Akira has come clean to Misty, and Misty in turn has agreed to let them go to Lavender Town- as long as she can come along to make sure that the two of them don't get up to no good! A chaperone for this trip might help a lot! Hopefully everything will go okay. Remember to review!

KedharS: Yep. Bringing Misty along to Lavender Town might not have been what Sylvia and Akira were expecting but it should be very interesting nonetheless.

Just a Bad Writer for Fun: I agree, I like Chinchou quite a bit, that's why I gave Dakota one.

Pokemon Academy: Beginning of Beginnings

Chapter 840

Akira was surprised that Misty had agreed to chaperone him and Sylvia on their journey to Lavender Town. Even after he revealed his past to her, he still expected that she wouldn't let them take the time out of their schedule to go to a whole other town to talk to a stranger.

But no, she had been nothing but helpful. And he was grateful for that. After he told Misty about what had happened to Dakota and what was going on with Satsuki, she came to him in the night because she felt he needed someone else to talk to.

They took a walk outside the gym.

"I'm not just here to help you get better at training your pokemon, Akira," she said to him. "It's also my duty to look after you and make sure you're okay. To guide you properly and take care of you, like a mentor or big sister."

Akira smiled. The way she looked at him sometimes, how kind she could be, it really did feel like he had a big sister. He felt safe with her. And now that he'd told her everything and let her inside, he could finally be honest with her. That made everything better.

"I'm glad I have you to talk to," Akira said. "These past two weeks have been hard. Sylvia was the only one I could talk to about this, and she's…"

He couldn't even finish the sentence, he felt sick to his stomach. Misty nodded sympathetically and patted him on the shoulder. She understood where she was coming from. Even though she lacked Akira's distaste for Sylvia, she could see that she wasn't the kind of girl who you went to for emotional comfort or trust.

"Thank you for telling me," she replied. "I'm happy that you felt like you could trust me with something this important."

If Sylvia had been the one to reveal this information, Misty would have expected it to be a manipulation. But Akira wasn't like that. He hadn't told Misty just because he wanted her to let them go to Lavender Town, he legitimately trusted her enough to tell him his past pain.

That went a long way with her. She wished she could find a guy who was willing to share his feelings with her so openly! But alas, it seemed like only children like Akira were that willing to let others in closely.

She continued to comfort Akira for a decent time after that, reassuring him that it was okay that he felt the way he did, and that she was happy to help him however she could. It was the least she could do for him, after all.

Akira went to bed feeling more relieved than he had in weeks; maybe even a month. Hell, he slept better that night than he ever had since Dakota had fallen into her coma. And the dreams he had were more peaceful than ever.

The rest of the week was like that. He trained with a stronger focus and his head held high, no longer feeling the burden of his secrets weighing him down. He didn't need to worry or lose his head over what was going to happen in Lavender Town, because he had a goal now, a focus. They'd leave on Friday night, and hopefully by the time they got back, everything would be different.

Thoughts of helping Dakota dominated his mind. It was all he could think about, even as he trained. There wasn't any worry there, no, just focused determination. I'm going to help you, Dakota. I promise that I'll find some way to help you wake up.

He didn't know, of course, that Dakota was already awake. But even if she was awake, that didn't mean she didn't need help.

After what had happened in the Newspaper Club, Dakota didn't want to spend another second in that room. It had felt like home to her for so long, but right now, she felt like the world was spinning around her, like everything was sick and wrong. This wasn't her Newspaper Club, this wasn't where she wanted to be.

There was something seriously wrong with her, she knew that now. It wasn't just hallucinations and memory loss. She'd been trying to convince herself that it was, because if it was something so mundane she would feel better. She wasn't "really" wrong, there were just a few problems in her brain that she didn't have a cure for.

But this? This was something she couldn't explain.

Dakota's desire to learn the truth stopped when it came to herself. She would have been curious otherwise, but right now, she didn't want to face this. She couldn't take it. She couldn't be here anymore.

The world wasn't just spinning anymore. It was settling. Back in her room. Where she felt like she was at home. It was beginning to crystallize, the hallucination- no, whatever it was, it was real- was starting to turn real.

She couldn't let it. She shook her head and screamed until the world turned blurry again, and she was standing in the Newspaper Club room beside a shocked Serefina. She panted, exhausted, and looked at her friend.

Serefina was making the worst face she could have. It was a face twisted with surprise and confusion, and filled with fear.

It wasn't like she was afraid of Dakota. Whatever was going on with her, she would never be afraid of her friend. But she could see that something was very wrong with her friend's condition, and she was afraid for Dakota.

But all Dakota could see was the fear.

Serefina was afraid, and Dakota didn't want to lose her friend after just getting her back. She didn't know what to do, so she did the only thing she could do. She turned and fled the building, running as far away as she could.

Serefina was startled a second time. Of all the things she'd expected Dakota to do, running away wasn't one of them. But it was surprising enough that it broke Serefina out of her stupor, and she began to think again.

"Dakota! Wait, come back!" Serefina cried, frantically chasing after her terrified friend. She knew that she had messed up, bad. Dakota needed her help to figure out what was going on, and she had accidentally scared the poor girl away.

Mirar watched calmly as the two girls fled from the Newspaper Clubroom. In their hurry they'd forgotten to turn off the computer. That was probably going to rack up the electric bill, he wasn't looking forward to that.

He switched off his computer without another word.

Dakota didn't know where she was going. She didn't even want to THINK about where she was going, because she was afraid that if she did, she would end up actually going there. It was like a pokemon using teleport; these weren't hallucinations, they were real. What the hell had happened to her when she got attacked?! Her hair, her eyes, as strange and confusing as they were, those were cosmetic differences, and head injuries leading to memory loss and hallucinations wasn't anything unheard of before.

She had no context for this. She ran past the classroom halls, past the clubrooms, past the dorms, and into the wilds of the island.

Perhaps if she didn't know where she was, then she wouldn't be able to go somewhere else. It was worth a shot, anyway.

Serefina was trying to keep up. But she wasn't doing a very good job of it. She was practically out of breath by the time she reached the edges of the campus, her throat raw and pounding. She didn't even have the strength to keep calling out desperately to Dakota to get her to stop.

All she could do was keep running, and hope she could get there.

But Dakota was getting further and further away. Serefina wasn't in very good shape to begin with, so she knew she couldn't run very well, but she was surprised at how fast Dakota was after weeks in the hospital doing nothing.

Well, I guess she has been saving up her energy for the last month or so in her coma, Serefina dryly mused, recognizing in spite of her thoughts how bad something like that sounded. But she couldn't help but feel like this was another thing that just wasn't right about this situation. Could higher stamina than usual be another side-effect of Dakota's coma?

Serefina hadn't told Dakota about the µ Gene that Akira and the professor had used to help Dakota heal in her coma. Her family hadn't told her, either, and neither had the doctors. It might have been cruel to keep that from her, but they'd all agreed that it was for the best.

Other than her hair and eyes changing, Dakota hadn't experienced any side-effects that the doctors could observe on a genetic level. Even the DNA samples they'd taken from her were identical to how her DNA had been before, so it wasn't like the µ Gene had overwritten her DNA or anything like that, rather, it had mutated to match her own. The professor had said something like that, right? That it would mutate like that?

But this was definitely different. Serefina didn't really believe that Dakota had teleported into Mirar's office like they had theorized, but it was clear that something was wrong. And if that had really happened, then this was certainly because of the µ Gene.

If Dakota had teleporting powers before now, Serefina would have definitely known about it.

Whatever was going on with her, it wasn't natural. So of course she was scared. And Serefina hadn't been much help, letting her fear and worry take hold of her like that. She should have been looking out for Dakota and protecting her, not…

Not letting her run off into the woods like this.

"Dakota!" She cried, entering the forest on the edge of the main areas of campus, looking around frantically for her friend. She had already lost sight of her by the time they had gotten to the trees, at this point she was just desperate. "Dakota, where are you?"

Of course, she recognized how ridiculous it was for her to call out to someone who had obviously run away from her specifically, but she had to do something. She couldn't just leave Dakota alone out here, after all! Something was going on, and she needed help. She needed support. She needed Serefina there, to help her figure out what was happening.

No, Serefina realized bitterly, shaking her head. I'm not the one she needs right now. She needs Akira. He's the one who could help her. He's the one who could make her feel better. Me, I've never been able to do it. Not really.

Serefina was somewhat envious of Akira. Eli and Dakota were her best friends. Eli was fun to spend time with, but Dakota… Serefina always felt like Dakota needed her more out of the two of them. Eli's confidence issues aside, she was still a great girl who could stand up for herself.

Dakota, on the other hand, was a bit of a mess. Serefina was practically the only real friend she had. And she wanted to look out for her, in turn, and help her feel better whenever she was feeling down, but because of Dakota's stubbornness such actions were almost always futile. But Akira never had to try so hard to get Dakota to open up to him. Even when they hated each other there was always that connection there that let him get through to her.

Serefina envied that connection. At times, she felt more like Dakota's keeper than she did her best friend.

This was one such instance. She was feeling "mom whose child got lost in the mall" energy, and she hated it.

"Dakota, please, I just want to help!" She cried desperately, hoping that Dakota would come out. But as the sky got dark and the traces of her friend were further and further away, she was afraid that she would never find her.

That was a different kind of terrifying.

If Mirar and Dakota were right, and she had done something like teleport, then that meant Dakota wasn't fully human anymore. She'd known that for weeks, of course, ever since the µ Gene was used on her. But it was one thing to have slightly altered DNA, and a whole other thing to be teleporting around willy-nilly.

What would happen if Dakota, in her current condition, teleported herself into a volcano or something? Or into the middle of the ocean, or hundreds of miles in the sky? She was afraid that something could happen to her friend, more afraid than she'd been even when she saw Dakota lying in her bed in that coma.

She cursed the fact that she didn't have a Flying type pokemon to track her down.

"Okay, I guess it's come to that," she sighed, taking a pokeball off of her belt. She was out of options, she needed to rely on her pokemon. "Barneby."

"Banette?" Her Banette looked questioningly at her when he was released from his pokeball, wondering what he was doing way out here in the middle of nowhere.

"Hey, Barneby, sorry to call on you like this," Serefina apologized. "But I really, really need your help. It's important. Can you help me?"

"Banette!" Barneby smiled, sticking his chest out proudly.

Serefina smiled, relieved. "Okay, good. Because I need you to find Dakota, can you do that for me?" She asked.

"Banette?!" Barneby gasped in surprise.

"Yeah, long story short, she woke up and she ran away into the forest. Can you find her for me, please?" Serefina begged.

"Banette," Barneby assured her with a nod.

"Oh, thanks, you're the best! Oh, and one other thing, Dakota's going to look a little differently since the last time you saw her," Serefina added. "Her hair is all pink now, and her eyes were blue. Can you remember that?"

Barneby gave her one last nod, and disappeared into the shadows of the trees as Serefina resumed her search on foot.

When Barneby finally tracked Dakota down, she was crouched in the hollow of a tree beside the river, curled up in a ball and burying her face in her knees. The Banette silently led Serefina back to the stream where she knelt beside the trembling, crying Dakota.

"Hey, Dakota," Serefian said gently, rubbing a tender hand along her friend's back. "It's okay. You don't need to worry."

Dakota wouldn't even look at her.

"I'm a freak, Seri," she muttered. "Just go away."

"Dakota, you're not a freak!" Serefina protested. Dakota wasn't listening to some garbage like that, though.

"I AM!" She shouted. "Just five minutes ago, I was getting hungry, and before I knew it I was at a burger joint! The same one I used to eat at when I was a little kid! And it wasn't just a hallucination, I was there! REALLY there! Do you have any idea what that's like?! To not have any idea what's going on, to know that something's wrong with you inside, and you can't control yourself?! Huh?!"

Dakota looked up at Serefina with anger in her eyes. Right now, she wanted to be alone. She wanted Serefina to leave her alone!

And then she was.

Serefina fell back, nearly tumbling into the river. She was pushed away by a soft pink bubble that wrapped itself around Dakota, a barrier of light that kept her from getting close. Dakota was stunned. What the hell did she just do?!

"S-Seri…" Dakota stammered, shaking her head. "I-I swear, I didn't mean to do it, I didn't!" The bubble poppet, shattering into tiny shards of light. Dakota scooted back even further against the tree, afraid of what Serefina was going to say. She didn't really want Serefina gone. Serefina was her most important friend! And if anything happened to her, Dakota would have preferred to have stayed in that coma! She'd run from her in the first place because she couldn't stand the idea that Serefina was scared of her or thought she was a monster.

But among the many things that Dakota had forgotten, she must have also forgotten that Serefina wasn't the kind of person who looked cruelly upon someone else. She wasn't the type of girl who would be scared just because her friend was displaying weird powers.

"It's okay, Dakota," Serefina assured her, wrapping her arms around Dakota and giving her a gentle hug. "I'm not hurt. And I'm not afraid of you. I don't think you're a freak."

"I am!" Dakota cried, burying her face in her knees again. "Normal people can't teleport to one place and then back in the blink of an eye! Normal people can't make force fields! I'm not normal, Seri, I'm a freak of nature!"

Serefina couldn't go on letting Dakota think that way. Whatever reasons the doctors and Dakota's family had for concealing the truth from her, that didn't matter anymore. Dakota was falling apart right in front of her eyes, and that was the problem that deserved her attention right now, not any theoretical fallout that might occur when she learned about the µ Gene and what it had done to her.

Learning about the µ Gene might be the only way that Serefina could get Dakota to calm down and not hate herself.

She just had to hope that Dakota would find some way to forgive her and Akira when she learned what they had agreed to do.

Dakota listened to the whole thing quietly, not lifting her head. It was rather cruel to Serefina, not being able to see her friend's reaction. She couldn't tell if Dakota was angry, or sad, or if she was even listening to what she was saying.

But those things weren't important. What was important was Serefina telling Dakota the truth, and that's exactly what she did.

She finished her explanation by telling Dakota the reason that Akira had gone to Cerulean City, about how he was looking into the µ Gene and Professor Decker to figure out if there was anything else that he could do for her.

Now the only thing that was left to do was sit here and wait to hear what Dakota's response to everything was.

Serefina hoped that her friend would understand, but she was prepared for Dakota to completely shut her down in disgust, call off their friendship entirely, or hell, just teleport away and Serefina would never hear from her again.

Those were all things she deserved.

"…So that's everything, Dakota," Serefina said quietly. "I'm sorry that I hid this from you, and I'm sorry that we did it without your consent. I could make some excuse about how we didn't think there was any other way to save you from permanent brain damage, the only way that you might eventually wake up, but that wouldn't matter."

The words caught in her throat. She had started crying about an hour into her explanation.

"…What matters is that we did something horrible to you. And we can't take it back. Whatever's going on with you, it's our fault, not yours. So please, don't hate yourself. And don't hate Akira, either. He was just lost in his love and feelings for guilt. If you're going to hate someone, then please, hate me. It's what I deserve for blowing you off and letting you go to the library alone like that."

Serefina hadn't told anyone that last part. Not even Akira. But she blamed herself for what had happened to Dakota. Because she had been so exhausted on Valentine's Day, because she hadn't thought to look after Dakota, or go with her to make sure that nothing bad happened.

If she had handled things differently, if she had been a better friend, then maybe none of this would have happened in the first place.

That's why she deserved whatever punishment Dakota had for her.

Dakota raised her head, and Serefina prepared herself for what would come next.

So Dakota knows the truth! But what's really happening to her? Next chapter we head to Lavender Town, and hopefully we can finally learn some of the secrets Mr. Fuji has!