While the relationship between Elaina and Blake is fracturing, I think it's time to look at another relationship between teenagers that's getting stronger, the relationship between Sango and Maddi! How is that pair doing, I wonder?

KedharS: Sadly, that's not likely to happen. Elaina has been driven off by so many people so many times that running away is her natural instinct when it isn't lashing out in frustration.

Aquahaze675: Not really a rival at this point.

Pokemon Academy: Beginning of Beginnings

Chapter 336

Sango knocked on Maddi's door, the goth girl peeking out at her. There was a sleepy look on her face and bags under her eyes, like she had been up all night.

"Hey, Maddi!" Sango said, waving to her. "You, uh… you don't look so hot."

"Thanks, you're not much of a catch yourself," Maddi dryly replied, raising an eyebrow.

"That's not what I meant!" Sango protested. "I just meant-"

A crashing noise from inside Maddi's room drew Sango's attention and caused her to shut up. Maddi let out a sigh, and rolled her eyes.

"I just meant that you looked, you know, kinda sleepy," Sango said, trying to look over Maddi's shoulder in spite of herself.

Maddi sighed again and stepped back, pushing her door all the way open.

"C'mon in," she muttered, trudging back into her room. Sango followed after her, and her mouth dropped open in surprise.

Maddi's room was a mess.

Well, that wasn't the surprise, her room was always kind of a mess. But in this case, it was a lot more messy, with stuff strewn all over the place and a broken lamp that had fallen off of Maddi's desk, probably the source of the crash.

Above the desk, a small pokemon was floating. It had a brown body that was somewhat round, and its face was a pallid gray and shaped like a skull, with two large, hollow black sockets. A single red eyeball drifted between the holes in the pokemon's skull face, and it waved its tiny brown arms in the air as it floated eerily around the room.

"What the heck?! It's a pokemon!" Sango gasped.

"Yup," Maddi said. She nodded her head towards the floor, where a pillow was sitting with large brown fragments of an egg lying on top of it. Sango's eyes widened in realization at what that meant, turning to Maddi with a look on her face that was a mixture of surprise and joy.

"Your egg! It hatched?!" Sango gasped.

"Last night," Maddi said, nodding, stifling a yawn. "He woke me up, and he's just been like this ever since, the little guy, flying around and making a mess out of things. I've been trying to keep him under control, but like… well, let's just say it's a little hard holding onto a ghost, you know? So this guy's been kinda just messing around in my room, keeping me up by saying 'Duskull, Duskull', you know, stuff like that."

She let out another yawn.

"God, I got like no sleep last night…"

"Well, just leave it to me!" Sango said, giving Maddi a reassuring wink and a thumbs' up. "Calming down rambunctious pokemon is a pokemon ranger's job, after all, don't you forget it! Right, Silver?"

Sango turned to her Castform, who nodded in agreement.

"Castform?" Silver floated up to the Duskull, who turned his attention towards the greyish pokemon, tilting his body to the side in confusion.

"Duskull?" The Duskull asked.

"Castform," Silver explained, turning back towards Maddi and Sango on the floor below, looking up at them.

"Duskull…" The Duskull glanced at Maddi for a brief second and then back to Silver.

"…So what, is this working, or-"

"It's working," Sango shushed her. Maddi rolled her eyes.

"Castform!" Silver insisted.

"Duskull." The Duskull looked down again… and floated over to Sango.

"Uh…" Sango glanced at Silver in confusion as the Duskull circled around her.

Silver gave her a look of confusion and platitude, the sort of look that would have come with a shrug of resignation, a "what are you gonna do, I tried" sort of expression. Clearly in trying to speak to the Duskull, Silver had convinced him to go to Sango, instead.

"Now, now, Duskull," Sango huffed, reaching a hand out and trying to pat it. To Maddi's surprise, the Duskull allowed Sango to place her hand on top of his head. She scowled, a little bit miffed. The ghost pokemon didn't let HER do that.

"Nice to meet you, Duskull," Sango said, smiling, "but I think you've got the wrong girl. Maddi's your girl, okay?"

"Dusk?" The Duskull turned to Maddi, who glanced away, shifting from one leg to the other. She tried to seem cool as usual, in order to not look particularly eager.

"Yup! She's the one who nurtured your little egg until you hatched! She took such good care of you and was super eager to meet you, so don't you think that's way better than someone like me? Why don't you go say hello?"

"Duskull!" Duskull agreed, bobbing up and down. He turned and floated over to Maddi, staring at her with his one wobbling eye.

"Um, hi, Duskull," Maddi said, smiling.

"Duskull," Duskull calmly said. He wasn't floating around her like he had before, or like he did with Sango. Rather, he floated patiently in front of her as if he was waiting for something. She wasn't quite sure what, so she reached out a tentative hand to him and placed it on the side of his head. She gasped. This time, her fingers didn't slide through! Instead, she could feel the texture of his body, smooth and yet a little bit fuzzy, like a really old, worn-out bag or a bandage.

"Hello there," she greeted him, smiling. Then, she realized she was smiling, and caught herself, shooting a look at Sango. Sango smirked back at her in response. Maddi was embarrassed for a moment and then turned that embarrassment into anger, shooting a glare back at Sango, who nearly burst out laughing at her. Maddi really tried too hard to be cool sometimes.

The newborn Duskull led Maddi pick him up, and she stepped back, sitting on her bed, cradling him in her arms like a baby. Sango walked up and sat beside her, looking down at the ghost pokemon. He was surprisingly small, only about the size of cantaloupe.

"So you have a new pokemon, huh?" Sango asked.

"Yeah," Maddi said, nodding. "That makes five."

"Wow, I… wait, five?"

Maddi nodded, looking up at her.

"I thought it was just the three?"

"I use those three the most. My fourth pokemon, well…" Maddi sighed. "Mist, my Seadra, is kinda rude and mean to my other pokemon, he likes to boss them around. He doesn't listen to me very much, even though I guess he's my pokemon now."

"What do you mean?" Sango asked, confused.

"Ah, complicated, don't worry about it," Maddi said, waving her hand dismissively, though Sango could sense there was something deeper there that Maddi wasn't telling her. "Anyway, the point is, he doesn't get along with my other pokemon that well, and especially not Violet, my fourth pokemon. Right now, I'm having her looked after, so there won't be any troubles. Though, I was considering going to pick her up for our upcoming fights, since she's actually an ice type, especially now that it's snowing outside."

Maddi cracked a rare smile.

"With the change of environment, I guess that ice team will really be a lot of help. Looks like we made the right call, after all."

"Oh, right, I almost forgot," Sango said, laughing, running her hands along the belt of pokeballs wrapped around her waist. It was so new she still had to get used to it being there.

"Well, anyway, the fact of the matter is that I have a new pokemon," Maddi said, gently stroking her new Duskull. "I don't know how to take care of it, though… I've raised Vee from an egg before, but that was back when I was living with my aunt and uncle, so taking care of one myself…"

"We can always go check in with the Caretakers," Sango suggested. "I actually have a friend who works in the Caretaking course that we could go see, see if she has any tips for taking care of baby pokemon, what do you think?"

"Hmm… sounds good," Maddi said, nodding. "Although… I'm a little worried about taking him outside right now…"

She looked out the window, snow was still falling outside.

"I mean, it's cold, you know? And he was just born last night, what if he gets sick, or…"

Sango snickered, but it was in a loving sort of way, not trying to poke fun at Maddi at all.

"Wow, I had no idea you could be so mothering," Sango laughed. "I thought you would be too cool for something like that, Maddi!"

"Hmph! Taking care of your pokemon is simply common sense!" Maddi said, turning her nose up at Sango.

"Ha! Wow, it seems like you really like pokemon more than people sometimes, huh?" Sango laughed again.

"Yeah, well, pokemon leave you alone when you want to be left alone, unlike certain obnoxious redheads," Maddi dryly replied.

Fair enough.

"So, what are you going to name the little guy?" Sango asked.

"Well, he's a Duskull, so… hm." Maddi thought for a second. "How about 'Grim Reaper'?"

…

"What? Why are you looking at me like that?" Maddi asked her, glancing at Sango. Sango looked like she wanted to strangle the girl.

"Where do you get off saying MY naming sense is bad, huh?!" Sango exclaimed.

"What's wrong with Grim Reaper?! It's totally punk rock!"

"It's JUNK rock, that's what it is," Sango rolled her eyes. "In what universe is that a name?"

"No one said you had to have an opinion," Maddi snorted. "What would you name him then, huh? Something clichéd, like Dusk?"

"Err…" Sango's voice caught in her throat, Maddi had called her spot-on. Maddi's face already began to shift into a smirk.

"No, I was actually thinking what about, um… Skull… Skull… Skully?"

Maddi burst out laughing.

"Is that any better?" She cackled, Sango's cheeks flushing.

"It's still better than Grim Reaper!" Sango protested.

"Sure, sure, whatever," Maddi laughed. "I'll think about it! In the meantime, I think we should stick with Duskull for now."

"So about that friend of mine, what do you think?" Sango asked.

"Hmm…" Maddi stood up, still holding the Duskull in her arms, and walked over to the window. There was still a bit of concern on her face as she looked outside.

"It's pretty cold outside," she said worriedly.

"Well, sounds like a simple solution then, got any pokeballs?"

Maddi blinked, turning back to Sango.

"Are you sure? I heard it was bad to carry newborn pokemon in pokeballs for the first 48 hours of their life. That it could lead to developmental problems."

"Oh, damn, really?" Sango asked, surprised.

"Yeah, if it was that easy I would have put him in a pokeball before he wrecked my room."

"So what do you want to do, then? Stay in here for today and tomorrow?"

"Hmm…" Maddi gave it some thought, and then glanced out the window again. Sango could see that she wanted to go outside, but was still somewhat anxious about it. She could sort of understand where Maddi was coming from.

"Duskull inhabit graveyards at night, right?" Sango asked.

"I think so, yeah," Maddi said, nodding.

"Well, then they're used to the cold," Sango explained. "A little bit of a winter chill shouldn't be too much of a problem, don't you think? Besides, I think the little guy would like to get a little peek at the world outside your bedroom, don't you?"

Maddi nodded, that made a lot of sense. Sango stood up from the bed as Maddi set Duskull down on her desk, the ghost pokemon floating up into the air. She walked over to her closet and pulled out a big bulky black parka, sliding it over herself. She turned back to Sango, but was really looking more at her Duskull than at Sango herself.

"Ready to go?" Maddi asked.

"Sure, sounds good!" Sango said, nodding to Silver. The two girls headed for the door, Silver floating behind them. Maddi looked back at Duskull and gave it a warm smile that Sango never saw directed at people from the punkish girl. She raised her hand and beckoned gently to the ghost pokemon, bidding it to follow her.

"Dusk," the Duskull said, floating over to her. He followed behind Maddi, almost mimicking Silver's hovering behind Sango. It seemed that the baby pokemon was learning fast. Maddi closed the door behind them and the two girls and their pokemon headed down the hall, walking downstairs to go outside into the snow.

Stepping out of the Pichu House, a gust of cold wind hit the girls in the face, Silver shifting into his hail form automatically in response to the cold weather and like drizzle of falling snow overhead. Sango took a deep breath of the crisp air and smiled, looking back to Maddi.

"Winter's not so bad, I guess," Sango laughed. "Earlier my friends were having a snowball fight, and it looked like a lot of fun. You ever been in a snowball fight before?"

"Not really," Maddi muttered, her attention focused solely on the ghost pokemon above her head. "Duskull, are you okay? It's not too cold, is it?"

"Maddi, he's fine," Sango said, resisting the urge to smile at the girl's hidden nurturing side. "You don't have to baby him, it's not like he- …Well, I guess he WAS born yesterday, but still. He's a pokemon you know, look. He doesn't mind the cold at all."

"Duskull!" Duskull nodded, the ghostly pokemon not bothered by the cold air in the least. Maddi let out a sigh of relief, relaxing a little bit.

"Well, I guess so, then," she said, turning back to Sango. "Lead the way."

Sango nodded her head and the girls tromped through the snow, Maddi's leather boots surprisingly waterproof.

"What was that you were saying before? About snowball fights?" Maddi asked. She didn't really care that much, but she had been rude to the other girl and wanted to make up for it a little, so she didn't mind asking the question, even just to make small talk.

"Oh, it's nothing, really," Sango dismissed it, knowing that Maddi wasn't much one for small talk anyway.

"Tell me."

"Well, just that Blake and his girlfriend were having fun doing a snowball fight this morning," Sango explained, "and I was wondering if you've ever done one before."

"Blake's girlfriend, that's Ayame Toujou, right? The tall girl? She's a senior, yeah?" Maddi asked, remembering the taller girl who had come in the middle of their battle the day before.

"Yeah, that's her, she's great," Sango laughed.

"Uh-huh," Maddi said, smelling something a little suspicious in Sango's laugh. "Bet she really kicked his ass."

"Oh? What do you mean?" Sango asked, curious.

"Well, I mean, she's a track star, right? Plus, she's training up pokemon for the pokeathlon, which is a really intense event. Her pokemon must go through some serious special training, that's what I hear, and I hear that there's even an event specifically dedicated to snowball fights."

"Really?" Sango asked, surprised. She hadn't heard about that.

"I grew up in Johto," Maddi explained. "It's a pretty big deal over there, apparently one of the gym leaders is a major celebrity on twitter and she's a really big fan of it. She even participates in it herself, occasionally, since the Pokeathlon Champion Stadium is right by the city that she leads the gym in. So she started tweeting about it, and so it's a way bigger deal there then it is in the rest of the world, though it's still pretty big there, too."

"…You a fan?" Sango asked, raising her eyebrow. Maddi seemed to be pretty well-informed on the subject.

Maddi rolled her arms and snorted. Sango chose to take that as a no.

"Well, if that's all true, then yeah, I bet she must have kicked Blake's ass!" Sango laughed again. "Still, it looks like they had fun."

"…So what's the deal there?" Maddi asked quietly. She wasn't much one for prying, but Sango seemed to be almost forcing herself somehow. But if she didn't want to talk about it, then Maddi wasn't going to pry. Sango was welcome to her privacy if she wanted it.

"What do you mean?" Sango asked.

"The deal between you and those two," Maddi said, glancing at Sango out of the corner of her eye. "You talk about them a lot, you know."

"Well, of course, they're my friends," Sango said.

"…Then why do you always seem like you're trying not to cry when you bring them up?"

Sango froze in place, looking down into the snow. Maddi kept walking, before turning back to look at her. It seemed like she'd hit the nail on the head.

"It…"

Sango raised her head and smiled sadly at Maddi.

"It's nothing, really," Sango said, her voice not providing Maddi with any false reassurance, and certainly not reassuring her, either. "I'm happy for them. They… they're so happy together, it brings a smile to my face every time I see them."

Maddi didn't have anything to say on the subject. It was quite clear that Sango wasn't telling her the truth, a truth that Maddi could suspect just by looking at the pain in that smile of hers. But then, that wasn't any of Maddi's business. Maddi hated people prying into her personal business, and so she had no intention of prying into hers. That was their relationship issue to deal with, and Maddi didn't have any part of it. So she waited for Sango to catch up with her.

"I see, I must have misunderstood," Maddi said, nodding her head.

"Don't worry, everything's good," Sango chirped. She smiled again.

Of course Sango would smile when she was around them. Because if she didn't force herself to smile, then just being around the two would make her burst into tears. And she wasn't that sort of girl. Blake and Ayame were happy together, and Sango was happy for them. And she would continue to be happy for them, even if she had to tear her heart into tiny pieces to do it.

Maddi wisely decided to change the subject.

"You were very good with Duskull earlier," she said, the two heading towards the fields where the Caretaking Course buildings were located.

"Of course, I try to get along with any pokemon, especially the ones who misbehave!" Sango laughed.

"Yeah, I guess, but that's not what I meant," Maddi said. "I mean, most girls… well, most people in general, they aren't so calm and loving around ghost pokemon, you know? A lot of people would get scared, I think. I mean, ghost types totally fit my aesthetic so I don't mind them very much, but you, well…"

Maddi didn't want to say Sango looked like the kind of cheery girl who would jump at her own shadow after seeing a horror movie, but there wasn't really a better way to put it.

"…I guess I just didn't think that someone so normal would be able to get along with ghost types that well, you know?"

"Well, I'm quite special," Sango boasted. A nostalgic look crossed her face. "Actually, way back when I was a kid I used to be really scared of them, so scared I couldn't go to sleep without hugging Silver and plugging in night lights into every socket of the house."

Now THAT sounded more like what Maddi was expecting.

"What changed?" She asked.

Sango's eyes became glassy and her cheeks, flushed from the cold, pulled back into a warm smile as her breath slipped past her lips in a fog of vapor.

"My mother died."

Maddi's eyebrow twitched in irritation. Apparently, small talk with Sango was like walking through a mine field. This is why she hated social obligations.

"Sorry, I-"

"No, it's fine," Sango said, shaking her head. Maddi looked at her a little closer. She didn't… SEEM bothered by it.

"…Still, sorry," Maddi apologized again.

"When I was really little, my mom used to sleep in my room with me when she was home," Sango explained. "She was a tough and awesome pokemon ranger, see, so I wasn't afraid of anything when she was there. And then, well… she wasn't there. And my dad wasn't really there, either. So I got really, really scared at night. Whenever my dad wasn't home, I would sleep with the lights on. And then, well… one night, when he was home, I heard a bump in my room and ran to get him, scared out of my life."

Sango let out a long sigh, and looked up at the overcast sky, her breath floating up and dispersing into the atmosphere.

"I thought it was a ghost pokemon coming to take me away, you know? I was really young back then, but now… now, ghost types are just fine. I'm not scared of ghost pokemon, or real ghosts anymore, not after that night."

"…Why, what happened?" Maddi asked, a little curious.

Sango turned back to her and smiled.

"I told my dad what happened, and he patted me on the head and told me that I was being silly, and that I shouldn't be afraid of ghosts or ghost pokemon."

"…And that worked?"

Sango shook her head.

"No, not until he helped me understand. See, my dad told me something really simple that I'd never thought about, even though it should have been obvious."

Maddi didn't want to admit that she was curious, but she urged Sango on with a slight nod of her head. Even Silver and Duskull were interested.

"He told me 'Sango, you don't need to be afraid of ghosts, sweetie. You know why? Because if there's a ghost in your room, then I'm sure it's your mommy, watching over you while you're asleep. And while she's there, I know for a fact that she won't let any of the other, bad ghosts get to you, don't you know that?'"

Maddi blinked, her eyes widening.

"Yeah, I know, it's kinda silly," Sango admitted, scratching the back of her hair sheepishly. "I mean, ghost pokemon are one thing, but real ghosts, well…"

She glanced back up at the sky and smiled. "Still… even with a real ghost, or a ghost pokemon… I still can't help but feel like everything will be okay as long as my mom is looking down on me, you know?"

Maddi caught up with Sango, and nodded her head in agreement, the two pokemon following after her. She wanted to speak up, but she found her voice caught in her throat. For a brief moment, she considered talking with Sango about her own experiences, her own losses. Sango had just opened up to her about something real, something personal… shouldn't Maddi do the same? Still… she found that she wasn't quite able to do it, not yet, anyway. She reached up to her throat and ran her fingers over the studs lining her collar.

"I think that's a nice story," she said simply, Sango thanking her with a smile. That was the most she could manage right now, a brief moment of genuine empathy and understanding.

Aww, Maddi and Sango are slowly getting closer together.