Blake and Sylvia are surrounded! Will they be able to fight their way to freedom? Or will the horde get to them? Things are really looking bad now! What do these cloaked figures want from them?!

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 votes for the Elimination Round have begun to pick up, that's pretty good! Hope we can start getting them to role in! I've been very surprised by the results of this poll so far, some people are leading that I never would have expected, and some people are trailing behind who I thought would be frontrunners. Just goes to show how much things have changed since last year!

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

KedharS: That's a good way to put it.

Pokemonking0924: Well, we'll have to see. It's definitely a dangerous situation, that's for sure.

Rowlets and Oshawotts: This isn't a positivity sort of place. They're trying to get back to that. This is the dark times. On the positive side, Blake's relationship with Sylvia is improving!

JoshGamerV: Thank you, any specifics you like about it?

Pokemon Academy: Beginning of Beginnings

Chapter 632

Whatever this thing was, Blake didn't want to kill it. It looked like a child, a little boy, and here he was, threatening him with a knife against his throat, using the kid as a hostage to keep the other cloaked figures from attacking.

But what choice did he have? Whatever these things were, they clearly weren't interested in letting him and Sylvia go. He had to rely on whatever he could to keep them at bay, and if that included threatening to kill a child then he would, begrudgingly, go through with it.

But right now he was faced with an entirely different problem, and that was that his threat wasn't working.

Those things were still advancing, undaunted by the threat, even as his blade pressed deeper and deeper into the creature's throat. Did they care? Did they even understand what he was saying? Clearly they must understand what he was threatening, right?

Unless Sylvia really was right and death wasn't even a thing these creatures would care about. It was a pretty hollow threat if nothing could actually die.

But maybe they could die. That was the worry beginning to seep into his mind. Because he didn't want to hurt someone. He didn't want to kill someone. Maybe Sylvia would have, but he wouldn't. Threaten, yes, he could make himself do that.

But that was different from actually slitting a struggling child's throat. If he went through with his threat and it turned out that the kid COULD be killed? He wouldn't be able to live with himself, even if he was being attacked.

Why weren't they backing up? Why wouldn't they leave the two of them alone?!

"What do you want?!" Blake desperately shouted at the approaching horde. "What the hell do you want with us?!"

"I'll tell you what they don't want," Sylvia dryly muttered. "They don't want to have a conversation. You're going to have to slit its throat."

Blake was aghast by her suggestion, but he wasn't surprised. He shook his head, unable to accept her suggestion. "I'm not going to kill him!" He shouted at her, and Sylvia didn't look that happy with his response.

"Well, I guess you're gonna die then," Sylvia scoffed. "Assuming, of course, we even can die here, which isn't something I'm all that enthusiastic about finding out, if you would believe that. I've died enough already."

Blake didn't know what that meant. Sylvia had died? What? He stared at her, stunned. What she'd said was so shocking that in his weakened mental state he lost his focus and his grip on the struggling kid in his hands loosened.

"Raargh!" The kid ripped himself free from Blake's hand, pushing himself forward, and to Blake's horror the blade in his other hand dug deep into the child's throat with a sickening "schlorp", the kid pulling himself free and running away from Blake, massive amounts of black blood pouring out of his throat as he clutched at it, stumbling into the sand.

Blake went numb. What… what had he just done? The knife fell from his hands as he looked at the hacking and coughing child bleeding out over the desert, by Blake's own hand. "No… no, I… I didn't mean to…" he stuttered, as if that would somehow make it better. He felt like he was going to be sick to his stomach.

But it wasn't as horrible as he had feared. Seconds later, to his unimaginable relief, the child stood up, and the deep gash sliced into his throat began to close up. The fatal wound repaired itself as the child turned and hissed at him, but this time it didn't run straight at him.

Not that it needed to, the others had caught up and the horde was seconds away from being on top of them both.

"Great, so we're dealing with crazy desert people who can't die, that's just lovely," Sylvia said, the notion that she herself was also invulnerable not making her feel much better. "Hey! Blake! Snap out of it already, the kid's fine! But you know who's not fine? The two of us!"

Blake had been so relieved that he hadn't actually cut the child's throat open and killed him that he had missed what Sylvia was saying, gasping in realization as he reached down and pulled the knife free from the sand, for what good it would do him. And it was a good thing, too, because he stood back up just in time for the creatures to attack.

Blake wasn't even sure what he was doing. He wasn't some fighter. He swung the knife wildly, the creatures crying out in pain as long ribbons of black cut across their pale skin. They hissed and growled, swinging at him, and all he could do was swing around and try to fight off what he could. The fact that the knife was so sharp made them keep their distance, but even Blake could see that he couldn't keep up with this forever, even if his stamina was repairing itself.

After all, he was fighting a horde that wouldn't die.

Sylvia, at least, was having slightly better luck, because unlike him, she actually seemed to know what she was doing. She wielded her pen in one hand and her stun gun in the other, and she was fighting dirty, too. She jammed the tip of the pen in one of the creature's eyes (a CHILD at that) while her stun gun sent thousands of volts of electricity into one of the grown-ups.

"Urraash!" One of the larger ones lunged at her and she leapt off the sand, stepping on one of the small kids and using him as a springboard to kick the grown one right in the face. It stumbled backwards, holding its nose.

Sylvia landed on the ground, and to her horror she saw that Blake had gone down. The creatures were on top of him, pinning down his arms and legs like a big pile of pale, dark-haired dolls. He struggled to shake them off, but he couldn't.

"Get off me!" Blake grunted. At least they weren't biting him or tearing into him or anything. As far as he could tell, they were just trying to hold him there.

"Get… you LET GO OF HIM!" Sylvia shouted, ignoring the horde behind her and throwing herself at the pile, stun gun crackling in her hand. "Let go of him you bastards, you get the hell off! You aren't taking him, do you hear me?! THERE'S SOMEONE WAITING FOR HIM!"

Sylvia kicked out, knocking the smaller ones off of Blake while she electrocuted some of the larger ones, finally shaking enough of them off to pull Blake free. He was panting and his clothes were rumpled, but he wasn't injured, just shaken. The crowd just kept coming.

"We can't keep this up for much longer," Blake warned her.

"Well, we have to!" Sylvia shouted back. She charged forward, bringing her leg up and kicking one of the big figures in the throat, knocking it backwards. She used her kick's momentum to turn her body and elbow one of the children in the face. She grinned triumphantly.

"What do you think of that?!" She crowed.

"Where did you learn to move like that?" Blake asked, stunned. Sylvia smiled back at him.

"I happen to be friends with a certain ninja," Sylvia said, ducking down under a swing as she zapped another one of the adults. "And while he wasn't going to teach me any of his moves, he did let me watch him training."

She rose up and kicked one of the kids in the leg, slowing her down, grabbing her by the hair and flinging her into another child. Turning, she kicked at another adult, knocking him over as she zapped a second one. Taking the knife from where Blake dropped it, she twirled it between her fingers and brought it down on the skull of one of the kids, sending blood spurting everywhere.

Blake was stunned. Not only by her skill, but by her ruthlessness. He remembered all the times he'd threatened Sylvia in the past, only now realizing just how empty those threats were.

"Of course, even though he wouldn't teach me, I figured out all of his moves from watching him train anyway," Sylvia proudly stated, flicking her hair back over her shoulder as she stared triumphantly down at the horde. "Because I'm a genius."

The cloaked figures healed their wounds and backed off, a cluster of golden eyes glaring at the two humans, studying them. Whatever Sylvia had done, she'd scared them off. For a second, Blake hoped that she's made such a nuisance of herself that the crowd thought that the two of them were more trouble than they were worth.

"You're amazing," Blake said in awe, in spite of himself. Sylvia glanced back with a smirk, giving him a coy wink.

"Definitely better than a boyish looking giantess," Sylvia replied, her stun gun flashing in one hand and her knife twirling around in the other.

Blake gave her a look of irritation. He didn't grade girls that way, Aya beat Sylvia by every metric imaginable!

"Don't worry! We can do this!" Sylvia enjoyed herself with his frustration, returning her attention to the horde. Confidence burgeoned in her voice as she reassured him. "You stay back and make yourself small, Blake," she said, glancing around at the thick circle that surrounded them. "Leave the rest to me! I'll fight them off!"

A few of the taller figures broke free from the cluster, warily approaching her. Sylvia's eyes swept over them, raising her knife up with one hand while the stun gun flickered threateningly in the other as she warned them off.

The taller adults raised their arms. Ghostly energy began to swirl in the air, gathering around their outstretched hands, forming ghastly claws of shadow that crackled and burned with destructive energy around them.

Sylvia blinked.

"…Well, I can't fight that."

And that was how Sylvia and Blake found themselves bound up with rope, lying down side by side as the horde of murmuring, whispering creatures dragged them through the desert. They were taking the two of them in the same direction they were heading in the first place, Sylvia dryly noted. Blake, while grateful they weren't just being eaten, was starting to have a bit of a mental freak-out. He had already been at about the end of his tether mentally, and this was making it so much worse. He wanted to know what was going to happen, and he didn't want to know at the same time. He had no idea how he was supposed to feel, really.

"Whatever the hell these things are, I'm pretty sure they aren't people who got sucked up by this tablet," Sylvia dryly noted, shifting her head to look up at the back of the cloaked figure dragging her behind him. "Not unless the tablet exists in multiple dimensions than just ours. I'm pretty sure I would know if OUR earth ever had crazy pale people with dark magic claws."

"What do you think they're going to do to us?" Blake asked, turning to look at Sylvia. He was starting to panic. Seriously panic. And Sylvia couldn't really say anything that would make him feel better, either, since her mind was already being put to work coming up with worst-case scenarios that even he probably wasn't thinking of.

"How am I supposed to know?" Sylvia hissed back. "Whatever they're doing, we just have to put up with it, and hope that we get out of this okay."

"Feed," a high-pitched giggle sounded out, and that drew the attention of both Blake and Sylvia, their heads turning forward to see the figure trailing behind them.

It was the kid from before, the one who had run in first and gotten captured by Blake. His golden eyes were studying them curiously, and his sharp teeth were twisted into a savage smile that looked more than a little hungry. He turned over the knife that had cut his throat open in his hands, studying it and the two of them in equal parts.

Blake gulped. "…Did he say what I think he said?" So these… whatever they were could speak English. That was something.

Sylvia picked up on that too, and the two looked at each other. If he could understand them, then that opened a whole new range of possibilities, she understood. It was definitely something worth thinking harder about, maybe even worth studying in detail. If they could communicate with these creatures, then maybe they could be reasoned with.

But then again, maybe that was just wishful thinking, and the kid had just made some grunt or squeak that didn't mean anything.

But if there was any doubt to be had, the kid repeated what he said. "Feed!" He chirped, his eyes brimming with excitement. Another voice joined his, this one belonging to a little girl. Then a third one joined in, one of the adults, a woman. Well, she looked like an adult compared to the shorter ones, but honestly these "adults" looked a lot closer to Blake and Sylvia's age than any actual adults. They were more like older teenagers if anything.

"Feed! Feed! Feed!" More voices began to speak up, starting softly with the kids and then being joined by the adults, until the chorus developed into a full-fledged chant, all the cloaked figures jauntily cheering. "Feed! Feed! Feed!"

Blake stared weakly at Sylvia, but she had no comforting words to give him.

"Maybe they mean they're going to feed us," Sylvia weakly offered back, and even Blake could tell that was garbage. They were really screwed, huh?

"Just get as much rest as you can, Blake," Sylvia said quietly, turning and staring at the silver sun in the sky. "There's no use worrying about it now. You might not be able to get to sleep, but close your eyes and think about better things than that. Think about Aya. That's better than imagining whatever might happen to us when we get there."

Sylvia could give some good advice when she wanted to. Blake closed his eyes and thought about Aya. Her smiling face, but also her stern one. If she were here, she'd probably tell him to buck-up herself, and tell him that everything would be okay.

It was awkward, but Blake could kind of dig into his pocket even with his hands bound at his sides. He scraped at the ribbon, desperate to feel it warm in his grasp again, but the worst possible thing happened. His finger slipped, and the ribbon fell from his pocket, landing in the silver sand below him. And tied up as he was, he couldn't pick it up.

"No!" Blake shouted, squirming against his bonds. He tried to hook his feet into the sand and snag the ribbon that way, but it slipped around him and continue to lie there, getting further and further out of his reach. "NO! NO!" He thrashed desperately at his bonds and for second Sylvia wondered if maybe he COULD break loose, but no, his squirming stopped when the young boy that had been watching them caught sight of the ribbon, stopping in front of it and picking it up, studying it eagerly.

Blake settled down, staring at the golden-eyed child as he studied the ribbon, the kid turning back to look at Blake questioningly. The small thing picked up the pace, drawing closer to Blake and circling around him and Sylvia with movements that reminded Blake of a Meowth or a Purrloin, very feline in his gait.

The child held the ribbon up to Blake, tilting his head to the side quizzically. He pointed at it. "What?" He asked.

Blake calmed down. Whatever this thing was, it was trying to talk to him. That meant he could reason with it, right? Have it let him and Sylvia go, or more importantly, give him back the ribbon. But to do that, he couldn't scare the kid off. So he took a deep breath and restrained his temper, grabbing whatever shards of self-control he still had, and gave the child the best smile he could. "That's a ribbon," he explained"

The child blinked. "Rib-bon," he sounded out, looking at it. "Ribbon?" He pointed to it, then pointed at Blake.

"Yes," Blake said, nodding. "That's my ribbon. It's very important to me, it means a lot. Can I please have it back?"

The child thought for a while as he walked next to Blake, his eyes shining and his smile wide. It was like he was enjoying Blake's desperation.

"Ribbon," the child said, reaching his hand out towards Blake, the ribbon clutched tightly in it. Blake's face lit up. Was he giving it back?

"Looks like you've got a friend, Blake," Sylvia said, finding the situation darkly amusing. "And all it took was an open throat."

The ribbon got so close to Blake that for a second he considered grabbing it with his teeth. But then it was torn away from him!

"Ribbon!" The child cackled, Blake growling angrily at him. But he had to keep his cool. Even as the kid offered it to him again. This time, though, he wasn't gullible. He stared at the kid, not willing to play the game, whatever the game was.

The boy didn't seem to like this decision.

"Ribbon!" He insisted, pushing the ribbon at Blake again, stomping his feet in the sand angrily. "Ribbon! Ribbon!"

"Yes, that's a ribbon," Blake said. "Can I have it back?"

The kid nodded eagerly. "Ribbon!" He offered Blake the ribbon again, but Blake could see in the boy's eyes he was just going to tear it away. Then, the boy tucked it into Blake's shirt pocket, much to Blake's amazement.

Blake's face lit up with excitement and the child's did too, smiling happily and clapping his tiny hands, his golden eyes glowing.

Then he pulled the ribbon out of Blake's pocket and held it up, Blake thrashing around angrily.

"Ribbon!" The kid laughed, flapping it mockingly in front of him as Blake fumed at the boy. Then, the child resumed studying him again.

He held up the knife and began fumbling with it, pulling out different shapes until he found a pair of scissors. He held the scissors up to the ribbon and looked at Blake with an excited gleam in his eye, and Blake felt his blood run cold.

"No…" He whispered, shaking his head, desperation seeping into his voice. "No, please, don't…"

That just seemed to rev the child up even more. His lips widened to reveal a sharp grin, and a thin tongue stuck out to lick his lips. Blake couldn't believe this was happening. Not only he probably going to get eaten alive when they made it to wherever it was they were going, but now his bond with Aya, the ribbon that he promised her he would keep safe as a testimony of their love, was about to be torn to shreds.

But by the grace of god, that wasn't what ended up happening. Before the curly-haired child could cut the ribbon in half, one of the taller figures caught up to him and slapped him in the back of the head, causing him to stop walking and drop the knife and ribbon.

"Eeeh?!" The child gasped, rubbing his head in frustration. The taller figure ignored him and picked up the objects, walking to catch up with Blake and Sylvia. The child chased after them, whining.

As the figure approached, Blake could see it was a woman. She looked like she could be the kid's older sister, but then again, who didn't. Upon closer examination, all these people looked alike. There were differences, sure, but they all had the same curly black hair, the same pale skin, the same sharp teeth, and the same golden eyes. Hers were staring silently down at them.

"No! No!" The child pleaded, tugging on the woman's cloak. "Ribbon! Feed!"

"No feeding!" The woman snapped, smacking the child on the head again. "Feed later. Ritual."

Blake didn't like the sound of that. Ritual? Ritual sacrifice, probably, with him and Sylvia as the main course.

The child grumbled in frustration and kicked the sand, a bizarre sight. It seemed even in this warped reality children still through tantrums. The woman ignored him, however, and returned to studying Blake. Blake gulped. She looked even hungrier than the boy did. But she didn't eat him or bite him or anything, she just licked her lips.

And she tucked the ribbon safely away in his shirt pocket, a kind gesture that stunned Blake and caused him to rethink everything he'd been fearing about those strange creatures. She still kept the knife, though.

"Oh, look at you," Sylvia sarcastically replied, a coy smirk crossing her face. "Even in another world you've still got it, Mr. Ladies Man."

Blake shot her a dirty look and the woman tilted her head to the side in confusion. She turned and grabbed the child by his hand and pulled him away, heading towards the head of the large crowd. The boy stuck his tongue out at Blake as he passed, and Blake replied with a glare.

He didn't know where it was they were going or what they were going to be "fed" to, but thinking about all these confusing things was more trouble than it was worth. Sylvia had had the right idea from the start. Feeling his ribbon hot in his chest pocket, he closed his eyes and imagined that the ropes that bound him were one of Aya's hard hugs.

Sylvia and Blake have been taken prisoner! Kind of redundant considering they're already in a giant prison. But what awaits them at their destination? What's this "feed" really about? We'll have to find out!