Things continue down this painful path, with Blake and Sylvia trapped in this awful place and trying to find their way out. They're running now, which means that they'll hopefully get to where they're going a little faster! But where will that be, I wonder? What awaits them? Is there really anywhere to "get" in the end? Unfortunately, Blake and Sylvia might never find out it seems.

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, vote for your best girls! We've only gotten two votes so far. And that's less than the number of people who reviewed the last chapter. Where is everybody? I'm sad, no one supporting best girls… saddening indeed. Not much of a contest with no participation.

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

KedharS: Maybe. But on the other hand, maybe not.

JoshGamerV: Now THAT'S an interesting theory. And yes, I'm trying to capture that feeling of plodding and emptiness that this bizarre desert world is meant to embody.

Rowlets and Oshawotts: Sylvia can get embarrassed. It just depends on the circumstances. It's not an easy feat, I'll give you that.

Pokemon Academy: Beginning of Beginnings

Chapter 630

Blake wasn't sure if Sylvia's proposed idea to run instead of walk was a more effective way of getting them where they were going to go (which he wasn't sure of to begin with) but it was certainly a more exhausting one. Even if they were running fast, and covering more distance, Blake was starting to get tired.

And at the same time, he wasn't starting to get tired.

It was odd. He regained his stamina after a few minutes of rest and was ready to run again, but that didn't mean he felt rested. Physically, he was fine, but the constant increase and decrease of speed was starting to weigh on him mentally.

That was something he noted about this strange place, something he pointed out to Sylvia, who had considered it, surprised by his observation. Sylvia's heightened mental capacities had rendered her immune to the effects, but it was an excellent observation.

"I see. So even though you don't feel physically fatigued, you're still feeling a mental strain," Sylvia noted, stroking her chin in contemplation while they rested. "I hadn't noticed any myself, but that's quite an observation… I can definitely imagine how being in a situation like this would be taxing on someone of your… limited abilities."

Blake shot her a dirty look.

"I was being polite!" Sylvia protested. "Sorry, but it's true. Now that you bring it up, though, it certainly raises an interesting idea… so this place is keeping us all alive, and healthy, physically, but in terms of mental stamina it's starting to wear you down, huh?"

"Yeah, I was concerned that I was starting to get a little mentally drained," Blake admitted. He began to feel a little concerned. "But with how much time we've spent together here, I'm surprised it's only starting to sink in right now. I mean, how long have we even been here? Wouldn't it be normal for me to go a little crazy by now?"

He stared at Sylvia, hoping that she would let him know how long they'd been here, because Blake couldn't even begin to guess. But her face was as unreadable as always as she stared at him, blue eyes ponderous.

"It may be a delayed reaction, as a result of this place's effect on restoring our physical stamina. True, a prolonged situation like this would wear down on a person mentally, but that effect may be mitigated by the lack of need for food, water, or sleep," Sylvia mused. "And there's not really a way to restore mental stamina that I can think of. You can't go to sleep, after all…"

"So what?" Blake asked, starting to get a little worried. "You think that I'm going to go crazy or something?"

"Eventually, that could be a possibility," Sylvia admitted, Blake not sure he appreciated the casual way she suggested that. "But it's probably a long way off. You've done a remarkable job of keeping your sanity already having to deal with me all the time, I have complete faith in your ability to keep yourself under control."

Blake shot her a dirty look and she smirked.

"So what do you think I should do?" Blake asked.

"Well, normally I'd suggest getting some sleep," Sylvia said, leaning back in the sand and staring up at the black sky. "But that's not exactly something we're capable of here. You said that this didn't start really taking a toll on you until we started our idea to run everywhere we went last year?"

"Yeah, it-" Blake's blood went cold and he turned to Sylvia. "…Last year?"

Sylvia propped herself up on her elbows and glanced at him, smirking. She raised her eyebrows challengingly at him, and Blake realized she had just been messing around. He growled at her and flung some sand her way, Sylvia rolling back and laughing.

"You raise a good point though," she said, her tone turning serious, "I didn't consider the effect that continuously pushing yourself to your limits and then recovering would do on your mental health. Even if you have been limiting your speed to keep up with me… it appears that if we want to continue using this method, then it might be necessary for the two of us to take some longer rest breaks, to let you recover your mental stamina."

"And how long is that going to take?" Blake groaned in frustration. They'd tried this strategy out because it promised to be faster than just walking, but if they had to take too many breaks it would be better to just walk, maybe.

He wasn't sure. He didn't know how much distance they'd covered, or how long. Sylvia probably did, but she wasn't telling him.

"It'll take as long as it takes," Sylvia snapped. "Don't underestimate mental fatigue, I'm not dragging you back home a gibbering lunatic."

Blake scowled at her. But he couldn't admit that she was right. So he just lay back in the sand and stared at the dark sky, conserving his strength and regaining control over himself. One thing he thought to soothe how exhausted he felt was to remember the people back home who brought him comfort and helped him feel normal.

Blake held the ribbon up in the air, staring at it. A warm smile crossed his face. Aya was always someone who soothed him.

"Hey Blake," Sylvia absentmindedly called, Blake not looking her way.

"What now?" Blake asked.

"Why do you think we have shadows here?" She asked. "It's been weighing on me for a while, that we still cast a shadow here."

"Yeah, but didn't you say that it's because of this weird sky?" Blake asked.

"Yes, but think about it," Sylvia said, rising to her feet. She turned in the direction they were walking, and her shadow pointed out ahead of her. "A shadow can't be cast without a light source, isn't that right?"

"Yeah," Blake said, not bothering to look at her. He was too busy trying to picture Aya's face in his mind to fully care about what she was saying.

"So what's this one? That sun thing, right?" Sylvia asked, glancing up at the large white orb floating in the sky above them. "It's quite an interesting notion, don't you agree? It seems like a night sky, but we have to assume that's where our light is coming from, right?"

"So what's your point?" Blake asked, finally turning to her. If she was trying to make it easier for his mental health to recover, these musings of hers weren't a very good way to go about doing it. She'd been leaving him alone in peace and quiet for who knows how long, and now that he wanted some privacy she was bugging him?

"How long do you think we've been traveling since we got here?" Sylvia asked, and Blake could hear the thoughtfulness in her voice. "We've walked a great deal, and run a great deal, and we've been here for quite some time. So what do you think about that?"

"I think I'm trying to relax," he replied.

"A very long way, that's how far," Sylvia answered for him. "And you know what's odd? For all that distance, that 'sun' up there hasn't moved even one centimeter. It's always been up there. Right there. In the same place."

THAT got Blake's attention. He sat up, confused, and turned towards her. "What's that supposed to mean? What are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about perception and distance," Sylvia said. "Parallax."

THAT was a word that Blake didn't understand at all. He could tell that Sylvia was about to begin a big speech that would give him a headache. He slumped back into the sand, contemplating burying his head in it.

"Fine, I'll use small words," Sylvia said, taking note of Blake's sigh. "That sun looks bigger than ours back home. But if it hasn't moved AT ALL, after all the distance we've traveled, then it must be an incredible distance away. Otherwise, its position relative to us would have shifted. But no. it's always right there, right above our heads, and casting our shadows in that direction. All this distance we've been running, and still…"

Sylvia pointed in the direction they'd run.

"That's why I came this way, after all," she said. "Why I decided we would go this way."

Wait, what?

Sylvia had a reason for choosing this direction? When she'd proposed it, he thought it was just another one of her crazy decisions. He hadn't even noticed that she'd been heading in the way their shadows pointed.

"You decided we should go this way because our shadows point that way?" Blake asked. "That's… interesting, I guess."

"It gave me a feeling," Sylvia shrugged, squinting at the horizon. "Even the brightest of us have to think about relying on our instincts occasionally, after all!"

Blake didn't like the sound of THAT. He sighed, slumping over and going back to what he was doing, thinking about Aya. Sylvia talking just made things so much harder for him, even if she was just trying to get them all home.

"Blake," Sylvia said again, and now he was starting to get angry.

"What?!" Blake snapped, sitting upright this time. He turned to Sylvia, glaring angrily at her. Sylvia looked at him, startled.

"…Sorry," Sylvia said, shaking her head. "I… I didn't realize how stressed you are right now, sorry. I was just thinking of something."

Blake scowled at her. "Just… what is it? What do you want?"

"You're exhausted," Sylvia said, her voice turning kind and gentle, an oddity for her, Blake knew. She looked at him with sympathy. She let out a sigh. "Okay, look, this might work, and it might not work. But consider it with an open mind, okay?"

Blake was close to being done with Sylvia. But he felt that this was the overwhelming strain he was under from being in this world, and he restrained his frustration, focusing on the more rational side of himself.

He thought about Aya. Aya calmed him down.

He let out a sigh, and nodded his head. "Okay, what is it you want to talk about now? The grittiness of the sand were standing in?"

"It's nothing like that," Sylvia assured him. "It's… not a discussion or anything, it's an experiment we could do."

"An experiment?" Blake asked, narrowing his eyes suspiciously. He didn't like the idea of being Sylvia's little lab Ratatta. "What kind of experiment?"

"We're going to have you fall asleep," Sylvia explained, like that was the most obvious thing in the world to say.

She was so matter-of-fact that for a moment, Blake wasn't sure he'd heard her properly. "What are you talking about?" He asked. "We can't go to sleep. Remember? Weren't you talking about that? How we don't need to eat, sleep, or drink? And now you're telling me to go to sleep?"

"Just because you can't sleep doesn't mean you can't try," Sylvia said, setting her bag down and beginning to dig through it. She took out her medical kit, and began digging through it, next. "Like I said, it's an experiment. And besides, you're pretty stressed out right now, and your body might be fine, but your mind needs rest. And sleep's the best form of rest, don't you agree?"

Blake was still not sure about what she was aiming for. "Yeah, I guess, but like you said, I can't exactly get to sleep, now can I?"

"…But what if you could?" Sylvia asked, glancing up at him. She pulled a small pouch out of the medical kit, and walked over to him, tossing it into the sand in front of him. Blake dug the small silvery square out and turned it over, studying it. It was a tiny pill foil, two smooth pink pills embedded in the plastic cover.

"What is this?" Blake asked suspiciously, staring up at her.

"…It's a tranquilizer," Sylvia said, the pause in her voice enough to make Blake very suspicious. He had to remember that this was Sylvia Driscoll, and she'd just given him some dubious pills to swallow that she said were "tranquilizers".

Blake wasn't an idiot.

"Why do I feel that you're not telling me the whole story?" Blake asked.

"Okay, look, it's a painkiller, a special kind I developed," Sylvia replied. "It numbs you completely for a while, and sort of puts you into a dream-like state. It should help you relax, recover your mental fatigue by making you fall to sleep. …Kind of."

"So you're giving me shady drugs now?" Blake asked, rolling his eyes.

"It should help you sleep, even if this place is preventing it," Sylvia assured him. "I'm worried about you, Blake. Believe me, I wouldn't give that to you if I didn't think it was the best chance for you to recover. You only need to take the one. We can save the other for later."

Blake still wasn't buying it. Sylvia didn't look or sound that troubled. She seemed to be making perfectly sound arguments.

But something still wasn't right.

He might not know the Sylvia Driscoll sitting in front of him, but he had a fairly good idea of how the Sylvia Driscoll that he knew worked. And he knew that if she had some sort of magic sleep-aid, then she would have suggested he take it as an experiment the moment they got there, if she hadn't tried to do it herself.

But she didn't.

Which meant that there was some risk to using it.

"So why didn't you give this to me before?" Blake asked. "Why wait until now? What's this about 'I wouldn't give that to you if I didn't think it was the best chance for you to recover' Ekans oil speech of yours? What aren't you telling me?"

"Blake, do you still not trust me?" Sylvia asked. "Even after what I told you?"

Blake winced.

"That's a dirty card to play, and you know it," Blake said quietly. "You know I trust you, Sylvia. It's just… I would like you, to trust me, too."

"I do trust you," Sylvia promised. She knelt in front of him and placed her hand against his cheek. "Believe me. I trust you. I trust you more than you should ever trust me, I promise you that. But I don't want to worry you, either."

"…What you told me before," Blake murmured. "I want to talk with you about it."

Sylvia sighed. "I'm sure you do."

"We have nothing but time here, Sylvia. Why can't we talk about it now?" Blake asked.

Sylvia shook her head, giving him a tight smile. It wasn't a happy smile, or the usual wicked one she wore. It a deeper form of mischievousness than that, a secretive smile that made him worried, one that looked perfect on her lips.

"We do have time. But why? Telling you about this, it won't help you. It could only cause you more undue stress. And right now, I think… I think you don't want me to tell you, isn't that right?" Sylvia asked, Blake's eyes widening in surprise.

"Th-That's…"

"You're asking me not because you want to know, but because you think that you need to know," Sylvia said. "And you're right. You do need to know. But not right now. And you know why that is, don't you? Even if you don't want to admit it to yourself."

Blake swallowed. She was right on the money. The fact that Sylvia could read him so easily was really starting to make him uncomfortable.

"Because there's a chance that we might not succeed," Blake said, putting words to his concerns. "We might never get home. And depending on what you tell me… it might be worse for me if I spend an eternity here with you, knowing the truth."

"But you don't have to worry about that," Sylvia assured him. "I'm going to find a way to get you home if it kills me, Blake. And I promise, at some point, we'll talk about it."

The casual way that she said that disturbed him. But he didn't let her sweet-sounding words distract him. He might trust Sylvia, but he still needed to know the full story about those pills, and she was going to tell him.

"Sylvia, what's wrong with the pills?" He calmly asked. Sylvia sighed.

"When I made them, well… let's just say I used some extracts from sleep powder," Sylvia explained. "Not just normal drugs. But the formula causes it to be different from normal sleep. There's a chance it might be a little too strong. It works for me just fine, but I built up a tolerance to it. For you, I can't say whether or not it'll go well. Or how it will react with whatever it is around here that's making it so we can't sleep."

The serious tone of her voice was worrying. And so was the look in her eye. She seemed seriously concerned, and when Sylvia got serious it was time to take things seriously. He looked down at the pill foil in his hand, considering whether or not he would basically be swallowing poison. He looked back up at Sylvia.

"And you swear you're not just trying to experiment with me, to see what'll happen?" He asked.

"…About 60-40 concern for your mental health and a desire to see if it'll work," Sylvia admitted. "So go on, give it a try. If you think you can. Like I said…"

Blake could feel his mental stamina flagging. She raised a compelling argument. He popped the foil, and took one of the small pink-purple-blue pills. He swallowed it, and immediately began to feel a little loopy as he did.

"Blake? You good? You sure you want to…" Sylvia's voice trailed off as the world around him began to spin, the last thing he felt being his head slam against the sand as he drifted off into a confusing and bizarre mental state, the darkness above him spreading out.

And then came the real darkness.

So, what will this weird drug of Sylvia's do? We'll have to find out! Perhaps it will allow Blake to achieve enlightenment, and he can use that to help them find their way home.