Chapter 314: The Aura Guardian
Lillie walked over as the last of the crowd began to disperse, tucking her guidebook under her arm. "All finished? I think I'm going to need a few more days with those texts in the library. We should find somewhere to stay first — then head out to Iron Island when I'm done."
"Whatever works for you," Ryan said simply.
The onlookers drifted away reluctantly, buzzing with conversation. A sparring match between the Guild President and a Sinnoh Elite Four member wasn't something you stumbled across every day. Several of Ryan's fans lingered at the edge of the plaza hoping for an autograph, but he declined politely — Lillie had been reading for hours and needed rest, and that was that. The crowd accepted it, if not happily.
A few of the women in the crowd exchanged quiet, slightly envious glances in Lillie's direction as the two of them walked off together. Finding someone that capable, that attentive, and that straightforwardly devoted — the general consensus was that she'd done extremely well for herself.
What none of them knew was who Lillie actually was. The heiress of the Aether Foundation. One of the top academic minds of her generation. Genuinely kind and composed in a way that wasn't performance. If they'd known, the envy would have looked considerably different — or perhaps Ryan was the one who'd gotten the better end of things.
They found a hotel near the canal, got Lillie settled with her books and a comfortable reading chair, and spent the better part of two weeks in Canalave that way. Lillie read. Ryan handled correspondence and trained. And eventually, they boarded the ferry west to Iron Island.
Iron Island sat off the northwest coast of Sinnoh, accessible only by boat from Canalave. It had once been a productive iron mine, but the ore reserves had run dry years ago and operations had shut down. The island had since become an open training ground — wild Steel-type Pokémon had moved in and made the old tunnels their home, and Trainers from Canalave, Snowpoint, and beyond came here regularly for serious conditioning work. Byron, the Canalave Gym Leader, was known to bring his students here. So was Riley, the Aura Guardian who called the island home.
Riley was specifically why Ryan and Lillie had made the trip.
Aura was something Ryan had been thinking about since his conversations with Riley's student, and Lillie had been thinking about it even more directly. Watching Ryan operate with his various abilities had quietly planted a question in her mind — what if I had something like that too? Aura was unusual in that it wasn't exclusive to Pokémon. Any person could learn it, given the right aptitude and instruction. Ryan had reached out to Riley through a letter of introduction, asking him to assess whether Lillie had the potential to learn.
The ability itself was remarkably complete as a skill set — mind-reading, telepathy, environmental sensing, the ability to perceive through solid objects, aura projection for both defense and offense, and even the capacity to transfer aura energy to other living beings, though that last application was dangerous enough to the user that it was rarely employed.
As far as Ryan knew, the only people currently using Aura were Riley himself and Ash — though Ash didn't know he had it yet. Ryan suspected that the moment Ash set foot on Iron Island and crossed paths with Riley, that was going to change. The ancient texts in the Canalave Library had made several references to Aura users throughout Pokémon history — wanderers who could sense and channel it, who passed the knowledge on to others with the same potential. Riley had followed that tradition in taking on his student. Ash fit the profile completely.
According to Riley's student, the entirety of Iron Island had historically belonged to Riley's family — his ancestors had owned the mine.
The ferry docked, and Ryan and Lillie stepped onto the island's rocky shore. Lillie looked around at the grey stone and the distant mouth of the mine entrance cut into the hillside. "Where do we actually find Riley? It's a shame his student couldn't be more specific."
"His aptitude for Aura is solid but not exceptional — he can use it, he can't fully read it in others yet. He said Riley usually trains deeper in the mine." Ryan shrugged. "So we go into the mine."
Lillie accepted this with the pragmatic expression of someone who had followed Ryan into stranger places than an old iron mine.
The tunnel entrance was wide and reasonably navigable — the floor was relatively flat, old rusted rail tracks running along the ground, the walls lined at intervals with lamps that cast just enough light to see by. Riolu appeared occasionally in the shadows near the walls, watching them pass with curious eyes. A few Lairon moved through the deeper passages. Ryan was quietly impressed that the rail tracks had survived in the presence of that particular species.
As they went deeper, the light thinned and the Pokémon grew heavier — Steelix threading through distant passages, several Beldum drifting in small clusters near the ceiling. Still no sign of Riley.
The tunnel branched into three at a fork. Ryan and Lillie both looked at the options for a moment.
"Togekiss," Lillie said.
Ryan nodded immediately. After previous experiences with his own luck in unclear situations, he was entirely on board with deferring to Togekiss. Lillie released it, the fairy-type made one graceful loop through the cavern, and then sailed confidently down the left-hand passage. Ryan and Lillie followed without debate.
The passage opened before long into a cavern that stopped them both in their tracks.
It was enormous — roughly the size of two full Pokémon stadiums side by side, with a vaulted ceiling lost in shadow above. And in the center of it, two people were already deep in a battle.
One was Riley — the Aura Guardian himself, calm and precise as his reputation suggested, Lucario at his side moving with the fluid, deliberate power of a Pokémon fully synchronized with its Trainer's aura.
The other was Byron, the Canalave City Gym Leader, his Bastiodon planted solidly across from Lucario, steel-plated and immovable, the battle between them clearly well underway.
Both men glanced over when Ryan and Lillie appeared at the cavern entrance. Neither broke stride. The battle continued without interruption.
Ryan found a suitable spot along the cavern wall, leaned against the stone, and watched.
(End of Chapter)
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