Both Gary and Ash stood their staring at one another, neither making a move to speak up yet. Leaf after having failed at getting to lv 10 in her game, marched over towards them both "Look I get that both of you don't want to admit that you were wrong, but Gary you shouldn't have pressured Ash and Ash you shouldn't have gotten all snappy... even if it was because of Gary"

"She's right Ash... I'm sorry if I pushed you too much back there. I wasn't thinking about it from your point of view and was selfish in treating you like a science experiment... you can tell me when you're ready, or you don't have to really... just know I'm there for you man" Gary said with a soft tone

Ash nodded and looked apologetically at his childhood friend "I'm sorry about earlier too. If I was in your position, I guess I would have reacted like you did. I shouldn't have snapped at you, you were only curious and wanted to help me out too"

Both back on friendly terms, shook hands as Leaf sighed in relief at her friends no longer being at each other's throats. Those two might be best friends, but boy do they push one another's temper

"Since everything is all sunshine and rainbows, we need to leave before the school staff kid us out for overstaying our welcome" Leaf commented, noticing a teacher looking at the trio with crossed arms and a stern expression as the trio leave without another word said

Looking up and than his phone, Gary turned towards his friends "Hey it's still early... wanna go hang out at the mall or something?" he asked as Ash nodded seeing as he had no plans, while Leaf just shrugged as a response

With that said, the trio made their way over towards Viridian Mall and saw a couple of students from their school as well as Dawn, who seemed to be looking at the various clothes on sale at the moment

After just walking around and checking out random stores, Ash, Gary and later Dawn (who decided to go with the two after Leaf remembered she needed to get home early) decided to leave before it got too dark outside

As they made their way home, the trio realized that the usual way was being blocked off by a bunch of construction happening. Looking around they all decided to just take a different path instead

"Do you really think we're going in the right direction?" Dawn asked the two boys with a slight hint of fear and hesitation in her voice

Gary looked at the girl and sighed "This is the only other way we can go Dawn. If there was another way, I'd take it, but unfortunately there isn't... too many paths are being blocked, heck even cars are having trouble getting to their destination" he said as Dawn inched closer to Ash

"No need to worry Dawn... we'll soon find ourselves back home and you'll see that nothing will happen either" Ash said trying to cheer up the blunette as Dawn sighed and nodded, although she was still scared that something very bad may happen

After walking for a while, the three friends find themselves lost as they saw a bunch of different pathways. Ash looked at the different paths trying to figure out which would be the right one, but sighed in defeat when he couldn't do so

"Now which way do we go?" Gary asked to himself as he looked at his phone's GPS, but saw that there was no signal coming through "Great the GPS isn't working" he said quietly, tapping at his phone to get it to work

Dawn heard this unfortunately and started to freak out as she backed away slowly only to bump into something and run back towards her friends "There's something or someone over there" she said with more fear in her voice this time and pointed at the area she had been at just seconds ago

Soon the trio saw as two other people walk out, each having a weapon in their hands. The new comers slowly walk towards the young teenagers

"Look we don't mean to cause any trouble or anything..." Gary said as all of them back up slowly towards the way they came, only to bump into another person who also had a weapon his hand; a gun to be exact, while the other two had knifes

"Should have thought of that before stepping onto our turf" said one of the knife guys

Ash, being the braver one, decided to step forward "Look this is all a misunderstanding" he said, but soon found a gun to the back of his head "I'd stop talking if I were you kid" said the gun guy

Dawn hid behind Gary, who tried his best to calm her down "Look what we got here boys. A scared little girl who's hiding behind her prince" said the other guy with the knife as Ash tensed and looked over at his two friends... he knew he had to do something and decided to attract all their attention on him, so that both Dawn and Gary could leave unharmed or heck even call the police

"Hey leave them alone!" Ash yelled out and tried to pull the gun away from the gun man as the other two turned towards him and looked pretty angry

"Shut up kid!" one of the knife holding guys said as he hit Ash hard on the head

"ASH!" both Dawn and Gary yelled out at seeing their friend get hit

"Get out of here guys" Ash said as he was soon thrown towards the wall and dropped to the ground

"But-"

"Dawn let's go... as much as I don't want to leave him, he's letting us have a chance at escaping and getting help" Gary said as Dawn looked back at Ash and then at Gary. She sighed and nodded her head sadly

"Ash don't do anything that'll get you killed!" Dawn cried out as she and Gary left, leaving only Ash who was surrounded by the three street thugs

"Way to go kid. Now you have all of our attention on you" said the gun wielding one as he aimed his gun at Ash again

Ash looked up at the three with no emotion on his face and instead closed his eyes thinking this was gonna be the end for him 'NO! I need to stay strong and not give up. I need to make time for both Dawn and Gary. They shouldn't have to suffer any of this... I'm use to this sorta thing and I'll stall these guys and protect my friends no matter what!' he thought to himself as he suddenly felt himself gain more energy all of a sudden as if it were a rush of adrenaline or something like that

"Any last words?" he heard one of them say as he felt them getting closer to him

At the last second, Ash snapped his eyes open and grabbed a hold of the gun in the guy's hand. He threw the gun away, but not before breaking it in half before their very own eyes. Soon after that he guy and threw him to the ground with strength no one could imagine he had. He soon turned to face the other two bad guys with his auburn brown eyes now having a light blue glowing colour instead

The other two backed away from Ash after seeing what he did to their 'friend' "What is he?" asked one of them scared to death, no longer confident that they could take on the teen before them "Is he even human?"

"I've got no idea... let's just get out of here" said the other as he tried to run away... only to get hit by a glowing blue sphere that was sent their way. They both looked back and saw Ash standing in front of them; his hands having a slight blue glow surrounding them

"We're sorry. We'll never bother anyone again" said the first knife wielding guy that tried to run away hoping that the boy would believe him

Ash for some reason or another could feel how the guy actually felt and decided to let him off, but soon he grabbed a hold of the other one's arm as it appeared from behind him and soon they all heard a loud crack as the guy yelled in agony, holding his now broken arm. He didn't get much time to examine his arm or wallow in pain, as soon he knew nothing more

Ash looked at the other one and decided to leave him alone seeing as he remembered how sincerely the guy seemed to be. The guy noticed this and threw the knife to the ground and left yelling out a quick thank you. Soon the glow around Ash's hands left as did the glowing blue colour in his eyes as he they returned to their regular brown colour

"What happened?" he asked, confused as he saw two out of three guys knocked out. He held his head as he felt a slight pain appear 'These are your first steps Ash' he heard a voice suddenly say as the pain left his head and soon he remembered what had occurred and how it was him that caused everything. Ash looked at everything he had done in fear and hoped no one else had seen anything as he ran as fast as he could back home, no longer caring if the path was blocked or not

Author's Note: So Ash's aura has finally awakened! Fighting scenes aren't really my specialty, but nonetheless hope it was good enough for everyone. I made Leaf and Dawn switch places mainly cause I felt Dawn would be more appropriate for a scene like this than Leaf. Also those wondering where May was, she didn't go with Dawn to the mall due to having to over to the police station by the request of her father. Anyway next chapter deals with Ash trying to come to terms or understand what exactly is going on with him :)