The Commander has defeated the Phantom, and as we can imagine, the Phantom probably isn't very happy with this. But what will come out of this victory? Is it the decisive end to the war that it seems to be? Or is there more at play here? What's the deal with that weird rock? Will the Phantom refine the Shadow Pokemon? There are a lot of things that will stem from this, if you ask me this is just the beginning. Remember to review!

KedharS: He's definitely not happy. Or is he…?

Rowlets and Oshawotts: I'm glad I was able to please. This is something I've been looking forward to for a while, the whole arc was building up to it, after all.

Just a Bad Writer for Fun: Sorry, I don't really have anything planned for the 600th chapter, 600 isn't a significant milestone for me.

Aquahaze675: The Phantom probably didn't tell her. As for the stone, well, it's not the Phantom giving it away after all, it's the tournament announcers, Lila and Darla. And they don't know what it is, either. So who can say?

Thunder Fire: It's hard to say just what it is. I guess we'll have to find out. I certainly don't know of any Mega Stones that do that, and besides, Mega Evolution is just a theory.

JoshGamerV: Don't worry, I know that tournaments aren't everybody's thing. This is the last real "tournament" for quite some time if memory serves, moving forward expect more fights like in the interim between the Fall Festival Tournament and the Winter Tag Tournament; story-related battles that are intrinsic to the plot, as well as trainers training. Idk when the next major tournament will be, but probably not for a while. Months at least, if I've paced things out properly.

Pokemon Academy: Beginning of Beginnings

Chapter 596

The atmosphere in the Phantom Stadium was odd for a little bit after the match had resolved. Both trainers had recalled their pokemon, but it still felt like the battle was ongoing. Even when the Phantom left the stadium in silent rage, his presence was still looming in the dark of the night.

Tensions were high among the audience, and people were still feeling a little sick to their stomachs. Fortunately, the shadows had only flooded the stands for about a minute or so, and they didn't seem to be leaving behind any side-effects. Even the pokemon out of their pokeballs for one reason or another didn't seem any worse-off. But Lila and Darla still agreed that it was in the best interests of everyone to cut the recognition ceremony short and contact medical teams to get everyone in for checkups.

So rather than some fancy ceremony, the Commander was simply proclaimed the victor and walked up to the center of the battlefield to be congratulated by Lila and Darla.

"Sorry," Lila said, smiling bashfully up at him. "I know this isn't exactly the moment of acclaim that you were hoping for, but, well…"

"We need to get everyone checked out," Darla came to Lila's defense. "Those shadows might have done who knows what. So we have to cut things a little short."

"No, not at all," Alden assured the two idols with a relaxed grin. "I didn't really enter for the fame or prize or what not."

Well, yeah, I mean, everyone already knows who you are… Lila and Darla resisted the urge to quip, keeping their smiles up.

"Anyway! Congratulations on your victory, Alden," Darla said, her tone surprisingly gracious. "As one of your fellow competitors, I thought it would be fitting that I was the first to congratulate you. You really did your best."

She gave him a coy wink. "And thanks for giving your little brother a good smacking. It was so sweet of you to avenge my loss."

Lila's eye twitched, not letting her jealousy at Darla's flirting get the better of her. Calm down, girl, she's just putting on an act.

"And I want to congratulate you as well," Lila interrupted them, taking Alden's hand and giving him a sweet smile. Yeah, screw keeping her jealousy under control, she was stopping this NOW. "I've been watching all your matches from day 1. I know just how hard you've worked to get here, and how hard your pokemon have fought. So, congratulations!"

Lila's sickeningly sweet smile didn't show anything about her inner jealousy, and Alden returned it with a genuine grin that almost made her feel bad. She held up the microphone to him. "So, is there anything you'd like to say?"

"Thanks ladies," he replied politely. "I gave it the best that I could! I fought against my opponents' Sense with all my pokemon's strength, and believed in them all the way through! Now, if you'll excuse me…" Alden snatched the microphone from Lila's hand, much to her surprise.

"Hey, what are you-?!" Lila gaped, not sure if this was okay or not. But she shut her mouth as the Commander addressed the audience.

"Now then, you guys have seen some rather amazing battles this past week," Alden declared loudly to the crowd. "I, and many other trainers, have all fought their hardest, but now I emerged the winner! But that wasn't nearly enough to satisfy my 'Sense'! All it did was excite my Sense even more! And I'm sure there are a lot of you out there who feel the same way! If these matches excited you the way they did me, if your Sense is telling you that you need to have an amazing fight, like the ones you saw here, then come challenge me! I'll fight anyone who can give me a good battle, because that's what it means to be a Pokemon Trainer! To love the thrill of the fight, and challenge any opponent you can in order to heighten your 'Sense'!"

The crowd burst out in loud cheers, but Cynthia suspected that Vic was just being especially loud. Either way, though, there was definitely excitement to be found.

Alden handed the microphone back to Lila and relaxed, satisfied.

"Yeah, this is gonna be great," he nodded.

Lila sighed in spite of herself. He wasn't even interested in the prize, it seemed. He really had been in this only for the glory of the fight itself. As she was thinking that, something tugged at the back of her mind. Something about the prize, but she couldn't quite remember what it was. That night had been so hectic and she was so tired that it had completely slipped her mind.

"Excuse me, Commander," Darla cleared her throat, catching Alden's attention. He turned to see that in the commotion of his announcement she had slipped off the uplifted arena and was now returning, with the glass case holding the prize in her arms. "Now that we've congratulated you for your victory, allow me to present you with your prize."

She held it up to him and he took a look at it.

"…It's a rock," Alden said, like that wasn't the most obvious statement in the world. "I mean, it's a nice rock. I can show it my friends. They don't have rocks that look this nice."

Lila couldn't help but burst out laughing at that, and not even Darla's sharp gaze could keep her from breaking character, she practically rolled on the ground.

"The Phantom did not explain what it was," Darla replied, handing the glass case over to the Commander. "When he contacted the school, he said that he believed it was an evolutionary stone of some sort, but that he could not find what the use of it was. So he decided to offer it as a prize for the tournament."

Alden took the case and looked at the stone inside. It was bright and a little shiny with a very intricate pattern of raises and edges, and it really did look like some sort of polished jewel. Maybe it was some new kind of evolutionary stone, he couldn't be sure. He definitely knew that he didn't have a use for it, though.

But he wasn't going to complain. After all, he had no interest in a prize in the first place! He'd just come for the challenge of the fights, and this tournament had been more than satisfactory in that regard. The actual prize didn't really matter as far as he was concerned.

"Well, thank you!" Alden received it graciously all the same, even though he figured it would probably just sit on his shelf. Maybe he'd put it in his trophy case, it was basically a trophy in the first place, after all. "I'll take good care of it!"

And with that, the Phantom Cup had come to a close, and everyone was urged to go the nurse's office as soon as possible for a checkup. Medical staff had already set up a booth in order to examine any immediate concerns, which was helpful.

Fortunately for Blake and his group of friends, Olivia's Rapidash had protected them from the effects of the shadowy smoke entirely, which meant they could leave without having to go get a checkup!

And Olivia wasn't about to let them forget it, either.

"It was nothing, really," Olivia assured them as they walked out of the stadium. "Twilight and I were happy to lend a hand! Honestly!" It wasn't technically a lie, it was just that Olivia wasn't the altruist that she made herself out to be. Annoyingly though, Alcea and Kate quickly excused themselves not long after leaving the stadium, which meant holding her salvation over everyone's heads quickly lost its enjoyment.

"Maddi, I still think you and Kitty should go to the infirmary though," Cynthia said, frowning. "You guys were in really bad shape. You especially, Kitty."

"I know, but I'm fine now, honestly," Kitty assured her, even though she was still a sickly pale complexion. Cynthia wasn't having it, and neither was Julia.

"No, Cynthia's right," Julia insisted. "I know you wanted to watch the matches, so I didn't say anything. But those Shadow Pokemon… the effect they had on you… it was worse than when you were still struggling with… you know."

"What's the big deal?" Dakota asked, nosing in as usual. "I mean, I know that those Shadow Pokemon are scary, especially when that Dragapult went wild, but come on, the shadows didn't even get to us, you guys are fine, right?"

Everyone gave Dakota cautious looks, and Kitty went even paler somehow. No one knew for sure how much Dakota knew about Kitty's harmonia, but they knew she knew NOTHING about Maddi's condition; hell, half the people here didn't.

While everyone tried to figure out how to throw her off the scent, it was thankfully Serefina who came to Kitty's rescue, thwacking Dakota on the noggin.

"Hey!" Dakota groaned, rubbing her head in irritation. "What was that for?"

"She's feeling sick, and there's no need to pry into why," Serefina said, giving her friend a disapproving frown. "Let's leave them alone, and just be grateful that none of us got afflicted with those shadows, Dakota."

"But Seri-!"

"Besides, don't you have an article to write for your paper?" Serefina reminded her, raising her eyebrow. "That was quite a battle that just happened, don't you need to go get your experience down on the page while it's still fresh in your mind? I must imagine there's a lot of work to be done before print tomorrow!"

Dakota gasped, her eyes growing wide as saucers. "OH! Oh, that's right! I nearly forgot in all the commotion, thanks Seri!" Dakota turned and dashed away, disappearing in the blink of an eye with her camera clutched in her greedy fingers.

Akira turned to Serefina, clearly impressed. "You've gotta teach me how to do that someday," he laughed.

Serefina gave him a cool expression that made him realize that maybe he should have kept his mouth shut instead.

"I think you should be more worried about keeping Dakota around than about driving her off, wouldn't you say?" She asked, Akira glancing down in shame. Of course Serefina knew about their relationship issues. Unable to face her, he headed off after Dakota.

With her two friends handled, Serefina turned to Olivia and lowered her head respectfully.

"Thank you, Empress, for your Rapidash helping us," she politely thanked Olivia.

It took a lot of willpower to keep Olivia from licking her chops. Serefina was definitely one of the most delicious girls on this campus.

"As I said, it was my pleasure," Olivia assured her, her voice taking on a throaty, seductive tinge that made Ayame roll her eyes. This was a familiar sight. Olivia reached out and tilted Serefina's head back up, staring into the brunette's eyes. "Although if you'd like to express your gratitude in private, say, over drinks, back at my place…?"

"I appreciate your offer," Serefina politely replied, giving Olivia a respectful smile as she gently removed the older girl's hand, "but I'm afraid I don't think that way about other girls."

Cynthia coughed up blood, her heart ripped out of her chest. Olivia kept her composure a lot better, simply returning Serefina's polite smile. She nodded her head. "Quite the pity. If you change your mind, my offer still stands."

Serefina didn't reply with anything more than an even smile, letting the Empress know that the conversation was done.

"…Alas," Olivia sighed. "It appears that I'll be spending Luvdisc Fishing Day and the Star Dance all on my lonesome this year…"

"…I'm sure you'll find someone suitable," Serefina said. "After all, you're quite the star, aren't you Empress Himeko?" Politely excusing herself, Serefina turned and headed off in the same direction as her friends did.

"And thus I shall leave with the tattered remains of my heart," Olivia sighed to dramatic effect. She turned to Blake with a wink. "But Blake, do remember that Valentine's Day IS coming up. And I know a certain girl who's just dying to be invited to the Star Dance, after all…"

Ayame's cheeks turned crimson and she looked down, flushed. Laughing to herself, Olivia skipped off, but not before stopping and giving one last look back, scanning over everyone before her eyes landed on Sango… or more specifically, the fishing pole in her hands.

"In the meantime, with Marion Rivers not here, I wonder what will become of the Luvdisc Fishing Day celebration? It would be quite the shame to miss it, the Mermaid did love those little fishing festivals so dearly." Olivia sighed again and shrugged her shoulders, giving Sango a pointed look. Sango blushed and glanced aside, embarrassed.

"I… um, that's… not really up to me," Sango replied. Olivia shrugged again, past the point of caring, and turned to stroll off.

"What was that she was talking about?" Blake asked, confused. "Something about a dance?"

Cynthia slapped her face in frustration. "Blake, are you mental?! You don't know about the Star Dance? It's only, like, the most romantic event of the year! Way better than the Winter Party!" She let out a long, swooning sigh.

"No, honestly, I have no idea. What is it?" Blake asked, turning to Ayame for clarification. Ayame coughed, clearing her throat slightly, a little bit embarrassed herself. She turned away from Blake, and he could see her start to blush. "Aya?"

"I, um… don't know much about it, actually," she muttered, scratching her ribbon sheepishly. "Um, maybe ask someone else? I mean… I sort of… ignored events like that, so…"

"Wow, you guys are like the least romantic couple in the world," Reiner said, rolling his eyes. An elbow to the gut from Nikita stopped his snickering.

"And were you planning to invite me to the dance?" She quietly asked, trying to sound annoyed and not excited or hopeful, keeping her voice low to not draw attention to them.

"Of-of course," he assured her, though he couldn't meet her gaze as he said it. He scratched his head, blushing a little. "I mean… I was just thinking of a really romantic way to do it, so…" Unfortunately, he'd said that part a little too loudly.

"…Urgh!" Nikita now it was Nikita's turn to be caught off-guard. "You… you know I'm not good with romantic stuff!" She said, crouching down and hiding her face. It felt like everyone was staring at her, she'd practically begged her boyfriend to ask her to the dance in front of all of her friends! She would never have done something so reckless before, they were all a bunch of bad influences!

"Geez, it sounds like you guys don't know anything!"

To everyone's surprise, the person who had spoken was Callie.

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

"You should know better than anyone, considering you're Marion's apprentice or whatever," Callie said, jamming a tiny accusatory finger up into Sango's chest, since her face was too high to reach. "She didn't mention any of this?"

Sango shook her head.

Callie sighed. "Well, whatever, I can explain it. I guess Ian over there was too busy mountain climbing or whatever to remember from last year, but basically, the Star Dance is our school's Valentine's Day dance."

"Yeah, pretty sure even the readers have put that one together by now," Maddi testily replied. "Listen, I don't really care about stuff like this, so can I go?"

"No!" Cynthia insisted, grabbing Maddi by the arm. "Because I care about it, and I'm not letting you go until you go get checked up in the infirmary!"

Maddi blinked, staring at Cynthia like she had just evolved into a Mr. Mime. "Wait, you want to listen to the explanation first, THEN go to the infirmary? Isn't that kinda… backwards?"

Cynthia opened her mouth to reply, but realized that anything she said would make her sound like an idiot and so she shut up.

"…Fine, but go get checked up!" Cynthia begged, releasing Maddi's arm.

"Yeah, whatever," Maddi muttered, walking off. At least she was headed in the general direction of the infirmary, that was something.

"And I'll see you tomorrow afternoon!" Cynthia called after her into the night. "For that match with Anabel!"

"Whatever," Maddi called back.

"Anabel? Who's that?" Sango asked. Cynthia waved a dismissive hand.

"Don't worry about them, it's not a big deal," she assured her friend. She turned back to Callie and began rubbing her hands eagerly. "So, you were saying, about this Star Festival?"

"So basically, Valentine's Day is separated into two activities for the school," Callie explained. "The Luvdisc Fishing Day, during the day, and the Star Dance, in the evening."

She continued, "the Luvdisc Fishing Day is sort of like a couple's event. The way it works, is everyone goes to Lover's Pond, which is a pond located in the forest, and fishes for Luvdisc. And if a couple catch a pair of Luvdisc, it's supposed to mean good luck."

"Aww! That's adorable!" Kitty gushed.

"But that's not all," Callie continued. "It's also a singles event."

Cynthia's ears perked up at this.

"Oh, really?"

"Yep. A lot of people go there to fish by themselves. And there are two reasons for that," Callie explained. "The first reason, because they're single, and they're trying to meet someone else who's single. So let's say you're a guy, and you see cute girl fishing by herself, you can go up and sit beside her and maybe start chatting. You know, and if you're lucky, maybe you fish up some Luvdisc. But even if you don't catch anything, maybe you two still want to go out sometime. It's really cute! It's that term, what was it called… oh, Luvdiscing!"

"I don't think that's what 'Luvdiscing' means," Blake replied. Luvdiscing, or as it was more graphically named, 'Whiscashing', was the act of pretending to be a cute single person on the internet for the purpose of luring someone for an offline meet-up where they'd do god-knows-what.

"Whatever," Callie said, waving her hand dismissively. "So that's one reason someone might go by themselves. Another reason they might go, if not to meet someone, well…" She glanced at Nick, not nearly as subtly as she thought she was. "Maybe they already have someone they like. Maybe they're already in a relationship, in fact. And maybe they think that giving a Luvdisc that they caught as a gift to the person they like would be a romantic way to make a confession. Or if they're already dating, just a really romantic, touching gesture. The kind of sweet thing that a boyfriend would do for a girlfriend, for instance. Especially a girlfriend who's been hoping for someone to do something that sweet and romantic for her since she was four years old. You know. Maybe."

By that point, Callie was staring so intensely at Nick that he would have had to be braindead not to get what she was insinuating.

"W-Wow, that's… really something," Nick murmured, trying very very hard to pretend like he wasn't thinking about catching a Luvdisc for his girlfriend so he could at least pretend for both their sakes that she hadn't basically demanded it.

"And what about the dance?" Cynthia asked. "I'm assuming it's a couple's thing? What if a couple wanted to bring a third? That'd be cool, right?"

"No, it wouldn't be," Ayame sharply replied, Cynthia letting out a sigh as her shoulders slumped over.

"The dance is just a dance," Callie said. She let out a wistful sigh. "But a really romantic dance… the kind of dance that a girl might wish that a boy would ask her to… perhaps on a quiet date, to a movie and then a steak restaurant, followed by a long walk in the night to stare at the stars, and then he'd take her by the hand and ask her to the dance… yeah, that'd be something, wouldn't it?"

It was getting increasingly difficult for Nick to withstand the pressure of Callie's stare. Clearly this had been something she'd been looking forward to for a while, and now that she had a boyfriend her dream dance was coming true if she had to go full Carry.

Sango was feeling a different kind of pressure. While Nick was the one in the hot seat directly, Marion had been the one responsible for the Luvdisc Fishing Day event, and now, well… Sango wasn't sure what to do. She'd go talk to that girl, Jessica, who worked in the aquarium with Marion in the morning, maybe she'd have an idea.

She certainly didn't want to be the one responsible for Callie's dream Valentine's Day not coming true, that was for sure.

"This stuff is all so dumb," Julia said, rolling her eyes. "I don't know why you guys are so focused no romance and stuff. Right, Ian?"

Ian gave a lopsided shrug. He didn't care much one way or another, but Julia took that as confirmation enough.

Meanwhile, Kitty was trying really, really hard not to cry. Her day had been hard enough, and Julia's words were a dagger in the gut whether she was aware of it or not.

Blake and Ayame shared a silent glance, both quietly agreeing to sneak away while they could. Blake didn't exactly know what they were going to do for Valentine's Day, but it was a little over two weeks away, and both of them were looking forward to it.

Then, Blake's phone dinged with a text, catching Cynthia's attention.

"Ah! They're trying to escape!" She shouted, not at all serious. "I guess things were getting a little too hot and heavy for the cute little virgin couple~"

Blake was about to reply back "you're a virgin too!" but his eye caught the new message and his brain immediately shifted gears.

From: BLACK MAGIC WOMAN

Blake. We need to meet. Now.

-Sylvia

Blake had had enough stress this evening. Why on earth did Sylvia insist on piling on more?

Now that the tournament is over, it's finally time to give our cast some room to breathe! A lot has happened, but there's still plenty to go now that we've moved onto the next arcs! What should we cover first? The Commander's fight against Anabel? Sango struggling to set up the Luvdisc Fishing Day event in Marion's place, in spite of her status as a lonely single herself? Kitty and Maddi's harmonia issues? Dakota's article? Callie's dream dance date? Elaina and Gerard's fall into despair? Caelia's new career as a pop idol? Misato and Will's relationship status? Sylvia's text to Blake? All sorts of directions we can go!