We've finally arrived at Lavender Town! Well-known for its spooky atmosphere and the ghosts that haunt the Pokemon Tower, what will our trio find within the old, eerie town? Will Mr. Fuji be able to help them? Or will the three of them fall victim to the Ghost type pokemon like Misty feared, and be cursed never to leave?

Aakareo Kokokuhikari: Never read Mob Psycho, but if it's about a yandere who kills her rivals with her psychic powers, then yes.

KedharS: Sylvia's right at home with the Ghost types.

The Harmonium: Caitlin was definitely one of the inspirations for Gwen's character, it's why I gave her Psychic types.

Just a Bad Writer for Fun: Don't worry, all those events happened a while ago, Team Rocket's out of the Pokemon Tower now.

Pokemon Academy: Beginning of Beginnings

Chapter 842

Lavender Town in the twilight was quite a remarkable place. The city was hemmed in on the sides by the Lavender Mountains, where Rock Tunnel emerged from, and opened up to a small cove leading to Fuchsia City. When people talked of Lavender Town and its ghosts, they often brought up things like dead trees and tombstones across the town, but there was nothing like that. There was no vegetation at all in the town; everything was stone and dirt, all in shades of purple. The terrain was brilliant in the setting sun.

Even the houses were made of the same lavender-colored brick. It was quite a marvel, and the most marvelous sight was the great Pokemon Tower, standing tall above the rocky cliffs, looking down on the town like a silent guardian, or a cruel overseer.

"Whoa, this place is weird," Akira said, looking at the strangely-colored town. He half-expected the people to be lavender, too.

"Lavender Town got its name because the minerals in the soil here cause the rocks and dirt to have a vibrant purple hue," Misty explained. "When people first began settling the region, they found that they clay they could extract from the Lavender Mountains was perfect for building huts and shelters because it was malleable but sturdy. And since everything was this purple color, the town just ended up being named Lavender Town."

"It's a nice story I think," Sylvia nodded. "It really gives the place an eerie vibe, especially at night like this."

The post lamps illuminating the town were one of the few things not made of the lavender stone, but even they were painted lavender. And the light they cast down on the streets below caused the whole town to glow ominously.

Akira shivered. It was spring, so why did he feel such a chill down his back?

"What's that sound?" He asked, looking around. There was a strange buzzing in his ears, like a repetitive beep of a metronome that started out soft and then got louder like a bell or a gong. It made the already-creepy town feel even creepier.

"That's the chanting of the ghoooosssttts…" Sylvia cackled, coming up behind Akira and breathing down his back, running her fingers like Spinaraks across his neck.

"Yow! Hey! Sylvia, cut that out!" Akira exclaimed, pulling away from her. He was exhausted from the day's journey, and he'd been tense with anxiety all day at the thought of eventually reaching Lavender Town. Now that he was here, he was on a razor's edge; just about anything could cause him to panic and freak out, and Sylvia was doing a great job of it.

"It's the mountains," Misty said, pointing up at the large outcropping of stones that hung over the town. "It's kind of hard to see now, but there are a bunch of notches and gaps in the rock walls all around the town. Whenever the wind comes down from the Lavender Mountains, it blows through those gaps, and causes a strange sort of chirping buzz to echo through the town. It's one of the reasons that people say this place is haunted."

She turned a little pale at the end of her explanation, pointedly looking away from the Pokemon Tower. "…So of course they had to build a mausoleum here…" she muttered under her breath. Knowledgeable as she was, she clearly didn't like Lavender Town all that much.

"I'm surprised," Sylvia said, raising her eyebrow. "I didn't think that you would be so knowledgeable about stuff like this, Misty, you didn't seem the type to be a fan of rocks and history, or of Lavender Town itself."

"Oh, yeah, I have a friend who loves rocks quite a lot," Misty explained. "He's a fellow gym leader, actually. He's always talking about the different types of rocks that can be found in the Kanto Region, it's kind of annoying, actually," she laughed.

A coy smile crossed Sylvia's face. "Oh, I see, so you do have a boyfriend, I had no idea," she giggled, intentionally dragging into one of Misty's issues.

Misty scowled in response, knowing what Sylvia was doing. "No, he's not my boyfriend," she scoffed. "We don't think that way about each other at all!"

Misty's ferocity and anger were just the right kind, much to Sylvia's irritation. She'd been expecting Misty to turn down the idea in a way where Sylvia could insinuate that she was protesting too much, and did actually have feelings for him, but the way she responded kind of shut down that idea, which was kind of a bother.

What she said next though was a nice turn-around.

"Of course, that jerk hits on women all the time, but he's never made a move on me," she glowered, glaring at empty space. "What's the matter with him, it's like I'm not a woman or something, that piece of shit…"

Sylvia decided that the dangers that could be brought about by poking this specific Beedrill nest outweighed the positive benefits of getting to amuse herself at Misty's expense, and decided to drop the subject.

"…So are you sure it's not really the Ghost type pokemon then?" She asked, flashing a smirk. Misty scowled at her.

…There was nothing wrong with changing the subject to another frustrating avenue, of course, that just went without saying.

"Let's just drop it," Misty muttered, stomping across the street. Akira and Sylvia followed after her. Presumably, she knew where she was going.

The trio approached the center of town, and Misty checked her town map. "So according to this, the Pokemon Center is right up there," she said, pointing towards a plaza at the base of the Pokemon Tower. "With my Gym Leader card we can get some free lodging for the night there, and then set out in the morning."

Akira wasn't exactly thrilled with that idea. "Are you sure?" He asked. "It's still really early, I was hoping we could try and find Mr. Fuji now."

He wasn't sure if he could get a good night's sleep as tense as he was at the moment. He just wanted to see Mr. Fuji, and hopefully learn what he needed to.

Things were too tense right now, his stomach was doing cartwheels in anxiety.

"I agree with Akira," Sylvia said, coming to his defense. "Come on, Misty, the night is young! Let's go see if we can find his house, at least."

But Misty was adamant. "I'm not going to have us wandering the streets of Lavender Town in the middle of the night!" She insisted. "The Ghost type pokemon come out to play at night, and one of you could be spirited away or something!"

Sylvia rolled her eyes. "Are you kidding? Ghost type pokemon can't do a thing to me, I'm a master of the Ghost types," she scoffed. "Can't you just admit that you're the one who's too afraid to walk around Lavender Town at night?"

Misty's face flushed and she averted her eyes. "Th-That… shut up! I'm the grownup here, and I'm the one who decides what we do! Or else I'll turn around and we'll head right back to Cerulean City, little missy!"

Sylvia wasn't daunted at all by the hollow threat. "Oh, please," she snorted. "That would be pointless. We're already here, and it's only getting later. If you seriously wanted to send us back to Cerulean City, I'd say that ship sailed back in Saffron. If we headed back now, then we'd be crossing all of Kanto in the dead of night, and that sounds WAY more unsafe!"

Mist scowled. She couldn't argue with Sylvia's logic, as irritating as it was. She gave a resigned sigh and admitted that, no, they wouldn't be going back to Cerulean City until morning because it wasn't safe out in the wilds.

"Great!" Sylvia chirped. "And that means we can start looking for Mr. Fuji right now!" After all, if Misty had lost her authority as a chaperone, there was nothing she could do to stop them. All the power she'd held had evaporated the moment they entered the city limits.

Akira, on the other hand, decided to change his mind. "No, Sylvia, I think Misty's right on this one," he said, glancing at the beleaguered gym leader.

Misty brightened, glad to see that Akira was coming around. "Really? You mean it?" She asked hopefully.

"Yeah. I mean, I definitely want to see Mr. Fuji as soon as possible, because that would probably make me feel a lot better the faster we can get this mess resolved. And I'm not afraid of Ghost type pokemon, either."

Akira had stopped being afraid of ghosts a long time ago. He'd met a ghost before. She was wonderful. There wasn't anything he needed to be afraid of. That wasn't the reason he was agreeing with Misty right now.

"Look, Sylvia," he tried to convince her, even though he knew nothing would probably come of it, "I just don't think it's a good idea to go see him right now, when it's already dark outside," he explained. "…I mean… Mr. Fuji's pretty old, right? So… would he even be awake right now? Old people tend to go to bed pretty early you know."

Sylvia bit her lip and glared at him. She couldn't really disagree, but she wasn't exactly thrilled with Akira taking Misty's side over hers.

"Well, I just think that's the best option, you can at least see the logic in that, right?" Akira hoped. He didn't like being the one who had to play peacekeeper. It was so much easier when Misty was in that role, because she had more experience with it. But since Sylvia seemed to insist on butting heads with the gym leader at every opportunity, Akira felt that he didn't really have a choice in the matter. He had to keep them all amicable at least.

Sylvia sighed and nodded begrudgingly. "Yeah, I guess you're right, Akira," she admitted. "We want Mr. Fuji to do a favor for us, after all, and that probably won't happen if we wake him up in the middle of the night and piss him off. So we can put it on pause for now, I guess."

Misty sighed in relief. She was glad that, as troublesome as Sylvia was, she could at least be made to see reason.

Akira was less convinced. He knew that there was no way Sylvia would give in so easily once she'd set her mind on something. She was absolutely lulling Misty into a false sense of security, and would probably be sneaking out in the night.

But there wasn't much he could do about that, so he swallowed his doubts for the good of the group and followed Misty towards the Pokemon Center.

As they neared the center of town, more people began to appear. Lavender Town had a very small population due to the rumors that it was haunted, consisting mainly of the elderly. It was a nice place to relax in retirement, after all. But there were still a decent enough amount of people, and all of them were looking their way as the trio passed by. A few were whispering and pointing as well, and for a second Akira thought that they were doing something wrong.

Then a young girl came up and asked Misty for an autograph, and he remembered that he was traveling with a famous gym leader. That was a relief. The stories of Lavender Town had got him so paranoid he was afraid that all the townspeople were possessed by ghosts or something!

Resigned to the fact that they wouldn't get a chance to talk to Mr. Fuji until the morning, Akira could relax a little and let his guard down. Once you got used to the creepy echo, Lavender Town wasn't THAT bad of a place. It reminded him a lot of the town he'd grown up in, actually, as small mountain towns often did.

There was one thing that he couldn't get used to, though, and that was the Pokemon Tower looming overhead. It was a traditional landmark, which meant it wasn't going anywhere any time soon by decree of the Pokemon League, but that didn't mean he was comfortable being near it.

He could see what Misty was saying about the ghosts. He'd encountered many Ghost type pokemon before, even if he didn't have any of his own. They would often gather in ominous places like this. But the Pokemon Tower… something about it just felt strange.

They checked into the Pokemon Center. Misty wasn't lying about the perks of being a Gym Leader. Due to her influence (and the fact that tourism in Lavender Town wasn't exactly flourishing) they got three private rooms free of charge, meals included.

With perks like these, Akira could imagine himself seriously considering becoming a gym leader. It seemed like a nice life.

They finished their meal and wished each other good night. Misty pulled him aside and asked him if he was feeling better, considering how tense and nervous he'd looked on the trip, and he assured her that everything was fine.

He headed to his room and laid his head on the pillow, staring up at the ceiling. He needed to try and get some sleep, even if he was tense.

Tomorrow was going to be a long day. And he needed to make sure he was well-rested for it. So as much as his body was screaming at him and the adrenaline was pumping in his veins, he had to try and force himself to get to sleep.

It had taken hours of tossing and turning before he finally got comfortable enough to let his body relax, and feel the sleep slowly seeping into him. He could already picture Dakota's face in his mind, all ready for him to dream about.

Then he was rudely awakened by a shake.

"Huh?! Buh-wha?!" Akira sprung out of bed, disoriented, and looked around the darkened room. His eyes refocused and much to his outrage he saw just who it was that had awoken him from a sleep that had been hours coming.

Who else could it have been but Sylvia Driscoll?

"What is the matter with you?!" Akira hissed. "Why the fuck are you here, Sylvia?! What do you want?! Do you just have a problem with me getting any sleep at all on our trip? Is that it?! Do you just hate sleep or something?!"

Sylvia didn't say anything. Her eyes twinkled in the night, and Akira suddenly felt like something was very wrong.

Sylvia would have woken him up, sure, but she wasn't behaving the way she normally did. She wasn't teasing him or messing with him, hell, the kind of person she was, he would have expected her to crawl into bed with him just because she knew it would throw him off.

Whatever was up with her, it wasn't normal. And that made him suspicious.

"Sylvia, what's going on?" He asked, serious this time. But Sylvia still didn't answer. A smile spread across her lips and she shook her head, backing away from the bed.

Akira got up and followed after her. Whatever was going on, he knew he didn't have the luxury of sleeping right now. A vague thought flashed through his had that maybe this was a trick of Sylvia's after all, that she was behaving so strangely in order to lure him into something. But he dismissed that thought, because he had to.

Even if this was some sort of ploy, he couldn't take that chance. Not when he remembered what Misty had said about the ghosts of Lavender Town behaving differently than ordinary Ghost type pokemon. This could be an actual, supernatural event, and Sylvia could be in real trouble.

Akira paused in the middle of the hallway, staring at Sylvia as she lingered several feet away from him, eyes still twinkling in the dim light, mouth still stretched in that twisted grin.

Did he even really care?

Akira had half a mind to just go back to sleep, but he didn't. As much as he might have loathed Sylvia, if something was actually wrong, he wasn't the kind of person who could just abandon someone like this, not even her.

He remembered the whole mess before, when Sylvia had channeled Satsuki into her body, and when Satsuki had entered Serefnia. He'd known ever since then that yes, ghosts were real, and yes, there were people who could get possessed by them.

Sylvia could very well be playing channeler to a spirit, either a pokemon or an actual dead ghost, and either way, he needed to do something about it.

But he couldn't do this alone. He turned and ran the other way, ignoring Sylvia for now. Whatever she was doing, she was making sure to keep an appropriate distance away from him, so he knew she would probably stay put; it was like she was leading him somewhere.

But before he went anywhere with her, he needed to get Misty. Maybe she would be able to help figure out what was going on.

Or she would pass out in the face of an actual haunting by a Ghost type pokemon. But either way, this was something serious, and he needed to find an adult.

Akira knew he was probably doing something bad, breaking into Misty's room like this, but he couldn't think about that. He couldn't get through the lock, though. Of course she would have locked her door, and of course Akira wasn't the kind of person who could do anything about that. Not for the first time, he wished Dakota was here; she'd have been able to get through that lock easily.

He caught a sign of movement out of the corner of his eye. Sylvia had approach him, following him down the hall. That confirmed his suspicion, whatever game she was playing, or whatever it was that was inside of her, they were keeping a set distance from him, not trying to escape.

Akira would bet his right hand that the place she was leading him to would be the Pokemon Tower. But right now he had to-

The lock clicked open. What the hell?

Akira looked at Sylvia questioningly, but she gave no indication that she was the one who'd let him inside. She didn't even blink.

Akira ran inside and called for Misty. The gym leader was fast asleep in her bed. He blushed a little and tamped down on his urge to look away, not sure what she was wearing under the covers but in no mood to find out.

"Misty, there's something going on with Sylvia, she's acting really weird!" He frantically cried. "You need to wake up, now!"

He grabbed her shoulder and shook her, and then pulled back in surprise.

Misty was as cold as ice.

A shadow appeared in the doorway, and Akira turned towards it. It was Sylvia again, still wearing that same haunted smile.

Any thoughts of Dakota, Mr. Fuji, or the µ Gene were gone from his mind. Right now he was just afraid for his life.

Uh-oh! This isn't good! Things aren't going well in Lavender Town, they've only been here a few hours and already spooky things are happening! What's going on here?! How will Akira get out of this? What's possessing Sylvia, and what could it want? Is Misty okay?!