The battle continues! After Sango's horrible actions inflicted on Kitty, will the poor girl ever recover? Well, at least there's nothing else that Sango can do to possibly cause her any more emotional damage than THAT, I hope.

The Finals have begun! The Pokemon Academy Best Girl Finals have only gotten a few votes in, I can't wait to see how it goes. All the girls there are pretty good, but as you may have guessed I'm personally polling for Ayame in light of the story direction. How will it go? We'll have to see! Be sure to get your votes in! Only one girl can win, who will that one girl be? Who will be the Pokemon Academy Best Girl?

Finalists: Sango, Ayame, Marion

Rosealine gold: Oh, you have no idea.

Thunder Fire: We're just getting warmed up.

Pokemonking0924: Dude we ain't even started yet.

MikySP: Well, Sango should have known better.

Aquahaze675: Poor Kitty is right.

Hellraiserphoenix: She's definitely getting better with her harmonia, though that comes with its own ups and downs as we all know.

Pokemon Academy: Beginning of Beginnings

Chapter 310

"Make sure not to send out a pokemon that does anything too… nasty," Maddi teased. Sango's face felt hot.

"Kitty, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to-"

"N-no, it's fine, it's fine," Kitty said, shaking her head frantically. Her face was still bright red and she couldn't look Sango in the eye, but it seemed like she wasn't angry, at least.

"Sorry again," Sango apologized, over and over, feeling a little shameful. "Whiskers, go!"

Sango tossed out her next pokeball, and a large Whiscash emerged from it, landing in a pool of water, smiling a big, dopey smile.

"Whiscash!" The Whiscash, named Whiskers by Sango, glanced back at the trainer who was using him and then towards the other pokemon. He ducked under the water, and swam beneath the stadium closer to the enemy pokemon.

Maddi sniggered at yet another obvious nickname from Sango. Sango scowled back.

"Larosa, a-are you okay?" Kitty asked, reasserting her harmonia bond with her pokemon. Larosa was doing fine, though she was a little exhausted. She charged at Vee, while Kitty kept her eyes on the water to see where the Whiscash might emerge. That was the benefit of their shared senses, splitting focus.

"Hammy, use psybeam," Nikita ordered.

"Grump," Hammy nodded, the black pearls on his body glowing with magical energy. He waved his hands, and from the pearl on his stomach he fired a rainbow-colored beam of light at Vee, as Larosa coated her body in flames as she ran towards him.

"Vee, use shadow ball on that psybeam!" Maddi ordered, planning to handle one problem at a time. Vee opened his mouth and fired an orb of darkness at the beam of light, the two attacks colliding in the air in an explosion. Larosa dodged away from the blast and continued to charge, picking up speed. Maddi wasn't sure if Vee could doge in time-

"Maddi, have Vee jump," Sango snapped. Maddi's eyes widened, immediately knowing what Sango planned.

"Vee! Use quick attack to jump into the air!"

"Eevee!" Vee leapt off the ground, leaping into the air, his jump aided by the force of his quick attack. Larosa and Kitty's gaze rose, Kitty suddenly understanding what was going on, and Larosa did too. But where a more experienced harmonia user would have been able to turn that realization into a reflex and have their pokemon respond immediately, Kitty was still new to battling with her abilities and she processed the situation as "need to jump" - "connect to Larosa" - "tell Larosa she needs to jump" which was far too slow to be in time.

"Whiskers, earthquake!" Sango called out. The stadium then began rumbling, as Whiskers released tremors of energy through it up from below. The earthquake shook the arena the four girls were standing on, and the shockwaves echoed out far enough to even throw Marion onto her butt, and she was standing on the adjoining pier!

"Whoa!" Nikita cried, trying to keep her balance as Hammy rolled across the battlefield. Sango and Maddi, who had a fraction more forewarning to brace themselves, withstood as best they could, while the airborne Vee was unaffected, beginning his descent and landing gently on the ground.

The majority of the damage went to Kitty and Larosa, who the attack was super effective against. Kitty, whose legs were already a little shaky, fell on her face and laid flat, trying to resist rolling off the side of the stage and falling into the water.

"Groooowl!" Larosa wailed in pain, the tremors rocking her body. She slid and fell over, her flames sputtering out as the earthquake dealt her a serious blow.

"Aaaaargh!" Kitty cried out. She was used to weathering the aftershocks of an earthquake, but this… it was agony! She could feel the pain Larosa was in, her bones rattling with cracks and aches. She coughed, clutching her stomach as her body was wracked with pain.

"Kitty!" Sango cried. "Whiskers, that's enough!"

The tremors slowed, before stopping, but Kitty's body continued to shake, and she coughed some more. This was…

This was the pain of harmonia.

She was used to her headaches and fatigue that came with using the power. Marion had taught her how to endure the stress the ability placed on her, and how to resist pain by having her endure pokemon attacks while connected, so she could get used to the pain of fighting with her pokemon. But all those techniques and tricks flew out the window in the face of real combat. Fully synchronized with her pokemon, she had taken the brunt of the earthquake into her own body. It hadn't physically damaged her, but the pain was all too real.

"Kitty! Kitty, oh, I'm so sorry!" Sango cried. "I-I didn't mean-!"

Sango hated hurting pokemon. She hated hurting people even more, especially a friend. And she had just hit Kitty with an earthquake without even thinking, after she had JUST gone through something embarrassing with the Tentacruel. What was wrong with her?! How could she have been so dumb and thoughtless, ignoring such a big red flag?

She was no better than Elaina Bishop.

"I… I'm fine…" Kitty coughed, standing up on shaky legs. She didn't LOOK fine. Kitty's appearance was frail and weak in the best of conditions, and right now it looked like she HAD been hit with an earthquake. Her eyes were sunken and her hair was wild, blood trickling from her nose and the side of her mouth. She cradled her side with an arm wrapped across her body, her other arm hanging limp. Her legs looked like they might collapse at any time.

"You aren't fine!" Sango protested. "Kitty, I just-"

"I chose to use harmonia," Kitty coughed. Even as far as she was, Sango could see the spark of life in her flashing red eyes. "This… is the cost…"

"Well, I'm not gonna do it!" Sango protested. "I'm done! Battle over! I'm not going to-"

"No, keep… I'm fine! I want to keep battling!" Kitty snapped, shaking her head.

"Well, I'm done!" Sango replied. "I am not about to keep fighting you if it means putting you at risk! You're my friend, Kitty, and there is absolutely no way that I am going to take the chance of sending you to the hospital again! I shouldn't have fought you in the first place! If I'd thought about the fact that you could have gotten hurt, I would never hav-"

"SHUUUT UP!" Kitty shouted. "Shut up, shut up, shut up!"

Kitty's outburst was so loud and so out of character it completely blew Sango away. She stood there with a dumb look on her face, her mouth open, completely frozen. That… what?

"Julia… and you… everybody…" Kitty spat blood, wiping her nose and drawing a thick line of red against her silk sleeve. "It's always 'Kitty is so weak', 'Kitty is so fragile', 'poor Kitty this', 'poor Kitty that', 'we need to keep Kitty safe', 'we have to be careful about Kitty's harmonia', 'Kitty can't battle by herself, it's too dangerous' SHUT UP!"

She was crying now, and it was clearly not from the pain.

"I'm a pokemon trainer, too," she whimpered. "I don't want to be treated like a helpless little girl! I just… I just want to battle! I want to show everyone that I'm not fragile little thing that has to be babied and protected! Ever since I was a kid… because I'm so short, because I'm so shy… people always looked at me like I was… I don't want to! I want… I want…"

Kitty wiped her eyes and pictured the faces of her friends, enjoying themselves and pushing themselves to their limits as rivals. And then there was her. The outsider. Julia had brought her into the group, but she wasn't treated the same as them. First it was because she was weak. Then because her developing abilities had made her seem fragile. And now? She kept trying and trying, but even Sango was looking down on her, worrying about her, refusing to give her an honest fight as fellow trainer, and Sango had just started battling today! Kitty new the risk! And while the pain was more than she'd expected, Kitty would endure it if it meant being taken seriously! But no one ever did. If Kitty tried to fight for real? She was some precious little thing that you couldn't hurt, because she was poor, weak little Kitty, after all, can't hurt her! That was why she had teamed up with Nikita. Because Nikita had never once looked at her as someone to be protected. She treated Kitty like an equal, not a burden, because Nikita was weaker than even Kitty was when it came to battling, and even in terms of physical capability (though she was still taller, like everyone else was…) so if there was someone who Kitty wanted to team up with, it was another outsider like her, who wouldn't give her any unnecessary consideration. Not like her friends… not like…

It wasn't fair! Her friends didn't treat her with respect as a pokemon trainer! Even though Julia had wanted to team up with her, no doubt it was because she wanted to protect her. That was all she ever did. Kitty was always by her side, but Julia never looked at her the way she wanted her to. She saw her as a cute little friend, someone to take care of and look after, but not as a woman. Not someone who could actually give her a good fight. And certainly not as a…

…

Julia didn't think of Kitty that way at all.

And even Marion… Even Marion had only taught her how to control harmonia, nothing about how to really fight with it. How to become strong, like Elaina was… she wanted more than this, and she knew there HAD to be more. Not just to connect with her pokemon and withstand the connection, but how to strengthen them even more than she was now, to get strong enough so that her friends would look at her, and see someone who didn't need protecting, but someone who could fight with and against them as an equal, and maybe even be good enough to protect them. She wasn't weak, she wasn't! She… Kitty could be strong. Her body might be small like a kitten but she knew there was a lion's worth of courage stuffed in there somewhere, and she had to find a way to bring it out… so she wouldn't be weak little Kitty anymore, but someone who would be respected. Someone strong, like Elaina, who didn't allow anyone to look down on her and treat her like a little fragile princess.

Marion bit her lip, staring anxiously at the small girl having a meltdown. She shook her head slowly. This situation had just turned into all kinds of REALLY FREAKING BAD.

Harmonia reacted to state of the wielder's mood. Their ups and downs, their happy times and sad times. Marion was all smiles all the time, so she never let it get out of hand. Kitty was a nice, sweet girl without a bad bone in her body, and that's what made her such a receptive student. But even then, Marion had felt a small shadow in the corner. Nothing much. Certainly nothing worth worrying about. Just a little, nagging bit of insecurity, perfectly normal and human. Marion had them too, everyone did. The small pockets of doubt and worry that people naturally accrue over the span of their lives, and so Marion hadn't given it a second thought.

Right now she really wished she had.

To Sango, Maddi, and Nikita, it looked like Kitty was just venting her frustrations. Only Marion could see deeper, see what was actually going on. That small blip in the corner? It had begun to spread. A shadow was slowly seeping deeper and deeper into Kitty's harmonia, causing her soothing light to become erratic. Kitty had been suppressing her insecurities and convinced herself everything was fine, and so Marion hadn't thought to dig deeper. But right now, giving into those feelings of helplessness, Marion could feel Kitty's anger and frustration rolling off of her, smacking her in the face like waves over the bow of a ship.

Harmonia, after all, was a reflection of a person in every meaning of the word.

Marion had always been the kind of person to go at her own pace. She loved the sea and the pokemon who dwelt within, the mysteries and wonders that lay just beneath the surface. She could be calm, or furious, soothing, or stormy, but those were all just parts of her that she embraced and thrived in, so she never lost her cool. When she was angry, she embraced it. When she was sad, she embraced it. When she was fishing, she embraced it. Anger, sadness, fishing, whatever emotions came to the surface, Marion accepted them with a smile. So she never let her harmonia get out of control. It was always calm and cool. Because even when she was angry with someone, she did so with composure and control of herself.

If Marion was all composure and tranquility of the ocean at rest, then that girl, Elaina… she had been the opposite. Being around her was like being in the center of a typhoon, whipped this way and that way by a never-ending torrent of emotional highs and lows that blew everyone away and threatened to tear her apart at the seams. Marion had tried to teach Elaina a bit of that acceptance that she thrived in, to try and calm down that raging twister in a cool summer breeze, but Elaina had been practically unreachable. Marion had felt it all, but couldn't DO anything. When Elaina's harmonia came into her thoughts, she pictured a little girl, sad and alone, crying in the dark, trapped in the eye of the storm. And no matter how hard Marion had tried to reach out to her, she had been battered back by the winds until she was knocked free entirely.

Then there was Kitty. In her present condition, Kitty was slipping away from Marion and towards Elaina. From someone who controlled her emotions and kept a cool head to someone who was letting her emotions run away with themselves, giving into her insecurities and letting them stain her harmonia. It was the greatest risk of this ability. Intoxication. Harmonia grew the more you gave yourself over to it, the more you let it dominate your thoughts. It could be nurtured, gradually, the way Marion had done, and Kitty had started to do, but giving in got you there a lot faster.

And from what she was seeing from the girl, and what Kitty was shouting, it was clear that Kitty was making a full-on sprint for that line between control and recklessness, and was ready to throw herself off the edge. Marion bitterly noted that more than a small part of this was her fault. Kitty had wanted to control her harmonia, and she had wanted to get stronger. Marion hadn't caught on to the fact that Kitty's desire to get stronger was tied into a deeply rooted feeling of insecurity that was now bubbling to the surface, brought to light by yet another person treating her like she couldn't handle herself. Kitty had to know that Sango wasn't looking down on her, right? That she was treating Kitty the same way she'd treat someone else in the same situation? But Marion bitterly noted that, no, other friends of hers WOULDN'T be in the same situation, and that was the entire problem at hand. Kitty had harmonia. That made her special. So Sango was treating her with kid gloves, and refusing to fight. Marion empathized with her, to a degree, she didn't want to hurt people either if she could help it. But at the same time, it didn't change the fact that due to their harmonia, the way Elaina Bishop was treated, with fear and scorn, and the way Kitty was now being treated, with overprotectiveness and unwanted consideration, were simply two different forms of the exact same problem.

Elaina and Kitty were different. To the very core of who and what they were, they were different, because of their harmonia. Their harmonia made them special, and it was a good thing. Elaina had refused to accept it, Kitty clearly had. At least for a time.

Marion saw now, with more than a little regret at her blindness, that those two girls were alike on a very crucial level. As special as they were, for better or for worse, neither one wanted to be treated as something special. They wanted to be treated as normal girls. And not realizing that had kept Marion from coming up with a way to stop Kitty from going down the same path that Elaina had.

But I'm not a therapist, Marion reassured herself. What the hell was I supposed to do?

Whatever Kitty's problems, it was clear that Marion couldn't really do much about them. That was what was scary. Everyone's reaction to harmonia was different. Elaina had rejected it as a part of her, and so she lost control all the time. Kitty accepted it as a part of her, and now it was seeping into her like a poison. Marion didn't know Elaina beyond her reputation, she had no idea what the girl had gone through to become who she currently was. So she couldn't say if Kitty would end up like her, or end up in even worse shape.

She's like Rey- er, Preya, Marion noted. When they were kids, his harmonia had always been rather noisome, violent, like Elaina's. But he embraced that side of himself where Elaina rejected it, which lent him a great deal of control… but also turned him into someone Marion could no longer stand the sight of.

But Kitty was such a sweetheart. Even if she succumbed to her harmonia, Marion couldn't imagine her turning into someone malicious or cruel, or even someone who lashed out in self-loathing.

Marion bitterly realized she could only keep her mouth shut. Even if she warned the other girls what was going on… even if she told Kitty to snap out of it… that was like trying to plug a dam with a wine cork. That insecurity would still be there, bubbling on the surface.

While Marion brooded over what to do, Sango looked at Kitty with an expression that straddled the line between pity and guilt. Ignorant to the inner turmoil raging through the girl's small body, Sango only wanted to make her friend feel better. She didn't mean to belittle Kitty, she just… she just didn't want to hurt her friend! Why was that so wrong? This was why Sango hated pokemon battling. Because even among friends, someone still got hurt.

This was a mistake, Sango bitterly chastised herself, reaffirming her decision to never battle with pokemon again. I never should have tried this.

Sango hung her head in shame. Kitty didn't seem to want to hear her apologies. She didn't seem to want to listen to Sango at all.

Surprisingly, it was Maddi that was the first one to speak up. Not to the girl crying in front of her, trying to stay strong, but to the girl at her side, who had given up completely.

"…So what are you going to do, huh?" Maddi asked.

"Wh-what?" Sango raised her head and turned to her right. Was Maddi talking to her?

"Are you giving up?" Maddi demanded. "If you are, then fine. Give me my pokemon back and go. I'll finish the battle myself if I have to."

"You can't be serious!" Sango exclaimed. "Didn't you see what just happened?! Kitty… I just hurt my friend! Your Whiscash's earthquake knocked out her Growlithe, and nearly took her along with it! You can't seriously be asking if I'd continue after something like that?!"

"I am," Maddi said, turning to face her directly. Her face was hard and her voice was cold. "It sounds to me like you're the one here not taking things seriously."

Sango blinked, stunned by Maddi's accusation.

"Wh-what?"

"I don't know much about harmonia. Only thing I know is that it's something special, and it's strong and dangerous. But I stepped onto this battlefield ready to put up a good fight. Looks like you didn't."

"I… I didn't realize-"

"What, that you might hurt someone? What do you think pokemon battles ARE? Some nice little pillow fight? Some buttons you press on a controller? No, they're fangs and claws and blood, and sometimes people get hurt. Usually they're the pokemon. Sometimes it's a trainer."

"I'm not going to hurt my friend!" Sango snarled.

"Then it looks like she's got more guts than you," Maddi snapped. "She tanked an earthquake from a Whiscash that I trained, and did you hear her bitching and moaning? No, she stood up, even though it looks like she's about to pass out, and wanted to keep going. And that makes her more of a trainer than you'll ever be, little princess."

"Princess?! I'm-"

"So you didn't know you could hurt her, or maybe you forgot. Know who did know? She did." Maddi pointed a finger directly at an astonished Kitty. "She knew when she stood in the ring that she was risking getting hurt, and she was okay with that. From what I hear, it sounds like she's had to put up with a lot, so what's a little pain added in? You wanted to try your hand at battling pokemon? Well there's someone showing you what that means."

Maddi stormed up to Sango and jabbed her finger into Sango's chest, glaring up at her with her visible red eye.

"When I agreed to team up with you, I wasn't sure. But I was willing to trust you, to give you a chance, because you looked like you had the resolve to fight." Maddi shook her head in disgust. "Looks like I was wrong. That girl is willing to get hurt for the sake of winning. She's willing to put her pokemon and herself at risk in order to win. I get not wanting to hurt someone you care about. But it seems pretty damn obvious that you're hurting her in a whole other way with your little 'I'm too good for this' pity party. Look at her."

Maddi took her finger from Sango's breast and pointed it at Kitty, and Sango followed it to look the short girl in the eye. She had called back her Larosa, and was still fighting the urge to cry, and Sango could see the bitterness and pain in her eyes.

"She's giving her all in this. And for her, that 'all' is more than mine, more than a lot of people. She's a pokemon trainer and she wants to battle, and she knows the risk. That's more than enough. As long as she's able and willing to keep going, I'll do the same. That's the respect one trainer gives to another. If you aren't willing to give her that respect, then you can stop pretending to be a pokemon battler and go home. You wanted to see if it was for you? It isn't."

Maddi didn't say another word, or even give Sango a second glance. She turned and walked away, the clomp of her boots echoing in Sango's ears.

Sango averted her eyes from Kitty. She couldn't look at her without feeling sick to her stomach. She couldn't look at Maddi, either, or the pokemon, or even Nikita…

But it was Marion where her eyes finally came to a rest on. Marion, staring directly at her, unnaturally composed, with none of her usual energy or goofiness. A serious side of Marion that was so rare, one could forget all about it if they weren't looking directly at it.

"Until now, you've just been playing at being a ranger. This is the point where you have to decide if that's true or not."

It was exactly the same. Marion's words rang as true to her heart now as they had back then. She had been playing at being a ranger. Trying to pretend that everything was all okay, that she didn't need to hurt other pokemon, because she didn't want to be the kind of person who could do something like that, hurt another living being.

Sango wanted to be the kind of person who didn't hurt others. Hurting other people made her feel like throwing up. Seeing what she'd just done to Kitty…

But Kitty didn't want her pity, or her consideration. She wanted to fight. She wanted to win. But more importantly, she wanted Sango to treat her like an opponent. Maddi had seen that. Maybe because she was a pokemon trainer and Sango wasn't, maybe because she was more willing to hurt a girl than Sango was, or maybe it was because Maddi actually heard what Kitty had shouted, and was willing to put the other girls' needs ahead of her own pride. But whatever the reason, Maddi was going to fight Kitty until Kitty lost or gave up, even if it hurt. Because that was what Kitty wanted.

Sango didn't want to hurt her.

Was that selfish of her? To not want to hurt her friend?

Maybe. Maybe not.

That wasn't the question Sango had to answer right now.

"Cast."

Sango looked over her shoulder. Silver had been silent until now, watching her. His face was twisted in a complex expression, and Sango could make out worry, hope, and maybe even a little bit of fear. She smiled.

Sango didn't want to hurt Silver. But Silver fought by her side every day in the field, knowing it might get him hurt, and Sango had let him. She hadn't even thought about it. She'd put him in danger countless times, because that had been what he wanted.

Couldn't she afford the same courtesy to her human friends?

"Kitty," Sango called across the battlefield to her friend. Kitty flinched a little, surprised. Her attention had shifted to Maddi, and she now redirected it to Sango.

"I'm sorry," Sango said. "I didn't know I was going to hurt you before. I don't want to hurt you, or anyone else. But if you're going to keep fighting… I'm going to have to."

Kitty blinked rapidly, shaking the tears from her eyes. A tinge of hope began to swell in her chest.

"I didn't realize you were taking things this seriously, I'm sorry for that," Sango apologized again. It felt like all she was doing recently was apologizing. "I'm still new to all this… but if you're going to fight, then so am I. So let's both do our best, okay?"

Kitty's eyes widened, and a big smile spread across her flushed face. She nodded her head vigorously.

"Y-yeah!"

Marion's eyes widened. Just like that, the dark spots gnawing away at Kitty's harmonia had receded back to where they'd been before, and she returned to her normal soft glow. She smiled.

Well, Sango always has been the kind of girl who accepts others completely, I guess, Marion reminded herself. I only hope Kitty's other friends can be as understanding…

"I'm gonna give it my best, so don't hold back, okay?" Kitty called back.

"You just tell me when it starts to hurt," Sango replied. "If it's too much for you, you can always give up."

"I'm stronger than you think," Kitty shot back, shaking her head. She already could feel her harmonia flaring back to life. It had felt all weird and murky before, but now it felt like she was ready to take on the world, now that one of her friends was going to fight her for real.

Sango turned to Maddi.

"Thank you," she said.

Maddi grunted in reply, rolling her eyes and looking away from the taller girl.

"Are you ready to fight seriously now?"

"Yes," Sango said, nodding.

"Then let's get it done."

The impromptu stalemate ended, and the match resumed.

Kitty really does have it rough. Who knew she was hiding such a dark side? Hopefully, she'll be able to get the respect as a trainer that she deserves.