Welcome one and all to part two of the Guardians of Aura series. I promise to make this one even better than the last. Like with the first story this one is rated T for violence, language, and suggestive themes. After taking such a long break I hope I have come up with a way to make the fanfiction readers happy. Please enjoy reading and remember that reviews are welcome.

Prologue: They are evil, the humans. We spirits gave them the gifts of intelligence and sentience hoping they would use it for innovation and good. But they are so easily led astray. Unlike the Pokémon they view themselves as so superior to, they are easily corruptible. The powers that were intended to improve the world are now being used to destroy it. Instead of life and creation, the humans use their intelligence for their own pursuits of greed and warfare. They pollute and kill the environments we worked so hard to create. With them as the dominant species our world is dying. They must be removed. They must be destroyed.

"Daddy!" a young boy's voice cried.

An adult Ash Ketchum sat in his study as he heard the familiar sound of his oldest son's cry. His Pikachu lay at his feet, jostled awake by the shout.

"Oak's kid beat him up again" Ash sighed dryly to Pikachu. The yellow mouse shrugged.

"When's Gary going to teach his son to behave?" Ash asked rhetorically.

The question was not intended to be answered, but he received an answer, from none other than the Pokémon at his feet.

"When are you going to teach your son how to fight?" Pikachu replied, half-sarcastically. It was true that despite being a Pokémon, Pikachu possessed the ability of speech through telepathy. It was a trait that all Pokémon who were Guardians of Aura had in common, dating back to Sir Aaron's Lucario.

"Misty would kill me if I ever did that" Ash responded.

Before Pikachu could say anything else, a child of eight years entered the room sobbing. His mouth was bleeding.

"What's wrong Sato?" Ash asked his son sympathetically.

Satoshi, or Sato as was his nickname struggled to control his breathing as he wept, "I…I was playing on the swings and Gar…Gary showed up and told me to get off…he wanted to use the swings…but I wasn't done…so I said no…and…and…he PUSHED ME!"

By 'Gary' he was of course referring to the child himself not his father who had named his son after himself. Sato was of course named after Ash's father Satoshi.

"It's all right son" Ash said as he knelt down and held Sato in his arms.

"Gary's a big stupid-head!" the youth yelled. If his mother Misty was there she may have said something about not calling other kids names but Ash couldn't help but agree with him.

"Go ask your mother to clean you up. I'll go have a talk with Mr. Oak" Ash said. Sato nodded meekly.

Some minutes later Ash knocked on the door of the Oak Pokémon Laboratory. Gary had inherited the lab when his grandfather Samuel had passed away.

As the door swung open, Tracey Sketchit, who had stayed on as an assistant professor stood in the entrance.

"Hello Ash" he greeted simply.

"Hey Tracey" Ash replied awkwardly. "Is Gary here?"

"Oh, you son's are fighting again huh?" Tracey asked. He was being generous. Sato's responses to Gary Junior's bullying behavior could hardly be described as fighting back.

"Could you just go get him?"

"Yeah wait here."

Pikachu had gone with Ash. "What do you think this will accomplish? You talk to Gary every time his son messes with Sato. It's not going to help."

"It's worth a short. It's not like I can break Gary's nose because his son's acting up" Ash said. Ash's claim that he could break Gary's nose was not overconfident. Being a Guardian of Aura he held far greater fighting prowess than any non-Guardian.

"You could always try breaking his kid's nose" Pikachu joked.

"Hey Ash" Gary said as he appeared in the door. "What brings you here?" He had spiky brown hair and wore a lab coat.

"Hi Gary" Ash said. "You know I hate doing this but it seems your kid and my kid got into another little scrape."

"Again?"

"Yeah you know we've talked about this before and we thought they could try to get along but I really don't think they want to be friends…so maybe you could tell your son to leave Sato alone."

"Come on Ash their just kids. Junior's just a little rambunctious is all" Gary said, shrugging off the idea.

"Gary, he made Sato bleed" Ash said, a little irritated by Gary's nonchalant attitude.

"Come on, you know what being a kid is like. He just got carried away in his games."

"Games?!" Ash yelled. "He started a fight with Sato and hurt him! You aren't going to do anything about that?!"

"No" Gary replied. "I don't think he did anything wrong. He was just playing. Maybe if your kid wasn't such a wuss…"

"A wuss?!"

"Yeah a wuss, every time the tinniest little thing happens he runs crying home to you and you come banging on my door, interrupting my day…"

"Keep your freaking kid away from mine!"

"No! You know what? You're just lucky you and I never got into a 'little scrape'!"

"Is that a threat?!" Ash shouted, grabbing Gary's color.

"Ash!" Pikachu whispered telepathically. "Calm down. You came here to talk to him, not get arrested for assault."

Ash let go. "I think you'd better leave" Gary said.

"I was just thinking the same thing" Ash said as he turned around and heard the door slamming.

"Well that was pointless" Pikachu said. "Now what?"

"I'm thinking you may have been right" Ash replied. "It's time to teach Sato to protect himself from jackasses like him!"

"Misty's not going to be happy about any of this."

The next day Sato sat on a bench in the park reading from his favorite book. Unlike most kids he was a very avid reader and loved nothing more than losing himself in the pages of a nice book, one of the many things Gary teased him about. As he read around the mud stains left from the last time Gary had smacked the books from his hands he heard a strange sound.

He looked over and saw Gary Junior and two of his equally unpleasant friends standing over a frightened Growlithe, holding sticks and rocks. An instinct not unlike his father's nature took over Sato as he saw the helpless, scared Pokémon being harassed.

As he chucked a stone at the innocent dog, Gary Junior said, "Take that you stupid mutt!"

"Leave him alone Gary!" Sato yelled as he walked over. Sato may not have been the best fighter, but neither was he a coward.

"What are you going to do about it nerd?!" Gary jeered.

"Stop calling me names!" Sato yelled.

"Or what?"

"Teach him a lesson Gary" one of his cronies said eagerly.

"Yeah kick his butt!" the other said.

The night before, Ash had taken Sato to the backyard of their house. "This is what you do if someone tries to push you" he said as he showed him some weird movements. He made Sato practice these movements over and over again until he had them memorized.

As Gary leaned in to push Sato down, Sato grabbed his arms and threw him to the ground.

Gary began crying and ran off. His friends looked to each other and hastily followed.

The Growlithe Sato had protected looked to him nervously.

"It's all right, I won't hurt you" Sato assured. The dog-like Pokémon whimpered gratefully.

"Sato, it's time to go home!" the voice of Misty, his mother called.

"I guess I'll see you later" Sato bade to the Growlithe.

Ash arrived home from work at around six that evening. He was greeted by the pleasant sound of his loving wife's voice.

"Ash!" she yelled madly.

"What did you do this time?" Pikachu asked as he rested on the carpet. "Did you forget to put the seat down again?"

"No" Ash said. "Well yeah, but I don't think that's what she's mad about."

Misty walked into the room, her hands on her hips and her expression stern.

"Um hi Sweetheart" Ash said nervously. "How was your day?"

"Would you mind explaining why I just got a call from Mrs. Oak about Sato beating up Gary Junior?" Misty asked.

Ash smiled proudly. "He beat up Gary? Wow I didn't think he got that good yet! My boy's a fast learner and a fighter, just like his old man" he boasted.

"Ash, we are not encouraging our children to be violent!" Misty insisted.

"Misty, I've talked to Gary a million times about his son. He doesn't do anything about it. If Sato can't protect himself people like that are going to walk all over him."

"Oh so I guess I'd better get little Ken from the backyard (Ken was their five-year-old son) and wake up little Kasumi from her nap (Kasumi was there 2-year-old daughter) so you can teach them to beat up other kids so they don't get walked all over."

"Misty" Ash said confidently. "Let's be realistic here. I have to teach Sato how to fight if he's ever going to become a Guardian of Aura."

"You…" Misty stuttered. "….you want Sato to be a Guardian?"

"Well…yeah…I mean what did you expect? I thought you would be happy about that. I thought you were proud of me for being one."

"Ash, I'm very proud that you're a Guardian of Aura. I mean if you weren't you wouldn't have been able to save the world when we were kids. But I just always thought we were going to give the kids a normal life."

"Misty" Ash said seriously. "Pikachu and I are the only Guardians left. If we don't carry on the legacy then who will?"

"Well technically we aren't the only ones left" Pikachu interjected. "There are a few dozen evil ones locked in a secret American prison somewhere."

"That makes my point more valid" Ash responded. "Misty maybe Sato is a little young right now to begin his training, but my grandfather taught me everything he knew just so that there could be some small hope that one day the Guardians of Aura could finally return. I don't want to let him down."

"All right Ash" Misty conceded. "I guess I can understand that. Just make sure that you don't turn Sato into some sort of bully."

"Don't worry I won't. I'll turn him into the best Guardian of Aura who ever lived."

Meanwhile Sato was in the front yard, watching the sunset, as he often did. He gazed upon golden-orange sun as it drifted behind the clouds and finally faded away. As the sky became dark he stood up and turned around to head into his house. But as he turned on the outside lights and opened the door, he heard a familiar moaning sound.

Sato twirled his head around and saw the Growlithe he had saved from Gary and his friends stood in front of him, its head low and its voice still full of fear.

"You followed me home?" Sato asked confused. The Growlithe walked forward slowly, one-step-at-a-time and continued whimpering.

"You don't have anywhere else to go do you?" Sato realized. "You're all alone."

The lonely, terrified puppy continued whining and nodded its head.

"Do you want to be friends?" Sato asked. In response, Growlithe took a few steps closer.

"We can be best friends" Sato said as he walked forward and he and Growlithe were no more than an inch away from each other. Growlithe began wagging his tail slowly.

"I guess now, we'll always be best friends."

"What's going on here son?" the voice of Ash asked. Sato saw his parents standing directly behind him.

"Gary was picking on this Growlithe and I stopped him" Sato explained.

"Using what I taught him to protect a Pokémon; that doesn't sound like a bully to me Misty" Ash teased.

"Bully?" Sato repeated.

"It's nothing son" Misty said.

"This Growlithe is all alone; he doesn't have anyone but me. Can we keep him?" Sato asked.

"I'm not sure Sato" Misty said.

"Come on Misty, he's old enough for his first Pokémon" Ash protested calmly.

"Well, maybe you're right."

"Yay!" Sato beamed. "Come on Growlithe, I'll show you you're new home!" The excited boy and Pokémon ran exuberantly inside the house.

"His first Pokémon; our boy's growing up" Ash marveled.

"He is" Misty agreed.

"So is it all right if I keep teaching him Jujutsu?" Ash had taught Sato a Jujutsu technique the previous night, which is what he had used to beat Gary.

"Well…he did only use it to protect that Growlithe and he is pretty gentle. I guess it would be good for him to learn how to defend himself and it could be a great way for you two to bond. All right, go ahead and teach him" Misty approved.

"Do you know how much I love you right now?" Ash asked romantically.

"Enough to do the dishes for me and rub my feet?"

"Well we were almost having a romantic moment there but that killed it."

"Well come inside anyway Romeo, your Juliet has dinner on the table" Misty joked as she went inside.

Ash rolled his eyes but as he walked inside he smiled, for his son had found his Pokémon partner and his training had begun.