The preliminaries bring out all sorts of exciting and fun conflicts! And as we saw last chapter, they provide a great opportunity for teamwork and support! …Or in the case of Julia, the opportunity to attack your friends when they aren't expecting it. Sigh. Will she and Reiner ever get along, or are they doomed to be at each other's throats for the rest of their time at the academy?

KedharS: Yeah, it's nice to see someone like Naya getting taken down by the power of friendship like that. Only to immediately prove the power of friendship is a lie.

Guest: I wonder myself how their animosity towards one another started.

Hyphenman: I don't like Naya much either. But I at least appreciate that Julia waited until she was booted out before turning on the boys like that.

Pokemon Academy: Beginning of Beginnings

Chapter 1303

Nikita sighed as she watched her boyfriend being targeted by Julia.

"What's up with those two?" Callie grumbled. Julia had completely upstaged Nick's moment of triumph with her stupid attack. "Why does Julia hate Reiner so much?"

She glanced at Nikita, but the dark-haired girl just shook her head and shrugged. "I don't know," she replied. "When he and I started getting to know each other, things were already pretty cold between the two of them. And since I'm kind of an outsider to their friend group, I didn't feel comfortable pushing the issue and asking."

Callie nodded thoughtfully. She'd known Reiner and Julia from the first few weeks of school. But she'd spent most of that time fawning over Nick and hadn't really been hanging out with the others as friends very often. So she was relatively in the dark, too.

I'm sure Cynthia or Sango would probably know, she thought. Kitty definitely would. Callie made it a point to ask, and then immediately reconsidered. It wasn't her place to pry into their business. She turned her attention back to the battlefield.

"Luna! Dark pulse! Knock him off!" Julia ordered.

"Umbreon!" Luna opened her mouth, firing a blast of dark energy at Invictus, trying to get the Metang to shake off their trainer.

But Reiner was too clever to fall for that. He had an advantage that Julia didn't, and planned to take full advantage of it.

"Invictus, use magnet rise," he ordered.

"Metang," his pokemon obediently responded, generating an electric field through their metal body. This allowed them to lift themselves up even higher into the air, well above the battlefield and out of the reach of Julia's attacks.

"Rrrgh!" Julia growled in frustration, clenching her fist as she glared up at Reiner, who had managed to slip past her grasp.

"Hey, come on, Julia, don't you think you're pushing this a little too much?" Nick asked cautiously. It was a big mistake and he realized that immediately when the black-haired girl whipped her head around to glare furiously at him.

She actually growled.

"…On second thought, we'll leave you alone," Nick said, urging his pokemon to turn around and get out of Julia's hair.

"Did she just growl at him!?" Callie exclaimed incredulously. "What nerve!" Immediately she backtracked on her backtracking. She WAS going to figure out what was up with Julia's dislike of Reiner, privacy be damned!

The black-haired girl didn't deserve it.

With Julia's prey having escaped, she switched to find a new target. That's when she saw a flash of white out of the corner of her eye. She gasped.

"Kitty!" Julia had been so focused on Reiner that she'd forgotten her best friend. Kitty was being attacked by an older trainer sitting on the back of a Torterra. The trainer's Scyther was swinging its scythes at the short girl, trying to get her headband- but it was way too close for Julia's comfort!"

"Okay, you three! Kitty's in trouble!" All thoughts of Reiner and Nick fled Julia's mind. She urged her pokemon forward. "Let's help her out!"

"Poochyena!"

"Growlithe!"

"Umbreon!"

The three of them were in perfect agreement. Julia's team of canines moved in perfect synchronicity as they crossed the battlefield to get to Kitty.

"Look at that dark-haired girl's dog pokemon move," Lila said, amazed. "I'm surprised she can move so well on a formation like that."

"They must have all been on the same team for quite a long time," Darla guessed, staring thoughtfully at Julia. "She's trained them very well. They're all running while accounting for the speed and reach of one another, even though they're all different sizes. And they're making sure not to drop their trainer while they're doing it, too."

At that pace, it didn't take long for Julia to get to Kitty. When she got a closer look, she saw that her friend wasn't in as much danger as she'd thought.

"Pearl! Use iron defense!" Kitty ordered.

"Clamperl!" Pearl squeezed her shell shut around her, and the blue surface began to glow silver as her defenses raised.

"Now, Marisa!" Kitty nodded to the Sylveon she was riding. To Julia's amazement, Marisa grabbed onto Pearl with her ribbon-like feelers, and raised her up like a shield to block the Scyther's slash attacks. It was a move that required incredible precision and trust in one's pokemon, and Julia was stunned to see Kitty attempting it so brazenly.

"She's using her pokemon like a shield!" Lila gasped. "That's brilliant! Because Sylveon can control their feelers like limbs, it's as though her pokemon has several sets of arms that she can use to defend herself!"

"…Why is it you're only this informed about Fairy type pokemon?" Darla asked dryly.

"And why is it that this information never seems to make it onto your tests?" Leanne followed up, raising her eyebrow.

Lila blushed, remembering she was supposed to be playing an idiot. She quickly sat back down and shut up.

Julia could see that Kitty didn't need her help as much as she thought. But as Kitty's friend, that didn't mean she wouldn't have her back if she needed it.

"Blaze! Use flamethrower!" She ordered.

"Growlithe!" Blaze roared, opening his mouth and unleashing a burst of fire right at the Torterra. As a Grass type pokemon, he'd be especially vulnerable to such a move, and the same went for the attacking Scyther as well.

But unfortunately, the flames were deflected by a curtain of water.

"What?!" Julia gasped.

The other trainer smirked. Julia could see from his armband he was in the Caretaker Course.

"You need to brush up a little on your pokemon knowledge," he boasted. "You think I didn't factor in that my pokemon are weak to Fire type attacks? That's why I brought along my Buizel! With his whirlpool, your flames can't touch me!"

"Bui!" His Buizel chirped.

"Julia!" Kitty was pouting. "You didn't need to come save me!"

Julia scowled. She knew that Kitty liked taking care of herself, and didn't want to be babied all the time. That had been a lesson she'd been forced to learn the hard way.

But when her friend was in danger, she couldn't do nothing.

"You were being attacked!" Julia protested. "I've got your back! Trust me, I know you can handle this on your own, I just wanted to help."

Kitty beamed. "Thanks! You're so sweet!" She giggled. "But it's fine now. Promise."

She held up a headband and Julia did a double-take, swinging her head around to look at the other student. His head was bare.

"What the hell?!" He exclaimed, grabbing at his hair in shock.

"Come on Julia, did you already forget how Trixie and I met?" Kitty snickered.

"Skitty!" The pickpocketing cat pokemon chirped, nuzzling up against her trainer's cheek. That's when Julia saw it, one of Marisa's ribbons was wrapped around the kitten's tail. While the other guy had been distracted trying to go for Kitty's headband with his Scyther, Kitty had sent Trixie around with Marisa's help to snatch his headband before he could realize it!

Julia begrudgingly had to admit that Kitty didn't need her help.

She sighed.

"Okay, you're right," she admitted. "You didn't need my help."

Kitty beamed at her. "I'm glad you agree!" She chirped. Then she frowned. "Oh, and… uh… sorry, by the way."

Julia blinked. Then she realized her own forehead was feeling draftier than it had a second ago. She gasped, her hand shooting up to confirm that her headband was missing as well.

Kitty held up a second, still wearing her apologetic smile.

"You-!" Julia was upset, but at the same time, oddly proud of Kitty's little trick. She shook her head and sighed. "I guess it's what I get for underestimating you."

Callie cheered. In her opinion, that's what Julia got for attacking her friends. Perfect Karma!

Julia got off of her pokemon and recalled them to their pokeballs, evacuating the battlefield. She watched from the sidelines, proud that Kitty had managed to pull off such a trick.

"Okay, let's keep going like this!" Kitty urged her pokemon. But in spite of her urging, she was feeling a little lightheaded. Because of her harmonia, she had connected with all three of her pokemon at once. While she often had her pokemon out of their pokeballs, and this certainly wasn't as strenuous on her as a battle, it still required a great deal of cognitive strain.

She wiped a tiny bit of blood from her nose, but didn't let that distract her. She was doing fine, she-

Then she felt a tug on her headband. Her hands snatched up to grab it, but before she could it flew off of her head, sailing through the air.

Her jaw dropped in shock and her eyes bulged.

"What the heck?!"

The headband whipped through the air, pulled by an unseen force. Or rather, pulled by something so fine that no one could see it from such a distance.

Marion hummed to herself, floating over the battlefield in the safety of her swarm of Wishiwashi. She casually reeled in her line, taking Kitty's headband and adding it to the others.

"Sorry, Kitty," she apologized, not that the other girl could hear. "But you're going to hurt yourself if you keep pushing it, so I'm taking you out now."

She scanned the battlefield below, looking for another target to cast out her line. Then she nearly fell over as something slammed into her school.

"Oh no!" She gasped, connecting to Solo with her harmonia. She saw that another student was coming after them from the air.

"A girl just can't get any fishing done in peace!" She pouted. Luckily, she had more pokemon than just her Wishiwashi to rely on in this competition. The school of fish were too busy focusing their energies on keeping her airborne. It helped that they were relying on the ghostly powers of her Basculegion as well, but that only left one pokemon to defend her little floating fortress of fishy fun.

One pokemon was all she really needed, though.

"Okay, Oliver! Go!" She called, casting out her line. Normally when fishing the idea was to use bait; that is, specially-designed pokemon food, to attract fish to your line. Marion was fishing for something slightly different, though. And it wasn't bait on the end of her line.

"What's that up there?" Darla squinted. "It looks like… wait, it's a pokemon!"

Attached to Marion's fishing line, holding the lure tightly in his mouth, was one of her fishy friends, a Barraskewda. He sailed through the air, carried by his own weight.

"That came out of the mouth of Marion's pokemon, right?" Lila clarified, looking to Darla. "If it's one of her pokemon, then shouldn't she be eliminated?"

Leanne shook her head. "That would be the case if her pokemon wasn't attached to anything. But Marion's not that reckless."

She smirked. "She's using a fishing line!"

It was just close enough to count as Marion's Barraskewda being part of her formation. And technically correct was the best kind of correct to be, in Marion's opinion.

And this way, she could attack.

"Okay, Oliver!" Marion relied on her harmonia to communicate with her pokemon, since there was no way her voice would reach at this distance. "Let's take advantage of that speed you like relying on so much!"

Barraskewda were incredibly fast swimmers. Their sleek, aerodynamic bodies were designed for pushing through the water at blinding speed, almost resembling torpedoes. With a base speed stat of 136, it was said that they could easily reach a speed of 100 knots, or 115 miles per hour.

And Marion's had the ability Propeller Tail, which meant there was no way he was missing his target. He might not have been in the water, but it took very little effort to change trajectory in midair, not with his tail creating such powerful propulsion and Marion's skill with wielding the fishing pole. Marion masterfully guided her Barraskewda into perfect position and he maneuvered himself the rest of the way, coating his body with water as he charged at their attackers.

The other trainer was completely blindsided as Oliver slammed into him like a missile, breaking his formation and sending him, his Staraptor, and his other two pokemon plummeting to the ground.

Everyone gasped in horror and the students in the Ranger Course prepared to intercept him, but there was really no point.

Marion had plenty of training as a ranger herself; there was no chance of her letting the poor guy hit the ground.

Humming to herself and directing Oliver's movements, she skillfully maneuvered the fish pokemon so that her line would wrap around each of them, pulling tight and holding firm like rope. It was a master display of dexterity and control, as if Marion was guiding the line with her own hands. She guided Solo low enough where she could drop the boy off gently on the ground, and retracted her line in one fluid motion, and her pokemon with it.

Everyone was stunned, Sango most of all.

Yikes. I knew she was a member of the Ranger Course, but… it's Marion. I had no idea she could use a capture styler so well!

What Marion had just done looked like an astounding case of aerial dexterity, like something you might see at a circus. But anyone familiar with Pokemon Rangers would recognize it immediately- Marion had used her fishing pole like a ranger would use a capture styler, expertly encircling her target and carrying him to safety.

Sango's respect blossomed anew for the other girl as she soared by. Even the announcers were stunned into silence, not sure how to report what had just happened.

One thing was clear, though. Sango had no intention of targeting Marion for this competition. Not even Dakota was that bold.

Marion wasn't the only one showing off what her pokemon were capable of, though. A lot of other trainers had achieved excellent synergy with their teams, and they didn't even have harmonia. One of those people was Ayame. As everyone would expect, the austere tomboy was dominating this competition handily.

"Snows, use ice beam!" She ordered.

"Glalie!" Snows spun around on the backs of Ayame's Troops, sending out a beam of freezing ice in a circle. Ayame froze the ground around her and her team into a surface as smooth as ice, leaving a tiny patch of land for her pokemon to remain standing on.

"Just what we need," she smirked. "Now, Troops! No retreat!"

"Falinks!" Her Troops focused their power, increasing their strength and sharply boosting all their stats. With nowhere left to run, Ayame was prepared to face down anyone who came to challenge her and her team.

So long as they could get past the moat of ice she'd crafted, that was.

One person in particular decided to challenge her.

"Ayame Toujou," a stern voice sneered Ayame's name. Ayame turned to see who it was, and her scowl deepened.

"Victoria Carver, eh?"

"That's right," Vic nodded. "You and I still have a score to settle from the Orre Region! Or did you forget that, too?"

Normally, one would hope that someone in Vic's position would be more mature than to rub Ayame's amnesia in her face. After all, it was a sensitive issue.

Vic was not a good person, though, so she was happy to take whatever digs she could at the other girl's expense.

Ayame wasn't amused. She just smirked.

"Well, if you want to face off with me, why not come and attack?" She scoffed. "This isn't like before, where we handled a pokemon battle. You're on my fucking field now, playing my fucking game! Snows, use ice shard!"

"Glalie!" Snows opened her mouth, firing a blast of ice at Vic and her team.

"Cotton guard!" Vic ordered her Whimsicott.

"Whim!" Ellie nodded, taking a deep breath. Her cottony hair increased in size and she flung several chunks forward, blocking the ice with them.

"Nice work!" Lila cheered. "Thanks to Whimsicott's Prankster ability, it can use moves like cotton spore just as fast as Ayame can use ice shard!"

"It's definitely useful on the defense," Darla agreed. "But will that really be enough, I wonder?"

"You've still got to get to me," Ayame reminded her. "And while your Togekiss can float over the ice, something about that bulky armor your other pokemon is wearing tells me she's not exactly a nimble skater."

"You don't have to worry about Valkyrie," Vic sneered. "Ellie, let's deal with that ice the old fashioned way! Use sunny day!"

"Whimsicott!" Ellie nodded, sending a burst of orange light up into the air, intensifying the heat of the sunlight beating down on the stadium. The icy coating was no match for the hot sun, already starting to melt.

Ayame sighed. "Well, you're going to regret it, I'll say that much."

"Valkyrie, go!" Vic didn't have any concern in her attack. Valkyrie pushed Sunny and Ellie forward, stepping into the melting ice as they closed the distance. "Sunny, use moonblast!"

"Togekiss!" Sunny began building up a blast of fairy energy to fire at the Falinks, aiming right for where they were holding up Snows. If Vic timed this right, then she'd be able to blow the formation apart.

But Vic really should have taken Ayame's warning because now her pokemon were standing on melting ice, or in other words, water.

"Roll, use discharge," Ayame ordered.

"Voltorb!" Ayame's third pokemon released a shockwave of energy into the ground, electrifying the terrain and zapping Valkyrie, who carried the current through all of Vic's pokemon and through her, as well.

Because of the backlash from harmonia, she felt the attack's power threefold. She didn't stand a chance. And while none of her pokemon lost consciousness, they were badly weakened, making snatching her headband a simple matter.

"This-! This isn't over!" Vic quickly regained her bearings. "We can still fight, we-!"

But it was over. Even if Vic's pokemon were capable of continuing the battle thanks to their strength as fighters, the mild bout of paralysis was all Ayame had needed to take her headband. Which meant that, by the rules of the game, she was eliminated.

Alden sighed and shook his head, resisting the urge to burst out laughing. "Vic approaches everything like a battle," he sighed. "She counted on her pokemon's resistance too much, expecting them to shrug off whatever Ayame did since they were stronger. But since she just needed to snatch the headband, she let her guard down, big time."

Maddi rolled her eyes. He seemed a little too happy to see his associate being taken down a peg.

Eh, I don't know, I'm with Alden. I think we all like to see Vic get taken down a peg every once in a while. It's how we know she's Vic. She shouldn't have been looking down on Ayame so much, that's a tomboy who's got game! As for the rest of the preliminaries, the heard is getting thinned pretty quickly! Who will manage to remain in the struggle until they get to the main round? Only 16 teams will make it in, after all!