While Akira and Serefina are dealing with their issues, the rest of campus is looking forward to the upcoming trip!

Pokemonking0924: They definitely are. Serefina is a great friend. As for Sylvia, no, she is not a good person. Morality doesn't factor into her decisions.

Tambry96bj: I hope so, too.

The Harmonium: There's definitely some difficulties with Elaina, that's for sure. Some self-inflicted, some as a result of the thoughts of others.

Omesta: Don't worry about it.

KedharS: Yep. Who knows how close they'll get…

JoshGamerV: That's a reasonable assumption.

Pokemon Academy: Beginning of Beginnings

Chapter 805

The campus was really in a fire as they week went. Most of the student body were going one place or the other. The juniors and seniors were going to be taking a trip to the Orre Region, while a lot of sophomores in the Battle Course would be going all across the world to different regions for their practicums.

Which meant for the students who were staying back, things were going to be pretty hectic in a different way. Especially the first years. Blake's group of friends were eating breakfast, talking about the weeks to come. Well, most of them, anyway. Ayame was absent, getting prepared for the trip, and Sango, well…

Sango hadn't left her room since winning the Miss Pokemon Academy Contest. While everyone else was apprehensive about the upcoming trip, Sango couldn't wait for the campus to empty out, it couldn't come soon enough.

Maddi wasn't there either, but that was a usual thing. After all, she may have been friends with a few of them, but it wasn't like she was a social person. But even without those girls present, there was still lots of discussion to go around.

"Damn Nick, it must be hard, not getting any anytime soon, due to Callie heading off to Orre and everything," Cynthia said. Now that Claire had gone back home to Sinnoh, she was pulling her weight as the dirty tongue in the group.

It didn't help that Callie was right there, staring at Cynthia with her jaw dropped in shock. "Cynthia?! What?! We-We…"

She looked at Nick, her face red with shame. They hadn't even gotten close to that level of intimacy yet, but Cynthia wouldn't leave it alone. Maybe it was her own frustration, maybe it was something else, but she was particularly aggressive right now.

Nick just looked down, embarrassed.

"Come on, lighten up, Cynthia," Julia scowled. "Don't tease them, they're going through a hard enough time as it is."

"Thank you!" Callie said, rolling her eyes.

"Although the ones you should really feel bad for are Reiner and Blake," Julia added with a smirk. "They're the ones who are going to have to spend the next few weeks in the room with Nick playing with himself now that Callie's not here to relieve his frustrations."

Callie gave Julia a sour glare and Julia ignored it, snickering and high-fiving with Cynthia. Everyone at the table knew that Nick and Callie weren't at that point yet, but they were still having a little bit of fun with the teasing.

The only reason Callie was reacting like this was because she felt a needle of truth stabbing into her. Honestly, she did have her own frustrations with the fact that she was going to be separated from her boyfriend.

Callie wishing she had been in the same year as Nick wasn't an uncommon thing. She felt that way practically every week, if not every day. But she'd never felt it as strongly as she had these last few weeks, knowing they would be separated for such a long period of time.

Ayame felt the same way, though she was a little bit better at hiding it around others. Callie envied the other girl; she'd had the strength to put some distance between herself and her boyfriend, even though it must have crushed her. She wasn't even here.

Callie glanced at Blake. He didn't show it, but she knew that he had to be torn up inside.

"So Blake, you've got that big date with your girlfriend coming up this weekend, right?" Callie asked, eager to take the heat off of her shoulders. "Excited for that?"

"Oh yeah! You're going to that pokemon specialty store, right?" Cynthia checked.

Blake did not appreciate being put on the spot like this, but he could understand what Callie was doing. He gave her a polite smile and nodded. "It's nothing that important," he clarified. "Just one last date before the trip on Monday."

"Gonna get up to some hanky-panky, huh?" Cynthia smirked, wiggling her eyebrows. "Might as well skip the store altogether and hole up in her room for the weekend, Blake."

Blake gave her a cold glare.

"I'm pretty excited for the trip, myself," Reiner said, taking a bite of his eggs. "See, that means, like, everybody's going to be off-campus, right? That means we'll have a lot of peace and quiet, and even though the sophomores will still be here, it's like we'll have the whole place to ourselves! Sounds kind of exciting. Now that the rest of the island is opening up, we can go on all sorts of adventures, doesn't that sound like a blast?"

"We still have to study," Nikita reminded him. "Just because traditional classes are going to be suspended, we still have our online work that the professors will be monitoring. This isn't a free pass, Reiner."

"Says the girl who was planning to spend her free time over the break holed up in the library reading as much as she could in peace and quiet," Reiner teased her, and she smiled back at him.

"Okay, yeah, I won't deny that I love the idea of having a bunch of free time with less people," Nikita admitted, shrugging her shoulders. "But come on, we still have to remember to do our due diligence, Reiner, it's not just one big spring break!"

"I can tell you who's looking forward to this trip," Julia nodded. "Sango definitely is."

"She still hiding out, not wanting boys to see her?" Callie asked, surprised. "I didn't know she would be such a shrinking violet."

"Would you be so outgoing, knowing a bunch of guys were hitting on you?" Julia asked, raising her eyebrow. She glanced pointedly at Nick. "Considering how your boyfriend might feel about all that attention?"

Callie glanced at Nick, and cleared her throat. "W-Well, it's a little bit different, it's not like Sango has a boyfriend, right? Hey! Maybe she could use this opportunity to meet somebody! That would be quite something, right Cynthia?"

The redhead nearly choked on her hash browns. "W-What?!" She coughed out, her eyes wide with shock. "I don't know, why are you asking me?!"

"…Because you usually get pretty excited about stuff like that," Callie said, confused by her startled reaction. Cynthia looked like a Munchlax that had her hand caught in the cookie jar.

"W-Well, yeah, I think it would be nice," Cynthia said, trying to keep from looking like anything was amiss. "I-I mean, come on, Sango with a guy! Wouldn't that be something? But she clearly isn't interested, you know how it is. Now, if it were me, I would be all over my adoring fans, going through folks like tissue paper… haha… but Sango's not like that, right?"

Callie shrugged. "Fair enough."

Cynthia wiped her mouth with her napkin, taking the opportunity to sigh in relief.

She'd been doing a great job of keeping Sango's secret. She hadn't told anyone that that one guy, Aidan, had confessed to her, and more importantly, that she had rejected his offer, revealing that she had someone else she had a crush on.

If there was one thing Cynthia tried to be, it was a good friend. She hadn't revealed what she'd learned to anyone, not even Sango. This was Sango's secret, and she would tell them when she was ready to reveal it, hopefully by bringing in a boy on her arm to breakfast someday. The thought of that made Cynthia get all warm and fuzzy, she couldn't wait to start shipping the two of them.

She'd get started right now if she could, but she had no idea who he was. If Sango wanted to keep him a secret, that was her business.

And if anyone found the posterboard in Cynthia's closet with a bunch of boys' photographs and red string linking them to Sango, she would deny it with her dying breath.

"I'm gonna miss you, Callie," Kitty quietly said, turning to her friend. Callie felt her eyes start to water and she skipped around the table, hugging her friend.

"Aww, Kitty, you're just precious!" Callie sobbed. "I'm gonna miss you, too! You need to make sure to write to me, okay?"

She looked up and scanned her friends. "That goes for all of you. Even you, Reiner."

"…You know email is a thing, right?" Reiner dryly replied.

"How's Maddi taking this?" Kitty suddenly asked, glancing at Cynthia. "Is she looking forward to the trip?"

Cynthia's answer was a groan. One hard topic after another. Maddi had kept mum on her feelings about the trip, and Cynthia knew better than to press it. Sango might have been able to get something out of her, but she was currently occupied with other matters.

In the meantime, Cynthia was feeling a little down in the dumps herself. She was the only member of the Commander's inner circle who wasn't going to be going on the trip, and that definitely made her feel a little insecure and underappreciated. But she didn't let it get her down, trying to keep up with her upbeat nature.

"Callie, I heard you and Nick got some new pokemon?" Reiner asked. "Nick was bragging the other night about how he has a Dratini."

"Oh, yeah! My Jangmo-o! I named him Jang," Callie said, getting excited. She pulled out the pokeball. "I'm gonna be training him while I'm on the trip. Nicki's taking care of my Riolu while I'm going to be gone."

"I can't believe I missed this Reed girl!" Cynthia groaned. "I'd have loved to have gotten a new pokemon, and a dragon, at that?!"

Kitty sunk down in her seat. She didn't say it, but she was happy that she hadn't encountered that Reed. She didn't like Dragon types, especially not the really big and scary ones. Raising one on her own, that would be…

"Don't you have enough pokemon, Cynthia?" Reiner groaned. "I barely have six myself. You have what, eight?"

"Yeah, well, Blake has nine!" Cynthia whined, like this was some sort of competition.

"It's not about how many pokemon you have," Julia replied. "It's about how well you can take care of them, isn't that right, Kitty?"

Kitty nodded. With four pokemon, she had the least out of everyone here. But that didn't matter because she loved every single one of them.

"Speaking of new pokemon, Nikita, has your egg still not hatched?" Cynthia asked, glancing at her friend. "That would be your sixth pokemon, right?"

Nikita tensed, and Reiner felt a scowl cross his face. The topic of the egg was a sensitive one for Nikita, since she was starting to get anxious about it not having hatched yet. He was prepared to tell Cynthia to back off, but before he could get the chance Nikita spoke for herself.

"Don't worry about me," she replied with a smile. "I'm not like you guys, I don't battle with my pokemon. So it's not important for me to have a full team. My egg will hatch when it's good and ready, and that's good enough for me."

She wanted that to be true, because that was the mature thing to think. But she couldn't help the anxiety and worry she felt. She hoped it would hatch soon.

"In the meantime, Reiner, I suggest you spend a little more attention on your own team," Julia said, glancing at him out of the corner of her eye while coolly sipping her water. "You haven't been keeping up with your training, have you?"

"Says the girl with a team full of unevolved pokemon," Reiner snapped. "What's the matter, Julia, can't afford a fire stone?"

Julia resisted the urge to lung across the table. "My pokemon are just fine, thank you very much. Unless you'd like a personal demonstration of how powerful some 'unevolved' pokemon can be, while they're kicking your ass?"

Uh-oh. Kitty shrank down in her seat, already seeing where this was going. She glanced at Nikita and saw her roommate start to tense herself. The positive atmosphere had completely evaporated into something tense. They could really use something to come in and clear the air.

"Oh! It's Blake! Hiyahoo! Been a while!"

Blake raised his head, surprised. He wasn't the only one to turn and see who was coming up to them, a girl that not a lot of them were well-acquainted with, the curly brunette Andrea Rollins. She skipped over to their table, her green eyes sparkling with excitement. She squeezed onto the bench between Blake and Cynthia. She didn't even have any food with her.

"O-Oh, hey Andy," Blake greeted her, a little taken aback.

"Where's Ayame?" Andy asked, looking around in confusion. "Isn't she usually getting breakfast with you guys?"

"She's… packing," Blake said. "Preparing for the trip next week?"

"Oh! Right, that's right!" Andy gasped in realization. Was she really such an airhead that the idea of the trip had completely slipped her mind? As the dawning expression of surprise left her face, her expression drooped. "Darn. That's right, she's gonna be gone for a while, huh? That's no good! I won't be able to see her anymore!"

"…You two are certainly close," Cynthia said, finally finding a spot to insert herself into the conversation now that Andy had stopped talking to let the disappointment take its place. "You're Andy, right? You're in his Pokemon Fitness Fundamentals Class, or whatever it's called?"

"Yep! Andy Rollins!" Andy chirped, wrapping her arm around Blake's. "I'm, like, the number one fan of Blake and Ayame! I was cheering Ayame on so much during the Miss Pokemon Academy Contest, and I was so proud of her!"

She sighed wistfully.

Kitty was a little appreciative and a little uncomfortable. She was glad that the tense atmosphere had been shattered, but Andy had replaced it with awkwardness of a different kind, since no one here was really friends with her.

Callie was the one who took the chance to leave first. She got up and grabbed her tray. "Sorry guys! I gotta head out. I need to get started on packing." She turned to Nick and smiled. "Nicki, we'll meet up later, okay?"

"R-Right," Nick said, nodding. "Actually, I should probably get going, too, I have some homework to get started on."

That gave everyone the cue they needed to get going. Excuse after excuse was given, and soon enough the table was just Black, Andy, and Cynthia.

"Oh, sorry, I didn't mean to break up the fun you guys were having," Andy apologized. "I just wanted to come by and say hey."

"Don't worry about it, I think you did us a favor," Blake said, finishing off his food and ignoring the clinginess from the tomboy. He made finished his meal rather fast considering he only had one arm to work with. "Things were getting a little awkward."

"Well, glad to help!" Andy chirped. "…Oh, are you leaving, too?"

"Yup," Blake said, getting up and shaking his arm free. "I need to go check on Aya, and see how she's doing."

It was an excuse, and a bad one. It wasn't that he didn't like Andy, it was just that she was a little much, especially since she was a continual reminder of his relationship with Aya, and things in that vein were definitely tense.

That just left Andy and Cynthia.

"So you like Blake and Ayame a lot, huh?" Cynthia asked. She was a little suspicious of this girl's intentions towards the two of them. She was just so… perky.

And it was Cynthia's job to be the perky fangirl, not hers.

"Yup!" Andy said, nodding. She was smiling for a moment more, and then she sighed, slumping over the table. "Too bad it looks like things are going to be difficult for them. You know, being separated like this? It's not great…"

"Well, you need to get better at shipping, then," Cynthia scoffed, getting up as well. "Trust me, those two are going to be just fine."

Andy's bright attitude immediately returned, and she skipped after Cynthia, much to Cynthia's confusion.

"…Shouldn't you be more focused on going after Blake?" She asked as she put her tray away.

"Yeah, you'd think so, right?" Andy laughed. "But nah, I'm going to give them some privacy, they definitely need it."

Cynthia gave her an appraising look. She wasn't as bad as she thought, it seemed.

While the first years were discussing what they would do while their upperclasspeople were going on the trip, there was another first year who was dealing with some problems of her own.

Elaina hadn't left her room since her battle against Blake. Her mask had been destroyed; she didn't have anything to hide behind anymore.

In theory, she could do it. There was practically no one here who knew what she looked like. She could change her clothes and walk through campus with no one giving her a second glance. She'd done it before.

But she was still scared. Her mask was gone, and she still wanted to hide; she didn't have the strength to move forward the way Blake had asked her to.

A knock on the door caught her attention. She looked up from the dating sim she was playing and turned it off, getting up and going to answer. "Who is it?" She asked.

"It's me, Elaina," Gerard said from behind the door. She sighed in relief, and let him inside. Gerard she could count on. He hadn't treated her any differently, now that her mask was smashed. He just looked at her the same way as always.

It was like a tool, sure, but that was fine.

"How have you been?" He asked, walking over to her bed and sitting down. "Since the whole incident with Blake."

"It's been… rough," she said, shaking her head. "I know I don't have my mask, I could… I could go out, if I wanted to, but still…"

"Blake said some fancy things to you, didn't he?" Gerard asked. "About living a life without the… cage of your mask. But you know how hard that is, don't you, Elaina? You're not ready for that, are you?"

Elaina shook her head. She wasn't ready.

But unlike before, she knew that she would be.

"I asked you… to give me some space," she said quietly. "What are you doing here, Gerard?"

"…I'm sure you've heard that I'm leaving after the weekend," Gerard said quietly, looking up at her. "I'm going to the Orre Region."

"…I know," Elaina said, nodding.

"And it's going to be for a long time," he continued. "So it might be a while before I see you again."

Elaina knew that, too.

"Are you sure you're going to be fine on your own?" He asked. "Without me being around? You won't have any issues?"

Elaina didn't know what to say to that. She had no idea what the future would hold.

But honestly, she didn't know if she wanted to have this conversation with Gerard right now. That was something she definitely wasn't sure of.

So people are getting ready for the big Orre trip! What's going to happen in the Orre Region, and back at the Pokemon Academy? It should be an exciting arc, that's for sure!