Here's another chapter! In this chapter, we experience the history of Ayame and Olivia, how they first met, and what happened in their past. It's just one of many instances, but it really shows how they became the kind of people that they are! Still sadly no reviews, but oh well.

And not only that, today is the last day of the Pokemon Academy Best Girl Finals! This is your very last chance to have your voice be heard! The race is close, and it's still anyone's game! Sango? Ayame? Marion? Which one of them will receive the title of Pokemon Academy Best Girl? Who will win? This contest is gonna be close, and a single vote might be the factor to sway the ending! The poll is still in the profile and will be all day, so make sure you get your votes in while you still can! Because when the next chapter goes up, the poll goes down, and the best girl will be announced for the world to see! Who will be the Pokemon Academy Best Girl?

Finalists: Sango, Ayame, Marion

Pokemon Academy: Beginning of Beginnings

Chapter 326

A ten year old Ayame Toujou slumped down in her chair in the corner of the classroom, trying to make herself look very small. She didn't want to call attention to herself. She hid behind the bangs of her black hair falling over her eyes.

Ayame wasn't like the other girls. She wasn't cute or pretty. She had long arms and legs that made her move awkwardly, and caused her to be a head taller than the other girls, taller than the boys, even. They'd teased her about it. Made fun of her for being so tall for a girl, some people even suggesting that she wasn't really a girl, that she was too boyish to be a girl, so she must really be a boy, instead. Ayame stared enviously at the blonde girl sitting at the front of the classroom. She was a foreign exchange student from the Galar Region, and she looked exactly like a princess to Ayame. She was so pretty, and her hair was so silky and smooth… Ayame had no doubt that when she grew up, she'd be a world-class beauty. Ayame knew that when SHE grew up, she wouldn't be a beauty of any class.

It was times like these that Ayame envied her older sister. Her big sister, who was a track star in high school and already seen as a prospect for sponsors for a career in the Pokeathlon back home in Johto. The beautiful girl with her adoring fans, whose tall body was imposing and yet eye-catching, who drew the attention of boys and girls alike with her beauty and talent.

Ayame was nothing like her sister at all. She was just the leftovers. She couldn't run like her sister, and no boy would ever look at her and see someone special. So she kept her head down and kept praying that she'd get through the day, that no one would take the time to tease her for one of the countless things that was weird about her. This promised to be like any other day, until the teacher said something that caught her attention.

"Class, for the festival this year, we'll be doing the play 'Sleeping Beauty'," the teacher announced. The boys groaned and the girls cheered. "Now, now, you're in fifth grade, you're old enough to do a play with romance in it. Now, before we begin rehearsing, we need to decide on who will play what."

The teacher walked over to the black board and began writing down the cast. The first two positions were the princess and the prince.

"Now, who here would like to play the princess?" The teacher asked. Most of the girls in class raised their hands, but no one raised their hand higher than Olivia. She was simply perfect for being the princess! Because she was beautiful, the prettiest girl in the class, there was no one who was better suited for the role! Even if it meant she had to have a fake kiss with some stinky boy, there was no way she would ever NOT be a princess! Her last name even MEANT princess, no other position was more suited!

Ayame felt the same way. Those other girls who were so pretty, and she was just an awkward, unattractive girl. There wasn't a point in raising her hand. She wouldn't be able to play the princess, no matter how badly she wanted to.

"Wait, look at that!" One girl laughed. "Ayame Toujou is raising her hand!"

What?

Without even realizing it, Ayame had raised her hand up like the other girls.

"What the heck?"

"But she looks like a boy!"

"Ha! Does anyone want a princess like that?"

"I don't want to be the prince if she's playing the princess."

"Who would?"

"I think Olivia should do it."

"Yeah, she's really pretty!"

"Plus she's blonde! A blonde princess in the fifth grade would call a lot of attention to us!"

"Way better than some boy-girl!"

Flushed with shame and humiliation, Ayame's hand dropped to her side and she lowered her head, resisting the urge to cry.

Why did I raise my hand? What sort of idiot am I? She yelled at herself, trembling. No one would want someone like me to play a princess. I hate it… it's not fair… why can't I be a princess, too?

It wasn't fair. No one was telling the other girls they couldn't be the princess. Even when everyone was agreeing that the beautiful blonde foreigner should play the role, no one was mocking the other girls who raised their hands. It wasn't wrong for them to dream of being a princess. It was only wrong for an ugly girl like Ayame.

After the roles had been picked, Olivia peaked over her shoulder, looking past the crowd of people gathering around her and congratulating her to see Ayame Toujou, head lowered and clearly trying very hard not to cry.

It's what she gets, the selfish, vain Olivia decided. After all, not every girl deserved to be a princess. She should have known better, and stuck to her station.

That thought sent a pinprick in her heart that brought a cloudy expression over Olivia's gorgeous features.

Like I'm one to talk. Running away from home because I don't want to be a mediocre trainer for the rest of my life.

As she did with most things that bothered her, Olivia pushed that thought out of her head. She didn't have anything in common with that ugly, plain-looking girl. Olivia was beautiful, and though a bastard she was still a child of a proud family. She was a higher station than that other girl, she deserved to be acknowledged for that. If the other girl didn't like it, well…

Olivia was used to being envied for her good looks. Much better than the looks of scorn she got in Galar for her Sinnohian features. She scoffed and turned her nose up at the thought. OF COURSE people would be jealous of someone like her.

Images of her half-siblings flashed through Olivia's mind and she shook her head.

No, that's different! She protested. We aren't the same in the slightest!

Olivia didn't envy her siblings. She was beautiful, so she was the one deserving of envy! Girls like Ayame were just supposed to look up at her with adoration and want to be like her, that was how the world worked! She shouldn't blame the beautiful for their beauty! Life just wasn't fair, and that girl would have to learn to accept that!

Then why did that girl make Olivia feel so uncomfortable?

Olivia didn't want to look at Ayame anymore. It just made her feel miserable.

Imagine being so ugly that a beautiful person can't even look at you without feeling sick to her stomach, Olivia mocked the tall girl in her mind. Disgust and pity for the girl was the only reason Olivia could think of that would make her feel this way.

The night of the play, Olivia put on the performance of her life.

Or, well, she would, if the role of Sleeping Beauty required her to do anything besides, well, sleep, and be beautiful.

The play was for parents and other visitors. Olivia had written to her father in Galar, to tell him of the news. She hadn't expected him to come; after all, flying to another country just to watch a play? Unthinkable! So she hadn't asked. And a letter came a few days later, crisp and formal, congratulating her on getting the lead, while expressing clearly that he would not be attending.

Why did that sting so much? She knew he would respond like that before she even sent the letter.

But that night, Olivia still curled up in her private room in the dormitories and cried into her silk bedsheets.

The play was wonderful. Olivia had done her job perfectly. The eyes of the audience were on her every time she was on set, and even when she fell into her sleep and was relegated to the role of "prop" instead of "actor" she could still feel attention on her. That made her smile. She was so beautiful, that the audience simply couldn't look away!

Ha! And those other girls thought they could play a better princess than me? Olivia laughed to herself. Not one of them could hold a candle to her beauty, certainly not that frumpy Ayame, who hadn't been given a role in the play at all. Well, she had, but as a tree. She had the unenviable role of standing in place and doing nothing.

Everyone LOVES me when I'm on the stage, Olivia mocked the girl. No one is even looking at an ugly tall tree like you!

The play went as it was supposed to. Olivia was awoken with a "kiss" from a prince (who had been a little too forward with her in rehearsals, much to Olivia's chagrin and the teacher's warnings) and she had played her last scene perfectly. Putting on a mask of joy and breathless as she embraced the prince, who she didn't even know the name of. Like the other students, like Ayame, he was just another person meant to make HER look good. Everyone knew that SHE was the real star of this play, and that's why everyone applauded HER when SHE woke up.

Because she was the star, because she was beautiful. And everyone knew it, especially that ugly girl. This was Olivia's stage, and everyone else was lucky they got a part to play on it.

After the play, as everyone was changing out of their costumes, the teacher came up to Olivia and congratulated her. Olivia felt her chest swell with pride at the first of many accolades toon to come, but before she could say a word of thanks, the teacher had already moved on to the next student and congratulated them. That took the wind out of her sails a fair bit. Olivia scowled. But that wasn't a big issue. Her classmates were certain to congratulate her, after all. It was thanks to Olivia that this play had received such a standing ovation! She was the only one who actually even remembered her lines, even though they were in her second language! She deserved praise for that.

And yet, back stage, no one was congratulating her. And when they filed out into the lobby to greet their families, they still weren't congratulating her. Oh, they were talking with each other, of course, praising the performances of their friends, but… No one was talking to her about HER performance, and she had been the one to put the most effort into it in the first place! Olivia looked around the room at the students meeting up with their families, and scowled.

Everyone else was talking with their friends, their parents, but Olivia… Olivia was alone. She had yet to make a single friend in her class. They all spoke to her when she was playing the role of the princess. They all complimented her looks and her fashion sense, they all looked at her enviously with their eyes while they smiled at her with their mouths, and Olivia had relished in it. To be beautiful was to be envied, but…

That was where it ended. Olivia was the pretty foreigner from Galar with the blonde hair and blue eyes, the Sinnoh girl who was also from Galar. She was a curiosity, something to admire from afar, but not something you befriended.

She was like a pokemon in a zoo.

Those pangs came back. She shouldn't be feeling this way! She had been the star of the play! And yet, beyond the teacher's obligatory words of congratulations for a job well done, not one person had praised her for her performance. She had put real work into curling her hair just right for matching her dress. She had memorized all her lines perfectly, while the other students had slipped up tonight more times than she could count! And yet THEY were the ones whose parents were heaping praise onto them, giving them hugs and kind words of encouragement. What right did those bit part secondary actors have at being congratulated?! Olivia was the star! SHE was the one who should be receiving accolades! She had spent hours rehearsing her lines, reacting in wonder at the spinning wheel, in fear of the witch, in sadness for her deceased parents! The overjoyed hug when she had finally been awakened from her sleep? She had spent weeks in the mirror getting that expression right!

And she was the only one who cared about it. She bitterly understood exactly why. No one had chosen her for her ability to act. They had chosen her because she was pretty. A pretty prop that could draw the eye. And she had been fine with that. If it meant people would be looking at her, congratulating her, then she wouldn't care if she had flubbed every line, she would have slept through that whole play if it meant people would be coming up to her and praising her beauty.

But no one thanks the set dressing for their performance. And from the very beginning, that was all she ever was.

"Um… Olivia?"

Olivia's ear twitched, and haughty smirk crossed her face. She recognized the deep voice. She turned to look up at the taller girl, out of her tree costume now, fidgeting awkwardly with most of her boyish face still hidden behind those ugly bangs of hers. She could barely make out the girl's eyes, but she knew they had to be looking at her with the same envious look all the other girls did.

"You're… who are you?" Olivia asked, knowing full well the name of the girl in front of her. But if Ayame Toujou thought that her name was worthy of someone as beautiful as Olivia remembering it, then she might actually think she was someone of worth. And that look of disappointment on her face was something Olivia enjoyed far too much. It brought joy to her heart just seeing the ugly girl look so miserable at a casual snub like that.

"I, um, I'm Ayame… Ayame Toujou…" the fumbling girl whispered, looking down. "I just, um… I wanted to say that you were a very nice princess tonight..."

"Why of course," Olivia laughed, placing her hand over her chest. "Someone like me is just perfect for the role of the princess! Oh, that reminds me, didn't you want to be the princess, too? Well, maybe next time."

Her words were calculated to do as much damage as they could to the pathetic girl in front of her. Emphasizing her own beauty and how perfect she was for the part. Remind Ayame of her own failure (and humiliation) at trying for the role. And finally, mock her with the idea that she could be a princess of her own someday. Olivia stared eagerly up into the girl's eyes, excited to see the same spark of envy that she thrived on. The looks all the other girls gave her, when they didn't want to acknowledge how much superior Olivia was to them. She wanted to SEE Ayame Toujou's boyish face twisted in jealousy in order to validate that, yes, Olivia WAS better than her.

That wasn't what she saw though.

There was no anger in the girl's hazel-gold eyes. No jealousy. Just… emptiness. They weren't the eyes of a girl who wanted to be like Olivia.

"No, that's fine," Ayame said, shaking her head. "Seeing you perform tonight, I realized… someone like me… I could never be a princess."

Olivia blinked. She was trying to hurt Ayame, so why was SHE the one whose heart stung? That look in the girl's eye, that resignation… she hated it and she didn't understand why. She wanted to hit that girl so hard for making her feel this way.

"Well, good, as long as you understand," Olivia scoffed, shooing Ayame away. And yet as the tall girl scurried away from her, Olivia couldn't help but follow her with her eyes as she went to her family. They towered over the other families like giants, making them rather easy to spot. And they all wore big smiles on their faces as they greeted Ayame. A tall girl, even taller than Ayame, with beautiful long black hair, reached down and pulled the girl into a big hug, a wide smile on her face.

Olivia felt another prick in her chest as she watched them. Why had Ayame's eyes looked like that? Why did they look so… Olivia didn't know what it meant, but it irritated her. She should have just looked at her with envy like the others, but she didn't. She should just worship her, instead! Olivia had wanted that girl (and every other girl in her class, really) to know her place, to understand and accept that she shouldn't dream of being a princess while Olivia Himeko was around!

And clearly, Ayame Toujou had learned her place. She had no aspirations of being a princess any longer.

So why did Olivia have to feel so miserable about it?

Olivia sighed and looked out the window. All this had started over the role of a princess. Now, the thought of being a princess disgusted her.

"You can say it, you know," Olivia said. Blake had listened to her side of things in total silence. Not judging her with his words, but…

Olivia WANTED to be judged. That girl she used to be, she deserved to be scorned and hated.

Olivia turned back to Blake, hoping to see a look of derision in those brown eyes of his, but no, nothing.

"I was a truly awful child, as you must have realized by now," Olivia murmured. "It's so clear that I was taking my own insecurities out on Aya, all to make her feel miserable. I did a terrible thing, and I didn't even realize I was doing it. That girl… she just wanted to be a princess. And just by being in the same class as her, I completely crushed that dream of hers. And I didn't even care. I was proud of what I'd done. And by the time I had realized how wrong I was, well, I had already left school and Aya was long gone from the Sinnoh region."

Olivia sighed, sitting back down on the couch beside Blake.

"Can you imagine? What were the odds? That I would run into her, all those years later, both of us attending the Pokemon Academy? And when I saw what had become of her… that not only had she continued to be the same boxed-in, shy, broken girl that I had left her, but had managed to become even worse with time… I realized that it was my chance to make amends for what I had done. I don't… I don't know if she even remembers me, to be honest. If she does, I can't imagine why she would want to still be my friend."

Olivia wiped tears from her eyes, somehow managing to make even the act of crying look elegant and beautiful.

"I didn't have a right to tell you this story, probably," Olivia sighed. "I don't think Aya would have wanted you to hear it. She probably despises the past as much as I do. But..."

"I don't think she hates you," Blake interrupted, Olivia glancing at him in confusion. "In fact… I think she probably remembers even better than you do."

"What are you talking about?" Olivia demanded.

"A beautiful girl from Sinnoh and Galar with blonde hair and blue eyes?" Blake snorted. "How many of those do you think are wandering around in the world. She knew your name, Olivia, trust me, she remembers."

"Then why would she want to be friends with me?" Olivia asked, the urge to cry growing even stronger. "After I-"

"That's not a question for me to answer," Blake interrupted her. "That's up to you and her. I can only tell you what I noticed."

"…I suppose you're right," Olivia mused, wiping her eyes again. "And either way, I didn't tell you this story in some ploy to gain your sympathy or have you provide me with some half-hearted comfort, you know."

"Oh? Yeah, that's right," Blake said, remembering the initial reason behind the story in the first place. "Wait, how does this help me find a present for Ayame?"

A rueful smile spread across Olivia's lips.

"You still haven't figured it out? I swear, men are so worthless when it comes to understand a maiden's heart."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Blake asked.

Olivia shook her head, and rose from her seat, strolling ahead and twirling around, leaning down to face him.

"That behind that tough exterior, that coolness, that boldness… she's still the same Ayame Toujou," Olivia smiled, nostalgia and remorse crossing her face. "Deep down, she's still that little girl who wants to be a princess. Even if she doesn't think that she does… I can see that she hasn't buried that desire in the end."

"Um, so what does that mean for me?" Blake asked.

Olivia winked at him, smirking.

"Because you're the boy she loves, obviously," Olivia said, flicking him lightly in the forehead. "No matter what anyone else says or thinks, you're the one she wants to see her as a princess. And that means that you're the one who has to treat her like a princess."

Olivia giggled.

"That's all the help I can give you, Blake. Aya's gonna love your gift whatever it is, so make her feel like a princess."

Blake swallowed. He still wasn't sure what he should get her, but he knew that whatever it was, he wanted to make her smile.

Ayame certainly had a rough time growing up. Luckily, she's blossomed into her own, and become a girl who a boy DOES like, and who hopefully DOES see her as his princess. And that's what she really deserves, considering how precious she is.