Blake and Elaina's match has gotten started. Blake has taken the first loss, but that doesn't mean things are already over! He's going to do the best he can to defeat her, and prove that he's capable of saving her from her harmonia!
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
JoshGamerV: Well we'll have to see, won't we?
Hellraiserphoenix: The Daevas probably have other business to attend to.
Pokemon Academy: Beginning of Beginnings
Chapter 715
Rogen had fainted, but Blake sure as hell wasn't going to let it end so one-sidedly. He could see that Noctre was weakening, in spite of how tough she seemed on the outside. The poison was slowly but surely wearing her down, and Elaina was in very much the same situation. It looked like she was having trouble standing.
Blake didn't let that get the better of him. He was worried for Elaina, sure. But right now, he couldn't afford to show mercy. She had put up countless walls with her anger and sadness, to keep her heart hidden away. And right now, the only way Blake could see to break them down and get to her was through brute force.
It didn't seem like the right thing to do. But Blake wasn't going to second-guess himself. He didn't have the time. So he needed to follow one strong move with another.
I need a pokemon that's good on the defense, to really wear her down, Blake judged. But Rogen hadn't been enough. He didn't have the special stats to withstand the damage that Noctre could dish out. And Maria needed time to recover.
That limited his options, but he had a good idea of who he was going to use next.
"Uni, go!" Blake said, sending out Uni next. The tiny green blob of jelly emerged from her pokeball with a chirp, bobbing up and down excitedly, much to the shock of the audience.
"He chose his Solosis?" Sango gasped in surprise.
"Really? That's one of his three pokemon that I thought he would have left out in this battle," Cynthia said, surprised.
"Not Uni, no!" Claire gasped, shaking her head. "Blake, she isn't used to battling, you won't be able to win with her!"
Blake ignored his friends' concerns. He knew what Uni was capable of, and he knew better than they did that she wasn't a pokemon well-suited for battling.
But he also knew that none of that mattered right now.
"Uni isn't my strongest pokemon," Blake admitted. "She's probably my weakest, next to Silver, if I'm being honest. But there's something that she has, that can't be matched by any of my pokemon." He looked at Uni, and smiled. He turned to Elaina, who actually flinched under his gaze, in spite of the situation.
Blake's eyes were burning with resolve.
"Just like me… Uni knows what it means to lose someone precious to harmonia," Blake said softly. "And that's why, when she sees someone like you, who is so close to falling into the darkness, there's no way she could ever let that happen!"
"Solosis!" Uni cried, and Sango was surprised by how serious she sounded. She liked Blake's Solosis quite a lot, she reminded him a lot of her Castform. She had been nervous about him using her in the Fall Festival Tournament, but using her now, against Elaina?
Sango would have considered that suicide.
But right now, she could question her. Uni seemed like she wanted to fight, and Sango didn't know if it was her place to try and discourage her.
"Ridiculous," Elaina shouted. "You think that's all it takes to win against someone like me?! Wanting it badly enough?! Wanting something isn't enough to get it, and I know that better than most! Fine, Noctre, let's show her what it means to stand up against us and face pain! Use your dark pulse attack, now!"
"NOIVERN!" Noctre howled. She threw her head back and gathered darkness in her jaws, preparing it for a massive blast of dark energy that would destroy the small pokemon.
"That little thing doesn't even have legs," someone behind Sango scoffed. "How could she 'stand up' against Elaina or anyone else?"
Sango recognized that voice, and it made her skin crawl.
"Uni! Use light screen!" Blake ordered.
"Solosis!" Uni chirped. A green sphere of light wrapped around her body. The wave of dark energy slammed into her, bouncing harmlessly off the light screen, barely leaving a scratch on the tiny green pokemon.
"Is that all you anger and frustration can do?" Blake asked. "Because it doesn't seem like it stands a chance against our resolve if you ask me!"
"Shut up, you don't know anything!" Elaina screamed. "Fine, if dark pulse won't work, we'll beat her down with something REAL! Noctre, use your hurricane attack! Blow that pesky Solosis away, light screen and all!"
"Noivern!" Noctre took to the sky, flapping her wings and conjuring up a powerful tornado that flew towards Uni and swept up the tiny pokemon, flinging her around like… well, like a Solosis in the middle of a hurricane.
But Blake had expected that. He knew Uni was strong, and she could withstand it. Now came the next step of his strategy. "Uni! It's time for our special move!"
"Solosis!" Uni chirped, bobbing up and down. She began to glow bright green, and another barrier appeared around her, growing brighter and bigger with each passing second. Soon, it had expanded enough to cover the entire battlefield, covering the stage, and the people and pokemon on top of it, in a clear green bubble.
"What's going on?!" Elaina cried, looking around. She felt so sluggish and heavy all of a sudden, like she could barely move.
"This is our trick room," Blake said. "A special stage we created. In this field, the slower your pokemon naturally is, the faster it can move. And the faster your pokemon naturally is, the more it gets weakened by the trick room's limiting effect!"
Elaina scowled, her head throbbing in pain. "You crafty bastard," she scowled. "Noctre! Hurricane, tear it down!"
"Noivern!" Noctre spread her wings, but she did it incredibly slowly. She was finding it difficult to even flap her wings and stay airborne.
"That won't work. Tsk, tsk. She needs to be thinking smarter than that."
Sango was sure of it now. She turned and leveled a glare at Sylvia Driscoll, who was standing behind her with her Shuppet floating beside her, wearing a cocky smirk on her face.
"Why, what's with that look, Sango?" Sylvia asked, batting her eyelashes. "If I had to hazard a guess, I would say that you aren't exactly my biggest fan."
"…Good guess," Sango spat. "This is more of your nonsense, isn't it?"
Sylvia smirked, shrugging her shoulders. "Well, when my dearly beloved Blake called me up and asked me for a favor, I couldn't resist. He was so sweet about it, too. So I just had to come down here and see how the match was going."
She glanced at Ayame when she said "dearly beloved", but the other girl didn't have anything to say. She wasn't even looking Sylvia's way, focusing her attention solely on the battle.
Someone else took notice, though. Claire stared at Sylvia suspiciously. She'd spent a long time sussing out women with awful intentions towards Blake, and right now her sus-o-meter was blaring louder than anyone she'd ever seen before.
"Uni!" Blake shouted. "Hit her with your psybeam!"
"Solosis!" In a flash, Uni created a ray of rainbow light that shot out from her body and struck Noctre before she could let loose her hurricane, stunning the pokemon.
"Noctre!" Elaina shouted, clutching her skull in pain. "Don't let that get the better of you! Stand up and tear her apart!"
But even as she shouted at Noctre and urged her forward with her harmonia, she could feel that Noctre wasn't up for this. The poison was starting to wear her down, and there wasn't a whole lot that she could do.
Please, Noctre! She urged her Noivern. You have to keep fighting! I have to keep fighting!
Tapping into her desperation, her harmonia flared up, and the wind began to rage inside the bubble, whipping up into a tornado. Noctre rose to her feet and sent the tornado at Uni, the wind slicing through the air and swallowing her.
"Uni, calm mind!" Blake ordered. Uni closed her eyes and began concentrating her psychic powers, boosting her special attack and defense as the hurricane battered against the barrier surrounding her soft body.
When she finished gathering her psychic energies, she unleashed them on Noctre in a powerful bolt of psychic energy.
"Noivern…" Noctre choked out, the powerful psyshock hitting her directly. Elaina felt like her heart had stopped momentarily feeling the electricity running through her, and she stumbled, nearly falling. But she couldn't give in, she wouldn't.
But as much as Elaina wanted to win, as strong as her harmonia was, she couldn't force Noctre through the pain any longer, the Noivern letting out a choked gasp before falling to the ground, drained of her strength.
Elaina's vision was blurry, and she had to stop herself before she did the same.
I'm sorry, Noctre, Elaina silently apologized to her partner. She raised her pokeball and recalled the unconscious dragon to her pokeball.
"Wow!" Sango cheered. "Did you guys see that?!" She looked to the others in confirmation. "It took the combined efforts of three pokemon, but Blake still managed to defeat Elaina's Noivern! Isn't that so cool?!"
"It's definitely reassuring," Julia agreed. She still felt a little tense, but Blake was doing a good job of assuaging her worries.
"Come on, Blake!" Words of encouragement came from the most unlikely of places. Kate, for some reason, was cheering Blake on with all her heart. "Send out Maria again, and poison her next one, too!" She added. Sango rolled her eyes.
"Good luck, Blake," Kitty whispered, her words going unheard over the cheers of Sango and Cynthia. Kitty glanced at Ayame, and felt reassured by the look of strength in the girl's eyes. Ayame looked like she had full confidence in her boyfriend.
That set Kitty's heart at ease.
"Rip and tear them apart, Ayer!" Elaina roared, switching to her next pokemon. Blake was surprise that she didn't send out one of her other pokemon. She had two Ghost types, and she wasn't using either to fight against Uni, relying on her Aerodactyl instead.
"Aero!" Ayer roared, flying into the air. But the effects of the trick room struck him, and he found his flight hindered, limiting his mobility.
"Ah, I see, you want to smash through Blake's strategy quickly then," Gerard mused. "Nicely done, Elaina."
"I didn't expect that!" Blake smiled. "Uni, use reflect to boost your defenses!"
"Solosis!" Another green barrier appeared around Uni's body, heightening her defenses in preparation for Elaina's attack.
But Elaina hadn't come to play. "Ayer!" She spat. "You know exactly what to do!"
"Aerodactyl!" The Aerodactyl landed on the ground, his speed to reduced to fly. He spread his wings and threw back his head, roaring, and rocks tore themselves up out of the ground. The spectators jumped back, startled. Elaina's harmonia wasn't exactly being selective, a large stone tearing itself up from the spot Cynthia had just been standing on.
The rocks passed through the gelatinous barrier and floated up around Uni, hovering in the air around Blake's side of the field.
"…Well now," Blake said, looking around.
"What do you think?" Elaina asked, holding out her hands. Behind her mask, she wore a mad smile. "I heard from a little birdy that you were training quite a lot to defeat me, to try and prove some point. Did you learn any more skills from that ninja, besides just having your Mareanie hide behind dolls? Please, by all means, I would love to see them."
Dokukage kept a straight face, but he looked on with concern. As he'd feared, Blake was now facing one of the harder situations to deal with. Stealth rock was capable of crippling Dokukage's baton pass strategy, and while that wasn't a tactic Blake was likely to implement here, the fact remained that a decent portion of his team was still vulnerable to the move, and he wouldn't be able to fight as tactically as he had been.
Elaina's stealth rock would soften up Blake's party, and her harmonia-boosted pokemon would smash them to pieces. That was definitely something to be concerned about. But Blake didn't look that bothered.
"I expected something like that," Blake admitted. "But I'll let you know right now, Uni doesn't care about something like that! Uni, use psyshock!"
"Solosis!" Uni began glowing green, her psychic energy shooting out in a powerful bolt that struck Ayer, zapping the Aerodactyl.
"Aero!" Ayer shrugged off the lightning attack and glared at Uni, screeching with all his might and reducing the pokemon's defenses.
"Return, Ayer, you've done more than enough," Elaina said, recalling her Aerodactyl. The psyshock had been little more than static electricity with her harmonia surging the way it was. "Now, let me show you my next performance! Doria!"
Elaina threw out her next pokeball to replace Ayer, and her Oricorio came out in a flurry of violet feathers, raising her fanned wings.
"Ho, so rather than her Decidueye she's decided to rely on her Oricorio," Sylvia mused. "Fascinating. I would have expected her to rely on the slower Decidueye. I wonder what she has planned… oh, wait, so it's that."
She smirked. And it wasn't a smirk that Claire found all that pleasing.
"What are you talking about?" Claire demanded, storming over and grabbing the blonde by her collar. "Listen you, I'm not sure who you are, but you've been saying some pretty suspicious things, and I don't like the sound of them! Who the heck are you, anyway? Why are you sniffing around my Blake?!"
"I don't think we've been formally introduced," Sylvia smiled, not moving to break free of the girl. "Sylvia Driscoll, pleasure to meet you. Although we met before, back when you infiltrated the Fall Festival Tournament. Not a bad play, if I must say. Though I don't think you would have remembered me. I'm surprised to find you here, though, didn't they run you off of campus?"
Sylvia touched her finger to her chin. "Wait, now that I think about it, you're Blake's friend, yeah, that's right, I remember something about that. He doesn't ever mention you, so it must have slipped my mind."
Claire's eye twitched. She didn't like this girl. She seemed like exactly the type of person that she was always terrified would steal Blake and exploit him.
"I think you should stay away from him," Claire said. She didn't bother with a pleasant smile. Her usual tactics wouldn't work since Sylvia probably knew that Blake was already dating Ayame, and besides that, she didn't seem like the kind of person who would let something like that bother her. No, this girl was clearly a really bad sort.
"Stay away from him?" Sylvia said, her eyes widening in a cruelly amused approximation of shock. "But Blake is one of my closest friends! I'm someone that he trusts more than anyone, you see, maybe you should be the one to stay away."
Claire's hair stood on edge, and she glared at Sylvia. "What the hell are you-?!"
"You said that he was 'your' Blake, right?" Sylvia interrupted with a smirk. "But he isn't 'your' Blake, is he? He's with another girl, Ayame Toujou. So as just a childhood friend, why do you feel like you have any right to meddle in his affairs, and who he chooses to associate with?"
Claire wanted to smack this bitch silly, but she wasn't that kind of girl. Instead, she tilted her head to the side, and gave Sylvia a smile glistening with serene innocence. "Fair enough, Sylvia. But with that in mind, as someone who means no one to anybody, why do you feel like you have the right to meddle in anyone's affairs?"
For once, Sylvia was at a loss for words.
A crackle of electricity prevented her lack of response from being pointed out, however, and all eyes turned back to the stage. Uni released another psyshock, electrocuting the Oricorio with a bolt of psychic energy. But Doria didn't baulk under the force of the blast.
"Now, Doria! Let's dance!" Elaina shouted, her harmonia causing her hair to stand on end. Doria raised her fans and spun, the wind around her swirling in an alluring dance that caught Uni, befuddling the small green pokemon with her confusing movements.
"Teeter dance," Alcea said, recognizing the move well.
"Elaina has had her pokemon confused many times in the past," Gerard mused. "In her present state, it can do quite a bit of damage not just to them, but to her, as well. And so she decided to make use of that tactic herself. Now that little Solosis has found herself quite confused, the poor thing. And that's just what Elaina will hope to take advantage of…"
If she's confused, it doesn't matter that Uni is so much faster than Oricorio with the trick room, Blake noted. I'll have to switch her out. But if I do that, then the next pokemon I send out will be struck by the stealth rocks. Not a bad strategy, but not something damaging, either…
"Uni! Future sight!" Blake ordered. He had to said the stage first, and make sure that he had everything ready for later. Uni heard his voice through the clutter of her thoughts, seeing the future from within the hazy cloud of vague images that were bombarding her confused mind.
Elaina didn't let that get the better of her, and didn't care what the future held. She was only interested in maximizing the damage her pokemon inflicted on their targets, and damn whatever anyone else cared about! "Doria! Revelation dance!"
"Orico!" Doria chirped, raising her fans. As she danced, wisps of ghostly energy swirled around her fans, and with a swing of her wings she sent a blast of ghostly energy at Uni, pounding her through the light screen. The attack only did a little, but the confusion was more than enough to deter Blake.
"Come back!" Blake said, recalling Uni to his pokeball. His next pokemon would have to do some serious damage, time to go on the offensive! "Cory, go!"
"Crawdaunt!" Cory emerged from his pokeball, and the stones dug into him, scratching up his carapace. But the Crawdaunt was tough, and he wasn't about to let a few rocks bring him down.
"Alright, Cory, let's go!" Blake called. "Swords dance!"
"Crawdaunt!" Cory raised his claws, boosting his physical attack.
"What?!" Sylvia gasped. "That fool! I can't believe he would make a mistake like that!"
"Huh? What?!" Sango looked back at Sylvia with wide eyes. If Sylvia sounded so shocked, that was a really bad sign.
Behind her mask, Elaina smirked.
"Why, thank you!" She laughed, holding her hand up. "We'll do the same!"
"Oricorio!" Doria raised her fans and spun, her own attack stat shooting up.
"Wha…" Blake gasped in surprise.
"Oricorio's ability is Dancer," Gerard said, his eyes shining behind his glasses. He was smirking full-on, now, big enough for everyone to see. "It's a special ability that allows her to copy any sort of dance that she sees a pokemon performing. Blake thought he was aiding his Crawdaunt through the use of that swords dance, but all he's done is boosting Elaina's power, as well!"
He threw back his head and laughed. "What a fool, raising the power of his own opponent! And that's not a mistake that Elaina will let him off lightly for making!"
"Now," Elaina said, her power surging thanks to the boost in Doria's attack stat, "I'm going to show you the cost of your mistake."
Uh-oh! Blake's really screwed up this time! Will he be able to stand up to Elaina's boost in power? Has he learned something from his training with Dokukage that could help?