The day continues, what's going to happen with the ruins? Will they be able to decipher the truth hidden within?

We've got a decent amount of votes in the Pokemon Academy Best Girl Semi-Finals! The current lead runners in the polls may surprise you! If you want your best girls to make it to the final round and beyond, then make sure to get your votes in! You have 3 votes, make them count!

Semi-Finalists: Cynthia, Ayame, Sango, Kate, Marion, Alcea

Pokemonking0924: Anything's possible.

Aquahaze675: Harmonia is passed on through the mother. So yes, Elizabeth's daughter has harmonia.

Tambry96bj: Elizabeth's a good mothering figure to just about anyone who needs guidance.

ConfusedCradily: Well of course she has a special connection with it, she used harmonia.

Mercury – mercuraneous: Yeah, my schedule of writing is something that I think works well.

Badoobadoop: Folks have a tendency to believe things that they see connections between.

EESDESESESRDT6: What ship are you rooting for?

Thunder Fire: There are quite a few. But only a handful are actually part of the main cast.

KyubiMaster9: It's always best to wait for canon.

Pokemon Academy: Beginning of Beginnings

Chapter 267

"Hey, guys!" Sango walked into the tent her friends were staying in with a big smile on her face, Silver trailing in behind her. "Ready for breakfast?"

Kate let out a yawn in response, sitting up in her cot. She couldn't see Sango thanks to the curtain they'd drawn between her and Nikita's cots and the boys', but her voice was rather distinctive. She pulled the curtain back and glared at the girl who had absolutely no right to be as energetic as she currently was. Kate couldn't even imagine it, her back was so sore she had trouble standing without seething pain. These cots… compared to the comfortable bed that she had gotten to sleep on in the hotel… hell, compared to that crummy mattress on the train, it was like sleeping on rocks.

"Yo, Blake!" Sango grinned, skipping over to his cot and leaning over him, tilting her head to the side and smiling cutely. "Get a good nights' sleep?"

"Better than last night," Blake muttered, stretching. He look a little more relaxed than he had yesterday, which Sango took to be as a good sign. She headed over to Reiner, but he was already awake. So she went to go pay a visit to the girls' side of the tent, pulling the curtain closed behind her to give the boys some freedom to change.

"How was your night?" Sango asked. She looked suspiciously at Nikita and Kate, but it was a playful kind of suspicious. "You guys didn't do anything… bad with the boys, did you?"

Sango felt a pillow hit her in the back of the head through the curtain.

"Shove it," Reiner snapped. Sango laughed in response.

"Ready for breakfast?"

Kate gave her a silent glare. Not taking her blank eyes off of the girl, she opened her mouth and ran her tongue up her palm slowly, flattening her messy hair with some of her spit. Clearly she did not share Sango's enthusiasm.

"I can eat, just let me change," Nikita said, stripping off her oversized jersey and changing her underwear. When the girls finished dressing, they all left the tent, and headed to the eating area. A series of folding tables were spread out beneath a large awning, the smell of food wafting across the desert campground.

Sango took a deep breath, and smiled. She could already tell it was going to smell great! Large trays of scrambled eggs were on a buffet table, and a large vat of what Blake had to assume was breakfast curry judging by the smell.

"Powdered eggs, huh?" Reiner groaned.

"Nope!" Sonia chirped, coming up behind them, causing the kids to look over their shoulder.

"Really?" Nikita asked, happy to eat something not out of a can considering their lackluster meals the day before.

"Yup, we decided to cook up a feast!" Sonia replied. "Well, actually, we were going to do it yesterday, but, well… we were all so busy we forgot! Haha!"

Reiner and Nikita didn't find it that funny. Kate scowled in response.

"It's okay, it's okay, let's just get food!" Sonia said, ushering them forward. "The others will be here soon!"

"Lana's already here," Sango noted, catching sight of the older student, who was sitting alone, a distant expression on her face.

"Sango!"

Sango tilted her head to see Elizabeth sitting at a table of her own, waving eagerly at them. She gestured for her to come over to her table.

"Come on, eat with me!" Elizabeth called.

Sango glanced at the others and nodded, walking over to go bury one of the plates in a mountain of eggs and sausage. She went to join the doctor.

"Did you sleep okay?" Elizabeth asked as Sango sat across from her. Sango took notice of a large stack of papers beside the woman's empty plate. She was currently alternating her attention between Sango, and the paper she was writing on.

"Like a baby," Sango replied. "Compared to sleeping in the rough during my probationary ranger licensing test, that cot was wonderful! As for those guys…"

Sango glanced at where the rest of her group was lined up in front of the buffet, their backs hunched over in soreness. Kate was rubbing her shoulder tenderly.

"Well, I'm sorry about your friends, but I'm glad you and Silver were able to get a good nights' sleep," Elizabeth smiled.

"Are you still working on that translation?" Reiner asked, sitting down next to Elizabeth, Kate sitting on the other side. Nikita sat next to Reiner, and Blake sat down next to Sango. Sango was happy. She had expected Blake to be sitting alone, not willing to socialize with the rest of them. He'd been distant for the last few days, but he was hanging out with them like everything was normal. She returned her attention to the conversation.

"This is a rather difficult text to decipher," Elizabeth sighed, putting her pen down. "Referring to another previously translated work, I've been able to make some progress. But the fact that the translation conventions aren't working here the way they did with the source makes me question the authenticity of the translation. And it isn't just a regional distinction either, you can see the same stylization in the writing. And the text is from the same era as the carbon-dating of the ruins determined, so it isn't like the language terminology would have shifted…"

Everyone stared dumbly at what Elizabeth was saying, and gave her a bunch of blank nods. This was way out of their skill level.

"How's the translation going, Doctor Skye?" Sonia asked, sitting down next to Sango.

Elizabeth's expression soured.

"Unfortunately, most of the translations you provided me aren't that good," she replied. "There are only bits and pieces, and trying to apply them to what's written here demonstrates the lack of use."

"What? That's not fair," Sonia huffed. "We worked really hard! I translated most of them myself. I am the leading expert in our history, after all."

"That doesn't mean you can translate this properly," Elizabeth reminded her. "While I won't question your knowledge of history, I definitely question details of it, judging by the translations I've had the time to inspect."

"That's ridiculous!" Sonia insisted. "I've seen the tapestries depicting our history for myself, and I've read the Diaries of the Twin Kings, and used that to formulate my theory! Your insistence that the translations are inaccurate means that you're suggesting all my work is completely meaningless, that I didn't uncover anything!"

"You didn't read the diaries," Elizabeth said, resisting the urge to let out a snort of derision.

"What do you mean?" Sonia demanded. "I absolutely have!"

"You read the translation of the King's Diaries," Elizabeth explained. "In other words, what some historian with his own personal spin on things interpreted from what was written. But the actual text? The language, context, tone of use, so much of it has been distilled from what it originally was, it would be like watching the 4Kids dub of One Piece."

Sonia turned red in the face, feeling slightly humiliated by the older woman's chastisement.

Elizabeth rolled her eyes.

"'Read the diaries', you'd have more to go on if you took your cues from a historically-based television show."

Sonia leveled a glare at her colleague.

The students were all feeling rather uncomfortable about this entire thing, the energy coming off of the two women was making them all want to book it immediately.

"I'm not saying that your findings are inaccurate," Elizabeth clarified. "Just that you may not have discovered the entire truth. I need to work further on these translations, and then decipher the King's Diaries for myself. That will help us get a closer look at what really happened during the past. Having the ability to access that chamber will be a bonus."

Sonia scowled, but nodded her head.

"So, um… what are we doing today?" Nikita asked quickly, noticing a lull in the conversation where she could speak up.

"Oh, I was speaking with the professor, and our plan for today was to let you all have supervised access to the ruins," Sonia explained. "You'll get the chance to look around and think about topics for your papers. Like we said, though, supervised. We don't want you going anywhere too dangerous, you know?"

"Great, great…" Kate sighed, slumping down over the table, a scowl on her face. "That means more stairs."

"Come on, think about it this way," Elizabeth suggested, "if you climb those stairs over and over, you'll get in really good shape."

"I don't want to be in that good of shape," Kate groaned. She looked hopefully up at Elizabeth. "Hey, you don't suppose you could give me a ride again?"

"Sorry, Kate, I've got to spend my time on the translations today," Elizabeth apologized. "You'll have to make do on your own."

"Oooh…" Kate groaned again.

"Now, now, there's no need for that."

Elizabeth's face brightened and she looked over her shoulder, to see Uboss Akana standing behind her.

"Dad!" Sango gasped.

Uboss held up a pokeball.

"I think it'll be a little faster for everyone if we take you to the ruins by air, don't you agree? Better than climbing all those stairs, after all."

"Absolutely!" Kate agreed immediately.

"Sounds like a plan, dear," Elizabeth smiled up at Uboss, her eyes twinkling. As the kids put their plates away, having finished with their breakfast, Sango took the opportunity to speak with her father.

"Dad, where were you yesterday?" She asked. She hadn't seen him all day, and Elizabeth had said that he was off doing some research.

"I was in the ruins," Uboss explained. "You probably didn't see me because I was really deep down in one of the side tunnels."

"But aren't those super dangerous?!" Sango protested. "You… you shouldn't have, what if-"

"I've been doing this long enough," Uboss reassured her. "Thanks for worrying about me, though. Don't worry, no plans to go anywhere dangerous today, just me showing you kids around and helping you write those reports."

Right. The reports. The part of this trip Sango had been dreading. The positive energy she had built up was starting to leak.

"We'd better be going, then," Uboss said, turning to Kate, the chaperone of Group 3. "I believe you're their watcher, right?"

"Yeah, something like that," Kate said.

"Good, let's get a move on, then," Uboss said, the kids heading out of the dining tent.

"Oh! Sango! Hold on a moment!" Elizabeth called, rising to her feet.

"Eh?" Sango turned to look at the woman, and suddenly found her face buried in something very soft and warm. She could feel Elizabeth's arms wrapped around her back, hugging her tightly. She flailed for a moment, not sure how she was supposed to react, before Elizabeth finally released her.

"Wh-what was that?" Sango gasped, flustered.

"A good luck hug, of course!" Elizabeth giggled.

"I don't think I need that much luck," Sango said, her cheeks still a little flushed. "It's just a report, it's not like it's going to be life or death?"

"Didn't say it was for you?" Elizabeth winked. "I'm gonna need all the luck I can get if I want to translate these texts to any degree of certainty!"

"Oh, uh, okay then," Sango said, a little embarrassed. She nodded her head, and followed after her father as Sonia and Elizabeth waved goodbye to them.

With the students off to go explore the ruins, Elizabeth was ready to redirect her attention back towards the text. She picked the papers up off the table and closed her notebook, heading back to her tent. She had more references to check.

Sonia watched her leave, and scowled. But her own pride wasn't as important as determining the truth. A few minutes later, she was stepping into Elizabeth's tent.

"Oh, Sonia, what is it?" Elizabeth looked up from her texts.

"Um… I wanted to talk with you about what you said before," Sonia replied. She looked contrite. "I know what you said about me not having the full story, and… you're right. I've only read translations, interpretations, so I was wondering, um… can you show me how to translate Ancient Galarian? I don't… I don't want to see the truth through anyone's eyes but my own."

Elizabeth's eyes brightened, and she nodded her head.

"Of course!" Elizabeth said, gesturing for Sonia to come sit beside her. She began going through the process of translating for Sonia, so that the two of them could get to work translating the texts with greater accuracy.

"Whoa! That was amazing!" Kate exclaimed, getting off of Uboss's Skarmory, Crest. Uboss flew off, back down the side of the mountain, Kate watching after him. She smiled. The sensation of flying was exhilarating, she loved the feeling of weightlessness. Maybe I haven't paid enough attention to flying types…

As Crest landed on the plaza again, Kate was busy considering the merits of catching a poison type pokemon that knew how to fly. She had something to look into when she got back to the pokemon academy, it seemed.

"Wow, that was a blast!" Nikita echoed Kate's enthusiasm as she got off the back of the large bird, Uboss going to pick up the next student. A few minutes later, Group 3 was assembled in front of the mural, and Uboss was going to ferry back the next group of student.

"So what do you think? Where should we look first?" Kate asked, walking into the ruins.

"Shouldn't we wait for my dad?" Sango reminded her. Kate let out a huff of frustration.

"Well, there's only one of him, right?" Kate sighed, turning to look at the Skarmory taking off once again. "It's not going to be much work having a supervised trip if we only have one chaperone, you know? Otherwise it'll just be like tomorrow, with the big group slowing us all down. Don't you want to do a little exploring on your own?"

Nikita and Reiner glanced at each other. Both understood what Kate was feeling, and wanted to explore for themselves. But they were still students, and knew what that meant. They didn't want to break the rules and risk getting into trouble, and more importantly, they didn't want to risk getting lost or hurt in those caves.

"You're supposed to be our chaperone," Sango reminded her, crossing her arms in front of her chest indignantly. "You aren't supposed to be encouraging us to go off on our own, what if someone got hurt?"

She turned to Blake for confirmation.

"Right, Blake? Isn't she being really reckless?"

She looked at him hopefully, sure that he'd agree with her that they should wait for a chaperone to guide them.

"I agree with Kate," Blake replied.

"What?" Nikita gasped.

"Really?" Reiner asked.

"Really?" Kate also found that hard to believe.

Sango didn't have such a verbal response. She stared at him in stunned silence. Blake… Blake was taking Kate's side? He was going to… what? Just go into the ruins like some half-baked Indiana Jones and wind up getting himself killed!

"Blake, you can't be serious!" Sango protested.

"Castform!" Silver agreed.

"It's not that big a deal," Blake shrugged. "I'd just like to explore these ruins on my own, that's all. You know me, Sango, I'm not a reckless person. I'll be careful. But I'd rather see things for myself, rather than get dragged around by a guide."

Sango was taken aback. She couldn't understand how he could be so… so! Kate was one thing, but Blake…

"Now you're talking," Kate said. "We'll be off then, you guys can stay and wait for the others."

"No, no, that's not okay!" Sango protested, following the two into the ruins. "You can't!"

Reiner and Nikita glanced at each other and sighed. Sango didn't even realize she had just entered the ruins unsupervised as well. Unlike her, neither of them cared enough to break the rules. Instead, they were going to wait right here for Uboss to come.

"I'm serious, guys, we should leave!" Sango said, storming after the two reckless students. "We're going to get in serious trouble! What are you guys even looking for here?"

"I just want to check stuff out," Kate shrugged. "I liked those murals in the hall, especially the ones depicting that big dragon thing. I wanted to get a closer look at some of those, so I could really take my time to study. But we'll probably end up getting shuffled past…"

Sango reluctantly followed Kate and Blake into the same carved-out hallway they had gone down the day before. She turned to Silver.

"Silver, go get my dad, okay?" Sango asked.

"Castform," Silver agreed, floating to the exit as Sango continued after Blake and Kate.

Kate stopped in front of the long pictures in the hallway, staring at the carved, violet dragon made of spines floating over a mountain, with darkness emanating off of it.

"I wonder what this pokemon is," Kate mused. It looked pretty powerful. Sango walked past her, following Blake to where he was headed. Sango had suspected as much.

She entered the small chamber to see Blake standing in front of the pedestal, staring up at the large door. His hand was raised a few inches over the dais.

"Oh, no," Sango said, shaking her head. "No, no, no. I know what you're thinking, and you really shouldn't-"

"Come on, what's the worst that could happen?" Blake asked, glancing back at her and shrugging. "So it doesn't work like with Sonia and Doctor Skye, no big deal."

"Uh, no, the worst thing that can happen is the door DOES open, and you trigger some booby trap and this place collapses on our heads and kills us!" Sango exclaimed.

"Come on, you aren't serious, are you?" Blake asked.

"…Well, no, but… you know!" Sango frowned. "We shouldn't… you know, mess around!"

Blake could see the worry on her face. She really took this serious. He glanced back at the door, and then to the handprint on the dais. He glanced back at Sango.

"Aren't you curious?" He asked.

Sango bit her lip. She crossed her arms, glancing at the exit. Blake smirked. Her curiosity was getting the better of her good judgment.

"Come on, if the professor gets upset you can say you tried to stop me…" Blake let his voice trail off, looking at Sango with a cocky smile.

Sango rolled her eyes and sighed, stepping a good distance away from him. She didn't want to look excited, but her eyes were shining in spite of herself.

"Go ahead," she said, feeling a little more eager than she would have liked. So much for being the responsible one. Her heart was pounding in her chest as Blake turned back to the door, placing his palm on the dais. What was going to happen?

I wonder, what is going to happen? We'll have to find out!