Welp, sadly got no reviews because fanfiction is being annoying as usual. But keep 'em coming!

As for the Best Girl nominations, still going strong. Anyone else left to add?

Currently Nominated: Sango, Cynthia, Elaina, Kate, Dakota, Ayame, Marion, Kitty, Serefina, Madison

Pokemon Academy: Beginning of Beginnings

Chapter 216


"Commoner!" Blake rubbed his eyes and walked over to the knocking coming from his door. His new suit was rather rumpled from having slept in it all night. He opened the door and looked down to see Holly standing there. She wasn't wearing her standard red dresses, instead she was wearing more conservative clothes, a designer shirt in a deep crimson and a black skirt. Her smile was condescending and bright, and she stood proudly, looking up at him.

"Holly…" Blake yawned.

"You forgot to give me your contact information," Holly snapped. "So I had to ask my sister where to find you!"

"Alcea doesn't know where I live either, though," Blake said, still confused.

"That's why she called me…"

A bleary-eyed Kate poked her head into the doorframe, blinking hazily at him. She looked like death, which made sense considering they had all crashed at a very late hour after playing cards the night before, and judging by the sweatshirt and sweatpants she was wearing, she'd clearly gotten up much earlier as well, and returned to her dorm room to change. So yeah, she looked as though she'd been stricken with the poisons that her pokemon thrived on herself.

"Kate? What're you doing here?"

"Mmm…" Kate yawned, rubbing her eyes. "Alcea called me…"

"Don't you mean 'her highness'?" Blake asked. Kate blinked, and her face turned bright red.

"W-what did I say?"

"Alcea."

Kate's blush deepened.

"I-I apologize, I'm tired and I forgot how I'm supposed to address her, I… I… no, I'm sorry milady! I didn't mean-"

Blake resisted the urge to burst out laughing at the idea that Kate calling Alcea "her highness" wasn't a reflexive terminology she used to address the older girl, but a carefully implemented façade that she kept putting up to a bizarre end. Something so fragile that she forgot about it in a single bad morning. It was actually pretty freaking adorable, which is something that quite seldomly got associated with Kate, considering her toxic attitude and especially now, considering she looked like she'd been struck by plague and fever at the same time. Her perpetual scowl wasn't exactly helping things very much, either, and she seemed far less happy than she did when she was hanging out with the freshmen the night before. To top it off, her hair had completely reverted to its natural maelstrom of brown curls, the straight cut of the night before a distant memory.

"So what, you're here to…"

"I'm here to help," Kate replied. Now that was hard to believe.

"You? Helping someone else?" Blake asked, raising an eyebrow inquisitively. Kate scowled in response.

"Of course I'd help!" Kate cried. "I'm a nice person! Aren't I a nice person?!"

Kate turned to Holly.

"You think I'm nice, right?" Kate asked, putting on as sweet of a smile as she could, which looked like she was going to throw up just trying to keep it on her face. Holly was far from impressed.

"The concerns of commoners are of no concern to me," Holly replied, turning her nose up.

Kate sighed in defeat, turning to Blake.

"I know her highness's pokemon battling strategies," Kate explained. "I've watched her fights closer than anyone. I'm incomparably qualified to help train Holly to fight against her, don't you think?"

"You'd do that? I thought you were loyal to Alcea? You'd really train someone to defeat her?"

Kate blinked.

"W-well, I mean, her highness clearly wants to see Holly's growth, don't you agree? Why else would she set those terms? I-If you think that I was going to purposefully teach her the wrong way so that she'd never be able to beat her highness, meaning that the two of you could never get married, well, that's just ridiculous! H-ha-ha…" Kate let out an awkward giggle of a laugh, dismissing the very real idea that had just popped into her head. She was slimy, but she wasn't that slimy.

"Enough chit-chat, commoners!" Holly scowled. "We're running out of time! I'm already talented enough, I don't need help from commoners like you, but for some reason my sister insists on having me mingle with you lot! Enough of this!"

Kate gritted her teeth and began to growl at the little girl, but Blake clamped a hand over her mouth.

"Just put up with it," Blake whispered into her ear. Kate growled into his hand, before muttering an irritated "frmn" that Blake took to be some variant of the word "fine". He dropped his hand, letting go of her. Kate scowled at him, and the two separated.

"Let's go already!" Holly whined.

"Let me go get my pokeballs, and then we can go," Blake said. He looked down at the rumpled suit he was wearing. Even messed up as it was, it still wasn't really the best clothing to be wearing casually. "…Also I should probably get changed."

Blake walked back into his room and getting a change of clothes, along with his belt. Much to Holly and Kate's confusion, he walked past them with clothes in hand, and headed into the bathroom down the hall. Blake changed his clothes and came back out in jeans and one of his usual long-sleeve shirts, this one in black. The three headed out of the dorm.

"You sure about this?" Blake asked Kate. She glanced at him.

"What do you mean?"

"Don't you have stuff you'd rather be doing right now?" Blake asked. Kate shrugged her shoulders.

"Don't get me wrong, even though she's her highness's little sister, I don't really like her very much," Kate whispered, keeping her voice low so the haughty girl tromping ahead of them couldn't hear. "She's too much like the snooty girls I went to school with."

"Can't imagine how you'd get along with anyone like that," Blake said, giving her a pointed look. She rolled her eyes and lightly slapped him in the chest.

"I'm nothing like her!"

"You were pretty arrogant when we first met," Blake said, leaving out the "and still are" since it didn't seem necessary to keep crapping on Kate when she was already down. Kate scowled, crossing her arms in indignation.

"I want to help her, you know, try to be more like her highness," Kate replied. "…And yeah, trying to be like her sister, I see a lot of myself in her."

"Especially the attitude and the toxicity," Blake added.

"You know this negative view of me you've concocted really pisses me off," Kate dryly muttered, glaring at him. Blake shrugged.

"Well, I mean now that you're back to being a scowly girl, what am I supposed to think?" Blake asked. "You were a lot more fun last night, you know?"

"W-well, that was… I mean… hmph!" Unable to come up with a decent response to what he was saying, Kate dodged the question entirely with a pout and grunt, turning her bright red face away from Blake so he wouldn't be able to see her embarrassment.

Blake frowned at her as they walked down the stairs. The night before, Kate had been a little apprehensive. She hadn't exactly gelled well with the others… at first. But over the night, Kate had loosened up, and even managed to get out a few smiles. Blake had been happy, because for once in the few months he'd known her, Kate had been happy. But seeing her usual sourness made it feel like he had imagined the night before, like Kate's smiling face had just been a dream. Blake sighed.

I guess she's going to keep acting like this… what a pity. It actually looked like she was having fun last night…

"Um…" Kate spoke up, but still didn't turn her head to look at him.

"Yeah?"

"N-next time you guys are all… you know, just hanging out, not doing anything, um… well I mean, if you wouldn't mind, uh…" Kate stammered in her usual Kate fashion, taking dozens of words to say only a few. Her voice dropped in the way that Blake recognized it always doing when she was about to say what she honestly felt. "D-do you mind if I, um… come to hang out next time, too?"

"Yeah, sure," Blake said, nodding.

"Don't get me wrong! I-It's not like I want to hang out with you guys, so, like, don't feel bad for saying no, it's totally fine! Besides, like, it's weird, 'cause I'm a sophomore and you all are first years, plus I don't really get along with anyone, and I mean, I was just throwing a suggestion out there! So don't think it means anything! I-I don't really want to, to begin with, so, like, just forget it, okay, sorry I asked! I was just a little curious, and… wait, what?" Kate finished her ramblings, and looked at Blake in confusion. "…Wait, did you just say yes?"

Blake nodded. Kate's green eyes opened wide and her exhausted face lit up with joy for a brief flicker before returning to a more composed and dignified look.

"W-well, it… it's not like I really care that much about it," Kate replied, blushing slightly. "So don't act like you're doing me some big favor or something."

"Well, then you can't come after all," Blake smirked, Kate's face falling.

"Wh-what?! But you just said-"

"Kidding," Blake laughed, reaching the bottom of the stairs and picking up the pace. Kate ran after him, her face hot with frustration as she chased him.

"That's not funny!" Kate shouted after him, tears welling up in her eyes. "You said I could hang out with you!"

"H-hey, wait up!" Holly cried, running after the two of them as they passed her. "Stop it! Wait for me, you stupid commoners!"

"Sure, sure, you can hang out with us," Blake laughed, running down the stairs and onto the pavement leading back towards campus. He slowed down and Kate managed to catch up with him, panting, and she punched him in the arm.

"Don't make bad jokes," Kate huffed. "Stop teasing me!"

"Stop being so rude and abrasive, and maybe it wouldn't be as much fun," Blake laughed. Kate scowled.

"Ha… ha…" Holly caught up with them, completely out of breath. Between today and yesterday, she'd run more than she could remember having run in her entire life. She had to catch her breath, holding her knees as she panted with exhaustion. "You… dumb… commoners…"

"Holly," Blake snapped, turning to Holly, a frown on his face.

"Wh-what?"

"Don't call us commoners," Blake replied. "Alcea has told you that before, right? It's rude."

"Yeah!" Kate agreed. "Besides, Blake's a member of a high-class family, and so am I! We're both from wealthy families, so we aren't 'commoners'!"

Blake pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration. Leave it to Kate to completely miss the point of what he was saying.

"Kate, you aren't helping," Blake said. "And that is absolutely not what I was trying to say."

"Huh? What do you mean I'm not helping?" Kate snapped.

"Holly, it's wrong to look down on people like you do, I thought I showed you that yesterday?" Blake asked.

"But…"

"Didn't this 'commoner' completely beat you in a pokemon battle?"

"W-well, yeah, but that's because I hadn't really tried! This time, I have my own pokemon, and I'm going to triumph over you, puny commoner!" Holly boasted. Kate slapped her hand onto her face. This girl was about to get a harsh lesson, a lesson Blake had extensively inflicted onto her, as well.

"…Okay then, let's begin your training right now," Blake said, scanning their surroundings. The road to campus went straight through a large field. He walked off the sidewalk and into the grass, Kate following after him.

"Come on, Holly, are you coming?" Blake called over his shoulder. "I thought you wanted to show your battling skills, huh?"

"…Of course I do!" Holly exclaimed, running after him. He stopped in the middle of the field, on a section of ground that was flat enough to hold a decent enough battle on. He'd trained in these fields many times in the past few months.

"Okay, Holly, let's begin," Blake said, turning to face her and reaching onto his belt, removing a pokeball from it. Kate stepped off to the side, finding a tree stump to side on and watch.

"Let me show you what a real high class pokemon trainer can do!" Holly boasted, reaching into her purse and withdrawing her pokeball. "Go, Petilil!"

Holly threw his pokeball into the air, and her freshly caught and healed Petilil emerged from it.

"Let's take that commoner down, Petilil!" Holly ordered.

"Peti!" Petilil nodded her head, turning to Blake.

Blake smiled at the small pokemon and her equally diminutive trainer.

"Okay, Weiss, go!" Blake said, tossing the pokeball in his hand into the air. From within it, a streak of red emerged, Weiss landing in the field and holding up his pincer, pointing it at the small pokemon.

"Bring it on!" Holly declared, her haughty arrogance causing her to completely ignore the facts of reality in front of her.

Kate scoffed, a sweat drop falling down the back of her head.

Wow, I guess Blake isn't the type to pull punches in the slightest. Kate sighed. She rolled her eyes at Holly sympathetically. Poor girl…

"Petilil! Use your stun spore… no, wait! Your sleep powder!" Holly ordered.

"Petil!" Petilil chirped cutely, narrowing her beady little eyes. A cloud of spores lifted off of the leaf on her head, the green powder drifting towards Weiss.

"Weiss, flash cannon."

"Scizor."

Weiss held his pincer open, a sphere of concentrated light glowing in the center. He fired it in a compressed beam of light, blasting through the sleep powder and hitting Petilil head-on and blasting around her.

The light died down, leaving Petilil standing in the grass, her body slightly charred from the attack. She blinked her eyes, coughed up a cloud of smoke, and collapsed into the grass.

"…Really enjoyed beating up a kid, huh?" Kate dryly remarked.

"Petilil!" Holly wailed. "Oh no! What happened?!"

Holly ran to her small pokemon's side and cradled her gently. She looked up at Blake and glared at her.

"How could you do something so mean, you commoner?!" Holly demanded. "She was just trying her best!"

"Doesn't feel good, does it?" Blake asked. "Being looked down upon by someone who's supposedly better than you."

"Rrgh…" Holly growled at him. Blake rolled his eyes and walked around Weiss, kneeling down next to her.

"Holly, you were born with an exceptionally privileged life," Blake replied. "Looking down on people who are worse-off than you, calling them commoners… that isn't right."

"What… what do you know?" Holly snapped, glaring at him. "You are a commoner! You're all commoners! You aren't special and great like me! So just shut up! Shut up!"

"Oof, talk about a brat," Kate sighed, shaking her head.

"I see…" Blake said, nodding. So that's what this is about.

"Holly." Blake said. "How did you feel when your sister was stranded on that island for three years?"

Holly blinked, staring at Blake in surprise.

"You… you know about that?"

"She told me," Blake said, glancing at Kate. "She told both of us."

Well, that was technically true, at any rate. Moreso she'd been talking about it with his brother and they'd happened to be there to hear it, but that wasn't really the point.

"How do you think I felt?" Holly whimpered. "I hated it! I was only a little girl… and big sis, she… she was gone, she was dead, and… it wasn't fair!"

"You really love your sister a lot, don't you?" Blake asked.

"N-no, I don't!" Holly exclaimed. "I hate big sister! Really, really!"

"I think you want to beat her, but you don't hate her, do you?" Blake asked.

"I do! I do hate her! I don't want anything to do with her! I want her to just go away!"

"Back to the island?"

Holly flinched.

"No, that's not what I meant! I… I just mean, I…"

"Let me take care of your Petilil," Blake said, changing the subject and setting his bag on the ground. He withdrew a revive from it, and fed the small powdery object to the pokemon. The light from the revitalizing medicine washed over Petilil's body, and she woke from her weariness. Most of her wounds healed, but she still had some blisters and burns. Blake reached into his pocket, and withdrew a potion, squirting the small pokemon and restoring the rest of her health.

"Yay! Petilil, you're all better now!" Holly's eyes were shining joyously as she took the small pokemon from Blake's arms, Petilil chirping happily in response.

"Holly I've been wondering something," Blake said, the girl turning to look at him again.

"Yeah? What?" Holly asked.

"Aren't you going to give your Petilil a name?"

Holly blinked.

"A name? Why would I do something like that?"

"I give all my pokemon names," Blake explained. "Because they're precious to me. Tara isn't just a normal Snivy, she's my Snivy, my friend. She's one of a kind. Just like how that's your Petilil, and no one else's. So wouldn't you like to name her something special? To show her how much she means to you?"

Holly glanced at her Petilil, the small pokemon looking up to her with her red eyes.

"I… I guess…" Holly mumbled. "But what should I call her?"

Blake shrugged.

"You're the only one who can make that choice," Blake replied. "But a nickname is a great bond between trainer and pokemon."

"I see…" Holly said, nodding. Her face looked conflicted. "I'll think about it. And, um, about what I said, you won't tell my sister, right? That I hate her and want her to go away?"

"Of course not," Blake said. Holly sighed in relief, her expression brightening. It was clear even to Kate that Holly wasn't serious when she said she hated her sister.

"Anyway, Blake, I want to fight again!" Holly demanded of him. "This time, I'll… I mean…"

Holly glanced at her Petilil.

"…We'll beat you, for sure!" Holly declared.

"Actually, no, I think you aren't ready to start fighting against me yet," Blake said, recalling his Scizor. He was finally starting to understand why it was that Alcea had requested he be the one to train Holly.

We're a lot alike, deep down…

"Huh? Why not?" Holly demanded.

"I think that in this case, Kate is a better opponent for you," Blake said, turning to Kate. Kate blinked in surprise.

"M-me?" She asked. Her face went from surprised to hostile in a matter of seconds. "What, you think I'm just a warm-up or something?! Like I'm not on your level?!"

"Pretty sure I beat you, so yeah," Blake coolly replied. Kate grumbled but didn't exactly have a response to give in return, silently fuming instead.

"But it isn't just that," Blake added. "I think… you're just the perfect match. If you fight her, I think… you'll both learn a lot."

Blake grumbled and got off of her stump, storming over to Blake.

"Fine, fine," she grumbled. She leaned in a whispered in his ear. "What, so first you had her face your Scizor and now you're sending a normal grass type against my poison pokemon? You really are a sadist."

"Only if you treat her sadistically," Blake smiled, clapping her on the shoulder as he traded places with her, heading for the stump. Kate rolled her eyes in response.

"Okay, brat, let's get this done," Kate muttered. First Julia, now Holly. When were people going to realize that it wasn't exactly in her skillset to train others?

"Don't call me a brat, you stinky commoner!"

"Don't call me a commoner, you dumb brat!"

The two girls glared at each other.

"Her highness is way more elegant and kind than you! Why can't you be more like her?!"

Ah. There it was. Blake patted himself on the shoulder. Pairing Holly up with such a callous and toxic girl like Kate who fired off insults as readily as she breathed was going swimmingly.

"I can't believe you just said that!" Holly exclaimed.

Oh yes. It was going great.


This can only go well. I'm sure Kate will be a wise and compassionate mentor.