Let's leave Blake and Ayame alone in happiness for a little longer, and turn our attention back to where we should be focusing it, on Sylvia's investigation of the attack of Dakota Evans! What will that uncover? Will she discover the truth? And if she does figure out what happened, what will she do about it? Will Serefina and Akira be able to handle it?

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 story is finally completed! Thank you for reading!

The Pokemon Academy Best Girl 2 Finals are up and running! Who do you think is deserving of the title of Best Girl in the second year of the contest? Cast your votes! We've only gotten one vote so far, and I know that a lot of people are reading, so come on guys! The poll's in the profile, who do you think deserves to take the crown?

Finalists: Sylvia, Marion, Sango

KedharS: Sadly the truth.

Pokemon Academy: Beginning of Beginnings

Chapter 691

Serefina felt a chill down her back as she arrived at their destination. She looked at Sylvia in disbelief. She couldn't be serious!

"No way!" Serefina exclaimed. "You can't be planning to… you can't be serious!"

Sylvia wore a smile, but she was absolutely serious. "Of course I am," she said, looking at the taped off library. "We have a murder mystery on our hands, and our only witness isn't talking. There's only one thing left to do in that case, don't you agree?"

She turned to Serefina, her chilling smile make Serefina want to throw up. She glanced over her shoulder at Akira. He looked even more pale than usual, and his eyes were watering. She could feel his hand start to shake, and she knew that there was no way she was bringing him back to that awful place. There had to be another way.

"Akira and I aren't going in there," Serefina said. Sylvia raised her eyebrow.

"Oh?"

"Are you completely heartless?!" Serefina demanded. She expected that Sylvia wouldn't care one way or the other if the two of them stayed behind, but she also wanted to give the monster of a girl a piece of her mind. "What's the matter with you? Bringing Akira back here?"

Sylvia snorted. "You're the one who wanted to bring him along, not me. Besides, a little bit of stimulation will be good for him. Maybe we can startle him back to some sense of sanity, don't you think?"

"Not a chance!" Serefina wasn't about to let that happen. "Do you have any idea what that might do to him?! It was a mistake to follow you! Akira, we're leaving!"

She turned away from Akira and tugged on his arm, but realized that she couldn't get him to follow after her. Stunned, she turned and looked incredulously over her shoulder at her friend. Akira was standing rooted to the ground, staring up at the library with a haunted, hollow look in his eyes.

"…Akira? Come on, we're going," Serefina said, tugging a little bit more insistently.

Sylvia smirked. "Well, it looks like Aki's made his choice, Seri. Looks like maybe you don't know what's best for him after all."

Sylvia knew better, of course. She knew that the reason Akira wasn't moving wasn't because he wanted to go into the library. He hadn't even wanted to come here in the first place, after all. But now that he was here, he wasn't leaving, most likely because he was reliving his trauma just looking at it. He was frozen in place, unable to leave Dakota's side.

Sylvia was fine with exploiting that to her own benefit. Besides, she had a bit of a secret weapon to work with, that would make this a lot easier.

"If you don't want to come, Seri, you don't need to," Sylvia sniffed, taking Akira by the wrist. "Aki and I will go in by ourselves. Come on, Aki."

Serefina felt Akira pulled from her grasp and knew that he was slipping away. She didn't understand why Akira was obediently going after Sylvia right now, but she wasn't going to let that happen. She stormed after them as they approached the door.

"Hey, you can't just go in there! That's an active crime scene!" She exclaimed, looking around desperately for someone to stop them, but apparently everyone was staying far away from the library today.

Serefina didn't know what she was doing shouting something like that to Sylvia, considering that the girl obviously wasn't going to follow the rules. But why was Blake-

Wait.

Serefina froze in place, looking around again. It had been a while since she'd seen Sylvia Driscoll, so she'd almost forgotten. But there was something missing.

"Sylvia!" Serefina called, reaching to her belt and snatching up a pokeball as she kept looking. "Where's your Shuppet?"

That caused Sylvia to stop, right outside of the taped up door. She let go of Akira's hand and turned around to Serefina, giving her a diplomatic smile.

"Oh? Whatever do you mean?" She asked.

"You always have that Shuppet of yours hovering over your shoulder," Serefina reminded her. "But for some reason, I haven't seen her around. I have a Banette myself, so I know a little something about what they're capable of."

She narrowed her eyes.

"You wouldn't happen to be using confuse ray on Akira to make him more compliant to your wishes, would you?" Serefina asked. "Because that's something I might take issue with."

Sylvia kept smiling. She shrugged her shoulders.

That was more than enough for Serefina. "Barneby-"

"Fine, fine, fine," Sylvia sighed, rolling her eyes and snapping her fingers. "Specter!"

Her Shuppet emerged from the bushes, and her eyes began to glow. Akira blinked, looking around for a second. He'd come out of the fugue state Sylvia and her Shuppet had placed him under, and for a few seconds he was back, much to Serefina's relief.

Then, he remembered where he was again, and promptly shut back down.

"There, you see?" Sylvia said, crossing her arms in front of her chest. "Now he's just going to stand here, that's not going to be any help to anybody."

"What are you even trying to do?" Serefina demanded. "Are you just trying to traumatize him by forcing him to see what happened again?"

"Absolutely," Sylvia shrugged. "I assumed you'd bring him after me, and that worked a lot better than confusing him all the way here. But now that he's here, don't you see how important it is to confront what happened and deal with it?"

"Not right now!" Serefina insisted, shaking her head. "Not like this! Sylvia, there's still fucking BLOOD in there, probably! This is just going to break him even more!"

"I know!" Sylvia said, her eyes shining with glee. "And I can't wait to see what's going to happen when he does break! Isn't that an exciting-"

Serefina threw another punch, but Sylvia easily dodged it.

"Temper, temper," Sylvia teased, wiggling her finger back and forth. "Either way, Akira isn't going to be going anywhere anytime soon. This is important for him. And most of all, this sort of shock is going to be essential for getting through to him, and understanding just how broken he is, so that I can help him!"

She twirled a lock of her hair, and patted Akira on the shoulder. "And maybe it's just the kick that he needs to snap out of this funk he's in, and begin telling us about everything that happened last night! Wouldn't that be good? Hmm?"

Serefina couldn't believe what she was hearing. Sylvia was actually defending that? Serefina knew she was a monster, but this…

She shook her head. "No, no, you can't just- Sylvia!"

Sylvia ducked under the tape, already ignoring Serefina, and managed to drag Akira in after her, somehow, shocking Serefina to the core. Specter looked back at her and cackled, sticking her tongue out.

Well, how convenient, Sylvia mused. She hadn't predicted that would happen, but then again, Akira wasn't working on his brain right now, it seemed more like he was going on instinct. I guess I didn't need to use confuse ray after all.

Serefina still couldn't believe it. If Akira was going after Sylvia, then… no, she couldn't let that happen, she couldn't!

She stormed in after the girl, unable to believe that Akira would just go along with this! He-He wasn't thinking clearly! The fact that she was going in after the girl, breaking campus rules (and maybe even the law) when she was such a good student otherwise, suggested that maybe she wasn't thinking all that clearly either.

But thinking clearly was a luxury reserved for people whose friends weren't in need of serious help like Akira was.

Serefina wasn't even concerned with uncovering the truth at this point, she was just looking to keep Akira safe. Her resistance to dealing with Sylvia may have been clouding her judgment, but she just couldn't believe that uncovering the truth was worth sacrificing her friend's emotional and mental wellbeing.

She would NEVER believe that, no matter what Sylvia said.

But she couldn't stop them, either. The most she could do was be there for Akira when he eventually snapped.

She just hoped he would be strong enough to withstand the sight of what happened. She held her stomach and felt sickness welling up inside of her.

She wasn't sure she'd be strong enough herself.

"If rumor has it, I believe it was right… here we are!" Sylvia said, clapping her hands together as she turned the corner.

Serefina resisted the urge to throw up. It was even worse than she had imagined.

The police had left the crime scene not too long ago (how Sylvia had timed it so perfectly Serefina didn't even WANT to know) but unfortunately they hadn't quite managed to clean up everything. There was still stains of blood seeped into the carpet, and the absence of so many books obviously ruined by the incident was notable. It had been hours, but the stench of blood mixed with chemicals hung in the air in an odious cloud that practically choked her.

But Serefina was able to keep her balance.

Akira wasn't so lucky.

He stared numbly at the sight before him, and remembered Dakota's remains. It was fortunate there was no chalk outline there, that might have broken him.

But as it was, it was still too much. He remembered the hideous sight of her body, he remembered the life slipping out of her eyes, he remembered the SMELL of death in the air.

Akira fell to his knees and screamed.

"…There it is," Sylvia chirped. "Welcome back to the world of the living, Aki!" She knelt down and patted Akira on the back as he curled up into a ball.

That was enough for Serefina. She grabbed Sylvia and shoved her back, kneeling down next to Akira and wrapping her arms around him in a hug. She had to get him out of there. "We're going!" She growled, and Sylvia had no objections.

Serefina managed to help Akira up to his feet, and led him away from that horrible sight, leaving Sylvia to her own devices.

She swept her eyes over the crime scene. The police were thorough, but… so was she.

The problem was, there wasn't anything she could see that the police had obviously overlooked, and that was a disappointment. In fact, it would be ironically more helpful if Dakota really HAD died. That way, she could have called her spirit and interrogated her on what happened.

That might be just a smidgeon too far, unless-

Hmm? What was that?

She caught something out of the corner of her eye, something that shouldn't be there. A bit of redness. At first, she thought it was blood, but that should have darkened by now. She turned to get a closer look at it.

Well, that was… odd.

It was a book. It wasn't anywhere near where Dakota's body had been found, which meant that it hadn't gotten inspected by the officers. It was too high up to be of any interest to anyone, and yet Sylvia had still seen something unusual anyway. After all, the red mark had no reason to be there. It could have just been a coincidence…

But Sylvia didn't believe in coincidences like that. And there was something about the red mark… it wasn't a random tagging.

The book in question, "Lake of Rage and Other Bodies of Water in the Johto Region" wasn't anything particularly notable. Just a book about natural locations and Water type pokemon native to those places.

So why had someone smeared lipstick all over the Gyarados on the spine?

She reached up and took the book off the shelf, flipping it open to find…

Nothing.

Odd.

Sylvia was quite certain that the red Gyarados was a message from Dakota to Akira. After all, Akira's red Gyarados was his favorite pokemon, so of course he would notice something everyone else would overlook. What that message was supposed to be, Sylvia couldn't begin to guess. For all she knew, it could be a final love letter to her boyfriend…

Like hell.

Dakota Evans might not have been the most emotionally detached person in the world, but even she wouldn't have gone to the trouble of leaving a message to her boyfriend right before her death if she didn't have a damn good reason, and just a goodbye wasn't it.

She'd gone to the trouble to HIDE it, which meant that it was important. It was almost-certainly the reporter's attempt to communicate what she'd discovered before she died. Whatever the mark was meant to signify, someone had killed her to keep her quiet about it.

So what was it? There wasn't a note left in the book, or in the spot it had been sitting, which meant that the message must have had something to do with the book itself. After all, Dakota probably didn't have the time to write out something detailed.

So it had something to do with the Lake of Rage? Red Gyarados? Sylvia knew of one such incident many years ago, involving Team Rocket, the Lake of Rage, and a red Gyarados. What had it been? Team Rocket had tried to stimulate pokemon to evolve using radio waves, wasn't it? Yes, that was it. And they'd been foiled.

So what was that supposed to signify? Had Team Rocket attacked her? Was it something to do with stimulating pokemon to evolve again? Or was the Lake of Rage itself involved?

Questions, questions, so many questions. Sylvia was awash with them and it made her heart pound in her chest.

This was something she could work with.

Artificially forcing pokemon to evolve? Team Rocket? If that had been what Dakota was trying to suggest, then that pointed fingers in some very interesting directions. As far as she knew, the police didn't have any leads. That made sense, as Dakota had a lot of enemies (even though probably not many violent or angry enough to kill her) and there wasn't a big motive that was obvious. The investigation was just starting, and who knew how long it would take?

But Sylvia knew better. She was smarter than the police, after all, and if her assumptions about Dakota's signals were accurate, well…

Sylvia had a very good idea of who had done this. In fact, her suspect list had just been narrowed down to two people in one fell swoop with this little detail.

It's either the Phantom, or Professor Decker. They're the only two people who would have any connection to research like this.

If the Phantom was behind this little attack, that would put Sylvia in quite a position. She hadn't expected Richard Valon of all people to do something like attack Dakota. That wasn't his style. He was the kind of person who liked to provide incentives to compel people to do what he wanted, not silence them with violence.

Which meant that if he was responsible, that meant Dakota had uncovered quite a significant secret indeed.

On the other hand-

"Are you done?" Serefina snapped, bringing Sylvia out of her contemplation. Sylvia shut the book and slid it back into place, turning around and giving Serefina a coy smile.

"Perfectly fine," Sylvia said. "I've learned all I can from here."

"Then we're going," Serefina growled. "Not that you care, but Akira's made it through with his sanity intact, at least for now. He's outside throwing up in the bushes."

He wasn't numb to the world anymore, he was actually reacting. And that made Serefina relieved, at least a little. It meant he was doing better than he had been. But she wasn't about to thank Sylvia for this little stunt.

"Lovely. I'm glad I was able to help," Sylvia cheered. "Shall we be going?"

"What's this 'we' business?" Serefina asked. "I'm done with you, you understand? After pulling a stunt like that, you can forget it!"

"Even if I said I found something? Are you sure it's worth just leaving me to my own devices?" Sylvia asked, raising her eyebrow. She let a look of shock cross her face, as though the idea of Serefina refusing was horrifying to her. "What would Dakota say?"

Serefina grit her teeth. She was pretty sure Sylvia was just messing with her, but on the off chance that she wasn't… No, no, it wasn't worth it. She had to end things now. Dakota… Dakota would understand, she'd have to.

"I don't care," Serefina said. "Akira and I are going back to his room. I'm going to take care of him until he comes back down. Neither one of us want anything more to do with your little crusade, Sylvia, this was all one big mistake."

Her point made clear, Serefina turned to leave.

"And what if I said that I actually did need your help this time?" Sylvia called over her shoulder, and Serefina froze in place.

Don't listen. Just keep walking. She's obviously baiting you, Serefina reminded herself. And yet she just couldn't bring herself to leave.

"I think that you're not quite being honest with me, or with yourself," Sylvia continued, walking up to Serefina and beginning to massage her shoulders. "See, if you were really done, then why would you come back to ask me if I was done? Wouldn't you have just left?"

Serefina didn't have an answer to that.

"You know what I think?" Sylvia asked. "I think you came in because you wanted to see if I found anything. Because as much as you might hate me, you know that you need my help to solve this case. But your morals and principles are keeping you from asking for it, because you know you won't be able to look yourself in the mirror if you do. But you want to know, don't you?"

Yes, Serefina DID want to know. But she didn't want to know badly enough to listen to Sylvia's taunts, or do what Sylvia wanted her to do.

"I think you should practice what you preach, and be the bigger person, Serefina," Sylvia continued. "I only need a teensy, weensy bit of your help. Come on, it won't be anything at all, what do you say? Willing to lend a hand?"

Serefina knew she shouldn't do it, but… she needed to do what Dakota would have done.

"I won't let you talk to Akira again," she said.

"That's fine, Seri, just fine," Sylvia assured her. Serefina felt like she just kept digging herself in deeper.

"I don't need AKIRA'S help. I need yours."

What could Sylvia have need of Serefina for? What's she planning? Things are really getting intense now, hopefully Serefina can keep from allowing her morals to get too corrupted by Sylvia's trickery and plots.