Another chapter of our strange couple stuck in this hellscape. Like Blake, I'm sure a lot of us are just wishing that they'd get back home. Unfortunately, it looks like things are still a long way off. How long can they spend in this nothing place, I wonder? Hopefully they won't stay there for too much longer, that could be bad.

Also, thank you to everyone who read my story "The Heir to the Dragon". I would appreciate if you continue to read and support it in the future! You can get there through my profile!

The Elimination Round has already begun, but we've only gotten a few votes so far. Come on guys, go vote for your best girls!

Nominated: Alcea, Ayame, Carrie, Caelia, Cynthia, Dakota, Darla, Elaina, Elizabeth, Julia, Kate, Kitty, Lila, Maddi, Marion, Nikita, Olivia, Sango, Sylvia

KedharS: Definitely, thankfully for Blake's sake we're going to do it off-screen.

Rowlets and Oshawotts: I think Blake would agree with you. Unfortunately, they won't be able to make their way back for quite some time, it seems.

Pokemon Academy: Beginning of Beginnings

Chapter 629

Blake had never realized how much he appreciated the sun until he had been forced to go without its warm light shining down on him. Some indicator, something to mark the time, so he would know how long he had been here. Even a watch would be nice, but the clock on his phone and Sylvia's both had stopped working for some reason.

At their pace, they were making good time. They wouldn't get exhausted unless they ran, or walked up a dune, and even then, their energy would recover after a short rest, as part of whatever the hell it was that kept the two of them in their perpetual state of life. Left at this pace, they could keep walking forever.

And they had been, it felt like. No breaks. No pauses. No anything. Just an endless walk through this endless expanse, with no idea where they were going or how close they were to getting there, or if there was even anywhere to get to at all.

He had no idea what to do here, that was the unfortunate truth. He had no idea how long he'd been walking for. A week by now, certainly? At least a week, since Sylvia's little experiment. A week of silence, because Sylvia had deigned not to engage in conversation since then, and Blake wasn't really sure what to say to her.

He certainly had things that he wanted to ask her, but he held his tongue. This wasn't the time. And honestly… he was afraid of the answer.

A week. And what a long week it had been. Or maybe not a week. Maybe only a few days. Maybe even just one day.

Maybe it had been two months.

This was why Blake missed the sun.

So how long of an eternity would it be? How long could they walk this endless expanse of nothing before he went totally crazy? Sylvia was already probably not all-there, but Blake, at least, still had a tenuous grasp on his sanity. And ironically, Sylvia would probably be perfectly fine exactly BECAUSE of her eccentricities.

Blake, though? Blake was going nuts at the fact that he hadn't seen the sun.

Fortunately, there was a lot he had to keep him sane. The three things that pushed him forward and kept him walking, kept him hoping. His sister, his pokemon, and Ayame Toujou. His friends, of course, were a treasure as well, but if you asked him what he needed to go back for? What kept him going, even when he feared there might be no end in sight? That's what it was. And that's why he wasn't about to give up here.

They've definitely realized I'm gone now, he somberly thought. He wondered how they would have reacted. Aya, of course, would be crushed, and that thought tore him up inside. He'd been spending so much time trying to help her, trying to make her see herself as the confident beauty that he saw her as, to get her past her feelings of insecurity. And he'd succeeded. He'd more than succeeded. And that's why he was afraid to not go back.

No doubt, Aya's been completely devastated by this, Blake told himself, feeling the ache in his chest just at the though. He could only imagine how much she'd cried. After the yelling and screaming and violent smashing, of course. Aya was a cool and composed beauty most of the time, but if anything would cause her to lose her temper, it would certainly be this.

In the end… no matter how hard I try… I just keep end up hurting the people I care about, he bitterly thought. And he'd really done it this time. This wasn't breaking Kate's heart by giving her hope, or rejecting Aya countless times, or letting Cynthia down when she'd finally realized her feelings. He'd managed to hurt every single person he knew, every single person he'd ever cared about, who cared about him.

I have to go back. I have to. I can't stay trapped here. That was the mantra that kept his feet moving forward, the knowledge that he had people who he had hurt back home, people who were no-doubt searching the island for where he could be, growing more and more desperate and hopeless. Hell, with how long he'd been gone, maybe they'd already given up hope.

That was a dark thought that kept creeping in his mind, and part of the growing torture that this hell-scape was inflicting. He had no idea how long he'd been here. It could have been months. Hell, he didn't even know if time flowed the same here as it did there, if there was even anything about "time" that applied to this place at all. How long would it take, before they thought he was gone for good? Really, truly, dead?

Sylvia had been right before, after all. There was no indication where they had gone. Only a few people even knew where he had gone that night, and no one knew he had broken into the professor's office. Would they be able to put the pieces together, if Sylvia was gone, too? Hell, would anyone miss Sylvia? Really? Would the professor realize they had broken in, realize that he had read from that tablet? Maybe… but then again, probably not.

For all they know, I left my pokemon, my backpack, everything behind, and just disappeared with Sylvia, Blake imagined. Would Aya think he had left her to elope with Sylvia? No, she would never believe that. He knew her too well, and she knew him. She would never think he would cheat on her, abandon her like that, because he never would. If anything, they'd probably think that Sylvia abducted him. And they wouldn't be too far off.

How many months would it take? Would it be years? He knew Cynthia was stubborn, as stubborn as Aya. He could be gone years, and those two would still probably believe that he was coming back. Sango would hope so, too, but she was a little more rational than he was. She'd probably believe, for a while, but eventually come to terms with it. Claire? Claire would burst into tears the minute she heard he was gone. She was that sort of girl. Too sensitive, even though she pretended to be bubbly and sweet, even though she was really tough, she was just too sensitive.

How would Gwen react? Gwen would never accept it. Not ever. She would wait for an eternity if she had to, holding out hope right until the end. If she was rational, of course. But in her present state? With how much her harmonia had warped her way of thinking?

Blake could imagine her tearing the world apart with those powers of hers in order to find him, and that thought made him shiver. It also brought to mind two other problems. Elaina Bishop and Caelia Auburn. Both girls were very attached to him, dangerously so. And if he was gone, well…

Again, not something that Blake wanted to think about. But more than those potential fears, more than anything but the pain of abandoning his sister, there was something he was concerned with. Something that would have kept him up at night, if he had any compunction to sleep in this horrible prison of a desert.

If I'm here for years… what will I find when I get back? It kept slipping into his head, no matter how much he wanted to avoid thinking about it. He was still 16, and would continue to be 16 for a very, very long time to come, if Sylvia was right and they weren't aging. It was a terrifying thought, to come back to his world ten years from now, still the same as when he'd left it, seeing that everyone will have moved on without him.

Would Aya wait ten years for him? What about twenty? Thirty? Would she wait her whole life, on the off chance he might return?

Would he even want her to?

It felt horrible that Aya moving on and finding someone else to love was his greatest fear at the moment. His hand clenched tightly around his ribbon, and he was trembling. How could he be so selfish? With everyone counting on him, and all the pain he'd no-doubt inflicted on them in his absence, did he have the right to think so selfishly?

No, of course he didn't. And yet he couldn't stop thinking-

"Blake."

Blake flinched, looking around. Was he hearing voices now? No, wait, that was Sylvia. She had stopped, turning back to look his direction. He'd been stuck with nothing but his own thoughts for so long that he'd forgotten what it was like to hear the voice of another person.

"Y-Yeah? What's up?" Blake asked, catching up to her, surprised at how weird his voice sounded to his ears. It had been a while since he'd spoken. Or at least, that's what it felt like. Kind of awkward, he wasn't sure what to say.

"I thought of another idea," Sylvia said, and the look in her eye told him he probably wasn't going to like it. "It's a bit of a long shot, but I think it's worth experimenting with." She glanced down. "Even though it may be… uncomfortable."

"Yeah, what is it?" Blake asked.

She sighed. "This isn't something I wanted to try, but I think we might not have any other choice." She turned and glanced behind her, at the vast expanse of nothing behind her. "It's not like we're getting anywhere this way."

"Well, if you have another direction you think we should go, I'm all ears," Blake muttered. "Need I remind you of the nothing in every direction?"

"Maybe what we need, instead of going in a different direction, is to adjust our pace," Sylvia said. "Since we're getting nowhere fast, we might as well speed things up a little and get there even faster, don't you think?"

"So you want us to run?" Blake asked. That didn't sound like a great plan. "Look, I know our strength recovers, but-"

"It's the best plan we have," Sylvia said. "I've been going over the differences between the two of us in my mind, trying to narrow things down, but I can't find anything that would suggest a reason why you were able to read the tablet and I wasn't. So I'm adjusting my priorities. Let's focus on finding something, anything here. Or anyone."

Blake was confused. "Wait, what do you mean by anyone? You mean that worm thing again? Because I'm not exactly interested in meeting him again."

Sylvia gave him an exasperated sigh, looking at him like he was an idiot. "What I mean is that as we already established, this place is a prison. And not a prison for that giant worm. So tell me, Blake, do you think that you and I were the first people to ever find ourselves trapped here? You don't think anyone else read from it in the history of what is CLEARLY an old-ass tablet if an archaeologist is studying it? How special DO you think you are? Because there's arrogance, and then there's arrogance."

Blake paused. He hadn't actually thought of that.

"Remember, here, it's like there's no such thing as time," Sylvia reminded him. "We can't die. Which means all those people trapped here, they're STILL here. Somewhere. Maybe together, maybe apart, I don't care, but there's definitely people out there, and we have to find them."

"Unless they all got eaten by that worm," Blake reminded her back.

Sylvia waved her hand. "I don't want to think about something like that," she replied. "Let's think positive thoughts!"

Blake was less sure now.

"And you think running is going to help?" Blake asked.

"If we run as fast as we can for as long as we can, and then we wait for our energy to recover, then I think that we'll be covering more distance than if we walk at this pace," Sylvia said. "The only reason I didn't propose that idea is because it would be rather uncomfortable. So what do you think? Are you up for it?"

"Any downsides?" Blake asked.

"We'd be out of energy at various points," Sylvia said. "And that would leave us to be eaten by those giant worm things. Plus, well…" She glanced aside, and her cheeks turned pink. Sylvia Driscoll, of all people, was blushing. "I'm not exactly good at running."

Blake resisted the urge to burst out laughing. "Are you actually embarrassed right now?" He asked through snickers. "That's adorable!"

"Shut up!" Sylvia snapped. "It's important! You can run way faster than I can, and for a lot longer, too. What that means is that if we do this, then we won't be able to continue traveling together. You understand that? That's why I didn't want to go ahead with this, because then we would be separated, and if you got in trouble, well… that would be a problem."

Blake noted that Sylvia wasn't exactly talking about what would happen if SHE got in trouble, which was kind of annoying, but he didn't say anything.

"I think it's worth a shot," Blake said. "How about this? I run as fast as I can, rest, and wait for you to catch up?"

"That sounds like a waste of time if you ask me, but it's definitely worth experimenting with," Sylvia said. "Okay, so… what, we just start?"

"Sounds like a plan," Blake smiled, just happy to be talking to someone again. He turned back in the direction they were heading, shifted his stance into a running pose, and charged forward as fast as he could.

The last time Blake had run on this strange terrain, he had been fleeing in fear of his life from that worm. But right now, the worm wasn't anywhere. He was just running to get somewhere, putting as much as he could into reaching his top speed. His chest began to throb with pain, but he ignored it, still pushing forward.

This time, Aya's ribbon was clutched tightly in his fist. He thought of her as he ran. She would love this idea, he knew that. He imagined she was right here, beside him, the two of them running together over this expanse of sand.

Part of him wished she was. He could see her now. Her silky black hair, matted with sweat, her ribbon flopping with every bob of her head. She would turn to him, a big grin stretched across her face as her hazel-gold eyes twinkled at him, the two of them daring each other to run faster, to get to where they were going that much sooner.

"Come on, Blake, tiring out already?" His imaginary Aya called. "That doesn't seem anything like the boy who won a date off me way back when!"

"If you have the energy to talk, then you must be holding back quite a bit for my sake!" Blake would call back. "Don't mind me, run as far ahead as you want! I'll just be admiring the view from behind while you do!"

Then her face would get red and she'd turn away from him, but pick up the pace anyway. Telling herself that she was just trying to get away so that he wouldn't see how embarrassed she was, but deep down inside she was showing off to him, so he would see…

Another stab of pain in his chest shook him out of his daydream. A smile was spread across his face. Aya was guiding him the way she always was. But not even he could keep running forever. With a smile on his face he slowed to a stop, even remaining standing taking too much out of him. He fell forward and held his arms out to brake, landing in the sand.

Blake rolled onto his back, panting, just the act of sucking air into his chest was painful. He tilted his head down and couldn't even see Sylvia. How far had he run? For how long?

He didn't have the strength to ponder those questions. He just let his head drop back into the sand and closed his eyes, picturing Aya with a big smile on his face.

It only took a few minutes for Blake's energy to recover. He sat up and waited for Sylvia, who was taking quite a while to catch up. He didn't know how long it took, but eventually Sylvia came running up to him, panting.

"Already… rested once…" she muttered, flopping down next to him. "Need to… recover for a few seconds… then… we can keep going…"

Blake wasn't sure that was the best course of action. How much time had he wasted, waiting for Sylvia to get here? Was this method more efficient, if he had to keep waiting for Sylvia to catch up to him? He couldn't see how.

"I don't think this is such a good idea," he admitted.

"Huh? But… we got so far…" Sylvia murmured, turning and looking at him.

"Yeah, but… think about it. If we keep going like this, we're just going to be wasting our time and our energy," Blake said. "We're not going to get anywhere if I have to keep waiting for you to catch up, and like you said, it's not like I can just leave you behind."

"Of course you can," Sylvia said automatically, sitting up. Apparently, she had already mostly recovered now that her breathing was more regulated. "That's what I'm here for, you fool. If you need to leave me behind in order to move forward, then I want you to do it without blinking."

She slapped her hand against her chest.

"Right now, consider me as a tool to help you. Any way you want to use me, I'll do it. That's what I'm concerned with," she informed him. Blake was startled. The look in her eyes told him that she wasn't joking.

"How about instead I just run at your pace?" He suggested. "Rather than leave you to rot in this desert by yourself."

Sylvia blinked, surprised at the offer.

"As you wish," she shrugged.

"Besides, I get the feeling if I'm going to get out of here, I'm going to need to rely on that brain of yours," Blake sighed, rising to his feet. "So let's just run together, okay?"

Sylvia nodded. "Makes sense to me," she agreed, standing up as well. They began to run again, this time Blake matching his pace with Sylvia's.

Thankfully, Sylvia wasn't as bad at running as she made herself out to be, even though she was no track athlete. At least she didn't keel over and die.

The two went on like that for a decent jaunt, Sylvia clearly getting winded and more exhausted, moving slower and slower until she came to a stop, clutching her side and breathing hard, crouching down into the sand and rolling over, staring up at the black sky.

Blake was only a little winded, his energy coming back quickly compared to what Sylvia was going through. She was clearly burnt out.

"Hey…" she coughed out. "Notice how we're not going anywhere still?"

Blake noticed. He just didn't want to say anything, because he didn't like that it was true.

"We've been running for about an hour and a half at this point," she informed him through pained gasps. "Although a lot of that time was spent on resting and catching up. Still… I think it's pretty good progress, if you ask me… it takes me… about… 3 minutes… before I'm back at full health… Then we can keep going."

"That sounds fine," Blake said, nodding.

"But if you ask me…" she continued, ignoring his response, "I think… I have another idea… that we could try… this one's… not too risky, but… it's just something I've been curious about."

She glanced up at Blake, her blue eyes twinkling as a smile crossed her face.

Oh great, Sylvia has a plan. Well, that should be fun. Like Blake and Sylvia, this story really is going nowhere fast.