How to Mega Evolve Your Pokémon

A/N: Now I think this is where things will start to get more interesting. And we see where our main protagonist has been during the race, and why she wasn't there.

Now, let's get on with Chapter 2! Roll it!

Chapter 2

The Free Spirits

Far out on the sea, miles away from Pallet Town, even from Kanto, there was a female Trainee zooming along the surface of the water, making the water spray out and around her. She was whooping joyously and loudly as she went up and over through the air, feeling as free as a Flying, Bug or Dragon type. She even waved hello to some passing Mantyke and Mantine that were breaching the surface of the ocean. They returned the greeting by crooning happily at her right before they hit the water again. Then, the young woman headed up higher and higher into the air.

This female Trainee looked about eighteen years old, and she had raven black hair tied in a long braid down her back, which was whipping around in the wind, long sideswept bangs down the left side of her face, chocolate brown eyes, and tan skin. She was wearing a sunny yellow T-shirt, jean capri, white crew socks, and white sneakers with black lightning bolts on the sides. Around her neck was a thin golden chain having a pink Gracidea pendant with a lightning bolt engraved on the back of it. Due to her now older age, the chain fitted around her neck almost perfectly and a little bit tighter as well, making the necklace seem more like a choker as it rested nicely on her collar. Perched on her right shoulder was a female Pikachu with a pink ribbon tied at the base of her left ear. These were Marianne Ketchum, or preferably called Mari, and her partner, Elysia; the free spirits of any of the Trainees and their partners.

After flying through the white fluffy clouds, the two of them found themselves flying alongside a flock of Swanna and Ducklett. They waved to them, with the Unova Water and Flying types chirping back replies.

Soon, Mari pulled away from the flock, flying a few miles away from the group. "What do you think, Ely?" She asked her partner. "Should we give that stunt another try?"

"Are you kidding me?" Elysia asked her exasperatedly. "We've already tried it twenty times. We're never going to get it right."

"Now, since when did we ever quit on something?" Mari asked her. "We'll be fine."

She took Elysia off her shoulder and held her in her hands. "Ready?"

The female Pikachu sighed. "As if I have a choice." She muttered.

Mari just rolled her eyes and then tossed Elysia into the air. The Electric type corkscrewed in the air for a few seconds before starting to freefall the rest of the way down. Mari quickly followed suit, and the two of them spiralled in the air as they continued their descent.

Then, Mari quickly straightened herself so that she was flying straight and made her wings glow bright yellow. Then, a matching highlight surrounded Elysia as she also righted herself, and the two of them began flying side by side. The two girls flew around, doing pretty amazing stunts, from corkscrews to loop-de-loops.

Mari then flew ahead a few feet while Elysia did some more tricks. "Can this get any more amazing?" She asked aloud. But then, she spotted something in the thick mist ahead of them. It was a maze of towering sea stacks. "Okay, no longer amazing! Elysia!"

"On my way!" The female Pikachu called out to her Trainee, her body sending out a silver streak of energy as she harnessed the power of her Quick Attack to reach her. Once she had reached her, she began to spin around in the air, unleashing her Thunderbolt as she did.

The electricity began to form a barrage of crackling yellow bolts, acting like a wall of electricity or a force field, but then, it straightened out as she crashed into Mari, and the two of them were sent tumbling down and out of the air. Luckily, they had reached land, and they went rolling down a large hill that was on the coast, still near open water.

Both girls groaned as they began picking themselves off the ground, either brushing off their clothes or fur. "Geez!" Mari exclaimed. "That sea stack came out of nowhere."

Just then, they heard a loud rumbling noise that was coming from behind them. They both looked back and saw that while they didn't perfect that last move, Elysia's Thunderbolt did cause a lot of damage to the side of the sea stack they nearly hit, and it slowly crumbled away into the ocean, bit by bit. Both girls winced at the accidental damage they did.

"How did Dad and Pikachu manage to perfect that Counter Shield technique?" Mari asked out loud.

She remembered once a few weeks earlier when her parents were telling her and her brothers some stories from when they were younger, and Ash had mentioned the Counter Shield that helped him when he was in a few tight spots. A Pokémon would use an attack to both take the offensive and the defensive at the same time, making it very effective against certain types of moves, particularly those that can't be avoided easily, such as Hypnosis and other status effect moves. Mari found it so fascinating that she immediately began to try to recreate the technique while adding her own spin on it, using it while in the air. But so far, no luck.

"Well, your dad did say that he had a lot of practice perfecting it, and that he had your mom's help as well." Elysia pointed out. "Maybe you should ask them and see if they can give us any pointers?"

Mari shook her head as she began to undo her braid to get rid of the leaves and little twigs that had gotten entangled in it, her ebony black locks cascading down to her waist. "No." She said, shaking her head. "Dad has had his hands full for the past couple of weeks, and Mom is kind of the last person I want to talk to right now."

"Still upset about the talk she gave you this morning?" Elysia asked. "And the reason why we didn't participate in the race today?"

"I wasn't upset." Mari answered, crossing her arms. "I was just....shocked. I needed time to process it. You think in this family, we would be used to surprises."

"Yeah." Elysia agreed. "Nothing is ever boring in this family."

"That, and I wanted to give someone else a chance to win the race this time." Mari added with a shrug. "Every time that we enter a race, we always win, but I do know that the twins are catching up to us, and Aiden as well. Jenna is getting there, but Keira still needs to learn to keep her head in the game instead of flirting with Luke."

"Well, we are the best team in the faction." Elysia added with a smug smile on her face, her little paws placed proudly on her hips. "Of course we win every race."

Mari rolled her eyes at the boastfulness of her Pokémon partner and then went over to the edge of the cliffside to sit down and admire the view. Elysia came over to her and began to redo her braid. "Where do you think we are, by the way?" She asked her human partner.

Mari tapped on her left wrist, and a yellow wristband suddenly appeared with a ripple of energy. With another push on it, a map appeared holographically in front of her. When she zoomed a bit further out from their current location, she got her answer.

"It shows that we're somewhere alongside the western shore of the Kalos region." Mari said. "Cool. I've always wanted to see Kalos."

"But this was also Lysandre's home region." Elysia added, shuddering visibly at the thought of their defeated enemy three years ago as she finished tying Mari's new braid. "And did your dad once say that he had two very persistent admirers when he was travelling here when he was about your age?"

Mari shuddered. "Don't remind me." She said. "I'm glad he chose Mom, though. Otherwise, the twins and I wouldn't have been born."

She then turned on her Pokémon tracking system to see what kind of wild Pokémon were in the area. "So what do you think we'll find out there today? Maybe a flock of Talonflame or Noivern? Maybe some rare Carbink in the caves? Who knows? Maybe we'll finally find another one of your kind, Elysia."

Elysia just sat down silently in her Trainee's lap. For some reason, they hadn't found any other members of her kind or even of her evolution chain. No Pichu, Pikachu, or even Raichu. Nothing. The fruitlessness of their searches led to the slight fear that she and Ash's Pikachu, her adoptive father; and her Uncle Sparky, the scruffy-haired male Pikachu belonging to Ritchie Newton, Aiden, Keira and Jenna's father, were the only ones left of their kind. But Mari, Ash and Ritchie all refused to believe it. They had to be out there somewhere.

Mari sighed as she looked out towards the horizon. "So what do you say?" She asked her Pikachu. "Do we just keep going?"

"I don't know." Elysia answered.

"Hey, girls!" A voice called out. Both Mari and Elysia turned around and saw Aiden and Rosalie flying out and then landing on the same hill.

"Hey, Rosa!" Elysia greeted her best friend by her little nickname and then jumped out of her Trainee's lap to greet her.

"What's up, Ely?" The female Espeon greeted back as she met her halfway. Then, the two of them began to play a game of tag while their Trainees talked and/or flirted with each other.

"Hey there, Aid-tini." Mari teased her boyfriend with a smile as she said her old childhood nickname for him. "Where have you been?"

Aiden quickly patted Elysia on the head before coming up to sit next to his girlfriend. "Oh, winning races. What else?" He answered. "But I think the real question is, where have you been, Mari-etta?" He teased back by saying his own childhood nickname for her.

"Avoiding my mom." Mari answered.

Aiden sighed. "Oh, no. What happened now?" He asked.

Mari turned off her tracking system to turn to look at him. "Oh, you're gonna like this one." She said. "I wake up, the sun is shining, I hear Dodrio singing from the rooftops. I practically skipped down to breakfast thinking all's right with the world, and instead, I get my mom waiting for me at the table, saying that she needed to talk with me."

"What's wrong with a mom wanting to talk with her daughter?" Aiden asked.

"Nothing." Mari said. "But for the first fifteen years of my life, I have developed the bad habit of immediately thinking that whenever my mom wanted to talk with me, it's either about something important that I need to do or something that I've done wrong."

"That is a bad habit." Aiden said.

"Comes when you have an overprotective mother." Mari added before continuing. "Anyway, she first starts with that I'm the pride of the faction and that she and my dad couldn't be any more proud of me."

"Well, that's good." Aiden said.

"That's what I thought. At first." Mari replied. "And then she tells me that I'm all grown-up now, and that since no Chief or Chieftess could ask for a better successor, she decided-"

"To make you Chieftess!" Aiden exclaimed, his ocean blue eyes wide. He then stood up, taking his girlfriend by the hands and began spinning her around, holding her by the waist. "Mari, that's amazing!"

His enthusiasm was proving to be contagious as Mari laughed as well. "Aiden, put me down!" She laughed. Both Trainees laughed as Aiden put Mari back down on the ground. Then, Mari's smile vanished as she thought back to what happened that morning. "Yeah, so this is what I'm dealing with."

Aiden noticed that she wasn't as cheerful as before anymore. "What did you tell her?" He asked, placing his hand on her shoulder.

Mari shook her head. "I didn't say anything." She answered. "By the time she turned around, I was gone."

Aiden took a deep breath as the news settled into his brain. "Well, that's a lot of responsibility." He said. "Exploring will have to wait for sure, and I need to take care of the Trainer Academy since you'll be too busy, and...."

He stopped when he noticed that Mari had looked away from him. Her eyes were slightly dazed, saying to him that her mind was definitely elsewhere. He gently placed a hand on her cheek and got her to face him again. She took a deep breath.

"It's not me, Aiden." Mari said. "All those....speeches and planning and running the town and the faction, that's their thing. My parents' jobs. Besides, I'm only eighteen. I'm not ready for such a job. And did my mom even talk to my dad about this, and did he agree to it? I mean, yeah, they were only twenty when they were given the chieftainship; not that much older than me right now. But still, I'm pretty sure they weren't ready. And as the head teacher of the Trainer Academy, I still have responsibilities of my own, teaching ours and the next generation about the truth of our faction's past and to one day have Pokémon partners of their own."

"I think you're kind of missing the point of this." Aiden said gently. "I mean, Chieftess. It's a real honor. I would be pretty excited."

Mari sighed. "I'm not like you." She said as she began to head back to the edge of the cliffside. "You....know exactly who you are. You've always had. But me? I'm still looking." She sighed as she slowly sat down.

"I know that I'm not my mother nor my father. And I never met any of my grandparents, on either side, or know what happened to them. If I don't know much about my own family and the history of them, what does that make me?" She asked aloud.

Aiden slowly came over to her and sat down next to her. "Have you asked your parents about them?" He questioned.

Mari shook her head. "They say that we don't keep secrets from each other." She said. "But yet, they can't bring themselves to tell me or the twins about them. So I knew better than to ask. And I've looked in the Archives. Nothing much except their names."

"Your mom's?" Aiden asked.

"They don't have any record of her own father, but her mother was named Johanna Berlitz." Mari said. "And she was a member of the Coordinator faction in Sinnoh. She died due to pneumonia when the twins were only a few months old, so I hardly remembered her. What I do remember is just some pictures of her in Mom's photo album."

When the war between humans and Pokémon first began almost forty years ago, all the governments thought that it was best to separate everyone due to their status. The Trainer faction was the most powerful one in the world, and it was stationed in Kanto. Next was the Breeder faction in Hoenn, which was more well-known for its doctors and advancements in medicine for both humans and Pokémon. Then, there was the Coordinators in Sinnoh, which focused more on the performing arts for both people and Pokémon. However, since they were stationed so far up north, it was hard to do trade with them for both equipment and medicine.

Those three were the main factions. There were a few minor factions all throughout Johto, Unova and Kalos, being either good or bad. However, there was one region that remained neutral throughout the entire war: the Alola region. The main reason why was because Alola was an island archipelago that was almost completely cut off from the rest of the world, and that the citizens and its government had believed right from the start that the Pokémon weren't to be blamed for the cause of the war.

"And your dad's?" Aiden asked.

Mari sighed. "His mother, Delia, had died soon after I was born. She had been sick for a while, and she just couldn't fight it anymore. But the strange thing was, his father, Jayce, he had been missing for thirty-eight years. Some people say he's dead, but I'm not sure."

"What does your dad think?" Aiden continued to question.

Mari shrugged. "I don't know." She answered. "Dad says that he never knew him. Apparently, he vanished when he was only a baby. Hadn't been seen since."

"Well, you and your brothers believed that your dad wasn't dead after being gone for fifteen years." Aiden said. "Who's to say that it might be the same for your grandfather?"

Mari sighed. "I'm not sure, Aiden." She said quietly. "My parents hardly talk about their pasts much, only telling me and the twins a few stories about what the world was like back then, and a few of the adventures they went on together."

Aiden smiled gently at her. He then carefully put her arm around her shoulders and pulled her closer to him. Mari smiled at the kind gesture and snuggled into her boyfriend's chest as he held her.

"What you're searching for isn't out there, Mari." Aiden said. He then pointed to her heart. "It's in here. One day, the answers you're searching for will come to you. When they do, you'll know what you'll have to do to set things right again."

He kissed the top of her head, making Mari smile lovingly at him. But then, she saw something in the distance. Was it....smoke? She carefully removed herself from Aiden's embrace as she stood up.

"Do you see that?" She asked him.

"See what?" He questioned.

Mari pointed over to the smoke trail in the distance, and Aiden saw it. "We should investigate it." She said. "See where it's coming from?"

"Should we use our Air Travelers or our wings?" Aiden asked.

"Probably best to use our Air Travelers." Mari said. "We don't know if they're hostile or not."

Aiden nodded, and together, he and Mari each pulled out a green and white Poké Ball with little red dewdrop markings on the top half. One of the first things that the faction did once the war ended was to get rid of the black and white capsules they used to capture Pokémon and bring back the old Poké Balls and all its variants back. Immediately, they used them to befriend all kinds of Pokémon and welcome them back, the Trainees included. They decided to use Friend Balls for their Air Travelers, which was a codename they used for the Pokémon that can fly. They came in handy when they would travel to different parts of the world and didn't want to reveal their secret.

Both of them threw them up into the air and they opened up. In two identical flashes of blue light, a female Altaria and a male Dragonite appeared. The Altaria, who belonged to Mari, had a pink bandana wrapped around her neck, and the Dragonite had a red scarf around his.

"Hey, Songbird." Mari said, greeting her Altaria and putting away her Friend Ball. "You up for a little investigation flight."

"You bet." Songbird said to her Trainee.

"What about you, Storm?" Aiden asked his Dragonite.

"There better be some action involved." Storm said, pumping his muscular arms. "I've been wanting some for a while."

Aiden chuckled as he mounted him. "You and your lust for action." He said. "Well, if we're with Mari, then I can guarantee that something will happen."

Mari just giggled as she carefully climbed onto Songbird's back. "You know me so well." She said with a teasing grin.

They then whistled for their top partners. In a matter of seconds, Elysia and Rosalie appeared and came over to their Trainees. Elysia jumped onto Mari's left shoulder while Rosalie quickly got behind Aiden and held onto him with her front paws.

"What's going on?" Elysia asked Mari.

"I saw some smoke in the distance." Mari answered, pointing over to the fading smoke trail in the sky. "We're going to see if we can get a closer look and see what it is."

"Well, then. Let's get going." Rosalie said.

Aiden, Mari and Elysia all nodded in agreement, and then Songbird and Storm quickly took off into the air, heading in the direction of the smoke trail.

A/N: Yeah, so the six Trainees has more Pokémon, but they prefer to use their main partners. And also, their main partners usually stay out of their Balls, like Ash's Pikachu. If you guys want to know their full teams, let me know and I'll post them in the next chapter; with their moves and what kind of Ball they have.

Until next time! Please leave a comment about what you think. They are highly appreciated. And remember to stay healthy.

Got to fly! ;)