When Skyla's parents left the scene, the teacher was speechless, and Elesa more so. But she eventually broke out of the stupor, and looked at the adult with accusing eyes.

"Are you gonna find her?"

"Don't worry about that," he told her. "You head home, Elesa. You wouldn't want your parents to get worried, too."

She nearly scoffed at the idea. Her parents did not quite care for her like they used to. They were too wrapped up in their own complacency to notice their own child, or worry about her at least. From time to time they would give half hearted lectures about returning home on time, but she knew that if she stayed out all day, they would be none the wiser.

Nor would they be the most concerned individuals on the planet. Their parenting methods switched rapidly from being a once-strict dictatorship, to a more mellow oligarchy—such that they hardly reprimanded their daughter with the same force as they used to. They had given up on her in a sense, and stopped their harsh treatments from before. She was no longer starved or held accountable for what she ate everyday. They let her buy her own clothes and hang out with her own friends, but part of them knew that Elesa would not stray from their teachings despite this new freedom. After all, it took some years to ingrain those sensibilities in her—it would take some years for her to weed them out.

In that regard, she knew that her parents need not be involved. In fact, they were both probably busy with work right now—her mother's job as a coordinator in a modelling agency, for one, took a lot of her time away. She was hardly seen around the house at reasonable hours, too. They won't care, she insisted. I'll be fine.

"Don't worry about me," Elesa said aloud. "Worry about Skyla, maybe."

"I am worrying about her. I didn't know she didn't return home right away—I should have called or something." He sighed, and looked up to the skies. "But she's only twelve. Where could she possibly wander off to?"

Elesa shrugged, and adjusted the straps on her backpack. Then she averted her gaze from her teacher, and looked towards the darkening sky. The last remnants of daylight disappeared, and she sighed.

"Beats me," she said halfheartedly.

...

Elesa ended up going home, anyway. Had she known Skyla better, then she probably would have set out after her. But the truth was that she still hated Skyla and never got to know her as a person. In this situation, Elesa was nearly as useless as her own parents were.

Yet she did not want to return home, either. Even though she was already halfway through the return route, and in five or ten minutes she would be in front of her two-story house—where the outside was ridiculously plain and the inside was full of designer furniture and strewn clothes—she did not want to go home. She did not want to see the two adults who called themselves her parents, either.

At this point, going after Skyla would be a better option. Elesa looked up to the sky in thought.

The dark blues of the atmosphere reminded her of Skyla, and stabs of regret resonated in her core. Should she have left her alone to wallow in her own self pity? Should she have stopped her, somehow? Or at the very least, should she have gone for the teacher to do something as soon as he could? Would either of those actions changed the course of fate?

Elesa did not know, either way. But it frustrated her still. To think that the person she hated the most ended up being the only one she sort of cared about was nothing short of ironic. And if Skyla was to go missing—or worse, die—then Elesa truly would stay at the top of her world, with no possible way of going down.

She would be the queen. She would rule over everyone. But at what cost? She finally wondered about the consequences of her actions. At what cost? Is it worth it?

Of course, she was only twelve at the time, so to get what she ultimately wanted was absolutely worth it, no matter the cost. Yet it obviously was the wrong choice, but satisfaction and validation was just so important to her. She had stepped over others and crushed their desires for her own in that process. Was that not cruel of her, she wondered? Was that not unfair? Yes, cruelty could go too far and she supposed that she was crossing that line.

But more than likely, she crossed that line long ago.

With the sudden thought of amendment popping up in her mind, Elesa remembered something from the past. When eavesdropping on Skyla previously, she learned that the redhead loved going to high-up places like cliffs and skyscrapers, and admired the views she saw when she was up there.

"My favorite place," Skyla had once said, "is the ferris wheel in Nimbasa City. It's sort of faraway, but it's worth it. Of course, it closes at nighttime, so I settle for the next best thing."

And "the next best thing", Elesa realized, was someplace that would not be closed to the public, no matter how dark it got. It would be a place that anyone could have access to, even a twelve year old like Skyla.

With that thought in mind, Elesa turned on her heels, and headed in the opposite direction of her home. Even if they lived on the outskirts of Castelia City, every native of Unova knew that one place in their region towered over all the others.

That place was Skyarrow Bridge. It was a breathtaking site, somewhere where you could see Castelia City, the Royal Unova, and the blue sea in one second. It was so high that they had to build an underpass for the pedestrians' sake. It was a place where a person could really run and be free—a place where they could really fly.

And no one loved flying more than Skyla. So, despite not knowing her that well, Elesa figured that Skyla's whereabouts were at Skyarrow Bridge. She just knew it. With all of her weak resolve, she headed south of Castelia, towards the exit that would lead to the bridge and ultimately lead to the biggest meeting of Elesa's life.

The exit that would lead to her destiny.

...

It was late into the night by the time Elesa arrived at Skyarrow Bridge. Despite such dark hours, there were a lot of people and pokemon out, and none of them gave Elesa a second glance as she ran past them, and went towards the middle of the bridge where she started screaming.

"Skyla!" She called her name out properly, for the first time in a long time. "Skyla?" She half-yelled, half-asked herself. Oh God, she thought, what am I doing here?

"Go away, Elesa!"

Elesa blinked, hearing her name being called from a faint corner somewhere. The faint edges of despair that the words took on were so familiar, yet so foreign. But she knew who spoke those words, she knew who she would find on the bridge. Then, she saw her. She saw Skyla.

And Skyla was somewhere that Elesa could never predict her to be. She was on the other side of the bridge, on that precarious edge that spelled life or death for whoever was standing on it. In this case, the clear image of a young, twelve year old girl was seen on that edge. The wind was whipping her hair in all sorts of directions, and her hands were clutching the wires of the bridge for dear life. But it was just terrifying and scary to know that there was nothing separating Skyla from the deep, dark oblivion below them.

There was nothing stopping her from jumping. There was Elesa, of course, but she would be too slow to stop her. She was always slower than Skyla was.

And Elesa finally realized this. As Skyla was perched on the unsafe side of the concrete bridge, Elesa finally realized something. This world they lived in was not Elesa's exclusively. No matter how hard she tried to make it so, no matter how much she wanted it to be so, it would never be hers entirely—she was but a small piece of the picture.

The same went for Skyla. She was such a bright and charismatic girl, Elesa figured that whether she liked it or not, Skyla would become big in the future. She would be the sunniest girl they had ever seen, and maybe she would even be the best female pilot around. She and her tranquill could do tricks all they wanted, and they would wave from propeller airplanes at adoring crowds and do loops in the sky.

That, and so much more, was waiting for them, surely. But none of it would matter if Skyla did what Elesa feared she would do. It all depended on whether or not the red-headed girl in front of her jumped off the bridge.

Elesa felt sick. She sauntered forward, and mindlessly made her way across the safe railings. She managed to be only inches away from Skyla as they both faced uncertainty. The wind was stronger on this side of the bridge, and her pale fingers clenched onto the wires dangling behind her. Her blitzle was long since confined to its pokeball, but she feared for it as the water below them swelled and splashed darkly, as if in tandem with their unsteady heartbeats.

Elesa gulped. "Why are you here, Skyla?"

"Why are you here, Elesa?" she rebounded. Her eyes were narrowed, but evidently tired from the redness that formed there. Her normally strong, thick legs were wavering with the cold night, and surely her lips were quivering, too. But she continued on like none of this applied to her, and the ferocity in her voice was enough to make Elesa cry. "Why are you here?"

"I don't know!" Elesa shouted back at her. "But this is dangerous! Don't stand here, just go back to the other side!"

"I don't want to," Skyla insisted, turning her gaze away. "I'm tired of listening to everyone. I'm gonna do what I want for a change."

"What are you talking about?" Elesa demanded. She stepped closer to her—but barely so as any movement teetered her body and she was afraid she would fall before she could finish what she wanted to say. The frenzy in her body and mind was beginning to take place, and she stuttered out a pathetic inquiry as a follow-up.

"W-What do you mean?"

"You always made fun of me, so I never thought you would be here with me right now." Skyla simply said, ignoring Elesa's questions. "You're the last person I ever thought I would see here."

"I only made fun of you because I couldn't stand you!" Elesa justified, as if that justification made sense to begin with. "You're always so smiley and bright and, and perfect! I hated it!"

"Ha," Skyla laughed dryly. "Oh, gosh, Elesa. I knew you were always full of it, but I didn't know it was this bad." Her eyes locked with Elesa's again—cold ice met the warm sky—and she stared hard. "You thought I was perfect. But I know myself better than anyone."

The wind was blowing harder now. Elesa's designer scarf flew off her neck, and fell into the water below. She did not care. She only stared at the girl in front of her, speechless and clueless. Skyla continued.

"My parents, they...I'm never good enough for them. They put me in a good school, but nothing I do ever makes them happy." She sounded sad, distant, and strange. Elesa kept thinking to herself that this could not be. This morose, miserable person in front of her could not be Skyla. These imperfections and agonies in her voice were not Skyla's.

You're not Skyla.

"But," Skyla hesitated, moving her gaze to the oblivion below them. "I know it's my fault when I let them down. It's always my fault. No matter how much I try..."

"..."

"So, I just wanted to escape for a little bit...that's all. I didn't want this. But I couldn't help it. You and your friends always made fun of me, too. I just felt bad all the time. Nothing I did made me happy anymore."

"Well, I'm sorry." Elesa apologized. The words felt foreign and weightless on her tongue. She almost did not believe she was the one to speak those words to begin with. "I'm sorry."

"Me too," Skyla muttered. "But now you know. I'm nothing but a failure, Elesa. I've never been perfect, so, um…"

"Um?"

"So, I just always wondered why you thought I was. What made you think I was perfect?"

"Nothing ever bothered you!" Elesa yelled. "N-Nothing ever did...and everyone loved you, but you didn't even do anything. I try so hard, y'know. I want them to notice me. I've been trying so hard but then you just…came out of nowhere..."

"Well, whatever it is," Skyla said, a bit confused by Elesa's words, "whatever it is, you're wrong about me. Okay? You're wrong."

The girls tensed up, and Elesa was unsure of what to do now. The wind was at her face, and the bridge was at her back. The endless water was beneath her feet, the blackened sky above her head. Skyla was at her side, but they were not sided together. These facts piled on top of one another, like bricks lining up to make a house that trapped Elesa inside.

She was very much trapped inside, yet she could do little about it. Skyla seemed to notice this, and could not help but smile. Even in situations like these, she still found time to smile.

And, in one fast and incomprehensible moment, Elesa watched everything unfold before her eyes. Skyla, in a movement that was half-graceful, half-awkward, twisted her body around so she faced the inside of the bridge. She stretched out her arms, and then loosened them, releasing her hold on the wires completely.

She was a blurred image of red and brown as she fell off the bridge. And Elesa stood still for a few seconds before she realized what had happened. Then, as if electrocuted by blitzle itself, Elesa jolted forward, and thoughtlessly dived off the bridge after Skyla.

Tears overflowed and her voice strained louder than it ever had before.

"Skyla!" She screamed. Her throat burned and her body felt cold—probably because she was falling and screaming and crying all at once. But she did not care about anything else, and was only able to repeat the same word over and over again.

"Skyla!"