With Orre behind us, our characters finally return to the Pokemon Academy! It's been a long journey, but now we can finally get settled back in and see if we can return to some sense of normalcy; things have been pretty intense for a while now, we need a breather to clear the air! But the way things are going… it certainly doesn't look very good. At least not as far as Blake and Ayame are concerned, anyway.

KedharS: I'm glad you thought this arc was so good! I really put a lot of effort into writing it, and it has a lot of ramifications that will ripple out through the rest of the story, at least for the rest of this school year, anyway!

Guest: Yeah, this arc was mainly a last hurrah for our beloved seniors. I really wanted to focus on the Commander's group in particular, since they've received so little focus before this arc began. But now we know them a little bit better anyway, at least Alden and Vic.

Hyphenman: Yep, that's the thing with the Orre Region arc. It set up a lot of plot threads, and then halfway through Samarra shows up and just derails everything. The whole arc became about her, taking the center stage after all those twists and turns. And now it's finally done, and we can return to the Academy!

Pokemon Academy: Beginning of Beginnings

Chapter 1247

It had been a long journey back to the Pokemon Academy. After all the stressful situations that the Orre Region had put so many members of the student body through, a lot of them were just happy to finally be back home.

Some were happier than others.

"Come on!" Marion wailed, stomping her feet impatiently in the sand. "Open it up already, come on! I'm dying here!"

"I'm opening it," Jessie groaned, fumbling in her pocket.

Most people expected that the first thing Marion would want to do when she got back to the Academy would be to go fishing. To the shock of everyone, that wasn't the case.

"I've already done enough fishing for now on the boat!" Marion chirped. She'd spent the entire trip back casting her line into the water, in spite of the fact that fishing off a moving boat was pretty much impossible.

Not nearly as impossible as Marion having "done enough fishing" though.

No, the first thing Marion wanted to do when she got back to the academy was to go see how her business was holding up, and check in on all of her fishy friends. She'd left them in the care of Jessie and Sango, and now that she was home she couldn't wait to see how everyone was doing.

Jessie finally found the right key and opened the door. Marion immediately burst through, making a beeline for the tanks in the back.

"NO!" She gasped, nearly falling over in shock.

The tanks were empty.

"They're gone! They're all gone!" Marion wailed, pounding her fist on the ground. "You maniacs! You blew it up! Damn you! Damn you all to hell!"

Jessie pinched the bridge of her nose. Her friend could be a little dramatic sometimes. The pokemon weren't gone. Sango had just left them under the watch of the students in the Caretaker Course while she was on spring break. Like she'd explained to Marion already.

Apparently, that hadn't gotten through.

"Aww, just let her be," Celia laughed lightly. She'd tagged along with her cousin and Marion. Even though she was worried about Ayame's condition, Olivia explained that she didn't want to overstimulate their friend too much.

"We should just let her get acclimated back on her own," Olivia had advised everyone. "We don't need to force too much pressure onto her right now."

Right now, Olivia was putting that into practice. Fortunately, since coming back, Ayame had been in a much better mood. Olivia watched her carefully out of the corner of her eye as she walked to their private dorm with the other students in the Appeals Course. Ayame wasn't usually the talkative sort, but surprisingly she was actually passing the time by having a chat!

With…

Um…

Gosh, her name was on the tip of Olivia's tongue. The short one with the nice tan. It was something with a sharp "sssss" sound.

…L-Lizzie?

Yeah, she looked like a Lizzie.

…Right, so Ayame and Leslie were chatting with one another, which seemed to be good for Ayame. But Olivia was still cautious. She hadn't employed any tests of Ayame's memory since the hospital, wanting the nostalgic feeling of home to smack her in the face. If Ayame didn't want to date Blake anymore, that was one thing. But she wasn't going to sit back and let her friend lose her best shot at happiness due to a little brain damage.

No, new Olivia was the kind of girl who supported people's relationships now!

"Okay Aya, let's get you settled in," she said as they entered the building. Everyone went their separate ways, eager to get unpacked.

Ayame frowned. "I'm not an invalid, boss," she sniffed, dragging her luggage up the stairs. "You don't have to favor me like this."

Olivia didn't press the issue. In her mind there wasn't a lot of difference between Ayame and an invalid, but if she pushed things that would just drive her further away. She hoped that coming back to the bedroom, at least, would be a good start.

Ayame stepped into her room and sucked in a breath of air. It felt so good to be back home. There was a warm feeling in her chest just standing here. She'd been through a lot of trouble in the Orre Region, but yeah, this… this was nice.

"There's no place like home, right?" Olivia said, leaving her bags in the hall and lounging back on the only chair in Ayame's room. It was a calculated maneuver. Sitting there meant Ayame would have nowhere else to sit but her bed. That ought to bring back a few memories, Olivia thought, trying to seem casual. If her intentions showed on her face, then it might ruin the whole thing.

Ayame's reply was a quiet nod. She was already lost in a trance. As good as it felt to be back home, there definitely seemed to be something missing. She just wasn't sure what.

She stood at her bed and ran her fingers thoughtfully across the sky blue sheets. She'd had them since she first started staying here (sky blue was her favorite color, after all) and she couldn't count how many nights she'd spent curled up beneath them.

So why did her heart ache? Why did it feel like something was missing?

"If you change your mind, you can come visit me next time. Maybe then, we can do more than kiss. Or maybe not…? Who knows…"

Words from her own mouth flashed through her mind, and she reached up to absentmindedly run her fingers across her lips.

Ayame felt her heart skip a beat, and her face started to heat up. What was going on? Why was her body acting like…

She shook her head, pushing away the cluster of confusing almost-memories swirling around in her brain. Maybe she caught something in Orre, or she hadn't fully recovered. Whatever, it didn't matter right now. She wanted to… she wanted…

For the first time since she got back, Ayame began to wonder what it was she wanted to do. The whole flight home she'd been anxious, like there was something she needed to get back to. And that anxiety had only built since they got onto the boat. The whole boat ride back she kept imagining a sunset, sitting beside someone and laughing with them… but she couldn't make out their face.

What was her body trying to tell her to do? Why did she feel this hollow yearning in her chest? What was she searching for? She didn't know where to begin to answer those questions, and before she realized it, her feet had already started moving.

"Aya? Where are you going?" Olivia asked as her friend left the room in a daze. Curious and a little concerned, she hopped to her feet and trailed after the girl. It was like Ayame was sleepwalking. She shuffled down the hall towards… the guest room?

Olivia kept the guest rooms unlocked when they weren't in use, so Ayame didn't need a key. She just turned the knob and slipped inside. Olivia popped her head in after her, giving her a wide berth. If she was remembering something, Olivia didn't want to be the person to shake her out of it.

And it certainly looked like Ayame was remembering something. She drifted to the bed, staring blankly down at the dark sheets. They were so plain and unmemorable when compared to the vibrant color of her own room, and yet…

She couldn't shake the feeling that this place was important to her somehow, even if it was just a guest room. What had happened here?

Curious, Ayame sat down on the mattress and turned her head. It had been a simple gesture, just glancing toward the window, but as her head turned something flashed into her mind. No words this time, not even an image. Just a feeling of heat against her lips. Vibrant and passionate and seared into her memory, the sensation of kissing.

My… my first? No, that was… that was years ago, but this…

She licked her lips and opened her eyes, not realizing she'd closed them. That sensation was gone now, and she desperately wanted it back. Her tongue lashed out against the air as if she could call back that feeling of kissing, but it had already fled.

It had been a first kiss… or at least, the anticipation and excitement of one. But not her first, no… but a first.

A first kiss with someone special, something hot an shocking and eager with the dark and tantalizing hope for more. The movement of secretive passion claimed in the dark by two soon-to-be lovers getting their first taste of one another, bizarrely mixed with the chaste innocence of young love.

Ayame felt something stirring inside of her that turned her crimson with embarrassment. Even moreso when she realized that she was no longer alone.

She whirled around and stared at her best friend in wide-eyed surprise. Olivia's mouth was wide open and she stared at Ayame in absolute numb shock.

She'd hoped that coming back home would stir up a few old memories, but whoa.

"B-Boss, I just… I mean-!" Ayame leapt to her feet, pulling her skirt down slightly. The details of what had happened were already lost to her, but the traces they'd left in their wake were hard to miss. She had felt things from that. The kinds of feelings that you shouldn't be having with other people in the room with you.

"So, uh… do you make it a habit of sneaking into guest rooms and tonguing the air?" Olivia tried to turn it into a joke, but Ayame wasn't laughing.

"Stop making fun!" She seethed, glaring at her best friend. Not even she had an explanation for why she'd done that. "I just… I was…"

God, what could she even say? She hadn't been back for ten minutes and already she was ready to go to town on herself!

Olivia took a look at her friend's frazzled state and decided that while it might be good to press the matter further and try to jog something loose, there was also the possibility that Ayame, shy as she was, would just fight back even harder if she felt like she was being teased. So she decided to change the topic.

"How about a game?" She suggested.

Ayame blinked, too lost in her heat to fully process what Olivia was saying. "A… game?"

"Yup!" Olivia chirped. "Come on, I'll even give you a handicap!"

She took Ayame by the hand and led her back to her room, where the Go board sat in the corner. It had gone unused for months, but the quality of the wood was such that it still seemed to gleam even in the evening light.

Ayame's heart lit up when she saw it.

"Excellent! I'll be black!" She declared, pulling the board into the center of the room and plopping down behind it.

Olivia raised her eyebrow. It was probably just a coincidence… after all, in Go, if you received a handicap you would of course be playing black. But she couldn't help but hope that something in Ayame's subconscious was associating Blake with those stones, and that had swayed her just a little.

As Olivia sat across from Ayame and let her place down her handicap stones, she wondered how many games the other girl had played with her boyfriend. Probably not hundreds. But dozens? Certainly at least.

While she'd wanted something more visceral to try and shake Ayame's memories free, she had to admit that this was just as likely as anything else to call back memories of Blake. Now if only she could play the same way he did, that would be even better. But she wasn't nearly good enough at the game to mimic another person's style of play.

Ah, whatever. Even if she doesn't remember anything from this, it's nice to play a game with my friend every once in a while, Olivia thought, smiling as she made her first move. Maybe I should try and see if Alcea would be interested in learning how to play?

It was sweet of Olivia to think about teaching her girlfriend how to play Go. But right now, Alcea wasn't interested.

There was something much more important. Something that couldn't be avoided. Something that was occupying her thoughts so severely that she had been pacing around the room for what felt like hours, not sure what to do.

Maybe it wasn't her place to say anything. She'd tried to convince herself of that several times by this point. After all, Ayame was Olivia's best friend. Any relationship they had was completely tangential. The number of conversations they'd shared prior to this trip could be counted on one hand. When Olivia had explained Ayame's condition to her, she hadn't said one way or another about the notion of keeping it secret from Blake. Perhaps that was intentional. Maybe she didn't want to verbalize her callous "mercy" to hide the truth from him, or maybe it was because she anticipated Alcea would do the right thing and tell him.

Or maybe she didn't think Alcea would do anything at all, seeing as how it didn't concern her in the slightest.

And yet… Alcea couldn't help but think about what had happened to her and Vic.

They'd both had their memories toyed with by the hands of a higher power. They'd forgotten the circumstances of their first meeting, and because of that, when they were reunited many years later, (though less for Alcea than Vic, due to certain time-travel issues) their relationship had suffered because of it.

She didn't want Blake to go through that. She decisively made her choice and grabbed her phone, calling Blake before she could talk herself out of it.

Kanone had made his point clear. He didn't want anyone to tell Blake about what had happened with his sisters, or even about the fact that Samarra existed. And Alcea agreed with him. That's why she'd spoken to as many people as she could, Blake's friends and not, and tried to get them to agree to keep this private.

But Blake deserved to at least know this much.

"Hello?" Blake sounded tired. Alcea vaguely remembered someone telling her that he had gone on a trip to the Hoenn Region for spring break. Weren't tropical locales supposed to be known for their relaxing nature?

"Blake Harker, is it? You sound tired. Enjoyed your spring break a little too much, is it?" She asked, trying to sound casual.

"Alcea? Is that you?" Blake's voice perked up a little, which came as a relief to Alcea. She began to wonder if this was a good idea. Should she wait until he was feeling better? But no… this needed to happen as soon as possible. If someone told him first, or if he was unaware before he came home and met Ayame, that would be too late.

"Oui. I was thinking of you, and wanted to call."

A lie, and a terrible one at that. Alcea jammed her palm against her forehead in frustration. Olivia made casual duplicity and small talk seem so easy!

"Uh… well, now's not the best time… I don't know if you know this, but I'm kinda in the Hoenn Region right now, and we're flying out in the morning…"

"Oui, I am aware." She paused. "…You sound tired. Is everything alright? I didn't think it was that late over there…"

"N-No, it's not that," Blake said quickly. "It's… well, I just finished cleaning the bath over here, and it was a little… awkward."

Blake didn't know how to tell his stalwart, no nonsense ex-fiance that he'd walked in on a girl (who had a pretty obvious crush on him) naked?

"You sound flustered," Alcea said, trying to emulate Olivia's playful tone of voice. "I hope you're still maintaining an air of dignity and respect?"

Blake winced. God, the way she said that with her Kalosian accent should not have sounded that hot to him. Where most people were immensely captivated by Alcea's beauty and charms and were cowed by speaking to her in person, Blake had never had that issue. He'd grown up with a mother even more beautiful, and a childhood friend who clung to him every chance she got. But something about her sounded more… sensual now. Maybe it was because he couldn't see her, or maybe something had changed for her on the trip that he couldn't begin to guess at, or maybe it was because he'd spent so much time away from Ayame at this point he was starting to feel a little pent up.

Or maybe it was the hotness of the situation with Caelia he'd just escaped from. Her burns hadn't exactly gotten his engine going, but a naked girl was still a naked girl.

"N-No, there's nothing," he croaked out.

It was even less convincing than Alcea's lie. She raised her eyebrow curiously. Blake wasn't the kind of person who would ever cheat. There had to be something else going on.

"Are you alright? What's the matter?" She asked, putting the Ayame issue aside for now. If Blake was in a difficult place emotionally, it was important she get a feel of his mental state before dropping such a bombshell on him. "It's alright if you wish to confide in me. Perhaps I may be of some help to you, oui?" She suggested.

Blake sighed. What the hell? If he couldn't trust Alcea, who could he trust?

And then it all came spilling out. His insecurities about not being able to get in contact with Alcea. How he'd inadvertently walked in on Caelia naked. But the issue that was burning him up inside the most was what had happened with Sango.

He told her the whole story. Maybe it was rude, talking about another girl's confession when he wasn't even supposed to be there to hear it in the first place. But he couldn't hold it in. He needed someone else's perspective to keep from getting totally lost in his own confusion, and Alcea was maybe the only person he could turn to at this point who was completely removed from the situation at hand.

Alcea listened to Blake's entire story with a stone-cold expression on her face.

When he was finished, she fought the urge to scream into her pillow.

How?! How can this even be real?! She wanted to shout at the top of her lungs. She'd been hoping for this to be a simple phone call, if a painful one. Talk to Blake, give a slightly altered explanation of what happened in Orre, and describe what Ayame was going through. Rip off the band-aid and let him know what he would be coming back to.

But no, that asshole just HAD to get himself caught up in even more drama while he was away, didn't he?

But Sango Akana… that was certainly something.

She remembered back to the engagement dinner between the two of them and their families. That night, Ayame and several other girls had burst the door down and proclaimed themselves Blake's girlfriends to the absurd confusion of all parties involved. That had felt like a lifetime ago, before the two of them had even started dating. But she still remembered it vividly.

Ayame had dressed up to look her best. Which, with the benefit of hindsight, was to be expected. It was clear even back then that she was smitten with him.

But the other girls… Cynthia, Julia, and Kitty had all put in various levels of effort into their appearances (in Julia's case that level was "zero") but Sango had gone above and beyond. She'd worn a gorgeous blue dress and actually put on makeup, and her hair had actually been styled into something beyond that mess of a pixie cut she always had.

Yes, looking back, she'd tried as hard as Ayame to look her best. Alcea really should have seen it before now.

So Sango loved him too… that was going to make this a lot more complicated.

"Listen, Blake, before I can give you any advice… there's something you need to know, is it?" Alcea said quietly. "About Ayame."

Blake tensed. The tone in her voice was serious, and he could hear the remorse in every word. He tensed.

"…What's the matter?" He asked, shaking a little. "I haven't been able to get in contact with her for days… she's alright, isn't she? She's not hurt, is she?!" He didn't even bother keeping his voice down, no longer caring if one of the other inn guests, or even one of his friends, could hear him.

Alcea winced.

Oh, if only Ayame was injured. That would make this so much simpler…

But she wasn't. And Alcea couldn't hold this back forever.

So she told Blake what truth she could tell him, and let things go on from there.

Well, now the secret's out. Blake knows what's going on with Ayame, just in time for him to head home after spring break! But what's his reaction to that going to be? How is he going to handle knowing that the girl he loves no longer remembers him? And not only that, he's still dealing with the whole issue of Sango's confession! This is all one giant mess. I guess we'll have to see who's going to be the one who ends up cleaning it up.