We reach the top of the Pokemon Tower and confront the ghosts that dwell within! What does this false Sylvia want from Akira? What will we find on the final floor? Will Akira be able to get out alive? Will Sylvia help? Or will things just get worse from here? Remember to review!

KedharS: That would definitely be interesting. I wonder how the atmosphere of Lavender Town would affect Satsuki's ghost.

Just a Bad Writer for Fun: That would be funny alright.

Pokemon Academy: Beginning of Beginnings

Chapter 845

Sylvia was humming to herself as she climbed the stairs up to the final floor of the Pokemon Tower, acting like she didn't have a care in the world.

Akira had no idea how she could be so cavalier about this whole thing. In a situation like this his legs were shaking and he could barely walk, but as far as Sylvia seemed to care, this was just a midnight stroll.

As loathe as he was to admit it, part of him wished he could be like that and not be afraid of what was to come. But at the same time, Sylvia was like that because she was completely free of concern, and he couldn't think of being like that.

All he could do was follow after her and hope that everything worked out okay. It felt wrong, putting his faith in Sylvia, but he wouldn't have been able to get here without her help. It turned his stomach to be in her debt.

I really am different than her… Akira knew that, of course, and usually he was happy about it. But right now those words stung his thoughts, reminding him that even if he had talent for battling, there was still so much he was lacking. Sylvia was a worse person than him, but she was still able to do things that he couldn't, and succeed where he couldn't.

…But now isn't the time to be thinking that way.

Akira couldn't let his doubts and insecurities get the better of him. So what if Sylvia was better at dealing with ghosts like this? He didn't need to measure himself against someone like her. And he definitely didn't need all of this to distract him. There was only one thing he needed to concern himself with, and that was getting out of this place so he could talk to Mr. Fuji and find out what was wrong with Dakota and Satsuki.

He would let Sylvia do whatever she wanted as long as he could help out the people and pokemon he cared about.

Sylvia paused on the staircase and turned her head, staring down at Akira with eyes that burned with judgmental fire. A wicked smile spread across her lips.

"I wonder, Akira… I feel such a heated gaze coming from behind me… that wouldn't happen to be coming from you, would it?" She asked, her smile indicating that she knew exactly who was staring at her.

And who else could it be but Akira? In a place like this, even the Ghost type pokemon turned their eyes away when she walked past.

"…It's nothing," Akira muttered, averting his gaze. Sylvia stared at him in quiet contemplation, not sure whether or not to let him slip by so easily. Ultimately she decided that it wasn't worth pressing the issue, and turned to head back up the stairs.

"If you say so," she called over her shoulder. "But you better be prepared, Akira, soon enough our relationship will stop being on such amicable terms, and when that happens, you'll have some choices you'll have to make."

Akira could guess what that meant. It came as no surprise to him, he'd probably spent more time thinking about it than she had. He'd known from the start that the relationship between the two of them wasn't exactly built on the strongest of foundations.

Sylvia was Sylvia, after all. There was no illusion of friendship between the two of them. She'd been using him to suit her needs, exploiting what had happened to Dakota in order to get information out of Mr. Fuji. This had been clearly stated between the two of them from the start, and the reason for their dubious "partnership".

But once she got everything she needed out of Mr. Fuji, there wouldn't be any reason for her to continue interacting with Akira. And Akira would thankfully not have anything to do with Sylvia after that, either.

But what their relationship would be after that… well, it seemed pretty clear that it would be a very antagonistic one, considering that the two of them didn't like each other very much. So what Sylvia was doing right now… it felt like she was warning him.

"Pick a side before it's too late, either agree to continue serving me, or after this we'll become enemies again."

That's what it sounded like she was insinuating. And Akira wasn't the biggest fan of being extorted like that.

Even if it meant Sylvia would be his enemy, he would be fine with that. He wanted nothing more to do with this girl, who continued to needle him and manipulate him to suit his own ends. She'd been helpful, fine, but Akira had no illusions about nobility when it came to her.

The second he was no longer useful, she would turn her torments towards him even more than she had been now, just in the name of amusement.

The way she was staring at him right now, in fact, seemed to be suggesting exactly that. Her face was cold and her eyes were colder, and she'd stopped moving. She seemed to be looking for him to say something, waiting for him to come up with an excuse or beg her forgiveness or give her some indication of an answer.

There was only one answer Akira could give her, and he was glad that the Silph Scope was concealing his eyes from sight.

"I've already made my choice," he assured her. He had nothing else to say about the nature of his choice; the only thing that mattered to him was getting through this tower right now, and then Mr. Fuji in the morning.

Let Sylvia play her mind games; Akira wanted no part in them.

Sylvia shrugged her shoulders like she didn't care either way, which she probably didn't. With a turn of her head and a flick of her golden hair she strode the rest of the way up the staircase and to the final floor of the Pokemon Tower.

Akira caught up to her in a few seconds and looked ahead at what was waiting for them.

While the previous floors of the Pokemon Tower had been row upon row of gravestones arranged almost like a labyrinth, the top floor was a little more ornately decorated, with a shrine in the center of the room to present offerings to the deceased.

Standing atop that shrine was whatever had taken Sylvia's appearance, behaving just as irreverently as Sylvia herself no doubt would have done. Her expression was still locked in the same cackling smile, and her eyes were still glowing mischievously.

"Hmm, not bad," Sylvia mused, tapping her chin. "There really is a significant resemblance to me, especially when it comes to that smile. I can understand how you were confused and thought that I'd been possessed. But looking a bit closer… and the truth will reveal itself, now won't it?" She smiled, narrowing her eyes as she studied her doppelganger.

Akira stared at the other Sylvia while the Silph Scope refocused itself and zeroed in on the copy's true form. A few seconds later and the image of Sylvia disappeared, and in its place was another Ghost type pokemon, smiling just as widely as Sylvia had been.

It was a Gengar!

"So it was a Gengar that took my appearance, was it?" Sylvia asked, confirming once again that no, she didn't need the Silph Scope to see the true forms of the Ghost type pokemon that inhabited the Pokemon Tower.

"Gengar…" The Ghost type pokemon gave up the ghost and the image of Sylvia vanished entirely, laughing madly. Akira slid the Silph Scope off just to be sure, and was reassured that, yes, he could see the pokemon's true form now. Whatever it wanted from him, it didn't need to borrow Sylvia's appearance anymore.

"What do you want?" Akira asked. "There's a reason you called out to me, wasn't there? And put everyone in town to sleep? You led me here for a reason, didn't you? So what is it?" He wasn't sure how much the Gengar would be able to understand and communicate back to him, but he had to try. He was worried.

Clearly, this pokemon wanted something from him. It had gone to great lengths to get him here, and he couldn't really say why. But you didn't put an entire town to sleep without a damn good reason, so he knew that there needed to be one.

"Gengar…" the pokemon repeated, communicating the best it could. Akira wished that the ghosts here really could speak their language, because it was kind of hard to communicate with a pokemon like this when it couldn't talk.

Then the Gengar did something that was easier to decipher. It raised its arm and gestured towards him, indicating for Akira to come over.

"I think she wants you to go," Sylvia said, placing her hand on Akira's back and giving him a light shove forward. "So maybe you should go?"

Akira shot her a dirty look, but understood that she was probably right. This Gengar clearly wanted him to come over, and if he wanted to learn what it wanted then he would have to put himself at risk for a little bit.

"And while you're at it, ask her why she felt like she should take my appearance," Sylvia called after him. Akira tuned her out, that was the last of his concerns right now.

He cautiously approached the Gengar, wary of what the pokemon wanted. But the ghost wasn't taking any moves against him. She was only watching him carefully, beckoning him closer, and didn't seem to be making any moves to attack.

"Vaporeon!"

"Starmie!"

Nami and Starla were both cautious, even more than Akira was. Nami glared at the Gengar and snarled, and while Starla lacked a face to indicate any emotions the way they'd chirped his name suggested caution and reluctance.

"It's okay, guys, I don't think she wants to fight," Akira assured his pokemon. He wasn't up for turning this into a huge brawl himself, so he was grateful that the Gengar seemed to come in peace, unlike the other Ghost types below.

"Gengar," Gengar said, more insistently. She skipped around the large slab altar in the center of the shrine, gesturing for Akira to come while pointing insistently behind it.

If Akira was thinking rationally, he would have been screaming "trap, trap, trap!" to himself as loudly as he could. But he wasn't getting that kind of vibe. He didn't exactly have a ton of experience with Gengar, or with Ghost type pokemon in general, but he knew that they were very mischievous. They were trickster pokemon, a lot like Dakota.

And even though he didn't know Gengar, he knew Dakota.

Right now, the way the Gengar was acting reminded him of when Dakota was worried or upset, and was taking things seriously rather than just trolling people. So he gave the Ghost type the benefit of the doubt, and followed it around the slab.

What he saw surprised him.

There was someone else here!

It was an old man with a bald head and glasses, and a long white beard. He was dressed in an old robe and his cane lay beside his body, which was crumpled over and curled into a ball. There was a look of pain stretched across his wrinkled face, and his eyes were shut tightly in a deep sleep.

Akira didn't know what to make of this at first, so he let out a gasp.

"What?" Sylvia called over. "What is it?"

"It's… Mr. Fuji," Akira said in disbelief, turning to look at Sylvia incredulously. He couldn't believe that Mr. Fuji was actually here, but there was no mistaking it. The man lying before him was older than the fellow he'd seen in Sylvia's picture, but it was definitely the same man, right down to the beard and glasses.

They'd come to Lavender Town searching for Mr. Fuji, and it looked like they'd found him.

"Mr. Fuji's here?!" Sylvia demanded, stomping forward and joining Akira behind the slab, taking a look for herself. "…Yeah. That's him alright."

"Is… Is he…" Akira didn't even want to say it. He feared that asking the question, saying the words, would give life to them and make the situation he was terrified of into a reality. But he couldn't help it. "Is he dead?"

Sylvia wasn't frozen at all, kneeling next to the old man to check him for a pulse. She let out a sigh of relief that relieved Akira in turn.

"No, no, he's not dead," she assured him, standing up. "He's alive. But he's in really bad shape, that's for sure."

"Oh, thank god," Akira sighed, slumping over against the slab for support. "For a second I thought that he was…" Akira didn't want to think about it.

Sylvia turned to the Gengar. "So what the heck happened here? What did you guys do to Mr. Fuji?" She demanded. She was done playing nice, they had come to Lavender Town looking for Mr. Fuji in order to find out what he knew about Professor Decker's genetic research, and these ghost pokemon had nearly turned the whole thing into a pointless endeavor!

"Gengar! Gen, Gengar!" Gengar frantically cried, shaking the up part of her body that was probably her head and waving her hands back and forth. "Gengar!"

Akira didn't need Harmonia to tell that the Ghost type pokemon was saying "It wasn't me, I didn't do anything!"

"Oh? Then what happened?" Sylvia asked, and for a second Akira thought that she might actually be able to speak pokemon, which would make this whole thing a lot more convenient. But he couldn't get so lucky, of course.

"…Gengar…" The Gengar sighed, walking over to the staircase. She hunched over and held a hand out, like she was walking with a cane, and Akira realized she was pretending to be Mr. Fuji. "Gengar, Gengar," she indicated, limping over to the shrine.

When the Gengar got to the shrine, she knelt down and pressed her hands together in a simulation of prayer, and closed her eyes.

"Okay, so Mr. Fuji came here to pray, is that it?" Sylvia asked, pressing her hands together as well for an indication.

"Gengar," Gengar nodded. Then she stood up and clutched her chest, stumbling forward and grabbing onto the stone slab. She pulled herself around it, trying to keep herself upright, but she eventually collapsed on the ground behind the slab right where Mr. Fuji was lying.

"He had a heart attack?!" Sylvia cried. "But his heartbeat didn't seem irregular, and he must have been lying here for some time, right?"

She checked on Mr. Fuji again, but she couldn't see anything medically wrong with him. It reminded her of the condition of Misty, in fact, and the other people in town, knocked out by a Ghost type pokemon's hypnosis attack.

She turned and looked suspiciously at the Gengar.

"I don't buy it," she scowled. "What aren't you telling me?"

"Gengar!" Gengar protested.

Akira was the one who came to the pokemon's defense.

"Hey, Sylvia, come on, don't be like that," Akira interjected.

Sylvia gave him a withering look. "Not right now, Akira, your words aren't needed here," she said. "You can just get Mr. Fuji and head to the hospital or something while I handle this."

Akira was all for helping Mr. Fuji, picking up the light older man as best as he could. But that didn't mean he was about to let Sylvia hurt the Gengar.

"Sylvia, if Gengar had done anything to Mr. Fuji then she wouldn't have brought me here, right?" Akira asked. "After all, it went to the trouble of luring me up to the Pokemon Tower just to show me what had happened to him, right?"

Sylvia accepted that answer. It didn't make sense that a malevolent pokemon like a Gengar would want to help an old man like Mr. Fuji, but she didn't have any better explanation. So she accepted that for a fact, and sighed.

"Fine. I guess that makes sense," she muttered. "But there are still a bunch of things that I'm not clear about right now."

As much as Sylvia didn't trust the Gengar, though, there were definitely more important things to deal with, like getting Mr. Fuji somewhere safe. Sylvia was already calling for help while Akira was carrying the old man down the stairs. By the time they reached the base of the Pokemon Tower, an ambulance was there, waiting for them.

It seemed that the town had woken up in the time that they were in the tower. People had gathered around to see what happened, and the spectacle gave Sylvia a chance to sneak off into the shadows and think.

Then she saw the Gengar again. She had come down, looking worriedly at the old man.

Another curiosity.

Judging by the concern that the Gengar was showing for Mr. Fuji, she could begin to piece together what had happened. As the Gengar showed, Mr. Fuji had clearly come up to the Pokemon Tower at some point earlier, maybe in the morning, maybe the night before, whenever, and had been praying. Then something had happened and he'd lost consciousness. The Gengar would obviously look rather suspicious, going out to get help directly, especially considering that people already thought suspiciously of the ghosts in the Pokemon Tower.

"Is the reason you called out to Akira and used my appearance to do it because you thought that Akira would be able to help Mr. Fuji?" She asked.

"Gengar," Gengar nodded.

"I see, so you were probably listening in on the shadows, huh?" Sylvia mused. "Must have heard us talking about the old man, and realized we were looking for him. So you came to Akira to bring him there, since you knew he probably wouldn't go with you as a Gengar. And you put everyone else to sleep so no one could stop him, huh?"

"Gengar," Gengar nodded again.

Sylvia sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. "Listen, there's better ways to go about doing something like that, you know. You didn't have to make Akira think he was trapped in a horror movie or something."

"Gengar…" Gengar had a sheepish expression on her face.

"Still, why the heck would you care? I mean, Gengar aren't exactly known for their charity," Sylvia said. It was rare when the actions of others confused her, and she didn't like it very much.

"Because Mr. Fuji was a nice guy," Akira said from behind her.

Sylvia turned to him and scowled.

Akira shrugged. "While you were skulking around, I asked some of the people who'd gathered about Mr. Fuji, and they said he walks to the top floor of the Pokemon Tower every morning and every evening to pray for the spirits of the departed pokemon. A good man like that, who would care even for pokemon that had passed away… Gengar probably felt compassion towards him, even if he wasn't her trainer. And when she saw he was hurt, she went to get help however she could, right?"

"Gengar," Gengar nodded again, wiping the tears from her eyes.

Akira scowled at Sylvia. "I thought you were good at figuring out the motivation of others, Sylvia," he jabbed her.

"Feh," Sylvia scoffed, rolling her eyes. She wasn't the biggest fan of altruism.

"Seems like as skilled as you are, even you have a blind spot or two when it comes to something like that," Akira pressed. He could tell that Sylvia had been completely blindsided by the fact that the Gengar had done something noble because it was worried about some random human.

Sylvia was good at predicting behavior. But clearly, she had a long way to go when it came to compassion.

Well, that's good. The ghosts weren't trying to hurt Akira after all, the Gengar just wanted to bring him to the Pokemon Tower so he could help Mr. Fuji! Hopefully Mr. Fuji will be okay, it would really suck if he doesn't make it.