Hey there! This story has been ongoing for roughly a year and a half. The first few chapters are in the process of being edited.

This began as a story for sentimentality. The OCs are based on friends of mine who I rarely see all in one place. We used to have a team for a science competition, and now that it's over, the team hasn't seen each other as a whole since. I missed it enough to start writing this. As I kept writing, it became less of a sentiment and more of a real story.

Here's how it begins, in the battle frontier of Sinnoh...

An absol stepped into the dark bedroom, not bothering to keep her footsteps quiet. Taking a quick glance at the moon outside the window, she announced, "Ashley, there's a challenger."

The girl on the bed didn't respond. Her dark hair was strewn over the pillow, and a hand hung off the edge of her bed.

"Ashley."

Ashley made a noise in her throat. "Go away, Sola."

"Ashley Eon, get your *ss out of bed."

"Go away and shut up."

Sola gathered energy in two spirals around her. The energy solidified into stones, which she shot at Ashley.

"OWWWW!" Ashley grumbled, sitting bolt upright. Her brown eyes locked onto Sola. "Can't you use me as target practice some other time?"

"No. There's a challenger," the absol said patiently.

Ashley grabbed her string bracelet off the table beside her. "Wait, at four in the morning?" she asked, frowning.

"Don't ask me. Ten-year-olds are nutcases."

Ashley went downstairs in her t-shirt and jeans, tripping over the tail of her ampharos as she went.

"Oof... Omega, can't you find somewhere else to sleep?" Omega yawned and rolled over.

"OW! Ow ow ow owowowowow!" Omega shouted, rolling sideways down the staircase.

"That'd be another reason why some other place would be nice," Ashley pointed out.

"Ha ha. Why are you up so early?" the electric-type wondered.

"Sola needed target practice."

"We've got a challenger at the front door," Sola corrected her pointedly.

"I'm coming, seeing as I'm awake now," the ampharos yawned.

"Who else would be awake... Is Umbreon around?" Ashley wondered. She got tackled from behind.

"Course I'm around. Let's fight."

"Not you too," Ashley groaned, getting up off the floor. "Am I that great of target practice?"

"No, cause you're a sitting duck most of the time. Let's go battle," Umbreon said urgently.

"Okay, okay." The trio walked through the hallways of the Battle Castle. They and the rest of Ashley's pokemon had moved in only recently, after Darach had moved to Unova to be with Caitlin. The wide corridors and spacious rooms were still a novelty for the Celestic Town natives, but none of them spent much time inside anyways.

Ashley opened the front doors and realized the porch light – she called it that, even though there was no porch – was off.

"Hi! You must be Darach, the Castle Valet? I'm Thomas, and I'd like a battle with you."

Ashley laughed and turned on the porch light. A short guy who looked around ten years old looked shocked to see her. "I'll battle you if you don't call me Darach," she joked. "But then I'm going back to sleep, and you'd better get some sleep too. You need it to grow. My mom says so."

"Don't worry," Thomas reassured her. "This will be short."

For someone who took over from Darach? Ashley thought.

"Go, Pikachu!"

"The classic electric mouse," Ashley sighed. "How overrated. Takes skill to get one to be a strong fighter. Omega!"

"Pikachu, use thunderbolt!" Thomas commanded, throwing his fist in the air as a battle pose.

"Thundershock, Omega!" Ashley didn't do poses.

The moves collided and exploded in midair. "Thunderpunch!" shouted Ashley.

"Volt tackle!"

Both moves hit, but Pikachu's recoil was enough for Omega's next thundershock to knock him out.

"Well done, Omega," Ashley told the ampharos.

Meanwhile…

"This isn't going to work."

"Of course it will. But there's one catch."

"Uh-oh…"

"Besides the gym leaders, you have to get rid of a group of newly risen figures. Not much is known about them, but they're powerful."

"Well that's not so bad. Who are they?"

"Two frontier brains, plus the new champions."

"Snorlax! Use body slam!"

"Dodge it!" Snorlax fell into the ground. "Thunderpunch!" Omega closed in.

"Giga impact," said Thomas.

Ouch, thought Ashley. "Take it head on," she told Omega with a grimace. Omega was knocked over, but managed to thunderpunch Snorlax. "Thundershock."

Snorlax was knocked out. Two down, one to go, thought Ashley.

"You can do it, Vibrava!" Thomas called out. "Sandstorm!"

Omega coughed as sand swirled around him. "Thundershock," said Ashley. Omega shot a beam of light at Vibrava, who dodged. "Hyper beam," Thomas said calmly.

Omega was knocked out. "Go, Sola," said Ashley.

An absol came out. "Psycho cut." The sword on Sola's head glowed purple and swiped at the Vibrava. "Stone edge." The stones hit Vibrava and knocked her out.

"Frack," said Thomas. He looked down at Ashley's feet. "Were you so unprepared you forgot to put on shoes?"

Ashley turned oddly red. "Um, no. It's… more technical than that."

"Oh-kayyyyy…" Thomas shrugged and walked out.

"And he was so polite before you pwned him," sighed Sola. "You could have told him why you can't wear shoes."

"And let some random kid know what I can do?" Ashley shook her head.

"You have to admit it's cool you can transform and stuff," mentioned Umbreon.

"It's not like it's one in everyone," Ashley reminded him.

"Four in everyone," coughed Sola.

"Big difference, Sola."

Ashley stood on the edge of the roof, wings outstretched to catch the wind. Unlike her friend Mike's wings, these were more like a dragon's. They stretched fourteen feet long, with veins running like spiderwebs across them. Despite being violet outside of light, the wings shimmered in every color that existed, and some that didn't.

Tensing her wing muscles, she took off. She flapped several times and rose high into the air, above the Battle Castle and the land around it. From up there, she could see all of the Battle Frontier, including the Arcade, where her friend Aj was as the new Arcade Star. Dahlia had gone to Hoenn around the time Darach left.

Ashley caught an updraft and flew higher into the sky. She took a deep breath of the thin morning air. Luckily, her dragon lungs could handle it. Ashley looked down.

A small red fleck had appeared from below. It hurtled upward toward Ashley. She flapped once and narrowly missed getting hit.

"Dangit," said the latias. "Almost had you that time."

"Sagitta, no matter how much you and everyone else think I'm target practice, I'm still not," Ashley said.

"No, you're just getting dodging lessons. Besides, you're the closest thing I have to a target," said Sagitta.

"I saw you dive bombing some starlies this morning," said Ashley.

"What? I did not," Sagitta said in shock. Ashley looked around. Hmm, she thought, no other latii around…

Another red speck appeared, this time on the horizon. It zoomed at Ashley and Sagitta faster than Sagitta could possibly fly. They avoided the strangely red aerodactyl, but it swooped around and came in for another blow.

A sudden gust of wind blew Ashley straight up, making her an easy target for the incoming aerodactyl. She quickly surrounded herself in dragon energy and transformed into her full dragon form. Dragon energy materialized around her as an omniscient top and pants, and her eyes were suddenly the same color as her wings.

Ashley let go of the energy and the aerodactyl rammed straight into her. The blow was lessened by her transformation. She righted herself and let loose a dragon rage, blowing the aerodactyl away.

Sagitta was diving straight down towards the Battle Castle. Ashley followed closely, tucking her wings into her body to decrease the resistance. She flew onto the balcony and turned back into a regular, everyday person without wings.

Ashley looked up. The red aerodactyl had disappeared. "What. The freak. Was that."

Umbreon took one look at them and said, "Wow. Did you have a rematch or something? It looks like Sagitta got pwned as bad as Omega did."

Omega got some electricity ready.

"No, wait! I didn't mean it–"

KA–BOOM!

Maylene was outside, practicing her kickboxing with Lucario. If you've ever done kickboxing, I feel bad for you. It's really, really boring.

Maylene was getting bored of kicking the air. "Can we work on your aurasphere?" she asked Lucario. Lucario nodded in relief. He was getting bored too.

He formed the biggest, most powerful aurasphere her could and shot it right at Maylene, who got ready to deflect it.

It never came.

"Where'd it go?" wondered Maylene.

Lucario tried again. It was even bigger this time. He threw it and it disappeared again. What the heck? he growled. Maylene couldn't understand him.

"Again!" she called to him.

Lucario brought up the biggest aurasphere he possibly could. It vanished before he even released it. Lucario got really mad and started throwing a frenzy of tiny ones at Maylene (all of them dissolved). Finally, exhausted, he gave up.

What…the…heck… he repeated.

Then he looked up at the cannon positioned directly at him.

"NO!" screamed Maylene, watching Lucario get blasted with his own auraspheres. He was probably knocked out instantly, but Maylene couldn't see him through the bright light. The light faded and the cannon aimed itself at Maylene. It fired.

Thomas went up to the Veilstone Gym. He looked inside: no one there.

He checked around back: no one there.

He looked out back: just a whole bunch of aura-exploded grass. No one there.

Something clicked in his mind.

"HELP! MAYLENE'S BEEN KIDNAPPED!" Thomas shouted.

Maylene woke up in a dark, cramped room. Her head hurt really bad. She felt rope tying her to a chair.

"Lucario?" she called.

A door opened behind her. "Your Lucario is fine. You're going to stay here a while. Now be quiet."

The door closed. Maylene struggled against the ropes, which held firm.

"That's not fair. I had a date with Volkner today," she muttered.

Volkner was battling Raichu against Luxray.

"Thunderfang and quick attack," he said.

The pokemon charged at each other, but when they reached one another, they were using tackle and bite. Not very effective moves.

"What the–" yelled Volkner. "Thundebolt!"

The moves charged at each other. (Get it? They charged…never mind) But both got absorbed by something.

"Keep it up!" encouraged Volkner.

It ended up a lot like what happened to Maylene.

Volkner came to in a dark room. Whoever had kidnapped him apparently couldn't afford a chair, so he was tied up on the ground.

Fudge it, he thought. My date with Maylene was today.

"Sola, can you get it?" Ashley called over her shoulder. She was trying to draw Umbreon.

"Um, it's for you…" Sola yelled back a moment later.

Ashley went to the door. "Oh – hi Officer Jenny. What can I do for you?"

"Hello Ashley. It turns out Maylene and Volkner got kidnapped simultaneously. We'd investigate, but we're unbelievably close to catching Team Rocket. Could you investigate?" Officer Jenny said.

"Uh, yeah, sure," said Ashley. "Don't worry. We'll get them back."

"Good. We appreciate it." Officer Jenny saluted Ashley and sped away on her motorcycle.

Ashley called everyone back to their pokeballs except Sagitta. "I shouldn't fly in public, so I'm counting on you," she explained.

'Yeah, cuz a legendary pokemon is sooo much less obvious," muttered Sagitta. They sped up and away.