Things have gotten really messed up in Agate Village! Students have gotten injured, there were terrorist attacks, and let's not forget the monstrosity that is Samarra Harker! And of course, with troubles like those abound, the school is trying their hardest to shut the issue down. But have no fear, Dakota Evans is here! Our intrepid reporter will uncover the truth about what happened, and make sure that everyone knows what's going on! No matter how much she has to twist things. Remember to review!

KedharS: Well, it was a pretty big incident. I'm sure they'll want to downplay what happened to the students there as much as possible.

Venoms Cross 2: Yep, Dakota seems to be adapting to her new powers quite nicely. It's good to see she hasn't lost her journalist's fire.

Hyphenman: For once, Dakota's annoying persistence at uncovering the truth about a conspiracy is going to be used for good. It had to happen at some point.

Pokemon Academy: Beginning of Beginnings

Chapter 1242

Serefina followed her best friend down the empty streets of campus, trying desperately to convince Dakota to use her head for once.

"Okay, Dakota, I agree. If what you're saying really did happen, then the school trying to cover all of it up is really, really bad," Serefina said. "But we need to be smart about this! If you just go into this whole thing recklessly, you're going to get in trouble! Serious trouble! You could get kicked out of school, is that what you want?!"

Serefina agreed that something needed to be done. But the problem was, she'd never once seen Dakota miss an opportunity to screw things up and make it worse for the sake of a good story. She was worried that her friend was biting off more than she could chew.

And the last time that happened, she'd been sent to the hospital.

"Seri, Seri, Seri, you just don't understand, we've been over this already!" Dakota said, wiggling her finger from side to side. "The headmaster won't be able to do anything to me. If he's tries to shut down the story and kick me out of school, then I'll go straight to the press and let them know what's going on! What happened to me will be national news, and that'll bring the hammer down even harder on all of them! This place will be swarming with investigators!"

Dakota's evil laughter filled the air.

"And you really want that?" Serefina asked, grabbing her friend by the wrist. "News reporters wandering around here, poking into certain situations? Looking deeper at what really happened to you, and why you're up and walking around after you were certifiably brain dead?"

Dakota flinched. Serefina wasn't wrong. The secret about the µ Gene and what it had done to Dakota's body was closely guarded. If it got out what she was capable of, and why, there could be pandemonium. So long to any possible career in journalism. She'd be lucky not to get dissected in a lab and just spend the rest of her life as a freak show.

"Look, Seri…"

"I'm just asking if you've thought this through," Serefina pleaded, squeezing Dakota's hand tighter. "Please. This whole thing could blow up in your face in a terrible way, and I don't want to see my best friend subjected to experiments because of something I had a hand in!"

Dakota frowned, and considered what she was saying.

For all of two seconds.

"Don't worry, Seri. I'm not going to do anything stupid," she assured Serefina with a big smile that did absolutely nothing to assuage the other girl's fear.

"Then… what are you going to do?" Serefina asked suspiciously.

"I'm just going to have a nice little chat with the headmaster!" Dakota chirped. "Luckily for us, the campus is mostly closed on spring break, but he's still around. So his schedule should be nice and clear for us to have a long chat!"

Serefina groaned, and buried her head in her hands. This was the worst. The absolute worst. But when Dakota got like this, there really wasn't anything you could do besides get out of the way and hope you didn't become a target.

Dakota strolled into the main administrative building without a care in the world. It helped that the headmaster's secretary was on leave for the break, like most of the teachers. Heck, the administrative building was like a ghost town! So there was no one to tell them they weren't supposed to be here. Soon enough, both girls had reached the headmaster's office.

That's where they found their first roadblock, though. A tall blonde woman in a suit stood at the door, wearing a stern expression on her face.

"Alright, time for that good old Evans charm!" Dakota said, running her hand through her pink hair and swaggering up to the taller woman. Serefina rolled her eyes.

"Hello there, miss-"

"The headmaster is busy right now," she coldly rebuked Dakota's "Evans charm".

"…Well, I see. My name is Dakota Evans, and I was wondering if it would be possible to meet with the headmaster, when he's… not so busy," Dakota said politely, studying the woman. She looked familiar. But she wasn't a member of the faculty, or part of campus security, or even a groundskeeper. So who the hell was she?

"He'll be in a meeting for the rest of the day," the woman replied, narrowing her eyes.

"Then I'll come back tomorrow," Dakota challenged, studying the other woman for her reaction. If she was just trying to get rid of her, then-

"That's fine. But he's busy now. So please leave."

Dakota blinked. That was unexpected. She'd been certain that the "he's busy" line was a runaround to get rid of her, and that this woman would make up some excuse for why Dakota couldn't come back tomorrow, either. Without anything to say in reply to a downright reasonable request, Dakota dumbly wandered back towards Serefina.

Well, that was… wait!

About halfway back, she picked up the pace, walking with purpose again. She'd finally remembered where she'd met that woman before, and it changed everything!

"So how did it-" Dakota slapped her hand over Serefina's mouth and dragged her around the corner. Then she doubled back and peeked at the woman, making sure that she was right. Of course she was. She was Dakota Evans, after all.

"I've seen her before," Dakota whispered. "She works for Richard Harker."

"Richard Harker? Who…? …Oh! Blake's dad?" Serefina gasped. "But… why would she be here of all places? Blake went to the Hoenn Region with Cynthia over break, right?"

"That's right," Dakota nodded. "So why's he here… hmm…"

There was no way that Richard Harker was here and it had nothing to do with what happened in the Orre Region. Dakota didn't even believe in small coincidences, and this was a whopper if she'd ever seen one.

No, he was here for a reason. What that was… well, she needed to find out. She had a burning desire in her gut to find out the truth. And there was something very suspicious about all this. Like Serefina said, Blake was in the Hoenn Region right now. There would be no reason for his dad to have any concern about what was going on in Orre. But that was definitely the reason he was here, so…

"They're talking about this whole thing, I just know it," Dakota scowled.

"It's too bad we can't see what's going on in there," Serefina sighed.

Then she got an idea. An awful idea. Dakota got a wonderful, awful idea.

Her lips curled up into a smirk.

"What if… I could see what's going on in there?" She asked, glancing at Serefina.

Serefina rolled her eyes. "Oh, yeah, sure, just sneak past that woman who looks like she could break us both in half without even running out of breath, that seems smart."

"Yeah. Exactly. I can do that."

Serefina stared incredulously at Dakota. Then when she saw the conspiratorial look on her face, she turned pale.

"N-No, Dakota, don't. That's insanity."

"It's brilliant!" Dakota corrected. "Come on, Seri, it's perfect!"

"Yeah, until you get CAUGHT! Then what?!" Serefina hissed. "If playing 'extortion chicken' with the headmaster was a reckless plan, THIS, THIS is a reckless! Plan! They'll-they'll throw you in a lab! Or put you on TV as some sort of freaky human-pokemon hybrid!"

"It's for the sake of the story," Dakota exhaled. Contrary to her confident air, she was actually in agreement with Serefina about how reckless this move was.

But unlike Serefina, she didn't see that she had a choice. The people had a right to know what was going on in their school.

"It's okay, Seri. I'll be careful," Dakota assured her.

She concentrated, closing her eyes, and pictured the headmaster's room in her head. She had to be careful about this. This wasn't like teleporting to a burger joint. They were discussing some pretty sensitive stuff in there, probably, and would be very tense.

Dakota had teleported physically to places before. And she'd connected to people in dreams. So now she was experimenting with something that she should, theoretically, be able to do, but hadn't actually tried yet.

She was going to project her consciousness into the room, and eavesdrop on the people inside. If it worked, then she wouldn't have to go there physically, and there was no risk of getting caught. She could just listen in, and get the full details about what was going on.

If it didn't work…

Well, she'd just have to cross that bridge when she got to it.

So she focused, spending all of her mental energy to keep her body rooted in place, while her mind slipped through the walls, reaching into the room, and…

She was there!

She stood smack dab in the center of the headmaster's office. The white-haired man's piercing red eyes stared right through her, like he couldn't even see her. Sitting in front of him was Blake's father, just as she'd suspected.

She waved her hand in front of his face. No response. They continued with their conversation.

Dakota sighed in relief, slipping to the back of the room so she could listen to what was going on.

"…Think you realize the seriousness of this matter," Richard Harker said with a frown. "We can't allow what happened in that town to get out to the general public."

"I know you have a lot of influence, sir," Headmaster Lori calmly replied, "but do you honestly believe that you can but the whole town's silence?"

Ooh, boy. This was it. The juicy stuff. The "if this gets out then we're all going to prison" sort of scandal that Dakota had spent her whole life dreaming about uncovering. She was giddy with delight.

"I've invested a significant amount of capital in Orre's reconstruction," Richard replied. "That buys me a certain amount of influence. I've been communicating with a representative from Agate Village, and while he's not happy about it, he's willing to do his part to keep things quiet, but there are a few concerns we need to discuss."

The headmaster blinked. "Such as?"

"To start, he may be able to quell the concerns of the townsfolk, but there's not a lot he can do about the students. There were injuries, after all, and one of the injured parties' mother was actually there. I'm not sure if even my influence can stop a mother desperate to protect her child." Richard frowned. He knew better than anyone the lengths a parent would go to in order to keep their children safe.

"Ah, Hiromi Toujou," Lori nodded. "Yes, I figured that could be an issue…"

"It doesn't help that his own child was caught up in this as well," Richard continued.

"I can handle the children and their parents," the headmaster said. "If that's all-"

"Actually, I believe that my son could be useful in this regard," Richard cut into.

Dakota blinked. Did he mean Blake? Blake WAS dating Ayame, he might be able to step in. But then… would he really be fine with his girlfriend getting injured like this? Or was Richard thinking about his other son…

Lori raised his eyebrow. "…Go on?"

"Considering the… nature of the attack, and Samarra's… abilities, I think Kanone might be able to convince the others to keep quiet," Richard explained.

Samarra? Who or what was Samarra?

"That's not my primary concern right now, anyway. I'm mainly concerned with the other issue here," Richard continued.

"…And that other issue being…?" Lori asked, narrowing his eyes.

"Apparently, Wes is upset that one of your students… is using something called 'Shadow Pokemon' I believe he said?" Richard frowned. "He wouldn't go into detail on the matter, but he told me that as long as your school was involved with Shadow Pokemon, he couldn't guarantee that things-"

Dakota couldn't believe what she was hearing. Shadow Pokemon? Shadow Pokemon were involved in what had happened in Agate Village?

She started getting queasy. A stabbing pain shot through her stomach and her concentration broke.

Suddenly, the headmaster's office became a whole lot more real.

Lori froze, and his eyes shot to meet hers. And she realized that she was suddenly a whole hell of a lot more corporeal than she'd meant to be.

Fuck.

"Um… hello there…" Dakota waved awkwardly as the headmaster rose from his seat.

"How did you get in here?!" Richard Harker demanded, leaping from his chair and turning towards the girl. "This is a PRIVATE meeting, I'll have you know!"

"R-Right, well, I must've made a wrong turn at Albuquerque, sorry about that!" Dakota hastily turned to the door and swung it open, only to be blocked by the wall that was Sephira. She narrowed her eyes into a glare that chilled Dakota's blood.

"Um…"

"Dakota Evans," the headmaster said, walking over to the pinkette and placing a hand on her shoulder. His fingers felt like ice. "I'm glad to see you're looking so healthy."

"Um… thank you, sir?" Dakota mumbled. Oh fuck. I am so fucking fucked. Fuck.

"Who is this?!" Richard demanded.

"She's Dakota Evans," Lori sighed. "One of our students who's still staying on campus over the break. And she's a member of the school's Newspaper Club."

"Newspaper Club?" Richard tensed.

"W-Well… just-just a small member, really," Dakota said, trying to squirm free of the headmaster's hand. But his grip was like a vise. "It's more of a hobby…"

"She has a habit of doing things like this," the headmaster sighed, shaking his head. He pinched the bridge of his nose with his other hand. "It isn't the first time she's snuck into somewhere she wasn't supposed to be.

The one saving grace was that no one seemed to be screaming in fear and calling her a monster. The headmaster thought that this was just more of the same behavior, that she'd snuck inside. So maybe she could get out of this by the skin of her teeth.

"I-I just… I had a bit of smell for a good story," Dakota said, standing up taller, even though the three adults in the room were staring at her, and the tallest of them was standing between her and the doorway. She needed to project confidence, pretend like there was nothing wrong with her presence here.

She hadn't gotten caught sneaking in. She'd busted in on them talking about a big conspiracy, and she was going to blow the whistle on it. That was the sort of attitude she needed to project right now, if she wanted to get to the bottom of what was happening.

"I suppose you heard most of that, then," the headmaster sighed, lowering his hand and returning to his desk.

Dakota smirked. "Oh, just the part about this 'Samarra', ooh, and also when you guys were talking about Shadow Pokemon. Sounds like a REALLY good story."

Richard glowered at her. "You would do well to mind yourself, young lady," he whispered. "This is the sort of situation that needs to be handled delicately."

"Oh, I know, I'm all about… delicacy," Dakota said, her eyes flaring with glee. "Is this the part where you threaten me? Tell me if I don't shut up, then you'll make things… difficult for me, Mr. Richard Harker sir?"

Well, she was being daring, and downright reckless. She definitely owed Serefina an apology after this. But she pressed on anyway.

"I'll have you know, I got stabbed in the name of pursuing the truth," Dakota said, wishing her wounds hadn't been healed up so perfectly so she could lift her shirt to show them her scars with pride. "I'm not the kind of girl who backs down due to a little intimidation."

"Lori…" Richard turned to the headmaster, willing the old man to say something, anything, to make this situation resolve itself.

Lori sighed, tenting his fingers in contemplation. He didn't take his eyes off of Dakota. "…Very well, then," he said, as if making a decision that he absolutely hadn't wanted to make. He dug around in his desk, and took out a flash drive. He set it down, and gestured for Dakota to approach.

She didn't mind. As much as the headmaster might have wanted to keep this whole mess a secret, Dakota was pretty sure he'd draw the line at actually shutting her up.

"What's this, then? A nice little bone to throw at me, so I drop this whole mess?" She purred, leaning over the desk in what might have looked like a daring, seductive pose if she wasn't a teenager trying to goad a full-grown adult three times her age.

"I would never try to compel a student with convictions such as yours to drop an important story like this," the headmaster assured her with a twinkle in his eye. "But you see my dear… there's still quite a lot about the situation you don't fully understand."

Dakota raised her eyebrow. Somehow, she doubted that her little performance had been so compelling as to elicit a full confession. No, he was playing her.

"What are you talking about?" She asked, fishing for whatever information she could get. Her eyes slipped to the flash drive.

"I want to show you something," Lori said, leaning forward. "Once you've gotten the fully context of what's going on here, I think you'll agree about the need for… discretion in these matters."

Dakota tried very hard to keep the smirk of victory off of her face. He couldn't be that stupid. No WAY was he going to just give her the full scoop, believe that she'd just drop the issue and fall in line with keeping a lid on this conspiracy. If there was something Dakota hated most, it was keeping secrets and telling lies.

"Okay, sure, I'll bite," she said, flouncing back and sitting down in one of the armchairs in front of the headmaster's desk. "If you have something you want to show me, go ahead. I'll give it every due consideration, I swear on my honor as a journalist."

She looked forward to seeing the headmaster dig himself even deeper down in the hole he'd found himself in. Richard Harker and his attendant hovered over her like gargoyles, but she didn't pay them any mind.

There was nothing they could do to her. She'd won!

The headmaster took out his laptop and inserted the flash drive, then turned the screen around so Dakota could get a closer look.

"Oh god, this is bad… this is so bad…" Serefina paced back and forth outside the door to the headmaster's office.

When Dakota had disappeared in the hallway, she'd nearly pissed herself. When the blonde woman headed into the office, that's when she knew her worst fears had come true.

Dakota had been caught. She didn't even want to know what was happening to her now, now that she'd been found out.

If Serefina was in any way rational, she'd know that there was no way the headmaster or Blake's dad would do anything to Dakota, not really. But she wasn't thinking rationally now, she was in full-blown panic mode.

It felt like her friend had been gone for hours! What were they doing to her?!

The door to the office opened up and she nearly jumped out of her clothes. She whirled around with her eyes wide open, and relief washed over her as she saw the headmaster escorting Dakota out of the room.

"I'm glad we could come to an understanding," he smiled, closing the door and leaving Dakota alone with her friend.

"Dakota! What happened?!" Serefina cried, grabbing her hands. "Did they… did they find out? You know, about your… you know?"

"…No," Dakota said, shaking her head. Her eyes were glassy and she had a haunted expression on her face, like she'd just seen a ghost.

Serefina sighed in relief. "Oh, thank god… that's good. So… well, what about, you know, the thing?" She lowered her voice, in case they could still hear her in the office. "The conspiracy?"

Dakota's entire body flinched.

"Forget about it," she muttered, shaking her head.

Serefina blinked.

Dakota… Dakota Evans had just told her… to forget about a conspiracy?

"Are… are you serious?" Serefina didn't know what to make about this. "But what about all that stuff you were saying? This is a serious issue, you know, people got hurt!" Serefina cried.

"It's not a big deal!" Dakota shoved past her, storming down the hall. She looked like she was about to throw up. "Just… leave it be, Seri. Please."

Serefina didn't know what to say. She stared slack-jawed at her best friend as the pinkette walked away, and it felt like everything she knew was coming crashing down around her.

Whoa. So the headmaster managed to do what not even Serefina or Akira have managed, and actually got Dakota to back off. What the hell could have been on that flash drive to make Dakota stop wanting to pursue such a juicy case? This is a really serious issue now, what the hell could be going on back in Agate Village?