Everyone's reunited at Agate Village! Olivia is still dealing with some issues, unfortunately, and as for everyone else, it's clear that things are still pretty tense. What will the reaction of our friends be now that they're back home, and have to deal with the issues with Samarra? This is a difficult situation to be in, that's for sure, but they've got to come up with a good plan.

KedharS: Yeah but since when has Olivia ever done anything that was good for her mental health? Things would be a lot easier if she wasn't like that.

Pokemon Academy: Beginning of Beginnings

Chapter 1087

Callie's jaw dropped when she saw who walked through Rui's front door.

"Oh! Callie! There you are!" Rafe greeted his little sister with a wave.

"R-R-Rafe?!" Callie nearly choked, feeling light in the head. "What are you doing here?!"

This had to be a dream. A sick, twisted dream. There was no way that her brother could be here right now. He was… he was with his own group, right?! How the hell was he here? One of the things she'd been looking forward to the most about this trip was that her older brother would be someone else's problem for over a month! …And now he was here…

She wanted to scream.

"I heard what happened," Rafe said, his face twisting with sympathy. He walked over to his sister and hugged her. "That must have been really rough, I'm sorry you had to go through something that scary, Callie."

Callie still wanted to scream. But she was twisted up inside. Right now, she didn't care that her brother was the most annoying, irresponsible guy she knew. She was just happy to see him. She collapsed into his arms as tears of joy began to roll down her cheeks.

Alcea watched her friend from the sidelines, with a small smile on her face. She was happy. After what had happened with Olivia, things had been tense for the last few days, and she was glad that Callie at least was improving in terms of her mood.

Rafe wasn't the only newcomer. Dokukage was here as well, much to her curiosity. She didn't know why Wes had come back with the two of them, or where the rest of their group was, but she didn't push the issue.

There was someone else she was concerned about.

"Gerard," Alcea said coldly, narrowing her eyes at the other trainer.

"Hello there, Alcea," Gerard replied in a voice just as cold, glaring back at her. "How are things going with you?"

"What are you doing here?" She demanded, feeling an urge to smack him across the face.

"Don't ask me," he muttered, walking past her without even looking her way. "That's a question for the other annoying redhead."

Other annoying redhead…? That could only mean one person. Alcea turned to Rui, who looked a little uncomfortable.

"What happened?" She asked, trying not to seem upset.

"It's, um… a long story…" Rui was starting to wonder if bringing Gerard along was really the best idea after all. It seemed this guy had a beef with just about everyone he looked at. Not the sort of drama that she wanted to be starting.

Alcea thankfully decided not to push the issue, changing the topic. She was curious about why only Maddi, Chloe, and the Commander had come back from the Relic Tower. "Where's the rest of the group?" She asked curiously. "Where's Vic?"

Rui sighed, hanging her head. "My daughter, well… she wanted to stay at Relic Tower. But back then, we thought we'd only be gone for a couple of hours, to call someone over the phone. But the situation has changed."

"Changed?" Alcea asked, narrowing her eyes. She suspected something was the matter, with the way Wes had gone to see Olivia the second he arrived. "Changed how?"

"…I suppose I should say," Wes said, entering the room. "Let's get everyone together, so I can talk about what happened."

After Wes gathered everyone together, he began to explain the situation that had transpired with Gerard, and where they were now. While he explained things, and called on other people to talk about what happened, no one knew that there was a Mightyena among the Mareep.

Ayame hung back in the corner, listening to everything. And Samarra was listening in as well. She was actually surprised that they had put together so much information already. Things that Samarra herself didn't even know about her abilities. Until Olivia, she had never imagined that one of her friends losing a pokemon battle would result in her connection with that friend being severed. Her brother had stopped her from making friends in the past, and her father had imprisoned her in that cage, but this was new.

Ayame watched intently, but she had no way of knowing that while she was focusing on Wes' explanation of what was happening, someone else was focusing on her.

"Excuse me," Maddi said sharply, cutting off Alden's explanation of the battle with Gerard. "But I think we have a problem!"

"A problem? What do you mean?" Wes asked. He took what Maddi said very seriously given everything that had happened.

"Her," Maddi said, turning and pointing at Ayame. "She's being controlled by Samarra!"

Ayame froze, and Samarra's brain began going a mile a minute. With that declaration, everything had changed. She had ignored Maddi before; it was odd that the girl had sensed her, but then, she wasn't the only one. Other harmonia users had been able to tell who her friends were. But that had been when she'd taken the lead, and actively fed her power into her friends.

Maddi had just recognized Ayame without Samarra doing a damn thing.

It was inexplicable. An anomaly. But it was the second time, so it was no coincidence. She couldn't have just guessed. It was an unquestionable fact that Maddi had found out Ayame, which meant that she could determine who Samarra's friends were. If she wanted to continue making friends, then this girl would be an ongoing problem.

And that problem would need to be addressed. Immediately.

"Ayame, she's not serious, right?" Hiromi said, looking to her daughter. "There's no way you're being controlled by Samarra, right?"

Samarra could think of several things to say and do at the time. The most important of them being trying to find a way out of this. But Ayame was the one in control at the moment, the parts of her that were still Ayame, anyway. And Ayame did what she did best.

She ran.

The door flung open and Ayame fled into the night. She and Samarra were in complete agreement. She needed to get away. If Ayame was caught and her friendship with Samarra was stripped from her, then Samarra would use a valuable tool in getting to Blake. She wasn't about to lose another friend under any circumstances, but Ayame was special even considering that.

But as fast as Ayame might have been, she wasn't the fastest.

A shadow appeared in front of her, and she felt something hard and heavy slam into her gut. Reeling back, Ayame coughed, squinting through the darkness at the obstacle in front of her.

It was Dokukage.

Ayame may have been a fast runner, but even she couldn't outrace a ninja.

"Venus!" Alcea ran up to them, sending out her Venusaur. "Use vine whip!"

"Venusaur!" Venus bellowed, whipping out a vine and tying Ayame up, keeping her from getting away. This was important.

"Let me go!" Ayame roared, struggling against her bonds. "Let go of me you fucking bitch! I'll fucking kill you, fuck!"

"Aya!" Hiromi wailed, running to her daughter. "What's going on?! This isn't you!"

"It's not her," Maddi said with a glare. Her eye was throbbing with pain as she stared at Ayame. "It's that woman. Samarra. She's controlling her with her powers. The same way she was controlling Gerard and Olivia."

"That makes sense," Andrea said, frowning. "When Olivia ran away, that's when it must have happened. She must have been brainwashed by Samarra. But not just her. Ayame must have been gotten at that time as well. They came back together from the forest, it must have been at that time."

"Let! Go! Of! Me!" Ayame screamed, struggling her way free. But there was no getting out of Venus' grasp. She was trapped.

"So what do we do now?!" Hiromi wailed. "How do we get my Aya back?!"

"We'll have to defeat her in a pokemon battle," Alden said. "It's the only way."

"I'll take her on," Raizer said, cracking his knuckles. "I've been itching for a good fight!"

"But remember, whoever she battles, if they lose, they'll be controlled too," Rui reminded them. "That could be too dangerous to risk."

"So we should just leave her like this?" Alcea asked. She didn't like the sound of that. "That sounds cruel."

"No, that's not what I'm saying," Rui said, shaking her head. "I'm just saying we need to think about this. Wes or Alden should do it, they're the strongest trainers we have right now."

"Says who?!" Gerard demanded. "I can take her down just fine. I've done it once before, after all."

"I could battle her," Ian suggested.

Suddenly, Ayame stopped struggling. A twisted smile spread across her face, and every harmonia user besides Maddi shivered as they sensed the change in her pressure.

"You don't have to worry about that," Ayame murmured, her voice cold as ice. "I promise you, there won't be a battle."

"What are you talking about?" Hiromi demanded. "Aya, what-"

"It's not her," Rui growled. "It's that thing. Samarra."

"That's right," Samarra nodded with Ayame's head. "I'm Samarra. Ayame's newest best friend. We get along great, and I'd like to keep it that way. As you said, the only way to break up my friendship with Ayame is to defeat us in a pokemon battle. But Ayame and I know full well how strong our pokemon are. There's no way we'd have a chance of defeating you. So I have no interest in a pokemon battle- there's nothing to gain."

"You let my daughter go!" Hiromi shouted.

"Let her go? Why would I 'let' her go? Ayame wants to be friends with me, all my friends do," Samarra replied. She turned to Gerard and smiled. "Isn't that right, Gerard?"

Gerard glared at her.

"We were so close before… and then you left me," Samarra sighed. "It really hurts, knowing my friend rejected me. But then, you know all about rejection, don't you? It's stuck with you all your life, like a stench."

"Easy," Alden said, staring at Gerard. Gerard ignored him; why should he give a damn about what Alden thought? The son of a bitch hated him anyway.

"Keep me tied up, I don't care," Samarra said. "Ayame won't battle. You can't force her to. But don't worry. I won't abandon my friends. I care about them. So I'll come save her. You just take nice care of her until then."

A shiver went down everyone's spine.

"That's fine with me," Wes growled. "You think we're afraid of someone like you? Someone who uses people for their own ends? I don't know what kind of monster you are, but-"

"A monster?" Samarra tilted her head to the side. "I'm not evil. I'm simply doing what anyone would do, making friends and learning more about the world I've found myself in. And I've learned so much, Wes. About Orre, about the Pokemon Academy, and about you."

"…What are you talking about?" Wes demanded.

"It's not just Ayame who I've made friends with, you know," Samarra said. "Victoria has told me so many things about you, I feel like I know you better than I do my own father."

A silence fell over the dusky field. Everyone stared at Wes in the darkness, wondering what his reaction would be. The tense atmosphere was choking.

"…You're lying," he rasped. "You don't have Victoria."

"I don't 'have' anyone. Haven't you been listening?" Samarra smirked. "She wants to be here. She's shared everything with me, her heart, her soul, her deepest memories, everything that she is, now I am too. We're friends in the truest sense of the word."

"YOU'RE LYING!" Wes shouted. "You can't have her! You don't! Victoria is safe, she's-"

"At the Battle Frontier? Is that what you were going to say?" Samarra asked. "Yes. She's there, and in a way, so am I. Just like how I'm here."

"You can't… you couldn't have…" Wes couldn't accept what she was saying, but she said it with such surety that he was starting to wonder.

But it was Alden who drove the knife in.

"It's… not impossible," he admitted, hanging his head. "When I fought against Gerard… he fought with skills that he'd never shown before. It was an excellent double battle, the kind I've only seen Vic be able to pull off. If he gained those skills from her…"

"I've never been in a double battle in my life," Gerard said, shaking his head. The fact that he was agreeing with the Commander he loathed added more weight to the truth of Samarra's claims, to Wes' frustration.

"Yes, that was me," Samarra said, her eyes shining with glee. "When I become friends with someone I know everything that they know, and can share that knowledge with all my friends. Thanks to your daughter's talent, all my friends have become exceptional experts in double battles."

She tilted her head to the side. "I really must thank you for being such a great teacher, father."

That was it.

"You let her go!" Wes roared, grabbing Samarra by the collar. His hands shot to her throat, but Rui grabbed his arm.

"Wes! Stop it!" She shouted. "Ayame's still in there!"

Realizing that he'd been about to choke an innocent girl, Wes stumbled back, his arms dropping to his sides. He felt sick to his stomach. "Th-That's… I didn't, I just…"

"Don't worry," Samarra said. Perhaps she was trying to sound comforting, but her voice carried the detached apathy of a woman who had no idea what it meant to feel for other people "Victoria and I are friends. I'm taking care of her, and she's happier than ever before."

She turned to Alden. "Would you like to come see her? She's waiting for you, you know. They all are. You abandoned them, but… I'm taking care of them now. They're my friends."

Alden didn't have a reaction to her words, at least, not a reaction like the one Wes had. He took a deep breath, and then exhaled.

"So it looks like we're going to the Battle Frontier, then," he said calmly.

"Brilliant," Samarra's eyes shined.

"You can't be serious," Alcea said, shaking her head. "That's exactly what she wants you to do, is it? And besides, she already told us she's coming here, this is obviously a trap! She wants to divide us, so we'll be easier to defeat!"

"I hate to admit it, but Hiromi might be right," Maddi scowled. "It sucks that we're leaving them, but if we defeat Samarra here, then maybe we can save the rest of them later."

"Besides. She's my daughter, she's MY responsibility," Wes said. "I won't let that woman take control of my daughter!"

Alden punched a tree, so hard that the leaves shook. Everyone stared at him, startled. Even Raizer hadn't expected a reaction like that.

"…I said," Alden whispered, his voice unnaturally calm, "that I'm going. Is that clear?"

Nobody had it in them to say otherwise.

A wide smile spread across Samarra's lips. "Excellent. Just excellent!"

Rui was shaking. This was the worst situation she could imagine. Her poor Victoria… possessed by an evil monster of a woman, her husband torn over what to do, and her… she was powerless to do anything to help.

It was just like with the Shadow Pokemon. Nothing had changed in over twenty years, she was still useless, relying on her husband to solve her problems for her. It made her want to cry.

With Venus' help, Ayame was taken back to Rui's house, and tied to a chair with the vines. Her pokeballs were taken from her. Everyone agreed that she was too dangerous to be left to her own devices. As much as she put up a fight, she couldn't overpower the brute force of an angry Venusaur, and was tied down.

"We can't just leave her here," Rui muttered, shaking her head. "She needs food and water, she needs to use the restroom!"

"We'll have to keep her under guard at all times," Andrea agreed. She turned to Erik and Andre. "It's going to be up to us to keep her controlled. I'll start drafting shifts for people to watch out for her, anyone with decent training."

"I'll help," Maddi said, coming over to join them. "And we don't have to worry. There aren't any other people here that are controlled by Samarra."

She rubbed her eye.

"I would know if there were."

Andrea sighed, shaking her head. "Well, that's a relief. I don't want to think about what would happen if we had to look after multiple people."

As a Pokemon Ranger, she knew there was a very limited amount of things she could do when Samarra came calling. Right now, this was the best she could hope for.

"I can help too," Yellow volunteered, cracking her knuckles. "I've been in a few rough spots before, you can count on me."

Andrea nodded. In the short time she'd known the blonde, she'd grown to trust her competence, if nothing else.

This was a difficult situation they found themselves in. They would need to make the best of it. But with Ayame under Samarra's control, it couldn't be argued that they weren't facing a crisis.

A crisis is right! We've confirmed that Samarra is controlling not only Ayame, but also the other members of the Commander's organization who were at the Battle Frontier! The question is, what can we do now? How do we get past this? It seems like we've entered a dire emergency, and there's more to come. This is just the beginning.