Akira needs to take his mind off Lavender Town for now, and focus on training. Continuing to think about Dakota and what's happened is just going to stress him out more. Misty's given him some advice, now the question is, how can he use that moving forward?

KedharS: It definitely did, and no one can say that it didn't, no matter how much Akira would like that to be the case.

InterestedGuest: You've got quite a journey ahead of you, glad to have you here!

Pokemon Academy: Beginning of Beginnings

Chapter 836

Akira couldn't distance himself from what Dakota had just said fast enough. It was true, his relationship with Satsuki was different from his other pokemon, but that's because Satsuki was different. He treasured his pokemon, but Satsuki…

Satsuki was special.

But it wasn't… he didn't think of her like that! He may have loved Satsuki once, when they were children, but that was ages ago. And Satsuki in her present state… he never saw her that way, he only saw his precious friend.

The only girl he wanted to be with was Dakota.

Of course, he couldn't exactly say any of this to Misty. It would involve explaining a lot of things that he wasn't comfortable talking about, even with someone he looked up to and admired. His memories of Satsuki were something precious, something he kept close to his heart, and only revealed to the people who were most important to him.

And that was under normal circumstances. Right now, in his present condition, he DEFINITELY wasn't in the right state of mind to talk about Satsuki, or anything serious. There was too much of a risk that it would overwhelm him and he would burst into tears.

That's why he needed to change the subject back into the thing they were actually supposed to be focusing on, training.

"My… My relationship with Satsuki is complicated, but let's not worry about that right now," Akira hotly replied, hoping that he could change the subject back to Sparky. And he really hoped that he wasn't blushing. That would be pretty embarrassing.

Luckily for him, Misty was willing to grant that request, and didn't push the issue any further. She didn't think that Akira REALLY had the hots for one of his pokemon (even though Gyarados were SOOOOOO dreamy) and his relationship with his pokemon was his business, not hers.

"Okay, so what were you thinking for Sparky?" She asked, kneeling next to the pool to pet the Chinchou. "Where are you having difficulties?"

Right. That was the whole point of this, Akira was supposed to be having PROBLEMS training his pokemon.

"Well… I guess my issues are related to helping him become stronger?" Akira guessed at. It wasn't too far from the truth. "Like you said, I've been treating him really gently, and there's nothing wrong with that. But you also noted before that I don't know enough about him and what he can do, so I'm not used to fighting with him."

Misty nodded and raised her head, studying Akira curiously. "Akira, can I ask you something? And feel free to say no if you don't want to answer."

Akira shrugged. "What is it?"

"Your relationship with Sparky's trainer… it's still good, right?" She asked. Seeing the way that he flinched at the question made her regret it immediately. "…Oh, s-sorry if that was a little insensitive, I just meant…"

"No, no, don't worry, Dakota and I, we're fine, it's just…" She's in a coma. "It's just complicated, that's all," he assured her. "I don't mind the question, not if it'll help train Sparky up. Why do you ask, anyway?"

Akira assumed this was about more than Misty's pathological dislike of people being in happy relationships.

"I'm just curious why you're training a pokemon that belongs to someone else, that's all. This Dakota, is she one for pokemon battles?" Misty asked next.

Akira shook her head. "No, actually, she's looking to join the Appeals Course back at school… or maybe the Research Course. She's not one for pokemon battles, not really. I mean, she has battled a few times, and done pretty well for herself," mainly to piss me off, "but it's not what she'd prefer to do, and it's not really what she trains her pokemon to do. Why?"

"It's just a curious thing," Misty shrugged, standing back up. "If your girlfriend was a battler, I would think that she'd like to train up her Chinchou herself. But if she's not a battler, it's curious why she would ask you to train him at a gym. Just a little confusing for me," she sheepishly laughed. "Don't worry about it."

"…Okay," Akira murmured. He felt really small and weak at the moment, standing in front of Misty like this. She'd just touched on something that he'd been trying to avoid, mainly the fact that he was looking after Sparky to help him train, yes, but not because Dakota had asked him to.

Dakota was in a coma, she didn't even know he was here. The reason he was training Sparky was because he wanted to help the little guy get stronger, so that if Dakota ever woke up… something like this would never happen to her again.

It was stupid, obviously, because Dakota hadn't had her pokemon in the library in the first place. Sparky could have been a level 100 Charizard for all the good it would have done her. But at least it made Akira feel a little less useless. He felt like he was actually helping the girl he loved somehow, bringing one of her pokemon here to train.

Misty was definitely picking up on those vibes herself. She wasn't sure what the issue was, but she'd noted it during the past few days with Akira's training of Sparky. He really knew how to work with the Chinchou on a personal level, but that wasn't the same thing as having actual combat experience with the pokemon.

Sparky wasn't used to fighting. That was obvious. And while Akira had trained pokemon to fight before, obviously, his gentle hand with the Chinchou wasn't getting him there. It was like she'd said before, a difference in style. It made sense that Sparky's original trainer wasn't a battler, because her natural style of raising her pokemon clearly hadn't helped them get accustomed to battling.

But that was something that could change with time and persistence. Misty had a good idea of what they could do to solve that.

"Hey, how about this?" She suggested, reaching to her waist and taking off one of her pokeballs. "What if we had a pokemon battle of our own? Just a little tiny one, to help Sparky get used to fighting a little more? You've been training his moves, but we haven't done any sparring matches with the little guy since the first day here, what do you say?"

Akira considered that, it sounded like a pretty good idea. "I think that could work, what do you think, Sparky?" Sparky was pretty low-leveled, so he didn't want to put the little guy into a battle if he wasn't ready for it.

But Akira didn't have anything to worry about. "Chinchou!" Sparky buzzed cheerfully, clearly happy to take part in the battle.

"Looks like he's up for it!" Misty grinned. "Nice! I'm glad I can help. And don't worry, I'm not going to use my regular team, I'm going to use a pokemon a little closer to him in level, so we don't have to have an uneven matchup."

Akira sighed in relief. That was definitely a good thing. He walked around the pool while Misty headed to the other side. The arena they were fighting on wasn't as big as the gym's main battlefield, but it should be big enough for two Water type pokemon to go at it.

Akira just hoped that when she woke up, Dakota wouldn't be too upset about him pushing Sparky into battles. She did tend to treasure the little guy.

And as happy as he would be to see Dakota's eyes open, he didn't want their reunion to be colored by anger.

Across the sea, Dakota's eyes had been open for a long time, and what she was feeling was complex.

She was awake. She was alive! And if what the doctors had said was true, then both of those things constituted nothing short of a miracle from god.

Dakota was just happy to finally be allowed to leave the hospital. It had been nearly two weeks since she'd woken up from her coma, and she was starting to feel like a prisoner! But she supposed that it couldn't be helped.

The doctors had questions. Because of course they did. Dakota hadn't just woken up from a medically impossible condition, but her body had undergone some serious changes in the process of doing so, to boot.

She checked her look in the mirror. Blue eyes. She had blue eyes. She was going to miss her brown. Maybe if she got contacts? But that was nothing compared to the real loss.

Her hair!

Her beautiful, curly, wild red hair! What had happened to it?!

It had grown out in the time she'd been asleep, dancing around her shoulders in a tangle of curls. It made her look a little more girly, which was nice, but still!

It was bright PINK!

She didn't need to be THIS girly!

Her mom and sister both had lovely red hair, and Dakota once had it, too. But now it was a bright neon mess that looked like it had come right out of a grunge teen magazine. She didn't look like herself anymore!

…Would Akira even like her with pink hair?

She quickly shook that thought out of the way. But she couldn't help but be concerned! When Dakota woke up from her coma, she'd wanted nothing more than to see her beloved Akria again. His face was the first thing that had come to mind when she'd opened her eyes. Even before she'd remembered who SHE was in the fog of her memories, she had still seen him there.

But he was in Kanto. And it's not like she could just fly there. Just because she was let out of the hospital didn't mean she was free to go. She was basically on house arrest when she got back home. Stupid Akira, leaving like that!

…No. It wasn't his fault. He thought she might never wake up, and he was right to think that way. She couldn't blame him for choosing his career over her when she was practically a vegetable, there were limits to selfishness.

But the jerk hadn't even CALLED! Serefina had called him first, to tell him the good news, and what had happened? That witch SYLVIA had picked up the phone! And then, every time either one of them had tried to call him back, it just went straight to voice mail!

Sylvia had done something to his phone, she and Serefina were certain of it, the thieving little minx! And she was trying to turn Akira into her little boytoy while Dakota was in a coma! Aaargh, Dakota could just SCREAM!

That was what really got to her. Akira being in Kanto was bad enough, but the fact that he was in Kanto and Sylvia Driscoll was at the same gym?! It was nothing short of infuriating! And of course, it HAD to be the Cerulean City Gym, where Akira's boyhood idol worked. Of all the places-!

No, no, stop it. You're getting jealous again. What's the matter with you? There was no reason to be jealous. There was no reason to doubt Akira at all.

He had MORE than proven his devotion to her, a thousand times over. Serefina had told her all about how he had diligently waited at her bedside for days, how he would visit her all the time, tell her stories, and reaffirmed his love for her over and over again, even though it was very likely that she would never wake up to receive that love directly.

Dakota knew that she would never have to doubt Akira's love for her again. If only that stopped her. She hated when she got like this. She wished she could blame it on her brain injury; a lot of stuff that was wrong with her right now was because of the remaining trauma to her brain, the doctors had said. That was why she'd been in a daze when she first woke up.

There were a lot of things that were still hazy to her. Of course, she had no idea what she'd forgotten because she couldn't remember it, but Serefina had run down a list with her and it turns out she'd forgotten quite a bit.

What really pissed her off was the fact that she couldn't remember anything from the night she was attacked.

She couldn't remember the face of the person who attacked her, she couldn't remember what she'd learned in the library, hell, she couldn't even remember what she was DOING there in the first place, why would she have gone to the library on Valentine's Day night, when she had a standing date with her boyfriend?

Dakota liked knowing things. It wouldn't be wrong to say that she had a compulsion to know things. She always had to be the smartest person in the room, the one who knew all the answers, all the secrets, because she hated when people were hiding things from her.

Akira had teased her about it constantly, calling her "his Trust-Issue Princess".

…Damn it, why did such a rude nickname make her heart swoon?! Stupid Akira. If he was here she could get properly angry at him, instead of just mooning over him.

She wanted to see Akira so badly. She NEEDED to see him. In fact, she'd been seeing him a lot, even when he wasn't really there.

The first night after Dakota had woken up, she'd refused to go to sleep. Even when the doctors had told her that it was impossible, that she needed sleep in order to properly recover, she couldn't accept it, and pleaded with them not to sedate her.

She was finally awake. And she was terrified that if she fell back asleep, she'd slip back into her coma again. But the doctors had insisted.

And now her dreams were about Akira. And they were all so vivid, too, imagining what he was doing in the gym, training his pokemon, not to mention caring for little Sparky, who she was ALSO looking forward to seeing! A touching reunion with only five of her pokemon wasn't nearly enough for her, grateful to Akira as she might have been.

Gods, she just wished she could BE there!

And in a flash she was.

It was disorienting at first. She'd been standing in the hospital room, staring at herself in the mirror, and then she found herself in a giant water park, staring at a swimming pool where Akira was battling with the gym leader using her Chinchou.

It passed as soon as it happened, and she was back in the hospital room.

She'd been having a lot of those, too. Hallucinations. Dreams. The doctor said that it was a likely side-effect of her brain trauma.

"The brain is a complicate organ," they had said. "Even though we can't detect any damage with our tools, that doesn't mean it isn't there."

Thanks, doc, but I'd really just like the fucking cure, Dakota miserably thought to herself. They didn't have any idea how long the hallucinations would persist, or if she would be stuck with them forever, which was a terrifying thought.

People already called her delusional. Now that she really was, the thought was terrifying. She punched the wall in frustration. She hated this. She hated it! She was so glad she was alive, but that didn't mean she was OKAY!

What if they never go away? What if they get WORSE? What if they reach a point where I can't even figure out what's real and what's fake? What then? Even as frightened as she was, Dakota couldn't help imagine Akira snidely remarking that she'd already passed that point a long time before the brain damage anyway.

The pink hair and blue eyes were the obvious signs of her trauma. And the doctors had waved it away by saying it might have just been her body's natural response to the treatment and the shock, like how people have a fright and their hair turns white. It was a curiosity, but nothing to be overly concerned about.

Of course, there were a few things that were a little more difficult to wave away, namely her fucking eyesight.

Whatever had happened to her, it hadn't just turned her eyes blue, it had FIXED them.

Dakota never admitted it to anyone, but ever since she was a girl she needed glasses. It wasn't like she ALWAYS needed to wear them, of course. She just had a little bit of trouble reading things up close. But she could easily go about her day without ever needing to take them out of her purse, and often used them as a prop to make her look smarter.

Now she could read clear as day. Her glasses remained forgotten in her purse, completely obsolete. The doctors had had a little more trouble explaining THAT one away.

But as curious as that was, it was still the things like the hallucinations and memory loss that really tormented her. The hallucinations were so VIVID, too!

The scent of chlorine was still on her nose! Her skin was still sticky from the humidity of the swimming pool! It was like she wasn't just SEEING things, she had actually BEEN there.

Yup. Dakota had brain damage alright, she was going bonkers. Any moment now, Philip Stone would appear in the mirror and tell her that she needed to chop off Serefina's boobs with a meat cleaver, that was the kind of nutso she felt.

She took another look in the mirror and sighed. Between the new hair and eyes, the hallucinations, and the memory loss, it had been a rough few weeks without her boyfriend. She had a lot to adjust to, and she didn't feel like herself in her own body.

"If only I looked a little bit more like myself," she mumbled, staring mournfully at her reflection as she imagined her vibrant red hair, never again to decorate her head.

Then the image in the mirror began to shimmer and the color of her curls darkened, returning to their original scarlet luster.

She gasped. For a moment, she couldn't believe what she was seeing. She had to reach up to pull her bangs down in front of her eyes to check, but yes! Her hair!

It was red again!

Her voice choked in her throat. "S-Seri! Quick! Come here, look! My hair!" She shouted through tears of joy. "It's red again!"

She didn't know how it had happened, but it happened! She wasn't some bubblegum Barbie nightmare, she was her old redheaded self!

Serefina rushed into the room and Dakota turned to her, overjoyed.

Until she saw the perplexed look on Serefina's face.

"…Seri?" Dakota asked warily, already dreading the worst.

"Dakota… it's the same as it was," Serefina said, her gentle voice filled with confusion.

No. No way. She was a redhead again, she was, she-

She looked at her face in the mirror again, and saw that nauseating hot pink.

Another hallucination. It had just been another hallucination.

Dakota slumped against the counter and cried.

Rough. Poor Dakota. Just because she's awake, that doesn't mean that her hardships have magically gone away. She still has the lingering effects of her brain damage to live with, and whatever the µ Gene did to her, if anything.