I don't think anyone was expecting Darla to call Rayquaza to aid her in battle! What will happen now? Will the dragon bring her to victory, or will Zeraora prove superior? Will Darla even be able to withstand channeling the legendary pokemon's power? This chapter will reveal a secret about Darla and Lila, one that will put a lot of things to the test, that's for sure. Can their relationship, and themselves, survive it?

Aquahaze675: At least it's not Mega Rayquaza.

Hellraiserphoenix: Unfortunately, that is probably not going to happen. A happy ending might not be in the cards for these two, as will become clear by the end of this chapter.

KedharS: I prefer to think of it as "different enough to avoid a lawsuit".

Thunder Fire: Definitely.

Pokemonking0924: Some men just want to watch the world burn.

JoshGamerV: Well, there's another major revelation this chapter, so here's hoping you didn't spoil yourself a second time.

Pokemon Academy: Beginning of Beginnings

Chapter 525

Alone in her room, having just turned off the television after Gerard's fight was done, Elaina fell over, holding her head in pain. The roaring in her ears was deafening, and the harmonia shockwaves burning through her were like nothing she had ever felt before. It was like the sky itself was burning around her, the wind howling in rage, and Elaina was feeling all of it.

"What… what is this?" Elaina groaned, slumping to the ground as she felt the strength drain out of her, the howl in her ears from her harmonia nearly driving her to throw up her lunch. She had no idea what was this terrifying force tearing the sky itself apart, and she didn't want to know. She just curled up in a ball and began to cry behind her mask, hoping that it would go away soon.

Unfortunately for her, that didn't seem to be something that would come to pass.

"What's with that humongous dragon that Darla just summoned?!" Dakota exclaimed, shocked. She had grabbed her camera and was snapping picture after picture of the mighty beast. "I've never seen anything like that, ever!"

"Holy shit!" Cynthia exclaimed from the stands, jumping to her feet and cheering with excitement. "That's the Sky Dragon!"

"The Sky Dragon?" Blake asked.

"In Hoenn, there are legends about two great beasts, the Titan of the Land, the Behemoth of the Sea, and the Dragon of the Sky," Cynthia explained. "But I thought they were just legends! But that's gotta be the real thing! The Sky Dragon was described as a large green serpent that flew through the heavens, and, well, just look at it!"

"Rayquaza," Lila whispered.

"Rayquaza?" Akira asked.

"The Great Sky Dragon, Rayquaza," Lila said, her voice trembling. "A mighty beast who rules over the heavens. A great dragon that Darla summoned… a legendary pokemon."

"Then we're about to see a match between two legends!" Dakota gasped. "I thought this would happen unless Gerard fought against Raizer, but here it is right now! This is going to be epic!"

"AAHAAHAAHAHA!" Raizer through back his head and laughed as Zera's fur bristled with sparks of electricity in anticipation. "Perfect! This is just perfect! A pokemon like that… the legendary pokemon, Rayquaza?! Can you feel it, Zera?! The same tingling sensation that I've been feeling… an opponent that can shock us like this?! This is it! What we've been looking for! The exhilaration of an opponent that can give us a real fight!"

"ZERAORA!" Zera howled in agreement, lightning coating their entire body as they ran at the massive dragon circling overhead.

"Rayquaza!" Rayquaza roared, opening its mouth and firing a massive dragon pulse right at the approaching pokemon. Zera dodged to the side with agility and leapt into the air, claws raised.

Rayquaza lowered its head and shot forward in a green blur, moving far faster than a pokemon with its size should be able to move. It opened its massive mouth to bite down on Zera, but when Zera jumped out of the way of its jaws the dragon settled for a headbutt instead.

"That was extremespeed," Akira noted. "Look at how fast that thing was moving!"

"Isn't this awesome?!" Dakota gushed. "Look, Lila! Darla's got a pokemon that can easily match that Zeraora's strength, probably even defeat it!"

Lila was looking. But she wasn't as pleased as Dakota was. Rayquaza was powerful. But that power came at a cost. And the one paying that cost was Darla. Lila could see it clearly. Darla was standing on the battlefield, but she wasn't fighting. She wasn't even really there. Her mind had gone somewhere else, and right now her body was serving as a conduit to tie Rayquaza's power to the world, and it was the kind of power that put an absurd amount of stress on the trainer.

And knowing that, Lila's face went pale. She couldn't stand to see her beloved Darla being torn apart by the stress of withstanding Rayquaza's destructive power.

"Zera!" Raizer called. "That thing's real powerful! Let's build up our power with charge!"

"Zera!" Zera nodded, their fur crackling with electricity as they build up a charge in their body in preparation for the Rayquaza's assault.

"Raaaaaaaaaaaay!" Rayquaza roared, opening its mouth wide. A massive orange-yellow orb of energy began to build in the center of its mouth.

"It's preparing a hyper beam!" Akira shouted.

"Oh, no!" Dakota gasped.

Darla and Rayquaza both shouted, the green flames around Darla burning brighter as Rayquaza fired a massive beam of light from its mouth at Zera. Zera was still charging up their power, the compressed beam of raw energy hitting them directly. Zera tried to stand their ground, holding their arms up to block the attack, but to no effect. Zera could withstand a lot, but it couldn't withstand the hyper beam, the attack quickly pushing them back even as they tried to dig their heels into the ground, instead just blasting large trenches in the ground as they were pushed across the entire battlefield before being smashed against the far wall of the stadium.

The hyper beam died down, revealing a massive crater in the side of the stadium, Zera in the center of it. Zera coughed out in pain and fell out of the indent, hitting the ground hard.

"Zera! Did you feel that?!" Raizer called, turning to glance back over his shoulder at his partner as Zera stood up, panting.

"Zera!" Zera wore a wide, bloodstained smile, their eyes wild as their fur continued to spark. Zera charged forward, fists raised, and prepared to lash out, even with their body as beaten down as it was by the dragon's destructive attacks.

"Whoa! Zeraora not only withstood that hyper beam, but they're going on the offensive!" Dakota exclaimed. "I think that attack was the strongest I've ever seen, though!"

"Hyper beam is incredibly powerful, but it comes at a cost," Akira agreed. "The pokemon uses so much energy, that after they've used the move there's a period of time when they can no longer fight back, they can't even move. So while a hyper beam of that power might be able to defeat most anything that the pokemon fights… the comes with a much steeper penalty."

Indeed, as Akira had explained, Rayquaza was no longer moving, floating stunned in the air from the backlash of the hyper beam. But that wasn't the only cost of the move. Lila could see that Darla was breathing hard, sweat dripping down her brow. Her legs were shaking and even illuminated by green flame, it was clear from the pallor of her skin that she was flagging.

"Darla…" Lila whimpered.

"Zera!" Raizer shouted. "Plasma fists!"

"Zera!" Zera shouted, leaping from the ground and raising their fists, the electricity they build up with their charge pushing into their claws and turning into pure plasma that began to burn away the air. They struck Raquaza first in the head, bashing the mighty dragon down into the ground, the great beast letting out a roar of pain. That was just the first blow.

"ORA! ORA ORA ORA ORA!" Zera howled, unleashing a barrage of plasma-infused punches on the large dragon's face. Rayquaza continued to roar in pain, and Darla was crying out along with them.

"Rayquaza!" Darla wailed, thrashing from side to side as she felt the impact of the pokemon's blows inflicted on her body, to Lila's horror.

"Darla!" Lila shouted.

"Look at the power of those attacks!" Akira exclaimed.

"It's charge," Dakota nodded. "Zeraora withstood the hyper beam, and now all that power that they stored is being unleashed on that Rayquaza, doubling the power of their next electric-type move, meaning that Rayquaza is in for a serious thrashing, especially since it can't move while still under the effects of using hyper beam."

"Ryaaargh!" Darla shouted, thrashing out, Rayquaza finally having mobility again. With a swipe of its tail the dragon smacked Zera away, the yellow feline flipping back and landing on the ground, panting, holding their side.

"RAYQUAZA!" The massive dragon thundered, the entire stadium shaking. Zera wasn't intimidated, though, charging head-on into the fray, even as the wind began to whip around them, cutting like razors from the dragon's sheer overwhelming pressure.

Zera wasn't the only one on the receiving end, either. Tiny cuts began to tear themselves open across Darla's exposed skin. She was standing far closer to the dragon than its opponent was, and the wind was just as hazardous to her, the vacuum of air practically tearing her apart as more slivers of air cut through her flesh like she was walking through a briar bush.

"So this was what you intended?" Keahi was sitting in the Phantom's box, nursing his frustration at having been so soundly defeated the day before. "Having Darla Drake of all people summon that monstrosity to take on Raizer's Zeraora? There HAD to have been a more convenient method of defeating the damn thing."

"Oh, there most definitely was," the Phantom laughed. "In fact, Darla had all the tools to defeat that pokemon just with the pokemon she had on hand. But you see… this was never about defeating Raizer and his little mythical pokemon."

"Oh?" Keahi asked, raising his eyebrow in surprise. "Odd… then what are you…?"

"I don't expect Rayquaza to win. In fact, I don't want Rayquaza, or Darla, to win. But you know what they will do? They'll exhaust that Zeraora. Raizer will have to summon up every last drop of his pokemon's strength to overcome a beast of that magnitude. Which he will most certainly do, as he is the sort of fool who only pays attention to defeating the foe in front of him, not thinking ahead to the battles in the future. So he will wear out his Zeraora, and the pokemon won't have the strength to defeat his opponent in the next round. That would be the plan."

"That's… don't you think that's pretty risky?" K asked. "I mean… what's even the point, then? Wouldn't you want to just beat him and be done with it?"

"I'm not interested in Raizer dropping out of the tournament," Valon said, shaking his head. "No, I want the spectacle. The great Zeraora defeating the mighty Rayquaza, to build up how amazing that pokemon is even more. It's simple storytelling. A hero vanquishing a mighty dragon."

"So all this is to build up that Zeraora? Isn't that a little… why do you want to hype Raizer up? He's the Commander's brother."

"The greater the glory, the greater the fall," Valon stated plainly. "With Zeraora as hyped as it would thus be… its inevitable defeat in the next round will make the victor look even more amazing in return. After all… the one fighting against Raizer in the second round will be…"

Valon glanced at Misato, who sat motionlessly beside him, observing the match.

"…Assuming she wins against the Commander," K reminded him. Valon wasn't worried on that front.

"Besides," K added, "how are you so sure that Raizer is going to win? That dragon… Rayquaza? It's a real monster, I'm pretty sure it's going to win, even as strong as that Zeraora might be."

"Oh, most certainly," Valon agreed. "I couldn't say for certain which would fall first, Zeraora or Rayquaza. But that isn't the issue. No, someone else will break by that point in the fight."

That someone else was Darla. Channeling Rayquaza was destroying her, the energy flowing through her was too massive. Unlike harmonia users, Dragon Force was not a natural phenomenon. It was a triggered state, and that came at the cost of the user's stamina, and the stronger the dragon they connected with, the more power that would be brought to bear on them.

Darla's body was beginning to break down. The wind was cutting her deeper and deeper, and her aura was dimming, beginning to turn inward and begin burning her tanned skin.

"Darla!" Lila cried. "Stop it! Just end it already, just give up! If you keep this up, Rayquaza is going to hurt you! Please, just stop!"

Lila wasn't even pretending to be objective, or even trying to give commentary at all. She was just pleading for Darla to stop, her pleas falling on deaf ears as the air began to rage around her and tornados stormed across the battlefield to tear down Zera, the electric type enduring the powerful winds.

"Rayquaza!" Darla roared, the aura around her raging even more intensely. Rayquaza roared in turn, energy crackling in its mouth as it prepared to unleash a devastating blast of draconic power at the weakened Zeraora.

"Stop it…" Lila stuttered, shaking her head. Her face was pale and her eyes were wide with horror. She could see Darla stumble; her partner could barely keep standing, how could she keep fighting like this? Lila… Lila had to do something to stop this…

"Stop it…"

Dakota and Akira looked at each other with expressions matching in worry. While Dakota was ecstatic to get such an amazing scoop of two legendary pokemon warring with each other, even she wasn't totally heartless. She could see how ragged Darla was, she looked like she was ready to topple over, and the sickly green glow of her eyes… even she couldn't support this.

"Now that's an attack worth taking!" Raizer cackled madly, his eyes sparking with sheer joy. "Come on, Zera. You can feel it, right?! The electricity in the air, preparing us for a shocking fight! Let's go, Zera! Right into the tempest!"

"ZERA!" Zera roared, lunging forward, their entire body covered in a cloak of plasma as they charged right for the rampaging dragon. Zera leapt into the air, their body glowing gold, white, and blue in throbbing energy as Rayquaza unleashed the blast of power it had been building up, the draconic attack colliding with Zera in a massive explosion that would have ripped the battlefield to shreds if it hadn't been in the air. As it was, the power thrumming in the air knocked Raizer of his feet, the stadium itself shaking, the storm of energy threatening to tear the whole structure apart.

"DARLA!" Lila shouted. Zera emerged from the explosion, badly scarred but unyielding, laughing madly as they enjoyed the thrill of such a powerful foe, bathing in the joy of the battle alongside their trainer. They struck Rayquaza in the forehead, directly in the center of the golden ring decorating the dragon's scaly green hide.

Rayquaza threw their head back and let out a painful roar as the force of the blow struck them, Darla crying in pain as she thrashed, feeling the agony of the melting plasma course through her body as she struggled to hold on.

"Stop it, please, stop!" Lila cried. Zera landed on the ground, panting, their smile widening as they saw Rayquaza pull itself back up and roar in anger, ready to keep fighting. It wasn't enough. They weren't going to stop, not until Darla…

"DARLA!" Lila shouted, tears streaming down her cheeks as her voice broke in horror. "Stop it, it's enough!"

Darla wasn't listening. Already Rayquaza was preparing to attack again.

"STOP IT, PLEASE!" Lila shouted at the top of her lungs. "ZINNIA!"

Darla twitched, blinking in shock, the green light fading away from her eyes completely as the aura around her dispersed, her Dragon Force gone.

Darla froze, not sure where she was. She turned her head in disbelief, shaking the fugue out of her mind. "Ast… Lila, what… why, why did you… why did I…"

"Zinnia, that's enough…" Lila sobbed, wiping her eyes. "You don't have… to keep fighting like this… please, just stop…"

Darla had been so stunned by hearing her real name that she was just now realizing that her body was a massive of pain. Aches in her joints and cuts all up and down her exposed skin. Her body was completely wrecked, and she felt like she was about to pitch over. A loud roar caught her attention, and she turned to see Rayquaza looming over her, glaring down from above.

So I did… summon Rayquaza… after all… Darla stared numbly up at the massive dragon, frozen with awe for a moment before finally falling over, all the strength draining from her body.

"RAYQUAZA!" No longer bound by Darla's Dragon Force, Rayquaza threw back its head and gave one final roar that made the whole stadium shake, and with a powerful updraft of wind it ascended into the sky, disappearing into a small green dot in the night sky, before finally fading away from sight completely.

Lila didn't care anymore, though. She had jumped from her seat and run across the stadium to Darla's side, kneeling down next to her. She didn't care that her dress was getting dirty or that everyone was watching, the only thing she cared about was the fact that her beloved Darla was in horrible shape. Raizer was the winner, but Lila didn't even care enough to announce it.

"No…" Lila whispered, shaking Darla frantically. "Please, open your…"

"Ast…er…" Darla whispered, her eyes cracking open slightly. They were filled with tears.

"I'm right here," Lila smiled as best she could. "It's okay. I'm here…"

"I'm sorry…" Darla whispered, raising her hand and cupping Lila's cheek. "I tried… my best… but I still… couldn't…"

"I don't care about that," Lila said, shaking her head. "I'm just glad you're okay…"

"Yeah… I'm… just… gonna rest for now…" Darla murmured. "You'll… be okay, Lila… everything… will be okay… now…"

With a smile on her face, Darla passed out, Lila hugging her tightly as everyone watched the events in stunned silence. Even Raizer and Zera were staring, shocked, and not sure how to respond to what just happened. Both were a little disappointed about not being able to defeat what had been their greatest foe up until this point, but they also both knew that, for once, there were more important things to think about than the battle.

The only person happy with the turn of events was Richard Valon, who watched from his box with a satisfied smirk.

"Zeraora should be sufficiently weakened by that," he said, turning to Misato. "Now, the rest is up to you. Are you ready?"

Misato rose from her seat.

"Affirmative."

So the battle came to a climactic finish, even if the winner wasn't REALLY decided. Only one match left of the first round, who's going to be the winner? The Commander or Misato?