The true culprit behind the ghost of Jagged Pass was discovered! And it's a cute little Zorua! But the small pokemon is a mischievous little thing, just like Cynthia! What will they do with her? And will Cynthia get her revenge for having her body exposed to everyone like that? This arc's taking an interesting turn!

But now for the moment you've all been waiting for! The Miss Pokemon Academy Best Girl Contest 3 has come to its conclusion! There were only 7 votes in the end, but even if there were a few more it wouldn't likely make a difference! And that's because one surprising candidate won a decisive victory with a whopping 5 votes, to the other two finalists' 1 apiece! And our winner is…

Finalists: Chloe, Cynthia, Vic

…Chloe! Yes, a come-from-behind dark horse victory for a character who's barely had any story relevance, and yet somehow managed to obtain first place compared to the likes of Cynthia, a main character who's been here since Chapter 1, and Vic, who's recently risen to prominence in the series with her focus on her relationships with Alden and Alcea! What an upset! I can't wait to see who will win next year!

KedharS: Yep. But instead of an old man, the culprit was revealed to be a cute little fox girl! Definitely an ending worth getting behind.

Hyphenman: Unlike the Ghost type Zorua, this is the standard Dark type one. Still just as cute and mischievous though.

Pokemon Academy: Beginning of Beginnings

Chapter 1054

"It's the ghost!" Kitty screamed, falling on her ass in fright. "NO!"

"She's not a ghost," Julia corrected her friend. "She's a pokemon."

Cynthia's eye twitched. "I see how it is… you liked messing around with us, huh?"

The ghost girl stared at her, still wearing that cocky smirk.

Then she turned and kissed Blake on the cheek. With a cackle, she turned and ran down the hall, towards the outside doors.

"That does it!" Cynthia screeched, charging after her. "You get back here, you petty little troll girl!" She shouted.

Sango and Blake followed after her, along with some of the others. Caelia remained in the hallway, and so did Elaina.

"Y-Yeah…" She panted, leaning against the wall and waving after the two of them. "You guys… you guys go first… I'll catch up later…"

The Zorua broke out past the baths, still in the form of the ghost girl from the mansion. Cynthia grabbed a pokeball off of her belt, the only article of clothing she was wearing besides her robe. "Tristan, stop her!"

For the first time in weeks, Cynthia sent Tristan out into battle. The Breloom leaned his head down and charged at the fleeing pokemon.

"Zor-?!" Zorua's eyes bulged out and she ducked when Tristan threw a punch her way. But she couldn't dodge the pokemon's tail, which swung up and hit her in the stomach. She returned to her original form and curled up into a ball, coughing.

"There we go!" Cynthia grabbed another pokeball from her waist, and Blake did a double-take. She wasn't seriously planning to-

She was. Cynthia flung the pokeball at the Zorua, sucking the small pokemon inside it. The battle fell into the grass and rolled before pinging.

"Whoa, she caught it," Reiner said, not expecting that to happen.

Cynthia grabbed the pokeball and pressed the button, letting her out of her pokeball. "Alright you! Talk!" She demanded.

Zorua blinked, tilting her head to the side. "Zorua?"

"Cynthia," Blake said, pinching the bridge of his nose. "You didn't seriously catch that Zorua just so you could interrogate her, did you?"

"Among other things," Cynthia said indignantly. "I want to teach her that some things aren't okay to do with people's forms."

"You realize you're not one to be taking moral high ground, right?" Julia asked, rolling her eyes. "And that even though she can transform to look like a person, she probably can't actually TALK like people, right?"

Cynthia wasn't in the mood for listening to reason, though. "Okay Zorua! What were you thinking, jumping on Blake like that with my body? He's got a girlfriend, you can't do that sort of thing! And you definitely can't go streaking through the inn looking like me, either! Understand?"

Zorua blinked, and then returned to the form of the dark-haired girl. She began to make a bunch of signs with her hands.

"Hey, come on, this isn't Naruto, cut that out!" Cynthia scowled.

Sango gasped. "Hey, Cynthia, wait, hold up a second."

Cynthia blinked. "What? Yeah, why?"

"Aidan, those hand signs, you think it's…?" Sango turned to Aidan questioningly and he nodded in agreement.

"Yeah, I think you're right."

Sango turned to the Zorua and began to make some signs of her own. The Zorua/girl's face lit up with glee and she began making even more signs.

"Okay, am I the only one completely lost here?" Cynthia asked. "What's going on? What are you two doing?"

"It's sign language," Sango explained. "A form of nonverbal communication. Usually it's used by deaf people, but they teach it to us in the Ranger Course because it's an easy way to communicate with other people in the field without risking agitating wild pokemon with our voices."

"So you can talk with her?!" Cynthia was absolutely amazed, and she wasn't the only one. They didn't know HOW this pokemon had learned sign language, but the fact that she had meant that they could communicate with a pokemon, without needing harmonia to do it, either.

"Can you repeat what I asked, then?" Cynthia asked hopefully. Sango nodded and signed something to the Zorua. The pokemon blinked and signed back to her. The exchange took a little while to sort out, and no one else could follow it, but Sango turned back to the others with a smile on her face.

"So why is she haunting the mountain?" Cynthia asked. "Why go to all that trouble, pretending to be a ghost?"

"Zorua!" Zorua answered.

Sango provided a slightly better-informed response. "She… was the pet pokemon of the girl who lived in that mansion," Sango explained quietly. "Apparently, the daughter of that house was very sickly, and couldn't leave her house very often. And being deaf, it wasn't safe for her to go unaccompanied, either. So her parents bought her a companion pokemon. Something that could take the appearance of a friend, which is what she did, right?"

"Zo!" Zorua nodded in agreement.

Cynthia placed her hand over her chest. "That… that's really touching, wow."

"So the daughter was the one who taught her sign language, probably to communicate," Reiner realized. "Makes a strange sort of sense."

"Zor…" Zorua nodded glumly, making some more hand signals. Sango interpreted them again, and frowned herself.

"Apparently, the story isn't wrong," she said. "The daughter was very sick. But before they could bring her to the hospital, the storm hit, and she ended up passing away before it cleared."

Tears began to well up in Zorua's eyes.

"I think I can guess what happened," Cynthia said, crouching down next to Zorua. She reached out and placed her hand on the pokemon's head, patting her gently. "They left you behind, didn't they?"

"…Zor…" Zorua sniffled, nodding. She signed some more.

Sango confirmed it. "The family abandoned the mansion, and little Zorua here along with it. She had only been raised in captivity, so she didn't have much ability to survive in the wild. To protect herself, she would transform into people and pokemon to scare people away, and by doing so ended up creating the legend of the ghost."

"Zorua!" Zorua began to happily sign again, then leaned up and nuzzled against Cynthia's chest, startling her.

Sango blinked, surprised. "When you saved her from those Machoke, she was appreciative and wanted to play with you, apparently. So after you left, she followed us all the way here. Is that right?"

Zorua was still disguised as her previous owner, so the blush on her face was like that of a normal girl. She smiled up at Cynthia, who blushed herself.

She was a little flattered by the pokemon's praise.

"W-Well, it's still not okay to just pretend to be me like that!" She declared. "But, um… I did catch you, so You're your trainer."

"Zor?" Zorua tilted her head to the side, not sure what Cynthia was saying.

"What she means," Sango clarified, "is that if you want, you can come back home with us."

"D-Don't make a big deal out of it!" Cynthia exclaimed. "It's just if you want to! I know that place must mean a lot to you, but hey, if you want to come with us, well… I wouldn't complain. You are my pokemon."

Zorua hadn't even considered that. She blinked.

"…I've been living in my old home, mourning Marie for years," she signed to Sango. "I love her… but I also… I don't want to remain there forever. You guys are all so fun, I've never had so much fun playing with people. Can you… could we… could I really come with you?"

Sango conveyed Zorua's hopeful question to Cynthia, who was more than happy to reply.

"Yes, absolutely yes!" Cynthia squeale, hugging the pokemon tight enough to break her illusion. Quite a marked difference from her previous attitude towards the pokemon.

"Wait, there's one thing I'm not sure of," Blake said, frowning. "Why did you have to jump on top of me like that?!"

"Oh, get over it, Blake," Cynthia scoffed. "She's not going to do it again anyway, so let's let bygones be bygones, okay?"

"Says you! What if Aya finds out?! Are you going to be the one to explain this mess to her?" He demanded.

Cynthia opened her mouth to reply but didn't get the chance because Zorua leapt from her arms and ran over to Blake, turning into Cynthia again. She hugged him tightly. At last she was still wearing clothes.

"Hey!" Blake said, trying to squirm free.

"Cut that out!" Cynthia shouted. "Stop clinging to Blake with my body!"

Zorua turned to Cynthia and signed something. While still rubbing against Blake. It was pretty impressive.

"…Oh, really?" Sango asked, surprised.

"What did she say?!" Cynthia demanded.

Sango coughed. "Um… so apparently… Blake gives off a special scent."

"A scent?! What kind of scent?!" Blake demanded.

Sango shrugged. "I don't know. It's like, a pheromone or something. She says you smell incredibly good, and she wants to be as close to it as possible. So… congratulations?"

She was smirking a little, but Blake didn't find it amusing.

"Cynthia tell her to cut that out," Blake pleaded.

"I tried, but she doesn't listen to me!" Cynthia wailed. She didn't like this any more than he did, obviously.

Zorua was listening though, and stepped back. She was still smiling, and Blake recognized Cynthia's expression on her face. That was her thinking face.

"Zor!" She placed her hands over her chest, and suddenly another transformation took place. She was still borrowing Cynthia's appearance, just… certain things about it had changed. Two things had changed, in fact.

"H-HEY!" Cynthia exclaimed, her face turning bright red.

Zorua still looked like Cynthia. But she had borrowed Elaina's giant chest. The other girl's boobs looked almost comical crammed into Cynthia's bathrobe, which was apparently what Zorua was aiming for. She turned and leapt upon Blake again, taking deep whiffs of his scent while rubbing Elaina's huge boobs against his chest.

He struggled to push her off.

"S-Stop that!" Cynthia shouted. "Don't… don't give me those… things! Don't rub it in!"

Julia cleared her throat. "Is anyone else sensing a great abundance of irony right now or is it just me?" She asked.

"Me too," Nick agreed.

"Definitely," Kitty nodded.

"Listen you!" Cynthia thumped Zorua on the head lightly, giving just enough force to turn her back to normal.

Zorua whined and whimpered but she behaved herself.

"Now listen, Zorua, it's not okay to borow other people's appearances without their permission, okay?" Cynthia asked, kneeling beside her. "It's really rude and violating, alright?"

"…Zor," Zorua nodded meekly.

Cynthia nodded back, convinced the little thing had finally gotten the message. "…Well, good then," she said. "Now, what should we call you?"

"Zorua!" Zorua turned back into the ghost girl form, and signed something.

"Oh, apparently, she has a name," Sango said.

"Really?" Cynthia asked, surprised. "From her old trainer? What is it sweetie?"

"Ruka," she signed, her eyes watering.

Cynthia patted her on the head. She was smiling too.

"Let's head back inside," Cynthia said, standing up and taking Ruka by the hand. "We can introduce you to the other pokemon on my team! But they're all resting right now because we had a pokemon battle today, so you've gotta be really nice!"

Ruka thought for a second and then she signed something. As she did, she changed her appearance again, this time to look like Cynthia. But she was slightly different. For one, instead of red hair, her hair was the same black as her fur; instead, streaks of red could be seen running through it. Furthermore, she was dressed in a black dress, and her fox tail was peeking out of the back of it. Two fox ears popped out of the top of her head to complete the look.

"Hey, what's with that?" Cynthia asked, scowling. "I thought I told you it's not okay to copy someone else's appearance?!"

Ruka signed something in response and Sango translated.

"She says that she's not using your body; she changed things a little bit by modifying your measurements, and adjusting certain sizes and… wait, what?!" Sango paused, not sure she was readinng right. "Okay, can you tell me again?"

Nodding, Ruka repeated what she'd just said. Sango went pale.

"She, uh… she said she borrowed a little bit from each of us…" Sango hung her head in embarrassment. "She's got my body physique, it looks like. Well, minus Julia's chest, away…"It was pretty clear that one stung.

"I'm surprised it's not Elaina's chest," Reiner muttered under his breath. Julia ht him the side with an elbow.

"Now that I look closer," Kitty said, coming closer to Ruka and squinting, her eyes are a lot like mine, they're just blue."

"Zorua!" Ruka winked, making a peace sign.

"What about Elaina?" Kitty wondered. "I don't see anything from her."

Ruka went pale and frantically started to sign a response back. Kitty didn't need to be able to understand sign language though, she could already feel the fear radiating off of the pokemon due to her harmonia.

"She says that she didn't want to copy anything from Elaina because she's scary and if Ruka did that, then she was afraid Elaina would hurt her," Sango explained.

Kitty could understand that.

"So this is her form, huh? I don't know, she still looks a lot like me," Cynthia frowned. "That's mostly my face, right?"

"Zor," Ruka nodded, signing to her.

"She said your face was the cutest one."

And just like that, all was forgiven. Cynthia was a pretty easy mark, all things considered.

"Well, okay then! Welcome to the team, Ruka!" Cynthia glomped her again, hugging so tightly that Ruka's illusion broke.

"Wow, so Cynthia got a new pokemon, huh?" Nick said, shaking his head. He was still shocked. The thought that there was a pokemon that could communicate with people through the use of sign language was amazing, and now that pokemon was on Cynthia's team and going to be spending a lot of time around them.

Will was of a similar mind. "A pokemon like that is certainly interesting," he agreed, stroking his chin. "I bet some people in the research course would be curious about how she could help with pokemon translations and the like."

"Hey, good idea!" Cynthia agreed. She turned to Ruka. "Ruka, do you think you could talk to our pokemon for us? I'd just LOVE to know what everyone had to say!"

Ruka looked a little irritated. She shook her head rapidly and raised her arms up in a big "X".

"I'm pretty sure she's saying 'no'," Sango offered.

"…Thanks Sango. Didn't need to know sign language at all to get that one," Cynthia dryly replied. She scowled. "I don't see what the issue is though, why not?"

She wasn't upset, but she wanted to know why Ruka was so adamant about not talking to their pokemon as a translator.

Ruka was happy to volunteer an answer.

Sango sighed and rubbed her temples in frustration.

"According to her… she wants to be the only one who's special. And she thinks that if you can talk to other pokemon using her, that she won't ever be seen as your pokemon for real, but just a convenient translator," Sango explained.

Ruka glanced down and nodded shyly, confirming Sango's words.

As far as Cynthia was concerned, that sort of thinking was complete bullcrap. But she could understand how a pokemon that had just been captured might feel insecure and uneasy. So she didn't press the issue or try to put any pressure on little Ruka at all. She just smiled and patted her on the head like a good trainer should.

"You don't have to worry about that at all, then," Cynthia assured her.

Ruka's face lit up with glee and Cynthia smiled back. "Now, let's get to bed," she said, stretching. She led Ruka back towards the inn. "So hey, Ruka, can you turn into anybody? Even just from a photograph? Because I have a few suggestions…

Blake sighed and they all followed after her. Clearly, Cynthia would need to be kept on a tight leash.

Aww! So Cynthia made a new friend and caught a new pokemon! And it's a Zorua who doesn't just turn into people, but also is capable of holding conversations with them. How's that for exciting? Hopefully she just uses her Zorua's powers for good, and not for evil. Or else she and Serefina might need to have some words.