With tensions so high between the Commander and the Empress, I think it's time we take a step back and look towards someone a little more amenable. Too much tension is difficult. How is the Phantom doing in the Orre Region? THAT should be nice and lighthearted, right? Nothing to worry about!

KedharS: Something like that.

Just a Bad Writer for Fun: It would definitely be bad. Luckily the Phantom is otherwise occupied.

Hellraiserphoenix: I'd feel pretty bad too. This is way too stressful.

Venoms Cross 2: Interesting.

JoshGamerV: The Rui who is with the Children of the Oracles has curly black hair, actually, and no relation to this Rui.

Guest: Uh… what?

Pokemon Academy: Beginning of Beginnings

Chapter 870

Ange was still getting used to airplanes. And buses. Technology in general was a bit of a wince for her, honestly.

She preferred the simpler pleasures, the joy of riding on the back of a pokemon to get to where she needed to go.

Although I don't have a pokemon capable of flying, so I guess that's not an option, she was loathe to admit.

She missed having access to ride pokemon. They made everything so much easier.

When the bus came to a stop at the drop-off point, she was the first to get off. Feeling the solid ground beneath her feet again, nothing could be better. She squinted up at the morning sun. The Orre Region was so hot.

I knew I should have dressed lighter, Ange thought, looking down at her clothes. Her sundress may have been made out of lighter fabric, but it was the color of midnight, and a wardrobe all in black wasn't the best thing for desert travel.

I may actually be in a bit of a bind here…

"Ange. Are you coming?"

Ange turned to look at the Phantom. She'd been off on her own little world, and had forgotten that they were supposed to be traveling in a group.

Well, no, she hadn't forgotten. She'd just been hoping that she could stay off on her own for a while longer.

Ange liked being alone. Just her and her pokemon. She couldn't imagine anything better. Having to interact with… ugh… "other people" was infuriating. Her father was just about the only person in this world that she cared about.

But going off wasn't an option. She trudged over to the Phantom, who had assembled his small little group together.

It was him and Keahi, of course, the two brilliant minds behind the Shadow Pokemon. Ange was trying very, very hard not to hold that against them. And of course, the Phantom wouldn't go anywhere without Misato Daisan.

Misato Daisan. That was a complication. To call Ange's feelings for Misato difficult to understand would be an understatement. She'd found the girl surprisingly tolerable at first; after all, unlike the other filthy humans, she kept to herself and didn't seem to do anything particularly harmful to the pokemon environment.

Then Ange found out why.

She wasn't human at all, she was a Mechadoll. A robot. She wasn't an agent of humanity's never-ending march towards "progress" and the destruction of their historical roots, she was a product of it, which had shaken Ange to the core.

Artificial people. Artificial pokemon. She couldn't wrap her head around how people could be so fine with something so… so wrong.

Ange stopped paying her any mind after that revelation. Misato was a doll. It didn't matter how Ange treated her. And she clearly didn't care, either. A Mechadoll didn't have emotions. So unlike with her human peers, there was no need for Ange to conceal the contempt she felt.

Contempt. That had grown to become one of Ange's favorite words. Contempt for the Phantom and his friends, contempt for modern society, contempt for humanity in general. If she didn't need the Phantom for what he promised her, she would have never worked with him in on this.

"Ange, come on," Lana said, walking closer to her.

Lana Canley. Another member of the Phantom's organization. And one who was almost tolerable. Unlike Keahi and the Phantom himself, she wasn't part of the Research Course; she was a battler. That meant wasn't involved in any of their technological advancement projects or the sickening things they were doing with Shadow Pokemon.

She was a loner, like Ange, and Ange could respect that. It was probably the reason why she had been sent to bring Ange back into the fold.

"I'm coming," Ange muttered, shielding her face from the sun again. "I was just thinking about things, don't bother."

Ange trudged over to the group of students. "Can we go?"

"We're still waiting for one more," Valon said, glancing back at the bus. That wasn't quite true. They were actually short several people it seemed. To Ange's chagrin, the groups were made up of ten students. With the five of them here, they were still missing half the people they were supposed to have, not to mention their chaperone.

Ange assumed he was talking about the last person Valon had chosen from the Research Course, though. Willa.

"I'm comin', holdon…" The tired voice came from a girl who was still half-asleep, dragging her way through the sand.

Willa Pemberton was short, one of the shortest girls Ange had met. She was another senior in the Research Course, and made sure to let everyone know it. Even though they weren't required to wear their uniforms, she had come on the trip with her lab coat; it was larger than she was, practically like a blanket slung over her, and so long the sleeves swallowed her hands.

Height and age aside, Willa herself looked like she came out of a stereotypical made scientist's laboratory. Whether as the scientist or the creation it was difficult to say, but her peach-colored hair was a mess of dirty tangles, and certainly not from the sandy winds of Orre. Her face was sickly pale and she had dark bags under her dull brown eyes, giving her a look like she hadn't slept in days.

"Nice to see you woke up in time," Keahi muttered.

Willa gave him a tired look. She dug into the pocket of her lab coat and took out a tiny bottle, unscrewing it and swallowing the contents.

"Pweh! There we go. I'm good," Willa yawned, stumbling forward and joining the group. She tossed the bottle over her shoulder.

Ange's eye twitched with frustration. Such casual littering right in front of her, despicable. The slovenly girl hadn't thought twice. Ange stormed over and retrieved the rubbish, checking it briefly. Ugh. It was one of Willa's concoctions.

Although Ange was loathe to admit any similarities between her and the slob of a girl, she couldn't deny the fact that they weren't the standard fare when it came to students in the Research Course. The things that most students focused on were technological progress, like Valon and Keahi. Ange looked to the past, however, and cared more for history; that was the research that she found most meaningful.

On the other hand, Willa was a girl who had made a wrong turn on her way to the Caretaking Course and was too lazy to change. Her "research" was focused on item manufacturing. She was the prized pupil of Professor Luna Lunark, and apparently a genius when it came to brewing potions from berries and medicinal herbs, when she wasn't using her own self-brewed stimulants to keep herself awake. A rumor had gone around that once she'd stayed awake for 15 days straight working on one of her projects, through a mixture of willpower and, well, one of her mixtures.

It was a respectable field, at least. If she cared slightly more for her surroundings, Ange might have even considered her a friend.

"Lana! There you are!"

Lana brightened and turned towards the approaching woman. At a glance it was obvious that the two were related. Although she was older, the woman walking towards them shared Lana's tan skin and hazel eyes. Her hair was as dark as the other girl's, only longer, flowing down to her back, and her figure was more pronounced as well, enough to give Olivia or Alcea a run for their money. She had a laid-back smile on her face, and waved.

"Hey there guys," she greeted them. "I'm Kiana, Lana's older sister. I'm gonna be your chaperone for the day. Let's see… gonna go down some names here… Lana's here, of course… Misato Daisan?"

"I am here," Misato responded.

"Willa Pemberton?" She asked next, and Willa raised her hand. Then she yawned with it.

"Sure, gotcha, that's Willa… so are you Evangeline, then?" Kiana asked, turning to Ange. "Evangeline Moonshadow?"

It made sense, she was the last girl in the group.

"Yeah. That's me. Ange is fine."

"Evangeline? Wow. That's such a hard name. Are names like that common where you're from? Why don'tcha shorten it? 'Ange' sounds cute! Then you'll start with an 'A' just like me!" Ange winced. Hearing her full name just brought back painful memories. She'd ever see that sunny smile again.

She was grateful that her pain wasn't showing on her face. Ever since she got back, she'd worked hard at not letting those details show.

Kiana nodded, "Ange, got it. Okay, excellent, awesome, K… Keahi Revanche?"

"Me," Keahi muttered, raising his hand half-heartedly.

"Keahi, is that an Alolan name?" Kiana asked, brightening.

Keahi nodded. He didn't like making small-talk, and he definitely didn't like talking about his name.

"Oh, wow, that's so cool! Lana and I are actually from Alola-"

"I'm from Oblivia," Keahi coldly cut her off. "And you can just call me K."

"O-Okay, K…" Kiana said, a little taken aback.

Ange took notice about what he'd just said. Oblivia? Really? She never would have guessed. Oblivia was a region she'd heard a lot about. Although it was just a small cluster of islands, it was filled with ruins and legends. Ange had been reading the stories about the legends of Oblivia since she was little, all about how in ancient times, the region had been populated by large temples assembled to worship pokemon.

She'd always wanted to visit there! But she'd never expected to actually MEET anyone who came from Oblivia!

The way Keahi looked… hmm. She didn't like him, because he was working with the Phantom on his Shadow Pokemon. But beyond that…

It might be useful to befriend him. If she could learn a bit more about Oblivia, then maybe she could score a visit there! A region as filled with as much history as Oblivia had to be hiding an Oracle, it only made sense.

And if she could find it…

"And Richard Valon?" Kiana asked finally, turning to Valon. The Phantom nodded and smiled, and Kiana shivered.

She'd agreed to go on this trip because of her little sister. When Lana had come back home for Winter Break and showed her the Corviknight that she'd gotten in the interim, Kiana had gotten a bad feeling. She couldn't explain it, but there was something that just felt… off about the pokemon, and she wasn't sure what it was.

Then when Lana told her how she got it from one of her classmates, Kiana had taken it upon herself to sign up to chaperone the trip. She didn't want her sister falling in with the wrong crowd, after all, that would be awful!

And this guy, Richard Valon, he was definitely giving her "wrong crowd" vibes. His eyes were piercing, meeting his gaze was like looking at a snake coiled up in preparation. He wasn't going to strike yet, but knowing that he could…

Kiana quickly decided to change the subject.

"It says here that you six would be part of the group," she said, glancing back to the clipboard, "and the others should be coming in on another bus… oh! I wonder if that's them!"

Everyone turned to see the cluster of four students that were standing off to the side, away from the other groups.

Ange knew immediately that there was going to be a problem.

She wasn't a social person, but even she was aware of the four students that would make up the rest of the group. Everyone who was anyone at the Pokemon Academy knew them.

Gerard Alkwest.

Rafe Crawford.

Dokukage.

And Gabrielle Breaux.

…That last one was going to be an issue.

Kiana called them over and quickly took roll. In the meantime, Ange hung back as an awkward silence spread across the crowd.

Everyone was giving her group a wide berth, already heading off to explore Gateon Port. And it was easy to understand why.

"So, Gabrielle, it looks like we'll be in the same group together," Gerard said, turning to Gabrielle and giving her a smile that could give her Ice types a run for their money in terms of coldness.

Gabrielle had no reply. She stared forward in silence, clearly not happy to be here.

"I agree," Valon said, stepping up to Gabrielle and holding his hand out to her. "It's so nice to be working with you again!"

The tension was so thick you could cut it with a knife. Gabrielle had betrayed Gerard and the Phantom in turn, making enemies of the both of them. And know that Gerard was more or less working with the Phantom's organization, it made her position even worse.

She wasn't the only one on the receiving end of some serious grudges, however.

"Hey." Keahi stormed over to Dokukage, glaring down at him past his bangs. He was seething with fury at the Bug type trainer, and looked about ready to snap.

Dokukage glanced up at him.

"Those stunts you pulled in the Phantom Cup… don't think I've forgotten about them," Keahi hissed. "You made me look like a complete fool."

Again, Dokukage had nothing to say.

Keahi leaned in close so Kiana couldn't hear him. "Watch your back," Keahi whispered to the ninja. "Don't think those tricks and that training of yours mean anything. Even a ninja can be caught off-guard."

Keahi backed off, still giving Dokukage the stink-eye, while Dokukage continued to maintain his silent stoicism.

Ange could feel that this trip was only going to increase her contempt for the human race. They hadn't even started and already the group was threatening to tear itself apart over personal grudges, the way humans always did.

"Hey! Come on now! What's with the mood here?"

Ange perked up in surprise. Rafe Crawford had been holding back until now, but he had taken the center of the crowd, smiling that placid smile of his as he moved in front of Dokukage and held out his arm, subtly driving a wedge between Gabrielle and the others as well.

It was a nice move. He hadn't gotten in anyone's face to do it, but he'd managed to break apart the tension that had started to build up by making himself the center of attention.

"I think it's great that we'll all be going on this trip together," Rafe said with a big smile. "Us members of the Eight Leaders don't often have the time for socializing, so this should be a great way to build up our bonds!"

He turned to Valon. "And not only that, but we also get to enjoy the pleasure of your company, too! I can't wait. This trip is certainly going to be a blast."

He finished his little speech with a yawn and a smile.

Rafe wasn't the kind of gym leader who put himself ahead of others. He was more the type to shirk his responsibilities and enjoy himself off with his pokemon, and not even always on purpose. Sometimes it just happened. Because of that, his position as the Seventh Leader was more of an informed attribute; people knew it was the case, but he didn't often get the respect that was normally due someone holding that position.

But the way he was acting now made it clear that he deserved it. He definitely had a good eye for conflict resolution, at least. No one said a word against him when he spoke.

Ange glanced around the group. It was pretty damn obvious that they all had problems with each other. Rafe may have managed put a stop to the hostilities, but it was clear that his actions were just a finger in a dike.

It also wasn't lost on anyone that the trip organizers had put four members of the Eight Leaders in the same group as the Phantom. It was probably a cautionary action to make sure that nothing too bad ended up happening. It seemed that the Phantom had tension with everybody; even the faculty wasn't an exception.

Making Shadow Pokemon probably had something to do with it. Ange wondered just what dirt the Phantom had to keep them from expelling him.

That led Ange, and no doubt the Phantom as well, to the conclusion that Rafe was pretty much a spy in all but name. He was here to make sure that if the Phantom had anything planned, the school would hear about it. As the most trusted member of the Eight Leaders (now that Mirar was no longer part of the group) it made sense he would have the responsibility.

Ange thought back on Professor Reinhart's own warning to her, when he found out that she was going to be part of his group.

"Be careful of that Richard Valon," her father had warned her. "I don't trust that guy. Anyone who works with Shadow Pokemon can't be a good person. I don't know why you'd want to be part of his group, but keep an eye on him. Don't let him hurt anybody."

That was her father. He always had so much faith in Ange.

It hurt that Ange was hiding this from him. It wasn't like she was part of the Phantom's group because she wanted to be. Like everyone else, Richard Valon was just a means to an end. As long as she could use him to vindicate her father's research, then she would let him use her in turn. She knew the professor would understand.

But it tore her up all the same. She didn't like having to lie. Her father was the only person left she still cared about; everything she was doing was for the sake of their future together. Swallowing her scruples and cutting herself open was a price she would gladly pay for his happiness.

She just had to focus on what mattered. The look of joy on her father's face when she came home with an Oracle in her hands.

Yeah. That would make everything worth it.

Kiana felt like she had bitten off more than she could chew. She was feeling hot and uncomfortable, and it had nothing to do with the climate. The intensity in the air was like a big heavy cloud of tension, and she felt like she'd stepped into a nest of Ekans. She had no idea what was going on, but it felt like something she was NOT equipped to handle.

Were ALL teenagers like this nowadays?!

So now we check in on the Phantom. And it seems like his group for the trip is rather interesting as well… what will they get up to in Orre, I wonder? Will the ten of them even be stable enough to go on a field trip together, or will Kiana find herself woefully out of depth?