The third round of the preliminaries has gotten off to a great start! Andy performed some surprising displays, but that's far from the only shocking thing about this battle! Lots of trainers will be performing tricks with their pokemon to try to get ahead! We'll have to see who can manage to become the most successful, and whose strategies will actually pay off! The main competition is really going to be something, alright!

KedharS: It really is sad she couldn't enter this tournament. Caelia also was not allowed to enter for medical reasons (not that she would have wanted to anyway).

Hyphenman: Yep, she's really learned how to make use of her pokemon well! She's set up a pretty lethal combo!

Pokemon Academy: Beginning of Beginnings

Chapter 1301

Everyone was on the edge of their seats, watching the students compete with one another in this intense bout. There were only 50 students on the field, but with all the action going on it seemed like there were so many more.

"Puu! Use toxic spikes!" Kate shouted.

"Stunky!" Puu turned his rear towards the sky and let out a spray of toxic spikes that littered the battlefield around Bareru, threatening to poison any pokemon that set foot in it.

"Oh, how cute," Naya smirked. "You think that such pedestrian tricks will be enough to ward off an assault? Rey, show her how wrong she is."

"Ferrothorn!" Rey bellowed, lifting up one of his long vines from where it was embedded in the dirt of the battlefield. He whipped it at Kate.

"Crow, use brick break," Kate ordered.

"Croagunk!" Crow stepped forward and raised his fist, swinging it right at the large spiked disk at the end of the vine. He hit the disk with all his might, sending it spinning back towards Rey and Naya. The Ferrothorn quickly regained control of his vine, and Naya glared at Kate, hiding her scowl behind her sleeve.

"You think that will make a difference?" She scoffed. "Look at your pokemon's hand."

"Cro?" Crow glanced down at his hand, which was bleeding. He'd cut himself on the Ferrothorn's sharp exterior.

Kate clicked her tongue. "You think that's enough to get us, huh?"

"Ara? Why yes, of course," Naya mused. "Allow me to show you. Sabo, why don't you lay down some of your own territory?"

"Cacturne!" Sabo raised his arms and released a burst of spikes that fell onto the ground around Naya and Rey, covering a large portion of their territory with sharp spikes.

"Whoa! To combat Kate's toxic spikes, Naya's Cacturne set up some spikes of her own!" Lila gasped in amazement. "Yeah, that's the way! Take that poisonous girl down!"

Darla gave Lila a dry look, stunned she could be rooting so blatantly for someone who was so obviously terrible.

Naya laughed, patting her Cacturne. "You see? Thanks to his vines, Rey can traverse this spiky terrain just fine. The same can't be said for your Amoongus, so you can no longer get close to me. And not only that, if you try your Poison type moves, he is immune to those, as well. And even if you went for one of your Amoongus's powder attacks, such as spore… well, as Grass type pokemon, my team is completely immune to those."

She resisted the urge to cackle with glee. "You are completely helpless against me, Kate Nomia! There's nothing you can do!"

Kate smirked. "Oh, is that right?"

The smile slipped from Naya's lips and she held her sleeve over her mouth to hide her scowl. "What are you planning now, wretched girl?"

"Puu?" Kate gave her Stunky a sweet smile (at least by her standards, it looked rather gross to anyone else) "I think you should use that."

"Stun!" Puu nodded eagerly, turning his rear towards Naya.

BRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAARRRPPP!

A loud, wet sound broke through the stadium. A foul-smelling mist slowly filled the air, wrapping around Kate and her pokemon like a shield. The noisome gas slowly drifted towards Naya, who gasped in horror and began to choke.

"This-! This foul odor… haghk!" Naya couldn't believe what she was smelling. It was revolting! She began to cough, nearly losing her balance and falling off of her Ferrothorn.

"Ha!" Kate cackled. "How do you like that? Puu's special stinkbomb! Stunky's stinky gas fluids are great at repelling predators! Your pokemon might be immune, but that doesn't mean you are!"

"That's so gross!" Lila pinched her nose out of reflex, even though she was too far away to smell anything. Just imagining it was bad enough.

"Yeah, that's a little…" Darla couldn't help but agree, covering her own nose.

Callie, Nikita, Elaina, Raizer, and Kanone all turned to look at Alcea, who held her hand over her face in shame.

"Kate… has her own way of doing things, is it?" She muttered, shaking her head. As much as she cared about Kate, the girl couldn't help but be embarrassing.

"R-Rey!" Naya managed to get out between coughs. Her Ferrothorn scooted back, moving his trainer away from the toxic gas cloud Kate had summoned.

As expected, Kate herself was completely unfazed by Puu's fumes, having long-since gotten used to the foul odors of Poison type pokemon thanks to her father's research.

"Thanks for the spikes!" Kate called after Naya. "I can always do with a bit more protection!" She lounged back on Bareru and cackled, feeling completely safe due to the power of her Stunky's protective gas cloud.

The only people who could attack Kate were those who were willing to risk smelling like a Stunky themselves. And that was a very short list of people.

Kate wasn't the only one feeling totally secure in their defense. Ange stood on the battlements of her Ditto's castle. Technically, it could be said that Levi had transformed into a particularly large Palossand. But the technicalities didn't matter. For all intents and purposes, Ange was perfectly defended atop a large castle. Even if people did happen to be storming the gates.

"Attack!" One particularly brave student ordered his pokemon to charge the castle, but at the front stood Asmo, Ange's Lopunny, on defense.

"Lopunny?" Asmo batted her eyelashes and blushed, fluttering the hearts of the attacking pokemon, all of whom were male. She winked, sending a heart their way, catching all three of them up in her attract attack.

In spite of their trainer's orders, none of the pokemon wanted to attack after that. So they all turned away from the castle collectively, dragging their trainer to go find someone else to battle.

That was just one of the people attacking Ange at the moment.

"Very clever, using attract like that!" A girl from the Caretaker Course shouted from above. She was on the back of a Mandibuzz. "But we can still attack from the air! And Skully here won't be affected by your Lopunny's charms!"

Levi was spending all their power focusing on keeping up the castle shape, so there was nothing they could do about an attacker. Ange stood perfectly still as the trainer flew towards her, holding out her hand to snatch away the white headband.

To the other girl's horror, her hand passed right through Ange's head.

"Ange" flashed a wide smile, bearing sharp fangs. She dropped the Illusion, cackling "Zoroark!" And lunged at the girl in turn, knocking her off her Mandibuzz and onto the roof of the castle, knocking her out of the competition.

The real Ange walked over to her from where she'd been hiding in the shadows of Levi's battlements. She glared coldly down at her fellow student.

"Try again," she coldly replied, yanking off her headband even though she'd already been eliminated.

That was the strategy she'd chosen to implement. By regularly switching places with Luci, no one could tell for sure which one was the real her. Meanwhile, Asmo guarded the castle from below, taking care not to step off the Ditto and eliminate them all. It formed a fairly powerful defense that lead most people to decide to aim for easier targets.

And a few daring souls aimed for the worst person possible.

Sylvia lounged back in Dusk's arms, reading a magazine. Higurashi perched next to the Hoopa on Dusk's back, reading along with her. Sylvia had decided on a whim to ask for Hoopa's assistance, all for one reason and one reason alone.

She wanted to tear down Serefina completely. That bitch had made a fool out of her, and she was going to pay. But not right now. It would be too easy to do it now. She wanted to face the other girl directly, stomp on her pride, and then add insult to injury by winning the entire thing. This pointless preliminary was just a means to that end.

"Get her!" One bold, foolish boy shouted, riding on the back of his Tauros. His Furret was crouched on the bull's head, using foresight to nullify the immunity of Sylvia's ghosts, while a Golbat perched on his shoulder to try and disorient her with its supersonic.

Sylvia rolled her eyes. "Dusk?"

"Dusknoir," her trusty pokemon nodded. His red eye flashed and a massive box of light expanded around Sylvia, engulfing the boy and several other attacking students along with him.

"Welcome to my territory," Sylvia purred, cracking her neck. Everyone froze in place. For the sake of the Pokeathlon, they'd been using pokemon that were naturally quite fast. Well, that wouldn't be much help in this situation. So all their pokemon had been massively slowed down, while Dusk was given free rein to do what he did best.

In a flash, Sylvia had snatched the three headbands from the boys, and went back to reading her magazine.

"…You know, it feels like a few people here aren't really playing the game the way it's supposed to be played…" Lila noted, sighed in exasperation.

"Well, nothing we can do about that," Darla shrugged. "At least it's amusing."

Indeed, the crowd was loving Sylvia's performance with trick room, and Ange's impenetrable defensive barrier. That was good, at least.

"And besides, there are some students who are playing the game the way it's supposed to be played," Leanne said, nodding to a certain someone.

"Oh yeah!" Ayame grabbed the headband off of a girl. Thanks to her Falinks' speed and her astounding hand-eye coordination, it was very easy to maneuver. It helped as well that her Troops could look in all directions at once and still obey the brass's orders thanks to their training, it made it next to impossible to sneak up on her; especially with Roll keeping an eye on the skies.

Speaking of trainers up above, Akira soared on Satsuki's back, keeping a wary eye out for flying trainers. It was as if there were two battles being fought right now; the skirmish between students on the ground, and an aerial dogfight for all the trainers whose pokemon were capable of flying.

Suddenly, Satsuki began jerking erratically beneath him.

"Gyarados?!" The serpent roared, shaking and twisting. A blue aura surrounded her as she was held in place by psychic powers.

"Yoink!" Dakota flew on Tsubame's back, aiming right for Akira's headband.

"Cradily!" Lila whipped her head forward, using her flowery protrusions to bat Dakota's hand away, keeping her trainer's headband safe from the pink-haired girl's grubby little fingers.

"Aww!" Dakota pouted. Her Braixen maintained her psychic hold over Satsuki, keeping her wand raised as Dakota made another pass.

"Dakota!" Akira snapped. "What are you doing?! Why are you going after my headband?!"

Dakota stared at Akira with a blank expression from Tsubame's back. She tilted her head to the side, as if she were confused by her boyfriend's confusion.

Akira sighed and buried his face in his hand. That was the best he was going to get, wasn't it?

"Starla, use swift to drive her off," he ordered.

"Starmie!" Starla began to spin, sending a barrage of light stars at Dakota and her team. Dakota pouted, getting the message.

"Light screen," she ordered. Faux dropped the psychic hold and flicked her wand forward, creating a light barrier that absorbed the swift attack.

"That girl… I haven't even been back for a week and she's already picking fights," Akira muttered in disbelief. And yet, part of him couldn't help but be happy about it, too.

Movement came out of the corner of his eye. Dakota again? No, it was someone else. He turned towards them, ready to attack.

"Satsuki, use hyper beam right now! Hurry!"

"GYARADOS!" Satsuki opened her mouth wide, firing a massive beam of destructive light at the fleeing trainer. But she hadn't been taking careful aim, not expecting her trainer to order an attack of that magnitude, so the shot went wide. That gave the other trainer more than enough time to guide their pokemon out of the way, and the beam sailed off harmlessly into the distance.

"What the heck was that?!" Lila exclaimed in disbelief.

"Why would he use hyper beam in that sort of situation?!" Darla was stunned. Not only was it an excessive move that might have caused real damage, but it had completely backfired. Now Akira's Gyarados couldn't even move!

Akira was just as stunned as everyone else was. He hadn't given the order. He hadn't said a word, and yet-

"Satsuki, use hyper beam! Satsuki use hyper beam!"

His own voice was echoing in his ears and his eye twitched. He turned his head to see Dakota floating a few yards away. She held Chatter up, wearing a wicked smirk on her face.

"Satsuki, use hyper beam!" The Chatot repeated in his voice. "Satsuki, use hyper beam!"

The veins on Akira's forehead throbbed with irritation. That biiiiiitch…!

"He's totally trapped now!" Dakota crowed. "Satsuki can't even move! Faux, use thief!"

"Braixen!" Faux waved her magic wand and the headband around Akira's head began to glow. It unwrapped itself and flew off, landing in Dakota's hand.

She held it aloft in triumph.

"Haha! I did it! Mwahaha!" She cackled with glee. "Eliminated!"

"Whoa, she actually knocked Akira out!" Lila gasped in amazement.

"Even with his Gyarados, that's really something," Darla said, shaking her head.

Akira's eye twitched. "We're going to have a long talk about this later," he growled as Satsuki descended to the ground.

The crowd was stunned at the upset. Akira had been one of the students folks were expecting would go quite a ways in the competition, given the power of his Gyarados. But apparently not even Satsuki could compete with Dakota when she was single-mindedly focused on wiping out the opposition.

She could be kind of a bitch that way.

Dakota wasn't the only one in the skies right now. There were several other trainers, and a few of them were targeting Sango.

"That's not good," Callie winced as two trainers on the backs of a Pidgeotto and a Fearow respectively targeted Sango. "Sango might be tough, but can she really handle this?"

"She can," Elaina assured Callie with a nod. "She may be using my pokemon, but even without them, she has tools of her own."

Sango glanced at the two approaching students. She could have relied on Noctre's powerful wind attacks to knock them down, but that was out of the question. It wouldn't do to cause actual injury to her opponents, after all. A fall from this height would be pretty bad.

Sango took a deep breath and exhaled. I've gotta be careful then, huh?

"Noctre!" Sango tugged lightly on the Noivern's mane, and the pokemon dove sharply, leading the two trainers to dive down after her. Which was exactly what Sango was waiting for.

Air pressure is doing fine… deceleration factor at this speed… Sango wasn't very good at math. She and Cynthia bonded well over their lack of skill when it came to book learning. But what Sango was handling now had nothing to do with math at all- she was totally focused on the changes in the wind around her as she descended towards the ground.

"Now!" She ordered.

"Castform!" Silver exhaled, breathing out a dense cloud that floated up into the air, filling the sky with powerful hail. The hailstorm surrounded Sango and her pokemon, and she skillfully followed the wind currents as she maneuvered Noctre around, letting the sky fill with dense clouds as she shook off her pursuers masterfully.

"Whoa! What even was that?!" Lila gasped in shock.

"Pretty good handling of a dragon is what I'd call it," Darla grinned.

But Sango wasn't done, because a third trainer was coming her way now, flying on the back of a Skarmory. Clearly this was a trainer who specialized in Flying type pokemon, because she had two more birds at her beck and call, a Hoothoot and a Pidgey who were both tied to the armored pokemon, forming a chain.

Tricky, tricky. But Sango could do tricky with her eyes closed. Not that she needed to. She could feel the heat of the sun on her back, which meant everything was perfect.

"Alright, Silver! Sunny day!"

In a flash, Silver shifted from his hail form to his sun form as he released a blinding gleam of light into the air, intensifying the sun's rays.

"Aaah!" The girl clenched her eyes shut as her pokemon struggled to remain airborne, blinded by the sudden intensity of the sunlight.

Sango read the wind perfectly, extending her hand as Noctre flawlessly flew past the other bird user, and snagged her headband.

"What even was that?!" Lila could barely see due to the sunlight. But some people in the stands had a better view.

"That was amazing!" Callie exclaimed, standing up in her seat and punching the air. "Sango totally maneuvered around all those guys and just snagged that one girl's headband, did you see that!? It was so awesome!"

"Good reflexes," Raizer agreed. "But it's more than that. Are you sure those aren't her pokemon? Because she was controlling them perfectly."

"The expertise of those pokemon when it comes to flying is definitely part of that," Kanone nodded, glancing at Elaina, who blushed proudly. "No way would that girl have been able to pull off maneuvers like that without well-trained pokemon. But that's not everything."

Nikita blinked, surprised. "It isn't? What do you mean?"

Kanone shrugged. "Well, from where I was sitting, it looked like Sango was reading the wind perfectly. More than that, she was using the flow of air currents to her advantage so she could set up that hailstorm to drive off her pursuers, then position herself in the perfect location to take advantage of the backdraft while the sunlight was behind her."

"…Well, that makes sense," Callie admitted. "I mean… her partner pokemon is a Castform… so yeah, she would be able to do stuff like that if she knew what she was doing."

Kanone nodded. "That girl's really something. It's not just the wind, she knew exactly how to turn the weather to her advantage and when to use her pokemon's attacks. It's more than just reading her surroundings, she actually changed the weather to her advantage! Very well done."

Sango didn't hear any of this glowing praise, sadly, because she was too busy focusing on her next target. But between Elaina's flying pokemon that could effortlessly move through the sky, and her own expert knowledge of how to use the atmosphere and weather conditions to suit her needs, she had managed to pull off quite a winning strategy, and the students in the audience certainly noticed.

Nicely done, Sango! She's fighting on a battlefield she's not used to, but even then she's showing great skill while doing so! And all without actually hurting any of her opponents! It's nice to see that she continues to stick to her beliefs. I'm glad she's doing such a great job! As for the other trainers, they're all doing their best to stay active in the battle as well! Good for them! Even though Akira got eliminated, there are still a lot of people left who can make it to the main tournament!