Okay, it's been a fortnight, so here's the next chapter!
A couple of things I want to ask all my readers:
1. I hope I'm not going too fast for some of the regular readers who haven't yet had a chance to read the last chapter - do I need to slow it down a bit? I know LTL chapters over the past few years have always taken several months to be posted, so I know I'm breaking the pattern by updating regularly again, but I would hope this is a good thing! ^_^ But if you guys want me to slow down a bit, I can. Let me know.
2. Do you guys like the "previously on" section at the beginnings of chapters? I know Ada liked them for one, but does it work for the rest of you? And those of you who do like it, should it be a bit shorter - as it seems to take up quite a large part of the post now - or is that totally okay for you guys as readers?
And a couple of things I just wanted to note down:
1. This is Chapter 74, and, incidentally, some of the events referred to in this chapter originally happened in Chapter 47. Just thought I'd note that 1) the numbers were the reverse of one another and 2) that's how long it's taken for something I foreshadowed in 2004 to come to fruition now, at long last. 
2. Remember when I changed the name of Book III to "LTL III: Rogue"? Well, scrap that: I've reverted to the original title. So, Book III (this current tome) is now (once again) entitled: Lisa the Legend III: Revelation.
Hope you enjoy this one, guys. And again, if I'm going too fast with these and you'd like more time to R&R between chapters, let me know!
Cheers!
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Previously on Lisa the Legend:
Lisa and Gavin discovered the apparently dead body of a legendary beast on their return trek from Port Valeo:
Raikou, the legendary beast of electricity, was lying spread-eagled on the rocky ground of the gorge, clearly dead. Lisa stared at the beast, completely overcome with disbelief and confusion. The creature did not appear to be breathing; it’s chest was not moving at all and it’s yellow underbelly was oozing blood from a deep gash. The image seemed familiar to Lisa, but she could not recall why.
“ Oh – oh my God …” Lisa gaped, unable to articulate her shock.
Lisa discovered the truth of her relationship to the Legend ...
Her father was still speaking, but Lisa heard his voice as if he were calling to her down a cold, dark well. “When you were four years old, Suicune bound itself to you, Lisa. I was there … I saw too late what happened … there was nothing I could do … And so the same thing happened to Lance and Azura … Darius became bound to Entei, and Marina to Raikou … everything changed … by the Legend, it means you kids … the three of you … are now the ones bound to protect the secret … guard the legendaries … you are the ones …”
... and the truth of her relationship to Suicune:
“Exactly,” Dad said. “The only way anyone can take the fragment of key hidden within the Sepulchre of Suicune is to have you enter it, Lisa, as you are the guardian of Suicune. That’s why the Union tracked you down so vehemently over the past four months, Lisa; that’s why you’ve been the object of their attacks so many times. Once they possessed you, they could effectively force you into the Sepulchre of Suicune, once they found it, and lo and behold, they’d be a step closer to having all the keys and finally having access to the secret in the shrine of the legendaries.”
Lisa, Marina and Gavin escaped the reaches of both the Union and the Guard to attempt to fulfil to Lisa's new mission:
“Lisa’s bleached her hair and gone into renegade action-fighter mode,” Marina said dryly. “We’re gonna break into the Sepulchre of Suicune and get the key fragment ourselves! Come along for the ride, it’ll be heaps fun!”
Gavin’s face had gone slack. “Wait – what?”
“I’m not going back to the safe house,” Lisa said.
“Why the hell not?”
Lisa fought the urge to snap at him.
“Because I’m so sick of this constant running, the constant hiding from the Union, hoping they don’t find me,” she said tersely. “And I’ve realised the sooner I get the fragment of the key that’s in the Sepulchre, the sooner the Union will have no use for me anymore.”
And Lisa's date with destiny came to a tragic end:
//A little further down – yes, right there. Hold the sceptre tightly, Lisa. Now, make the cut// Suicune’s voice echoed calmly in her pounding ears.
“Okay, here goes,” Lisa said in a terrified voice.
She gripped the sceptre tightly in both hands and, murmuring a silent, jumbled prayer, she pressed the diamond blade into the soft skin. A thin red cut began to open up.
“N-nearly done,” Lisa quavered.
All of a sudden, Suicune gave a guttural growl and threw all his weight down onto the blade. The sceptre burst through his flesh and tore his heart into a hundred pieces. Her arms trapped beneath his bulk, Lisa watched in horror, her scream mingling with his almighty roar, as crimson blood exploded in bucketloads from his chest, his violet-black eyes reeling backwards as he fitted violently, legs and head flailing in agony, until the ice-white aurora on his back extinguished itself and his dead, broken body went limp, leaving Lisa alone to a private eternity of terror.
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Chapter 74 – The Diary.
“Nooooo!”
Blood trickled from Suicune’s dead body onto Lisa’s arms.
Tears splattered from her cheeks onto the bloodsoaked sapphire floor of the Sepulchre, the scene lit by the surreal glow of the azure torchlight.
“No, no, no …”
She repeated the word to herself a million times, a tormented mantra sustaining her through the horrific sight of the mangled corpse strewn before her. Vaguely, she was aware of the Sepulchre shaking more violently than ever, but it all seemed rather irrelevant.
The creature that had guarded her from the beginning – who had just revealed the truth about the Sepulchres – the real truth – was gone forever.
She tried to ignore the rising tide of betrayal in her chest; the mounting certainty that Suicune had never intended to just ‘spill some blood’: he had tricked her into murdering him.
The cavern lurched violently again. There was a metallic clatter: the golden tabernacle, previously affixed to the sapphire wall, had been thrown to the floor by the force of the tremor, its gold bracket twisted and broken.
The fragment!
Lisa’s eyes scrambled over the floor: Suicune had said that the fragment of the key would be released after his death … but where was it?
Her eyes came to the bloody body still leaking over her arms. The visceral smell of it hit her suddenly and her vision blurred. Mustering all her strength, and closing her eyes as she did it, Lisa yanked her arms and the sceptre from beneath Suicune’s broken form; there was a disturbing sucking noise and she felt some slimy organ slide over her hands as she finally extracted them.
She opened her eyes: her arms and sleeves were completely soaked in red blood and small morsels of flesh. Somehow, the urge to vomit did not overcome her: the shock was simply too great.
Unexpectedly, the crystal blade at the head of the sceptre in her hands, despite being covered in blood, too, was glowing: instead of transparent white, it was now as blue as any of the tiny sapphires that encrusted the silver sceptre itself, and even more resplendent: it looked almost like it was pulsating.
Lisa’s fuzzy mind tried to connect the dots. Suicune had said the sceptre was not the fragment. And yet, he had also claimed his death was not necessary to obtaining the fragment. Lisa shook her head. Surely he wouldn’t completely mislead her … the key must be elsewhere in the cave …
On her knees, she shuffled over to the golden tabernacle and shook it vigourously, but nothing fell out of it. She scanned the cleft where it had previously resided, but there was no sign of any key there, either. Desperate, she glanced up at the azure torches affixed to the wall and saw that one of them had been extinguished.
For a moment, her eyes were glued to the top of the sconce. The extinguished torch was comprised not of a thin wooden rod but rather, a tiny, ornately-shaped stick of what looked like glass.
Lisa hauled herself to her feet and, gripping the sceptre in her left hand, reached her right hand tentatively up into the sconce; however, it was not hot to the touch: on the contrary, it was cold, as if a flame had not burned in it for centuries. Lisa closed her fingers over the piece of glass-like material and pulled it out with ease.
She held it up to the light of the still-burning azure torch: barely an inch long, it was made of clear crystal and featured a series of small bittings and a shallow groove down its length.
Feeling nothing, Lisa tucked the fragment into the tightest, most secure pocket in Jamie’s jeans.
She had taken about two steps toward the enormous doorway when the Sepulchre heaved its almighty final tremor. She fell to the floor, slamming the side of her face into the sapphire and almost losing the sceptre as around her the Sepulchre of Suicune tore itself to shreds: the torches collapsed from the wall as if there was nothing fixing them to it; they clattered to the floor and, in the same instant, the cleft in the wall suddenly exploded, showering the chamber in a fine mist of sapphire dust before, unexpectedly, an enormous jet of water gushed into the Sepulchre from where the cleft had been.
The volume of water gushing into the tiny chamber was immense: before Lisa had even reacted, water had covered the floor of the entire Sepulchre and was splashing against the closed doors and Suicune’s destroyed corpse. The final torch – still burning on the floor – fizzled out underwater; the only source of light came from the sapphire luminescence of the sceptre.
Lisa lifted her head from the floor just in time to avoid a mouthful of water. Her head was throbbing. She squinted through the pain and realised that the Sepulchre would fill with water in a matter of a minute or so; amid the cacophonous roar of the incoming flood of water, she gripped the sceptre, clambered awkwardly to her feet and, patting her pockets, waded for the door, the foamy water already swirling around her knees.
She never reached the door. Just as the water level reached her thigh, there was a deep, resonant crack beneath her that reverberated through her entire body; it sounded like an iceberg breaking apart.
Her feet searched the floor and found empty space.
“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhh!”
Surrounded by a whirl of cold, foaming water, Lisa plummeted into a crevasse, propelled by the water. Holding her breath and barely able to shield her head and face with her arms, she slid down a dark, narrow tunnel for a terrifying twenty seconds, her face battered by water and dank air, until, quite abruptly, the rock tunnel around her disappeared, replaced by cool, fresh air and blinding sunlight; but before her eyes adjusted to the brightness, she was plunged underwater again.
Her lungs were about to burst. Eyes darting around the pearly, submarine landscape, Lisa realised with a rush of relief where she was. Kicking furiously, she propelled herself to the surface, emerging, exhausted, in the middle of Lotus Lake.
She glanced up: a waterfall was now cascading from the hole in the rocky cliff face that she had shot out from. The water frothed and eddied around her shoulders, the noise of the cascade and the tingle of bubbles popping on her skin forming an unlikely residue of the terror chamber from whence they had come.
“Lisa!”
Though it was Gavin’s panicked voice that reached her from the shoreline, it was Marina’s strong, well-practised arms that took her under the shoulders and pulled her back toward the shallows.
“Are you okay?” Marina panted breathlessly, hauling Lisa’s weight along with her as she sidestroked in Gavin’s direction.
Lisa murmured something unclear: she wasn’t even quite sure of what she had said. She felt dazed, the horrible reality of what had happened in the Sepulchre chasing her mind. She knew she ought to help Marina by kicking her legs, but every droplet of energy seemed to have left her.
“There we go,” Marina said gently as they reached the shore.
The pebbles grazing her arm shook Lisa from her daze. She sat up gingerly, blinking against the sun, before clambering out of the shallow water and onto dry land.
Gavin knelt down beside them and placed a hand on Lisa’s shoulder.
“Lisa, what happened to you?!” he demanded anxiously.
Lisa followed his eyes down to her formerly green-and-black T-shirt and ripped jeans: although the rush of water had given her a thorough clean, everything was now stained with Suicune’s blood.
“It’s not mine,” she managed, forcing words past the lump in her throat.
She felt, rather than saw, Gavin and Marina exchange glances.
“Are you okay? Did you get the key?” Gavin pressed.
“I got it,” Lisa said weakly, patting her pocket.
Both Gavin and Marina beamed; Gavin’s elation extended itself into a mighty whoop.
“That’s awesome!”
Marina’s smile, however, tumbled into a concerned grimace.
“What happened, Lisa?”
Lisa felt Marina’s gaze burning the side of her face, but she couldn’t bear to make eye contact. A wave of something like shame, or guilt, overcame her: she couldn’t shake the knowledge that, even if Suicune had conned her, it had been at her hand – thanks to her own naďveté – that he had died. The fact that she had retrieved the key fragment was meaningless: all she could think about was Gavin and Marina’s faces when they discovered what she had done in the Sepulchre; when they found out that Suicune was dead.
“Lisa? Are you alright? Tell us what happened in there …”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
Her voice was quite as empty as her heart. She rose to her feet.
“We should head back,” she announced robotically, looking in Gavin and Marina’s direction but deliberately fixing her eyes on the waterfall behind them.
Without waiting for a response, she turned and strode aggressively toward the main path, her bones groaning silently and her eyes brimming with salt.
*
“Food and drinks are on me,” Marina chirped, brandishing a fifty dollar note and smiling encouragingly at Lisa.
Lisa couldn’t manage a proper smile back, instead briefly parting her lips and flashing her teeth in an apologetic gesture to show Marina that she knew what she was trying to do, but it wasn’t going to work.
“Lisa, what do you want?”
“Nothing, I’m fine.”
She didn’t know why she said it. The walk back from Lotus Lake had been long so far, and the sun had given her a headache.
“Right … okay … Gav?”
Gavin was scrutinising a row of protein bars at the counter with a look of mingled contempt and curiosity.
“Coke and a burger. No, I’ll pay, it’s cool …”
“I’ll find a table,” Lisa muttered, only half sure that they had heard her.
She pushed through the queue for the slushie machine and navigated her way through the crowded cafeteria. They had stopped for a rest break at Gatehouse 42, a popular hangout for trainers and travellers situated at the west end of the National Park. The gatehouse was particularly busy today: it was a Wednesday afternoon and by the looks of it, the results of the some kind of special Bug-Catching Contest – ‘Weedly Wednesdays’ – had just been announced; groups of teenagers Lisa’s age or younger were clustered in the lounge, boisterously comparing their finds.
“Well, I was going to go for like a Butterfree or something pretty like that,” a blonde girl gabbled to her friends as Lisa pushed past, “but I decided on a Caterpie, because I want to really take part in her evolutionary journey and, like, really be there for her at each step, you know?”
“That’s so, like, down to earth, Tahnee,” cooed an almost identical-looking girl.
Lisa’s frown – already a firm fixture on her face – deepened.
She eventually located an empty table at the back of the cafeteria, positioned right underneath an extravagant floor-to-ceiling poster of local personality Kipp Anderson. Her muscles breathed a deep sigh of relief as she sank into the wooden chair, and yet she was already itching to escape. While walking, she at least had plenty of fresh air and silence to calm her down; on the contrary, Gatehouse 42 was a throbbing adolescent hangout, complete with a miniature game arcade, beanbag-laden lounge and buoyant dance-pop music blasting through the speakers. The vibe was insouciant, and nothing could have been further from how she felt.
She stared into the sugar bowl on the white table. The walk had mellowed her somewhat, but she still felt numb with shock and disbelief. Almost unconsciously, she tipped some sugar crystals onto the table and drew lines and patterns through them with her fingers.
“Grub’s up!” came Gavin’s voice.
He and Marina appeared at the table with a red plastic tray loaded with three plates and several drinks.
“I said I didn’t want anything,” Lisa said shortly, as Marina placed a burger, salad and chips before her.
“I know, Lisa, and I know you’re in a funny mood, but that doesn’t mean your body stops needing nourishment,” she said matter-of-factly, placing a tall glass beside the plate. “I got you an iced coffee because I know you love them, and a bottle of water too in case you’re dehydrated.”
Lisa bristled and pushed the glass away deliberately.
“Uh-oh, it’s serious now,” Gavin laughed. “She’s even refusing coffee.”
“Could you just shut up and not be a complete tosser, for just once in your life?” Lisa snarled.
Gavin blinked.
“I was just muckin’ around, Leese.”
“Yeah, well, for once just stop making light about serious things,” Lisa spat. “Just stop it. You have no idea what I just went through so stop treating it like I’m overreacting or something!”
“Well, how are we meant to know what you went through if you won’t even tell us?” Gavin shot back.
Lisa felt a sudden urge to punch him in the face; before she could, however, Marina stepped in.
“Guys, chill. Gavin, just –” She stopped short; Gavin muttered the word “mustard” and left the table swiftly. “– just do that then …” She turned to Lisa, an exasperated expression on her face. “Lisa, I know what you’ve been through was probably really hard –”
“You have no idea!”
“Well, actually I do, Lisa.”
She stared soberly into Lisa’s eyes until, suddenly, comprehension dawned on Lisa, a cold veil draped over her shoulders, chilling her core.
“Oh … oh my God …”
“Yeah. I was there when the Union entered the Sepulchre of Raikou, remember? I mean, I was their key to getting in, obviously.”
“You should have told us the truth about that when we rescued you,” Lisa said shortly. “Why didn’t you?”
“I already told you, I was … in shock. Kind of like you are now, Lisa.” Marina stirred her milkshake distractedly with her straw. “I just wanted to get home and tell my mum what had happened … Surely you can understand that?”
Lisa hesitated. “Yeah, I can, I’m sorry. It just hurt when I found out you already knew about the Legend …”
“I didn’t know that much. Still don’t,” she replied bracingly. “But I’ve been through the Sepulchre thing myself so maybe I know a little how you feel.”
Lisa’s flesh turned to goosebumps. Oddly, her heart felt a little lighter. If Marina had entered the Sepulchre of Raikou, she too must have had to perform the same ritual as Lisa. The image of Raikou’s dead body sprawled in the Ikoswit gorge resurfaced in her mind. Had the fatal gash on Raikou’s underbelly been Marina’s work after all?
Marina looked around fervently and lowered her voice so that only Lisa could hear her. “I know I was terrified when the Union took me down to the Sepulchre of Raikou. It was terrifying. Having to battle those Spinarak, walking in the dark tunnels wondering if they were going to collapse in on me …”
“Did you do it or did he make you?” Lisa said all at once.
Marina’s eyebrow tilted sharply.
“What?”
“Raikou. Did he talk you into killing him or did he trick you, like Suicune tricked me?”
Marina’s jaw went slack.
“What?! You mean Suicune – you killed – he’s dead?!”
She clapped her hand to her mouth, eyes wide with shock.
Electric terror buzzed through Lisa’s mind.
“You said you’d been through the same thing!” she hissed.
“Lisa – oh my God … what did you do?”
“It wasn’t my fault!” Lisa whispered quickly, her face burning and eyes prickling. “He made me! He tricked me! He said the only way to get the key fragment was to spill his blood. He –” The tears began to flow freely. “– he forced me to do it. I didn’t have a choice.”
“Oh God … Leese …”
Marina’s arms were around her at once; Lisa let go and, silently and unabashedly, she let the tears fall on Marina’s shoulder for a minute, unperturbed by the whispering of some nearby teens.
“You poor thing,” Marina said presently, rubbing her back.
Feeling as though a great weight had lifted from her chest, Lisa wiped her eyes on the dirty sleeve of her black T-shirt and pulled away from Marina. Even in her fragile state, her mind was churning: something wasn’t adding up.
“Marina,” she said slowly, reaching for her iced coffee and taking a quick, revitalising sip. “Are you telling me Raikou didn’t make you do that at all?”
Marina’s brow furrowed.
“No, of course not.” Her eyes bulged suddenly. “No, the Union had both me and Raikou captured and they made us both enter the Sepulchre against our will. I was blindfolded and handcuffed to that bitch, Veronica …”
“Then how did they get the key fragment?” Lisa pressed urgently, almost forgetting to keep her voice at a whisper. Something was bubbling inside her chest.
“Well, I never saw,” Marina admitted slowly. “I know they attacked Raikou and then, I dunno, I heard them moving around. They said they’d got the fragment. They were really happy. And then we bolted, because the Sepulchre started to self-destruct or something – there were massive explosions … it was terrifying …”
Lisa remembered laying on the beach and hearing the first of those explosions, distantly, through the forest.
“So you never actually saw them get the fragment.”
“Well, no, as I said … but Leese, they’d got it, obviously, otherwise they wouldn’t be celebrating.” Marina stirred her milkshake nervously. “What are you thinking?”
“Just before it happened, Suicune told me that only I could access the key fragment. Only the human Guardian, with his sceptre, may spill the blood of the Legendary Guardian and claim the key fragment. That’s what he said.”
Marina frowned. “Sceptre?”
“I think that backs up my case even more,” Lisa said pensively. Her mind was accelerating now, darting to new conclusions. “Marina, what if Raikou duped the Union and gave them a fake key fragment?”
“How could he have done that?”
Lisa shrugged. “I don’t know, but let’s say he did. Let’s imagine there’s some kind of inbuilt safeguard in the whole set-up, you know, in case the wrong people get access to the Sepulchre. That would mean the real key fragment is still sitting there. That would mean that Raikou is still alive!”
“Leese, it’s a bit out there. Maybe there’s more than one way to get the fragment.”
“If there is, why would Suicune voluntarily choose the one where he has to, you know … be killed?”
“Maybe it doesn’t have to be the Guardian who does it, though,” Marina ventured, although her voice wavered.
“Suicune said it did. Only the human Guardian may spill his blood and claim the key fragment. I’m telling you, this adds up …”
“You said he tricked you once, though. Maybe it’s not true.”
“He tricked me into killing him by telling me I only had to make a flesh wound. Then he –” Lisa steeled herself. “– threw himself onto the sceptre and killed himself.” She took a hearty gulp of iced coffee. “He knew all along what he was doing. It’s true.”
Marina mulled it over for a moment.
“Lisa, if you’re right,” she said evenly. “This could be huge.”
“I know …”
“I … I could retrieve the fragment myself. Do you think Raikou would be at his Sepulchre still?”
“Suicune appeared to me the moment we got to Lotus Lake. He wanted me to get the fragment. Maybe Raikou wants the same thing. Maybe they planned it together.”
Abruptly, Marina’s mobile phone vibrated violently on the white table. Despite the phone being set on silent, the resonance of the vibrations was not too far from deafening.
“It’s just Lance’s office again,” Marina said dismissively, talking over the top of the vibration. “They’ve been calling me and Gavin all day, more or less.”
The vibrating ceased. Marina seized the opportunity and switched her mobile off.
“If we can give them two fragments at the end of all this,” she said, “they might not hate us quite as much for not telling them what we’re up to.” She sighed. “Mum must be going absolutely spare.”
“We’re doing the right thing,” Lisa said firmly.
“Then why do I feel so guilty?” Marina demanded. Her voice was suddenly frail, though her face remained tightly drawn. “Seriously, Lisa,” she pressed, “I keep thinking about what I did, not getting on that plane. Mum and everyone will be so worried about me.”
“We’ll tell them what’s going on as soon as we can,” Lisa said uneasily; she wasn’t used to Marina showing any vulnerability, nor was she sure that she possessed the emotional strength to comfort Marina so soon after needing such comfort herself.
“And I fought so hard to be allowed to go to Red Rock to get you. Mum too. She’s going to absolutely slaughter me.” She bit her lip and swallowed what must have been a lump of anxiety in her throat before leaning toward Lisa. “If we go after this second fragment, that’s the end of it, right? We give them to the Guard and go back to the safe house, as sucky as it is, yeah?”
Lisa squirmed. She had not yet communicated to Marina – at least, not fully – her distrust of the Guard and its members. The knowledge of how easily the organisation had been infiltrated in the past disconcerted her. However, the potential acquisition of a second fragment offered a solution to a dilemma she had until now been unable to solve: what to do with the first fragment. If they managed to acquire both fragments, perhaps they could give Marina’s to the Guard, while she, Lisa, hid hers somewhere only known to her.
“Yeah, I think that sounds about right,” she replied.
“This is exciting, though,” Marina said eagerly, her voice regaining its usual confidence. “Getting another fragment, by ourselves …”
“You’d have to, you know, kill Raikou, though,” said Lisa solemnly.
“Mm. I know. But … if it’s how it’s meant to be, it’s how it’s meant to be, right?”
“Guess so.”
“And if the fragment’s not there, or Raikou doesn’t want to enter the Sepulchre, we haven’t lost anything …”
“I know,” Lisa said, and she was a little surprised that she finally managed a smile.
With a subtle cough, Gavin returned to the table, mustard bottle in hand, and sat down heavily in his seat.
“What took you so long?” Marina asked brashly.
Gavin lifted the top of his burger and squirted an obscene volume of mustard onto the top of the beef patty.
“What kind of tight arses run this place? I had to fight the rest of the cafeteria for the one and only bottle of mustard. Well,” he smirked, looking up at Lisa, “that, and I wanted to give someone’s hormones a chance to return to normal levels.”
Lisa winced.
“I’m sorry Gav, I know I totally snapped at you before. I’m really sorry.”
“Forgiven,” Gavin shrugged, picking up his burger and regarding its dripping form almost lustily. “So, what’d I miss?”
Lisa’s honey-brown eyes met Marina’s laughing hazel ones.
“You tell him – I’m starving,” Lisa said, tucking into her burger heartily.
*
The beep of a new text message arriving woke the woman from a sleep riddled with bad dreams.
Her hand scrambled on the nightstand and found the pink-and-silver mobile phone; the time on the phone was 1:21 AM.
1 new message received – Joe.
She opened the message, rubbing her eyes vigorously.
Check your emails. You fly to Goldenrod City tomorrow. Told you I’d have the 3rd Key’s location within 24 hours.
“Bastard,” Veronica Stawell smirked.
*
A soft-skinned hand touched Lisa’s arm.
“Lisa, it’s just me, Marina.”
“Mmmph.”
“I know it’s early but you wanted us to wake you up before we left, remember?”
“Before we go-goed, even.”
“At least you make yourself laugh, Gavin. Leese? C’mon, wake up.”
“Here, let me.”
The soft hand was replaced with a rougher, tighter grip. Gavin shook her gently before, all of a sudden, a blast of cold air rushed over Lisa’s body.
“Gavin, you idiot!” Lisa cried, finally torn from her half-slumber.
“That’s mean, Gav,” came Marina’s voice.
“Works every time, though.”
Deprived of her covers and shivering, Lisa opened her eyes. Gavin and Marina stood before her, rucksacks already loaded on their backs. Satisfied that Lisa was now fully awake, Gavin graciously returned her doona, smirking.
“So you guys are off already then?” Lisa murmured, tightening the doona around her body. She glanced at the clock on Dave’s bedroom wall: it was only six o’clock in the morning.
“Yeah, Mel said she’d give us some breakfast before we leave,” Gavin explained.
Lisa nodded in comprehension. After returning to Gavin’s dingy apartment in Goldenrod City the previous night, the trio had plotted the next step in their plans over another round of greasy pizzas and soft drinks. Emerald Plains – the location of the Ikoswit Gorge and the Sepulchre of Raikou – was a long walk away, a couple of weeks at least, but after calling his old friend Melanie (“She owes me a favour.”), Gavin was able to persuade her to drive them to Emerald Plains in her car.
“Are you sure we can trust Mel, though?” Lisa had demanded, licking mozzarella off her fingers. “We can’t alert anyone to what we’re up to.”
“She was my Uncle Eusine’s best friend and companion, and she always looked out for me ever since my parents – well – you guys know the story. She’s a real friend, and she’d never rat us out, I’d bet my life on it. Besides, we won’t tell her any of the dirty details.”
“Alright,” Lisa had said eventually, “I trust your judgment.”
“My biggest worry,” Marina had said, brandishing a slice of margarita pizza, “is that the Union will catch us, and we’ll lose the one fragment we’ve got. Maybe we should split up?”
“I agree,” Gavin had said.
“Yep, me too,” Lisa had nodded vehemently. “I don’t want to do all that work just to run the risk of losing the key we gained. How about I stay here with the key and you guys go with Mel, then?”
In the end, her suggestion became the adopted plan, though she did not disclose to the others that her other motivation for staying behind was to recover from the previous day’s ordeal. Nevertheless, she sensed they were both quite sensitive to her emotional state: Marina had given her an enormous hug goodnight, and even Gavin had offered to let her have the final slice of pizza, a thoroughly out-of-character gesture.
“Well, good luck then,” Lisa said, embracing Marina warmly and patting her on the back. “Stay safe, won’t you?”
“Please!” grinned Marina, winking; her Guardian Butterfree hovered resolutely over her shoulder.
Gavin moved forward and swept Lisa into a forceful hug.
“Don’t answer the door to strangers,” he said, mock-seriously. “Look both ways before you cross the street.”
“You too,” Lisa chuckled.
As they parted, Lisa felt Gavin’s lips brush gently against her cheek, almost missing her skin entirely, but the move was so swift it was impossible for her to tell if it was merely an accident or if he had tried to kiss her.
In any case, his chestnut-brown eyes did not betray his intention. He simply smiled and waved cheerily.
“See you tonight, hopefully, or tomorrow morning. We’ll text you, okay?”
“Cool.”
“Seeya Leese!” Marina called, waving as she left the room.
“Seeya guys! Take care! Bye!”
They left, closing the door of Dave’s room on their way out. A moment later, Lisa heard the front door click shut.
She considered going back to sleep, but already her mind was buzzing. Although it had really been her idea to stay behind, she suddenly felt left out. Already, Gavin and Marina were embarking on an adventure that she wouldn’t be a part of.
She sighed heavily and stared at the low ceiling. Maybe there was such a thing as too much adventure. Had she become perversely addicted to it, after everything that had happened? After all, most of her experiences had been terrifying or almost fatal at the time; it was only when she looked back upon them that they became exciting rather than scary. Was she some kind of warped adrenaline junkie?
She quickly tired of watching dust motes float around Dave’s smelly room. With sunlight breaking through the venetian blinds, she realised that sleep was going to elude her for good, and so she decided to take a shower.
The bathroom in Gavin and Dave’s apartment was quite as depressingly decorated as the rest of the place. Small brown and cream tiles covered the floor and walls, the grouting between them a sinister black colour: it seemed the bathroom had not seen a mop or sponge for months, if ever. The basin was littered with a small cluster of men’s products – hair wax, shaving cream, cologne – most of them coated in their own residue.
Lisa stripped off her dirty clothes and regarded herself in the dingy, spotted mirror. She had obtained quite a few bruises in the Sepulchre. Aside from the one on her cheek, she had also received a nasty purple bruise below her right breast and a graze on her stomach. She stared at length at her short, bleached blonde hair. It still amazed her how different she looked with it: she could have been an entirely different person, as far as the Union were concerned. She spent several minutes, too, obsessing a little over her eyes: how tired they now looked, compared to when she had been at Redwood Hospital.
Already, it seemed like another lifetime. Yet another.
Eventually tearing herself from the mirror, she pulled the stained and slightly mouldy shower curtain back and ran the water. The pressure wasn’t great, but there was enough of a stream for her to stand under, and it was hot. She spent the better part of a half hour under the warmth of the cascade, letting the water massage her head and cleanse her eyelids. She soaped and rinsed herself three times over before she finally felt that the last of Suicune’s blood was completely off of her; that she was a clean human being once again. By the end of the shower, she even found herself humming her favourite Julienne Brextar song, albeit a slightly slowed-down version.
Draping the spare towel around herself, Lisa stepped out of the shower recess. As she rubbed her hair dry, her eyes fell on something brown that had half-fallen out of the pocket of her jeans.
The diary!
Though she had not forgotten about the small, leather-bound diary that she had discovered within the Sepulchre, it had certainly been pushed from her mind by the excitement of Gavin and Marina’s new quest. She rapidly finished drying herself off, pulled on a pair of knickers, a pair of blue jeans and a black top – all of which Marina had loaned her – and, removing the diary and the crystalline key fragment from the pocket of Jamie’s jeans, took them back into Dave’s bedroom.
Sitting down on the end of the bed, she hastily pocketed the fragment before running her palm over the smooth front cover of the leather-bound diary. Suicune had said it would be useful to her later – what could possibly be within?
Her skin tingling, she twisted the tiny gold latch on the side of the diary and opened it up to its first page. Written on the thick, yellowing, parchment-like paper in slanted black ink was Johto’s old mantra:
Freedom, equality, brotherhood.
And just below those words, a longer dedication:
For the exclusive eyes of any son of the Walters family:
may this aid your quest to do what is right
and to fight corruption in all its many forms.
Ryan, if you should find this, please do not judge your father too harshly
– and of you, Thomas, or any of your descendants, I ask the same –
if and when you should read this,
The Diary of Theodore Walters
“Oh my God,” Lisa gasped.
In her hands was the diary of her grandfather.
*
A strong hand rapped purposefully on the roughly-hewn door of the seaside shack.
“It’s pretty quiet inside,” noted Gideon, standing a few paces back from the door and wiping his sunglasses on the inside of his black T-shirt. “If they’re in there, they saw us coming.”
Giles, the shorter of the two, leaned impatiently against the door, before recoiling sharply.
“Haha! What was that all about, dude?” Gideon guffawed.
“Splinter,” snapped Giles, readjusting his own aviators in an attempt to regain composure. “Shut up, someone’s coming.”
The door creaked open. A young man with dusty golden hair and muscular, tattooed arms extending from a blue wife-beater stood on the other side of the threshold, looking as though he had just woken up.
“Can I help ya?”
“Hi there, sorry if I woke you. My name’s Giles and this is Gideon, we’re friends of Lisa Walters.”
A lopsided grin broke Jack Criddle’s tanned face; he extended a meaty, calloused hand.
“Ah, yer a mate o’ Leese’s ay? Nice t’ meet ya! Name’s Jack Criddle.”
“Nice to meet you too, Jack,” said Giles cheerily, shaking his hand. “Listen, we’re looking for Lisa and she said she was staying here with you. Is she in?”
“Leese? Nah mate, yeh missed ‘er by a coupla days ay!”
Giles exchanged a serious look with Gideon.
“Darn it. We really need to see her as soon as possible. Do you know where she is now?”
Jack scratched his head. “No idea mate, sorry! I dropped her an’ her mates off on the mainland on Monday, just outside of Olivine. But I dunno where they were off to.”
Giles fought the broad grin off his face.
“Oh right? Which mates were they again? Was it Marina Frost and Gavin Luper?”
“Yeah, that’s them ay. Gavin and Marina, yeah.”
“Terrific,” said Giles, his voice controlled. “Well, I can get in touch with Marina or Gavin and pass the message on to Lisa through them I suppose! Thanks for your help anyway, Jack. Sorry to have taken up your time!”
“Not at all, matey, not at all! Mates o’ Leese are mates o’ mine I reckon! Top sheila, she is!”
“I agree Jack, she’s a great friend,” Giles smiled, shaking Jack’s outstretched hand again; Gideon flashed a grin from his position near the letter box. “Thanks again.”
“Cheers!” Jack called.
Not until they were back on the coast road did Giles and Gideon begin to speak.
“Third time lucky, hey?” grinned Giles.
Gideon nodded.
“I kept an eye on the back exit while you were talking to Jack – nobody left the house,” said Gideon sleekly. “I also kept an eye on his tattoo – it’s pretty fucking cool.”
“You’re an idiot,” said Giles, retaining his professional tone. “So, either Jack’s lying – which I doubt, the dumb bugger told us pretty much everything we wanted him to – or all three kids have banded together for some reason and are now on the mainland.”
“Give Lance a call and let him know, then,” said Gideon, as they reached the restaurants and stalls that comprised the busy foreshore of Red Rock Island.
“Will do,” said Giles, pulling out his sleek, silver mobile phone and pressing ‘2’ on the speed dial.
*
“This is mad,” Lisa said to herself, flipping through the worn pages of her grandfather’s diary. There were entries in it dating back as far as the late 1960s, and very few were personal. Almost all the entries that Lisa skimmed through chronicled important discoveries that Theodore Walters made in regards to the Legend, and the history behind it.
Her heart drumming, Lisa forced herself to go back to the front page and start from the start. However, as she turned over from the title page, she felt her jaw drop once again: her grandfather had inscribed a brief table of contents in his own diary:
Pages 5 - 60 : Research notes, important discoveries, theories, journalling.
Pages 61 – 64 : Vital information for quick reference.
Lisa struggled with her own sense of restraint for a moment before flipping frantically to page 61. An amused smile crossed her face when she saw that her grandfather had even written a header – Vital information for quick reference – and underlined it twice with his fountain pen. Her eyes scanned the page greedily, but page 61 was a disappointment: the scrawled text was in the form of antiquated glyphs. A little nervous, she flipped over to page 62.
And her heart almost stopped.
Re: Lisa the Legend: Chapter 73 now up! (4th October)
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Originally Posted by mistysakura
Re: Lisa the Legend - Chapter 74 now up! (19th October)
