Ayame and Maddi are fighting! Ayame's coming at this from an advantage, having access to six pokemon in comparison to Maddi's five, but that doesn't mean Maddi is defenseless! She's making a great showing so far, even from a disadvantageous position! The question remains, will she be able to defeat Ayame's team of star athletes? If Ayame can keep her cool, things certainly aren't looking very good… but Maddi learned about how to be annoying from the best!

KedharS: Yup, Maddi's really dishing out those truth bombs.

Pokemon Academy: Beginning of Beginnings

Chapter 1209

While Ayame's harmonia flared up, Maddi resisted the urge to throw up seeing the condition that her spirit was in. Samarra's influence was disgusting, and being in this close of proximity to the woman was making it worse.

Ugh… anyway… we'll keep pushing through!

"Mist, use ice beam!" Maddi ordered. Thanks to laser focus, Mist's next attack was guaranteed to be a critical hit. Pokemon and trainer shared their eyes in this moment, both spotting the weakest point of the light screen to focus on. Mist flexed his snout and fired a beam of ice that smashed through the barrier, hitting Roll directly.

"VOLTORB!" The electric ball buzzed, crackling with energy. Ayame winced, and then let out a pained cry of frustration.

"You think that's going to be enough?! Your pokemon is in the water you fucking moron! We can take of you with one attack!" She roared.

"Voltorb!" Roll began to charge with electricity, releasing it in a bolt of lightning aimed at Mist. But even if it wasn't, it wouldn't be difficult at all to hit the seahorse. After all, there was nowhere he could swim to avoid an attack that struck the entire river.

"SEADRA!" Mist wailed as the water around him was electrocuted. He thrashed desperately as his body seized up, and nearly slipped beneath the waves.

"AAAAAAAAAAAH!" Maddi screamed herself, falling to her knees as she lost all feeling in her limbs. She tried to stand back up, but her muscles weren't listening to her.

"You're known to be an expert on pokemon types, so you should know what happens when an Electric type fights a Water type," Ayame scoffed. "There was no hope of your Seadra coming out of this ahead, even if you DID break through our light screen."

"…Tough talk," Maddi smirked, tilting up her head to glare at Ayame from her position on the ground. "And if typing was the only thing that mattered… you'd certainly be right. But pokemon battles are much more complicated than that…"

She focused on controlling her movements, rising shakily to her feet.

"Not that you would have any idea, given the fact that the only complication a Pokeathlete faces is when deciding which pokemon can play some dumb old game the best," she added.

A cheap taunt, to be sure. But in spite of Ayame's cool nature, the girl was very easily swayed by her emotions, something that Blake had exploited in the past. And now it was Maddi's chance to do the same.

Ayame's eye twitched, and she muttered something under her breath. But she didn't lose her cool. She knew that Maddi was just trying to goad her so she'd get sloppy, Samarra was screaming that in her skull. So she'd need to play it cool and just take the other girl down through proven tactics.

"Roll," she hissed, her bangs rising slightly as energy surged through her. "Let's give her another taste, shall we?"

"Voltorb," Roll rolled forward and electricity sparked across their round surface. They prepared to unleash another thunderbolt upon Mist.

Maddi could see the writing on the wall. In Mist's current state, the chances of him beating Roll were almost non-existent. She'd realized that earlier, in fact, but had stubbornly held on in order to goad her opponent more. But right now, she needed to do some quick thinking or she'd find herself down a pokemon.

When Roll dropped the bolt of lightning down upon the river, she made her decision.

"Mist, use bounce!" She ordered.

"Seadra!" Mist uncoiled his tail and pushed off the bottom of the river, springing into the air. He spread out his fins like wings and used them to glide, lifting his body above the water just in time for the lightning to hit.

"He flying?!" Hiromi gasped in amazement. Maddi cracked a grin.

"Perfect, just perfect!" She chortled. "Now, hydro pump!"

"Seadra!" Mist remained airborne, maneuvering around the sharp stones hovering on his side of the field. He flexed his snout and it opened wide. He fired a massive blast of water at the Voltorb, soaking the electric ball completely. Roll wailed and thrashed under the deluge, but they didn't faint, even from such a powerful attack. Ayame had trained her team better than that.

"Roll! Use another thunderbolt!" She ordered, and Roll changed their focus to the floating Seadra. Suspended in the air like this, Mist had no way to dodge… at least, that's what Ayame thought when her Voltorb fired another bolt of lightning.

"Water gun!" Maddi ordered. Mist tilted his head up and fired a burst of water. The thrust that his attack generated was enough to change his position, and he evaded Roll's attacks with carefully-guided spurts of water.

"That's definitely a creative way of fighting," Hiromi admitted, not sure whether she should be impressed by Maddi's quick thinking or recommend she join the circus.

Maddi cracked another smile. They'd played with Ayame long enough, it was time to change things up a little and go for a pokemon a bit better-suited. She'd made her point clear; she wasn't going to change her pokemon just because Ayame forced her to do so with a bad matchup; she'd do it when SHE wanted to.

"Return, Mist!" Maddi called back her Seadra. "And go, Grim!"

"Duskull!" Maddi's Duskull emerged from his pokeball, floating above the ground. But even his spectral body wasn't immune to the effects of stealth rock, and he was forced to withstand the sharp stones digging into him.

"That's your Duskull, right?" Ayame noted, frowning. "You raised him from an egg. Just like Silver, Blake's Skorupi."

"Very perceptive," Maddi nodded, her voice taking on a mocking tone. "Do you have anything else to add?"

"I was just thinking that's a pretty daring move, using a pokemon who's just a baby," Ayame said, narrowing her eyes. Maddi shook her head.

"Grim's not a baby," she replied simply. "He's a full-fledged member of my team now. Allow me to show you!"

"Duskull!" Grim raised his ghastly arms and the single eye in his skull moved back and forth between the two sockets. As it did, an orb of eerie light appeared in front of his face, floating erratically towards Roll and zigzagging.

"Confuse ray, huh?" Ayame scowled, rubbing her eyes. "That won't work on someone with harmonia, you know!"

"Voltorb!" With Ayame's help, Roll snapped out of the confusion and fired a bolt of lightning at Grim, trying to fry the ghost like they'd done with the seahorse.

But Grim was even better at maneuvering in the air than Mist was. He darted behind several sharp rocks which took the brunt of the attack. For such a small pokemon, the stealth rocks that Ayame had set up made for the perfect cover.

"Now Grim!" Maddi ordered, giving her next instructions through their harmonia connection. She didn't want to clue Ayame in on what they were planning. Grim knew right away, of course, and was already preparing the attack.

Ayame tensed, not certain of where Maddi's assault would be coming from. She braced herself in preparation and ordered Roll to do the same.

Then Roll froze in place, and Ayame felt a strange sensation in her chest. It was like she when she watched a horror movie with Blake that one time and was seized by an overwhelming sense of fear. She'd screamed and practically crushed his ribs when she hugged him, she was so afraid.

Only this time there was no loving boyfriend to hug. Just the fear of an ominous stare that seemed to pierce her heart.

This is… She was realizing the effects of the move, and understood what Grim had just done. "…You used mean look, did you?"

Maddi offered a lopsided grin as an answer. "You like? That Voltorb of yours is a problem because they can roll wherever they like. And I definitely don't want you calling them back for something with a better matchup. So I had Grim use mean look."

"The confuse ray was a faint," Ayame said bitterly, putting the pieces together. "So that we would be caught up in this."

Maddi smirked. "Worked like a charm. And now that you can't flee, Grim and I can take you both down, right Grim?"

"Duskull!" Grim nodded, laughing wickedly.

"…One problem, though," Ayame growled, narrowing her eyes. "You still have to actually take us down, you realize that, right?!"

"Voltorb!" Roll buzzed in agreement.

"Oh, we will," Maddi assured them. "We might not have any Ground type moves to take down your Voltorb, but there's a lot that a ghost can do! And to start… Grim, use taunt!"

"Duskull!" Grim beckoned towards Roll, and the Voltorb glared, covering their body with a shroud of electricity. They fell for the taunt quite easily, launching another thunderbolt at Grim.

"Why you-!" Ayame had fallen for Maddi's taunts long before her Voltorb had, but the effect of the move was still tangible. She wasn't thinking completely clearly, and decided to focus her efforts on brute strength- which wasn't exactly a Voltorb's specialty.

Roll fired another blast of lightning, and Grim dodged it again, this time using a double team to fill the sky with a horde of Duskull.

"Without your supporting moves, your Voltorb has no choice but to attack!" Maddi declared. "And we're ready for them! Grim may not have very high of an attack stat himself, but even he's capable of taking down a pokemon whose defenses are as vulnerable as your Voltorb's! And not only that… he's got speed."

"Duskull…" As Roll got rid of the last of the ghost copies, Grim sunk into the ground, disappearing into the shadows. You didn't need to be a genius to see where this was going to go.

"Shadow sneak!" Maddi ordered. Grim shot across the ground and emerged from the shadow, smacking Roll in the face.

Well, their face was their entire body, so in effect what Grim had done was hit them like a bowling ball and send them rolling through the grass.

"Don't take us lightly," Ayame snapped. Roll skidded to a stop, turning over to glare at Grim once again. The Voltorb was getting angrier. And when Voltorb got angry, they exploded.

That was, in part, what Maddi was aiming for. She was curious if she could taunt the Voltorb enough to get it to use seldestruct, which would result in zero harm coming to her Duskull. But she had a feeling it wouldn't be that simple.

She was right to think that way. While the match with Marion had proved that moves like rage powder had a powerful effect on trainers with harmonia, there was something Ayame had that Marion didn't, even if she wasn't obsessed with fishing.

Ayame had Samarra. Samarra's abilities allowed her to connect with Ayame directly; in a sense, there was a third person guiding the battle, someone who had more than enough sense of mind to not be swayed by cheap pokemon attacks. While Samarra's influence wasn't enough to keep Roll from sticking to attacking moves, it was at least a good enough check to keep Ayame from completely losing her cool, which would have been disastrous.

"Voltorb!" Roll switched tactics at Samarra's insistence. Instead of firing another wild bolt of lightning that the ghost would be able to easily evade, they tried something else instead.

A charge beam.

Roll began to glow, gathering light into their body and releasing it in a compressed beam at the Duskull. Charge beam may not have been super-effective against Ghost type pokemon, but a move made out of blinding light proved very effective against a shadowy ghost.

"Duskullll!" Grim wailed as the beam slammed into his face, practically blinding him. He flailed about in the air and plummeted towards the ground.

"Grim!" Maddi shouted. She asserted her harmonia onto the Duskull, increasing his resilience to the attack, even though it meant taking more of the pain onto her own shoulders. She was fine with, making a sacrifice like that.

Grim righted himself, glaring at Roll with his one eye. But Maddi was much better at keeping a cool head. Just because her little Duskull still had the composure of a young child, that didn't mean she had to fall into rancor over a little bloody nose.

Speaking of bloody noses…

Maddi wiped her nose on her sleeve and regained her focus. They could do this. She couldn't rely on her Water types to take down the Voltorb, and she wasn't sure if Cynder was the right pokemon for the job, either. She'd need her Cyndaquil against some of Ayame's other pokemon.

As for Vee… well, it wouldn't do to use her trump card on just the second pokemon, now would it? No, Madd had other plans, and they required Grim giving it his all, here and now!

"Grim," she ordered. "Use calm mind."

"Duskull," Grim nodded. The ghostly pokemon tightened his focus and began to build up his mental powers through concentration.

"Calm mind, huh? Trying to power through our attacks?" Ayame scowled.

Maddi replied with a smirk. "Of course we are. You know, Duskull's base defense and special defense are 90 points each. That's better than quite a few fully-evolved pokemon. Grim can be quite a wall when he wants to be."

"That may be true," Ayame admitted. "But there's something Roll has that he doesn't!"

There was quite a lot that Roll had that Girm didn't. Like two eyes, for instance. But Maddi guessed that wasn't where Ayame was going with this.

"Like speed!" Ayame spat. "Roll! Use electro ball!"

"Voltorb!" Roll began to glow, and a ball of electricity appeared around their round body. They fired the massive electro ball at the Duskull, and it began to pick up speed as it approached the concentrating pokemon.

"Electro ball gains more power the faster the user is than target!" Ayame boasted. "And with 100 base speed compared to your slow as fuck Duskull, its fucking power is at the max, 150!"

Maddi winced. If that hit, it was going to hurt.

…So, best to let it not hit, then.

"Grim! Use protect!" She ordered.

"Duskull!" Grim growled. Now that he was done building up his mental focus with calm mind, he could think clearly, and was fast enough to create a barrier of shadows around his body. The electro ball smashed into the protect and dispersed, sending electricity flying everywhere, but left Grim himself completely safe.

Maddi smiled. "You'll have to do better than that to get through our defenses!" She boasted.

Ayame snorted. "Gladly. Your Duskull is still slow as hell, and we've got more electro balls to fire your way. Get ready for it!"

But Maddi didn't seem worried. And that, in and of itself, was worrying for Ayame. She wasn't sure how the other girl could be so confident, given such a serious disadvantage. She needed to be careful or it was her who might get overwhelmed.

"…Why are you looking at me like that?" Ayame growled, clenching her fist. Maddi had a smirk on her face like she'd already won.

"Because I thought about how I'm going to beat you," Maddi calmly replied, narrowing her eyes. "And it's going to be interesting. Grim and I have a move up our sleeve that you're just going to loathe, being the kind of woman you are."

Ayame scowled, and a shadow crossed her face. "Just you try it," she snarled. The barrier was about to fall. It was the perfect opportunity! She didn't even have to verbalize her order, Roll could sense what their trainer wanted immediately, and was already preparing another electro ball.

Seconds later, Grim's protect shattered, collapsing into shards of light.

Then the unthinkable happened.

Before Ayame could give the order to fire a massive expansion of energy came from the center of the field, where Grim's barrier had been. For a moment, Ayame thought he was using another protect attack on the heels of the first. Unusual, but not unthinkable.

But the barrier didn't stop with Grim. It kept growing and growing, until it slammed into Roll. And then… it passed right over them.

That was the moment Ayame realized what was going on. Right before the barrier swallowed her, as well, as she noted that it was more of a box than the dome of protect or the wide wall of light screen and reflect.

…Fuck. This is going to fucking suck, isn't it? She cursed internally.

The inside of trick room was as unnerving as always. Ayame wasn't used to fighting in a field like this, and it showed. She felt a strange sensation wash over her and it felt like her body was growing incredibly heavy.

Roll fired off their electro ball like the loyal pokemon they were, but their attack was much slower, and incredibly easy to dodge.

Grim showed how that worked masterfully.

"You used fucking trick room," Ayame cursed, shaking her head. "Fucking hell."

"In my defense, I never taught that move to Grim," Maddi replied. "He just happened to know it, even since he hatched. I guess it must be an egg move or something like that…"

"Impossible," Ayame automatically replied. As a member of the Caretaking Course, she'd taken multiple classes on rearing baby pokemon and knew what moves pokemon were capable of inheriting from their parents. While she would never consider herself such a scholar as to have them all memorized, she at least knew that trick room was not a possible egg move.

Maddi scrunched up her face in confusion. "Really?"

"Really," Ayame nodded. "Pokemon can't inherit trick room from their parents, it can only be taught to them."

Maddi frowned. Then who could have gone to the trouble of doing such a thing? Especially when she wasn't looking? Grim never left her sight. No, not possible. It had to be some sort of egg move, that was the only thing that made sense.

The question was, who would ever try and force a little baby Duskull to inherit the move trick room of all things?

Somewhere in Cerulean City, Sylvia was wiping down one of Misty's many pools with a mop. Akira was by her side.

She sneezed. How odd, it was far too deep into spring for a cold.

"…Must be allergies," she shrugged, and got back to work.

Well now, Maddi's certainly pulled off a nice surprise with trick room! If there's a move that's capable of defeating an athlete like Ayame, it's trick room! Since Ayame's base speed stat is so much higher than everyone else's, she'll find that her movements are greatly hindered by this attack, while Maddi's are sped up. Err, I mean, their pokemon. Yeah, I'm talking about their pokemon.