Lisa the Legend - Chapter 52 up!!
Hi everybody! I haven't slid off the face of the earth, I've been living. Anyway, new chapter complete, here it is! Enjoy!
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Chapter 48 - The Union.
Lisa yawned, surprising herself. After a twenty minute run she would normally be alive with energy, especially as she, Gavin and Marina had had the added threat of being caught by armed criminals. However, despite the fact that her heart was still hammering from the sprint, Lisa found that she could hardly keep her eyes open as she leaned on the glass table of the roadside café, waiting for Gavin and Marina and Aipom to get back with the drinks. Since they had escaped, they had hardly spoken a word to each other, except for when they checked if Marina was alright. Lisa had been surprised to find how lively Marina still was, considering that she had been imprisoned by the agents for a week.
A clatter in front of Lisa brought her back to the present. Gavin had arrived back with the drinks - two coffees and a hot chocolate. Lisa wrapped her hands around one of the coffee mugs and felt the warmth spread to her cold fingers. She took a grateful sip and felt the liquid warm her instantly.
“ Ah, the healing powers of coffee,” she sighed, holding the cup to her face to warm it with the steam. “ Where’s Marina and Aipom gone?”
Gavin sat down on the window seat across from Lisa. “ Aipom’s at the counter talking to the checkout girl.” Lisa glanced over to the counter of the shop. Sure enough, her purple monkey was conversing rapidly in his own language to the girl, who – to Lisa’s surprise – was talking back to him.
“ Er – right,” she said, hiding her smirk. “ And Marina?”
“ Went to freshen up,” Gavin said, with a serious look on his face. “ So … what are we going to tell her?”
Lisa looked up from her drink. “ What do you mean?”
He lowered his voice, his forehead furrowed with concern. “ Well, she doesn’t know why she was kidnapped, does she? Like you told me when we were in Valeo, you haven’t told her anything about Suicune or Entei, or the Organisation. Don’t you think she’d be just a bit confused?”
Lisa felt like slapping herself in the head; it had not even occurred to her that Marina wouldn’t know what was going on. “ Well … what do you think we should do?”
“ I reckon tell her, it’s the honest way, then we can get everything out in the open,” said Gavin decidedly. “ Then again, she might not believe us,” he added hopelessly.
Lisa took another sip of her hot coffee; she could feel it waking her up now. Her head was still feeling heavy though – not with exhaustion, from the running, but with indecision. If she was to tell Marina the truth about everything, she might not believe them, and they would lose her as a friend. Then again, if she didn’t tell her, Marina might go to the police, which was the last thing Lisa wanted: the police still wanted her in their safe custody, which was where she didn’t want to be. In the back of her mind, Lisa was still set on finding Professor Oak in Dervine – although so much time had passed now that it was beginning to seem pointless.
“ Gavin to Lisa … Gavin to Lisa …” droned Gavin. She looked up to see him staring straight at her. “ Better make up your mind quickly, she’s coming.”
Marina scurried through the shop section of the roadhouse, past the check-out girl (who was still talking to Aipom) and reached their table. She smiled faintly at Lisa and sat down beside Gavin, taking her coffee and looking down at the table silently. She stared into the drink vaguely and said nothing. Gavin tapped his fingers on the table in an annoying rhythm. Marina said nothing still.
The air was so thick with tension Lisa couldn’t have cut it if she had tried. She was in the process of working out how to get Marina to show some sign of life when suddenly the problem was solved for her.
“ I want to know why I was kidnapped,” said Marina abruptly. She was looking straight at Lisa, ignoring Gavin for the moment. Her hazel eyes were teeming with tears. Her cherry lips quivered. “ Please tell me what’s going on.”
There was no choice about it. Lisa struggled with seeing Marina upset – normally she was so happy – before she managed to begin her explanation with, “ I haven’t been honest with you … I have to explain. It all began four months ago …”
Lisa found it was easy to talk once she got started. She began with the day she had first sighted Suicune, in October last year, and progressed from there onwards. She told the story in every detail she could think of, even the specifics like the battle with Irene when she started the Whirlpool Cup, and the battles in the Colosseum itself, and the meeting with Professor Westwood. She told Marina about how she and Gavin had seen a fire on their way to Ecruteak, and how it had turned out to be Entei and the other legendaries, fighting, while Anna had clung desperately to the branches of the oak tree. When she reached the point where Anna died, however, she began shaking with silent sobs, as did Marina: Marina had been closer to Anna than Lisa was. Gavin awkwardly put an arm around Marina and urged Lisa to keep going – so she did. She told Marina how, when she woke up in hospital, they were in Ecruteak. She explained her first encounter with the organisation – when Lucas had attacked her, and nearly killed her, for reasons she didn’t know – and then how Lenina had tried to do the same thing a short while later. Marina listened, compelled. Lisa felt as though her mind and chest were becoming lighter the more she told, as though a physical weight was being lifted from her. She went on further; she explained about Gavin’s psychic powers, how Gavin teleported them back to Ecruteak, only for them to meet Lunanine again. She filled Marina in about the encounter in the Ice Path; about meeting Darius for the first time; about when Gavin ran away; about seeing Raikou; about the invasion at her house; about the court case; about seeing Raikou dead; and finally, the escape from the organisation agents that night.
Lisa finished and reached for her coffee mug, only to find that it was stone cold. She glanced at her watch; she had been talking for thirty minutes. Aipom was sitting beside her in the booth seat, gnawing on her jumper; she had not even noticed him return.
Marina blinked. During Lisa’s tale she had nodded along as she discovered things, but she had not spoken. Gavin sipped his now cold chocolate with a sidelong glance at Marina.
Finally she said, “ I believe you.”
The tension between them all evaporated instantly; the last remaining weight on Lisa’s mind was lifted, and she smiled. Marina allowed herself to grin back; she, too, looked a great deal happier than she had since they had rescued her.
“ You really do?” said Gavin. “ Because it sounds pretty farfetched, doesn’t it?”
“ Hell yeah,” said Marina, her grin broadening as she looked at him. “ But I believe you, Lisa, I really do. I don’t think you’re making it up, especially after what I’ve been though.” She paused. “ So, you don’t know why they’re after you?” she asked.
“ No,” said Lisa.
“ Well … I don’t either, but I know who they are,” said Marina suddenly.
“ What?” Lisa and Gavin cried in unison. “ Who?”
Marina grinned at their timing, took a nibble from the biscuit that came with her coffee and continued, “ I found out who they are. They’re part of an organisation called the Union.”
“ The Union,” breathed Gavin, “ Never heard of it …”
“ How’d you find out?” asked Lisa, fiddling with her coaster.
“ I heard them talking when I was with them. They didn’t know I was awake, so I just listened. Apparently, when Team Rocket broke up a year ago, the remaining agents combined with a few other smaller groups to form the Union. They wear the Team Rocket uniform so that people still suspect them … and it worked, because the media and governments have never heard of the Union, have they?” Marina took another bite from the biscuit and leaned back in the booth seat casually.
Lisa thought back a few days; this was what Lenina had meant when she had told them Team rocket didn’t exist.
Gavin seemed to be thinking along the same lines. “ So Team Rocket really doesn’t exist,” he mused. “ Well, they did a pretty good job of hiding it all.”
“ Yeah,” nodded Lisa. “ So what do they want?”
Marina shrugged and finished her snack. “ I never heard what it is they’re after. They kept asking me questions, about you and Gavin and the court case … but that’s about it. I don’t know what they stand for, even – all I know is that they’re not the good guys.”
“ Ai,” Aipom agreed pointlessly, still working on unravelling Lisa’s jumper. She pushed him away vaguely, lost in her thoughts. For the life of her, she could not see any connection between the Union and her – why did they keep chasing her? It was as much a mystery as the seemingly regular appearances of the Legendaries to her.
Gavin finished his drink and stretched widely, his face contorted in a yawn. He turned to Marina beside him. “ So, are you going to come with us then?” he asked.
“ To Dervine?” she said. “ I suppose so, sounds like fun. Just kidding,” she added, seeing Lisa and Gavin’s serious stares. “ Um, so do you have any leads on this Professor guy?”
Lisa sighed heavily. “ None at all. We just don’t think it’s an innocent disappearance. Maybe it’s to do with the legendaries, maybe it’s to do with the Union, I don’t know.”
Marina hesitated, her lips open, before she said, “ Doesn’t he have any memory of being attacked by Entei?”
“ None,” said Lisa, “ Unfortunately …”
“ Why –” Marina began, but she was cut off suddenly by a shrill ringing. Lisa jolted and glanced at her backpack, in which her pokegear was beeping loudly.
She pulled it out and pressed the green button. “ Hello?”
The last voice she expected came drifting through the receiver. “ Lisa, you’re OK!” It was Tom.
“ Tom, hi, where are you?” said Lisa with great relief; she had not heard from Tom for days.
“ In the kitchen, at home,” he said, sounding impatient suddenly, “ And you?”
“ Uh … I’m at a roadhouse beside the Dervine Expressway,” she said quickly, with a glance out of the roadhouse window and down below at the wide road. Why was Tom so angry?
“ What’re you doing all the way out there?” Tom demanded. Lisa could hear Miki in the background, talking rapidly to somebody. “ Miki and I just got home from our trip and we couldn’t find you anywhere! It looks like there’s been nobody here for days! And the backyard is a complete mess! What’s going on?”
“ I – I dunno …” Lisa breathed uncertainly. “ Where were you and Miki?”
Tom sighed impatiently. “ In the Orange Islands, we went to visit her family before the wedding –”
“ And what about Mum and Dad and the kids?”
“ I don’t know, Lisa. At work, they said on a note. But … what’s happened here, and why are you in Dervine?” He sounded panicky.
Lisa rubbed her temple, her head beginning to ache. “ I can explain this, I think …” No sooner had she said the words than a great deal of static began to fill her ears. “ Um – Tom, come to Dervine!”
“ What?!”
Lisa held her hand over the phone and spoke to Gavin, who looked increasingly concerned about Lisa’s phone call. “ How long to Dervine from here?”
“ Three days?” mouthed Gavin uncertainly.
Returning to the phone, Lisa could scarcely hear Tom’s mumblings over the static, which was beginning to roar in her ear. “ Tom – meet me in Dervine in four days!” Lisa said frantically through the phone. “ I’ll explain everything, just meet me there, can you get there?”
“ What? Lisa, this is absurd, just –”
A click signified that the connection had cut out. Lisa drew the pokegear away from her face and slammed it onto the table angrily. Aipom paused in his destruction of her jumper and clambered up onto her shoulder with a dedicated, “ Leeeeesa!”
Lisa ruffled the purple fur on his head, still annoyed that she had not had confirmation of Tom meeting her.
“ What did he say?” said Marina tentatively. She and Gavin both looked apprehensive of her in her angry state.
“ He doesn’t know where my parents and Wes and Jean are,” replied Lisa softly. “ He and Miki just got home to the house, it’s in the same state it was in the night the Union attacked us. I told him I’d meet him in Dervine … but he didn’t reply …”
Frowning, Gavin leaned forward and put his clasped hands on the table. “ Let’s head for Dervine then, first thing in the morning.”
“ D’you think the Union will still be looking for us?” asked Lisa.
“ Probably, but I doubt they’d check at a roadhouse.”
Marina frowned, too. “ How exactly are we going to get to Dervine? Walking would take too long, if we’re going to be quick AND keep out of the Union’s way.”
There was a collective pause; even Aipom sat up and gave a toothy grin as he scratched his head in mock-thought.
“ Fly?” suggested Gavin. “ I’ve got Skarmory … and you guys can catch some new ones …”
Marina shook her head decisively. “ You’ve got someone who’s scared of heights on your team,” she said sheepishly, pointing at herself. “ Sorry.”
Lisa pondered her idea for a moment before putting it out in the open. “ Why don’t we drive?”
The other two looked at her dubiously.
“ No, I’m serious,” she said, defensive of her notion, “ We could get a car from somewhere, hijack one or something, steal one, I dunno … and then drive to Dervine. It’s out best bet; otherwise we’re putting ourselves into danger again – walking slowly through an area we know is crawling with Union agents. So, how bout it?”
A smile crept up Marina’s face and Gavin’s jaw dropped involuntarily before he gave a blank nod.
“ I’ve definitely had a bad influence on you,” he said with a smirk.
Originally Posted by mr_pikachu
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