Sylvia's gone all-in on taunting Akira and trying to get him upset! Will she succeed? Will she get him to snap and lose his temper, and maybe even get Satsuki to transform? Or can Akira keep his anger in check and not fall for the bait?

KedharS: Definitely helpful when it comes to getting people to do what you want them to. Unfortunately, Akira's really easy to manipulate due to being such a caring person.

Just a Bad Writer for Fun: Dakota would definitely go a little nuts with a Porygon, hence why I never gave one. With great power must come great responsibility, after all.

Pokemon Academy: Beginning of Beginnings

Chapter 833

Sylvia was delighted. When Satsuki first transformed, it was because Akira was enraged by what had happened to Dakota. She had just been attacked, and he'd thought that the Phantom was responsible (an assumption that Sylvia was pretty sure was correct). Akira had been so lost in his anger that he had attacked the Phantom directly.

And when he did, his Gyarados had responded. Her body had shifted and grown, and began to change like it was evolving. But it hadn't evolved. What had Professor Decker called it? That's right, evolution variance enhancement. But he'd been cagey on the details. All Sylvia had been able to get out of the old man was that it was part of the professor's experiments. He was testing pokemon evolution in a manner similar to a form change; a pokemon would be able to change its form or "evolve" into something else, and then revert back to its original form.

And apparently, Satsuki had been on the cusp of something like that. She'd begun to transform into something else, but the transformation had been halted and she'd returned to her normal form as a Gyarados.

It was definitely intriguing; Akira had been training with Misty to help his Gyarados perfect weak little moves like water pulse, when he should be training something else entirely.

If Professor Decker's theory about the evolution variance enhancement was correct, then Akira should be training Satsuki with the intention of helping her perfect that transformation. Get her to be able to trigger it on cue, withstand it, and use it in battle. Training of that sort was much more likely to bear fruit.

Sylvia wanted to see that. She refused to accept that the transformation had been some anomaly, a flash-in-the-pan, lightning-in-a-bottle oddity that would never occur again. As much as she hated the predictability and consistency of the world, she was far too smart to believe that something could just miraculously occur.

There was a way to trigger it a second time. And a third. Perhaps Mr. Fuji might be able to shed some light on the subject. But if not, she could always try to trigger it herself.

The first step she would take was something she was good at: making Akira pissed off.

"You were so angry, Akira," she taunted him. "Don't you remember what happened the last time you used Satsuki? When you were fighting against… oh, who was it again… that's right, the guy who attacked Dakota."

The air around the lake turned so cold the water nearly froze.

Misty looked between the two of them in confusion. "Someone got attacked? Who's Dakota? What's going on, why are you guys so quiet?"

She'd intended this to just be a training match. The two of them were fighting against each other, but it didn't seem like they were doing it to improve their skills at battle. This felt a lot more tense, and a lot more serious.

"Let's all settle down," Misty tried to urge the two of them. She was supposed to be in charge here, so why did she feel like she'd lost her control of the situation?

"Sylvia…" Akira warned.

He knew that she was taunting him. She was trying to get him angry. And he had a pretty good idea why. The last time he had gotten angry when he had battled with Satsuki, the exact time she was talking about right now, she had begun to transform into… whatever it was. And the effects had been devastating.

Sylvia was obviously trying to goad him into losing his temper again in order to have a repeat of the same scenario. And it was working, too. She had a way of wiggling into his thoughts and pissing him off, making him want to hurt her. And now that he was given a sanctioned arena in which he could finally unload some of his grievances, it was difficult to resist the temptation.

But he still resisted it.

"Return, Satsuki," Akira said, calling Satsuki back to her pokeball.

"Gyarados?" Satsuki looked at him, confused. While there was no bond of harmonia between the two of them, Satsuki knew her trainer's emotions well, and right now she could sense that he was angry, and wanted to fight. But he was still calling her back. Even though she would have delighted in a battle herself, she believed in her trainer more than anything, and allowed him to end the match, obediently returning to her ball.

Sylvia was as surprised as Satsuki was. With how she'd been goading Akira, with the amount of frustration she'd piled onto him in the last few weeks, she never would have thought that he would back out of the battle. She'd expected him to do the boring and predictable thing that she'd foreseen and was angling towards, losing his temper and fighting against her with everything he had.

But no, somehow he'd overcome that urge and recalled Satsuki to her pokeball, even though Sylvia could see how much he didn't want to do that.

"What's the matter?" She asked, raising her eyebrow. "I thought we were going to have a training match, isn't that the whole point of coming here today?"

"Not like this," Akira replied, trying his best to remain calm. "This isn't a training match, Sylvia, this is you goading me into losing my temper. And while I would like nothing more than to grab you by the throat and wring that scrawny neck of yours, I know that battling is the wrong thing to do in this situation, so I'm not going to do it."

Sylvia shook her head. "No, no, no, I can see that in spite of your brain thinking that, right now your heart's in total control. You're on the edge of a razor, Akira, you're about ready to change your mind and have Satsuki go on a rampage again, ripping me a new one. So why aren't you doing it? What's holding you back?"

She studied him closely. This was almost as intriguing as the transformation undergone due to the evolution variance enhancement. Almost. Akira shouldn't have been able to resist his urges to make her suffer, and yet somehow, he was.

Fascinating.

She caught his eye drop down to the pokeball in his hand and she realized immediately why Akira wasn't giving into his emotions- because he was.

They just weren't the emotions that Sylvia had expected.

A smirk curled up her lips and she shook her head, chuckling.

"So that's it. The reason you aren't getting angry and telling Satsuki to hyper beam me into atoms is because you're too worried about her. I hadn't even considered that your love for her might overwhelm your rage at me," she confessed.

Akira raised his eyebrow. "Well, I'm sure that must be a first for you."

Sylvia laughed and returned Runja to her pokeball. "Fair enough, Akira. I can see that continuing a battle would be pointless."

She turned to a very confused Misty and gave her a sweet smile. "Sorry, but it looks like neither one of us are up for a match today."

"Uh… okay then…" Misty said, nodding. She felt kind of numb, unsure of what the heck was going on. That whole "battle" had been fast, but the real conflict, it seemed, had been between the two of them, and not their pokemon.

Misty was quickly realizing that the only thing she really knew about Akira and Sylvia was the fact that the two of them were students who were acquainted with each other. As for whatever relationship hey had other than that… she could see it was a lot more acrimonious than she had initially believed, which was making things complicated.

"Um… Akira, Sylvia… can I ask you two something?" Misty asked, walking up to the two of them. She was cautious at first, but then remembered her position here. She was the gym leader; she was the one who was supposed to be in charge!

"Misty?" Akira asked, realizing for the first time that she was still here. He'd been lost in a haze of emotions and hadn't paid her any mind, but now he had renewed attention. And he felt rather ashamed at what had just happened. "Hey, sorry about training going like-"

"Nope!" Misty cut him off, her tense expression shifting into an irritated scowl. She crossed her arms over her chest, and the whole atmosphere changed. "Sorry, but I need to say something before either one of you!"

Sylvia snickered. "Oh, beca-"

"Nope! Zip it!" Misty quickly cut her off.

Sylvia could have taunted her more but decided that would get her nowhere, so she decided to just let the gym leader finish her little speech.

Misty looked between the two of them. "You two are talented trainers, Akira, Sylvia, really talented. I've only been training you for a week, but I can tell that you two have more potential than most of the trainers that have worked at my gym."

Akira blushed, feeling flattered by her recognition of his abilities, in spite of the situation that had brought it out.

Sylvia didn't really have much of a reaction, she already knew how special she was.

"With that being said, there are a few things that the two of you need to consider," Misty continued, looking at the two of them. "While you two are skilled trainers, you need to work on your interpersonal relationships. At least with each other."

Sylvia resisted the urge to burst out laughing. Meanwhile, Akira's positive attitude had just taken a nosedive back to where it had been before.

"Sylvia, stop provoking Akira. I can see you doing it, and I'm gonna have to ask you to stop, okay?" Misty asked sharply, glaring at the blonde. "Making someone else uncomfortable just to amuse yourself is wrong, and I'm not going to tolerate it in my gym, do I make myself clear? That will only interfere with Akira's training."

"Yeah, I'm not sure that's gonna work…" Akira doubted that Sylvia would actually agree to something like that. If she did, he would certainly be relieved, but he wasn't that naïve. He was about to say something else when Misty turned to him next.

"As for you, Akira, I get it. I don't know exactly what's going on between the two of you, but it seems that Sylvia's really good at getting under your skin. As someone who's used to losing her temper due to… certain reasons, I can understand that feeling." Misty was thinking of Diana as she said that. Diana and her impulse to rub in Misty's face the inability of the tomboyish mermaid to get a date with a decent guy. But she quickly shook that off and cleared her throat.

"Anyway, as I was saying, try to control your temper. Don't get so easily provoked. Whether in real life, or in a pokemon battle. Just because Sylvia won't be doing it anymore-"

Sylvia rolled her eyes. Fat chance of that happening.

"-That doesn't mean that you should remain lax. I'm glad you managed to control your impulses and ended the battle when it looked like you were going to lose control, especially when dealing with a pokemon capable of as much destruction as your Gyarados is. But you shouldn't lose your temper in the first place!" Misty's voice rose with each word until she was practically shouting at him, her eyes blazing furiously.

Akira was a little taken aback. Sylvia had received a tongue-lashing too, even if she clearly hadn't taken it seriously at all, but hers wasn't nearly as angry as the one Misty was giving him.

"H-Hey, I know that I got kind of mad, but I don't think-"

"Akira, you can't get mad," Misty said, hearing the hypocrisy in her words even as she said it. "I know you're upset about what happened, but if you're going to train pokemon, you can't lose your cool in a battle, okay?"

Her expression softened and she approached Akira, placing a hand over Satsuki's pokeball. She stared into Akira's eyes, and Akira could see the gentleness in her gaze.

"Akira, your Gyarados is powerful. Maybe even stronger than mine. And even the weakest Gyarados is a pokemon capable of untold destruction. You realize that, don't you?" She asked, and Akira had to agree. Of course he knew what Satsuki was capable of, she'd been with him from the beginning.

"Yeah, I know," he admitted.

"Then you know that you can't lose your temper and let her rampage," Misty continued. "Your Gyarados… Satsuki, her name was? She's incredibly attached to you. And maybe the fact that she's so mellow hasn't let it sink in yet, but if you get angry, and she gets angry… the damage that she could do would be… no, I don't even want to think about it."

Akira didn't want to think about it, either, and he didn't have to. He already had a fairly good impression of what Satsuki was capable of. The responsibility for the damage to the Eon Stadium from his battle with Elaina Bishop didn't fall solely on her shoulders, Satsuki had done her part, too.

He also thought about what had gone down with the Phantom. When he'd lost his temper at the thought of the Phantom being the one who attacked Dakota, and the possibility that he would never get punished for what he'd done… he'd lost it. And Satsuki had lost it, too. She'd run rampage and nearly killed the guy, and that had caused…

Misty was right, he couldn't just lose his temper and turn Satsuki into a weapon for hurting other people. Not even a scumbag who really, really deserved it.

Perhaps that transformation she'd undergone, her "evolution variance enhancement", when she attacked him and fought with Misato, had been a warning sign. The amount of damage she'd inflicted and sustained, the fact that her body had nearly torn itself apart at a genetic level due to what had happened…

And all because he'd lost his temper. He really needed to consider what was going on, and what Satsuki meant to him.

He'd held back from using her for a long while because he was afraid of relying too heavily on her power, and treating her like a tool. She was more than just a pokemon to battle with, she was his family. She was the remnant of his closest friend, and even apart from that, a beloved pokemon that he cared for.

He wasn't going to use her as a weapon again. He wasn't going to let his emotions get the better of him, not if it would hurt Satsuki. Whether through hurting her emotionally by treating her like a weapon, or physically, through her evolution variance enhancement or whatever it was.

Satsuki was more than that.

Misty could see how troubled Akira was by what she had said. She wondered briefly if she had gone too far before dismissing those thoughts. This was something that he needed to hear, to make sure that he was treating his pokemon with the respect she was due.

But even considering that, it wasn't like she had to be totally heartless.

"Hey," Misty said, raising her hand to his cheek, "it's okay. I know I was a little hard on you there, but that was because I needed you to understand how serious of a situation you were dealing with, okay? No hard feelings. That's just part of my job as your cooperating gym leader."

Akira was relieved by what she said and tried to show it to her with a smile, but it was difficult. "Yeah, you're rght. And don't worry. I get it. I need to be more conscious about stuff like that, I did kind of lose myself for a little bit there, you're not wrong."

Misty grinned. "Well. At any rate, at least that's something else you need to think about," she continued, "if you're going to become a good pokemon trainer. And the best part of it is that you realized it for yourself, in your battle against Sylvia. If you hadn't, and you'd lost your temper…"

She let the implication hang there, and shrugged her shoulders.

"…Well, let's just say that you and I would be having a much different conversation if that had been the case, you get me?"

Akira nodded. He got it. He might not have been able to forgive himself if that had happened. If he'd continued with the battle and lost his temper, something might have happened to Satsuki. And without Professor Decker here, the damage might have been irreversible.

He didn't even want to THINK about that.

"I can see now why you were so cautious about using your Gyarados in battle," Misty added. "And yeah, I totally get it. Sorry for pushing you two into a fight when you weren't ready. Before you and Satsuki can battle together, I think you really need to consider your own feelings. The two of you should work on yourselves before you work to practice your abilities."

Akira glanced down at his pokeball and nodded. He turned to Misty. "Yeah. That sounds like a plan. And sorry for causing such a mess."

Misty laughed, glad that everything was settled. The tense atmosphere had been erased, and she was all smiles again.

"Don't worry! Everything's fine," she assured him. "At least neither of our Gyarados went on a rampage and destroyed the place, right?"

Akira wasn't sure if he should laugh at that or not.

Meanwhile, Sylvia was watching this display with disappointment. Misty had done wonders in getting him to wind down and go back to normal, which was starting to be a problem. She'd chosen the Cerulean City Gym to work at as bait, nothing more. Just a way to get Akira on board, and find a gym close to Lavender Town that would fit his typing.

But it seemed that Misty was becoming a bigger problem than she'd expected.

"Sylvia."

Sylvia glanced up to see that Misty had come up to talk to her. And she wasn't wearing a smile on her face anymore.

"Oh? What's up?"

"You heard what I said, right?" Misty asked, narrowing her eyes. She crossed her arms with a no-nonsense look on her face. "About you not baiting Akira anymore?"

Sylvia smiled. "Yes, yes, don't worry, I won't-"

"I'm serious. If I catch you taunting or goading him again, then I'm going to contact the Pokemon Academy and fail you on your placement, and have them pick you up," Misty threatened. She was dead serious. "I'm not kidding you. You two are talented trainers, and I'm not about to let either one of you mess this up for the other, got it?"

Sylvia turned on serious mode. "Yes. I understand. I'm sorry, Akira, I was just trying to have a little bit of fun. Sorry that I went a little overboard, okay?"

Akira nodded, not buying her apology for a second. But he didn't need to believe her.

Misty brightened, and smiled. "Great! That's all I needed to hear! Let's work on this together, and get back to training for today! …Is what I would like to say. But as punishment for the two of you… it's back to cleaning the pools."

She was serious again. Sylvia and Akira sighed.

I wonder, will Akira and Sylvia be able to get back to normal? Or will there be other problems? Is Sylvia being honest when she says she won't mess with Akira anymore?