"Oh? Well, this is a surprise. Hello there!" Sylvia greeted, waving her hand. "So, look, I know that you guys were all hyped for the tournament and everything, but come on. It's the 500th chapter, we're not going to do something so boring and predictable like beginning a tournament. So I thought 'hey, since the author doesn't have anything special planned, I might as well take over and handle things myself!' So what do you think? Bear with me, this chapter's certainly going to be an interesting one!"

With a wink, she moved onto the reviews.

Aquahaze675: Well, I would hope I was a lot of fun. I mean, it's so enjoyable watching Will squirm, especially since Misato doesn't know how to describe what she's feeling. And trust me, she's feeling something. The thought that a mechadoll is incapable of emotion? I refuse to accept such a boring outcome.

KedharS: …Nope! Sorry, but you just got little ol' me. But then, I'm a lot more fun.

…

"What? That's it? I only get to handle two reviews? But I had so much more shade to give," Sylvia pouted, crossing her arms in front of her chest. "The author really needs to get better at drawing people in, because this turnout is pretty pathetic. Well, there went my excitement. Get on with the chapter, I guess."

Pokemon Academy: Beginning of Beginnings

Chapter 500

Sylvia Driscoll sat in front of a roaring fireplace, drinking a nice, toasty mug of coffee while wrapped up snugly in a blanket. As usual, she was not where she was supposed to be. She had broken into the Snorlax Commons after-hours, and was taking good care of herself. It was important on evenings like this to practice self-care, after all.

"Would you like some coffee?" She offered her guest. "Or are you not able to drink? I'm not quite sure how the rules work, after all. Never been much of a fan."

"My existence does not require sustenance. But yes. I can drink just fine. Even so, no, thank you, I am not thirsty." Sitting across from Sylvia was Ryoko, a serious expression on her face.

"A pity," Sylvia sighed, swirling the coffee in her mug a little as she glanced into the murky black substance before raising her head to look back to Ryoko, smiling cheerily. "I believe I brewed this one quite well."

"Why did you call out to me?" Ryoko asked. "I cannot imagine that you had something to talk with me about. In my experience, planning such interactions does not go well. You would not even be able to know if you had met me before."

"Certainly I could," Sylvia said, leaning back in her chair and taking a sip. With her other hand she raised a sharpie and spun it around between her fingers, before pointing it at Ryoko's left hand.

"Hmm?" Ryoko glanced down at her sleeve and saw a smudge of black on her cuff. She gasped, glancing back at Sylvia. "You…"

"It would be inconvenient to keep guessing," Sylvia shrugged, setting her coffee mug down. "During our last conversation I made a little marking to make sure I knew which one of you was when."

"You tagged a time traveler."

"Makes things more convenient, no?" Sylvia smirked. Ryoko wiped the stain off with her hand.

"To hold such irreverence to the rules of time is really quite-"

"Oh, irreverence is my middle name," Sylvia snorted. "But that's not why I'm here. I'm here to talk about this."

Sylvia reached into her large black bag and pulled out a wooden flute, the same one Ryoko had given her on their last encounter.

Ryoko's eyes scanned the flute. She could feel the power coming off of it, telling her that Sylvia had not yet made use of its power.

"What is there left to talk about?" She asked diplomatically.

"You said that I could use this as I wished, did you not?" Sylvia asked. "But… that is not technically true, now is it?"

"Oh? Whatever could you mean?" Ryoko asked.

Sylvia sighed, the smile slipping off her face. She didn't like serious time.

"I'm not in the mood for games, little time traveler," she replied. "And I'm not as gullible as everyone else. I'm talking about my free will, or more specifically, my lackthereof."

"Nonsense. You, like all humans, certainly possess free will," Ryoko replied. "As the guardian of time I guarantee it absolutely."

"Oh, no no no," Sylvia said, waggling her finger from side to side. "That's not how any of this works, and you know it. I'm quite well-versed in time-space theory."

She reached into her bag a second time, this time retrieving a notebook.

"Are you aware of the move 'Future Sight'?" Sylvia asked. "What am I saying, of course you are, then you must know about the pokemon 'Xatu' as well as the paper that Professor Skye wrote detailing her updated analysis of the historical theory of 'Reflexive Temporal Observation?"

"I do not have much time for reading," Ryoko replied.

Sylvia smirked. She reached back into her bag, and took out a massive file. She unfolded a set of glasses and placed them on.

"Well, that's all fine, I brought it with me. There's something that you might find very interesting, especially when she gets to the visual resources section."

Sylvia began flipping through the massive paper, before stopping at a page that was a photograph of an ancient mural. It depicted strange pokemon with eyes and black protrusions floating in the sky, above a row of bird-like pokemon with large wins spread out and their heads turned sideways, a single eye like the ones above staring out.

"So right here, this is one of the pictures she took from an expedition in the Ruins of Alph. That's in Johto Region, by the way, though of course you knew that, and it's talking about the ancient pokemon-worshipping people, the People of Alph. Lookie, see, she mentions how the People of Alph believed in these creatures called 'the Unown', and how they would gather around another special pokemon for certain ceremonies. She details those ceremonies here, of course, and they're all about Xatu."

Sylvia glanced up, studying Ryoko's face for any clues. But Ryoko didn't spare a single blink for her consideration.

I suppose a time traveler would have a significant amount of time to work on practicing her poker face, Sylvia admitted. She wouldn't get anything out of THAT.

"I have heard of the Ruins of Alph," Ryoko admitted. "And of the pokemon Xatu. But I fail to see what that has to do with me. Those pokemon can merely see into the future. Whereas I-"

"Yes, yes, blah blah, time travel, wibbly-wobbly, can't reveal because of the Butterfree effect, yadda yadda, bored now," Sylvia yawned. "You'll also note that the professor reached an impasse in her journey to deciphering the mysteries in the Ruins of Alph. There were a few puzzles that, with all her brains, she just couldn't crack."

Sylvia turned the page, indicating to more pictures. A series of bizarre tablets on a pedestal, as well as ancient symbols carved into special plaques on the walls that seemed to have no discernible meaning to them.

"And?"

"Well, I thought 'that's no fun, all that and we don't even get the whole story'? So over winter break I went on a liiiiittle trip through the Kanto-Johto area. You know how it goes, help a few sick girls in hospitals, pick up a pink-haired hitchhiker walking through the snow, break into a log cabin to watch a cute guy while he's sleeping, explore some ancient ruins, just the usual stuff," Sylvia shrugged. "And when I got to the Ruins of Alph, well… I didn't get what all the fuss was about, honestly. The paper played it up like some big mystery, 'how do we decipher the hidden clues of the ruins' but in the end it was just so boring and predictable."

Ryoko's eyes widened.

"You mean you-"

"Honestly, a ten year old kid with a gameboy could have figured it out, and the top professor in her field was stumped? Of course, I figured it out immediately, because I'm a genius."

Sylvia took out her phone, and began scrolling through the pictures.

"Once I solved the puzzles, I opened up some interesting chambers. They were talking about all kinds of interesting stuff, pretty much the same stuff that Professor Skye wrote about in her paper, about how time can't really be changed, but there was one mural in particular I wanted to show you." Sylvia turned the phone around and set it on the table, maximizing the picture. It was similar to the last, but there was a large altar in the center of the picture, with light coming off of it.

"So, here we have the Xatu, same as in the other mural, and these little floaty things, I'm guessing they're the Unown. And what's this thing, right here? This symbol?" Sylvia pointed at a strange circle drawn above the altar. A small shape like a fairy with wings was in the center of it. "And this thing, right in the middle, what could that be? Maybe… a certain pokemon? I wonder which one…"

Sylvia stared up at Ryoko, taunting her. She turned her attention back to the mural.

"And right here… see right here? That figure, the one that looks like a human, standing in front of the altar, with the dress? Now, that's you? Isn't it? That's you!"

"What is your meaning in showing me this?" Ryoko asked.

"You've walked through time quite a lot, now haven't you?" Sylvia said, putting her phone away, her point made. "You've seen the future, and the past. And the fact that you've done that proves the theory of Temporal Reflexiveness."

"I do not understand your meaning," Ryoko lied.

"Well, think about it like this," Sylvia said, flipping open her notebook and drawing a long, thick line with her sharpie. "The past is like a long road behind us, yes? And now here we are at the present. But what about the future? A lot of people think that the future can go all sorts of ways, like a highway. Do I go this way? Or that way? Or maybe this way…" Sylvia was scribbling all over the paper.

"…But it's not. See, it can't be, and you're the proof of that, ain'tcha?" Sylvia chirped, looking back up at Ryoko. "See, for us, we assume that the past can't be changed, because, well, it's the past. Of course it can't. But all those time travel movies are like 'oh if you do this one thing, the past will be altered forever!' No. It's NOT like that. We think that it is because our base state is that 'the past can't be changed, but the future can.' That we have the free will to influence our own choices. So we imagine if we went back in time, our free will would influence our choices again, and we could change things. But that's not how it works, is it?"

Sylvia was right on the money, but Ryoko wasn't about to confirm or deny her theories. She knew this wasn't just blind theory-crafting, Sylvia had a larger point she was driving towards.

"See, you can go back in time. Because it is like a road. Back and forth. But you can't change anything, can you? As much as I wish it weren't so, we live in a world that operates on laws and rules. We can observe time in a linear fashion because we exist on a linear plane, but you can go back. And if you could change things, well… it would have happened by now, wouldn't it?"

Ryoko narrowed her eyes.

"So you can't change the past. But what about the future? Well, that's another story, now isn't it?" Sylvia mused. "…No. No, it couldn't be. Because for 'us' normal humans it's the future. But for you? Your own personal future is on a different track. If you jump to the year 1885 from right here, '1885' would be your future, even though that year is in our past. Which means that our future is your past, our entire timeline, in a manner of speaking, is your past. Would that be an accurate assessment?"

Sylvia took another sip.

"You can chime in whenever you wish."

"…Do I need to?" Ryoko asked. "It appears you are making great progress all on your own."

"Why, thank you," Sylvia smiled. "But as confident as I am in my reasoning, I would very much like for you to confirm it for me. If only for my own satisfaction."

"I understand that," Ryoko nodded, giving Sylvia a smile. "However, I am not interested in granting your 'satisfaction' as it were."

The two stared at each other in silence.

"Well, then I'll continue with my theory. Since, after all, all of time can be your past, then that means the future is as locked into place for us as our past, would that be right? You don't have to answer, of course. That's where the Reflexive Temporal Observation Theory comes into play. The future is myriad until it is manifest. Xatu can see flashes of the future with their eyes, hazy things, potentialities. But the moment they observe with clarity a scene from the future, that future becomes a certainty. It's a theory I think you know quite well."

Ryoko nodded. She'd had a similar conversation with Blake some time ago.

"From my position here at this table, the future could be whatever I wish it to be. I can fully control my path, even if that means…" Sylvia lifted the wooden flute off the table and held it towards the fire, judging Ryoko's reaction. Not even a twitch.

"I could throw it into the fire, if I wanted to," Sylvia said. "But you know I wouldn't. Or would I? Whether I would, or wouldn't, you would know. Because the future isn't myriad for you, time girl. You've seen the future, you KNOW what I'm going to do."

She sighed, giving Ryoko the sweetest smile in the world.

"And that just pisses me right the fuck off. In a sense, you're my antithesis, Ryoko, did you know that? You, who know what the future holds with certainty, not one of my decisions will catch you by surprise." Sylvia sighed again. "In fact, I hold a great deal of pity for you."

"Your pity is unneeded," Ryoko replied. She turned her attention to the flute. "Go on, then."

"That's why you gave this to me, isn't it?" Sylvia asked. "You knew from the start what I'm going to do with it. And it annoys me to hell."

"I do not, in fact," Ryoko replied. Sylvia blinked, surprised.

"Oh? Is that so?" Sylvia pulled her hand from the flames and leaned forward, resting her chin on her hands. "What do you mean?"

"Certainly there is a version of me who has observed those events you described. But at this time, I am not that person. I will become that person at a later point in my own timeline, but right now I know nothing but what must occur at this very point in time. I do not even know where I shall go next."

"Well now. That is interesting…" Sylvia mused. "As I said, I do pity you. All that power, and yet unable to do what you wish with it."

"And I said I have no need for pity from you," Ryoko replied.

"Now, to another matter," Sylvia mused. "I wanted to talk with you about another theory of mine. I like to call is the 'Void Paradigm'."

"Go on then," Ryoko said, retrieving her watch from her breast. "I still have time."

Sylvia flipped to a fresh page of her notebook.

"So as we've established, time is a straight line," Sylvia explained, drawing a vertical line up the page. "No matter what we may observe as humans, from the objective point of view of time as observed by one who exists outside of it, it resembles what in our three-dimensional minds we would observe as a two-dimensional line. We'll call this axis 'time'. Is that accepted?"

"Accepted," Ryoko nodded.

"And on that line, here we are," Sylvia said, tapping her marker on the line. "In the world WE can observe, a different plane. A different axis."

With a flick of her wrist, she drew another line that bisected the page, perpendicular to the first, creating a graph.

"On this axis, we can go wherever we want in a linear path while still traveling through time on a linear path. Let's call that axis 'space'. Accepted?"

"Accepted," Ryoko agreed again.

"So where time and space converge, this point?" Sylvia tapped the center of the graph, where the two lines overlapped. "That's where each person is at any given point. Their position in space and time. Accepted?"

"Accepted."

"But is that really it?" Sylvia wondered. "I mean, there's so much left here, you know?"

She lifted her pen, and tapped a blank section of the page, leaving a black dot.

"Like… what's this part? Right here, I wonder? I can't observe it, because it's not on the axis of space, or the axis of time. Can you?" I mean, there has to be SOMETHING there, right? But it's not space, and it's not time, so what is it?" Sylvia wondered.

Ryoko could understood her theory. But in spite of her knowledge of time, she did not know all the secrets of the universe.

"At this time I am not capable of determining what exists outside of space and time," Ryoko explained. "I am sorry I could not be more informative."

She wasn't.

"No you aren't," Sylvia snorted. "But that's fine. Call it… a curiosity. An enigma, a distortion in the fabric of the universe. I find myself often occupied by such things."

She closed her notebook and put it into the bag. Ryoko moved to rise, but Sylvia reached out and placed a hand on her arm.

"Oh, one more thing I wanted to speak with you about, Ryoko. I'm sure you must know what it is."

Ryoko did, but she did not like to think about it.

"So you may have heard, I'm going out on a date with Blake Harker tomorrow," Sylvia cooed.

"You mean you are facing him in a pokemon battle."

Sylvia shrugged, her eyes twinkling behind the lens of her glasses.

"Sure. But I was wondering, someone like you, who cares for Blake so much, someone so concerned for his happiness, is there anything you can tell me? I mean, I know that the two of you have such a… special relationship, after all. It couldn't hurt to ask."

Ryoko narrowed her eyes into a glare.

"I have nothing to say to you on the matter of Blake Harker."

"Oh, you don't? Well, that's no fun," Sylvia pouted. But it wasn't disappointment she was expressing with those eyes of hers, and Ryoko could see it.

Sylvia let go of Ryoko's arm, leaning back and staring up at the high ceiling of the dusky dining hall, tapping her chin in mock contemplation.

"So, if I were to speak with him about certain… things that I know, you would be fine with that? I have a wide range of topics to discuss, so if you aren't willing to help me, I do suppose I'll have to come up with our small-talk all on my own… accepted?"

"I must be going now," Ryoko said. "I do not know what you expect me to say."

"Tomorrow morning, then?" Sylvia said, rising from her seat and coolly picking up the marker, twirling it between her fingers. "I'm sure a gal like you can make the time for me. And I'm sure you know what HAS to happen. So I'll be waiting for you. And if you don't show up, well…"

Sylvia shrugged, smirking.

"I guess Blake's enlightenment was just the course the future was meant to take, isn't that so?"

"If that is what must happen," Ryoko said, showing no hint of emotion.

"Well, let's just leave you a little reminder," Sylvia said, popping the cap off. She reached up and drew a little heart on Ryoko's cheek. Ryoko wasn't amused.

"See you again," Sylvia chirped, patting Ryoko on the head, sitting back down in her seat. Ryoko said nothing, turning and heading out onto the patio to travel the axis of time.

Sylvia nestled up snugly in her chair, draining out the last of her coffee before turning to the screen.

"Well, that wasn't quite what you were expecting, I know. But that's okay! I promise, we'll get right back to the tournament with the next chapter!" She smiled, waving to you cheerily.