Time to continue the battle between Gwen and Blake! Will Weiss be able to defeat Lancelot? Will Blake be able to reach his sister somehow? Or will he lose, all of this having been for nothing?

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! The shakeup really makes me realize how a girl may be in many people's top 5, but not necessarily in their top 3. So I'm certainly feeling more than a little surprised Looks like the girl I'm pulling for isn't going to win, but that's fine. They're all wonderful girls! 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

ConfusedCradily: A lot of people so far look like there's no hope of saving them. You never know.

Rosealine gold: Thanks, I checked it out, looks good.

Aquahaze675: Well yeah, it's a pretty big rush.

Mercury – mercuraneous: Don't worry, I have a lot of stuff planned that I expect will be good. And yeah, Gallade and Scizor are supposed to be a pretty even match. Bug beats psychic, but fighting beats steel. Both pretty humanoid, both are close range fighters with long-range moves, stuff like that.

Thunder Fire: The Gwen-Caelia comparison is intentional. There are some slight differences and the two are distinctive characters, but there's a reason that Blake sees his sister in Caelia when he spends time with her.

Tambry96bj: People said the same thing about Sasuke. And all it took was him being told "hey, have you ever thought about NOT being a psycho?"

Pokemon Academy: Beginning of Beginnings

Chapter 275

Weiss was already on the defensive. His speed was heightened through the use of agility, and his wings should have granted him more mobility than the ground-locked Gallade. That would have been the case normally. But Lancelot's harmonia-heightened abilities and skill in using teleport was letting him fight Weiss evenly, and his strength was starting to overwhelm the pokemon.

"Weiss, iron defense!" Blake ordered. Weiss landed on the ground, skidding in front of Blake, and held his arms up in an "X" shape in front of his chest, his body shining as his skin hardened to be as strong as steel. Blades of psychic energy struck Weiss's body, causing Weiss to wince in pain. Even with his boosted defenses, it wasn't enough to shrug off the full force of the attack.

With a flap of his wings, Weiss shot across the cavern, gathering energy into his pincers. He swung his claws in a powerful X-scissor to slice at Lancelot.

"Gallade!" Lancelot narrowed his eyes and extended the blades from his arms, blocking each of the pincers with his swords.

"Scizor!" Weiss growled, struggling forward. He tried to push forward with his attack, trying to bring his arms down in the cuts. His pincers clenched down on the green blades, but Lancelot wasn't going to back down. The two pokemon struggled like this. Lancelot tried to force Weiss back, Weiss tried to force his way through Lancelot's guard. Moments later, the two pokemon broke the stalemate, leaping back and preparing another assault.

Weiss held his pincer up and created a concentrated beam of light to fire a flash cannon at the Gallade, switching from a close-combat style of fighting to a long-distance fight.

"Gal-!" The flash cannon hit Lancelot in the gut. Lancelot coughed, falling to his knee and holding his stomach, coughing. That attack had done a significant chunk of damage.

"Arrrgh!" Gwen cried, her hands clenching her stomach and doubling over. That was a painful one, alright.

"Gwen!" Blake cried out in sympathetic pain for his sister.

"Not bad, big brother," Gwen panted, raising her head to look at him. Her face was stricken with pain, but she was ignoring it. She wasn't even close to done. "Lancelot!"

Psychic energy wrapped itself around Lancelot's arm, and he swung it haphazardly, flinging blades of psychic energy at Weiss, the swift pokemon dodging the barrage of blades. Lancelot rose to his feet and ran towards the evasive Scizor, swinging his arms so fast his swords were blurs of green as they cut at Weiss.

"Weiss, swords dance," Blake ordered, Weiss dancing and moving his claws to counter Lancelot's repetition of slash attacks. "Now, bullet punch."

"Scizor!" Weiss pulled back and unleashed a barrage of punches at the speed of a bullet, his sharp pincers pummeling the psychic pokemon. Lancelot tried to guard against the attacks, but he wasn't fast enough to block them all, the force of the blows knocking him backwards. Gwen held her head, trembling, coughing out in pain. Blood trickled down her nose and into her mouth, and she spat it onto the cavern floor, wiping her lips.

Weiss took the opportunity of Lancelot's flinching, and spread his wings, taking to the sky. He gathered wind together around his body, and swung his pincer, slicing through the air in a powerful air slash attack.

"Lancelot!" Gwen shouted. Lancelot landed on his feet, psychic energy boosted with harmonia gathering into a powerful veil of aura centered in his right arm. He turned his torso and swung his arm forward, countering back with the strongest psycho cut he'd used thus far. A massive blade of psychic energy released from his sword arm, cutting through the air and aiming straight at the blade of wind.

The two slashing attacks collided, and one was far stronger than the other. Lancelot's psycho cut shredded Weiss's air slash with hardly any resistance, striking Weiss in the stomach.

"Scizor!" Weiss cried out, his wings fluttering wildly as he plummeted out of the sky, too out of focus from the pain to remain airborne. He hit the ground hard, Lancelot charging towards him.

"Can you feel it, big brother?" Gwen crowed, holding her throbbing head in pain. "I've trained so hard… to turn my harmonia… this gift from mother… into something that will allow me to create our world."

Gwen's eyes flashed.

"So keep fighting, big brother. But Lancelot and I… our eyes can see it. The future we yearn for… the power of this gift will allow us to grasp that future with our own hands!" To punctuate her statement, Gwen raised her bloodstained hand and clenched it into a fist, flecks of blood flying off with the force of the gesture. Blake could see the pain on her face, and the shaking of her body. His sister had always had a weak constitution, and the strain of harmonia seemed like it was about to knock her over. But the light surrounding her told him that she wasn't fighting on a physical level anymore. Her will had already overcome her body's endurance. She was engulfed by her ability, and Lancelot's strength was what was keeping her standing. It wasn't like Elaina where if she took too much damage she might collapse. Gwen had fallen far deeper, to the point where she and Lancelot were inextricably linked. Gwen would not fall unless he fell. But she also would not remain standing if he were to lose.

She's not even focusing on other pokemon… Blake bitterly noted. All of her energy was going to Lancelot. Because that was what the trainer and her pokemon cared about. Not winning some meaningless battle or even going to hurt Blake's friends. It seemed like that motive had been completely eroded by the rush of the battle. Now… Lancelot and Gwen were completely obsessed with showing Blake and Weiss how much stronger they were. How much stronger harmonia had made them. Winning was everything now, and the more furious the fight, the more addicting the rush seemed to grow.

"Weiss! Get up!" Blake shouted. Weiss struggled to stand. Thankfully, he resisted psychic type moves, and his iron defense had raised his stats. But harmonia was strong, and the attack had been a critical hit. So he was a fraction too slow to respond to Lancelot's follow-up attack.

"No, stay down!" Gwen shouted. "Lancelot! Close combat!"

"Gallade!" Just as Weiss righted himself, Lancelot hit him in the stomach again, this time with a powerful uppercut. As he knocked Weiss upwards from the force of the hit, he turned on his heel and hit him in the head with the blade on his other arm, sending him flying. Gallade immediately teleported away, reappearing across the stadium, standing right where Weiss had been knocked towards. He followed his initial attacks with a barrage of punches and slashes that pummeled Weiss with so much force it was like the pokemon had not even used iron defense to strengthen himself.

"Sci…zor…" Weiss coughed, Lancelot grabbing him by the throat and holding him up.

"Remember what I told you before? When I left?" Gwen asked. "I have thought about it. I didn't understand. You asked me not to go. You said that we could go away together. Somewhere just the two of us. That is what I am trying to do here. You were not strong enough to protect me. You couldn't save mother or I from that Salamence. Not like our brother did. You couldn't protect me. Why couldn't you protect me?! Big brother… big brother was supposed to protect me!"

Gwen was shouting at him, holding her head. Her headaches were getting worse.

"I didn't understand why you wouldn't protect me… but then I realized that you couldn't. You're too weak. You're the weak one… but I… I'm the strong one. Because I have this power, I'm stronger than you, I'm stronger than anyone, even our brother Kanone! You don't have to try and protect me anymore, now we can be together! I will protect you, big brother, from everyone trying to keep us apart! I've trained so hard, and now… now I can finally show you! Then, when I beat you, you'll see, you'll see… that's why we need the Oracles… need to… need to use them…"

"Gwen, why do you need the Oracles?" Blake asked. They were in the middle of a battle, so this may not have been the best time to inquire further about what the Children of the Oracles were planning. But Lancelot wasn't attacking any further. He was only standing there, hoisting up Weiss like a trophy. Right now, Blake needed to buy some time for Weiss to recover if he wanted a chance to win.

"Need them, need… the Oracles… All the Oracles…" Gwen muttered. Her headache was getting worse, it was frustrating. She wanted to tell her brother the truth, so he would understand it like she had. Yes… how could she have made such a mistake? Blake was saying all these dumb things because she hadn't explained it to him! It was exactly like when someone wouldn't tell her what they were asking of her, and so she didn't know what to say, or how people would be talking, but never made it clear that they were talking to her, and that she was supposed to respond. People were all so confusing, and Gwen had managed to be just as confusing! She apologized to Blake in her mind.

"With the Oracles… we will… create a new world…"

Blake blinked. When most people talked about "creating a new world" they were speaking in terms of revolution, restructuring society. But that was metaphorical. Gwen's brain didn't work on metaphor. She took every word at precisely face value, no more, no less. If she sought a revolution, she would say revolution.

A new world.

Gwen wanted to create a new world in a literal sense.

"Gwen, the Children of the Oracles want to create a new world?" Blake clarified. Gwen's nodding of her head confirmed his concerns.

"The Oracles can alter reality and create any world you want," Gwen said. She smiled at Blake, and suddenly she was Gwen again, the harmonia having retreated from her slightly. "Just like we planned. Blake and Gwen, a world just for the two of us and our pokemon. Those other people… they try and drive us apart, treat us like we're nothing, father, mother, Kanone, we don't need them! We never did! You don't need those people! We… we just need each other! We can be together forever, big brother! Isn't that such an amazing thing?"

Blake stared at her in shock.

He wanted to shout that she wasn't being herself, that she would never do something like this. That it was her harmonia that was driving her to such madness.

But he couldn't even really convince himself of that.

Blake loved Gwen. Those small smiles she gave him, for so long that had been his beacon through the isolation of his youth. And of course, Gwen had Blake. But they hadn't been the same. Blake had his mother, Cynthia. He had Richard Harker, and Kanone, and Claire, as well. But Gwen never had them. Not in the way that Blake had. Sure, they all cared about her, and loved her. But Gwen… her parents? She never connected with them. She had refused to really be friends with Claire in any meaningful way. And Kanone? She saw Blake as her big brother more than she ever had the one who was tied to her by blood. Even now, Blake had a world of family and friends that care about him in their own ways, and he loved them back.

But Blake was Gwen's entire world. He was likely the only human being on the planet that Gwen had any consideration for in the slightest. When they were younger, he remembered her telling him that, while she loved her parents and her real brother, it wasn't… the same. He didn't understand because he was only a kid himself at the time, but he could definitely feel that the way Gwen treated him was different from how she treated everyone else in her life. The only things that seemed to matter were Blake and her pokemon. No one else understood her. Because of her condition, she was an outcast in school, unable to connect with anyone, really, and no one had wanted to connect with her. She had gotten bullied a lot, and Blake would have to step in and help her every time, since no one else would ever take her side. She had completely shut herself off from the entire world by the time her age had reached double digits.

So could he really say that his sister would never want to create a world where it was just the two of them? Where it was only him, with no other people, people who would never make an effort to try and understand her, but only shun her away as an outcast?

He wanted to believe that the sister he loved could never dream of such a thing.

But wanting doesn't make it so.

"It's everything we spoke about," Gwen said. "You and I, together forever. Never aging, never dying, a perfect world created just for the two of us."

Of course she wouldn't want to come back with him. The Children of the Oracles were going to give her the one thing that she wanted most in the world. He had counted on the fact that Gwen cared about him more than anything to be what would convince her to come back. But even if he could give her himself, that wasn't enough for her. She didn't just want him. She wanted him, and no one else. And that wasn't something he could ever do for her.

"You'll understand," Gwen insisted. Her harmonia flared up again. She was no longer talking with him, she was only repeating her own delusional fantasy. "You'll understand, I'll show you. When I show you that I'm strong enough to take care of us, that I can protect you, then you'll understand that we don't need anyone. Just you and me. I love you so much, big brother, you're the only one who understands me! The only one who looked after me, who protected me! When people tried to hurt me, you would try to stop them! But you weren't strong enough, not strong enough to protect me back then. But now I can repay your kindness! I'll show you that I'm strong enough that I don't need you to protect me anymore, now I can be the one protecting you! And then we'll go to our new world together, and then we can be together at last!"

Blake's eyes watered. Gwen kept proclaiming that he understood her. But that was wrong. He didn't understand her. Maybe he had, once upon a time. But right now? Now… now he didn't understand her at all. He couldn't see the true her, not anymore.

"Weiss!"

Weiss's eyes snapped open and his pincer opened up, light gathering inside of it. He hit Lancelot in the chest with a point-blank flash cannon.

"Gaaalllade!" Lancelot roared in pain, releasing Weiss and stumbling back, clutching his chest. Gwen fell to her knees and mirrored his movement, her breast feeling like it was on fire. Her headache worsened and her vision was blurring.

"Big… brother…" Gwen sputtered. She didn't understand. Why was he still fighting? Why didn't he understand? Her big brother wanted them to be together. That was simply true. He never lied to her, and he never would. But even when she told him that they could create the world they had envisioned… why was it that he would not agree with her? Why was he fighting? He had said that he did not want her to hurt his friends. But did these "friends" matter more to him than her? No. That was simply impossible. She knew that her big brother loved her more than anyone. So there had to be another reason he was still fighting. And Gwen knew what it was.

He still thinks that I'm not strong enough, she decided. He still doesn't understand how much stronger I am with this power. So I need to show him! I'll show him that he doesn't have to worry any longer, that I am strong enough to protect us now!

"Lancelot!" Gwen shouted, standing up. Lancelot understood her, of course. He would fight just as she wished him to.

"Gallade!" Lancelot charged forward and swung his blade, but Weiss stopped it with his pincer. Both pokemon had taken serious damage, and neither one looked willing to keep this going for much longer. But both of them were going to. Neither pokemon was going to give in at this point.

"Take more!" Gwen shouted, her energy surging as her headache increased. Psychic energy flowed through Lancelot's arm, and he flung Weiss back with another psycho cut. He teleported, reappearing behind the pokemon, and slashed down at him again.

"Weiss! Behind you!" Blake cried.

Weiss held his arms back behind him, energy appearing in his pincers. He fired two flash cannons behind him, the force of the attack blasting Lancelot back and propelling Weiss forward.

"It's not enough yet!" Gwen shouted. "We'll show you! Lancelot! Close combat!"

Lancelot appeared in front of Weiss in a flash of light, raising his sword. He was too close, too fast, Weiss wouldn't be able to dodge this time.

"Weiss! Iron defense to protect yourself!"

It was all he had the time to do. As the first blow struck him, Weiss hardened his body to be stronger than steel, his defenses increasing even higher. But even with those buffs, Lancelot was still hitting him hard enough to dent. His blades were still cutting into Weiss's body, cutting large swathes of blood over his already-red carapace. And all Weiss could do was hold on, endure the attacks, and wait for a chance to strike back against Lancelot's overwhelming assault.

"You can feel it now, can't you, Weiss?" Gwen demanded. "Do you see? You have to accept it, big brother! I've gotten stronger! All so that I could defeat you, to show you that I have the strength to protect you now! Admit it, big brother!"

Gwen took a deep breath, and shouted with all of her might.

"TELL ME I'M STRONGER NOW!"

Blake winced. The pain in her voice was clear. The light around Gwen's body was flickering like a sputtering flame. Her emotions were way too tenuous right now. She was so caught up on winning and proving her strength that she was starting to lose her grip on her own power. She fell forward, hitting the ground hard.

"Gal!" Lancelot swung his head around, distracted by his trainer's collapse. And that was just the opportunity that Weiss needed. His arms were already crossed over his chest already to shield him from the close combat, so all he needed to do was strike back with a single move.

"Scizor!" Weiss used the last of his strength and swung his arms out in a powerful x-scissor, hitting Lancelot in the chest with all the power he could muster. Lancelot let out a cry in pain and stumbled back, falling to one knee. His defenses had dropped due to his repeated usage of close combat, and his harmonia had waned. But he wasn't done yet. Weiss, on the other hand, clearly was. He could barely remain standing. If Lancelot used another attack, the pokemon would surely fall.

But Lancelot had other priorities at the moment. He shoved Weiss away and teleported to his trainer's side, kneeling down beside her. His eyes were wide with worry as he called out to her, both with his voice and with the link he shared.

Blake was equally concerned. He ran to Gwen, scared of what might have happened.

Not again. Not again. Please, not-

Blake's worries were quickly abated, though. Gwen raised her head to look at him. Her face was smeared in blood and her eyes were red with tears, but… they were her eyes again. He couldn't see any harmonia there. They were the same slate-colored eyes he loved, eyes that were gazing upon him with confusion and adoration.

"Big brother…?" Her voice was shaky. "Why are… what's going on?"

With her harmonia retreated, Gwen, his real sister, was back. He reached out to take her hand, but before he could get to her he was stopped by the cold blade of a sword pressed against his throat.

"Lancelot…?" Gwen looked up at her pokemon, still a little hazy about what was happening. Lancelot glared at Blake, and scooped Gwen off of the ground, cradling her with his other arm.

"Lancelot, please. Please end this," Blake pleaded. "Gwen… come home with me."

"Home… yes… go home…" Gwen muttered. "Lancelot… home… We need… to go home now…"

Lancelot and Gwen began glowing.

"Gwen!" Blake shouted, realizing that she was about to teleport. She was going to leave. Again. But before he could do anything, Lancelot kicked him back, and he hit the ground, coughing hard. His body was too weak to resist, and far, far too weak to fight against a Gallade.

"Big brother… I'm strong…" Gwen insisted. She nuzzled up close to her Gallade, but never took her eyes off of Blake. "Stronger… I'm going to show you… soon… then you can… come home with me… our home… our world… together… forever… come soon, I'll be… waiting…"

Blake couldn't do anything to stop them, the duo disappeared in another flash of light.

He didn't know how long they had been gone before he tried to get up. Weiss was in bad shape, worse than Blake, but Blake… he didn't have a reason to get up. Not anymore. He had chased after her… and she was gone. He pushed his body up so that he was kneeling on the ground, before wondering…

What was even the point?

With that thought in mind, all the strength in his arms vanished and he fell forward, curling up into a ball. He shouted, slamming his hands against the stone floor. He thought back to his discussion with Alcea about how people go through crucibles in life. His hardships, losing his mother, losing his sister for the first time… none of them were as painful as this. If this was a crucible, he didn't want to make his way through it. Better to just let it consume him. He cried and shouted in frustration, his throat tearing itself up as he beat his hands bloody. All of it… the pain of his complete and total failure… this despair was too much for him to bear.

So Blake wasn't able to stop Gwen from getting away. What will he do now? He knows why she's doing what she's doing. He knows now, that he can't bring her back as she is. That door seems closed… what does he have left now?