Here's another chapter, where we get to learn more about Ian! What awaits us in the tournament? There's a surprise coming!

KedharS: Maybe Ian's the one?

Hellraiserphoenix: Interesting guess to be sure.

Aquahaze675: Nope, there are 15 that we know of. The Phantom, Misato, Sylvia, K, Lana, Alden, Maddi, Gerard, Alcea, Gabrielle, Raizer, Dokukage, Darla, Ayame, and Blake. One slot left.

MikySP: Maybe, we'll have to see.

Thunder Fire: Sadly, haven't found a way to work them in just yet.

JoshGamerV: Oscar does play a role, but we haven't gotten to that point just yet.

Pokemon Academy: Beginning of Beginnings

Chapter 490

"I'm surprised you have a key," Ian said, following Sango into the aquarium. She flicked on the lights, drowning out the dim glow of the tanks. "You are just a first-year. Marion trusts you that much?"

"Jessie gave it to me, actually, so I could store equipment," Sango explained, folding the blanket she had been using and putting it away in the linen closet. "But yeah, Marion is totally cool with it. …Though, she's cool with just about everything."

"That's the truth," Ian laughed. Sango headed back over to him, fishing pole swung over her shoulder, and finished locking up, turning out the lights. "Still, for you to be this into fishing, Marion really must have gotten to you."

"…Yeah," Sango said, laughing slightly, hugging her jacket tighter as they headed out. Silver floated after her. "If not for Marion, well… I can definitely say that Marion saved me more times than I can remember. …Okay, well, she saved me twice, specifically. But more than that… she taught me how to save myself."

Sango smiled wistfully at the ocean as the two of them followed the shoreline path around campus, their faces barely lit by the far-off street lamps. "She taught me to survive. And, well, if not for her, well…"

"Marion is quite something, alright," Ian said, nodding.

"You mentioned that she was your favorite person here?" Sango remembered.

"Yeah, well, there was some stuff," Ian said, reaching back and scratching his hair sheepishly. "See, you may not be aware of this, but I'm actually fairly skilled at pokemon battles."

"…I would not have guessed," Sango said, tugging on his armband. Ian laughed at her joke, shaking his head.

"No, no, I mean, really good. Actually, I was the one who won last year's Fall Festival Tournament," Ian revealed.

"Wait, what?!" Sango gasped, turning towards him. The surprise on her face went unseen, but the shock in her voice was easy to place. "You won? The last year one?"

"Yeah," Ian said, nodding. "I was actually given the option to join the Eight Leaders, if you can believe that."

"Seriously? Wow, that's amazing!" Sango said. "So like how Akira is going to be one next year?"

"Yes, exactly," Ian said, nodding. "But, well, it didn't quite end up working out that way."

Sango remembered Ian mentioning something about getting into an accident and that was why he'd had to take the semester off. "Because you got injured?"

"Hm? Oh, no, that was something unrelated," Ian said, shaking his head. "That whole thing was just a little bit of an accident while I was climbing up a cliff anyway, nothing too serious. No, the reason I'm not a member of the Eight Leaders is-"

"You fell off a cliff?!" Sango interrupted, her jaw dropping. "How is that not serious?!"

"I stopped myself from falling all the way off!" Ian said, his tone a little defensive. "Just some fractures and breaks, needed to be on bed rest. Nothing to worry about."

Sango had done some cliff scaling of her own. Yes, it was something to worry about. She could see why this guy got along with Marion so well.

"So if that wasn't the reason, then why?" Sango asked.

"…I didn't think I was ready," Ian admitted. "You know how the winner of the Fall Festival Tournament gets the right to challenge anyone they want?"

"Yeah, why?" Sango asked.

"The person I challenged was the then-strongest of the Eight Leaders," Ian explained. Sango could see his eyes shining in the dim light. There was a look she could barely make out on his face, wild and excited. "See, I wanted to fight the strongest. I'm aiming to be a Pokemon Master, and part of that means being the strongest. And to be the strongest, you've got to beat the strongest!"

The way he was talking reminded Sango a lot of Cynthia. She nodded in agreement, the two of them turning and heading back to the main campus. As they drew closer to the main roads, the lights from the street lamps grew brighter, and they could make out each other more clearly. That's how Sango found out they were about the same height.

"So you challenged the Eighth Leader, then?" Sango asked. That would be Gerard now. Thanks to Gerard's match against Kanone Harker, it was hard to picture him as a tough opponent, though she was aware that she was kind of biased by it.

"If I was going to join the Eight Leaders, I wanted it to be after I proved that I was the strongest out of them," Ian explained. "…And I lost. It was close, but I lost."

"Oh, I'm sorry," Sango said. Ian shook his head, waving his hand, dismissing her apology.

"No, no, it's fine," Ian assured her. "It's what I get for overestimating my abilities. I got too cocky and thought my pokemon and I were stronger than they actually were. And I got shown exactly what I was capable of."

"That still sounds rough," Sango said.

"No, it's fine," Ian laughed. "It wasn't even the most embarrassing thing to happen to me while I was here. See, in the second semester of my Sophomore Year, there was this little 'incident' with my Aggron, Iron. See, he was just a Lairon at the time, and I was changing in the locker room, and I've got this tendency, see, to let my pokemon out of their pokeballs out a lot. And, well, he evolved while I was changing. …And his new body broke down the wall between the boy and girl changing rooms, and, well… there were some problems that whole mess raised…"

This all sounded vaguely familiar to Sango. As she tried to place it, he said something that snapped it into crystal clarity.

"It was such a big problem they actually made a new rule restricting the size of pokemon trainers can let out of their pokeballs," Ian added.

"IT WAS YOU?!" Sango gasped, pointing an accusatory finger at him. While she was getting training for her job last term on Campus Safety, that had been one of the rules she'd had to go over.

"Guilty," Ian laughed. "But let's forget about that."

Sango nodded, even though she found the story amusing. She returned the conversation to the battle earlier. "So just because you lost to the Eighth Leader they took away your invite?"

"…No, I did that myself," Ian explained. His voice took on a hint of sadness. "Losing like that… it just didn't feel right to join the Eight Leaders if I couldn't be the best."

That felt a little too ambitious for Sango's tastes, but again, Cynthia had said similar stuff before.

"So I turned it down," Ian said. "Then, the Commander and the Phantom both came to me not long after."

"Oh?" Sango was interested again. That was something curious. So he had been scouted by them, too, huh?

"I didn't have any interest," Ian said. "See, I'm just not the type to join stuff, you know? Even the Eight Leaders, it wasn't like I WANTED to be a part of them, I just wanted to fight strong trainers. So that's why I didn't join the Commander or the Phantom."

"…I see," Sango mused. She was starting to put the pieces together. So that's why he was close with Marion. Because out of all the Daevas, Marion was the one who truly didn't care. She looked after the students in the Caretaker Course and the Ranger Course, but it had been made clear that it wasn't like an organization, not the way the Empress was.

No, Marion just wanted to be friends with everyone. She didn't take any of this "Daeva" stuff seriously, as far as Sango could tell.

"Marion didn't ask me to join her or anything," Iam murmured, and Sango could see that his eyes were wet with nostalgia. The smile he wore told her that whatever he was remembering right now, it must have been a good memory. "She just came up and saw that I was kind of pressured, and offered to fish with me for a while. I hadn't even done any fishing before, but she didn't care in the slightest."

Sango smiled. She could totally see that, it was just who Marion was.

"So that's why I joined her, instead of anyone else," Ian explained. "But even then, it wasn't joining her, not really."

"Because there's nothing to join, right?" Sango chuckled.

"Exactly," Ian grinned. "Marion's not starting an organization, she just wants to spend her time fishing. And that's what I like about her, that she lets me be myself, without pressuring me to do anything I don't want to do."

He sighed, a happy sigh.

"There's a freedom in being friends with Marion," Ian said, Sango nodding in agreement. "And it's that freedom that draws people towards her, like fish to a lure."

"Marion would have liked that analogy," Sango laughed. "Sorry she isn't here, you must have been looking forward to getting to see her again."

"Yeah, but it's okay," Ian said, shaking his head. He began digging into his pocket. "I'm still training to be stronger, after all. And I haven't forgotten my loss. Even though the guy who beat me graduated, there are still a bunch of strong trainers to defeat. The Eight Leaders, the Daevas, there's a glut of opponents that I'm excited to fight."

Sango caught him draw something out of his pocket, and her eyes went wide as she recognized the black envelope he took out.

"It's sad that Marion's not here, but I've got something else to look forward to," he said, taking the letter out and flipping it open. His voice sounded a lot more chilling than Sango remembered, and the smile he wore wasn't nearly as soft as it had been before.

"Finally, everybody that I want to fight is gathering together in the same place," Ian continued. "And I couldn't be more excited."

"That… that letter…" Sango murmured, her blood going cold. She tried to sound really casual about it, but she just became aware of the fact that she was walking alone on campus in the middle of the night with an older boy that she had just met, and knew nothing about. She didn't want to give him any signals that things were wrong.

"You know about it?" Ian asked, glancing at her, raising his eyebrow. "Surprising. You're aiming for the Ranger Course, right Sango?"

"Yeah, uh, my friends are taking part," Sango explained, swallowing her nervousness and putting on a more casual expression so as not to stir worry.

"Oh?" Ian smiled, his eyes shining. "First years got invitations as well, hmm? Are they strong?"

Well, she knew Maddi was tough. Blake was strong, but senior strong? She wasn't sure. And the one fight she'd seen Ayame participate in had been stopped by Marion just when it was getting started, even if it WAS against Elaina.

"They're, um, pretty strong, I think?" Sango decided. "And only one is a first year."

"Well, I'll look forward to fighting them, then!" Ian grinned. "Thanks, Sango! Now you've really got me excited."

"…Happy to help?" Sango said, giving him a shaky smile in response.

"In the meantime, I'm going to have to plan out my fights against the Eight Leaders," Ian explained. "If I could, I'd like to fight them in order, from the First Leader to the Eighth Leader. So I'll be on the lookout for Callie Crawford, let me know if you meet her. She's about this tall, and about this angry about it."

Ian held his hand low and then stretched it up over his head, laughing. He turned and Sango could see a building coming up, the Pikachu Dorm.

"This is where I get off," Ian said, waving to her. "You have a good night, Sango! Maybe next time I'll join you in fishing!"

"…Yeah, uh, maybe," Sango swallowed, nodding. She waved goodbye, and he headed into the building. When the door closed behind him, she let out the breath she was holding, her heart pounding in her chest. She dashed away, working off the tension she had built up, her fishing pole clattering on her shoulder. As she ran, her thoughts cleared, and she slowed down to a more reasonable pace.

…Okay, I might have overreacted a little bit, she admitted to herself. She glanced at Silver, seeing the worry on her partner's face. She reached out to the small pokemon and patted him on the head, giving him a reassuring smile.

"Don't worry, Silver," she said. "I may have just gotten a little worried. But Ian seems like a decent guy, kind of like a more free-spirited Cynthia. So don't look too concerned, okay? Marion's a great judge of character."

"Castform," Silver nodded, sighing in relief.

…That being said, there was still something that had Sango a little worried. So when she made it back to Bulbasaur House, rather than go to her own room, she went to the boys' room instead, and began pounding on the door.

Reiner answered the door, yawning, his face twisted in irritation.

"What is it, Sango?" Reiner scowled. "It's late, why are you waking us up?"

"I need to speak with Nick," Sango said, trying to convey to Reiner the seriousness of the situation. "Is he awake? It's an emergency."

"With how loud you were knocking the whole floor is probably awake," Reiner griped, stepping back from the door. Sango followed him inside, and Reiner flicked the light on.

"Hey!" Nick protested, blinking and sitting up in bed. Blake grunted and sat up as well, a stuffed Snivy falling out of his blanket as he did. Both boys were squinting at the figure to come into the newly-brightened room.

"Sango?" Blake asked, rubbing his eyes.

"Hey, sorry guys, I know it's late," Sango said, glancing apologetically at them. "But this is important. Nick, we need to talk."

"I need to sleep," Nick yawned in response, falling back down against his pillow with a "fwump". Sango sighed.

"It's about Callie, she might be in trouble," Sango added. Nick immediately sprung out of bed, wide awake.

"Callie? Why? What's wrong?" Nick asked, panicked.

"It's okay, she's fine," Sango assured her friend. "I just wanted to tell you that there's someone targeting her."

"What, like a stalker?" Reiner asked.

"No, a trainer," Sango clarified. "He wants to fight against the strongest trainers on campus, and he's looking to fight against the Eight Leaders. He said he wants to start with the one at the bottom, and he mentioned Callie by name. You need to warn her!"

Nick blinked, the room going silent. Sango's pounding heart was the only thing to hear.

"…Sango, it's just pokemon battles," Nick said. "Someone's looking to fight her in a pokemon battle? That's kind of the point of her position."

"We really need to discuss what the term 'emergency' means," Reiner groaned, massaging his temples with his fingers.

"I thought she got in an accident or something, I was seriously worried for a second there," Blake yawned, reaching down and picking up the stuffed Snivy from where it had fallen onto the ground, snuggling up with it under his blanket.

Sango's face turned scarlet as she realized that maybe she had overreacted just a little bit. This was something she could have bought up at breakfast.

"Um, uh… s-sorry, guys," Sango said, hanging her head sheepishly. "I was just kind of, you know, getting a too worried, I kind of overthought things. Sorry to wake you guys up."

"It's fine, you were worried, don't mention it," Nick yawned, pulling the blanket back up. "Now then, though, would you mind turning out the light when you leave?"

"…Yeah, sure, no problem," Sango said, nodding. She plodded out of the room and turned the light off, Silver slipping out behind her as she shut the door.

Today had been full of ups and downs. This new tournament was something that seemed interesting, and meeting Ian was something else that made her wonder what the future would hold.

…The tournament! Sango froze in place, slapping her forehead in frustration. How could she be so stupid? She had meant to tell Blake about Ian and the fact that he was joining the tournament too, but the embarrassment about overreacting with Callie had made her forget!

…No, no, I'm just overreacting again, she reminded herself, shaking her head. She headed to her room, yawning. She was pretty exhausted.

Sango had been convinced by Nick and the other boys not to be worried about Ian's interest in fighting Callie. Callie herself, in the meantime, was preparing for bed, checking her phone before she turned off her bedside lamp. She had been so occupied sending goodnight texts back and forth with Nick that she had put off preparing for quite some time.

Oh? A new email? Interesting… Callie saw the notification pop up as she turned off the light, the phone flooding the room. She swiped her finger and moved over to her mailbox, wondering if this would be a notification about those letters.

Right now, she was in a bit of an unpleasant mood. Nick had mentioned after dinner (she had had to skip for practice) that there was a new tournament starting, a private thing, invite-only, called the Phantom Cup. And a few quick emails fired off told her that most of the other members of the Eight Leaders had received invitations.

But Callie had not. After Nick had told her, she had checked her mailbox to see if she had gotten a letter. Then she checked it again a few hours later.

Nothing.

It was really pissing her off. She was a great trainer! Why was she the only member of the Eight Leaders who didn't get a letter, huh?!

It just wasn't fair.

Technically, her brother, Rafe, had also not gotten a letter. But then, he was never much one for tournaments anyway, so it wasn't a big loss as far as she could tell.

But still! This was a tournament! An important tournament, one she wanted to be a part of! Rafe might not care anything for tournaments, but she certainly did! She was one of the best trainers at the school, and no one seemed to care.

She had put on a tough face when Nick told her, and made it seem like it was no big deal. But honestly what she wanted was for him to comfort her with a hug. Callie sighed. Why did she have to be such a tough girl?

But right now, it wasn't the time to think about that stuff. Maybe this email was a notification that she had made a mistake? She opened the message, and then her blood went cold.

Ian Davidson? He was back on campus? And he wanted to challenge her to a fight?

A shiver went down her spine. This was going to be rough.

So, Ian is already making waves! We have things all set up for the tournament now, all 16 participants have been chosen!