Oh no! Blake and Sylvia disappeared! Sucked into a portal to who-knows-where, our hero and Blake might be in for a surprise… or danger! What awaits them on the other side? Well… who can say? For now, let's take a second to see what everyone's reaction to this disappearance is. Will they even be able to figure out what happened? If not, how will they be able to help?

Rowlets and Oshawotts: Interesting idea. And yeah, go for it.

KedharS: Now you're playing with portals.

Rus0804: Well, I can imagine Sylvia having fun in the Distortion World if that's the case, but I doubt Blake would be too thrilled.

JoshGamerV: No, go ahead, I'm curious.

Thunder Fire: No, that would result in something much, much worse than two kids disappearing. Nah, they just went to take a nice vacation.

Aquahaze675: Trapped in Another World With an Evil Bitch, Can I Become a Hero and Build My Own Harem of Girls With No Personality Who Exist Only For Fanservice?

Pokemon Academy: Beginning of Beginnings

Chapter 598

It was actually a decent amount of time before anyone on campus realized that Blake and Sylvia had gone missing the night of the Phantom Cup finals. Needless to say, there was a lot of chaos that night as a result of the Phantom's Dragapult going wild, and a lot of the student body went to the infirmary for checkups. Maybe it was because not even the slightest thing was found to be wrong with anyone, but for some reason the Phantom didn't receive any sanctions for his actions with the Shadow Pokemon. It was like the administration didn't seem to care about what had transpired. Maybe because it was a private student-run event.

Dakota, of course, was livid that something could be ignored, but while her article might have been popular with the students she wasn't exactly writing a scandalous expose. As honest of a reporter as she was, as much as she wanted to reveal the truth to everyone, she wasn't stupid enough to reveal all the data that Mirar had given her. That would put a target on her head that she would just as well avoid. She'd uploaded everything to a private flashdrive and gotten rid of the rest of the data, so as long as she kept the drive hidden nothing would be traced back to her.

In the meantime though, things were returning back to normal.

Well, almost normal. There were some people who weren't exactly in the best mood.

Ayame checked phone for what felt like the hundredth time that morning. Her message to Blake asking when he was going to get there was still on "sent". She was waiting in the Snorlax Commons at a table for two, because they had agreed last night to meet together for breakfast, but he was nowhere to be seen. Her food was long-devoured since he was almost an hour late at this point, and Ayame was starting to get worried. Did something happen to him? That look in his eye when he said goodbye last night…

Calm down, calm down, she ordered herself. You're just overreacting. Yesterday was really stressful, he probably just overslept or something. It's not a big deal. You'll see him in class later, and he'll explain everything. You're sounding like a crazy, clingy girlfriend. Ayame decided that further worry would be pointless, and continued to wait patiently.

…That resolve lasted for all of half a minute, and she was calling him.

"The number you have dialed cannot be connected. The phone may be turned off, or is out of range," the electronic voice told her. Ayame scowled. That didn't tell her anything. Now she was starting to feel anxious. She felt a familiar rumble build up in her stomach, and for a brief moment she was afraid she'd throw up again. But she suppressed that urge and stood up, looking forlornly at the empty seat across from her. Last night had ended on such a pleasant note, but…

But then she'd had a nightmare. It was a horrible, dreadful nightmare, one that had caused her to spring awake in a cold sweat even in the dead of winter. Such a horrible dream… she and Blake had been at the dance. They'd danced all night, holding each other close, and then the dance had changed, and they were in her bedroom somehow. And they were still dancing. Still holding each other close. And they fell backwards onto the bed, closer and closer…

On most nights, this was where her dreams took a pleasant turn. The kind of direction that would leave her red in the face and sweaty when she woke up in the morning for an entirely different reason. But tonight wasn't most nights.

Because the darkness came.

"Ay… Aya…" Blake choked out. Shadows wrapped around his throat, pulling him back from her and cutting off his voice. The room around them had fallen away, replaced by an endless void that surrounded her bed, leaving her trapped in the darkness.

"Blake!" She had screamed, leaping from her bed and reaching for him. But for some reason, she had found herself trapped, her sheets twisting around her and forcing her to sit and watch as the boy she loved was pulled away from her, the shadows wrapping tighter around him. His arms and legs were swallowed by the darkness, and another long tendril reached out of the void and wrapped around his waist, pulling him further in, dragging him away, the darkness nearly swallowing him completely as he reached out desperately towards her.

"Aya!" Blake had cried, and the two of them stretched their hands out as far as they could. Ayame could feel her fingers brush against his… and then she'd tumbled out of bed into a lump on the floor, snapping her out of the horrid dream.

It's not true, she reminded herself as she walked to class. Seeing those horrible shadows last night is the reason you had that ridiculous nightmare. Blake's fine, calm down. He's just busy today, and must have forgot. You'll see him soon enough.

But Blake wasn't in class that day. While the teacher was talking, she sat at the desk doing her job as a T.A., taking attendance, and she kept tapping the pen against his name, glancing at the door every other second as if she was expecting him to burst into the classroom at any second, red in the face and giving some explanation about why he was late that would make everything make sense.

An explanation that would make everything okay.

Ayame glanced at another student in the class, Nick. He was one of Blake's roommates, and sort-of her friend, though only through Blake. He also looked a little… confused was the word. She noticed that he was glancing at the door occasionally as well, and immediately realized he was in the same state that she was, they were both wondering where the heck Blake was.

After class, she stopped him as he walked out of the changing rooms.

"Oh, Ayame, I was-" Nick looked like he was going to ask her something, but Ayame didn't have time to hear it.

"Nick! Forget about it, I need to ask you something important, do you know where Blake is?!" Ayame demanded. She was practically shouting at him. He backed up, going white as a startled look crossed his face. She paused and took a moment to compose herself, calming back down.

"That's, uh… actually, that's what I wanted to ask you," Nick said. "Do you know where Blake is?"

Ayame scowled. It was as she feared. She opened her mouth to tell him she didn't know any more than he did, but she never got the chance, it was her turn to be cut off.

"Blake? Are you talking about Blake?"

Ayame winced, turning to see Andy rush over to them. She had a confused expression on her otherwise-cheery face.

"Ayame, Nick, heyahoo!" She greeted them in her odd way. "What're you guys talking about Blake? Is he okay? Why wasn't he in class today?"

She was directing her questions to Ayame, but Ayame didn't know how to answer them! She shook her head.

"Hey, that's what I want to know," Ayame said, frowning. "We had a breakfast date that he missed, and he's not returning my messages. Every time I try to call him, it says that the call won't connect!" She turned to Nick, glaring at him in spite of herself. "What about you, Nick, did he seem off this morning? Was everything okay?"

Nick had a look on his face that made her concerned, though. His eyes were wide and worried, and that wasn't a good sign. He bit his lip, glancing down. Ayame sighed and adjusted her tone. She had forgotten because she didn't know him very well, but Nick was a rather shy little guy.

"Sorry, sorry, Nick," Ayame replied, a little more gently. "It's just… I'm worried about Blake, and I wanted to know, is he…"

"…There," Nick mumbled.

"Huh?" Ayame blinked, not hearing it properly. "Sorry, what?"

"He wasn't there," Nick said a little more clearly, looking up into her eyes. "When Reiner and I woke up this morning, he wasn't there. And not only that, all his stuff was right where he left it when he headed out last night, his pokeballs on his bed and everything."

"He didn't have his pokemon with him?" Ayame gasped.

"We thought he had, well… you know," Nick said, glancing away from Ayame, his face lighting up in a crimson blush of shame. "…You know. That he had gone to meet you again, and the reason he hadn't come back in the morning was because you guys were…"

Nick's voice trailed off and his face was redder than ever, clearly praying that Ayame picked up the insinuation for herself. She did, turning bright red, and Andy snickered. But Ayame shook off the initial embarrassment and realized what Nick was saying.

"N-No, we didn't," Ayame said, shaking her head. "He dropped me off at my place and headed off, he said he had something important to do, so I just… I just let him go. He went back to your room? When, when was this?"

"I don't know, around 11?" Nick said. "That's when he left, anyway."

That wasn't long after she'd last seen him. So he'd gone back to his room, left, and then… he never returned?

Ayame went pale. No, no. That… that wasn't…

"What? You guys are weird," Andy said. "Blake isn't just ditching class?"

"Andy, shut the fuck up!" Ayame snapped, the perky girl's eyes widening in surprise. She nodded meekly and shut up. Ayame turned back to Nick. "Nick, this is really fucking important. Did Blake tell you guys anything? Who he was going to meet, where he was going, why, anything at all?!"

"I-I don't really remember, I was really tired," Nick said, shaking his head. "Reiner's usually better at stuff like that, he stayed up a lot longer than I did, maybe… maybe ask him? But like I said, we both thought he was going over to your place…"

Well, if they'd thought that, then Blake clearly hadn't told them anything important. Ayame knew that, of course. Rationally.

But right now rational thought could go fuck itself, she was grasping at straws and the only one still holding any was Reiner. She grabbed Nick by the wrist and tugged him away, stomping across campus as Andy watched, confused.

"Um… bye?" She said, waving at the two as they headed off.

Ayame burst into Blake's room, startling Reiner and Nikita, who were both sitting on Reiner's bed. They pulled away from each other, their eyes wild with a mixture of surprise and embarrassment, but Ayame didn't really care what the two of them were getting up to while Reiner's roommates were gone. She shot a look at Nikita that made her swallow, quickly scrambling off the bed and climbing down the ladder. She had her head down as she tried to rush past Ayame, but Ayame was having none of it, grabbing Nikita by the collar and yanking her back.

"Hey!" Nikita gasped.

"Hey!" Reiner said angrily.

"Sorry, but this is an emergency," Ayame said, letting the nerd go. Nikita glanced at Ayame, and could see the panic in the older girl's eyes. She recomposed herself and nodded.

"Yeah, okay, what's up?" Nikita asked.

"I'm looking for Blake. Have either of you seen him today? Heard from him?" She demanded.

"We're worried," Nick explained, being the voice of etiquette since clearly Ayame was in a "kick doors down first and demand answers" mood. "Ayame thought she was with us last night, when we thought he had spent the night with her."

Reiner took a moment to process this and jumped out of bed, his expression serious. He shook his head, "we haven't seen him or heard from him since he left last night," he replied. "And you're sure he didn't message you or anything?"

"No, nothing!" Ayame wailed. "Did he say anything? About where he was going?!"

"Just that he wanted us to take care of his stuff for a little while, not mess anything up," Reiner said, frowning. "Nothing about where he was going, and- Nikita, what are you doing?"

While Reiner was busy talking, Nikita had started tuning him out and walked over to Blake's portion of the room in the meantime.

Nikita looked over her shoulder.

"Blake said to take care of his stuff, right?" She asked quietly. "To not mess anything up?"

"Yeah, but-"

"So I'm messing everything up," she replied simply, pulling the top drawer of his dresser open and beginning to sift through it.

"H-HEY!" Ayame exclaimed, running over and pulling her away. "You can't go sifting through my boyfriend's underwear! Even I haven't-"

Reiner smirked. "Even you haven't… what, exactly?"

"THAT ISN'T IMPORTANT RIGHT NOW!" Ayame boomed. "Listen, you can't just-"

"What's important right now is finding Blake, right?" Nikita asked. Her legs were trembling, clearly intimidated by the taller girl, but she tried to keep that out of her voice. "And no one saw anything, no one knows where he went. If he wanted the boys to take care of his stuff, then maybe… maybe there's a clue there, or something?"

Ayame's eyes widened. "Oh! Yeah, Nikita, you're a genius!" She cooed, lifting the girl up into a tight hug of joy.

"Yes, I know, now let me down please, I can't breathe," Nikita dryly replied. Ayame nodded sheepishly and set her down.

"Okay, smart thinking, let's search Blake's stuff for clues. But if anyone's going to dig through his underwear drawer then it should be-"

"Me, because we're both guys," Reiner said, his eyes shining gleefully at the disappointment that flashed across Ayame's face as the logic of his reasoning sunk in. "Or Nick."

"…Okay, fine," Ayame said, not trying to seem too disappointed. "I'll search his closet then."

"Um, hey, there's one other thing I just thought of," Nick said, raising his hand timidly. "Think the girls heard anything?"

"Yeah, good thinking," Ayame nodded. "Sango and Cynthia are the closest to him, after all, if he told anyone then they'd know. Nick, go ask."

"Why me?" Nick asked.

"Because I have to stay here, that's fucking why!" Ayame shouted. "I need to search this place top to bottom until I find some evidence!"

"We can do that," Reiner said. "And my eyes are way, way better at finding stuff like that than yours are. Ayame, we're all worried about Blake, but right now, well…"

"What?" Ayame demanded. "'Well' what?"

The tension in the room could be cut with a knife. Ayame was like her Voltorb right now, one wrong move and she'd blow up.

"You're too invested in this," Reiner finally said, Nick and Nikita both sighing in relief. Neither one of them had the guts to say it.

"Of course I'm fucking invested in it, he's my boyfriend!" Ayame exclaimed.

"Right, and he's our friend," Reiner said. "But you're not helping anybody like this, because you can't keep an even head, Ayame. Nick, Nikita and I, we're all worried about Blake. But we're trying to talk this through calmly so we can figure out where he is and what's happened. It's not like he got abducted off the street, he could be perfectly fine for all we know. But you're catastrophizing right now, and it's making the rest of us worry too. Nikita and I can handle searching his room, so why don't you just… I don't know, calm down, go for a walk, something to take your mind off of this, because you're not helping anybody if you freak out over every little thing!"

"I'm not leaving!" Ayame growled, crossing her arms in front of her chest. "I'm staying right here! Because… because…"

Ayame looked desperately towards the door for a second and that was enough of a hint for Reiner to get what the issue was. He sighed, and walked over to her, putting his hand on her shoulder.

"We're going to find him, Ayame," Reiner assured her. "I get it, you're afraid that if you leave you might miss him if he comes back to his room, right?"

Ayame's eyes widened in surprise. Was it that obvious?

"Look, if Blake is missing, do you think he'd want you freaking out about this, and making it harder to find him?" Reiner asked. "Or do you think he'd want you to stay calm and not panic, so you could help us figure out what's happening?"

Ayame took a deep breath, and composed herself. She nodded in agreement.

"Yeah, you're right. Thanks, guys. I'll go see if Sango and Cynthia are back yet and check in with them," she decided. "You guys stay back and see if you can find anything."

Ayame walked over to the door and held her breath as she turned the knob. For a ridiculous second of foolishness she thought that she would see Blake standing on the other side, coming home for the night. But no, just an empty hallway. She sighed, and headed towards the girls' room.

Someone else might think that Blake was cheating on her, but that was the last thought in Ayame's mind right now. She didn't care about "why" he was missing. None of that mattered. Whatever excuse he gave her when they found him, she would believe it with all her heart, no matter how ridiculous it sounded.

She just wanted him back.

The three first years took a collective sigh of relief now that the immense pressure of Ayame Toujou had left the room. They could finally move without having to expend extra PP.

"So what are we even looking for?" Nick asked, heading over to Blake's desk as Reiner checked his clothes.

"I don't know, some note, maybe? I'm not exactly a detective," Reiner groaned.

"You're trying to be an archaeologist, right?" Nikita giggled. "That's almost a detective. That's like a detective solving really, REALLY cold cases!"

Reiner considered that for a moment and grinned. "Yeah, I never thought of it like that!"

"So, what do we do, Mr. Detective?" Nikita asked, standing at attention and giving her boyfriend a salute.

"…First, we don't do that," Reiner said, gently lowering her hand. "Next, well… I guess we just see if we find anything out of place?"

Nikita's enthusiasm drained away from her face and she raised her eyebrow. "…This is a room with three teenage boys in it," she said, looking around and holding her arms out to emphasize her point. "EVERYTHING is out of place."

Reiner glanced at the messy of books, clothes, and various other things of unknown origin that had been left over by them. None of them were exactly avid about cleaning.

"…Okay, fair," he admitted, leaving Blake's dresser behind and getting started on picking up the junk on the ground.

"What… what if something really bad happened to him?" Nick asked, turning to look away from the alcove of Blake's bed. Like Ayame, he was getting really worried.

"Did you guys worry this much about me when I went missing?" Reiner dryly asked, throwing some old clothes in Blake's hamper. "Don't worry, I'm sure he's probably fine. Stuff like this happens. You're just having an ordinary day walking in the forest and then you fall into a big pit trap that some idiot dug up stay down there a day or two because she wasn't smart enough to come up with a way out."

"Gee, um, I w-wonder who would do something crazy and reckless like that?" Nikita said, turning away from Reiner and quickly digging through some papers on Blake's desk. "She must be some dummy, y-yup…"

"For all we know he's crashing at someone's place, or doing one of those all-night training sessions with his Salamence," Reiner reassured them. "He'll be fine. If he's not back by tonight then we'll go to Campus Security and they'll find him. Unless Ayame's torn the whole campus apart by then."

"Well, no, he didn't go train with his Salamence," Nick corrected him. "He left his pokeballs behind, right here. Salamence's too."

Reiner had forgotten that. He frowned. Maybe this was more serious than he'd thought.

Hearing that, though, made Nikita think of something else. It was a crazy thought, but it might work! "Hey, I just thought of something! Maybe we can figure out where he went after all!"

Interesting! Nikita's come up with a plan! But where did Blake go off to? Will they be able to find him? Or even figure out what happened? This is quite a serious issue, where could Blake be?