"Kick up sand and block the bubbles!"
Clemont confidently pushed up his glasses.
If Ash could stop an attack without even using a move, then he could do the same.
Using Bunnelby's strong, powerful ears like shovels, he flung sand into the air.
One bubble after another was instantly blocked by the spray of sand.
That clash split the entire battlefield in two.
But even with their line of sight cut off, that did not mean Ash could not grasp what was happening on the field.
In Ash's perception, Bunnelby's Aura had already shifted from the surface to underground and was rapidly closing in on Froakie.
Trying to muddy the waters?
A faint smile curved Ash's lips as he played along.
"That kind of muddy-the-waters tactic won't work on me!"
Clemont looked confused.
"What?"
"Now, Froakie, jump up and use Bubble straight down beneath yourself!"
"Oh no!" Clemont slapped his hands together. "I forgot you have Aura, ugh!"
Unfortunately for him, by the time he realized that, it was already too late.
A huge mass of bubbles rained down over Bunnelby's head, completely swallowing it up and slamming it back to the ground.
Froakie landed smoothly.
"Feel my Aura well, and use Aura Sphere!"
A large surge of blue Aura power poured off Ash's body and gathered around Froakie, along with Ash's own understanding of how to use Aura Sphere.
After taking in that powerful Aura, Froakie was briefly dazed, but then its eyes sharpened.
Bringing both hands together near the right side of its waist, it began forming an azure sphere of energy.
Unlike a normal Aura Sphere, which was usually around soccer-ball size, the one Froakie created after receiving Ash's Aura was an astonishing three feet across.
"Hurry, use Dig!" Clemont shouted anxiously.
Breaking free of its stiffened state, Bunnelby immediately obeyed, leaping up, flipping in midair, and turning its ears into drill bits as it spiraled downward.
But it had only just burrowed about three feet underground when,
Boom!
The massive Aura Sphere, three feet in diameter, came crashing down, shaking the entire battlefield. A blinding pillar of light erupted upward, forming a small mushroom cloud.
The shockwave whipped up sand and dust and blasted it in every direction.
Serena and Bonnie quickly pressed one hand to their skirts while covering their faces with the other, turning their backs to the blowing sand.
Pikachu blinked.
Huh?
Am I free now?
It slipped out of Bonnie's arms, only to get a face full of sand head-on, and immediately looked full of resentment.
Serena shot Bonnie, that little menace, a look and quietly thought that she was definitely going to need to find somewhere to wash up later.
"So amazing!"
Clemont and Bonnie both ran excitedly over to Ash's side, their eyes darting back and forth between him and Froakie.
"So powerful, incredibly powerful!"
Clemont was so excited his hands were trembling.
"Ash, this is the first time I've ever seen an Aura Sphere that huge. Is that the difference between an Aura user and an ordinary person?"
"Froa..."
Froakie looked just as shocked.
It stared blankly down at its own hands, unable to believe that attack had really come from it.
"Actually, being able to do something like that isn't just because of me," Ash explained. "This Froakie has awakened Aura too. That's why it went so smoothly."
"Huh?" Serena looked lost. "I thought Aura was something only Riolu and Lucario had."
"Not exactly." Clemont pushed up his glasses. "I've done some basic research on it. According to several papers, all living beings in the world have Aura, it's just a matter of how strong it is. Once it reaches a certain level, it can be called awakened. This Froakie seems to be an exceptionally gifted genius."
"Froa?"
Being praised like that out of nowhere made Froakie's pale blue cheeks immediately glow red on both sides.
At the same time, a system prompt rang out in Ash's mind.
[Task complete. Enhancing Ability... Enhancement complete.]
At the same time, the data panel for Froakie in front of Ash changed.
[Ability]: Battle Bond I (As long as Greninja and its Trainer are present, Battle Bond can activate, allowing it to enter its bond form.)
[Level]: Lv. 8
[Moves]: Pound, Growl, Bubble, Aura Sphere
It had leveled up, and it had learned Aura Sphere too.
As expected, the learning talent and growth speed of a Pokémon with perfect IVs across the board were outstanding.
What pleased Ash even more was that after the Ability enhancement, the Bond Phenomenon would no longer be as unstable as before.
At the same time, he curiously looked toward the new enhancement task and the preview for the second-stage upgrade.
[Can be enhanced]
[Ability]: Battle Bond II (Greninja can undergo bond evolution as long as its Trainer is present; after defeating an opponent, Attack, Special Attack, and Speed rise by one stage. This effect can only trigger once per battle.)
[Enhancement task]: Defeat Wallace or Misty or Juan or Crasher Wake or Marlon or Nessa or Kofu. Defeating any one of them will complete the task.
So this was basically the Scarlet and Violet reworked version of Battle Bond folded into the current Battle Bond.
Interesting.
Would the third-stage enhancement remove the "can only trigger once per battle" restriction at the end?
If defeating an opponent triggered +1 to both offensive stats and Speed every time, even Moxie would have to admit defeat.
And from the second-stage enhancement task, Ash noticed quite a few patterns.
First, the people on that list were basically all Water-type Trainers, and most of them were Gym Leaders.
If nothing unexpected happened, then the hard requirement for the second-stage enhancement task was probably defeating a Gym-level specialist who used the same type as the Pokémon.
In the real world, other people did not have a system, so naturally they could not see a Pokémon's exact level.
They had broadly divided Pokémon into three stages: Gym level, Elite Four level, and Champion level.
Elite Four and Champion level went without saying, they were the top tier of a Trainer's combat strength.
Gym level was different.
Depending on how many Badges a Trainer had, it was further divided into one-star through eight-star Gym level.
Before a battle, Gym Leaders would usually ask how many Badges a challenger had, which was really just their way of asking how strong the challenger was, so they could set the difficulty of the test accordingly.
The only question was whether the system's second-stage enhancement task counted any Gym-level win from one-star to eight-star, or whether it would only count if he defeated a level-seventy-something eight-star Gym-level opponent.
"The twerp's spacing out, meow!"
"Perfect chance!"
"Let's do it!!"
The instant they saw Ash fall into thought, the Team Rocket trio reacted like sharks smelling blood.
Meowth pulled out a black six-sided gadget from who knew where and hurled it at Pikachu. In midair, it unfolded into an energy net.
"Pikachu, Quick Attack!"
Ash spoke calmly.
The bond formed over so many years made Pikachu move on instinct the moment Ash gave the command.
Its body flared with white light as it lunged forward with swift, agile speed.
Whoosh!
Like a streak of white light, it slipped right out of the energy net's capture range.
Clack!
With its target gone, the net immediately retracted, and the little black six-sided box dropped to the ground near Serena and Clemont's backpacks.
"Who's there?" Ash asked, barely holding back his laughter as he pretended not to know.
"Since you asked so sincerely,"
"We'll answer you with equal sincerity,"
"To protect the world from devastation,"
"To unite all peoples within our nation,"
"To denounce the evils of truth and love,"
Before Jessie and James could finish posing and reciting the rest of their motto, Ash mischievously pulled out an Ultra Ball and hurled it straight at Meowth, who had been about to take the next line.
"Go, Poké Ball!"