually travelled time." Gary spoke up, his eyes were focused on ground, his brain working a mile a minute, all the theories, the data, the permutations, and combinations of possibilities running wild. "That could possibly point to the fact that something is threatening the Peace in the first place."
"And the thing that is threatening the Peace this time" Goh continued, "Is someone interfering with the working of Time Clock."
"Ash" Gary turned his eyes to his childhood friend "You said you felt this is something more sinister than we can ever imagine, that was spot on"
"It does not help the fact that the feeling is now increased tenfold" Ash admitted.
"You kids are smart; I shall give you that" Aurora said "But this situation is not plain sinister, it is twisted and turned and vile to the roots of it. The one who is messing with the Time Clock is also another time traveller, we are yet to gather all details, but according to what we know so far – he was summoned in this age, that means he has an alliance in this age. We need to eliminate both, if we want to preserve what is"
"It could have been anyone who summoned the other time traveller. There are number of evil organizations out there who would want to have the whole would in the palm of their hand" Tracey pointed out
"That just means we have to find this other time traveller first and then trace it back to the culprit from his world." Misty said, and then asked the siblings "Do you know who it might be?"
Aaron and Aurora looked at each other, contemplating whether to tell the truth or not.
"You hiding anything form us will only cause more problems in future" Leaf snapped at them. She was the most distorted amongst the group – this being her first time coming across something seemingly impossible; other's by now have experienced such situations at least once before, so it was easier for them to believe it.
Even in this situation, which seemed totally ridiculous; instead of asking 'how it could be?' they had moved to the 'how do we solve it' phase, accepting the fact that someone had actually time-travelled. Leaf was just trying to keep up with the rapid inflow of information and details of their current situation.
"It's our cousin brother, Arioch Ketchum" Aaron told the others, a heavy sigh leaving his lips. "As young Ash mentioned, we Ketchum's are Aura Guardians, born to protect the balance of this world; but like many branch family members, our cousin Arioch scumbled the darkness and turned tainted. It is not unheard of, in our times, for one member of family in each generation to fall prey to darkness, but in our generation – Arioch turned out second to go down the same path as our eldest brother."
"It's getting a bit confusing when you just randomly start from between" Misty meekly interrupted Aaron. "Could you please explain it in more details."
Aurora chuckled at that; "You are very bad at his brother" and with that she took over the role of explaining the past.
"From the time we come from, Aura Guardians are regarded as the highest-ranking knights of any kingdom – that is to say, there are considerable Kingdoms and Families of Aura Guardians. Aura Guardians, to put it simply, are individuals who can sense other individual's life energy we call Aura, and are able to channel their own aura in their fighting style and for defensive measures, they have highlighted sense of living. They are regarded as the jewels of the kingdom, true heroes. There are many families who have inherited the ability to control Aura; they are scattered over all the kingdoms. Ketchum's being one of the Guardian families, are one of the two root families – other Guardian families have come about by expansion of branch families." Aurora explained, she looked at each teen, all of whose attention was on her, unwavering.
"While to the outside world, the Guardian families are everything shining and glamorous, there is also a curse that follows. For every generation of Aura Guardians, one guardian falls to their inner darkness, never to recover – they were named as Tainted Ones. Over the years, it came to be a common occurrence that the tainted ones mostly belonged to a branch family. Soon, the branch families were named the Shadow Families, one of lesser importance than the main" Aurora sighed, a faraway look adorning her face.
"We come from a family of fifteen. Two grandparents, our parents, two uncles and their respective spouse and us seven cousins. Our father was eldest of the three, making us the main bloodline, while our uncles were declared branch family. We had an elder brother, and then the two of us – twins." She sighed and looked away from the kids "I am ashamed to say this, but as tradition had, every child of the branch family was locked up, away from the world to prevent them from turning tainted. Same happened with our four cousins."
She then let out a bitter laugh, pain evident in her voice as she continued "But Arceus has a funny way to keep humans running in circles, as it just so happened that for our generation, the one who turned tainted wasn't any of our cousin but our own elder brother. Ahriman. It turns to be a do or die situation when one of the Aura Guardians turns Tainted; either the Aura Guardians put him down or the Tainted one goes on a hunt for other Guardians and gets rid of them; it's a vicious circle of Kill or be Killed."
Several gasps were heard around the camp, everyone guessing what the next part of the story held.
"Naturally, the elders thought it was best to take actions first." Aurora at this point had her eyes moist. Aaron wrapped his hand around her shoulder, giving her support and a little encouragement
"We weren't told details, as we were only seven-year-old back then, but they had put down our eldest brother. I think they then relaxed, thinking they avoided the crisis for this generation; but they were wrong. Arioch slipped out of their hands, he turned tainted not long after we turned sixteen, which is the age at which the signs start, but he was left unchecked till we turned eighteen, by then he was long immersed in darkness. Everyone came to know about it when Arioch started off by killing his own sibling and then other two cousins of our third uncle – we were almost killed too; but we were trained by then and could defend ourselves. Our father came to know about it soon after and then the wild chase began just to get rid of Arioch. Even after that he was able to get to a few adults of our family, including his own parents and our father." Aurora sighed, detaching herself from Aaron, she got up and turned away from everyone.
"I was named in charge of bringing Arioch back to the village, dead or alive. And Aaron had to join the ranks of Queen Rin as her trusted Aura Guardian, since our father was killed by Arioch. I searched in every nook and cranny I could, in the kingdom, over the seas, even going as far as checking other Kingdom down markets, to find just where he had gone off to." She turned back to others.
"Five years later, I finally got the wind of where he could hide, I summoned Aaron knowing, if I plan to take Arioch down, I needed another hand on table; Arioch isn't just strong, he is evasive, cunning, and smart. He was gifted with the ability of foresight, that helps him plan accordingly and overcome obstacles with ease. We reached Ilex Forest searching for Arioch, the supposed location he was hiding in for six months, but before we knew it, we suddenly were swept in a bright light, and when we came to – we were in a completely different world that our own."
She finished her long-winded explanation. Everyone else was flabbergasted by the end of the long history of the Ketchum's.
Fin
