We've heard from most of the Commander's group about what they want to do for their battle facilities. But what about the others? We still haven't heard from Maddi and Mason, and those two are incredibly reserved people; what great ideas might they have? Mason in particular, we know next to nothing about that guy, what's his idea, I wonder?

The Semi-Final Round of the Pokemon Academy Best Girl Contest 3 has begun! There are only a few days left before the finals and we've only gotten a few votes so far, so make sure to get those votes in as soon as possible! These are our semi-finalists! Make sure to get those votes in, and choose which of these girls you think should make it to the finals! You can only vote for 3, so make sure to pick your favorites!

Semi-Finalists: Ayame, Chloe, Cynthia, Elaina, Kate, Marion, Sango, Vic

KedharS: The Commander's group will BE the Frontier Brains, that's the idea.

Just a Bad Writer for Fun: Don't worry, take care of yourself. It's fine.

Hyphenman: Don't worry, it is not ending any time soon. We're only in the first year.

Pokemon Academy: Beginning of Beginnings

Chapter 1021

Everyone turned to Maddi and Mason, eager to hear what their ideas were going to be. They didn't look particularly excited to be put on the spot. Maddi has an exhausted and resigned look on her face, while Mason's expression was a mask impervious to discernment.

Neither said a word.

Finally, Maddi let out a long sigh, and scratched her head. She supposed she might as well start things, since Mason was even less talkative than she was.

"Okay, so… my idea is called the Battle Hall. But that's more of a tentative name," she admitted. "I don't really have much of a sense for naming things, so for now, just assume that it doesn't have any concrete name, okay?"

"Ah, the name doesn't matter," Alden said, waving his hand dismissively. "Why don't you just tell us what it's about? The types of battles are the exciting part, after all!"

He winked at Maddi and she rolled her eyes at the pun.

"…Yeah. Whatever," she mumbled. She turned to the others. "So in case you were wondering, the reason for Alden's funny joke is because my battle facility will be focusing on pokemon types and their type matchups."

Chloe was intrigued by that idea. She didn't know a lot about Maddi, but one of the things she was well-known for (practically the only thing besides her antisocial personality) was the fact that she was a master of pokemon types, and had different teams built for each type.

"Trainers have to register a team of three pokemon to fight in the Battle Hall," Maddi explained. "And that team must consist of pokemon of one type. But those pokemon can have other types, of course. So imagine you have a pure Water type pokemon on your team, you could also have a Water/Flying type and a Water/Ground type, and that's your team of pokemon. You can enter with less than three if you want, you could even enter with just one pokemon if you were really daring. But the default is three pokemon."

"I'm not sure how I like that idea," Vic frowned. "What if people have a wide variety of types amongst their pokemon? They might not have enough to make up a team of three of a single type."

Maddi shrugged. "Not my problem."

Vic's scowl deepened. She crossed her arms over her chest. "Oh, really? I'd say it is your problem. The purpose of these facilities is to draw trainers to participate; having such a high threshold of entry will make people less interested in fighting in your facility, you realize that, right? So you'd be a drain on resources without providing the proper levels of entertainment. You don't see how that could be a problem?"

"Hey, Vic, come on, it's not so bad," Alden said, coming to Maddi's defense. "There are a lot of type specialists, you know."

Vic muttered something under her breath and Maddi took the opportunity to continue discussing her idea.

"…So anyway, once you've entered your team of three pokemon, you'll enter a series of battles," Maddi continued. "You'll be fighting against trainers that are hired on by the facility, or by trainers who have brought their own teams. But here's the twist- like you, each trainer has a team focused around a single type of pokemon."

"Figures," Tommy rolled his eyes. Maddi shot him a dirty look and continued.

"You can choose the type of the team you want to fight," Maddi said. "So let's say your team is Water type. Well, ideally you'd want to choose to fight against Rock, Ground, and Fire type teams, right? After all, you'd have the type advantage. And at the same time, you won't want to fight against Grass and Electric types, because you'll have a disadvantage against them."

"So you really want to know your type advantages and disadvantages then," Alden nodded thoughtfully. "I can definitely see the value there, but I think there needs to be a little something more… I don't know. Is there a stronger draw than just type matchups? Because like you said, you'll always choose to fight against the types that you have an advantage over, right?"

Suddenly, Anabel cut in.

"Wait, Madison, I just had a great idea!" They said excitedly. "Since your battle facility is focusing on things that are fundamental basics to pokemon, aka pokemon types, what if you called your facility the Battle School?"

"Battle… School?" Maddi winced. She didn't like that suggestion at all.

"Yeah, that would be great!" Tommy howled. "And we can dress her up in a teacher outfit when she fights!"

If looks could kill, the musclehead would be a smoldering pile of ash on the tent floor. Maddi took a deep breath, and let it out as an exasperated sigh.

"…Yeah, I'm not a fan of that idea."

Anabel wasn't deterred. "Okay, then if not the Battle School, what about the Battle Parlor? You know, like an ice cream parlor! Since the challengers will be choosing whatever type or 'flavor' that they want to try!"

At this point, Maddi was pretty sure they were making fun of her. But she didn't say anything, in part because she thought that Anabel's idea actually sounded pretty fitting. Better than the boring, lifeless 'Battle Hall' anyway. But at the same time, she didn't want to use that idea, because it was embarrassing to have your battle facility look like a glorified 31 Flavors.

"…Okay, let's ignore the name thing for now, alright?" She said, turning back to the Commander. "Back to what you were asking, for another draw… well, it's not just type matchups, you know? There's a little more to it than that."

Alden raised his eyebrow, intrigued. "Oh, really? What do you mean by that?"

"Well, my idea was that you won't just have one battle. You'll need to fight against multiple trainers on a campaign," she explained. "You start your campaign with all the levels set to '1'. And then after each battle you win, the difficulty level rises."

"You mean the pokemon you face will be stronger?" Vic asked, raising her eyebrow. "I don't think that's exactly enforceable."

"No, the difficulty rises because your pokemon will have weakened," Maddi explained. "After all, there's no healing between battles. You have to send your team into match after match, running through a gauntlet. And furthermore… there are only ten teams of each type. That's part of the difficulty level. So if my Water type team beats a Fire type team, the difficulty level rises to '2' for Fire, and then they can choose to face another Fire type team… and then, at the end of the campaign, once they've beaten nine teams of the same type, they face the final Fire type team… mine."

"So wait, you'll be battling at the end of every campaign?" Chloe winced sympathetically. "That sounds really rough…"

Maddi shook her head. "No, I'll be the tenth team. Once you've beaten the other nine, then it's my turn to step in."

"Oh, I get it!" Alden gasped. "That's right, you don't have to face the same type of team, you could pick a different type!"

"Exactly," Maddi nodded. "After every ten matches your team can take a break to heal and recover, so if you make your choices properly, you wouldn't even have to face me at all… at least at first. But as you keep challenging the facility, the record of your campaign continues. Once you clear the Fire type with one team, then you can't challenge anymore Fire trainers with that team for your campaign. You'll have to choose another type. This leads to a lot of variance in how you set up your campaign. You can go for easy clears by challenging only the types you're strong against, or you can challenge yourself by fighting the types you have a disadvantage with early on, while your team is at their strongest, and save the types you're strong against for later, when you're weaker."

"Okay, now that sounds like something exciting," Alden said, nodding. "It's… well, I don't even know how to describe it! You can take your pick of whatever types you want, it seems like it would lead to an incredibly high amount of variance in matches!"

"My brain hurts," Tommy groaned. "Why do you have to make it sound so complicated?"

"You'll get more battle points the more wins your campaign accumulates," Maddi said, nodding to Anabel. "It's all about how long you can keep pushing your campaign records while taking advantage of your team's natural skills."

"So the strategy comes with having a team of pokemon with good coverage," Alden said thoughtfully. "Being able to build a team of a single type that can make up for the strengths and weaknesses of that type sounds like quite an experience."

A wild grin spread across his lips. "Come on, Maddi, build it already! I want to challenge it now! My 'Sense' is burning!"

Maddi rolled her eyes. "Yeah, whatever. It'll be done eventually."

Maddi didn't ask for any feedback from the others. But Chloe was amazed. Throughout their trip, Maddi had carried herself with a stoic air, being completely taciturn and private. She barely even talked, and Chloe assumed that she had no interest in doing so.

But the Maddi in front of her wasn't like that at all! While she certainly wasn't passionate, it was clear that she knew a lot about what she was talking about, and was very interested in explaining things to everyone.

Chloe felt jealous. She wished that she had that ability. But she was too shy to do what Maddi did. Even when she was explaining the Battle Maze to everyone, she was uncomfortable and anxious the entire time. But Maddi seemed perfectly composed.

If only she could be a little more like that!

In the meantime, Maddi was ready to stop talking. She turned to Alden and Vic, signaling with her eyes that she was done.

"Yeah, it sounds good, I guess," Vic sighed, which coming from her was high praise. "I still have one issue with it, though."

Chloe couldn't help but nod. It seemed like Vic had picked up on the same thing that she had.

Maddi raised her eyebrow. "Oh?"

"So all these trainers with their different teams… how are we going to afford that? We can't rely solely on challengers, you know, we'll need to prepare some teams for the facility to use. That requires money and time for training. So what's your plan?" Vic demanded.

Chloe nodded in agreement. She'd had exactly that concern. Maddi's idea was ambitious, and Alden was definitely excited about it. But the logistics of implementation were another matter entirely and that wasn't something she could necessarily sign off on.

And it looked like Maddi hadn't thought that far herself. She couldn't do anything but shrug. So much for that.

"We'll think of that later," Anabel said, coming to Maddi's aid again. They turned to Alden. "The important part is the idea, right?"

Chloe could scream. No, the important part was paying for the idea. But she didn't see a point in arguing. Those two seemed to be moving at the beat of their own drum, as evidenced by Alden's nod of agreement.

Vic just sighed in exasperation. She turned to Mason. "Okay, Mason, what about you? What are you working with?"

Mason said nothing, and just adjusted his glasses. Chloe waited eagerly to hear what he had to say, considering how little the guy ever spoke.

He… didn't say a word. Instead he dropped his backpack to the ground and pulled out a sketchbook and a pencil, and began scribbling across the page like mad. Chloe stepped back in shock, not expecting that at all.

Mason stopped a few seconds later and his eyes snapped up to meet theirs, and it felt like he was staring right at her. He turned the sketchbook so everyone could see it.

It… was a grid. grid scrawled in pencil, with the center space blacked out.

Chloe had no idea what she was staring at.

Anabel laughed awkwardly. "Is it… Battle BINGO?"

Mason shook his head and slapped the tip of his pencil against the sheet. Then he adjusted his glasses again, and finally explained his idea.

"It's… the Battle Mansion."

"Battle…"

"…Mansion?" Anabel finished the Commander's sentence, neither one of them entirely sure they'd heard it right.

Chloe had no idea what he was talking about, either. What part of that looked like a mansion? It looked like a math problem!

Mason just sighed. Apparently they needed more. "The interior of the mansion is set up on this grid," he explained. "There are 24 rooms in total, and the position of the rooms can be altered after every challenge."

"So people go through the rooms and fight trainers?" Alden asked. "It sounds a lot like Chloe's idea, to be honest. With a little bit of Keya's."

Chloe turned pale. Why was he putting her on the spot like that?! She flinched when Mason shot a glare her way.

"The goal of the Battle Mansion is to conquer territory," Mason explained quietly. He pointed his pencil at each of the corners. "There can be up to four competitors that start on their home spaces. From there, you move through the rooms. You get to move to another room each round. And at the beginning of each round, you get one battle point for each room you've claimed. If you enter an unclaimed room, at the end of the round, if you're in the room you have the right to 'claim' it."

Chloe tried to wrap her head around that. Tommy had already given up. Mason was talking a mile a minute and it was all she could do to follow his line of thinking. She was blown away that a guy who usually said almost nothing could be such a motor mouth.

"It sounds kind of like a board game," Ross noted. "Kind of cool."

"So where do the battles come in?" Alden asked.

Mason narrowed his eyes. "That's just the beginning. Each room has a special characteristic. Some rooms have obstacle trainers that you must defeat to claim the room. Some rooms have pokemon that will inflict status conditions on your team. Other rooms have wild pokemon that will attack you, and you must defend yourself. But then there are rooms where you might find items, or rooms where your pokemon could be healed. So there are advantages, too. There are even rooms where you can use your accumulated battle points to buy special benefits for your team, like in the Battle Salon. It all depends on the mansion's layout."

There was something that Vic was curious about, and she guessed was critical to this idea. "What happens if two trainers end the round in the same room?"

A wicked grin spread across Mason's face.

"Well… then they battle, of course," he replied. "And the winner gets to claim the room.

"So what happens when you lose a battle?" Alden asked. "Are you kicked out of the mansion and your challenge ends?"

Mason shook his head. "No, but you're put into a very disadvantageous position. You'll have to return to your starting base, and your team will be restored to full health. But you'll have to navigate through your territory again, and lose a lot of time."

"And I'm assuming you can steal territory from someone else as well," Maddi said.

"Sort of," Mason admitted. "If someone ends the round in your territory, you have the right to teleport to the spot they're at, and fight them to defend your territory. It all depends on what you want to do, of course."

"So I'm guessing you win if you conquer the most territory?" Tommy asked, trying to look for an easy out. All this thinking was hurting his brain.

Mason nodded. "Once a predetermined set of rounds has been completed, the trainer with the most territory will have won the match, and can continue to the next floor of the mansion. There are seven floors of the mansion in total, and they all shift and change between rounds. It's a very complex system, you see."

Chloe's head was hurting, but that wasn't what she was most concerned about.

"This sounds… really expensive," she winced. "How do you make the rooms change again?"

"Well, each room is a cube with four aligning doors," Mason explained. "It's like a dexterity puzzle. This empty space here is used to give those cubes room to move, so you can consistently reshift the pattern of the mansion, you see?"

Chloe wanted to scream. This wasn't a video game! This was a real thing! They would have to physically build this structure!

Everyone here had an absolutely abysmal sense of money, and it was killing her.

"I'm still not getting why the 'Mansion' pretense, though," Anabel said. "After all, it would cost a significant amount of money to decorate the rooms like rooms of a fancy mansion, correct? So why bother?"

Yes! Chloe thought, nodding vigorously in agreement. Somebody who got it!

Mason pushed up his glasses, shaking his head, like he couldn't believe they could say something that stupid.

"Obviously," he said, "it's because mansions have maids. Thus all the workers and obstacle trainers will be maids."

Chloe had never heard something so stupid before.

Hey, I think he raises a good point. Let's not dismiss the maid argument out of hand.