Well, I didn't get many reviews, but with that said the last chapter's only been up for a little bit! I just couldn't stop writing after I finished it, so I dashed this one out really quick! I hope you like the new chapter, too! Please review!

Hellraiserphoenix: Well, don't worry. More has come. Hopefully this will be fulfilling enough.

Pokemon Academy: Beginning of Beginnings

Chapter 148

Caelia had forced a small Vulpix into a corner, a small row of grass hemmed in on all sides by large rocky walls. There was no place for the small pokemon to run. Caelia was slowly advancing, Blake trailing behind and keeping a watchful eye on her.

"Pokeball…" Caelia threw the pokeball through the air, the device opening up and capturing the small orange fox pokemon within it. The ball fell into the grass, shaking, before making a "ding" that indicated that the pokemon had been caught.

"Got it…" Caelia murmured. She walked toward the spot and looked down, searching the grass for the pokeball before picking it up.

Blake's head shot up, feeling the ground beneath his feet start to shake.

"What was that?" Blake asked, looking around vigilantly. "Caelia, did you feel that?"

"No."

"That tremor, didn't you feel…" Blake's voice trailed off as he saw the side of the mountain behind Caelia start to shake, cracks appearing in it.

"I don't feel anythi-" Caelia was cut off by Blake leaping towards her, hugging tightly onto her as a hungry ravine opened up beneath their feet. The volcano practically swallowed them whole, rocks and dirt raining down on them as they sunk beneath the ground.

Blake awoke in total darkness, sore and tired and finding it difficult to breath. Something was pressing down on his chest. He reached up to push it off, and the rock crumbled away in his hands. Scrambling around blind, he forced himself out from under the rubble, relieved to find he was still relatively intact. He wrapped his hands around something soft, a cloth of some sort, and held it tightly. As for Caelia…

"Caelia!" Blake called out softly. "Caelia, are you-"

"AAAAAAAAAAAARHGH!"A blood-curdling scream rang out from his left. "NO! NO!"

It was Caelia. She was nearby, screaming with more emotion than he'd ever heard. Was she injured? Or being attacked?! What was going on?!

"Caelia!" Blake shouted, blinking desperately in hopes his eyes could adjust to the light. "Where-"

"IT'S TOO DARK! I CAN'T SEE! I CAN'T SEE! Where am I?! Where- I can't, I CAN'T! NOOOO! NO! YAAAAGH!" Caelia's panic-stricken screams carried a petrifying tone of fear that even made Blake hesitate. But he couldn't just sit there and listen, so moved forward, scrambling across the ground until he stumbled over something soft, feeling Caelia's thrashing body beneath him.

"Caelia, it's me, it's Blake, I'm right-"

Something that felt like a hand smacked him in the face as something else that felt like an elbow hit him in the gut. Caelia clearly wasn't responding well to the darkness, her screams sounded like someone going through trauma.

"Blake, where, I can't see you, where are you?!" Caelia sobbed, thrashing around.

"I'm right here!" Blake shouted, grabbing onto what felt like her shoulders and shaking her. "Can't you feel me? I'm right-"

"Can't see you, can't… can't see you, where, I- I don't know, I… I can't see! The darkness, I… I CAN'T be in the dark! LIGHT! I need… light, I can't see, I-" She was completely ignoring his attempts to draw her attention, and continued to ramble away unimpeded. Whatever was going on, this girl's fear of the darkness had drawn the first real emotion from her he'd seen- abject terror. And just as he couldn't get her to open up to him, he was completely incapable of getting her to calm down, either.

"Caelia! Where are your pokeballs? Do you still have them?"

"No, dropped it… dropped Vulpix… dropped… can't find it, can't see it…" she muttered.

"Not that one, your normal pokeballs, the ones on your belt. Do you still have them? Can you reach them?"

"Can't find them, can't reach them, can't see them…" she repeated numbly.

"Then sorry…" Blake apologized, reaching for her in the darkness, hoping she'd forgive him for touching her like this. While several of his pokemon could see in caves, none of them were really suitable for creating light. He'd need one of her fire types. After groping down her sides and to her waist he managed to fumble his way around a pokeball, pressing a button. The pokeball lit up in a flash of light, and from it, Caelia's Charizard, Kara, emerged, and let out a roar. The pokemon's fiery tail filled the cavern with a bright orange light, and the two students could see each other. The fall had thrown Caelia's hair all over the place, revealing her face to him. He could see the utter fear in her eye… as well as what was beneath the mask that must have been thrown aside in the fall. He glanced down at the white cloth in his hands, as Caelia did the same. Her face went pale and her hand shot up, covering the right side of her face.

"…You saw it…" she rasped, panting, her body calming down.

"…I did," Blake admitted, nodding. He handed returned her mask. She took it and raised it onto her face, but she could not get it to wrap around her head. She tried a few times, but it kept falling off.

"I can't… do it by myself…" She whispered. "Please… help me…"

"…" Blake nodded, turning around and taking the thin brown bands from her fingers, tying them over her hair.

"Thank… you…" Caelia murmured.

"Of course," Blake softly replied, walking around to her. "I know you must not want anyone to see that."

This must have been what Ayame and Sango saw in the bath… Blake reasoned. No wonder they were feeling so uncomfortable before…

"It no longer bothers me… not as much as it used to…" Caelia muttered, shaking her head. "But others… when they see it… how they act… it's easier to hide."

Blake knew that feeling quite well himself.

"Char." Kara leaned her head down to rub against Caelia comfortingly, but Caelia didn't even seem to notice, staring numbly off into the darkness.

"Those scars…" Blake said finally, glancing at her sympathetically. "I… I'm sorry…"

"I don't want your pity… don't care… doesn't matter…" Caelia muttered. She looked into his eyes. "No… that… your look… not pity? What… curious."

For the first time, there was a glimmer in Caelia's eye. She was looking at him, not through him.

"You hid those scars… since other people treat you different when they see them, right?" Blake asked. He slowly rolled his sleeves up, revealing his arms to Caelia. "I… I'm the same way."

It was getting rather hot, almost burning. They were most certainly close to the heart of the volcano, wherever they were. Thankfully, whatever tremors had buried them there, they had died down by this point. Seeing no need to hide any further, Blake stripped his shirt off entirely, revealing the extent of the damage to his upper body.

"Your scars…" Caelia breathed, looking up from his body and into his eyes. There was a glimmer of understanding in her eye. A glimpse of, dare Blake wonder, humanity?

"I don't know how it happened," Blake said, shaking his head. "I must have… repressed the memories of whatever it was. That's what the doctors say. They don't hurt anymore, not for the most part… except for this one.

Blake reached up to his forehead and brushed his hair back from his forehead, revealing up near his temple a small row of white dents, separated evenly, like some pokemon or person had bitten down on his head. It was normally unseen by his hairline, but revealed to Caelia, it was clear to see.

"This one… still hurts from time to time."

Caelia didn't respond for quite a long time. Then, still remaining silent, she reached down and gripped the hem of her sweater, pulling it up.

"H-hey, what-" Blake gasped, blushing slightly. Caelia pulled her shirt up over her head, baring her upper body to Blake. She stripped off her gloves and held her hands out, turning her palms over to Blake, revealing the extent of the scars warping her body. They covered the entirety of her right arm to her shoulder and over her chest, up her neck and around her face. The scars stretched across her chest, warping the flesh of her right breast, as well as down her side and around her stomach. It was horrific, far worse than the scars he bore. The damage was so extensive he didn't even realize that she wasn't wearing a bra at first. When he noticed, his face turned an even brighter shade of red.

"J-just… put your shirt back on," he stuttered.

"As expected… even you baulk when looking at this ruined body…" Caelia murmured, the light in her eye fading.

"N-no, it's not that, it's just… embarrassing, seeing your… you know…" Blake said, holding his hands over his eyes.

"My breasts?" Caelia asked, confused. "I can't be helped. With my condition a bra would be impossible, so-"

"Please, just… some amount of modesty, for the love of…" Blake threw his shirt to cover her.

"Apologies…" Caelia murmured, dropping his shirt and pulling her sweater back on again. "I did not expect that a body like mine would cause someone to… react like that."

"Well… it's fine…" Blake said, walking over to where she'd flung his shirt, picking it up. "Hey! Look at this!"

He turned to her and held up a dropped pokeball.

"I think I found your Vulpix!"

"Ah…Thank you," Caelia murmured, taking the ball from him. With no space on her belt, she turned to her backpack, abandoned on the ground, opening it and sliding the small ball inside.

"Where are we?" Caelia asked finally, looking around what little of the cavern they could see in Racer's light. They were in a cavern of some sort, with dark red walls. Wherever they were, it was very hot, which gave Blake a good idea.

"Judging by how hot it is, I think we're in the heart of Mt. Chimney," Blake replied, taking a surveil of the surroundings himself as he put his shirt back on, leaving it unbuttoned to beat the heat.

"It's hot?" Caelia asked.

"Scorching," Blake replied. "Either way, we can't stay here… The heat seems to be coming from that direction. That means there must be a pathway somewhere over there, leading toward the heart of the volcano. And anywhere is better than being trapped in here."

"As you say…" Caelia agreed. She rose to her feet, before falling over, splaying out on the ground.

"Caelia! Are you okay?!" Blake asked, running over to her and helping her sit back up.

"Not hurt… but can't… something wrong… can't… walk? Stand…" Caelia glanced behind her. "My leg is not moving the way it normally would."

"Can I see?" Blake asked, gesturing to her legs. Caelia nodded blankly. Blake reached down to the cuff of her pants leg, and rolled up her right leg. Nothing seemed to be out of place there. But when he looked at her left leg… he saw a large gash, along with major swelling and redness that did NOT look good.

"Your leg!" Blake cried.

"Ah… that looks… bad…"

"Does it… hurt?" Blake asked, gingerly planting his hand on it. She shook her head.

Blake slowly felt the wound on her leg, pressing insistently. His eyes widened.

"It's broken. Nearly all the way through."

"Is that bad?"

"…We can't move it," Blake said, nodding. "We need to get you some serious medical help! But how… doesn't… doesn't it hurt?"

"Not at all," she said, shaking her head. "I don't feel pain."

"You don't… feel pain?" Blake asked, staring at her in shock. Caelia nodded, staring him dead in the eye.

"My… accident…" Caelia muttered ambiguously.

"Can you tell me… how it happened?" Blake asked. "I'd… like to know."

"I don't mind…" Caelia said, looking down at her hand. "It… was a stupid mistake. I was a child… who didn't know any better. My parents… live in Alola. They run… a service for looking after abandoned pokemon. They take care of them… treat their injuries… but some pokemon… are more dangerous than others."

She looked up to her Charizard, who glanced back down at her with her good eye.

"There was one pokemon there… who had been abused by her trainer… a small Charmander… injured so badly she lost her eye. She lashed out, and didn't let anyone close to her. I was young myself… didn't know any better. I got close to her… she tolerated me. But then…"

Caelia looked down at her right hand.

"I didn't mean anything. I didn't know what I was doing. I touched her eye… and that was when… the flames came…"

Caelia's hands were shaking, but her voice remained steady.

"Her flames engulfed my arm… I screamed in pain and desperately tried to swat them out… by the time my parents found me… They took me to the hospital… apparently, I died several times in the ambulance from the pain. I can still remember it… the heat and the flames… from that day… seared into my flesh…" Caelia swallowed, looking up at Blake. Her face was an impassive mask. "It's all there is left. All I'm left is with this broken body, unable to feel pain."

"Unable to feel pain? But…"

"My body is broken beyond repair," Caelia replied. "According to the doctors… it's like… my nervous system has completely shut down. To prevent me from dying out of shock from the pain, instead my brain turned it off… my somatosensory system… my sense of touch… just stopped. It saved my life… or whatever is left of it."

"What?" Blake asked, confused.

"I feel nothing. Neither pain nor pleasure. Nor the heat or the cold… or the beat of my own heart… or the feeling of my hand on another…" Caelia murmured, staring at her right hand, of which only three of her fingers remained. "I can't feel anything right now. Your hands on my leg… the floor I sit on… the clothes on my skin… I can't even put on my mask without using a mirror."

Blake contemplated what she was saying. What she was describing… sounded completely awful. He'd thought she was numb to the world... and it turned out she was, in the truest meaning of the word. No wonder she couldn't swim if she couldn't feel anything. Her sense of balance when walking, the slow way she'd look at everything around her, in order to be completely sure of where she stepped... and of course she'd react that way waking up in pitch blackness. Without being able to feel… with only her eyes and ears to rely on… Blake gulped. He couldn't even begin to imagine living in a hell like that.

"Things other people consider as normal… the kiss of a lover… the pain of a stubbed toe… I can't understand things like that. I can't even feel the beat of my own heart." She looked up at Blake, her eye dull and empty. "You asked me how I could be so selfish… how I could have such little care for my own life… then tell me, what is it that I should be preserving? What life is there to live with a body as broken as this one? When I walk… I cannot even feel the ground beneath my feet. When I close my eye to sleep, it's like I've disappeared from the world completely. I'm no more than a shriveled husk that can't feel the warmth of her pokemon… that can't face a human without them pulling away from her… A life devoid of feeling… This life of mine is worthless, Blake Harker… why should I, or anyone else, bother going out of their way to care about it?"

This girl… Blake had thought that her apathy was deep in their previous conversations, but this… she really, truly, did. Not. CARE about her life.

Blake slapped her across the face. Caelia's Charizard, Kara, roared angrily and stomped towards him, but Caelia raised her arm to stop the enraged pokemon, turning back to Blake.

"Why bother with that?" She asked. "I already told you… I don't feel pain. Slapping me… or punching me… kicking me down and having your way with me… it wouldn't matter. Nothing that you do to me matters. I'm already empty, Blake Harker… There's no point in any of this. My world is nothing but characters acting around me. But interacting… none of it."

"Then why did you care so much about catching that Vulpix?" Blake demanded. "If you really don't care about anything?!"

"Vulpix are cute," she replied. "I wanted one. This is… my own hedonism. I'll do as I like… until this worthless existence of mine is snuffed out, like a match… burned away… a useless, broken life not worth living."

"Fine then," Blake said, rising to his feet and grabbing her by the arm. "Then I'll do as I like."

"Chaar!" Kara growled, flames spurting from her mouth.

Blake held up her pokeball, and recalled her. The cavern turned black again.

"NO!" Caelia cried, the world vanishing from her. "No, you can't! Please! Where… bring her back! Kara! Kara, where are you?! Don't leave me here, please! I need you! I can't see! I can't… I can't find my pokeballs, I need, I-!"

"That desperation…" Blake's voice rang in her ear. A dim light glowed out of the corner of her eye and she whirled to look at it. Blake's face was illuminated by the screen of the phone clenched in his hand. "Doesn't sound to me like you don't care."

"I…"

"You don't care about yourself, fine. You don't want others to care about you, fine. That's your own damn business. But even you have things to lose. Things you're afraid of. It terrifies you, right? You're afraid of the dark. That's why, even after everything that happened to you… you cling to your fire type pokemon, isn't it? Like a terrified Neanderthal huddled in close to a flame to keep the monsters away, humans have an innate fear of the dark. A fear of things we can't see. But for you… that fear is even deeper. Your entire world is what you see with that eye. There's nothing else, is there? You say that your body is just a husk, you're acting like you're a prisoner in your own flesh. And maybe you are, I can't say. I can't tell you how to feel. But if you're so afraid of the darkness, then don't go on thinking that you're empty. There's still something in there, Caelia. And whatever else it is, however small it might be… it's still human."

"Yes… but even so… to concern yourself over me is-"

"You can't feel anything that you touch. I can't imagine how hard that would be to live with." The phone went out, and Caelia began to panic again. Everything was gone, it-

"Don't worry, Caelia," Blake said, his voice coming from close by. "I'm still here. You aren't alone yet. Just breathe."

Caelia tried acclimating to the dark, but she couldn't. She felt completely empty… completely devoid… of everything, like her world had gone away entirely.

Light flared up again, as Blake turned his phone back on.

"Like I said, I can't imagine how hard it is to not be able to touch things and know you're touching them," Blake said. "I don't know what you've gone through. And it sounds like you've gone through a lot. I saw what's under that mask of yours… But I also saw your eye when you looked at my scars. There was a hope in there. A faint light, hoping that you met someone who might understand, wasn't there?"

Caelia refused to admit anything like that.

"Well I'm sorry to say, that I don't understand. I don't think anyone really could. But just because I don't understand doesn't mean I can't still try to reach out to you," Blake said, glaring at her. "I'm going to get you out of here, either way. That's the least I can do. I can't help you after that… but if you still don't see any point in going on, or anything worth living for, then fine. I don't care about your selfish whims, you can do whatever the hell you want. But until then, you're coming with me, got it?!"

"…Fine," Caelia nodded in agreement. "As you wish."

In the end, Blake hasn't really helped Caelia at all, I don't think. She's still far too broken to fix at this point. But hopefully, he'll be able to find her some measure of salvation.