The Snow Throw has gotten off to an exciting and intense start, with the teams engaging in all manner of crazy strategizing! Who would have thought Blake would have Ruru shoot a snowball with her webs? Or that Andy would have her Spidops make a racket again, for the purpose of firing back those snowballs coming her way? Things are only going to get more exciting from here, that's for sure! Hopefully this event will end safely!
The Elimination Round of the Pokemon Academy Best Girl Contest 4 has started! Make sure to get those votes in, we've only got a few so far! You can vote for up to 5 girls, so make sure your favorites have a chance to shine!
Nominated: Alcea, Ange, Ayame, Caelia, Callie, Chloe, Cynthia, Dakota, Donoma, Elaina, Gabrielle, Joyce, Kate, Maddi, Misato, Nikita, Rui, Sango, Sylvia, Vic
KedharS: I mean, she pretty much did. Andy just had a way faster pokemon thanks to her Ambipom's experience as a tennis champion!
FinLay Real: Yeah, this event was a little ridiculous. But then, the Pokeathlons in the game were pretty ridiculous, given that you could have fish playing soccer.
Aakareo Kokokuhikari: Yeah, Kanone has a decent amount of pokemon. They're all special to him, though.
Pokemon Academy: Beginning of Beginnings
Chapter 1332
"Dang, they're really not letting up at all, are they?" Reiner said, amazed at the performance he was seeing. The groups just kept pelting each other with snowballs, using everything they had to their advantage in order to win.
"So close!" Andy crowed, deflecting one of Tara's balls with her racket. "But that won't be good enough to hit me!"
"How about this?" Sango asked, narrowing her eyes.
"Decidueye!" Mukuro fired three snowballs like arrows at Andy and her team. She managed to get her racket there in time to deflect one of them, but the other two hit her and Rellor. With her primary snowball roller temporarily incapacitated, Ace didn't have the ammunition to continue his full-scale assault, which opened things up for Marion and Blake to launch a counterattack with their own teams of pokemon.
"This is really intense!" Lila cheered, at the edge of her seat. Maybe because it wasn't as violent as some of the other matches, or maybe it was because, as a Hoenn native, things like snowball fights were such a rarity to her, but she was really getting worked up.
"Yeah, they're all giving it everything they have, and their scores are pretty close, too," Darla noted, glancing at the screen.
Red Team – 51 Points
Blue Team – 47 Points
Green Team – 49 Points
Yellow Team – 50 Points
"Alright, guys!" Blake shouted to his pokemon. He was currently the furthest behind, in last place. "Let's give it all we got! One more snowball offensive!"
He just finished saying that when he was hit in the face with a snowball launched from Marion's Clawitzer, much to his agitation. He ducked behind a mound of snow while his pokemon flung more snowballs at the other teams.
"Doria! It's your turn!" Sango shouted to Elaina's Oricorio. "Time for our secret weapon!"
"Ori!" Doria nodded, lifting up two snowballs with her wings. She flung them both, one at Ace, and the other at Clawz.
The two pokemon were so focused on their attacks, they didn't react fast enough to dodge. Not that it mattered, though, both pokemon were tough enough to take many snowballs, and thus didn't see the need to evade a few more.
That would prove to be a grave miscalculation.
"Ambipom!?" Ace exclaimed, feeling his body go numb after the snowball hit.
"Clawitzer!" Clawz shook, falling into the snow.
"What the huh?" Marion gasped.
"Ace!" Andy cried, so distracted that she missed hitting a snowball from Tara, that smacked her in the stomach.
"Why aren't their pokemon moving?" Lila wondered, shocked.
"It's the snowballs!" Darla gasped in realization.
"That's exactly right," Sango said, cracking a grin. "To take down those two pokemon who were big threats, I had Doria put a little something extra in those snowballs! She used some of her own feathers! You see, the fluffy feathers of a Pom-Pom Style Oricorio are specially-charged with static, and can electrocute on contact! Both your pokemon are temporarily paralyzed! And now, Mukuro, unleash your assault!"
"Decidueye!" Mukuro fired several more snowball arrows as Andy and Marion tried to make up the difference, but with their best attackers temporarily out of commission, there wasn't much they could do to catch up.
A few seconds later, time in the round was called.
"That's it!" Lila declared.
"Match over!" Darla nodded. "Let's see the scores!"
"This was a very intense event," Leanne said, turning to the scoreboard as the results flashed on the screen. "Let's take a look and see who managed to score what!"
Red Team – 58 Points
Blue Team – 57 Points
Green Team – 56 Points
Yellow Team – 62 Points
"Yes!" Sango crowed, pumping the air with both fists. "That's what I'm talking about!"
"It seems like the Red Team, Blue Team, and Green Team all got very close scores," Lila noted. "But the Yellow Team really ran away with this game!"
"That's true, Lila, but the Yellow Team's score isn't that much higher than the others," Darla pointed out. "We'll have to see how many Athlete Points they get in total, right, professor?" She asked, turning to Leanne.
"That's right, Darla, and thankfully there's a simple formula for figuring that out," the professor nodded in agreement. "We'll take each of their scores and multiply them by three to determine how many Athlete Points each team will get, starting with the Red Team!"
Andy sighed, knowing she hadn't done as well as she could have. "That paralysis really set me back. If not for that, I totally would have kicked butt and gotten first!" She grumbled. But she did so with a smile on her face.
"The Red Team scored 58 points in total," Leanne declared. "Multiply that by three, and for this event they get 174 Athlete Points."
"Oh yeah!" Andy's mood got even better. "Now that's what I'm talking about!"
"That's a pretty good score for a first event," Ayame whistled.
"You sound pretty impressed," Olivia said, raising her eyebrow.
"It's comparable with my average score," Ayame pointed out. "Good enough to win the gold in a lot of competitions."
"And Blake's score wasn't too far away," Cynthia said, swelling with confidence.
"Yeah, that's right!" Kitty nodded. "He did pretty good, didn't he?"
"But Andy still did better," Callie pointed out.
"And Sango did better than both of them," Elaina reminded her.
"Next up, the Blue Team," Lila said, nodding to Blake. "They got 57 points, so multiply that by three, and you get, um…"
She started counting on her fingers, then turned and smiled sheepishly at Darla, who rolled her eyes and groaned.
"171 Athlete Points," Darla pointed out. "Three less than the Red Team got. Because you multiply the scores by three, and he was only one point behind the Red Team."
"Oh yeah!" Lila gasped. "That makes sense!"
"It's another remarkable score," Leanne nodded.
Blake would have felt proud of getting such a high score, but the fact remained that he could have done better. He wasn't going to settle for that.
"The Green Team got 56 points," Leanne continued. "Multiply that by three, and they get a total score of 168. Again, a very high score, and very close with the other competitors."
"But not as high as the Yellow Team!" Lila pointed out, grinning from ear to ear. "They got 62 points, which means their total number of Athlete Points is 186!"
Darla and Leanne both stared at Lila with shocked expressions on their faces. Leanne was shocked that Lila had actually been able to do the math, and Darla was shocked that Lila had broken character all of a sudden.
Lila gasped, realizing what she'd just said. "Err, I mean… something dumb."
But that Skitty was out of the bag. Nothing to do but move on.
"Well, that was certainly a lucky guess," Darla said, trying to play it off as best as she could. "Now then, if you take a look at the points for this event, the total scores are pretty clear to see, and you can tell the Yellow Team has taken a good lead for the first event!"
Red Team – Andy – 174 Points
Blue Team – Blake – 171 Points
Green Team – Marion – 168 Points
Yellow Team – Sango – 186 Points
"Yeah, look at those scores!" Cynthia cheered. "They're doing great out there!"
She was sad Blake was losing, but at the same time, she was happy that Sango was in first place as well. It was a rather awkward feeling, like when two of her friends were in a pokemon battle against each other.
"Sango's got a decent lead, but that doesn't necessarily mean she'll keep it," Ayame pointed out. "This is just the first event, after all, there are a lot of fucking things that can go wrong before the end. So I wouldn't count anyone out just yet with scores like those."
Olivia stared at her friend and suppressed a smirk. "Don't worry, Aya," she said, patting her friend on the arm. "I'm sure Blake will be able to pull it off, you don't have to get worried for him."
Ayame turned red, but it was hard to tell if it was from embarrassment or anger. "Who's worried?!" She growled, narrowing her eyes into a glare. "I already said, it could be anyone's game right now, there's nothing to be fucking concerned about!"
She was so worked up that she didn't even realize it was part of Olivia's ploy.
"So what you're saying is that if Blake's score was a lot lower, then you would be worried?" Olivia asked, raising her eyebrow.
Ayame opened her mouth to reply, but realized that whatever she said would no-doubt make things worse and result in her getting teased even more, so she shut up and didn't say anything.
"Well, whatever's going to happen, I'm going to keep cheering my hardest," Cynthia said. "They both deserve to win, even if only one of them will!"
"I think that's a great mindset to have, Cynthia," Nick said, nodding. "We should root for our friends to succeed no matter what!"
"Aww, Nick," Callie swooned, wiping her forehead. "This is why you're such a great guy… and also why you couldn't win that last block."
Nick didn't say anything because he knew Callie was right.
"Still, it's a good thing there isn't any hostility down there, is it?" Alcea noted, looking down at the rest tent. "The last round seemed rather… complicated due to such things."
Indeed, the atmosphere in the rest tent was actually pretty good at the moment. Andy and Marion were filled with energy as usual, talking about how much fun that last event had been, while Sango listened in and nodded along.
"That was a blast!" Marion gushed. "I mean, obviously it's not as fun as fishing, but come on, what is?" She laughed.
"So you've seriously never been in a snowball fight before?" Sango asked, amazed.
"I grew up in Alola, remember?" Marion reminded her. "It's not exactly known for its cool climate and tons of snowfall."
"You have that mountain though, right?" Sango said. As someone born in the Unova Region, she knew a lot about the other regions in Unova's sphere of influence, namely Orre and Alola. "Mount Lanakila, right? There's some snow there, pretty sure."
"True, true, but there aren't any good spots to fish on the mountain," Marion sighed. "So it's not like I went there very often."
"I had a few snowball fights," Andy said. "We get a lot of snow in Paldea. What about you, Sango? You do any snowball fighting in… where are you from, again?"
"I'm from Castelia City," Sango admitted. "Not exactly a winter wonderland. But hey, city life isn't so bad. And with Silver, I could have had a snowball fight whenever I wanted!"
"Castform!" Silver chirped, bobbing up and down in agreement.
Sango glanced aside. "Although… I would have needed someone to actually have a snowball fight with in the first place," she mumbled under her breath, recalling the lonely time she'd spent at home, while her father was working.
"I know a bit of what that's like," Marion said, nodding in agreement. "I never got along great with kids my age, they always thought I was weird."
"Can't imagine why that was…" Blake mumbled under his breath.
But Sango caught the wistful gleam in Marion's eye. What she said hadn't been quite true. While, yes, Marion didn't get along great with a lot of people her age, she'd definitely been able to make friends with some kids.
The only problem was that those kids had a bit of a complicated relationship with her.
"What about you, Blake?" Andy asked, turning to the only person who hadn't said a lot in this conversation. "Did you have many snowball fights growing up?"
Sango winced. Andy had unknowingly stepped on a landmine there.
Damn it, she thought, fighting the urge to smack the other girl upside the head. If I'd been paying more attention then I could have directed the conversation away from this! She'd been so conscious of Blake due to recent events that she'd been trying desperately to forget about him. And because of that, it had completely slipped her mind that when it came to discussions about childhood, Blake didn't have a lot of positive contributions to make.
"I tried, once," Blake said, lowering his head to stare at the ground. He didn't want the others to see the mist forming in his eyes. "When my sister and I were little."
"Oh? How did it go?" Andy asked, completely incapable of reading the mood. Again, Sango wanted to smack her.
"We only played for like two minutes," he mumbled. "I hit her with a snowball, and then she immediately ended the game then and there."
"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that…" Andy patted Blake on the shoulder. If she could feel the malicious aura radiating off of Ayame in the stands, she didn't register it.
"It's fine," Blake said, shying away from her. He forced a smile to his face that Sango saw through right away. "Besides, I've had my fair share of snowball fights since coming to the Pokemon Academy anyway. It's not like I missed out entirely."
"Well, that's a relief!" Andy laughed. "Personally though, I'd say that's gotta be the best one I've ever been in! What about you guys?"
Sango saw Blake flinch, and her eye twitched. Forget smacking, she wanted to strangle this insensitive airhead!
"There were a few that I liked more," Blake admitted. His eyes turned glassy and he stared wistfully off into space, remembering Ayame's screams of delight as they pelted each other with snowballs. "I don't think anything could compare to those."
Before anyone could press him on what he meant by that, break time ended. The four of them rose from their seats and called out their pokemon, heading to the next event.
"Hey, Blake…" Sango reached out to him, but she caught herself. She didn't know what she was supposed to say in a situation like this. Was she supposed to comfort him? After all the issues that had arisen between them?
He didn't register her words, or if he did, he didn't show it. She took that as a sign and dropped the idea completely.
This sucks. I want to make up with him, but at the same time, I can't. It's not right. Sango found herself split between what she wanted personally, and what she knew was the right thing to do.
So she did nothing, and followed him out onto the field.
"Okay guys, hope the snowball fight was a good warm-up!" Lila joked. "Because we've got another really intense match ready to go! Isn't that right, Darla?"
"Exactly right, Lila!" Darla nodded. "This next event is one we just did in the last course, the Goal Roll! And for those of you just tuning in, Leanne will give a quick reminder of the rules, isn't that right, Leanne?"
"A brief one, yes," Leanne nodded. "It's fairly simple. The trainers will stand in their boxes in front of the goal, and direct their pokemon to score the ball into the other three trainers' goals. Whenever you make a shot, you get one point and the person whose goal you made the shot in loses a point. This will continue until time is up."
"And what about points?" Lila asked. "I remember it was really complicated, figuring out how to score this round…"
She was still trying to play up how much of a ditz she was. But that ship had sailed; everyone had seen that she was, in fact, capable of doing math.
Leanne was happy to explain, though.
"At the start of the round, each team will get 60 Athlete Points just for playing," she said. "Then for each point they get, they'll receive another 5 Athlete Points. Then, if they have a higher score than one other team, they each get 10 Athlete Points. A higher score than two other teams, and they get 20 points. And, finally, if they have a higher score than each other team, they'll receive a whopping 40 Athlete Points!"
"Whoa, that's so many!" Lila gasped, her eyes wide and sparkling.
Darla rolled her eyes. "You're playing that up way too much," she muttered under her breath, but Lila ignored her completely.
"Alright, now that's what I'm talking about!" Cynthia cheered. "They're going to do great in this one! Blake's got the brains to figure out a good strategy, after all."
"Of course, they could always use Nick's tactic," Julia teased, much to Callie's irritation.
"That was a brilliant and sweet move on his part!" She snapped, narrowing her eyes and scowling at the other girl.
"Regardless, things will probably get very intense this round," Ayame said. "I don't think anyone here will be teamed up against, so we'll get to see the Goal Roll as it was meant to be played."
And with that ominous statement, the event began.
So the scores for the Snow Throw were pretty even, but now it's time for the Goal Roll! Will Blake be able to get ahead of Sango here? Or will Sango manage to keep her lead? What about Andy and Marion, will they be able to do anything? There are a lot of competitive people in this block, and just because the first event is over doesn't mean we're even close to the end of this round!