The Aura is With Us

Prolog

Riley couldn't breathe.

The air around him was hot and damp, smothering. The humidity clung to his body, sticking on to his skin, making his wounds sting. His chest felt tight, and it burned. Breathe! He needed to breathe! He strained to gasp, but only choked. Coughs raddled his damaged flesh as he struggled. Finally, a pained breath was sucked through his cracked dry lips. It hurt. Oh Arceus, it was agony, but he panted none the less. Greedily gulping down breath after breath, while a raging wildfire seared away at his lungs. At his whole body.

Was he burning? The furious fever consumed him; choking, scorching, devouring him. Heat flushed his skin, clinging to his body like wet claws digging into his bruised body. Pain crisscrossed his skin in. He didn't need to open his eyes, he knew. He was cut. The bleeding vibrant slices in his flesh stung and burned as they ran red rivers down his limbs and dripped onto the floor. The heat was relentless, determined to cook him away.

The servipers in his stomach began to slithered wildly, and the stench of death that seemed stitched into the air wasn't settling them. He wanted to throw up. The headache set in next. Waves of pulsing pain were quickly accompanied by dizziness, and the worsening of his nausea. The heavy metallic taste of blood rested on his tongue and stained his teeth.

"Wake up," someone snapped.

The voice was not one he recognized, but before he had any time to react a flash of white-hot pain splashed across his right cheek. His body swayed in the air. He felt his burning legs being dragged over the rough floor as he rocked. The hot metal rings he had been chained up with dug into his wrists and pulled his arms over his head as he limply hung there; strung up like a dead fish. Eyes blearily opened, a world of distorted shapes and fuzzy colors greeted him.

"Wake up, Aura User," he was slapped again.

After he stopped flinching, he looked up once again. A women stood in front of him, orange hair, fair skin, with sinister violet eyes; pretty but not his type. A large red 'R' on her tight black dress. Her pink lips twisted into a smirk.

"Welcome back," she cooed, "I thought I was going to need to have Raticate use bite on you."

He stared at the woman, before his memory finally aided him. His eyes widened as it all came flooding back to him. The pain was momentary replaced with shock and fear. The hunters. The explosion. Iron Island. Lucario!

His head snapped up, causing the chains holding him up to jingle and his spiky black, almost navy, hair to dance, "Where is he?" He rasped, as loud as his dry, aching throat would allow.

"Oh, your partner?" The woman teased, with a sickly-sweet tone in her voice, "Don't worry, we're not that heartless. Look to your right."

He hesitantly glanced over; neck still too stiff to actually turn his head. His breathing hitched at the sight. The bi-pedal Jackal-like blue and black Pokémon, laid sprawled out on the room's dirt floor, completely oblivious to the surrounding world. Pieces of fur were missing, ripped out, and patches of red were splotched around the rest of the body, blood stains. The glowing bars of energy were projected from a cube shaped device above the Pokémon, imprisoning his partner. The only comfort that he was given was the subtle moving of Lucario's torso as the Pokémon weakly breathed.

His heart sank, and eyes misted. The partner he had worked with for practically his whole life. The Pokémon he had, hatched, trained, struggled and laughed with for all these years, was now laying on the floor practically bleeding to death before his very eyes. The chains that bound him wouldn't even let him comfort his closest friend.