All for You

Chapter 40

"What should I start with?" Ash asked excitedly as he put on the wired headband.

Paul raised an eyebrow. Start with? There's more than one power?

"Well, what were you doing a few seconds ago?" Gary asked, looking at his phone to ensure the readings were coming through.

"Lucario showed me how to transmit my thoughts and read minds! It's pretty hard, though."

"WHAT!?!?!?"

"Alright, then. Why don't you start by reading Violet's mind over here?" Gary suggested.

Paul regained his senses. "What?! I never agreed to-"

"That's great! I'm so used to your aura and Lucario's aura that I should probably practice on someone who's aura I'm not as used to. Here goes nothing!" Ash closed his eyes and started glowing blue.

Paul took a step back. As if that would do anything. What is happening?! "I am not-"

"WHAT!?!"

Paul turned to Gary, whose face showed more suprise than Paul had ever seen on somene before. Then again, he hadn't seen his own face a few seconds ago.

"These readings, that's not possible!!" Gary shouted. Paul looked over his shoulder. Gary's phone showed a graph that showed the power readouts of Ash's aura compared to that of lots of other sources. Paul saw the readout of Mega evolution, Z-moves, Gigantamax, mushrooms from Glimwood Tangle, and varius other power sources, presumably all of Gary's reaserch projects.

But Ash's aura put them all to shame. It surpased the most powerful energy source Gary had ever researched and logged, which looked to be Mega Evoloution. And it was still growing. It was double, triple the height on the graph, making the other readouts shrink dramatically. 

Paul turned back to Ash, who was still glowing blue. He opened his eyes; they had turned blue as well. He was smiling.

'Hey Paul, you were thinking that the power of this 'aura' stuff is insanely powerful.'

Paul took a startled step back. Ash hadn't opened his mouth.

'Sorry, I should have mentioned; I can use aura to talk directly to people and pokemon now, too, like telepethy.' Ash grinned.

Paul turned to Gary, who gave him a smug smirk. "You wanted to be in the loop? I give you the loop!"

Paul just shook his head and sighed. 

________........________

Gary grinned at Paul's obvious discomfort at the situation. He loved teasing that purple-headed jerk. 

He turned his attention back to Ash. "Alright, now that we have the data on you broadcasting and mind reading, or whatever you call it, Let's see the readouts on the other aura powers you've discovered."

Gary looked at the readouts on Ash's aura radar and when he reached out with aura, and found that in order from using the least power to the most power, his aura skills would be listed as reaching out with aura (the wayhe found Gary and Pikachu the first time he tried), broacasting his thoughts to others, reading other's thoughts, and seeing a half-mile around with a wave of aura. By now, Ash was pretty tired, and he took a seat on the grass by the practice battle field they were on.

"Alright, now we just need to measure the power level of when you do that stop-time thing with Lucario. Are you up for it? We just did a bunch of practice, and you usually get pretty tired." 

"Of course! Let's see it through till the end." Ash pumped a fist into the air, and Lucario nodded.

"Great then!" It didn't even occur to Gary that Ash was just saying that since he was Ash and that there was a high likelyhood of Ash passing out again. 

"Now we need to create the time-stop aura plane thing." Gary eyed Paul as he said this, having an inkling of where this was going.

"Right, and that usually happens when Lucario and I are in sync and make eye contact, and that usually happens in a battle or challenge." Ash added also eyeing Paul.

"Which means..." Both Ash and Gary turned to Paul, who glared back at them, confused.

"Hey Paul, are you up for a battle?"

---***---***---***---

"Alright, 1x1, winner takes all, go!" Gary explained the, er, rules.

"Electivire, use Thunderpunch!" Electivire charged foward, his fist glowing yellow.

'Lucario, aura sphere!' Ash said using aura. It probably wasn't too smart to use his aura right before he did the super-tiring thing, but Ash was a live-in-the-moment type of guy, not a make-sure-I-don't-pass-out-in-the-future type of guy.

Lucario charged up a sphere of aura, sending it flying towars Electivire as it charged towards him. The aura sphere hit Electivire, who charged through it and attacked Lucario with thunderpunch.

Lucario was sent skidding back before regaining his footing.

'Double team, then meteor mash!' Ash aura-broadcasted to Lucario.

Lucario carried it out and was about to attack ELectivire with meteor mash when Paul cried out, "Attack all the copies with Thunderbolt!"

Lucario pulled off the meteor mash, but got sent flying back a bit from thunderbolt.

Ash turned to Lucario and nodded, their eyes making contact, only for (you guessed it) 'the thing' to happen.

Ash and Lucario were in the aura plane, time frozen outside. "Well, that was easier than last time." Ash said.

Lucario agreed. 'Indeed. I could almost tell it was going to happen.'

"Me too! It felt kinda like... That feeling, when you're in a heated battle, and the energy starts to pump through you? That must be aura!" Ash said excitedly.

'That sounds a lot like what I felt as well.' Noted Lucario.

"Maybe that means that next time, we can do it a lot easier." Ash thought.

'Perhaps. How long are we supposed to stay in here?' Lucario asked.

"Hmm, we should probably leave as soon as possible so we're no too tired. But how do we leave? The last few times it kinda just happened. I suppose the last two, we left when we were wondering how to leave, right?"

'Yes. I wonder if we leave by simply wishing to?' Lucario wondered.

"It can't be that easy, right? At any rate, it's worth a shot. Alright, I wish to leave!" Ash shouted.

Nothing happened.

"Hmmm... What were you thinking about last time we left?" Ash asked.

'I was wondering how time freezes when we're here.' Lucario replied.

"I was wondering what the best way to leave was." Ash frowned. "That doesn't help clear anything up."

'Maybe we can try to just stop using aura.' Lucario suggested.

"Stop? But I can't tell if I'm using aura. How will I know how to stop what I can't see or feel?" Ash asked.

'Can't you feel the energy you're supplying this with? It's probably why we're both so tired when we do this. It takes a massive amount of energy to stop time this way.' Lucario noted.

"Yeah, that makes sense. Alright, I'll try to stop using the aura I can't tell I'm using." 

Ash closed his eyes and tried to completely wall off the aura inside of him, and his efforts were met with a pounding headache and a wave of exhaustion. Ash opened his eyes to find he was back on the battlefield, Paul looked at him with his typical upset expression and Gary's eyes going wide. 

"Impossible! Look at these readings!" Gary sprinted over to the battlefield, showing Ash and Paul his phone.

Ash and Paul leaned in and looked at the graph.

It read Out of range.