We continue our look at Sylvia's jump in time with this chapter, and see a little peak at what things were like in the orphanage Blake grew up in. This isn't a full-on backstory for him, but it should color some important interactions and circumstances that will be relevant to his past and future. It's also pretty rough to witness.

KedharS: "Hell" is a good word for it, yes.

Rowlets and Oshawotts: In more ways than one.

Rus0804: Yep, I wonder…

JoshGamerV: Well, keep your theories coming, they're always nice to hear.

Pokemon Academy: Beginning of Beginnings

Chapter 814

At first, Sylvia thought it would be difficult to sneak into the orphanage. After all, a place like that wouldn't just let random kids wander inside without someone noticing, right?

But no, it was easy. Ridiculously easy. She just joined in with the crowd as they headed inside. The man watching over them didn't even give her a second look.

I see… if this was a normal orphanage, they'd probably keep a closer eye on their children… but obviously, the people here don't care. They must be pretty confident that none of the kids could escape, either.

Sylvia didn't know what the people at this place were after, but it was clear that they were abusing the children under their care. Which obviously meant that they were doing it behind the scenes, because one person seeing the state of these kids would mean the entire place would be shut down.

To start with, an orphanage located on the outskirts of a small city like Laverre isn't too uncommon, people tend to not like the reminder of things like orphans. And there's the fact that this building used to be a hotel… I wonder who runs this orphanage? Someone has to be giving kickbacks to government officials in order to keep a place like this from falling under scrutiny, but what would be the point of that? What's so special about abusing some orphans that people would go to such extreme measures to keep it secret?

These were all thoughts that had plagued Sylvia since her suspicious about the nature of the orphanage Blake had lived in were confirmed. There was more going on here than just some abused little tots, and that got the curious mind of Sylvia all itchy and excited.

At the same time, though, there was definitely something for her to be concerned about.

I'm just a child right now. If I was older, or if I had my pokemon, I might be able to protect myself. But the way I am now… I'm just as liable to get beaten and abused as any of these other kids are. Sylvia didn't like the thought of that. Her feelings of helplessness weren't things that came naturally to her, she loathed them.

Sylvia had experienced the sensation of death several times before. But abuse like what it looked like these kids had gone through… she couldn't see one that didn't have a serious mutilation or broken bone. If that was going to happen to her…

No. There was always something to do.

Ryoko will probably restore me physically so there won't be any lasting damage, she's that sort of person. Sylvia was fairly confident in that regard. And I also doubt that she would just let me die, either, that could get… messy. This is supposed to be my gift, after all. It was unlikely that Sylvia's "gift" would result in anything bad coming her way.

On the other hand, the she couldn't help the smile that came to her face with the idea that Ryoko might behave in a way that she wouldn't be able to predict.

Well, at any rate, I'm not a big fan of pain and suffering, so let's see if we can get out of this with as minimal of an amount of abuse as we can, Sylvia decided.

With that occupying her thoughts, she was relieved that she wasn't led into some massive torture chamber when they got inside. The orphanage was in terrible condition, obviously, not much better than after it had burned to the ground. But that was a far cry from being some house of horrors, at the very least.

They were shut up in a large room, and the door was locked behind them. Sylvia looked around, aghast at their living conditions. The room was big, sure. But there were about 30 children here, and it certainly wasn't big enough for all of them to be comfortable. There was no light bulb, just a cracked window with bars on it, so dark and dusty the light barely showed through, casting the entire rotted-out place in a grim light.

That wasn't the worst of it though. There weren't any beds in the room, or blankets, or pillows. Just a heap of stained mattresses filled with holes. They were lumpy and misshapen with springs sticking out. Sleeping on the floor looked more comfortable.

Worst of all was the bathroom situation. There wasn't one. Just a bucket. Several buckets, lined up in a row by the far wall. Sylvia felt nauseous. Finishing up the horrendous sight was a pile of worn rags stacked up in the corner, most of which were stained with dark splotches that Sylvia assumed had to be blood. Whether they were old bandages or changes of clothes Sylvia couldn't tell, and she definitely wasn't going to get close enough to check.

The worst of it all were the kids, though. If Sylvia had a heart, it would have broken at the sight of how pathetic and miserable everyone looked. Aside from their wounds, their faces were sunken in and they were covered in dirt and grime. They looked like they'd never taken baths, or had a decent meal. Picture the saddest starving orphan in the world, and multiply that by ten. That would be the standard appearance of a child here.

Since she entered the room, Sylvia had hung back and looked away, not interacting with the other children. Not even with Blake.

She didn't want to draw attention to herself, lest she create problems that would complicate the issue. And none of these kids looked like they would have reactions that would excite her, they all looked dead inside.

That changed when she spotted Blake. He collapsed on a mattress, panting. His arm was broken and his face was bruised up, with a rotted bandage wrapped around one of his eyes. It was depressing, but what she found so interesting was the fact that when he fell, a girl ran over to comfort him. That brought a slight smile to Sylvia's lips.

So even as a kid, he was quite the ladies' man, was he? How adorable… she approached the two of them, expecting them to be on their guard. After all, she was a stranger. It probably wasn't every day that a random blonde girl snuck into the orphanage.

As she drew near, she studied the girl tending to Blake. She looked the most uninjured out of everyone there, which wasn't saying much. But she didn't have any visible broken bones or major, bandaged wounds, and the bruises and scrapes across her body seemed to be mending decently well. That was something else Sylvia found intriguing, the state of the children varied.

Some of them were really badly injured, but others were healing That told her that whatever torture and abuse the kids went through, it wasn't uniform. Punishments, perhaps? Or did they vary the treatment depending on the child?

She didn't want to think about other ways the kids were abused besides their wounds, especially not the young girls.

"Who are you?"

Blake was the one who said it. He was staring at Sylvia with his good eye. Unlike the others, it wasn't completely blank. There was the smallest sign of a spark of it, which made Sylvia smile. That was her Blake, not giving in until the end.

"I'm new here," she smiled. "I came in today."

Rei frowned. He looked at her like she'd just told him she'd had to put down her favorite pokemon. "I'm sorry," he whispered, glancing away from her.

"Rei, don't talk, your mouth still needs to heal," the girl tending him cried.

Sylvia blinked.

"Rei?"

"What's it to you?" Blake glared.

The girl had called him Rei. Odd. Quite odd indeed. In a flash, Sylvia put together that this person called "Rei" was, in fact, Blake, but under a different name.

So his name was Rei before then… I see. Blake must have been chosen by his parents when they adopted him, then. It was quite interesting to think about. Did Blake remember much from that time? She decided she'd call him "Rei" sometime, to see how he reacted. Or maybe not. It could be useful.

"Nothing," Sylvia smiled sweetly. "I just think that's a nice name."

"…Oh…" Rei glanced down.

Sylvia blinked. "You don't like it?"

"Rei… means nothing," Rei said quietly.

"NO!" The girl shouted, stepping in front of Rei and holding her hands out to the sides to protect him. She glanced back at him. "Rei doesn't mean 'nothing'! It's COOL! It means 'black' or 'dark', it's awesome!"

Well, that all depends on how you write it… still, curious that he wouldn't have a Kalosian name… someone must have given it to him. Sylvia figured there would be no sense in going down that line of thought. She turned to the girl, getting a good look at her for the first time.

The girl wasn't happy.

Her skin was pale, and she had curly black hair filled with dirt and grime like the others. Whether natural curls or tied in knots was impossible to tell. But what was clearest about her were those eyes of hers, shining gold and filled with intensity. She reminded Sylvia of a wild animal.

"And who are you, then, his protector?" Sylvia asked. She glanced around the room. The other kids were standing on the edges, watching them warily. It seemed everyone could tell that Sylvia was a stranger here, and was tense.

"Of course I am!" The black-haired girl proudly proclaimed, puffing her chest out. "And I'M the one who gave him that name!"

Oh. Well that explained that.

"Oh, I see, so you named him, hmm?" Sylvia smiled. She didn't think these kids would know many names.

"One of the other kids knew a lot of words, and helped us find names," Rei muttered, looking down. "He isn't… here anymore."

Sylvia could put that together.

Rei glanced up at her. The light in his eye had faded now. "Who are you? I'm Rei, and this is Vale-"

"Val!" The black-haired girl snapped, stomping her foot. She turned to Rei and her face softened. "I'm Val, Rei. That's what you call me, so that's my name now."

Rei didn't reply. He was still staring at Sylvia, who had to applaud his popularity with the young ladies. Even if this "Val" girl seemed like a rather unstable sort.

"So… who are you?" Rei asked again.

For a moment, Sylvia considered outing herself as Sylvia Driscoll. It would make for quite a reaction when Blake connected the pieces in the future, that was for sure!

But there was something else that would be even more fun.

"Hello there," she smiled, holding out her hand to Rei. "My name is Ayame. Ayame Toujou."

Rei nodded dimly and took her hand with his good one. Inside, Sylvia was rolling over and laughing at the deliciously bitter irony.

"Enough!" Val grabbed their hands and pulled them apart. She cradled Rei possessively, staring daggers at Sylvia. She really was a jealous one, wasn't she?

Sylvia looked around, and began introducing herself. A lot of the kids didn't seem to care. Some were so beaten down, she wasn't even sure if they were listening to her.

One girl, she wasn't sure what the deal was.

She had short hair, layered golden over brown. Her eyes were green, and like Blake's, there were faint traces of light still to be found within them. But she didn't say a word. She reached out to Sylvia and made a gurgly sort of grunt, but that was all.

"Hello? I'm Ayame, what's your name?" Sylvia asked again.

"She won't answer."

Sylvia glanced back at Rei. "Huh?"

"Hannah doesn't talk," he quietly repeated. "She can't."

He held his hand over his neck. Sylvia glanced down and saw it. It was horrifying, the skin around the girl's throat was dark and warped, scarred badly. It stretched up her neck and nearly to her mouth, red and angry. It looked like agony.

"She yelled at a guard… so they made her drink boiling water."

Sylvia felt sick to her stomach. She was a lot of things, and it would not be an exaggeration to say "monster" was one of them. But doing something like that to a child was beyond horrific. She couldn't imagine something like that.

"So if you fight back, you get punished," she said quietly.

"Everyone does," Rei nodded. His eye was hollow. "You will, too."

Sylvia was confused.

"Huh? But I'm a good girl!" She lied through her teeth. "I would never get punished!"

She figured that her behavior wouldn't make a difference, but she wanted to see how Rei would react to her naïvete.

"Everyone gets punished. Every night… they choose us. You're new, so… they'll choose you. For sure… sorry…"

Rei turned his head like he couldn't bear to look at her.

"Nah, I'll just fight 'em off," Sylvia said confidently. "No one's going to hurt me."

She didn't think she would actually be able to fight them off, of course, but she wanted to see what the response to the idea would be. The Blake she knew would fight. But Rei wasn't the Blake she knew. Still, she hoped that spark would be in him somewhere.

The little boy in front of her, like all of these kids, even the aggressive Val, would only give one answer, of course. They'd been beaten down and broken enough by that they would never dream of fighting back or escaping.

But she hoped that he would prove her wrong. That he wouldn't be so boring and predictable, but would stand up and try to escape, or fight back.

"Crazy," he muttered, shaking his head. "That's just crazy. Ridiculous."

Sylvia sighed.

"I don't get it," she said quietly. "Look at the state you guys are in! You all look dead! Not just your injuries, but even your eyes! This is ridiculous!"

Sylvia could understand being pushed to the brink and wanting to end things. That was something Murasaki Kanou had experienced firsthand.

But she couldn't understand this. Maybe it was because they were just kids. But their spirits were so beaten down, this was just… boring. This wasn't the Blake she remembered. "Rei" really was just so boring and predictable.

There was only one thing she could think of doing in a situation like this. She turned to Hannah, who blinked at her with those bright, innocent green eyes, and then Sylvia lunged.

She grabbed the girl by the throat, pushing her over onto the floor. She squeezed that scarred throat as hard as she could, cringing at the disgusting sensation beneath her fingers. She needed to get a response out of this girl.

She'd done it several times, and had it done to her, as well. When pushed to the brink, a person's true nature reveals itself. If they want to live, then they'll fight back and try to live. It was a tried and true method.

Hannah didn't fight back. She didn't struggle. Because of her damaged throat, she didn't even cry out in pain.

She just laid there smiling innocently, resigned to the idea that Sylvia was going to choke her to death.

Sylvia looked around in disbelief. The others weren't doing anything to stop her, either. It was like they just didn't care. She was killing somebody, and these kids were so broken it didn't even matter. Hell, Hannah looked like she WANTED to die!

Sylvia pulled her hands back, shocked. She had expected something. As boring and predictable as such a response would have been, it would have been normal. But these kids had exceeded even her expectations of how broken and resigned someone could be.

Hannah didn't seem upset or angry with Sylvia. She sat up and gave the girl a sad smile. She couldn't be older than 6 or 7, and already she'd been mutilated so horribly she didn't see any reason to keep going on. There was no hope in those eyes.

Only the emptiness of the abyss.

Sylvia wasn't a big fan of hope. To be clear, she liked manipulating hope to suit her own ends, but it wasn't something she put much stock in herself. If a situation looked hopeless, she would change it for herself. Hopelessness was just where you end up when your brain gets tired of thinking up solutions, that was one of her personal mottos.

But right now, the crushing atmosphere of the room was making her feel pretty hopeless herself. And that just wouldn't do.

She got up and began pacing around the room. Nobody bothered her, which was nice. She needed time to think. It wasn't that she particularly cared about what happened to Blake, Rei, whatever he called himself, or anyone else here. She was far more interested in seeing what the result of tangibly changing history would be.

There once was a serial killer who abducted people and slowly crushed their hopes and dreams. He made them believe so thoroughly there was no longer a reason to go on living, that any attempt to escape would be futile and invite more punishment, that even when he opened their cell doors and told his victims they were free to go, they didn't. The twisted psychology made them stay rooted, knowing that the punishment would be worse, that they would accept slaughter over what penalty attempting to flee might bring.

These kids were exactly the same. The people at this orphanage had thoroughly beaten hopelessness into them, completely stripped them of all their survival instincts.

So that's your game, is it, Ryoko? Showing me that these kids have been beaten down so badly that even if I held the door open for them, they wouldn't go out… to try and show me how futile it is to resist?

It was quite a diabolical ploy, if that had been Ryoko's intention. And if Sylvia were anyone else, she would have given in. But she wasn't anyone else, she was Sylvia Driscoll, and Sylvia Driscoll didn't behave how others wanted her to.

She would find a way to solve this issue, timeline be damned.

There wasn't much in the room to do. Sylvia had never felt this mind-numbingly bored before. She walked the four corners, seeing if there was anything she could use to fight back, but there wasn't. The buckets, maybe? But she doubted that she'd be able to fight off full-grown adults with a bucket full of shit.

The next thing was looking for an escape route. But the walls of this place were surprisingly fortified for something so broken-looking. There were only two ways in and out of the room. Through a window, which had been barred shut, and through the door, which was locked. There was no keyhole, or even a knob, on this side of the door, so there was no way to get through there, either.

Quite an excellent closed room, she had to admit.

Sylvia kept looking for ways to get out, even as the sun began to set. Right up until the knock on the door came, she was still trying to find a solution forward.

Things are looking rather bleak. What does the knock on the door bring? Will Sylvia accept the inevitability, or will she find some way to bring them to freedom?