With break time over, the relationship between Blake and Sango seems to be on the mend. That's a relief. Those two are great friends. Hopefully this momentum can continue. But even if it does, I doubt that Sango will go easy on Blake. She still wants to test him, after all, to make sure that Ayame is the biggest priority in his life. How will that go? Will Blake be able to prove himself, and appease Sango's demands? Or will he fail the test? He has to defeat her in this last event, if he doesn't, then things will be pretty difficult for him! Let's see if he can manage to pull it off!

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: Well, we'll have to see.

Aakareo Kokokuhikari: It's definitely risky behavior.

Hyphenman: Yeah, it's nice to see them getting along once again.

Pokemon Academy: Beginning of Beginnings

Chapter 1337

When the final break finished, the four teams headed out to the last field, the large sandbox where the Pennant Capture would take place.

The competitors reached the four starting zones. But before the event could begin, there was something that needed to be addressed first.

"Snivy!"

"Mareanie!"

Tara and Maria were glaring at each other.

Blake sighed, rubbing his temples. "You two, please, can you stop bickering for one second? We're about to start."

"Ah, who'da guessed it," Sango sneered. "Blake Harker, ladies man, having trouble because women keep fighting over him."

Blake shot her a dirty look, and she responded by sticking her tongue out. Silver stuck his tongue out for good measure. After all, Sango had already decided on who she was going to take out first with her for the event.

"Ah, it's fine!" Andy called from Blake's left. "After all, he's already made his choice, haven't you? Ayame, right?"

She winked at him and gave him a thumbs up.

"Excuse me," Darla called over the microphone. Very little levity could be heard in her voice. "If it wouldn't be too much of an inconvenience, would you please choose a pokemon so we can start this event already?"

"Yeah!" Lila called. "Some of us want to go home before sunset you know!"

Then she realized she wasn't supposed to sound that aggressive, and quickly returned to her cheery persona. "If you would be so kind, please!"

Blake knelt down in front of his two pokemon and opened his mouth to address them. But Marion cut him off.

"It's not going to go well," she said, shaking her head. "Your Mareanie over there says that if she can't go first, she doesn't want to compete at all."

"Mar!" Maria nodded. She crossed two of her tentacles together like they were arms and huffed indignantly.

"Maria, come on!" Blake groaned. He glanced up at Marion. "And what does Tara say?"

"I dunno," she shrugged. "I only talk to fishies."

"Well, you're not helpful then," Blake sighed. He turned back to Maria and Tara, who were still bickering. "Maria… I need to have Tara go first. You can go second, alright?"

"Mareanie?!" Maria stared at him in disbelief, and began jabbing her tentacles at him.

"…Yeah she doesn't like that idea very much," Marion said, shaking her head.

"WELL THANK YOU CAPTAIN OBVIOUS," Blake shouted, shielding his face from Maria's blows. "I never could have guessed."

"Yuppers, any time!"

Blake resisted the urge to scream. "Maria, please. I know you don't like it, but Tara is faster than you are. She's just a better fit for this event, don't you get it? I want to use you, really, and I swear I will. But right now, winning is what's most important."

Maria gave him a side-eyed stare, and spat.

"She doesn't feel that way," Marion chimed in. "She thinks that you should care about your pokemon more than some dumb victory. Especially because the only reason you want to win is so… oh my. Wow, didn't expect that."

"What? What's she feeling?" Blake asked. Not having harmonia was a real pain in the ass.

"Uh, I don't think I should repeat it," Marion said. "Who knew pokemon had such colorful ways of describing humans? But long story short, Maria there isn't a huge fan of your girlfriend, for whatever reason."

That made Andy and Sango break out into peals of laughter.

"Maria, please!" Blake exclaimed, his face heating up. Maria glared up at him, and now Tara was glaring at him too. Both pokemon seemed like they were trying to tell him something.

"Blake… do you think it's really okay to disregard your pokemon's feelings just to win?" Sango asked quietly.

Blake turned to her and scowled. "What's the matter with you?" He asked, hurt by her words. He thought that they'd actually gotten close to repairing their friendship before that. "You were the one who wanted me to make Ayame a priority in my life. This is me doing that!"

Ayame turned red and hid her face with her hands. Blake had just said that in front of the entire school without hesitation. This fucking guy…

Sango sighed. "I know. And it's not wrong to prioritize Ayame. But you should really be making your pokemon a priority too, you know. They've been running themselves ragged for you! First, fighting against Kanone, and then you made them go through the preliminaries, and now this? Blake, your pokemon adore you! The reason they're fighting so hard to go first is because both of them want to show you how much they care, and help you more than the others. I don't need harmonia to be able to see that."

Blake glanced back down at his pokemon. Maria hid her face behind her tentacles and Tara sniffed the air, raising her nose and looking away.

"Really guys?" He asked quietly. Neither responded, but now that Sango pointed it out, it was clear to see.

Ruru crawled over to him and nudged him with her feelers. She had no need to hide her emotions like the other two.

"Why don'tcha do something nice for 'em?" Andy suggested with a shrug. "Whenever my pokemon and I finish a hard day of training, I make 'em some sandwiches for a picnic! You could do something like that."

"Would that be alright with you guys?" Blake asked his team. "I mean, I'm not the best cook, so maybe not sandwiches, but I could treat you guys to something. You know, if you want."

Maria and Tara looked at each other. Maria sighed and relented with a nod.

"Maria says that she'll let Tara go first, but in exchange you need to agree to go on an all-day fishing bonanza with her," Marion cheerfully informed him.

"Mareanie." Maria turned and leveled a cold stare at Marion, who averted her eyes.

"…O-Or something along those lines, maybe," she mumbled.

"Um… how about I spend my next day off grooming you personally?" Blake asked. "It's been a while since we just hung out together. Does that work?"

"Mareanie!" Maria nodded eagerly.

"Snivy!" Tara scowled, stomping her foot.

"H-Hey, I'll hang out with you guys, too!" Blake said. "Don't worry, I'm not going to forget how much help you were!"

"…Snivy," Tara sighed in resignation.

"Galvantula!" Ruru cheered with glee.

"Aww, how sweet," Lila said, with just a hint of sarcasm in her voice. "Now if we're all done here, can we PLEASE move on to the event? God, this is taking forever!"

"You said it, Lila," Darla groaned. "The world doesn't revolve around you, you know!" She shouted at Blake.

Blake stood up, and Tara skipped up next to him. Finally, everyone had decided on their first pokemon. Andy was going with Pewpa, of all pokemon, and Marion had selected the far more predictable choice of starting with Mana. And of course, Sango and Silver were an unshakable pair.

"Remember everyone!" Leanne declared. "You want to gather as many flags as you can before time runs out!"

The firing gun sounded off.

"Begin!" Leanne shouted, and the competitors ran out into the sand.

Unsurprisingly, Sango was pretty fast. But Blake was even faster. He charged a head with dedicated purpose, scooping up a flag before anyone could react.

"Whoa, I never would have imagined that someone so slow at coming to a decision could move that quickly!" Lila gasped in amazement.

"I guess people can really surprise you," Darla said, suppressing a giggle. In truth, both girls were well aware of how physically capable Blake was, given their relationship with Ayame. But given how much of their time he had wasted, they wanted to give him a bit of grief.

"That's a good start, Blake!" Andy called. "But Pewpa and I can handle it easy, right buddy?" She turned to her little Rellor, who was dutifully rolling his mudball across the court. The mud was picking up sand like crazy, and grew bigger and bigger as the tiny bug ran beside her.

"Let's go, Mana!" Marion hopped on her Mantine's back and the aquatic pokemon sailed through the air like she was swimming.

"Can she do that?!" Lila exclaimed.

"Absolutely," Leanne nodded. "It's in the rules. Of course, it comes with its fair share of risks, as well, I'll say that much."

Marion extended her hand to grab a flag as Mana soared by. But before she could grab it, Andy slammed into Mana and knocked her off her balance, sending the fishing enthusiast tumbling into the sand.

"So close!" The tennis pro grinned, winking at the green-haired girl as she grabbed the flag. "But we're going to keep going!"

"Sorry Marion!" Sango called, running past Marion and snatching up a flag as well. "But I'm going to take the lead!"

Marion watched the others seize more flags, and simply smiled.

"That's fine with me," she chortled, stretching her muscles. She cracked her knuckles next. "Now then, let's get to work."

She charged across the sand, stunning everyone with her speed.

"Come on, Mana!" Marion grabbed a flag. But rather than tuck it in her tracksuit like the other competitors did, she lifted it into the air, and tilted the head forward. Mana flew through the air, following the direction of the flag.

"Whoa, look at that," Lila said, surprised.

"Marion's guiding her Mantine with such skill!" Darla was amazed.

"That's what we can expect from a member of the Ranger Course," Leanne nodded. "When it comes to directing pokemon, she's a master!"

"You're pretty talented, Sango," Marion said, winking at her friend as Mana gathered up flags before she could reach them. "But I'm the master."

Sango stared at Marion in surprise. She'd been focusing on trying to test Blake, but she realized that there was a new opponent to face.

Not bad, Marion, she thought, stroking her chin. She cracked a smile. "But that's not going to be enough! We're going to do the best we can, right, Silver?"

"Castform!" Silver nodded. He flew across the sand, maneuvering around the umbrellas and the iron obstacles, gathering up flags himself.

"Oh, that's some nice maneuvering on the Yellow Team's part!" Lila said, surprised.

"Marion might have more skill with controlling her Mantine, but Castform is a smaller and more maneuverable pokemon," Darla judged, nodding in approval. "That's a pretty good method for compensating. Not bad."

"They're both excellent athletes as well," Leanne agreed. "Take a look. Both girls are keeping up admirably with their pokemon."

"Oh man, Blake!" Andy clapped him on the shoulder as she ran past. "They're really getting an edge on us! We can't let them pull ahead!"

Blake wasn't planning on that in the first place. Tara might not have been able to float like Silver could, but she was still very fast. She ran across the sand and gathered flags, while he relied on his own speed to do the same.

"Look at Blake go!" Olivia cheered. "He's pretty skilled at this!" She elbowed Ayame in the side. "He's doing almost as good as you were!"

Ayame rolled her eyes. "Yes, he's doing fine, what do you want me to say?"

Olivia sighed, shaking her head. She turned to Alcea, making a face that said "geez, can you believe this woman?"

Alcea shook her head.

Blake snagged a few more flags. He was keeping great pace with Sango and Marion. But there was still the issue of Sango being well ahead of him in points. He couldn't just tie with her; he had to do better if he wanted to make it to the next round.

Andy huffed. She was falling behind. It wasn't fair! She was great at stuff like this, if only the others weren't so good, too!

"Hiyahoo!" She cheered, punching the air. Even when she was behind in a game, she refused to let negativity swallow her. "Come on, Pewpa! Let's do this thing!"

She turned back to her Rellor, who was running right behind her. His mud ball had practically turned into a ball of sand by this point, almost doubling in size as he ran beside her and gathered up flags for the team.

Then he started to glow.

"What the heck?" Lila shielded her eyes. "Another one?! That's the third evolution today!" She didn't even pretend to be surprised at what was happening at this point; it was just an annoyance to her, and she had no intention of playing it up for the cameras.

"Why's it evolving now, though?" Darla asked curiously. "That Treecko evolved into Grovyle due to exerting itself on a jump, and Mankey evolved into Primeape after using all of his strength in the Block Smash. But all that Rellor's been doing is running around the whole time."

"And that's enough," Leanne said.

"Seriously?" Lila and Darla both looked at the professor like she was talking crazy. But Leanne was deadly serious.

"Seriously," she confirmed with a nod. "Rellor are a very unique pokemon. They evolve by running around with a trainer, gathering up materials for their balls of mud. It's said that when they reach a certain number of steps and their ball is big enough, having gathered enough debris, that they evolve. I've never seen it happen myself, though!"

She leaned in intently, observing the glow emanating from Pewpa. It seemed to be coming from the ball instead of from him, in fact.

Andy stood off to the side, watching with amazement as her pokemon began to evolve. She couldn't fight the tears welling up in her eyes.

"That's amazing, Pewpa! Hiyahoo!" She cheered with glee. "You're finally evolving! I just knew it would happen sooner or later!"

The light around Pewpa faded, and he revealed his new form to the audience. To everyone's relief, he was no longer pushing a ball of questionable substance across the ground.

Instead, the ball was floating in the air, and he was floating along with it. The material that made up his new ball was hard to discern. It seemed to be a strange magenta-pink color, and pulsed with psychic power. Pewpa himself was suspended with psychic power as well, having taken on a shiny new color scheme of his own. His scales had turned blue, and long white hairs extended out of the area below his face, curling into a strange-looking moustache that resembled a pair of wings, or perhaps horns, it was hard to say.

But what wasn't hard to say was the fact that Andy had just added a powerful new weapon to her arsenal.

"Rabsca," Pewpa hissed, narrowing his eyes. He flew forward, juggling the massive ball with his hind legs, while snatching up flags left and right using his newly-freed front legs. Andy was stunned for a moment, but then she cracked a wide grin.

"Hiyahoo!" The dark-haired girl cheered, running after her newly-evolved bug. "That's great, Pewpa! With this, we'll totally be able to grab enough flags to win!"

"Another one, huh?" Sango mumbled under her breath. She'd been competing to test Blake, but it seemed like her serious opponents were the other two girls.

Truth of the matter was, everyone had used their different strategies to gather roughly the same number of flags. It was honestly anyone's game at this point.

"This isn't good," Olivia said, frowning. She'd expected that, due to his speed, Blake would easily be able to pull ahead of the others. But she never could have seen that Andy's pokemon would suddenly evolve, getting a boost to his energy, and she had severely underestimated the skill and stamina of Sango and Marion.

At this rate, she wasn't sure if Blake would be able to get enough flags to win.

"Um, Aya, could you tell me how many flags does Blake need in order to win?" She asked, glancing warily at her friend. "I'm just curious."

Ayame sighed. "Well, right now, Blake's in second place on the board with 271 Athlete Points. In the meantime, Sango is in the lead, with 286 Athlete Points. Each flag is worth 3 Athlete Points. What that means is that, assuming Blake gets the most flags somehow, he'll need to capture five more flags than Sango just to tie things up. If he wants to win, he needs to get at least six more than her."

Olivia winced, taking another look at the board. Blake and Sango both had the same number of flags.

Andy – 25 flags

Blake – 23 flags

Marion – 26 flags

Sango – 23 flags

"So what you're saying is that there's a fairly good chance that Blake's going to lose this round, then?" She asked.

Ayame nodded. "It's unfortunate, but that's a very good possibility at the moment."

Olivia didn't like the sound of that.

"In that case, you should cheer for him."

Ayame and Olivia both turned towards the unexpected source of that statement. It was Alcea, and she'd said it without taking her eyes off the battlefield.

"Cheer for him," she repeated. "If you cheer for Blake, there's no way that he'll lose."

Ayame's jaw dropped and her face turned bright red.

Well, this is certainly a pickle! Blake's falling behind, and needs to beat Sango's score by at least six flags in order to win! Can he do it? The odds don't look great for him. But at the same time, maybe Alcea is onto something. Ayame cheering for him could be exactly what he needs to pick himself up and give it his all! It certainly couldn't hurt. But will she do it? We'll have to find out!