Gerard and Alden have both fought their hardest, and pushed their pokemon to the limit. Their exchange has been legendary, and now they've reached the end of the line. Which one will emerge victorious? The Commander, with his bond with his pokemon, or Gerard, who has the support of Samarra and her abilities? The fight comes to a close with this chapter, we'll finally see how it ends!

Hyphenman: You posted your review after I already updated lol. But yes, I hope the conclusion to his battle will be suitably epic.

Just a Bad Writer for Fun: I don't know if that's going to happen, they don't have very much common ground.

KedharS: Yep. We've reached the climax.

Thunder Fire: No one did, that's the point. We spent so much time building up Sango's feelings, and her repeated aborted confessions, and when the truth finally comes out it's in one of the worst ways imaginable. This was the intention from the start with the arc of her feelings.

Pokemon Academy: Beginning of Beginnings

Chapter 1080

Corin ran at top speed for Diana, who flew back, intimidated. Without the trick room active, her best advantage had crumbled away, and she quickly found herself overwhelmed by Corin's speed and burning aura.

"Corin, meteor mash!" Alden shouted. With her speed restored, Corin could now fire off her strongest attacks, and she focused the power of a meteor into her fist, leaping into the air and swinging a powerful punch at Diana.

"Protect!" Gerard quickly ordered. Diana couldn't move as fast as before, but she could still create a barrier quick as a whip, summoning a sparkling pink crystal shield that protected her from all of Corin's attacks.

"Not happening," Alden narrowed his eyes. "Corin, you know what to do!"

She did. Before she fell to the ground she pushed off the barrier and spun her foot, hitting the protective barrier with a feint that smashed right through it. She turned her spin into a method of falling, landing on her feet and preparing a follow-up attack.

"Lucario!" Corin howled, placing her hands together and concentrating her aura into a single point. She fired a beam of white light that hit Diana head-on, causing the Diancie to shout in pain. But she remained hovering overhead, refusing to fall.

"Diana!" Gerard shouted. This wasn't good. He needed to set trick room to give the edge back to his Diancie. But with Corin's furious assault there was no way his pokemon could get up the speed to set the trick room up. She was just too slow, and it took all she had to hold on.

He needed to find a way to stop Corin, even for just a moment. But he didn't know what to do. There had to be something, anything-

Then the idea came to him. He didn't even think about it. Samarra gave her orders, and he realized that it was the only way.

"Diana! Use mystical fire!" Gerard shouted, and Diana got the message as well. She froze, unable to believe what her trainer… no, what Samarra was ordering her to do. But orders were orders, and she didn't have a choice.

Diana held up her hands, conjuring sparkling flames from the diamonds hovering around her. Then she turned and sent the flames flying, but not towards the pokemon she was fighting against. The shimmering flames were headed straight towards Gabrielle.

"What the hell?!" Alden exclaimed. He didn't even have time to think about the enormity of what was happening. All he saw was that pink flames were headed for Gabrielle, and that the girl wasn't taking any steps to dodge. She stood in the path of the attack like it was a cool summer breeze, not fazed in the slightest.

"Gabrielle! Run!" Maddi shouted, but her words went unheeded. Gabrielle was just as under Samarra's influence as Gerard, and she understood just as well that the only path ahead was for her to play the role of victim.

"CORIN!" Alden shouted.

It went exactly as planned. Corin cut off her attack on Diana and swung towards Gabrielle, running towards her at blinding speed. She used her extremespeed to close the distance in a flash, but she couldn't push the girl out of the way. If she tried, then Gabrielle might be even more injured from the whiplash of Corin's move.

So there was only one thing she could do.

Corin leapt in the path of the flames, shielding Gabrielle's body with her own. She roared in pain as the fire burned her fur, holding out her arms and withstanding the mystical blaze so that the human would be safe.

Gabrielle watched emotionlessly as the pokemon sacrificed herself.

"Diancie!" With her opponent momentarily handicapped, Diana was free to set up the trick room. She created a magic dome of sparkling crystal, and the mystical effects of the area flipped the speed around. Suddenly Corin was badly slowed, and Diana could move quick as a flash.

"With this, your path to victory is cut off," Gerard stated coldly. Alden couldn't believe what he was hearing.

"What the hell was that?!" He demanded furiously. "Just when I thought you couldn't get any worse… just when I thought my esteem of you couldn't fall any further, you go and do this?! Ordering your pokemon to attack an innocent bystander-! Your fellow member of the Eight Leaders-! What's the MATTER with you, Gerard?! Even at your worst, I NEVER would have thought that you were the type of man who would do something like that!"

Gerard had nothing to say, because the Commander was completely correct. He would never have given such an order to Diana under normal circumstances. Even he, in his desire to win no matter what, had lines that he absolutely would not cross.

But Samarra would cross them without even thinking about it. And right now, Samarra was more in control of this fight than Gerard himself was. Victory was all that mattered to her, in order to make more friends.

"Corin…" Alden turned to his Lucario, who was badly injured. She picked herself up, panting, but her chances of winning had just shrunk considerably. Alden didn't know what to say to comfort his partner pokemon.

"I can't believe it…" Rui had never seen a pokemon attack a trainer before, at least not a pokemon that wasn't a Shadow Pokemon. But this man, Gerard, his Diancie wasn't a Shadow Pokemon. At least… not one she could recognize. There WAS something up with her, but it was almost like when a pokemon fought beside a trainer with harmonia.

"Could it be…?" She murmured.

"Why would Gerard…" Chloe couldn't believe it either. But it was Maddi who could sense the truth, clarifying things.

"Gerard had nothing to do with that," she snarled, narrowing her eyes. She reached up and rubbed her red eye; it was still burning. "Whoever that is… that isn't him!"

Rui stared at her, confused.

"What do you mean it isn't him?"

Maddi squinted. "I can't explain it," she muttered, rubbing her eye again. "But it's like… he's possessed by something, don't you feel it too?"

Rui shivered. She could feel what Maddi was talking about. The aura Gerard was exuding, it was like he was filled with the thoughts of other people. It wasn't just one person though. It felt like several, maybe as many as ten, and they were all flooding out of him at once.

She had to turn away she felt so nauseous.

"This is the end for you," Gerard snarled, narrowing his eyes. "With trick room you haven't got a chance! Diana, burn her away with more fire!"

"Diancie!" Diana cried, holding out her hands. Sparkling pink fire danced around her and she sent it towards Corin, intent on finishing off the Lucario for good.

"Corin!" Alden shouted. Corin's body twitched and she stumbled away, managing to avoid the flames with her detect. But every movement looked like agony to her. Mystical fire wasn't capable of inflicting a burn, but it certainly SEEMED that way.

"Lucario…" Corin clutched her side and fell to her knee, and her aura flared up. Blue water slowly began to ooze around her body to try and heal her wounds, but Diana wasn't about to let that happen on her watch.

The ground beneath Corin's feet opened up and a devastating earth power ravaged her, leaving her motionless on the ground. For a second, Rui, Maddi, and Chloe feared that it was all over, that the worst had happened.

Gerard was thrilled. "Look at that!" He crowed triumphantly. "Your precious Lucario, beaten and bloody on the ground in front of you! And what can you do about it? Not a damn thing, that's what! Finally you've lost! You've lost, and I've won!"

If anyone had lost, it was Gerard. In the sense that he'd lost it anyway. That's what Chloe was thinking as she stared at him, wondering how the hell someone could become so twisted and warped. The stuff Maddi and Rui were saying about how he was possessed didn't really make any sense to her, it was so unscientific. All of this "harmonia" stuff was honestly, but she knew that something was definitely wrong.

"You don't think it's really over, do you?" Rui asked, shaking. It had been far too long since she felt this frightened about the outcome of a pokemon battle.

Oh, wait, no, it hadn't been. She'd felt this way like a week ago, when those two terrorists had attacked Agate Village.

What the hell had gone wrong in her life that, after more than two decades of peaceful wedded bliss to her husband, the hero of Orre, she would face two back to back frightening moments like this which reminded her of those days fighting against Cipher?

She had never been good at math, but she was pretty sure the odds of that were rather astronomical. This was just horrid.

Maddi, on the other hand, refused to give up hope. "Alden!" She shouted, her voice shocking the Commander, who looked back at her for a second, surprised.

"Don't give up!" Maddi called. "It's not over yet!"

What the fuck am I doing? She asked herself. This wasn't like her at all. She wasn't the kind of girl who would shout encouraging words from the sidelines, she was the kind of person who would detach herself from the situation.

But she understood that wasn't an option. Not anymore. This was a fight that necessitated all hands on deck, and she was going to support the Commander if it killed her. Something was driving her, burning in her eye and telling her that was what she had to do.

Then she saw Alden smile.

"Don't worry," he said, turning his attention back to the fight. "We aren't about to give up here. Corin and I… we've just gotten started. My 'sense' is telling me that this isn't even close to being over, so don't you dare count us out just yet!"

The grin that spread across his face caught Maddi genuinely off-guard. She blinked, not sure what to make of it. She was the kind of girl who would give a fight a fair chance, but even she had to admit that this didn't look very good. His Lucario wasn't even moving, and yet…

Wait…

"Lu… cario…" Corin slowly dragged herself to her feet, her eyes glowing furiously. Her aura was ablaze and she glared up at a stunned Diana.

Immediately Gerard's expression took a turn for the worst. He snarled, he growled, he practically spit with fury.

"How?! How can you still keep fighting!?" He demanded. "Your pokemon can't keep this up forever! You've lost! Just accept your defeat already!"

Alden grinned and shook his head. "Not happening. Corin and I, no, all of my pokemon, we don't understand the meaning of the words 'give up'! We're going to keep fighting until the very end, because that's what we do!"

Gerard ground his teeth together. Alden was at the end of his rope. He had NOTHING left. His Lucario had been beaten and savaged to within an inch of her life, and even now, she could barely stand. So why did he get the feeling that Alden could still win?

No! That's insanity! How could he defeat me with a half-dead pokemon?! Samarra couldn't believe it, and neither could Gerard. But there was something about the determination that blazed in his eyes that pushed back against him.

Samarra couldn't see it. She couldn't even process it. But the part of Gerard that was still Gerard was shaking. He could feel Alden's absolute refusal to lose. It was like the other trainer was standing in defiance of reality itself, and that frightened him. Samarra refused to let him embrace those feelings, however, and suppressed them by feeding into his ego and his refusal to lose.

"Diana!" Gerard shouted, and his pokemon responded to his will. She began to glow pink, summoning more flames to destroy the Lucario with.

The wall of pink fire burned towards Corin, and it looked like there was nothing that could be done. But Corin charged into the flames without flinching. She held up her paws and crafted an aura sphere, blasting a hole in the fire with her aura and leaping through it before the gap could close. That brought her right up in front of Diana, who was shocked that Corin could still move like that after everything she'd been through.

Where is she getting all this power? Gerard couldn't comprehend it. He knew that part of Diana's strength was coming from Samarra, but what about Alden? Where was his Lucario getting this strength from?

"This is Corin's power," Alden said, as if he was reading Gerard's mind. "Corin's power along with my own."

"What does that mean?!" Gerard demanded, caught off guard by Alden's almost… polite tone. It was so unlike how he'd been speaking to him before.

"Corin and I have a bond," Alden said calmly. "Our connection is one of trust and loyalty. Because I believe in her, she won't fall. Not until we see this through to the end. So no matter what you do to the two of us, we won't fall."

Gerard clenched his teeth and scowled. "That bond… Diana and I will crush whatever flimsy strength you think that 'bond' of yours can give you! Diana! Earth power!"

"DIANCIE!" Diana cried, releasing her power into the ground. The plaza began to heat up, but Corin made no attempt to dodge. She closed her eyes and gathered her focus, building up her aura in preparation.

Even as the ground exploded around her, Corin still didn't move. And somehow, the attacks didn't hit. It was like Diana had decided to blow up the ground all around her instead of targeting her directly with the earth power.

Maybe it was because she expected Corin to move around a lot to evade like before. Or maybe she just miscalculated, and was intending to hit, as so many moves that miss do. Or maybe there was some spark of Diana that didn't want this to go on, and didn't want her trainer to taint himself any further than this. But whatever the reason, the attack didn't have any effect on Corin as the aura around her increased, to the point it was blinding.

Corin charged forward, her body covered in a bright glow. Alden was glowing too, not that anyone outside the fight could notice with how the trick room refracted the light. And the two trainers were too focused on the battle to notice.

But Samarra noticed. She didn't bother sharing it with Gerard, his mind was too twisted at the moment to make use of the information she was seeing. But it seemed like a part of the Commander's chest was glowing in response to Corin's aura.

She squinted through Gerard's eyes, trying to make out the Lucario. The pokemon was… different within the light. She couldn't quite see clearly, but it was like the pokemon had transformed in some way.

Her aura sensors had extended, trailing behind her like tails. And her tail itself had grown in size, and was much bushier. The spikes on her paws had grown in length and sharpness, and the most telling change of all was the light in her eyes.

The burning crimson in Corin's gaze pierced through the glow, and struck Samarra down to her soul. She was intrigued, curious about what she was seeing. It was like nothing she'd experienced before, not through the mind of any of the friends that she'd made. This phenomenon was unseen to her, and that was fascinating to her inquisitive mind.

And because of that, she gave no orders to Gerard or Diana. She had other priorities now, and the victory had stopped seeming as important. Of course, she would later think that oversight to be a mistake, and would wish that she'd given orders to the Diancie to protect herself. But at the moment, that was the furthest thing from her mind.

"Meteor mash!" Alden shouted, and his Lucario pulled back her fist, her entire body engulfed in shining light, and unleashed a punch with enough force to shatter the trick room from just the shockwave. She hit Diana in the chest with devastating power.

"Diancie!" Diana cried in pain. She did her best to withstand the force of the attack, completely stunned by the overwhelming strength she felt from her opponent. It was the sort of strength she'd always desired. The power of a bond between trainer and pokemon.

In that brief exchange between Lucario and Diancie, the pokemon's eyes met.

Why? Diana's gaze silently asked. Why can't I have that bond that you have?

I don't know, Corin's stare replied. She closed her eyes, the gesture enough to show how sorry she felt for her opponent.

The power Corin had built up released fully into Diana's body and she closed her eyes as well, picturing Gerard's smile in her mind. The kind trainer that she met that day. What had become of him? Would she ever see him again?

Without the strength that her opponent possessed, there was no hope for Diana to win. She fell from the sky and hit the ground, and this time she didn't get back up.

The light around Corin faded, as did the glow from Alden's chest. There was no evidence of the strange phenomenon that had gone unobserved by anyone but Samarra; Corin looked no different from any other Lucario, standing in the rubble of the battlefield.

So that's it. The fight has come to a close. Diana and Corin both fought their hardest, and so did their trainers. But all the power that Gerard got from Samarra wasn't enough to stand up against Alden and Corin's bond. With that, we move onto the aftermath. When Olivia lost to Alcea she was freed from Samarra's control. What will happen with Gerard?