"So... what we're looking for is further ahead?" Flannery asked.
"According to what Zygarde had relayed to me, he spotted a person who looked very similar to Go head up into the foothills here." Ash replied, turning to his detachment of slaves he took with him. "Unfortunately, visibility is not gonna work out too well with all the fog in this mountainous terrain. We will be relying on my sister's guidance from here on."
"That's correct, little brother." Annabel said, turning to face the group of ten accompanying her and her brother. "I've been through these parts before. If I had to guess, Go is using the Auger temple as a safe house of sorts!"
"We don't know what he's doing here of all placing, but what we do know is that there is another man and a couple women who are with him. According to Irida, those women would be Arezu and Mai, her friends from her world. Our mission is to detain all of these people. The man we don't have enough intel to go off of yet, so proceed with caution. Once we get to the temple, we'll split off into detachments of two. We'll split up and cover the area and lock them down! If all goes well, we can take them in without a fight starting."
"Yes, Master!" The group of slaves obeyed.
As the group of twelve strong proceeded into the foothills and higher up into the mountains, Annabel continued to guide the group with efficiency and impressive leadership skill. Coming up to the entrance of the temple, the ancient bastion of the once proud Aura Guardians built into the very mountain itself, the group approached the entrance, only to find that the doors were sealed shut.
"That's peculiar..." Annabel muttered.
"What's up?" Ash asked his elder sister.
"The doors... I left them open when I got what I came here years ago." She replied, reaching her hand up to the giant stone doors, like she did all those years ago. "When I opened these giant stone doors the first time, I used my aura like a key and they swung open. I can only imagine that the same could be said if the doors needed to be shut."
"So you're saying we're dealing with an aura user now, huh?" Ash sighed, turning to keep a lookout whilst keeping close to his big sis. "...welp, them's the breaks. Do you reckon that Irida's friends could have the power of aura?"
"I couldn't say. If she felt it privy for us to know though, Irida would have told us up front." Annabel pondered, scratching her head for solutions as the doors to the temple began to grind open once again. "Do you think Go might have attained aura powers?"
"I can't say I ruled it out, entirely. I mean, I haven't seen him in over six years, after all, but I'd find it unlikely for him to practice that sort of technique." Ash replied, peaking his head into the doorway cautiously, checking the entrance for anyone inside.
Seeing the coast was clear, Ash entered the sanctum first, signaling his girls outside that it was safe to enter. The entire group barring Annabel gasped at the great size of the temple's entrance hall was. Seeing many doorways and passages branching out from the main thoroughfare, Ash was about to speak up before Annabel stopped him, making sure she informed her Allies.
"They're here all right." She said to the group. "When I first came here, there were a bunch of old armor tunics scattered across the hallways. Go and his new friends clearly have disposed of them, along with all the other junk. They even cleared out the broken furniture. They must be planning to make this place their home."
"Made it easy for us to track them, anyways." Ash replied before signaling for his cohorts to gather up to hear his plan again. "Alright ladies, remember. Groups of two. I want us in communication at all times, so use those ear pieces you got and radio out whenever you found our targets or just need help."
"Yes, Master!" The sex slaves obeyed, breaking off into two man groups.
Through their union as slave sisters, the girls found it extremely effective to work in groups, no matter who they were paired up with. Leaving Ash and his sister to take a passage that seemed to lead deeper into the mountain, the group split off into pairs, forming a well structured unit. Ash and his sister delved further into the dregs of the temple, it's ancient architecture spanning throughout.
"The stonework of this structure is beyond impressive..!" Ash remarked, feeling the smooth, stone walls.
"Ssh!" Annabel whispered. "Did you hear that?!"
Suddenly, at the end of the corridor to duo were delving into, they saw a lone shadow, peering at them from the distance, his silhouette only just barely lit by a distant brazier. Thinking he finally found his long lost friend, Ash charged in.
"Go!" He yelled, barreling toward to shadowy figure.
"H-hey!" Annabel called, rushing to catch up to him.
Following just far away to where he couldn't see the features of the one he chased, Ash noticed the figure running to the end of the corridor, a fork in the hallway splitting off left and right. Seeing the man dart into the right path, Ash followed him. As Annabel tried to pursue, the sudden appearance of a door leaping from the floor prevented her pursuit.
Languishing but briefly, the violet haired beauty decided to waste no time, taking the left path in the fork in the hopes it led back to her brother. As she made her own path through the winding corridors, Ash proceeded to follow the shadowy man, his visage still shrouded in near total darkness.
Seeing this as strange, Ash began to think as he chased the man before him. If this was really Go, he couldn't have made it through such a dark place without the use of aura. Even with the light from the braziers in the wall, it was not nearly bright enough to navigate through the spacious hallways on pure eyesight alone.
Ash began to wonder if the theory he and his sister shared about him possessing aura capabilities now rang true. But something was off even beyond that. Knowing how Go reacted to him last time, he would have chastised Ash before engaging with him. The more he thought about it, Ash thought it stranger and stranger. While it was true that he hadn't seen Go in over 6 years, the man he was clearly chasing, despite being hidden in shadows, had a significantly larger build for a body than Go ever did.
Broader shoulders, a set of evidently muscular legs and arms, the way he ran with such immense weight behind him. He even was blatantlu larger than Go could ever feasibly be. Ash's speculation only continued as he further pursued his target, all before a revelation came to him. The man in the statue in Jubilife village. Picturing the statue in his head, Ash sized up the man before him and it seemed to be a perfect match.
"You! Stop right there!" Ash shouted finally, his words garnering not a single response of any kind. "Who are you?! I know you are working with Go! Where is he?! What are you two planning?!"
Still no response. Ash was beginning to get impatient, his mind now fit to be tied.
"I told you to STOP!!" Ash said, firing an Aura Sphere at the man's back.
Without even turning around to look, the man's body was soon swathed in a deep red light. Realizing it was the color of an aura symbolic of a rage filled heart, Ash was caught off guard as the enveloping aura formed a ghostly, transparent red hand, the construct batting the Aura Sphere back at Ash.
Stopping to deflect the projectile at the last second, Ash realized his target was getting away. Evoking his powers to produce an Extremespeed move, Ash rushed the man, only ash to be stopped by the aura enveloping the man, as if his aura itself was a solid object. For but a single moment, Ash caught a glimpse of part of the man's face, his cold, brown eyes looking down on him with a clear, vile hatred.
Ash paused in this moment, totally shell shocked, realizing from the eyes alone who the man he chased really was.
"You..!" Ash gasped before the giant red constructed arm swiped him away.
It didn't take Ash long to catch up however, for he was but a few dozen feet away from a giant open room, with many passages leading to it. Looking around the room, Ash saw it completely devoid of anything except for a rusted, metal ring shaped object in the center of the room. With Ash and the shadow man still in darkness, the man reached into his pocket, flipping a switch on a remote.
Suddenly, the whole room lit up with flood lights, hung up by hand and powered by a portable generator in the corner of the room. With the man's back turned to Ash, the young king could only make out some small features of the man. Wearing a brown army jacket and cargo pants to match, the man also wore some steel tipped boots. The air he gave off alone spoke of how serious he was, but even his attire alone radiated a commanding appearance.
As the man turned, Ash caught a better glimpse of him. His messy, crew cut black hair with traces of grey hairs and tan, slightly wrinkled skin, his cold, calculating eyes full of a hatred so strong it could burn the world around them. With a scornful frown, the man stared down Ash with absolute assertiveness. Ash was at a loss for words, his lips quivering. As he stood, dumbfounded and lost for words, Annabel finally reconnected with her younger brother, entering from a corridor a few feet to Ash's left.
"Is...is that you...? Father..?" Ash finally spoke up.
The man simply stood there, staring Ash down, not a word uttered in retort to Ash's statement.
"What?!" Annabel gasped, looking at the man, then back to her half brother.
"I only know that face from when you walked out on Mom and I when I was 7 years old..!" Ash's words drifted off, his mind trying to process what stood before him. "Father! Why won't you answer me?!"
"That's...my-no, our father..?" Annabel asked, taking in the sight of a man she never met before.
The man continued to stare down Ash with daggers in his eyes, before momentarily turning his attention to Annabel, his expression softening significantly upon seeing her.
"You look so much like your mother..." The man finally spoke, a course, rough voice belting from his throat.
With those words alone, the two siblings' eyes opened wide in shock. While Ash's body quivered in anxiety and palpable horror at his theory holding true, Annabel fell straight onto her knees. The events of her life, the majority of her childhood spent in an orphanage because of the man she initially thought dead now stood before her. While she gasped to find the words to speak, the man simply stayed put, standing in the center of the room as more footsteps echoed behind him.
"Mr. Aiden! We finished up on our end, sir!" A familiar voice sounded from the hallway beyond, the person in question becoming exposed in the bright light of the room.
"You're late." The man replied, turning away from the dazed and shocked siblings, with Ash soon raising his sweaty head up, only to realize who just spoke.
"Go..!" Ash gasped, barely able to get the single word from his mouth.
"Oh, great, you're here after all." Go replied, looking down on Ash with cold disgust before turning to the man in the center of the room. "We did as you asked, we set them all up, but it was tricky to do when that bastard has his troop of sex slaves patrolling the halls."
On either side of Go stood a pair of two women, one with black hair and the other red, both of whom wore dark blue hoodies with a pentagon emblem emblazoned upon them. Ash was barely able to piece together that those two women were the people Irida spoke of before the man returned his sights on his father once more, the man now beginning to speak.
"Now all we need to do is wait. They'll come to us. I left a trail leading to this room only those guys could follow. We'll trap them here." He said to his associates.
"Yes, sir!" The three responded, gathering around the rusted giant metal ring in the room, preparing for something.
As the trio did their assigned task, Ash was stared down by his father once again, cold malice once again flaring up in his eyes.
"What is it..?" Ash asked the man before him.
"Look at you." He spoke.
"Huh..?" Ash asked.
"You have all the power in the world, and you lack the mind to wield it. You disgust me, you thief." He replied, his eyes even growing more hateful.
His words towards her brother snapping her out of her stupor, Annabel barked back at the man, taking to Ash's side.
"How can you say that about your own son?!" She screamed at him, clenching her fists.
Looking back at Annabel again softened the man's expression once again.
"If only you knew what was going on, my dear daughter." The man replied to her. "That brother of yours and that desperate women he calls his mother mean nothing to me. They were a smokescreen to hide from my enemies."
"I already know about that. Riley told us about that. But still...how can you think that way about your wife and son?!"
"My true wife is dead, and soon enough, her killers will be too." The man replied back, his words towards Annabel soft, despite his evident hostile personality.
"Father, before you left us, I always saw you as a gentle person..!" Ash gasped out, his quivering legs finally giving way as Annabel caught him. "You showed me what to aspire to be as a Pokémon trainer! So why? Why'd you break Mom's heart? What were weto you?!"
"You were supposed to be my cover story. I was trying to lay low, to plot my revenge against my wife's murderers! But then you had to take from me my destiny!" The man then yelled, his angry expression resurfaced. "I was supposed to be the chosen one! ME! I was gonna take down Riley's corrupt Aura Guardians and stop the end of the world! But when you got older, I felt the latent power in you was destined to eclipse my own! I couldn't live in the household of a child who couldn't repress his Aura. You'd bring the bastards right to me! So I left you and your mother behind. You couldn't even be good at the one thing I conceived you to do."
"And I'm guessing you saw what my brother did in the Orange Islands then?" Annabel asked him, quickly forming disdain fro the man for his last comment.
"I saw what he did around the world. He succeeded in fulfilling a destiny I was robbed of." The man responded, looking up at the ceiling. "If I was The Chosen One, I could have had the power to save the ones I loved. I was robbed of my strength, but I will still have my revenge."
"Sir, the sensory triggers were just tripped several times!" Go spoke up, his eyes on a tablet he clutched in his arms. "We got several trucks making their way up the mountain!"
"How many?" The man asked, turning to his partner.
As this went down, Sabrina and Flannery were scouting one of the bastions on the exterior of the temple, with a clear sight on an approaching convoy.
"What the..?" Flannery breathed before getting worried. "This is bad..! Look at how many there are!"
"We gotta call Master!" Sabrina replied, her finger running up to her earpiece, only for it to let out a shrill pitch before dying out.
"Shit! Cameras one through seven are down!" Go called out.
"That's their EMP. They're finally here! About time, too." The father spoke, then soon turning to his cohorts. "You three get through the portal once it's fired up. We'll do as planned. I'll meet you at the rendezvous."
"What the hell are you planning-" Ash spoke up, finding the strength to stand and walk towards his father, only to be backhanded by the now reformed red hand constructed by his father's aura, the man sending his son flying into the stone wall behind him.
"Ash!" Annabel shouted, rushing to her brother's side.
Scoffing at his daughter's care for the child he despised, the father scoffed as the rusted ring in the center of the room started spinning, the center of the ring opening a warp gate to an unknown destination. As the three associates entered the portal, Go took one last look at Ash before scoffing himself, entering the portal, with it shutting down shortly afterward.
"You'd best find a way to get your mindless soldiers to get out of here." The siblings' father warned the two. "That is if you even give enough of a damn about them to begin with. I know who you brought with you. They have technology that prevents telepathy. Sabrina won't be able to contact you or any of your soulless sex dolls."
"What?!" Ash growled before wincing in pain from the backhand from before.
"Brother!"
"It's ok. I'm already healing." Ash comforted his elder sister, his wounds mending as the Vigor Stone within Ash responded to the trauma, healing him automatically. "Anyways, enough about me. If he said they used an EMP and have a block on Sabrina, our slaves might be in trouble. Go and find them, I'll be fine."
Pausing for a moment, looking at her father, then back to her brother, Annabel relented for a moment before obeying her brother's orders.
"Stay safe!" She called back to him as she left the room the way she came in a full sprint.
Watching his daughter leave, the man sighed before turning his attention to a wrist watch.
"If they follow the path I laid for them, they'll be here soon." The man said in a meticulous manner, his plan soon be put in play.
"Who's they?" Ash asked, getting off the floor.
Before he could even be answered, the hallway on the other side of the room started echoing a cacophony of a great many footsteps. Suddenly, a massive group of thugs poured into the room, dozens at a time. Soon enough, Ash and his father were met with a bunch of hoodlums, all wearing varying types of typical delinquent attire, but the one thing they all wore was a pin shaped in the style of a jagged "S".
"That's the..." Ash noticed.
"Oh, so you do have a brain in that small head of yours." Ash's father cynically remarked as one man stepped before the group of enemies.
"So you're the leader?" Ash asked.
"No, he's not." Ash's father answered him before turning his attention to the one calling the shots of the pack of gangsters. "Where's your bosses?"
"Oh, they didn't want to waste time dealing with you here, Aiden. Or was your name Roland? You have so many names, you see. Doesn't matter, our orders are to take you to 'em, even if we gotta smash you up to do it." The thug responded sinisterly, brandishing a wooden baseball bat, adorned with rusty nails in one hand, a strange device attached to his other.
"Oh this is just perfect, I spend months targeting your smuggling operations, take down dozens of your peons and neither one of those two won't even deal with me themselves?" The man scoffed further. "Then this was all a waste of time."
"Care to fill me in on any of what was just said?" Ash asked his father.
"No, I don't think I will." He bluntly retorted, positioning himself as if he was about to make a run for it.
"You're not going anywhere unless it's to see our boss, moron!" The head thug yelled, raising his arm with the device on it at Aiden.
Without warning, Ash's father rushed behind him, grabbing him by the throat, then using Ash as a human shield while the thug fired off his device. Suddenly, small pieces of shrapnel shot out of the hand cannon like a gun, piercing Ash in his abdomen. Wincing at first, Ash felt an extreme pain as the shrapnel got lodged in his body, but soon realized the shrapnel didn't penetrate as deep as he thought it would.
Before his mind could focus on his father using his son as a shield, Aiden used his massive strength, pressing his free hand onto Ash's back before throwing him at the enemy. Aiden then wasted no time quickly calling out a Gallade from a pokeball, teleporting out of the room, but not without throwing another switch on his remote beforehand. Getting up, Ash began to defend himself from the vicious attackers.
As one swung a metal pipe at his head, Ash tried to call forth his aura to defend himself, but he couldn't. Not reacting quick enough after his powers failed to activate, Ash was struck by the pipe, leaving him dazed, his vision blurred and the side of his head bleeding.
As the gang swarmed him, Ash desperately tried to fight them off when all of the sudden, an explosion could be heard in one of the many hallways leading to the room he was in. The gang noticing this began to back off, realizing what was happening. As consecutive explosions filled the subsequent corridors, the gang decided to stop attacking Ash and make a run for it, leaving Ash by himself.
His train of thought compromised and the Vigor Stone not working, Ash desperately stumbled to the entrance he came from for an exit, but soon found that had collapsed as well. With no Pokémon of his capable of teleporting him out of there, Ash closed his eyes and awaited the end. Suddenly, his elder sister came to the rescue, her Alakazam teleporting her into the sealed up room.
Wasting not a moment to get him out, Annabel had her Alakazam bring the duo back to Alola, where all the other girls from the mission had been safely returned. Seeing their Master in trouble, the girls huddled around him to offer him first aid. Only realizing that he was in the safety of the palace did Ash finally let go and pass out from his injuries.