Elaina has really done it this time! She doesn't deserve all the abuse that she gets, but sadly that isn't enough to make it stop. Hopefully there will be a happy end for her, but it probably won't be soon.

The Pokemon Academy Best Girl 2 Finals are up and running! Who do you think is deserving of the title of Best Girl in the second year of the contest? Cast your votes! We've only gotten a few votes so far, and I know that a lot of people are reading, so come on guys! The poll's in the profile, who do you think deserves to take the crown?

Finalists: Sylvia, Marion, Sango

Rowlets and Oshawotts: Cool! So it's up? Can you tell us how to get there? doesn't allow links, so you might need to find some other way of letting people know how to find it.

KedharS: I hope so too, but I sadly doubt that will be the case.

Just a Bad Writer for Fun: Yeah, that's the scary and worrisome part of it all. It makes perfect sense, of course, that it would happen, but that doesn't make it any better, either. Hopefully everything will go well though.

Pokemon Academy: Beginning of Beginnings

Chapter 708

Blake had no idea what was going on. Watching Elaina walk away, he felt so weak and powerless. Elaina, she had just…

He didn't know what to say. Why had she shouted at him like that? What had he done? He had been so caught off-guard by her outburst he didn't even think to take after her, to try and figure out what was wrong or why she was so angry.

Just watched her leave, paralyzed. At the moment, he found his mind filled with memories of his past interactions with Elaina. She'd always been angry and hostile, and he'd always been trying to get closer to her, even as she tried to keep him at arm's length.

What happened when I was gone? Blake wondered in disbelief. It had been so long since he'd had a real conversation with Elaina…

He couldn't help it. Real life had sucked him in at some point, as had that ancient tablet. And somewhere along the way, something had happened between him and Elaina that had resulted in her treating him like this.

"Why did you come here, damn you?! You don't care about me! You won't hold me, or look after me! I don't want you here, LEAVE ME ALONE!"

What had he done to make her say things like that? To make her feel that way? It was something that he couldn't believe.

"Blake… are you okay?"

Blake raised his head to see Aya standing over him, a look of pain on her face. She was clearly feeling bad for him, and he appreciated that, but at the moment his heart was conflicted. He accepted the hand she offered him, and let her help him to her feet.

"I… I'm fine," Blake muttered, shaking his head. "Sorry, it's just…"

"I get it," Aya said softly. "You're really scared about her. You want to help her, but you can't help her right now. She doesn't want your help."

Ayame could actually sympathize with Elaina slightly. It may have been under slightly different circumstances, but it wasn't so long ago that she was the one who had been resisting Blake's advances and trying to shut him out of her life. Elaina was doing the same thing in her eyes, trying to keep Blake away from her, even though he was just trying to help.

She remembered talking to Elaina for a little, trying to reach her. It hadn't been that long ago, only a few short months. There had still been snow on the ground. But it was so far back that she could barely remember what they had talked about; all she knew was that Elaina had gotten angry and violent, and things had quickly devolved into a whole different problem, with Elaina challenging her to a pokemon battle and nearly sending her to the hospital.

Needless to say, that while she could sympathize with what the other girl was feeling and could understand not wanting to let Blake in even though it would be for the best, she didn't particularly LIKE Elaina all that much.

Ayame sighed, and placed her hand on his shoulder. She turned him towards her so that he was no longer watching Elaina depart, and pulled him in close. Right now, Blake needed a hug to take his mind off of things.

It helped, but only slightly. She couldn't change the reality of the situation, which was that Blake felt like he DID need to speak with Elaina. That was the critical problem.

Even if Elaina had left his sight, she hadn't left his thoughts. Blake rested in Aya's arms and thought about Elaina, wondering what he could do to reach out to her. In the end, he still cared about her, because she was important to him.

Blake just wished there was something more that he could do. He was used to chasing after her like this, but what she had said, it was causing him to rethink everything. Before, she had been more receptive of his advances, but right now…

He shook his head. There wasn't a whole lot he could think to do. But he just had to hope that while Elaina was struggling, she would eventually be able to see him as someone she could confide in again, so that she could let him help her.

He had been able to help Kitty with her problems with harmonia, and he was hoping to help Gwen. If possible, he wanted to help Elaina, too. But she unfortunately didn't seem to want his help, as painful as that was to admit.

While Blake accepted comfort from Ayame, Elaina was raging like a tornado, with no one around to comfort her.

She stormed across campus, the wind practically ripping the air in front of her to pieces. She needed to keep herself balanced, but she just couldn't.

"Yes, Elaina. You can feel it, can't you? The power rippling around you?" There it was again. The specter that haunted her thoughts. It appeared in the corner of her eye, black hood and shadows and a white mask like a ghost. Harmonia, the manifestation of her accursed abilities.

Elaina demanded that the thing go away, but it wouldn't. She picked up the pace, hoping it would leave her alone, but it clung to her instead, seeping into her and wrapping its tendrils around her, not letting her free.

The snow blew away in the path in front of her, clearing the way forward as she approached the dormitory that Gerard dwelled. Her heart pounded in her chest. Just… Just a little longer, and she could get to him.

"What's the point? He can't do what you want him to," Harmonia whispered in her ear. Elaina felt her blood run cold, and she tried to ignore the cold words of her double. But she couldn't get them out of her ears, and it made her heart sting with fear.

"Shut up!" She hissed.

"You know it's true. You could only get your powers under control with Blake. Because of your feelings for him."

"SHUT UP!" She shouted. She didn't want to hear those words! The wind around her burst out in a gale that cleared the ground around her, revealing brick beneath the snow. "SHUT UP! I don't want to hear that! I don't want to feel this way! You don't know how I feel! I don't love Blake, I can't! There's no point in hoping for that! He won't ever love me! He won't be by my side! He never wanted to help me, he just wanted to use me! I hate him! I HATE HIM I HATE HIM I HATE HIM!"

Harmonia let out a cruel, cold laugh. "You say that, but we both know the truth, don't we? We both know that you can't really think that way. Not right now. Not about him. You know how you feel about him."

"Shut up!" Elaina wailed. She didn't love him, she couldn't. She knew how he felt about her! He only saw her as a way to get to his sister! But love… Love was out of the question! He had chosen Ayame Toujou! He didn't love her, he didn't even see her as someone worth being friends with!

How could he? No one else ever did.

"I'm a tool," she whispered. "That's all I am. No one could ever love someone like me. My only hope is to keep going until I can fix myself…"

"And if you never can?" Harmonia whispered. "You forget Elaina. I can see the inside of your thoughts. I know how you really feel. What you really fear. I'm a part of you, Elaina, we're the same person inside. And right now? You know that I'm right. You know that there's nothing you can do, because you know that the chance is…"

"Don't say it!" Elaina stumbled forward, nearly losing her balance and falling down into the snow. She didn't want to hear what harmonia had to say, she couldn't. She was too scared to confront her fear about the future.

"You might never be fixed. You know Gerard could never do it for you. Not like Blake can. Because you don't feel about him the same way as you feel about Blake," Harmonia said plainly, forcing Elaina to confront the cold reality of her situation.

Her heart broke. But she couldn't deny Harmonia's words, as painful as they were for her to hear. She began to tremble, and lost her balance, falling to her knees. The wind raging around her cleared the snow away, and left her trembling and alone, trapped with her feelings and wishing that things were different.

But they weren't. She couldn't keep her heart balanced, not with the cruel words landing in her ears, words that she couldn't keep from piercing her heart.

"You love Blake. Now, if only Blake loved you," Harmonia cackled. "If only he cared about you. If only he saw you. If only he wanted to help you. But no, he only cares about the ones around him. His friends and his family. You were just a convenient pet. Something to enjoy, something to test his theory on in order to help himself."

Elaina didn't want to confront that reality. But she knew it was true. She tried to push her feelings aside, but she couldn't.

Harmonia wrapped her arms around her, holding her close. She felt her other self's head rest on her shoulder, and heard her sickening voices dancing around in her ear.

"Come now, Elaina… you know what you have to do. Just let me inside. I'm the only one who cares about you, I'm the only one who loves you. Everyone else? They can't do anything for you. They can't understand you the way I can. So just give yourself to me, Elaina. I promise that I'll do for you what no one else can."

Elaina couldn't do it, she refused to do it. She wanted nothing to do with this other self of hers. But she had nowhere left to go. All she could do was kneel there, feeling empty and lost, with nowhere left to go.

If only Blake had…

No, there was no point in thinking about stuff like that, just like there was no point in trying to fight against Harmonia.

Elaina pushed her worries aside and rose to her feet. Her wind died down and she stumbled forward, banishing Harmonia from her thoughts.

She didn't want to give in. She didn't know why Harmonia had disappeared, but for now she wasn't going to question it. Even if it was just a lull in her powers, it was worth it for her. Her head was pounding and she could feel warmth on her lip. Her nose was bleeding.

She didn't even bother to look to make sure she was alone. Her thoughts were too jumbled at this point. She ripped her mask off and let the blood fall into the snow, leaning over and coughing as her head pounded away. It had been some time since her powers had struck her like this. She fumbled into her bag for a pill bottle and unscrewed it, flinging a handful of pills into her mouth to try and stabilize herself.

One wasn't doing it anymore. She needed to keep taking them until they could balance her out and make her feel better. That was what was important. She needed her head to be clearer. She wiped her nose, staining her glove. She didn't care, though. Right now, the only thing that mattered to her was going forward.

Sliding her mask back on now that her headache was evening out and her nosebleed had stopped, she looked around and saw that there wasn't anyone around. Sighing in relief, she promised herself that she wouldn't do it again.

She felt her thoughts clearing. She finished her walk to the dormitory, hoping to get to safety before Harmonia returned.

Ever since she had given into that thing… It was hard to explain. She had thrown herself into her power, because that was convenient. But at the same time, she didn't want to give in. Her heart was tearing itself in half out of conflict, not sure what to do one way or the other. All Elaina knew was that she wanted to be free.

She didn't want to feel this miserable.

But she didn't know how to do better.

I love Blake… but I can't. Elaina had to accept that reality. As much as she loathed him, she couldn't truly hate him. She loved him, after all, and what she wanted most was for him to feel the same way about her. But she knew that would never happen.

Not as long as Ayame Toujou was by her side.

She moved up the stairs and waited before Gerard's door for some time. Taking a deep breath, she raised her hand and knocked on the door. She needed to see him, to make sure that everything was okay. If she didn't… If…

"Gerard?" She croaked out, her voice small and fearful.

She missed her mom.

"Elaina?" Gerard opened the door, looking at her with surprise on his face. "What are you doing here? You shouldn't be here."

"I'm sorry…" she whispered, slumping forward. He caught her and brought her over to the bed, setting her down.

"You realize there's a curfew? And a mandatory escort? You shouldn't even be out of your room!" Gerard exclaimed. "Are you okay? What's wrong?"

"I'm… fine…" Elaina muttered. She wasn't fine, her headache had returned. But she didn't need to tell him that, it wouldn't help anything. "I just… I need…"

"Let me check," Gerard said, reaching over to remove her mask.

Tired as she was, Elaina still responded immediately. She swung her hand and batted him away, scurrying across the bed to get away from him. This was out of the question. "Don't!" She shouted, hyperventilating. "Don't touch it! Please!"

Gerard nodded, and backed off. He was worried about her condition but he knew better than to try and touch her mask.

"Are you sure you're okay?" He asked again instead. Although he had been quarantined the same way as everyone else without a roommate had basically been, his position as a member of the Eight Leaders meant that he was more aware than usual about the goings on about the Pokemon Academy, and that meant he was privy to a lot of rumors.

And they weren't good rumors.

The idea that Elaina was behind the attack on Dakota Evans was absurd. She wouldn't have any reason to do it, she hated using violence. And more compelling was the fact that she would have had to leave her room and go to the library. Gerard wasn't even sure if Elaina could point out the library on a map of the campus, let alone find someone there and attack her.

And if she had somehow managed to do it, she would be a complete wreck. That wasn't to say that she was a beacon of emotional surety right now, but Gerard knew Elaina fairly well. If she had snapped and tried to murder someone, she would be pretty much broken completely.

There wouldn't have just been one body dropping, there would be several. And the force needed to restrain her would NOT have been pretty. It was quite fortunate that that worst case scenario hadn't happened.

But of course, the student body wouldn't be convinced with something like that.

Elaina was feared. She was hated. Everyone wanted her gone. Gerard had used that to his advantage in order to isolate her, but now it seemed that the public's negative perception of Elaina had tipped over the edge, and now they were turning angry and violent.

It was really quite a good thing.

Gerard resisted the urge to smile. With Elaina backed into a corner like this, there was nowhere for her to turn. She was curled up in a ball on his bed, trembling, and he could feel the fear radiating out of her, it was practically striking him in the face.

She's almost there, Gerard thought, staring at the condition that Elaina was in. Just one more push, and she'll give in completely. She'll be all mine. And when that happens, it won't matter if the person she's fighting is an innocent. She'll destroy them completely with that power of hers, and forget all about this need to "fix" herself.

Gerard didn't think there was anything about Elaina that needed fixing. She was almost the perfect weapon. Control over her harmonia? Only insofar as it aided her in being a better fighter. He hoped that she would take care of herself, of course, it wouldn't do to have a tool that would completely collapse in on herself.

But the bigger concern was making sure that this power was honed. Seeing that Elaina still wasn't responding, he approached the bed and sat down beside her, ignoring the forceful wind pushing against him. Elaina was turning in on herself, trying to put up her walls, and Gerard wasn't about to let that happen.

"What's the matter?" Gerard asked softly.

He needed her to be open to him, at the very least.

"Why?" Elaina asked him through gritted teeth, turning her towards him. A visage of porcelain concealed her face, but her voice gave away all the frustration that she was obviously feeling. "Tell me, why do I have to go through this?"

It was a question that Gerard had been asked before. Sometimes he thought it was the only question on Elaina's mind. And he still didn't know how he was supposed to answer it.

"It's unfortunate, the situation you're in," Gerard offered.

"It isn't FAIR!" Elaina exclaimed. "I didn't DO anything, I didn't attack her, but all of them look at me like I'm a monster, like I'M the culprit! Just because…"

She shook her head, and bit her lip. Her skull throbbed in pain. Why? It wasn't fair.

"That's what the weak do," Gerard said. "They gather together against people that are stronger than they are, because they're scared. You've faced it many times already, but it seems like there's nothing that can be done."

"It isn't fair," Elaina mumbled to herself, like a broken record stuck on repeat. "It isn't fair… I didn't do anything…"

Gerard was sure that must have been damaging. But then, Elaina was used to things like this. She'd been persecuted all her life. It would have hurt, but to end up in a state like this, something else had to have happened…

"What happened?" Gerard asked. He sensed something off, and there was only one person he knew who could put Elaina in this state. "Is it something about Blake?"

And that's when Elaina exploded. As she ranted about Blake and what she was going through, about the way he had treated her and her wish that he would just leave her alone, a smile slowly spread across Gerard's face, a smile he hid with his hand.

This was exactly what he needed.

So not only is Elaina back, but Gerard as well! The poor girl just can't catch a break! What does Gerard have in mind, will he finally push Elaina over the deep end? Or will she manage to find her way back, and recover? Things really aren't looking good for her though, that's for sure.