It's time for the climax! I skipped the boring third day. Now, it's time for Blake's meeting. He's on his way to the mural, and what will he find there? Will he be able to resolve things himself? Or is he not prepared for what awaits him in the ruins of Stow-on-Side? I promise, this is going to be a chapter you won't want to miss! A lot will be made clear!
We've got a decent amount of votes in the Pokemon Academy Best Girl Semi-Finals! The current lead runners in the polls may surprise you! The shakeup really makes me realize how a girl may be in many people's top 5, but not necessarily in their top 3. So I'm certainly feeling more than a little surprised Looks like the girl I'm pulling for isn't going to win, but that's fine. They're all wonderful girls! If you want your best girls to make it to the final round and beyond, then make sure to get your votes in! You have 3 votes, make them count!
Semi-Finalists: Cynthia, Ayame, Sango, Kate, Marion, Alcea
ConfusedCradily: Some of those things will happen, anyway. It's sure to be quite the event.
Aquahaze675: Some questions will be answered, but a whole lot more will be raised, I wager.
EESDESESESRDT6: Well, who Blake ends up with is quite the question for the ages, we'll have to see what conclusion he arrives at for himself.
Thunder Fire:
Not yet, actually. He still has no idea, he just thinks she cares about him as a friend.
Well, we'll find out soon!
It was not.
Badoobadoop: Elizabeth has harmonia, that may be what you missed.
DJ Dib Dab: Idk, I wouldn't really say they have any.
Pokemon Academy: Beginning of Beginnings
Chapter 271
Blake looked up at the night sky. Countless stars glittered overhead, with not a single cloud to obscure their beauty cutting through the darkness. The colorful mural that stood majestic in the day was now inscrutable, no more than a shadow on the mountainside cast in black.
They're probably there by now… After a sleepless night yesterday, the day had gone as little more than a blur for Blake. He'd isolated himself, in preparation. And now, his heart was pounding in his chest. He had told the others that he was going to go for a quick shower, and taken that as an excuse to duck out of the tent. As he walked through camp, he glanced at the shadowed tents. It was so empty… so quiety. No one else was around.
"I'll see you soon…" he whispered, holding his hand over his chest.
Blake wasn't the only one feeling apprehensive.
Sango checked her watch. 9:20. Blake had said that he would be meeting them at about 10:00. That meant he had probably already left, considering how long it took to hike up those stairs.
She closed her eyes and sat up in her cot, pressing her hands together against her forehead.
Is this… the right thing to do? She asked herself. She knew that she had to let him go. Whatever this was, it was important to him, and she wasn't about to deny him the opportunity to meet his goal. But all day, she hadn't been able to stop worrying. She was unsure about what to do, and wanted to confide in someone, but knew that she couldn't. Her father certainly wouldn't allow anything to happen, and Elizabeth had been in her tent all day, working on translations… assuming she wouldn't immediately go and stop Blake either, of course.
Sango felt very, very alone.
This must be what Kate felt like… she acknowledged. Kate, Reiner, and Nikita knew nothing. Blake had kept them all in the dark. Sango was already staying in a tent with a bunch of strangers, and now she knew this big secret she was keeping from the rest. She felt completely isolated from everyone around her, and now…
Sango sighed. She glanced at Silver.
"Want to go for a walk?" She asked.
Sango walked to the tent entrance.
"Where are you going?" Lana asked, looking up from her journal suspiciously.
"Just out for a walk," Sango replied over her shoulder. "Maybe go check in on my group, see what's going on there."
As Sango exited the tent, she stretched, inhaling that dry, sandy air. She coughed. Desert climates really sucked.
She walked through the campsite, staring up at the starry night sky. The sound of footsteps caught her attention, and she saw what she expected to see. Blake, barely a shadow on the night sky, lumbering up the stairway in the distance. She could call out to him, but why? He wouldn't hear her. And even if he did, he wouldn't let it distract him. Sango's worries only increased.
"Castform," Silver looked down at his partner, circling around her head worriedly. Sango smiled up at him and shook her head.
This… it's fine, right? She asked herself. She'd been asking herself that a lot today. She made her way back to the tents. As she walked down the row of tents towards her own, she bumped into Nikita, who was coming out.
"Oh! Sango! W-what's up?" Nikita asked.
"Uh…" Sango winced, averting her eyes, suddenly feeling a wave of guilt crossing her face. "Y-you know, just coming back from a shower!"
Sango mentally punched herself in the face. Her hair was dry as a bone, and she wasn't even carrying a towel or a change of clothes or anything.
"Oh! Then, um, d-did you see Blake?" Nikita asked. Her tone looked worried.
"Bl-Blake? No, n-not tonight, why?" She asked.
"He… he said he was going to take a shower, so…" Nikita murmured, looking down. "I-I know he hasn't been gone long, but… Kate was acting really worried, so…"
"So she asked you to go peeping, instead of the other boy, Reiner?" Sango asked, raising an eyebrow.
"N-no! I wasn't… p-peeping?!" Nikita sputtered. "No, no, it's just, um… Reiner said there wasn't anything to worry about, and that Kate was being paranoid, so I offered to go check on him, and, well…"
She sighed.
"Kate was acting really weird tonight, being really vigilant about Blake, and I was just kind of swept up in it, and got worried, too, you know?" Nikita admitted sheepishly. "I-I'm sure he's fine."
Sango averted her eyes. She felt guilty. She knew that he might not be that fine, and she knew damn well why Kate was being so shifty, so vigilant over Blake. She was worried that he would sneak off and go to his little meeting at the ruins.
She was right to be worried.
Sango swallowed.
It was okay to tell them, right? After all, even if they knew… Blake was already gone. It wasn't like they could do anything to stop him now. Sango needed to explain the truth to them, if only to keep Kate from turning into a paranoid wreck. When Blake didn't come back… and he wouldn't be coming back for quite some time, that was for sure, she would start panicking, and then she would blab the entire situation and start a real emergency alarm. She needed to contain that before it happened. And more importantly…
"…A-actually…" Sango said.
"What. The. Hell."
"It is what it is," Sango put it simply.
"What the hell," Reiner repeated, his mouth open in disbelief. Nikita looked around, confused, not really understanding what they were talking about, considering her only interaction with these Children of the Oracles was that one woman, Rui.
Kate was white as a sheet. How could he?
"How could he?" She whispered, shaking her head. "I thought… didn't he say that it was some sting operation? That he wasn't really going? Didn't… didn't you work all this out already? And now you're telling me that he went off to… to!"
"Yeah," Sango admitted, nodding.
Kate leapt to her feet and began pacing, rubbing her hands together.
"Okay, so let me get this straight, Blake is gone. He went to the ruins," Kate confirmed.
"Right," Sango said. "And I'm going there too."
"What?" Nikita gasped. "No, no, bad idea! Let's go talk to the professors, maybe they'll be able to-"
"And get Blake in trouble?" Kate demanded. "For all we know, something like this could get him expelled. No, Sango's right, we need to go on our own."
"But I thought you said the rangers were going to be there," Reiner said, frowning. "So do we even need to go? Can't we just wait?"
"I'm not sitting around doing nothing!" Sango and Kate both snapped at the same time. Reiner recoiled back in surprise, not expecting a reaction the passionate.
"I've dealt with pokemon rangers a lot, especially in important situations like this," Sango said. "And they will do everything they can to keep Blake safe."
"Well, that's good, right?" Nikita asked, her tone hopeful. Maybe tonight wouldn't involve midnight excursions to rescue classmates from global terrorists after all! "So we don't have to worry about a thing, right?"
Kate looked to Sango for confirmation, her scowling face riddled with doubt.
Sango was less convinced. Her recollection of Petal's speech to her of "the needs of the many" and "the greater good" and other vague movie lines uttered to the plucky rebels before they disregard the orders of the establishment was doing a good job of worrying her that when the chips came down to it, the rangers would focus on capturing the Children of the Oracles, even at the expense of Blake's safety. So that made her worried.
"I can't be sure," she admitted. "That's why… we need to go. Even if we can't stand up to them, we can focus on keeping Blake safe, when the rangers might not."
"I'm in," Kate agreed, already fastening her pokeball belt around her waist in anticipation of going to rescue him. "Why are we even talking about this?! If there's any chance that Blake could get hurt, I'm not letting it happen!"
"Let… let's put it to a vote, then!" Nikita desperately suggested.
"That wouldn't help," Reiner said, shaking his head. "The vote would be split anyway. Besides…"
Sango and Kate were already heading to the tent flap.
"We're doing this without you two if we have to," Sango replied, glancing back at them.
"But…" Nikita didn't want the two of them to get in trouble. She looked to Reiner, her eyes pleading for him to do something, anything, to stop this. But Reiner's face was hard and he was considering. They had a point. He looked to Nikita.
"Sorry," he apologized.
"N-no!" Nikita said, shaking her head. "No, don't say sorry! Sorry means you're going to do something you need to apologize for, and I don't want to hear that right now!"
"They're right," Reiner admitted. "We need to look after Blake."
"Or give them more hostages!" Nikita said. "Think about that?"
Reiner considered it. But he wasn't about to let his friends and Kate stand by and potentially get captured.
"Then let's at just talk to the professor, okay?" Nikita asked.
Reiner considered that idea, he really considered it. But based on everything Kate had said, it was clear that Blake was in serious trouble. He was consorting with terrorists, if the professor got wind of that, it could mean expulsion, jail time. Reiner was gonna get Blake out of there covertly.
I should be prioritizing Blake's safety… Reiner had fought with the Children of the Oracles before. They were dangerous. He knew that keeping Blake safe was the most important thing right now, and knew that on some level, Kate was definitely right. But at the same time, something about the way Sango had talked… he wasn't entirely sure he could trust Professor Reinhart. This stuff about the Oracles… it was possible that the professor was in league with them, or had some agenda of his own. As for the people here, he wasn't sure if there was anyone who could actually help, how many were real trainers. No, it didn't look like they had any choice.
"We're the only ones," Reiner said. "Sorry, I have to go."
Reiner gave Nikita a quick peck on the cheek and ran after Sango and Kate.
"But, but…"
Nikita watched the tent flap close behind him. She couldn't let him go! She couldn't let him get himself killed, or worse, in trouble with the professor! She chased after him, the four students and the Castform heading towards the stairs as fast as they possibly could.
Blake's lungs were burning and his heart was pounding in his chest as he ran up the stairs. His throat was scorched raw, and he couldn't breathe without serious pain. He coughed and sputtered, and could swear that he tasted iron. The liquid running down his throat… was that spit, or blood? Almost there… ahead of him, lit by oddly placed street lamps, he could see where the stairs cut off and the ring of the viewing plaza began.
Blake reached the top, his shirt soaked with sweat. He panted, but it was more of a hacking wheeze. His vision was blurry, but his eyes were focused. He stumbled forward, coughing, his throat feeling like it was burning again. Each breath was like agony, and he doubled over, holding his knees as he spat on the brick ground. His spit was red. Yep. Definitely blood.
Damn… sorry Ayame, looks like you were right when you warned me I might not be up for prolonged physical activity. The stairs weren't nearly as much a problem before, but those times he hadn't been running them.
"Well, well, well. Punctual, aren't we?"
Val's mocking voice somehow made the pain worse. Blake raised his head and glared at her, stepping forward. His eyes scanned the plaza. She wasn't there. Only three people were there.
Val, in a display that Blake could only assume was meant to be some symbol of irony, was lounging in a foldable lawn chair (that she MUST have brought herself) leaning back in a sunhat and tinted glasses. IN her hand she carried a big fruity drink in a fancy glass with a curly straw and a little parasol. She was wearing a bikini like she was dressed for the beach, even though it was the middle of November, at night, in the desert, on a mountain with wind blowing coldly enough to chill Blake to the bone, exhausted as he was. Clearly the cold wasn't as important as emphasizing her vacation spirit.
Standing to the side of Val was the girl he'd met before, the one who flirted with Reiner, Rui, who for once was not the most scantily clad girl in the room. Also not bothered with the cold, she wore a sleeveless blue tank top that bared her midriff, and a black shoulder sweater and mini skirt combo that looked completely pointless against the cold as well, and designer boots. She seemed a little miffed at her companion's jaunty behavior, her red lips pursed into a scowl as she absentmindedly stared at the dimly lit mural.
The third girl there was much younger than the other two, and more conservatively dressed, a phrase which here means "appropriate wear for a freezing mountaintop", a white parka covering her small body, the hood pulled over her white hair, the fuzzy lining framing her pale face, her bright red eyes peeking out from a big blob of white. The fact that she was sitting on a large Camerupt, straddling between the two large humps, probably helped warm her up, too.
"Where… *cough* is she?" Blake wheezed out, stumbling forward and standing over Val.
"What's the matter?" Val asked, tilting her sunglasses down to stare up at him with her glittering golden eyes. "You telling me you'd rather hang out with her, instead of three hotties like us?"
She glanced at the small white girl.
"…Well, two hotties and their tagalong circus freak, anyway."
The white-haired girl's jaw locked, and she glared at Val.
"…What? Just joking around, don't be so serious, Alk," Val dismissed the small girl's concerns like they didn't matter in the least, sounding offended that Alk was offended.
"Where. Is. She?" Blake growled more insistently. Growling really hurt his throat.
Val's lips curled up into a smirk.
"Inside," Val said, taking a long slurp from her drink, jamming her thumb over her shoulder and pointing it at the mural.
Blake knew the room. He walked past the girl, and headed off towards the entrance of the mural.
"BLAKE!"
Blake froze beneath the archway, startled. He glanced over his shoulder. Sango had followed after him. She stood at the top of the stairs, Silver floating beside her. Sango was panting, her desperate eyes focused only on him. She must've run all the way here. He nodded to her, but his voice was too strained and his body too exhausted to reply to her.
"…The plot thickens," Val tittered, shifting eagerly in her chair and taking another long sip.
"I hate running like this…" Reiner reached the top as well, clearly not in as good shape as the ranger-to-be Sango Akana.
"Reiner!" Rui's expression brightened, her red lips curling into a smile. She smirked when she saw Nikita, even more ragged, reach the plaza a few moments later.
"Well, this has all the makings of a good time. Playing with a bunch of little students," Val giggled, sitting up in her seat.
"God… fucking… damn everything…" Kate crawled up behind the others, coughing. Her body was drained of strength, and she felt like she was half-dead twice over. "I… fucking… hate… these… fucking… stairs…"
"…And some trash!" Val added cheerily. She finished her drink and stood up, stretching, taking care to emphasize her curvy figure. "So what's the game here, then? You kids here to spoil a good time?"
"Oh, I wouldn't say spoil…" Rui purred, her eyes flicking up Reiner's body, her tongue sliding between her lips. She sidled closer to him.
"…You going?" Val asked, looking over her shoulder at Blake. "She won't wait forever you know."
Blake agreed with that. He nodded, entering the ruins.
"Blake!" Sango shouted again, trying to follow after him.
"Moomin," Alk said. Her Camerupt brayed and stomped his hooves, the ground shaking in a warning.
"Sorry missy," Val pursed her lips in a mock kiss. "Private affair. Invite only."
"Their reunion is starting," Alk growled. "Don't stop it."
"Hey!" Kate snapped, rising to her feet. She reached out and threw a pokeball into the air.
"Vileplume!" Kate's Vileplume, Lumia, landed on the ground. She growled.
"You're not the only one with pokemon, you know," Kate snarled.
"Only ones with pokemon that matter," Val snorted, rolling her eyes.
"Scipio, lend a hand," Reiner stepped up next to Kate and sent out his Armaldo as well.
"Oooh! A battle!" Rui giggled. "That looks like a strong pokemon, Reiner! Can I join in? Mami! Let's knock 'em down!"
Rui sent out a large, hulking Mamoswine, the ancient pokemon towering over the Armaldo.
This situation was quickly escalating out of control.
"Really? We're going to be having our little fight here, are we?" Val laughed. "I think a more appropriate battlefield would be the best suited, don't you agree, Alk?"
"I don't take orders from you," Alk scowled. "Moomin!"
Alk pulled her hood back, her long, white hair standing on end. She jumped off her Camerupt's back, landing on the ground and stumbling backwards, her harmonia flaring up.
"CAMERUPT!" Moomin bellowed. The ground began shaking all around them, and chunks of earth shot out from the side of the mountain. The small plaza was quickly surrounded by a plateau of solidified earth and rock. Alk's harmonia allowed her pokemon to create a platform where they could battle without having to worry about destroying… too much.
"Alk!" Sango shouted, catching Alk's attention. "You're Alk, aren't you?"
Alk blinked, surprised that the tall blonde girl was calling to her.
"I'm a friend of Marion!" Sango shouted. "She wanted to see you guys!"
"Marion?" Alk blinked, her eyes widening in shock at hearing the name of someone she used to know. Her expression quickly hardened and her eyes narrowed into a furious glare. The ground began shaking. "Traitor!"
"Well, congratulations, you really pissed her off," Reiner snapped. "Way to go."
But the rumbling died down, Alk holding her head. A drop of blood rolled down her nose.
"Too much power earlier…" she muttered. "Not much left…" Apparently, deforming the mountainside had drained away most of her strength.
"Ducking out?" Val smirked. "You freaks are useless without that crazy bonding power of yours, ain't that right?"
"Still strong enough to fight," Alk growled, glaring furiously at her.
Sango swallowed. Where were the pokemon rangers? This was not going as planned.
While the chaos erupted at the mural of Stow-on-Side, miles below a new revelation was emerging.
Elizabeth had been hard at work on the translations for over 24 hours now. Without eating or sleeping, she had used her harmonia to connect to her Xatu, using Nana's abilities to heighten her brain's processing power to decipher the languages. The light around her died down, and her eyes snapped open.
"Got it!" Elizabeth said, recalling Nana to her pokeball. The doctor, done with her work, held her head, dizzy. "That's a kick."
"Done?" Uboss, lounging on one of their cots, looked up from his book. This was a normal occurrence for Elizabeth, something he had gotten used to. "You finished it?"
Elizabeth glanced at him, and gave him a tired, shaky smile.
"I know what to do."
"You know how to open it?"
"Well, I know what the words say," she said, taking out a piece of paper. "The inscription on the dial, the closest translation I can get is 'let your hand sing the song of harmony between people and pokemon to make the future sing'."
"Well that's… clear," Uboss murmured.
"Some of these words don't have perfect counterparts in our modern language," Elizabeth said. "The 'future sing' bit isn't so much that, it means more, 'the song of the future' and I think what it's talking about is the Oracle."
"…The Oracle," Uboss muttered, shaking his head. He sat up in his cot and walked over to her. "Great, so the professor was right."
"But the real thing that gets me… 'the song of harmony between people and pokemon'… that's a little more tricky. Words like these in Ancient Galarian, it could be metaphorical, or it could be…"
Elizabeth's voice trailed off, and her eyes widened.
"I know what it is," she said frantically, looking up at Uboss. He could see the glimmer of excitement in her eyes.
"Yeah?" Uboss asked.
"A song of harmony between people and pokemon… it has to mean harmonia," Elizabeth said. "Harmonia is the key to opening the door!"
"But…" Uboss looked around out of reflex, even though he knew they were alone. "You tried to open it, didn't you? So why didn't it…"
"I put my hand on it, yeah, but I didn't, you know, 'use' it, you know?" Elizabeth explained, shaking her head. "See, it's like, I always hold it back, but maybe, I'm supposed to, like, direct it at the door, or maybe into the podium, you know? No, definitely the podium, it mentioned 'hand' which means… I put my hand on the spot, and send my harmonia into it like I would a pokemon, if that's even possible. And if that happens, then that should open the door. I mean, in theory, anyway."
"Sounds good enough," Uboss agreed.
Elizabeth began scrambling through her papers.
"That explains why I felt weird while I was there," she continued to put the pieces together. "That Oracle must have been signaling me, but I wasn't listening, like a moron! Uboss, we gotta go!"
Elizabeth stood up, and her legs nearly gave out from under her. She would have collapsed into the sand if Uboss hadn't caught her.
"You haven't moved in over a day, we can't go now," Uboss informed her.
"It's important," Elizabeth said. "We need to get to the mural before anyone else… before the Children of the Oracles get there!"
Uboss nodded his head. He agreed with that, at least. And it wasn't like there were any other harmonia users around to open the door.
"Well now, shall we get the fun started?" Val cackled. She glanced at Nikita and Sango. "I guess you two won't be getting in on the fun…"
Nikita gulped. If only Cynthia was here instead of her. There were three of them. Reiner and Kate could probably handle their own. But as for her…
"I-I'll fight to!" Nikita said, reaching into her backpack and fumbling for a pokeball.
"Are you sure?" Reiner asked, glancing at her.
"Y-yes!" Nikita nodded. "I-I don't battle much, but… th-three is better than two, right? S-so… Hammy! Go!"
Nikita sent out her pokemon, her Grumpig. The bulky and round purple pig pokemon snorted, looking up at her. He wasn't used to battling.
"Well, enough playing around," Val reached down and pulled a pokeball out of the bag next to her lawn chair, standing back up. "And this will go a lot differently than that little display in Circhester."
Val tossed the pokeball from hand to hand.
"Nothing to worry about breaking this time around."
Val glanced back at the mural and shrugged.
"Nothing important anyway."
She glanced back to Kate, tossing her sunglasses aside and removing her hat. "Tyrant! Let's clean all this garbage out of here, shall we?"
Val threw out her pokeball, it landed in the center of the plaza, cracking open. From within, a massive scaly green pokemon emerged, letting out a loud roar.
"TYRANITAR!" The towering pokemon bellowed, glaring at the three pokemon opposing it.
"Fun, isn't he?" Val asked, her eyes twinkling. "Three of us against those two, and that bit of waste with them! This is gonna be a regular old party!"
"…Great," Kate gulped, the armored pokemon snarling at her.
Reiner is handling that girl Rui… Nikita noted, seeing the Armaldo and the Mamoswine facing off against each other. And beside them, the Tyranitar was lumbering towards a slightly scared Vileplume. …And it looks like those two have something going on…
Nikita glanced at the remaining trainer, the little girl who had managed to move a mountain. She gulped. …So I guess she's what's left, huh?
Sango stood back, not sure what she was supposed to do.
"Go get Blake," Kate said.
"Wh-what?"
"We can handle things here," Reiner agreed. "But these guys might tear this whole place down. And if Blake's inside…"
Sango nodded. That made sense. She glanced at the assortment of pokemon between her and the entrance to the ruins. Assuming she could get there, anyway.
"Go," Nikita urged her, patting her on the back. Her eyes were oddly resolute. Sango nodded, swallowed, and set her eyes past the Camerupt and the Tyranitar, locking right on the mural. She charged forward, only focusing on the entrance to the ruins.
"Stupid," Alk rolled her eyes.
"Tyrant."
The Tyranitar roared, sand streaming out from his scales, the wind whipping it into a twister of sand that engulfed the battlefield. A wall of sand slammed into the ranger, but she pushed through it. It was scraping at her skin, but nothing she couldn't get through. She broke out the other side, running right past Valerie, who watched her run by without saying a word. Alk looked at her in confusion.
"You let her get away?" Alk demanded.
Val smirked, the sandstorm dying down slightly.
"It's more fun that way," she cackled. "Can't you see it? That girl loves him, Alk. I can't wait to see the look on her face when she sees their little meet-up."
"Silver!" Sango called over her shoulder, running over the arch. "Stay out here! If this place comes down, I don't… just stay here where it's safe!"
"Castform!" Silver cried, shaking back and forth in refusal.
"Just do it!" Sango shouted. Silver swallowed, tears in his eyes, and nodded in reluctant concession. He floated above the arch, glancing back at the battlefield.
"What's going on?" Kate demanded. "Who the hell is this Anja Karzat?! What does she want with the ruins? Why is Blake so obsessed with her?"
Val glanced at her, acknowledging her for the first time, a confused look on her face.
"Her? What? What are you talking about?" Val snorted, holding her sides. "Damn Sludge Girl, you're dumber than I remember!"
"What do you mean?" Kate scowled.
"Anja Karzat ain't a person you dumb bitch," Val cackled. "It's a place!"
Kate paused.
"Wait, what?"
"Uh, actually, she is a person," Alk scowled. "She taught us…"
Val blinked, looking at the young girl.
"…Oh, huh." Val shrugged her shoulders dismissively. "Didn't know that, don't care."
Sango hadn't heard that, she was too busy chasing Blake. Thinking about Anja Karzat, the kind woman Marion had described her as. How could she have anything to do with these… people?
It didn't take her long to catch up to him. Blake hadn't even made it to the entrance of the passage. He was slumped against the statue, holding his chest and coughing in pain.
"Blake!" Sango cried, running to his side and kneeling beside him.
"Need to… need to go…" Blake sputtered. "She's there… need to… finally…"
"You can barely breathe!" Sango exclaimed, shaking her head. "Let's go back, we can't-"
"She's going to take the Oracle… have to stop her, have to see her…" Blake rose to his feet. He tried to catch his breath, and failed, doubling over coughing in pain.
"O-okay, I'll… I'll to stop her!" Sango said, glancing at him worriedly. "You… you just stay here and cool down, you're in no shape to keep going! I'll handle Anja Karzat!"
Sango glanced back at Blake and ran into the passageway, looking helplessly over her shoulder.
Blake watched her go, feeling utterly helpless as he watched her departing form. No… Sango going was one of the worst possible scenarios right now. That thought was the last bit he needed to push through the pain and ignore the liquid fire in his lungs and throat, and stumble after her.
I'll handle her, yeah right, Sango's brain was screaming to herself as she tore down the hallway, her heart nearly leaping out of her chest. A harmonia user and terrorist with probably a full team, vs. me, a wannabe pokemon ranger without a capture styler or a partner pokemon! What the hell am I gonna do, huh?
The only thing I can do… I'll have to tell her about Marion. Maybe… maybe bonding over that will distract her enough for the rangers to show up… there's no way I can do this by myself. Sango hated feeling this powerless. Everyone else was fighting, Blake was running himself ragged… and what could she do? Nothing, that's what. Maybe she could tackle the woman before she could do anything… that was just about all she could do right now.
Sango entered the chamber, panting. She raised her head… but the figure standing beside the pedestal, hand over the glowing dais, was not the woman Anja Karzat. It was a girl, around her age, or maybe even younger. The girl wore a fancy black and white dress with frilly lace lining, with blonde hair touching her shoulders, curling out at the ends. Sango stepped closer.
"Stop!" Sango cried. The girl ignored her completely. The gem-eyes of the door began glowing, the door rumbling. "Stop it!"
Sango ran up to the girl, and grabbed her arm to pull it off of the small stand. The girl's face jerked sideways to see her, her expression crazed. Sango froze, recognizing the girl. It was the last person she'd ever expected to see again, let alone see her here, in the thick of all this.
"Don't touch me!" The girl cried, swatting Sango backwards with more strength than her small body suggested. Too stunned to fight back, Sango tumbled backwards, landing on her ass.
"Guinevere?" Sango sputtered, the unusual girl clearly not sharing the recognition, judging by the dullness in her eyes. Without sparing Sango a second thought, she turned back to the door, watching it slowly begin to crack open, a line of light appearing down the center and starting to grow wider as the doors swung open.
Sango stared up at the girl in shock. What was she doing here? Who the hell was she? Sango knew that she was odd, but… she was working with the Children of the Oracles? Through her haze of confusion, Sango vaguely remembered something about a contact coming to Galar during her time working with Petal, the pieces haphazardly jamming together. But what was she doing here? Wasn't Anja Karzat supposed to be here? Wasn't that why Blake had tried so hard? What did she have to do with any of this?
"Gwen!"
Blake's voice shook Sango out of her thoughts, and it seemed to have shaken Guinevere, as well. Sango glanced at him in surprise. He stumbled forward, coughing.
"Gwen…" Blake repeated, walking into the room.
Sango's eyes turned to the blonde girl, and saw something she hadn't seen on the emotionally vacant, doll-like girl's face back on the boat.
Joy.
Guinevere lowered her hand and turned to Blake, her cheeks flushed. Where previously Sango saw her as resembling a doll, now she looked completely human. Her previously empty, dull grey eyes were now shining with life, filled with excitement as they landed on Blake. Her lips curled in a deep smile, and her slender hands wrapped up over her cheeks as she stepped forward.
"Big brother!" Guinevere cried, meeting him halfway across the room and staring up into his eyes. "You came for me!"
Uh-oh, things are getting very dangerous right now! When will the rangers show up to save the day? Will they get there in time? What about Uboss and Elizabeth? Or will Blake and the others manage to save the day? The climax is upon us, how will things shake out?