I woke up drenched in sweat and looked around wearily, I was in the infirmary of the bunker, my pokemon looked at me, worry plastered on their faces, Mewtwo and Voltanuc held similar expressions, and Altair looked over with the same worry.

"I can't tell if this a dream or not, for all I know this could be a giant mind fuck," I thought to myself as I tried to reconfirm somethings, I had my cybernetic arm, my pokeballs and pokemon were here, Mewtwo, Altair, and Voltanuc still exist. It looks as if all that just now was a giant nightmare.

I looked around one last time but every time that I looked at my pokemon and Altair, their bullet-riddled corpses would overlap their current bodies and I would shrink back in apprehension. My hand was shaking as I reached over to my pokemon slowly and pet them, confirming their safety and presence beside me, I even gave Altair a head pat just to check that I wasn't losing it.

I felt exhausted and fatigued despite being unconscious for Arceus knows how long, and nobody spoke during this entire ordeal. So I did what I thought was best based on what I had just experienced, I took a deep breath and calmed my rapidly beating heart, steeling my eyes and my heart. 

"What are you all staring for?" I asked, my voice cold as steel, showing no signs of emotion and immediately snapping them out of their trance.

"We are wondering what happened in that dream of yours." Came Voltanuc's stoic reply and I shook my head

"Nothing too major, just an encounter with the darkness, all I did was run." I lied and looked at my sweat-drenched clothes, I was sure the lie wouldn't hold for much longer so I decided to get up and take a shower.

I quickly locked myself in the bathroom and peeled off my sweat-soaked clothing and turning on the shower to be very cold before I stepped in, it woke me up near-instantly and my mind no longer felt foggy. After giving myself a good cleaning I checked the time, which told me that it had been a day since when I began the meditation.

I got dressed again and walked out to get me some dinner and called Looker after I was done.

"Hello? This is Looker speaking." Came his voice after a few rings

"Yes Looker, it's me, do any trainers own any legendary or mythical pokemon?"

"Hmm, there are a few, I'll get the names to you, anything else?"

"Yes, once I have the names and track them down, you and Blake should meet me at their residences, we need to start amassing our troops at once, I'm going to start training Altair and finding where the other Emperors and Empresses are in the meanwhile. Inform Blake that Genesect will be returned to him when we next meet and that I've found Mewtwo so he can stop looking" 

"Alright, also did you say you've found Mewtwo?!" Looker nearly yelled

"Yes, and he has agreed to help me, thank you for your help" I ended and hung up

After the call, I went into the gym/ training room and did some workouts and thinking about where to start with Altair's training. I assumed she didn't have any combat or self-defense training so I decided to start with just planning how I was going to show her the ropes on how to do all this. We also needed her to be able to use the Empress inside of her properly, otherwise, all this would be useless.

So after grabbing my notepad and making a list of the things we should start with, I did some training with my aura, only to find that it wouldn't manifest. Try as I might, it just wouldn't come to me, so that was great, more inconveniences. Instead of trying to enhance my movements I tried making a weapon, just a simple knife, and found that I couldn't even do that, all that happened was a faint blue glow before it disappeared. I had just reverted to the stage where I was a normal human, not able to use aura at all.

"Voltanuc, do you know the meaning of this?" I called out in my head but received no response

I dashed out of the gym and into the dining room to find Voltanuc just leaning on a wall there.

"What is the meaning of this? Why aren't you inside me and why is my aura not working?" I asked 

"I knew you'd realize it sooner or later, but to answer your question, the link that connects you to your aura and me has been damaged. The pathway and cracked and on the verge of shattering, and if it does then you'll never be able to use aura again and I'll disappear for good." 

I stood there in shock by his explanation, unable to comprehend why such a thing had happened.

"I'll give some advice since you seem to be very lost right now." I could only nod my head blankly, awaiting some advice.

"You treat aura as if it is some convenient tool, but it is a part of you, and your relationship with it had always been fragile. Aura is like your soul in a way, a tangible part of you that also has emotions. However, with you constantly denying the emotions that make your aura stronger and the bond between you and it subsequently stronger, the dream you just had nearly shattered the fragile link that existed." Voltanuc explained and I stood perplexed as to why this just suddenly happened, there was no steady decline, it just came out of nowhere.

"You're probably thinking something along the lines of 'there hasn't been any sign of decline' right? Well, let me answer that, based on some interaction I had with your aura, it wants you to treat it the same way as you treat your pokemon, it's been trying to gain your love and care by not slowing its power, but something inside that dream must've broken it." He further enlightened and I started thinking long and hard about what to do now.

"Thank you for the advice, I'll dwell on it for some time," I replied before walking back to the gym to find my pokemon there asking for a sparring match.

So I then indulged them one by one, with Riolu deciding to go first. We exchanged no words, just a simple bow of respect and we got into fighting position.

Riolu came at me with Quick Attack which I was going to parry before he used Feint and Force Palm which hit me in my sides, I quickly grabbed him and was going to throw him but he used Screech to stun me letting him break free. 

This time I came at him and he used Counter to stop my kick before dashing around me and trying Ice punch which I parried successfully before coming at him with a swift chop that he defended against using Protect. This went on for a while and by the end, we were both sort of bruised and so I decided to call it there before welcoming Frogadier into the ring.

I started it off this time, coming at him with a straight punch that he quickly evaded and I pivoted off the back of my foot and nearly struck him where he landed had he not backflipped into the air to evade again. I continued with the momentum not giving time to pause as I broke through Water Pulse and came straight at his shocked face. 

He used smokescreen to evade again and now I stood on guard, I heard a slight movement and lashed out, barely hitting his arm before I was swept off my feet. I quickly performed a defensive roll and got up before dodging a Water Pulse and standing back to up be faced with Double Team. It was not very hard to tell which one was real as the clones had this glitchy border around their images.

After pretending I was going after a clone and seeing the real one come up behind me, I ducked and pivoted backward striking him in the chest with my palm and sending him back to the ground.

After that, I took a short 8-minute break before welcoming Angel into the ring. Then I had Princess/Hime test her moves on me and gave them all pointer on what to work on for next time. 

I cleaned myself up before confronting Altair about the situation at hand, to my surprise, she had said she already knew. Apparently, while I was out, Voltanuc, Mewtwo, and Nailahwho is the Ice & Psychic Empress had revealed everything. 

I sat there thinking before saying;

"I hope you do know I'm not going to give you a choice, I saved you because I needed you as an asset, so please prepare yourself mentally for training tomorrow," I announced to her getting up to leave.

 "I wouldn't dream of abandoning my savior," was all she said before I stepped out the door and went back to my room to get some sleep. Only to find that I couldn't, my body was still on edge from what my mind had gone through, it was basically impossible to get any sleep with my body twitching and pumping adrenaline through me.

I got up and got out of my bed, sparing Voltanuc a look to confirm he wouldn't wake before walking out of the room and even out of the bunker to look at the sea.

I did notice some Ice on the rocks and looked over to see who I presumed was the Ice Empress.

The being in front of me was a white unicorn with glowing light purple eyes and a deep purple horn while being surrounded by a frosty blue aura. It also had a cape draped over it's back that had the same symbols on it as it's horn did.

"So you must be Ash, or should I say, Shiro?" She greeted with an enchanting voice that echoed in my head and ears.

"I would much rather be called Shiro, being called Ash only serves to remind me that I am a mere clone of the original who was chosen by Arceus itself," I replied, keeping my voice cold and detached

"I see, well some advice from me would be to learn some more human emotion, you are human after all," 

"I tried that, it didn't work out so well," I shot back immediately 

"You are merely confused, just as we were, I can sense your pain, and I know your pain as if it were my own by reading your mind,"

"I would appreciate if you didn't pry into my head," 

"Well, with your Aura and Voltanuc gone, getting access was as easy as breathing, your mind may not let you remember, but your body still knows the horror you've been exposed to,"

"Tch. Then I will request your help on the matter of putting me to sleep, surely you can do that much," 

"I will grant you your desire as you saved my vessel, however, I can assure you, your sleep will no be pleasant," She agreed and suddenly she was in front of me looking at me curiously

"Just do it please," No sooner had the words left my mouth had I started to blackout, my last recollection was of leaning against something cold

It was as she said though, my night was anything but pleasant and I was glad for the soundproofing in my room because I kept waking up sweating, hyperventilating, heart-pounding, and on full alert. The corpses and screams played out on loop as if it were broken, it was always the mouthed thank you and screams before transitioning to my pokemon screams. Then it was mine as despaired over it all, I had Nailah put me under many times that night, so many I lost count after 20. 

This continued for the next week as I started to train Altair and while it was easy at first to ignore such things for the benefit of training. 7 full days without sleep is a long time, and even I am human in that sense. So when the 8th day came I was on the brink of going insane, my steps were sluggish and my eyes held large grey bags under them. I tried my best to keep up my schedule, but by the time Altair's daily training came around, I could barely walk.

So as I stepped into the room I completely fell over and was out cold.

Done! I thought this was pretty great as well, and I hope you found it entertaining to watch the struggles of our dear MC. Thanks for reading this chapter, Ja ne!