Lisa the Legend: Chapter 82 - Last Night on Earth now up! (24th June 2013)

[mr_pikachu]

*whistles softly* Okay, now I see why you changed the style back. That was intense. It wasn't just the battle that was attention-grabbing, either; your writing style, as usual, was gripping. Awesome description, for one thing. I love the attention you pay to detail; it's something I still need to improve. And that first line with Emma pretty much made the chapter. You foreshadowed the daylights out of that one, but it still hit home.

Criticisms, criticisms... uh... well, I sort of alluded to it before, but there was a lot of foreshadowing. I'm not sure whether or not it was too much, really. I mean, you made it blatantly obvious that things weren't right; that in itself was a negative, but it may have increased the dramatic tension in the early parts. It's something to consider, though not necessarily something to change. I also couldn't figure out why the elevator door kept opening on its own. Maybe you all have a different system than what we have in the U.S., but if there was a secondary reason for it then that might have been worth explaining.

All in all, though, very strong as usual. You've left us with two cliffhangers this time: what will happen to Lisa and co., and what's up with Lisa's family? A lot to consider. Not to mention the creepy Union guy at the end. Why can I not remember who Mr. Spaniard is? WHY? Ugh. I'm so ashamed. At any rate, beautiful change in the tone, and nice developments in pure plot. I look forward to seeing what you pull out next!

[mistysakura]

Yeah, foreshadowing fun! Really, it would have been fine had you not said the thing about the nurses being on strike or something. It just draws attention to it (and the nurses being on strike would be stupid). It's cool that you're just doing what you enjoy I really wasn't expecting action so early on (well, not at the beginning of this chpater, anyway), so this chapter really reminded me how action-packed this fic is. ...damn, who's Hispanic guy? And if I were being really picky, I'd say the Hispanic region doesn't exist in your world, but meh. It gets to the point. It was chilling how the elevator door kept opening and revealing Emma's body (something was stuck in there, that's why it kept opening, right?). And the sheer chaos of escape and people not trusting the Pokemon and Gavin not remembering he can teleport (hehe, a Hermione moment there)...ah so real. Am I imagining this, of has the level of Lisa and Gavin's swearing really escalated? If that's intentional character development, which makes sense, cool, but if it's because you were an ickle school kid when you wrote Chapter 1... yeah just wanted to see if it was a conscious decision. On random notes, I thought 'she knew she was going to throw up' was pretty redundant after you said 'her stomach churled' and I think there's a word missing from "dark crimson blood, almost black, had blossomed over chest".

Really wasn't expecting the chapter so quickly. Had fun, glad you did too.

[Gavin Luper]

Well, this might be the only time I don't give full, detailed replies to my readers. I need to be leaving the house for Melbourne in about 30 minutes and I haven't packed, cleaned the place or done anything I should've. Brian and Ada, I appreciated your comments and feedback heaps, as always (and I think I've spoken to you both already about the chapter, at any rate). I'm glad you both enjoyed the chapter and the style change. I'll take the stuff about foreshadowing on board: maybe some restraint is in order. "Less is more" and all that. Re: the lift, I had one do that to me in real life completely randomly a few weeks ago (it was level six of a multi-storey carpark) and I thought it would be very well used for dramatic tension in that moment. So that's the background for that. Thanks for the criticisms and compliments. And the identity of the Hispanic man will be revealed momentarily ...

Hoping to see some of the other readers around, I always love hearing responses and feedback from you guys, too, so please let me know how you're liking the continuation of the fic!

Without further ado, here's Chapter 63, which is what I spent this afternoon finishing instead of packing. I really enjoyed writing this chapter; as always, I hope that enjoyment translates to you guys, too.

Cheers!

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Chapter 63 – Submission.


A jet of ultramarine energy exploded from the tip of the Union agent’s stunner. Lisa reached for her belt, but her hand was not fast enough; she felt an overwhelming force strike her squarely in the chest. She was blasted off her feet; her backpack slammed into the wall behind Gavin’s bed, followed instantly by her head. An instant migraine cleaved her skull and Gavin’s camera dug into her chest as she landed, face-down, on the thin carpet by the bed, silver stars bursting to life before her eyes.

“STUNNED HER!” came Anthony’s triumphant yell.

Despite the splitting pain in her head, Lisa bit back the instinctive groan she wanted to release. Something had gone wrong: she was still conscious …

There was a sharp bang from one of the lower floors; spread-eagled on the ground, Lisa felt the ground tremble violently. The thought of her parents reared its head once more, her spine prickling with a rush of terror. It seemed they had walked right into a Union siege. Had they been prepared for battle? Or had they been taken completely by surprise?

“HELP ME LIFT HER!”

Anthony, the Union agent who, with Morty, had deceived Lisa and Gavin on Mt Fairfax, was right beside her now; one of his rough hands closed tightly, painfully, around her upper arm, while the other took hold of her right leg. He began to drag Lisa unceremoniously toward the door; her backpack, she forced herself to go limp.

A second pair of footsteps thundered down the corridor. An ocker, almost unassuming, male voice cried from the doorway: “Ha! Got ‘em both, Ant?”

Anthony’s deep snarl rumbled from somewhere too close to Lisa’s face for comfort. “Shut up and help me get her out of here before she comes to.”

The newcomer snorted derisively. “What, where you gonna take her?”

Lisa bit her tongue against the combined pain of the carpet burn on her face and the continued pressure of Gavin’s camera against her sternum, but forced herself to stay still. There were two Union agents in the room now, and she was unarmed. The fact that they thought she was unconscious was the only weapon in her arsenal.

“Just help me get her out of here,” Anthony spat again. Lisa was sure they were getting near the door.

Another loud bang sounded from below; a second later, there was a terrible, drawn out screech.

“What the hell was that?” demanded Anthony, stopping in his tracks. His grip on Lisa’s limbs loosened.

There was nothing else for it: Praying that Anthony had looked around at the other Union agent, Lisa plunged her hand down toward her belt, her hand closing at once on a cool pokéball. Opening her eyes, she rolled onto her back and ditched the ball at the floor, just as the Union agent at the doorway cried out, “OY!”

The explosion of radiance from the pokéball blinded Anthony as he spun round to face Lisa. She pulled herself up to a sitting position and garnered a brief glance of a tanned, stocky man standing at the door, levelling his own stunner at her.

“NO!” she screamed, throwing herself at the floor again; something white-hot grazed her hair a second before she hit the ground.

“GET HER!” roared Anthony wildly. It sounded like he was in excruciating pain, though Lisa, face down on the floor again, could not see why. In desperation, she tried to commando-crawl beneath Gavin’s bed, but she knew there was no chance she would make it before the Union agent at the door recharged his stunner and fired again …

“AAAAAAAAAAAARGH!”

Lisa’s body surged with something hard, something beyond pain; her nerves had become strands of barbed wire, spiking her flesh from within. It was agony; it was hell: she was in darkness, languishing in her own mind … there could be no level of pain past this …

And then, at once, it was over; and Lisa was shaking, almost vibrating, on the carpet, a cold sweat running down her forehead, her arms too weak to even move.

Something small, metallic and cylindrical pressed into the back of her head.

“That was a taste of what you’re up against,” snarled the voice of the stocky Union agent. “Now stand up, or I’ll pull this trigger again.”

Lisa’s arms were like water.

“I can’t,” she quavered, eyes on the grey carpet. In the background, Anthony was shouting at his partner for assistance, but the second agent was not interested.

“Get up,” he repeated, prodding the tip of his stunner a little harder against Lisa’s skull. The casualness in his voice was dangerous.

Lisa tried again; her mind was still spinning, her arms still aching and unresponsive.

“It hurts too much …” she tried to say clearly, but her voice came as a whimper. “I can’t get up …”

She waited for a second current of pain to course through her, but it never came. There was a sudden flare of light from behind her and, to her complete surprise, a loud thump. Mustering all her strength, Lisa cocked her head to the left; beside her, collapsed on the ground, was the stocky Union agent, his eyes closed.

“OH NO YOU DON’T, BOY!” yelled Anthony, barely a metre away. He no longer sounded in agony, but there was something frightened in his register.

“YES I DO!” bellowed a teenage voice.

Lisa’s heart flooded with hope. This time Lisa actually heard Gavin grunt with the effort: another blast of intense light flared behind her, followed by a subdued swearword from Anthony and a dull thump.

Silence fell in the room, punctuated by the sounds of battle from the lower floors and carpark.

“Lisa …” Gavin was kneeling beside her, a sweaty hand against her jaw. “You okay?”

Lisa nodded painfully; she wasn’t sure how many times she had hit her head in the previous two minutes.

“Sit up … what did he do to you?”

“The Stunner … he had it set to something else. It was just …” An electric shiver, perhaps an aftershock, wriggled down her spine. “… pure pain.”

Gavin’s hands had moved down to her shoulders. “Come on, get up, we need to get the hell out of here.”

“I know.” With Gavin’s assistance, Lisa managed to pull herself off the ground, but no sooner had she regained a sitting position than her head spun with giddiness. She closed her eyes, trying to keep herself conscious.

“Leese – you right?” demanded Gavin, his voice urgent.

Lisa did her best not to slur her words. “I think I need some water …”

“Righto. Cup your hands, then,” said Gavin swiftly. Lisa obeyed without thinking.

“Fisky, get over here and give Lisa a drink,” said Gavin, in a louder, clearer voice. Lisa wondered what on earth he was doing until she realised that Fiskmire must have been the pokémon she set on Anthony earlier.

She felt Fiskmire’s heavy footsteps approach her before a cold liquid trickled into her cupped hands. She brought her hands to her mouth and gulped a cool mouthful down. She had never drunk water from a water-type pokémon before. It was purer than she expected: clean and sweet and with an almost earthy taste, like how she imagined water from mountain springs might taste. As she swallowed the final mouthful, she found that her dizziness had ebbed somewhat.

She opened her eyes. Fiskmire crouched before her, his beady eyes filled with concern. The fine blue fur on his back was ruffled and patchy: it looked like Anthony had scratched his back quite savagely.

“I’m alright, Fisky,” Lisa said softly. “Are you?”

Fiskmire shrugged his heavy, squared shoulders. Lisa reached out her arm to rub his head when, quite abruptly, Gavin cried, “My camera!”

Lisa tore her eyes from Fiskmire to find Gavin gaping at her chest, open-mouthed. She glanced down. Gavin’s black camera looked like it had been run over by a car: pieces of the camera shell had splintered off entirely; the place where the battery had once resided was now an empty hole; the flash had smashed into pieces and, most dramatically of all, the lens was no longer clear, but made opaque by hundreds of spidery cracks.

“So that’s why that first Stunner beam didn’t knock me out,” Lisa said slowly. “Anthony shot the camera instead …”

Gavin did not look comforted by this fact: indeed, his face was even more pale than it had been; he looked devastated.

“Give it to me,” he said shortly, slinging his backpack onto the ground.

Lisa didn’t even think to question the seriousness in his tone: she unfurled the camera strap from around her neck and, cradling it in both her hands so as to keep it from falling apart, passed it to Gavin. He placed it gently in the smallest pocket of his rucksack, his face still pallid.

The continued screams and blasts of battle below tugged at Lisa’s ears again.

“Right – we have to move,” she said abruptly. For a minute or so after Gavin defeated Anthony there had been a lull in the room, a deceptive sense of safety born from the relative quiet, but Lisa knew there was no time for resting on their laurels: more agents could arrive on the third floor in a matter of seconds.

She scanned the floor for Fiskmire’s pokéball and found it lying in the spray of sawdust from the erstwhile door.

“That was good work, Fisky,” she said, as if they had just defeated a wild Raticate in the bush. She threw a glance at the motionless form of Anthony: his black pants were almost shredded by Fiskmire’s teeth, and it looked like Fiskmire’s claws had drawn deep scratches on the Mediterranean-looking agent’s arms. “Return.”

A surprised expression stole over Fiskmire’s chubby features as the scarlet light washed over him; it seemed he had been expected more opponents.

“But Fiskmire didn’t knock Anthony or this other guy out, did he Gavin?” Lisa continued, double-checking that she had all her pokéballs on her belt after being thrown across the room.

Gavin zipped his bag up solemnly.

“No. I did. My powers …” he murmured, not looking up. “It was scary, because I actually knew what I was doing this time. I wanted them KOed, I tried to make it happen … and it did. Two big things of purple lights – took ‘em both out straight away …”

Lisa let her gaze wander from Anthony’s body to the form of the stocky Union agent. A surge of curiosity flooded her sense of urgency.

“What do you think they came here for?” she asked, feigning nescience. She knew, of course: her father’s words from a month ago had been on constant loop in her head since she first comprehended that Redwood Hospital was under attack by the Union:

“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.”

Gavin stood up and slung his rucksack onto his back. “You, of course,” he said simply. “Somehow they got wind that your Mum and Dad were taking you to the safe house today and decided to attack.”

Lisa’s blood ran cold at the mention of their names.

“Do you think they’re okay?” she said in a rush.

Gavin scratched his shaved head for a second. “Probably,” he said, finally, and Lisa was strangely comforted that he hadn’t just given her a thoughtless, “I’m sure they’re fine.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Well,” Gavin said seriously. “From the sounds of it … and the looks of it …” He glanced through the window, and Lisa followed suit: a dozen or so figures were running around amid flashes of vibrant light from Stunners, jets of lurid flamethrowers and clouds of Poison Gas attacks. “… it’s not just your Mum and Dad fighting the Union. That’s a big battle. They must have brought some of the Guard with them just in case something like this happened.”

Lisa’s heart lifted, then plummetted: so how many Guard members were going to be injured, maybe killed, because of her? How many innocent bystanders? Emma’s corpsed flashed through her mind’s eye again …

“Lisa, this isn’t the time to be thinking this over,” said Gavin sharply, correctly reading the pensive silence that had crept over her. “Come on, I’ll teleport us out of here – we need to go meet the other patients, and my pokémon.” He focused his eyesight on the wooded area on the banks of the Acacia River, still visible over the plumes of smoke issuing from the battlefield below.

Lisa took his sweaty palm; their fingers locked together tightly.

“Ready? Here we go,” said Gavin confidently.

Lisa closed her eyes. Gavin’s hand squeezed hers tighter still. A second passed, then another. Her feet were still firmly on the ground.

“Gavin?”

She opened her eyes, disenchanted: they were still surrounded by the wreckage of Gavin’s hospital room. It looked like the stocky Union agent sprawled beneath the bed was beginning to stir.

“Sorry, I was trying,” muttered Gavin breathlessly. “I think I needed to wait a bit longer to recharge my energy stores or something like that.”

“Well, recharge faster!” cried Lisa: the Union agent was shaking his head from side to side as if he had water in his ears.

“Okay, I think I’m ready!” cried Gavin, equally urgent. “Hold on, here goes!”

Lisa closed her eyes once more, readying herself for the queasy whirlwind of teleportation. She gripped Gavin’s right hand tighter, tighter, until, suddenly, her hand closed on nothing but thin air.

“Gavin – what the -?”

Her eyes flew open in fear. There was nobody standing beside her. She was stranded, still, in the hospital room.

“NO!” She couldn’t stop herself: how could this have happened – how could she be left behind?

The stocky Union agent pushed his hands against the carpet, lifting him off the ground.

“You won’t get out of here, girl!”

He got to his knees and, with a menacing glare toward Lisa, reached for his Stunner, still splayed on the floor beside him.

Lisa’s feet were carrying her before she had even thought about what she was doing: she leapt over Anthony’s body, glided over the mess of sawdust and darted smartly through the remains of the door. Reaching the corridor, she glanced left and right, hesitating for one infinitesimal moment before throwing her weight left and sprinting. The lift and stairs might have been dangerous, but they were a known escape route. She had no way of knowing whether or not there was a flight of stairs to her right – and if there weren’t, she would be cornered in an instant.

She ran on, past the nurses’ station, barely metres from the lift now. The Union agent bellowed at her from a long way behind, but she knew her headstart would make all the difference. Shuddering at the thought of what was in the lift, Lisa grabbed the silver handle of the stairwell beside the lift and, steeling herself, pulled it open wide.

“LEAVE ME ALONE!” screeched a female voice.

Lisa ducked in the nick of time as a bolt of blue light soared past her head and into the corridor. It took her a second to realise that neither the curse nor the jet of energy from the Stunner had been directed at her: Barely a foot in front of her, a blonde woman was clinging to the yellow handrail in an effort to stay on her feet, her back to Lisa; a black-clothed man stood on the landing, wielding an oversized stunner, the form of a steel-blue Machoke slumped at his feet.

Sure that the Union agent had not yet spied her behind the frame of the blonde woman, Lisa plunged her hand into the pocket of her jeans. The cool, rubbery surface of the Buzzball was as welcome and reliable as ever, and as Lisa extracted it, she felt herself transported back to the chaos of Mt Fairfax. She was back in war mode.

“ELECTRIFY!”

As she screamed the command, Lisa held the red orb over the shoulder of the blonde woman. A spear of white-hot electricity crackled through the air, splitting into two forks of energy: one struck a small ‘Mind Your Step’ sign on the wall, showering them all with orange sparks; the second fork of electricity found the man’s stunner. There was a loud fizz of electricity and an unexpected burst of smoke from the stunner; then the man’s body gave a wild jerk and he collapsed to the concrete with an unpleasant whack!

Lisa spun round in terror suddenly: she had forgotten the Union agent behind her. Her mouth fell open slightly as she spied his silent form sprawled on the floor ten metres down the corridor; his stunner had landed by the nurses’ station.

“That’s some skill, Lisa!”

Lisa glanced back into the stairwell. The blonde woman stood a short way behind her, a shaky grin on her pale face. Lisa felt a rush of joy: she recognised the woman from the makeshift ward at the Fairfax Inn. She was a Guard member.

“Christina,” she boomed, holding out a large, rough-skinned hand. Lisa took it weakly. Christina’s eyes scanned her briefly. “God, I’m glad you’re alright,” she said eventually, and it came with a heavy sigh. “I was fighting two of them at once, and I couldn’t keep track of everything – that bastard got past me on the second floor landing,” she added a little abashedly, jerking her head toward the unconscious form of the stocky Union agent. “But it looks like you took care of him anyway.”

Lisa shook her head gently. “I didn’t. I think that shot from the stunner that was meant for you hit him – I still had the door open …”

Christina placed a hand on Lisa’s right shoulder; Lisa was surprised that, for such a strong, well-built woman, she was shaking violently. “You did good with that jerk in the stairwell, at any rate,” she said seriously, poking her thumb behind her; the black-clothed man was still slumped beside the unconscious Machoke on the landing. “Your parents told me about this thing. What’s it called again?”

Lisa lifted the Buzzball up to show Christina, but she didn’t relinquish her hold on it.

“It’s called a Buzzball. It’s saved me and Gavin from strife more than once …” she explained.

Christina suddenly glanced around the corridor wildly. “That’s right! Gavin! Where is he?”

Lisa verged on explaining about the botched teleportation, but the thought that Christina might not know about Gavin’s powers bubbled in the back of her mind. “He was lucky, he got away in time, but I couldn’t – this guy got to me –” she said briefly.

“So Gavin is safe. Good. And again, I’m sorry I let this tool get past me, but once they took out my Machoke, they had an advantage,” she explained. Letting the door to the stairwell close behind her, Christina strode toward the unconscious Union agent, her gait heavy; she was quite solidly built. “Well, we won’t be letting him get away too easily.”

As Lisa watched, her heart rate slowing from the previous moment of conflict, Christina released an Ivysaur from a rather grubby red-and-white pokéball.

“Cuff him, Ally,” Christina commanded.

Ally the Ivysaur gave a menacing growl. With unexpected fluidity, two serpentine vines unfurled from the back of Ivysaur’s dark green bulb, twisting around the wrists of the Union agent and binding them tightly together. Ally gave a second growl and the vine whips broke off, leaving two long lengths of vine hanging from the man’s cuffed wrists.

“There’s another one, Anthony, in Room Seven,” Lisa chipped in.

“Ally, get to it! Room Seven, cuff him!” boomed Christina.

“Saur,” mumbled Ally, scampering down the corridor in the direction Lisa pointed.

Lisa waited for Christina to turn in her direction before she finally exploded.

“So, what’s going on? Are Mum and Dad okay? Did the whole Guard come here? Are the Union –”

“I’ll explain what I can, Lisa,” said Christina, in a level voice. “Your mum and dad drove here today, as planned, to pick you up. Two cars of back-up Guard members were to follow, in case the Union managed to get wind of what was happening.”

“And they did –” Lisa interjected uselessly.

“Things went wrong the moment your parents stepped out of the car,” continued Christina, as though she had not been interrupted. “Union agents – dressed in civilian clothes – launched an attack on them. Your parents seemed ready to defend themselves; I think maybe some of their pokémon were released before they exited the vehicle. In any case, they weren’t hit by the Union’s stunners – some kind of Reflect or Light Screen, maybe.”

Lisa’s heart rose slightly.

“That’s when we stepped in. There were six of us acting as back up. I lost track of everyone straight away: the Union had back-up too, of course. There were attacks and jets of light and even bullets flying everywhere – then someone set one of the cars on fire – it was hard to see anything for a minute there.”

“So it started in the carpark.”

“Right. I’m not sure who went into the building first, us or them. Might have been them. One jerk tried to pistol whip my sister Lauren – she’s in the Guard, too – so I shoved him then, when he didn’t fall over, I jumped on his back. I thought my weight would destabilise him – guess he was stronger than I thought. We ran through a heap of smoke … next thing I knew, we were in the reception area.”

“So much for the Army Reserve guarding all the hospitals in Johto,” said Lisa derisively.

Christina’s eyes grew dark. “That’s the scariest part about this,” she said slowly. “I saw them – saw them with my own eyes – the moment the fighting broke out. All six soldiers abandoned their posts at the doors. Ran inside.”

“WHAT?” cried Lisa.

Christina nodded soberly. “I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it myself. Either the Union agents have infiltrated the military somehow, or … well, I don’t know if there is an ‘or’. I think the reserve troops were sent into the hospital to clear out anyone who might get in the way of the Union. You know, get rid of the nurses and doctors and any other staff, make it easy to get to the patients – to get to you, Lisa.”

This was strangely not the biggest worry on Lisa’s mind. “But if those troops were acting on Union orders – then the other soldiers, the other hospitals – everywhere in Johto –”

“I know,” Christina bit her lip. “But we can’t afford to think of that now, or we’ll go crazy, absolutely crazy.” There was a light scampering of feet: Ally had returned from Gavin’s room sporting a proud grin. “Well done, Ally. Here,” Christina dug a hand into the pocket of her stonewashed jeans and threw a small, brown pellet at Ally, who chomped it up at once.

Lisa shot a questioning look at Christina. “So – what do we do now?”

Christina placed a hand on the silver door handle of the stairwell and opened it; at once, the sounds of battle below became more audible.

“The most important thing is that the Union don’t get their hands on you,” she said firmly. “Not only would we lose you, which would be terrible enough, but the Union would then practically have free access to the Sepulchre of Suicune. Return, Machoke,” she added swiftly, holding out a Great Ball; the bulky form of Machoke dissolved in a blast of translucent red.

“So – I wait here?”

Christina hesitated, her foot on the first step.

“I think that’s the best move we can make. I’ll clear the stairwell, and then you can follow at a safe distance. Hopefully everyone’s still out in the carpark – the reception area should be relatively clear by now.”

With a curt nod to Lisa and a sharp call to Ally to follow, Christina trudged heavily down the first flight of stairs, taking care to step hard on the unconscious Union agent’s back. Lisa hung back at the very top, one hand on the yellow metal handrail, the other firmly clasping the Buzzball. Christina’s footsteps echoed as she disappeared from sight. Lisa tried to listen for signs of nearby battle: certainly, there was audible chaos in the carpark, but it sounded markedly quieter in the hospital building now.

After two minutes, Christina called, “Alright, Lisa, it’s safe all the way. Come down to the landing right before the ground floor.”

Lisa scurried down the stairs two at a time: somehow the thought of the stocky Union agent waking up and attacking her from behind was scarier than the thought of full-on battle. Along the way, she stepped over three Union agents, their hands all bound by Ally’s vines, as well as two unconscious Arbok and a motionless Magmar.

Christina was crouching by the door, Ally at her heels.

“It sounds silent out there, Lisa,” she said confidently. “I’m going to go out and scope things out. When and if – AND ONLY IF – I give you the all-clear, you follow me closely, alright?”

“Okay, Christina,” replied Lisa, grasping the Buzzball and retreating a few steps.

Christina winked boldly at her before apparently steeling herself, and pushing the door wide open.

Lisa saw it happen: the flash of metal, the explosion of blue light. The burst of razor leaves scorched by a roar of vermilion flames. Christina’s scream.

“NO!” Lisa roared. Not again, it couldn’t be – they’d been so close – it had been silent in the reception area!

She froze for just one second, then tried to run away without turning around; her heel caught the concrete step behind her and, with a sickening realisation following her all the way, Lisa fell up the stairs, the Buzzball spinning from her grip as her hand collided with the railing. Her backpack cushioned her fall, but it was a hollow win:

Two men and a Charmeleon stood in the open doorway, exultant. Lisa could see an open, fiery mouth, a Stunner and a sleek black pistol all aimed directly at her. Despair flooded her veins. There was no escape.

“Fight’s over, bitch,” said the taller of the Union agents. “Joseph Sterling’s gonna be very happy with us.”

Lisa gaped at the pistol in his hand, cocked and ready.

But instead the shorter agent, the one with his stunner pointed at Lisa’s heart, pulled his trigger. And there was no mistaking it this time: no camera, no luck, no defence; Lisa saw the cobalt beam, felt the energy surge through her, heard the Union agent’s triumphant exclamation chase her into blackness:

“Gotcha!”

[Gavin Luper]

As usual, I take 5 months to think, plan, dwell, postpone and procrastinate and then on one single day I get hit by inspiration and the urge to write, and the whole chapter comes out in one day.

This chapter is partly what my earlier poll in the Writer's Lounge was concerned with. It's nearest cousin is Chapter 30 - Juxtaposition, but this chapter is a lot more significant on a lot of levels.

I hope you guys enjoy it.

Cheers!

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Chapter 64 – Heart of Ice.


1977, December

It was a summery afternoon in Blackthorn City. The main street was bursting with loud teenagers wearing lurid T-shirts, housewives carrying wriggling babies and brown paper bags of groceries, and stoic, silent men with briefcases, darting from one office building to the other as though they were afraid of the sun.

A lanky teenager wearing a sensible white shirt and slacks was almost jogging down the street to keep up with an older man in a formidable grey suit.

“… but overall, I think I passed. Oh, and there was an essay question on the science behind Everstones, which is so dumb to put in an exam, right Dad? I mean, I wrote double the word limit ‘cause I studied up on them, but who would ever use an Everstone on a pokémon? There’s no point.”

Without slowing down or turning to face his son, the suited man said sternly, “There are plenty of reasons why someone might want to use an Everstone, Lance. Delaying evolutions can be vital to some forms of competition, or skill developments. If you’d studied, you’d have known that –”

The black-haired teenager scowled. “I did study, Dad,” he snarled, tone brimming with adolescence, “but it just seems stupid. If you had a Dratini, like I do, why on earth wouldn’t you want to evolve it into something more powerful?”

“There are things more important than power,” grizzled the older man, clutching his brown leather briefcase tighter to his body as he passed a homeless man slumped on the pavement outside a hostel. “And why did you go over the word limit? You lose marks for that, you know.”

Lance shrugged indifferently. “So what? That doesn’t mean I don’t know enough, it just means the marking system is stupid.”

The older man halted abruptly. Glancing around and finding that section of the street relatively free of shoppers, he rounded on his son.

“I am starting to wonder if you have any regard whatsoever for your education, boy. The college examiners won’t bend the rules for one person, however intelligent they may be. You’ve shot yourself in the foot, and for what?”

Lance fell silent. His father’s voice had become dangerous, but deathly quiet.

“I’ll tell you for what,” the suited man continued, pointing a long finger at his son, “for that lady-friend of yours. I won’t let you jeopardise your entire future for a few weeks of frivolity. You will terminate your relationship with that girl by the time you get home tomorrow afternoon, or I will call her parents and end it myself!”

Then, without another word, he adjusted his steel-coloured trilby and continued his brisk walk to his office building.

The teenage boy was a statue for five seconds, staring, stunned, at his red-faced reflection in a puddle, before his father called him to hurry up and follow.

*********

2003, March

Lance Hudson contemplated his reflection in the glossy surface of the mahogany drawing room table. Even in the sparse light of dusk, he could see that the cluster of grey hairs on the front of his head had seemingly doubled in size over the past few hours. He reached for the ‘World’s Best Dad’ coffee mug that rested on one of Susan’s hand-painted coasters and felt a vague thud of disappointment when he realised it was empty.

He shook himself sternly and returned to the thick wad of printed documents he was meant to be reading through. He had never been less motivated to work in his entire life. The contents of the makeshift dossier would only tell him what he already knew, and what he already knew was devastatingly clear. He considered the page of tables and tallies before him for the hundredth time.

No, it simply wasn’t an option.

Just as he put his head in his hands, there was a sudden crackle of static from the small, metallic intercom fitted into the table. Stubbornly massaging his temples, Lance awkwardly manoeuvred his elbow onto the green button on the interface.

“What is it now, Sarah?” he thudded, several hours past being polite.

The female voice on the other end of the intercom was young, crisp and unabashed.

“I have Jim Donovan here to see you.”

Lance didn’t remove his hands from their station, just massaged with more vigour.

“Fine. Send him in.”

“Okay, sir. I’ll bring you another coffee, too.”

A small portion of Lance’s brain danced at the mention of caffeine.

“Thank you, Sarah.”

“You’re welcome, sir.”

Barely a second after the intercom’s final crackle, there was a clean click from the double doors at the far end of the drawing room, and Jim Donovan entered, looking for all the world as though he had just stepped out of a war zone and into Lance’s office. His grey polo shirt, emblazoned with the logo of his favourite brand of beer, had an enormous purple stain across the chest, while one of the legs of his faded jeans had an enormous slash in them, through which a deep scratch mark was visible. He also sported a very raw graze on his left cheek, which he had apparently refused any treatment for. His eyes were rocklike.

Lance regarded him coolly. “Sit down, Jim,” he said wearily, unsurprised by his associate’s appearance.

“Nah – I’m gonna stand, ta,” said Donovan, his tone both baiting and aggressive.

“Oh, for God’s sake, Jim, sit!” snapped Lance.

“Not ‘til I get some answers,” snarled Donovan, leaning a hairy arm on the backrest of one of the chairs and pointing the other one at Lance accusingly. “Did ya know about the army? Did ya know they’d been compromised by the Union before you sent us in?”

Lance summoned what little mental strength he had left and looked Donovan directly in the eye.

“No, Jim. I didn’t.”

Donovan didn’t lower his threatening finger.

“Yer’d better not be bullshittin’ me, Lance. ‘Cause it musta bin goin’ on for at least a month, prob’ly a year, who knows? Them soldiers were loyal to the Union, not the Government. And it seems to me that you mighta heard at least rumours of Union infiltration through Nate’s sources. It seems pretty fuckin’ obvious to me. So right now I’m wondering why the fuck yer’d send me and my team in to back up Ryan and Maria in extracting Lisa if you knew the whole time that we were WALKIN’ INTO A BLOODY AMBUSH!”

There was a smooth click from the doors, and a young, brown-haired girl walked in to see Jim Donovan punctuate his tirade with a thudded fist on the mahogany table.

“Oh – I can come back –” she said, startled, holding a hand over the mug she carried as if to protect it from the violence of Jim Donovan.

“It’s alright, Sarah, come through. Jim was just taking a seat.” Lance threw a significant glare at Donovan, who, perhaps because of the presence of a teenage girl in the room, appeared to have come to his senses. He lowered his arm and brusquely sat in one of the grey tub chairs that surrounded the long table.

Sarah walked carefully into the room, clearly determined not to spill the coffee. Only once she had swapped the full mug for the empty one did she address Lance.

“I know you’re busy, but Darius is on the phone.”

Lance wrapped his hands around the ceramic coffee cup; this one was a glossy obsidian-coloured mug emblazoned with the crest of the Blackthorn Tigers basketball team. “What does he want?”

Sarah twirled a strand of her wavy brown hair nervously. “Some of the Guard members who were at the hospital attack this morning are staying overnight at the safe house. Darius heard from them what happened to Lisa. He wants to know what the truth is – he wants to hear it from you, I think.”

Not without difficulty, Lance suppressed a deep sigh. “Tell him I’ll call him back when I can,” he said eventually.

Sarah’s rust-coloured eyes looked concerned, but when she spoke, it was only to say, “No problem, sir”, before walking briskly from the room and back to her desk.

The first few drops of scalding coffee already making their way into his system, Lance turned to face the agitated man seated beside him.

“Alright now, Jim, listen to me. If I’d had any idea of what was going to happen today, do you really think I would have sent you in there? Of course not.” Donovan crossed his meaty arms tightly. “I consulted every relevant agent within the Guard before I made any decisions, and I can assure you that none of Nate’s contacts had heard of anything like what we saw today. Nobody knew the Army had been infiltrated, even the Army itself. The Union wormed their way in with stealth, and now we have no way of knowing which branches of the military we can trust and which we can’t.

“I know you’re upset about what happened at Redwood Hospital this morning, but blaming me for what happened won’t bring Robert back, nor will it undo what’s happened to Lisa. And the fact is, Jim, we all knew there was a risk involved with extracting Lisa. We all knew the Union would surely be watching every hospital in the province. We just didn’t realise how far they had gone in their surveillance. To a degree, I suppose we underestimated their doggedness to get hold of Lisa, and a small part of the blame for that does rest with me. But remember who’s behind all this, Jim. Joseph Sterling. The Union. We can’t afford to lose focus on what we’re here for. We need to stop them at every turn. We can’t afford to dwell on our losses. We need to keep an eye to the future. To what comes next.”

Donovan unfolded his arms and rested them expectantly on the wooden table.

“And what does come next, then, boss?” he asked laconically. “I mean, now that the Union have two of the bloody Seven Keys, and one of the three guardians as well.”

“Are you asking this to show me up, or so you have something to tell your team to keep them focused?” demanded Lance.

“The second one, of course.”

Lance forced his face not to become a scowling mask. “We go about business as usual. Our aims and operations haven’t changed. Everyone still needs to be on standby at all times to counter any Union attacks. Information on the location of the Third Key is still pending. When we know where it is, a full-scale retrieval will be launched, and everyone needs to be ready for that.”

Donovan’s face remained expressionless; eventually, he said, “Fine. So whatta ya gonna do ‘bout the damages? Two of our cars went up in smoke. Bloody Union bastards torched ‘em. They had Magmars that looked like they were on steroids … Anyway, there was no way we could save the car or the van. Both blown to pieces by the end of it. We were lucky to all cram into the last car. Anyway … if we’re going to have a decent shot at extracting Lisa, then we’re sure as hell gonna need two new cars. I spoke to Julia an hour ago, she’d tried to call Albert Cripps, but she only got his voicemail. Azura said he’s on a charity cruise in the Whirl Islands until Monday, so we might not be able to reach him ‘til then, which means we might not be able to rescue Lisa until Monday night at the earliest …”

“Jim, we’re not rescuing Lisa at all.”

Lance felt the fact burn his tongue as he said it.

“What?” asked Donovan, cut off.

“We can’t extract Lisa. It’s not an option.”

“What – whaddaya mean?”

“Joseph Sterling was successful in extracting her from Redwood Hospital. Your entire team, plus Ryan and Maria, weren’t able to prevent that from happening. Those agents had her loaded on to that chopper before anyone could stop them. And there was barely a fraction of the Union present there. Sterling will have already transported her to the Union’s most heavily guarded headquarters underneath Silver Rock Island. That is their impenetrable fortress. I’ve known the location for months, as have the police. The reason it hasn’t been attacked by either of us is the same. It would be a suicide mission. We stand absolutely no chance against the Union if we attack them at their base.”

Donovan was shaking his head like a fox terrier that had water in its ears. “I don’t believe what I’m hearing …”

“Believe me, Jim, I wish this weren’t the case, but I’m sure that it is. Sterling tried to get Lisa Walters into the Sepulchre once already, and the only reason he failed is because he had been given the wrong information and believed Lisa to be the guardian of Entei instead of Suicune. He’s a ruthless man, and he’s brilliant. He will not let her escape twice. I have no doubt that Lisa is now locked up beneath Silver Rock Island, and guarded with the heaviest security Sterling can manage.”

“SO YOU’RE GOING TO LET THEM KEEP HER?!” Donovan’s voice cracked hoarsely, like a teenager’s. “YOU’RE JUST – GIVING UP, THAT’S IT? THEY WIN?!”

“You’re losing focus, Jim,” said Lance in the most level voice he could manage. “The Union haven’t won anything. There are still five keys to be found. We still have our other two guardians, Marina and Darius, safe at the Stone’s station. Losing Lisa is damaging to us, yes, and beneficial to our enemy, but that does NOT mean our operations fall apart. The Legend of Ecruteak still stands, and Lisa is not the cornerstone of that Legend, she is only a part of it!”

But Donovan was now beyond cool reason or dialogue – he was looking at Lance as though he had just committed murder.

“I can’t believe I’m hearin’ yer say these things, Lance. ‘She’s just a part of it’, is she?” he demanded hotly. “S’that whatya told ‘er parents?”

“What was said between Ryan, Maria and I is between us!” snarled Lance, quite forgetting to keep his cool; the wound of that morning’s explosive argument was still very raw.

“Ya dog,” spat Donovan, getting to his feet. “Ya won’t even rescue the child of one of yer best mates –”

Lance was on his feet before he knew it; thoughts of having a cool discussion were long forgotten. “YOU FUCKING HYPOCRITE! Five minutes ago, I was the bad guy for apparently sending you into an ambush, and now you’re losing your head at me for trying to prevent the same thing from happening again!”

“That’s –” Donovan spluttered angrily. “That’s – not the same thing –”

“My position is final, Jim. You don’t know how hard it was to decide –”

“Oh, poor you, having to sit in yer big office with yer big window and decide the fate of another human!” Donovan raged. He pointed his finger at Lance’s face once again, his air both threatening and disillusioned. “I – cannot – believe ya.”

There was an odd pause: it seemed that Donovan had run out of accusations and Lance seemed unwilling to inflame the argument any further. The two men stood two feet apart, facing each other with tense expressions for perhaps thirty seconds, before Lance said, with steely indifference, “If that’s all, then, Jim, I’ll see you at the meeting on Monday.”

An incredulous smirk came over Donovan’s ruddy face; he shook his head almost warningly before stepping around the tub chair behind him and marching from the room.

The door clicked smoothly behind him.

Lance collapsed into his chair at the head of the mahogany table and stared blankly at the door for several minutes. Then, steadying himself, he reached down to the Blackthorn Tigers mug and took a sip of still-hot white coffee with one sugar. He looked down at the dossier before him. At least it hadn’t been opened to the pages of Nate Thorne’s month-old report on the Union’s rumoured infiltration of the Johto military, or Donovan might really have lost it.

Lance flipped back to the beige cover of the dossier. A yellow sticky note had been tacked onto the front by the person who had prepared the file for him. He frowned and took another, deeper sip of bitter coffee as he reread the message that had been scrawled on it:

Don’t worry son. It gets easier with time.

- Dad.

[mr_pikachu]

Wait. So, was Lance completely BSing Jim? Ooh… suddenly this casts a little doubt on the shining figure that is the Guard’s leader. How much can he really be trusted? Or is all of this a red herring? Did he simply make a mistake in deciding what information to believe, and was he merely trying to avoid riling up Jim further? Very, very interesting.

I have to say, I’m amazed that the beginning of this chapter was so intense. You did a great job of injecting intense emotion into an otherwise peaceful scene. Likewise, the “present” in this chapter was also captivating; given that the conversation degraded into a shouting match, though, it was probably a little easier to pull off that one.

As usual, I only have minor nitpicks to make about this chapter. Watch your grammar; there were one or two instances where you needlessly ended your sentences with prepositions. You might want to work just a little on eliminating redundant words during the editing process, too. This is the one flaw I do notice consistently in your writing. It’s very, very minor, but when the same word pops up multiple times over the span of one, two or three paragraphs (such as “enormous” during Jim’s entrance or “cool” as the argument reached its boiling point), it can catch the eye of your readers and cast aside the exceptional mood you’ve set.

That’s sort of a compliment in a criticism, as you continue to be one of the most skilled writers at mood setting that I’ve ever seen. It’s truly a gift to be able to take a squabble between father and son and make it feel like a life-or-death scenario. The characterization you use is also powerful, from major players (like Lance) to those who serve in the most minor roles (coffee girl). I liked how you interjected bits and pieces of the setting and character images into the text, too. The clash of Lance’s shirt with those of his teenage peers was good, as was the vision his shiny desk. Very good work! As usual, it’s hard to find anything beyond minuscule tweaks to suggest for your writing.

[Gavin Luper]

Brian: Cheers for the prompt reply, as always!

Indeed, what was Lance up to? I shall say nothing at all.

I actually felt the beginning of the chapter was the weakest part of it. I really had to write my way in until I felt comfortable, but that whole flashback still felt a little awkward and shoddy ... I was happy enough with it, however.

I hadn't even noticed about the redundant words, but now that you point it out, it is glaringly obvious. Especially for the "cool". That's what I get for not proofreading my chapters aloud ... I really ought to in future. That, and maybe I should take more time in writing them. They tend to pour out in torrents from my brain and I don't edit them as much as I probably should. Thanks for the nitpick, anyway: it'll definitely help me improve my writing.

Hoorah. You noticed the teenage Lance's different clothing. It was probably as subtle as a kick in the teeth, but I liked making that distinction. It's significant on a number of levels. Actually, this whole chapter was kind of hugely important, even though we didn't get to see any of Lisa or Gavin. What we do learn is that Lance isn't going to rescue Lisa, which I personally find pretty unsettling.

Also - what were those sentences you mentioned that ended with prepositions? I can't find them in a great hurry and I sense you might be faster at it than me.

Anyhoo - cheers for the critique, dude!

[Gavin Luper]

Cheers, guys, for all your support during my NaNoWriMo efforts! I am absolutely stoked that I managed to write more than 50,000 words of Lisa the Legend during November - and yes, I still have a way to go before this fic is finished. But, obviously, I have made enormous leaps and bounds ahead.

Tara: Cheers. You'll have to keep reading and find out what happens in regards to Lisa and Gavin - if anything.

Everyone: What can I say? It's been too long a wait. And yet, waiting enabled me to rediscover myself and this story and undertake writing it once more with a new sense of confidence and purpose and - yes - love.

So I won't delay it any longer, except to say that today (1st December - give or take a few hours) marks the exact day in 2001 (eight years ago) that I posted chapter 1 of this story. So, as you read this chapter, please join me in wishing LTL its 8th birthday!!!

And what better way to celebrate LTL's 8th birthday - and my successful completion of NaNoWriMo - than with a new chapter?

Here's Chapter 65, at long last!

Cheers!

+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+


Chapter 65 – Rogue.


Lisa opened her eyes with a tremendous effort; it seemed her eyelids had become boulders overnight. She regarded her surroundings gingerly: the flat odour of dirt in her nostrils and the bite of the sharp stone digging into her stomach already lent themselves to unpleasant circumstances.

Looking around, Lisa found her fears instantly confirmed. The surgical white corridors of Redwood Hospital were long gone; she was bound by three roughly-hewn walls of dull grey rock and a battery of parallel black steel bars placed about four inches apart from one another. Beyond the bars, there was what appeared to be a passageway leading away from the makeshift prison cell. A wooden torch reposed in a bracket fixed to the rock wall about two metres beyond the iron bars, throwing the underground tunnel into sharp relief with its medieval glow.

For a long time, Lisa stared at the scene before her eyes, unable to move from where she lay, stomach down, on the dirt floor of her tiny cavern. The impossibility of it all. The incredulity that the iron bars that faced her gave dozens of her questions a single, horrible answer.

The torch flickered slightly, as if troubled by a light wind; though where a breeze could be coming from Lisa could not fathom.

The pain from the sharp rock beneath her stomach grew unbearable. Lugging her leaden left arm across the sand, Lisa pulled the stone out from under her and, with another gargantuan effort, tossed it in front of her; it hit against the nearest iron bar with a resounding clink.

Abruptly, she burst into tears, shaking uncontrollably as she wept, her breath coming in ragged, worn-out gasps. The terror of her cavernous prison pressed like a solid weight against her throat. She cried, first, at the sheer fright: the total, deadened isolation, the darkness that no torch could illuminate; and the fear for herself quickly crumbled into despair, the utter despair of final, bitter defeat, that after six months of assiduous pursuit, the Union had won, and she had failed, and her parents had failed, and the Guard had failed, because now she was theirs, theirs for good, theirs bound in a cell; and eventually, the despair collapsed into a weariness too great for words, an exhausted state of knowing that the ordeal that had begun with the collapse of the Radio Tower all those months ago could not be solved by the presence of her parents, nor by a convalescent sojourn in a hospital … it was not over, it would not be over until Joseph Sterling got what he wanted … and now, he had it.

The flame of the torch had grown small and was giving off uneven bursts of black smoke by the time Lisa eventually cried herself out. She wiped her eyes on the back of her hands, noting, in the slowly diminishing light, that she had been stripped of her watch. Without hope, she checked the pockets of her grubby jeans. No wallet. No pokéballs. No Buzzball. She did not need to feel beneath her black-and-orange jumper to know that her pokégear was gone, too, along with her backpack. She had no tools, no weapons. Nothing.

She pulled herself gingerly into a semi-seated position, her legs curled beneath her. Her body, especially her joints, was still aching from the after effects of the Union’s Stunner attack, but it seemed they had not done anything further to harm her.

Sighing at her own naiveté, Lisa began to trace her fingers over the wall nearest her in search of a hole or a nook – any means of potential escape – but before she had run her hand over more than a few feet of seamless grey rock, the torch gave off a laboured puff of black smoke and died, throwing her into absolute darkness.

*

Though she tried, Lisa found it impossible to keep her mind off what had happened at Redwood Hospital; or rather, what might have happened. All she had were guesses and theories, and more often than not, fears. The points she found herself dwelling on most were whether her parents had escaped from the Union or not; and what on earth had become of Gavin. Had he got the other patients away from the hospital in time? Or had he teleported back, searching for Lisa, only to be attacked by the Union agents?

She also went through phases of feeling intense pangs of terror for her pokémon. Had the Union simply removed them from her to leave her powerless, or were they up to something more awful, like the experiments Lenina had conducted in Port Valeo?

As the time pressed on arbitrarily, Lisa found herself developing an odd game of tapping her fingers against each of the thick iron bars in turn, first counting all twenty-one of them, then trying to see if they made any different sound to one another when she tapped them. It seemed like the fourteenth and fifteenth bars from the left had a more tinny sound than the others, but after feeling around in the dark, Lisa discovered this was due to the latch affixed between them. She then spent what felt like a decent hour attacking the latch with an array of small rocks and, desperately, her fingernails; after which, unsuccessful, she spent a few tired minutes calling out for someone to help her before she began to play a mirthless game of sticking her arms through the gaps in the bars, imagining that escape would be possible if she really tried to flatten herself out, but she always got stuck at the shoulder.

After she gave up on the hopeless escape attempts, Lisa rolled onto her back, staring up at the invisible rock ceiling, and found her mind drifting back to the time before the life she now lived. Before the Guard, before the Union, before the Legend and the Keys, before the deaths and the near-misses, before the kidnappings and the mysteries … before Gavin and Marina and Darius … before the day she left the house to train Aipom at the Burned Tower.

She remembered the last time she had seen her friends Tuscany and Charmaine, in her backyard on a warm day in early October last year – when the very idea of being captured by a criminal organisation and left in a dark cell would have been ridiculous.

*

2002, October

“Travel!” cried Charmaine, her bushy hair bouncing against her back as she came to a stop.

“No way, I only took one step!” Lisa shouted back, her eyes on the basketball she had just jettisoned into the air. It bounced squarely off the backboard and, barely grazing the ring, tumbled gracefully through the net with a clean swish.

“Bull!” Charmaine contested loudly, catching the ball as it bounced. “Tusc, come on, call it!”

Sitting cross-legged on the outdoor picnic table, Tuscany put her hand to her chin in a display of mock pensiveness, stroking an imaginary beard.

“It’s a difficult call,” she said at length. “On one hand, it did appear that Lisa ‘Steps’ Walters may have been up to her old tricks and taken a total of no fewer than three steps across the court. However, dearest Charmaine, it is also true that when I asked you what you thought of my new haircut this afternoon, you said I looked like a boy. Thus, as a fair and balanced ref, I have to pay the goal to Lisa Walters, which means she wins the game!”

“YES!” roared Lisa, thrusting both her fists into the air in triumph and holding her hand out to the flushed Charmaine, who simply scowled and, thrusting the ball in Tuscany’s direction, added, “But you do look like a boy! Come on, who in their right mind cuts their hair that short?”

Lisa laughed, jogging to the picnic table to pour herself a victory glass of lemonade. Tuscany, after catching the orange basketball and placing it between her knees, ran a hand over her new dark brown bob.

“It’s not even that short,” she snarled at Charmaine, who was in the process of fighting her unwieldy mane into a tighter ponytail. “I just didn’t want to have a big head of hair while I’m cruising around the Orange Islands – it would be way too hot.”

Lisa gulped down three icy mouthfuls of lemonade and wiped the sweat off her brow. The sun was high in the sky; it was almost noon.

“I can’t believe it’s tomorrow that you’re leaving,” she said wistfully. “How come you’re not more excited?”

Tuscany seemed to become stiff for a moment, but she quickly shook it off, uncrossing her legs and sliding from the table top to the seat beside Lisa.

“I am excited,” she said, after a pause. “It’s just that … it’s also a bit scary, you know. Leaving my parents, leaving Ecruteak. And I know I’ve only known you girls a while, but I’m gonna miss you both like hell.”

“Oh yes, we’ll miss you and your unbiased refereeing, too,” sniped Charmaine, screwing up her freckled face at Tuscany, who appeared unperturbed.

“Well, I really will miss you,” Lisa added seriously, setting her glass on the table and surveying her two closest friends. “Both of you. You have no idea how jealous I am that you get to go off on your own journeys. I mean, Tusc, you get the whole tropical cruise thing – and Charm – the Indigo League? You’ll be gone for months.”

Charmaine plunged her hand savagely into a packet of barbeque chips and sighed.

“I still think you should fight your parents on this, Lisa,” she said firmly. “So what if they don’t want you to travel? You’re fourteen years old, for God’s sake! We’re done with school. There are kids younger than you hiking from city to city as we speak, earning badges and all the rest, and yet you’re going to be stuck here playing basketball with your purple monkey thing all summer. It’s not fair. Your folks are way too overprotective. Seriously, you should just fight ‘em. You’re a teenager; they expect you to argue with them anyway!”

Lisa shook her head seriously. “My folks aren’t like yours, Charm. I can’t think how mad they’d be if I actually did argue with them. It’s just not something I’d really do, you know?”

Charmaine clicked her tongue in frustration.

“So what are you going to do then? You’ve got all summer to think about – and what about next year? Are you going to work? Or go on to upper secondary?”

Lisa shrugged. “I could do more Humanities studies, I spose. Maybe English or History, or Languages. My grades were good enough. Otherwise I suppose I’ll get a job somewhere … I dunno where … I haven’t really talked about it that much with my parents yet …”

Charmaine rolled her eyes impatiently and crunched through four chips at once; Tuscany, meanwhile, looked genuinely thoughtful.

“What I don’t get,” she said, “is why your folks bothered to send you Aipom if they’d already banned you from travelling or starting out on any kind of journey. I mean, it just seems kind of like rubbing salt into the wound, doesn’t it?”

Lisa bristled at the assertion that her parents were acting with any form of malice.

“I suppose they just wanted me to have a pokémon as a friend,” she said dismissively, taking a long sip of fizzy lemonade. “And it’s not as if we do nothing at all. I mean, we have gone to the park around the corner and battled a few Rattata and stuff. That was pretty exciting.”

Tuscany looked at Lisa sadly. “Yeah, but will it stay exciting all summer, Leese?”

*

Lisa emerged from her happy reverie with a jolt: a loud grinding noise had just reverberated throughout the tunnel. She froze with fear, listening intently for any indication of where the noise had come from. After a few airless moments, she heard the unmistakeable approach of footsteps.

A melange of feelings swirled in the pit of her stomach. She was afraid of the Union, and yet anything, any event, any contact with another human being was welcome after such a long time in the desolate cavern.

The footsteps grew rapidly louder – there were two sets of them – and, after about a minute, Lisa saw, at the far end of the tunnel, a distant speck of light: an electric torch.

She wanted to call out to the people approaching her, but she did not know whether to welcome them or scream at them to go away. Apprehensive silence won the debate in her mind. She watched, small, as the speck of light grew larger and larger, eventually sweeping over the rocks nearest her and, finally, coming to rest directly upon her.

Blinded by the beam of light, Lisa closed her eyes as the echoes of the pairs of boots on the cavern floor stopped, clearly very close to her.

“Come with us,” said a deep, deadened male voice.

Lisa heard a set of keys clatter against the lock in the iron gate between her and the Union agents. There was a dull grating sound, and then a high-pitched shriek as the gate was flung open.

Only when she felt the pairs of hands on her did she react: a tsunami of fury awoke within her; abruptly, she was screaming, shouting fierce epithets and blunt swear words that she had never used before – that she had never even known she had the capacity or brashness to use. She did her best to struggle, swinging her arms through the air at her captor, but being blinded by the torchlight left her at a disadvantage.

“Enough. Enough!” roared the Union agent who was trying to pull her into a standing position; Lisa felt a stern grip take hold of her right wrist, then felt a cold metal handcuff clapped over it, digging slightly into her flesh.

“NO. NOOOOOO!” she screamed, in what she hoped was the direction of the agent’s ear. “I HATE YOU. I – FUCKING – HATE YOU!”

The agent beside her seemed amused at her temerity. “Got a mouth on her, this one, ay?” he chuckled to his fellow agent. Lisa heard another handcuff slide into place but, feeling nothing on her left wrist, she realised that she had been cuffed to the agent’s side.

“Walk,” commanded the agent beside her, forcibly dragging her alongside him. “You can swear as much as you want, but you should know it’s not very becoming of a nice young girl like yourself.”

The other agent chuckled.

Lisa tried to plant her feet firmly on the soil, but resistance was impossible; the agent only had to take a step before she was forcibly jolted along with him. If this, along with his voice, was anything to go by, he was a man of imposing stature and strength.

After they had taken a few unwieldy steps forward, the torchlight shifted direction, finally giving Lisa a chance to see her captors. She blinked rapidly, trying to clear her vision of the radiant stain left by the torch; a few moments passed before she was able to make out an enormous male figure by her side, his jaw enormous and stubbled, and a more normal-sized blond man a couple of metres away from her, the electric torch between his thighs as he struggled to extract the key from the lock of Lisa’s erstwhile cell.

She did not recognize either of them.

Eventually, the agent recovered the key and held the torch out before them all, revealing a long, haphazardly-hewn tunnel ahead.

“Walk,” said the agent beside Lisa again.

She tried again, in earnest, to stay put, but the agent’s bulk simply dragged her sneakers through the dirt and forced her to oblige. After a long and difficult couple of minutes, and amid the mocking laughs of both agents, Lisa resigned herself to walk with them willingly, half-heartedly convincing herself that wherever they were taking her, she would be better off than in her dark and gloomy cell.

The grey floor of the tunnel wove onward for quite some time, curving left and right and gently sloping upward as time wore on. Lisa imagined that she could hear disembodied echoes rebounding from somewhere else, but she could not be sure that it was more than her own fearful imagination. The tunnel eventually led to a damaged-looking wooden door, which the Union agents led her through before proceeding straight through an intersection of three tunnels, which were now lit by torches fixed in brackets on the walls.

After about ten minutes, as they passed one such torch, Lisa found her eyes drawn to a speck of light on the wall beside the flame. It seemed that the grey rock of the wall was twinkling slightly … it was almost silver …

“In here,” snarled the agent cuffed to her side.

He pulled her through a door which led into what looked like a makeshift office. Though it was, essentially, a cramped, underground cavern, there was a large bookshelf positioned against the far wall, with a cheap wooden desk before it and an olive-green filing cabinet in the corner. A topographical chart covered most of the desk space, a royal blue pin sticking out of it.

The silver hue in the rock walls was unmistakeable in here.

“Sit down,” rumbled Lisa’s Siamese twin, pulling a straight-backed chair from behind the desk. Before Lisa could decide whether to comply or not, he reached his muscled right arm over to her shoulders and pushed her down into the chair.

The smaller agent strode in after them, switching off his torch (there was an electric lamp on the desk) and setting it down on the filing cabinet. He grinned smugly at Lisa before looking up at his partner with bemusement.

“What is it?”

The muscled agent had his right hand in his pocket, and was fishing around with an expression of growing dismay.

“The key,” he grunted. “The key to the cuffs. I can’t find it. Must’ve dropped it down in the cell.”

The ruddy face of the smaller agent showed clear frustration.

“You can’t do anything right these days, can ya, Larry?”

By way of response, the bigger agent flexed his tattooed right bicep in the direction of his mate. The smaller agent visibly paled.

“Go back and get the key,” grunted Larry, his voice deep and masculine.

“But why can’t y-” began the other agent.

Larry brandished his left wrist in the air impatiently; the silver handcuff and Lisa’s right arm rose into the air along with it.

“Don’t forget who you’re talking to,” he snarled. “Get the key,” he said again. It wasn’t a question.

The other agent grabbed his torch from the filing cabinet and, scowling, left the room, the wooden door clunking shut behind him.

The moment his footsteps faded away, Larry thrust his meaty hand into his right pocket again and produced a small, sleek, silver key.

“We have ten minutes, max,” he said abruptly.

Lisa gaped at the gigantic agent beside her. His dark, beady eyes were earnest and his jaw had softened into a kind of semi-smile.

“What?” she said, dumbfounded.

He held the key to the lock on the handcuffs.

“We have ten minutes,” he repeated seriously, “to find a way to get you the hell out of here.”

[PancaKe]

So I guess I expected a long epic chapter. This chapter was epic, but not so much on the long side. I felt it was a bit too one sided; as in, I would've liked to hear from Gavin or the Guard, but at the same time, Lisa's lonliness was emphasized by the lack of news on anyone else. So I guess I have mixed feelings.

It reminded me of The Third Day, The Frost - where Ellie and Homer and all the guys get dragged into prison. I thought the prison could have been elaborated on more, and i guess at the end it felt like, oh and now conveniently she is going to escape. I actually thought at first that she would be raped, which would be a more conceivable twist than oh and another double agent....

So I guess although I was so thrilled and my heart pounded so much to read this, I felt like it ended too soon. Within the first three paragraphs my heart was pounding, I was feeling things I felt when I read John Marsden, and then it was just over.

Cliffhanger, good, but still ... over.

Mixed feelings. On the one hand, so happy there is more LTL. On the other, I guess you could tell that this was your first few thousand words for nanowrimo and all first few thousand words are like this. I'm rewriting LVH, and ooft, the first few thousand words are terrible. (actually I realise now, most of it is terrible hahaha) but I guess all we'll see from here in is IMPROVEMENT! YAY

and Gavin.

Yay.

I love you Gavin

[Gavin Luper]

Whee, replies!

Tara: Yeah, this chapter was deliberately short because I was trying to write myself back into the story after a few months of being stuck. Interestingly, this chapter was written back in around April, from memory, so it wasn't even for NaNoWriMo, but I get what you mean ... I had to kind of write myself back into the story, and this chapter also began my foray into what book three of LTL was always meant to be ... so it felt different, maybe even clunky a bit. In any case, I like the chapter and I think things get smoother from here on in. And I definitely feel the Tomorrow When the War Began mood, too.

Stay tuned for more very, very soon! Thanks so much for reading and replying dearest Pancake.

Sike: Howdy! Thanks muchly. The flashback was used for contrast, but also because it's very important. In fact, the whole chapter is - I think it's the kind of chapter that feels like a filler and then when you go back much later you'll be like, "oh, so THAT's why he wasted our time with that flashback!" Well, that's the plan anyway.

Yayyy, cliffhanger. I do love those.

Hehe and I love reading the snippets you comment on - it's the best. Charmaine's a lovely girl, isn't she?

Thanks so much for reading and replying - it's good to see you back here for the new chapters!

All: I've had a crazy couple of weeks, so I'm sorry I've not been around much. Chapter 66 will hit screens as soon as I'm done editing it!

Cheers!

[Gavin Luper]

Chapter 66 – Parity.


“You’re going to help me escape?” cried Lisa incredulously, as the Union agent turned the key and freed himself from the handcuffs.

“Keep your voice down,” snapped Larry, plunging the key into the lock on Lisa’s cuff; the metal clasp released, and the cuff fell to the ground with a shimmering, metallic sound. Lisa’s wrist throbbed – there were deep red marks all around it – and she hastened to give it a soothing rub.

“I don’t understand,” Lisa said, her voice coming as an excited stage whisper; her mind was spinning. “You’re a double agent ...?”

“There’s no time to get into all that.”

Apparently convinced that this was a satisfactory response, Larry immediately sought to profit from his liberation from her side. He crossed the room, threw open the top drawer of the olive-green filing cabinet and began fishing around for something within it.

Lisa watched him for a moment, before the light glinting off the royal blue pin sticking out of the desktop chart caught her eye. She glanced at it, but the map was too far away for her to make out. Her curiosity piqued, she gingerly leaned forward out of her chair, a cautious eye trained on Larry’s turned back, before she cast a surreptitious glance at the chart. The blue pin was stuck into a small section of blue – water, obviously – in the middle of a small mountain range.

Two black words immediately beneath the pin read ‘Lotus Lake’.

Abruptly, Larry gave a subdued, but triumphant “aha!”; Lisa jolted and fell back into her seat, face flushed, as Larry spun around to face her. He moved over to the desk Lisa sat behind and dumped a rucksack on it.

Lisa’s spirits rose.

“My backpack!” she exclaimed.

“Still intact,” said Larry, unzipping the largest pocket. “I made sure everything was kept as it was when we took you from the hospital. The only downside is that your pokéballs were all removed and taken to one of our labs, to be studied.”

Ice flooded Lisa’s arteries.

“What do you mean by ‘studied’?” she demanded.

“I don’t know, exactly,” admitted Larry, riffling through the bag frantically. “I’ve only been to that lab once. The work they do there doesn’t seem to be anything like what Lenina Johnson was doing to pokémon, if that’s what you’re worried about,” he added. “But I don’t think it’s what you’d call ethical, either.”

Lisa’s skin crawled; her worst fears had been realised. Her pokémon had been stolen – maybe even now, as they spoke, Aipom, Fiskmire, Vulpix, Dratini and Electabuzz were having cruel experiments conducted on them.

“Where’s the lab?” she demanded, a knot forming in her throat.

Larry’s mouth curved into a wry smile.

“Lisa, do you have any idea how risky it’s going to be to try to get you away from the Union even just once? There’s no way I’m going to tell you that.”

Perhaps the fact that Larry wore the black clothes common to Union members made it easier for Lisa to rage at him; in any case, something in her snapped and she rose to her feet, pushing Larry in frustration.

“TELL ME WHERE MY POKÉMON ARE!”

To her surprise, the tall, solidly-built man actually pushed her back, sending her reeling backwards. Her legs smacked against the chair, forcing her to fall back into the seat.

The smile that had fleeted across Larry’s face was long gone now: his mouth was set in a rigid line, his stubbled jaw jagged and fierce, his eyes glowing with indignation.

“Listen to me, girl, I am risking my fucking life to get you out of here,” he snarled in a dangerous undertone. “I’ve seen Joseph Sterling murder people for a lot less than being a double agent. The chances of me keeping my cover and you actually making it out of here alive hinge upon nobody walking in on us in the next two minutes, so shut your mouth, do everything I tell you to and don’t ask me again about your bloody pokémon.”

He swore under his breath and opened another pocket of the rucksack.

“W-what are you looking for?” Lisa asked meekly.

“Your Buzzball. It was stored in here after you were captured. Aha!” In triumph, he pulled the rubbery red ball, not much bigger than a golf ball, from the backpack and handed it to Lisa. “Pocket that.”

Lisa squeezed the ball into the right pocket of her faded jeans.

“Stand up,” instructed Larry.

Lisa obliged.

“No. No, that’s not going to work,” he muttered, his voice growing anxious. Lisa looked down at her pocket: the bulge of the Buzzball was abundantly clear to anyone who might look at her. “No, they’ll see it, and then they’ll take it from you, and then I’ll be dead …” fretted Larry. He looked Lisa in the eye. “How old are you? Do you wear a proper bra yet?”

Lisa felt her face blush deeply. “That’s a bit personal!” she cried.

Larry seemed uninterested in her embarrassment. “Well, if you are wearing one, stuff the Buzzball into one of the cups.”

Lisa stared at him blankly. “But it’s still going to be too big …”

“You’re wearing a jumper,” pointed out Larry, gesturing to the black-and-orange Ecruteak Fruitbats sweater Lisa had on. “It’s bulky – no-one will notice –”

Lisa removed the Buzzball from her pocket and felt her face glow even more hotly.

“Could you look away, please?” she implored. Larry nodded in relief and looked away; Lisa pulled the neck of her jumper and T-shirt down and, not without some awkwardness, stuffed the Buzzball into the left cup of her white bra. At once, the ball pressed sharply against her left breast, but she steeled herself and tried to ignore the discomfort.

“So that’s how I’ll be getting out of here?” she asked, once she was done. “Using the Buzzball?”

Larry took her words as a sign that he could look back; he regarded her jumper and smiled with relief.

“Better … much better … you can’t even notice it,” he said. “No, the Buzzball is to give you a chance at fighting the Union if and when they come after you.”

“I don’t follow,” said Lisa.

Larry had moved his hands to the back of his neck and was fiddling with something. Presently, he produced a thick, silver necklace with a tribal-looking pendant attached to it – the kind of chain a young surfer might wear – and held it out to her. Without asking questions, Lisa lifted her long black hair off her shoulders, allowing Larry to fasten the chain around her neck.

Larry glanced at his watch. “Let’s get back to our position and I’ll explain as much as I can.” He deftly zipped up Lisa’s backpack and lugged it back to the filing cabinet drawer.

“Wait!” cried Lisa. “What about my pokégear – and everything else –”

Larry laughed without humour.

“Because that wouldn’t tip the Union off at all, would it?” he murmured. “Sorry, Lisa. I have one shot at getting you out of here, but your things will have to stay here. It would be far too suspicious otherwise, and my cover would be blown fucking sky-high.”

He slid the drawer shut and walked back to behind the desk, picking the handcuffs up as he approached. He wiggled the tiny silver key out from the lock and handed it to Lisa.

“That, at least, is small enough to fit in your pocket,” he said.

Lisa pushed the key as deep into her right pocket as she could.

Larry then looped the cuff around her wrist again and clamped it over the red marks which had only just begun to fade; Lisa winced. Larry cuffed the other ring over his left hand once more.

“Now, we can speak,” he said, and at once his voice became markedly less tense.

“Firstly, you should know that Joseph Sterling plans to use you to enter the Sepulchre of Suicune today.”

Lisa jumped. “Today?!”

“In about an hour, actually,” Larry clarified. “Don’t underestimate his drive, Lisa. It took him five months to finally get his hands on you, and your escape at Mount Fairfax – which was pure luck on your part; Sterling had thought you were Entei’s Guardian – made him more transfixed on you than ever. He’s not taking any chances or wasting any time. A helicopter leaves in an hour for the Sepulchre of Suicune. You, Den, Veronica and Joseph Sterling will be on it –” (Lisa’s blood boiled at the mention of Veronica.) “– and Sterling intends to complete the mission today.” He looked Lisa squarely in the eyes. “If you don’t escape in time, Sterling will succeed in forcing you into the Sepulchre. He will obtain the fragment of the Sixth Key within that Sepulchre and be a step closer to obtaining all Seven Keys referred to in the Legend of Ecruteak.

“Moreover, Lisa, after he has used you to get that fragment, Sterling may no longer see a use in you,” said Larry levelly. “He may not hesitate to dispose of you after that, although it’s very possible he would keep you as leverage to manipulate your parents and the rest of the Guard.”

Lisa shivered. She was still attempting to digest the idea that Sterling was very close to obtaining another fragment of the Sixth Key when she suddenly understood what Larry’s hypothesis meant.

“My parents are alright, then?”

He shrugged, almost too casually. “They’re not in Union custody, so I assume they are still on active duty with the Guard.

“That’s irrelevant right now, anyway. The point is, Lisa, your only window will be during that helicopter flight. Once you land, it will be too easy for Sterling and the others to pursue and subdue you. I think jumping from the chopper will give you the best chance at true escape.”

Lisa felt her face slacken in disbelief. “You have to be joking.”

There was nothing but sobriety in Larry’s expression.

“You’ll need to act pretty quickly once you’re in the air – it will only be a short flight to the Sepulchre, which won’t give you a lot of time. Depending on how many of them are guarding you, you’ll need to free yourself from your handcuffs and jump from the chopper.

“That chain I put around your neck,” he added, “is a poképort – it’s like a kind of –”

“Hands-free pokéball,” Lisa said. “I know; I used to have one. What is it you say to make the pokémon come out again?”

“Revelum Altaria ,” said Larry. “It’s my own Altaria. I can’t promise that she will be loyal to you, but she will at least fly you to safety.”

“And it’s retrahere to make the pokémon go back in?”

“Right, but you won’t want to do that until you’ve landed safely, obviously. I’d try to make the jump fairly early. You’ll be heading north-east, so if you jump early on, you might get close to the coast of Red Rock Island. Jump too late, and you could find yourself out in the open sea.

“From Red Rock, you should be able to make contact with the Guard. Be careful, though – there is a much greater Union presence on that island now than there used to be. You’ll need to be discreet.”

“Right,” Lisa responded, without any thought attached. It was too much to comprehend that she was actually expected to make this leap of faith; it seemed utterly surreal.

“One last thing – try not to release Altaria until you’re a decent distance away from the chopper,” Larry added. “The less the Union knows about how you escaped, the better. Who knows, you might even convince them that you’ve jumped to your death just to escape them. This all needs to look as if only you had a part to play in it.”

“So what’s the Buzzball for, then?”

Larry’s mouth became a rigid line once more.

“If you run into trouble – if they catch you taking off the handcuffs – which is entirely possible … probable, even ... then use it, but only as a last resort. If you attack them, they’ll know there’s a mole in the group, and it will mean the end of me.

“Lastly – Lisa, nobody can know that I’m a double agent, even in the Guard,” his voice had become a gravelly whisper. “Lance and his PA are my only contacts. If anyone else finds out about me, the info could leak, and again, that’s the end of me. Promise me that you will never mention my existence to anyone. Ever.”

“Of course. I promise …” Lisa responded vaguely, her mind scarcely connected to what she was saying. She was overwhelmed by Larry’s calmness when talking about his own potential demise; her mind and heart were both in a tailspin at the thought of her own. Things had gone so horribly wrong – she was meant to be at a safe house, not in the Union’s clutches – and now the only way to escape was to put her very life at risk and jump from a helicopter mid-flight – without a parachute.

“And this is definitely the best plan?” she ventured tentatively.

“The other one involves the two of us fighting a few hundred Union agents at once from within their own headquarters,” said Larry dully. “It’s a bit of a no-brainer.

“The alternative would be try to escape once you’re literally standing outside the Sepulchre, but I don’t give you much of a shot that way. Sterling won’t be expecting a mid-air escape. It’s your best hope.”

Lisa felt a wave of numbness spread over her limbs, followed by a tingling in her feet. She tried not to think about what would happen if the poképort fell off her neck before she could release Altaria.

A short silence fell between them; Larry seemed to be anticipating the return of the blond Union agent, but there was no sign of him.

Eventually, he muttered, “Well, I thought it would be ten minutes at the most. S’pose I’m better at hiding keys than I thought.”

His speech emboldened Lisa to ask him a question that had risen to the surface of her mind during the pause in conversation.

“Did you know Derek?”

Larry coughed. “Yes. He did brilliant espionage work within the Union.”

“I know. He saved me and Gavin from the Union on Mount Fairfax a month ago. I couldn’t believe there was a mole in the Union. And now, there’s two of you.”

An odd expression came over Larry’s face: for the first time in their exchange, his voice faltered, and his forehead furrowed in a way that indicated some kind of latent distress. “After Derek defected, I became the sole double agent still reporting to Lance Hudson. It’s been more difficult than ever without the co-operation of another agent …” An unsteady glint came into his eyes; he suddenly seemed unable to stop himself from talking. “You have no idea how hard it is to do what I do alone. When I had Derek at my command, I could place him in key locations and know that I was actively making a difference. I’m Head of Operations with the Union, you see – it’s a high-up position – I take orders directly from Sterling.”

He paused briefly for breath.

“Do you remember what happened in the courtroom in Port Valeo? I assigned Derek there that day. I was the one who put forward the strategy of using smoke bombs. My reasoning to Sterling was that it would make it difficult for the police to see, but we used it as cover for Derek to sneak around and attack Union agents without being caught. It was brilliant. He even managed to finish Lenina off without being seen.”

Lisa gasped, recalling the incident, in which Gavin had been pushed from behind by a mysterious figure, forcing him to fire the bullet that killed Lenina.

“That was Derek?”

“It was a bold move,” Larry nodded. “But, fortunately, nobody saw his –”

He broke off; footsteps could be heard in the corridor outside. He placed his right hand by his side and cast a supervisory glance at Lisa, who placed her left arm against the thick armrests of the wooden chair and looked down at her knees. At least she would look convincingly frightened to the blond agent: the tremor of her limbs was no act.

“Bloody hell,” scowled the blond agent, switching his torch off as he entered the office. “Had to really hunt for the blasted thing.”

He held up a miniscule silver key in his hand.

“Good work, Jovan,” said Larry gruffly; Lisa noted that his voice had become perceptibly harder with the renewed presence of the other man. “Help hold her down while I make the switch.”

Lisa did her best to flail and curse convincingly as the blond man came over to restrain her arms. Larry unlocked his cuff and, looping the chain around the chair’s sturdy armrest, closed it over Lisa’s left wrist, so that she was now handcuffed to the chair.

“I’ll get Sterling,” said Larry authoritatively. “Give her something to eat, Jovan, but guard her closely. If she moves to do anything other than eat, Stun her.”

“Yes, sir.”

The blond agent produced a sleek Stunner from the filing cabinet and flicked a setting on the side, aiming it at the emblem of the Ecruteak Fruitbats on the front of Lisa’s jumper.

Without a glance at Lisa, Larry swept from the office, the wooden door clattering behind him.

*

Holding half a muesli bar awkwardly in her bound hands, Lisa tried to force herself to swallow, but her mouth had become a mealy desert.

She closed her eyes as she chewed the mush in her mouth. She had to find the courage. Not just to stop Sterling. Not just to help the Guard. Not even for her own goals, which seemed too convoluted to even deal with given the present circumstances. She conjured up the strongest motivation she could: she simply had to escape and find her pokémon.

Fighting the lump in her throat, Lisa forced down the ball of dry muesli in her mouth, feeling it burn slightly all the way down her oesophagus.

Jovan, her guard, cleared his throat impatiently, his weapon still keenly fixed on her.

Footsteps came from outside the door once again. The door swung open and three people entered the room in quick succession: Den, the stocky agent who had once held Marina captive; Veronica, the platinum blonde woman who had forced Lisa into the Sepulchre of Entei at gunpoint; and lastly, the unmistakable swarthiness of the Union’s leader, Joseph Sterling, his chin jutting out in smug triumph.

Lisa felt an individual surge of hatred erupt within her for each of them; she harboured the strongest vitriol for Sterling alone.

“Lower your weapon, Jovan,” Sterling commanded in a ringing voice. “Lisa won’t try anything with the three of us here.”

Bile bubbled in Lisa’s stomach; she wanted to scream out, “Wanna bet?!”.

Jovan obeyed. Sterling moved to the other side of the desk, standing right beside Lisa but not looking her directly in the eye.

“Lisa Walters, you are a ridiculously lucky pain in my arse, and I will not play cat-and-mouse games with you any longer,” he said smoothly.

He reached into the hip pocket of his black pants and produced the silver key belonging to the handcuffs. Gripping Lisa’s right wrist viciously, he uncuffed her right hand and disentangled the cuffs from the armrest. Lisa was seized by a sudden urge to strike him in the face, but she reminded herself how vital it was to follow Larry’s plan; and in the time it took her to rationalise her fury, Joseph Sterling had placed his right wrist within the cuff and secured it tightly, placing the key in his pocket.

Lisa gaped, dropping her muesli bar.

“Get up and walk,” snarled Sterling, yanking her out of the chair roughly.

Lisa obeyed dumbly. Larry had anticipated that there would be senior Union agents to guard her, but he had said nothing about being handcuffed to any of them, let alone their murderous leader.

How on earth was she meant to escape from right under the nose of Joseph Sterling himself?

*

With a mechanical roar, the helicopter lifted off the ground, rising swiftly in the silver-encrusted inner cone of the extinct volcano that comprised the entry port into the Union’s base. Lisa gazed through the helicopter window with muted amazement at the sheer level of activity going on at the edges of the cone: Union agents were unloading large wooden crates from the cargo hold of two large trucks on the ground level; other agents had donned overalls and fluorescent vests and were occupied building metallic catwalks, linking one level of tunnel to the next.

All of them waved excitedly at the helicopter as it rose past them.

The inside of the volcano disappeared, replaced by periwinkle-blue morning sky. As the helicopter turned on its side, the luxurious shrubbery and resplendent boulders that made up the surface of Silver Rock Island were spread out before her in all their glory.

She tore her eyes from the exotic scenery and focused on the interior of the helicopter’s cabin, which she had already spent some time analysing while the pilots had prepared for takeoff. She and Joseph were seated on a black leather chair along one side of the sparsely-decorated cabin, chained together by the metal handcuffs. Veronica and Den were seated on a similar leather bench opposite them, Stunners slung over their shoulders and pointed directly at Lisa. There were two oval-shaped ports, to the left and right sides of the craft, but how Lisa was supposed to reach either of them without being caught was beyond her.

The only good thing was that none of the agents had bothered to use the seat belts, not even on her. An old television advertisement – “Safety first!” – bubbled to the forefront of Lisa’s mind, almost cutting through her fear long enough for her to smile.

The chopper banked again, the window now looking out over a vast stretch of cerulean-blue sea, interspersed with a few turquoise whirlpools and a couple of patches of pinkish-grey coral reef, upon which small waves were cresting, sending up geysers of seafoam.

The Union agents had scarcely spoken amongst themselves since boarding the helicopter; Lisa could feel the electric tension between them, the knowledge that a great deal was riding on this expedition. She looked up at Joseph Sterling’s tanned, prematurely lined face: his lips were pressed tightly against each other, his black eyes motionless. He would be thinking of the fragment of the Sixth Key that awaited him. That mammoth step closer to completing his quest, to obtaining the great power that awaited he who could unlock the mystery of the Legend of Ecruteak.

Lisa began to despair. Sterling had really thought his options through. He had disarmed her completely, removed her from her pokémon, had her permanently guarded and, furthermore, chained to him personally. Had Larry not intervened, Lisa would have been totally at Sterling’s mercy.

She looked from the left port to the right, wracking her brains. Perhaps she was at Sterling’s mercy anyway: her options were strangled …

She glanced surreptitiously around the cabin, begging for one of the guards to spontaneously light a cigarette, or even just turn away for a moment, but Den’s grotesque leer and Veronica’s superior scowl were firmly trained on her, their Stun Guns still aimed at her chest.

Her heart beginning to hammer, Lisa swung her gaze back to the window in the right port as the helicopter banked still higher. A beach of dirty scarlet sand had come into view, rapidly succeeded by a row of fishing huts and some shops, then a Pokémon Centre, the imposing Water Colosseum … more houses … a patch of luxurious, verdant rainforest … and then, sending a thunderous chill through Lisa, there was another vermilion-coloured beach, followed by an ever-growing expanse of water …

The Buzzball was digging in against her breast, her heart thumping beneath it. She knew – had known since boarding the helicopter – that there was no other way: it was now or never – but how could she possibly take down three of them at once?

Lisa casually tucked her right hand into the pocket of her jeans, closing it securely around the key … Veronica’s hawklike gaze tracked her, but saw no reason to be alarmed … Lisa closed her eyes, visualizing the scenario she wanted to see unfold before her eyes …

Sorry, Larry …

“ELECTRIFY!” Lisa screamed.

She whipped the tiny silver key from her pocket as three ultra-thin streamers of blue electricity exploded from her chest, burning through her clothes; both Den and Veronica cried out in shock, the jet of green light that issued from Veronica’s Stunner missing Lisa’s head by inches as the blonde woman slumped in her seat, shaking with electric energy from the Buzzball, her Stunner falling to the floor –

“NO!” roared Sterling, apparently unaffected by the attack, in Lisa’s left ear; she had already jammed the key into its lock but his strong hand batted hers away fiercely.

Lisa reached for the key again, but Sterling was incensed now; his fist slammed into the side of her head; her head split with agony as silver stars exploded before her eyes; she crumpled to her knees, half-fallen off the bench, but the handcuffs prevented her from falling too far ...

“SLUT!” he shouted, swinging his left fist into her gut; Lisa dry retched and cried out in pain.

“Get OFF!” she squealed, pulling her cuffed hand closer to her and trying to scratch at Sterling’s hand with her nails, but he seemed impervious to the pain; he grunted and reached for his belt; Lisa glimpsed what looked like the stiff black barrel of his revolver ...

Her mind darting to self-preservation, she screamed, “INFLATE!”

She hadn’t thought it through: the Buzzball popped through the hole in her bra and rolled into her lap as it rapidly filled with air; just as it grew greater than a basketball, she saw Sterling flick a catch on the back of the pistol and flinched; glancing at her wrist, she saw that the key was still wedged in the lock – waiting to be turned …

“NO!” Sterling shouted as Lisa twisted the key; the handcuff opened gloriously and she withdrew her hand just as the handgun swiped through the air and crushed her knuckles …

“AAAARGH!”

Panicking, she dove for the metallic floor of the helicopter, holding the now enormous Buzzball between her and Sterling – at the same moment, there was an incensed roar from Den, who had recovered quickly from the electric shock and was now on his feet, pointing his Stunner at Lisa’s face –

Wincing against the wave of pain in her knuckles, Lisa pulled the Buzzball up to cover her face, just as there was an explosion of cobalt light from Den’s weapon. The Buzzball gave a dull, reverberating throb as the beam of light was reflected – there was another anguished scream from Den; Lisa heard his Stunner, too, drop to the floor with a clatter –

“NO!” Sterling roared again.

Lisa saw a shiny black boot sink into the base of the Buzzball she held above her; Sterling’s kick sent the ball flying out of her grasp and rolling toward the right-hand port of the helicopter, exposing her completely. Sterling stood over her, feet spread apart, his pistol pointed directly at her head.

“DO – NOT – MOVE!” he boomed; his swarthy face was paler than Lisa had ever seen it; his forehead was a deranged knot of furrows.

Shaking, Lisa forced herself to meet his mad black eyes with her golden-brown ones. In her peripheral vision, she glimpsed the handle of a Stunner, the trigger almost touching her right hand.

Slowly … slowly …

“You won’t shoot me,” she said slowly, steeling her resolve despite being almost overcome by the hunger in Sterling’s eyes; he appeared quite determined to defeat her gaze. “I’m too important to your plans – you can’t risk it … without me, you have nothing –”

“You are wrong,” snarled Sterling, “I won’t think twice about –”

Lisa felt her fingers tighten around the Stunner at last; gripping the handle tightly, she wheeled it around in Joseph Sterling’s direction and pulled the trigger firmly.

A pulse of green light sliced through the second half of Sterling’s sentence; his open-mouthed gape froze on his face as his entire body spasmed and then crumpled to the floor.

For a millisecond, Lisa idled, unable to believe her luck; however, almost instantly, Sterling began to stir; and Veronica was beginning to mutter something under her breath. Trying to ignore the acute throb of her knuckles, Lisa scrambled to her feet and spun around – the right port of the helicopter was now unguarded, and scarcely a metre away …

Pocketing the Buzzball, which had now shrunk down almost to its original size, she scanned the red text printed beside a small box on the surface of the port, below the glass window:

FOR EMERGENCY EXIT, BREAK GLASS COVER AND PULL LEVER HARD TO RIGHT.

Covering her hand with what remained of her favourite jumper, Lisa punched through the small cover of the box, shards of glass raining to the ground. She took hold of the bright red lever within the box and, checking swiftly that the chain was still safely around her neck, she yanked it the lever as hard as she could to the right.

For a second, it seemed that nothing had happened; but, abruptly, there was a loud hiss of air escaping from a lock. Lisa braced herself. A moment later, the port tumbled from its hinges; instantly, the cabin was filled with an enormous rush of freezing wind and the deafening chatter of rotor blades … there was an anguished yell from behind Lisa, but it was too late – she didn’t even have time to jump – the wind sucked her from the cabin of the helicopter and pulled her roughly into thin air …

Deaf from the cacophony of the blades and blinded by the razor wind, Lisa tumbled into freefall. Almost impossibly quickly, the chaos of the helicopter seemed to diminish into a distant, nearly inaudible buzz.

Considering Larry’s plan to have been all but shredded anyway, Lisa pressed her thumb and forefinger on the tribal-looking pendant and shouted, “Revelum, Altaria!”

There was a burst of yellow-gold radiance around her; the light clustered together to form the sleek, cobalt-blue shape of Larry’s Altaria, which plummeted alongside Lisa for a second before apparently realising something was wrong. The draconic pokémon cooed in an oddly pleasant voice before flapping its fluffy white wings and swooping beneath Lisa without question, catching her atop its back. Lisa opened her hands and grabbed tight rein of the woolly wings, wrapping her legs around Altaria’s torso.

At once, the rush of wind became no more than a gentle breeze. Altaria was cruising at a steady altitude, singing softly. Blinking to clear her windswept vision, Lisa looked below her and felt a pang of fear at the full realisation of how high up she was: unbroken blue sea stretched in all direction beneath her; in the distance, almost on the horizon, she could see the dark outline of a landform which, hopefully, was Red Rock Island.

“Set –” Lisa coughed abruptly as the cool wind attacked her vocal chords. “Set course – for that island over there, Altaria!” she called into the pokémon’s ear, as clearly as possible, pointing to the shadowy land mass.

As Altaria began to pick up speed, Lisa raised her eyes skyward, scanning for the distant shadow of the Union helicopter.

Her heart stopped.

A dark shape was streaking downward through the firmament, plummeting almost as fast as she and Altaria had a moment ago, except this fall looked ludicrously controlled. Lisa gasped, incredulous, as the dark shape grew nearer and more visible … indeed, it was coming so fast that, as she watched, it slowed and became level with her and Altaria.

“No…”

Twenty metres away on their left – and rapidly approaching – was what looked like a giant, razor-taloned Murkrow. Perched upon its back was Joseph Sterling, the madness on his face visible even from such a distance.

“I – DO – NOT – LOSE!” he roared across the sky.

“MURKRON – HYPNOTIC STARE, NOW!”

[Sike Saner]

I've got to say, I thought there was a nice sense of realism about Larry. He exhibited concern for his own safety, and he made it clear that his was not an easy job to do, and I just found that really believable--I daresay that people who have little to no concern for their own lives and are immune or oblivious to the pressure of a tough or dangerous job (or who thrive on the pressure) are fewer in number than people who would be likelier to think and react to a situation like that in the ways that Larry is.

And holy crap, "murkron" is a cool name for a pokémon species.

Other highlights:

Perhaps the fact that Larry wore the black clothes common to Union members made it easier for Lisa to rage at him; in any case, something in her snapped and she rose to her feet, pushing Larry in frustration.

“TELL ME WHERE MY POKÉMON ARE!”

To her surprise, the tall, solidly-built man actually pushed her back, sending her reeling backwards. Her legs smacked against the chair, forcing her to fall back into the seat.

The smile that had fleeted across Larry’s face was long gone now: his mouth was set in a rigid line, his stubbled jaw jagged and fierce, his eyes glowing with indignation.

“Listen to me, girl, I am risking my fucking life to get you out of here,” he snarled in a dangerous undertone. “I’ve seen Joseph Sterling murder people for a lot less than being a double agent. The chances of me keeping my cover and you actually making it out of here alive hinge upon nobody walking in on us in the next two minutes, so shut your mouth, do everything I tell you to and don’t ask me again about your bloody pokémon.”

Dude means business. o_o I found it kind of neat to see a character viewing a situation like that so pragmatically; I don't think I've seen that sort of thing in fiction very often, so "hearing" something like what Larry said there was kind of refreshing in a way.

“No. No, that’s not going to work,” he muttered, his voice growing anxious. Lisa looked down at her pocket: the bulge of the Buzzball was abundantly clear to anyone who might look at her. “No, they’ll see it, and then they’ll take it from you, and then I’ll be dead …” fretted Larry. He looked Lisa in the eye. “How old are you? Do you wear a proper bra yet?”

Lisa felt her face blush deeply. “That’s a bit personal!” she cried.

I laughed at this bit. XD

“Lisa Walters, you are a ridiculously lucky pain in my arse, and I will not play cat-and-mouse games with you any longer,” he said smoothly.

Awesome line there.

He reached into the hip pocket of his black pants and produced the silver key belonging to the handcuffs. Gripping Lisa’s right wrist viciously, he uncuffed her right hand and disentangled the cuffs from the armrest. Lisa was seized by a sudden urge to strike him in the face, but she reminded herself how vital it was to follow Larry’s plan; and in the time it took her to rationalise her fury, Joseph Sterling had placed his right wrist within the cuff and secured it tightly, placing the key in his pocket.

That got a nice "oh crap" reaction out of me.

The only good thing was that none of the agents had bothered to use the seat belts, not even on her. An old television advertisement – “Safety first!” – bubbled to the forefront of Lisa’s mind, almost cutting through her fear long enough for her to smile.

Those little thoughts that can pop into people's minds are awesome. X3

Shaking, Lisa forced herself to meet his mad black eyes with her golden-brown ones. In her peripheral vision, she glimpsed the handle of a Stunner, the trigger almost touching her right hand.

Slowly … slowly …

“You won’t shoot me,” she said slowly, steeling her resolve despite being almost overcome by the hunger in Sterling’s eyes; he appeared quite determined to defeat her gaze. “I’m too important to your plans – you can’t risk it … without me, you have nothing –”

“You are wrong,” snarled Sterling, “I won’t think twice about –”

Lisa felt her fingers tighten around the Stunner at last; gripping the handle tightly, she wheeled it around in Joseph Sterling’s direction and pulled the trigger firmly.

A pulse of green light sliced through the second half of Sterling’s sentence; his open-mouthed gape froze on his face as his entire body spasmed and then crumpled to the floor.

That was cool.

At once, the rush of wind became no more than a gentle breeze. Altaria was cruising at a steady altitude, singing softly.

I liked the contrast between that pleasant image and the action and peril that preceded it.

As Altaria began to pick up speed, Lisa raised her eyes skyward, scanning for the distant shadow of the Union helicopter.

Her heart stopped.

A dark shape was streaking downward through the firmament, plummeting almost as fast as she and Altaria had a moment ago, except this fall looked ludicrously controlled. Lisa gasped, incredulous, as the dark shape grew nearer and more visible … indeed, it was coming so fast that, as she watched, it slowed and became level with her and Altaria.

“No…”

Twenty metres away on their left – and rapidly approaching – was what looked like a giant, razor-taloned Murkrow. Perched upon its back was Joseph Sterling, the madness on his face visible even from such a distance.

That got another nice "oh crap" reaction.

[Gavin Luper]

Hullo readers! ^_^

Okay ... a long time between chapters for which I have little excuse, because Chapter 67 was finished a very long time ago, but one particular passage in this chapter kept niggling at me, which meant that the flow of chapters being posted was halted in its tracks purely due to this tiny annoyance.

And so much has been going on in my life since I posted the last chapter, but I won't bore you guys with the details. Suffice it to say, this evening I blocked everything else out and sat down at my laptop and fixed that niggling passage until I was happy with it.

To Sike Saner and Chris 2.1, I do apologise for not replying to your feedback and comments a lot sooner; I had convinced myself that the next reply I made ought to also contain the next chapter, and that was my undoing, also. It feels a little late to respond but I'm stoked that the two of you are still reading and that you enjoyed Chapter 66 so much (Sike, if I can keep hitting you with those Holy Shit Moments, then I'll feel like I'm still doing my job; and Chris, thanks for the comments about my use of description and exposition to propel the narrative rather than dialogue - that kind of feedback really solidifies my confidence in the particular style I've developed over the years).

To all readers, sorry to have kept you waiting. With any luck, it shan't happen again!

And so, let the flow of Book Three continue onwards, fluid and free, as it should have back in December! Last time we were with Lisa, she was plummetting through the sky above the Whirl Islands on the back of a borrowed Altaria, the murderous leader of the Union - Joseph Sterling - in hot pursuit, his Murkron just beginning to unleash the nefarious Hypnotic Stare technique ...

+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+


Chapter 67 – No Such Thing.


“Don’t look, Altaria!” Lisa screamed in the cobalt-blue pokémon’s ear.

A palpable red glow began to emanate from Sterling’s Murkron’s eyes: waves of vermilion energy pulsed across the air toward them. Lisa felt her mind become suddenly light; she shut her eyes instinctively, and at once the lightheadedness disappeared. Gripping Altaria’s fluffy back with one hand, she used the other to shield its eyes from Murkron’s Hypnotic Stare attack.

“Altaria – use Swift attack to your left!” she called, blindly hoping that the creature knew the attack.

She opened her left eye just enough to see Altaria blindly launch a volley of radiant white stars from its mouth; to Lisa’s complete bemusement, most of the stars veered off in the wrong direction, but three were squarely-aimed at Murkron. The red pulse of the Hypnotic Stare broke as the dark pokémon was forced to produce a shimmering brown Reflect to protect itself, which knocked back all three stars in quick succession.

The adrenaline was pumping now. Lisa found herself back in trainer mode; this was no different to an ordinary battle, she told herself, though the massive emptiness below still chilled her. She moved her hand from Altaria’s eyes.

“Good work, Altaria, now keep flying toward Red Rock Island!” she commanded. “And try a Speed Star attack, if you know it!”

Keeping pace with them, but still fifteen metres off, Sterling and Murkron were glowering viciously. As Altaria burst forth with a buoyant soprano note, simultaneously producing five enormous golden stars, Sterling roared, “Faint Attack!”

Sterling and Murkron shimmered in the high morning sun before disappearing entirely. Altaria sang an uneasy off-note as the five golden stars arced toward the place where the black bird had been, only to circle back toward it, hovering over Altaria’s head like a protective charm. Lisa tensed herself, scanning the sky … any second now …

“HA!”

The shout came from barely two feet away; Lisa jumped as Murkron and Sterling spontaneously materialised almost on top of her and Altaria. She felt Sterling’s hand roughly grab the back of her jumper and attempt to pull her off; wrapping her legs tighter still around Altaria’s middle, she swiped at the dark, hairy arm clutching her hood, but Sterling’s grip was intense –

“Taa wooo!”

“Croooo!”

“NO!”

Lisa felt Sterling’s hand relinquish her jumper as the glowing halo of stars circling Altaria’s head mobilised on demand: all five sliced through the air with breakneck speed, slamming hard into Murkron’s feathered underbelly. The bird squawked in pain and veered off to the left, forcing a gap of about five metres between the two combattants as they rocketed toward the earth.

“You have nowhere to go, girl!” Sterling shouted, his sallow face damp with sweat. “You have no parents to hide behind this time – no dumb luck. Surrender to me and I will release you once I am done with you.”

More from giddy adrenaline than anything else, Lisa laughed.

“You must take me for an idiot!” she cried. “You think I’d believe the word of a murderer?”

“I am a VISIONARY!” Sterling roared defensively. “I am building an empire and you will yield to it! My genius is no different to that of any of the other great emperors. There is always a revolution before the Golden Age!”

“Do you hear yourself?” Lisa cried into the wind, unsettled. “You’re INSANE. You’re absolutely insane!”

Murkron swooped ever closer, the two flight paths collimating just three metres apart as Sterling spoke.

“I am the only one on this planet wise enough to know that fulfilling the Legend is the key to an immeasurable power. A power that would render me invincible … a power that would make all my endeavours eternally successful …”

“A power that isn’t yours to take!” Lisa shot back. Out of the corner of her eye she spotted the rapidly-growing landmass down below; the island was close.

“And whose IS it, then?” Sterling barked. “Is it the birthright of a precious few? People too dumb and too small, and too trapped in the conventions and superstitions of ancient myths to ever aspire to greatness?” His eyes darkened dangerously. “I have always hated that kind of exclusive bullshit.” He reached for his black pistol again and aimed it at Lisa. “I will give you one last offer. Surrender to me now, and I promise to spare your life after you give me your fragment of the Sixth Key!”

Lisa swallowed the lump in her throat.

“Never!”

Sterling cocked his pistol.

“I thought we already established this in the helicopter!” Lisa cried, her voice cracking as a shiver of terror danced down her spine. “You need me too much … You won’t risk shooting me!”

Sterling’s eyes flashed.

“Again with your precious birthright!” he snorted, and his black eyes looked genuinely unbalanced for the first time. “You’re showing your ignorance of the Legend, Lisa. Haven’t you ever wondered what would happen if a guardian were to die?” He seemed to savour the greedy smirk spreading across his face. “Your family’s blood does not make you immortal, Lisa Walters,” he said levelly, flicking the safety off the pistol.

As his finger closed on the trigger, Lisa felt her heart jump-start itself in panic.

“ALTARIA, DIVE!”

If there was a shot fired, Lisa didn’t hear it: her ears were battered by the force of the wind tunnel Altaria created as it speared through the air toward the approaching form of Red Rock Island. After only a few seconds of flight, however, Altaria jolted wildly, shuddering and almost throwing Lisa off as it squealed in pain.

Lisa spun round: Altaria’s left wing had been scorched black by some kind of ranged attack from Murkron. Sterling was still pacing them in hot pursuit.

“Altaria, try an Aurora Beam,” Lisa ordered, brushing the embers from Altaria’s wing. Deciding it was hardly a time for ethical battling, she retrieved the crimson Buzzball from her pocket and, holding it out in Sterling’s direction like a weapon, cried, “Electrify!”

A crackling streamer of ultramarine electricity irrupted the air as a wide beam of rainbow-tinged light from Altaria’s mouth exploded toward the two foes. Sterling shouted something at Murkron and a shimmering, protective Light Screen suddenly enveloped them. The Aurora Beam bounced soundlessly off the orb-like shield and arced off toward a low cloud; the bolt from the Buzzball zapped the Light Screen and shattered it, but failed to penetrate, leaving Sterling and his charge undamaged.

“MURKRON, SHADOW BALL!” commanded Sterling.

“TRY A HYPER BEAM!” Lisa cried, but Altaria shook its head vehemently. “Oh – God – another Aurora Beam then!” she amended, panicking.

She glanced at the rapidly-moving landscape below. They were now almost above Red Rock Island. They had descended so far now that people could be seen on the beach, pointing up at the fierce battle in the sky.

As Murkron crowed and jettisoned a pulsating purple-and-black orb toward them, Altaria cooed and projected a second Aurora Beam at its adversary. The two ranged attacks collided with a bang; momentarily, everything seemed to freeze and hang in the air – Lisa could barely feel the wind whipping at her bare skin – and then, devastatingly, the Shadow Ball glowed and rolled right through the rainbow beam.

Both Lisa and Altaria screamed as the violet ball of Ghost energy slammed into them: Lisa felt as though her left side had been washed in acid, such was the intense burn of the attack; her left hand involuntarily relinquished the fur of Altaria’s damaged wing, but she squinted through the pain, clutching her right hand ever tighter –

– but to no avail. She screamed as she realised that Altaria had gone limp, plummetting through the air in free-fall.

Sterling was cackling. As Lisa fell, she caught, from the corner of her eye, a glimpse of several white boats. Then it came – the rat-tat-tat of gunfire – and a flood of cold water drowned out the rest of the world.

*

“Don’t touch me!”

Strong hands were sliding over Lisa’s wet neck.

“Calm down …” said a voice.

“I’ll NEVER help you, you son of a bitch!”

“Mate, calm down, we’re just tryin’ to help you.”

It was the ocker voice that brought Lisa to her senses. She stopped brandishing her arms around and opened her eyes. A tanned, blond man wearing a plain white polo shirt that had the word ‘COASTGUARD’ emblazoned on the chest was kneeling over her, his thumb and forefinger placed on the poképort around her neck.

“Retrahere, Altaria,” he said, pronouncing the Latin word in a broad Australian accent. “Poor thing looks buggered.”

Lisa was aware of a flash of golden light as Altaria was returned to the poképort, but the pokémon was the last thing on her mind.

“Where is he?” she demanded, sitting up abruptly and feeling a sharp pain in her chest. “Where’d he go? He won’t be far away …”

She turned her head back and forth, frantically surveying her surroundings. She was seated on a beach of fine vermilion sand, about two metres from where the waves were breaking and hissing. There was a wooden jetty nearby that extended far into the water, where about a dozen white boats were moored. A cluster of people was standing on the beach behind the coastguard, looking at her curiously.

Lisa’s heart hammered: there was no sign of Sterling or Murkron …

“Where is he?” she repeated, now looking at the bleached-blond coastguard for answers.

He straightened up and crossed his muscled arms.

“You mean Sterling? He bailed, ay,” he said, his youthful face insouciant.

“You’re wrong,” Lisa shot back, scanning the faces in the watching crowd in case the Union leader had hidden himself among them. “He wouldn’t stop chasing me – he’ll be here somewhere –”

“No, he won’t,” said the coastguard firmly. “We scared ‘im off.”

“Oh right, how did you do that?” Lisa said disbelievingly.

An older, even bulkier man, who also wore the coastguard uniform, leaned in from the onlooking crowd and said, in a guttural voice:

“We shot ‘im.”

“What?!”

“We shot at ‘im,” corrected the younger man. “Our boats’ve got pretty good guns. Dunno if we pegged ‘im though …”

“I did,” interjected the other man, who had the appearance of an experienced, middle-aged seadog. “Got ‘is fuckin’ shoulder, but.”

“Spewin’,” said the younger man.

“So he just – left?”

The younger man nodded as he began to roll a cigarette. “Pissed off on ‘is bird, the bastard. We had that many clear shots at ‘im, too … woulda been legendary …”

Lisa scanned the sky for the umpteenth time, but it was unnervingly clear. Had Sterling really given up?

“I called the coppers,” added the blond man, meticulously packing the tobacco. “So you can give ‘em a statement when they get ‘ere. What’s yer name anyway?”

Lisa had opened her mouth to reply when two thoughts simultaneously jostled for pole position in her brain: Larry telling her, barely an hour ago, that the Union now had a strong presence on Red Rock Island; and the thought that, if the Army guarding Redwood Hospital had been infiltrated by Union agents, it was entirely possible that the Red Rock Police could have been, too.

Coughing, she said, “Charmaine.”

The man tucked the freshly-rolled cigarette into his mouth and extended his hand. Lisa allowed him to shake hers without expending any energy herself – her exhausted mind was racing again.

“I’m Darren,” added the man. “Senior Officer in the Whirl Islands Coastguard.” He released her hand. “So, Charmaine, ya gonna tell us what ya were doin’, havin’ it out with Joseph Sterling?”

Lisa barely heard him; she was checking her pockets for the Buzzball. As she looked down at her body, she realised how bedraggled she looked. She was completely soaked, her hair matted and the left sleeves of her both her sodden jumper and her T-shirt had been torn apart by the Shadow Ball. The strap of her broken bra was hanging beneath the bottom of her jumper. She was a mess, her ribs and knuckles were aching sharply … but she had made it out alive.

“Was there a red ball on me when you pulled me out of the water?” she asked bluntly.

Darren raised a dark eyebrow toward his crop of bleached hair, clearly affronted that she had ignored his question.

“Um – there was,” he said. “Abe, where’d ya put that ball?”

The old seadog turned and called out in a gruff voice, “OY, BLUEY, GET ‘ERE!”

A Growlithe bounded out from beneath an overturned dinghy and ran up to his feet, dropping a crimson, saliva-coated ball from its mouth onto the sand.

“There ya go,”growled the seadog, patting Growlithe affectionately.

Lisa crawled forward to retrieve the Buzzball. Just as she was wiping the drool off against the sand, she noticed that the old seadog’s eyes seemed intently trained on her chest. Uneasy, she looked down to notice that her frayed jumper had torn even further, almost exposing her through her soaked white T-shirt.

Shooting a disgusted look at the man, and feeling rather disgusting herself, she grabbed the Buzzball and used her other arm to hold her jumper against her chest.

“Is there somewhere I could dry off?” she asked Darren, who was apparently unaware of the seadog’s leering.

He took a look at the rent in her jumper and nodded, emitting a puff of smoke from his mouth before he said, “Absolutely. If ya go to the red and yellow tent just up the beach there –” He pointed to an enclosed marquee twenty metres away. “– ya can use our towels. We have Surf Lifesaver shirts in there too, if you need to change into something,” he added, understandingly. “Don’t be long, though, the coppers are just around the corner.”

Lisa clambered to her feet. “Don’t worry, I won’t take long!”

Pocketing the Buzzball, she jogged through the still-gawking crowd, some of whom were still excitedly whispering about sighting the notorious Joseph Sterling in the flesh, and headed for the tent.

The flap closed behind her, shutting her in the cool semi-dark of the tent. It was a welcome break from the attention of Darren and the others: the only thing she could hear in here was the seafoam rushing against the red-tinted sand, and the distant calls of deckhands on the jetty.

There was a pile of fluffy white towels on an empty milk crate on one side of the tent. Checking to make sure she was completely alone, Lisa stripped off her destroyed jumper and T-shirt, and threw her bra to the ground, shuddering slightly at the memory of the old seadog’s close attention. As she dried herself down, she realised she was trembling quite violently.

No wonder, she thought. For a minute there, escape had seemed impossible.

Pressing her ebony hair against the towel, she scanned the tent for clothes. There was a lot of junk strewn about the place – surfboards and paddles for dragon-boats, a couple of battered eskies, an unwieldly collection of grey lever-arch files stacked precariously on a bodyboard – but eventually, Lisa spied a plastic bag overflowing with traditional red-and-yellow T-shirts and, grabbing the first one she saw, threw it over her head. It was a size or two too big, but it was dry and welcome.

She considered abandoning her sopping clothes in the tent, but there was no point leaving clues. She emptied a plastic bag and shoved her jumper, T-shirt and bra into it, along with the towel, and tied the bag up tightly.

She crept back to the flap through which she had entered and peered through it. Near the start of the jetty, Darren was standing beside a group of four blue-clothed policemen, talking and pointing at the sky. Lisa decided not to take any risks. She hurried across to the other side of the tent and opened the flap on that side. This part of the beach was further away from the boats and fishermen, and thus far less frequented: aside from a young couple sunbathing about fifty metres ahead, the shoreline was deserted.

Nearby, a wooden sign fixtured at the mouth of a broad, sandy track proclaimed, “Town Centre – 1.2 km”. Without looking back, Lisa began the arduous jog inland.

*

The main street of Red Rock Island was much as Lisa remembered it: colourful market stalls spilled out onto the flagstones as brightly-dressed locals haggled with merchants and fishermen. Despite the approach of the cooler months, the throng of tourists seemed just as great as in November – a fact Lisa appreciated as she weaved her way, eyes on the ground, through the cobbled mall. At least she would be less visible in a crowd – and wearing a Surf Live Saver’s uniform would hopefully keep any Union spies off guard.

Dodging an obese man who seemed to be wrestling a live chicken into a cage, she raised her eyes briefly from the ground to get her bearings. The local pokémon centre was just a few shops down – it was the only place she could think of that would offer a free telephone service.

“BERRIES!” a greasy-haired hag appeared from nowhere, roaring in Lisa’s face and brandishing a handful of bulbous purple berries. “Pseudoberries for sale! Trick your opponents in battle by making them think you have berries attached to your pokémon, when in fact they are purely ornamental! Only forty dollars for four! What do you say, dear girl?”

Lisa’s face screwed itself up involuntarily against the woman’s musty halitosis.

“I’ll pass,” she muttered briefly, sidestepping the old woman, who launched into a brief tirade of abuse before recycling her spiel on the next passer-by.

The pokémon centre had apparently undergone renovations since Lisa’s last visit. The exterior façade was now comprised of bamboo, and the roof was now thatched, perhaps in an attempt to make the place appear more exotic, although the entrance, Lisa noticed, was still an electric sliding door.

Dodging another pushy vendor who thrust a vial of cloudy liquid in front of her (“Second-hand Mystic Water!”), Lisa made her way inside the centre and immediately felt as though she had stumbled into a party. The place where the front counter used to be was now occupied by a high dais, upon which a calypso band was jamming. The dreadlocked lead singer was gazing at the ceiling and chanting the same syllable over and over while a small collection of spectators – who lazed, lizard-like, on cushions and beanbags clustered on the cement floor – looked on, apparently entranced.

Lisa surveyed the rest of the foyer. Apparently the traditional trainer’s lounge had been replaced: in the far corner of the room, there was a multicoloured mat splayed across the floor, upon which two pigtailed trainers were stretching into yoga positions.

“What the hell …” Lisa mumbled to herself, just as she felt a hand push roughly into her back. Startled, she wheeled around, her hand leaping for her pocket until she realised the person behind her was simply a pale, peroxide-blond teenager who seemed to be having trouble keeping his balance.

“Whoa …” he muttered, straightening up and holding a hand in Lisa’s face. “Sorry, dude … Peace, ay?”

Had she not had other matters on her mind, Lisa probably would have laughed at him. “Peace. Sure …”

As she turned away, the young man tapped her on the shoulder again.

“You seen Trent? He owes me money ay …”

Lisa nose crinkled; she could smell a savoury, intoxicating scent wafting from the teenager’s clothes.

“I don’t know, sorry,” she said. “Listen, is this still the pokémon centre or have they converted it into … something else?”

The teenager’s bloodshot eyes darted around the bamboo walls, as though he had just realised where he had wandered into. “Yeah, yeah, this is it,” he mumbled. “You need to fix up your pokes?”

“Yeah – but I don’t see where I’m meant to go,” Lisa added, rapidly feeling as though she was asking a blind person for directions.

The young man yawned and scratched his crotch unabashedly. “Outside, dude,” he muttered, pointing vaguely in the direction of the two girls on the yoga mat. Following his gaze, Lisa realised there was a bamboo door cut into the wall just behind the girls.

“Right – thanks, then,” she said, keen to get away from the thick odour surrounding the young man.

“Peace!” slurred the voice behind her.

It was with relief that Lisa opened the door and saw a breezy courtyard filled with trainers who looked at least slightly less doped up. Beneath a crossing of two palm branches stood an auburn-haired, middle-aged Nurse Joy, loading pokéballs into a healing apparatus.

“Morning,” the nurse greeted in a lazy, lilting voice as Lisa approached the counter. “What can I do for you?”

“I just need my Altaria healed,” Lisa said, releasing the catch on her poképort and handing it over to Joy. “And, if it’s possible, could I use your telephone?”

Nurse Joy wrapped the poképort in a square of white material and placed it in a clear plastic dish. “Totally. What was your name, honey?”

“Charmaine,” Lisa lied.

“Lovely to meet you. I’m Joy, of course,” she smiled, adjusting a rainbow ribbon she had braided into her hair. “Now – we don’t let trainers use the phone for free anymore, but I make exceptions for you Surf Lifesavers. I really admire the work you people do. How long have you been with them – you look quite young …?”

“I just started this week,” Lisa said casually, ashamed of how easily the lies were coming. “I really do need to make this call though …”

“Totally, totally,” Joy muttered. She lifted a cordless handset from beneath the counter and handed it to Lisa. “Take as long as you need, Charmaine, I’ll give you a call when your Altaria’s fighting fit.”

“Thanks.”

Lisa grasped the handset and scanned the courtyard for a free seat. Groups of trainers were clustered around wooden table settings, many of them surrounded by hazes of putrid smoke; a safe distance from the fumes, Lisa spotted a free table beside the green hedge that bordered the courtyard and took it hastily.

She cradled the sleek handset in her palm for a few seconds, trying to work out what to say, and then dialled one of the few numbers that she could remember from the top of her head.

The line trilled four times before there was an electronic beep and a crisp voice said dully: “You’ve reached the voicemail of Ryan Walters. I’m unavailable at the moment, but if you leave your name and number with a message, I’ll get back to you as soon as possible.”

Lisa pursed her lips and pressed the red button on the handset. Sighing, she entered a new number and pressed the green ‘dial’ button. There was the sound of background noise and a female voice said, “Hi…”; Lisa’s heart leapt and she cried, “Mum!” before she registered.

“Hi, this is Maria Walters. I’ve got my hands full right now, but leave a message and I’ll call you back. Ta!”

Lisa flushed with disappointment; a dreadlocked girl from a nearby table pointed at her and laughed loudly – it seemed she had heard Lisa’s vulnerable exclamation.

Dialling Tom’s number yielded a similar result: the call simply rang out; apparently he had not yet invested in an answering machine for his mobile.

Lisa tapped her fingers against the table apprehensively. Surely they couldn’t all be out of range? She waited a few minutes, staring at the handset as though waiting for one of them to call her back, before she frustratedly punched in the last useful number she could remember by heart and pressed the green button.

The line trilled once, twice, three times … and then, with a click, a breathless voice cried, “OH MY GOD … LISA!”

Goosebumps popped into being all over Lisa’s body upon hearing the familiar voice: it seemed like an age had passed since they had spoken.

“Marina … hi.”

“Oh my God … Lisa … you’re okay? Friggin’ hell, I can’t believe it …”

Lisa fought to keep her voice neutral and hushed; there were simply too many people around. “I’m alright, relatively speaking,” she nearly whispered. “Listen, I need –”

“Darius! Darius, it’s Lisa! On my phone!” Marina interjected; her voice sounded slightly further away. Lisa could hear a male voice in the background and battled to stay focused.

“Marina, listen to me, this is really important. I’ve escaped from the Union and I need the Guard to come and get me.”

“Oh this is insane …” Marina gasped, apparently on the verge of hyperventilating. “Okay, where are you?”

“I’m on Red Rock Island, in the pokémon centre –”

“Red Rock Island?!” Marina exclaimed, as though this fact was of mindblowing significance. “Oh, my God. Sorry, I sound like an idiot. I just can’t believe you’re okay … Where are you exactly?”

“At the moment, at the pokémon centre, but I’m not safe here,” Lisa hissed. “Listen – where are you? Are my parents there? Or Lance?”

Lisa could hear Darius murmuring something in the background.

“Why don’t you go to the police station, you’d be safe there,” said Marina, ostensibly relaying the message from Darius.

“No, I wouldn’t. It’s a long story. Are Mum and Dad there?”

“Yes. Yes, everyone’s here. They’ve all come up to the safe house this morning to have one of their meetings.”

“I need to speak to Lance, if he’s there.”

“Okay. Alright … I’ll get him,” blustered Marina. “Oh my God …”

Trying to swallow her sense of urgency, Lisa held the line while Marina ran through the safe house to find Lance, peppering Lisa with questions all the way, which Lisa could only parry with comments like “I can’t say right now” and “I’m not sure”. The longer she sat in the courtyard, the more exposed she felt. This was a very public location, and the policemen that Darren had called down to the beach could well be searching for her already.

“Charmaine!” Nurse Joy called airily. “Your Altaria is ready!”

“I’ll be right there!” Lisa called back, without moving the handset.

The direction of Marina’s fervent questioning promptly changed. “Since when are you called Charmaine?” she asked, her tone somewhere between sarcastic and suspicious.

“Since using my actual name became too dangerous,” Lisa whispered. “I’ll explain everything when I can, Marina, I promise.”

“You’d better,” said Marina. “God knows I’m up for a good yarn. You have no idea how boring it’s been, stuck in this hellhole for the past month.”

“Marina – Lance?”

“Chill out, Leese, I’m getting there. It’s a big house, you know. They have like, eighty-five rooms, and I’m hardly exaggerating.”

“Who’s ‘they’?”

“Oh, the Stones, they’re the people who own this place,” Marina said, panting as she ran. “They’re this old couple and it’s like they’re stuck in the 1930s or something –” Lisa heard a wooden door slam shut through the receiver, and another one creak open. “– and they make us get up at six every morning, and they give us all these chores. Darius gets all the good outdoorsy ones and I get stuck doing the dishes and helping Mrs. Stone put marmalade into jars.”

Despite her apprehension, Lisa chuckled. The thought of Marina in the kitchen was laughable.

“Oh, finally,” Marina murmured. When she spoke again, her voice had become loud and urgent. “Excuse me – hi, security guard man – I need to see Lance straight away. I’ve got Lisa Walters on the phone and it’s really, really important!”

The next few minutes were difficult for Lisa to decipher. She overheard a fairly heated argument, apparently between Marina and a security guard, which culminated in a minute-long, earsplitting screech from Marina which seemed to gain her entry to the meeting. This was followed by a louder argument between several people whose voices Lisa couldn’t distinguish. After several minutes of chaos, however, the sound of a wooden door slamming reverberated down the line and a refined, familiar voice said: “Lisa – it’s Lance. Where are you?”

Finally.

“Lance – hi – I’m on Red Rock Island, in the pokémon centre,” Lisa gushed. “I blew Larry’s cover – I’m so sorry, I didn’t have a choice, there was no way out!” Against her will, her eyes overflowed with tears; and the shakes that had struck her on the beach suddenly returned in full measure. Across the courtyard, she heard the dreadlocked girl laugh derisively.

“It can’t be helped, Lisa,” said Lance, after a short, but significant, silence. “The most important thing is that we got you out. How did you get to Red Rock? Does the Union know you’re there?”

“The helicopter – um –” Lisa wiped her eyes and tried to clear her thoughts. “Sterling was taking me to the Sepulchre … I had to jump from a helicopter. He chased me and got shot by the coastguard and he backed off, I don’t know if he’s on the island looking for me or not … but the coastguard called the police, and I don’t trust them, so I ran …”

“Good move,” said Lance sharply. “My sources tell me the police on Red Rock Island are definitely corrupt and under Union influence, which means they will be tracking you down as we speak –”

“I used a fake name –”

“Which means nothing, Lisa, if they have your description and Sterling has already raised the alarm. They will have made the connection and will be hunting you down. You need to get out of the pokémon centre right now.”

Lisa felt her heart begin to hammer; her hands were shaking more violently still.

“But where will I go?” she implored despairingly. She couldn’t keep the exhaustion from her voice; she wanted to curl up in one of the beanbags and escape into sleep.

Lance hesitated. “I don’t know Red Rock very well. Just get out of public sight – find a thicket and hide in a bush or something. Yes. That’s your safest bet, just get out of sight until I can send some agents to extract you. Do you know where the Water Colosseum is, Lisa?”

“Yes.”

“Midnight tonight, the Guard will meet you at the trainer’s entrance. I’ll send someone you recognise. Stay hidden until they call your name.”

“O-okay.”

“But for now, Lisa, get out of there, fast! Good luck!”

As Lisa was replying with a feeble “thanks”, the monotonic beep through the telephone told her that Lance had already hung up on her.

“You ‘right, hon?” Nurse Joy asked as Lisa stood at the counter, latching Altaria’s poképort around her neck with difficulty; she was still trembling uncontrollably.

“Too much coffee,” Lisa tried to smile. “Thanks again for the phone.”

“No worries, Charmaine,” said Nurse Joy after her. “Peace!”

As Lisa bolted through the courtyard, past the yoga mat and calypso band and out into the midday sun of the cobbled street, she felt a humourless smile creep over her face.

People could be so deluded, she thought. There was no such thing as peace.

[Sike Saner]

Hey, when it comes down to it, better that it's done right than done fast. ^^ I think you did the right thing by waiting until you were satisfied with the chapter to post it; after all, you're the one member of your audience that you can never escape. None of us are going to go stand by your bed at night, prodding you and saying, "You can do better."

Anyway... Abe ogling Lisa was ew, yet for some reason I still also couldn't help but laugh a bit at her little wardrobe malfunction there. XD;

On a similar note (i.e. the "gross yet funny" note):

The young man yawned and scratched his crotch unabashedly.

Oh gee, now that's a lovely detail. X3;

Pseudoberry-lady was funny, especially given the holycrapsudden entrance she decided to make. Also, "BERRIES!" is a hilarious quote out of context. XD

You know that dreadlocked girl who kept laughing at Lisa? I totally wanted to throw a shoe at her, even though after like the second time she did that I was starting to hear her as Nelson, which amused me. X3

It's clear that Lisa is by no means out of the woods yet--I'm certainly liking the level of suspense you've got going on here. ^^ I look forward to seeing what might happen with regards the Guard's planned rescue of her.

[PancaKe]

I am crying with happiness.

No seriously there are tears in my eyes.

It's taken on a very tomorrow when the war began feel. I am disappointed chapters aren't longer. One day I will print and bind this whole book and read it all again from the start.

Dude, you need to give Lisa a bra. DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH IT HURTS TO RUN WITHOUT A BRA?!?!?!?!?!?!? It is simple ignorance if Lisa is continually running away and has no support. >=( It makes your writing flawed .

I'll give some more detail when I'm not rushing to get to work

[Gavin Luper]

Whee, readers!

Sike Saner: That's a good point, and kind of puts it into perspective for me. The most important thing is how it sits with me. I just wish I hadn't taken so long to fix it all up, but better to do it right, as you said. Thanks for reading again! Hehe. Sorry to have grossed you out (hopefully in an amusing way, right?); the young man is quite a personality, isn't he? ^_^ Hehe, pseudoberries lady cracked me up too. Anyhoo, I shan't spoil what happens in the next chapter, but hopefully I shall see you around for that when it comes (in a few days, I think). Thanks heaps for reading and replying, Sike!

PancaKe: I'm glad my writing has moved you emotionally! Okay, if you liked that chapter because of the Tomorrow When The War Began feel, then I have a shrewd suspiscion that you are going to love Chapter 68 ... without giving anything away, of course! ^_^ Oh, and your wish will be granted, incidentally ... from memory, the chapters start to get longer pretty soon. Also, thanks for the detail about running without a bra XD. Seriously ... that's something I never would have even thought of, so thanks muchly ... I shall make a mental note to add it in to the detail of the next chapters. (Or ... maybe I'll just get Lisa a bra!) Thanks so much for reading and replying so promptly, you madcap gal!

The next chapter will be posted shortly, guys! I don't want to rush ahead with 4564545 new chapters within a week for fear of leaving behind any of the closet readers/readers who haven't been able to keep up, so as a general question to all readers, what kind of timeframe is a good one in between new chapters? A few days? A week? A fortnight? Some general feedback would be good so I know what kind of pace suits you guys.

Thanks again for your continued readership, everyone.

Cheers!

- Gavin.

[PancaKe]

Post the whole thing right now. I would read it all.
Although I'm fairly sure I will cry at the end of this book.

It's such a shame that pokemon is copyright otherwise you could make millions. Don't you wish pokemon was real now? Then you would be the John Marsden and I would be the J K Rowling of the pokemon world? Ahhhhhhh *dreams*

More indepth stuff...

I like the way that there is a constant reminder that nobody can be trusted. I think what a lot of people tend to do is have chapters as sort of episodes (and I know I did this with LVH), where I would have one major thing happen, and then characters would continue on as normal. I am glad that no matter the chapter, the same level of tension is held, and the same ideas about peace and safety are held.

I am missing Gavin though. what happened to him? I forget. Did he just disappear? I want him to come back and marry Lisa.

I am just a bit concerned about Lisa's personality. I mean... I do find it hard to remember what's distinctive about Lisa and Gavin. Maybe it's just me and I find all protagonists to be similar, but what is Lisa's personality like? I think something that helped me understand who Ellie was was the fact that her conversations with Homer about strength and weaknesses (especially in book 2 and 3) really brought out how others percieved Ellie and how she saw herself. Maybe that's something you could use to help clear up who Lisa actually is... aside from being the heroine?

[Gavin Luper]

Hullo readers! How are we all?

Tara: Sorry I took so long to respond. (And no, I cannot wait until we become JK Rowlings and John Marsdens ...)

Thanks for the comments on tension. Reflecting on this, I agree that this high level of tension persists in most chapters of LTL, but this is starting to take a toll on the characters, as you'll see pretty soon.

With regards to Gavin ... well, read on!

Mm, I like that point of view on my characterisation. I've always struggled with that aspect of my writing, and although I think I've improved over the years, it's still something I have to work hard to develop and build upon and make realistic. I think - I feel - that the following chapters and arcs will expand upon both Lisa and Gavin's characters in a number of ways ... Let me know what you think.

Cheers for the commentary! <3

Everyone: Okay, so four weeks have passed since I posted the last chapter, which is far too long, so here's Chapter 68!

I hope you enjoy it!

Cheers!

+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+

Chapter 68 – The Colosseum by Night.


From beneath the luxuriant foliage of her shrub, Lisa eyed the fingernail moon with mounting disdain. Its enigma taunted her: it had been hanging there, silent and serene, for immeasurable hour upon immeasurable hour, betraying no sign that the thing humans called “midnight” was approaching – or, indeed, that it had already passed.

It was not until well after she had frantically concealed herself in the thicket of native shrubs that Lisa realised the Union had stolen her watch.

She squeezed her eyes closed in discomfort as her stomach rumbled for the thousandth time that night. She could not even remember the last proper meal she had eaten. She had amused herself for the past few hours with thoughts of a hot plate of pasta, like her grandmother used to make back in Ecruteak, or even a plain sandwich. She had long since worked the remains of the Union’s muesli bar out of her teeth in desperation.

She ran her hand along one of the thin, leafy stems that comprised the bush under which she was crouched. There were little red berries clustered at the ends of each swishy branch, enclosed by a floret of maroon leaves. She clasped the nearest floret, peeled it open, and picked half a dozen berries. Her guts growling, she stared blankly at the red berries in her palm for a long moment before inverting her hand and letting the fruits fall onto the soft red dirt below as she extricated herself from the shrub and, feeling unaccountably exhilarated, stood up. Whether it was the fear of missing the midnight rendezvous or merely hunger that made her abandon her hiding position, Lisa wasn’t sure, but she knew she couldn’t take it any longer, trapped in that tiny bush.

She scanned her environs carefully: the small, suburban park around her, replete with motionless swing sets and a shadowed playground, was devoid of any sign of life. A stream of detached fear mingled with the gnawing hunger in her guts: the Union could easily have spotted her in the town centre earlier and followed her back to the park where she hid. At the same time, though, it seemed impossible for such a danger to exist in such a quiet nook of Red Rock suburbia: across the road from the park, Lisa could see an actual white picket fence at the front of a rickety weatherboard house.

She hesitated for a moment, contemplating the plastic bag nestled beneath the bush that contained her favourite, and now torn and sodden, Ecruteak Fruitbats jumper, and realised she could not bear to leave it behind. She tied it around her waist purposefully before beginning to retrace her steps back toward the town centre. Once she started moving, the fear of Union intervention seemed to melt away. The cover of dark was welcome; the fact that it was almost a new moon emboldened Lisa all the more as she crept, first from tree trunk to tree trunk and then, as she left the park behind, from telephone pole to telephone pole. She failed to suppress a smile as she passed a house with a television programme blaring loudly from its open front window. Her lips curved once again a few blocks later as she passed a drunk middle-aged couple sitting at a table on their front patio, a couple of empty wine bottles resting on the concrete as they gossipped loudly.

“That’s what I said, love, I told her not to keep it. She’s only twenty, for God’s sakes, she’s got her whole life ahead of her!” nattered the plump woman as Lisa passed on the opposite side of the street, feigning a casual night-time stroll instead of her earlier creeping, which she realised, in hindsight, must have looked highly suspicious.

“She’ll come around, love,” soothed the woman’s moustached husband, helping himself to a new bottle of wine. “Refill?”

There were people in the world whose lives did not revolve around the Union. Lisa found herself morbidly fixated on the thought as she moved further toward the darkened town centre. As sordid as the couple’s discussion was, it was gloriously normal.

Presently, she reached the street immediately parallel to the island’s cobbled main street. She took cover under a broad-leafed palm and tried to scope out her surrounds. The fact that she had passed no fellow pedestrians on her walk, nor any cars, seemed to suggest that it was indeed quite late in the evening, but it still seemed like a foolish idea to walk boldly down the main street. If the Union was indeed searching for her, walking past the pokémon centre would be tantamount to handing herself in. She gazed over the top of the centre’s thatched roof at the enormous, shadowed form of the Water Colosseum that presided over the town hub. It was unavoidable: she would have to cross the mall to make contact with the Guard.

Patting the lump of the Buzzball in her pocket and double-checking the silver poképort around her neck, she forced herself to walk at a steady pace from the palm tree to the awning of a fruit and vegetable store across the road. As she approached the shop front, the sounds of distant calypso music jagged her ears: the nearby pokémon centre was still alive with visitors. Abruptly, the terror of being caught by the Union washed over Lisa, an awesome thrill of adrenaline and panic breaking her skin into gooseflesh; woozy, she gripped onto an empty wooden crate to steady herself. All at once, it seemed impossibly stupid to be walking anywhere near the pokémon centre – surely the first place the Union would go to look for her.

Trembling, she looked back at the palm tree, and the winding street beyond it that led back to the silence and security of the residential area. Something awful crawled over her skin, more unpleasant than goosebumps. It was cowardice, and for the first time in her life it seemed like a better choice than courage.

Loathing herself, Lisa breathed in deeply and took a step toward the palm tree from whence she had just come – and at that exact moment, a pair of headlights shone directly on the tree’s trunk.

Such electricity had never coursed through Lisa before in her life. Retracting her foot back into the darkness offered by the awning, she spun round in panic to see a white van, perhaps a hundred metres off, trundling slowly in her direction.

When she relived the moment ten minutes later, Lisa felt her throat tighten in terror at her recklessness, but in the moment, fear dictated her actions; and fear dictated that the risk of being caught by Union members in that van was circumstantially greater than that of being caught by possibly non-existent Union members in the mall. Lisa bolted: pelting away from the awning of the grocery store, she followed the red brick wall of the next shop as it curved around into a narrow alleyway that led directly to the main street. She did not even attempt subtlety, her sneakers clapping loudly on the cobblestones and her arms flailing around her as she fled the oncoming van; as she approached the mall, the dull throb of the van’s engine was replaced by the cacophonous calypso music pumping from the pokémon centre – which, turning the corner, she realised was only twenty metres away.

No longer in the van’s line of sight, Lisa allowed herself a brief pause, leaning against a vermilion letter box as she caught her breath. She scanned the main street in both directions: there were no Union patrols, no nearby shouts of recognition. To the west end of the mall, the bamboo pokémon centre was illuminated by multicoloured party lights, and the raucous singing and laughter of a veritable crowd emanated from the enormous open windows over the chaotic calypso drums. There were three or four figures loitering on the front steps, cigarettes or joints aglow in the dark of the street, and Lisa knew they were looking right at her. Adrenaline still flowing, she about-faced and sprinted east along the open-air mall, the dark shape of the colosseum now pressing in from above.

She racked her brains for memories of the Whirlpool Cup tournament back in November. The trainer’s entrance had been accessible through a promenade that ran off the mall – but where? Lisa scanned the shopfronts as she ran down the street: a patisserie … a pharmacy … a cloistered-off bookshop … Aha! Her eyes fell on the familiar art nouveau signwork of a corner florist’s: Millie’s Flowers and Gifts. Recollections falling into place, Lisa veered off the main street and down the cobbled, tree-lined promenade which wound from the florist’s shop, through a sparse, manicured public garden, right up to the base of the imposing structure of the colosseum.

It wasn’t until she was shrouded in the darkness of the colosseum’s broad, high-ceilinged terrace that Lisa felt the full weight of what she had just done, but even self-reproach couldn’t fight the adrenaline buzz still playing through her nervous system. Nonetheless, she sharpened her sense of purpose and walked briskly around the terrace, which hugged the entire perimeter of the colosseum, scanning the white marble walls closely. She only had to walk fifteen metres before the dull aqua glow of a digital clock came into, fixed above a mesh-enclosed desk that said ‘Enquiries’.

Lisa exhaled heavily. The clock’s luminescent letters and numerals read:

SUN
30.03.03
09:47 PM

Relieved, Lisa strode back along the terrace until she found the trainer’s entrance: a high, rectangular roller-shutter that led to the trainer’s lounge, pre-battle facilities and the battleground itself. There were several small nooks hewn into the marble mouth of the entrance, well out of sight of anyone who might survey the building from a distance. Lisa clambered into one such cranny, sitting herself down quite snugly between two ivory-coloured pillars, and, waiting for her heart to stop hammering, tried to distract herself from the thought of Union agents ambushing her with the memories of Jack the sailor, Anna, Marina and Gavin, and the good times they had had during the Whirlpool Cup.

*

The bang came from nowhere. How she could have fallen asleep, Lisa didn’t know – nor for how long – but her eyes, flying open in shock, immediately fell on a black-clothed figure barely two metres in front of her, crouched at the base of the roller shutter.

She must have made some kind of noise upon waking, because the figure turned his head sharply in her direction; but her fear provoked her battle instinct: she flew into action, wrestling the Buzzball out of the pocket of her jeans and crying hoarsely, “Electrify!”

The male figure before her swore and held his hands out as if to protect him from the attack; the crackling streamer of electricity that exploded from the red Buzzball forked in two, each fork seizing one of the attacker’s arms. He shook for a second before the electric charge broke, and a limp body lay at the foot of the roller shutter.

There was a second of anticlimactic silence. Then, using her arms as levers, Lisa propelled herself from her nook and swung around to face the agent’s partner: aside from Lucas, the agent who had tracked her from Goldenrod, she had never known Union members to operate alone. However, as she scanned the dark terrace, and then the gardens, she was unable to find the second agent. Surely he or she wouldn’t have fled?

“Uuuurgh…”

Lisa spun on the ball of her foot: the man was already stirring. She glanced at the Buzzball, incredulous. She had wondered if it was her own imagination that Joseph Sterling had barely been effected by the electric shock in the helicopter, but it seemed that the Buzzball had, again, only subdued its victim for only five or ten seconds. Nervous, she touched her thumb and forefinger to the silver pendant around her neck and whispered, “Revelum, Altaria.”

A burst of golden radiance moulded itself into the sleek, cobalt-blue form of Altaria. Lisa swiftly appraised the terrace once more – it was still deserted – before spinning back to face the agent, who was now lifting his head.

“Freeze!” she barked. “Don’t move – or I’ll attack again!”

The agent regarded her with a lopsided smirk and said, in a heavily slurred voice, “Who the fuck are you?”

Lisa recoiled. She recognised the young man; he was the one who had pointed her in the right direction at the pokémon centre earlier that afternoon.

He looked even more wretched now than he had then, his peroxide blond hair visibly matted and his eyes red and sore-looking. His black T-shirt was emblazoned with violent splashes of colour and the name of a well-known punk band.

“Stands to reason,” Lisa spat. “I should’ve known you were with the Union, bumping into me like that today. What’d you do, follow me all the way to the park and back?”

The young man – who didn’t look much older than her – rubbed his eyes with his knuckles and surveyed her again, his bloodshot eyes scanning the length of her body, before he burst into a spate of nervous giggling.

“And I thought I got fucked up tonight … What the hell’ve you been smokin’?”
Lisa blinked.

“Nothing…”

The young man burst into a fit of giggles again and, looking away from Lisa, returned to fiddling with a latch at the base of the roller-shutter, completely indifferent.

Altaria craned its head at Lisa, apparently in confusion. Lisa returned the look.

“I don’t know what you’re playing at,” she said, trying not to sound unnerved as the youth turned a key in the latch and removed the padlock. “But you’re not to make another move – I mean it – stop whatever you’re doing …”

Turning her head, Lisa inspected the terrace and gardens once again – if the Union were expecting her to let her guard down, this would be the perfect time for them to launch an attack – but still, the grounds were entirely deserted.

The teenager rose to his feet, pulling the roller shutter up with a tremendous clatter which echoed out into the night.

He turned to face Lisa squarely. “Wanna come in? I’ve got beer.”

She blinked incredulously again.

“I don’t know what you’re doing, but you need to stop now,” she spluttered again, breaking eye contact with the young man to rapidly scan the grounds for a third time, but there was still no sign of an ambush.

The teenager raised a black eyebrow toward his platinum-blond hairline.

“I got a friend who gets real paranoid when she’s been smokin’ shit,” he said. “It’s cool. Just chill out – and join me inside when you’re on the comedown, orright?”

And, delivering a nonchalant wink, he strode baldly beneath the roller shutter and into the dark trainer’s lounge beyond, leaving Lisa, gaping, in his wake.

*

Beneath the same fingernail moon, on the rocky east shore of Cianwood Island, a hooded figure stood at the haphazardly-hewn door of an old seaside hut and knocked three times.

After five minutes, there was no response. He had second and third-guessed himself: could his knock be heard over the roar of the night trade winds and the nearby hiss of breakers slamming into the shore?

Shivering beneath his heavy grey jumper, he raised his hand to knock again; and at that moment, he saw, through the grubby window, a flare of green light within the hut, and heard, within the bounds of his own head, a raspy voice speak:

//Knocking is quite an insult to me, you know, boy.//

The hooded figure leapt back from the door, as if forewarned; a second later, it burst open, swinging back on its hinges and slamming against the wall.

“I’m sorry –” began the hooded figure.

//You have sought me so assiduously for so long, and at the final obstacle, you bother with a pleasantry such as knocking on my door? I am disappointed. You shouldn’t think for a second that you would have been able to find me if I did not wish you to.//

The luminescent green aura emanating from within the hut dulled before changing to a deep violet. From the doorway, the hooded figure could see a gnarled hand beckon him to enter.

//Come in, then, and find out everything you ever wanted to know about yourself...//

Heart pounding, Gavin Luper removed his hood and entered the hut.

*

Lisa’s back was pressed firmly against a marble pillar, her honey-brown eyes flicking routinely from side-to-side, sweeping the Colosseum’s Romanesque colonnade.

“It’s too freaky,” Lisa muttered under her breath to Altaria, who was perched obediently at her feet, still expecting some kind of confrontation. “An innocent bystander randomly showing up in the place where I’m supposed to meet the Guard?” She gritted her teeth. “I don’t think so.”

But the facts didn’t register with her paranoia. What kind of Union agent wouldn’t recognise her, and would actually walk away from an encounter with her? Moreover, how many Union agents looked as though they were seventeen years old?

There was a quiet clink from somewhere nearby. Lisa started; a moment later, she saw a bottle cap roll out from the trainer’s entrance, followed presently by the blond teenager, who seemed to have stuck his face under a tap and who now had two brown bottles of beer dangling from each hand.

“Want one?”

“No.”

The teenager shrugged indifferently and leaned against the pillar nearest him.

“Not a beer girl, then?”

“No,” said Lisa. “I’m also fifteen.”

The teenager cough-laughed and took a swig from his stubby.

“Maybe I got you pegged wrong,” he mumbled. “You’ll get high but you’re too much of a princess to drink beer?”

“High?” Lisa exclaimed. “I don’t do that – what made you think that?”

He regarded her at length, but said nothing at all and took another swig of beer, leaving Lisa’s question to hang limply in the air.

“Look – what are you playing at?” Lisa said finally, her nerves getting the better of her. “What are you up to hanging around here at this time of night?”

The teenager guffawed.

“I could ask you the same question!” he scoffed. “Actually, I think I’ve got more of a right to be here than you do!” He reached into his pocket and produced a small set of keys, which he swung around on his index finger casually. “I work here part-time and I’ve got the morning shift. Sometimes I crash here if I’ve had a big night, if that’s okay with you.” He pocketed the keys and took up his bottle once more. “So, you gonna give me an excuse not to call the cops on you?”

They’re corrupt and out to get me.

“I’m not doing anything illegal …” Lisa said quickly.

“I’m pretty sure you attacked me,” said the teenager calmly, though he seemed supremely unfazed by this fact.

“I thought you were going to attack me. It was self-defence.”

“Self-defence my arse!” he cried. “I wasn’t anywhere near you!”

Lisa sighed heavily, still pressing her back firmly against the pillar. There was nothing more comforting than feeling something solid against her back when she was unnerved.

“You don’t know what I’ve been though,” she said eventually, a wry bitterness creeping into her voice, partly against her will. “People don’t need to be close to you to attack you, you know. Have you heard of guns?”

To her surprise, the blond teenager simply chuckled at her pronouncement.

“Has anyone ever called you a drama queen?” he asked. “Because you know, if they did, they’d be totally off-base.”

He dissolved into a fit of guffaws.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Lisa snarled, prickling.

He shrugged. “If you think there’s anyone out there who wants to shoot you, I’d say you’ve been paying too much attention to the mainstream media,” he said, his words slightly slurred. “The way they talk on the news, Jesus Christ! You’d think the Union were walking around the streets gunning little kids down on their way to school.”

Lisa clenched her teeth.

“The Union ambushed Redwood Hospital yesterday,” she said in the most measured voice she could manage. “The danger’s real.”

The teenager laughed again, tilting his head and knocking back the last of his beer in one smooth motion before starting work on the second one.

“No shit, that’s seriously what you’re worried about? Fuck me, what is the world coming to?”

“Joseph Sterling is a dangerous man.”

The teenager threw up a hand in mock-surrender.

“I’m not denying that. Fuck, everyone knows he’s a psycho. But the bullshit that the media’s stirred up …” His voice became impassioned suddenly, almost aggressive. “They print bullshit headlines that make ignorant kids like you actually believe that the Union is after them directly. Seriously, is there anything more ridiculous?”

Lisa bit her tongue.

“Okay, look, I’m sorry if you really believe you’re in danger, okay? It’s just that, once you see through the media paranoia, you realise this whole ‘gang war’ thing is just a construction, you know? They’re trying to create a state of mass hysteria but the fact is most people are safe as houses.”

It was at that point that something snapped in Lisa’s head: the restraint she had exercised over her frazzled emotions broke, and before she knew it, she had lunged forward, pointing an indignant finger at the teenager and screaming at him to shut his mouth; and in the same instant, a beam of brilliant vermilion light exploded into being somewhere in the grounds. Lisa had not even turned when it struck: a column of flames ploughed into the wall of the Colosseum, sending out an explosion of marble dust as the wall crumbled; a massive wave of intense heat emanated from the attack, the force of which was so great that she was thrown roughly to the concrete floor, smashing the side of her head.

For a few seconds, the world was fire and smoke: fighting to keep her eyes open against the heat and airborne dust, not to mention the splitting pain in her skull, Lisa saw Altaria struggling to remain upright, the previously creamy fur on its front and wings now encrusted with embers and charred a hideous black. The pokémon released a melodic coloratura before, stumbling clumsily, it emitted an Aurora Beam from its mouth and collapsed to the ground, motionless.

The rainbow-coloured beam arced uselessly into the ceiling, slicing a sharp shard of marble from it, which fell barely a metre from Altaria’s head.

“Retrahere, Altaria!!” Lisa screamed, touching her necklace.

Vaguely aware of a golden globule of light returning Altaria to safety, she leapt to her feet, hunting for the blond-haired boy. No sooner had her eyes landed on his spread-eagled form on the ground than she saw another explosion of light rapidly approaching; with an involuntary scream, she dove for the cement as a jet of ice-blue light whizzed over her …

“What the fuck is going on?!” whimpered the blond boy from somewhere very close; Lisa uncovered her face to see that she had landed right beside him on the floor. His face was deathly pallid: the sneer that had been on his face before was long gone, replaced by genuine terror.

“Just media paranoia!” she gasped breathlessly, wishing she could have savoured the moment more. “Come on, we need to get inside …”

The boy nodded blankly. Lisa looked up and peered through the plumes of white smoke that were suffocating the terrace: the trainer’s entrance was directly in front of them … if they could get the shutter closed, she might be able to buy some time …

“Crawl on your stomach!” Lisa shouted in the boy’s ear.

Side-by-side, arms grazed by the cement, they commando-crawled the couple of metres to the roller-shutter. Lisa could hear voices shouting to one another in the grounds; just as she reached the other side of the roller shutter, there was another explosion of marble dust as a new attack pounded the colosseum’s walls.

“Close it!” she cried, as the blond boy joined her in the darkness of the trainer’s entrance.

He leapt to his feet and grabbed the bottom of the roller shutter, pulling it down with a clatter. When the shutter was perhaps three feet from the ground, an azure beam of light zipped beneath it and slammed, with a muted crunch like a snowball, into the boy’s knee.

“Aaaaargh!”

He collapsed to the ground, his arms flailing in the air; at the same moment, the shutter slammed shut, plunging them into darkness.

“Lock it!” Lisa screamed. “Illuminate!”

The Buzzball flared to life in her hand, a golden globule of light erupting out of nowhere to orbit around the red ball, casting long shadows on the trainer’s entrance.

The boy was still doubled over on the floor.

“It’s burning, FUCK, it’s burning!”

Lisa held the Buzzball out toward his knee; his jeans had been ripped open by the force of the attack that struck them; his knee was now encased in a ring of ice.

“It’s just an Ice Beam, you’ll be OK!” Lisa cried. “You need to lock this door NOW or we’re stuffed!”

Grimacing, he thumbed through his key ring until he found a yellow-ringed key and jabbed it into the padlock on the inside of the shutter. No sooner had Lisa breathed a sigh of relief than she heard a male voice on the other side of the roller door shout, “Fire Blast again, Blaziken! Melt it down!”

Lisa’s eyes locked with the boy’s.

“Get away from the door!” she cried. He looked bewildered, utterly incapable of movement, one hand still on his knee.

Lisa grabbed his hand and yanked it in her direction. Abruptly, a wave of heat began to emanate from the other side of the shutter; the acrid smell of burning paint reached Lisa’s nostrils and made her want to throw up.

“Let’s GO!” she roared again.

Perhaps the pungent odour brought the boy to his senses: he allowed Lisa to pull him up to a standing position and together, they began to run further into the darkened trainer’s lounge.

“Please tell me there’s an easy way out from here,” Lisa muttered as they jogged down the marble-walled hallway, Buzzball lighting their way.

“There’s – yeah,” muttered the boy distractedly, hobbling slightly and glancing constantly at his frozen knee.

“Well – which way?!” Lisa screeched as they reached the circular trainer’s lounge, with its four exits. Further back, she could hear the shouts of humans and the exultant roar of a Blaziken.

“Straight ahead!” cried the boy. “We can exit onto the battlefield and get out that way!”

Pelting beside him through the lounge and into another marble tunnel, Lisa shivered.

“How are you planning to get out from there? Do you have any flying pokémon?”

He made an odd noise, as though there was something sharp stuck in his throat.

“I don’t train pokémon,” he muttered hoarsely. “It always seemed so – uh – lame…”

Lisa’s intestines turned to ice. “Well, does it seem lame now?” she snapped impulsively, before regaining her composure. “What’s your plan, then?”

They had reached an intersection in the tunnel: they could either continue straight ahead or take a right or left turn into the circular passage that ran the perimeter of the battlefield; Lisa realised they must be directly underneath it.

“The repository!” the boy cried suddenly.

“What?”

“We have a storeroom of pokémon that some regular trainers keep here – we can use one of them!”

He took a left turn into the circular tunnel, with Lisa running in hot pursuit. Her heart was pounding in her chest: ahead of her, the boy was swearing profusely under his breath. Presently, they reached a green door with the word “REPOSITORY” inscribed on a metal plaque affixed to the door. The boy placed his finger on a scanner (“I am so fucking fired, dude!”) and pulled the door open.

A medium-sized storeroom lay beyond, lined with shelves and cabinets. Several Ultra Balls reposed in glass cases on the far side of the room. The boy pelted across to an olive-green filing cabinet and began to hunt around in one of the drawers.

“We need a flying-type or something!” Lisa implored.

“Got it!”

“Already?!”

The boy turned around to face her: he cradled half a dozen pokéballs in his T-shirt.

“Yeah – trust me – let’s go!”

Lisa didn’t bother questioning him: racing from the room, they pelted further down the tunnel. There were other voices echoing through the tunnels: a man was shouting out for back up; another was ordering a Radar Eye technique.

“Here!” gasped the boy, reaching a small enclave in the side of the tunnel. Lisa recognised it at once: it was a sleek metal elevator that took trainers up to the battlefield. She had used it several times during the Whirlpool Cup battles. The elevators were only designed for one trainer, but she didn’t idle: she squeezed herself in against the boy’s body, feeling the pokéballs pressing against her back painfully.

The curved elevator door slid closed with a sleek hiss. Trying to think of anything but the lift at Redwood Hospital, Lisa shut her eyes and felt the slight nausea that always seemed to accompany the rapid ascent of elevators. Behind her, she could hear the boy still muttering the occasional swear word.

The elevator stopped moving; the curved door retracted with another hiss and Lisa and the boy spilled out onto the trainer’s box of the Water Colosseum.

There was just a second of disbelief for Lisa: the fingernail moon was reflected serenely in the sparse pool of water that made up the battlefield; the night air here was still and crisp; the stands were devoid of human life; water lapped gently against the edge of the trainer’s box. Nothing betrayed the fact that they were under siege.

The blond-haired boy shuffled the pokéballs in his T-shirt.

“You’ll need to grab it,” he said urgently. “It’s the Great Ball I think.”

Lisa shone the Buzzball over the collection of balls in the makeshift bag of the boy’s T-shirt, located the blue-and-white one and, prising it open in her hand, said, “Please God, let it be a flying-type!”

There was a burst of radiant energy; the full, regal form of a cream-bodied Pidgeot emerged beside them on the podium.

Tears of relief streaked down Lisa’s face as she clung beside the blond-haired boy on the giant bird’s back and, with a powerful flap, the winged pokémon took flight, soaring up and out of the colosseum and into the freedom of the midnight air.

[Sike Saner]

You know, I wondered if Lisa would wind up "defending" herself against someone who actually wasn't a threat, being as on-edge as she was there. Looks like I might have found out the answer to that one... X3

When the attack on the colosseum started, that was rather the HSM there. o_o I also liked that it led to this:

“What the fuck is going on?!” whimpered the blond boy from somewhere very close; Lisa uncovered her face to see that she had landed right beside him on the floor. His face was deathly pallid: the sneer that had been on his face before was long gone, replaced by genuine terror.

“Just media paranoia!” she gasped breathlessly, wishing she could have savoured the moment more.

Oh, don't worry, Lisa. I think I'm enjoying it enough for the both of us. X3


And Gavin's scene was certainly quite interesting... o.o

[Gavin Luper]

G'day readers,

Okay, it's been a long time, I know, so I have to say a huge thank you to all my readers for your unwavering patience and commitment to Lisa's unfolding story: it will be, I hope, rewarded in due course.

Firstly, I did address my extended absence in some detail in Smiley Town, but I feel like I owe my LTL readers - as distinct from all other fanficcers - a more specific apology, so, I have to say I'm sorry for leaving you all in the lurch for the last few months. Though I have checked TPM regularly, I have scarcely posted or contributed since May, and I'm sorry about that. My absence can be explained by a combination of my job, my relationship and new villa with my partner, and also - more specifically - by a convalescent period of giving up a problematic addiction to alcohol and going sober to basically grow up and deal with my issues. (Five months sober now, and counting!)

Now that we've got that out of the way, I'll get on with responding to your replies from May.

Sike: Indeed, Lisa's mental state was pretty paranoid at that point, so it's no wonder she was quite so trigger happy. I think the result was quite amusing, as well as realistic, I hope. I'm glad you enjoyed the HSM and yeah, I chuckled to myself when I wrote that line, it was ridiculously satisfying. As for Gavin's scene, it will come into play, but not for quite some time yet ... Thanks for reading so loyally as you always do, and I hope you enjoy the upcoming chapters ... I think there will be quite a few HSMs ahead, and not in the usual style, either. Cheers!

Tara: Yay, I'm stoked that the mood of the chapter had such a strong impact on you. I think it was much more frightening when Lisa is sneaking around the streets of Red Rock as opposed to actually being confronted with the Union. The threat is always more frightening than the actual agent posing the threat, it seems - at least in writing. And thanks for your feedback about the general shape of the chapters and the way they end. It's something that I think changes a lot over the next five or so chapters ... but I'd love your feedback on whether or not it actually does differ from the present structure or not. Thanks as always for reading, and I hope you'll have enough breathing space to read the next instalments!

Guys, chapter 69 has been written for ages, but there are a couple of sentences (seriously, that's all) that need to be rewritten before I post it. I'm going to work on it tonight (I'm currently absorbed with the current new chapter I'm writing) and so it will hopefully be up very shortly.

Thanks again everyone for sticking around.

Cheers!

- Gavin.

[Gavin Luper]

So as it turns out, I worked on the new chapter instead of this one last weekend! But I've fixed up the things that were bothering me about this chapter this afternoon, so - here it is! A short and sweet chapter, but a pivotal one, I think.

Bonus points to the reader who can guess the real-life TV show where the quotation on the poster comes from!

Cheers!

+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+

Chapter 69 – The Awakening.


A chink of sunlight found its way onto Lisa’s face, warming her cheek.

She stirred and opened her eyes. At once, her eyes fell upon a loud poster affixed to a brick wall barely two inches from her face. Dimly aware of a dull pain on the right side of her face, she wriggled back from the wall slightly to examine the poster. On a lurid yellow background, heavy black text proclaimed:

SO YOU’RE JUST GONNA ROLL OVER AND GIVE UP LIKE YOU ALWAYS DO? OR ARE YOU FINALLY GONNA GET MAD AND DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT?

Lisa rubbed the sleep out of her eyes and reread the poster.

Abruptly, a voice very close to her ear said, “It’s from a TV show I like.”

Without meaning to, Lisa let out a shocked yelp. Swivelling around, her eyes fell onto a teenager with bleached-blond hair sprawled in the bed beside her, naked except for a pair of satin boxer shorts emblazoned with the logo of a beer brand.

“Ohhhh…”

She clutched her hands to her head and rolled back to face the wall, as though turning away would somehow make the young man disappear. Her momentary peace lasted all of three seconds.

“You feelin okay?” asked the boy. “You hit your head pretty bad when we landed.”

Lisa gritted her teeth against the throbbing in the right side of her face. “No, I’m fine,” she said brusquely. Memories of a bird screeching as the ground spiralled closer were spiralling in her mind. “What happened to the Pidgeot?”

“Dunno,” the boy said, too indifferently for Lisa’s liking. “Those people didn’t chase us, but I think they shot something at us. Maybe the bird copped a bullet in the wing.”

Her face still averted, Lisa scowled. She peeped out through her fingers at her body: she was still dressed in the red-and-yellow Surf Life Saver shirt and damp jeans (the sheets of the double bed were visibly dampened), with her old jumper thrown over her as a makeshift blanket. She shifted and glanced around the room, vaguely recalling stumbling into it the night before: there was a distinct lack of furniture – only the bed on which she lay and a bland wooden sideboard – and the carpet was a dull cream colour. The haphazard collection of various posters on the face-brick walls, however, made it clear that the room belonged to a teenage boy: the number of punk band posters was dwarfed only by the number of near-nude female pin-ups.

She rolled back to face the boy, who was now laying flat on his back, regarding one of the naked pin-ups with mild interest.

“We’re at your house, then?”

The boy sniffed and absent-mindedly scratched his hairless chest.

“No, I told you last night …” He looked at Lisa with a raised eyebrow. “How hard did you hit your head? Anyway … no, it’s my mum’s place. Well, actually, my ex-mum’s place.”

“Your what?”

“Long story. I don’t call her my mother anymore.”

Lisa felt her contempt toward the boy augment.

“That’s ridiculous.”

“That’s reality,” snarled the boy, looking at Lisa with affront.

Lisa perched herself on her elbow and examined the boy’s stubborn expression. “What could she possibly have done to deserve that?”

“None of your business,” the boy shrugged, unabashedly scratching his crotch.

Lisa rolled onto her back and gazed blankly at the patterned white cornice. “So you’ve written her off completely, and yet you still live in the same house?”

“Who are you, Judge Judy? I don’t live here anymore. FYI, I only came here last night because the Pidgeot fell about a block from here.” He coughed and slid out of bed. “I’m getting food.”

Without a second look back at her, he left the room, slamming the door in his wake.

Lisa cast her eye over the unmade double bed, a gnawing anxiety in the pit of her stomach. She had only ever slept beside one other boy – Gavin – and they had never been so close as to share the same sheets. In any case, she was comfortable with Gavin; this boy, on the other hand, was a stranger – a repulsive one, at that – and he had not even been so chivalrous to sleep elsewhere but rather, had thrown Lisa into his own bed. She shuddered. She knew nothing could have happened, but she felt inexplicably guilty at having spent the night there, like she had broken some cardinal rule of purity. She glanced at the black, orange and white logo of the Ecruteak Fruitbats jumper her father had given her and felt slightly nauseous. The thought of what Dad would say about where she had spent the night was downright terrifying, yet at the same time, Lisa felt suddenly empowered, as though by inadvertently breaking her parents’ rules she had somehow, all at once, grown up.

She returned to gazing up at the cornice and trying to gather her frazzled thoughts. It was odd to find that she was not surprised by the Union’s ambush at the Colosseum: indeed, even at the time, she had practically been anticipating it. The Union’s doggedness was quickly becoming nothing more than a horrible fact of life.

Had the Guard members ever made it to the Colosseum? Would they have arrived at midnight, as planned, to find the trainer’s entrance destroyed by fire? Would they assume the worst?

Lisa’s heart leapt; her eyes scanned the room until they landed on a black-and-white analogue clock resting on the sideboard: it was only seven-thirty. Could the Guard members still be on Red Rock Island? Perhaps, if she could make contact again, they might still be able to extract her to the safety of the Guard’s care?

As her brain played over the possibility, she found her eyes drawn to the bold poster by the bed once more.

The door creaked as it swung back open. Still half-naked, the blond-haired boy walked in carrying a wooden tray with two bowls perched atop it.

“Corn flakes,” he said shortly, placing the tray on the sideboard. “All we’ve got.”

“Oh – thank you,” Lisa spluttered, genuinely thrown. She had not expected the boy to have any regard for her. Sitting up and crossing her legs, she took the bowl and began to satisfy her aching stomach.

The boy sat down beside her and began to munch at his own breakfast, though with far less vigour than she.

“Go easy,” he said, in the closest thing to an amused tone Lisa had heard from him yet.

Lisa swallowed down her fourth mouthful and wiped a drop of milk off her cheek.

“I haven’t eaten anything in a day,” she explained thickly.

The boy raised an eyebrow.

“Well, you’re not overweight, you know,” he said, apparently nonplussed. “You don’t need to starve yourself.”

Lisa laughed.

“It wasn’t voluntary.”

She shovelled another spoonful of soggy corn flakes into her mouth and ate gratefully. After a few minutes of silence, punctuated only by the sound of chewing and the clinking of the metal spoons on bowls, the boy spoke up.

“So … what the fuck happened last night?”

Lisa lifted the bowl up to her mouth to drain some of the milk away; she was several exhausting days past giving any consideration to decorum.

“Well, that ‘media paranoia’ you spoke of tried to kill us,” she said dryly, evoking the most deadpan voice she could manage. “Actually, they were only trying to capture me. But I’d bet everything I have that they’d’ve killed you on the spot.”

The boy’s black eyebrow rose again toward his bleached-blond hairline.

“You act tough, it’s cute,” he said, smirking.

Lisa felt a balloon of indignation pop within her chest.

“You’re hardly one to talk!” she shot back. “Who did I have to drag along behind me last night because he copped a piddly Ice Beam to the leg? ‘It’s burning, it’s burning’!” She laughed, partly out of mirth but mostly out of derision.

“That was serious!” the boy cried, jabbing a finger in the direction of his knee. There was a faint pink ring around it, residue of the ice burn.

“No,” Lisa said. “This is serious.”

She reached over to the neck of her shirt and pulled it down, exposing her bare shoulder blade and the ugly purple scar that still covered part of it.

“Duuuuude … what is that?”

“That’s where the Union shot me a month ago,” Lisa replied coolly, readjusting her shirt. “Don’t call me cute,” she added scathingly.

The boy’s eyes had widened: he looked both shocked and deeply impressed.

“So why did they attack us last night?”

Lisa scooped the dregs of her cereal into the spoon. “I’d need about a whole day to actually explain the whole thing to you, to be honest,” she said. “The short version is, they need me more than just about anything, and I keep getting away from them.”

The boy’s mouth was hanging slightly open.

“Come on, you can’t just leave it at that …”

Lisa beamed at him. “Can I use your phone?”

A devious expression stole over the boy’s pale face.

“No. Not until you tell me about the Union,” he grinned exultantly.

Lisa sighed.

“Come on, you had that coming!” the boy cried. “Besides … this is hardcore, dude! Come on, I wanna know how you got mixed up in this!”

“If I tell you, do you promise to let me use your phone straight away?”

“Totally. I promise.”

Lisa scratched her head, silently making up her mind.

“Right,” she said eventually, “Pay attention, then.”

The little hand on the clock had moved around to the number eight by the time Lisa had finished running the boy through her (much abbreviated) story. His eyes seemed to have bulged further and further out of his head with each twist and turn; at times, there was a wry smirk on his face that suggested he did not believe a word she was telling him, and at other times, his mouth was slack with genuine astonishment.

“And so that’s where our paths crossed,” Lisa finished. “I was meant to be meeting some Guard members at the trainer’s entrance. When I saw you there, I assumed you were a Union agent, that’s why I attacked you. Sorry about that.”

The boy blinked dismissively.

“Well, that’s … a lot to take in,” he managed at length. “It’d be a lot easier to believe if I was wasted …”

Lisa rolled her eyes, and made no attempt to hide the action.

“If you think I made all that up –”

“Nah, nah, I believe ya dude!” he cried hastily. “It’s just – a bit out there, you know?”

Lisa shrugged. “Mm, I can imagine. Anyway, now you know what you wanted to know.”

The boy nodded seriously; for the first time, he had a look of mild intelligence on his face, as though he was formulating some kind of theorem.

“Can I use your phone, then?” Lisa pressed.

The boy nodded again, and moved over to the other side of the room, where a mountain of dirty jeans and black band T-shirts nearly reached the height of the window. “My mobile’s in my pocket somewhere … gimme a sec …” he grunted. “So you’re calling the Guard?”

“Yeah,” Lisa said. “I’ll try my parents again, and if I can’t get onto them, I’ll call Marina.”

“That’s the chick that goes with Raikou, yeah?”

Lisa stifled a half-laugh. “Yeah, that’s her.”

“Right …” he trailed off, hunting in the pockets of a pair of jeans with white spray paint splattered over them. He stood up rigidly suddenly and looked at Lisa with a bemused expression on his face.

“Can I just get this straight? You’ve been attacked, like, how many times now?”

“Pretty sure I’ve lost count,” said Lisa blankly.

“But they’re attackin’ ya because you can open Suicune’s Chamber of Secrets?”

“Sepulchre,” corrected Lisa.

“Yeah, whatever dude. But that’s the reason they need ya?”

“Yes …” Lisa said slowly. There was a dogged clarity in his tone that unnerved her, because she had no idea where he was going with this. “What’s your point?”

“Ah, nothin’,” he muttered indifferently, finally producing a grubby white mobile phone from the pocket of a pair of shredded jeans. “There ya go – make yer call, don’t take too long though ‘cause I don’t have much credit left.”

Lisa took the phone in the palm of her hand but didn’t dial.

“Come on,” she said presently. “What was your point? Where were you going with that?”

He sat back down on the edge of the bed. “I woulda thought that’d be obvious, dude.”

“Well it’s not!” snapped Lisa impatiently; among other things, the fact that he continually referred to her as ‘dude’ was rapidly growing tiresome. “What are you saying?”

The boy began to pick nonchalantly at his big toenail. “Well, I just reckon … if it was me … I’d just go to the Chamber of Secrets myself and get the fucken key thing once and for all and just – get rid of it. Destroy it. Give it to the Guard. Whatever. But once the key’s outta there, your value’s gone right? The Union wouldn’t need you anymore; they’d go after the Guard instead.” He stopped dead at Lisa’s gawking expression. “Is it just me or does that totally make sense?”

Lisa felt nerves prickling at the back of her cerebellum.

“I don’t think it’s just you,” she said, her arm falling limply by her side. “But – I don’t know where the Sepulchre is.”

“Well, who does?”

“The Union, obviously. And – oh!”

Lisa clapped a hand to her mouth in sudden comprehension. The memory of the topographical chart in Larry’s office at the Union’s headquarters had swum back to the surface of her mind. Electrified, she remembered the royal-blue pin stuck into the map. There was no way to be certain – but maybe …

Lisa’s heart began to pound in excitement. Looking vaguely nonplussed, the boy raised an eyebrow and kicked a black jumper over to join the pile of dirty laundry. “Right … well … I’ll be out on the patio when you’re done,” he said, gesturing to the phone. “Come join … we’ve got a good view of town.” He left.

*

For some time, Lisa Walters sat on the bed of the stranger whose name she still hadn’t asked for. The grubby white phone was warm in her hand, but she was rapidly losing the desire to use it. Her mind was bubbling with new possibilities, new choices – choices she had never even realised she had …

If I entered the Sepulchre of Suicune without anyone knowing … If I could get the fragment of the key on my own terms …

She recalled her father’s words in the makeshift hospital ward at the Fairfax Inn:

“ The Union wants to break into the shrine. To succeed they’re going to need all seven keys. But what we want to do is protect the shrine, prevent the Union getting in. And to do that we need only to deprive the Union of one single key, one single fragment, even, to succeed.”

Lisa’s heart seemed to be climbing into her throat.

My fragment.

Her mind was darting wildly from one thought to the other: it was as though a beam of light were bouncing hysterically off the inside of her skull.

The Union was everywhere. The Guard had been compromised. The authorities had long since been corrupted.

MY fragment.

The comprehension came thick and fast. The Safe House – the Guard’s plans for her … it wasn’t the only way. All of a sudden, she had something she had never realised she had before: the power to make a choice.

I don’t have to be a pawn anymore.

Lisa stared at the face brick walls of the depressingly small bedroom, her mind processing the enormity of her newfound clarity. Barely aware of what she was doing – and yet keenly focused at the same time – she had taken her black jumper and spread it out over her lap. The orange logo of the Ecruteak Fruitbats was still visible, despite the large hole that had been rent in it by Sterling’s Murkron’s attack. Lisa ran her fingers over the damp jumper, tracing each letter of the logo as though she were in a trance. She remembered lazy Sunday afternoons clustered around the television family room watching the game and cold winter nights when she had huddled beneath the bulky warmth of the thick fabric. She ran her fingers up to the edge of the hole that Murkron’s attack had made and pulled at the fabric – gently, gently – until, slowly, it began to tear further. The black fibres of cotton were rent apart as Lisa gripped one hand on either side of the jumper and pulled harder. There was a neat, almost zip-like sound as she tore through the middle of the orange logo, and further still, past where her belly-button would be, until, with the crisp snap of the last, stubborn, stringy thread, the jumper was torn completely open, exposing its innards.

Lisa breathed in slowly, her skin breaking into goosebumps, and realised that she had to move before she fatally second-guessed herself.

She stood up abruptly, the shredded jumper tumbling to her feet. Her eyes fell on the lurid yellow-and-black poster by the bed:

SO YOU’RE JUST GONNA ROLL OVER AND GIVE UP LIKE YOU ALWAYS DO? OR ARE YOU FINALLY GONNA GET MAD AND DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT?

She kicked the jumper off her foot with a loud cry, jettisoning it into the pile of dirty clothes across the room; her heart pounding, she pulled the Surf Life Saver shirt from her body and hurled it with an aggressive “argh!” at the same pile before stripping off her sodden jeans and lobbing them into the mess too. She sifted through the pile, extracted the most shredded-looking pair of jeans she could find and pulled them on. They weren’t a perfect fit, but they would hold up. She then hunted through the top of the pile and found a ridiculously oversized black T-shirt emblazoned with the image of a white skull and neon green writing that proclaimed “The Decay”. A savage grin emerging on her face, she threw it over her body, immediately aware that she smelled like pungent day-old smoke, but she had never cared less.

Throwing the bedroom door open, she wheeled into the dingy hallway. After stepping into a couple of unused spare rooms and the toilet, she eventually found her way to the drab white bathroom. She hunted through the drawers until she found an enormous red-handled pair of scissors. Gathering her long ebony hair up into a ponytail, she opened the scissors and moved them up and down the length of her hair, trying to work out where to make the cut. She looked at her reflection in the mirror and saw that her face was pale, her mouth quivering slightly. She took a deep breath in and moved the scissors higher up than she had ever intended, above shoulder length, before wincing and closing the blades down on her hair.

It was more awkward than she had anticipated: it was as though her hair was too thick to be properly cut through the first time. She ended up hacking at it slightly haphazardly, tendrils of shiny black hair tumbling to the grotty tiles as tears began to streak down her cheeks. She surveyed her red-eyed reflection again and gruffly wiped her eyes on the sleeves of the T-shirt before reaching for the top drawer beside the basin.

The teenage boy was sitting on a sun-damaged deck chair on the brick-paved patio, his head tilted back as he took a puff on his joint. As he exhaled calmly, his eyes opened and fell on Lisa standing, feet apart, before him.

The joint tumbled from his hands and landed on the bricks, leaving a trail of embers in its wake.

“Duuuude. What the hell did you –”

“Where’d you keep your bleach?” Lisa cut through him.

“Wha–?”

“The hair,” said Lisa, gesturing to his shoddy, damaged blond hair. “It must be your work, right?”

“Uh – it is, it is – I’ll help you find the bleach …” he muttered, hunting beneath his chair for the joint. He seemed to have difficulty tearing his eyes from her. “Uh – I forgot to introduce myself, by the way … I’m Jamie.”

She smirked.

“I’m Lisa.”

[Sike Saner]

Wow. o.o That was one heck of a chapter there. From the part where Lisa got to really thinking about Jamie's little suggestion regarding her key, things just got really powerful, really memorable.

All of a sudden, she had something she had never realised she had before: the power to make a choice.

I don’t have to be a pawn anymore.

Loved that bit. ^^

Further on the subject of the aforementioned key-related suggestion... I do wonder if it's really gonna turn out to be the brilliant solution that Lisa currently seems to think that it is. But then, I always tend to have some degree of doubt about such seemingly brilliant solutions.

At any rate, this is quite the interesting turn things have taken here--I'm really looking forward to seeing what follows. ^^

[Gavin Luper]

Wow. o.o That was one heck of a chapter there. From the part where Lisa got to really thinking about Jamie's little suggestion regarding her key, things just got really powerful, really memorable.



Loved that bit. ^^

Further on the subject of the aforementioned key-related suggestion... I do wonder if it's really gonna turn out to be the brilliant solution that Lisa currently seems to think that it is. But then, I always tend to have some degree of doubt about such seemingly brilliant solutions.

At any rate, this is quite the interesting turn things have taken here--I'm really looking forward to seeing what follows. ^^

Hooray, I hoped you'd be back to read this!

I'm stoked that you liked the chapter so much, and in particular the line where Lisa says she doesn't want to be a pawn anymore - because that was one of the two sentences that I was struggling with prior to posting the chapter. It's rather redeeming to know that it was a well-received line.

More on the key-related solution to follow! In fact, from this chapter onwards things start to accelerate quite rapidly and get pretty exciting, in my opinion at least. I hope you'll like it.

Thanks again for reading, Sike!

I should also add that I'm doing NaNoWriMo again this November, to make another 50,000 words of progress on finishing off LTL completely. It's already progressed a long way from what I have posted, but there's still a way to go before everything's tied up and finalised neatly.

With that in mind, how often would people like to see new chapters posted? Sike, specifically, but if there are still some closet readers out there, I would so love to hear your feedback on how frequently you would like to read a new update! I would like to pump them out on a weekly or fortnightly basis for a while - would that work for you guys?

Please please please let me know ... it would be awesome to get some feedback not just on the recent chapters, but also, on how often you would like to see the new ones put up.

Cheers guys - oh, and in the spirit of Collingwood winning their first AFL Grand Final since 1990 on the weekend - GO PIES!

[Sike Saner]

Fortnightly sounds good, at least as far as I'm concerned. Any faster than that and I tend to struggle at least a bit in keeping up, especially in times like these when I'm doing especially much writing of my own. X3;

[Gavin Luper]

Hey LTL readers!

As part of the weekly prompts being held in the sticky thread in this forum, I've devised Lisa's "bucket list" and thought I would post it here for a wee insight into her character - and one of the rare occasions I've delved (very slightly) into her first-person narrative. Kind of makes me want to rewrite all of LTL in the first person, but the very thought of such an onerous task has me hating the idea as well.

Anyhow, here's the list:

Lisa Walters' (from LTL) Bucket List:

1. Learn bass guitar (or keyboards).
2. Do the hiking and kayaking trip in Tokor's jungle that Marina always talks about.
3. Sleep with Darius.
4. See pop music LEGEND Julienne Brextar live - and meet her backstage!
5. Visit Emma's grave and apologise to her.
6. Have a career that puts Alena White's to shame.
7. Learn a foreign language (French or Italian probably).
8. Travel though Johto with Gavin again (how many awesome sights have we had to overlook while running away from the Union?) - once the world is at peace.
9. Re-do Paddy's contest on Mt Fairfax for real - and win it. (I want the buggy!)
10. Do the whole love/marriage/family thing when I'm old, like 28 or 29ish.

If you haven't already done the writer's prompt this week, I would recommend it! You just basically write a list of 10 things for one of your character's bucket lists (ie. things to do before they die). It was really fun and gets you looking at your character in a new way.

(Incidentally, number 6 is maybe a bit cryptic, but I don't want to spoil any of the unposted chapters by revealing anything about Lisa's potential career directions in the future. Also, the list is more of a fun/personal one, instead of focusing on Lisa's mission with the Legend/Union/Guard.)

Hopefully more updates to follow soon. I still have many chapters sitting in a massive word document, ready to be posted, and I can now count on two hands the number of chapters remaining to be written, which totally freaks me out. And that's still the reason I've not posted anything up yet. My perfectionism doesn't want me to post all these chapters only to realise there was a big plot hole in one of them or something. So I want to hold off as long as I can. Possibly will post chapter 70 very soon, though, as I don't think there's too much potential for plot holes in it.

Anyhow, thanks for all the patience guys.

Cheers,

Gavin.

[Dryk]

3. Sleep with Darius.

Uh-oh... Don't get into trouble Lisa!

Really good list, and I see what you mean about insights into her character. You have successfully piqued my interest in Alena White. As always, looking forward to new chapters, but only when you think they're ready.

Good Luck.

[Gavin Luper]

Uh-oh... Don't get into trouble Lisa!

Really good list, and I see what you mean about insights into her character. You have successfully piqued my interest in Alena White. As always, looking forward to new chapters, but only when you think they're ready.

Good Luck.

Dryk: Haha don't worry, Lisa is a relatively sensible girl. Although at the end of the day, she is a teenage girl after all, so we'll see what happens. I almost wanted to write 'make love to Darius' but that just sounds a bit too girly or something, I reckon Lisa would write 'sleep with' if she were writing a list.

Glad you are piqued by the Alena White reference ... although it will be a while before she pops up in the story!

I did a frenzy of planning last night and I think I have overcome a massive obstacle that was holding me back - so things might come quickly now. In any case, if I haven't already finished LTL by November this year, I'll use NaNoWriMo to finish it off ... so worst case scenario, I think everything will be written and done by the end of this year, and then posted this year/2012. It's scary to think of letting go of Lisa and co, but I think I've held onto them for long enough.

Cheers!

[Gavin Luper]

Hullo readers!

I have a Chapter 70 for you. I was actually spurred onto posting this because I wrote a piece for this week's writer's prompt, but it would be a spoiler unless I posted this chapter first. Hence posting this up before I post my 'nightmare' piece.

Also trying a new 'previously on LTL' kinda thing - let me know what you think!

Please enjoy - this chapter is a nice prelude to the awesomeness of the next few chapters!

Cheers!

- Gavin.

PS: Brownie points to whoever can guess where the chapter title came from.

+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+

Previously on Lisa the Legend:


Gavin left on a mission ...


“Once they discharge me, when I’m healthier and stronger, I’m going to make my way to Olivine City. I’ll take a boat across to Cianwood Island. There’s an old seer there who lives up in the Island’s wildlands. Apparently he might know something about how to harness my psychic powers.”


Lisa escaped the Union, but freedom was not as safe as it appeared:


“The helicopter – um –” Lisa wiped her eyes and tried to clear her thoughts. “Sterling was taking me to the Sepulchre … I had to jump from a helicopter. He chased me and got shot by the coastguard and he backed off, I don’t know if he’s on the island looking for me or not … but the coastguard called the police, and I don’t trust them, so I ran …”

“Good move,” said Lance sharply. “My sources tell me the police on Red Rock Island are definitely corrupt and under Union influence, which means they will be tracking you down as we speak –”


And after being attacked by the Union once again, Lisa fled to safety with a dubious ally, Jamie, who led her to a life-changing decision:


For some time, Lisa Walters sat on the bed of the stranger whose name she still hadn’t asked for. The grubby white phone was warm in her hand, but she was rapidly losing the desire to use it. Her mind was bubbling with new possibilities, new choices – choices she had never even realised she had …

If I entered the Sepulchre of Suicune without anyone knowing … If I could get the fragment of the key on my own terms …

She recalled her father’s words in the makeshift hospital ward at the Fairfax Inn:

“ The Union wants to break into the shrine. To succeed they’re going to need all seven keys. But what we want to do is protect the shrine, prevent the Union getting in. And to do that we need only to deprive the Union of one single key, one single fragment, even, to succeed.”

Lisa’s heart seemed to be climbing into her throat.

MY fragment.


+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+

Chapter 70 – Island of Lost Souls.


They could have been an awkward teenage couple striding down the palm-lined boulevard. He was a boy with platinum-blond hair, decked out in a threadbare punk band T-shirt and grafittied jeans, a cigarette hanging from his mouth. She was his female equivalent, her jagged, bleached hair not even reaching the collar of her black tee. Though a pair of beaten aviator sunglasses obscured her eyes from the view of the villagers and merchants heading into town, she wore the same disenchanted scowl as her apparent boyfriend.

The boulevard they followed was one that circled the isle. To their left were rows of red-brick cafés and artisan stalls, already brimming with tourists and locals, set among parks, a red-dirt battlefield and various cottages. To their right was the crisp coastline, with its almost resplendent cinnabar sand and eager surfers already hitting the swell. The entire place had the air of a luxurious, crowded tropical resort: a casual onlooker would have no idea that the place was now heavily infiltrated by the Union. Lisa glanced at the rows of tanned faces in the crowded street, repeatedly quelling her fears with the knowledge that if anyone was looking for Lisa Walters, they would not even look twice at the ragged figure she had now become.

“You sure the place is this way, dude?” Jamie muttered, exhaling a pungent jet of smoke in her direction.

Lisa coughed. “Can you not smoke near me? It’s disgusting,” she snapped, waving the stench away with her hands. A swarthy deckhand who was passing by in the opposite direction shot her an obtuse look.

Jamie sniggered derisively as they quickly passed the marine stench wafting from the open doors of a seafood restaurant.

“Ya know, this disguise is only gonna work from a distance,” he said acerbically. “If anyone actually talks to ya, they’re gonna realise what a total prude you are.” He laughed. “You’ll blow yer own cover.”

“It doesn’t make me a prude to not want my lungs to rot and die,” Lisa shot back sardonically. “I don’t know why you think it makes you so awesome to smoke,” she added, screwing up her nose at Jamie.

He responded by cheerfully blowing several smoke rings into the air.

“It’s called punk rock …” he muttered obnoxiously. “Anyway, I was serious, do ya know where yer going? ’Cause there’s not many houses out this way …”

He gestured to the streetscape ahead. The boulevard rose up to a small grassy crest a few hundred metres ahead, at which point the café strip seemed to peter out into a cluster of coastal cottages, and then, further on, nothing more than luxuriant viridian foliage.

Lisa scanned the way ahead through her tinted aviators. Granted, it had been six months or so since she had set foot on the island, but she recalled this café strip quite well – and the seaside hut was just over the crest, she was sure.

“Yeah, we’re on the right track,” she said irritably. “Look, I know what I’m doing, so just stay close and act like we’re together, like I told you. Once we get there undetected, you can go back to your mum’s place and light up again, alright?”

Jamie shrugged. “No complaints there, dude. Gotta stop by the pokémon centre though, see if Trent’s there. Bastard still owes me fifty bucks for last week …”

Lisa clenched her teeth as the boy rambled on about one of his fellow drug-addicted mates. She hadn’t meant to come across as agitated, but for most of the walk from the boy’s mother’s house to the boulevard, he had rabbited on – with apparently no regard for Lisa’s rolled eyes or short answers – about his favourite hardcore punk band, The Decay, and about the drunken antics he and his mates got up to in the newly Caribbean-esque Pokémon centre.

“… up his arse!” Jamie half-laughed, half-coughed as he reached the punchline in what was likely an unabashedly low-brow tale. Lisa managed a mild chuckle and pursed her lips.

“So are you going to tell me your plan then?” Jamie prodded unabashedly, sidestepping an eager newsagent who had left the confines of his store and was bustling about on the footpath among them, thrusting copies of the Red Rock Recorder under the noses of the passers-by.

“I already told you, I’m going to try to find an old friend,” Lisa said shortly, lowering her head against the sun beating down from overhead; it was rapidly becoming a very warm day. “Well, more of an acquaintance than a friend, I guess, but I think we were close enough that he’ll help me.”

“Help you get into the Chamber of Secrets?”

“You know that’s not what it’s called,” Lisa sighed. “He’s a sailor. I’m hoping he’ll be able to take me to the mainland without having to go through checkpoints or anything.”

Jamie nodded, apparently impressed.

They walked past the final café in the strip, right near the grassy crest. As Lisa squeezed her way through the cluster of outdoor tables with their bright yellow umbrellas, she bumped unceremoniously into a young, tanned girl around her own age, knocking the girl slightly off balance.

“Watch it!” cried the other girl indignantly, screwing up her nose slightly at Lisa.

Lisa opened her mouth to say sorry, but the apology died on her lips. She stood stock-still amid the café tables, watching Jamie stride several paces ahead before realising that she was no longer with him, turning around and approaching her with a look of mild bemusement.

“What’s up?”

Lisa’s mouth was still hanging open in shock. She forced her tongue into action.

“That girl I just ran into –” she spluttered. “It was Marina.”

Jamie’s eyes widened, his forehead crinkling.

“Duuuuude …”

Lisa hesitated, holding his surprised gaze for a moment, before she about-faced.

“Wait here for me!” she cried over her shoulder, running after the blue-haired girl ahead in the crowd. “I’ll be right back!”

*

Shane’s Shark Shack wasn’t the most attractive establishment on the boulevard: a tiny take-away shop wedged between two much larger and ritzier restaurants. Despite this, Shane, the stubbled owner in his early thirties, did a roaring breakfast trade: locals and tourists alike crammed into his store for his famous surf ‘n’ turf breakfast.

Lisa followed Marina into the Shack, her heart thumping with excitement at seeing her friend again. The ultramarine-haired girl stood beside a short man in a white polo shirt and blue jeans, apparently conversing with him in hushed undertones. Lisa stood by the drinks fridge, feigning an interest in a new energy drink whilst examining Marina and the man’s reflections in the glass door of the fridge. Was he an escort from the Guard? There was no other explanation: Marina showed no sign of being held against her will. Lisa furrowed her brow. Was this the rescue party Lance had sent for her? He had promised to send someone she would recognise, true – but Marina, of all people? The Guardian of Raikou? It seemed like an impossibly reckless move for Lance – and indeed, Marina – to make.

Then again, Lisa remembered, the Union had already used Marina to access the Sepulchre of Raikou, back on Emerald Plains. Had the Guard deemed her less valuable now? Her frown deepened.

As the man in the white polo moved to the counter to place his order, Marina moved absent-mindedly toward the aquarium display nearer the door. Lisa stole her chance. Pushing through a bunch of dreadlocked trainers and their Mankeys and Ivysaurs, she moved up alongside Marina by the aquarium. Now that she was closer, Lisa could see Marina’s new turquoise-tinged Guardian Butterfree perched on the strap of her white halterneck, apparently at the ready.

Speaking in the lowest voice she could manage, Lisa said, from the corner of her mouth, “Don’t react. It’s Lisa. Meet me in the toilets. Don’t mention me to your guard.”

Then, only barely aware that Marina had stiffened beside her and the Guardian Butterfree had risen, wings abuzz, Lisa strode calmly away from the aquarium and headed in the direction indicated by the sign over the counter that proclaimed “Toilets at rear”.

*

The unisex bathroom was in a state of near-disrepair: Lisa could barely make out her own reflection in the grubby mirror that hung above the cracked basin. The floor was soaking wet and covered at odd intervals with toilet paper and dog-eared copies of the Red Rock Recorder. Just as a dubious headline from the most recent issue – “Joseph Sterling: Foe or Friend?” – caught her eye, the peeling white door creaked open and Marina Frost entered.

“LISA!”

“MARINA!”

The two girls embraced, Lisa taking care not to crush Marina’s Guardian Butterfree with her chin.

“Oh my God!” Marina cried. “What did you do to your hair?”

They pulled apart.

“I needed a change,” Lisa grinned.

Marina crinkled her nose. “Oh Lisa … you looked fine as a brunette,” she said crisply, casting an eye over Lisa’s hair before moving on to her clothes. “Now you’re some kind of female bogan …” She trailed off. “Anyway – I’ll give you hell for that later …” Her eyes suddenly became fierce. “More importantly … What the hell happened to you last night?”

Her voice, far from being aggressive, cracked slightly. She sounded upset.

“The Union got to me, I can explain everything,” Lisa rushed, Marina’s emotion reminding her of her mission. “Listen –”

“We thought you’d been captured again,” Marina interrupted anxiously. “Giles and I got to the Colosseum at midnight and the trainer’s entrance was practically in ruins …”

“They ambushed me,” Lisa said shortly. “I was lucky to get away –”

“But why didn’t you try to find –”

“Marina, please – LISTEN!” Lisa spoke over the top of her. At once, the miniscule Guardian Butterfree on Marina’s shoulder pricked up its wings and hovered two inches into the air, apparently unnerved by Lisa’s volume; a small violet glow appeared around its antennae.

“Easy,” Marina said swiftly to the Butterfree, and it fluttered back to her shoulder, the purple glow disappearing. Marina turned to Lisa, clearly peeved at being interrupted. “What?”

Lisa verged on apologising before deciding there wasn’t time for it.

“I didn’t call you today ’cause I decided not to,” she said quickly. “I’m not going to go to the safe house.”

Marina looked baffled.

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve decided to – well – look, do you promise not to say anything about this to your guard, or anyone from the Guard?”

Marina regarded her, nonplussed. “Lisa, of course not. Whatever you say stays with me.”

Lisa felt a warmth spread in her chest. She should have known that she could count on Marina.

Without idling, Lisa leaned over and whispered her plan into Marina’s ear.

When Lisa had finished, Marina gaped at her with shining eyes and a devious expression on her face.

“I am so coming with you.”

*

The sun was high in the sky and the dubious breakfast menu had changed to the even greasier-looking lunch menu by the time Marina Frost returned to find Lisa and Jamie sitting at the outside tables at Shane’s Shark Shack.

“Well, I feel like the worst person in the history of the world,” she announced cheerfully, sinking into a grafittied plastic chair between them.

Lisa sipped at her lemonade. “Guilt setting in?”

Marina sighed. “Mm hmm.” She folded her arms on the table and rested her head on them wearily. “Mum’s going to have an absolute heart attack when I don’t show up at the airport.”

“I told you you didn’t have to come,” Lisa said hastily. “I mean, I was really planning to do this alone –”

“Don’t get all noble, I’m the one who put my hand up for it,” Marina snapped, waving Jamie’s smoke away from her face aggressively. “I’m just feeling bad about it … It’ll pass …”

“You can still change your mind –”

“Forget it, Lisa. I’m coming with,” Marina said firmly, pressing her cerise lips together. “Plus, the more I thought about it, the more I realised you’d need somebody with you in the Sepulchre anyway.”

“I will?”

“You’ll see,” said Marina enigmatically. “Anyway, look, I figure Mum and everyone will be happy, ultimately, once they find out what we’ve done. They’ll probably revoke my membership to the Guard once I get back, though.”

Lisa coughed. “So you’re actually like … a proper Guard member now?!”

“Well, it’s not like we get badges and a membership number or anything,” Marina said, almost defensively. “But yeah, after your phone call yesterday, I argued – and Mum argued – for me to be able to come to get you. I’m no use to the Union anymore, and plus, I was going insane at the safe house. It’s all jam-making and cleaning. Honestly …” She trailed off in exasperation. “Anyway … point is, I’m in.”

Lisa nodded and drained the last of her lemonade, crushing some of the ice between her teeth.

“And you slipped away from Giles without him knowing?”

Marina nodded. “Yeah, it was easy. He saw me board my flight but I know he had to rush away to catch his own. So I waited five minutes, staged a medical emergency with Mudkip and then got the hell out of there.” She sighed heavily. “Should I be worried how easily it’s becoming to flat-out lie to people?” she added, a sardonic lilt to her voice, but her frown looked quite genuine.

“Nope,” Jamie chimed in, ashing his cigarette, which Lisa direly hoped contained only tobacco. “It means you can think for yourself, dude.” Without even trying to hide it, he gazed over Marina’s lean, tanned arms and the part of her chest exposed by her halterneck. “I’m Jamie, by the way.”

Marina exchanged a disgusted look with Lisa and muttered back, “I’m Marina, nice to meet you” in the most unconvincing tone Lisa had ever heard.

*

“Bubblebeam, Altaria!”

“Awooo!”

The cobalt-skinned dragon pokémon let off a gleeful coloratura before opening its mouth and releasing a volley of gleaming bubbles at the wild Cubone. The ground-type pokémon spun the bone in its hand, using it as a high-powered fan to blow the rush of oncoming bubbles into a nearby cluster of saltbushes and reeds, where they promptly burst harmlessly.

“You can get him, Leese!” came Marina’s distant voice.

Lisa narrowed her eyes at the resilient Cubone.

“Altaria, Aurora Beam!”

“Riiiiii!”

Cubone raised its bone club defensively, but it was no match for the explosion of rainbow-coloured light that emanated from Altaria’s mouth. The Aurora Beam struck the lonely pokémon’s unprotected stomach, blasting it off its back and sending it spiralling through the air into another saltbush, where it lay motionless.

“Good one!” Marina called.

Lisa grinned and pulled out the red-and-white pokéball Marina had given her.

“Go!” she cried, hurling it at Cubone’s stirring form.

The orb bounced off Cubone’s macabre grey skull helmet and opened: with a flash of radiant light, the brown pokémon became a translucent scarlet colour before disappearing into the ball. The pokéball landed on the ground, shaking a couple of times, before it stilled.

“Yesssssss!” Lisa cried, high-fiving Altaria, who looked composedly exultant. “Finally!”

“Go Lisa!” Marina called.

“So now the once innocent pokémon becomes a mindless slave to the human poacher who decided to collect it,” came Jamie’s laconic drawl. “Tell me honestly – how is catching pokémon not illegal yet?”

Lisa rolled her eyes at him and walked over to the bushes to claim her prize. After leaving Shane’s Shark Shack an hour ago, Lisa had led Marina and Jamie to her destination – the seaside residence of Jack Criddle, the sailor who had given her Elekid in November – only to discover that there was nobody home. Resigned to the fact that they would have to try again later, Lisa and Marina had decided to fill in some time by going to a deserted beachside thicket nearby to catch a temporary pokémon team for Lisa to replace Aipom, Fiskmire, Dratini, Electabuzz and Vulpix, who were still, as far as Lisa knew, being held in a Union lab somewhere.

So far, Lisa had not had a great deal of luck: she had attempted to catch a Cloyster and a particularly resplendent Beedrill, but had failed on both counts: Cloyster had been too strong to stay in the pokéball, and the agile Beedrill had fled before Lisa could order a second attack from Altaria.

“There’s nothing wrong with pokémon training,” she said, pocketing Cubone’s pokéball and scanning the seaside thicket for Marina. The blue-haired girl was several metres away, ordering Herby, her Bayleef, to launch a Razor Leaf attack at a vermilion Kingler. “Hey Marina, let’s try Jack’s house again after you finish that battle!”

“Okay!” Marina cried.

“There are about a hundred things wrong with it, dude,” said Jamie, who was standing back a bit from the long grass, hands stuffed in the pockets of his paint-splattered jeans. “It’s the most aggressively capitalist bullshit I’ve ever seen, and people sugar-coat it as a kid’s hobby. I mean, seriously, it should qualify as animal cruelty at least –”

“Pokémon aren’t animals,” interjected Lisa, recalling Altaria to its poképort.

“No, exactly! Animals at least have some rights. Pokémon don’t. People just treat ‘em like tools, work ‘em and abuse ‘em until they pass out, then run them through a machine that heals them and start the process all over again. And what for? Personal gain. Glory. Sometimes money. It’s fucking sick.”

Lisa ground her teeth. “It’s not sick, it’s a fact of life,” she argued. “Pokémon and humans have coexisted for centuries. As friends. Humans train pokémon and pokémon are willingly trained … You make it sound like there’s some kind of mind-control or something horrible happening. It’s just the way it is. Pokémon trainers have been around since forever … and I’m proud to call myself one.”

Jamie pulled a cigarette packet from his jeans and fumbled for his lighter.

“Slavery existed for centuries too,” he sneered coolly. “Just because something is, doesn’t mean it should be.”

Lisa riled. “That’s a stupid example! It’s not the same thing,” she shot back hotly. “I treat my pokémon like I would any human friend.”

“So you call your human friends ‘boy’ and ‘girl’, then?” he said baitingly. “Or even just ‘human’, for that matter?” He scowled. “You don’t even give your pokémon names.”

Marina gave a whoop of excitement; both Lisa and Jamie glanced across the verdant thicket to see the Kingler disappear into a pokéball.

“I got another one for ya, Leese!” she called excitedly.

“And another one bites the dust,” Jamie sighed under his breath, nose upturned slightly as he lit his cigarette and began walking back up the path that let to Jack Criddle’s hut.

“I think I like you better when you’re stoned,” Lisa snapped, deliberately loudly enough for him to hear.

*

The front door of Jack Criddle’s beachside hut was little more than a roughly-hewn plank of rotten-looking wood. Lisa searched for a section that looked relatively splinter-free before knocking three times.

After a moment, the door creaked open. A grey-haired man with rough, leathery skin stood before them, a pipe hanging from his sun-damaged lips and an unfathomable grimace on his face as he held his hand up above his face against the bright afternoon sun.

“’Lo?” he grunted in an almost impossibly guttural voice.

Lisa recognized the man at once, but it was abundantly clear from his expression that he could not place her.

“Hello, Frank?”

“’S me. Oo’re you lot?”

“My name’s Lisa Walters, if you remember me? I travelled on your boat last November? From Cianwood Island … ?”

Lisa tapered off. Frank had simply stared at her blankly in response to each of her questions.

Jamie guffawed. Marina nudged Lisa in the back encouragingly.

“I was with a sailor called Jack Criddle?”

Some flicker of recognition flared in the old captain’s eyes.

“You mates o’ Jack’s?”

“Yes, I’m a friend of his,” Lisa pressed vehemently. “Um … do you know if he still lives here? I’m looking for him.”

“’Ee’s gon’ out to Cianwood,” Frank grunted. “’Eel be back in a bit. Make yerselfs at ‘ome.”

Without a second look at the three of them, the old man shuffled back into the cool shade of the hut, leaving the door open behind him.

Lisa led Marina and Jamie into the hut. It was much as she remembered it from her brief stay in November: creaking wooden floorboards, faded green wallpaper and mostly-bare rooms. Frank sat at the flimsy-looking dining room table, arms folded as he watched the small wall-mounted TV set, chuckling every now and then.

Lisa, Marina and Jamie loitered at the end of the dining table.

“So now, what, we just wait for Jack to get back from his trip?” asked Marina. “Even if he takes hours?”

“And just hope he’ll agree to take us to the mainland,” Lisa nodded. “I’ve got no other plan, and there’s nothing else for it.”

Jamie took out a small pouch and some cigarette papers from his pocket and moved over to the open window, which overlooked the scarlet-tinged sand of the beach and the crystalline waters of the Cianwood Sea beyond them. Marina rolled her eyes at Lisa, who returned the sentiment. Turning their backs on Jamie, they sat down at the end of the dining table and stared up at the black-and-white TV set, trying to absorb themselves in a very dated episode of The Goldeen Girls.

She must have fallen asleep at the table, for the next thing Lisa knew, there was a loud slam of the front door. She jolted and stared around in disbelief: night had fallen! Only blackness and a few distant beacons in the ocean could be seen outside the windows; the only light in the hut came from the old TV set, which cast a spooky blue glow over the room.

“Morning,” Marina joked from beside Lisa. It looked like she had fallen asleep, too, for tendrils of blue hair were still strewn across her face.

Beneath the window, Jamie had his head slumped against the wall at a painful-looking angle; he was otherwise almost laying horizontally on the floor. His eyes were open but they were very bloodshot: he barely looked awake.

“’Zat you, Jackie?”

Still seated at the end of the dining table, though now with a plate of baked beans on his lap, Frank peered down the passageway to the front door.

“Just me and the boy, Snowy,” came the gruff reply, accompanied by not one but two sets of footsteps. “Just throw your things in there,” came Jack’s voice to his companion. A moment later, Jack Criddle walked into the dining room.

He looked much as Lisa remembered him: young, tanned face, short, dusty golden hair, a blue wife-beater and tanned, muscular arms; however, he had since marked his right bicep with an enormous tattoo of what looked like either a dragon or an eagle, or perhaps both mixed together. Lisa thought she had never seen anything quite so ugly on a person before.

“Havin’ a party, Snowy?” he boomed, glancing at the dark shapes of Lisa and Marina, and Jamie mumbling to himself in the corner. He extended his hand to Lisa enthusiastically. “G’day, I’m Jack, nice t’ meet – oh!” Recognition flooded his oddly-lit face. “It’s … Lisa, isn’t it?”

Lisa shook his hand back firmly. “Hi again, Jack.”

A look of mild confusion crossed Jack’s face.

“’S’bin a while, ay? What y’ done t’ y’ hair? What brings y’ back ’ere?” he asked, apparently disconcerted by her reappearance on Red Rock Island.

Slightly apprehensive now that the moment had arrived, Lisa tried to keep in mind the poster on the wall in Jamie’s bedroom.

“Well, I’ll be straight with you,” she began. “I came here for a favour. I need to get back to the mainland, and I was wondering if you would be able to take me on your boat. If that’s possible …”

She expected for her proposal to linger in the air; perhaps a pregnant pause, or an awkward look on Jack’s face. But, to her complete surprise, he grinned and said, “No worries.”

From the corner, Jamie contributed a vague giggle for no apparent reason.

“So – that would be okay, then?” Lisa clarified, as the second pair of footsteps approached the dining room.

“’Course,” Jack boomed, moving over to the wall and flicking a light switch. A grubby fluorescent tube above the dining table flickered four or five times before casting a depressing glow over the dining table. “I’m headin’ there in two days, anyway, to drop your mate back home.”

He said this as if Lisa would understand what he meant: however, she found herself exchanging a bemused glance with Marina.

Just as she opened her lips and said, “Which mate?”, a teenage boy wearing a navy blue fisherman’s beanie and a heavy grey jumper entered the dining room.

Marina gasped audibly; Lisa’s jaw dropped.

“Hey guys,” said Gavin Luper.

[Dryk]

Another great chapter. Great descriptions, invigorating dialogue, nice little cliffhanger at the end, what else can I say? My only qualm seems to be that I don’t want Lisa to commit too many evil or accidentally evil acts before the end, but then that would make her perfect, so that story wouldn’t be fun. Also, Jamie's getting pretty interesting, and I think you did pretty well with the difference between when he's high and when he's not, It'll be interesting to see whether or not we ever see him again. I think you’re finding the right balance right now so that’s all I’m gonna say.

On another note, I have absolutely no clue what the island of lost souls is, unless it’s some reference to a piece of classic literature. I also think the lead-in is a good idea, because if you have long times in between chapters, it’s easier to remember what happened.

Looking forward to more LTL chapters and to reading the nightmare story. See ya later.

[Sike Saner]

“Well, more of an acquaintance than a friend, I guess, but I think we were close enough that he’ll help me.”

“Help you get into the Chamber of Secrets?”

*could not help but chuckle-snort* X3


Alas, I don't get any brownie points. But anyway! The notion of Marina accompanying Lisa on her mission adds an interesting new facet to the situation. And speaking of characters coming along and adding interesting new facets to situations... the ending of that chapter! That was great. :D

[Gavin Luper]

Sup homies,

Here is Chapter 71 at last. A short, not-so-sweet one before I unleash the next succession of rather explosive chapters. Argh. Letting go of long-planned secrets is going to hurt and be exciting all at the same time. So, let it begin!

Hope you enjoy!

+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+

Previously on Lisa the Legend:


Having escaped Joseph Sterling's clutches and finding herself alone on Red Rock Island, Lisa met Jamie, an apathetic punk whose attitude led her to a startling revelation:



She recalled her father’s words in the makeshift hospital ward at the Fairfax Inn:

“ The Union wants to break into the shrine. To succeed they’re going to need all seven keys. But what we want to do is protect the shrine, prevent the Union getting in. And to do that we need only to deprive the Union of one single key, one single fragment, even, to succeed.”

Lisa’s heart seemed to be climbing into her throat.

MY fragment.



And after Marina abandoned her Guard escort to join Lisa in her new mission, Lisa enlisted the help of another old friend - Jack Criddle, the sailor who housed her during the Whirlpool Cup and who gave her her Elekid.



“Well, I’ll be straight with you,” she began. “I came here for a favour. I need to get back to the mainland, and I was wondering if you would be able to take me on your boat. If that’s possible …”

She expected for her proposal to linger in the air; perhaps a pregnant pause, or an awkward look on Jack’s face. But, to her complete surprise, he grinned and said, “No worries.”

“So – that would be okay, then?” Lisa clarified, as the second pair of footsteps approached the dining room.

“’Course,” Jack boomed, moving over to the wall and flicking a light switch. A grubby fluorescent tube above the dining table flickered four or five times before casting a depressing glow over the dining table. “I’m headin’ there in two days, anyway, to drop your mate back home.”

He said this as if Lisa would understand what he meant: however, she found herself exchanging a bemused glance with Marina.



And, to her complete surprise, Lisa found that her oldest and most dear friend of all had also just walked back into her life.



Just as she opened her lips and said, “Which mate?”, a teenage boy wearing a navy blue fisherman’s beanie and a heavy grey jumper entered the dining room.

Marina gasped audibly; Lisa’s jaw dropped.

“Hey guys,” said Gavin Luper.


+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+


Chapter 71 – Scars.


The shock of seeing Gavin alive and well again bound Lisa firmly to her chair. While Marina leapt up from the wooden table to greet Gavin with a warm hug and a jocular high-five, Lisa goggled at him, eyes vacant.

“Nice to see you again, Debbie Harry,” Gavin said in a mock-professional voice, extending a cordial hand to Lisa after extricating himself from Marina.

Lisa felt a rush of emotions flood her arteries; despite herself, the prevailing one was joy. She laughed at Gavin’s sarcastic quip and stood up at once, limbs revitalised by his familiar tone. She threw her arms around him, hooking her hands quite tightly around his back and kissing him gently on his unscarred cheek. To her mild surprise, he hugged her back quite as firmly, and she was almost certain she felt his lip against her earlobe, but, quite suddenly, he pulled away; Jack was speaking.

“S’like a reunion, innit?” he boomed, opening the small bar fridge in the hut’s depressingly-lit kitchen. “Who’s up for a beer?”

“I’ll go one,” said Gavin promptly, sinking into the chair opposite Lisa and beside Marina.

Jamie muttered something incoherent across the room; it seemed that even in his drugged-out state the prospect of alcohol was still attractive.

Gavin regarded Jamie’s slumped form with something like disgust before casting an obtuse look at Marina and Lisa.

“Who’s he?” he hissed.

“A – friend,” said Lisa at length, trying not to respond to the feeling that Gavin was quietly assessing how good a judge of character she was. “He helped me out a lot …”

Jack shuffled up to the table, setting down six blue-and-gold cans of beer. “There youse all go!”

“Cheers, Jack,” Gavin said, eagerly taking one of the cans and cracking it open with a faint hiss.

“Lisa?” Jack pressed.

“Oh … no thanks Jack … I really don’t drink beer or anything …”

His handsome face looked crestfallen. “But we’re all back together again – s’like a reunion! Nothing like a bit o’ grog to celebrate! Come oooooon …”

“Erm …” Lisa hesitated, glancing at Gavin’s can without affection; she could already smell the bitter liquid inside; it reminded her strongly of the smell of vomit. “Well – do you have any wine?”

As one, Jack and Frank stared at Lisa in apparent disbelief that she could have mentioned any alcoholic beverage other than beer.

“Me and Lisa will both have a shandy, Jack, if that’s okay?” Marina chimed in quickly.

He nodded heavily and trudged back to the kitchen; Frank tore his eyes from Lisa and returned to his reruns.

Marina giggled.

“What’s a shandy?” Lisa asked quickly, simultaneously judging Marina for her knowledge of alcoholic beverages and wondering what she was now obliged to drink.

“Beer and lemonade, it’s not bad.”

“Beer on its own is better,” interjected Gavin, burping unabashedly.

Lisa rolled her eyes at him, but could not remain annoyed at him for long. She had a million questions bubbling in her mind for Gavin, but she was not sure she could freely discuss anything with him in front of Jack and Frank.

Gavin seemed to read her mind.

“Not now, Leese,” he said stiffly. Then, apparently realising how coldly he had come across, he offered, more kindly, “Talk later?”

Lisa nodded.

They spent the next hour playing along with Jack’s illusions of a party: the young sailor seemed oblivious to the fact that his guests were only consuming one drink to his four. Slowly sipping her shandy (which she scarcely found an improvement over the bitterness of beer, though it was mildly sweeter), Lisa jovially revisited the times she, Gavin and Jack had had while they had competed in the Whirlpool Cup last November. Surrounded by old friends again, Lisa found it easy to push the Union out of her mind, and laughed heartily with Jack and the others.

Eventually, as Jack chugged down the final, foamy swirl of amber liquid, he declared himself to the room as “fucken buggered”, and, after sweeping each of them into affectionate bear hugs, stumbled back toward his bedroom, slamming his considerable mass into several door frames along the way before a loud click suggested that he had located his quarters at last. Apparently taking this as a sign that the evening was at an end, Frank muttered a vague “goodnight,” to the table at large and followed suit, leaving Gavin, Marina and Lisa alone at the table; Jamie was definitively sprawled on the wooden floor, snoring loudly.

“Alright, now we can talk,” Gavin said, after listening for the click of Frank’s bedroom door.

“Where have you been?!” Lisa exploded.

“Well, I kind of wanted to ask you that …” Gavin muttered.

“She asked you first,” said Marina sleekly.

Lisa grinned appreciatively in Marina’s direction.

“Well, it’s no big mystery, Leese. You already know where I’ve been,” said Gavin slowly, taking a hearty swig from his beer can. “I told you in the hospital – I went to Cianwood Island to see that Seer.”

“Well, this sounds interesting,” noted Marina, interlocking her fingers and resting her chin on them, an intrigued expression on her face.

Lisa tried to articulate herself without revealing too much emotion.

“I know that but –” she faltered; quite against her will, her voice began to quiver. “I never knew for sure if you made it out of the hospital okay or not.”

She bit her lip. The terror of the hospital siege was rushing back to her: the horror of Emma’s dead, open eyes in the elevator; the door of Gavin’s room being shattered by the Union agents; her shock at not being taken with Gavin when he teleported away; the pressing realisation that she had been captured … Hot, salty tears began to splash down her face.

She felt Marina’s hand rubbing her left arm soothingly, but rather than feeling comforted, Lisa simply felt embarrassed.

“Sorry guys – I’m fine – it’s just hard to think about –” she spluttered, shrugging Marina’s hand away. Then, unable to compose herself, she looked Gavin directly in the eye and shot him a question that she had tortured herself with for days. “Did you ever come back to try to find me?”

Gavin squirmed uncomfortably in his seat, his hands occupied with attempting to bend a small pull-ring out of shape.

“I tried, Lisa,” he said in a leaden tone. “I – I freaked out a bit when I got to the river bank and you weren’t with me.” His voice, too, was hoarse and broken, though he was far too self-conscious to shed a tear. “I tried to teleport back, but it was useless, my energy was so drained. I kept trying but nothing happened. I eventually flew back on Skarmory, but the room was empty – you and the Union were long gone … and I had no idea where.”

“So you just – left?”

“Skar and I flew to a Pokémon centre, where I contacted Lance. He told me what happened to you – that you’d been captured. I –” he hovered over his next words uncertainly, “I took out a lot of my anger on him …” he said abashedly. “Anyway, he said I should keep following the plan we’d established before – and do it as secretly as possible. With Skar, I made my way to Olivine and then surfed here on Staryu. I tracked Jack down and asked him to take me to Cianwood – and he’s a good guy, he was totally happy to do it. So, that’s that,” he said, matter-of-factly.

“Well, you could’ve told me Gavin was okay, at least!” Lisa rounded on Marina in her frustration.

Marina raised a dark eyebrow – mercifully, without firing up.

“Lisa, I told you before I didn’t know anything about Gavin, and that’s true, Lance didn’t tell me a thing, nor did Mum. I didn’t know the Guard knew he was safe.” She paused. “Don’t take your frustration at Gavin out on me.”

Lisa’s face flushed slightly; Marina had taken the high road, and worst of all, Gavin was now regarding Lisa with a look of bemusement, as though he couldn’t quite believe that she was frustrated with him.

“What about the Seer?” Marina quizzed Gavin swiftly. “What was all that about?”

“Lance had located a Seer on Cianwood Island who was apparently a full bottle on everything to do with psychic powers. He thought the Seer might have some information about – you know – my family’s curse and stuff.”

“Sounds like there’s a ‘but’ coming,” Marina said.

“Exactly,” Gavin said, nodding at her. “I found the Seer last night, and he was a really creepy guy, too. Lives in a beach hut that’s even shittier than this, and it’s overrun with Wurmple and Rattata, it’s disgusting.”

Marina grimaced.

“He told me a lot of things about psychic powers,” Gavin continued. “And he gave me some really good tips on how to train myself and take control of my abilities. And he did know a freakish amount about me, if you know what I mean.” Even now, Gavin’s face looked slightly unnerved. “Like, he knew about everything I do, little OCD habits and what pokémon I have on my team and how I used to work at the Radio Tower. And he knew about my family curse, but when I asked how to solve it, how to end it, he just said I should keep training myself, practise my psychic powers …” There was a note of disappointment in his voice that was rather a great deal more bitter than Lisa’s shandy. “It was … kind of anticlimactic, to be honest.”

“Did he mention anything about the psychic creature that you have to fight?” Lisa asked, too curious to remain sullen and silent any longer.

“Oh – yeah,” said Gavin. “He confirmed what we thought – it’s Lunanine. I have to fight a ten-foot-tall rabid black dog that can fire Hyper Beams from its mouth. As you can imagine, I’m pretty much doing backflips about it.”

His sardonic tone sliced through the rather gloomy atmosphere of the dining room; all three of them laughed, mostly because there was nothing else for it; by the bay window, Jamie was still snoring violently.

“So that’s me,” said Gavin, scratching his scar absent-mindedly. He looked at Lisa with a melange of disbelief and admiration. “Lisa, seriously, how the hell did you manage to get away from the Union?”

Lisa filled him in on what had happened to her in the past few days, though, as she had done while recalling the events to both Jamie and Marina, she glazed over the existence of Larry; she was still clinging to the hope that Joseph Sterling hadn’t discovered the double agent in his ranks; that her actions hadn’t directly resulted in the death of an extremely brave man. She fudged a tale of how she had hidden the Buzzball in her bra, and that, when the Union had left her in a small office with only one guard, she had taken the chance to electrocute him, overpower him, steal his Stunner and escape from the Union’s headquarters.

As she trudged through the motions of her lie, Lisa felt a familiar pang of guilt in her stomach at being dishonest with her closest friends – she wondered if she sounded authentic or not – but Gavin did not question her tale. He gasped in all the right places, assuming, like any friend would, that he was being told the truth. She knew, too, that she was only telling a white lie, but it felt foreign and unsettling to not be upfront with her two closest friends. Perhaps the worst thing was, as Marina had remarked earlier that day, how easily the lies now came. But what other choice did she have?

“So I got to the trainer’s entrance to wait for the Guard, and that’s where I met Jamie,” Lisa recounted.

An apprehensive look stole over Gavin’s pale face.

“What’s the go with him?” he asked Lisa directly.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, why is he here?”

Lisa suddenly understood: Gavin’s chestnut-brown eyes were alert with mistrust.

“He’s not a Union agent, Gavin.”

“You don’t know that,” Gavin bulleted back.

Lisa searched for Marina’s face – however, to her surprise, she found that Marina, too, had an apologetic expression.

“Et tu, Marina?”

“I don’t mean to be horrible, Lisa,” Marina said earnestly, her cerise lips downturned slightly. “But – I dunno – I just can’t trust him.”

Lisa felt as though she was backing slowly into a corner.

“Well, I do trust him,” she said defensively. “I know he’s – well – a bit rough around the edges – but he saved me from the Union when they attacked us at the Colosseum. If he were a Union agent, he never would have bothered trying to help me. And besides, the Union attacked him …” She tapered off, rapidly losing confidence in herself, as Gavin regarded her sternly.

“Lisa,” said Gavin. “The Union took the time to infiltrate the Army Reserve so they could take you from the hospital. They tricked you into thinking Morty – a friggin’ Gym Leader – was a good guy, then he stabbed you in the back. They put time and effort into capturing you. Don’t you think that they would do anything – even pretend to attack one of their own – if it meant they would capture you?”

Lisa clenched her teeth as he spoke; she found his voice exceedingly condescending.

“But it makes no sense for him to have done that!” she protested hotly; Gavin raised a finger to his lips, which Lisa found utterly obnoxious in her aggravated state. “They would have had me at the Colosseum anyway – but Jamie helped me get away. He even let me stay at his mother’s house all night, and he never alerted the Union. He even gave me the phone so I could call the Guard.”

Gavin seemed politely indifferent to Lisa’s argument, which only infuriated her further.

“Yeah, Leese, but that doesn’t mean –”

“Oh, for God’s sakes, you two!” Marina cried loudly, making them both jump. “You’ve been back together five seconds and you’re already bickering! Can we just keep it casual, PLEASE? You’re meant to be friends, dammit!”

There was a prolonged silence, broken by Jamie’s rattling breaths. Lisa promptly mumbled her assent, feeling slightly flushed; Gavin cast a surly glance at Marina before following suit.

“Look, I don’t like him much either, Gav,” Marina began, “but it doesn’t make any sense for him to be a Union agent. I think Lisa’s right. And besides, if it weren’t for Jamie, Lisa would never have got the idea for this new plan.”

Gavin blinked. “What new plan?”

Apparently relieved that the tension had broken between Gavin and Lisa, Marina took it upon herself to lighten the mood.

“Lisa’s bleached her hair and gone into renegade action-fighter mode,” she 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.”

“But that’s what the Guard is for,” Gavin argued. “Your parents – what did they say about this?”

“We’re not telling anyone,” said Marina smoothly, and not a moment too soon; Lisa had already begun to get defensive. “We’re doing this alone.”

“So you’re doing it too?” Gavin said, sounding more concerned by the minute.

“Yep,” Marina replied simply. “The Union already used me to get into Raikou’s Sepulchre, I’m no more special to them than any other random off the street now.”

“But –” Gavin seemed to be struggling with the concept. “Surely the safest thing of all would be to just go to the Safe House. All three of us could go, we’d be protected, the Union wouldn’t even have a chance to get at you …”

“But for how long, Gav?” Lisa cried. “All we’ve been doing is running and hiding. The Safe House is just a stall tactic. And even you just mentioned the fact that the Union’s infiltrated the Guard in the past. How do we know that the owners of the Safe House aren’t Union spies themselves, waiting for me to get there so they can turn me in?”

“I wouldn’t put it past them,” Marina chimed in uselessly. “That Mrs Stone is a real bitch. She heard me say the word ‘crap’ to Darius and she made me wash out twenty empty jam jars. TWENTY! Crap’s not even a real swear word!”

“The best step we can take is to take matters into our own hands,” Lisa forged onwards, trying to visualise the poster in Jamie’s bedroom that had given her so much of her newfound confidence. “We can either sit around or we can try to actually do something about it. This is something we could actually do that could make a difference – we could do something without either the Union or the Guard knowing about it – we’d have one-up on both of them …”

But it was clear from Gavin’s grimace that he wasn’t sold on the idea.

“So your plan is to risk your life trying to do, essentially, exactly what the Union wants you to do?”

“They won’t expect me to go willingly to the Sepulchre, Gavin. Actually, it’s probably the last place they’d ever expect me to be. I’d be safer there than at the Safe House.”

Gavin opened his mouth, probably to argue with her, but Marina got in first.

“It does make sense, Gavin,” she said. “Think about it: If we can somehow get Lisa’s fragment without anyone knowing, then we can destroy it ourselves, or if that doesn’t work, we could give it to the Guard directly. It would stop the Union in their tracks.”

Gavin shrugged indifferently and Lisa scowled; it annoyed her that he freely argued with every point she made, but quietly accepted everything when Marina presented it in a slightly different light.

“How is this even going to work, though?” Gavin asked dully. “How are you going to find the Sepulchre?”

“Lisa’s already found it,” Marina said.

“Well, I think I have,” Lisa corrected her. “When I was locked in that office in the Union’s headquarters on Silver Rock Island, I saw a map on the table with a pin stuck in it. The pin was stuck in a place called Lotus Lake. Since they were planning on taking me to the Sepulchre that day … it kind of seems like the Sepulchre must be at Lotus Lake, wherever that is.”

“Mm,” mumbled Gavin.

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard of Lotus Lake,” Marina put in. “And I’ve kayaked through most of the water systems in Johto …”

“I’m pretty sure the map was of Johto,” said Lisa. “We can try to find a map anyway and work it out in the morning.”

“And then traipse through the Union-infested fields of Johto, totally exposed, sounds fun,” said Gavin acidly.

It was the straw that broke the camel’s back: Lisa’s chair slid back as she rose to her feet, jabbing a finger in Gavin’s direction.

“What the hell is your problem, Gavin?!” she cried, tears springing to her eyes for the second time that evening.

“Lisa – easy …” came Marina’s voice.

Gavin was on his feet, too.

“My problem is that after everything that’s happened to you, you still haven’t learnt shit!”

“Gavin, that’s enough,” Marina said sternly.

“No, seriously!” Gavin cried, now facing Marina; his pale face was alive with indignation. “This is so typically Lisa! She gets herself out of one predicament and, instead of taking the safe, sensible option, she goes and throws herself into the dumbest possible scenario again!”

“Dumbest?” Lisa spluttered, lost for words. “Gavin, I –”

“I mean, first she decides to go out on this stupid mission, then she decides to invite some random pothead along for the ride …”

Marina placed her head in her hands as if trying to block out the argument; Lisa prickled at Gavin’s words.

“Gavin, you’re not even making any sense! I didn’t invite Jamie along, he’s not coming with us –”

“– and that’s the first sensible thing you’ve said all night –”

“WHY ARE YOU SO ANGRY WITH ME?”

Lisa nearly shrieked it; she wouldn’t have been surprised if everyone in the household had woken up at once, but she was beyond caring: she couldn’t fathom why on earth Gavin was so incensed with her, nor why she was so incensed with him.

“Because,” Gavin said bitterly, locking eyes with her; his chestnut-brown irises were steely, “you’ve had so many chances, so many lucky escapes, so many people who’ve stuck their necks out for you, and apparently it means absolutely nothing to you!”

Without another look at her, he stormed off down the hall, his door slamming so loudly that Jamie, oblivious to the entire argument thus far, suddenly started and murmured, “Wassat?” before falling back to sleep.

There was a long beat.

After a few seconds, Marina removed her head from her hands, her face miserable. She stood up awkwardly and began tidying up the dining table, crumpling beer cans and throwing them into the kitchen bin.

After standing perfectly still for some time, Lisa joined her, eager for any activity that would take her mind off the argument.

“He’ll come around,” said Marina eventually, offering Lisa a friendly smile as they scraped the remains of their baked beans into the rubbish bin.

“The weirdest thing is that … I don’t even know what we were arguing about, really,” Lisa admitted, flicking a stubborn baked bean into its plastic grave.

The two girls finished clearing the kitchen and then, aware that midnight was approaching, decided to sleep. Unwilling to approach Gavin’s room – where she and Marina were also supposed to sleep – Lisa decided to curl up near Jamie on the wooden floor.

Marina sighed heavily before sinking to the hard floor beside her and sprawling out, clearly uncomfortable.

“The things I do for you, girl,” she grinned jokingly, before rolling over.

Though comforted by Marina’s presence, Lisa lay awake for some time, staring through the bay window at the patchwork of twinkling stars in the warm night sky. Gavin’s final words to her played on loop in her brain:

“Because you’ve had so many chances, so many lucky escapes, so many people who’ve stuck their necks out for you, and apparently it means absolutely nothing to you!”

With a sickening ache in her stomach, she finally understood what he had meant. The horrible dream she had had on Mt Fairfax flashed back to her; the dream where, somehow, she had glimpsed a morsel of Gavin’s entrapment with the Union.

Even when he was tortured for information on her whereabouts, he had never given her up.

The needling pangs of guilt in her stomach kept Lisa awake long after Marina’s snores mingled with Jamie’s. When finally she fell into sleep, she dreamt of how pure Gavin’s face had been before he received that scar.

[Gavin Luper]

Louis: Hello and welcome to LTL, and can I just say, thank you so much for replying to this thread! It means a lot to get new feedback and especially from someone new to the fic, too. And hey - you're officially a reader now, hoorah!

This part made me feel "satisfied", not because I'm vengeful or anything, but because, being the 2nd of 5 children, I know what is like to have a little brother who loves to screw one's plans and get away with it. Obviously, it reminded me of my childhood, so I really felt this part. Awesome job!

Ah, another member of a big family, I see! Yes, this was coming partly from personal experience - I'm number 5 of 6 kids - so I was partly referring to a younger sibling and, I think, partly referring to myself who probably used to irritate my older siblings in that way! Haha shame on me.

This part made me laugh. I don't know if it was meant to be sarcastic, but if it was, it was nicely done too. Also, it was a very accurate description of a burned lace and of course, of the brass tower we loved so much from GSC where the three legendary dogs awaited.

I admit I had to go reread this to see what you meant, because out of context it looks extremely sarcastic! But nope, that was Lisa being pragmatic and deciding that even though things looked maybe a bit spooky, when you break it down to each individual thing, it's not actually scary at all.

...when I finished reading this, for some reason, I thought of the following: "Suicune - Bounce attack". I know, its a crazy thought, and a really random one (since Suicune doesn't learn Bounce), but that's honestly what came to mind.

This is how out of touch I am haha - I didn't even know Bounce was an attack. But nope, it was just Suicune bounding away.

Apart from this, I have to say that this is a nice cliffhanger, since it leaves the reader with the question: Could Lisa and Aimom resist the blinding speed of Suicune when it jumped one floor and rushed outside the building? Is she still holding on to Suicune's fur?

Good question, mate. You will see shortly once you keep reading.

Thanks again for reading and replying, dude - I appreciate it so much (I say this all the time to the point where it must sound insincere by now, but hell, I do, it's the truth).

New chapter is right around the corner ...

No, seriously. Will be up in about 1 week - I'm thinking two weeks between chapters works for people without anyone falling too far behind?

[mattbcl]

So over this past weekend, I decided I'm going to sit down and start reading LtL. The attempt at reading this gargantuan tale has extended into the middle of this week already, and I've only just reached Chapter 20 at this writing, but it's a start, at the very least. I also decided I would do my best to offer comprehensive reviews of each chapter as I go along, and I also want to make sure you get a running score from me. So here goes!

-----------------------------------------

Chapter 1: I'm immediately hooked. Most kids of Lisa's age have a sense of adventure and a wandering mind, but at the same time parents who don't really want them going off and doing anything on their own just yet. Don't much care for Tom, but the way it's written, sounds like that was sort of the point - foisting responsibility off so he can go do what he wants. The kids are little hellions... they remind me almost too much of my sister when she was that age, looking to get me in trouble over something or other. The battle with Ray was good, very descriptive... and it was silly to see Lisa putting down his Koffing when she'd done nothing yet to demonstrate her Aipom could do any better. Touch of overconfidence, maybe? And finally, the legendary dogs. If none of the rest of your chapter got me, this did, seeing her "jump on board" and hang on for dear life. (Sounds a little familiar to me! ) I'm enthralled with your vocabulary - a writer who uses a broad range gets major kudos from me. A wonderful first entry in what looks to be a very promising read.

Chapter 2: Haha, nice try, attempting to capture Suicune! But a Wooper works, too - it's invaluable. I could swear I've met people like Anna all my life... hated every one of 'em and, like Lisa, would go out of my way to oppose everything they told me. And Lisa's behavior at her loss to Kris and Hiro sounds about how I'd feel, I think, at losing at pretty much anything. So I'm really feeling like I can identify with her.

Chapter 3: Gotta love Aipom gnawing on Lisa's ear. Those little tics and eccentricities help make it feel more real. Also... three hundred dollars? Good lord, I certainly hope she meant three! Ribbing at the currency inconsistencies in the games, perhaps? And Kipp Anderson - the name itself made my skin crawl. Visceral reaction, I suppose, but looks like it was well-founded when I saw his description. Tom's phone call came at an inconvenient and unexpected point in Lisa's activities, but that's the way these things usually go... and I'm tilting my head at him. He's letting Lisa go, as long as she comes back to explain herself and he won't be blamed for anything? What, is he three years old? I fully expect that their parents will still go nuts on him for allowing it. Dude just doesn't want to make an effort. He can't avoid responsibility forever. Moving on to the contest... that's now the second time - third time! - in a row Lisa's had a ball hit a Pokemon she didn't mean to catch. I sense her luck's going to continue in this fashion. I like Hiro's despondence... "I won! But now I have to hang out with a ladykiller... damn!"

Chapter 4: Uh-oh, here comes the rival. I suspected when I read his description but knew it had to be him when Hiro and Kris were suddenly hush-hush. I'm rather glad I never had friends who became enemies, but I know many who do. Usually it involved superiority complexes or misunderstandings. Tyler's personality reflects a spoiled brat... and obviously accustomed to getting his way. Attacking during evolution, how cheap. Poor Hiro. Hoping to see him kick Tyler's ass later on... assuming we'll see him again!

Chapter 5: My my. Sounds like a pretty cool librarian... if a bit of a five-year-old at first. Though I'll bet that was mostly revenge for Lisa calling him "Eugene". I like that he's a nerfed psychic; you'd want him not to be able to do much, at least in the beginning. Maybe as he gains more Psychic Pokemon, he'll be able to do more? Cursing galore towards the end, but then again, I probably would be letting loose a blue streak of my own if I was under that sort of attack... ready to find out what it was!

Chapter 6: Eusine strikes me as a very strange sort... also, it doesn't seem to have struck Lisa how lucky she is to be alive when there were twenty other people killed. Then again, I suppose I shouldn't expect it... she's fourteen, and still trying to deal with the fact that she lost two days. I was wondering what happened to Natu... after all, it seemed to be the one responsible for getting them OUT of the tower... and it seems kind of a funny descriptor, emotion "stealthily" creeping into his voice. He's yelling at her - sounds like it's pouring off him in waves! But still, I'm interested to find out what happens next. Onward!

Chapter 7: I wonder how the conversation between Lisa and Gavin went down so that they were able to make up with each other. I also wonder what happened to Natu in the interim, beyond evidently appearing to Officer Jenny... Hmm, Tom shows concern, but I'm left to wonder how genuine it is in regards to the safety of his sister, versus his level of complicity. Feh, that's a bad reporter, asking how they feel - how are they expected to answer that question? Nice retort from Aipom, though. There's your answer. Gavin being kind of a jerk about Jenny for no apparent reason, though. Moving on to the battle... a Granbull and a Mankey weren't quite what I expected to see in those balls at all, never mind seeing Lisa decide to battle with them. But hey, it worked. I notice that Gavin has a habit of opening his mouth and then closing it again, as though constantly second-guessing himself on what to say... it appears enough in the story to be a tad nagging. But I'm going to assume there's a reason for it. Someone likes Lisa, maybe? Looks like it...

Chapter 8: Aha, now we have a Gavin-centric opening. Good - I was hoping for a different perspective soon, since it lets you inhabit the head of another character and show us his take on situations. Can't tell you how many times I've done the dine-and-dash rush you describe... in fact, almost exactly that way, head under the tap and all. Pretty desperate to go leaping out the window, though... I'd have thought his fifteen minutes of fame were already gone. Guess they're lasting more like half an hour. Woop, Halloween... and why's Suicune angry at Lisa? Well, duh, she's instructing Quagsire to attack it! Who WOULDN'T be a bit peeved at that? Still, Gavin to the rescue! And my my... Lisa's a bit quick to offer Girafarig to Gavin... and odd that she would forget Quagsire on the beach, the poor thing was still "in battle" with Suicune... hmm... sure, NOW the beach has Pokemon on it, like they knew she was coming to catch them before... but now Quagsire's pissed, and I get why. Wonder what'll happen next...

Chapter 9: Heh, the image of a Staryu walking - I figured it might try to tumble its way to her like a wheel but yours is a more striking and memorable image. It might be worth noting that the time it takes you to write/post chapters is evident in the way they're written; in the continuity of your story, Lisa only caught Girafarig the day before, but it's made to sound like it had been a long time since the capture was accomplished. Anyway, on with the review - nice interlude with Lock and the evil grunt-type dude... bwahaha, Aipom caught Dratini! Wait, does that mean Aipom has to give it orders now? Probably not. I'm surprised Irene agreed to a rematch for Quagsire, since she won the first time... and how's she to truly know it was Lisa's to begin with? Hell of a Poliwhirl... what'll happen to Aipom?

Chapter 10: I see a little narrator's bias against Irene - spoiled, accustomed to having her way, carefree, doing anything to win, evil - so I can only conclude this was not to be a nice person from the very beginning. But then, at the end of the battle, she's actually being informative and even a fair sportsman. What a contradiction. ... Green Lanturns? Guardians of the ocean? "In brightest day, in blackest night..." Nice catch. Lisa's jealous, since I haven't seen her make a "proper" one yet! Funny how she almost tried to get Gavin to "return" in a ball. I like Aipom's jealousy - "Hey! That's MY spot!"

Chapter 11: Been a while since Aipom's nibbled on her ear. And that is one seriously cranky Nurse Joy - I've only ever seen her slightly huffy, not full on grouchy. But evidently her mood doesn't even compare to Lisa's after Jack just vanishes like that. I'd want to hear a "thank you" as well. But even then it wasn't good enough... I like that the smallness of what she's after only catches up to her once she's in his face, as it so often happens in real life. The start of the battle reads more like something out of ASB, and I do like that the Pokemon know more than four attacks. That makes more sense to me. Though why does Lisa get annoyed with him calling for two attacks in a row when she called for three in the very beginning? But she won, so it's all good. And another whirlpool? Well, all right, then...

Chapter 12: Knock Gavin out and oh, he can wait. Feh. Poor guy gets no respect. Lisa could demonstrate a little more thanks to him - she can be so awkward sometimes, as I suppose befits someone of her age, experience, and temperament. She gets an Elekid for her trouble? Hot damn, I want one. Gavin's cousins with Sabrina and Will? Yikes. Yes, that would be a fairly cuckoo family. And an odd curse to have to endure. Poor guy, though, always having to look over his shoulder - psychically speaking, I guess.

Chapter 13: There's a bit of a scary experience, waking up somewhere unknown with nary a clue as to how you arrived... at least, at first. The familiar faces must've been a welcome sight. I like Jack's inflections now, slurred and blurry. I note that at first Gavin has no truble running, then suddenly is panting for breath - a sprinter and not a cross-country marathoner, I take it. Nice trigger for his abilities, unbearable pain. May as well use it if he's got it. Moving on to the Cup - rolling my eyes at randomly sexist Lisa. Alicia's hair... green or blonde? I saw it described as both. But I did enjoy the battle; sometimes I wonder if Pokemon just suddenly "know" a move or if they concentrate as you describe Staryu doing.

Chapter 14: At first I was wondering if Lisa was going to catch the Vulpix or not! Seems cruel to leave a Fire-Type Pokemon floating there in the water... all it wanted was a bath, dammit! She's pretty randomly rude, slapping Gavin around, knocking around defenseless Pokemon... I'm never sure whether to like her or hate her. Though I do worry for her after the dude with the knife attacked Irene. ... Ugh, Anna. Awesome battle! Great description and effect. I can visualize it. But - what's to become of Dratini and Psyduck?

Chapter 15: Professional commentator, I'll give him that much, but at this point, it's pretty clear it's no longer standard battling environs. Finally Anna tries to help, and Gavin... nobody else wants to throw a Pokemon or two in there? Diffusion of responsibility for the fail. Whoop, spoke too soon... or maybe too late! Fifteen minutes and NOW they come rushing in. Gavin comes to the rescue in a very different way - shame he ends up in a bigger mess than the one he's trying to resolve. Hah, I knew Lisa was liking him. And now Tom knows about Gavin's psychic "problem"? Makes sense, he does train under Morty. But Gavin's trying to blow off the legend as not a big deal... not such a good idea for him.

Chapter 16: Hah, stray Water Gun hitting a spectator. I've wondered what happens to attacks that go astray in a colosseum. Gavin thinks Octillery looks happy, then thinks it's too hard to tell? The boy's a mound of indecisiveness, poor guy. Hey, lookie there, a win for him. Nice digs they're in - once again, I enjoy your description, and I also like Gavin's attempt to make the best of a less-than-mediocre setting. I wondered when Lisa would remember that she'd been out to find Legendaries... no kidding, she got massively sidetracked. The "Psyspin" idea fascinates me - up until the point it heads for Quagsire.

Chapter 17: Gavin punching himself in the head to activate his abilities? That's sort of asking for it, right there in the middle of the battle. Until that point he had no indication that he could control the amount of energy he unleashes each time it happens. He's ballsy, though, turning it all around on Lisa and Marina by using psychic instructions instead of spoken ones, and letting them think the spoken ones were what he wanted. Ah, well, good show to Lisa. But on to the rest of the fight - it's been a few weeks since Lanturn's capture? Only a few days, I thought... and what in the world? Tentacraw? A ghost jellyfish? Sheesh, keep me away. Lanturn would have some resistance to its own electricity, so I wouldn't expect much damage to it, if any. But it seems it wasn't enough - and probably that's for the best. There'd be too much resentment between Lisa and Gavin if one of them had won. Besides, she and Golduck had done the smart thing by withdrawing from the fight until those two got their issue worked out.

Chapter 18: Heh, that Aipom just can't resist a nip. And I'll be honest, Lisa's reaction was more amusing than anything else - "You're a STALKER!" I'm more curious about Gavin's exploration of the cave, although this Westwood character is exceedingly strange. Lugia? Yes, please... though to find it in a cave would be weird for me, as I'd expect to find it in the water. Perhaps that's part of its strategy, though - keep people from finding it too easily. And... well, if I were Lisa, I wouldn't bother consulting Gavin, either. A room is a room, after all! And... a Ditto? Now that's funny. Looking forward to seeing what happens with the Black Beast - that is to say, Lunanine...

Chapter 19: A sweltering December... I sometimes forget weather on the southern hemisphere opposes that of the north. The story's moved ahead quite some time now. Ha, I knew we'd be seeing Kris and Hiro again - except this seems to be without Hiro for the moment. Poor Gavin, feeling left out of the loop. And now Suicune is behaving even more oddly than before - there's been nothing about its behavior so far that indicates any sort of normalcy when dealing with these kids. Hmm... I wonder what that Raichu was up to. Quite a random encounter. Once again, nice battle. But the aside at the bottom confuses me - if Suicune (and the others, for that matter) can turn invisible, why hasn't it done so on previous occasion so it can be left alone? Why keep appearing to Lisa and Gavin? Guess I'd better keep reading to find out.

Chapter 20: Gavin's less than enthused, I see, but Lisa's got his number. But I wonder how it is Lisa's feeling back at the start of her journey - didn't it have to do with legendaries? She doesn't really seem to know what it is she wants out of the journey. Giving up Vulpix? I wouldn't! But I'm not her. I wonder what's happening to Professor Oak. For that matter, I wonder what's going on with this Rocket - what is it Lisa's been "interfering" with that's set him after her? Not much of a contest for Gavin, but it looks like Julia's feminine wiles (and other attributes) seem to be wowing him. But so much for romance. Maybe he'll be a bit more careful next time! And Lisa gets a Magneton - well, maybe two Electric Pokemon are better than one. And above it all, the burning question: why are the legendaries so interested in her and her friends?

Too many questions and not enough answers at the end of Book 1. I guess that's why I'll have to keep reading. Congrats, Gavin, you've gotten me into this. Twenty chapters down... fifty-plus to go. Hooray?

[Shadow Wolf]

Well, I have a practice interview in a few hours, so I needed to calm down a bit. Why not read a bit more about LTL?

Suicune was faster than any car on the Ecruteak Expressway. Lisa was sure that it never became tired at all, and it hadn’t stopped once in the whole hour Lisa had been on the mysterious creature’s back.

You know? I wonder how she managed to hold on for a whole hour. I mean, hanging onto Suicune's fur would be somehow similar to riding a motorcycle, except that you aren't controlling it. Still, it was a fitting description for the legendary pokemon.

Suicune raced along through the forest, not actually wanting to shake off his passengers. He needed them … he just needed to see what to do about them.

This definitely caught my attention. Why would Suicune "need" Lisa, a young and inexperienced trainer? The only thing that came to mind was that, just like a master recognizes a student's potential, Suicune must have felt the potential within Lisa. If this is right, then this promises to be an interesting story.

“No, Suicune, don’t go!” Lisa yelled. In a last, desperate attempt to keep Suicune with her, Lisa threw a Pokeball at the legendary aurora Pokemon. The water type shrugged it off, and the pokeball fell down onto tiny Wooper, who turned red and dematerialised into the ball.

“ Hey…” Lisa said slowly, as the ball wobbled to and fro, and finally came to a halt, and rolled onto it’s inverse.

“ Ai?” Aipom said.

“ I … caught Wooper.” Lisa said, in a shaky voice that sounded nothing like her usual one. “ I caught another Pokemon!”

Lisa might not have notice it, but Suicune had just helped her catch a pokemon, Hey, that's quite a priviledge! To have a legendary pokemon (which does not belong to her) help her... it reminded me of the time Haunter helped Ash with Sabrina. I wonder if I will see a Wooper/Quagsire vs. Suicune battle in a near future?

The rest of the story was simple, so I just followed it while reading normally. But anyways, I have to say that this promises to be interesting. And even though this was written a long time ago, I could feel the ability you had at that time as a writer. I can say for sure that I'll be expecting much from the progress of this story, as well as the progress of your writing skills.

[Gavin Luper]

Wow. I never would have thought, after more than nine years, I would still have new readers picking up this story and actually finding it interesting, despite the dubious thirteen-year-old writing skills for the first twenty chapters or so. And yet here the two of you are (Louis and Matt). Thanks so much to both of you for your feedback - I absolutely love hearing it, whether complimentary or critical.

So over this past weekend, I decided I'm going to sit down and start reading LtL. The attempt at reading this gargantuan tale has extended into the middle of this week already, and I've only just reached Chapter 20 at this writing, but it's a start, at the very least. I also decided I would do my best to offer comprehensive reviews of each chapter as I go along, and I also want to make sure you get a running score from me. So here goes!

-----------------------------------------

Chapter 1: I'm immediately hooked. Most kids of Lisa's age have a sense of adventure and a wandering mind, but at the same time parents who don't really want them going off and doing anything on their own just yet. Don't much care for Tom, but the way it's written, sounds like that was sort of the point - foisting responsibility off so he can go do what he wants. The kids are little hellions... they remind me almost too much of my sister when she was that age, looking to get me in trouble over something or other. The battle with Ray was good, very descriptive... and it was silly to see Lisa putting down his Koffing when she'd done nothing yet to demonstrate her Aipom could do any better. Touch of overconfidence, maybe? And finally, the legendary dogs. If none of the rest of your chapter got me, this did, seeing her "jump on board" and hang on for dear life. (Sounds a little familiar to me! ) I'm enthralled with your vocabulary - a writer who uses a broad range gets major kudos from me. A wonderful first entry in what looks to be a very promising read.

Indeed, Lisa might have thought she was more of a hot shot than she actually was. What does the Suicune-jumping-aboard thing seem familiar to? I can't place it. Thanks for the vocab comments.

Chapter 2: Haha, nice try, attempting to capture Suicune! But a Wooper works, too - it's invaluable. I could swear I've met people like Anna all my life... hated every one of 'em and, like Lisa, would go out of my way to oppose everything they told me. And Lisa's behavior at her loss to Kris and Hiro sounds about how I'd feel, I think, at losing at pretty much anything. So I'm really feeling like I can identify with her.

Yep, Annas are out there. And an important first loss - she did really need to be brought down to reality a bit, I think.

Chapter 3: Gotta love Aipom gnawing on Lisa's ear. Those little tics and eccentricities help make it feel more real. Also... three hundred dollars? Good lord, I certainly hope she meant three! Ribbing at the currency inconsistencies in the games, perhaps? And Kipp Anderson - the name itself made my skin crawl. Visceral reaction, I suppose, but looks like it was well-founded when I saw his description. Tom's phone call came at an inconvenient and unexpected point in Lisa's activities, but that's the way these things usually go... and I'm tilting my head at him. He's letting Lisa go, as long as she comes back to explain herself and he won't be blamed for anything? What, is he three years old? I fully expect that their parents will still go nuts on him for allowing it. Dude just doesn't want to make an effort. He can't avoid responsibility forever. Moving on to the contest... that's now the second time - third time! - in a row Lisa's had a ball hit a Pokemon she didn't mean to catch. I sense her luck's going to continue in this fashion. I like Hiro's despondence... "I won! But now I have to hang out with a ladykiller... damn!"

Tom is classically irresponsible and self-serving at this point, I agree! I swear there are Kipps out there in the real world, as well as Annas.

Chapter 4: Uh-oh, here comes the rival. I suspected when I read his description but knew it had to be him when Hiro and Kris were suddenly hush-hush. I'm rather glad I never had friends who became enemies, but I know many who do. Usually it involved superiority complexes or misunderstandings. Tyler's personality reflects a spoiled brat... and obviously accustomed to getting his way. Attacking during evolution, how cheap. Poor Hiro. Hoping to see him kick Tyler's ass later on... assuming we'll see him again!

Mayyyybeeeee ...

Chapter 5: My my. Sounds like a pretty cool librarian... if a bit of a five-year-old at first. Though I'll bet that was mostly revenge for Lisa calling him "Eugene". I like that he's a nerfed psychic; you'd want him not to be able to do much, at least in the beginning. Maybe as he gains more Psychic Pokemon, he'll be able to do more? Cursing galore towards the end, but then again, I probably would be letting loose a blue streak of my own if I was under that sort of attack... ready to find out what it was!

Yes, Lisa again was a little bit tactless - shows how nascent she is on her journey, I feel.

Chapter 6: Eusine strikes me as a very strange sort... also, it doesn't seem to have struck Lisa how lucky she is to be alive when there were twenty other people killed. Then again, I suppose I shouldn't expect it... she's fourteen, and still trying to deal with the fact that she lost two days. I was wondering what happened to Natu... after all, it seemed to be the one responsible for getting them OUT of the tower... and it seems kind of a funny descriptor, emotion "stealthily" creeping into his voice. He's yelling at her - sounds like it's pouring off him in waves! But still, I'm interested to find out what happens next. Onward!

Hmm, interesting thought. I think I imagined the emotion gradually building in his tone as he spoke, but perhaps "steadily" would have been a better word, since it wasn't that hidden. I think when I wrote it I meant it from his point of view: i.e. the emotion was creeping in stealthily whether he wanted it to or not, if that makes sense?

Chapter 7: I wonder how the conversation between Lisa and Gavin went down so that they were able to make up with each other. I also wonder what happened to Natu in the interim, beyond evidently appearing to Officer Jenny... Hmm, Tom shows concern, but I'm left to wonder how genuine it is in regards to the safety of his sister, versus his level of complicity. Feh, that's a bad reporter, asking how they feel - how are they expected to answer that question? Nice retort from Aipom, though. There's your answer. Gavin being kind of a jerk about Jenny for no apparent reason, though. Moving on to the battle... a Granbull and a Mankey weren't quite what I expected to see in those balls at all, never mind seeing Lisa decide to battle with them. But hey, it worked. I notice that Gavin has a habit of opening his mouth and then closing it again, as though constantly second-guessing himself on what to say... it appears enough in the story to be a tad nagging. But I'm going to assume there's a reason for it. Someone likes Lisa, maybe? Looks like it...

You could put Gavin's behaviour down, at least in part, to classic teenage boy insecurity and uncertainty.

Chapter 8: Aha, now we have a Gavin-centric opening. Good - I was hoping for a different perspective soon, since it lets you inhabit the head of another character and show us his take on situations. Can't tell you how many times I've done the dine-and-dash rush you describe... in fact, almost exactly that way, head under the tap and all.

Yep, me too, before running out to the pub etc.

Pretty desperate to go leaping out the window, though... I'd have thought his fifteen minutes of fame were already gone. Guess they're lasting more like half an hour. Woop, Halloween... and why's Suicune angry at Lisa? Well, duh, she's instructing Quagsire to attack it! Who WOULDN'T be a bit peeved at that? Still, Gavin to the rescue! And my my... Lisa's a bit quick to offer Girafarig to Gavin... and odd that she would forget Quagsire on the beach, the poor thing was still "in battle" with Suicune... hmm... sure, NOW the beach has Pokemon on it, like they knew she was coming to catch them before... but now Quagsire's pissed, and I get why. Wonder what'll happen next...

I'm gonna do a Gavin on this one and open my mouth and close it again without saying anything. You'll know why in due course.

Chapter 9: Heh, the image of a Staryu walking - I figured it might try to tumble its way to her like a wheel but yours is a more striking and memorable image. It might be worth noting that the time it takes you to write/post chapters is evident in the way they're written; in the continuity of your story, Lisa only caught Girafarig the day before, but it's made to sound like it had been a long time since the capture was accomplished. Anyway, on with the review - nice interlude with Lock and the evil grunt-type dude... bwahaha, Aipom caught Dratini! Wait, does that mean Aipom has to give it orders now? Probably not. I'm surprised Irene agreed to a rematch for Quagsire, since she won the first time... and how's she to truly know it was Lisa's to begin with? Hell of a Poliwhirl... what'll happen to Aipom?

I think it had been a couple of days since Girafarig was caught, but yes, good point, the kind of sweet moment between Lisa and Girafarig doesn't work much given they probably only had two battles together. I'll put that down to the writer being young and a little more rampantly sentimental at the time. ^_^

Chapter 10: I see a little narrator's bias against Irene - spoiled, accustomed to having her way, carefree, doing anything to win, evil - so I can only conclude this was not to be a nice person from the very beginning. But then, at the end of the battle, she's actually being informative and even a fair sportsman. What a contradiction. ... Green Lanturns? Guardians of the ocean? "In brightest day, in blackest night..." Nice catch. Lisa's jealous, since I haven't seen her make a "proper" one yet! Funny how she almost tried to get Gavin to "return" in a ball. I like Aipom's jealousy - "Hey! That's MY spot!"

Guilty as charged of the bias - Irene was a bit of a cow, let's face it. Also, I genuinely had no idea what I was alluding to with the Green Lanturn: I literally just wanted to make a shiny one that was green instead of blue. It was only when my early readers responded with "ha, we see what you did there!" that I looked it up and realised the unintentional reference. Interestingly, Green Lantern is now my favourite superhero. Glad you liked Lisa returning Gavin.

Chapter 11: Been a while since Aipom's nibbled on her ear. And that is one seriously cranky Nurse Joy - I've only ever seen her slightly huffy, not full on grouchy. But evidently her mood doesn't even compare to Lisa's after Jack just vanishes like that. I'd want to hear a "thank you" as well. But even then it wasn't good enough... I like that the smallness of what she's after only catches up to her once she's in his face, as it so often happens in real life. The start of the battle reads more like something out of ASB, and I do like that the Pokemon know more than four attacks. That makes more sense to me. Though why does Lisa get annoyed with him calling for two attacks in a row when she called for three in the very beginning? But she won, so it's all good. And another whirlpool? Well, all right, then...

Haha, I had never even noticed the hypocrisy before. I'll put it down to Lisa being in the heat of battle. ^_^

Chapter 12: Knock Gavin out and oh, he can wait. Feh. Poor guy gets no respect. Lisa could demonstrate a little more thanks to him - she can be so awkward sometimes, as I suppose befits someone of her age, experience, and temperament. She gets an Elekid for her trouble? Hot damn, I want one. Gavin's cousins with Sabrina and Will? Yikes. Yes, that would be a fairly cuckoo family. And an odd curse to have to endure. Poor guy, though, always having to look over his shoulder - psychically speaking, I guess.

Indeed, Gavin's got quite a burden, really, poor dude.

Chapter 13: There's a bit of a scary experience, waking up somewhere unknown with nary a clue as to how you arrived... at least, at first. The familiar faces must've been a welcome sight. I like Jack's inflections now, slurred and blurry. I note that at first Gavin has no truble running, then suddenly is panting for breath - a sprinter and not a cross-country marathoner, I take it. Nice trigger for his abilities, unbearable pain. May as well use it if he's got it. Moving on to the Cup - rolling my eyes at randomly sexist Lisa. Alicia's hair... green or blonde? I saw it described as both. But I did enjoy the battle; sometimes I wonder if Pokemon just suddenly "know" a move or if they concentrate as you describe Staryu doing.

I love Jack a lot, I have to say. Yes, Lisa's little thought was quite sexist yet it is quite fitting to how girls are encouraged to view boys, I think.

Whoa, never noticed the green/blonde hair slip-up before. Will fix - it was meant to be green. I'd wager the descriptive line about the blonde hair was added in during a hurried edit during the second posting of this fic on the ezboard; this version here is the third posting of the fic.

Chapter 14: At first I was wondering if Lisa was going to catch the Vulpix or not! Seems cruel to leave a Fire-Type Pokemon floating there in the water... all it wanted was a bath, dammit! She's pretty randomly rude, slapping Gavin around, knocking around defenseless Pokemon... I'm never sure whether to like her or hate her. Though I do worry for her after the dude with the knife attacked Irene. ... Ugh, Anna. Awesome battle! Great description and effect. I can visualize it. But - what's to become of Dratini and Psyduck?

It's so cool to hear feedback on Lisa's character, because to a large extent she seemed a petulant, teenage girl but overall, quite lovely to me when I initially wrote her, then got feedback saying things like, "wow, what a bitch" or "can't believe she said that". Which probably reflects on me a lot more than her. ^_^ I think it's good, she's a tough and carefree kind of character at this stage - maybe because she's fourteen and she hasn't had a whole lot of life experience to shape her yet?

Chapter 15: Professional commentator, I'll give him that much, but at this point, it's pretty clear it's no longer standard battling environs. Finally Anna tries to help, and Gavin... nobody else wants to throw a Pokemon or two in there? Diffusion of responsibility for the fail. Whoop, spoke too soon... or maybe too late! Fifteen minutes and NOW they come rushing in. Gavin comes to the rescue in a very different way - shame he ends up in a bigger mess than the one he's trying to resolve. Hah, I knew Lisa was liking him. And now Tom knows about Gavin's psychic "problem"? Makes sense, he does train under Morty. But Gavin's trying to blow off the legend as not a big deal... not such a good idea for him.

Indeed, trying to ignore your demons doesn't banish them in the slightest, only gives them more time to gestate.

Chapter 16: Hah, stray Water Gun hitting a spectator. I've wondered what happens to attacks that go astray in a colosseum. Gavin thinks Octillery looks happy, then thinks it's too hard to tell? The boy's a mound of indecisiveness, poor guy. Hey, lookie there, a win for him. Nice digs they're in - once again, I enjoy your description, and I also like Gavin's attempt to make the best of a less-than-mediocre setting. I wondered when Lisa would remember that she'd been out to find Legendaries... no kidding, she got massively sidetracked. The "Psyspin" idea fascinates me - up until the point it heads for Quagsire.

Haha glad you liked the stray Water Gun!

Chapter 17: Gavin punching himself in the head to activate his abilities? That's sort of asking for it, right there in the middle of the battle. Until that point he had no indication that he could control the amount of energy he unleashes each time it happens. He's ballsy, though, turning it all around on Lisa and Marina by using psychic instructions instead of spoken ones, and letting them think the spoken ones were what he wanted. Ah, well, good show to Lisa. But on to the rest of the fight - it's been a few weeks since Lanturn's capture? Only a few days, I thought... and what in the world? Tentacraw? A ghost jellyfish? Sheesh, keep me away. Lanturn would have some resistance to its own electricity, so I wouldn't expect much damage to it, if any. But it seems it wasn't enough - and probably that's for the best. There'd be too much resentment between Lisa and Gavin if one of them had won. Besides, she and Golduck had done the smart thing by withdrawing from the fight until those two got their issue worked out.

Yep, Tentacraw is a scary beast. Indeed, Marina played the game very well there - she's quite a good trainer.

Chapter 18: Heh, that Aipom just can't resist a nip. And I'll be honest, Lisa's reaction was more amusing than anything else - "You're a STALKER!" I'm more curious about Gavin's exploration of the cave, although this Westwood character is exceedingly strange. Lugia? Yes, please... though to find it in a cave would be weird for me, as I'd expect to find it in the water. Perhaps that's part of its strategy, though - keep people from finding it too easily. And... well, if I were Lisa, I wouldn't bother consulting Gavin, either. A room is a room, after all! And... a Ditto? Now that's funny. Looking forward to seeing what happens with the Black Beast - that is to say, Lunanine...

Westwood is a bit intriguing, isn't he?

Chapter 19: A sweltering December... I sometimes forget weather on the southern hemisphere opposes that of the north. The story's moved ahead quite some time now. Ha, I knew we'd be seeing Kris and Hiro again - except this seems to be without Hiro for the moment. Poor Gavin, feeling left out of the loop. And now Suicune is behaving even more oddly than before - there's been nothing about its behavior so far that indicates any sort of normalcy when dealing with these kids. Hmm... I wonder what that Raichu was up to. Quite a random encounter. Once again, nice battle. But the aside at the bottom confuses me - if Suicune (and the others, for that matter) can turn invisible, why hasn't it done so on previous occasion so it can be left alone? Why keep appearing to Lisa and Gavin? Guess I'd better keep reading to find out.

Oh, what a question! Indeed! Read on, my friend.

Chapter 20: Gavin's less than enthused, I see, but Lisa's got his number. But I wonder how it is Lisa's feeling back at the start of her journey - didn't it have to do with legendaries? She doesn't really seem to know what it is she wants out of the journey. Giving up Vulpix? I wouldn't! But I'm not her. I wonder what's happening to Professor Oak. For that matter, I wonder what's going on with this Rocket - what is it Lisa's been "interfering" with that's set him after her? Not much of a contest for Gavin, but it looks like Julia's feminine wiles (and other attributes) seem to be wowing him. But so much for romance. Maybe he'll be a bit more careful next time! And Lisa gets a Magneton - well, maybe two Electric Pokemon are better than one. And above it all, the burning question: why are the legendaries so interested in her and her friends?

Why, indeed?

Too many questions and not enough answers at the end of Book 1. I guess that's why I'll have to keep reading. Congrats, Gavin, you've gotten me into this. Twenty chapters down... fifty-plus to go. Hooray?

Hahaha, I can only imagine the looming task of fifty chapters - I hope they are all interesting enough to keep you engaged. My writing style develops enormously over the second book, I think, so hopefully it is more captivating from here on in.

Thanks so much for the Book 1 review, mate. It was awesome to get the feedback and as always, I felt the need to reply, since you took so much time of your own to give me the feedback. Also, getting a full recap on Book 1 was quite helpful for me, it made me re-examine a few things in previous chapters and refresh myself on a few plot points. Some of them are about to be very, very relevant in the next few chapters!

Thanks Matt for your readership and detailed responses and I hope I have you on board for the rest of this ride!

Well, I have a practice interview in a few hours, so I needed to calm down a bit. Why not read a bit more about LTL?

Glad that LTL can be of service, my friend!

You know? I wonder how she managed to hold on for a whole hour. I mean, hanging onto Suicune's fur would be somehow similar to riding a motorcycle, except that you aren't controlling it. Still, it was a fitting description for the legendary pokemon.

She clung on for dear life!

This definitely caught my attention. Why would Suicune "need" Lisa, a young and inexperienced trainer? The only thing that came to mind was that, just like a master recognizes a student's potential, Suicune must have felt the potential within Lisa. If this is right, then this promises to be an interesting story.

I'll say nothing on this subject for fear of ruining the future chapters.

Lisa might not have notice it, but Suicune had just helped her catch a pokemon, Hey, that's quite a priviledge! To have a legendary pokemon (which does not belong to her) help her... it reminded me of the time Haunter helped Ash with Sabrina. I wonder if I will see a Wooper/Quagsire vs. Suicune battle in a near future?

True, it was through Suicune's presence that that capture occurred. As for the aforementioned potential battle ... I'll say nothing, either! ^_^

The rest of the story was simple, so I just followed it while reading normally. But anyways, I have to say that this promises to be interesting. And even though this was written a long time ago, I could feel the ability you had at that time as a writer. I can say for sure that I'll be expecting much from the progress of this story, as well as the progress of your writing skills.

Thanks Louis! I have to admit I'm torn between thinking "oh man, how crap was I?" and "well, for a thirteen-year-old, it wasn't too shabby, really". So, thanks. I definitely will say that I feel and have received feedback that my writing improves dramatically over the course of Book 2, so I hope you enjoy those chapters when you get to them.

Thank you so much to both of you. I'm going to go do some final Chapter 72 editing and will post it up later today!

Cheers!

[Gavin Luper]

Hello readers,

Here we are on the precipice, one chapter away from a thick and fast acceleration.

Enjoy it.

Cheers!

+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+

Chapter 72 – Lotus Lake.


“We are close.”

Joseph Sterling swirled the remains of a vodka martini and downed it swiftly, a dark grin stealing over his swarthy face.

Veronica Stawell smiled and flicked her blonde hair over her shoulder. With a cautious glance around the rest of the Red Rock Island’s exclusive Emerald Club cocktail lounge – almost completely empty in the wee hours of the morning – she turned back to her black-clothed boss.

“How much longer before you have a location, Joe? My teams are restless. Especially after what happened at the Colosseum …”

“Don’t talk to me about that little bitch getting away, I’ll only get pissed off again,” Sterling snarled, glancing at the bar. “Barman! BARMAN!”

A blond-haired man in a waistcoat timidly emerged from behind the bar.

“Another martini,” Sterling barked.

“Y-yes,” the barman muttered meekly, clattering glassware nervously.

“Well?” Veronica prodded, tapping her nails on the table in front of Sterling.

Sterling smirked.

“Patience, Ronnie. I should have an exact location by tomorrow night. And within two days, I assure you, the Third Key will be ours.”

*

It was still dark when rough hands woke Lisa. She stirred.

“What’s going on?”

“Just me, Leese,” came Jack’s gruff voice. “C’arn, we gotta get an early start back to the mainland … C’arn … follow me …”

Making sure she had her new pokéballs on her person, Lisa allowed Jack to deck her out with rubber boots and wrap her in one of his wool-lined jackets; it smelled pungently of Seaking scales. Lisa mumbled a sleepy goodbye to Jamie, who winked by way of farewell, and, Marina and Gavin by her side, allowed Jack to walk her out of the hut and down to the nearby beach, where Frank’s white fishing vessel awaited.

Despite the stench of her jacket, Lisa was glad of it when she stepped outside: at five in the morning, the sun had yet to rise, and the salty sea air was frigid against Lisa’s cheeks. Jack seemed to sense that she was still half-asleep and helped her wade out to the boat, where she climbed the ladder onto the deck and, following Jack’s instructions, crawled below deck into the warm cabin, where two double bunks awaited them.

Lisa collapsed onto the bunk and immediately returned to a deep sleep.

*

“Tu tu!”

“Hrrrrmph?”

“Tu!!”

“Ouch!”

A sharp scratch on the cheek awoke Lisa: her eyes flew open to see a small orb of green feathers perched on her chest, talon digging into her band T-shirt slightly.

“That hurt, Natu …”

“Tuuuuu,” cooed Natu, completely oblivious to Lisa’s pain. He extended his yellow beak toward her: there was a folded piece of paper within it. Rubbing crusty sleep from her eyes, Lisa took the note and opened it.

Gavin had scrawled, in his messy handwriting, a single word.

Sorry.

Lisa was not sure that Gavin was the one who ought to be apologising – she felt rather guilty after realising where his fears stemmed from – but upon reading the note, she felt what remained of her animosity toward him dissipate completely. A smile crawled over her lips, and a weight that she had not even known she was carrying seemed to lift off her heart.

“Tu?”

“What is it, Natu?” Lisa asked.

The green bird’s eyes were darting around the cabin, as if searching for something. It looked quite distressed. Suddenly, Lisa understood.

“Aipom’s not here, Natu … He – um – he’s gone for now …”

The bird’s enormous eyes suddenly filled with tears; there was a small explosion of cobalt-coloured light and it disappeared, leaving behind an array of green, feathery motes cruising calmly to the floor.

Lisa sighed. Checking the small, white clock on the curved wall of the cabin, she was surprised to find that it was almost noon; sunlight was flooding through the four portholes. Neither Gavin nor Marina were anywhere to be seen, although their belongings were strewn over their bunks. Lisa caught her reflection in a small mirror near the clock and sleepily set about trying to tie her hair back into a ponytail before realising she no longer had enough hair to do anything with – it didn’t even reach her shoulders now. She regarded her blonde hair for a moment, still oddly enamoured with the new look it gave her, before finger-combing it as best she could and climbing up to the deck to find the others.

It was possibly the most gorgeous day since summer. The sky was an impeccable cerulean blue, punctuated sparsely with cirrus clouds that looked quite as crisp as new curls of butter. A cool sea zephyr blew in Lisa’s face, but it was not too strong to be unpleasant, and the day was warm enough for it to be more than welcome.

“Evenin’, sleepyhead,” boomed Jack, trudging from the bow to the stern.

“Morning,” Lisa grinned.

There were gleeful cries and shouts from the side of the boat. Lisa spied Gavin leaning against the silver railing on the edge of the craft, calling out something to his Seel, Staryu and green Lanturn, who were in the water, surfing alongside the vessel, along with Marina’s Golduck, Tentacraw, Starmie and Mudkip and, making Lisa laugh aloud, Marina herself, who was perched atop one of Starmie’s purple arms, playing with her Guardian Butterfree.

Gavin’s Natu fluttered around her head happily.

“Hey Lisa!” Marina called, waving a tanned arm.

Gavin turned at this; apparently he had not noticed Lisa behind him.

“Hey,” he said gently.

“Hey.”

Lisa strode over to join him, leaning her bare forearms against the cool steel.

“I got your note.”

She looked up and found him looking directly into her eyes.

“I mean it,” he said slowly. “I – I shouldn’t’ve said that thing about this being ‘typically Lisa’.”

Lisa broke his gaze – it was oddly intense – and stared out at Marina and the water pokémon racing alongside the boat.

“It’s fine, it was a stupid argument anyway,” she conceded.

“It’s just – it seemed like you were – well –”

“Being ‘typically Lisa’,” Lisa finished.

“Well, yeah.”

Lisa closed her eyes and allowed the crisp sea breeze to fill her lungs.

“Gavin, I know it seems like –”

“I know,” Gavin interrupted her. He sighed. “I thought about it a lot last night … and Marina talked to me this morning … I think going straight for the Sepulchre is probably the smartest and bravest thing you could do.”

Lisa smiled.

“I don’t want to run away anymore,” she said, opening her eyes and facing Gavin again. “I wanna actually do something.”

“Me too,” said Gavin, holding his arm out for Natu, who was fluttering over to perch on him. “I’m in, Leese.”

Lisa smiled.

“Awesome …” she said. “Listen, Gav, I need to apologise too … I’m really sorry if it seems like I take you for granted or whatever.”

Lisa cringed inwardly at her hideous apology-making skills; nonetheless, Gavin smiled gratefully.

“It’s cool,” he said. “Let’s just forget the whole thing, ay?”

“Works for me,” Lisa nodded, rather glad to put the entire argument behind her.

“So what’s your plan?” Gavin prodded, removing his navy beanie and wiping the sweat off his brow with it. “I mean – have ya thought about logistics or what?”

“A bit,” said Lisa, giggling as Staryu attempted to ride alongside Gavin’s green Lanturn only to receive a surprise Spark attack. “Actually, the way I planned it initially, I was going to go on foot to wherever Lotus Lake is, you know? But like, now that you’re here … I’m thinking maybe you could … help?”

Gavin nodded slowly, comprehending. “You want me to teleport.”

“Well, think how much safer that would be …” Lisa began, but her argument died in her mouth. She could already tell from Gavin’s face that he was not going to comply.

“There’s a couple of problems with that, Leese,” he said. “Firstly, for me to be able to teleport to a place, I need to be able to visualise it. I can’t visualise a place that I’ve never been to before.

“And secondly, the main advice the Seer had for me was to stop using teleportation. It drains me way too much and saps my other abilities. He said if I resist teleportation, over time my telepathy and telekinesis and other abilities will get a lot stronger.”

“Didn’t see that coming,” Lisa sighed. “But I guess that’s fair enough.”

“We should find a map, though,” said Gavin. “At least so that we can get an idea of how long it’s going to take us to get to Lotus Lake. And how we can get there.” He glanced around the deck. “Reckon Frank has any maps lying around?”

“I’m sure he’s got loads,” said Lisa, scanning the deck; but there were only crates and boxes tied down to pallets. “Maybe up on the bridge …”

“Let’s look. I wanna find out where this lake is.”

Waving a temporary farewell to Marina, they strode up to the bow of the vessel, where Frank stood stiffly behind the wheel, white mariner’s cap on his head and a plume of putrid grey smoke issuing from the pipe in his mouth.

“Excuse me, Frank?” Lisa ventured.

Abruptly, and without turning around to see Lisa, Frank burst into a cheerful tune:

“Oh the seven old seadogs of the seven seas!
They ruled the famous oceans with tremendous ease!”

Gavin guffawed; Lisa wasn’t sure whether to giggle or be offended that the old man had ignored her.

“Um – Frank – we just wanted to ask if –”

“Leese, he can’t hear you, look!” laughed Gavin.

Lisa looked: Gavin was pointing to two white wires that led from the pocket of Frank’s white jumper, virtually camouflaged, to his ears: he was listening to an mp3 player.

Lisa giggled.

“Is it bad that all I’m wondering is who the hell would record a song like that?” Gavin laughed.

At that moment, Frank continued with his song, completely oblivious to the two laughing teenagers behind him.

“Oh the seven fine women of the seven ports!
They entertained the seadogs until they were caught!”

“It’s awful …” Lisa remarked.

“Tell me about it,” said Gavin. “Oy, look – there’s a couple of charts right there.”

Lisa followed his line of sight: posted upon the shelter wall of the bridge were a couple of maps, one which looked like a marine chart of the Whirl Islands area and the other which showed the Orange Archipelago.

“Neither of those will help us much,” said Lisa disappointedly. She cast her eyes to the shelf below the charts and located a thick lever arch file with ‘MAPS’ written on the spine in heavy black texta. “But I’m thinking this will …”

Throwing a surreptitious glance to a still-unaware Frank, she lifted the heavy folder, grasping at small pieces of paper as they slid out of the pages, and grinned at Gavin.

“Let’s take this downstairs, ay?”

*

Lisa and Gavin were clustered around the small pine table that sat by the portholes in the cabin, poring over three maps they had found of Johto and trying to make sense of a mysterious omission on the most recent one.

A clatter of footsteps on the stairwell announced Marina’s arrival in the cabin; she entered, towelling her wet blue hair and chaperoned by Mudkip and Gavin’s Staryu.

“What’s cracking, kids?” she asked breezily, throwing the towel on top of the mess of possessions she had strewn across her bunk. “Seriously, you guys should’ve come in – the water was gorgeous.” She looked over and glimpsed the charts. “Aw, you guys are starting without me?”

“Yup, it’s all Lisa’s plan. I think she’s trying to edge you out of the group,” Gavin quipped.

“You’re a loser,” Lisa sighed. She turned to Marina. “We found these in Frank’s collection of maps, but there’s something weird going on, to be honest.”

“What do you mean weird?” asked Marina, taking a sip from her bottle of mineral water and, as there were only two chairs, she perched herself unreservedly on Gavin’s lap. His eyes bulged slightly but he swiftly put an arm around Marina’s waist.

Lisa felt something stir within her as Gavin’s arm slinked around Marina, but she abruptly realised that she must be staring at them. Breaking her gaze and clearing her throat loudly, she explained the map situation to Marina.

“Okay, so we’ve found three maps of Johto, but they’re all from different eras,” she explained. “This one,” she said, smoothing out a grubby, black-and-white chart. “Is from 1974. We managed to find Lotus Lake here.”

She pointed to a tiny grey circle situated approximately twenty kilometres north-east of Goldenrod City. The circle was inscribed ‘Lotus Lake’.

“So you’ve found it then, that’s awesome,” said Marina, tapping her water bottle absent-mindedly against the leg of the chair.

“Well, yeah, it seems so, but it’s weird because – the other maps don’t show it at all.”

“Huh?”

Lisa hunted beneath the current map and produced an enormous, dog-eared fold-out map of black ink on yellowing paper.

“This one is the oldest one … nearly as old as Frank,” she grinned. “It’s from the early fifties. Now, if you look at the same place on the map … about twenty k’s from Goldenrod … there’s the same circle but it’s called ‘The Lake of Purity’.”

Marina peered at the faded chart intently.

“Hmm … okay, so they changed the name by the ‘70s. ‘The Lake of Purity’ is pretty froofy.”

Gavin snorted.

“Well, that could make sense, seriously,” Lisa said, chuckling. “But the really bizarre thing is what happens –” (She foraged beneath both maps and produced a sleek, full-colour chart.) “– on the newest map, which is from –” (She double-checked the date.) “– 1991.”

Marina’s eyes scanned the place twenty kilometres north-east of Goldenrod; after a moment, her eyes widened.

“There’s nothing there.”

“Exactly,” said Gavin.

Marina’s brow furrowed.

“But – how does that happen? Unless the lake was filled in somehow …”

“That’s all we can think of, too,” Lisa said. “But the chart I saw at the Union’s base was pretty new, and it definitely showed Lotus Lake as – well – existing.”

“That’s really weird,” remarked Marina. “But … I suppose that at least tells us where Lotus Lake should be, right? So that’s where we’re headed?”

“Yeah,” said Lisa.

Marina seemed to be crunching numbers in her mind; her eyes rolled upwards for a moment.

“Jack’s dropping us just outside of Olivine. If we walked from Olivine to Goldenrod, plus one extra day to get to the lake … it would take something like two weeks, right?”

“That’s what I figured too,” Lisa said. “And I suppose that’s going to be the best option. We can’t hire a car without the Union probably picking up on it – and flying is way too dangerous. If we hike on the back roads, we should be relatively safe.”

Marina nodded.

“We could try taking the Dunmore River system – you know, surfing our way up,” she said half-heartedly. “Although I ran into trouble with the Union following me via water once before …” she muttered.

“I’ll teleport,” Gavin said suddenly.

Both Lisa and Marina looked at him in surprise.

“But I thought you said you couldn’t,” said Lisa.

“I think I can,” Gavin countered, shrugging. “Think about it … I’ve been to Goldenrod City a million times, I used to live there. I can visualise it easily. Plus, I haven’t used my powers since the hospital, so they should be charged up. If I get Natu and the others to add their psychic energy to the mix …” An excited grin stole over his thin face. “I’m sure we could teleport, all three of us.”

“But it’ll completely drain your powers,” Lisa argued, but feebly; the thought of Gavin teleporting them excited her.

“So what?” Gavin shrugged again. “They’ll build up again over time. The more important thing is how quickly we’d get to the Sepulchre. If we land in Johto tonight, we can teleport tonight, be in Goldenrod instantly and set out for the lake tomorrow.”

Lisa and Marina exchanged excited glances. Tomorrow! It barely seemed possible.

“The upshot of that is that we’d be less exposed to the Union, too,” Gavin continued. “Instead of two weeks out in the open, we’d only be trekking for, like, a day.”

Lisa couldn’t stop smiling. This was really happening …

“And you’re sure one of us won’t be left behind this time?” Lisa said, only half-jokingly.

Gavin nodded. “I’m pretty positive, yeah. I’ll have my pokes to back me up, we’ll be right.”

“So, really, the only question will be what happens when we get to Lotus Lake,” said Marina pensively. “You know, if there’s even a lake there anymore or not.”

“And if it’s actually the location of the Sepulchre or not,” added Lisa cheerily.

They sat at the table for perhaps only half an hour more, discussing their plans and playing with their pokémon. At one point, Gavin took the psychic pokémon of the group above deck to prepare for the planned teleportation. Once he returned, Lisa released Altaria, Cubone and Kingler to mingle with Gavin and Marina’s pokémon, with mixed results. Kingler took an immediate liking to Starmie and Staryu, and the three reposed near Marina’s bunk, apparently deep in a conversation that involved a great deal of arm-waving and pincer-snapping. Altaria struck up a warm relationship with Herby, although it came over to Lisa after a few minutes for a rub. Unfortunately, Cubone had to be returned to his pokéball after five minutes after he spent the entire time sobbing melodramatically in the corner.

As Lisa, Marina and Gavin sat at the table, now talking about music, Jack gave a loud cry from above deck:

“LAND HO!”

*

It was almost four in the afternoon when Jack and Frank finally decided to depart. After they had arrived at the deserted stretch of coastline east of Olivine City, they had decided to disembark along with Lisa, Gavin and Marina for a picnic lunch, which had evolved into a picnic afternoon tea.

The three teenagers had tried not to show their impatience, especially as Jack was providing them food – and had transported them – free of charge. Nonetheless, as four o’clock approached, Gavin said, “Well, we need to get going, guys, otherwise we’ll be stuck walking in the dark.”

Thankfully, that hint had been enough to mobilise Jack and Frank. They had packed up their remaining foodstuffs and farewelled each of them in their own way: Frank had grunted mildly in each of their directions, and finished up with a particularly warm, “’Bye.” Jack, on the other hand, had shaken Gavin’s hand firmly before taking first Marina, then Lisa, and sweeping them each into his bulging arms, crushing them slightly with the force of his hug.

“Take care, buds!” he boomed. “And Leese, next time I wanna see Electabuzz again – no excuses, ay? Hahaha!”

Lisa smiled and agreed: she had lied and told Jack that Electabuzz was temporarily in the care of her younger siblings; it had seemed impossible to tell him that the Union had stolen the pokémon he had once owned.

“Thanks so much for everything, Jack,” Lisa said.

“Pleasure, Leese – like I said, we were headed to Olivine anyway, got some freight we gotta drop off,” Jack grunted. “Anyway – if yer ever on Red Rock again, don’ be a stranger, orright?”

“Deal!” said Lisa. “Take care! Bye!”

She, Gavin and Marina watched as the dusty-haired, muscular sailor and the old, wizened captain waded through the shallows and clambered aboard their boat.

“I thought they’d never leave!” said Marina exasperatedly.

“I know!” Lisa laughed, as she waved in the direction of the boat. “I mean, it was a really fun arvo with them all … but all I could think of the whole time was that we were wasting time.”

Gavin was kneeling down on the sand, riffling through his rucksack.

“Just making sure I didn’t forget anything,” he explained. “You got everything, Marina?”

Marina patted her own backpack.

“I was taught to pack by Azura Frost, which may or may not mean anything to you,” she said with a wry grin. “Suffice it to say: I’m all sorted.”

“As am I,” grinned Lisa, patting her poképort and the Buzzball and two pokéballs in the pocket of her shredded jeans. “I’ve gotta say, not having a backpack is pretty stress-free.”

Marina smirked.

“Alright, I reckon they’re far enough away now, right?” Gavin asked.

Lisa glanced out onto the crystalline shallows, off which the sun’s setting rays were beginning to shimmer. Frank’s boat was now chugging slowly out to sea.

“I reckon,” she said.

“Awesome,” Gavin said. “Alright – go Natu, Girafury and Staryu!”

“Go, Starmie and Golduck!” Marina cried.

There were five explosions of radiant light. The five psychic pokémon in the group materialised around them.

“Alright guys, now remember your instructions from the boat,” Gavin said sternly, as Natu fluttered onto his shoulder and the rest of the creatures interspersed themselves among the humans and held hands with them, creating a circle. Lisa took hold of Golduck’s slimy webbed mitt in her left hand and knitted the fingers of her right hand into Girafury’s thick mane.

“Is everybody ready?” asked Gavin loudly.

“Tu tu tu!”

“Goooold.”

“Fuuuuuuur.”

“Hi yaaah!”

“Staarr!”

“As ready as I’ll ever be,” Marina added, amid the cacophony of pokémon cries.

Lisa laughed.

“Okay then, let’s do this! Everyone power up – and on the count of three, we’ll appear at the destination point. Visualise it, everyone. Ready? One …”

Lisa took one final, sweeping glance of the deserted beach, the tranquil waters, the silhouette of the white fishing boat against the golden rays of the setting sun …

“Two …”

Lisa closed her eyes; and, all of a sudden, a nervous panic swelled up within her, blocking her throat …

“THREE!”

Instantly, Lisa felt as though she was being squeezed through a wringer as cold blasts of air whooshed against her body – and then, quite as abruptly, she fell unceremoniously against a hard, thinly-carpeted floor, her body aching, her throat still restricted, leaving her gasping for breath.

“Everyone here?” called Gavin’s voice.

Lisa heard the calls of five pokémon, and then Marina’s voice said, “I’m here … feel like death, though.”

“No shit,” said Gavin. “At least we all made it!” He let off a weary cheer that was echoed by a couple of the pokémon. “Leese – you alright over there?”

Hearing the voices around her was all Lisa needed to calm her down: her heart stopped hammering, her throat cleared and she gulped down deep breaths of stale – but welcome – air, suddenly aware that she was acutely thirsty.

“Yes, I’m okay,” she said, a little feebly. “God, teleporting really takes it out of you …” she added, trying to explain her weakness to the others. She didn’t want to admit that she had had a mild panic attack before they teleported, struck by the fear that she would be left behind again, as she had been in Redwood Hospital.

She opened her eyes gingerly and surveyed her surroundings. They were all sprawled on the dirty brown carpet of what seemed to be the combined living room, dining room and kitchen of a seedy, cramped apartment. All the curtains were drawn, giving the apartment a dreary, depressing vibe that was exacerbated by the bland décor: the walls were all painted beige, the curtains light brown. Even the kitchen bench was fawn. Oddly, there was almost no furniture in the room, aside from a small table with a teetering pile of mail by the door and a thick, chocolate-brown rug spread out before an ancient wooden TV set.

“Where are we?” Lisa wondered aloud, clambering to her feet as Marina and Gavin followed suit, returning their pokémon in flashes of translucent red light that briefly illuminated the apartment.

“This,” Gavin said ceremoniously, “is my old apartment.”

“Ritzy,” said Marina dryly.

Lisa caught Marina’s gaze and smirked. She scanned the kitchen bench and approached the sink; her throat was parched.

“It’s a heap of shit,” Gavin admitted unabashedly. “But it’s all me and my mate Dave could afford when we lived here.” He glanced through a beige-coloured door into a tiny bedroom. “Looks like he leased it out to someone else after I left …”

Lisa hovered by the sink. “Uh – is it safe to drink the water?”

“Should be fine,” Gavin smirked.

Lisa hunted in the cupboard for a glass, and eventually located a solitary china mug, coated in a thin layer of dust. Rinsing it off gingerly, she filled it up with tap water and gulped it down gratefully. The water tasted mildly chemically, but otherwise satisfied Lisa’s thirst completely.

“Man,” Gavin muttered, flipping through the stack of mail on the table near the door. “I haven’t been here for ages … not since before the trial in Port Valeo …”

“Has anyone?” Lisa quizzed. “It looks like nobody’s been here for a while.”

“Dave works up on the mines now, near Azalea Town,” explained Gavin. “He’s only here for one week out of every three. I guess his roommate does the same thing.”

“Oh right …” Lisa muttered, stealing another drink.

Marina pulled the curtains open, allowing the late afternoon sunlight to gush into the dusty flat.

“Well, that’s a bit better,” she sighed.

Hunkering down for the evening, they resorted to clustering onto the rug, leaning on Dave’s pillows and watching soap operas on the flickering TV set. When the six o’clock news came on, Lisa watched intently for any news that could relate to the Union. She wasn’t entirely disappointed – there was a short report that the Ecruteak Library had been ransacked, possibly by Union agents – but there was no news of a particularly grand scale.

As the six-thirty current affairs programs came on, Gavin slunk out of the apartment for dinner, returning with an enormous stack of oily pizzas, which both the humans and their pokémon tucked into heartily. Returning their pokémon, the teenagers passed the rest of the evening talking over bottles of cool drink and, as the night grew late, they rehashed their plans by re-examining the charts they had stolen from Frank’s boat.

When at last it came time to turn in, Lisa and Marina took Dave’s double bed, while Gavin took his old single one in the other room. As she lay down, Lisa wrinkled up her nose against the acrid smell of dirt and sweat: it seemed that Dave habitually fell asleep on his bed whilst still wearing his dirty work clothes. Trying to ignore the smell, Lisa stared up at the ceiling, and long after she whispered the words, “Night, Marina”, her eyes remained open, her mind conjuring up what was going to unfold when she finally located the Sepulchre of Suicune.

*

Lisa awoke early the next morning. Even the depressing décor of Gavin’s old apartment couldn’t dim the excitement surging through her veins: in a matter of hours, they would be arriving, hopefully, at Lotus Lake. At long last, she would be doing something constructive to fight back against the Union.

She eagerly woke Gavin and Marina, and after having some much-needed showers, they left the apartment shortly after eight o’clock. Despite the fact that she was now blonde, wore a grotty band T-shirt and face-obscuring aviators, Lisa still felt slightly on edge as they strolled down the main thoroughfares of Goldenrod City: from what she had heard, it was the city in Johto with the highest population per capita of Union agents. However, despite the statistics, she found that, at least in appearance, Goldenrod had scarcely changed from the last time she had been there: it was still a bustling metropolis, with streets packed with buses and sleek limousines and footpaths loaded with jostling tourists, businessmen, students and pokémon trainers.

After an hour of solid walking, Lisa, Gavin and Marina found themselves away from the throng of the city centre and in clearer, more open parklands, scattered with young trainers.

“If one more kid asks me to battle his Weedle, I swear I’m going to scream,” Marina said under her breath to Lisa as they strolled through a field populated by bug-catchers.

“Weedles can actually be pretty powerful,” Lisa remarked, thinking back to Hiro’s, which she had seen perform an acrobatic display to defeat Lance’s Dragonite.

“Right,” Marina drawled, swatting a fly away from her face and taking a sip of her mineral water.

They continued onwards down a route known as Armitage Road, avoiding more eager trainers and some artisan markets. As the day heated up, Lisa found herself wishing she wasn’t wearing black, as it was becoming oppressively warm; nonetheless, she soldiered on, swigging at her water, her eyes on each crest as it approached, hoping that it would reveal a sign that Lotus Lake existed, but no such sign ever appeared.

Presently, they came across a roadhouse and a turn off for the Bug-Catching Contest.

“God, I remember coming here,” Lisa said, and she nostalgically recounted the story of how she, Hiro and Kris had participated in the contest, despite the fact that both Gavin and Marina had heard it several times before.

They followed the route onwards, until encountering other trainers became first uncommon and then rare. The parkland became more heavy forest, with trees surrounding them from all angles; and the route, initially a broad bitumen path, dissipated into a track of orange gravel.

“Okay, according to the map, we’re right about where the lake should be,” said Gavin, at around noon, as they turned a corner into a deeper part of the forest.

A few minutes later, he stopped in his tracks and stared around at their environs.

“This is supposedly it,” he declared. “According to the old maps, there should be a lake right alongside this track at this point. To the right.”

Lisa did not say anything; indeed, she had fallen progressively more silent as they had walked deeper into the forest. The lack of signage for Lotus Lake had stopped worrying her. Her mind had been tingling ever since they walked past the Bug-Catching Contest.

As Marina fanned her face and sighed, Lisa walked a little further along the track, sure that she would find what she was looking for. A moment later, her heart leapt into her mouth.

Cutting into the thick maze of ferns and shrubs was a narrow, loamy track, almost overgrown completely.

“Through here!” Lisa cried out, and then, without waiting to see if Gavin and Marina were following, she charged down the path, jogging at first before breaking out into a full-scale pelt. She bounded over several Metapod and a rotting old log that crossed the path before, gloriously, the vegetation cleared, and she arrived.

Footsteps pounded on the orange dirt behind her; Gavin and Marina came running to join her, their faces alive as they, too, clapped eyes on the sight before them.

“Oh my God …” breathed Lisa, as she took in the sight before her.

The lake that geography had forgotten was sprawled out before them at the base of a stunning hundred-metre high cliff. Spanning an area the size of a soccer pitch, it was murky brown and covered in green algae, but it was undeniably a lake.

Lotus Lake.

Lisa’s mouth had fallen open. She took in the impossible details of the sight before her: the grey, rocky cliff wall framing the lake; the murky brown, almost opaque surface of the water …

Her heart was vibrating as never before; her mind spun. How could this be?

“Lisa – are you okay?” Marina ventured, a note of fear in her voice.

“I’m fine,” breathed Lisa. “I’m … I’m better than fine. I’m … fantastic.”

She felt, rather than saw, a curious look exchanged between Gavin and Marina behind her back as she approached the shoreline of the lake.

“How come?” Gavin asked seriously.

“Because I know now that the Sepulchre of Suicune is definitely here.”

There was a short silence, then Gavin said, “How can you be so sure?”

Lisa felt as though she had swallowed some kind of drug: the whirling in her head and stomach was making her slightly dizzy.

“Because …” she said, trying to contain her excitement; she spun around to face her bemused friends. “Because I’ve been here before.”

Marina blinked in disbelief; Gavin’s eyebrow edged toward the bottom of his beanie.

“When?” he asked.

Lisa revelled in the broad grin that stole over her face as she spoke.

“Last October,” she said.

“Suicune brought me here on the very first day of my journey.”

[mistysakura]

Those recaps are sorely needed. It has been way too long since I've read a chapter of LTL. I liked how Lisa and Gavin were fighting again so soon after their reunion. Some stories get this strange idea that once people are reunited, everything is rainbows and butterflies... And I had a strange feeling about the location of the Sepulchre of Suicune.

Sorry I can't come up with much more to say, but it's like the calm before the storm. Or the bit where Harry, Ron and Hermione go camping and bicker with each other until stuff happens.

So, when is this "tonight or tomorrow" going to come?

[Gavin Luper]

Those recaps are sorely needed. It has been way too long since I've read a chapter of LTL.

Do you mean the intro recaps at the start of each chapter are a good idea, or an overall recap of what's happened so far is further needed?

I liked how Lisa and Gavin were fighting again so soon after their reunion. Some stories get this strange idea that once people are reunited, everything is rainbows and butterflies...

Indeed - I didn't want their reunion to be perfect, because there were way too many unanswered questions about it.

And I had a strange feeling about the location of the Sepulchre of Suicune.

Sorry I can't come up with much more to say, but it's like the calm before the storm. Or the bit where Harry, Ron and Hermione go camping and bicker with each other until stuff happens.

So, when is this "tonight or tomorrow" going to come?

^_^ Tonight or tomorrow is going to come ... tonight or tomorrow! Literally. I'm off sick today so I'm finally doing my edit. Chapter very soon!

Thanks for reading and replying again, Ada - glad to see you back and hopefully you'll like the next chapter when it comes tonight. Tonight. I'm sure of it.

Cheers!

[mistysakura]

Nah, I just mean the chapter recaps. Did you end up doing a recap of the whole thing? I seem to recall you did, but my mind may be playing tricks on me.

[Gavin Luper]

Ada: You're right, I did, about two years ago! Completely forgot about that. I posted synopses of Books 1 and 2 and Book 3 until chapter 64 - I never linked them to the contents page, though. Had to do some hunting, but here they are, and I'll link them into the contents so they can be easily found, too.

Book 1 Synopsis
Book 2 Synopsis - Part I
Book 2 Synopsis - Part II
Book 3 Synopsis (to C64)

Spent the last few hours editing and deliberating over Chapter 73. It's because I'm scared of plot holes, especially when revelations are this big. After so many years and hundreds of thousands of words and different incarnations and directions of the story, it's so so hard to be sure that I've covered all my bases. But now I'm vaguely sure that I have, and if I haven't, I'll need to learn to be less hard on myself. After all, any regular novelist would have the opportunity to redraft their story as much as they want before publishing it; but LtL is published one chapter at a time, so although I've made improvements to past chapters I've never edited out actual facts that are crucial to the plot, because that would feel like misleading the reader. So we'll just have to see what happens. But I'm pretty sure we are watertight now. I hope. So the chapter will be here in a minute. Yes. A real minute.

[Gavin Luper]

Hullo readers,

May the revelations flow!

+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+

Previously on Lisa the Legend:



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.”



Eventually convinced of Lisa's plan, Gavin used his pokemon to help him to teleport them all back to his apartment in Goldenrod City, from where Lotus Lake - the location of the Sepulchre of Suicune - was only a few hours' walk:



“Okay then, let’s do this! Everyone power up – and on the count of three, we’ll appear at the destination point. Visualise it, everyone. Ready? One …”

Lisa took one final, sweeping glance of the deserted beach, the tranquil waters, the silhouette of the white fishing boat against the golden rays of the setting sun …

“Two …”

Lisa closed her eyes; and, all of a sudden, a nervous panic swelled up within her, blocking her throat …

“THREE!”

Instantly, Lisa felt as though she was being squeezed through a wringer as cold blasts of air whooshed against her body – and then, quite as abruptly, she fell unceremoniously against a hard, thinly-carpeted floor, her body aching, her throat still restricted, leaving her gasping for breath.



And upon arriving at Lotus Lake, Lisa made a startling realisation:



"I’ve been here before.”

Marina blinked in disbelief; Gavin’s eyebrow edged toward the bottom of his beanie.

“When?” he asked.

Lisa revelled in the broad grin that stole over her face as she spoke.

“Last October,” she said.

“Suicune brought me here on the very first day of my journey.”


+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+


Chapter 73 – The Sepulchre of Suicune.


“Oh wow,” breathed Marina.

“That’s insane …” Gavin muttered, putting his hands to his head and gazing at the murky lake, almost in reverence.

Lisa was still reeling from the surprise herself: it felt like a bombshell had been dropped on her.

“After we passed the site of the Bug-Catching Contest, I realised we were taking the same path I took last October, just in the opposite direction,” she explained to the others excitedly. “I wondered, the further we got, if Lotus Lake was the same lake Suicune took me to on that first day …”

“You know what this means, right?” Marina rushed. “Suicune wanted you to see this place. Right from the start.”

“I know …” Lisa said, pacing along the shoreline, where the foul-looking water lapped at her sneakers. She thought back to that fateful day, when she had fallen through into the basement of the Burned Tower, right into the middle of the meeting between Suicune, Entei and Raikou. Somehow, she had naively thought that Suicune had been trying to escape her and that she had been lucky to cling onto his back. Now, the pieces of the puzzle all sliding into place, she understood: Suicune had allowed her to take a seat on his back and he had transported her directly to Lotus Lake, to his Sepulchre.

It was almost as though he had known, then, that she would need to know this place in the future.

“So what happened that day?” asked Gavin urgently. “Did Suicune show you what to do, how to get into the Sepulchre from here?”

Lisa was already reliving that day.

“He drank from the lake,” she said slowly.

“Ew,” Marina contributed.

“No, it like, became clean as he drank,” Lisa said quickly. Her mind raced ahead of her, making the connections. “Maybe – maybe he was showing me the path – maybe the entrance is underwater, beneath the lake …”

“Did you see anything?” Gavin pressed.

Lisa swore loudly.

“No!” she cried, turning back to face them. “Because Wooper came along and interrupted everything!”

“What do you mean?” asked Marina.

“Wooper appeared and like, tried to battle Suicune or something. Suicune got really mad – I mean, like, mental – and fired off all these Ice Beams before it ran away … And I tried to catch him in a pokéball …” Lisa felt her face flush slightly with embarrassment. “But the ball bounced off him, he ran away, and the ball fell onto Wooper and caught it.” She cursed beneath her breath again. “I was so excited about catching Wooper, I don’t think I even looked in the water after that, really. For all I know, there could have been a neon light under there that said, ‘Lisa, enter here!’”

“I d-don’t think you need to worry about that now, Lisa,” Marina stammered suddenly.

“What d’you –” Lisa began, surveying Marina’s pallid face; the blue-haired girl was staring timorously at a point over Lisa’s shoulder.

Instinctively, Lisa turned to see what had provoked such fear in Marina.

Her jaw dropped.

Standing before her, as though he had just emerged from the water, was the dignified, cobalt-furred form of Suicune, the mystic aurora on his back ablaze.

//We have much to speak about, Lisa Walters//

The telepathic voice that echoed in Lisa’s head was battle-hardened and yet regal; it somehow reminded her of the voice of a kind wolf, if such a thing existed.

“Y-yes,” she replied, lost for words as she stared at Suicune’s awesome glow. She was vaguely aware of Marina and Gavin beside her, slowly backing away in apprehension.

Quite suddenly, Suicune’s sinewy legs seemed to fold beneath him; he reposed, half his usual height, on the shoreline, water lapping gently against his bulky form. Lisa idled for a moment or two, bemused by the beast’s silence, and then –

//You were much hastier to climb upon my back the first time we met. It seems that you require an invitation now?//

There was a hint of disapproving grandfather to his tone.

“Oh – of course not – but –”

//Your friends shall await you here//

“O-okay.”

Her mind galloping, Lisa approached Suicune and, feeling almost as though she was being horribly disrespectful to the beast (how different from their first encounter!) she hoisted a leg over his considerable girth, seating herself uncomfortably on his back and covering a portion of his shimmering aurora which, gratefully, did not burn; indeed, she could not feel it at all.

She surveyed Marina and Gavin nervously. They were both extremely pale, and yet seemed to understand what was happening. Gavin gave Lisa a very forced wink, which she mirrored. Marina, meanwhile, fluttered her hand weakly.

Suicune rose abruptly and turned to face the lake and the cliff that bounded it; Lisa wound her fingers into tufts of his cobalt fur as she rose with him. An uninvited shiver ran down her spine as Suicune bowed his gently-furred head down to the water level and began to drink from the slough.

Déjà vu.

As Suicune lapped up the dirty brown water, the shallows around him began to bubble – gently at first and then vigorously – and as the water bubbled, it gave off a glow that was radiant even in the midday sun. The impurities in the water were boiled away as the frothing water changed from a murky greenish-brown to a clear, crystalline cerulean.

Lisa’s eyes swallowed the sight before them, as the entire lake frothed and glowed and, within the space of a minute, became utterly pristine, perhaps the most beautiful lake she had ever laid eyes on.

Behind her, Gavin gave a low whistle.

Lisa squinted her eyes against the glare that now bounced off the surface of the clean water. She searched beneath the surface for some kind of sign – a path, perhaps – but there was nothing other than the clean, pearl-white rock that made up the bottom of the lake.

Suicune removed his mouth from the water, his jaws dripping. Without warning, a burst of silver light exploded from the aurora, immediately beneath Lisa. She cried out in fright as a glistening silver globe of energy enveloped her, sealing her securely in a translucent bubble. Comprehension dawned on Lisa as her memory twigged: Suicune had placed the same bubble around her and Gavin during his battle with Entei in the Ice Path: he was protecting her.

//Hold on//

No sooner had Lisa tightened her grip on Suicune’s back than he bounded, with incredible speed, directly into the depths of the lake.

An instinctive shriek erupted from Lisa’s mouth as Suicune pelted underwater. The bubble around her was pressed tightly against her face and front, creating an invisible boundary between her and the cold liquid beyond. After a few moments underwater, she opened her eyes and saw the subterranean world of Lotus Lake whizzing past in all its resplendent glory. Ornate protrusions of pearly rock decorated the lake floor at haphazard intervals, interspersed with emerald-green tufts of salvao weed and surprisingly beautiful flowers that looked something like underwater lilacs. However, Lisa scarcely had the time to register the sights before Suicune, still bounding at full bore, charged at a dark crevice positioned at the point where the lake floor intersected with the base of the cliff. Though she trusted her legendary Guardian, Lisa flinched as her head narrowly missed the top of the crevice. Suicune bolted on through an underwater tunnel that was lit only by the glow of his aurora, which looked positively magical in the water, surrounded by indigo motes and dreamy globules of white-gold light. Suicune reached a fork in the tunnel and took a left, winding slowly upwards until, without warning, the pressing cold on Lisa’s face disappeared; they were above the water level now, though still in a dark, rocky tunnel. Excited and apprehensive in equal measures, Lisa watched, a taciturn passenger, as Suicune navigated his way through a series of twists and turns in the tunnel system. As they cantered through one particularly gloomy tunnel, Lisa spied several cobwebs lining the ceiling; seconds later, an enormous Spinarak web appeared ahead, completely occluding the tunnel. As Lisa screamed, Suicune ploughed onward, shooting an enormous ray of rainbow-coloured light at the web, sizzling through it and causing scores of Spinarak to tumble from the roof of the tunnel. Lisa covered her head with one arm, but thankfully the silvery bubble remained impenetrable; the spiders slid harmlessly off the bubble and were behind them in a matter of seconds, though Lisa still shuddered unpleasantly at the creepy sensation she had felt as they crawled over the membrane. Unperturbed, Suicune ran on. At one point, Lisa noticed an old square tablet fixed over the entrance to one of the tunnels they entered; there was a series of ancient-looking glyphs carved into it. If it were even possible anymore, Lisa’s pulse quickened: the glyphs looked similar to some that she had seen on Mount Fairfax, near the Sepulchre of Entei: they must be close.

And sure enough, just a few moments later, the tunnel widened into a capacious cavern and Suicune slowed to a walk before stopping completely. Lisa was only vaguely aware of the silvery bubble popping gently around her: her eyes were shining at the beauty before them; in complete awe, she exclaimed, “Wow.”

The cavern was what looked like a gigantic antechamber, its ceiling easily four or five metres high. The walls were of a pearl-white rock, the likes of which Lisa had never seen before: they glimmered in the light of a dozen torches affixed to them in brackets; however these torches, too, were completely alien to Lisa: they burned with an azure flame.

Lisa tore her eyes from the ethereal fires that encircled her and surveyed the enormous statue at the far end of the antechamber. Just like the antechamber of the Sepulchre of Entei, there was a vast rock altar, a dais the size of a bus that seemed to be made entirely of pearl, flanked by an imposing, six-foot-tall golden statue hewn in the form of Suicune, its eyes made of glittering sapphires.

“Oh my God …” Lisa breathed.

Absent-mindedly patting Suicune’s aurora, which seemed rather dull compared to her environs, she slid gently off his back and walked slowly toward the dais.

Suicune’s antechamber was even more beautiful than Entei’s: the pearl dais was utterly exquisite. Lisa’s eyes were drawn between the statue and the mystical blue torches before finally, as she stood with a hand touching the cool metal of the statue, she properly noticed the ledge behind the dais, and the giant archway that held an impossibly large oak double door. She drank it in slowly, luxuriantly. The doorframe was covered in gold-leaf that spiralled over the wood in a florid, spidery pattern; at various intervals within the pattern, the doorframe was encrusted with resplendent gems, many of them various shades of blue, but also several purples, yellows, greens and reds.

“It’s so beautiful,” Lisa gaped.

//My home// Suicune’s voice echoed through her.

Lisa gazed at the titanic wooden doors, engraved with those odd, ancient runes.

The Sepulchre of Suicune.

She pressed her palm gently against the left door.

//NO!//

Suicune’s scream reverberated in her brain; she clutched her head and spun round to face him; he had bounded right over to her and stood beside her on the dais.

For a moment, each Guardian stared into the eyes of the other, Lisa’s honey-brown irises locked with Suicune’s violet-black ones.

“This is your Sepulchre,” Lisa said slowly, not quite understanding the outburst. “I thought you wanted me to enter it.”

Suicune’s aurora flared slightly.

//You are very intelligent// came the dignified, lupine voice. //Yes, we shall both enter the Sepulchre very shortly; and this has indeed been my wish for … some time. However, you must know that the Sepulchre is not designed to be occupied for long// His tone became deathly serious. //Once we enter the Sepulchre, we can only spend a few minutes there, or it will self-destruct//

“But I thought the Sepulchres only destroy themselves when the wrong person enters them –”

//When that happens, the Sepulchre begins to destroy itself instantly// Suicune said gently. //As you and I are protected by the Legend, Lisa, we are allowed the privilege of a very few minutes before the destruction begins. Another security measure to guard against Guardians being forced to enter under duress//

Lisa gulped and stepped cautiously away from the oak doors.

//As we will not have time to discuss much in the Sepulchre, I have decided that it is necessary to do so here, in the antechamber, before we enter//

Suicune’s legs folded beneath him again and, looking more like a dog than Lisa had ever seen, he curled himself up neatly on the pearl dais.

//You ought to sit, Lisa. I shall need some time to explain myself to you//

Once again, Lisa had the sense that her pulse had quickened, and yet, she could not remember a time recently when it had not been pounding like a jungle drum in her ears. Was Suicune really going to give her full disclosure, at long last?

Lisa shifted further from the archway and sat down two feet from Suicune’s head, crossing her legs on the pearl floor. She ran her fingers along the smooth, shiny surface and an excited shiver shot through her.

//I shall begin, I think, with an apology//

Lisa started, completely thrown by this moment of unexpected vulnerability; Suicune regarded her with an unexpectedly doleful expression.

“What for?” she asked, vexed.

//For binding myself to you so soon// came the majestic voice in her mind; Suicune’s eyes were downcast. //Never in history have we used children as guardians before. Only adults should have to bear such a burden. And yet, a decade ago, when Joseph Sterling became aware of the Legend and discovered that your father, Azura Frost and Lance Hudson were guardians, we had no choice, you see//

There was a deep, almost human remorse in Suicune’s voice, Lisa thought; a second later, she scolded herself mentally for thinking that such an emotion could be exclusively human.

//Raikou, Entei and I feared Sterling’s new knowledge, and his growing power … We decided to pre-empt any attempts he might make to force the guardians to enter the Sepulchres; we decided to bind ourselves to their children instead//

Lisa winced; her recollection of first hearing this tale from her parents at the Fairfax Inn was flooding back to her, including the tears.

“My parents explained this to me,” she told Suicune. “I understand why you did it.”

//Not fully// said Suicune enigmatically. //You may have wondered, for instance, why I chose to bind myself to you, Lisa, instead of, say, your elder brother, Thomas?//

“It – it’s crossed my mind,” Lisa admitted.

//I rather thought that – should the day come when Sterling figured out the switch we had made – that he would assume Thomas was the Guardian instead. The older, stronger boy seemed a much likelier Guardian than a young, innocent-looking girl. This was my rationale; I never expected that Sterling would find out the truth. I never anticipated that you could, indeed, fall into any real danger. And yet here we are//

Suicune locked eyes with her once more; his tone again took on that sympathetic, grandfatherly quality.

//I am sorry for the pain and suffering I have caused you, Lisa Walters//

“I forgive you,” Lisa said at once, almost before Suicune had finished; and yet she wasn’t quite sure why she was so hasty, when her Guardianship was indeed the root of all the troubles she had been through; she supposed, later, that it had something to do with the fact that Suicune was speaking openly, and at length, with her for the first time in history, and that privilege alone had completely blown her mind.

//I have often wondered// Suicune went on. //If you had any recollection of our first encounter?//

Lisa nodded, poking her fingers through the artistic gashes in Jamie’s jeans.

“I have a memory …” she said slowly. “When I was about four … I nearly drowned in my pool at home and then something blue – well, you – appeared in front of me. Before, I used to think it was a dream. These days, obviously, I understand what it was …”

//I see// Suicune responded pensively. //And this dream … is it what led you to be in the Brass Tower on the day we met last year?//

It took Lisa a moment to register that Suicune was referring to the Burned Tower.

“Actually, no …” she admitted. “I saw on TV that you’d been sighted there, that’s really why I went. I was just … curious.” She added the last word clumsily: she had almost said “I was just bored”, but such a remark seemed stupid to make in the presence of Suicune.

The beast nodded its head gently, as though mulling something over.

//It had been many years since I had visited the Brass Tower// Suicune explained. //In my experience, it was a deserted and dangerous building. I did not expect it to have become such a popular venue for pokémon battles … So then, it is all a matter of chance, it seems. We were not necessarily destined to meet that day. Interesting…//

Suicune trailed off. Lisa anticipated his next words, his grand reveal, with bated breath, but it did not come for several minutes; the beast simply sat in silence, his dark eyes staring at the ground.

Then, suddenly, he said, //There are just two things I must speak to you about before we enter the Sepulchre//

Lisa stiffened.

//Firstly, what is your plan? Why have you come here today?//

“Oh,” Lisa muttered; she had not expected to be the one answering questions. “Well, I came to get my fragment of the key. I’m … going to break it. Destroy it. End it.”

As she spoke, her voice grew more impassioned. However, her certainty lasted only a moment.

//You will fail. The Seven Keys are indestructible//

“Oh.”

Suicune growled.

//The Iron Lock was created by humans, ostensibly to keep anyone from accessing the great and terrible power referred to in the Legend. Of course, if those humans had truly wanted that power locked away for good, they would have created a unopenable lock, or a lock with keys that could be destroyed//

His tone was caustic.

“W-what are you saying?” Lisa ventured.

//I am saying that the humans of that era did not wish to lose the power hidden behind the Iron Lock. They did not want it falling into the wrong hands, but still they did not want to lose the power itself. This is why it is exceedingly difficult to open the Iron Lock, but not impossible//

“But that doesn’t make any sense …” said Lisa.

//Humans never have// said Suicune.

“But why go to all this trouble, all these keys, if …”

//You fail to understand the bigger picture, Lisa. Perhaps you are still too young. Permit me to explain. Those humans who decided to sequester the great power away from the world did not sequester it from themselves. It was – it is – too spectacular to lose. Those humans became Guardians of the great power, wishing to control it and have exclusive knowledge of it. But never did these Guardians wish for the power to be entirely forgotten by the world. Hence, the role I have played for centuries//

Lisa grappled with the information overload.

“When you say Guardians, you don’t mean …?”

//Yes. Your ancestors, Lisa. And the ancestors of Darius Hudson and Marina Frost. The very first Guardians//

Lisa’s head was spinning; it was still too much to make sense of. She tried to recall the explanation of the Legend her parents had given her back on Mount Fairfax.

“So our ancestors were the ones who invented the Iron Lock in the first place?”

//That is correct//

“Something like … hundreds of years ago …”

//Seven hundred. Yes//

“And then they hid the keys …”

//Yes//

“And then they split the Sixth Key and hid one part in your Sepulchre – right here – and the other two parts in the Sepulchres of Entei and Raikou.”

//Your parents have been very open with you. Yes//

“And so then …” Lisa was beginning to see the pieces of the puzzle cluster together in her mind’s eye. “Everything was forgotten over the years, except by you, Raikou and Entei, until you bound yourselves to my Dad, Azura and Lance twenty years ago …”

//YOUR PARENTS HAVE LIED TO YOU!//

“Ouch!” Lisa cried, clutching her ears in agony; Suicune’s telepathic voice had rung out in her head louder than ever before; he had shouted. “What – what do you mean?”

//Your parents have lied to you. What is this nonsense about everything being forgotten?//

“The Legend,” Lisa said timidly; Suicune was standing erect, face incensed. “It was all forgotten until Lance’s father excavated the shrine or something … And you, Raikou and Entei were inside, and you bound yourselves to Dad, Azura and Lance …”

Suicune’s aurora flared erratically; a spark of ice-blue light exploded from the centre of it and struck the dais, sending a chip of perfect pearl flying past Lisa’s face.

“That’s just what Dad told me …” Lisa said hastily, unnerved by Suicune’s response.

//Human greed … that desire for wealth and power … no reason it wouldn’t have extended further, of course …// Suicune muttered darkly. Lisa wondered if he was even aware that he was still transmitting his thoughts to her.

“What are you saying?” she asked nervously.

Suicune’s inky eyes swamped her.

//It is important that you listen carefully to me now, Lisa. I believe you are the only one I can entrust with this information//

*

Sarah Venner scrolled uninterestedly through the seemingly endless report on the screen before her. There were times when being Lance Hudson’s personal assistant made life nothing short of a thrill: in her short tenure she had already attended high-level meetings among the Guard members, travelled to far-off locales with Lance and met some of the most influential people in Johto – senators, researchers, writers, CEOs – many of whom were close personal friends of the Johto League Champion.

And then there were times like this, when she found herself stuck in the office while the sunny day taunted her through the window while she redrafted a report of the Guard’s most recent mission.

Her rust-coloured eyes shifted back and forth along row after row of unserifated black text on a white background. Given the nature of the Guard’s work, the reports should have been riveting, but they were consistently bloodless and clinical. It was always the same: a description of the mission’s location and objectives, which Guard members were involved, what measures were taken, what happened, what the outcome was and what could be improved upon next time.

Sometimes, Sarah managed to keep herself engaged with the report if it involved her mother, Alison, who was a Senior Agent with the Guard. It was quite exciting to read things like, “Agent Alison Venner immobilised two enemy agents before completing the reconnaissance”. Sarah smiled: to think it was only a year ago that she had believed her mother to be nothing more than a dull investment banker.

She sighed, eyes blurring before the screen. Her mother hadn’t been on this particular mission – it had been undertaken by Senior Agent Jim Donovan; and judging by the number and calibre of the grammatical errors, the report had been written by him too.

Just as she reached up for her glass of water, there was an electronic whirr and the sleek fax machine by the window began frantically printing a transmission. Rather hoping that it wasn’t part two of Donovan’s report, Sarah picked the fax up from the tray and glanced over it, her eyes widening in surprise.

“No way …” she breathed.

Fax in hand, she charged at the door of Lance’s drawing room, not bothering to knock: her rudeness would be forgotten in the wake of the news she was about to deliver. The door swung open, but Lance was not seated at the head of the mahogany table; he stood before the wall-length glass windows, speaking very sharply to someone on his mobile phone.

“… isn’t my decision, it’s Azura’s, and she can do whatever the hell she likes with Marina, but I’m YOUR dad and I decide what’s best for you. That’s final, young man!”

Sarah flinched. She knew exactly what was going on, because the cold war between Lance and Darius had been brewing for days now. It seemed it had finally erupted into full-scale conflict.

Feeling a pang of sympathy for Darius as well as rather awkward to be eavesdropping, Sarah called loudly across the room, as if she had just burst in, “Lance! You’ll want to see this!”

Lance Hudson froze, silhouetted by the sunlight pouring into the drawing room.

“I’ll speak to you later, son. Goodbye.”

With a clap, he shut the mobile phone curtly and spun on his heel to face Sarah.

“What is it, Sarah?” he asked cheerily, locking eyes with her.

Had she not heard the preceding phone call, Sarah might have believed him to be genuinely pleased to see her; however, she had worked with him at close quarters long enough to understand that there were many sides to Lance Hudson, and he kept most of them under fierce and constant guard.

“I have a message from the Union,” she said, brandishing the sheet of thin, shiny fax paper.

Lance’s eyes bulged slightly; he instinctively reached for the ‘World’s Best Dad’ mug on the table.

“Good or bad?”

“I suppose good.”

Lance closed his eyes and took three large, grateful sips of tepid coffee.

“Read it to me.”

Sarah searched the page for the particular line she was after.

“It’s mostly another one of those threat messages they send,” she explained. “The important line is this: ‘Your Safe House is not as safe as you think it is. We will steal your three Guardians from under your nose.’”

An enormous grin broke out on Lance’s face.

“That’s the best news I’ve heard in days!” he whooped.

“I know!” Sarah grinned.

Lance took the fax from her and reread it gleefully as he paced by the enormous glass window.

“So they think all three Guardians are at the Safe House, then,” he said excitedly.

“Which means they didn’t recapture Lisa after all … or Marina, by the sounds of it …” added Sarah, glowing.

“Unless it’s a message designed to dupe us, but that would be inconsistent with the other messages. And besides, if the Union really had either Marina or Lisa, they would be making all kinds of demands, not allowing stupid grunts to send through some kind of random threat …” He looked up at Sarah earnestly. “Although, if Lisa wasn’t captured by the Union … why on earth didn’t she re-establish contact with us?”

“Marina, too,” Sarah added. “She has a phone.”

Lance frowned.

Sarah bit her lip.

“We’re going to need more coffee, I think,” she said seriously.

Lance deigned an appreciative smile.

“Black with an extra sugar. I’m going to need it.”

*

//The version of events that your parents told you is a lie// said Suicune. //However, I am not convinced that even they are aware of this//

The knot building in Lisa’s chest eased slightly.

“You mean they were lied to?”

//To an extent, yes. I assume you are still young enough to believe that power and wealth can be dangerous and corrupting things, Lisa?//

Lisa felt a little riled at his very clear attitude. “I suppose so …”

//I have noticed that adult humans grow less and less adept at understanding this with age, nothing more// came the kind-wolf voice again, reassuringly. //I feel sure that you are still pure of heart, Lisa.

//So then, it is crucial that you understand this Legend while you are still able to//

Lisa’s skin turned to gooseflesh.

//This Legend, its very inception, begins with your ancestors, the ones who decided to hide the Great Power from the rest of the world – the creators of the Iron Lock. They developed their own secret society, granting membership only to those they deemed worthy. They enshrined their activities with mythology and mystique and unusual rituals, claiming that a higher power had tasked them with protecting the Great Power//

//The truth is, they were simply greedy individuals. The ancestors of Walters, Frost and Hudson were wealthy land-owners in medieval Ecruteak: they were simply lording their power over the common folk, ensuring that their secret power was kept solely in their control// Suicune’s violet eyes were almost black with rage. //It was greed, Lisa. The creation of the Iron Lock, of the keys … the inception of this war … nothing more or less than greed and powerhunger//

Lisa’s lungs had almost forgotten what air tasted like.

“B-but …” she spluttered eventually. “But you were part of it. You and Raikou and Entei. You helped them build this whole system …”

Suicune’s eyes glinted.

//Yes, Lisa. And thanks to our involvement, it became much, much more difficult for even the Guardians to open the Iron Lock. By binding their souls to ours, we were able to act as a safeguard without them knowing//

The regret in his voice baffled Lisa.

“But then, doesn’t that solve everything?” she cried. “If you’re a safeguard, then nobody can get past you!” Lisa’s heart soared suddenly. “Neither the Guard nor the Union … right?”

Suicune’s eyes fell.

//Like every human, you see me as a legendary being, because your ancestors spread the myth that my brothers and I are magical creatures. Immortal, even.// His tone became deathly quiet, almost fragile. //Lisa, when it comes down to it … I am just a beast. I can be captured quite easily, attacked, too, and I can – and will – die//

His eyes lingered on Lisa; his final word reverberated in her skull.

//My Sepulchre// Suicune continued. //is enchanted. It will open only for two beings: myself, and the human my soul is bound to. As long as we are both present, the Sepulchre will grant entry – even if we are brought here under duress. Like you, Lisa, I am only a safeguard as much as I am a pawn. Do you follow me?//

Lisa nodded blankly.

//You will understand, then, why I scarcely trust the Guard more than I trust the Union. Your ancestors may not seek to harm others with the Great Power, but the greed remains//

“What did you mean when you said my parents had been lied to?” Lisa pressed.

//I was leading to that. As I was saying, the greed in your ancestors has prevailed to this day. Do you know Bernard Hudson and Daisy Frost?//

“Marina and Darius’ grandparents, I suppose?” Lisa asked. “I’ve never met them.”

//Yes, they are the ancestors of Marina and Darius. Now, open your mind and try to see things holistically, Lisa// said Suicune, apparently by way of preamble. //Twenty years ago, when Bernard Hudson entered our collective shrine, he was not making some kind of archaeological discovery. He was already the Guardian of Entei and he already knew of the Legend. The time had come for us to bind ourselves to the newly-adult children of the current Guardians, a changeover that has occurred every twenty years or so for the last seven centuries//

//Historically, Raikou, Entei and I simply perform the binding process and have no further contact with our new Guardians. Before the process, we consult with the old Guardians and entrust them with the task of explaining to their children the significance of what has happened//

//Do you see the problem now?//

“You’re saying that Daisy and Bernard and – my grandfather – lied? To their own children?”

//I do not know this. But from what you have just told me, it seems the most plausible explanation. Hudson, at least, had a great deal to gain, financially, from claiming to have made a great archaeological discovery, and Daisy Frost and Theodore Walters – your grandfather – may have been equally behind this decision, exchanging their silence on the matter for monetary gain. They may have collaborated together to decide to stage the rediscovery and rebirth of the Legend. This is, of course, a lie. The bloodline of Guardians has continued unbroken since it began//

The derision in Suicune’s tone was palpable.

//Ultimately, I do not know what happened. Unfortunately, I have known very little of the human Guardians throughout time; and never have I been privy to their affairs or discussions or decisions. What I don’t know, I can only now assume – and assumptions can be wrong. However, I spoke directly to my Guardian at the time – your grandfather – as I always did before a handover of Guardianship, and he agreed to give your father full disclosure about the Legend. So his failure to do this does suggest that he either had his silence bought, or was hungry for power and glory himself, which, given that he was human, does not really surprise//

Lisa’s mind reeled. Her grandfather had died a few years before she was born: all she knew of him was a black-and-white photograph that used to sit in the lounge room at the family home in Ecruteak. Theodore Walters was a tall, solid, ex-soldier who had a well-groomed moustache and loved his wife Patricia. The thought that he had been mixed up in the Legend seemed absurd enough, let alone the allegation that he had been so devious as to lie to his own son about it all, just for financial gain.

Lisa jolted again: had her Nanna known about this all along, too? Or had Theodore kept his secret identity to himself?

//I have never engaged with Lance Hudson or the rest of the Guard, beyond my Guardian// Suicune continued, now pacing along the dais. //But I have never trusted the Guard fully, particularly after what happened here last October – and especially now//

There was a pregnant pause. The antechamber was filled with silence, broken only by Suicune’s soft paws on the pearl dais and the low, distant cracking of the azure torches.

“Wait – what happened here last October?” Lisa asked breathlessly. She was not sure her heart could take any more revelations.

Suicune continued to pace, talking without making eye contact with Lisa, whose fingers were now knotted tightly through the holes in her jeans.

//That was the second thing I needed to tell you, Lisa.

//Your Quagsire is a Guard spy//

*

Thin white plumes of steam rose into the air from the two mugs of coffee on the mahogany table. Lance Hudson sat at the head of the table, a mess of papers and pens spread out before him. Sarah Venner was perched in the grey tub chair to his left, her cheeks flushed.

“Ready?” asked Lance, his voice slightly hoarse.

“Totally,” she replied swiftly, steeling her nerves.

Lance picked up the receiver on his sleek black desk phone, dialled a number he knew by heart and handed the phone to Sarah, who gripped it in her sweaty palm. It rang four times before a voice message cut in:

“This is Larry O’Brien, leave a message.”

Beep.

“Hey Dad, it’s me, Jenna, just calling to let you know that I got a Distinction on my midterm. Call me back, love you!”

Lance pressed a button and the line went dead.

“Nice work, Jenna O’Brien,” he smirked.

Sarah smiled back.

“Whoever this girl is, she’s a bit of a geek, calling her dad every time she gets a good grade,” she laughed. “Still, I’m surprised they haven’t picked up on anything yet.”

“The Union doesn’t usually pay much attention to things like Christmas parties or meeting the families of its agents,” said Lance wryly. “Now remember, Lisa is Angela, Marina is Stacey, the Guard is the bank. Oh, and Gavin Luper is Mark.”

“It’s all up here,” Sarah reassured him, tapping her head. “I hope he calls back this time …”

A low trilling issued from the speaker on the desk phone.

Sarah pressed a button on the receiver.

“Hello?”

A restrained, fatherly voice crackled down the line.

“Hi sweetheart – I got your message. Congratulations on your Distinction.”

“Thanks, Dad,” Sarah beamed. “I was so stoked, especially since I thought I was going to fail it since I left it until the last minute again.”

“Well, you’ll learn for next time, won’t you? Ha ha. Well done anyway, Jenna. And how’s work going at the bank?”

“Not too bad. Though it’s not as fun now that Angela and Stacey have quit.”

There was a brief pause; Lance gave Sarah the thumbs-up.

“Oh really? I didn’t know that,” said Larry.

Lance closed his eyes in relief, his teeth clenched in a victorious grin.

“Still, it’s a good part-time job, sweetheart, you should keep at it.”

“Yeah, of course I will, it’s just a shame not to have my friends around anymore, you know. I haven’t heard from Mark lately either, have you?”

“Mark? Ah yes, your brother’s going well I’m sure, he’s still out on his Orange Islands trip. I haven’t heard from him in a few days though.”

Lance gave Sarah the wind-up signal.

“He’s always so bad at keeping in touch,” laughed Sarah. “I might give him a call now and see how he’s doing, Dad. That okay?”

“No worries, sweetheart, I’ve got to get back to work anyway. Nice to hear from you and I’ll see you soon, alright? Tell Mark I say hello!”

“Will do, Dad! Love you! Bye!”

“Love you too, sweetheart.”

Click. The line went dead again.

Lance cautiously pressed the hang-up button, just in case.

“Man, that was fun!” said Sarah excitedly, wiping the nervous sweat from her forehead and reaching for her coffee. “Why can’t my job be like that all the time, hey?”

“Because you’d explode if you were under that kind of pressure all the time,” Lance replied soberly. “I have to say though, you make a brilliant Jenna O’Brien.”

“Merci,” grinned Sarah. “Okay, so Larry had no idea Lisa and Marina weren’t in our custody – which means they’re definitely not in the Union’s custody, either. That’s so weird …”

“And he said Gavin’s still on his quest to Cianwood … which means Gavin hasn’t been captured by the Union either.”

Lance rapped his knuckle repeatedly on the edge of the table.

“So let’s see what we have: Lisa disappears on Red Rock Island after being attacked by the Union at the Colosseum; Marina evaporates at Red Rock Airport; and Gavin was due back from Cianwood Island day before last, but hasn’t returned my phone calls since before he left …”

Sarah’s eyebrow rose.

“You think they’ve all met up?”

“Does any other theory make sense?” Lance asked, ruddy-faced. “We have three teenagers who have travelled together in the past – maybe they decided to regroup.”

“But why? They’re safer with us, surely.”

Lance shrugged, exasperated.

“I can’t get my head around it either. But all three of them are AWOL and all in the same place. It’s too neat to be a coincidence.”

“I agree,” Sarah said, slowly nodding her assent. “The only other option is that a rogue third party has taken all three of them hostage … but we know that the Union has either absorbed or obliterated every other underground organisation in the country. So it only makes sense that Lisa, Marina and Gavin must have met up and joined forces but … but that’s really weird.”

“Regardless, it’s our best lead,” said Lance heartily. “Thank God Larry finally picked up.” He reached for his desk phone. “I’m sending Giles and Gideon to Red Rock straight away; they’re still in Olivine visiting Jasmine, so they’re our closest agents. I need you to look through Lisa, Marina and Gavin’s files, find out what contacts they have on Red Rock and e-mail the names and contact details to Giles and Gideon. If the kids are laying low somewhere – for whatever reason – we should be able to find them.”

“Right, I’m on it,” Sarah said, grabbing her coffee and heading for the door and back toward her desk. A mundane day had suddenly evolved into the most interesting one she had had for a while.

“Oh, and Sarah?”

“Yup?” She paused on the threshold.

“Once you’ve done that, start calling Marina and Gavin’s phones again, a hundred times if you have to. I want answers.”

She nodded her head.

“I’ll do my best!”

*

Lisa stared into Suicune’s ragged, furry face for one intense moment, and then laughed.

“What?!”

It was one of those slow-burn moments: Suicune stared Lisa down as solemnly as possible to show that he was not joking.

“You’re wrong,” Lisa said slowly. “He’s a Fiskmire now, anyway – and – and he’s a pokémon, for God’s sake!”

She heard the high-pitched quality in her voice and felt her insides slipping away like grains of sand through cupped hands.

//Your Fiskmire is a Guard spy// Suicune repeated.

“Okay then, how?!” Lisa spat aggressively. Of all the things Suicune had told her, this was the most absurd. The most hurtful. “How could he possibly be a spy?”

Suicune remained placid.

//Let me explain. After you fell through the floorboards of the Brass Tower that day last October, I was … entranced … with the unexpected occurrence. You have now told me that it was apparently no more than dumb luck that you fell in on my meeting with Raikou and Entei, but in that moment, I believed it to be fate, a sign that I should take action on what I had been thinking. You see, at that time, Joseph Sterling had just begun digging for the first of the seven keys …//

Suicune’s voice petered out abruptly; he seemed to have fallen just shy of saying something potent. Lisa moved her eyes from the holes in her jeans to his face, which was suddenly contorted, almost distressed. After a moment of apparently fighting with himself, Suicune shook his head firmly and continued.

//Entei, Raikou and I were becoming increasingly concerned. Various groups over the centuries had tried to search for the keys, but none had gone so far as to actually locate one. Sterling had made a failed attempt a decade before, but this time he was digging in the right place. It appeared there was a mole within the Guard: how else was Sterling obtaining his information? We wondered if the information that we switched the Guardians might leak to the Union – and, if so, if your lives – and the security of the Iron Lock – would be in danger//

//I tried to profit from the opportunity of you dropping in on me like that. I allowed you to climb atop my back before sprinting directly here, to my Sepulchre. I did not tell Raikou or Entei. My plan was to explain the Legend to you and use you to extract your fragment of the Sixth Key and hide it somewhere else, somewhere the Union would never be able to track it down …//

Lisa shivered. Suicune had had the same plan as her – but a whole six months in advance. She tried not to think how much pain she could have avoided if Suicune’s plan had succeeded – however, Suicune gave her no choice but to imagine it.

//If we had succeeded, scores of deaths, this terrible war, and unimaginable pain may have been avoided, Lisa. I was on the verge of succeeding, too. I brought you right to the shores of the Lake of Purity. But then … the spy//

Lisa recalled Suicune’s rage as the Wooper had popped out of Lotus Lake. Suicune had fired off dozens of ice beams before fleeing the scene, leaving Lisa alone.

“How could a Wooper be a spy?” Lisa demanded again.

//I am not accusing your pokémon of disloyalty, Lisa// said Suicune levelly. //Wooper probably did not know he was being used as a Sentry//

“A what?!” Lisa exclaimed; Suicune’s story was becoming progressively more confusing.

//There is a process – an ancient process – that I have heard referred to simply as Sentrying. A pokémon can be placed under a special type of hypnosis of a Psychic or Ghost type pokémon; the commanding pokémon then has almost full access to the vision of the Sentried being. I sensed the latent psychic aura around Wooper and knew at once what had happened//

Lisa stared blankly at Suicune, unsure whether or not to believe him; and yet, what choice did she have? This was Suicune, her Guardian.

“So you’re saying Wooper wouldn’t have known …” she said slowly.

//Almost definitely not// Suicune’s voice became gentler. //Fiskmire is still the same pokémon you know and love, Lisa//

“The Sentrying – could it still be in effect right now?”

Suicune’s jaw hardened.

//Possibly. I do not know how the process is broken, other than the commanding pokémon ceasing control of the hypnosis. Do you have your Fiskmire here with you?//

A bitter chill came over Lisa.

“No, I don’t …” she muttered. “The Union took him from me.”

//I’m sorry to hear that// Suicune gave a soft growl.

“How do you know Wooper was a Guard Sentry, though, and not a Union one?” Lisa probed.

//An educated guess// Suicune replied. //Unless I am mistaken, the Union did not learn of the Sepulchres’ locations until they captured and interrogated Professor Westwood …// The bile rose in Suicune’s voice. //… which was not until November at the earliest. On that day in October, only Westwood and a very few members of the Guard had any knowledge of what the Lake of Purity conceals. The Guard probably put Wooper as a Sentry so that they would be alerted if the Union located the spot. In any case, it made it impossible for me to continue with my plan of sneaking you into my Sepulchre//

//I did try again, of course, which you will remember//

Lisa nodded.

“That day at the beach …” she muttered, recalling the day on Shellder Beach about a week into her journey, when Suicune had appeared for the second time.

//And as luck would have had it, your Quagsire was also present. The psychic aura still surrounded him then, if that answers your earlier question. I believe I expressed my outrage enough at the time//

Lisa recalled the explosions of golden orbs and ice beams and nodded meekly.

//I decided to forcibly remove you from the Quagsire, but you viewed me more as a threat than a friend. And as a result, Gavin Luper appeared and teleported you away … leaving me unable to locate you in any kind of hurry//

//Desperate, I enlisted the aid of Raikou and Entei, and unfortunately this was the beginning of the disintegration of our brotherhood. Raikou was not particularly warm to the idea of entering the Sepulchres; Entei was absolutely furious. We had an altercation regarding the issue – and, unfortunately, that is when we were overheard by Professor Samuel Oak//

Lisa winced; the image of Anna’s body being consumed by flames fought its way into her mind’s eye.

//Needless to say…// Suicune said quickly, swiftly skirting around the issue in response to the upset expression on Lisa’s face. //A succession of events made it too dangerous to risk approaching you again; the Union was tracking you at the time, and – moreover – Entei’s wrath would have been catastrophic should I have made another attempt to enter the Sepulchre, and I could not endanger any more innocent lives.

//However, your appearance here today renders such a risk null and void …// Suicune said, tone suddenly crisp and alert, in contrast to the serious, reminiscent tone he had taken up for the past few minutes. He rose quite abruptly, tilting his cobalt-furred head to the side and regarding Lisa kindly. //I believe I have sated your curiosity enough, and you mine, Lisa. Shall we enter the Sepulchre, then?//

“Ahuer…” garbled Lisa; several urgent vocalisations had fought their way out of her mouth at the same time; she was in no way convinced that Suicune had sated her curiosity. “Well, I still had plenty of things I was wondering about. Like that time you appeared in front of me and Gavin in –”

//It was far less interesting than it appeared, but will make sense soon enough// Suicune cut through her emotionlessly. There was something enigmatic in his tone – something almost suspicious. His irises did not meet hers. //For now, I think it’s time we entered the Sepulchre at last. I am sure you are keen//

Lisa remembered what he had said about the Sepulchre self-destructing in a matter of minutes. Would she get another chance to speak like this with Suicune, or would he coldly bid her farewell and disappear after they had succeeded in their mission?

She continued to press him.

“Something I really want to know,” she said boldly, “is what this great power is that’s referred to in the Legend. You helped lock it away. You know what it is.”

She tried to keep her voice neutral, but an eager, nearly accusatory tone crept in regardless.

Suicune did not smile.

//Yes, I do//

He turned his back on her and strode calmly toward the archway that led to the Sepulchre.

Lisa stared after him in exasperation.

“Well, what is it?!” she demanded.

Suicune did not turn around. The telepathic echo that entered Lisa’s mind a moment later rang with cold finality:

//Trust me, Lisa. You will sleep better if you do not know//

*

Lisa stood beside Suicune on the pearl dais, her right hand resting on the enormous, gem-encrusted oak door that led to the Sepulchre of Suicune. A flurry of Butterfree had stirred to life in her gut, almost making a bid for freedom.

She looked for Suicune’s go-ahead signal and found him looking directly at her with a steely gaze, his irises black.

//Lisa, what is about to happen is …//

He broke off abruptly; Lisa would have raised an eyebrow if it had not seemed rude: was a legendary pokémon actually struggling to find his words?

//Just remember that I understand the Legend. I helped engineer this system, this safeguard. It is essential that you follow my instructions while we are in the Sepulchre, or the result could be deadly//

“Of – of course.”

//Promise me you will do exactly what I say in order to obtain the key fragment//

Honey-brown eyes surged into violet-black.

“I promise.”

Suicune’s jaw twitched.

//Then, let us enter//

A shiver running over her skin, Lisa pressed both hands against the ornate, ceiling-high door at the same time as Suicune breathed out a radiant beam of rainbow light at the oak port, forcing it to swing open as if no effort was involved at all.

“Oh my God …” Lisa gasped.

Finally: here it was. The Sepulchre of Suicune was spread out before her in all its intense beauty. It was another cavern, though much, much smaller than the antechamber, and with a lower ceiling. Lisa goggled at the walls, floor and ceiling: all three were constructed of what looked like refined, perfectly-cut sapphire. Two azure torches were fixed to the wall in pearl brackets at the far end of the Sepulchre, casting a slightly psychedelic light onto the blue, glassy floor. In between the two torches, there was what looked like a decorated golden tabernacle built into a cleft in the sapphire wall.

Lisa heard the oak door creak to a close behind her.

//There is no time to idle// Suicune said urgently, striding calmly into the Sepulchre and heading immediately for the golden tabernacle.

Lisa found her feet and followed him numbly. Her mind was a teeming web of nerves. She found herself wondering if it was somehow sacrilegious to be traipsing her muddy sneakers through a cavern made of sapphire.

She reached Suicune’s side. By the torchlight, she could see the ornate tabernacle had been fixed to the back of the cleft with a gold bracket. The tabernacle itself was a glorious sight to behold: a shining gold receptacle, about two feet in height, complete with a small, sapphire-encrusted door.

Lisa searched for Suicune’s gaze; he nodded.

//Yes. Open it//

Lisa reached for the tabernacle and closed her hand around the cold door handle. Heart and gut pounding, she twisted the handle and flung the frail door open, plunging her hand into the golden box’s dark innards. Immediately, she felt something soft and smooth – but it didn’t feel like a key, or a piece of a key.

She pulled it out and held it up to the torchlight: a small, brown leather-bound diary.

“What’s this?” she cried, panicking. Had someone stolen the key fragment?

//That will be useful to you later// Suicune said calmly. //But there is no time to explore it now. Keep it somewhere safe, for later, and try the tabernacle again//

Lisa squeezed the leather diary into the pocket of her graffittied jeans and eagerly fished around in the open box again, a little deeper this time. Her hand closed around something cold and metallic, but it was something far too big to be a key, let alone a fragment of one …

She removed the object and gasped.

A foot-long silver sceptre was in her hand.

It was encrusted with glittering sapphires; its tip was made of what looked like a sharpened diamond crystal.

She had seen it before.

//You seem shocked//

Lisa turned the mace over and over in her hands, utterly amazed.

“I am shocked …” she said breathlessly. “I … had a dream … a while back now … and I saw this exact thing in it …”

//This is fascinating// said Suicune, not sardonically, //but we are running out of time//

Tearing her eyes from the sceptre, Lisa reached into the tabernacle once more – but it was empty.

“The key fragment isn’t here …” she muttered, turning to Suicune. “Unless …” She held the sceptre up to the torchlight. “This is the fragment?”

//No, the fragment can only be found once you kill me//

The azure flames crackled for hours.

“W-?”

Lisa stared in horror at Suicune’s expressionless mask.

//There is no time for resistance// Suicune said gently. //This is the design of the Sepulchre. The fragment can only be retrieved after my death//

The word ‘death’ ignited a panic in Lisa. Her father’s words at the Fairfax Inn flooded back to her:

“A sepulchre is a burial place, a tomb.”

An electric shiver coursed through Lisa’s spine.

“But – why – can’t we just take the key somehow –”

//It’s impossible. You must kill me//

“I – can’t. I can’t do that. I can’t!” Lisa cried, hysteria building within her. “This doesn’t make any sense –”

//THERE IS NO TIME FOR THIS!// Suicune boomed.

Suddenly, he was on his feet; the aurora on his back was ablaze with an ice-white fire; his violet-black eyes were razor-sharp.

//Lisa, you promised me you would obey everything I told you to do!//

Lisa didn’t recoil; on the contrary, she lunged forward, geared by fear.

“I didn’t know you wanted me to do this!” she cried, jabbing an accusatory finger at Suicune. “You knew – all along?”

//This is the divine plan, Lisa. The design of the Sepulchres. Only the human Guardian, with his sceptre, may spill the blood of the Legendary Guardian and claim the key fragment. This was designed as a safeguard, but it has become a terrible curse. Our only chance to break it is here and now. It is the only way//

“No,” Lisa said firmly. “This was a stupid idea. Can’t you just run away – disappear? Unless the Union have both of us, the fragment’s safe …”

//There is no time for this!// Suicune repeated hotly. //Entei is now able to track me and the Union is more than adept at tracking you, Lisa! Do not lose your conviction now. We are running out of time. You must take the sceptre and kill me!//

“I CAN’T!” Lisa shrieked. She was shaking violently. “Do you have any idea what you’re asking me to do?!” she screeched, impervious to Suicune’s level gaze. “I can’t do this! I can’t kill you!”

The word sizzled her tongue: it was foreign; impossible.

//It is your responsibility as my Guardian!// Suicune roared.

“Then I don’t want that responsibility!” Lisa shouted back, a bead of sweat rolling down her forehead.

And, quite suddenly, the sapphire floor beneath her tremored, almost throwing her off her feet.

//The Sepulchre … it is preparing to self-destruct …// Suicune’s voice was suddenly hushed. His eyes frosted over for a moment. //It is possible, Lisa, that a flesh wound will be enough to satisfy the Sepulchre and grant us access to the key. I may not necessarily have to die: it simply requires that my blood be spilt …//

“What are you saying?”

//Take the sceptre, Lisa, and make an incision on my chest, enough to draw blood. Once it falls on the floor of the Sepulchre, that should be enough to release the fragment//

There was another tremor; it was less violent than the last but lasted longer; Lisa almost lost her footing once again.

“It’s going to self-destruct?” she said blankly.

//It will if we don’t hurry// Suicune said. //Quickly, Lisa …//

Suicune raised his head to allow Lisa access to his cobalt-furred chest. She glanced at the sharp crystal that formed the tip of the sceptre uneasily before moving to Suicune’s side, sceptre extended.

//You must make an incision near the heart. The blood has to be fresh// Suicune urged.

Lisa nodded earnestly. Her hands quivered as she raised the crystalline blade to the fur on Suicune’s chest.

//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.