The battle between Ange and Alden has reached an ending. Both trainers gave it all they had in a battle of ideals, but in the end, only one emerged the victor. And now that Alden has defeated Ange and freed her from Samarra's control, maybe they'll finally be able to have a conversation like normal people. That's something worth hoping for, anyway. But what about the others? The people down below, serving as a distraction for the Commander? How are they doing?

KedharS: Minus the whole "wiped memory" thing, maybe.

Just a Bad Writer for Fun: Don't worry, I haven't forgotten about the distraction team. As for Mega Evolution, my plan for that will be made clear as time goes on.

Hyphenman: I'll be waiting excitedly for those reviews.

Leppyvstheworld: That was the goal, to have a lot of high-stakes battles that could get you invested emotionally. Glad it worked!

Pokemon Academy: Beginning of Beginnings

Chapter 1132

"Hendrix, go!" Donoma shouted, ordering her Toxtricity to attack with another hyper voice that shook Tommy's Hitmonchan. Her opponent stunned momentarily, she took the opportunity to scan the desert for any trace of the others. But no, they were alone.

After the trio had dealt with all the workers, they'd been forced apart to deal with the members of the Commander's organization. Donoma, of course, had chosen the meathead Tommy as her opponent. Which gave her some time to think about how the others were doing with their foes.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a large barrier towering over several buildings, a decent enough distance away that it would be a pain in the ass to try and get there. That was where Ross must have been. He had ended up with Ian as his opponent. Donoma figured that with his level of skill, that wouldn't be much of a problem.

Of course, if Ian loses, I suppose I'll just have to take HIM down next, she decided, not at all bothered by that. It would be fun to see how Samarra twisted him. A peek behind the mask at his true desires would make seducing him in the future that much easier.

Oh, but I shouldn't let those thoughts distract me, she chastised herself. Right now, Donoma was supposed to be playing a good girl, and good girls didn't entertain notions like that!

…Not usually, anyway.

There was something else occupying her thoughts as well. Little Chloe… was someone like that even capable of giving Mason a decent fight? Donoma wasn't sure. She didn't know the first thing about either of them, and didn't know where they'd gotten off to, either.

Oh, well, she'd cross that bridge when she got to it. In the meantime-

A massive flash from the skyscraper towering above them caught her attention, and she jerked her eyes skyward.

…How curious. It seemed that things had reached a climax of sorts up there. Donoma couldn't help but smile.

When the light from Corin's attack died down and dispersed, darkness returned to the skies above the Battle Tower. The stadium itself was brightened by the projecting lights, and everyone stared in silence at the result.

Luci had fallen. The Zoroark had been knocked unconscious by the attack, and was crumpled into a ball on the white floor. Ange lay collapsed behind her, unmoving.

But all eyes were on Corin. The Lucario stood as still as a statue in her new form, and even though she looked triumphant, it was clear that all the energy had been drained out of her. It was like she was going to collapse at any moment.

A dead silence hung over the battlefield, like everyone was too worried to say anything. Then the aura surrounding Corin cracked and shattered in a burst of light, and when it faded away it revealed her in her old form, injured and exhausted. She nearly collapsed herself.

"Corin!" Vic cried, confused how the Lucario had returned to her prior state. Wasn't that evolution they had all witnessed? An evolution shouldn't be reversible. Then she thought of Shaymin and how the pokemon had obtained a new form when she'd fought at Alcea's side, and realized that the same thing must have happened for Corin.

And then when Corin did collapse, she realized just how bad things really were.

"Look at Alden!" Rui cried, and Vic's heart sank. Corin wasn't the only one drained from that battle, Alden looked like he'd been on the receiving edge of that steel beam himself. Vic broke into a run, managing to get to him before he pitched over.

"Alden, are you alright!?" She cried frantically.

"O-oh, Vic…" Alden mumbled. His face was pale. "You're here… good…"

"What's the matter?! That bitch didn't hurt you, did she?!" Vic snarled, turning her hate-filled eyes in Ange's direction. "I swear, I'll-"

"It's fine…" He muttered, shaking his head. He pulled away from her and managed to stay on his feet, though he was clearly pushing himself.

Rui recognized that look on his face. She'd seen it before, many times, from her daughter. Alden looked like how Vic looked, after exhausting her harmonia.

Strange… she thought. Is that a side-effect of what happened with Corin?

Anabel was the only one who spared a thought for the other trainer in that battle. "Hey, guys, is Ange alright?" They called. "We should really check on her."

"Yes… you're right," Alden agreed, taking a shaky step forward. He nearly fell over again, but luckily Vic was there to catch him. "And Corin… is she…?"

Corin was all but unconscious. She was still trying to stand, but like her trainer, all the strength in her body had been drained. Seeing this, Alden reached for her pokeball and nearly dropped it, recalling the Lucario.

Alden knelt down next to Ange and turned her over to get a better look at her condition. What he saw was surprising. She looked so peaceful, like a doll. Her flawless features were stained in blood from harmonia, but other than that she seemed like she was benefitting from the effects of a well-deserved, long nap.

At least she was breathing.

"Hey, Ange," he said gently, shaking her awake. Ange slowly opened her eyes, and when she saw him, she made an expression like she was going to be sick.

"What the hell?!" She snarled, pushing him off. "Get the hell back!"

She stumbled backwards, nearly falling over as she tried to stand up, looking around frantically. Everywhere around her there was nothing but strange faces. A redhead she'd never seen before, a lilac-haired… boy? Girl? Someone she didn't know, at any rate, and worst of all, Vic and Alden, two people she definitely didn't want to spend any more time around than she had to.

If that all wasn't bad enough, she had no idea where the hell she even was. And "hell" was a good word to think. Because everywhere she looked she saw the curtain of night hanging over technology and metal. Not a trace of the natural world in sight.

"How did I get here?" She demanded, glaring furiously at the Commander. "The last thing I remember, I was… I was…"

It wasn't until the words left her lips that she realized that she had no idea WHAT the last thing she remembered was. Her head was a fog, and she couldn't be sure if what she was seeing was correct or not.

A place similar to this… a lab of some sort? And a woman… ugh, it was all so confusing. But one thing was for sure, she remembered being with her group before, and right now, not one of them was around, not one.

…So it wasn't like EVERYTHING was a negative.

Then her eyes landed on Luci, collapsed in front of her, and she suddenly realized that her body felt incredibly sore, as if she'd just gotten careless in the wild and been bludgeoned by a pokemon charging at her.

Ange knew exactly what had happened, and it made her sick to her stomach. She'd gotten into a pokemon battle, something she absolutely despised, and as a result of that, her precious pokemon had gotten injured.

Worst of all, she'd lost. If Alden had wanted to harm her, she wouldn't have been able to do anything to stop him. But that thought wasn't what was dominating her mind at the moment. The thing that occupied her thoughts was the fact that, for all her disdain of pokemon battles and how much she loathed the Commander in particular for being so frivolous with them, how had she come to battle him in… wherever the hell this was?

It was something that didn't make sense to her, and she glared questioningly at him as if daring him to provide her with an answer. When one wasn't forthcoming she pushed the subject forward and demanded clarification directly.

"What the hell happened here?" She snarled, recalling Luci to her pokeball so the Zoroark could get some rest. "Explain."

Alden's explanation was about as thorough as possible. He only left one crucial detail out, which was how Corin had transformed in the middle of their battle and that was the reason he'd been able to defeat Ange.

It wasn't that he didn't trust her with that information, it was just that he wasn't sure how she'd react to something like that. And without an explanation to give her, he felt it was better to not even try and just focus on what he knew.

By the end of the explanation, Ange looked even more furious than when it had started. Which was actually quite impressive for her.

"…So you're telling me…" She said quietly, "that someone took control of my body and tried to use me in order to create a society where everyone was being controlled by her? Is that what I'm hearing right now?"

The menace in her voice was actually kind of startling, given how Ange had been acting under Samarra's influence. Alden wasn't quite sure what to make of it.

"Yeah, um… honestly, I thought… that you were cool with it," he said, earning him a death glare from the blonde.

"Why on EARTH would I be 'cool' with that?" She growled. "What, because she wanted to create a society where people would no longer damage the environment, where all human progress ceased and we lived in harmony with the world around us?"

"…Yeah," Alden nodded.

She sighed.

"Those things… I might believe in them, but… controlling people to do it… that's just sick…" She shook her head, as if she was trying to shake off any lasting vestiges of Samarra's influence. Alden relaxed a little and sighed in relief. He had actually been worried about revealing the truth to Ange given how supportive she'd seemed to be of Samarra's goals. But apparently that was all just a result of Samarra's brainwashing, and the real Ange had slightly more sanity than that.

Of course, it wasn't that Ange disagreed with the goal in and of itself. As she wisely kept to herself, she supported the idea of forcing everyone to go back to a more primitive way of life, where they stopped their horrid destruction of pokemon and the ecosystem.

She just didn't want to brainwash all people and pokemon to accomplish it. What sort of harmony would come as a result of that?

"My head is killing me," she muttered, nursing the sore throb in her skull. "Come on, let's get out of here…"

She glanced at Vic. "This feeling… I guess this is what harmonia feels like?"

Vic scowled and Rui winced.

"…Part of it," the older woman admitted, reaching a hand out to Ange before stopping herself. "Overusing it like you did…"

"You don't still have it, do you?" Vic asked suspiciously. She couldn't sense any of the usual signs of harmonia coming from Ange, but then she couldn't be sure, could she?

Ange shook her head. "Whatever sort of power I might have had… I don't remember it. I don't think I have it anymore."

A sorrowful expression crossed her face. "…It's a pity," she said quietly. "I wish I could hear their voices for real…"

Alden glanced at the others. The truth about Corin was the only thing he'd kept from Ange about their exchange. He'd been tempted to also keep from her how, at the end, he had shaken her by pointing out the hypocrisy of her beliefs, but changed his mind when he realized that those words might be important for her to hear. Now that he'd said them, however, he hadn't seen any major shift in Ange's attitude.

…Which was concerning. The degree of fervor he'd seen from Ange wasn't exactly new. Vic had been exactly the same way in how warped and passionate she'd been when under Samarra's influence; according to Anabel, that was just part of the nature of her transformation.

But something about the things Ange was saying, they were inherently extreme points to hold. If that was truly how she felt, then he expected her to be seething at him for expressing his beliefs in the contrary so frankly.

But if the blonde girl was bothered by his words, he couldn't see it in the porcelain mask she wore for a face.

It caused Alden to regard her with a wide berth. After all, if Ange felt that strongly about what she believed in but was keeping it under the surface, she might explode at any minute. And besides, he had more important things to worry about.

"We'll head down in a second," he told the blonde. "You can take the elevator first, and we'll meet up at the bottom."

He felt a little uncomfortable just kicking her to the curb like that, but he really needed to talk to the others about what had happened to Corin.

Ange made a sour expression. "I'll just take the stairs," she replied.

The tower was 100 floors high. Was she mental? She'd be going down the stairs for the rest of the night, and well into the next day! She looked like she could barely stand as it was!

"Uh… we don't have those," Alden offered lamely. "They're… out of order right now, so you'll have to take the elevator."

The sour expression on Ange's face got even worse.

"You know that's a fire hazard, right?" She asked darkly, and Alden just shrugged. She sighed and walked over to the elevator. It wasn't like she had any other choice. She left the roof, leaving the four of them alone.

"…So I'm guessing you wanted to talk about what just happened with Corin?" Anabel asked, as perceptive as always.

Alden nodded.

"What even was that?" Rui asked. "That sort of transformation… I've never seen it before, ever! Was that really just a form change?"

Alden shrugged. "I don't know," he admitted. "But there is something strange about it. After Corin transformed, it was like… I don't even know how to describe it! But I felt like I was connecting with her, like we were fighting together, almost like-

"Almost like you were united as trainer and pokemon?" Anabel asked, narrowing their eyes. That sounded familiar.

"…Yeah, exactly," Alden said, already seeing where they were going with this.

Anabel sighed. That really WAS a problem.

"What you're describing sounds a lot like harmonia. But see… I didn't feel any of that coming from you, did you ladies?" They asked.

Rui and Vic both shook their heads.

"I sensed harmonia coming from that Ange girl all the way until the end," Rui said. "But not from you… it's definitely strange."

"Then there's the way Corin transformed in the first place," Vic said. "Lucario… they don't have evolutions or form differences, and yet Corin did change."

"That's true," Alden agreed. "We can't deny that it happened. But I don't know how it happened, either."

"…Well," Anabel said after thinking it over carefully, "whatever it was, it was related to you, right? That's why you're so exhausted now. So what did you feel, when it first happened?"

Alden paused to think. "Well… it felt sort of like Corin was swelling up with energy… no, that's not quite right." He thought some more about it. "…It was when she got frozen, and saw the shadow ball coming towards her. I thought that she was in danger and I wanted to help however I could. And then, well… it just kind of happened."

"What kind of happened?" Rui pressed.

"I felt like a bunch of energy was running through me, like I stuck my finger in an electrical socket," Alden explained. "And it began flowing right into Corin. And then, well… it just sort of happened, you know?"

"So energy came from you and entered her, and that's how she transformed?" Anabel asked, frowning. "The more I hear it, the more it sounds like harmonia…"

"Whatever it is, you should be careful about it," Rui said, switching into "mom mode". "I don't want you using that power again! You could get even more hurt or drained than now! If you don't know what you're doing, then it could be really dangerous!"

"I know," Alden groaned. "Trust me, I get it. I'm going to be careful."

Rui frowned, but decided she could take him at his word. "Alright. But I know how much of a battle junkie you are, young man, and I don't want you doing anything reckless! Do I make myself clear?" She asked.

"Yes, perfectly," Alden agreed.

"Um…"

Everyone turned to Vic, who was still troubled.

"There's… one other thing," Vic said quietly. "Alden… your jacket pocket… I saw it glowing, when Corin transformed."

Alden blinked, surprised. He dug around in his pocket and withdrew a certain keychain, something he'd had since he was a boy. It was the marble that Korrina had given him all those years ago, when she'd first left that Riolu in his care.

No one said a word, but everyone, Alden especially, was concerned with what that meant.

What COULD that mean? Well, we'll have to see. In the meantime, Alden has managed to clear the Battle Tower and save everyone! But what about the people down on the ground? How are Donoma, Ian, and Chloe doing? Will they all be able to win their battles? Or will some of them fall under Samarra's influence? Things are wrapping up with the Battle Frontier, but the war against Samarra is just getting started!