Strings of Evolution

- - -Kelia- - -

Jenny stood at the edge of the room and had a sugar sweet smile on her face, just after saying she was the one behind everything.

"What the heck are you going on about?" I said. "Jenny, l-let's talk about this..."

Jenny chuckled. "Talk? How about I capture you and we'll talk later."

"You can't mean you were behind this the whole time! W-why?"

She casually leaned against a wall. "Oh, you think this is when I reveal my big evil motive to you? That's so naive of you to think I'd do that for you.."

Eris stepped in front of me defensively, gearing for a fight. Jenny didn't seem that fazed. "Aww, isn't that adorable. The cute wittle Kelia wants to protect its trainer." Kelia lowered her stance.

While her focus was diverted on Eris, I knew the battle hadn't started yet. I glanced over at Rowan. He was still tied up. My first priority, was helping him. I let Eris take care of her while I worked on rescuing Rowan. On his part, he made sure to not make a sound.

"You aren't laying a finger on Rowan!" Eris said, also understanding my plan. She distracted her while I worked. Any moment now, the battle would begin. And I was fairly confident in our abilities.

Jenny didn't throw a pokeball out for a dual or anything. Eris was a bit confused. Jenny smiled at Eris. "Again, adorable. She probably thinks she's in for a fight. But that's not how I roll, sweetheart."

"What are you blabbering about?" I was so close to getting Rowan untied…

"I don't do Pokemon battles anymore. They're inneficient. I have a much better method. Allow me to give you a lesson…"

Just as I finished untying Rowan, she made her move. She pulled a ball out from behind her back and threw it… right at Eris. I was too far away to block it. The pokeball was pure black. A black light enveloped Eris and she was sucked into the pokeball.

I should've been able to block it. But I was too far away. I could do nothing but watch. I collapsed to my knees.

Jenny had a a smug smile on her face. "I know, you've heard the stories of other criminal gangs using pokemon to fight. Let me just say: what a stupid idea. If we lose, then what? And why would we fight when there are pokeballs that exist that can help us avoid fights altogether!" My heart kept sinking. I looked to Eris, helpless in a little black ball on the floo. But it was still shaking… "And by the way, I hope you aren't thinking of her escape. From these balls, escape is physically impossible."

"Why are you doing this? You're supposed to protect the people!"

"Did you not hear me? I said, I'm not doing a huge villain speech over here. I'm going to bring you and Rowan to a police car for 'questioning,' and we're going to disappear." She grabbed the taser from her belt and pointed at me. "Now stop wasting my time."

I tried to ignore here. "Keep fighting, Eris…" I said, both aloud and in telepathy.

Jenny, if it really was Jenny at all, chuckled. "I told you, escape is impossible. She's caught in a snag ball. Just so you know, it's built with the same technology as a masterball. It never fails."

And yet, I didn't give up hope, not yet. Because the ball kept shaking.

Her face scrunched up, and she lowered her taser slightly. "What in the world is taking so long…?"

While she was distracted, I sprinted at her and kicked her in the face. For all her talk, she went down rather quickly.

"Run, Rowan!" I said. He bolted out the door while Jenny was on the floor. I grabbed the ball Eris was held in and bolted away. But while Jenny failed to catch Rowan, by the time I had run back and grabbed Eris' ball, she was standing in my way. Behind her, she slammed the door. Her nonchalaunt attitude was gone. Now, was angry.

"You… punk. You think you can interrupt our vision? We'll get Rowan back, one way or another. This changes nothing. But you… you deserve a lesson." She picked a pokeball from her side and threw it. I dodged to the side. For a second I thought she was going to try to capture me, but this time, she threw it at the ground like a normal pokemon trainer. Out spawned a Bisharp. A Bisharp with a silver line connecting to Jenny. Seriously, what was with all the silver lines?

"Bisharp, use Submission… on her."

All my mental quips melted away in an instant. You don't use moves on trainers. It's not done. This pokemon's arms were swords, for heaven's sake! I tried to formulate a plan in my mind, something I could do. She wouldn't listen to reason. Eris was trapped. With that silver line, the Bisharp would listen to almost anything it's trainer said.

As the blade came down, I knew, there was nothing I could do to stop it. I braced for the worst.


- - - Eris- - -

As soon as the red light enveloped me, I felt darkness I shivered. Everything else was muted. I couldn't see anything. I fought and thrashed against it, but I was just floating in a void of it. No matter what I tried, it was unyielding. I couldn't even teleport away. Despite that, I told myself, there was no way this ball was going to take me out.

I gained a tiny bit of control, enough to hear words coming from the outside. Jenny. ". From these balls."

I kept thrashing about, trying to ward off the darkness, but no matter how hard I fought, it kept getting darker and darker. She couldn't be right. There had to be a way to escape… didn't there?

I heard more words, but they were getting drenched out by the oncoming darkness. I had to keep fighting… I had to keep fighting… I had to keep… I… I had to…

"Keep fighting, Eris…"

I HAD TO KEEP FIGHTING!

I pushed the darkness out of my head. There had to be something I could do. I shut out the darkness surrounding me, and I thought of happy things. I stopped fighting the darkness, I started ignoring, remembering my happier memories. I pushed it away. The darkness started fading, and through it, I saw what was happening in the outside world. I heard Jenny's confusion. And I saw Kelia kick Jenny in the face! And I saw Rowan escape. I was filled with hope, and the darkness kept fading. Kelia grabbed me and sprinted to the exit. The darkness was almost gone. Just a little more, and maybe, I could break out…

I saw Jenny block Kelia's exit, the pure hatred adorning her face. I smirked, happy to see that we were finally breaking though our cocky exterior. And she sent out the Bisharp, and… and it attacked.

When I saw that Bisharp heading towards Kelia, I knew I couldn't let it happen. If this ball was impossible to escape, then impossible was my freaking middle name!

The last of the darkness faded away and I sliced the pokeball down from the inside with the strongest psycho-cut of my life! My body started glowing as I teleported out and intercepted the Bisharp's blade in midair.

In that instant, so much was happening. Jenny was filled with pure shock. The Bisharp, the same. My arm to his. And Kelia…

The line between Kelia and I changed color at that point. At that point, both of us knew something, more than we had before. Even though we still barely knew each other, we understood one another. And we would both go to insane lengths to protect one another. We would do the impossible. We would risk our lives. In that was, she was just as much Gardevoir as I was. A trainer going out of her way to always protect me? It was totally backwards. That was the Gardevoir's job, wasn't it? Protecting their trainer at all costs? And yet she was doing it. When I broke out, our line glowed, from a friendly blue to a shining silver. Because in that moment, we were in perfect sync.

As I pivoted my body, to change my block into a strike, my glowed as my line did. I grew in size and stature. The spike on my chest grew outwards and my skirt elongated into a dress. A strand of hair covered my left eye. I evolved. And as I went in for my counter-strike, the changes didn't stop. My dress grew down my arms, weaved itself together into a cloak, a pure white one to cover my body from head to toe. A hood grew over my head, and the whole thing went down my legs, my back, my whole body. At the end of my transformation, a purple aura surrounded me. The string between Eris and I was a pure white.

I finished my psycho-cut into the Bisharp, and it went flying across the room, creating a crater in the wall.

After that, everyone was silent. I felt something… different about me. Looser. More powerful. Man, evolution ruled.

Kelia had a look of pure joy, that I was still here. That I had broken her hold, and that I had evolved. We were a team, both of us saving each other.

Bisharp just lay in the crator, unmoving. Had I just taken it down with one hit?

And Jenny… her face flipped between several expressions. Shock. Anger. Disappointment…and maybe a bit of joy?

Finally, she settle back to shock. "H-how!" Jenny said. "The snag balls, they're inescapable!"

"Tell that to Eris," Kelia said.

Jenny stared us down for a few seconds. She glanced at Scizor, but he still refused to move. She reached her hand to her belt, and I charged her. She would not throw another ball at Us.

From behind, the Bisharp ran up behind me and launched a metal claw. I swiveled and parried the blow, knocked it away, and kept running, all in half a second.

Something felt… off about us. Us? About me. I felt I had a much better reaction time, a better frame of vision. It felt… right. Maybe it was just the evolution, maybe all Gardevoir were like this. I could consider that later. In an instant, I I was next to Jenny. I kicked the object she was grabbing for out from her hands. It was a walkie-talkie. In an instant, I understood her plan. She was a police officer. If someone saw the fight, they'd assume we were the bad guys. She was trying to call for backup! I knew there were other explanations, but that one felt right.

I swiveled and deflected the Bisharp, who had charged me again. It was barely worth mentioning. Wow, Jenny was right, she wasn't a great fighter. Her Bisharp's strategy started and ended at "attack." In a fluid motion, after the parry, I swooped down and picked up the walkie-talkie and tossed it to Kelia, who caught it easily. I heard her calling for backup, explaining what was happening. Jenny's shock finally shifted to anger again.

Bisharp charged me again, and I sighed. It was like the definition of insanity. I got another psycho-cut ready.

As it ran, though, the Bisharp's stance changed and it started glowing. The silver bond between the two of them started to glow white, just like ours. Bisharp's body changed. It became somehow slimmer. The silver metal took on a golden sheen. The red metal turned black. It picked up speed, doubling it, tripling it in just this little room. I tried to block its strike with my arm, which I did, but it was much stronger than me. It's strike overpowered my parry and it knocked me across the room.

I leapt to my feet. The metal, it didn't hurt me in the slightest. The psychic energy surrounding me absorbed the blow. Being a Gardevoir ruled!

After that, I steeled myself. This was when the real fight begun.

I rushed in before they could make a plan, summoning another psycho-cut. The Bisharp attempted a block, but I swung low, sweeping it off its feet. I hit it with a fire punch, knocking the air out of its non-existant lungs. I tried to hit it while it was down, but it was back on its feet again fast, and we kept fighting… I knew, if he got through my psychic barrier, I was weak to steel. His strikes would all be super-effective. But he was having trouble getting to attack the barrier at all. After my initial strike, honestly, so did I. Swords clashed and the fight raged on.


- - -Kelia- - -

I felt a strange power racing through me. I saw everything with so much more clarity. I didn't even have to warn Eris what I saw, anything I thought, she knew. I found myself copying her moves as she made them. So this was what the fabled 'burst evolution' was like. I understood her. Our motives aligned.

As Kelia and Bisharp fought, I was like a second set of eyes. I kept a close eye on Jenny, to see if she was going to try anything funny. Meanwhile, she had her eyes on me, maybe ensuring I didn't kick her in the face again. At this point, she was between me and the door, though, she wasn't making any moves to escape.

The sound of swords clashing echoed around the sound-proof room. For all her avoiding a fight at all costs, now that a fight had started, she was taking this fight awfully passionetly. I kept expecting her to throw a snag ball into the mix, but she just stood and watched.

She had to be up to something.

The backup said would arrive in a minute 30 seconds ago. How would she escape in time?

Still, I redirected my attention to the battle. When I saw Eris there fighting, with all her heart and soul, and I stopped worrying. Whatever she was planning, we could take her.

I saw Eris fighting with all her might and I was sucked into it myself. I felt myself there, fighting the Scizor to a standstill. I was still standing there, surveying it, but I was in the battle, too.

From above, a strike. Dive downwards. Leg sweep. Bisharp jumped over it, so swipe the psycho-cut high. Land a grazing blow. Retreat back. Launch a psychic. Scizor resists and charges again. Dodge to the side.

Left, right, side to side, complete concentration, complete sync. Slash, swipe, stab, total sync.

There was a certain rhythm to it.

We threw another cut at the Bisharp when we thought we could, except the Scizor wasn't there. From my vision again, I saw it had somehow gotten behind us… I mean, behind Eris, and I wasn't sure how. Before we could move out of the way, he grabbed Eris from behind and pulled her into a vice-grip, pinning her arms to her side. He dug into her with her sword-like arms. I knew, she was shielded by a layer of psychic energy, but it was rapidly breaking away. I felt a small cut on my arm, and I knew we were nearly through. Eris struggled, but she couldn't find a way to break out.

I knew what to do. As Eris was still struggling, I controlled our psychic energy and activated a teleport for Eris, to get out of the Bisharp's hold.

From behind, I got a solid hit. Another fire punch. Eris and I realized at the same time, why not do that more?

We teleported behind the Bisharp and hit it with another solid blow. It had trouble keeping up with the onslaught. It had no time to react. Then I teleported again, just before it could figure out where I was so it could fight back. It was disorienting, but exilerating. I teleported to its left and targeted a strike where it wasn't blocking, and my strike went right through it. A red light enveloped the Bisharp and it disappeared.

My vision was snapped back into my body, and I saw what had happened. Jenny returned her pokemon back into her ball. Eris and I exchanged an uneasy glance.

Jenny smiled. She was confident again, back to how she was when we first got in here. "What's with the looks, girls? You won. I didn't feel like risking my Pokémon's life. You want me to fight until he was beaten into the oblivion?"

"What are you playing at?" I growled.

She leaned against a wall. "Why, nothing. You've already beaten me. Heck, your burst evolution is so much stronger than me I don't stand a chance."

Burst evolution. That confirmed it, that's what this was. But we could worry about it later.

"The police will come in here any second," I said. "You're finished."

She jingled her keychain. "The door's bulletproof, and I have the only key."

"I can easily take that from you, you know!"

She smiled. "But don't you you want to know who I really am?"

I looked into her mischievous eyes. "I thought you said you weren't talking."

"That was before you two proved your worth."

"Proved our worth? Are you kidding me!?"

She gestured at Eris. "I acted rashly, I'll admit it. I suppose I planned on asking after I captured you. But now that I've lost, I have a few questions for you. She broke out of a snag ball, and I want to know how."

"I don't know. Because we believe in each other!" I said. I know, it sounded incredibly cheesy, but it's true.

Jenny tilted her head from side to side. "Hmm… what an interesting guess. Too bad that bug was already taken care of in the design phases. We kknow the scientific strength of friendship, we're not stupid.."

"What are you going on about? More importantly, why should I keep listening to you?"

"Why, I can see it in your face. You're just dying to know. You're as curious as I, how could a pokemon escape what was essentially a masterball?"

I cocked my head. "I heard of a time where a Whiscash ate one…"

She cut me off. "Never mind that! Look, our balls don't work exactly like master balls They're much more potent. They say masterballs can't be broken out of… that's not entirely true. This friendship, it really can overwhelm the power of even a masterball. But we found a solution. It transfers another pokeball's ownership to be its own, and in case the trainer and pokemon weren't close to begin with, adds in an element of submission. If you two are so strongly woven together, it should've used that against you. And if you weren't, you shouldn't have been able to break out in the first place! So, I ask you, where's the catch?"

The two of us stayed silent. I knew exactly how she broke out. If these people really were this big of a threat… then I could never put Eris in a ball, or else a snag ball might capture her instead. In the moment of panic, Eris' cloak faded away, and I felt the strange energy leaving me. I was just plain old Kelia again.

"So you do know why it's happening? Interesting…"

"What, can you read our minds now?"

"Oh, no. I mean, you two made it pretty obvious. Your faces, the burst fading, it wasn't exactly a hard thing to guess."

I growled. Why, that little… Wait a second. I smiled, because I realized my situation. She had nothing on me. She'd used up her tricks, he now had her trapped. "Hey, Jenny, if you're so smart… you know you can't go through that door, right? I told the police that you've gone rouge, and Rowan's proof of it. So you know what? You're at our mercy for now. We get to ask the questions. So tell me, who do you work for?"

Jenny smirked at me. "Oh? This girl's showing some fangs, now?"

"You kidnapped Rowan! And I want answers. And don't think I'll go easy on you if you don't give me them!"

"Is that Gardevoir your only pokemon?" she said.

"…Yes? I'm the one asking questions here, not you!" What was with people and asking if it was only me and Eris?

"Interesting. So I'll be the first to tell you about the Dragon Bursts…"

An explosion rocked the room, and Eris and I were thrown off our feet. The door was blown wide open, and a bunch of officers swarmed into the room. I put my hands up. The officers ran right past me and arrested Jenny. She didn't even resist arrest, she just let the handcuffs be put on her.

"Great job holding out until we arrived," one of the officers said to me. "We'll take it from here."

I stared as Jenny smiled in my direction, even while she was being arrested. It was like her plan all along was to get captured, even though that was impossible.

She was taken away, and just like that, it was over.


Before I had a chance to take everything in, I was taken away for police questioning. I don't remember anything they asked me. 15 minutes in, an officer burst in, saying Jenny had escaped.

I knew I would be seeing her again sometime soon…


A/N: Hey guys! Sorry this took me so long. I was working on some of my other projects. Unfortunately, you can only expect weekly updates out of this, now, at most. If this becomes more popular, I might change my mind, but this isn't exactly my highest priority… I'm juggling three fics at this point, so I'll try my best to get this one updated semi-regularly at least. For now, I end you on a non-cliffhanger for once.

By the way, if you think this is going a bit far for just the first few chapters, already a Gardevoir that can burst evolve and all before even the first gym, but for the record, this story is far from over. I mean, for one, the gyms aren't the focus of the story. For two, I have a pet peeve for fics that advertise Gardevoir then have a Kirlia for, like, 50 chapters. So that's why the quick evolution, so we can get to the best pokemon of all time being the star. I mean, storywise, Kirlia was already really strong, so she had to be close to evolution.

For three, they aren't close enough to activate burst at will, not yet. I don't want her to be too OP yet. I mean, in the end, she has to be strong enough for an inevitable 1 v 6, right? Anyways, for now, they can't summon it at will, its only activates in life-threatening scenarios, so not to make her too op for now. And, we all knew burst evolution was coming,might as well put it out there. What's more interesting is what comes next. Because if you think that this story's interest ends at burst, you're sorely mistaken.

Next on the adgenda… oh.

Okay, I can't top the last way to ask for a review.

Or can I?

(Line)

"Oh wise one, can you please enlighten us! How will we beat the last way!"

"All right, young one…

Ahem.

'On reviews, I write a poem.

That last one, can I beat?

The answer to that riddle,

Is no.'"

"…What? That didn't even rhyme!"

"You don't even rhyme."

"That doesn't make sense!"

"You don't make any sense!"

"I saw that comeback coming a mile away!

"… Welp." *jumps off conveniently placed cliff*

"Wat just happen."

(Line)

Well that was weird.

Um… Next time, whenever I get it out, we do fun stuff. You know, gyms and stuff. And just maybe, we might get some bone fide character development! See you then.