While Akira is dealing with this dilemma in Lavender Town, Dakota's dealing with a dilemma of her own, now that she knows something's really wrong with her. Will she be able to figure out what's going on with these strange abilities of hers? Let's see!

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

Just a Bad Writer for Fun: It's definitely a hard decision to think about. Akira's in a predicament. Hopefully after a good night's sleep he'll be able to come to a decision that's best for everyone involved.

Pokemon Academy: Beginning of Beginnings

Chapter 847

Back at the Pokemon Academy, Dakota was holed up in her room. She was trying to figure out what was going on with her with the help of Serefina, but neither one of them had any idea how to fix this whole mess.

Upon seeing the state that Dakota was in, Serefina decided that some things were more important than others, and decided that she deserved to know the truth about what had happened. It was hard to tell her, and she fully expected Dakota to hate her after all was said and done.

The news that she had been declared medically brain dead and that Akira had saved her by having a shady professor alter her genetic structure with an experimental procedure, with the full permission of her family, couldn't have been easy to take. It was the kind of thing that Serefina expected should have completely upended Dakota's whole world.

She took it remarkably well.

"So wait, you're saying that Professor Decker implanted this… what was it again? The "Meow" Gene?" She asked.

"No, the µ Gene. Like the old alphabet letter," Serefina clarified, astounded that Dakota had taken all this so well. Maybe she was in shock.

"…Right. So he implanted this µ Gene into me, and it altered me on a genetic level, causing my brain to repair itself and my wound to heal?" Dakota asked. She checked under her shirt just to make sure. She'd thought it was strange that a wound so severe it had put her in the hospital had completely healed without a single trace of a scar in such a short time, but had chalked it up to the expertise of the doctors. Now she knew better.

"That's right," Serefina said. "And the professor explained that there could be consequences, but Akira, he… no, it's not just Akira." She wasn't about to let Akira take the fall for this. "I believed it too. I thought that, if we could get you back, then something like this was the only option. So if you're going to hate someone, hate me. It's my fault that all this happened to you."

"…So because of you… I'm not fully human anymore," Dakota said numbly, absentmindedly curling a lock of her pinkened hair. "This µ Gene… it transformed me into something else, and now I'm like this for good."

"Dakota… I'm so, so sorry… we thought it was the only way to help you, and… we weren't thinking of any possible side-effects." Serefina couldn't apologize enough. She would spend her whole life atoning for what she'd done.

How could Dakota not hate her? Even if she was alive, she had been turned into something else. Something that wasn't human. Without her consent. Akira, the professor, her family, they had all agreed without consulting her about this.

It was a horrible thing to do, so why… why was Dakota smiling at her?

"It's okay, Seri," Dakota said, reaching out and stroking her friend's cheek. "I'm not mad about what you did. I don't blame you, or Akira, or my folks. You were all just trying to help me, weren't you? How could I be mad at you over something like that?"

Serefina couldn't believe what she was hearing. Dakota didn't blame her? She wasn't upset? Impossible, there was no way that was true! Dakota had to hate her, she just had to! If not for her, then she would be… she wouldn't be…

"H-How?" Serefina sniffled. "How come you aren't mad with me?" She was blubbering hard, and wanted to hug Dakota with everything she had. But she couldn't bring herself to do it, not after everything she'd done.

So Dakota hugged her.

"Because you're my friend, Seri. Because you and everybody else did it to help me. And because you told me the truth." Dakota kissed Serefina on the cheek. "And I know that you didn't tell me because you thought that I would forgive you, or because I'm a 'freak' you're the only person who would be friends with me. You told me because you knew that I needed to know, didn't you? That's right, isn't it Seri?"

Serefina kept crying, nodding. It was so hard, keeping all of that secret from her. But now that it was out there, she almost felt relieved.

And more than relieved, she was grateful. Grateful that she didn't have Dakota's ire, that her friend didn't hate her for what had happened.

Dakota waited for Serefina to finish crying before she continued her thoughts.

"Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not exactly thrilled that you kept this from me in the first place," she admitted, pulling back from Serefina and lying on the bed, staring up at the ceiling. "And I'm definitely not happy that this happened to me."

A pang of guilt pierced Serefina's heart. She hung her head in shame.

"But honestly, knowing what happened is a relief," Dakota admitted, turning her kind blue eyes back towards her friend.

Serefina was beside herself.

"Wh-What? B-But…"

"Earlier I thought that there was something wrong with me," Dakota explained. "I thought that I was a freak. I was having all these hallucinations, and I learned that I was actually teleporting all over the place. Then there was that weird barrier I created. I thought that something was seriously wrong, that I was… broken. Not normal. And now I don't."

Serefina didn't understand. What she'd just explained to Dakota, wasn't that confirmation of her worst fears? Directly confirming for her that she WASN'T normal? So why would that come as a relief to her? It didn't make any sense.

"What do you mean?" She asked, trying to figure out what her friend was talking about. Dakota's smile didn't falter in the face of Serefina's confusion.

"Because now I know what happened," Dakota said, placing her hand over her chest. "This isn't some defect. I'm not a freak. This was a gift. A gift from everyone who loves me. From my boyfriend, my parents, my sister… and from you. So, yeah. I have some weird powers now, and that's DEFINITELY something to be worried about. But I thought it was because something went wrong, and now I know it's because something went right."

Serefina looked at her friend in awe. She'd never seen this kind of understanding from Dakota before. Whatever had happened to her in that coma, whatever realizations she'd had in the hospital as she tried to put the pieces of her life back together, it had changed her.

And the girl who was sitting in front of her wasn't the kind of person who would hate or condemn her friend over something like this. She was a girl who understood what Serefina had done, and was already looking at the positives.

Serefina had always thought she was the kind one out of the two of them. But she couldn't compare with this.

She held her stomach and shook, collapsing to her knees. She began to cry.

"Oh! Hey, Seri, it's okay! Really, I don't blame you at all, promise!" Dakota hastily assured her, jumping out of bed and running over to her side.

"It's… It's not that," Serefina sniffled, shaking her head. She looked up into Dakota's eyes, seeing the deep ocean of kindness swimming within them.

"I was just thinking… I'm happy that I'm your friend."

Dakota grinned. She hugged Serefina gently. "I'm happy I'm your friend, too," she replied, and this time Serefina could really believe her.

All this was about a week ago. Dakota was still trying to come to terms with what had happened, and there were some… other adjustments as well.

"Just think of it," she said, staring at her reflection in the mirror. A wicked smile spread across her face. "These powers… that µ Gene… can you imagine it, Seri? There's a story there, I just know it! Look at me! I'm a walking miracle! Once I figure out how to get a handle on what I can do, I can write an article about myself! 'Dakota the Miracle Girl, the µ Gene and What if Can Do For the Sake of the World!' just imagine it!"

Those pools of blue had turned muddy with greed and ambition. Serefina couldn't believe how far Dakota had slid back into her old habits.

I guess she didn't change as much as I thought she did, Serefina thought with a sigh. But even so, she couldn't help the smile that came to her face.

A Dakota who didn't care about uncovering the truth and spreading the next biggest scoop was no Dakota at all. In a way, seeing her like this was more reassuring than the kind words she'd given Serefina earlier in the week.

"But still, this whole business with the µ Gene, it's really strange," Dakota said, sitting back at her desk and stroking her chin. "I've got all sorts of powers now, but I can't really do anything to control them. I don't even know what really happened."

Dakota and Serefina had been experimenting in the privacy of their room all week. So far, they'd discovered that Dakota was still teleporting back and forth to random places, among other abilities. They'd drawn up a list.

Teleporting

Making force fields

Making things move (barely)

Shapeshifting (sort of)

The problem was, there was no indication of how these abilities worked, what triggered them, or how strong they were. It was a far cry from Dakota being the next superheroine to save the world, that was for sure.

After a week of practicing, all they'd managed to figure out was that if Dakota thought hard enough and strongly enough about somewhere, she would teleport there… for about a fraction of a second and then she would slingshot back. Not exactly useful.

If something was threatening her or she was really scared, a forcefield would spring up around her, but it was flimsy and squishy like a bubble and could pop just as easily, so not exactly the most useful thing there, either.

And if she focused really hard on an object or got really, really emotional, she could make small things like keys and phones and cups move with her mind, if "move" meant "kind of nudged it" or "sent it flying across the room and accidentally breaking a window that one time".

Finally, the last thing, was something that Dakota had discovered by accident when she was preening over herself in the mirror. She was curious about the fact that the µ Gene hadn't just fixed her eyes, it had also changed their color along with her hair.

And for a moment, they turned back. Her beautiful baby browns and her tawny red locks were there for a fraction of a second before they regained their current tones, and that's when the experimenting began.

This one was a little easier to control, and a little harder as well. Her first step was her hair. She wanted to be red again! So she did. She would start small, tying part of her hair into a side ponytail, and then willing it to turn red. But no matter what changes she would make to the color, it would never stay, it would just fade back.

That was the one they experimented with the most. Unlike the forcefield or the telekinesis, there was little chance of accidentally breaking something. And there wasn't a risk of her accidentally teleporting herself out a seven story window, either.

Dakota herself also hypothesized that her recovery was an indication that she now had super-healing powers as well, but for multiple reasons Serefina wasn't ready to experiment with that line of thinking quite yet.

So shapeshifting it was!

Soon, Dakota could change the color of her hair and eyes to more than just red, she could alter them however she wanted! And her skin, as well. She could pale patches of herself into a ghostly hue that would make Kitty look like she was blushing, or tan to the point she looked like she'd come back from a summer trip to Alola.

But none of the color changes would ever last. It was a fun party trick, but not the most useful thing in the world, and not great material for an article.

Then Dakota started experimenting another way.

"Hey, Seri! Come here, look at this!" Dakota quickly urged her friend over to the mirror. Serefina walked over, curious about what Dakota had figured out now. She was less excited about this than her roommate, honestly, she was a little scared. She knew that all these experiments and trying to figure things out was Dakota's way of compartmentalizing what had happened, but seeing her friend look like she'd taken a bath in a rainbow was rather unnerving.

"What is it?" She asked.

Dakota's boobs inflated to the size of beach balls. "Look! I'm almost to your size!" She teased, her chest quickly deflating.

Embarrassed and outraged, Serefina crossed her arms over her chest. "Mine aren't that big, you jerk! Stop making fun of me! …Hey, wait! What the heck was that!?"

"It's not just colors!" Dakota said excitedly. "I was just thinking earlier about how I wish my hair was a little longer, and it grew! Then I wished I was a little taller, and I was! Isn't that so cool? I can make my boobs, like, ginormous!"

Serefina squinted. Dakota didn't LOOK any different.

Dakota blushed. "W-Well, like the other changes, it doesn't last more than a second or two, so it's not that useful," she admitted. "But still! Can you imagine? What if I'm able to, like, hold it? Maybe I could even…"

She gasped in realization as another bright idea struck her. She turned to the mirror and scrunched up her face.

"…What are you doing?" Serefina asked.

"I'm trying to make my face change," she mumbled out, scrunching her cheeks together. But it wasn't working. She sighed in defeat. "Ah, well, so much for that…"

Serefina didn't like this new line of thinking. "Dakota, why do you want to change your face all of a sudden? And please don't tell me it's so you can sneak around like other people and create fake news stories, please."

That wasn't what she was actually concerned about. Her real worries ran a lot deeper than that, but she didn't even want to say those out loud.

Dakota played with her hair glumly. "Well, I thought… I'm not the prettiest girl around, you know? So maybe if I… you know, if I made myself look a little cuter, made my body look a little curvier… Aki would be happy about it, you know?"

Yup. That was exactly what Serefina had feared.

"Dakota… these powers of yours, whatever they are… don't you think you're kind of starting to lose yourself to them a little?" Serefina asked.

"What… What do you mean?" Dakota wasn't "losing herself" to anything, she was experimenting with her new skills!

"I understand that it must be kind of… well, no, I don't understand," Serefina admitted. "I've never had superpowers or anything, so I can't imagine what you must be going through. But I can see that you're definitely excited to test them out, right?"

"Yeah! Definitely!" Dakota said, nodding eagerly. "Imagine, if I was able to control these new abilities, think of everything I can do!"

"I am thinking about it, are you?" Serefina asked.

Dakota was caught off-guard by that. "Wh-What?"

"Dakota, you're my best friend," Serefina said. "And of course I'm going to support you however I can with these abilities of yours. But there's a reason we're testing them out in your room, and not in some science lab somewhere, or out in the middle of campus."

Dakota froze up, and averted her eyes.

"S-Seri, it's not like…"

"I know you're scared," Serefina said, hugging her friend. "Believe me, if this happened to me, I would be terrified. But something like this… you can't just treat it like some cool new party trick, or a way to look a little cuter for your boyfriend. This is serious."

Dakota sniffled and hung her head.

"But what if… what if Akira thinks I'm a freak? What if he… what if he doesn't want me anymore, because I'm… like this? I'm not normal, Seri, I have these weird abilities, and you said it yourself! He's going to Kanto to find out if he can fix me, but… what if he can't? What if I'm just… like this, forever?" She wailed.

Serefina sighed. That was Dakota. She wasn't concerned about the fact that she was now some genetically augmented human. Her biggest worry was that her boyfriend wouldn't want her because of it.

"And that's why you wanted to look prettier, Dakota? Really?"

"If… If I can… If I can show him how good it is that I have these powers, show him everything I can do with them, then maybe… maybe he'll want to stay with me after all…?" Dakota had seen the way Akira had gotten flustered by Serefina's boobs before. If she had boobs like hers, then wouldn't that be for the best?

Why was that so wrong?

"This is what I meant by losing yourself to these powers," Serefina said gently. "Dakota, Akira fell for you even without those abilities. And just because you have them, he's not going to stop."

"But what if he doooeees?!"

Serefina pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed. When Dakota was like this, there was no talking sense to her.

"Listen, Dakota, like I said before, I don't know what it's like to have weird powers," Serefina comforted her friend. "But I know a thing or two about waking up one morning and finding out that your body has seriously changed."

She gestured to her chest to emphasize what she meant.

"When by boobs started growing, I thought it was strange. None of the other girls' chests were as big as mine. And I realized that everyone was looking at me differently. People who I thought were my friends stopped talking to me because they were jealous, or suddenly they wanted to be MORE than friends with me, even though the only thing that had changed was my body. People stopped seeing me for who I was, and started seeing me as a pair of huge boobs."

She smiled at Dakota. "But Akira isn't one of those people. And you aren't, either. That's why you're my friends. Because you don't care about what I look like, or how I'm different. You like me for who I am, and that's why you're important to me."

Dakota sniffled. "Do you think that Aki… do you think he really won't care that I'm a freak?"

Serefina couldn't lie to her. "I think he will care," she admitted, and Dakota tensed up. "In fact, I can be pretty sure I know the first thing he'll do when he sees what happened to you."

"…What?" Dakota asked cautiously, dreading the worst.

Serefina laughed and tussled her pink hair. "He'll freak out and ask you a long string of questions about whether or not you're okay, and no matter how much we tell him you're fine, he's going to keep worrying about you until we're both sick of it."

Dakota snorted. She could see that completely.

"He's not going to be grossed out. He's only going to be thinking about you," Serefina assured her. "I promise."

Dakota smiled back at her. Those words were exactly what she needed to hear.

Aww! I'm so glad Dakota's feeling better! These powers, whatever they are, are something that she's gonna need to learn to control. And thankfully she's got Serefina by her side to learn how to do it, and hopefully Akira will join in soon!