Elaina has fallen over the deep end! But Blake is still resolved to save her. Will he be able to do it? Or will he find himself lost, baulking against her again? He's resolved to speak with her, but what's going to come from it? We'll have to find out!

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

Just a Bad Writer for Fun: I hope it will end well, too.

KedharS: I hope for the same.

Rowlets and Oshawotts: Well, you never know. Maybe Blake just has to seriously set his mind to saving her.

Pokemon Academy: Beginning of Beginnings

Chapter 710

"Dear Elizabeth."

Sango paused, staring at her computer screen. She stroked her chin in contemplation, and quickly began backspacing.

"Hello, Elizabeth."

"There, much better," she determined, nodding.

"Hello, Elizabeth. How are things? Silver and I are doing very good, but things here are very hectic right now, I'm sorry to say. After you left, it was very rough. But I have some good news and some bad news. The good news is that Blake, the boy who that strange tablet swallowed, somehow managed to find his way back home. Can you believe that? It's completely impossible, like you said, but it still happened. I found it had to believe myself, but I'm just happy that he's back. That's the good news. Now for the bad news. There was an incident that happened here last week. One of the students was attacked, and ended up in critical condition. Don't worry, I'm fine. But we're all very worried, since we don't know who it was that did it. Right now, the campus is in a panic, but I'm doing fine. I'm going to keep doing my best," Sango assured her with the final sentence.

She looked over the letter. For a little while, she wondered if she shouldn't go into more detail with Elizabeth, before finally deciding against it. If she talked any more about the situation with Dakota then Elizabeth would just get more worried, and she didn't want to spend her time dealing with that right now.

She continued her email.

"In other news, do you remember that girl, Elaina Bishop? The one who you met the last time you were here, she was wearing a mask. Well, she's not doing so well. A lot of people think that she's the culprit, but I personally don't believe that. She sort of went off the deep end and began lashing out violently because a bunch of students were attacking her and treating her awfully, the poor thing. And Blake wasn't okay with it, so he went to come protect her, because he's just that kind of guy."

Sango paused, wondering if she should mention the events of Valentine's Day. She quickly decided that no, that wasn't something that Elizabeth needed to know about. She would have liked to receive some comfort, but right now she was more focused on keeping the email relevant.

Really, she just didn't feel like bringing it up again, because she imagined exactly what Elizabeth's reaction would be, and didn't have it in her for another overflowing, gushing email promising her all the emotional support that she needed.

She would rather focus on the more important stuff. This was just an email update, after all, and the business with Elaina was way more important.

"Now, I wasn't there, so I didn't see what happened. But it seems that Elaina, who used to care about Blake quite a lot, is now having more complicated feelings about him. She seemed to almost break down around him and scream out in anger. I'm really worried about the two of them, because Blake has a lot of passion for stuff like this."

Sango sighed. She knew he cared about taking care of his friends, and that he considered Elaina his friend, but sometimes she wished that he was more the kind of person who would pick his battles carefully.

Not that she would tell him not to pick this battle. Elaina definitely needed a champion, an advocate. She just wished that Blake would be a little more careful… gosh, this was just so complicated, why did she have to deal with this?!

"Well anyway, Blake went to her to try and see what was going on and if he could help. But unfortunately, Elaina was rejecting his help completely. And I just heard it from Blake, that she was angry at him and didn't want his help, so…"

Sango realized that she needed to wrap it up soon. This had meant to be a simple greeting and check in to let Elizabeth know how she was doing, not a novel. But she had so much to say, and this was keeping her complex and overwhelming thoughts in balance. So right now, she was going to focus her attention on wrapping up the email and letting her know that everything was okay.

"Blake confronted her outside her dorm," Sango reported. "And that's when things really got interesting."

"Blake, what are you doing here?" Cynthia asked curiously as she and Sango stepped out of the Pikachu Hall to see Blake standing on the steps. Ayame was standing a ways off with her arms crossed in front of her chest, clearly impatient with what was happening.

"I'm waiting for someone," Blake muttered. "Don't worry about it."

Sango had a sinking suspicion she knew who he was waiting for. Like Cynthia had said, Marion wasn't the only one who was being looked at suspiciously, a lot of people were suspicious of Elaina Bishop, too. She figured that she had something to do with that, Blake had a seriously chip on his shoulder when it came to the harmonia user.

Sango could understand that, at least, even if she wasn't exactly thrilled about it. She hoped that everything would work out okay, but with the business with Dakota she didn't want anything violent to happen to someone else she knew.

"Are you waiting for-" She was about to ask Blake if he might want to reconsider, but before the sentence could even start the issue at hand was forced.

"Elaina!" Blake gasped, rising to his feet. Elaina Bishop walked down the path, unescorted, her body swaying slightly in the wind like she was overwhelmed with exhaustion.

"Blake… Harker…" She muttered, and Sango felt a cold chill wash past her as the freezing winds caught the air.

"Elaina, hey, I know what you said, but…" Blake found himself stumbling over his words. He wasn't sure what to say, but he was first focused on getting the words out and letting her know that he was here for her.

"What are you doing here?" She demanded through gritted teeth, glaring at him from behind her mask. "I told you to leave me alone."

"I know you did, and I'm sorry," Blake apologized. "But right now, I think that it's important that you and I talk."

"I have nothing to talk about with you," Elaina growled, moving to walk around him, but Blake wasn't about to let that happen. He stepped in her way and held her arms out, frustrating her even more. "Get out of the way, you jerk!" She shouted.

Sango suppressed a laugh. It was just so odd for Elaina Bishop of all people to call someone a jerk.

"Hey Blake, maybe this isn't such a bright idea," Cynthia said worriedly. She knew what Elaina was capable of, and just like Sango she didn't want Blake to get hurt trying to do something stupid like reach out to her.

"I told you before, I'm not going to leave you alone," Blake reminded her. "I'm sorry, but that's just not my style. As long as you need my help, I'm going to be there to help you."

"I don't need your help!" Elaina shouted, raising her hand and pushing his chest backwards. A blast of wind came with her, and Blake found himself thrown out of the way, stumbling back over the steps in confusion.

"Elaina-"

"Just leave me alone!" She shouted over her shoulder as she stomped up the stairs. Sango, Cynthia, and Silver practically scattered like bowling pins, but before Elizabeth could get into the safety of the door, Blake stepped up to pursue her.

"Elaina, wait!" Blake shouted, grabbing her wrist and holding her in place. She turned back to him, enraged, and tried to shake her hand free, but his grip was insistent. He wasn't going anywhere, much to her chagrin.

"What do you want from me?!" Elaina demanded. "I already told you to leave me alone! I don't want you here, get the hell away!"

"I need to help you," Blake shouted back at her. "I want to help you! What the hell happened, huh?! Why do you keep pushing me away all of a sudden? You didn't used to be like this!"

"You know damn well why," Elaina hissed. "I don't want your help! You never cared about me, you didn't ever want to help me, not really!"

Blake couldn't believe what he was hearing, no one could. Sango and Cynthia looked at each other in disbelief. Elaina actually thought that Blake didn't care about her, and didn't want to help her? That made absolutely no sense.

"Hey, don't you think that's going a little too far?" The person who spoke up first in Blake's defense wasn't Blake himself, but Ayame Toujou. She walked through the snow and confronted the two of them, the scowl on her face showing she meant business.

"What are you talking about?" Elaina scowled behind her mask, turning her attention towards the tomboy. "I don't give a damn what you're saying, you don't know shit about what's going on."

"That's because you're not talking," Ayame calmly reminded her, taking care not to lose her temper. "If you want us to know what you're talking about and understand where you're coming from, then you need to use your words instead of just lashing out in anger."

Elaina grit her teeth and prepared a shout, but her voice died in her throat. She choked out a mutter and shook her head, sighing.

"Fine. Fine, fine, fine," she muttered, shaking her head. She shook her hand free, and this time Blake let her go, seeing that something had changed. She wasn't going to run away this time. "You want to know why I don't want your help, Blake?" She continued.

"Yeah, I don't understand!" Blake said, nodding his head. "So just tell me what's going on, Elaina, so that I can help somehow."

"I told you I don't want your help!" Elaina snapped, crossing her arms defensively over her chest. "Look… all I want right now… well…"

She sighed, and her arms dropped to her sides. She hung her head. "I know about your sister, Blake. Her name is Guinevere, right?"

Blake gasped, his blood going cold. Cynthia and Sango gasped as well, and Ayame's face hardened. They all had their own thoughts on Blake's sister, even if Ayame had never met the girl herself. But how had Elaina learned about her?

"You know… about Gwen?" Blake asked, confused. His heart was beating harshly and he felt a tremble run through him that went all the way down to his toes. Just thinking about Gwen right now, it made him feel…

He shook his head, he didn't have the time for feelings like that.

"Gerard told me all about her," Elaina said, unable and unwilling to keep the bitterness out of her voice. "How she has harmonia, how she meant the world to her, and how she ran away because people wouldn't accept her harmonia and thought she was a freak."

Blake gasped in outrage. That wasn't at all what happened. "He's lying!" Blake practically screamed. "That son of a bitch doesn't know anything about Gwen! That's not at all how it happened, he's just trying to-"

"I don't care about that," Elaina rudely interrupted him. "Something like that doesn't mean a damn to me, do you understand? The only thing that matters is the fact that you care about your sister. But you don't care about me."

Blake stared at her in shock. He had gone through several emotions in the last few minutes, fear, worry, guilt, and most recently, anger. But right now, the emotion he was feeling was confusion. He stared at her, not sure what to think.

"Of course I care about you," he said softly, not sure how she could think that he didn't. "Why would you think I didn't?"

"All your work to help me get over my harmonia… it wasn't about helping me," Elaina growled, clenching her fists. "It was because you were trying to prove you could help your sister, isn't that right? You wanted to save her from this power, but you never wanted to save me."

She trembled, tears rolling down her cheeks from behind her mask. It was so much, too much for her. She didn't want to face it. She didn't want to talk to him like this, feel his eyes on her, treating her like something pathetic.

"I thought that you really cared about me…" She had meant to shout it in accusation, but the words escaped her lips like the trembled whispers of a frightened child. "But you only cared about her. You only saw her. So what should I do now, Blake?"

"I do care about you!" Blake cried. "I want to help you, just like how I helped Kitty, and how I want to help Gwen! Just because I didn't tell you about her, that doesn't mean that I-"

"You don't care about me!" Elaina exclaimed, her anger returning as a blast of cold air struck Blake in the face. "You didn't even bother telling me you had made it back home!"

Blake froze. "Wait, you… you knew about that?"

Sango realized she had seriously fucked up. Had she really forgotten to mention the whole mess about Elaina and Gerard to him? Um… shit, she was so overwhelmed that night when he came back, followed up by the whole mess on Valentine's Day, with the Luvdisc Fishing Day and Aidan's confession, and then Dakota's attack…

Yeah, this was on her. She really had screwed up big time with this one. She glanced at Elaina and Blake and shuffled back a little, suddenly not wanting anyone to look her way.

"You disappeared… I thought… I thought you were dead…" Elaina muttered. She couldn't stand the sight of him right now and turned to look away from him. "I thought I was never going to see you again. And right now, I don't want to see you again!"

She regained her strength as she remembered how much pain she had gone through, agonizing over Blake. But she didn't feel that weakness anymore. She had tried to hate him, and had worked her hardest to get over him after she had learned about his sister, and how much he had worked for her, how he had practically used Elaina to validate himself.

And this was the pain of it, the fact that no matter how hard she tried, she just couldn't bring herself to do it. She wanted to hate him, but in the end…

In the end, she was right here, still letting him sway her heart. She had realized it back then, thinking that he was dead, no matter how much she wanted to get rid of him, that she just couldn't hide those feelings away.

Whatever else he was, Blake had accepted her for who she was. He didn't see her, he probably didn't even care about her.

But he didn't hate or despise her, and that was enough for Elaina.

She was disgusted by how pathetic she was. She couldn't even get over a boy she liked, even when she knew he didn't care about her.

"Please…" She begged. "I want… I just… I just want to be alone. I don't want your hand, I don't want your sweet words! I just…"

She bit back her tears. "I just want to forget about you! Why won't you leave me alone?!"

"Because I care about you!" Blake shouted back. "You're important to me, Elaina, and I don't want to see you suffering like this!"

He stepped forward and grabbed her by the collar, an act of aggression that startled everyone there. Blake had actually grabbed her?

"I don't care if you don't want me around," Blake said. "I've said that all along! You're someone I care about! And I hate to see you suffer like this! Even if… Even if it's because of me, I just… I don't want to see you going through this much pain…"

He turned his head down, and dropped his hands. His eyes were wet.

Elaina wasn't sure what she was hearing. She stared in disbelief at Blake. What he was talking about… it was like…

Had she been wrong? Because the way he acted, it was like he really did care about her. But… But that couldn't be…

"Stop… Stop pretending you care!" Elaina shouted, her harmonia flaring up. She didn't want to hear words like that! "I don't want you to tell me you care about me! I don't want to face those feelings, I just want… I…"

She didn't even know what she wanted.

But Ayame could see it clear as day.

"Blake… don't you get it? Elaina, she-"

"SHUT UP!" Elaina howled, her harmonia bursting out. A blast of wind slammed into Blake and knocked him backwards.

"U-Uwaah!" Blake gasped, tripping back and nearly tumbling down the stairs. Having lost his balance, he was about to splat, but thankfully Ayame was there to catch him. She placed her hand on his back and turned her glare upon Elaina, seething with rage.

"You don't understand anything!" Ayame shouted. "You have no idea how worried Blake's been about you!"

"He doesn't care about me, he only used me so he could get more knowledge of harmonia, so he could try to help his sister! And after he proved that he could bring someone back from the edge, he didn't want anything to do with me! He just threw me away!"

"Elaina, I didn't!" Blake cried. "I just… this semester has-"

"Shut up!" Elaina shouted. She couldn't stand the sound of his voice. "Shut the hell up! You don't have the right to say anything to me! You just leave me alone! Live your happy life with your happy little girlfriend and your friends, taking care of Kuroso, and saving your sister, and leave me out of it!"

She was practically begging. Everyone could hear the desperation in her voice. Blake couldn't understand. Why was she like this? She had always been teetering close to the edge, but it was like she had leapt off it herself.

Was it really just because he had been occupied with other things, and hadn't reached out to her when she needed it?

"It isn't Blake's job to take responsibility for you!" Ayame shouted. She was quickly losing her patience with this girl. She just wanted Blake to come in and save her, and she didn't try to do anything to save herself? Ridiculous. "Blake isn't responsible for-"

"AYA!" Blake interrupted her, pulling from her arms and stepping forward. Ayame was stunned.

"Blake, what…"

"I know that it's not my responsibility, but… I promised," Blake said quietly. "I promised her that I would save her, that I wouldn't leave her side… and I broke that promise. Elaina… I'm sorry."

"I don't want your apologies!" Elaina growled. "I want you to leave me alone! If you won't be there for me, if you won't help me, then leave me alone!"

"Elaina, I'm trying to understand, please, what did I do wrong?!" Blake begged. "Why is it so wrong that I'm trying to help you? Why are you so mad?"

"Because you don't want to help me!" Elaina cried. "Not really!"

"I do!" Blake insisted.

Elaina trembled. How could he say that? How could he lie to her face like that?

"Then… Then… if you really… If you really mean that, then WHY DID YOU SAVE KUROSO AND NOT ME?!" Her cry was met with a massive blast of wind, a tornado practically forming around the building.

Blake stared at her in shock. "Wh-What?"

"You helped her… you saved her…" Elaina sobbed, collapsing to her knees. "You never gave up, so why… why… why didn't you save me?"

Her last question came as a weak little whimper.

Ayame wanted to defend Blake, but she couldn't. Sango and Cynthia were also stunned silent. Everyone just stood there and watched Elaina cry in the snow.

"Three days."

Everyone turned to Blake in surprise, Elaina included. His face was resolute, and he raised three fingers.

"Three days. Give me three days to prepare. And then… let's fight."

"Why?!" Elaina demanded. "Why do you-"

"Because I'm going to save you," Blake stated. "Three days, Elaina. I'm going to save you in three days. Wait for it."

"Everyone was shocked by his bold declaration, Elizabeth," Sango typed. She still couldn't believe it even as she was writing it down. "I honestly don't know what's going to happen, but I still thought I should let you know. I hope… I hope everything is okay. Love Sango."

…

Sango thought for a moment and retyped something. "From Sango."

So, three days. Blake has promised to save Elaina in three days. But what does that mean? Will he really be able to save her? We'll have to find out!