/PRE-CHAPTER NOTE/ Pokémon speech is in underline format. "Poke speech"

Andy and Ash were in the middle of a ferocious training session, and it seemed that the battle could go either way. Andy summoned his Blood hammer to crush Ash's double-bladed axe. Ash quickly dodged the deadly Warhammer, and struck Andy's side with the axe, but a barrier of Aura prevented him from disassembling the young Aura wielder.

The two were training in the middle of the village while Fred, Kate, Aaron, and Gardevoir, Gallade, and Kirlia were watching. Mostly Fred, Gallade, and Kirlia though, seeing as how Kate and Gardevoir were trying to get Aaron to sleep. The baby struggled against Kate's arms, but was soothed by the psychics.

"Aaron's going to be the death of us all." Kate said humorously as Andy and Ash were colliding with powerful attacks.

"Only Kirlia was worse. He teleported out of sight the second he hatched." Gardevoir said, and looked over to her son who was intently watching the fight between the Aura wielders. He was mesmerized to say the least; he never saw an Aura fight before today.

While the two mothers were gossiping about their children, Raichu, Pidgeot, Steelix, Lucario and Charizard took it upon themselves to train with Ash's Pikachu. Pikachu was commonly thought to be the strongest mortal Pokémon in existence, so Andy's team wanted to test their luck.

"Pikachu, come out and face me!" Raichu yelled into the forest. Within seconds, a yellow blur crossed the canopy of leaves that blocked out sunlight. That yellow blur stopped right in front of Raichu with its arms crossed and tail twitching in the air.

"A Raichu?" Pikachu asked, and raised an eyebrow. "Let me guess; you believe you stand a chance against me?" Pikachu laughed, and shot sparks out of his cheeks. "Very well, you attack first."

"Such a fool." Raichu commented, and used rain dance.

Pikachu took a chance by striking Raichu with thunder, but Raichu absorbed the massive energy with his lightning rod ability. Raichu charged forwards with quick attack, and smashed down with iron tail, but Pikachu blocked with the same attack. The tails blasted their respective enemies a fair distance.

Raichu was getting annoyed with Pikachu's skill, and decided to fire a very risky hyper beam. Pikachu saw Raichu gather energy in his mouth, and also saw the beam of energy come barreling towards him. Pikachu used his fighting type hidden power attack to show this Raichu his place. Pikachu fired several spheres of energy at the mighty beam of power. The hidden power was driving forwards with such incredible power, that the hyper beam quickly dissipated. Raichu thought he was dreaming when he saw his hyper beam dissolve into the air, and actually started dreaming when the hidden power came in contact with his face; knocking him out swiftly.

"I believe I can continue with my nap" Pikachu said, and jumped back into the trees.

()

The Ketchum men were done with training, with Ash knocked out cold and Andy wearing several large bruises and many small cuts on his now-bare chest and arms. Andy walked over to Kate and sat down beside her as she held Aaron.

"You know that you're going to get yourself hurt, right?" Kate asked as Andy flowed Aura into his open wounds and onto his bruises.

"I know, but my dad is one of the most powerful Aura wielders around. I'll be fine." Andy said, and placed a quick peck on Kate's cheek.

"That's not what I meant." Kate grumbled quietly. "You know the Army is going to have powerful weapons and Pokémon, I mean, remember when Ash told us about the Iron Marauder? He controlled Celebi!" Kate recalled the story that Ash told them about a week ago.

"Yeah, I know, but Celebi is one of the weakest of the Old Gods." Andy said, and came to a sudden realization. "Wait, Celebi has highly unique abilities that not even Mew can copy…" Reality hit him square in the face as he remembered Mew was in possession of the Army.

"And Celebi has a higher chance to break one of those Dark balls because it has domain over time." Gardevoir dryly observed. She looked worriedly at her mate and son, and hoped they wouldn't be caught in the cross-fire.

Fred, who was sitting on a log a few meters away, felt that he needed to put in his two cents. "Andy, what exactly is Aura anyways? You've never been clear on it." Fred questioned, and saw Andy drawing thoughts, but blank ones.

Andy racked his brain, but his train of thought was interrupted by Ash who had woken up a few minutes prior.

"Aura," Ash started as he ripped off his wielding gloves, "is the force of energy that all minerals and all organic matter exert. It works similarly like natural electricity; it can flow through most things with the exception of: plastic, rubber, and things of the like. It can be called life-force, but that is incorrect, it is actually the distortion in the fabric of existence caused by living and natural things." Ash explained as he picked up a stick, and held it in front of his face. "Tell me, what am I holding?"

Andy expanded his Aura lightly, and immediately said, "A stick."

Ash pumped a small amount of Aura into it and made the object pulse its energy with existence. "Now, where is the stick?"

Andy was astonished. He thought Ash let the stick drop, but didn't sense it at all. "I have no idea…" Andy said with disbelief.

"Every object has a unique signature. If possible, you could hide yourself or others, but it is very tiring." Ash flopped to the ground and sat up. "I hope that answers your question."

Andy nodded, and expanded his range to sense his Charizard dragging Raichu. "Gotta go; Raichu's been knocked out cold- Wait, RAICHU?" Andy darted towards the woods, followed by Kate (and Aaron), Gardevoir, and Fred (Gallade and Kirlia were poking the sleeping Ash).

"Lucario, what happened to Raichu?" Andy asked frantically as Charizard laid Raichu in front of Andy, who soon healed his wounds.

"Master, Ash's Pikachu made swift work of him." Lucario said, still horrified at Pikachu's skill.

When Steelix started bellowing out deafening roars, Andy used his small psychic ability to translate the unbearable noise.

"Raichu's hyper beam didn't even phase the hidden power that Pikachu had. Raichu was taken down so quickly, it was hilarious." Steelix said with humor in his metallic voice. Andy laughed at the sleeping rat that lay in front of him.

"You tell someone who is full of bloodlust not to fight, and then they will be quicker to fight." Kate said with boredom.

()

Another week passed from Pikachu's fight (read as 'slaughter') of Raichu, leaving the group literally no time before the Army declares war against Kanto. Everyone was getting ready for the departure of the island, and the air was as tense as Kate when she was pregnant. Few words were spoken during the morning, and only after a local group of Pokémon crafted a boat did anyone talk, and it Andy who broke the silence.

"What should we do about Aaron once we dock?" Andy asked, but a more important question shattered the thought. "Where are we even docking?"

Ash and Kate joined Andy in thought, but it was Fred who answered. "I say we dock at Pallet; it's smaller than Vermillion, and May or Delia can take care of Aaron." Fred suggested, and received a grunt from Ash.

"May could, but she thinks the two of us are dead, so getting her to take Aaron will be a bit of a problem, and my mom…" Ash started, and gave Andy a jolt of worry.

"Wait, is grandma dead?" Andy asked fiercely, and received a laugh from Ash.

"No, not that; she went on a trip Sinnoh with Gary to help him in a psychic demonstration. You know how she's immune to psychics." Ash explained, remembering how Sabrina couldn't get into her head for some reason at his first battle royal (Chapter two).

Getting over his scare, he motioned for everyone to get on board, and started pushing the boat out to sea. Once it was on the open water, he jumped on, and headed course to Kanto.

()

The boat wasn't nearly as fast as Andy would have liked, but its slowness gave him time to think.

'I haven't been to Pallet for four years! This is the place where I was born. The place where I gave in to lust, and started with Samantha. This is where I met Gardevoir. If the Army is threating my home, I'm going to fight them, God damn it! I will exact my revenge against the Army; for killing Samantha, for relentlessly hunting me down, for driving Kate and I to an island for FOUR YEARS, and for making my son live a lonesome life away from other humans. I will show them my hatred for them in their blood.'

Andy smiled darkly.

'I'm going to enjoy this.'

/NOTE DE LE AUTHOUR/ Yep, I cut the five year total one short just for the heck of it. Did you like my explanation of Aura? It's a theory that works with Andy's abilities and disability. So thanks to the user alphaomega7, I realized that I WAS pushing the importance of Pokémon aside, so I'll be making them more important as time goes on. (You rock!) So with that- wait, Andy's coming out of my sick imagination again, give me a second.

Andy: You were thinking about killing of my grandma, you bastard!

Andy, I own you, this plot, and the lives of its characters; you have literally no say in what I do.

Andy: But you never let me have a victory!

YOU ARE BASICALLY A GOD, YOU IDIOT! IF YOU HAD LITERALLY NO VICTORIES, YOU WOULD HAVE SEEN EVERYONE SLOWLY KILLED, STARTING WITH AARON.

Andy: But you killed my first girlfriend.

*Pulls Aaron out of imagination and holds a blade to his neck* I own you. Get back in the DAMN STORY!

(Andy leaves with Aaron)

That was a fun interaction to write. Well, you know the usual sign-off.

Exeunt