As I said, that flashback was just a taste. We've still got a tournament to finish, after all! Darla may have lost to Raizer, but there's still one match left, and it's the one everyone's been looking forward to, (in-universe, anyway) the Commander vs. Misato Daisan!

Aquahaze675: It was not a story. The Draconid don't mess around. Why do you think Darla wanted to get out?

KedharS: Lila is gay. The character that she plays is straight. After all, gotta trick the neckbeard otaku into thinking they have a shot with her.

Pokemon Academy: Beginning of Beginnings

Chapter 528

As Lila reminisced about the day she met Darla, she stared lovingly at her friend as the other girl slept peacefully, much to Lila's overwhelming joy.

She had been worried about Darla when she had used her Dragon Force, seeing how painful it had been for her. So when Darla was being taken away by the paramedics, she had feared the worst. But the doctors said that she was just fatigued and needed some rest, she only had a few cuts and scrapes and nothing was that wrong. After a few night's rest and some fluids, she would be fine and ready to go, out of the infirmary by the end of the week.

So Lila sat at her bedside and watched her friend sleep, glad that she was going to be okay. She was angry at Darla for doing what she did, but she was glad that she was okay, and that Lila didn't have to worry about her anymore.

Darla, Zinnia, she was Lila's first friend. And honestly, she could probably be considered the only friend that Lila had ever had. The only true friend, anyway. Because Darla was the only one of Lila's friends who knew her real name. She was the only one of her friends who knew who Lila really was, the things that were important to her.

Lila reached out and placed a hand over Darla's hand. She loved the girl who had spoken out to her in that cave all those years ago. She would do anything to take care of Darla, and make sure she never had to go through those painful times from her past.

Lila had utterly failed on that front, and that hurt. Seeing Darla like that, and not being able to do anything about it had stung more than Lila could have imagined, and all she hoped for was that she would be able to talk to her friend and understand where she was coming from, and why she had done something so horrible as use her Dragon Force to summon Rayquaza, and maybe, just maybe, convince her never to do it again.

But even the thought of that made bile build up in Lila's stomach. Darla had fled her village and family, everything she had known, even changed her name, all because they were trying to control her, tell her what she had to do with her life and her future.

If Lila told her to stop using her Dragon Force, then wasn't she just doing the same thing that Darla's people were doing? Telling her what she could and couldn't do, and how she was supposed to live her life?

Lila was doing it because she was worried for her friend's future and wanted her to be happy, but…

Her family was probably the same way, weren't they? They thought they knew what was best for her, what would make her happy, and they wanted her to obey them because they were looking out for her. They were just like her mom, who hadn't wanted her to go into the idol business when she was a little girl. But where Lila's mom had eventually come around and supported her daughter, Darla had had to cut off all ties with her family.

Lila wanted to be like her mom, she didn't want to be like Darla's family. But… could she really support Darla this way?

It was making her nervous. Being nervous always made her, well… nervous. It reminded her of parts of her past that she would rather forget, when she was that shy, mousy girl who couldn't get over her stutter and didn't have any friends. It's why she tried to be a positive person.

Right now, she was positive that she had absolutely no idea what she should be doing to make Darla happy. She didn't want Darla to keep hurting herself, but she didn't want to be yet another person telling her what she could and couldn't do. If only Darla would tell her why she had to fight, then Lila could understand her a little better, and maybe then she might know what to do and how she could support her best friend.

She hoped Darla would wake up soon. With her sleeping like this, all Lila could really do was worry and overthink. God, how she wished she could really be the flighty airhead that she pretended to be to her fans sometimes.

Maybe then she wouldn't feel so paralyzed with worry in a situation like this.

Needless to say, Lila's concerns were directed totally towards Darla and her condition. She didn't have a single thought for the tournament that she had abandoned her role as commentator for, even though it was her job. That left Akira and Dakota in a somewhat awkward position.

Raizer had been declared the victor since Darla's pokemon had fled the battle (although, did it even really count as her pokemon to begin with?) and while he wasn't happy about it, he had accepted the win nevertheless. But that left an entirely different problem.

"I don't think Lila's coming back," Dakota whispered to Akira. "We still have one more match to do, too…"

"I guess we'll just have to step in and do it ourselves," Akira replied. He wasn't exactly thrilled by the prospect. His role was to comment on, specifically, what the trainers were doing during the battle, and provide insight into the technical aspects of strategy and what moves did, and why people would use those moves.

He wasn't exactly qualified for hyping up a crowd with a sunny smile the way that Lila was. He glanced at Dakota. She was peppy enough, and he had to hope that she would have enough pep to make up for Lila's share, too.

Akira cleared his throat.

"So, with Lila's departure, we'll be taking over as-"

"Do not fear, Akira!" A voice that made his blood run cold boomed from behind him. "Because I am here!"

Well, this whole situation just went from bad to worse.

"What are you doing here?!" Dakota snarled, jumping out of her seat and turning on Sylvia, her eyes flashing with anger. Sylvia stood leaning against the wall of the announcer's box, her Shuppet floating beside her head and an arrogant smirk painting her face.

"I heard that you were having some personnel issues," Sylvia coolly replied, stepping forward and slithering smoothly into the seat that Lila had been occupying, putting her right between the couple, much to Dakota's irritation.

Sylvia clicked her tongue and shook her head disapprovingly. "A girl aiming to be a professional idol running off from a job like that? No professionalism at all, such a pity. You're all lucky that I happened to come back from my quick jaunt-and-taunt to fill in for her."

"Wherever you went, you should have stayed there," Dakota snarled. Akira didn't say anything, but he shared Dakota's sentiment.

Sylvia wasn't fazed by their animosity.

"Don't worry your heads, angry people. I've got another trip tonight to go speak to a good friend, so you two lovebirds just be patient," she smirked. "In the meantime… I think that I'm perhaps the one best suited to fill in for Lila Seelie… especially knowing what I know about one of our competitors tonight, wouldn't you agree?"

Dakota thought that rock would have been a better commentator than Sylvia, but the crowd was starting to get antsy and she wasn't sure if she should blow up at her right here in front of everyone. A glance at Akira's warning look told her to hold her tongue, which was difficult to do. But she was able to shut herself up and sit back down in her seat, grumbling.

"Excellent," Sylvia purred. "Now, let's all have a round of applause for our competitors for the last match of the first round! Misato Daisan! Alden Volt!"

Alden walked out, an intense look on his face as he stared across the stadium at Misato, the Mechadoll smoothly stepping up to the battlefield in preparation for the fight.

"Alright then," Alden smirked. "Let's get this started!"

"Begin!" Sylvia declared.

"I'll start," Alden said. He wasn't feeling this battle the way he felt other battles. Misato wasn't like an opponent he was used to fighting, that was something that he had picked up on during the battle royale. He loved battles, because he loved feeling his "Sense" for battle come into clash with the "Sense" of his opponent.

But Misato Daisan had no Sense. She wasn't a person, she was a robot of some sort. He couldn't feel any will from her, no thought or intent, which meant that she had no Sense. How could she, if she was just a robot?

Fighting someone with no Sense wasn't an enjoyable fight. Fighting was about two people clashing ideals, their Senses coming into conflict and trying to win out over their opponent.

"Eifa, go," Alden said, sending out his Espeon.

"The Commander's lead is his Espeon!" Sylvia declared. "It's quite a powerful pokemon, and his usual lead in battles! What will Misato's response be, I wonder?"

"Sparky," Misato said, taking an orange pokeball from her belt that was traced with electric blue lining and fluidly tossing it into the air. The ball opened with a crackle of electricity and Misato's Rotom emerged, this time the little electric ghost having merged with what appeared to be a washing machine, the electric aura coming off of its body an even deeper shade of blue than usual.

"Misato's first pokemon is her Rotom, Sparky!" Sylvia cheered. "So it looks like both trainers are using the same pokemon they used in the battle royale!"

"Not exactly the same," Akira muttered under his breath, Dakota smirking in response to his comment.

"Not going to fuse with him this time?" Alden coolly asked.

"Unnecessary," Misato replied. She had no orders for her pokemon, however.

"Eifa, light screen," Alden ordered automatically, beginning the usual preparations he did with Eifa.

"Espeon!" Eifa nodded, the ruby on her forehead shining and her eyes glowing red, a bright red barrier appearing in the air in front of her, ready to protect against the Rotom's attacks.

"Sparky, now."

"Rotom!" Sparky cackled, shooting forward. They raised their electric "hands", and began to glow, the front of the washing machine opening up and a light shooting out of it. At the same time, the satchel wrapped around Eifa's neck filled with light clay began to glow as well, breaking free of the Espeon and flying to the Rotom instead.

"Espeon?" Eifa gasped in surprise. Alden narrowed his eyes and Sylvia laughed.

"Switcheroo!" Dakota exclaimed. "She just totally swapped her Rotom's item with the one the Commander's Espeon was wearing!"

"Figures you would know what one of the most annoying moves in the world does," Akira said, rolling his eyes.

Dakota wisely chose not to comment that she had taught several of her pokemon how to use stealing moves in the pursuit of collecting evidence for her journalistic career.

"Sparky, shadow ball," Misato ordered.

"Rotom!" Sparky raised their electric "hands" and an orb of dark energy appeared between the sparks, growing in size. They fired the orb right at the slender psychic type, but the orb never got where it was intending to go. It bounced harmlessly off the light screen, but Alden wasn't pleased about it.

"Yeah! Awesome!" Sango cheered, pumping her fist in the air. "That Espeon's light screen is totally blocking all of that Rotom's attacks!"

She looked at Cynthia and the recently returned Blake, hoping that they would agree with her assessment. But they didn't. Both were stony-faced, which made Sango worry. She wondered if something was bothering them. Blake (and Ayame) had been a little flustered ever since he and Ayame had come to sit back down after Ayame's match, and Cynthia, like most of the other students not only among their friends but in the audience as whole, was still shaken by the match before, which Sango had to admit was pretty epic. Sango tried again.

"That… that's right, right?"

Cynthia shook her head.

"That move just now, switcheroo. Misato's Rotom took that Espeon's held item and swapped it with another one," Cynthia replied.

"Was-was Espeon's held item good?" Sango asked.

"It doesn't really matter," Blake replied, remembering Sylvia's match against Elaina where SHE had used what he now suspected to be Misato's Rotom. "The issue is that Rotom's item."

"What about it?" Sango asked.

"Look," Cynthia said, pointing at the long belt now wrapped around Eifa's neck, where before the light clay satchel had hung. "That's a choice band. It's an item that seriously boosts the physical attack of the pokemon that wears it, but it comes at a cost. The pokemon who wears it can only use one move for the entire match. They're locked into a single choice."

"That… sounds really dumb," Sango said. She remembered the choice items now, from the games she played. They were really useful when the video game pokemon were only restricted to four moves to begin with, but in real life when they had any number of potential moves to choose from? She couldn't imagine the tiny boost to power or speed to be worth it.

"Hush!" Callie snapped, scowling at Sango. "They're really useful! …Just right now, it's really bad for him. Since, you know, Espeon? Physical moves?"

"It was definitely calculated," Cynthia agreed. "She wouldn't have given her Rotom a choice band otherwise. She would have given a choice specs, or more likely, a choice scarf, if all she cared about was locking a particular pokemon out of a move. No, this was a deliberate crippling of the Commander's Espeon."

"Wow, you know a lot about choice items," Blake said, surprised. "Should we be worried about a new trick up your sleeve?"

"I've grown more familiar," Cynthia admitted with a sheepish laugh. Her eyes flashed with competitiveness. "I've been training with the Commander after all, and he's been teaching me all sorts of things!"

Blake didn't like the sound of that at all. The next time he fought Cynthia promised to be all kinds of trouble now.

"So right now the Commander is probably thinking about what his next move is going to be, since he's stuck with it," Callie said. "That's what I'd do in that situation."

"It seems that the Commander is so anti-fashion he isn't sure what to do with his Espeon now that she's been given such a stylish belt!" Sylvia mocked. Akira rolled his eyes at that and Dakota wanted to scream.

"Eifa," Alden shouted. "Use future sight!"

"Espeon!" Eifa's eyes flashed red, her entire body covered in a red aura. As the aura faded and Sparky fired another ineffective shadow ball, Alden recalled Eifa to her pokeball.

Misato had expected that, of course. To keep in a pokemon like Espeon who the Commander had specialized for setting up dual screens and other necessary pivots when sticken with a choice item would not be a statistically feasible move in furtherance of victory. The Commander would no doubt send in the Espeon several times over to have her continue to set up light screens or reflects, but that would be the most she would be able to do.

The most relevant facet of that, and the reason she had employed this strategy, was because the Espeon would not be able to do both at the same time.

"Well now, someone's running in fear," Sylvia smirked.

"No, he's switching out to make use of the choice band he's limited to," Akira growled. "It has nothing to do with fear, he's being rightfully cautious."

Sylvia shrugged.

Alden wasn't bothered though, even if the technique had been an annoyance. He hadn't expected it, but he wasn't surprised, either. Eifa still had utility even if she was severely handicapped by the choice band she was locked into. And besides, he already knew what his next pokemon was going to be.

"Carin, go!" Alden said, sending out his trusty Lucario.

"He's sending out his Lucario already?!" Dakota gasped in surprise. The Commander's Lucario was well-known for being one of his signature pokemon. One of the aces of his team, it wasn't often to see him send it out so soon, even if it was a 3 on 3 match rather than his usual preferred style of 6 on 6.

"Now we have a match!" Sylvia grinned.

"Thunderbolt," Misato ordered.

"Rotom!" Sparky chirped, building up more electricity in their body, releasing it in a bolt of lightning aimed right at the fighting type. The bolt struck the light screen, weakened but still managing to make its way through. Clearly Sparky had been holding back their power.

"No hydro pump, huh?" Alden smirked. "Carin! Bone rush!"

"Lucario!" Carin nodded, raising her paw. A long, slender bone made of aura formed in her grasp and she stepped forward to approach the incoming electric attack. Gripping the other end of the bone with her other paw, Carin twisted into a martial arts stance to point the tip of the makeshift staff right at the thunderbolt, which struck the tip like a lightning rod. Twirling the bone like a baton Carin sucked up all the electricity and with a spin she knelt down and drove the end of the bone into the dirt of the battlefield and leapt back, the electricity discharging harmlessly into the ground.

"Whoa!" Dakota gasped. "That was awesome!"

"Bone rush is a Ground type move," Akira explained. "So it's immune to electricity, even if Lucario is not. So she used the bone to deflect the lightning somewhere safe."

"You'll have to try a little bit better than that," Alden shouted. "This is what our 'Sense' is like, Mechadoll! Carin, go!"

"Lucario!" Carin ripped the bone from the ground and charged forward, running at a surprising speed towards the hovering washing machine. If Misato was bothered by the fact that her electric attack had been so easily dissolved, she wasn't showing it. Her face gave away nothing.

"Swords dance," Alden ordered. As Carin ran, she spun the bone in her paws in swift circles and arcs, shifting it in every which way and heightening her attacking power as she prepared to strike.

"What's the point?" Sylvia asked, rolling her eyes. "Bone rush is a ground attack, and Sparky has levitate!"

Akira didn't want to admit it, but she raised a valid point.

Alden smirked.

"The bone rush isn't the attack, that's why. Just the vessel. To deliver an attack of a different kind."

Carin raised her bone, the tip beginning to glow a deep, sickly violet as poison began to leak from it.

"Poison jab!" Kate cheered somewhere from the audience as Carin swung.

"Double team," Misato ordered. Before Carin could swing her bone at the Rotom, what was one pokemon became several, countless copies spread across the entire battlefield.

Alden smirked. "That won't work on someone like us! Carin!"

"Lucario!" Carin nodded, spinning her bone over her head, the poison covering it darkening until the entire bone turned pitch black, nearly impossible to see in the night sky. She jammed it down into the ground, and a shockwave of dark energy shot out in all directions, the dark pulse smashing through the copies like a wave until it finally broke against the original Rotom, Sparky wincing in pain.

"There it is, Carin! Aura sphere!"

"Lucario!" Carin's bone dissolved and she held her paws together, one over the other, and began to mold aura into a rasenga- …err, aura sphere. She fired the orb of compressed light from her paw and it shot towards Sparky, hitting the electric pokemon before they could respond.

"ROTOM!" Sparky buzzed, wailing in pain. Misato was unbothered by her pokemon's shouts, however, already preparing for the next attack.

"Sparky, volt switch."

"Rotom!" Sparky brightened, the electrical field around them growing even wilder as they charged at Carin, striking her with waves of electricity. Sparky rode the waves back into their pokeball, which Misato returned to her belt.

"So both trainers have brought their lead pokemon back early!" Sylvia announced. "These two are really making some plans, it seems! The Commander's pokemon are well-known to the audience, the student audience, anyway, not the readers, but Misato's are quite a mystery. What will she use next?"

Misato reached for her next pokeball, a deep black with gold, bronze, and silver trim.

So what will Misato's next pokemon be, I wonder? Will the Commander be able to defeat a Mechadoll who knows all of his tactics and is prepared to defeat him? What about Misato? HAS she come up with a strategy to win? She's already badly hampered his Espeon, what will she do about his Lucario? We'll have to find out!