Let's take a quick break from our time in the Orre Region to peek in on some of our old friends back at the Pokemon Academy! It's really been a long time since we've seen what they've been up to, hasn't it? How are things going over there?

KedharS: They get along great. Except when they don't. Then they get along even better than great.

Just a Bad Writer for Fun: Lila is 100% the kind of person who criticizes big corporations on twitter and then proceeds to make exactly zero lifestyle changes because she refuses to be inconvenienced in the slightest.

Pokemon Academy: Beginning of Beginnings

Chapter 926

Sango was exhausted. Her eyes were bleary as she trudged home from working until nightfall at Marion's fishing shop.

…No, "working" wasn't the right term. That implied that Sango was receiving adequate compensation for her time. No, what Sango was doing was more akin to a child being forced to do chores by their parents.

Chores that they didn't get an allowance for.

It wasn't like she was even really "working" at the store in the first place; there hadn't been any customers since Jessie, who she replaced, had gone on the field trip. That could have been because most of the student body was away for one reason or another, but Sango suspected that this lack of customers was not a new thing.

So basically her job came down to "sweep up the store, feed the pokemon, and wipe down the tanks every day" which was tedious, to say the least.

So after a hard day's work, Sango just wanted to return to her room and collapse. She'd only been doing this for a few days, and already she felt like death. But before she could get back to the dorm, her phone dinged.

Curious, she checked her message and saw that it was a video call request… from Marion Rivers, of all people?!

…Did… Did Marion even have a cell phone?

Honestly, after a day of taking care of fish pokemon, Marion was the last person Sango wanted to hear from. She would probably be in for a three-hour diatribe about fishing and how much fun she was having, and right now Sango wanted to go to sleep.

But she was also feeling a little lonely. Because of how hard she was working, she didn't have the time to hang out with her friends like usual, and Blake had been acting more distant and moody ever since Ayame left.

She knew it was a bad idea. But she was so starved for human contact that she just couldn't help herself, and answered the call anyway once she found shelter under one of the street lights so that she could see properly.

Marion's beaming smile filled the screen.

"Sango! Sango, is that you?!" Marion shouted, forcing Sango to pull her phone away. "Are you there? Sango!"

"Marion, you're too close to the screen," Sango said back.

"What? I'm too what?"

Sango groaned. Marion may have been a whiz at fishing, but when it came to technology that girl was surprisingly dumb.

"Give me that," a gruff voice growled, and the screen began to shake. Whoever that was, they sounded familiar… Sango was just about to place the husky timbre of Marion's companion when a new face entered the frame, answering her question immediately.

"Ayame?!" Sango sputtered in disbelief. What… huh? Ayame was there? But wasn't she supposed to be in the Orre Region? So why was she… Sango could only mumble her way through her questions. "What are you doing there? With Marion? Huh?"

"Hi Sango!" Marion chirped from next to Ayame, waving cheerfully. "It's been a while, Totodile!"

"…Hey," Sango said, smiling and waving slightly, still a little confused why she was looking at Marion and Ayame side by side. "Ayame… aren't you supposed to be in the Orre Region?"

Ayame laughed. "We are, dummy."

Sango blinked and rubbed the tiredness from her eyes. It did look pretty bright over there, although it was clear they were inside… or wait, no, they weren't? There were a bunch of trees behind them, but Sango thought she could see white walls, too…

She was too confused and tired to figure out what was going on.

"…So what, Marion, did you go on the field trip or something, then?" She yawned.

Marion laughed. "Ahaha! Yeah, something like that! Point is, here I am in the Orre Region! And you… huh?" Marion's face took on a shade of concern. "Sango, are you okay? You look kind of tired. Are you sure you're sleeping properly?"

Sango's eye twitched.

"…Yes, I'm sleeping fine. You do know it's like eleven o'clock at night over here, right?" She muttered in frustration.

Marion gasped. "Oop! Totally forgot about timezones and stuff like that!"

Ayame rolled her eyes. "Now you see what we have to put up with over here every day," she joked, even though she was partially serious.

Sango laughed. "Better you than me."

"Hey! You guys are being mean!" Marion pouted. "And here I was about to do something nice for you, Sango!"

Sango's face brightened. "Oh? You were gonna hang up?"

Ayame roared with laughter as Marion fumed with childlike frustration. "Rrrr! Sango stop teasing you teaser!"

"Sorry, sorry, couldn't help it," Sango said, struggling to keep her phone steady as she chuckled. "Had to get my digs in for you calling me this late at night. So what's up? Why did you call, anyway? Just to say hi?"

Marion shook her head, her blue eyes gleaming like the ocean. "No! I wanted to show you something! You'll never guess where we are!"

"…The Orre Region," Sango said lazily.

Marion puffed up her cheeks. "Okay, yes, but where in the Orre Region?"

Sango squinted, not sure what she was looking at. Again, she saw trees, but also walls. From what she knew of the Orre Region, it was all desert, wasn't it?

"Uh… the not-desert part? I don't know. Does Orre even have trees in it?" She asked.

Marion burst out laughing. "Ah, there it is, the good old anti-Orre bias from the Unovians, gotta love to hear it."

Sango just rolled her eyes. She didn't have time for this.

"Marion…"

"Okay, okay! We'll show you!" Marion said, taking the tablet and spinning it around to show off the pokemon lab. "What do you think?"

Sango wasn't sure what she was looking at for a second. She saw various environments spinning in front of her, filled with wild pokemon. But now that she was getting a closer look, it was definitely the case that they were inside somewhere.

"Marion, what… what am I looking at?" Sango asked, confused.

"This is the Pokemon HQ Laboratory!" Marion explained. "It's the place I was doing my practicum at! You know? The one that I worked so hard to get a license for?"

"Oh! This is the place?" Sango said, pleasantly surprised. Before she had left, Marion had talked up her practicum experience so much that Sango had gotten curious where it actually was. She imagined something like a floating lab in the ocean given Marion's interests, but she never would have thought it was in the Orre Region.

"Yep!" Marion said, nodding excitedly. "It's one of the front-running labs in the fight for Pokemon Conservationist efforts! It's located in the Orre Region because, well, when you're dealing with a region that needs environmental support and conservation policy reform, the first place you think of is the Orre Region, right?"

Sango definitely thought that made sense. "So those are… what, wild pokemon habitats?" She asked, squinting at her screen. It was a little hard to make out on such a small phone. "Wait, hold on a second. Let me get back to my room and I'll call you back on my tablet, okay? I can't see it very clearly." She really wanted to get the full experience here. Marion was going out of her way to show Sango something interesting, she couldn't miss it!

"Better run fast, Sango," Ayame teased, before hanging up.

Sango made a mad dash back to her room. Her earlier fatigue seemed like a distant memory. All the way there, she was thinking about how cool that lab looked. A place filled with wild pokemon habitats? For the purpose of restoring the Orre Region, and maybe even someday repopulating it with wild pokemon again?

It was like something out of a dream.

Sango was aiming to become a Pokemon Ranger because she liked helping. Helping both people and pokemon. And being a Pokemon Ranger was a way that she could do that. She could fight on the front lines of protecting the environment and working together with pokemon to make everyone's lives better.

At the same time, though, she also admired Marion's convictions. Pokemon Conservationist efforts were a major aspect of the fight for the environment, and was another career path that students in the Ranger Course often went into. Their work didn't get as much respect and admiration as Pokemon Rangers, but from everything Marion had said about them, in Sango's eyes they were amazing.

Marion really had given her a good gift tonight by offering to show her the lab, almost enough to make up for how tedious maintaining her fishing shop was.

When Sango got to Bulbasaur House, she nearly ran into Blake trying to get in.

"…Oh, Sango, working late?" Blake said, giving her a tired smile. She winced. He wasn't one to talk. Coming back this late, with those bags under his eyes… and she hadn't seen him at lunch, either. Was he eating properly?

Blake hadn't been a total mess since Ayame was gone. At least, not that Sango had seen. But it was clear that he wasn't taking the best care of himself, either. He was devoting a lot more time to training his pokemon nowadays, almost-certainly trying to take his mind off the fact that things weren't going well between him and his girlfriend.

Sango wished she could do something nice for him, but she didn't know what she could do that wouldn't feel, well… intrusive.

"…You seem to be in a better mood," Blake noted as they walked up the stairs.

Sango was surprised. She didn't expect him to be that perceptive. "O-Oh, really? Well, I'm always in a good mood, you know? Trying my hardest and never giving up!" With practiced ease, she put a bright smile on her lips and gave him an encouraging wink.

But Blake wasn't buying it for a second.

"Sango, come on. You've been running yourself ragged working at that place these last few days," he said. "This is like that whole mess with the Luvdisc Fishing Day all over again."

Well… Blake wasn't there for that. He had… other things that he was busy with during the time Sango was preparing. But he'd heard the horror stories from Cynthia and knew that Sango had nearly killed herself working on it, and now not even a month later she was running on fumes again. They were all concerned about her.

Sango was happy that Blake was worried about her, but it also gave her a sour feeling too. She scowled at him.

"Oh? And what would you know about that?" She asked snootily. Under her breath, she muttered, "it's not like you've been around to see me or anything…"

Crap. She had to stop doing that. She was getting passive-aggressive, which was something petty jealous people did, not friends.

Luckily, Blake didn't seem bothered by her catty reply. He was just concerned.

"Sango, I'm serious," he said. "If it's too much work for you, you don't have to do it you know. Nobody's going to think badly of you."

This was one of Sango's bad habits that she herself was blissfully unaware of, but all her friends noted in private. She spread herself too thin. WAY too damn thin. Between her classwork, all her ranger studies beyond that, and her responsibility working with campus safety? And those were just her standard routines. She also had various projects over the past terms that had taken major chunks out of her schedule, like studying to be a Probationary Ranger and taking the exam, the work she had done AS a Probationary Ranger, brief as it was, and not to mention all the work she'd done on the festival with Marion…

Sango was a girl who didn't know the meaning of the word "break". Which was a problem because Blake and Cynthia were very, very worried that she might break first.

"Look, Blake, it's fine, okay? Don't worry!" Sango said cheerfully. She had been tired earlier, but now she was in a much better mood thanks to Marion's call. She appreciated the concern, but it wasn't needed, really.

"…You sure?" Blake asked suspiciously. He didn't exactly trust Sango's judgment on this. He cared about her, and didn't want to see her hurt herself. But at the same time, he found himself in a rather awkward position, all things considered.

He didn't really understand it, but he wasn't as close to Sango as he used to be. After they first met, they had quickly become friends, and she was almost as close to him as Cynthia was. This had lasted for a while, and at the time Blake even considered her possibly his best friend. But whereas Cynthia had continued to remain close to him (too close, in some regards, as he would have to remind her every now and then) Sango was different.

It felt like over the last few months, Sango had slowly been drifting away from him. Part of it was because she was too busy, sure, and part of it was because he had been sucked into a hell dimension for a while.

But whatever the reason, there was definitely a wall standing between them now, and he wasn't sure if he had the right to cross it. He didn't think he'd done anything, but then, he'd been pretty insensitive to Kate for a while before he realized how horribly he'd treated her. So there was definitely the chance that he had done something to upset Sango and make her distance herself from him without thinking about it.

She seemed happy enough when she said she was sure, at least.

"Yeah, don't worry about me! I just got a call from Marion, and she's gonna stream me some footage of a tour she's on at the pokemon lab she was doing her practicum at!" Sango explained.

Blake brightened at the way Sango seemed to light up. Well, at least she wasn't feeling down. "That does sound pretty cool," he agreed. "You think she'd mind if I watched too?"

Sango was thrilled. She'd been trying to spend time with Blake for weeks, as awkward as she was around him, because she didn't want their friendship to wither and die. "Yeah, absolutely!" She agreed. "I'm sure she'd-"

But she had to catch herself.

Wait. Didn't Blake say he was trying to avoid being too clingy with Ayame? There's no way I can watch it with him, because she's going to be right there! That's the exact opposite of giving each other space, Shit!

"On… on second thought… I think this is more of a private thing?" Sango said lamely, desperately fumbling for an excuse. "Y-Yeah, I don't think they'll be happy if too many people are watching, so like… yeah, sorry…"

An awkward silence hung over the stairwell.

Blake winced. Sango was a terrible liar. If she didn't want to watch it with him she could have just said so, she didn't have to make up an excuse about it.

"Don't worry, it's fine," Blake said, giving his best faked smile. He had become quite adept at them growing up.

"Next time we can hang out, promise," Sango said, knowing how lame she sounded. She retreated to the safety of her own bedroom so she could grab her tablet.

A few seconds later, Cynthia came stumbling out like she'd been kicked out of the room.

"Hey, of all the crummy…" She muttered, brushing herself off. "Who wants to watch a dumb ol' lab tour anyway? Not ME."

Blake raised his eyebrow. "Sango kick you out, huh?"

Cynthia flinched in surprise, she hadn't seen Blake there. Then she put on a coy smile and flounced over to him.

"Weeeeell, look who we have here! An actual Blake sighting for once, color me surprised!" She smirked, enjoying her teasing time with Blake.

"Knock it off, I'm training," Blake scoffed. "Which is what YOU'RE supposed to be doing, by the way, this isn't goof off time. Our spring break isn't for another few weeks."

"We all train at our own paces," Cynthia shrugged. "I, for one, am enjoying the downtime. Plus, with Sango working for Marion and Julia having to spend a lot more time with the Gardening Club now that Alcea and Kate are gone, I practically have the room all to myself!"

Blake rolled his eyes. While Sango had a problem with stretching herself too thin, Cynthia was exactly the opposite.

Cynthia noted the funk that Blake was in, and quickly turned serious. "Hey, Blake, what's up? You feeling okay?" She asked, frowning. "You're not still mopey about how things are going between you and Ayame, right?"

"Cynthia, she hasn't even been gone a week. Even I'm not that clingy!" Blake said defensively.

"Yes you are." Cynthia's blunt response hit like a brick to the face. "Face it, you've been down on the dumps from the second that boat left the dock."

"…Okay but you don't have to rub my nose in it," Blake groaned.

"Call it one of the perks of my seething jealousy," Cynthia said. "Man, if only you were my boyfriend, I could relish in your clinginess all day…"

"Which is precisely the reason it wouldn't work," Blake calmly replied.

Cynthia clutched her chest. "…Ugh. Dagger. Through. The heart."

"You'll live."

She quickly recovered, proving him right. "So! If it's not about Ayame, then what's got you looking so down?"

Blake sighed. "It's… Sango."

That certainly wasn't the response that Cynthia was expecting.

"…Sango? What about her? Are you really that worried? She seemed pretty energetic a second ago…" Cynthia frowned.

"No, it's not that, it's just… I feel like we're a little distant, you know?" Blake explained. "Like… you remember the beginning of the year, how the three of us used to hang out and do everything together? And now it's like… I don't know, she's kinda been avoiding me. Or like there's something else on her mind."

"Uh… no… can't say I've noticed…" Cynthia said, breaking out into a cold sweat.

"There's… someone else that I like."

Cynthia knew there was a very good reason why Sango was so distant recently. She had a crush. A crush she was too shy to act on. No wonder she was throwing herself into her work and distancing herself from her friends, every waking thought must have been about that guy!

But it's not like she could just tell Blake that. She wasn't even supposed to know. If Sango knew that she knew, and knew that she'd told Blake, the friendship between all three of them would be irreparably damaged.

The only problem was that when it came to stuff like this Cynthia was an incredibly shitty liar.

"I, um… I'm sure it's nothing! She's just got a lot of stuff on her plate, that's all!" Cynthia lamely tried to come up with an excuse, and it wasn't one that made Blake feel better.

"…I guess…" He mumbled. "Are you sure she hasn't said anything? About, like, me doing anything to make her upset?"

"No, not that I can think of," Cynthia mused, shaking her head. But now that he mentioned it, why was Sango distancing herself from Blake in particular? Sure it made sense to be occupied by a crush, but there did seem to be a strange tension between her and Blake recently, too…

Wait.

Sango had a mysterious crush on someone, but she hadn't acted on her feelings yet, and it seemed like she never would.

Sango had slowly grown more distant from Blake recently.

And finally, Blake had gotten into a relationship with another girl right around that same time.

The pieces were all falling into place.

That's it! Sango's jealous! Because Blake is in a relationship while she's too nervous to confess to the guy SHE likes, so she's slowly distanced herself from him so she isn't constantly reminded about how cowardly she is! That's gotta be it!

…But Cynthia was horrible at puzzles.

She sighed and gave Blake a reassuring pat on the shoulder. "Don't worry, Blake, Sango's just got her own stuff going right now. I promise, it has nothing to do with you personally, it's just something she's got to work out for herself."

The advice she gave him sounded sagely, but for some reason Blake didn't really feel it resonating with him.

Well Cynthia drove past that one at a hundred miles an hour. I guess it's just not possible for her to imagine that Sango's crush could be on Blake.