"By the way, there's still you."
Suddenly, Ethan remembered something and immediately released Riolu as well.
"Riou!"
The moment Riolu appeared, its expression became extremely serious.
Fear, despair, helplessness...
In an instant, thanks to its ability to perceive the emotions of living beings through aura, Riolu felt countless negative emotions flooding over it, to the point that it could not help but clutch its head in pain.
"Riolu, are you okay?" Ethan asked with concern.
"Ri... Rio... Riou."
Riolu took a deep breath and gradually calmed itself down.
"I'm glad you're okay. You already know the situation outside. I hope you can use your ability to perceive the emotions of living beings to find survivors among all these negative emotions."
After hearing Ethan's words, Riolu raised its head and looked at the rubble around it, nodding with a grave expression.
Then it closed its eyes and began to perceive with all its strength.
Suddenly, Riolu opened its eyes, and its figure leaped rapidly in one direction.
"You found them?"
"Charizard, Meltan, let's go, hurry!"
Ethan immediately called out to Charizard and followed Meltan, rushing at full speed toward a tall building.
"Is it here?"
The trainers following Ethan hurried over as well.
Immediately afterward, one after another, they released their Pokémon and began clearing away the rubble.
However, because there could be injured people beneath the ruins, none of the Pokémon dared to use their moves, and they could only rely on physical strength to move the stones aside.
"Riou!"
Riolu knew that its mission was to locate the injured through emotional energy, so it immediately focused once more.
In this way, Vibrava, Gengar, and Riolu split into three groups and began rapidly searching for the injured among the ruins.
"Charizard, Meltan, I'm counting on you this time."
Very soon, the trainers accompanying Ethan had already dispersed to rescue people, leaving him alone at the spot.
Charizard and Meltan said nothing and immediately stepped forward to begin digging through the rubble in front of them.
"Riou!"
Riolu could clearly feel the pain, fear, and despair coming from beneath the ruins, which made it extremely anxious.
Although its body was weak, it could no longer worry about that; it activated the move Return to strengthen its mental power and began moving stones one by one from a distance.
Before long, the surface rubble was cleared away, revealing the figure of a young man beneath the ruins.
"Water... I want to drink water..."
The young man's voice was extremely weak.
"Shuckle, Juice!"
Ethan immediately released Shuckle and gave the young man a cup of juice.
"Thank you..."
After drinking the juice, the young man's body relaxed, and shortly afterward, he lost consciousness.
"Charizard, let's go to the first-aid point."
Ethan carried the young man and mounted Charizard, flying straight toward the emergency point.
Upon arrival, the place was already completely overcrowded. This time, nearly all of Dragonlake City had been reduced to ruins by the earthquake, and the number of injured was truly enormous.
"Damn it... it really seems that having Pokémon with healing moves is absolutely crucial."
Seeing this scene, Ethan clenched his teeth silently. As the number of injured increased, the healing Pokémon were simply not enough.
Moreover, using healing moves consumed an enormous amount of energy; if this continued, both mentally and physically, those Pokémon would not be able to hold out much longer.
Fortunately, according to the people there, the League's rescue forces would arrive soon. When one place suffers, all come to its aid; rescue teams from across the League had already set out and, escorted by high-speed Flying-type Pokémon, would arrive very shortly.
What Ethan needed to do now was rescue the injured as quickly as possible and find as many people as he could in the shortest time.
"Riou!"
Riolu's expression was also extremely serious at that moment.
In this rescue operation, its ability to locate the injured through emotions had played a crucial role.
However, even so, Riolu's usefulness was limited, because most of the injured beneath the ruins were unconscious and unable to generate emotional energy. This greatly restricted its performance and severely weakened its detection ability, making it easy to overlook unconscious injured people.
"Riolu, do you remember what I told you about the power of aura?"
"Aura is a spiritual energy, described as the spirit of every living being..."
"In the Pokémon world, there are beings capable of perceiving aura and even controlling it; these are called aura users..."
"Your species, Riolu, is born with the ability to perceive aura, just as you can feel the emotions of living beings through it. But your current way of perceiving aura is not the same as controlling it..."
"Only when you are truly able to control aura will you be able to release its real power, such as mind reading, telepathy, or projecting your own aura."
"Furthermore, aura possesses another ability: investigating the surroundings through perception, allowing one to sense and see through objects."
"Now, I hope you focus on feeling aura. Use the method I explained to stimulate aura through emotional energy and try to truly master the power of aura."
Ethan took a deep breath and once again began explaining to Riolu how aura worked and the training method he had summarized.
In a situation like this, it was an exceptional opportunity. If Riolu could master aura and gain the ability to perceive its surroundings, it would be able to locate the injured in the shortest possible time.
Ethan clearly remembered the episode Lucario and the Mystery of Mew, where that Lucario used aura to explore its surroundings; the scale and range of that ability were still etched into his memory.
As long as Riolu could deploy even a portion of that aura-based exploration ability, it would be more than enough.
"Riou!"
After hearing Ethan's words, Riolu nodded with a solemn expression.
Then it abruptly closed its eyes and began to perceive the surrounding emotional energy according to Ethan's instructions.
Once again, fear, despair, and helplessness surged toward it, completely flooding its perception and submerging its mind in an instant.
But this time, Riolu did not retreat. It faced the impact of those emotions head-on and began to comprehend the power of aura.
"Aura is a spiritual energy..."
Ethan's words echoed again and again in Riolu's mind as it silently began to perceive them...
(End of chapter)