Freed from the Darkness, Sylvia begins her journey through the Forest of Darkness. What will she find there? Will she find the Cursed Spring? Will she be able to take the water and bring it back to Blake? Will they make their escape?!

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

Rowlets and Oshawotts: Maybe she's not interested in titles like that, she's a bigger fan of just causing chaos.

JoshGamerV: Who knows what the Darkness is. Maybe we'll never know. Maybe the Traveler knows. I suppose it comes down to whether or not we ever come back to this crazy place after Blake and Sylvia manage to escape.

Aquahaze675: It isn't Guzzlord, Guzzlord is a prisoner of the Darkness just like everyone else who enters the forest.

KedharS: Well, Sylvia doesn't really need to use even, like, 20% of her power, man.

Pokemon Academy: Beginning of Beginnings

Chapter 645

Sylvia walked through the forest as free as a bird. Certainly, she could not see why those around her would have trouble with such a thing. All one had to do was resist the pull of the Darkness and drive it off, anyone with her skill could do it. And yet, as she maneuvered through the countless bodies of the sleeping, writhing and screaming in pain, it was starting to get annoying how incapable they all were at being able to do something so simple.

Or, more accurately, the chorus of groans and wails was starting to annoy her. She'd only been walking for a handful of days by this point, how much further was this spring? It couldn't me that much longer. There would be no point in the people who constructed this prison to make the forest unreasonably large, not when no one could leave anyway.

Then she came upon it. A ring of people, trapped in sleep, screaming and thrashing around at the edges in a bizarre ritual of suffering.

For a moment, Sylvia thought she was staring at a big pool of milk. The lake surrounded by the sleeping people was a pristine white color.

So the Holy Spring is black water, and the Cursed Spring is white, huh? Sylvia noted with a roll of her eyes. Whoever created this world must have quite a sense of humor. I wonder who came up with that little joke.

She walked through the spasming people, kicking some of them aside as she made it the edge of the lake. Once she cleared a few of the annoying screamers out of the way, she set her bag down, and knelt beside the lake.

From what Sylvia had heard, this water called to everyone trapped in this world. That must be what all these people had gathered around here for in the first place in this eternity that this prison world had existed. They would come to this spring, drink from the water, and remain trapped here, unable to purge their sin from their bodies.

Then, while they were trapped at this spring, when the Darkness came to them, they just stayed here, Sylvia contemplated. She looked across the people scattered around her. Many of them were human. Most of them were not. There were Valdette, Valetty, and all sorts of other things that Sylvia couldn't guess the origin of.

But she didn't have time to think about the prisoner list right now. She had business to take care of, in order to get back to the village, get back to Blake, as soon as she possibly could. Which meant the spring took priority.

Sylvia unzipped her bag, and took out one of the bottles of water. She unscrewed the lid, dumping the contents out on the ground, and then took out the second, but she didn't empty the contents of that bottle.

Then she pulled a third bottle from her bag, filled to the brim with a rather suspicious-looking black liquid.

Sylvia smiled and swished it back and forth a little.

When she had unpacked her bag all those years ago with Blake, she had never revealed that she carried a third with her. The two she'd showed Blake had contained water. The third one she'd kept for herself had not. Rather, it contained quite a significant amount of alcohol. At the time, she had kept it hidden in the case of emergencies, an added precaution. She'd been hoping to get Blake drunk with it, but this would be more important.

Feeding it to Valaya had been rather amusing, though.

Luckily, Blake didn't realize that I had scooped up some of that spring water myself, when no one was looking, Sylvia smirked. She'd traded the water in one of her bottles for some of the "special" water from this place. Could she really resist? It was just in her nature to experiment with fun little toys like this water. She'd bring back two bottles of the white water, one for the both of them, and one to join the black water.

Unfortunately, this meant that she'd have to free up the space that her spirytus was currently taking up, like she'd done with the water.

…

Still, it was a waste to just waste perfectly good booze.

Awful. This place was awful. Not needing to eat? Fine. No need to drink? She could live with that. No injuries, no sleep? She was cool with that.

But not being able to get drunk was the last fucking straw. Sylvia stomped through the forest in a rather foul mood. The alcohol had tasted like acid, and she hadn't even gotten plastered off of it! Talk about a waste of 96% alcohol content, she griped.

Well, either way, she had returned with three bottles of spring water, even if Blake would only be seeing one of them. The other two would be put to other use.

It was a few more days before Sylvia reached the edge of the forest. She stood still in the shadows, a wicked smile on her face.

"Come to see me off, Darkness?" She asked, turning back and looking at the empty void behind her. She wasn't sleeping, so the Darkness couldn't reply. But she imagined hearing a hiss of rage coming from the forest.

She smirked.

"Maybe someday, you too will be able to leave this prison," Sylvia mused, stepping past the threshold and exiting the forest, feeling like a weight had been lifted off of her shoulders as she stepped out into the sands of the desert, seeing the village in front of her.

They would be leaving soon. Sylvia almost found herself to be feeling a little regretful about that fact. There were still a lot of questions that she hadn't gotten the answers to, questions she really wished that she could answer.

For starters, what was that massive creature that the Darkness had tried to imitate? It was the reason this prison was created, but it wasn't the Darkness. So what was it? And for that matter, what was the Darkness?

She wondered if the Traveler would know about it. But the way that the other Valdette spoke about the Traveler, describing how she felt about humans, Sylvia thought that might not be a very good idea. Or maybe it would.

Either way, Sylvia wouldn't have the time to find out. She let out a long sigh. I must be getting soft, she considered. The old me would never have considered sacrificing such an exciting world without figuring out everything I could about it.

But this was more important than that.

Imagine me putting the needs of someone else ahead of my own for a change, she laughed to herself. No one would believe it. But I'm not going to sacrifice Blake's happiness to meet my own needs. I need to get him back home. No matter what.

She was tempted to stay. But she had a sinking suspicion that wouldn't work. When the Valdette had explained the reason why Sylvia had been able to enter, after jumping in after Blake, Sylvia had assumed that she wouldn't have been sucked into the tablet normally. Hence, she was an anomaly. She wasn't supposed to be in this world.

Which meant, for lack of a better word, she was free of sin. Sylvia didn't personally agree with that assessment, but she wasn't the one who made the rules of this crazy place.

What that meant, though, was that Blake would probably be shit out of luck if he tried to escape on his own.

Sylvia wasn't supposed to be here. But Blake was. He had been brought here, they had BOTH been brought here, because Blake had read the tablet, since his love for his friends and his girlfriend was so powerful that it had completely overwhelmed everything else, and made him so dependent the tablet had judged him as having committed a sin.

Which meant that there was a very likely chance that even if Blake drank the water, all that would happen would be that he would get addicted to it, like the people in the forest around the spring had been. (Before the Darkness put them all to sleep, anyway)

He hadn't purified himself of his sin at all, after all. He still loved everyone important to him as much as he had before. He was still yearning for Aya, yearning for his little sister, yearning for his pokemon and friends, if anything his sin had only increased.

Which meant this escape plan was going to be doomed to failure. There was no way for him to get out of here.

Normally, anyway.

Sylvia had a gambit, one that she really, really hoped would work. But there was a chance that it wouldn't.

No. Don't think about that right now. It's going to work. It worked one way, I'm pretty sure it should work the other, right? Sylvia reasoned. Yeah. That makes sense. It's the only thing that makes sense for how this crazy world works.

And if it doesn't work that way, I'm going to MAKE it work that way, she promised herself, clenching her fist tightly as she reached the edge of the village. Blake was waiting there, she could see him as the sole piece of color in this place. She couldn't make out his face just yet, but she assumed he was standing there with hope and relief on his face.

Okay, no more serious face, Sylvia reminded herself, putting up a big smile. Blake likes you better when you're smiling and playful, after all!

"Hi, honey!" Sylvia called, waving her hand in an exaggerated fashion. "I'm home!"

"You made it back!" Blake gasped, crossing the sand to meet her. A wasted effort of emotional sentimentality, but a welcome one. Yes, he was relieved. For a moment, Sylvia wondered if he had actually been worried about her, but no way was that the case. That would be way too boring and predictable if he had actually grown to care about her in the time that they'd spent together here, even if it had been a couple of years.

But that look on his face, like a relieved little Growlithe whose master had just returned home made the smile she was wearing just a little more genuine.

I have to remember he's just that kind of guy, she noted, laughing and shaking her head. How boring and predictable.

"What's up?" Blake asked, his relieved expression taking on a note of confusion. "Why are you laughing?"

"Oh, I was just enjoying the fact that you're so refreshingly stupid, as I anticipated," Sylvia explained. Blake scowled at her. Sylvia set her bag down and took out one of her bottles of white water, taking care to make sure Blake couldn't see the other bottles. "But enough about that, are you ready? We better get this done as soon as possible."

She looked around. "You are ready to go, right? Where's Valaya? I was sure that she would be here to see us off."

Blake glanced over his shoulder and nodded towards one of the tents. Valaya was hiding behind it, peeking cautiously out. When she realized she'd been spotted, she ducked behind it quickly, Sylvia suppressing a chuckle.

"What's up with that?" Sylvia asked, walking past Blake and approaching the Valdette. "I thought she would be thrilled to see that I made it back."

"She was worried," Blake explained. "We both were. I guess she's just a little nervous, she went to go hide as soon as we saw that you were coming back."

How cute!

"What's up, Valaya?" Sylvia greeted her, walking over to the shocked-looking Valaya. "Happy to see me?"

"You made it back," Valaya said, her face filling with awe. "That's impossible! No one EVER comes back! Never ever!"

"We should celebrate," the other Valdette, the one who seemed to be dubiously in charge, walked up to them. She wore a thin smile on her face. Sylvia glanced back at her and smiled herself. Dommy-Mommy looked so pleased. Behind her, a large crowd of Valetty and Valdette stared at the two humans, with looks much like Valaya's- expressions of awe, and even reverence.

"No, thank you, that would be lovely, and on any other occasion, I would love to take you up on that, really, I would," Sylvia said. She turned to Valaya, giving her a sad smile, and then looked back at Blake, who had just caught up to them. "But there's somebody I have to bring back home. He's been gone a long time, and I can't justify making him wait a second longer."

"I understand," the Valdette said, nodding. "But still. Please allow us to see you off. You may be surprised to hear this, humans, but the two of you are quite important figures to us. A human who can enter the forest… and return? The first humans who will travel through the Holy Spring and return to their world… it is something truly worth honoring. Such an act tells us that there is hope that other humans may at some point be able to venture out of the forest as well. This village will remember you. I promise."

"In that case, call us by name," Sylvia grinned. "Not 'human'. I'm Sylvia. He's Blake."

The Valdette nodded her head. She looked a little uncomfortable nevertheless. She turned to Sylvia. "Sylvia," she said, and then turned to Blake. "Blake. We shall wish you well."

"They can't leave yet!" Someone protested. Everyone turned to see a Valetty break out of the crowd, a little boy. The boy from before, who Blake had captured, and had tried to torment him. "I haven't gotten to play with the human that much at all!"

Sylvia glanced at Blake and raised an eyebrow.

"Don't ask," he whispered back to her.

"They must," the Valdette sternly chastised him. "This world is not their world. They must return to where they are from."

Sylvia smiled, and nodded her head. "Yes, we must."

Blake agreed with her, but then he caught sight of Valaya's face. She was trying to smile, she really was. But Blake didn't have to be an empath to see that she was one word away from bursting into tears. She'd grown so attached to them. She didn't want them to leave.

"Do you… really have to go?" Valaya quietly asked, even though she already knew the answer.

"Yes, we do," Blake said, feeling sad as well. This goodbye… it really was sad. Because he would probably never see her again. He knew he would never be back here, and the chance of her escaping on her own was…

"Come with us," Sylvia suggested. "You said you wanted to explore our world, right? Don't you want to come with us?"

"That's… but…" Valaya looked at the other Valetty and Valdette. "This is my home," she said quietly. "I can't just leave."

Sylvia and Blake looked at each other, and sighed.

"I helped you come up with that name," Blake reminded her. "Please, remember that, keep that close and remember us."

"I won't forget you," Valaya assured them. Her eyes were shining with excitement. Blake felt relieved seeing those eyes. He thought of something else, too. Something that would really help her rememeber him.

"I promise you, Valaya, an experience like this isn't one I'm likely to forget," Blake said to reassure the saddened girl.

"Don't believe him," Sylvia jeered. "He forgot like half his life."

Blake shot her a dirty look, and then returned his attention to Valaya.

"Like I said, something this special will stick with me probably forever," Blake assured her. He unzipped his jacket and stripped it off, handing it to the confused and eager girl. "But if you ever feel like you're going to forget, just look at this and remember me, okay?"

"I will," Valaya blubbered, black tears streaming down her face. She threw her arms around Blake and hugged him tightly. Pain shot through Blake and he heard the sickening sound of his bones cracking. "I definitely will! Your emotions, you two are so sweet, to care about me that much, I'm never going to forget!"

"Thank… you…" Blake gasped out. "Please… let… me… go…"

"Oh!" Valaya gasped, realizing her own strength. She let go of Blake, Blake stumbling backwards as his body began to heal. She turned to Sylvia, who wisely took a few steps back.

"Nah, that's cool," Sylvia said, shaking her head and giving Valaya a wry smile. "And I don't know what you mean by 'sweet', I'm not that kind of gal."

Valaya blinked, confused. But she smiled. "Good luck! Blake! Sylvia! Let's meet again!"

Blake smiled. "Yeah," he agreed. "That would be nice." He didn't think it would happen, but there was no harm in promising the girl.

Sylvia and Blake said their last goodbyes, and after Blake showed Valaya how to put the coat on, they headed into the tent and the large rock sculpture.

When they were alone in the darkness of the stairwell, Blake finally asked the question on his mind.

"Sylvia, I wanted to ask-"

"Blake, here's how this is going to work," Sylvia interrupted him. She knew what he was going to ask, and this was important to resolve first. "I'm going to drink the water, and that's going to open the portal. You're not going to drink any, understood?"

"No, that's not what- wait, why?" Blake asked.

"Because it won't work with you," Sylvia explained. "You haven't purified your sin at all."

"Then… then this won't work!" Blake exclaimed.

"Do you forget how I got here?" Sylvia reminded him. "You opened the portal, and I jumped through. That's how we're going to do this. I open the door, and you jump in after me. Since I'm not supposed to be here after all."

"But… this is a prison, right?" Blake worried. "What if it won't work the same way in both directions? What if only you get out?"

"Then I'll track down someone who can read that tablet, force the words out of them, and reach in to pull you out," Sylvia replied. Blake gulped. She didn't sound like she was joking.

"That's… okay, but more importantly-"

Sylvia interrupted him again with a long sigh.

"Remember what we discussed before?" Sylvia reminded him. "How there was no value in asking that question, because the answer might change things for better or worse?"

"But we're leaving this world now!" Blake exclaimed. "Out there, it's definitely going to matter! I've trusted you all this time, so why can't we talk?!"

"Blake…" Now wasn't the time to have this conversation.

"Sylvia, you know my name," Blake hissed. "Nobody knows my name. Nobody could. So just tell me how that's possible, please!"

Sylvia sighed for what felt like the millionth time in this conversation. They had reached the bottom of the stairs. The light trickled down on the spring, the black water shining a little in front of them. She turned back to Blake, even though he couldn't' see her face.

"I promise you, I'll explain everything to you," Sylvia said softly. "When the time is right. Please, believe me."

Blake didn't like it, but he agreed. Reluctantly. He gave a nod she couldn't see, and verbally agreed "okay, I'll trust you, Sylvia."

"Then let's get going," Sylvia said, taking his hand and leading him through the water. They stood in the center of the glowing circle.

It was a tight fit. They could barely fit the two of them in its light, even smushed up together like they were. Sylvia was vaguely miffed that he wasn't reacting to her breasts pressed up against his chest, but let it go.

"You've got everything you need?" Sylvia asked. "Ready to go?"

Blake reached into his pocket and took out Aya's ribbon, showing it to her. "I'm ready. I've got everything I need."

Sylvia smiled. "Good." She held up the white water bottle, which was shimmering in the darkness. She unscrewed it, revealing the liquid. Blake felt his mouth start to water in spite of himself. The water was calling to him.

Sylvia pulled it away, narrowing her eyes. "Like I thought. Addicted for sure. This one's gotta be me."

She tilted the bottle back as she brought it to her lips. The white liquid flooded down her throat, and to Sylvia's mild surprise it tasted exactly like water. As Sylvia drained the bottle, the glowing circle they stood in began to shine even brighter, and then Sylvia and Blake glanced at each other, shocked. They both barely had the time to grab onto one another before the ground beneath them opened up, and they were sucked down into the water, disappearing completely within its depths.

Sylvia and Blake have passed through the water, escaping this crazed prison world and leaving their memories behind! Will they make it back to their world? What will they see on the other side? What awaits them? We'll have to find out!