Now that we're back to focusing on the Empress's and the Commander's groups, it's time for what we've all been waiting for: breakfast! We've been building up this pastry breakfast for a while now, and hopefully the sweet food will be worth it! What else will we encounter at the breakfast table, I wonder? Any drama, perhaps?

KedharS: Yep. Callie and Alcea building a friendship is definitely something to feel good about.

Rowlets and Oshawotts: I gave a straight answer to JoshGamerV when he asked, it all depends on the timing. We'll get the straight (or bi) answers when the time is right.

Just a Bad Writer for Fun: Hopefully the breakfast will live up to expectations.

Pokemon Academy: Beginning of Beginnings

Chapter 893

"Hwaaaaah! This is delicious!" Lila crooned, her face practically glowing as she took a bite of one of the pastries lined up in front of her. Her eyes sparkled with fairy dust as she tasted the delectable treats, gobbling them up one after another.

"I'm glad you like them," Olivia smiled, holding her head up a little higher. "I'm happy to help out if it's for our group."

To make up for the fact that she'd kept everyone waiting, Olivia had decided that she was going to pay for breakfast. Between her family's money and the earnings she got from her job as a model and doing commercial work, she could purchase an entire feast for the two groups.

And boy, did she. The pastry shop wasn't that large, they'd had to push three tables together just to seat everyone. But when they did, boy, there were more dishes than anyone could count. Tarts filled every square inch of table space, so crowded that they might start needing to set them on top of each other like a pyramid.

There were treats of all different colors, flavors, and shapes. Custards and creams and caramels, and a veritable rainbow of berries were stuffed and molded into various crusts for the students' viewing and eating pleasure. Lila had been drooling before she even sat down.

"Yeah, these are really good," Darla agreed, taking a bite. And she wasn't even that much of a fan of sweet things.

"Now, be careful not to eat too much," Hiromi warned the students, even as she was sneakily piling more of them onto her plate. "We're getting lunch at the beach, and you don't want to make yourselves sick!"

"Ah! The beach!" Lila gasped, her hand freezing in the air above the next gooey treat. A conflicted expression crossed her face. "Oh, no, I forgot!" Her hand dropped dejectedly to her side and she hung her head.

"What's up?" Darla asked, confused.

"We're going to the beach!" Lila wailed. "I can't just stuff my face with pastries! It's going to ruin my figure!"

The rest of the girls paused for a second after hearing that, glancing down at their own plates stacked high with sweets. A few of them began to have second thoughts themselves as the guys ignored the issue and kept eating anyway.

"Yeah, uh… I'm good," Celia said, pushing her plate away. "That's enough for me, thanks." Her cousin felt the same way.

Of course, not every girl was concerned. Marion kept eating like it was nobody's business, and Ayame was right there with her. After all, the only person who she cared about seeing her in a swimsuit was in a different region.

"Come on, it's not a big deal," Rui laughed, lightening the mood and popping an Oran Berry pastry into her mouth. "These are great! You can splurge for one breakfast, right?"

Well, that was all the confirmation Lila needed to hear. "Okay!" She chirped, grabbing up another sweet and devouring it. "More, please!"

Darla looked at her partner like she was mental. "What… What about all that stuff you were saying just now?!" She sputtered in disbelief. "About how you didn't want to eat too much because you wanted to watch your figure?!"

Lila shrugged.

"Ah, forget about it," she laughed. "I have a second stomach just for sugar anyway, the more sweets I eat the better my complexion!"

She flashed Darla a beaming smile and the other girl just shook her head.

"I'm just glad that we can have all this delicious food on Olivia's dime," Lukas laughed, smiling at the Empress. "Thanks, this is really swell!"

Lukas and Olivia shared a look. Olivia didn't like Lukas much (or boys in general) but she appreciated the gesture. After all, it would seem a little petty if she were the one to bring the subject of her paying for it up herself.

Treating everyone to breakfast was a gesture on Olivia's part not out of the goodness of her heart, but out of pragmatism.

Simply put, she was demonstrating her value. If this was just a breakfast with the people in her group, she still probably would have paid for it, but it wouldn't have been as important.

Across the table was Alden Volt, after all. The Commander himself. This wasn't just a breakfast for her, it was a breakfast to build an interesting relationship with the Commander and show off just how successful she was.

Surprisingly, Alden was totally cool with the fact that Olivia was flexing her economic power.

"Yeah, thanks Olivia, this stuff is real good!" Alden said, eating another pastry. He was in a jovial mood. "I gotta say, I'm jealous! I wish I had the money to eat like this all the time! But I've gotta focus all our funds on-"

Vic pinched him in the leg and shoved another pastry into his mouth. She shot him a look telling him to shut up and keep eating.

Olivia narrowed her eyes. She'd almost gotten him to slip.

True, the purpose of this breakfast wasn't meant to be an information-gathering session, of course. She wasn't THAT sneaky. It was mainly just to get a feel for the Commander and how he was handling things. After all, they still didn't know all the much about each other, even though they'd known each other, and opposed each other, for years.

That was Olivia's goal, anyway. Flexing on another Daeva. Two Daevas, in fact, considering that Marion Rivers was also here for some reason. It was a very impromptu sort of summit, in fact, which was all good in her book.

"Oui, quite delicious, is it?" Alcea mused, taking a bite of a particularly tart Aspear Berry sweet. She didn't mind, it was still lovely.

That seized all of Olivia's attention, and she turned to Alcea with a triumphant smirk on her face. "Yes, of course they're delicious!" She crowed. "You think we would just eat breakfast anywhere? Go on, eat your fill. It's my treat, after all."

And there it was, the other reason Olivia had decided to treat everyone to breakfast.

Because like everything else, it was another way that she could prove her superiority to Alcea, and she did it with glee. Now Alcea HAD to acknowledge her for once!

"Oui, thank you for your generosity," Alcea nodded vaguely, sparing Olivia only the slightest of glances. "Very kind, is it?"

It was the most basic type of etiquette to be expected from someone of Alcea's stature, but it was still more than enough for Olivia, who surged with triumph.

"Of course, I'm a very kind person," Olivia boasted, taking the opportunity to puff herself up that Alcea had given her. "And my taste is exquisite. It's only fitting that someone in my group found and recommended this place, it's perfect for a light breakfast."

Giselle sunk a little further down into her seat. It was nice to have her contribution be acknowledged, but Olivia hadn't even referred to her by name. She doubted that the Empress even remembered who had suggested this place to begin with.

Not that details like that were important to Olivia anyway. She took a sip of coffee and continued to talk about how great the pastries were, and therefore, the girl paying for them also was, while Alcea politely pretended to listen.

Callie could see this was starting to become grating on her newfound friend, and so she gave Alcea a lifeline.

"These are so good!" She gushed, snagging a Blukberry Danish and devouring it. Earlier she'd made the decision to stop at three so as not to put on too many pounds, but right now that didn't matter. "They taste so… so…"

Of course, she'd made a mistake. She hated Blukberries. Dry foods weren't really her thing, she loved the sour and spicy flavors. But she managed to choke it down without gagging too much. She fumbled for compliments.

"…Well, I mean, I can't imagine how hard it must be to get fresh berries out here!" She coughed out, veering off the subject entirely. "This must have cost quite a lot. I'm surprised a bakery like this can stay open!"

"Oui," Alcea said, picking up on where Callie was going with this. "While berries do grow in a variety of regions, I hadn't expected to find any in Orre, given the climate." She cleared her throat. "As well as… other factors, is it?"

Olivia frowned, miffed that Callie had stolen Alcea's attention away. She was about to say something to bring the conversation back to her generous act of selflessness (ha) but Rui cut her off before she could speak.

"Actually, there's a reason for that," she explained, drawing the attention of most of the table. Even Marion was paying attention.

"Oh, really?" Callie asked. She'd just meant it as casual table talk, she didn't know there was an actual reason why there were so many berries.

"Like Alcea said, berry trees don't grow in Orre," Rui said, her voice taking on a tinge of sadness. "It's due to the environmental problems we've had. You see, when the mining incidents sabotaged the groundwater, they caused the existing berry trees to wither up and die."

Alcea winced. That wasn't good. Everyone at the table knew what that meant. But when someone said it out loud, everyone was surprised by who it was.

"It's a tragedy," Marion agreed, setting her half-eaten pastry down on her plate. Everyone was amazed by the serious expression on her face, and the fact that she was talking about something other than fishing for once.

"Oh?" Rui raised her eyebrow, intrigued. She'd had something she was going to say, but she thought it might be better coming from one of the students themselves. Everyone seemed like they were paying attention to her, anyway.

"Without berry trees, it would be difficult for pokemon to inhabit the region," Marion explained. "You might not think it's a very big deal, but it definitely is. Poisoning the ground is enough to drastically warp the entire ecosystem. It's no wonder that there aren't any wild pokemon around."

Everyone was blow away. To most people at the table, Marion was just a crazy girl who liked fishing too much. Even if one remembered that she was a Daeva, the fact that she was a senior in the Ranger Course who was studying to be a Pokemon Conservationist, and thus knew quite a lot Pokemon Ecology, was a real shock.

"But… there are still places in the Orre Region where greenery can be found," Ayame said, remembering what she'd read earlier about Agate Village. "It's not like Orre is a complete lifeless wasteland, right? That's proof that the environment is still habitable."

Marion shrugged. It was reasonable enough to assume that. "Pokemon Ecology is a very complex process," she continued, turning to face Ayame directly. "For starters, even though any and every pokemon can eat berries, that doesn't mean that they're the primary food source for every species of pokemon."

"That's true," Alcea cut in. "Many Grass type pokemon are capable of sustaining themselves almost entirely through the use of photosynthesis, after all."

"Whoa, really?" Lila asked, dropping her napkin from her lips in shock. "That's so cool! So Grass types don't even need to eat?"

Alcea blushed a little. "Well, that is not entirely accurate," she corrected herself. "While sunlight provides a great deal of the energy certain species of pokemon need to survive, it isn't the same as getting a full diet."

Ayame sat a little higher up in her seat. This was her area of expertise, after all! "That's right. For a Grass type pokemon, consisting solely on sunlight would probably be the equivalent of, say, a human who only ate vegetables and fruit, would that be a good way to put it?"

"Oui, I believe that's an adequate comparison, is it?" Alcea nodded in agreement. "You would sustain yourself, but you would still be quite lacking in many vital nutrients."

Olivia's eye twitched and she resisted the urge to glare at Ayame. How dare her best friend chum it up with her nemesis like that?!

"But, like, vegetarians exist," Lila said, rolling her eyes. "So it's possible, right Darla?"

She glanced at her partner for confirmation, but Darla just pinched the bridge of her nose.

"Even a vegetarian diet still needs nutritional supplements, Lila," Darla explained. "It isn't healthy to just eat one thing and nothing else."

"Exactly," Ayame said. "So for pokemon to be healthy, you need to give them a varied diet with lots of proteins, iron, calcium, zinc, and carbos."

Donoma smirked and raised her hand. "Teacher! What about HP Ups?"

Ayame shot her a dirty look and flipped the girl off.

Hiromi shot her daughter a warning glance and cut in, she had a lot of expertise in this area. "Marion's exactly right," she confirmed. "As a Pokemon Ranger, maintaining the ecosystem was an important part of my duties, because it's very easy to damage it. Especially if you're living in an environment without any berry trees."

Like Rui, Hiromi didn't want to play teacher, so she was happy to turn things back over to Marion.

"Berry trees provide a staple diet for most pokemon," Marion resumed her explanation. "Bug type, Flying type, and Grass type pokemon in particular, but nearly every land-based pokemon that isn't carnivorous will tend to have berries of some kind or another as the main staple of their diet. By removing berry trees, then you remove what allows those pokemon to thrive, so it only makes sense they would migrate to more hospitable areas. I think Agate Village is an example of that?" She asked, turning to Rui for clarification.

"That's right," Rui confirmed. "Just because Agate Village is green, that doesn't mean it's capable of sustaining pokemon life. It may not have been as badly affected by contamination as other parts of the Orre Region, but the soil still isn't suitable for berry cultivation."

Alcea frowned. Imagine, all that greenery, and no pokemon to enjoy it.

"Of course, without pokemon who primarily feed on berries, the ecosystem will collapse," Marion continued. "The pokemon who feed on those pokemon will have to move as well. And that would just leave the pokemon who don't rely on berries to eat. Species like Geodude and Roggenrola who primarily feed on mineral reserves and the like."

"But those aren't here, either," Mason noted. It was the most he'd had to say since they had arrived at the Orre Region. "That's because of the contamination, isn't it?"

"That's right," Marion sighed. "The soil and minerals have been polluted. And since that pollution seeped into the water, practically every type of pokemon you can imagine for one reason or another can't reasonably survive here. Even Poison types on the whole can't thrive with the climate."

It was a rather grim and sadly accurate statement about the condition of the Orre Region's environmental issues. More than a few people looked down at the mountain of food on their plates with guilt, Lila most of all.

Olivia sighed. Marion had suitably ruined breakfast for all of them. How had this whole grim conversation even started, anyway?

For once, Callie wished she was smaller. She hadn't meant for this to turn into some big discussion on pokemon environmental issues, she had just been trying to bail out her friend with some small talk. What a mess!

Luckily, it was Rui to the rescue!

"Needless to say," the redhead spoke up, "berries are fairly hard to come by in the Orre Region. But of course, there's still a market for them. They taste delicious, after all, and the effects on pokemon are vitally important as well. The reason this place can be so successful is because Gateon City is a major port."

"Oh, so they export goods in!" Lukas said. He was picturing a large ship filled to the brim with pokemon berries. "Wow, that… huh."

He glanced at his plate again.

"But doesn't that get expensive?" Jessie asked. "It can't be cheap, having to import enough berries in to feed an entire region."

"Very expensive," Rui nodded in agreement. "But here, where battles are everything, having a berry can make all the difference. So this is one of the few places where you'll find people seeing berries as existing solely for strategic purposes rather than foodstuffs."

"And yet we're in a restaurant," Donoma said, smirking at Giselle. "I guess this really is a pretty luxurious place you picked out for us, huh Giselle?"

Giselle's face was white wish shame. She hadn't meant for any of this to happen, she just thought that some pastries for breakfast would have been nice! She couldn't even imagine what the bill was going to look like when the Empress got it…

"It doesn't matter anyway," Olivia scoffed, easing Giselle's anxiety. "Luxury goods are nothing to someone like me."

Vic rolled her eyes. Unbelievable.

"But it's kind of sad that berries are so rare," Lila sighed, pushing her plate away. She'd finally lost her appetite. "That means no Pokeblocks or Poffins, right?"

"Oh, yeah, I guess not," Darla noted with surprise. "So there won't be a contest scene in the Orre Region, huh?"

"Orre has a lot of problems," Alden agreed. "I'm not a big fan of contests myself, but the fact that the battles here aren't fought out of enjoyment but rather out of necessity is a pretty big problem itself. This place is kind of a culture shock, huh?"

It was a bit of a surprise. The Empress and the Commander factions were bitter rivals, but when it came to the Orre Region, they were actually able to build a bridge of understanding as the two groups mutually commiserated over the unfortunate circumstances of the region rendering their passions as inconvenient and unnecessary.

It hadn't been Olivia's intention to build camaraderie, but after that conversation it seemed like the two groups might have been just a little bit closer after all.

Well, that stuff about Orre was kind of sad to think about, but on the plus side, mutual loss of beloved hobbies could be some ground that the Empress and the Commander can build an understanding on! Maybe they don't have to be enemies after all! Except for the fact that Olivia exists, of course, and Vic, too. That won't go well.