Darla was set to defeat Lana and her Shadow Corviknight, when the unthinkable happened! Samarra stepped into the fight herself, and targeted Lila to turn it into a two-on-one! That's not good! Melody might not be strong enough to take down two pokemon at once! Darla's in a really bad situation here, will she be able to make it through this? Or will Samarra's dirty tricks be too much to overcome?

Arbiter8991: I think we'll find that Darla's line of thinking will prove correct in the end.

KedharS: Samarra plays Go, which is more about fighting a battle on multiple fronts then a single skirmish. If you're losing in one location, gain ground in another while your opponent is occupied, it's only logical.

Hyphenman: Indeed. I can't imagine what Darla, whose name is actually Zinnia, would do if Lila, whose real name is Aster, was dead. I wonder if there's a pokemon game that might shed some light on that question…

Leppyvstheworld: Samarra does that. She's not exactly a good person.

Tambry96bj: Definitely something a lot of people are looking forward to, I imagine.

Pokemon Academy: Beginning of Beginnings

Chapter 1187

"Melody!" Darla cried as she saw the poison burn through her Altaria. This wasn't good. Melody was strong, and could easily take down either that Corviknight or that Beedrill. But she was having a tough time fighting them both on her own.

"Perfect," Samarra smiled. "Bree, finish her off. Poison jab!"

"Beedrill!" Bree flapped her wings and flew towards Melody, raising her stinger. Lana was working in perfect harmony with Samarra and had Ryder follow up with an attack of his own, the Corviknight whipping up a tornado of dark energy to swallow the Altaria.

"Use heat wave!" Darla shouted. If she was fighting multiple enemies, then that's what she'd do, fight them both at once. The sky burned hot as Melody flapped her wings, sending a wave of hot air at the incoming Beedrill.

"BEEEEE!" Bree screamed as the hot air singed her, dodging out of the way. But Samarra kept smiling. The Beedrill was just a distraction, after all.

With Bree out of the way, the path was open for the shadow storm to tear right through. Last time, Melody had countered it with her heat wave attack, but unlike before, this time she spread her heat wave out across the field to try and hit both pokemon with it. Which meant it didn't have enough compressed power to break through the tornado. The shadow storm raged ahead and swept Melody up, battering her with dark winds as she cried out in pain.

"Oh, no!" Lila gasped, turning pale. She started shaking. This is all my fault… because I'm here, Darla and Melody have to fight to protect me… if I wasn't so weak… then Melody wouldn't be suffering like this… if only I could help, then…

Lila knew what she had to do. She had to help Darla. If she sent out her pokemon, then it would be a two on two, and Darla would have a much better chance of victory. It was the right thing to do, and it was their best chance of coming out of this successful.

But she couldn't do it.

Her pokemon weren't trained to fight. She could barely remember the last time she'd had an actual pokemon battle. It had been in the Miss Pokemon Academy Contest, and she hadn't exactly won over hearts and minds. Even if she sent her team out now, what could they do? Nothing.

She had always watched battles from the sidelines and made judgments about them, but never saw the need for competing herself.

Now she wished she had taken the idea more seriously. This was the time when she needed to be a trainer, when she needed to fight to help her friend. If only… if only.

"Bree, take her from behind!" Samarra shouted.

Melody had just broken out of the shadow storm, and the wind had beaten her ragged. The cotton down of her wings looked frayed and she could barely stay in the air, it was clear the strength was leaving her, having to fight on two fronts. Bree sensed this, and circled around to stab the injured Altaria from behind.

"Ice beam!"

"Beedrill?!" A beam of ice shot past Lila's head and struck the Beedrill from behind, nearly freezing the bug pokemon solid. Bree smashed the ice off her wings with her stinger and turned to see who it was that had attacked her out of nowhere like that.

Lila turned to see who it was as well.

"What is this?!" Samarra roared in disbelief. "Who the hell are you?!"

"Nice work, Beauty," Giselle said, wiping her forehead. The short girl's tan skin was looking a little green with terror, but she stood as tall as she could. Curled around her was a Milotic, making the best of things she could given the fact that the river was currently being occupied by a giant catfish.

Darla was surprised. "Um… thanks?" She mumbled. For the life of her, she didn't know who it was that had just helped Melody, but she was grateful.

Giselle could see the questioning in Darla's eyes, and frankly, that pissed her off.

"Hey! I know that look!" She scowled. "That's a 'who is this?' look if I've ever seen one! It's me, Giselle! We've been on this trip together the whole time!"

Darla vaguely remembered that there was maybe someone with a name kind of like that in their group… maybe. She turned to Lila for clarification but her partner shrugged her shoulders and shook her head, just as clueless.

"I remember!" Donoma volunteered, winking at Giselle and giving her a thumbs' up.

Giselle sighed and hung her head.

"It's okay," she mumbled. "But anyway! I have pokemon too, you know! And even though I don't do a lot of pokemon battles, I can at least protect my classmates!"

"Classmates?" Darla raised her eyebrow.

"We have three classes together!" Giselle wailed. Neither of the idols could remember her at all.

"I see, so you're interfering then," Samarra scowled.

"You're one to talk!" Giselle snapped. Her frustration and fear were actually making it easier to stand up for herself for once. "You attacked Lila and interfered with this fight in the first place! I'm just leveling the playing field!"

Lana didn't point it out, but Giselle was absolutely correct.

Samarra sure didn't see it that way, though.

"Fine then…" She growled. "I'll take you down myself! Bree, fillet that eel!"

"Beedrill!" Bree flapped her wings and turned towards Beauty, raising her poison stingers. And all of a sudden the match became a 2 on 2.

That's when Lila noticed something. She ignored Giselle most of the time, barely even knowing the other girl existed, but now that she was fighting for their sake, she was paying attention. And what she saw was troubling.

Giselle was shaking like a leaf. She looked even more frightened then Lila did.

"Giselle… are you okay?" She asked quietly. She would have gone over to check on her, but, well, Giselle was right in the line of fire with her Milotic wrapped around her, and Lila didn't care about her enough to put herself at risk.

For a second it looked like Giselle hadn't heard the question. And in fairness, she had more pressing issues to concern herself with, like the fact that a Beedrill was attacking her Milotic.

"Beauty, keep her away from me!" Giselle shouted. "Use icy wind!"

"Milotic!" Beauty opened her mouth, sending a wave of icy wind at the Beedrill, who raised her stingers to protect herself while spreading her wings to brake. This kept her just at the edge of the move's range, which kept her from taking too much damage.

Beauty then surged forward, slithering like a snake through the grass. She whipped her tail around and water gathered in a tornado at the tip, which she swung at Bree, knocking the bug pokemon backwards with an aqua tail.

The Beedrill temporarily fended off, Giselle turned to Lila.

"Sorry, what was that?" She asked.

"I just, um…" Lila glanced at Giselle, who was still trembling, and couldn't bring herself to ask her question. After all, it was clear as day that Giselle was not okay. Whatever her issue was, maybe the pressure of being in a life or death situation, she was clearly bothered by it, even if she was trying her hardest.

Unlike Lila, who had been only too happy to hide behind her partner when things got tough.

"You wanted to know if I'm okay, right?" Giselle asked, sensing Lila's question. She sighed, scratching her dark hair. "Honestly… no. I hate Bug type pokemon, actually. I'm terrified of them. A Beedrill isn't as scary as an Ariados or a Galvantula of course, but, well… I still don't handle them very well."

"R-Really…" Lila mumbled, looking down.

"Oh, but don't worry!" Giselle smiled. "Beauty and I may not do pokemon battles, but with Darla's support, we can at least fend off that bug and give Melody time to take down that Corviknight, you know?"

She made it sound so easy. Like a Coordinator getting into a pokemon battle where defeat meant mind control was no big deal. Giselle was terrified of Bug type pokemon, and had still gone out to fight one because she needed to. Because if she hadn't, then Melody and Darla might lose, and that would be even worse.

Giselle could do it. So why couldn't she?

Darla wasn't Giselle's partner. She didn't even remember Giselle's name. And even though Giselle was just as scared as Lila, if not more, she was still willing to stand up and fight at her side, because it was the right thing to do.

Giselle had Darla's back. All Lila could do was cower behind it.

I'm weak… I'm worthless and weak… even when I'm not playing the fool… I still can't do anything to really help others… Lila had spent her life until now pretending to be a bigger idiot than she actually was, because it was easy. People liked her when she was the bubbly nice girl who may not know much about what was going on, but was still endlessly perky about it all the same.

That wasn't really her though. The real Lila was cynical, and while she could be friendly, she was much more calculating and selective with who she actually befriended. She acted like that made her better than everyone else.

But everyone else was helping, and what was she doing? The only thing she'd managed to accomplish was painting a giant target on her head for Samarra to take aim at.

The fact that she was an active liability made her sick to her stomach. But it was too late now. If she sent out her pokemon, they would just get in the way.

"Melody! Let's take down that Corviknight!" Darla could focus on Ryder now that Giselle was fighting against Bree. First thing first, though, taking care of the poison. "Use heal bell!"

"Altaria!" Melody chirped, flapping her wings. She opened her beak and began to sing, her voice high like the ringing of a bell. As she sang, a light wrapped around her body, and the poison was purified from her system.

"Do you think we're just going to let you heal?" Lana scowled, narrowing her eyes. "Ryder, use shadow storm again!"

"Corviknight!" Ryder squawked, spreading his wings and creating a tornado of shadows once more. With a flap of his wings he sent the tornado screaming towards Melody, who was still healing her poison with the heal bell. Darla didn't even give an order to dodge as the whirlwind swallowed her pokemon whole, to Lana's shock.

"We don't have to worry about a move like that," Darla smirked. "Your Corviknight's special attack stat is too low. And even if the move is super-effective, your level is low, too. Just take a look at Melody and see if she's really the sort of pokemon to be overwhelmed by something like that."

"Altaria!" Melody broke out of the shadow storm seconds later, beaten down a little but still flying high, a gleam of defiance burning in her eyes.

"No!" Lana cried.

"'Fraid so," Darla nodded. "You're a smart girl, Lana, you should have been able to tell that the only issue Melody and I were facing was the fact that there were two pokemon at once. My home region might be the birthplace of double battles, but anyone would struggle against two pokemon at the same time. As for you, though…"

She smirked.

"There's no difficulty at all in taking down a single weak Corviknight, now is there?"

"Altaria!" Melody chirp sounded like a mocking laugh to Lana's ears, but she couldn't really blame the bird pokemon. After all, Samarra had stepped in to make this battle unfair, and she was paying the price now. Could she really say that they were wrong?

If she and Ryder had a strong enough bond, they wouldn't have needed to rely on Samarra using her last pokemon to try a sneak attack. Something that she knew was horribly wrong. She knew it… and yet, when the time came, she couldn't condemn it.

That was when Lana realized that maybe, just maybe, Samarra was doing something to her. Controlling her mind. Not the same way that she was acting through Kiana, but maybe… was Samarra not really her friend? Was she just using Lana and the others as tools, to suit her own agenda, and influencing their minds in subtle ways so they'd attack other people?

Lana shook her head. No, no, that was crazy talk. She'd had a lot of wild theories in the past, but this one was just ridiculous.

"Ryder!" She shouted desperately, knowing that there was very little her Corviknight could do on his own. The burn was ravaging his system and he was having trouble just staying in the air. The moves he used were far too weak to take down Melody, even if they were Shadow Moves.

But at this point, they were all she could think to do.

"Shadow storm!" She shouted again in desperation. This one had to work, it just had to!

But Darla's cold glare was like an unbreakable wall against Lana's crumbling will.

"We won't even need to use heat wave to stop a half-hearted attack like that," Darla said, shaking her head. "Melody, use fire spin."

"Altaria!" Melody flapped her wings, summoning a tornado of flames in front of her. The two cyclones crashed into each other in an explosion of fire and darkness, clearing the path in seconds. But when Ryder could finally see his opponent, she was gone.

"Altaria!" Melody reappeared behind him, using her aerial ace to catch up. She raised her claw and slashed his back, barely making a scratch on his metal feathers. But it served an adequate distraction. As Ryder turned to attack, Melody had already pulled back, her beak wide open.

"Fire blast," Darla ordered, narrowing her eyes.

"ALTARIA!" Melody fired a massive star of flames from her beak, burning through the sky and engulfing the Corviknight. The Shadow Pokemon let out a squawk of pain as he felt the fire burn, and he plummeted from the sky, crashing hard into the grass.

Lana screamed and clutched her head, falling down with him.

"Beedrill!" Bree whipped her head around to see her trainer fall, and rushed to her side. But then she froze.

Where do you think you're going? Samarra demanded, asserting her will over the bug pokemon with her harmonia. There's still a battle to be fought.

Samarra didn't understand the bond between a trainer and their pokemon, and even if she did, she wouldn't care that Bree was worried about her actual trainer. Right now, the Beedrill was a weapon, a tool for defeating her foes.

Not that it made much of a difference.

"Hydro pump!" Giselle ordered. With Bree hovering in the air dumbly like that, she made the perfect target for Beauty's strongest move.

"Milotic!" Beauty cried with a voice like a melody, opening her mouth wide and firing a massive blast of compressed water at the Beedrill. The hydro pump hit Bree head-on, smacking her out of the sky as well.

But this time, Bree was able to right herself, catching the air with her wings before she crashed. She turned and shot right for Beauty, raising her stinger to strike. She disappeared, reappearing behind Beauty, striking her in the back of the head with an aerial ace.

"Beauty!" Giselle shouted. Her Milotic whirled around and fired another blast of water at the Beedrill, but Bree maneuvered out of the way.

"Use your agility," Samarra ordered. Bree began zigzagging back and forth, skillfully maneuvering around the Milotic and looking for an opportunity to strike. "Then, hit her with-"

"Oh, please," Darla snorted, shaking her head.

"Altaria!" Melody appeared in the center of the battle out of nowhere, striking Bree in the chest with her beak.

With agility, the Beedrill was certainly fast. But there was no way her speed could compete with Melody's aerial ace.

"Sorry to cut in like this," Darla said to Giselle. "But then, she brought this on herself, didn't she?" She turned to Samarra with a cold glare. "After all, if she's willing to use two pokemon against one, I don't see a problem with us trying that ourselves, do you?"

"Not at all," Giselle said, sighing in relief. She grinned at Darla. "Personally, I'm grateful for the help! But it's the least I can do to land the finishing blow. Beauty! Use dragon pulse!"

"Milotic!" Beauty opened her mouth wide, gathering draconic energy and firing it in a blast that struck Bree head-on, knocking out the Beedrill in a single shot. The bug pokemon fell from the sky and Samarra was ripped out of Kiana's body. The older woman joined her sister in unconsciousness, both siblings lying on the grass.

"Wheeeeew," Darla whistled, impressed with Beauty's attack. "That's quite a strong dragon pulse, especially coming from a Water type pokemon. I've gotta admit, even I'm impressed."

"O-Oh, really?" Giselle said, smiling sheepishly and scratching her head. She grinned. "I just kinda… well, it's good in contests, so… you know."

"No, I'm serious, it was really nice," Darla said, giving Giselle and her Milotic some genuine praise. Praise from the idol was such a rare thing, there was no wonder that Giselle was finding it hard to accept.

While the two girls fraternized over their mutual close call, Lila watched from the sidelines, her heart burning with envy.

That could have been her. If she'd been stronger, if she'd been braver, if her pokemon were actually capable of fighting at Darla's side, that could have been her right now, getting praised by the girl who meant the world to her.

But it wasn't her. Because she'd been happy to just let Darla do everything herself again.

Lila clenched her fists and tried not to burst into tears.

Well, that was a rough battle, with some twists and turns at the end! But the Canley sisters have been defeated, and saved from Samarra! And it looks like Giselle is finally getting some much-needed respect and acknowledgment from another student in the Appeals Course! It's about damn time! She's definitely the "winner" of this chapter. But with winners, there are also losers, and this time Lila definitely lost worse than Lana, Kiana, or even Samarra did.