Elaina and Blake's battle continues! Blake's managed to seize the lead with Weiss taking out Elaina's Decidueye, but will that be enough for him to come out ahead? We'll have to find out! Hopefully he doesn't squander this lead!

The Pokemon Academy Best Girl 2 Finals are up and running! We've almost reached the end, tomorrow is the final day! 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

KedharS: It's definitely a danger, that's for sure.

DJ Dib Dab: Welcome back.

Pokemon Academy: Beginning of Beginnings

Chapter 718

Mukuro had fainted. Due to her harmonia, that fact struck Elaina just as harshly as the night slash that had finished off her first pokemon, nearly knocking her off her feet. But she couldn't give in, she wouldn't! She had to win, she had to, if she didn't…

Elaina wouldn't accept that possibility. The idea of "not winning" was simply out of the question. The last time Elaina had lost…

It hadn't happened. Every opponent in front of her had been vanquished by the overwhelmingly destructive power of her harmonia.

And Blake would be no different. He said that he wanted to defeat her, in order to break down her walls or something ridiculous like that. But he had no idea what he was talking about. She wouldn't let him even come close.

Elaina's harmonia flared up, and she prepared to send out her next pokemon to vanquish Blake's Scizor. And she had just the one.

"Doria, return to the battlefield and vanquish my enemies!" Elaina shouted. She flung her pokeball into the air, and her next pokemon emerged, her Oricorio back for more. Doria flapped her wings and landed on the field, raising her fans.

"Sending out a faster pokemon, huh?" Blake asked, raising his eyebrow. "That's not a smart move, Elaina, I expected more!"

Elaina growled at him. "Oh, I see, you'd like me to show you something else, is that it? Well, don't worry, Doria is going to show that Scizor of yours all sorts of new things!"

"Why's he goading her?!" Sango exclaimed. "That's stupid! Blake, if you make her mad, that's just going to get worse for you!"

"No, he's right to do it," Kitty came to Blake's defense, realizing what he was trying to do. Sango and Julia both turned her way with looks of confusion on their faces, but Cynthia nodded in understanding. It was something that a battler would understand. And while Julia was a talented trainer in her own right, her own worries for Blake's safety were interfering with her judgment.

But Cynthia knew what he was aiming for. She nodded deferentially to Kitty, letting her friend have her time in the sun to explain what Blake was up to.

"Blake's goading her because he wants Elaina to give this match everything she has," Kitty explained.

"Yeah, he did that in his first match with her, too," Ayame said, nodding in agreement, even as she kept her eyes glued to the battlefield. "Goading her, trying to force her to use everything she had, giving the fight everything."

"But why would he want to do something that stupid?!" Sango demanded, looking at Julia for confirmation. But realization had dawned on Julia's face, as well.

"So that's how he's trying to reach her," she mused, shaking her head. She couldn't say that she approved of it. Something that reckless, bordering on stupid, she just couldn't think that was a good idea.

"The only way Blake is going to be able to break down Elaina's defenses completely is if she throws everything she has into this match," Kitty explained. "It was just like me. I pushed myself to the very edge, forced out every last scrap of harmonia I had, and when Blake started to overpower me, my harmonia… well, it's not like it broke or anything, but…"

It was hard to describe the sensations that losing to Blake had evoked in her all those months ago. Someone without harmonia couldn't totally understand.

"It's like when you're having a match just for funsies," Cynthia said, coming to Kitty's aid. "Win or lose, it doesn't matter, right? Especially not if you're not even giving it your all. But if you're fighting, like, a real match, in a tournament, one that matters, and you get defeated… it can really sting, right?" Cynthia had experienced that herself.

"Yeah, it's kind of like that," Kitty said, nodding. It wasn't a perfect analogy, but it was pretty good. "Elaina's putting not just her will to win into this match, but the energy in her body, as well. This match is taking literally everything from her, and if she puts it all in and she loses, then maybe her strength of will… maybe it'll probably be beaten down, or something, fracture, you know? And then Blake can try to get through to her."

Sango nodded. She wasn't sure if that was a good idea, but she was going to cheer Blake on, and support him if that's what he thought was best.

"Weiss, use bullet punch!" Blake ordered. He knew that Doria was slower, but he also knew that Weiss was starting to weaken. His will was powerful, but his body had taken a serious hit from that brave bird. Weiss shot forward, raising is pincer, and threw a punch at Doria, hitting her in the face. Doria flinched in pain, but the harmonia flowing through her put a swift end to that. She raised her fan-like wings and swatted at Weiss, who easily jumped back, putting some distance between the two of them.

"Now, Doria, use featherdance!" Elaina shouted. Doria raised her fans and the wind danced around her, a wave of feathers blowing across the field and wrapping around Weiss. It wasn't a direct attack, but as he tried to avoid it the feathers were persistent, slowing him down and digging into his scales and pincers.

"What's up with this?" Blake cried. "Weiss, how are you doing?"

"Scizor!" Weiss shouted back. Blake could see that he wasn't injured, but he was clearly weakening.

"It's featherdance," Ayame said. She was surprisingly knowledgeable about the move. "It's a special status move that can reduce the strength of the target. Weiss's attack power is only going to weaken even more."

She squinted.

"You might not be able to see it, but I can," she continued. "Weiss's condition is lessening. He just had a major drop in his attack stat."

"Again, featherdance!" Elaina ordered. Doria began sending more feathers Weiss's way, but Blake was ready. If what Aya said was true, (and he had learned by this point that it was important to trust her eyes, because this was something that she knew better than anyone else) then that meant he was finding himself pressured into quite a bad position.

"Dodge it, Weiss! Use double team!" He ordered. Weiss created a massive amount of copies, spreading himself out across the battlefield. The feathers swept around one of the Scizor, but failed to engulf Weiss completely.

"That's quite a clever move, Elaina," Blake said, turning his attention to her. "I'm surprised, I expected that you would just be flinging hurricanes at us for the entire match, but it seems like you're thinking things through tactfully."

"I'm quite clever in that regard," Elaina boasted. "If your Scizor plans to turn the overwhelming power of harmonia against me like so many other trainers have, then I'll be more than prepared. And besides… this is the perfect tactic to defeat a trainer like you."

She glanced towards Dokukage. "Gerard taught me all about Dokukage's tactics, and he told me what to expect from you. That you were training with Dokukage, learning some of his ninja skills. Boosting your pokemon's stats and trying to send them to the next pokemon with baton pass? A tactic like that won't be allowed."

Blake shrugged his shoulders, and smiled. "That's what I like to see."

"Wh-What?" Elaina was taken aback. She had no idea what Blake was talking about. Why was he smiling? He was losing right now, he shouldn't be happy, he should be worried! "What's so funny, huh?! What are you talking about?! You're losing right now!"

"Yeah, I know," Blake said, "but what's the big deal? Don't you see the situation that you're in? You're trying your hardest to win. You're using your brain, thinking things through, you aren't just flinging harmonia-boosted attacks everywhere, don't you see how great that is, Elaina? You're thinking like a real trainer!"

"Th-That's…" She gasped, not sure how to respond to that.

"Come on, it's fun, right?" Blake asked. "Sure, you can't control your harmonia right now. But even with your harmonia, there's more ways to fight than just attacking. If you refine that, then I think you could be an amazing trainer, Elaina, don't you see?"

"Sh-Shut up!" Elaina shouted. "I don't give a damn about anything like that! I hate fighting, and this accursed power! This is all just so I can defeat you, don't you see that?! With featherdance, your pokemon's attack stat has been lowered! And if you try to boost it with swords dance again, then Doria will copy that move and boost her attack stat as well! There's nothing you can do, don't you see that? Doria is the perfect pokemon to conquer your strategy!"

"That's fine," Blake said. "I don't care about anything like that! Because I'm going to keep fighting just like this, Weiss, use swords dance!"

"Scizor!" Weiss began to dance, boosting his attack stat back to its previous levels, even as Doria mimicked his moves, increasing her attack stat as well.

"I don't mind helping you, Elaina," Blake said. "Strengthening your pokemon doesn't matter to me either way. So now, we both get the boost."

Elaina couldn't understand. Why was he doing this? "Why? I thought you were trying to win, what's with suddenly helping my pokemon?!"

"I'm going to win, and I'm going to save you," Blake replied. "But before I can do that, I need you to see that your harmonia isn't the only thing you need to rely on in battles. That was a smart decision you made. So I want you to show me more of that! Fight to your hardest, and I'm going to do the same, and then we'll see which one of us is stronger!"

"Yeah! Exactly!" Cynthia cheered, pumping her fist into the air.

Elaina shook her head in disbelief. "You don't understand," she muttered. "Even after all this, you still don't understand. You think… you think I'm relying on my harmonia because I want to?! No! It's because I can't control this accursed power, no matter how hard I try!"

"I think that's a lie," Blake shot back, and Elaina flinched.

"…What?" She asked. Her voice was small, and she stared in disbelief at Blake. He looked so serious, so sure, she couldn't understand why. How… how could he think that?

"I think that used to be the case," Blake said. "You couldn't control your harmonia, and that got you scared. So you lashed out violently at everyone, even though you didn't want to. But I've watched you. You've managed to restrain it before, haven't you?"

"That… that was different!" Elaina sputtered. "Those times… they were because you were there, it wasn't anything that I did! It was because you, you…"

"That's just another crutch, isn't it?" Blake demanded. "Because you're afraid to take responsibility for what you've done, you're trying to hide behind excuses about not being able to control yourself! Because if you could actually control your harmonia now, that would mean that when you hurt someone, it's something you could have stopped. And taking responsibility for that… it's scary. It's the same as your mask, they're just walls to protect you!"

"Shut up!" Elaina shouted. There was no way that she was subconsciously letting her power go wild! If she could control it, she would, Blake had no idea what he was talking about! Pain blossomed through her head as she glared at him, already feeling her control start to slip away, the intoxicating sensation of harmonia surging through her as her power soared. "You don't understand, and you will NEVER understand!"

A blast of wind slammed into Blake, nearly knocking him off his feet. But he wasn't going to give up that easily. He had no idea if he was actually onto something or not, but it made sense. Elaina's control over her abilities had always felt off. He had seen her get control over it as early as the Fall Festival Tournament, and yet for some reason she would always break down and slide back into uncontrollable storms.

If he was wrong and she really couldn't control herself any better than she could before, then what Blake was saying was unforgivable. But he suspected that he was on the right track, and that Elaina's inability to restrain herself was a prison of her own making.

"Elaina, just fight! You don't need to rely on your harmonia, you don't need to hide behind it! I don't care if you can control your power or not, I just want to help you!" Blake pleaded with her, trying to get her to open up. If he was right…

Elaina always said that she wanted to be saved. That she didn't want to hurt people, that she wanted to be free of her harmonia and control it. But everything she did seemed to say the opposite. And Blake knew better than most the sorts of effects that harmonia's power had over the psyche, how intoxicating giving into that power must feel.

But he believed Elaina when she said she wanted to be free of it. So he knew that she wouldn't be giving herself over to the madness without a good reason. And she did have one. She was afraid. Giving into her harmonia was a way of protecting herself from the consequences of what she'd done, just like her mask did.

It wasn't conscious. She would never be that cruel. But harmonia was a reflection of every aspect of its users mind. If Elaina was scared about the future ahead of her, once she could control her powers and live life like a normal girl, then her harmonia might respond to that. It might drive her to lose control more and more, resulting in a vicious cycle of Elaina harming others while trying desperately to find a way to not.

It was just a theory, but it was what Blake was working with. And hopefully, if he could beat her, and show her that even with that power of hers she wasn't beyond being saved… Well, it was a start. But first, he had to get her to put everything into the fight, get her to try everything and fight her hardest, so that he could beat her. Then, once he had torn away her defenses and broken down all of her walls, then he could reach out to her and try to be her friend, let her know that he really did care.

That was the closest thing he had to a plan to save her, and there were a variety of ways he could go about doing this. The first was showing her that she could be a good trainer without having to rely on that power.

Elaina was afraid of the future, and of being judged. But there was more to her than just her harmonia, she wasn't some monster. He wanted her to see that.

"You don't need your harmonia to win this fight, Elaina, and no one here will judge you if you really can control yourself, but you're just scared," he assured her. "And even if they would, I promise you I'm not one of those people!"

Elaina didn't want to hear any of this. She didn't want Blake talking about how he "understood" her, or how much he "cared" about helping her.

He couldn't help her, he didn't understand that this power of hers was beyond her control! And if he couldn't understand that, then she just had to teach him a lesson. A painful lesson.

"Doria," she seethed, her harmonia surging as she connected with her pokemon, "blow that pesky Scizor away with your hurricane!"

"Oricorio!" Doria spread her wings, spinning on her feet and twirling her fans. Immense power surged through her and she conjured a massive hurricane, the torrent of wind and water surging towards Weiss to blow him away.

"Weiss, withstand it," Blake ordered. Weiss raised his pincers and braced himself, the wind striking against his light screen, protecting him from the brunt of the attack.

"We aren't going to give up!" Blake shouted back to Elaina. "That power of yours won't be nearly enough to win!"

Elaina screamed, wind surging around her as her harmonia grew even stronger, directing it towards Doria to boost her strength even higher. The wind grew more intense, and Blake could see that Weiss was starting to weaken.

"Weiss, baton pass!" Blake ordered. He was going to take the moment to call Weiss back, in order to pass on the boosts to his stats to his next pokemon. "Ruru, go!"

"Galvantula!" Ruru landed on the ground, taking Weiss's place, the barrier rising up around her as the winds struck.

"Another Bug type, should have seen that one coming," Elaina said.

"Yeah! Ruru's gonna fry those birds with her electricity!" Cynthia grinned, punching a few times to let out some of her stored energy. "Come on, Blake, use that ninjutsu lightning shinobi whatever you learned from Dokukage and show Elaina what's what!"

"It really is just like fighting you," Callie mused, glancing at Dokukage.

"Not quite," Dokukage said. "Blake has a few more tricks up his sleeve, you'll see what I'm talking about soon."

"…Rather chatty, aren't you?" Sylvia sniffed, raising her eyebrow and smirking.

Dokukage didn't respond.

"Doria, it doesn't matter!" Elaina shouted. "Blow that Galvantula away instead!"

"Why would Blake send out his Galvantula?" Sango asked, curious.

"Huh? Because electricity pounds the shit out of Flying types, that's why!" Cynthia cheered.

"Yeah, but he's still under trick room," Julia reminded her. "And Galvantula are very fast pokemon. Blake's been able to seize the advantage in this match by using trick room to make his pokemon outspeed Elaina's, but when he uses a fast pokemon like Galvantula that strategy isn't going to work out."

Cynthia gasped, she hadn't even thought of that. "Shit, you're right! Blake, what the heck are you thinking, huh?!"

"That's exactly what I was talking about," Sango said, nodding. She wasn't a pokemon trainer herself, but she'd played the video games before, and in the video games trick room teams really didn't do well with fast pokemon on them. "And that's not all. How many pokemon has Blake used now, haven't you been keeping track?"

"Um…" Cynthia began counting on her fingers. "There was Maria and Rogen… then he used Uni… then Cory and Weiss, and now… hey, yeah, this is Blake's last pokemon!"

"He's not using his Salamence," Sango said, frowning. She had expected that Blake would. Sarah was his strongest pokemon, why the hell wasn't he using her?!

"That's… that's really not good," Cynthia said, her face going pale at the thought of him losing because he wasn't using one of his best pokemon. The others murmured in agreement.

Kitty was the only one of Blake's friends that didn't think his decision to not rely on Sarah was the wrong one. She had fought Sarah before. And she had seen how his Salamence could react towards people with harmonia.

In Elaina's present condition… using Sarah against her could have horrible consequences. Blake had made the right choice, even if it cost him the battle. This wasn't like the fight with her, after all, he needed to handle her gently.

"Don't worry about their voices," Blake said, nodding towards his friends. His eyes never left Elaina. She was his whole focus now. "Right now, we need to focus on this battle."

Blake was up in pokemon at the moment, but that didn't mean anything. Cory and Weiss had both taken some serious damage, and Maria wasn't much better off. Uni was still mostly healthy, but his team had taken some beatings.

And Elaina was just getting started.

Blake's right, this isn't going to be an easy match to win. Hopefully he can pull things off.