The Toughness Competition continues to go strong as our eight girls move through the labyrinth! It's not an easy task, that's for sure, but they're going to do their best!

Just a Bad Writer for Fun: We'll touch on the judge in a little bit, in the meantime, enjoy the fun of getting through the maze!

KedharS: I hope it will be. There's a lot waiting for our characters in the labyrinth, but most importantly, what they'll find will be themselves.

Pokemon Academy: Beginning of Beginnings

Chapter 766

Julia let out a long yawn, and rubbed her bleary eyes. Maybe it was the lack of sleep talking, but she was starting to think that this whole Miss Pokemon Academy Contest was rigged.

Not the individual competitions themselves, she assumed those were on the up and up and the girls' performances were indicative of their natural abilities (Sango receiving a nuclear weapon from Kanone Harker notwithstanding) but the way that the whole thing had been organized, the ordering of the competitions themselves.

It all just seemed a little too convenient, that the longest competition, the one where the girls were moved to another location and would probably take a full night to complete, happened to come last. Imagine if the Beauty Competition had come after the Toughness Competition, and the girls were forced to show off their beauty with their pokemon at the break of dawn, after they'd spent the night roughing it in the wild. Or if the audience was forced to sit through a quiz show in the Smartness Competition after they'd been in Milotic Dome all night.

No, the order was definitely rigged. Lukas had played it up as a random wheel, but she was certain now that it had been arranged that the Toughness Competition would come last, like this whole mess had been organized to come down to this climax.

Julia vowed that whoever arranged this whole mess and forced her to stay here all night in order to be a supportive friend would be in for a very, VERY painful return. She was going to make it her goal for the next week, at least.

"Mmmuh, no, Julia, 'snot nice…"

A tiny hand clutched at Julia's arm and her expression softened, turning to look down at her friend. Kitty was curled up into a tiny ball on her makeshift bed, clinging to Julia like a stuffed pokemon doll for comfort to help her sleep.

A small smile crossed Julia's lips. Poor thing. She'd been trying so hard to stay up to keep supporting her friends, but she couldn't make it the whole night. She would be aghast to learn that she'd slept through everything, but Julia wasn't about to wake her up.

Kitty needed her rest, after all. So Julia patted her head, running her fingers through Kitty's soft and silky white hair. She purred, and Julia found her earlier ire starting to wane away. It was nice, getting to spend the night like this.

Julia wasn't one for sleepovers. Roommates were one thing, but sleepovers were just so… social. And it wasn't that she was an antisocial person, it was just, well… she wasn't used to asking people to do social events, so that meant asking to go to sleepovers, or holding them herself, was something she just wasn't used to doing.

And because of her abrasive personality, she wasn't the type to get invited to them, either. And Kitty wasn't the kind of girl to ask stuff like that, Julia understood that completely. But it was nice, getting to sleep beside her friend like this, even if the reason was because of such a mess like the Miss Pokemon Academy Contest.

Julia considered that a fair trade given the situation, and she wasn't that irritated at the competition anymore.

It was nice, petting Kitty was nice. Maybe they could have a real sleepover after this, who knows? She didn't spend enough time with her friend these days.

With her anger abated, Julia found her energy beginning to wane herself. Another yawn escaped her lips, and suddenly the notion that she had to stay awake to support her friend was starting to feel less and less compelling. She leaned back and cuddled her friend through the armrest, and let herself drift off to sleep with a tiny Kitty in her arms.

She silently apologized to Sango as she dozed off. She just wasn't the kind of person who could dedicatedly stay up all night the way Blake was doing for Ayame Toujou. He was just built differently, she had to admit that. He was quite a devoted boyfriend, she noted with a rueful laugh as darkness consumed her.

Kitty and Julia weren't the only ones feeling tired either. The whole audience was starting to fall asleep, save the especially devoted ones. Even Cynthia's energy levels couldn't keep going forever, and she was snoring her heart away, turning around in her seat as she snoozed.

This ended up having the amusing side effect of the two most devoted people in the stadium, or at least their specific area, being awake and alert at the same time.

And those two people were Blake and Kate, sitting right next to each other.

And yes. It was very awkward.

"So, uh… how have you been?" Blake asked, glancing at Kate. She blinked, and looked back at him, her face twisted up into a look of shock at the fact that her former (DEFINITELY FORMER) crush was actually talking to her. She had to look around to confirm that he wasn't asking someone else, verifying that she was the only one around still awake.

Still not sure, she pointed at herself. "You talking to me?" She asked, confused.

Blake raised his eyebrow, and shrugged his shoulders with his arms held out to indicate "who else?" It wasn't like there was anyone else around he could be talking to, after all. Kate still didn't buy it, but she could just blow him off, that would be rude.

Oh, wait, yes, she could do that.

"Whatever," she griped, turning away from him and pulling her blanket up over her, nestling down into her pillow. "Don't bug me right now."

"Trying to get some sleep?" Blake asked. Kate sprung up with a gasp, staring at him in disbelief.

"Sleep?!" She sputtered. "Are you MENTAL? You actually think I could be sleeping at a time like this?!" She exclaimed.

Blake raised his eyebrow. "So… not getting sleep?"

"I couldn't sleep a wink, you insensitive clod!" Kate growled. "Not even if I wanted to! This is all for the sake of her highness! Her highness is giving it her all out there, and I'm going to do the same! Just you watch, I'm cheering her on with everything I have! In fact, yes, go, your highness!" She shouted at the top of her lungs.

"SHUT UP! I'M TRYING TO SLEEP HERE!" Someone shouted back at her, their voice echoing across the Milotic Dome.

"Go sleep yourself, shithead!" Kate shouted back.

"That's what I'm trying to do! And it would go a lot easier if you just shut the fuck up!" They shouted back at her.

Kate wasn't looking like she was ready to sleep now, she looked like she was ready to take a crowbar to someone's face. Climbed off her mattress and ground her teeth together, fuming. "Well, don't worry about sleeping," she grumbled. "I'll make sure you don't wake up…"

"Kate, dude, chill," Blake said, startled she was taking it so far. Kate was unpleasant on any given day, but in her current state, pissed off at the fact that someone was insulting her, she was definitely going full bitch mode, and apparently full bitch mode minus sleep equaled violence.

And as much as Blake thought it would be amusing to see Kate go all violent and mental on somebody, he didn't want to end up getting drawn into it as a witness, and it might be a distraction from the Toughness Competition. So he grabbed Kate by the hand as she tried to squeeze past his mattress, startling her.

Well, a lot more than startling. Kate gasped, a surge of electricity running through her. She yanked her hand back, her mouth twisting into an "O" shape as she turned back to him in disbelief. "What are you doing!?" She exclaimed.

Blake wasn't expecting that kind of response from her. "Hey, I was just trying to-"

Kate didn't let him get in a word edgewise. "Oh, don't give me that! You know exactly what you just did!" She hissed. "You grabbed my hand in the dark! You think I don't know what that means?! You think I want you to put the moves on me in the dark? Around all these people?! Well, no, I don't! I have no interest of you using me to get your rocks off just because that girlfriend of yours is busy with her little doomed attempt at winning this tournament! So find someone else, mister!"

Blake felt like he had just listened to a ten hour lecture on how the planet wasn't real but some artificial story written by a madman. He didn't quite know how to respond. "Uh… Kate, I swear, I had no intention of doing ANYTHING like that, get over yourself," he advised, hoping that would be enough to get to shut up.

"Oh, is that right?" Kate bitchily asked, crossing her arms over her chest. It was hard to tell in the dark, but Blake was quite certain he knew exactly what kind of bitchy scowl her face was pulled into right now, considering who he was dealing with. "You don't want to do anything with me, huh? Trying to get me to lower my guard? Well, it's not happening! I already told you, I'm OVER you! And I'm definitely not going to be your piece on the side!"

Yeah, she was just nuts. Blake's eyes glazed over as Kate continued to vent her frustrations and "disgust" at him.

"…And another thing," she continued, "let's imagine that, for sake of argument, I wasn't over you at all and still had those thoughts from time to time! Well, I promise you, I'm not going to do anything about it, don't worry! And I'll tell you, that even if you think that I'm an easy mark, I'm definitely not! It would take a lot more than groping me in the dark, or giving me some compliments or a haircut! There's a little thing called 'mood', and right here, in the middle of the campus, that's just not going to help get the mood going!

Blake had no intention of "getting the mood" going. He wasn't even fully paying attention to Kate at this point, staring past her at the large screen, where he saw Ayame still making steady progress. He hoped she would get there soon.

"So yeah, even if I WAS interested in having an affair with you, it wouldn't be here, with all your friends!" Kate continued. "If we were going to… do something, then it would be AFTER we got back to a private room! You would take me to your bedroom, explain how you felt about me, say you made a mistake choosing Ayame, and then you would bow in front of me in contrition and say how you wished you had chosen to accept my confession instead!"

Oh, yeah, she DEFINITELY hadn't put any thought into this at all, Blake silently noted. Not even a little bit, not even a hair. This was a perfectly logical train of thought for any girl to go down, absolutely rational.

"And, well, MAYBE I could be compelled to change my mind, you know, if you made a compelling case, and showed me just how much you loved me, by, like, for sake of argument, dumping your girlfriend Ayame, and then maybe gave me a few complements, and then, well… e-eventually, you'd… come home, and meet my parents, and then we'd go steady, have fun on dates, since you've already dumped Ayame, and then we'd… well…"

Kate pictured herself in a wedding dress, staring lovingly into Blake's eyes, and her face turned bright red. Blake could see it in even the pitch black of the Milotic dome, and resisted the urge to roll his eyes in disbelief.

"But like I said!" Kate snapped. "It's not going to happen! I have absolutely no interest, do you understand what I mean?!"

"EVERYONE understands what you mean!" The same voice from before shouted loudly, startling Kate. She whirled in the direction of the voice. "You won't shut up about it!" The voice continued. "And no one here cares, it's just keeping us from getting any sleep! This is your mess to deal with, so stop making it our problem!"

Blake had to admit that the fact that Kate was being shut up so drastically was maybe the funniest thing he'd ever experienced in his life. She was just so… Well, it was definitely making her a lot more tolerable. Cursing to herself, Kate trudged back into her seat and laid back, indignantly pulling her blanket up and turning her attention back to the screen.

"Let's just forget about it," Blake offered, feeling incredibly awkward about the whole thing and wanting to just move past it, "and get back to watching the Toughness Competition, what do you think about that?"

"Works for me!" Kate loudly agreed, too embarrassed to even look Blake in the eye. She stared vacantly up at the screen, dying of shame.

Blake resisted the urge to laugh at her embarrassment. In spite of the fact that Kate was annoying and insufferable at her best times, there was a certain charm to her that kept him nice and amused, especially the way that she would always react in the best ways.

But he pushed those thoughts out of his mind. He was, of course, more interested in watching Aya move through the maze than in anything Kate had to talk about. He didn't feel that bad about it, either, even though Kate wasn't nearly as insufferable as she could have been. Aya was just that much more important to him.

Unfortunately for Blake's desire to see Aya doing her best at winning this competition and making it through the maze, it wasn't just the audience who was starting to get tired by how late it was. Aya stifled another yawn and stretched, staring up at the night sky.

She was totally lost. She knew that, of course, because she wasn't a fool. As much as she would have liked to convince herself that she was on the right path, she had no idea whether or not that was actually true. The truth was, she was probably wandering in circles.

But that was just fine with her.

Ayame was doing the best that she could, and that was the thing she cared about most. She didn't need to win, to be honest, whoever ended up as "Miss Pokemon Academy" didn't really mean a damn to her. She was just going to keep doing what she was doing.

But as much as she was energized by the idea of escaping the maze, she couldn't deny that she was starting to get a little exhausted. She'd been running for some time, and it wasn't like her stamina was limitless, even as athletic as she was. So she found a spot in the labyrinth with a decent amount of space and sat down, taking off her pack and setting it beside her.

Aya opened the bag, and began searching for the sleeping bag that she had noted in there at the beginning of the Toughness Competition. She spread it out and crawled inside, gesturing for Foof to come over.

"Come on, sweetie, just a little nap," Ayame yawned. Foof walked over to her and let out a baah, crouching down beside her trainer and nestling in for a nap.

Ayame leaned her head down and set her timer on her phone for a few hours, using Foof as a pillow as she dozed off for a nice nap.

Blake could have been happy to watch Ayame snooze forever, but it didn't make entertaining news for the other people in the audience. So he wasn't surprised that the camera changed to focus on the girls who weren't asleep yet.

"Darla, are you sure we should be going this way?" Lila asked, resisting the urge to yawn. She hated staying up late. It ruined her complexion in the morning, and the bags under her eyes would take FOREVER to go away!

Lila's feet were sore, she had a headache, and worst of all, her clothes were just the most hideous thing in the world, even without the mud covering them. If it was up to her, she would have curled up in a sleeping bag and gone to sleep, resting until morning and blowing off the rest of the Miss Pokemon Academy Contest to spend her time for herself.

If it was up to her.

But unfortunately for Lila, it wasn't up to her. Darla was the one who was focusing on the tournament, and she was walking earnestly forward, not even looking back at Lila, which made Lila feel more than a little miffed.

They were supposed to be doing this together, but it felt like she was just being dragged along by her partner. That was the reason for her desperate questions, she wanted to know if there was something that she should be doing.

"Don't worry about it," Darla assured her, glancing over her shoulder and giving her friend a reassuring grin. "I know what I'm doing, Lila, I've been doing this for a long time, after all, navigating through caves, remember? I grew up doing stuff like that."

Lila grinned in spite of herself. That was just how Darla was, not all that bothered by the fact that Lila was holding her back. She appreciated how much her friend cared for her, and while it warmed her heart, it still made her feel a little…

Guilty.

The truth was, Lila was afraid to ask Darla just what she was hoping for in this tournament. Was Darla hoping to win? Did she care? It certainly seemed like she did, given how hard she had been trying in all the competitions, but Lila didn't know for sure.

And she wasn't sure whether or not she should ask. She wanted to know, if for no other reason than the possibility that it would make her feel a little less guilty; she wanted to confirm that she wasn't the one responsible for Darla losing. If Darla wanted to win, and her decision to help Lila came at the expense of her victory, then Lila would just die inside.

But if it wasn't anything like that, if Darla didn't care either way who would win or lose, then Lila would feel a lot more reassured that she wasn't doing anything to hurt her friend.

The only problem was, she didn't know. She honestly didn't know, and she was terrified that she would be right, that she had dragged her friend down.

"Darla… you're sure?" Lila asked, more desperation than she had intended seeping into her voice as she clutched Shine a little tighter.

Darla looked back at her, and in the dimly lit maze, Lila could see her giving another reassuring smile. She nodded her head.

"I'm telling you, Lila, going in one direction will eventually get you out of a maze," Darla assured her. "I'm walking to the left. Always to the left. And eventually, we're going to find our way through this maze, just watch."

Lila sighed in relief and tried to smile. When Darla put it like that, it didn't seem so bad.

Nice to see some bonding going on in this chapter! What will we find in the rest of the Toughness Competition?