Marion has somehow managed to convince not only Sango, but even Blake and Ayame to come out fishing with her. What dark sorcery is this?! People voluntarily going out to fish? Apparently, past Marion was a lot more persuasive than present Marion. Or perhaps she just hasn't built up enough of a reputation yet to drive people away. But whatever the reason, it's clear that Marion is definitely giving it her all to have fun fishing. Hopefully Blake will give it his all in whatever it is he needs to do in the past. And how is Ayame involved in this?

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: Yeah, you're right. They're really adorable. You have to admit it.

Tambry96bj: Yes. That she is. She's a shy tomboy who went through way more bullying than either of those girls did.

Hyphenman: Yeah, that's how a stable time loop works. Which is the only time loop I subscribe to, personally. Sango always went back to the past, and always inspired Marion to cut her hair. These events always happened.

Pokemon Academy: Beginning of Beginnings

Chapter 1344

"Here we are!" Marion stood before the river. One hand was on her hip, while the other held her fishing pole over her shoulder. She turned to Sango with a smile on her face. "Well, Claire, are you ready to get to fishing?"

"I-I sure am!" Sango said, forcing a smile onto her face. It wasn't like she had anything against fishing; of course she didn't. Fishing with Marion was actually something she'd grown to enjoy, even if the other girl was a little more passionate about it than she would prefer.

She was just confused about what she should do moving forward. Ultimately, they were here to fulfill a mission; there was a reason Blake had been brought back in time, and she should be trying to assist him somehow, if possible.

It wasn't like Ryoko had sent her back in time just so that she could pal around with her buddy and go fishing, right? That would be crazy.

And yet, judging by the smile on Marion's face, that seemed to be exactly what the fishing enthusiast wanted. For Sango to hang around and go fishing all the time.

Sango turned to Blake, to see what his thoughts on the matter were; and immediately she regretted it, because Blake was being a complete tool. He was talking to Ayame, smiling like an idiot, while the tomboy was writing stuff down in her notebook and nodding along where she could.

It looked all nice and sweet and wholesome and it made Sango want to throw up. But she composed herself. There was no point in losing her cool about this.

Even if it irritated her that Blake got to make eyes at the past version of his girlfriend while she was stuck here with the fishing queen.

"Okay! Let's get started then!" Marion turned to Blake and Ayame. "Ayame, this is your first time! Do you need help showing you how to cast a line?"

"It's, uh, my first time, too," Blake lied. "Can you show me how to cast a line?" Well, it wasn't exactly a lie. He had gone fishing before. Several times in fact. But he didn't really know much about fishing, since he'd been focused more on Ayame those times.

A little help was always a good thing.

And if he got to hang around Ayame while Marion showed them what to do? Well, that was just a bonus.

Sango rolled her eyes as Marion showed Blake and Ayame how to set up their fishing poles. She turned to the water and cast in her line.

"Okay Silver, we're ready to- …oh. Right…" Sango turned her head only to see that her trusty Castform was nowhere to be seen. Suddenly, she felt very alone.

"Hey, what's up Claire? Why so down?"

Sango flinched and nearly dropped her fishing rod into the water.

"M-Marion!" She sputtered, staring at the green-haired girl. "What are you doing here? What… er, it's nothing, I just… I was just thinking…"

Marion shook her head. "Nope! No way, no how! I know that look! That's the look of a lonely little girl if I ever saw one!"

"L-Lonely?" Sango stuttered. "I-I'm not lonely, it's just… my pokemon…"

She caught herself. What was she going to say? "Hi, I'm a student in the Ranger Course, but my Partner Pokemon is three years in the future, sleeping in bed"? Oh, yeah, that would go over well. No, pokemon was a topic that Sango needed to avoid like the plague at the moment, since she didn't have any. Hopefully Marion would let the topic go, and-

"So, what pokemon do you have, anyway?" Marion asked curiously. "I don't see any pokeballs on your belt."

…Damn it. Fucking damn it.

"Um, yeah, about that… so, when it comes to pokemon, that is… I don't… have any?" Sango forced a smile to her face, but inwardly she was cursing herself. WHY?! WHY DID YOU HAVE TO TELL HER THE TRUTH?! WHY DID YOU NEED TO BE HONEST?!

No matter what Sango did, she just couldn't bring herself to lie to Marion. And that was going to cost her a lot.

Marion stared at her, clearly surprised by her statement. "…Well… that's okay!" She chirped. "No biggie!"

"…Hah?" Sango stared at her, surprised. That really should have gotten a bigger reaction. This was a school dedicated to training pokemon. Students were supposed to have pokemon, and Sango not having one should have been a lot more of a problem.

"There's another first-year, in one of my classes, Keya? He doesn't have any pokemon either," Marion laughed, waving her hand dismissively. "It's this whole thing, pretty complicated, I don't want to go into detail with it. But yeah, if you don't have any pokemon, that's a private 'you' thing, I don't want to pry or nothin'."

"Uh… yeah, thanks, then," Sango said, not sure what to say to that.

"So… is that why you're feeling lonely then?" Marion asked quietly. "Because you don't have any pokemon of your own?"

Sango nodded. That was close enough to the truth, anyway. She would have loved to bring Silver with her and see the look on his face when he met young Marion, but that wasn't on the table. So right now she'd pretend like Marion's idea was her issue.

That thought suddenly brought something frightening to her mind.

What if I never get back? What if I never see Silver again? Or dad? Or Elizabeth…

She paused.

Wait, what am I doing? I'm only three years behind them. Worst comes to worst, I wait it out for three years and then reunite with Silver again on the night I left like nothing ever happened. Phew. She sighed in relief, relaxing slightly. It would still be three years without Silver, but she could manage. Even if she was already feeling crippling loneliness.

"Are you sure you're feeling okay?"

Curse Marion and her uncanny perception of Sango's mood state. The fact of the matter was, no, she wasn't.

But she forced herself to smile, and said that she was.

"It's fine," Sango assured her. "I know I'll meet the right pokemon when I get the chance. I just have to keep my eyes open."

"That's the spirit!" Marion cheered, slugging Sango in the shoulder and nearly causing her to drop her fishing pole, much to her chagrin. But she ignored that, rubbing her shoulder slightly and turning back to the water.

"You know, there are lots of fish pokemon in the sea," Marion continued. "You can go catch whichever ones you want!"

Her face lit up with glee and Sango could already guess what she was about to suggest.

"You could maybe even fish up 'the one' right here!" She exclaimed, her blue eyes lighting up with excitement. "Just think about it! Fishing up your very first little fishy friend!" Marion squirmed with glee, barely able to contain herself. Sango just rolled her eyes.

"No, that's fine," she said, shaking her head. "I'm just fishing for fun right now. Catch and release, you know what I mean."

Marion blinked. "Oh… well, that's just fine, too! Better, even! We just get to sit by the river and have fun, fishing up friends, and saying goodbye!"

Sango nodded. That was exactly the kind of break she needed; it was almost like a return to normalcy, in a way. She had been thrown back in time, and become a stranger in a strange land. There was no one who knew who she was or what her circumstances were besides Blake. But somehow, against all odds, she had found herself fishing with Marion again, as if nothing had changed between them in the slightest.

Marion didn't even know her real name, and she was still treating Sango like an old friend. And that made the blonde girl's heart feel soothed immensely.

"I'm surprised though," Marion piped up. "It's a little uncommon, being in your situation."

What situation? You mean trapped in the past and forced to go through something vague to get back, only to find myself fishing with my friend from three years in the past? Yeah, you're right, that's pretty darn uncommon. Sango didn't even know what to say to that. She just shook her head. "Yeah, I suppose it is."

"What I mean, is having fun fishing catch-and-release style," Marion explained. "Only the diehards like me really enjoy something like that! You must love fishing a lot, huh?"

"…You could say that," Sango said, laughing. "See…"

This should be okay to tell, right? She considered what she was going to say after a brief hesitation. But ultimately she decided that not only was this okay, it was the only acceptable course of action. So she pressed ahead.

She wanted to convey to this girl just how important fishing was to her, and how a certain someone had shown that to her.

"One of my best friends… back home, where I'm from, she loves fishing as much as breathing," Sango said, carefully considering her words. "It's almost impossible to drag her away, you know? If it was up to her, she'd just be fishing all day."

"Oh, yeah, I totally get that!" Marion chortled. "That must be why you get along so well with em, huh Claire?"

Claire. That's right. My fake name. I had almost forgotten.

This wasn't some conversation between Sango and her friend Marion. Marion had no idea who Sango even was. This was a converstion between Marion and her friend Claire, who she had just met earlier this morning.

Marion was so easy to get along with, sometimes you found yourself forgetting that she wasn't already your best friend.

"This girl… she helped me out a lot, in my life," Sango said quietly. Her voice turned solemn and she gazed out across the slowly-moving river, watching the tiny shadows of fish swim by. Or maybe they were just reflections on the water. She couldn't be sure.

"She was the one who taught me how to fish. She said a bunch of stuff about how it was for my own benefit and how I it would be great for me to relax, but honestly? I think she really just wanted even one more friend to share in her favorite thing, you know?" Sango turned back to Marion to see what the other girl thought about the story so far, and she wasn't disappointed.

Marion seemed to be hanging on every word.

"Does she go to school here?" Marion asked curiously. That was a bit of a loaded question, but Sango was more than prepared to answer it.

"She's older," she replied, artfully dodging Marion's curiosity by letting her assume that she was talking about a girl who was significantly older than them, old enough to not be in school.

That didn't count as a lie, right?

"But anyway, as I was saying, she showed me how much fun fishing can be. Especially when you're doing it with someone else. So now, whenever I get lonely… I go to the water and cast out my fishing pole. Not even to see what's biting, but because it helps me feel closer to her. And it helps me feel like I'm not alone."

Marion really looked like she was going to cry now. She nodded in understanding.

"I totally get it," she said, sniffling. "And I agree! That's so sweet! I would love to meet this friend of yours someday!"

"I think she'd like to meet you, too," Sango said, stifling a laugh. Then a shiver ran down her spine. What horrendous image has she nearly conjured into being? The thought of there being two Marions was not something that should occur in the mind of a rational adult.

"Well… I know how you feel, to be honest." Marion's words came after a pause so long Sango thought for a second that the conversation was over. She turned and looked at her friend curiously, wondering what she was saying.

"Huh?" Sango asked, confused.

"See, the reason I fish… it's because I'm lonely, too," Marion confessed.

Sango stared at her in amazement.

"Are… are you serious?" She asked.

"I don't look it, do I?" Marion chuckled, flashing a pleasant smile. "But the truth is? When I was a little girl, well… some stuff happened. It's not stuff I like to talk about, but suffice to say, my childhood wasn't all smiles and trips to the beach."

Sango nodded. Marion had no way of knowing this, but she'd actually heard all this before. Or, well, later.

Whatever. You know what she meant.

Time travel was a bitch that way.

"When I was finally free to pursue my own goals, I realized… I still felt very sad and lonely," Marion murmured. Her present voice sounded pretty sad and lonely as well, much to Sango's chagrin. In fact… those sparks in the corner of her eye…

Wait, is Marion… crying? Again, Sango was so shocked her fishing pole nearly slipped from her fingers. The thought that Marion could be crying actually left her stunned. This was a girl who would throw tantrums if she was told she wasn't able to fish, sure, but in that regard, she wasn't exactly the kind of person who would outright cry in such a public way like this.

Marion clutched her pole with her knees and one hand, bringing up the other to wipe the tears from her eyes.

"Sorry, I'm bringing the mood down, aren't I?" She giggled, but Sango didn't hear a lot of levity in her voice. She looked sympathetically at Marion, who tried to smile back at her.

"It's just… when I'm not fishing… it's easy for me to remember those hard times," Marion murmured. "But when I come back here, to the water… when I cast my line, and it's just me and my fishy friends, I feel like… I don't know. Like I'm where I belong. Like everything is going to work out for the better. You know what I mean?"

Sango nodded. She could completely understand where Marion was coming from, especially since she knew all the hardships that the poor girl had gone through to get this far.

"You know what Marion? You're right," Sango said, nodding. "Everything IS going to work out for the better."

"I know, right?" Marion laughed. Sango just sighed. She still wasn't getting it.

"Hey, have you ever considered making some friends?" Sango asked quietly.

"Making… friends? Well, of course!" Marion rolled her eyes like that was the most obvious thing in the world. "I have tones of friends, why?"

"When I say friends, I don't mean people you wear down until they agree to go fishing with you," Sango replied. "But someone who you could hang out with and go shopping, for example. A person just there to share your friendship with you."

Sango felt a stab of pain in her heart as she imagined all her friends, and the pain that they might go through if Sango and Blake never made it back to the future.

"Hmm… well, I don't really enjoy those things," Marion admitted. "I'm much more the kind of person who enjoys going fishing! But if you like shopping and all that, then Olivia's the girl to go to, not me. You know?"

"Ah, that's right, speaking of shopping, that's another thing," Sango added. "Olivia? Look, she seems like a nice girl-"

"Oh, she's the best!" Marion chirped. "I absolutely love her! One time-"

"Wait, wait, let me finish." Sango held up her hand. "Is Olivia a great girl? Yeah, sure she is. But the thing is, Marion… she's not your friend. And I really doubt she's ever going to be your friend."

What was she doing? Was she actually trying to crush Marion's hopes of getting her roommate to join her on a fishing expedition at some point? Even if Sango did know how the timeline was going to go (which she did) that didn't necessarily make what she just did write.

But Marion waved that off.

"Nah, it's fine, I totally get it," she accepted. Then she flashed Sango a toothy smile. "But don't think for a second that I'm going to give up!"

She threw back her head and cackled like a lunatic. "No, that girl will end up going fishing with me, mark my words!"

While Marion was saying that, Olivia was on a nice date with a very cute girl. And she was an older student, too, a sophomore or maybe a junior. Whatever she was, she was someone Olivia desperately wanted to get to know better.

But just as she was about to ask the other girl about her hobbies and what course she was working towards, a shiver ran down her spine.

Olivia suddenly had a very bad feeling that something was going to go wrong.

I would trust that instinct, Olivia. And who knows? Maybe she does end up fishing with Marion after all! That would be quite something! And while the last chapter focused a lot on Blake and Ayame acting cute, this chapter's all about Sango and Marion and the two hitting it off. It's really easy to see why they're such close friends, even when separated by time nothing can stop them from immediately bonding with each other. That's real friendship.