The preliminaries have reached their climax! The numbers are dwindling, and we're going to be reaching our final 16! We just need to eliminate a few more challenging people. Who will be able to make it to the main tournament? Things are definitely going to be getting exciting! The preliminaries end with this chapter!

Epifanio Therion: Yep, I figured that's exactly how Donoma is- as well as unrepentant bitch. Who fortunately happens to be JUUUUUST good enough to not be considered a villain, just an annoying person.

KedharS: Yep. We need to break the levity. And it seems that everything is going well; after all, Ayame's starting to feel jealous! …Possibly.

Arbiter8991: With powerhouses like Ayame and Sango that would be quite something. Maybe she has it in her.

Tambry96bj: Of course not, don't be ridiculous.

Hyphenman: Blake is never shaking that accusation.

Pokemon Academy: Beginning of Beginnings

Chapter 1305

Will was stunned. As the students around him were dropping like flies, somehow he'd been able to avoid anyone targeting him.

Until now.

One student approached him on the back of an Avalugg. The bulky Ice type pokemon fired shards of ice chunks at Will, but Agni and Rudra were there to defend him. The two swords flew in front of him, slashing the ice shards into shaved ice. They kept their tassels wrapped around Will's shoulders, so he wouldn't be shaken off. His Togetic used every bit of her strength to keep him upright as well while he clutched onto his Umbreon, but he could feel himself rather unstable.

"There we go!"

Suddenly, a flash of red came out of the corner of his eye. Will whipped his head around to see green as well, realizing that the flash of red had come from Cynthia's scarlet hair. Her Breloom leapt in front of the Avalugg, and she had a wild grin on her face.

"Tristan! Use spore!" Cynthia's voice called out.

"Breloom!" Tristan sprayed his spores all over the Avalugg and the other pokemon. This was the scummy method Cynthia was using to eliminate her competition. By putting her foes to sleep, she could easily snatch their headbands.

Will stared at her in awe and disgust in equal measure. Only someone as diabolical as Cynthia could come up with that.

"That's dirty," Lila winced.

"But clever," Darla had to admit. "After all, spore is very hard to dodge."

"And it's still within the rules," Leanne judged.

"Kadabra, use safeguard!" The trainer ordered. His Kadabra lifted his spoon, creating a veil of light that shined like the rainbow, causing the drowsiness from the spores to lose its potency. Cynthia was miffed at that, but even more so when the Kadabra turned his spoon towards her, attempting to remove her headband with his psychic powers.

But nothing happened, much to the confusion of both trainer and pokemon. Even Will wasn't sure what was happening.

Then another Cynthia poked her head out and smirked.

"You fell for it perfectly!" She crowed as Ruka returned to her normal appearance as a Zorua, and the trainer finally realized he'd been tricked.

Unfortunately for him it was too late to matter because Tristan opened his mouth and fired a bullet seed that hit his Kadabra straight in the chest. Because the surface of the Avalugg he was standing on was so slick due to being made of ice, the Kadabra slid right off of it and rolled through the dirt. And with one of the pokemon knocked off, that meant he was kicked out.

"With that, the number of trainers remaining is 20!" Lila announced. "We're getting really close to the last 16!"

Jo and Joyce looked at each other. In spite of their animosity, they were both surprised they'd made it this long. A few other people were surprised at how long they made it, including Will, but mainly Nick as well.

Cynthia was going to do something about the former, though. She turned to Will with an evil glint in his eye, and he immediately realized that this wasn't going to go well for him.

"I saved your butt, because I knew it would come to this," she said, licking her lips. "It's gonna be much easier to take you down! Tristan, use your spore attack again!"

"Breloom!" Tristan sent another spray of mushroom spores at Will, trying to put him to sleep along with his pokemon. But Will had already seen that move in action, so he knew just what to do in order to counter it.

"Pixie, use safeguard!" He ordered.

"Togetic!" Pixie nodded, creating a rainbow-colored veil that protected Will and his team from the status effects of the spore.

Cynthia frowned. "Well, fine then," she scoffed, and in a flash of her Kirlia's teleport, she disappeared from Will's sight.

Will was stunned, surprised that she'd given up so easily. He was so caught off his guard that he didn't even notice Nick coming up behind him.

His Mankey swiped his paw, snatching the headband before anyone could react.

"H-Hey!" Will exclaimed. But he knew it was over.

"Oof," Nikita winced. "That was close. Will got completely blindsided by Cynthia, so he didn't notice Nick sneaking up until it was too late."

"Come on, what's with that?!" Raizer scowled. "That's not how you fight like a man!"

"Hey, back off!" Callie snapped. "Nick's doing whatever it takes! And besides, it's a lot better than what that girl Willa you teamed up with is doing!"

Willa had not been the most proactive member in this competition. Mainly because she wasn't busy strategizing. She wasn't even playing the game, not really. She was focusing on studying the effects of her medications on Zera.

That was a lot more important to her than some dumb competition; the only reason she'd entered this thing in the first place was to obtain data.

"ZERAAAAAAAAAA!" Zera howled, swinging an enlarged fist at Serefina and her party.

"Block it!" Serefina ordered. Her Sirfetch'd raised his shield and repelled the strike, swinging his leak sword at Zera and slashing him. The Zeraora didn't even flinch. He just continued his brutal onslaught without a care in the world.

"Tortimer, end use fire spin!" Serefina shouted. In spite of the perilous position she was in, she masterfully kept her cool, guiding her pokemon to protect her.

"Torkoal!" Tortimer opened his mouth and released a swirl of flames around him that discouraged further attacks from the Zeraora. It didn't do a very good job of it though, because Zera just kept right on punching through the flames.

"No difficulty from contact with fire… check!" Willa recorded in her notes.

Serefina scowled in irritation.

"Is this what they teach you in the Research Course?!" She demanded. "Doping up your pokemon and turning them into fighting machines, instead of raising them properly?!"

Willa glanced up from her notepad and sneered. "And what does 'raising them properly' mean to you, exactly?" She asked. "Because to me, that means drawing out everything a pokemon is capable of. My family has been practicing medicine for centuries, you… you boob monster!"

Willa had quite the brain for chemistry, but her insults could use a little work.

"B-Boob monster?!" Serefina gasped indignantly, holding her arms over her chest. "What's that supposed to mean?!"

"Yeah, you tell her!" Lila joined in the jeering. "Boob monster!"

Darla gave her a dry stare and Lila blushed as pink as her outfit in shame.

Unfortunately for Serefina, that distraction was exactly what Willa needed. "Zera! Knock her off that Torkoal!" She bellowed.

"ZERA!" Zera swung his fist right at the back of Tortimer's shell, trying to separate trainer and rider. Thanks to the fact that Serefina was using her Phanpy he couldn't rely on his Electric type moves, but he certainly had the brute strength to force her off.

If not for a certain interloper.

"Bullet seed!" Cynthia shouted.

"BRELOOM!" Tristan opened his mouth and fired a barrage of bullets that hit Zera in the wrist. He didn't have nearly the power to stop the massive pokemon's momentum, but he was able to throw off his fist just enough where Serefina could escape.

"I'm here to help!" Cynthia said, flashing Serefina a thumbs up.

Serefina stared at her, trying very hard not to look exasperated. She felt grateful for Cynthia's assist, but… it was Cynthia.

"Now then!" Cynthia turned her attention back to Willa, and smiled confidently. "Tristan! That guy's pretty big, but we've got spore on our side!"

"Brilliant!" Darla applauded. "Zeraora might be incredibly powerful even without taking those supplements, but that doesn't matter if he's put to sleep by Breloom's spores!"

"Nicely done!" Lila punched the air.

The spores drifted over Willa and her party.

The lab coat-wearing girl stared blankly at Cynthia, who responded, in turn, with shock and confusion at the results.

"What the heck?!" She sputtered. "What's going on?! That should have put you to sleep, damn it! Why are you still awake?!"

"Look at these bags under my eyes!" Willa replied, pointing at her gaunt figure, pallid complexion, and deep creases beneath her empty eyes. "Do I look like the kind of person who gets sleep on a regular basis?"

"Um…" Cynthia had to admit, she raised a good point.

"My experiments and crafts require constant monitoring!" Willa cackled, sounding not at all like a mad scientist. "To that end, I need to go days, if not weeks without sleep!"

"That doesn't sound healthy," Lila winced. Her own treatment plan necessitated at least 8-10 hours of sleep every day- it was how she got her lovely peaches-and-cream complexion. An idol's best feature was her face, after all (and to a significantly lesser extent, her voice).

Willa would certainly not be winning any idol competitions. She looked like she was about to keel over dead.

"By sampling my own anti-sleep draught, I can reduce the need of the human body to sleep for a minimum of 12 days!" Willa explained with a proud smile, as if she should be bragging about missing sleep for almost two weeks. "That's the effects on humans, anyway. Pokemon have a significantly higher resistance to it, lasting about a day at most. But that's fine. Because I make sure to treat all the pokemon I'm using with the compound."

She sneered at Cynthia. "Your spores aren't going to be worth a damn against the power of science!"

Cynthia baulked, ready to retreat. But then, Serefina was watching her. She couldn't afford to look like a coward in front of the woman she idolized.

"Bring it on then!" Cynthia snapped, patting her Breloom on the back. "We're not scared of you and this 'power of science'!"

Willa shrugged. "Fine, then. Zera, take her out!"

But before Zera could follow her orders, her headband was ripped off.

"What the heck?!" She glanced up to see it slowly floating up into the air, approaching the Wishiwashi circling overhead.

"The power of science is nice and all," Marion said, poking her head out of her pokemon's "mouth", but it looks like the power of fishing is even greater!"

Willa muttered something under her breath. But before she could do anything, Zera began to shake, and his entire body shrunk down, reducing him back to his normal size. Now that she and her pokemon were no longer riding on the backs of a hulking monstrosity of a Zeraora, Willa and the rest of her team fell into the dirt with a thump.

Even if Marion hadn't interfered, the situation would have resolved itself.

"And that's one of the issues with your science!" Serefina scoffed. "Experiments like that are reckless! You have no idea what might happen, or what could go wrong at a critical time! It's important to train your pokemon properly, relying on the fundamentals!"

Willa didn't hear a word of her speech, she was too busy recording the data she'd just obtained from that debacle.

"Effects did not last as long as projected," she mused, tapping her pen against her lips. "Pokemon reverted to regular appearance in less than half the expected time… no, 17 minutes past half. How curious."

She couldn't stop the smile worming its way onto her lips. There was just something Willa loved about puzzles, and improving the recipes to her medicines. She couldn't wait to use the data she'd acquired to tweak her formula!

"Was the projected time off due to an inconsistency of the formula? Or did it wear off so fast because as a Mythical Pokemon, Zeraora's natural immunity kicked in far faster than my projections? Most curious… I should find a way to test for that…"

Willa sat in the dirt in her own little world, not even bothering to call the pokemon back to their pokeballs. Zera was drained from exerting himself (which seemed to be one of the drawbacks of Willa's potion) meanwhile Flemming and Serturner just watched the chemist with a wary look in their eye, as if they'd seen this a thousand times before.

"So, uh… what do we do?" Lila looked to Darla and Leanne. "We can't just leave her out there, right? She could get hurt, not paying attention like that.

"Eh, she'll probably be fine," Darla replied. "Besides, things are almost over anyway."

"That's right," Leanne nodded. "Only 18 trainers remaining now… that means when the last two have been eliminated, that will be all for the preliminaries."

Everyone was on the edge of their seat, watching to see who made the cut and who would be kicked out.

It was a rather stressful feeling.

"Come on, Nick!" Callie clutched her hands together in prayer as she sat at the edge of her seat. She wanted him to win. Oh, how badly did she want him to win! But she feared he would. She was scared that he'd be eliminated, as karma for her rejecting him earlier.

Please don't punish him, she silently begged. Not for what I did!

Meanwhile, Elaina was just fine, because there were only three students still remaining in the air, Sango, Dakota, and Marion. Everyone else had already been knocked out. And as talented as the other two were, Elaina doubted they would overcome her birds.

Nikita was wary herself. After all, Invictus' magnet rise had worn off, and he had returned to just hovering over the battlefield, watching carefully. Which was a good position for someone tactical like Reiner, but it also left him vulnerable.

"No! Reiner!" Nikita gasped. Her fears had been realized. One of the last students was coming to attack; and he had chosen Reiner, of course.

"Invictus, use protect!" Reiner ordered, and his Metang shielded his team from the Gigalith's rock barrage using his steel-colored barrier. That would keep him safe for a while. He just had to outlast his opponents and then he would be fine. He could use his strategies and tactics when he made it to the main tournament, but for now, he just wanted to experiment with his pokemon and see what they were capable of.

After all, Reiner felt like he couldn't catch up with Blake or Cynthia. Those two practically lived and breathed battles, it was the only way they communicated.

As for me… I haven't been doing so hot. Reiner bit his lip. He couldn't recall the last time he got a win; he was in a slump.

That hesitation was why he kept getting targeted by the other trainer. Which didn't look very good for Reiner.

"Janus! Use thunderbolt!" Joyce's voice rang out across the battlefield.

"Morpeko!" Janus fired a bolt of lightning that struck the Gigalith. The hulking Rock type pokemon may have been a lot of things, but he wasn't a Ground type, and so he took the move directly.

"Joyce!" Reiner gasped, surprised. "You saved me! I can't believe it."

"Well, believe it," Joyce replied, flashing a smile. She wasn't always in a foul mood, apparently, which was a good thing.

And she wasn't alone, either.

While the Gigalith's trainer was trying to hold onto his other pokemon while getting his walking rock under control after that nasty thunderbolt, Jo came running in right after Joyce on his Dachsbun's back, a manic grin on his face.

"Yoink!" He snatched the other guy's headband before he even had a chance to blink, shrinking the number even closer to the cutoff point.

"Jo!" Reiner's face brightened. "Thanks for saving me!"

"Not at all!" Jo said, winking at Reiner. "After all, I've gotta spoil my favorite boy! Can't have you dropping out this early!"

Nikita's eye twitched. Jo was a GUY and he was still flirting with her boyfriend! What was that?! What did he think he was doing?! Did he think he was cute?!

Nikita wanted to punch all the prick's teeth out. Maybe then he wouldn't find himself so cute anymore. But she forced herself to restrain those feelings lest she get in a lot of trouble for having them. A few more deep breaths calmed herself.

"This is really getting intense." Callie had nearly bitten her lip clean off. Nick was still in the game, but this situation hadn't reached its darkest hour.

"It's too bad I can't hug you while we're competing," Jo sighed in disappointment. "That would have been nice!"

Reiner frowned. He really wasn't comfortable with that aspect of Jo. Sure, under normal circumstances, he might appreciate the flirting, but this was anything but normal.

After all, he had a girlfriend. A great girlfriend who he loved dearly, even if he didn't always have the best ways of showing that to her.

Nobody cared about Reiner's relationship drama, though. They were all watching the scoreboard. Nearly everyone had been kicked out!

"There are only 17 people left in this competition!" Lila squealed. "I can't wait to see who makes it to the actual events, and which one of you gets left behind!"

Darla kicked Lila under the table. "I believe what she was saying was that she hopes everyone tries their hardest today!" Darla clarified (with a lie) and she lied some more.

"They should try hard," Leanne nodded. "The only people still in the competition are the ones who made it here. Every last one of them is skilled. But one of them will need to be eliminated nonetheless, I'm sorry."

Jo pondered her thoughts. "So one of us is definitely going to get eliminated, and then the rest of us will move on from the preliminaries to the main event… that's what I call a rather tricky gamble, I'm not sure if it'll go exactly the way I'd hoped!"

Without hesitating she reached up and snatched her sister's headband, waving it around in her face as the other woman stared incredulously at her brazen display.

"What the hell?!" Joyce exclaimed.

"And with that, the preliminaries are over!" Leanne announced, silencing any voices of dissent among the audience.

Well, that was sure something! With that, the preliminaries are now over! Who will move on successfully to the next round? Did anyone get kicked off offscreen? Let's not waste any more time and get to the next chapter to see who are our 16 members of the main competition! It should be exciting to see who wins!