We've spent a lot of time these past few chapters getting prepared for the trip to the Orre Region. The seniors and juniors are all excited, while the sophomores have some trips of their own coming up. And now, for something completely different, and definitely unexpected. Should be interesting.

KedharS: And it will be quite a storm.

Just a Bad Writer for Fun: My goal would be to finish this story before I die. Kind of similar to my goal right now, honestly.

Tambry96bj: It's certainly an interesting perspective to look at, that's for sure.

Pokemon Academy: Beginning of Beginnings

Chapter 813

Sylvia lay back in bed, staring up at the ceiling.

As usual, she was bored out of her skull.

There just wasn't anything to do.

Her bags were packed for her trip to Cerulean City. She had delivered her flower to Alcea, for the girl to make of it what she would. Akira was pointedly avoiding her, and even if he wasn't, there wasn't much left she could do to amuse herself with him that she wouldn't be doing while in the Kanto Region. Even Misato was busy working for the Phantom.

It was odd, not having anything to occupy herself. But every idea she came up with only resulted in boring and predictable outcomes. The closest thing she could think of was going after Blake. He was currently on a date with his girlfriend on the mainland, and going over to mess with him could be worth a few amusing moments…

But she didn't. She didn't know how he would respond, which was usually more than enough reason to do something like that. But right now, he thought of her positively. Mostly positively.

…

Moderately positively.

…

He trusted her, at least. And that was something she could use. She didn't want to turn him against her now, not while she could still manipulate him to her advantage.

She flopped back on her bed and sighed. "Rei…" slipped out from her lips.

Sylvia's mind went back to winter break. That was when things had changed. When she experienced something she REALLY hadn't seen coming.

It hadn't been much different from now. She had been doing nothing, not far after helping that one girl, who was she… nope, completely slipped Sylvia's mind. The uninteresting were unimportant. And something a lot more significant had surprised her.

"Sylvia Driscoll."

Sylvia sat up from her bed. She wasn't used to getting guests, particularly not while staying in hotels. But then, this wasn't an ordinary guest.

Ryoko stood at the foot of her bed, her face locked into a scowl.

"Hey there, time girl. Nice to see you again. What are you doing on this lovely day of all days?" Sylvia purred. "If it's about that flute you gave me, sorry, no takesies-backsies."

Ryoko shook her head. "It is not something concerning that."

Okay, Sylvia was moderately intrigued. Moreso because she could see that whatever business Ryoko had with her, it certainly wasn't something she was happy with.

And that made Sylvia smile.

"I have come here to repay the debt that is owed to you," Ryoko said. To her credit, she wasn't glaring. Her expression was serious and professional. But Sylvia could see the disdain behind her eyes. She had to smirk. It was such a pity, considering they met under such… great terms. Or at least Sylvia had first met her during one of her rare acts of heroism.

Ryoko was a time traveler, so she'd probably seen Sylvia doing a whole lot of terrible things. Sylvia looked forward to that.

She wasn't the biggest fan of the idea of time travel, particularly not the way that Ryoko enforced it. The idea that time was fixed didn't jive with her general worldview. But she was still happy to cause a little chaos, especially if that meant she could mess with the time traveling girl even a little bit.

"So you've come to repay my debt? For helping Hoopa, isn't that right?" Sylvia smirked. It was the only thing she could think of, unless Ryoko meant a debt from some time in the future.

Ryoko nodded. "That is correct. To repay you for your actions, the laws of time and space have decided that you will receive… a special gift."

"Even more special than the Time Flute? Now that's something I've got to see," Sylvia said, her smile twisting with glee. "So come on, Santa, what did you bring me for Christmas, hmm? I've been a VERY good girl this year, you know!"

Ryoko was not amused.

"This gift is not a physical thing. Rather it is an experience. Something that will help show you the path you must tread," she explained.

Oh. Well that sounded much less interesting. Sylvia sighed in disappointment. "Sorry missy, but I'll pass. You should know me well enough to know that I'm not a fan of following directions. You show me a path, and I'm more likely to blow it up than go down it."

"Perhaps that is the case," Ryoko admitted. "But perhaps not."

Now Sylvia was getting a little irritated. "You know, shouldn't you already have a pretty good idea of whether or not I'll be going down that path anyway?" Sylvia asked. "After all, you are a time traveler, and if time is so fixed, then you know exactly what I'm going to do."

It pissed her off to say it, but she just couldn't help herself.

"I cannot inform you of your future actions," Ryoko smoothly deflected the inquiry. "However, I can tell you that this gift is not something you can refuse. It is meant to be. And so shall it be."

She took out her golden pocketwatch from her blouse and checked it.

"And the time for your gift begins at this present moment."

The scent of lavender, lilac, and mint filled the room, and a flash of green burst in front of Sylvia's eyes. A shining array of light appeared on the ground around the bed, suffusing Ryoko in its eerie glow. Her face lit up, she stared impassively at Sylvia.

"Celebi!" The time pokemon chirped in the distance. The light grew brighter and brighter, and when it finely faded not a soul remained in Sylvia's hotel suite.

Sylvia awoke to a thud on the ground. She was lying in the grass, staring up at the bright sun. What the hell had just happened to her?!

She definitely wasn't in the hotel room anymore. She rose from the ground and scanned her surroundings, seeing trees filled with color and golden leaves littering the ground. It was autumn now, not even winter…

Her eyes landed on Ryoko, standing calmly in front of her with Celebi floating above her shoulder. She said nothing, staring at Sylvia with blank eyes.

"Where am I?" Sylvia asked, giving another look around. She wasn't going to ask "when am I?" like some moron in a movie. She'd already put together the fact that Ryoko and her Celebi had sent her through time. And as interested as she was in figuring out when she was, she wasn't about to do something so boring and predictable. Better to figure that out for herself.

Ryoko said nothing. She just raised her finger, pointing over Sylvia's shoulder at the hills in the distance. Curious, Sylvia trudged up them, and when she reached the stop she had to pause.

She knew exactly where she was.

"Laverre City…" she breathed.

She had a pretty good estimate of WHEN she was now, too.

In Sylvia's time, Laverre City had been demolished. It had been rebuilt, yes, but the previous Laverre City, the one that she was looking at now, was nothing but a distant memory. A specter of a gruesome past.

Sylvia had been sent back in time.

"This is your gift," Ryoko said, walking up beside her. "You wished for this, did you not? To uncover the secrets of the Village of Demons? Well, now here we are."

Sylvia did some quick math in her head. This must have been just about ten years ago, a little less. She turned to Ryoko, about to ask, but Ryoko cut her off.

"I did not bring you to that night," she clarified. "Nor will I. That time is closed to you."

Sylvia scowled. Then what was even the point of it? "When did you bring me, then?" She asked. "And why?"

"Follow me," Ryoko said, turning and walking away from the city. Sylvia didn't like following orders, but her curiosity compelled her after the time traveler regardless.

She was stunned by what she saw when they got there.

There was a famous locale on the outskirts of Laverre City known as the Abandoned Hotel. But it wasn't always a hotel. After it had been abandoned, but before the city fell to chaos, the property had been used as an orphanage. Sylvia knew from her research that Blake was one of the children from that orphanage.

And now, here they were. It was right in front of her, looming over the trees like a monster. A chill went down Sylvia's spine, it was like the windows were eyes, and they were all staring at her. She was one for horror and the macabre, and she loved when things didn't go as she expected them, but this was doing something quite impossible indeed.

Frightening her.

She reached instinctively for her pokeballs, only to realize she had none. They were back in her hotel room. Several years in the future.

"Take a look," Ryoko said, stepping up to the massive iron gate. It was so tall and high that it nearly reached the roof of the hotel itself, and combined with the bars on all the windows it gave the vibe of a prison.

Not a place that someone would want to spend their childhood growing up in, that was for sure, especially considering the orphanage was smack-dab in the middle of a forest that looked like it came right out of a horror movie.

"So tell me, why did you bring me here?" Sylvia asked.

Ryoko pointed. "There. That is why."

The door of the orphanage opened, and a crowd of children trudged out. While normally one would expect kids to be full of life when they were sent to play outside, to see them running out the door with light in their eyes, excited to roll through the grass and run up the hills.

But there was no excitement to be found here. The light in the children's eyes had long-since been extinguished, if it ever existed to begin with. They wouldn't go running, either. Several of the children, in fact, most of them, walked with limps. Others had arms in slings, and there wasn't a face among them that wasn't marked with bruises and cuts.

It was grotesque, like seeing pictures of child soldiers after a war. Even Sylvia felt a little sick to her stomach.

Then she saw a face she recognized. She had almost mistaken it, it was so different. But on closer look, there could be no mistake.

It was Blake. But not the Blake she knew. He wasn't wearing a smile. Or a scowl. Or an expression of any kind on his face, just a placid, numb stare into nothing. It was unnerving, seeing him in that condition, it wasn't Blake at all.

Sylvia turned to Ryoko. There was no way she could be okay with that. Not considering what her relationship with Blake was!

And clearly, she wasn't. Ryoko was trembling, her previously-stoic face filled with grief and rage. Her hands were clenched in fists and she was fighting back tears.

"He's being abused, isn't he?" Sylvia asked. She already knew the answer, of course, she'd put the pieces together long before she ever came here.

Ryoko didn't answer, but her face said more than enough.

"Why aren't you doing anything, then?" Sylvia asked coolly. "You love him, don't you?"

"I cannot," Ryoko spat. Sylvia had never seen her look so venomous before.

She shook her head in disbelief. Pathetic. "Because of those 'rules' of yours, is that it? The laws of time and space?"

"There is no point in talking further," Ryoko said, glaring at Sylvia. But Sylvia wasn't about to let the other girl intimidate her.

"This is the problem with someone like you," she taunted. "Someone who has to obey orders, follow the rules. If I was in your position? If I could do the things you could do? Then I would rescue him from this place."

"Were I to step in and save him, then I would irreparably damage the flow of time," Ryoko said. It sounded more like she was trying to convince herself than Sylvia. "That is something that must never happen."

"If the flow of time dictates someone you care about should be hurt, then maybe it should be damaged, just destroy the whole thing," Sylvia shrugged. She, for one, thought that it would be quite an interesting sight indeed, to see what would happen if time collapsed in on itself. Maybe that wouldn't even be the case. Who could say?

But she definitely wouldn't be doing what Ryoko was doing, if there was something she wanted to do then she would do it.

"Why did you bring me here?" Sylvia asked. "What exactly is this 'gift' you've brought for me? Because I don't think it's much of a gift to just see Blake there suffering."

"If you do not wish him to suffer, then do as you like," Ryoko said.

Sylvia glanced at her, confused.

"What are you talking about?"

Ryoko's eyes were filled with a strange resolve. "You talked about how you would do things differently, did you not? How you would act to change the timeline, if you could do so?"

She gestured to the fence. "So do so."

Sylvia couldn't believe what she was hearing. "Are you telling me that you're going to just… let me mess up the timeline? That's my 'gift' that you're giving me?"

Ryoko didn't answer. And Sylvia didn't buy it.

She shook her head and smirked. "No, I don't think so, Ryoko. See, I have a pretty good idea of what you're planning. You put me here because you have a pretty good idea that, no matter what I do, there isn't a way for me to change the timeline, isn't that right? Stupid predestination and stuff like that meaning the future is set in stone. And this is all to get me to realize that, isn't that right?"

"Whether or not that is what you think, you are free to act as you will," Ryoko calmly replied. She checked her watch. "I will come back for you in 24 hours. You may make the most of that time as you will."

Sylvia wasn't a fan of playing to Ryoko's tune. But at the same time, she couldn't deny that she WAS interested. Her curiosity had been suitably roused by the girl's offer, and even if the point of it was to prove that her actions were futile, Sylvia didn't believe they were.

"There is one last thing," Ryoko said, clicking her watch closed and looking up at Sylvia. "In your present state, Blake would recognize you when he meets you in the future. That is not something that is permitted. It is necessary to alter that."

Sylvia smirked. "So, makeover time? I don't know what you're suggesting, but-"

Celebi chirped, fluttering forward suddenly. She twirled around Sylvia, a bright green light surrounding the girl as she gasped in shock. The light faded, and suddenly everything else felt a whole lot bigger than it had before.

"What the heck?!" Sylvia looked at herself. Her clothes were so small, and her hands and feet were… her legs and arms…

There was a spring not too far away from the orphanage. Sylvia waddled over to it, finding it hard to run with her body in its current condition. She peered over the edge of the pool, and was shocked at what she saw.

It was her face, but not her face as she knew it. She saw Murasaki Kanou's face, from when she was a little girl. But with Sylvia's contacts, and her shiny golden hair. Even her clothes had been changed, the black night dress she'd gone to bed in transformed into a small potato sack-looking thing, like the other children.

"What did you do?!" Sylvia asked in amazement, even as she already knew the answer.

"As I said, your previous form would pose too many questions," Ryoko explained. "So you were turned into something more suitable for the point in time that you are in now. You are the same age as the you from this time period."

"I see, so that means I'm about 8 or 9, I would guess…" Sylvia mused, returning to study her reflection again. "And you're sure about this, Ryoko? Sending me in there?"

"It is not a matter of what I am 'sure about'," Ryoko calmly replied. "This is your gift. It is necessary to set you on the proper course. That is all."

Sylvia couldn't believe what she was hearing. Either Ryoko was VASTLY underestimating the amount of shit she could stir as a time traveler, or the laws of reality were just as rigid as she claimed they were, and nothing Sylvia could do would make any difference.

Given a choice between the two of them, Sylvia decided to take her chances with the former.

"Last chance to back out, you know," she sang, her eyes twinkling Ryoko's way. "If I stay here, I could tell Blake all sorts of things. Completely ruin the future, you know. You even made me look like a child so he wouldn't recognize me, but I could just tell him who I am."

"You could, of course," Ryoko nodded. "But you will not."

"Oh? And why won't I?" Sylvia hummed.

"Because you are aware of how that will be received. You are perceptive, are you not?" Ryoko asked, raising her eyebrow. "Coming to them as a stranger, telling them all about the future and time travel and events such as those, how will that help you? It will only alienate and ostracize you, because no one will believe such stories coming from a strange girl."

Sylvia had to admit, the woman had a point. There wouldn't be much of a point in telling Blake about the future anyway. After all, he could barely REMEMBER anything that happened to him in the orphanage due to the trauma of his childhood.

And it would be much more amusing to see how she could interact with Blake as an innocent, before he got to know the real her. That would be quite an interesting sight indeed.

"Well then. I suppose I'll get going, then," Sylvia said, turning towards the gates of the orphanage. She walked forward and then suddenly she was there. Teleported somehow? Another trick from Ryoko, perhaps?

She would have asked, but Ryoko was nowhere to be seen.

"Well then. I suppose I might as well go meet good old Blake," Sylvia whispered to herself, smirking. Ryoko had given her quite a gift for Christmas indeed!

So, Sylvia has been sent back in time! I'm sure no one expected a chapter like THIS coming!