With the conclusion of the mini-arc with Reed, we move onto the next arc of the story, and check in on someone we've been missing for a while now. Remember to review!

KedharS: And she will remain one.

RenMcCormack007: The narrative is quite interesting, don't worry about that.

The Harmonium: Very suspicious.

Pokemon Academy: Beginning of Beginnings

Chapter 803

Several years ago…

A tiny pokemon flew through the trees of Ilex Forest.

"Ariados! Spider web!"

Chasing after the pokemon were a group of people in black clothing, sending out Bug type pokemon to chase after it.

Golden hoops floated around the gray and pink pokemon. Like a genie escaped from a bottle it was trying to keep its freedom at any cost. It flung one of the hoops forward into the air, avoiding a blast of webs from the spider pokemon.

"Hoopa's trying to escape! Activate the device!"

The Hoopa flung itself at the portal opening up within the golden hoop, but before it could get through, the portal crackled and fizzled out. All that happened was Hoopa flew through an empty hoop; it was still in Ilex Forest!

"You can't get away now, can you?" One of the men stepped up to the Hoopa, a cruel smirk on his face. His Ariados crept towards the pokemon threateningly. The man held up a device. "The people at headquarters designed this specifically to shut down those little portals of yours. Now, there's nowhere to run!"

The other black suited grunts circled around the trapped Hoopa, forming a tight ring as they jeered at the pokemon.

"There's no choice now!" One grunt sneered.

"We've got you right where we want you!" Another cackled.

"With the power of those portals, Team Rocket will be have the power to rule over the entire world!" An especially visionary grunt proclaimed.

"And then we can use the portals to collect local delicacies from all over the world!" A golden-haired girl suggested.

"Yeah, that too!" Another grunt agreed. "Like Lava Cookies and Casteliacones and Shalour Sables and-huh?!"

Heads turned to see that a teenage blonde in a fancy black dress with white lace had joined the circle. She had an innocent smile on her face and waved.

"Hey there!"

"Who the heck is she?!" The head of the grunts shouted, narrowing his eyes. Hoopa looked at her, just as confused as the others.

"Who? Me? I'm Sylvia Driscoll!" The girl introduced herself. "I'm just passing through. I heard that Ilex Forest had some interesting pokemon, so I wanted to take a look. Don't mind me."

"Oh, really?" The man sneered. "Well, I suggest you get a move on, you don't want to interfere with the business of adults like us."

Sylvia blinked.

"Whaaaaaat? But this was just getting interesting! You guys are trying to capture that pokemon, right? Come on, let me watch!" She pouted.

"This isn't some peep show, girly! Why don't you go and play with your dolls?!" One grunt shouted at her.

Sylvia frowned. "I am playing with my dolls, thank you very much." Her finger danced from grunt to grunt. "…Six, seven, eight, nine of them! Look at how many dolls I have to play with!" She cheered, smiling with excitement.

The head grunt's eye twitched. He didn't know what was up with this girl, but he could tell when he was being mocked.

"This… isn't a game…" He growled.

"Is that why there are so many of you?" Sylvia asked, tapping her finger against her chin. "It takes nine trainers to catch one pokemon?"

"Hoopa isn't any ordinary pokemon!" One of the grunts shouted. "It's powers allow-"

"Shut up!" The head grunt snarled, silencing his loudmouthed associate with a harsh glare. "Don't tell her a damn thing!"

But it was too little, far too late. Sylvia's eyes were wide with excitement. "So you're saying it's a special pokemon? How exciting! Is that why you were tracking it with this thing?"

She held up the device, and the Team Rocket members gasped in shock.

"How did she-?!" The head grunt looked at his empty hand. Sylvia had swiped the device without anyone seeing a thing.

And the entire mood in the forest had changed. All the hostile grunts suddenly became a lot more amenable, their eyes filled with terror.

"H-Hey, come on now missy, that's not a toy," the head grunt gulped, reaching out a hand to it. "That's a very sensitive, very important piece of equipment."

Sylvia raised her eyebrow. "Oh?"

"Yes, now, just give it back, carefully…" the man inched closer to her. "It's a special prototype, making another one could take years, so just… be… careful… and give it here…"

The head grunt thought himself better than the standard Team Rocket fare. High on the road to becoming an admin someday. But when push came to shove he was like all the rest, blabbing about things that he really should keep his mouth shut about.

Sylvia smirked. "Now, do you know what you did wrong here, mister?"

He blinked. "Heh?"

"See, you let me get my hands on this super special device. And then, you told me that it was a super special device. And you know what I always get the urge to do whenever I'm holding a super special device?"

Sylvia smiled. The man smiled back.

She dropped the device on the ground and stomped it to pieces.

For a second, everyone froze.

"WHAT THE HELL?! SHE DESTROYED IT!" One of the grunts exclaimed.

"WHY YOOOOOUUUUU…!" The man roared. All of his hopes of a promotion were smashed to pieces with that device, they had no way to contain Hoopa now. "Do you have any idea what you've just done?!"

"Nope~" Sylvia chirped.

"Ariados! Rip that stupid brat to shreds!" He screeched, ordering his Ariados to attack.

"Ariados!" The bug scuttled forward and opened his mandibles, spitting needles at Sylvia. She dodged to the side, still smiling.

"Come on, boys," the head grunt growled. "This isn't a spectator sport!" A swarm of pokemon charged at Sylvia.

She rolled her eyes and held up a black pokeball.

"Higurashi, if you please?"

Sylvia sent out her pokemon, the small, hollow shell of a pokemon hovering in the air as Team Rocket's pokemon advanced.

"What's going on?!"

"Why aren't our attacks landing?!"

"What kind of pokemon is this?!"

Sylvia made quick work of them.

"Team Rocket grunts only use Poison and Normal types," she scoffed, recalling Higurashi to their pokeball as she looked over the carnage she had wrought, all of the unconscious pokemon. "How boring and predictable."

The head grunt ground his teeth together, seething. He clenched his fists, but he was helpless. All of his pokemon were unconscious, the device had been smashed, and Hoopa had long-fled, the portal fizzling out and disappearing in the sky.

All of this had been for nothing, all due to that stupid little girl.

"We're… We're pulling out…" he spat through his clenched jaw, the beaten and helpless grunts storming away from the clearing. "We have to go track it down again! Hoopa is probably miles and miles away from here by now!"

"Tell the other grunts what you saw here today!" Sylvia called after them, a big cheesy smile on her face. She waved.

When all was said and done, Sylvia was alone in the clearing. She stretched and yawned, and then turned to one of the trees.

"You can come out now," she said. "They're not coming back here any time soon."

Cautiously, the Hoopa peaked out from behind the tree, staring warily at Sylvia. She smiled back at it and waved.

"Don't worry, I'm not going to do anything to hurt you," she assured the pokemon. "I might think you're pretty impressive, being a super-rare pokemon and all, but that doesn't mean I have any interest in catching you."

"…Hoopa…" Hoopa cautiously approached her.

"You're pretty smart, huh? Pretending to teleport across the world, when really, you stayed close to the clearing," she laughed. "That's exactly what I would do, faking them out. Now they'll be looking for you everywhere but here. Pretty clever thinking, I applaud you."

"Hoopa!" Hoopa chirped, smiling proudly.

"Still, be careful," she warned them. "You never know, someone might just up and snatch you if you get reckless."

Hoopa nodded.

Sylvia cracked a smile. "Good. Now get outta here," she nodded to him. "Stick around Ilex Forest for a little while, then move on when it's safe."

"Hoopa," Hoopa nodded in agreement, flying off through the forest.

The Hoopa was barely gone when someone else entered the clearing.

"Well now. That was quite something."

Sylvia turned and looked over her shoulder, seeing a girl who looked even younger than she was. But her golden eyes betrayed a wisdom far greater than her physical age suggested, and the clothes she wore weren't common to this time and place, an old red dress over a fancy white blouse. Her hair was a light purple, and she had the scent of lavender, lilac, and mint.

"Do I know you?" Sylvia asked, raising her eyebrow.

"Perhaps this is the first time you have met me, although I may have met you some time ago," the woman said mysteriously. She bowed her head and curtsied. "My name is Ryoko. And you are Sylvia Driscoll."

Sylvia was moderately intrigued by this point. She thought she would remember if she'd met someone like this, and she definitely didn't.

"Well, hello there, Ryoko," she said, walking up to the girl. "Are you also looking for that pokemon? Hoopa? Sorry to spoil your plans."

Ryoko shook her head, showing Sylvia a wise smile. "Not at all," she said. "It is just the opposite, in fact. I am eternally grateful that you would see fit to help a pokemon such as that, with nothing in it for yourself."

Sylvia shrugged. "What can I say? I just had a passing fancy. What about you, miss? What are you doing here, if not looking for Hoopa? Nice boys and girls should be in their beds at this time of night, isn't that right?"

"I assure you, there is nothing you need to concern yourself about," Ryoko smiled. "However, I will say that this forest is where I belong. As a reward for your… altruism, rare as I know it to be, I suppose I could give you a small reward, of sorts."

She reached into her blouse and took out a golden watch, flipping it open. A flash of green streaked across the corner of Sylvia's eye and she turned her head, but it was gone. It continued circling around her and then came to a stop, hovering over Ryoko's shoulder.

Sylvia raised her eyebrow, surprised. Another pokemon she had never seen before. "Well, what do we have here?"

"This is Celebi, my partner," Ryoko explained. "Her duty is to guard the forest, and the pokemon within it. That is why we are here right now."

THAT got Sylvia's attention. While she didn't recognize the pokemon, she recognized the name. It was exactly the pokemon she had come here looking for, Celebi, the pokemon who could travel through time.

Ryoko recognized the look in Sylvia's eye, but she didn't make any move to escape. She didn't have to. She smiled instead.

"I see that you recognize the name."

"Celebi is the guardian of Ilex Forest," Sylvia agreed, nodding. "She's capable of traveling through time, is that right? And she's a friend of yours?"

"In a manner of speaking that would be correct," Ryoko said.

"So you know me from the future, right?" Sylvia had put the pieces together really damn fast. So Ryoko was some friend from the future? No, that wasn't right. Sylvia knew who she was, and she wasn't the kind of person who made friends. They were acquaintances of a different kind, then, though she wasn't sure what.

"In a manner of speaking," Ryoko said once again.

Sylvia smiled at the non-answer. She shrugged her shoulders. "Well then. Is there anything else you wanted? Or was this just a 'hey, nice to meet you, here's my pokemon capable of traveling through time, thank you for saving that pokemon' sort of greeting?"

Ryoko's smile gave nothing away. "I am here to observe you, and give you my greetings, yes," she confirmed. "Because it is important you understand the magnitude of what you have done here, Sylvia Driscoll."

"You're giving me far too much credit," Sylvia scoffed. "I saved that little guy on a whim. Nothing more. Perhaps next time, I will let him get captured, all on a whim of mine."

"Perhaps," Ryoko said. "We shall meet again, Sylvia Driscoll. I shall be watching your path with great interest."

"…My 'path'," she asked, a shadow crossing over her face. "So you mean to tell me that you know for a fact what happens in the future?"

"Of course," Ryoko agreed with a nod.

Sylvia didn't like the sound of that. "I suppose that's why we don't end up being friends, then," she sighed. "After all… I don't accept that my future is preordained, Miss Ryoko." She cracked a wicked smile.

"Whether you accept it or not does not matter," Ryoko said. "The truth is the truth. That is simply how it works."

Sylvia shrugged her shoulders again. She wouldn't accept the notion that nothing she did would ever matter, the idea that she couldn't change the future. Even hearing it from the words of a time traveler herself. It was as simple as that.

Ryoko checked her watch. There was nothing left to discuss. It was time to go. "The time has come for us to depart," she said simply. "I shall thank you again. You have my gratitude for saving Hoopa from Team Rocket."

The ground at Sylvia's feet flashed with a bright green light, an array tracing itself through the grass as Celebi began to glow. She circled over Ryoko's head, and the forest was flush with light, so strong Sylvia had to shield her eyes. The scent of lavender, lilac, and mint touched her nose, and when the light died down they were both gone.

"Well, that was certainly something," Sylvia said. She turned and headed towards the exit of the forest, interested in what the future would hold for her.

And in the future, Sylvia Driscoll awakened. She yawned, and stretched, getting out of bed and walking over to her dresser. Every morning, her routine was exactly the same. One of the very few sacrifices to consistency and predictability she made.

Sitting on the dresser was an experiment of hers. A flower that she had been tending to gently, ever since she returned from that strange world.

The flower was no ordinary flower. It wasn't normal water that it was tended to carefully with, no, it was a special sort of water. Water she'd brought over from the other side. But it wasn't the white water, or the black water, but a mixture of the two, shining silver.

She had wondered what she would find, from the flower. Would its stem grow gray like the water that had nourished it? That had been her first question, quickly answered by the bright green bud that burst out of the soil.

Her next question was about what would happen when it bloomed. What color would the flower be? She wasn't sure yet, but one thing she did know was that the flower was growing a hell of a lot faster than a normal flower should have.

Its bud was standing proudly, encased in green, and she wondered when it would bloom. At the rate it had grown, it could bloom any second now.

Sylvia didn't have much of the water left. Like she was possessed, she had dutifully watered it every day, mixing the black and white together into more of the gray. It just felt right, nourishing the flower like this, even if it wasn't something she would have caught herself doing.

I suppose I never realized how much of a green thumb I had, she told herself, laughing at her own joke. She set down the bottle. She only had enough left over for a few more days. Then she would have to dip into her emergency stash, and she wasn't ready for that just yet.

Sylvia turned and headed out of her room. Something was tingling inside of her, a warning. Something very fascinating had happened while she was preparing, and she didn't know what that was just yet. She'd skipped the Miss Pokemon Academy Contest, but that was fine with her. It was time for school to go back to normal.

As much as she loathed normal.

But she would make a sacrifice this time. Because she had been spending her time doing a lot of research, and had come across something very interesting.

The sophomores in her Pokemon Typing class would be going on their practicum learning soon enough. That included Kate Nomia and Akira Saroyan. She didn't spare much thought for the poison girl, but Akira? Akira was something else entirely.

A smile crossed her lips as she thought about what she'd say to him today. It was time for them to make their final applications. She'd been accepted most everywhere she applied, but right now, she was looking to apply somewhere else entirely.

When Sylvia got to class, she slid into the seat right next to Akira. He still looked like a total wreck, which was just fine with her.

"Hey there, Akira, how was your weekend?" She chirped. "I heard you were a judge for the Miss Pokemon Academy Contest?"

Akira looked up at her and glared.

"Fine, fine, don't want to talk about it, let's change the subject then," Sylvia shrugged, excited to move onto the next topic herself. "How's Dakota doing? Is she getting better?"

Akira slapped his hand against the desk in his rage and rose from his seat, turning to find a new place to sit, but Sylvia caught his wrist. She wasn't about to let him escape.

"No no no, you're not going anywhere, not until we have a chance to talk," she whispered. Akira glared at her over his shoulder.

"What do you want?" He hissed.

"I already told you what I want," Sylvia shrugged. "To hear about how Dakota's doing. Is. She. Getting. Better?"

"There's been no change," he said through gritted teeth.

Sylvia nodded, she'd expected that. With what she'd learned about Professor Decker… "well, there's something you might be interested in knowing. About the… treatment she underwent."

Akira narrowed his eyes. "Sylvia…"

"Now, I don't know for sure," Sylvia admitted. "I have to talk to some people. But no one's returning my calls. And I thought it would be perfect if you came with me."

Akira didn't want to go anywhere with Sylva. But if there was something she knew that could help Dakota, if he could find out something… "Fine. Where?"

Sylvia shrugged. "Nowhere important. Not too far. Just the Kanto Region."

She beamed up at him, her eyes flashing with excitement.

So, what's Sylvia planning now? She's returned with a pocketful of surprises, hopefully it'll add up to something interesting!