Will Ayame be alright?! She was swept up by the hurricane… can she make it out okay?! The battle reaches its conclusion in this chapter… hopefully, it won't have a tragic end!

KedharS: Well, she's definitely in a bad situation this chapter, I'm sorry. She'll face a challenge so difficult, she might not be able to withstand it!

Tambry96bj: Yeah, she's a pretty decent trainer.

Thunder Fire: Interesting, what do you have against Kate vs. Alcea and Cynthia vs. Caelia?

Pokemon Academy: Beginning of Beginnings

Chapter 343

The wind and ice swept Ayame away and she clenched her eyes shut, preparing for it all to end. And then somehow… she didn't feel the winds battering her. She didn't feel the freezing ice striking her skin, or her body getting swept away by the force. She just felt all… floaty.

And cold. And wet.

Had she been flung into a lake or something? Because she felt like she was soaking wet. She opened her eyes and saw the shimmering veil of water in front of her, her eyes widening in shock and she resisted the urge to gasp in shock, which would have put a fast end to her life. She clasped her hands over her mouth and nose in order to prevent from inadvertently drowning. She flailed and kicked, and realized she was surrounded by water on all sides as she tried to free herself.

Ayame twisted around, trying to see what was going on. Beyond the barrier of water, she could see the hurricane still raging around her, slowly winding down. She felt a sinking feeling in her gut, and felt her body fall.

The water around Ayame broke, and she burst out, gasping, finding herself on solid ground once again. She sputtered and coughed, shivering. Suddenly, she found herself incredibly cold, the chill of winter seeping into her soaked body. She was gonna catch hypothermia if she was lucky.

"Sorry, sorry! Didn't mean ta freeze ya ta death!" A playful voice chirped. Ayame sat up and turned her trembling head, ice already starting to form on the tips of her hair.

A tanned girl stood behind her, balancing a fishing poll over her shoulder with one hand and holding a dive ball up with the other. Floating over her head was a large Mantine, water swirling around her.

"Marion!" Sango gasped.

"You! What-?! What are you?!" Elaina sputtered, shocked.

Doria glanced at the girl who had just inserted herself into the fray. Roll spun around and looked at her, eyes wide.

"Wh-wh-what a-a-a-are you d-doing here?" Ayame gasped, shivering.

"Just rescuing ya, ya big ol' dum-dum!" Marion giggled. She draped a thermal blanket over the shivering Ayame.

"I-I…" Ayame shivered. Admittedly, she had nearly been swept away by the violent Elaina's hurricane attack.

"What are you doing?!" Elaina demanded of Marion. "We are in the middle of a battle, we don't need you to come around and interrupt us."

Marion took a deep breath and stood up straight, turning to Elaina and the battlefield, adjusting her hat properly before addressing the girl.

"You were in the middle of a battle," Marion explained calmly. "I am now putting a stop to this battle. So now you are not."

Elaina's forehead throbbed with pain, which made her irritation grow.

"Who are you to-?!"

"Look at yourself!" Marion snapped, the tone of her voice shocking to Sango and Maddi, who had no idea that she would do something like that. Serefina's expression was a lot more reserved. Unlike the other two… she had seen Marion Rivers like this before.

Marion… Marion looks pissed! Sango gasped in shock, not quite sure what to make of the expression on the face of a girl who, while occasionally serious, Sango had not once seen lose her temper like this. Even when she got mad at Sango, that couldn't be compared to the rage in Marion's voice as she addressed Elaina. It was like there was a side of Marion Rivers that Sango had never seen before, a side of her that she was just now getting exposed to.

And it was chilling, to say the least.

Serefina gulped. Marion right now had anger in her eyes and a scowl on her face. She hadn't seen that look since she was a first year. She had only seen it once before, in fact.

"Look at yourself," Marion said calmly, gesturing to Elaina. She turned her attention to Ayame. "You, look at yourself, too. What exactly are you doing, Ayame Toujou? Is Olivia going to be happy, knowing that you nearly got yourself into another accident?"

"That's… that wasn't-! I was trying to-!"

"And what about Blake's feelings?" Marion snapped, cutting her off with a finger. "What do you think he would feel, if he knew that the person he was trying so desperately to help had ended up hurting the girl he loves? Did you even stop to think?"

"That's…" Ayame was shivering, and from more than just the cold. Her face was pale as she pictured the look on Blake's face, hearing that she had been badly injured or even, god forbid, killed by Elaina Bishop. It was a horrifying thought, and she felt an all-too-familiar compulsion to vomit rearing its ugly head from deep within her gut.

"AS FOR YOU."

Marion turned to Elaina, seething.

"Ayame is a senior and should know better. So she isn't off the hook for this. But you, Elaina, you know a lot more than she does. Or what, is this who you are? Have you finally decided? Do you just not care about hospitalizing those around you? Is that who the real Elaina Bishop is? Because that's not what I remember seeing when I looked into your heart."

Marion's words cut into Elaina, and the pain in her head only grew. She sputtered and cursed, glaring at the girl from behind her mask, but ultimately could say nothing.

"I ch-challenged her," Ayame said, her teeth chattering. "Be-because I w-wanted, to teach her a lesson, and get her to s-see the error in her ways."

"You were an idiot," Marion said, shaking her head. "You were an idiot and you almost got yourself killed."

"I was fucking winning that fight!" Ayame protested.

"Maybe you were," Marion scoffed. "Or maybe that hurricane was about to fling you into a tree and turn you into an Ayame-kabob. Guess we won't know. But you want to know what I can say, Ayame Toujou? That right now, that girl, she is in no state of mind to be taught a lesson in anything. Do I make myself clear?"

Ayame nodded her head.

"You… what are you even-"

"Elaina, how's your head?" Marion cut her off, shooting her eyes over to the masked girl.

"Wh-what-?"

"Your. Head." Marion repeated, raising her finger to press under the brim of her sunhat. "You aren't seriously considering going on with this fight, are you?"

"Of course I am!" Elaina exclaimed, the wind swirling around her. Doria nodded in agreement. "I haven't even begun to get serious yet! You can't seriously tell me that I should end things now!"

"Right now you're on a high brought on by harmonia, more specifically, repeated, serious use of it," Marion scowled. The look in her crystal-blue eyes was chilling. "You aren't giving your body enough time to rest. You're like a boat engine running at full power for too long, without enough of a cooldown. You burn too hot too often without enough breaks, and what's going to happen is that you'll burn right through your lifeforce and die."

The seriousness with which Marion chastised Elaina terrified everyone there. Not a single person could raise a word in argument against the girl who was usually so casual and laid-back, but was now speaking with a measured anger fueled by a barely-controlled rage. It was enough to keep everyone on edge, not sure how to respond to this version of Marion.

"Do you know the state of your body right now?" Marion asked. "And your mind? What the condition of your harmonia is like? A few days ago, you were in bad shape. Right now? The state you're in? It's like you're running on fumes. Stop."

"Who are you to tell me-"

"Do you know what would have happened if I hadn't shown up? Even if you hadn't hurt this girl? Let me tell you what's in store for you, because I promise you it's not a pretty picture. When I was a kid, I… my…" Marion's voice caught in her throat. She stormed through the snow to confront Elaina directly, standing face-to-mask with the younger girl.

"When I was a kid, I lived in a place that was a nightmare for people like us. They would push us to the absolute limit of our abilities, it was utter torture. The pain you're in right now… that was usual for us. Then, one day… my talent was the highest of all of us, but even I had reached my limit. If I had been taken for testing, I might not have been able to endure it. But… one of my friends took my place. And the strain that the testing put on him…"

She shook her head.

"No more. I'm not going to let you go through that, too. So it's stopping here. You aren't continuing this fight, do you understand me?"

Elaina was about to say something, to oppose the girl's assertion. But before she could… she found the words catch in her throat at the sight in front of her. Marion was no longer mad. Now, the look on her face could be better described as resolved. Her eyes flashed with light, and a torrent of water was swirling around her, unseen by anyone but Elaina. Marion's harmonia roared and surged like nothing Elaina had seen from the girl before. Was this really the same harmonia that, not a week prior, had given off the air of a gentle, babbling brook? No, there was nothing gentle about this, it was like a dam had burst and now that river was rushing forward, ready to consume Elaina whole. She swallowed in fear, taking a shaky step back.

"Of course, if you want to continue your match… then I suppose it would be acceptable for me to take Ayame's place, would that be alright with you?" Marion's voice was quiet, but pointed, and it gave Elaina pause.

"That's… well, fine!" She spat, recalling Doria to her pokeball. Her harmonia was restrained, released, and her high had worn off. And like clockwork, the migraines got worse. Were… were the aftereffects always this bad? She stumbled back, unable to keep her balance as the world seemed to spin around her and she felt herself passing out.

"Elaina!" Marion gasped, her expression softening. She knelt by the girl's side, shaking her, trying to wake her up. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw something small and white slip from Elaina's mitten and land in the snow, slightly sinking down into the powder.

"Is she-?!" Serefina gasped, running towards them, Sango following after her. Maddi remained standing where she was, not exactly the most invested girl in the world in terms of helping the psychotic Elaina Bishop.

"She's okay," Marion said, able to tell with a glance by the state of her harmonia. "She's just exhausted. Like I said, she needs her rest. You don't need to concern yourself with Elaina's condition right now."

Marion turned and nodded her head at Ayame, who was still freezing even under the thermal blanket. Her clothes were beginning to freeze to her body.

"She's the one who really needs your help. You need to get her inside and warmed up, fast, or she'll go into shock!"

"Er…"

"Sango!" Marion barked, Sango flinching in response. "There's someone in need of help, get to it, okay? Isn't that your job as a pokemon ranger?"

"R-right!" Sango gasped, nodding her head. She turned and ran over to the shivering Ayame, who was clutching her Voltorb to her chest for comfort.

"Come on, Ayame," Sango said, helping Ayame to her feet. "Let's get you inside, there's a fireplace in the Pikachu House. And we need to get you out of those wet clothes."

"She can borrow some of my stuff," Maddi said, walking over and wrapping Ayame's other arm over her shoulder.

"Th-thanks," Ayame shivered, recalling her Voltorb to their pokeball. The two girls helped the half-frozen Ayame inside as Serefina assisted Marion with getting Elaina back up.

"Urgh… what… Huh?" Elaina sat up, still groggy, her head pounding insistently. She glanced up to see Ayame walking past her.

"It looks like we're c-cutting this s-short," Ayame stuttered as she passed Elaina, shooting her a sharp look at made Elaina flinch. "But even though I was gonna win… it's pretty fucking clear I'm not the one that's gonna pound sense into that stubborn head of yours."

"Someone like you, talking like you know anything," Elaina muttered, shaking her head, not willing to even spare Ayame another look, "I have nothing to say to you."

"Fine, fine," Ayame said, shaking her head. A smirk crossed her face, struggling to stay there in opposition to her chattering teeth. "I know I can't do anything… that's not my role to play right now. Blake, though? Good luck trying to hide behind that mask, Elaina, because I'm gonna promise you, compared to me, Blake isn't one to give up so easily on someone like you. You can look forward to him pulling you out of that shell, okay?"

With that, the burden on Ayame's heart lessened and she entered the dormitory building behind their makeshift battlefield.

"Come on, let's get you inside, too," Serefina said, helping Elaina to her feet. "Marion?"

"In a minute," Marion said, recalling Mana to her dive ball, waving Serefina off. Serefina nodded, turning to Elaina, but the girl rejected any help whatsoever, storming into the dorm on shaky legs, much to Serefina's consternation. She sighed, and reached down into the snow, hoisting up the large bag of pokemon food into her arms, heading in after the girls.

Marion was left on her own, thinking things through. She remembered seeing something slip from Elaina's fingers and fall into the snow. She knelt down and dug into the small hole around where she'd seen it, her fingers stinging from the cold. She endured the sharp feeling and she found something thin and round. She wrapped her fingers around it and pulled the small pill out, standing up and looking at the pile of snow in her hand. Brushing it away, she saw the white pill, her eyes widening.

No… no, it couldn't be…

She whirled around and ran into the Pikachu House.

"Sango!" Marion shouted, storming into the common room, startling Sango and Ayame. Sango turned to Marion, surprised that she was still looking so serious. Ayame wrapped the blanket tighter around herself. Her soaked clothes were lying on the floor, suggesting that under that thick blanket, she was buck naked, the roaring fire in front of her warming her body.

"M-Marion, what's up?" Sango asked.

"Call Blake here," Marion ordered her. "Now."

Sango gulped and nodded, already digging her phone out of her jacket pocket.

"W-wait, Blake is c-coming here?!" Ayame sputtered, her pale cheeks flushing. "B-but I'm not decent, he can't!"

"This is more important," Marion said.

"Fuck that, not to me!"

"It's fine."

Ayame glanced up to see Maddi walk up, a bag in her hands.

"Are you dry?" Maddi asked.

"Uhum," Ayame nodded, the blanket and the fire having dried her off, and were already on her way to staving off hypothermia.

"Here, put these on then," Maddi said, tossing the clothes to her. Ayame snatched the bag out of the air. After digging through it, she glanced up, her face flushed.

"Um, about… underwear, I don't see-"

"Absolutely not," Maddi automatically rejected her. "Nothing personal. It's just… well…"

Ayame's blush increased.

"F-fine," She muttered, taking the clothes out. "Can you guys, um…"

"Yeah, we'll watch the door," Marion grinned, giving her a thumbs up. "Better close the curtains too, unless ya wanna give campus a nice little peep show."

Ayame only got redder. Sango closed her phone and walked over to the curtains, pulling them closed as Ayame shed the blanket and began putting on Maddi's clothes.

"Um…"

"Done?" Maddi glanced back at Ayame, who had just finished changing.

…Well, "finished" was a debatable terminology.

She had certainly put on all the clothes in the bag.

Whether or not that fit Ayame's definition of "finished" was a different matter.

"Aren't these a little, um…"

The clothes Maddi had given Ayame were a short-sleeved black shirt with flaming skulls on the front, that squeezed tightly to her chest and ended high on her, baring the toned musculature of her midriff and exposing most of her arms. Down below, she was wearing a shiny black leather miniskirt that might have been decent on someone of Maddi's size, but on Ayame it bared way, way more of her legs than she was comfortable with, not even reaching halfway down her thighs. She constantly tugged on the edge of the skirt to pull it down further, but it continued to ride up her legs, much to her continued embarrassment.

Sango nodded in sympathy with Ayame's plight, having bad flashbacks to a certain cheerleader skirt a certain redhead had forced her into.

"Sorry for not being tall," Maddi snidely remarked. "It was the best I could find."

"Can't… even just pants or shorts would be better!" Ayame protested.

"I mostly have tight jeans, but with those legs of yours you wouldn't be able to fit," Maddi dryly replied, Ayame hanging her head.

At about that time, there was a knock on the door of the building.

"Oh! That must be Blake!" Marion chirped, hopping off the couch.

"B-Blake?!" Ayame sputtered in shock. Too flustered, she wasn't able to speak up before Marion headed out of the common room and into the hallway to let him in.

"Excellent! Right on time! C'mon in!" Marion giggled, confirming Ayame's worst fear.

Marion flounced into the common room, and right on her heels was Blake, looking at his phone.

"Sango, what did you mean when you texted me to come to Pikachu… House…" Blake looked up from his phone and suddenly found that he couldn't remember what he was asking about. He didn't know Serefina, Maddi, or even Marion and Sango were in the room, even though one had just let him in and the other had called him here. No, his attention was focused solely on Ayame Toujou dressed in punk gear that was way too short and clung way too tightly to her toned figure to be considered decent, desperately covering herself from his eyes. Totally zoned out, his phone slipped from his fingers as his jaw dropped.

"Er, I mean…" Ayame murmured, averting her eyes from his. If she was Olivia, she would have brazenly presented herself to him for perusal, and relished in his gaze over her body. But she wasn't Olivia, and she was way, WAY too embarrassed to consider doing something so-! Her face got redder and redder.

Still, well, if he liked looking at her like this… maybe he was a fan of the punk look? Or more likely, a fan of tight clothes that were way too short…

Did he like it?!

Because he wasn't saying anything…

She glanced back at him, peeking out at him from behind her wet bangs. He was still staring it was like he was in a state of shock.

"Um… this… these clothes are just…" Ayame glanced down at her skimpy clothes, the hotness in her chest and face staving off the chill from the water and cold winds she'd endured earlier.

Blake snapped back into focus, blinking a few times, and cleared his throat. "Aya… um, would you mind turning around, please, so I could get a better-"

Ayame snapped and flung her wet shirt into his face, irritated.

"You fucking-!"

Well the battle was ended without resolution, but I'll leave it up to your imaginations whether Ayame could have beaten Elaina or not. Win or lose, though, the result would have been what we see here. Elaina just doesn't listen. More importantly, though, it looks like several things are moving forward… most of all, Blake and Ayame's relationship.