Things are only looking worse for Blake, at least as far as his friends know! Unfortunately, no one has any idea what really happened or where Blake really is, not even you guys! Hopefully everyone will be able to keep their cool until he finally returns, if he does return, and not lose themselves in their grudges and assumptions about what happened. This is definitely a tough time, not just for Blake and Sylvia but for the people they left behind as well.

Rowlets and Oshawotts: Considering Blake doesn't have his pokemon with him, it's going to be hard for him to get any training in.

KedharS: Sure he can.

Aquahaze675: Well thankfully she's gone so she can't get yelled at.

Thunder Fire: Once we've resolved everything back home and it's time for them to return, of course.

Just a Bad Writer for Fun: That is a very, very bad attitude to have around Sylvia, because it might make her decide to see how far she can push you until you break. Maybe if you're lucky she'll get bored and ignore you since you're boring and predictable.

Pokemon Academy: Beginning of Beginnings

Chapter 601

Aurore Reinhart returned to his office with a feeling of unease. Which was strange. He wasn't used to feeling uneasy. To be fair, there was quite a lot to be uneasy about. Even though he was technically on sabbatical for the term, he had remained on campus so that he could continue his independent research, which was the term he had used to disguise his search and study of the Oracles from the faculty.

But what he had seen the night before was troubling. The Phantom, and those Shadow Pokemon of his… Aurore had reason to be wary. He'd been suspicious of Richard Valon for quite some time now, but had been unable to act on his concerns due to interference from the headmaster. Although Headmaster Albreicht was the kind of man who had a very hands-off policy for dealing with the students and even the faculty, he had put his foot down and stated that there was no violation of campus policy to use those Shadow Pokemon.

That had been before that Dragapult had gone wild and nearly put the student body in danger, though. Aurore felt that the headmaster might have a slightly different opinion if he were asked now. It was getting late, but Aurore had been spending the day doing what most people did on a sabbatical; relaxing. So he hadn't thought to go into his office until this evening. There had been something he wanted to check, something about the match the prior evening that had stuck out in his mind, and he was going to look into it.

But now that he had finally returned to his office, it took him no time at all to see that something was wrong, very wrong.

"What's going on here?" He wondered, looking around. Things were out of place. Papers were on the floor, where they had previously sat on his desk, like someone had opened a window and a strong wind had blown through it.

But he hadn't heard anything from campus security about his office being broken into, so this was definitely concerning.

More concerning, however, was the fact that there was evidence left behind, concrete evidence. He knelt down and picked up a heavy book from off the floor, a book containing details on ancient artifacts from pokemon societies. But not the average ones, these were special artifacts, many shrouded in myth and legend, mostly thought not to exist. It wasn't the sort of text he kept lying around, and there was no way that it had just fallen off the shelf, not when the spot he kept it in was over six feet away. No, it had been taken down.

"Well it seems someone's been doing some light reading," he mused. His eyes fell to a flashlight that had been sitting next to the book, and quick scan of the floor revealed there was a second one. "…Two someones."

The question was, where were they? He closed the book and returned it to its place, looking around the room. His first thought went to the Oracles, but he knew that was impossible. They were locked away, and not with any ordinary lock, either. A quick check confirmed that they were still where he had hidden them.

Aurore stroked his chin. No he was getting curious. Whoever had broken in was skilled enough to not trigger any alarms or alert anyone, but not only did they not take anything, they were careless enough to leave a book sitting on the floor, and some flashlights, proving that they had been in there. None of that added up, unless they had left in a hurry. But surely that would have drawn some attention, unless they…

As he pondered, his eyes scanned the shelves and landed upon one relic in particular, and his blood went cold. It was a tablet carved out of black stone, with ancient symbols inscribed on the surface that not even he had found a translation for.

But where before the symbols had been dull, faded with time, now they were so bright and sharp they were practically glowing.

"…Oh, my," he managed to stutter out. "Oh, this is quite a problem indeed…"

If Ayame had been thinking a little clearer, it's possible that she would have thought to call the Empress first, and let Olivia know what had happened to Blake. Or, well, what she assumed had happened, anyway, now that he was missing.

But her thoughts were too jumbled for that, her heart so clouded by pain and desperation that she wasn't really thinking at all. Her head was just filled with thoughts about Blake, so many they were pushing the other thoughts out of her mind, swimming around in her head until they practically overwhelmed her. Blake. What was happening to him? What he okay?! He had to be okay, he just had to be! And if he wasn't… Worries like those bled into her mind every moment she tried to collect her thoughts, and she wasn't about to let them consume her. So with that anxiety driving her, she did the one thing that she could do without putting any thought into it at all.

She ran.

She ran and ran and kept running, running into the dormitory, running up the stairs and down the halls, not stopping until she reached Olivia's door. When she finally came to a stop she realized how hard it was to breathe. She couldn't remember the last time she had run like this, but between her worry over Blake and her recent exertion, it almost felt like her heart was going to burst. She was out of energy, she just wanted to lie down, she-

Blake's smiling face passed through Ayame's mind, and her earlier exhaustion was wiped away completely. She straightened up and knocked on Olivia's door fast and fiercely, calling out to her between gasps.

"Aya?!" Olivia pulled open the door to see her best friend nearly collapse on top of her. "What's the matter? Is everything okay?!"

"Blake…" Ayame coughed out. "Water… please…"

Olivia helped Ayame into her room, Ayame collapsing on her bed as Olivia went to go get a glass of water from the sink. She handed it over to the other girl, Ayame sitting up and tilting the cup back, draining it completely with a few quick gulps before handing it back. She kept coughing, but her voice was a little less raw. Olivia set the cup down and sat beside her friend on the bed. Aya looked awful, and Olivia was legitimately worried.

"Okay, what's up?" Olivia asked. "I haven't seen you look this haggard in a long time."

"Blake…" Ayame whimpered, her voice cracking. She coughed again.

"Did Blake do something?" Olivia asked, her face hardening. But Ayame quickly shook her head, even though she was still coughing.

"N-No, he- *cough* he didn't…" She said. "He's *cough* missing!"

Olivia wasn't sure she'd heard properly over Ayame's coughing at first. "Missing? You said he was missing? What are you talking about, Aya?" Olivia demanded. "We just saw him last night, what do you mean he's missing?"

Ayame had managed to get out what had happened, so she could relax a little. She coughed harder and harder, giving into the soreness in her chest and throat until she was all coughed out. Olivia got up, deciding that Aya needed more water. Once she had finally finished coughing, Olivia handed the glass back and Ayame drained it in a flash, wiping her lips before finally looking up at the Empress, her eyes weak.

"Blake's missing," she said again. "I talked to his roommates to confirm it. After… after he dropped me off last night… he returned to his room and then left without his pokemon. And he… he never came baaaack…!" Ayame burst into tears, which was stunning to Olivia. She didn't often see Aya cry. Aya wasn't the kind of girl who cried openly like that, even around her. She didn't know what had happened to Blake, but clearly it had broken Aya down severely, and that made Olivia get worried herself. She reached out and placed a comforting hand on Aya's shoulder as she sobbed, knowing that it wasn't much comfort at all.

"You're sure he's missing?" Olivia had to confirm it, even though she knew that Aya wouldn't be breaking down like this if she wasn't absolutely certain.

"Mhmm…" Ayame whimpered, nodding her head. "We all checked everywhere… we haven't seen him all day, we asked everyone who would know, we tried calling him but his phone wouldn't connect, and Sylvia… Sylvia…!"

That caught Olivia's attention. She sat up, her expression turning serious.

"Sylvia? Sylvia Driscoll?" She demanded.

"Yeah… that bitch…" Ayame growled, wiping her eyes. She had let herself go in the comfort of her best friend, and had just given into all the sadness she felt without Blake at her side, her tears streaming down her face. But now that she had heard Sylvia's name, the anger she'd been feeling was back, with a vengeance. She straightened out herself, and began explaining everything that had happened to Olivia in more detail, her rage at Sylvia fueling her and giving her more confidence as she trembled in anger now, instead of sadness.

Olivia listened to the whole thing with an even expression. She tried to parse out the embellishments, knowing that Aya was probably overselling how much to blame Sylvia actually was. But from what she could piece together, there was certainly a possibility that Blake's disappearance and Sylvia's disappearance were connected together. And knowing Sylvia's personality, it wasn't out of the question what Aya was suggesting.

Olivia leaned back, tapping her finger against her chin in contemplation as Aya finished her story, staring expectantly at her friend.

"So, Aya, if I have this right, you believe that Sylvia is responsible for abducting Blake, and that she's hiding him somewhere? And that he received a message from her at night to lead him out, and then while he went to meet her, she abducted him, yes?" Olivia clarified.

"Yes! Exactly!" Ayame said, nodding. "That's exactly it, boss!"

"I see… it's certainly possible, but I think there might be something that you guys didn't think of, something that's troubling me," Olivia replied.

Ayame blinked, staring at Olivia in confusion. Her friend had a suspicious look on her face, and that made Ayame both concerned and excited. Ayame was decently clever. But the Empress was much more intelligent, she had a lot more guile. So if there was something that Ayame didn't think of, the Empress would be able to think of it.

"What do you mean?" Ayame asked.

"Why did Blake leave?" Olivia asked, as if her confusion about it was the most obvious thought in the world, and Ayame was an idiot for not asking that question herself. Ayame blinked, not sure what Olivia was insinuating.

"Huh?" Ayame asked again. "What are you talking about?"

Olivia sighed.

"You know how Blake feels about Sylvia, and you know how he feels about you, right?" Olivia asked, raising her eyebrow. "He hates Sylvia, and he loves you."

"Yeah, obviously!" Ayame said, rolling her eyes.

"So if given the choice between spending the evening with you and going to meet up with Sylvia, which do you think he would prefer?" Olivia asked.

"Obviously, he would…" Ayame's voice caught in her throat and she gasped in realization, before coughing.

"Exactly," Olivia said, nodding, furrowing her brow. "And yet if it did go down the way you said it did, then that means something had to happen that would make Blake choose to go with Sylvia instead of staying with you."

"Well… well he said he had something important to do!" Ayame remembered. "So obviously he would have to…"

"Important like what?" Olivia asked. "I mean, you're important to him, right? What would be so important that it would make him go speak to Sylvia Driscoll in the middle of the night, apparently opening himself up to being abducted? That's what's sticking me right now, and that's where I think we should start. That's how you solve stuff like this, Aya. You work backwards."

"You're right," Ayame mumbled, looking away from Olivia. She wasn't listening anymore, already lost in thought. Why would Blake have met with Sylvia in the first place? She'd been working off the assumption that Sylvia had abducted him, but Blake had already planned to go meet someone, and his roommates had said that he had left on his own will. And no one had come to them looking for Blake because he hadn't met up with them last night, so it HAD to have been Sylvia, right? Unless he'd left after his meeting, but… no, no sense in thinking that way, was there? Unless, maybe…

"Aya, are you okay?" Olivia asked, staring at her friend. It looked like Ayame's head was short-circuiting. She'd been thinking too much today, everything was all so confusing!

"Sorry, sorry," Ayame said, shaking her head. "Sorry, I just…"

"Let's walk it back, okay?" Olivia said. "So Blake gets a message on his phone while you guys are walking back, and he tells you that he needs to meet up with someone about something important. He doesn't tell you what, but it's clearly important enough where even though he doesn't want to leave, he still does."

"Right," Ayame said, nodding. "That's about how I remember it happening last night."

"So taking a second to consider that it was in fact Sylvia who contacted him, that would mean she would be able to tell him something that would actually get him to go meet her," Olivia continued. "Any thoughts about what that might entail? Because he did actually leave, so it was something that definitely motivated him to go."

Ayame frowned, and thought for a second. Ways that Sylvia could have manipulated Blake into meeting her… no, she was just coming up empty. There were a few things she could think of, trigger points that would make Blake act. His sister, Gwen. Or Elaina Bishop. But could Sylvia press them? She'd certainly know to press them, but would Blake take the chance to go see her about it?

Ayame winced. She really, really hoped that Sylvia hadn't used Blake's sister against him somehow. If she had, and it had worked, then that meant he was backsliding into his self-destructive impulse towards her, and that wasn't good. Elaina Bishop was another possibility, and a more likely one for Blake to swallow that Sylvia had something to talk to him about Elaina than she would have anything to say to him about his sister.

Actually, the more Ayame thought about, if Sylvia had been talking about Blake's sister at all, there was no way that Blake would have been able to keep his cool that night and pretend that everything was fine. Elaina either, for that matter. Those subjects were way too sensitive for him.

So what did that leave? Ayame had no idea. It hurt her to realize just how little she really knew about her boyfriend.

Ayame sighed, and shook her head. "I can't think of anything, sorry."

"Hmm, it is a puzzling problem," Olivia admitted, stroking her chin. "But there's gotta be something that would have made Blake go out and meet with Sylvia… unless, maybe we're going about this the wrong way. Maybe Blake hadn't gone to meet Sylvia at all, and he was going to meet someone else entirely, and Sylvia ambushed him on the way there?"

"Yeah, I thought about that," Ayame said. "But I'm not sure who it would be. I talked with all of his friends, and they were…"

Ayame's voice trailed off as she pictured everyone she knew of that Blake was close to. There was something just at the corners of her vision, someone who she had overlooked but now that she was thinking about it…!

"Aaaah!" Ayame exclaimed, startling Olivia. Ayame hopped out of bed, whirling around to look back at the Empress, her eyes filled with energy again. "I forgot about her!"

"Her? There's a her?" Olivia asked, raising her eyebrow.

"Caelia Auburn!" Ayame explained excitedly. "Blake is really attached to her! Even though she acts kind of strange, he still has this fondness for her. And not only that, but recently Sylvia's wormed her way into the girl's good graces! There's a connection there, for sure! Plus, since she used that Shadow Pokemon in the Winter Tag Tournament, maybe there really is something there, not just a connection with Sylvia but a connection with the Phantom, too! Blake would absolutely be worried about her, it's fucking perfect! So Sylvia might have baited Blake out by involving Caelia in some way, maybe even threatened him! So Caelia might know where he is, hell, maybe she's the one who kidnapped him, and she's holding him! I wouldn't put it past her!"

Olivia opened her mouth to speak, but Aya was clearly not done, not by a long shot. So she shut up and just let her friend think it through.

Ayame turned to the door, already talking a mile a minute as she formulated a plan in her head. Her energy was back with a vengeance, as if her earlier shortness of breath and exhaustion were a thing of the past. "Okay, boss, this is going to be a huge favor I'm about to ask, but if Sylvia is holding Blake, then that means the Phantom could get involved. So I need you to hold off until I talk with Caelia. Depending on what she says, we might have to go to war with the Phantom, though. I know you don't want that, but I mean, it's Blake, and…"

Ayame's voice trailed off as she thought more about what she was just suggesting. She was going to go see Caelia Auburn. She was going to go see Caelia Auburn about Blake. As Ayame thought of Caelia, though, she froze up slightly and began to tense.

"Everything okay, Aya?" Olivia asked, narrowing her eyes in concern.

"Y-Yeah, everything's… fine…" Ayame murmured, shaking her head. It wasn't fine, not at all. She and Caelia Auburn weren't exactly close. Starting way back at the field trip when Ayame's insensitivity had resulted in the girl having to expose her burns to everyone, now just the thought of the girl was enough to bring a shiver down Ayame's spine. She couldn't quite explain why, but every time she thought about Caelia she had weird flashes to the girl coming at her with a knife. And certainly, the girl's behavior was abnormal, but… it was rude to think of her that way. She was just a little off, and could Ayame really blame her, considering?

But as much as she wanted to be sympathetic to the burned girl, that sadly didn't stop Ayame from still being unnerved by her. There was just something about her that she couldn't shake.

Realizing that she had been focusing way too long on her anxiety, Ayame glanced up to see Olivia looking suspiciously at her, and Ayame quickly averted her eyes.

"S-Sorry, boss, I'll just-"

"I don't think so," Olivia said, rising up off the bed and walking over to her friend. She reached out and cupped Ayame's cheek, turning her face towards hers. "You're shaking, Aya."

"Th-That's-"

"You're worried about Blake," Olivia asserted. "I know, because I'm worried about him too, and I don't even love him. And not only are you scared about what's happening to Blake, but you're scared about something else, too. Something involving Caelia? I don't know what it is, but I know there's no way in hell I'm letting my best girl go out when she's shaking like this!"

Olivia turned and with a flick of her wrist she stripped her clothes off, much to Ayame's embarrassment, and walked towards her closet.

"B-Boss?!" Ayame stuttered.

"I'll be coming with you, Aya, and we'll go see her together," Olivia called from her closet. In what should have taken much, much longer, Ayame assumed, than it did, Olivia strolled out wearing a brand-new outfit, a warm black stylish sweater and insulated blue jeans with flared bottoms and, to Ayame's shock, heeled snowboots, a designer scarf patterned white and midnight blue wrapped around her neck. She looked at Ayame with a twinkle in her eye.

"Shall we go?" Olivia asked, picking out a stylish black coat from her coat rack and turning back to her friend. "We're going to confront miss Caelia Auburn, are we not?"

Ayame opened her mouth, stunned for a second, and nodded. "Y-Yeah," she replied. "Yeah, that sounds like a plan, boss!" Overjoyed that Olivia was going to be helping her, Ayame felt a renewed sense of confidence, the two girls heading outside to go speak to Caelia and figure out what, if anything, she had to do with Blake's disappearance.

So, Olivia and Ayame have drawn another conclusion… but not the correct one! Caelia Auburn returns next chapter! Though I wonder, what will her reaction be to learning that Blake has disappeared, from Ayame Toujou's own lips? That should be interesting…