Here's another chapter, with more details on the Children of the Oracles. Sorry for another chapter of exposition, but don't worry. There will be a few interesting twists in this one. Remember to review!
MaMcMu: Yup, it's been quite a ride.
KedharS: Are they also angsty teenagers angry at the world?
Just a Bad Writer for Fun: Another Sango arc, though hopefully not too long.
Aakareo Kokokuhikari: Misato's creator/"father" was President Silph, aka Oscar Silph's father. No relation to Anja Karzat, as far as we know.
TREBOR.E: But Galar is the region run by a rich man of questionable morals, and the only region to ban immigrating pokemon from "shithole regions".
JoshGamerV: Hm.
Pokemon Academy: Beginning of Beginnings
Chapter 165
"Sango?" Petal looked quizzically at the shocked-looking girl. "What's the matter?"
"This girl…" Sango said, her hands trembling. "I… I know her. She… goes to my school."
"Who?" Petal demanded, her eyes narrowing and her tone turning serious.
"Her," Sango said, showing Petal the picture. "Misato Daisan. She… she's a senior, at the Pokemon Academy. But… she can't be! This picture is five years old, and she looks exactly the same! Are you saying that she was one of the kids at Anja Karzat?"
Petal looked over the file. Unlike the other papers, which contained several unimportant details, everything but the girl's name had been redacted.
"I don't know," Petal said, shaking her head. "I will say that I haven't seen any reports of people matching her description working with known associates of the Children of the Oracles. So even if she was at the facility back then, she might not have necessarily joined up with them."
"She would have been a student then, though," Sango reminded her. "Though she might have transferred… wait, for that matter… Marion would have been in her freshman year back then! So how-?"
"I don't know," Petal said, shaking her head. "But I can say for sure that Marion Rivers was definitely taking the Probationary Ranger Licensing Exam through the Pokemon Academy when Anja Karzat was still a fully-fledged and functioning institution. So she must have gotten out by then some other way."
Sango frowned. She didn't want to bring up those tough circumstances with Marion… but it looked like when she got back to school, it might be something she would have to do. And not only that… this whole thing with Misato. She didn't know anything about the girl, she'd only met her once. But Will seemed to know her. And even if she didn't know him very well, she could still try and find something out, somehow.
As though Petal could read her mind, she told Sango "when you return to your school, whatever you do, don't trust this girl, Misato Daisan."
Sango swallowed, glancing up at Petal.
"Wh-why not?" Sango asked. "Do you think she's…"
"I don't know if she's a member of the Children of the Oracles," Petal admitted. "But I do know that there is a strong possibility that…"
Petal's voice trailed off and she looked around, as if she was suddenly afraid to keep speaking out of fear that she was being bugged. She leaned in close to Sango, her voice taking on a conspiratorial whisper.
"You can't tell anyone I told you this. And whatever you do, do not panic. But I have reason to believe that members from the Children of the Oracles have infiltrated the Pokemon Academy as members of the student body."
The words hit Sango like a bolt of lightning. Her face turned pale and she began to shake. No. No, that isn't possible. It just can't be.
"How… why…"
"Sango…" Petal's voice was still low, but commanding enough to shake her out of her mumbling and calm her down.
"Sorry, just… I can't believe it."
"You have to," Petal said. "It's essential. You'll understand why when I explain what the Children of the Oracles are searching for. Why they attacked the Nature Preserve, and why I think they attacked you at Mt. Chimney. Why I fear they're coming to Galar."
"Why?" Sango asked, not sure she wanted to hear the answer.
"Do you remember that stone you found in the Nature Preserve?" Petal asked. "The one I let you hold onto?"
Sango's eyes widened, and she nodded her head.
"Do you still have it?" Petal demanded. "Here?"
Sango flinched, and looked down, shaking her head. Petal's expression soured, her eye twitching in a way that Sango recognized in her past behaviors that weak. It meant she was resisting the urge to break something.
"I… I left it with one of my professors, to study," Sango said.
"Who?" Petal demanded, narrowing her eyes.
"P-Professor Reinhart…" Sango winced, expecting another outburst. But Petal's reaction was surprisingly subdued.
"Aurore Reinhart?" She asked quietly. Sango nodded her head frantically. When Petal let out a sigh of relief, Sango felt herself relaxing as well.
"It… it was strange, and we were worried about it, so-" Sango continued to justify her reasoning, hoping that Petal would let her off the hook completely. Unfortunately, it only seemed to make her upset again, the woman's face once more surging with anger.
"We?" Petal demanded. "Who else knows about the stone?"
"Just some friends of mine!" Sango frantically clarified. "Me, and Blake, and Kitty, and Julia, and Cynthia… and I think this girl Kate, too."
"Do you trust these friends of yours?" Petal asked.
"Absolutely," Sango said, nodding. "…Maybe not Kate."
"This is important," Petal snapped. "That stone… I don't know what exactly it is. But I've heard it called an 'Oracle'."
"Yeah… I think those guys on Mt. Chimney said something like that," Sango vaguely remembered. "Wait, what?"
"Oracles," Petal said. "That's what I've heard them referred to. Primarily by that professor of yours, Aurore Reinhart."
Sango frowned. He hadn't mentioned any of that to her. Now it made sense why he seemed so interested in it. He'd known what it was the whole time!
"It's the reason I left it in your care," Petal explained. "Because I knew that Aurore Reinhart works at the Pokemon Academy, and if you brought it there, he'd eventually find his way to it."
"The professor had another stone like this one," Sango said. "It was black."
Petal nodded.
"He found that one some years ago. According to his research, there are a lot of them. Hidden across the world."
"And are they… dangerous?" Sango asked, remembering what had happened with Kitty. Petal shrugged.
"Maybe? I don't know. I've only seen one once before you found that other one. I didn't even know it was there, at least not for sure. But I'd always heard rumors. What I do know, is that locations with deep historical significance are places where Oracles are said to be found. But for the life of me, I don't know where they are. But I do know that the Children of the Oracles are trying to get their hands on them. So yeah. I think they could be dangerous."
Sango gulped.
"And… do you know how many of them there are?" Sango asked. Petal shrugged again.
"Who knows? 10? 20? 9001?" Petal scoffed. "It's impossible to say. But probably a lot of them, I'd imagine. 'Gotta catch 'em all' or some shit."
Sango shivered.
"So these stones… these Oracles… what do they have to do with the Pokemon Academy?"
"Well, the Children of the Oracles are trying to get their hands on these stones, right?" Petal said. "So wouldn't it make sense that they'd be heading to places where these stones were known to be? It's why I used you as the go-between to get the stone onto that island. If I had gone myself, it would have drawn attention. But nothing suspicious about a known student returning to school. It's just lucky you managed to get it to him."
"What if I hadn't?" Sango asked, frowning. "What if one of these students in disguise spotted me and tried to attack me to get it?"
"Then we'd know for a fact that the Children of the Oracles had infiltrated your school," Petal shrugged. "And then we could go in and roust them out."
Sango scowled. She didn't like the idea of having been used as bait.
"So you think that the reason they infiltrated the school was to get their hands on Professor Reinhart's Oracle?" Sango asked. Petal nodded her head.
"They're after those stones. I don't know why, but they are. And that's not all."
Petal turned her attention back to the papers strewn across her desk, and returned them to the file. She reached into the drawer and returned the file to where it belonged, withdrawing another, much thicker folder as well.
"If we're going to put a stop to those bastards, there's someone else we need to find, if she's anywhere in the region," Petal said.
"Another terrorist?" Sango asked nervously. Petal shook her head, showing the file to Sango.
"There's a woman we think might be associated with them. This woman, in particular." Sango looked at the grainy photograph paperclipped to the file, and nearly felt her heart leap out of her chest. It was blurry and hard to make out completely, but the big details were all there. The red ribbon in her lavender colored hair. The white shirt. The red dress, and the red shoes. It was a girl Sango had only known for a day, but one that had left an unforgettable impression on her.
Ryoko…
"We don't know who or what she is," Petal said, shaking her head. "But we've got photos of her of all kinds. And enough stories about a girl with lavender hair and golden eyes popping up all over the place."
Sango thumbed through the file. Photograph after photograph, color, black and white, and even an ink drawing. Documentation that went back decades, centuries, all depicting the same golden-eyed girl.
"There is rumor," Petal explained, "of a pokemon that can travel through time."
"Celebi," Sango confirmed. Yes, she knew it quite well. It was almost pleasing to see the look of surprise on Petal's face. "I know, I've seen it."
"Well well well. It seems you'll be of great help after all, Sango," Petal smiled. There was a nostalgic look in her eye, that almost made Sango wonder if she had seen Celebi and Ryoko as well.
"You're quite a lucky young lady, then. A good many people have been trying to find this little time traveler."
"Apparently, we're friends," Sango said, smiling, feeling a little smug.
"I've met her," Sango continued. "Her name is Ryoko. That's all I know."
"We know that much," Petal said, nodding. "But hearing from you that Celebi exists… that's a step in the right direction. If you file a report attesting to that, then we can begin an actual search for her and that pokemon."
"Why?" Sango asked, narrowing her eyes.
"To protect her, of course," Petal said, smiling reassuringly. "Don't worry. I'm quite aware of the dangers of time travel. The Ranger Union has no interest in using her abilities for our own gain. But the Children of the Oracles, on the other hand…"
Sango gulped. Terrorists with time travel. It was like the plot of some cheesy movie.
"Imagine, Sango. If they get their hands on this girl and her pokemon… they can go whenever they want to. They can go to the Nature Preserve before you ever found that Oracle, and take it for themselves, now that they know where it is. And the same with the others, as well. We need to stop them from getting their hands on the Oracles, but if they get their hands on this girl… then it's like checkmate."
Sango nodded, able to picture what was going to occur.
"So it's like we're Avengers: Endgame, and they're the Avengers," Sango reasoned. Petal nodded in agreement. This was going to be great.
"Do we know where any of the other stones are?" Sango asked. "I know Aurore had a black one, and apparently Alcea Vermeil has a green one. What about Mt. Chimney? Did they ever find what they were looking for?"
Petal shook her head.
"We sent a team of rangers to investigate after the volcanic activity stabilized. They found a shrine in the heart of the volcano… but no stone. We don't know what ever became of it. Maybe it was taken long before those kids even came there."
Sango frowned. Those guys must have gotten away with it in the aftermath.
"Then that means we only have the white one, the green one, and the black one that Aurore has," Sango said. However many there might have been, three didn't seem like a good number of them.
"Assuming that's the only one he has, of course."
"What do you mean?" Sango asked, confused.
"Aurore is the kind of scumbag who would baldly show you one stone, and keep another dozen or twenty in his drawer," Petal said, scowling. "The more people he keeps in the dark, the happier he gets. I think the jackass gets off on being duplicitous if you ask me. But I only know of one for sure."
"The black one?" Sango asked. Petal nodded her head.
"And I only know because I was there when he found it," she sighed. "That was before I was a top ranger, back when I just some boring old patrol ranger responding to an emergency. And it was just my luck that Aurore Reinhart of all people happened to be in the area. Or maybe it wasn't luck. Who can really say…"
"What… what happened?" Sango asked cautiously, not sure she really wanted to know. Petal's voice was hollow and she stared off into the distance, reminiscing.
"At first we thought it was a forest fire. But we realized that it was something much worse… the flames were everywhere, consuming everything. Flames as black as the night. And the screams… it was horrid. The stuff of nightmares. It was like no matter how hard we tried to extinguish them, the flames would keep burning. Trees and grass, and the buildings, the people… all burning… but that wasn't even the worst of it. The worst…"
There was a tremble in Petal's voice that made Sango feel a chill in the room.
"The laughter." All of a sudden, Petal looked very small, like a little girl. Sango didn't even imagine she could look so vulnerable, so shaken. But what she had said… laughter?
"What do you mean?" Sango asked.
"It was in the papers," Petal said, swallowing. "Eight years ago, every paper in the Kalos Region covered it. The Village of Demons."
Sango hadn't heard of it before. She shook her head.
"There was a town. A small town, off Route 14 in Kalos. Laverre City, 'the city of otherworldly dreams' it was once called. But the city of nightmares was a more appropriate moniker after that night," Petal said, shivering. "While we fought the fires, trying to keep the people under control… the darkest nature of humanity was seen. I saw a man laughing hysterically as he plunged a shard of glass into his gut over and over and over… and even when Kelly tried to stop him… he shoved him aside and went right back to what he'd been doing… more murders, suicides, chaos, anarchy… that night, it was like every man, woman, and child in Laverre was possessed by a demon, committing unspeakable acts upon themselves and each other."
The haunted look on Petal's face was truly terrifying, moreso than her explanation.
"What… what happened?" Sango asked. "Why would they… why would they do something like that?"
"That's the truly insidious thing about it," Petal said, shaking her head. "No one knows. There were all sorts of rumors. Ghosts from the forest driving the town to madness, an ancient ritual to revive an evil pokemon gone horribly wrong, a chemical resulting in temporary mass hysteria, a sudden onset of Hinamizawa syndrome… whatever the truth was, it was certainly nothing rational. Perhaps it truly was the work of demons… by the end, every soul in that village was gone from this world, save a single little boy."
Sango felt a shiver run down her spine.
"Aurore found that kid," Petal said, shaking her head. "Brought him to the hospital. Some poor orphan, locked up nice and safe on the altar of the church. Practically the only building still standing nowadays. Only thing he had on him were a bunch of blood-drenched clothes and that damned black rock. Hell… maybe that Oracle was the damn cause of the whole mess. Maybe those things really are dangerous. Or maybe it was that kid the whole time. Lotta folks thought he was demonspawn or something back in the day. Hell if I know. But if those Children of the Oracles are looking for those stones, you can bet it isn't because they're trying to make a rock garden. No, they know something we don't. And until we know why they're after the damn things, we need to make sure we keep 'em out of their reach, by whatever means necessary. That's why it's good that Aurore's taking care of everything, you know?"
Sango shook her head. It didn't seem real. That people could really do something like that… it just didn't sound possible.
"You said there was a survivor, right?" Sango demanded. "Only one survivor?"
"Just one," Petal confirmed. "Just the kid."
"What did he say?" Sango asked. "Did he tell you anything? Maybe he-"
Petal shook her head.
"He was a little kid. I mean, sure, the cops asked him all sorts of questions, but he wasn't really in any condition to answer. The boy was in such horrible shape, it was lucky he even survived that night at all. He was at death's door, for crying out loud. And even when he woke up, he didn't remember a damn thing. Not just about that night, but about anything at all."
Petal grit her teeth, shaking her head. "Fucking tragedy is what it was. Or maybe a cruel fucking joke. The one person who might be able to tell us why that nightmare occurred, and he was so traumatized by it he couldn't remember a damn thing."
Sango frowned. She couldn't even imagine what it would have been like to go through something like that. How it must have scarred the poor boy. Maybe it really was kinder that he didn't have his memories of anything. But still… to have lost his entire town in one night, and not even be able to remember them… it made Sango want to cry. She couldn't imagine what it would be like to not be able to picture her mother's smile when she closed her eyes.
"What… what happened to him?" Sango asked quietly. "The boy, I mean. Is he… did he recover? Is he okay? Or did he…"
Sango's voice trailed off as she caught the look of confusion on Petal's face.
"That's fucking rich," Petal muttered, rolling her eyes. "Are you telling me you didn't fucking know? What's Aurore fucking doing?"
Now Sango was confused.
"What are you talking about?" Sango asked.
"You want to know what he's up to right now, then fucking ask him," Petal growled, shaking her head at Sango like she was an idiot. "He's your fucking friend after all! That little kid, his name was Blake… what's he going by now? Harker? That kid who was with you on the mountain. He might be all grown up now, but I'd recognize those scars anywhere, I was the one who fucking sewed him up so he'd make it to the hospital breathing!"
Petal's words were like a slap in the face. Sango felt her blood run cold.
*Dramatic twist sting*