Chapter 5 Cameran palace

As the group of friends left the Rota Pokémon centre, Ash swinging his recently healed arm, they were accosted by a man in the muted regalia of a minor official, holding a clipboard.

"Welcome to the town of Rota, the site of Cameran Palace! Today we have the annual tournament of arms before the Queen. I understand that you're one of those who registered to compete?"

Ash nodded. "Yep… but everyone else is wearing wonderful old costumes. I feel kinda out of place… mind if I see if there's something I can put on? I mean, this is the first I heard of the theme."

"Understandable." He made a tick on his clipboard. "There's a dressing room in the palace, on the second floor. You have about two hours before the tournament starts. It's full of old outfits that nobody's claimed, should be a good place to look. But remember to check next time, young man."

"Got it. Let's go, guys!"

Ash and friends walked off towards the castle, the orderly they'd left behind looking faintly confused. I thought Riolu were native only to Sinnoh and west Johto…

Ash was excited. More than that, he was excited and with someone else who was excited (for a slightly different reason). Riolu wanted to see everything he could about the place one of the greatest heroes of the country had lived in, so long ago.

Brock and Misty were getting a little tired of Ash bouncing off the walls in excitement.

"Oh, come on! It's the tournament! It's going to be amazing! I've looked forward to this for weeks!"

"And is that a painting of the battle of Crane Wing, where Sir Aaron challenged the entire enemy high command to single combat at once and then didn't even bother to get out a weapon!"

Pikachu rubbed his long ears and sighed. "Please quieten down, you two, I have sensitive ears. And you're not off the hook Riolu, just because this little Aura trick provides translation does not make you any less loud."

Ash was briefly contrite, before spotting the door to the dressing room and jogging ahead to it.

"Now, where is it…?" The room was full of costumes, not all of them from the past. Ash saw there was a spacesuit in there, complete with the holsters for Poké balls and the embossed warning only to use primary Steel types, as they often were incapable of depressurization due to lack of breathing in the first place.

Not that Ash paid much attention to it, Riolu and Pikachu jumping off his shoulders to aid his frantic search. He was so close, the anticipation was almost painful.

"Found it!"

"Brilliant!" Ash moved over to where Pikachu was, and stared for almost half a minute at the complete set of clothes, pristine and waiting.

"Well?"

He started. "Yeah, sorry." Ash took the outfit and moved on into the changing room.

The next few minutes were quite an experience. The main body of the outfit was perfectly normal – apart from being surprisingly tough for its' weight – but the rest… every single accessory bar none had some important or useful purpose.

First, the boots. They pulsed for a moment, questing for their wearer's Aura, then apparently accepted Ash's and drew for a second. Then it was as if Ash was suddenly about ten kilos lighter. He could feel a little mental switch, somewhere in the back of his mind, controlling the amount of Aura sent to the boots. Presumably they could be left off until needed, so that the body didn't atrophy – or perhaps reversed. It would be like the old trick of training while wearing weights.

Then there was the pouch. It likewise tested Ash, drew for a moment, and went inert. But upon opening it Ash found that it was huge, bigger by far than the exterior, and full to the brim with useful items, kits and what felt like a full set of notes in neat notebooks. Already, this alone was more precious than gold. The private notes of an Aura adept would aid Ash immensely – even a week solid in training hadn't let him learn all that the ancient knight could remember, let alone his more difficult to recall techniques, tweaks and perhaps useful knowledge of other sorts.

The cape had it's own purpose as well, and when Ash put it on he could feel a tingling about his collar as it recognized the wearer's awakened Aura and began pushing ambient Aura on it's master's frequency into him, providing a gradual recharge for Ash and Sir Aaron and presumably rendering any Adept thief unable to properly control their Aura with what would to them be a taint. Ingenious design, really.

After the last three Ash was almost nervous about the hat, but put it on anyway. There didn't seem to be anything different, though there was the normal probe, accept, draw… then nothing.

"Ash?" A trickle of thought came across from his mental connection to Riolu – only noticeable because the Pokémon was on the other side of a door, and his voice wasn't audible.

"What?"

"Your Aura just… dimmed. Not much, but noticeably."

"Huh. Interesting. Maybe the notes will explain it." Oh, I'll have a lot of late nights with those.

Now it was down to the final item, the gloves.

The gloves were sized perfectly, as indeed everything else had been, despite the five year difference with last time it had been worn. Or the fact that neither time had Ash been in full growth, and Sir Aaron clearly had been.

Probably more strange uses for Aura… ooooh wow. That feels very nice.

Ash had drawn the gloves up his arms, and they had promptly begun resonating with his Aura, the stones on them building up a charge that was connected to his reserves, the charge being drawn from his ambient leakage. They effectively meant both that he did not lose Aura to the environment unless the glove reservoirs were full and that his immediately available pool had grown massively – and closed up the envelope of his frequency too, boosting his precision.

Before they'd amplified him to the point he could manipulate Aura untrained. Now he felt like he could take on anything.

That might just be tested soon.

As Ash left the changing room, he was faced with Pikachu explaining the events of the last time their group had been to the castle. The story of an ancient warrior, a message from the past, human greed… and a noble sacrifice.

"Wow…" Riolu breathed. "So you're saying that you actually met Sir Aaron's student, and the Mew of the Tree of Beginning, and went inside it? That's amazing, you must have been just stunned!"

Pikachu scratched the back of his head awkwardly. "We didn't really view it that way, to behonest. I mean, if we're talking weird and wonderful there's the time we met the legendary birds responsible for the Orange islands' climate… or the massive duel between Groudon and Kyogre… or the time Ash got possessed… or the time I got possessed by Groudon… or perhaps when I vanished from existence for a few seconds because of nearly five thousand years of time all but being cancelled out…"

Riolu stared at Pikachu. "You people… That thing with Hunter J wasn't anything special for you, was it?"

Ash butted in. "It was a bit unusual. That was a slow week."

"I can hardly credit it!" Ash stormed around the salon in a black mood.

"Calm down, Ash, it's not that bad."

"Where did they even get a Ghost/Ground type? That's not fair."

Isshu, Dexter butted in, It's a Golem Pokémon, called Goruggo – I think they call it Golurk. Though even I think the ability to punch out Pidgeot when she's a hundred feet up was just unfair.

"Still, third place. Not bad at all, Ash." Misty tried.

"We're so very coming back next year. With more team members to handle ridiculous immunities." Ash gave up his pacing, and slumped down onto a chair. "But yeah, I get the point. When's that audience? Good thing I got to talk to her after the third/fourth playoff to arrange that."

You should set off in… ten minutes.

"Okay. Probably better get going now then. Brock, mind coming with me? I mean, I'm ten after all."

"Yeah, sure. Don't want it to seem like you're a kid playing dress up, do we?"

"That and he wants to see the queen…" Ash's Pokémon entered, Butterfree gripping a Poké ball that was presumably Pidgeot's.

"Oh, hey guys! You all healed up?"

"Yes. But next time please make sure that our foe isn't that nasty."

"Won't be a problem, you'll learn Foresight. Right?"

Riolu blinked, then his eyes flickered red briefly. "Well damn. I completely forgot about that."

"Oh, for goodness' sake…"

"Ash Ketchum of Pallet town, his two Pokémon, and Brock of Pewter to see you, Milady."

Queen Ilene turned to the door. "Ah, I was expecting them. Thank you."

Ash, Brock, and Pikachu and Riolu walked into the audience chamber. Ash knelt briefly, remembering a little of the etiquette crash course Sir Aaron had tried while Ash was concentrating on drawing out power.

"Ma'am. I have something important to discuss."

She gestured for him to rise. "Then get to it. No need to stand on ceremony."

Ash began to feel this might actually go well. "Okay, first thing is… did you know that this outfit I'm wearing is more than a replica of Sir Aaron's clothes, but is in fact the genuine article? Or articles, I suppose, since it's clothing."

The queen of Cameran arched an eyebrow. "Indeed? And how is it that this has not been noticed? Many Aura adepts have visited the castle in the two thousand years since his death, and none of them have said anything."

Ash smiled weakly. "The special properties of the outfit only activate when worn by someone of an identical Aura signature. Like mine. I've recently discovered I'm his descendant."

Queen Ilene nodded, this not seeming to surprise her. But then, an integral part of her palace was crystals from a ridiculously vast supernatural tree made out of rock, so perhaps this was fairly mundane. Ash hadn't considered that maybe other people also had the crazy kind of love/hate relationship with luck that he had.

"Anyway, I'd like to, I suppose… take these with me. I could say they're my inheritance, I could say that they're not doing much good where they are, I could say they'll help me save people, but since I've just made all those points I'm going to mention something else. That staff - the tournament grand prize - contains, frozen in stasis, Sir Aaron's companion Lucario." The moment the two took their eyes off it, Brock picked it up and started looking at the quality of the crystals, unsuccessfully trying to distract himself from the Queen. "Since he's been in stasis since before the Yamato period, he's probably going to mistake me for him and not know about the whole heroic sacrifice thing. So we need to be able to deal with him in a calm environment, and – what is it Pikachu?"

Pikachu stopped tugging on Ash's ear and pointed at Brock. That teen was practically vibrating in place, staring at the Queen.

"Aah! The vision of loveliness is one I can no longer ignooore!" Brock threw aside the staff he was carrying and rushed towards the Queen, arms outstretched.

Her Mime Jr. promptly tripped him, being used to amorous visitors, but that wasn't the problem.

The problem was that Ash had reflexively caught the staff as it sailed towards him.

And it was glowing.

Ash breathed, "Oh, crap."

"I wonder how Ash is doing," Misty said, looking out of the window at the vale below the town of Rota, taking in the sights of the beautiful pocket country. "I mean, you know how he gets."

Butterfree nodded, floating a few feet from her to give her some space. He himself was astonished by the sheer size of the Tree of Beginning, seen far off in the distance.

Pidgeot chirped to herself, barely able to fit in the room.

At that moment, a horizontal pillar of debris erupted out of the wall in the area of the Audience Chamber, showering some of the gardens below with pebbles that used to be masonry.

An azure light could be seen inside the hole, before a blue-clothed figure jumped out barely ahead of a pulsing Aura Sphere.

Ash – for such it was – hit the ground feet first and started running, showing no ill effects for the drop. A Lucario, blurred with speed, followed him out the hole. Seconds later, what looked like Pikachu and Riolu appeared in the gap, staggering back from the sudden edge.

Misty reached for Pidgeot's Poké ball on the side. "I'll send you out there, then you grab those two and get them to him!"

Seconds later Pidgeot was gliding over to the hole in the wall, where she picked up Riolu and Pikachu before vanishing to the north, where the Aura wielders had gone before.

"First a traitor and now an incompetent liar! How I once respected you is beyond me!"

Ash backed away desperately, dodging as many blows as he could and flaring his own Aura to cancel the hits he could not dodge. "I'm telling you, I'm not Sir Aaron! You've been in that staff for a couple thousand years!" The two were fighting in a small, rocky depression in the valley – where Lucario had finally caught up with the retreating human.

"Why should I believe you! This is some form of trap!"

I'm his direct descendent-" Ash raised a Protect, the field no longer weak and momentary but standing like a wall in Lucario's path, "-so you're confusing our Auras. I'm not him!"

Lucario broke the barrier with a Force Palm strike, the Aura spike widening swiftly from the needle point that breached the technique to force the whole thing to pop. "Exactly the sort of excuse a dishonoured cur would use!"

Ash sighed, briefly feeding far too much power to Aaron's boots and jumping back about thirty feet, before closing his eyes as he skidded to a halt. He'd need every edge he had, and it still wouldn't be enough.

He saw Lucario spinning up an Aura Sphere.

Oh crap. Let's see, how did he do this… Mirror Coat!

His left hand flashed out, translucent in the counterattack technique, while he began building his own Sphere in the right – flung back behind him still from braking his slide.

All too soon, Lucario was charging, the Aura Sphere flying just ahead of him. Presumably the intent was to stop Ash from switching to Counter in time for the physical attack that was on the way. Well, Ash had a way of handling that. Hopefully.

The Mirror Coat caught the Aura Sphere, wrapped it in Ash's own Aura and turned it over to him to control, giving him one in each hand.

He forced his right forward to match the left and lined both up with Lucario's palm strikes.

This is gonna suck.

Ash caught the twin blows in his Aura Spheres.

The impact almost knocked Ash off his feet – even with the boots being used to anchor him, Ash's raw strength was no match for that of his opponent.

There was a crackle like fireworks as the Pokémon tried to force through the human's new defensive measure by main strength. A plan that was depressingly likely to succeed, to be honest – the gloves didn't enhance replenishment rate, just gave larger storage capacity, while the cape worked too slowly.

"How the mighty have fallen, former friend of mine!" Lucario practically spat. "Fleeing from justice, and then finding yourself too weak to avoid it on top of that?"

"Thunder!"

Ash gained a reprieve as Pikachu and the others arrived like the proverbial cavalry, the overloaded electric attack knocking the Aura Pokémon aside.

"And now you have more servants – I see that your Pidgeot is still with you, as well. Did he not flee from your iniquity?"

The entire battle seemed to freeze in place.

Ash sighed internally. That's torn it.

"I'm a girl, you complete IDIOT! SKY ATTACK!"

The huge, nearly instantaneous phoenix of pure energy rocked the small rubbled depression… leaving a rather larger blast crater.

Lucario coughed, straightening up. That was… unexpected. No matter. The bird had presumably caught his foe in the blast as well, so this could finally be ended.

As the residual energy from the attack began to clear, he closed his eyes once more, in the familiar mode of behaviour of Aura adepts, to find his target.

There he was, doubled over in pain and held up by the electric Pokémon that had saved him last time, but-

There was a Riolu standing in front of him, hands glowing, ready to defend.

A Riolu.

Lucario knew, he knew, that it was literally impossible for any of his species – or their pre-evolutions – to support evil. Their sense of morality was genetic.

But then…

He realized then that the other was correct. He had been in the staff for far longer than he had expected.

"Erm… oops?"

"I am starting to think that maybe I should just go back in."

"Oh, you can't go and do that! I mean, were you released a few years from now as was originally planned, you'd be too weak to prevent the necessity of purifying the Tree from draining you all the way and killing you." Ash then gestured towards the crystalline organism. "As it is, if you get back to the meditation and training that builds Aura reserves, you ought to be able to survive even that drastic measure from being able to finish you off. And then Rota – and the Mew associated with the Tree – would have a guardian again."

"Very well, then. If it is as important as you claim. Though to be honest I am still trying to get used to the whole time travel concept."

"I finally managed to tag you with the memories, right?"

"True. But there wasn't nearly as much as for some. The bit about chocolate interested me, though…"

"I'll drop some off when I get a free day. Thanks to Pidgeot, we have more flex in our schedule than before." Ash grinned. "She might have even forgiven you for the mistake by this time next year."

"You can hardly blame me."

"Actually, yes I can. A lot. But I won't, because you were confused and because I was really expecting it."

"Thank you." Lucario then looked more slyly at Ash. "And I'll try to make sure that the Queen isn't too upset you're taking Aaron's staff."

"…I'd ask how you knew, but it's probably Aura again, isn't it."

"There are a myriad of uses, most of them more subtle than much of what you've done. Though holding several millennia of life experiences in your head is rather more impressive than that attempt at combat."

"Come on! I've had, what, a month at most? That's not bad."

"You could have been training for a good year now, had you paid attention the last time you met me. But enough of that. Get going, young Chosen. You have far to go still."

Ash palmed his forehead. "Do you know about that too? This is ridiculous, why didn't anyone tell me about it?"

"I only know because it's hereditary and you're Sir Aaron's descendant. I have no intention of being an apologist for all the gods you've met, though." Lucario gave a crooked smile, the same one Sir Aaron had displayed whenever he found something completely hilarious. "Come to that, my next few years sound like bliss. Just hanging around here, meditating on the nature of the universe… and absolutely no being possessed by the spirit of the king of a land that sank under the sea a thousand years ago." As Ash's incredulous look, Lucario relented. "All right, Sir Aaron sent me a memory packet of what he saw of your life. He thought it'd be funny, and he was right. Ever considered selling your life story to an anime company? You'd be pretty popular."

"This is just getting ridiculous. How do you know about anime?"

"Because you do, of course. I can just see it now. Aura's Glow, starring Ash Ketchum! With Brock as the comic relief, that girl you travel with as the love interest, of course, and-"

"Wait, what?"

"-who could have foreseen just how close the two of you would become when you met thanks to the chance destruction of her bike!"

Ash's eye began twitching. "Please be more specific. You just described most of the girls I know."

"That would be telling. The hero never actually works out he has feelings until-"

"Until what? Puberty? That would at least be a help!"

Pikachu shook his head vigorously. "No, it wouldn't. It never is."

Riolu glanced up at Pidgeot. "Will I become that weird later?"

She gently caressed him with a wing. "Scarily, I think the weird ones are the strong ones…"

"What about you?"

She flapped her other wing at the crater lip. Riolu saw that the kanji characters for "I'm female, twit" were carved on the surface in a tracery of molten glass. "I just hide my neuroses better. It's a much better way to do things – go partly nuts as an outlet."

The knight of honour gripped his implements tightly. This was a matter of great importance, and he needed all the help he could get. Glancing at the huge forms all around him, he closed his eyes…

And was slapped by one of the Thousand Hands of Arceus.

No cheating with Aura Sight, Aaron!

Sir Aaron rubbed his side. "Why not? I mean, you're God, Dialga can look into the future to see what everyone has and I swear Palkia has been grav lensing to give him viewpoints behind my seat!"

It's the price you pay for playing Pokér with deities.

"Mrf… pity Lucario isn't here… he'd back me up…"

It's a good thing he's unavailable, it means he's actually alive.

"Regardless, I insist that Aura Sight also be allowed unless you want to disallow spatial and temporal tampering as well."