Marion has defeated Willa! That means that this arc has just about reached the climax! With Samarra only having a few friends left, her powers have dwindled considerably. Unfortunately, her last few friends are the very dangerous Wes and Ayame! Maddi's going to give it everything she has, but in the meantime, we really need the others to get there and help! The battle in Agate Village is about to get really serious now!

KedharS: There might need to be a trip to the hospital or two.

Guest: Oh don't worry, this fight isn't over yet. Not by a long shot.

Hyphenman: Family reunions are nice, aren't they? And you're right, this is a really serious situation, that's for sure.

Pokemon Academy: Beginning of Beginnings

Chapter 1207

While Marion and the others were finishing up their battles, Alcea had already completed hers. With Gabrielle safe and secure, they could keep going on to find Maddi.

There was just one problem left to deal with now.

"…What should we do with him?" Olivia asked, kicking Gerard in the side. She wasn't feeling especially charitable towards the guy who'd sold them out.

"We could just leave him here," Tommy scowled. "He'll just drag us down if we're going to be looking for Maddi and the others." He didn't like the idea of carrying Gerard along.

"We can't do that!" Amarillo snapped. "Yes, I provided him some first aid, and his life is out of danger, but we need to get him to a medical facility! Or barring that, at least a Pokemon Center!"

Alcea sighed. She felt very tired. "Oui… you're correct, is it? But still…"

Prioritizing Maddi, or prioritizing the dirtbag who'd betrayed her. It was a simple solution, ultimately, but no one there was heartless enough to go through with it.

Then a figure appeared in front of them.

"Shit!" Tommy reflexively threw a punch in their direction before he saw who it was. Dokukage deflected the blow, taking a step back with his hands raised.

"You don't need to worry," he said. "I won my battle. I'm not a threat."

Shit! Fucking shit! I just saw my life flash before my eyes! Who swings a punch like that at somebody out of reflex?! He could have broken my fucking nose! Dokukage screamed internally, willing his heart to return to its normal pace.

"We can't know that," Olivia said, narrowing her eyes into a glare.

Alcea glanced at Anabel, Vic and Amarillo for confirmation. While they didn't have the same gifts as Maddi, those three were the only harmonia users they had with them at the moment. If anyone would know what to do, it would be them, right?

Amarillo just shrugged.

"I don't feel anything wrong," Anabel said, shaking their head..

Vic scowled, crossing her arms over her chest.

"If you're fine, then where's Keahi?" Ross asked suspiciously. It would make sense for Dokukage to be the distraction, keeping them busy, while Keahi went to go find other people to turn. Assuming he'd won the battle, of course.

Dokukage coughed, and beckoned them to follow him back. It was only a few paces towards the forest when they saw the other boy, with his feet tied together and his hands bound behind his back. He had a gag in his mouth and a murderous glare in his eyes.

Everyone took a second to process that.

"…Why did you tie him up?" Tommy asked the question that was on everyone's minds.

"When he woke up, he was… irritable," Dokukage replied. "Besides he was a self-righteous prick before Samarra possessed him, I didn't want to take any chances."

Given what had happened with Gerard, Alcea had to admit that was probably the right call.

"We don't have time for this now," Amarillo said, shaking her head. "We need to go find Madison before it's too late!"

"That's why I'm here," Dokukage said. "After my battle, I went back to scout the situation with the others. They just finished up their battles, but there are some injured people there."

"No, not my Marion!" Amarillo gasped, holding her hands over her mouth. Her face turned pale with horror.

Dokukage blinked. "What? No, just… look. We need to regroup at the Pokemon Center. It's one of the evacuation points. And judging by Gerard's condition, it's probably for the best, no?"

Anabel, having nothing better to do, had been watching over Gerard while the others went with Dokukage. He was still in pretty bad shape.

"We were just discussing that, actually," Vic said, scowling. "Some of us here think we should take that jerkass to the doctor to fix his booboos, while the others want to actually do what we're supposed to do and find Maddi- ahem- Madison!"

No one wanted to SAY that Vic was being a total bitch, but they were all thinking it.

"Ah!" Suddenly Vic clutched her head and fell to her knees.

"Vic!? What's wrong?" Alcea exclaimed, rushing to her friend's side.

"It-It's… it's my mom…" Vic said, feeling her skull throb with pain. "Sh-She's… she…"

Vic didn't know exactly what she was feeling. But due to her connection with her mother, her harmonia was telling her that something very wrong was going on with Rui's mental state right now. Was she under attack? If so, Vic needed to do something! She sprung to her feet and dashed into the forest, deciding "screw Maddi and Gerard".

Compared to her mother, those two didn't matter in the slightest.

Amarillo quickly took over as Vic fled. "I'll go after her!" She snapped. "Alcea! You and Olivia take Gerard back to the Pokemon Center! I don't want to hear any arguments!"

"But what about Maddi?" Tommy demanded.

Amarillo bit her lip. "We'll… we'll have to hope that Wes can handle whatever's going on with her. If Victoria is going after Rui, then that's where I'll be headed, too. If anyone would like to come with me, they can, but we can't abandon Gerard here!"

So they split up into two groups, one to go after Vic and Maddi, and one to get Gerard to the Pokemon Center.

Little did they know, both groups would be going in the same direction.

Marion felt the tension drain from her body as she saw the Slowbro collapse. Lucy landed in the grass next to him and began flopping around, desperate to get to the water. That made Marion smile. She recalled the Veluza to her Dive Ball so that she could get some time to heal; soon enough, the meat would regrow on her bones and she'd be in top condition!

"Top condition" was not something that could describe the Slowbro, however. As Marion recalled Harry as well, she noted that the Slowbro's shell began to shrink, returning to its original size. Apparently whatever drug Willa used wore off when the pokemon lost consciousness.

As for Willa herself, well…

To everyone's surprise, she had collapsed like the Samarra's other puppets when they were defeated. She had a glum expression on her face, but look none the worse for wear.

Marion jogged over to her. She was already starting to feel a twitching urge to go fishing but she forced herself to tamp that down. This was more important.

"Hey, Willa, are you okay?" She asked.

"It's fine," Willa muttered, returning Pelletier to his pokeball. She sighed in resignation, lightly jostling the bag of potions with her foot. "All that hard work, and for nothing… you made my best concoctions look like apricorn juice. I guess it's back to the drawing board…"

Marion was taken aback. "You… you remember the battle?"

Willa scrunched up her face in confusion. "Is there… any reason I shouldn't?"

Marion gulped. A few more people were coming over to see what was going on.

"So you really remember everything?" Alden asked, narrowing his eyes suspiciously. "About Samarra and all that?"

"You're not… still controlled by Samarra, are you?" Chloe asked warily, even though she doubted that Willa would tell her.

"She's not," Marion said, shaking her head. "I felt… well, when she took those pills before, it was like that evil, disgusting aura she was covered in grew even stronger. But then when I beat her, I could feel it just… slipping away."

Willa nodded in confirmation, tapping her forehead. "Just me up there," she muttered.

Ange scowled. "And we're just supposed to take your word for it? If that's the case, why are you the only one who has your memories, huh? Shouldn't you have lost them like the rest of us?"

Marion glanced at the empty pill bottle laying in the grass. She had a theory, but no way to test it. Instead, she dropped the subject and picked up the bottle.

"Willa… about these pills, who-"

"HURAACK!"

She didn't get a chance to finish her question because Willa started vomiting blood.

"Holy shit!" Giselle fell back, her eyes wide with horror. Willa began to shake and she doubled over in pain, spewing blood all over her lab coat.

"Willa!" Marion cried, crouching next to the girl. "We-We need to get her to a hospital, now, she's overdosing!"

"We need some help over here, too!" Ian shouted. He was cradling Callie along with her brother. The small girl's stitches had come undone in her own battle and she was bleeding out herself.

"Shit! Fucking shit!" Lila cursed, tugging at her hair in frustration. She didn't bother with the niceties, this shit was horrifying.

"Urgh… ugh…" Willa fumbled inside her lab coat, half-conscious. She pulled out a huge syringe with a needle nearly as long and thick as a finger (at least that's how it looked to the panicking students) filled with a clear yellow liquid.

To everyone's horror she jammed the needle into the side of her neck as far as it could go.

"Rrgh…" Willa bit her blood-covered lip through the pain, sinking the plunger in. Immediately her breathing began to improve.

"Willa?" Chloe asked worriedly.

Willa opened her mouth like she was about to say something, but instead she curled up in the grass and threw up again.

At least it wasn't blood this time, just regular waste. Once she'd flushed the dangerous chemicals out of her system, she flopped over on the ground and her entire body began to shake.

"She's seizing!" Raizer shouted, crouching beside her. He cushioned her head with both hands and slightly raised her as she kept twitching. A few seconds later the seizure stopped and she blinked. Her eyes were blurry and unfocused, but that was nothing new.

"My… my bag…" she mumbled, her fingers fumbling in the air towards the discarded satchel. "Green bottle… label…"

"Right! Gotcha!" Marion sprung into action, digging through the contents of the bag rapidly. Only one problem.

"There's… a LOT of green bottles!" She said worriedly.

"Label…" Willa hissed again, wiping the blood from her mouth. Her voice sounded as weak and sickly as she looked. "Read… the label."

Marion turned one of the bottles over in her hand. There were words on it. A lot of words.

"What should I be looking for?"

"Find the one that has aprotinin… tranexamic acid… epsilon-aminocaproic acid… and… aminomethylbenzoic acid…" She muttered.

"…" The brain cells in Marion's skull began to crackle and an odd burning smell filled the air.

"…Um…"

"Got it." Everyone turned to see Mirar. He was crouched next to Marion, with a green bottle in his hand. Had he been here the whole time? It was like he'd just popped out of nowhere!

"What do you need it for?" Marion snatched it away from Mirar before he could say another word, rushing over to Willa.

"It's a… mixture… an antifirinolytic…" She coughed, reaching for the bottle.

Marion's brain started doing that hurting thing again.

"Anti… antifiber…"

Willa rolled her eyes and coughed again, wiping her lips. "It's a blood coagulant." She reached for the bottle again… and then batted her hand, waving it frantically at Marion. No, past her. Marion glanced over her shoulder and saw Callie, who looked almost as bad as Willa did.

"Give it to her… it should… stop the bleeding… have her drink the whole-"

Willa fell into a coughing fit again and her body seized up. Marion stared worriedly at her, but the peach-haired girl just glared in response.

"Enough of this farce," Ange growled. These idiots were taking too damn long with themselves! She stomped over to Marion and ripped the bottle from her fingers, walking towards Callie. She unscrewed the lid and pulled the girl's mouth open, practically jamming the contents down her throat.

Callie coughed and sputtered but managed to choke the whole thing down, staring bleary-eyed at Ange. Her chest still ached.

Marion cast a worried look at the blonde, then turned back to their other injured shorty.

"Willa, it didn't work!" Ian cried. "She's still bleeding!"

Willa scowled and rolled her eyes. Sitting up as best she could on Raizer's lap. "Of course she's still bleeding, I'm a pharmacist, not a miracle worker! I can't make injuries go away with the wave of a magic wand, get her to a fucking hospital!"

She flopped back down, thoroughly exhausted from dealing with all these irritants.

"Ugh… what?" Kiana rubbed her eyes warily, finally returning to consciousness after the mess that transpired. She had no recollection of it, of course, all she could remember was something weird happening with a brown-haired girl in a strange white room.

And she knew that her head was killing her.

Then she saw Willa's condition and she screamed.

The white of Willa's lab coat really made the bloodstains stand out. It was like staring at a victim in a slasher movie! Kiana went pale and threw up herself.

Oh crap. What happened?! Why can't I remember anything?! She screamed to herself. She glanced at her sister, hoping Lana would have some sense of what had happened. But Lana seemed just as dazed and confused as she felt. She gave a questioning shrug to her sister. Mason was also unsure what was going on, having just come out of his own fugue state after losing.

But Kiana didn't really care about that guy. She was way too busy worrying about her own problems at the moment.

This was the worst, the absolute worst! She couldn't believe this was happening. Kiana was supposed to be the chaperone, it was her job to take care of the students she was looking after, and not only had she completely messed that up, but one of them was dying!

Oh yeah. She was so getting her ass sued when this was all over, she'd be lucky to escape without any jail time.

Willa felt exceedingly exhausted. It wasn't just the fact that she hadn't slept since she'd been under Samarra's influence (no sleep was her usual state of existence in fact) but she was so damn exhausted with all of these people.

She was going to be fine. There was no need to panic. She'd overdosed, but she'd been more than prepared for that eventuality. So maybe she had no feeling in her extremities and she couldn't stop her body from shaking every once and a while. So what? Other than that she was fine, it was just a temporary side-effect.

Seriously, these people didn't know anything about pharmaceutical testing, and it showed.

"We need to get her to a doctor, now," Willa said. She couldn't move her legs very well so she draped her arms around Raizer's neck.

"Hey, lay off!" Raizer had half a mind to drop her right there. She glared up at him.

"Get moving you meathead! We're wasting time! Don't make me vomit blood on you!" She growled. She had no patience for the feeble-minded. She couldn't walk, but for someone with Raizer's physique it should be no problem having him carry her to the Pokemon Center. She slapped him on the chest. "Move! Now!"

"I'm going, I'm going," Raizer griped, draping his arm beneath her knees to princess carry the obnoxious scientist. She was much more tolerable when she was brainwashed, that was for sure.

Ian followed Raizer's lead and lifted up Callie as well, relieved that the two two shortest people (aside form Keya) were the only ones in need of medical help.

"W-Wait! I'll come too!" Kiana hopped to her feet and chased after them, her brow knitted with worry over the condition of the girls. She wasn't the only one. It seemed kind of pointless to stay here, now that all the attacks were done. So the others followed them to the Pokemon Center, which was one of the evacuation points.

Willa was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was, being carried like this. Raizer was a lot stronger than she'd thought. As she admired his physique, she wondered if he might be interested in testing some of her experimental steroids.

…Ah, I'll probably wait a little to ask. Now probably isn't the best time.

As the only one there who had any recollection of what it felt like to be under Samarra's control, Willa had a sinking sensation that this was just the beginning.

She may have done something while under the influence that would likely have some very bad repercussions. But she couldn't bring herself to care much about that. Discovery required experimentation, after all.

Samarra clutched her head, an irritating pain throbbing in her skull. She'd lost so many friends. All of them, defeated by people who didn't have any right to challenge her friendship. It just wasn't fair! All she wanted was to strengthen her bonds with other people and make a connection. Why did they keep resisting her?

Oh, well. It didn't matter. She still had Ayame on her side, and with it, all the knowledge she could ever want on Blake Harker and the rest of her family. And not only that, she had Wes at her side as well, and a genius pokemon trainer like him made for a powerful weapon in her arsenal.

And that wasn't all.

Samarra reached into her coat and took out a small bottle. It was a gift from one of her former friends, like her new leather wardrobe. But while the leather jacket and tight jeans may have made her look intense, this was something else altogether.

A parting gift from one Willa Pemberton.

The pharmacist had explained the effects of the drug to Samarra directly, so even though they were no longer friends Samarra retained the information. She no longer remembered the identity of the person who was crazy enough to ask the girl to synthesize a drug like this, but it didn't really matter at this point. She unscrewed the lid and shook one of the pills into her hand. So simple. Plain and white, like a piece of candy.

She popped it into her mouth and felt the world blossom around her. It was like her harmonia was supercharged now, and all those negative effects were just… so insignificant now!

A smile crossed her lips as she felt her influence spread. Soon enough, she could sense practically everyone on the mountain with her powers!

That caused her eyes to widen, and her smile to widen even more.

She could sense it… finally… after so many years of captivity…

A family reunion was just on the horizon.

Uh-oh. Samarra just got supercharged thanks to Willa's little drug concoction. With all this power at her disposal, will our heroes be able to stop her? She's down to her last few friends, just Wes and Ayame, but they're both pretty powerful, and with Samarra at the level of power she is, we're going to need a miracle here to stand up to her! Whoever it is she's sensing… could that be the miracle we've been waiting for?