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

[Chris 2.1]

OH GOD ITS ACTUALLY HAPPENING

I was so excited reading this. I feel like I'm watching an episode of 24; the suspense, the sneakery, the fact that so many characters' lives at stake (don't make Lisa an orphan, please!? And Tom's girlfriend seems nice too...)

I like the little gang Lisa formed, also great to see Jamie back (found that guy hilarious). I just don't know how this is all going to pan out. Excitedly awaiting the next instalment Gav.

Descriptions were brilliant, loved reading the trio in the lagoon, and the description of the Union's boat drifting past.... that was chilling.

See ya!

[Gavin Luper]

Chris: Thanks for reading and replying mate. Hehehe I know, it's all coming together! Glad you like the gang ... it has been a really long time since I sketched that out so it was nice to share it, at last. More on that front now.

Stoked that you liked Jamie, too.

I waited so long to post again because - well, I know I have to do some brief editing and spellchecking for each chapter, so I put it off and procrastinated. But I just forced myself to do it and it took all of ten minutes.

More importantly, I think I'm going to post chapters up weekly now, otherwise I'll never finish posting this. I simply hope that you guys can keep up, but if not, reading two or three recently-posted chapters at once would be no different to how you would read a book, so I hope it doesn't put you off.

So I'll be committing myself to weekly chapters now, each Sunday. Stay tuned!

On that note, here's Chapter 80! Boom! It's all happening now!

Cheers!

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Chapter 80 – The Midnight Armada.


Shrouded by darkness, the six teenagers sprinted through the salty scrub, bashing sticks and leaves out of their way as they hurtled toward the beach.

“Look out, sleeping Ekans ahead!” Jamie shouted.

“Cheers!” Lisa cried, looking down at her sneakers just in time to see a thickly-coiled mass of purple only a foot ahead of her. Throwing all her weight forward, she leaped over the snake, clearing it safely, her sneakers landing with a thud on the dirt on the other side, her legs crunching slightly with the shock.

“Gav, look out for the Ekans!” Lisa called over her shoulder.

“Cleared it!” he bellowed back, grunting as his shoes landed safely on the other side.

Barely twenty metres past the sleeping Ekans, the box-thorns, blackboys and saltbushes began to dissipate, until the sound of breaking waves tugged at Lisa’s ears and the strong scent of salt teased her nostrils.

Lisa slowed herself down to a halt, as Jamie, Darius, Sarah and Marina were doing before her. The bush cleared completely: they were standing on fine beach sand, the coastline spreading out either side of them. Straight ahead, in the distance, Silver Rock Island glinted in the moonlight.

“Oh wow,” Lisa gaped.

Her eyes had fallen on the dark, tiny dots that seemed to be floating in the distance, close to Silver Rock Island. There were dozens of them, barely visible except when a moonbeam fell upon them.

Gavin came jogging to a halt beside Lisa.

“Gav, let me borrow your binoculars,” Lisa asked him.

He handed them over – a sleek, metallic silver set – and she pressed them to her eyes, gazing out at the tiny dots near the island. Sure enough, the dots were boats – fishing vessels and speedboats and pleasure craft – all of them crowded with tiny figures that must have been Guard members.

“It looks amazing,” Lisa breathed. “It’s like a silent armada.” She grinned. “The Union won’t know what hit it.”

She removed the binoculars from her eyes and handed them to Gavin, who eagerly took them and gazed out at the sight before them. Sarah, meanwhile, was pointing out to the others a small headland about a hundred metres to their left.

“That’s where the Guard left from … there’s no rips there, no dangerous current. We should leave from there.”

“Just as well you’re here, then,” Marina said dully. “Because our plan A is a no-go.”

She gesticulated to the old wooden jetty that jutted into the Cianwood Sea, about three hundred metres to their right. It was completely abandoned; a loose rope dangled from one of the piers.

“Oh no!” Lisa moaned.

“What was plan A?” Jamie asked.

“We were going to nick Jack’s dinghy,” Marina sighed. “I’ve sailed them before so I thought I could do that … but it looks like the Guard stole it first, or something.”

“They must have run out of boats …” Sarah muttered.

“So, what’s plan B?” Darius asked urgently, eyeing up the distant dots, which seemed to be almost atop Silver Rock Island now.

Lisa and Gavin exchanged wry smiles.

“We surf.”

*

The Cianwood Sea was frigid by night: Lisa wanted to scream as Gavin’s Seel surfed purposefully through the water, occasionally dipping an inch or two deeper and wetting a little more of her jeans with the ice water.

“Aaaaaargh!” she shrieked, as a small swell rose over them, drenching her right leg from the knee down. “This is insane!”

“I think my leg is falling off,” said Sarah, from the back of Darius’ Dragonair.

“Toughen up!” said Darius sharply, though even from her distance, Lisa could see his teeth chattering violently.

Looking around, she was glad they had managed to surf on relatively small pokémon: it would make them less visible by either the Guard or the Union as the silhouette of Silver Rock Island loomed ever closer. Gavin was seated on his half-submerged Staryu, his legs crossed to keep his feet dry, while Marina and Jamie each took one of Starmie’s horizontal arms, her grubby sneakers and his black-and-white Converse All-Stars trailing through the seaspray.

“Reckon the Union’s got someone on lookout duty?” Lisa called to Gavin.

Gavin shrugged, scratching his leg.

“I would, if I were them,” he called back.

He grabbed the pair of silver binoculars from around his neck and peered up ahead at the armada of Guard boats, all of which were now either in the shallows surrounding Silver Rock Island, or actually disembarking.

“Looks like they’re arriving undetected,” he remarked, impressed.

Lisa patted Seel gently on the head.

“G-good job, buddy,” she grinned falsely, trying to appear grateful for the ride instead of resentful that she had taken one of the pokémon lowest to the water level.

Silver Rock Island was now only a few hundred metres away. Although the island itself was largely no more than a gigantic, conical silhouette, the jagged silver rocks caught the moonlight in various places, giving the island a twinkling aura.

“The Guard members are taking too long to get out of the way,” Gavin observed through his binoculars. “Some of them have already gone into the island through a cave … I think it’s through a cave anyway … but there’s a bunch still hanging around on the shoreline. They’ll see us if we get much closer …”

“That’s D-Donovan’s team,” stuttered Sarah, her teeth clattering together. “They’re meant to act as a back-up for Azura’s team. They’ll only go in when they’re called.”

“So what, we’re gonna float around and wait for ‘em to go in?” Jamie demanded brashly.

“What are they gonna do, tell us to turn around and go back?” Lisa laughed. “Once we’re there, they’ll need us … OH!”

Her cry of shock was echoed by the others.

An enormous streak of flame had suddenly exploded from the core of the extinct volcano within the island, illuminating the island and the sea. Lisa and the others watched in awe as the tongue of flame rocketed into the air like a nuclear warhead, apparently bound for the stratosphere, before it reached its zenith, hung delicately in mid-air for a moment, and then arced back down toward the ground, gathering velocity.

“Are they battling inside the cone – OH MY GOD!” Marina screamed.

Lisa screamed with her: the gigantic ball of flame had not returned to the inside of the cone, but rather, had streaked down the outside of the island, illuminating the silver rocks around it before slamming with almighty force into the centre of Donovan’s team; silhouetted bodies went spinning backward into the beach sand; a second later, a barrage of anguished screams reached Lisa’s ears.

“Fuck!” Jamie yelled.

“Oh no,” Sarah whimpered.

Lisa and Gavin exchanged glances.

“The Union saw them coming …” Gavin muttered.

Lisa’s teeth were chattering and she felt a surge of self-hatred overcome her as she cried, “Seel, get deeper into the water and surf as fast as you can!”

Her mind churned; the voice she had successfully repressed for the last few minutes reared its head with a vengeance.

It’s on me … it’s my fault if they die …

Icy needles pierced Lisa’s arms and torso as Seel dove, almost submerging himself; around them, Starmie, Staryu and Dragonair followed suit, accompanied by curse words from the boys and a whimper from Sarah. Marina alone seemed immune to the water’s frigid wrath.

“Shit!” Gavin muttered, peering through the binoculars as Staryu pulled in closer to the other pokémon. “The Union’s got troops coming to finish the job.”

Lisa didn’t need binoculars: they were close enough now for her to see what was taking place on the beach, which was illuminated by the blaze that had sprung up in the wake of the massive fireball attack. Union agents in camouflage gear and bandanas were streaming from a hidden cavern near where Donovan’s team were writhing on the ground; all of the agents were equipped with either Stunners or AK-47s.

“No!” Lisa cried, as the agents levelled their weapons and began to fire.

The rat-tat-tat of rapid gunfire echoed across the water, followed by bloodcurdling screams; one of the Guard members on the beach, a male, judging from his bulky silhouette, bellowed, “NOOOOO!” and hurled something at the nearest group of Union agents.

BANG!

The grenade exploded; a wave of flame blossomed over the beach, enveloping the three Union agents, accompanied by a wave of airborne sand, which rained over the others.

They were just twenty metres from the shoreline now; Sarah was looking around wildly at the others, as if demanding to be taken back to safety, but nobody was even capable of returning her gaze – least of all Lisa. She firmly redirected her eyes at Gavin, her mouth hanging open as a vortex of horror and guilt swirled in her gut.

She knew Gavin understood what she was feeling, but he offered no word of comfort. Instead, he called out to the group at large.

“Let’s attack from here,” he said firmly. “At the ready, guys, with your quickest, strongest ranged attacks. Go!”

And at once, Lisa’s anxiety was supplanted by the call of duty; life and reality and the world ceased to exist, and the world became war.

“Staryu, Psybeam!” Gavin roared.

“Hydro Pump, Starmie!” Marina bellowed.

“Dragonair, Hyper Beam!” Darius cried.

Lisa hesitated just a moment.

“Seel – use an Ice Beam!”

The Union agents on the beach turned at the commotion, but they were too slow to react: an ice-white beam of energy flew from Seel’s mouth, grazing the top of the seafoam before smacking directly into a Union agent’s leg, sending him tripping over his own feet and into the fire; a ray of purple blasted through the night air, slamming directly into an Umbreon and its trainer; by the time Starmie’s cannon of water flooded the beach and sizzled half the inferno, there was an explosion of gunfire and bullets sizzled the surface of the water around them, pinging off with a distorted twang sound.

“There’s some more coming from the wat-aaaaargh!”

A Union agent decked out in leather copped a Hyper Beam to the head as he tried to call for back-up; he slammed into the ground as a deadweight.

Screams echoed from the beach as the battle continued to rage in the semi-dark, illuminated by the flames.

Abruptly, Lisa felt Seel slow down, and then her feet scraped against sand.

“Everyone stay back!” she commanded to the others, pelting onto the beach and hurling her rucksack to the sand.

She supposed it was abject fear, rather than genuine conviction, that caused her to say it; she knew at once that her desperate cry would have no pull over the others. Around her, Gavin and Marina were clambering to their feet and launching pokéballs into the air; Darius followed suit, wading toward dry land, edging past the Guard’s moored vessels.

Sarah, meanwhile, was floating half-submerged in the shallows, looking completely stunned; and Jamie stood beside Starmie, a pokéball in his hand and a vacant look on his face.

“Don’t just stand there, you’re an easy target!” Lisa roared. “Go, Kingler! Revelum, Altaria!”

Lisa had perhaps one full second in which to survey the battleground before her: she realised the beach was only a small alcove, home to about a dozen battling Guard members and about double the number of murderous-looking Union agents; motionless bodies littered the sand. Before Lisa could get her head around anything else, she saw a bolt of blue light streaking from nowhere toward her head, and threw herself to the ground; she rolled in terror, her ears caked in wet sand; her heart was pounding; she was sure that staying still would seal her doom in an instant …

“Nooooo!”

There was an explosion of green light just feet away from where Lisa lay; a second later, a sweaty hand gripped her arm and hauled her onto her feet.

“I got your back, Leese!” Gavin screamed. “Yeah, Natu, peck his fucken eyes out!”

“DIE!”

A Union agent seemed to materialise from the darkness, a machete in his hand and madness in his eyes; he lunged at Lisa, brandishing the blade …

“ELECTRIFY!”

The Buzzball crackled to life; a blue streamer sparked through the wet air and connected with the tip of the machete, only a foot from Lisa’s face; the agent screamed as he was blasted off his feet …

“NO, LISA!”

Donovan’s voice came from nowhere; Lisa spun around almost a full three hundred and sixty degrees before she realised that he was in front of her.

“Why’re yeh HERE?” he growled furiously. “LOOK OUT!”

He threw his entire weight on top of her; Lisa’s bones crunched audibly as they slammed into the dirt together; Lisa didn’t even have time to see what attack they had just escaped; she yelled an indiscriminate, “Electrify!” and clambered to her feet.

“Thanks, Donovan,” she called, hunting around the beach until her eyes caught something white and blue being pummelled by a red-eyed Raichu.

“Altaria, don’t take it lying down! Speed Star!” Lisa cried.

“Fucking hell, it’s the Walters bird!” roared Raichu’s owner, a bearded bikie. “Get ‘er!”

“Not likely!”

Stephen appeared from somewhere in the shadows, delivering a deft uppercut to the bikie before smacking him neatly in the nose; in the same instant, amid a renewed round of gunfire, Altaria squealed a series of high notes and released a volley of golden, resplendent stars, which slammed into the Raichu’s side, almost throwing it off its feet.

“Quick attack!” Lisa bellowed, exchanging an awkward wink with Stephen by way of thanks. “AARGH!”

She would never know where the attack had come from: blackness overcame her; her body was shaking, spasming; her bones were being loosened, screwed from their joints by a grinding screwdriver; her nerves were being cleaved by a blunt saw … her brain was screaming …

“GET OFF!”

The pain lifted; Lisa found herself lying face down on the beach, her mouth half-filled with mud. She spat it out and pushed herself back up, her arms shaking uncontrollably.

She wheeled around to see Darius standing over her, flanked by his Stantler and holding Lisa’s Buzzball out before him.

“Electrify!” he cried. “Stantler, Double Team!”

As a bolt of electricity crackled toward the nearest agent, Stantler multiplied itself; suddenly, the beach was filled with dozens of brown stags, each one as real-looking as the last; just as the nearest Union agents cried out in confusion, Darius spun round to face Lisa.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

Before Lisa could answer, a Hispanic agent lunged out from the shadows, a pistol outstretched, and pulled the trigger twice.

Bang! Bang!

Darius hung for a moment, as though suspended in time, and then collapsed backwards into the soft sand.

A crystal of black ice blossomed in Lisa’s chest.

“NO!” she screamed, scrambling toward Darius’ body, thoughts of her own safety forgotten.

Don’t be dead … don’t be dead …

Darius’ face was frozen in a stunned expression, his eyes rolling around in his head. Her heart burning, Lisa scanned his clothes for a deep red stain and finally located one slowly flowering – on his right shoulder.

There was a metallic click nearby. She whirled around: Anthony, the Union agent, had levelled his pistol at her chest.

“We both know you won’t do it, Anthony!” Lisa screamed. Knowing his name – and using it – somehow made her feel powerful. “You know Sterling needs me too much …”

Anthony’s yellow-toothed grin broadened. He lowered his pistol toward her leg and pulled the trigger just as Lisa dived to the right; the slipstream of the bullet grazed past her thigh moments before she slammed roughly into the ground once more …

Sprawled on her back, Lisa saw Annette, the purple-haired Guard agent, run at full-pelt at Anthony, pulling the trigger of her Stunner at point-blank range. A jet of blue light burst from the tip of the Stunner; Anthony spasmed as though he had been kicked in the solar plexus; he crumpled to the sand.

“You okay, Lisa?!”

Annette hauled Lisa to her feet. Behind her, another grenade exploded, showering both of them in wet sand; somewhere in the mêlée around them, Marina cried, “COP THAT, BITCH!” and Donovan let off a tirade of curse words as he fired off a Stunner relentlessly into a Union agent’s gut.

“We rock!” Annette cried, appraising the beach around them.

The chaos had somehow petered out into a series of isolated fights, though Lisa spied at least four Union agents retreating back into the cave. Bodies covered the ground; only a few people were left fighting; the Guard’s sheer number of pokémon had tipped the scales in their favour. A gang comprised of an Ivysaur, a Wigglytuff, three Beedrill, Marina’s Bayleef and Golduck, Gavin’s Girafury, Lisa’s Altaria, a monstrous Golem and a Treecko was systematically taking down one Union agent after another, impervious to most attacks thanks to the constant Reflect and Light Screen provided by a Xatu in their midst.

Lisa scanned the scene – Marina had now apparently disappeared, but Gavin was still locked in a fierce pokémon battle with a female Union agent, and Jamie was engaged in fisticuffs with a Union agent who looked no older than he; as they watched, Stephen ran up and decked the Union agent definitively, before high-fiving Jamie in triumph.

“Where’s Sarah?” Lisa cried, looking back into the shallows, but there was nobody there.

“That’s her!” Annette said in astonishment, pointing behind Lisa.

Lisa whirled around in time to see Sarah perform a lightning-fast kick to a slender Union agent’s head; the female agent’s nose broke with a loud crack; she reeled backwards, stumbling, as Sarah ran forward and delivered a swift backhand to her bleeding nose. With an anguished roar, the woman collapsed to the dirt.

Sarah spun on her heel, her arms twirling around her in a distinctive martial arts formation.

“I learn karate,” she said, looking slightly shell-shocked at what she had done as Annette and Lisa stared on in disbelief. “For – for self-defence.”

Lisa barely had time to express her astonishment; a shout of victory from Gavin, Donovan and some other Union agents signified the battle’s end. A relative calm fell over the beach, broken only by the crackling of the fire and the groans of various agents sprawled across the sand.

“Lisaaaa!”

The hoarse cry came from just a few metres away. Lisa’s blood ran cold once more. She rushed back to Darius’ side.

He lay spread-eagled on the shimmering sand. Marina knelt at his side while Stantler presided over affairs, cooing miserably.

“I’m here,” Lisa muttered, as Darius’ pained eyes found hers.

“Am I okay? How bad is it?” he said in a panicked voice.

The wound, a few inches east of Darius’ collarbone, was trickling with hot blood. Marina held a scrap of black material to the spot, her eyes wide.

“It’s going to be alright,” Lisa said in the calmest tone she could muster, though tears had sprung to her eyes. “He only got you in the shoulder.”

Marina gaped at Lisa, her voice strangled, tears tumbling down her cheeks.

“Lisa – I don’t know what I’m doing –”

“I can help!”

Annette came rushing up to them, pulling two red-and-white pokéballs open; a plump, bright pink Blissey and a robust Wurmple emerged in a flash of radiance.

“All good battlers should always carry a Blissey and a Wurmple,” Annette said seriously to both Lisa and Marina. “Blissey, try a Softboiled and let’s see if we can’t do something about that wound with Wurmple!”

Not convinced that Annette was going to have much success, Lisa gripped Darius’ hand tightly before turning around to survey the rest of the beach. There were only a dozen figures on their feet, all of them Guard agents.

“Leese!”

Gavin came lumbering forward clumsily; as he got closer, the flames from the still-raging blaze illuminated his thin face; his nose was crooked, bent violently to the right, and blood flowed in a thick stream from his nostrils into his mouth.

“Gav – you okay?” Lisa cried, suddenly aware that her heart had slowed to a rapid pounding; she suspected it had been veritably vibrating before.

“I’m fucking wicked!” Gavin cried, spitting a mouthful of blood and saliva to the sand. He threw his arms around Lisa. “I’m alive, so I’m fucking wicked!”

Lisa managed a smile; though bruised, she had somehow escaped the scuffle unscathed.

Over her shoulder, she glimpsed Jamie rubbing his head gingerly; it looked like he had sustained several bruises during his fistfight, including a heavy hit to the face which seemed to be swelling into a black eye.

“Eddie is dead,” Donovan announced.

“No!”

There were screams and cries from the surrounding Guard agents, only a few of whom Lisa knew by name or face.

“Tamara too,” said Donovan. “And Jonas, Adam and Travis.”

Lisa barely heard the second chorus of grief. Her ears were ringing, her throat swollen as the truth hit her: five Guard agents were dead.

“It’s on me …”

She didn’t realise she had said it aloud until Gavin, his arms still embracing her tightly, pulled away slightly and locked eyes with her.

“Lisa – it isn’t on you. Stop punishing yourself,” he said sternly.

Lisa swallowed a dry sob and hummed to herself, visualising her five pokémon’s joyful faces when she rescued them.

It was just enough.

“Roxanne is unconscious and wounded, but not seriously; we will have to abandon her here,” Donovan continued. “Same as the others; we don’t have time for grief or diagnostics. Azura’s team will need their back-up now; we have to go into the caves, and now. Wartortle, Hydro Pump,” he added in the same breath; a Wartortle waddled up to the blaze and, with several bursts of cold, refreshing water, extinguished the fire in a matter of seconds, the hissing of steam echoing into the night.

Stephen, Owen and some other agents began picking up various weapons from the unconscious or paralysed Union agents at their feet.

Donovan regarded Lisa and Gavin with an expression of incredulity.

“You kids … nothing will stop you, will it?”

Feeling as though she were repeating a hypnotic recording, Lisa pulled away from Gavin and faced him.

“I need my pokémon back,” she said firmly. “And you need us.”

Donovan ground his teeth.

“I need you to stay here on the beach and take care of our wounded members,” he said gruffly, “but I have a feeling that’s not going to happen.”

He sighed heavily as he picked up a revolver from Anthony’s holster and took it for himself. He trudged through the beach sand toward Lisa and Gavin and placed a hand on Gavin’s shoulder.

“If you kids are going to fight no matter what, then at least do me this favour, and stay the hell away from the main cavern. Most of the fighting will take place there, if it isn’t already.”

“If you help us out with some info, we’ll be able to do that,” Lisa said quickly. “I need to know where the Union’s lab is – where they do tests on pokémon – I want to get my pokémon back …”

Donovan’s beady eyes flicked to the top of his head, as though he were racking his brains.

“Each team had a set objective,” he explained quickly. “Ryan and Maria’s team is freeing trapped Guard operatives, including Professor Westwood; Lance and a few other agents are basically kicking arse and takin’ out as much Union scum as they can; Azura’s team and mine are hunting for the Fourth Key.” He paused for breath. “Alison’s team went in to liberate the pokémon and destroy as much infrastructure as possible … it’s them you’ll need to rendezvous with. Oy, Venner!”

Sarah jogged over from Darius’ side.

“Yes?”

“You and Lance plotted this thing – you got any idea where the pokémon are being kept?”

“No – we didn’t have enough intel. We only know cavern codenames,” Sarah said anxiously. “But … if I knew what cavern the lab was in, I could probably find my way to it.”

Donovan grunted and reached down for the nearest Union agent he could find sprawled on the dirt; he hauled a red-haired teenager a foot off the ground by his hair and held Anthony’s pistol directly against the young agent’s face, the barrel resting on his forehead.

“Yeh’ve got two seconds to gimme the fucken codename of the cave where the pokémon lab is kept, Red, or I blow your fucken brains out all over this beach.”

The agent began to scream hysterically.

“It’s codename Cyprus! Cyprus cave! Please, don’t, don’t kill me – don’t! –”

“Fucken treacherous prick,” Donovan growled, releasing his hair and sending him face-first into the dirt; he aimed the revolver toward the sky and fired a single bullet off with a deafening bang!; the agent convulsed and shrieked in terror.

“Cyprus cave is your best lead, even if he’s lying,” Donovan said to Sarah. “And on that note, we’re off.” He sighed heavily, surveying them with bemusement. “Stay safe, kids.”

He jogged toward the rock wall that comprised the foundation of the volcanic cone, Stephen, Owen and the others following him eagerly.

“One more thing,” he called as he jogged, “Lance always tells us the main objective to keep in mind is to STAY ALIVE! Remember that!”

“We will!” Lisa and Gavin called in unison.

No sooner had the Guard agents disappeared into the crack in the rock wall than there was the renewed sound of gunfire and anguished screaming. Lisa jumped as she saw a blast of light high above them, from within the cone itself; clearly, another battle was taking place in there, too.

“I think we’re done!” Annette declared, stepping back from Darius.

Lisa, Gavin, Sarah and Marina looked on as Annette recalled her Blissey and Wurmple. The colour had returned to Darius’ face, and his shoulder was no longer bleeding, bandaged organically with Wurmple’s thick, sticky String Shot.

“Wurmple String Shot is the best for wounds,” Annette said confidently. “I bound it nice and tightly … so it shouldn’t come loose. You should be okay, Darius.”

“T-thanks,” he muttered, sitting up slowly.

Annette surveyed the sea of bodies before her, clutching her hands to her bushy purple hair. For a moment, the moonlight fell upon her face and Lisa realised that she was emotionally shellshocked; but before she could comfort her, Annette gave them all a distracted wave and, muttering, “Stay safe, kiddos!”, she bounded toward the tunnel entrance that Donovan and the others had taken.

A set of waves crashed over the shoreline, water rushing over Darius’ backside and the hiss of seafoam almost blocking out – for a second – the pandemonium of at least two separate battles on the island.

“What are we waiting for?” Jamie drawled, tapping his knee with Cubone’s bone.

Lisa looked around at the others: Gavin’s bloody nose, Jamie’s black eye, Marina’s grazed arm, Sarah’s bruised face and Darius’ wounded shoulder. The guilt finally overcame her.

“Look, I dragged you here to get my pokémon back, essentially … and I feel really bad that out of all of you, it’s me who comes out of the first battle, you know, without a scratch …”

“Lisa, what are you babbling about?” Marina asked, regrouping with her pokémon. “Have you even seen your arm?”

Lisa followed Marina’s finger to the underside of her right arm: it was grazed so badly it looked as though someone had grated it; flakes of skin dangled loosely while blood seeped from the holes.

“I can’t even feel anything …” Lisa muttered.

“It’s called adrenaline,” Darius said, miraculously sardonic as he allowed Sarah and Gavin to pull him to his feet. “I can barely feel anything in my shoulder, either. I mean, it’s killing … but I’m kind of numb …”

“Then let’s get going while we’re still pumped!” Jamie urged.

“Well, that’s what I was starting to say. The Union aren’t fighting fair; they’re using bullets and we’re not. We could be killed tonight. If you guys want to wait here and avoid any more fighting, then I’d –”

“Oh, fuck’s sake, don’t pull this shit, Lisa!” Jamie cried indignantly. “I was just starting to like you, jeez. Get your bloody hand off it and let’s go!”

Gavin’s face wrinkled into a grin.

“First time I’ve agreed with him,” he muttered. “For the last time, Leese, stop thinking you’re responsible for us, for God’s sake.”

Without another word, Gavin and Jamie leaned over the bodies of some of the Union agents, collecting weapons for them all. Marina gave Lisa a friendly elbow before following suit, along with Sarah.

Lisa felt the burden in her chest lift, if only slightly. She turned to Darius, who was gingerly brushing wet sand off himself.

“I was so scared for a minute there,” Lisa admitted.

“No kidding,” Darius breathed. And then, while the other four were busy scouring for weapons, he leaned toward her and pressed his lips against hers.

Lisa froze, taken completely off-guard. She had never been kissed before, had never experienced the sensation of a warm pair of lips against her own. Her heart seemed to lift in her chest, suspended by elation, her mind wiped completely blank by the new sensation; and then, quite as suddenly as it had happened, Darius pulled back and their lips broke apart.

Lisa locked eyes with Darius. She could see her own reflection, pale and battered, shining in his brown irises. She searched the depths of his eyes for meaning. For an infinitesimal moment, time seemed to wait for them. And then –

“Take a Stunner!” Marina called, her voice deliberately loud. She pushed in between them and thrust a stun gun into Darius’ hands before pressing a second one into Lisa’s and dragging Lisa along by the arm.

“Okay, let’s move!” she bellowed, trudging determinedly toward the cleft in the rock wall that led to the inside of the cave.

Lisa looked back at Darius, who held her gaze until Sarah came up by his side and spoke to him in a whisper; Lisa felt a surge of jealousy rise within her.

“Focus, Lisa,” Marina said knowingly in her ear, as they reached the tunnel entrance.

“Right. I know. I am,” Lisa said, tearing her eyes from Darius and facing front. She recalled Altaria into the poképort and jogged onward.

Gavin had somehow come into possession of the Buzzball: as they strode into the pitch-dark tunnel, he held it before him and said quietly, “Illuminate.”

A globule of light materialised from nowhere and began orbiting gently around the red Buzzball, sending sparks of golden light glimmering to the ground and illuminating the tunnel ahead.

“Okay, that’s fucking awesome,” said Jamie.

The tunnel stretched out a long way before them; echoes of shouts and bangs could be heard further ahead. Almost at the end of the illuminated section, there was a dark shape curled up on the ground.

“Let’s … uh … proceed with caution, ay?” Gavin suggested, slowly creeping forwards.

“Cyprus Cave is actually very close to here,” Sarah’s voice echoed from behind Lisa and Marina. “The first tunnel to our right should take us to an antechamber, and Cyprus Cave leads right off that, I’m almost positive.”

“Okay,” Gavin said, adopting a tone of faux-machismo. “Stunners at the ready? Let’s march, boys!”

Gripping the handle of the Stunner with her left hand and holding her right index finger on the trigger, Lisa shuffled forward. As Gavin walked, the tunnel lightened further and further. Before long, they had reached the dark shape that lay slumped in on the edge of the tunnel.

Lisa was only a few metres from it when she realised it was a body.

“Oh no …” Marina breathed.

It was the body of a man in his mid-thirties: his polo shirt had been torn to shreds by what looked like a vicious pokémon attack; his gut, still visibly hairy, was sliced in a thousand places, leaving red, bloodied slashes across his torso. His face was also shredded, the gashes even deeper here, with what was left of his nose dangling from his face on a precarious thread, leaving a bloody, gooey mass exposed beneath. One of his eyes, mercifully, was closed, but the other had been clawed out, leaving a mess of white and black jelly leaking over the side of his face.

The bile rose in Lisa’s stomach; she pushed Marina out of her way and vomited violently.

She wasn’t the only one affected so strongly, either; Gavin made a retching noise, and Sarah was quietly throwing up at the back of the group, while Marina clapped her hand to her mouth in terror, and Jamie covered his eyes and walked around in a small circle, muttering, “Christ, no, no, no …”

Darius had gone pale, biting his lip repeatedly, as if in a petrified trance.

“Please tell me it’s a Union agent,” Lisa managed eventually, wiping her mouth on her sleeve; all thoughts of decorum were antiquated, silly.

“It’s not,” Darius groaned. “His name was Jon, he worked with Donovan’s team.”

A collective cry – something between a groan and a scream – went up from the group.

“What d’you think did this to him?” Marina wondered in terrified awe. “It almost looks too vicious to be a pokémon, doesn’t it?”

“Who knows …” Darius muttered darkly. “Let’s just … keep an eye out …”

A shiver ran down the length of Lisa’s spine. Focusing her gaze anywhere but on Jon’s body, she glanced at the dimly illuminated cave ahead and felt slightly relieved: there was a wide opening to their right.

“Is that the tunnel?” she asked nobody in particular.

“If it’s the first one to the right, then, yeah,” came Sarah’s voice.

Eager to escape the corpse in the tunnel beside them – though Lisa did not think the image burned into her retinas would ever leave her – they turned down the auxiliary tunnel, jogging. The sound of fierce battle echoing through the glittering ceiling above them instilled a sense of urgency: Lisa’s knuckles grew white on the trigger of her Stunner.

“Slow down, Gavin, we’re nearly at the antechamber!” Sarah cried suddenly. “Cyprus Cave will be dead ahead – the pokémon lab is within – but the tunnel that intersects with this one leads from the Union’s barracks!”

“You’re telling me now!” Gavin bellowed, extinguishing the Buzzball at once; they were plunged into total blackness.

Lisa ground to a halt; Marina slammed into her heavily.

“Well this is helpful,” Jamie muttered snidely.

“Shut up,” Gavin snapped.

“Gav, I can’t even see my hand in front of my face,” Lisa muttered, feeling around for his shoulders.

“Well, according to Sarah the barracks are ahead – they’ll be friggin’ flooded with Union bastards …”

“THERE’S SOME MORE DOWN HERE! HEADED FOR THE LAB!” a hoarse male voice bellowed from behind them.

“SMOKE ‘EM OUT!” barked another man. “Charizard, Blaziken, use Fire Blast!”

“I’m thinking we don’t have a choice!” Lisa screamed, as the roars of the fire pokémon behind them were followed by torch-like sounds.

“RUN!” Marina screamed, pressing into Lisa.

It was chaos in the inky blackness. Lisa felt at least three bodies crushing against hers as she fought to run forward; her sneaker catching what she assumed was a stray rock, she lost her footing, slamming her cheekbone against the rock floor.

“Arrgh …”

Stars sprung into existence before her eyes. Though she could still see nothing, the darkness seemed to take on a vibrating, fluorescent glow.

“Stop moving, I think Sarah fell over –” Jamie cried.

“I didn’t,” Sarah said. “I think it was Lisa.”

“I’m okay!” Lisa tried to say, but she didn’t hear any noise come out.

At that moment, several things happened all at once. The tunnel was momentarily illuminated by a flash of translucent scarlet light; a Machoke emerged from a pokéball held in Darius’ outstretched hand; and at the same time, the tunnel in the direction they had come from was filled with a two jets of orange flame, rocketing toward them.

“Rock Slide!” Darius yelled.

The silhouetted Machoke leaned forward and wound up his fist before slamming it devastatingly into the wall; the entire tunnel shook before a cascade of silver rocks tumbled from the ceiling, slowly at first before an avalanche seemed to trigger itself; dust flooded the air around them and an almighty roar accompanied the ceiling’s collapse.

“GET BACK!” Darius roared.

Already sprawled on the ground, Lisa was forever struck by the colossal image of Darius hurling his body to the tunnel floor as a metre-long tongue of deadly vermilion fire exploded through the final gap in the blockage, missing his head by centimetres; the wave of intense heat hit them all a millisecond later; Lisa felt as though her face had been smacked with a hot iron.

“CLEAR IT!” roared the Union agents on the other side.

BANG! BANG!

They were firing at the blockage in their rage; feeling as though she were about to pass out from the combination of the heatwave and the blow to the head, Lisa clambered to her feet gingerly.

“Gav, we need the Buzzball. Let’s run for it!”

“Amen!” Marina cried.

The globule of light once again lighting their way, the teenagers took scarcely ten seconds to regroup – helping each other to their feet and thumping smoked-out Darius heartily on the back – before Gavin led the charge down the tunnel.

“I see it!” he cried at last.

A bright glow was visible ahead; Lisa could see a torch burning in a bracket against the rock wall; they had reached the antechamber. They tumbled out of the tunnel almost at once, temporarily blinded by the brightness of the enormous, well-lit antechamber. As her eyes adjusted, Lisa felt acid eating through her gut.

The entire antechamber was strewn with dead bodies, the floor grotesquely adorned with bleeding, bullet-riddled pulps, some dark-clothed, some denim-clad, all of them bloodstained.

The walls weren’t silver: they were crimson.

The smell was nauseating.

Her vision blurring, Lisa’s eyes fell on the only figure still standing in the antechamber. Directly opposite them, standing before a metal door marked ‘Cyprus’, was Veronica, her entire body sprayed with scarlet blood, her platinum-blonde hair matted and red, and an AK-47 in her arms. Wincing against the deep, oozing gash on her face, she stared down at the writhing, bleeding, purple-haired woman whose throat she currently rested her boot on and roared with triumphant laughter as she pulled the trigger a dozen times, the flashes of light illuminating her maniacal expression as she tore Annette’s body to shreds.

“NOOOO!”

Lisa wasn’t sure if the five others were screaming with her, or if her ears had just been so badly damaged that everything echoed. In any case, her shriek jolted Veronica; the blonde agent looked up and regarded them with an expression that bordered on savage delight.

“Lisa! My favourite guardian! You made it to the party!” she cried, her tone mockingly sweet.

She kicked Annette’s head out of her way and took a step closer to them, examining their faces with keen interest.

“Not that I don’t have a special place in my heart for you, Marina …” she grinned. “And this must be the famous Darius Hudson. You certainly inherited your father’s good looks, boy …”

“Don’t talk about my father!” Darius barked, glaring at Veronica with venom; behind her back, Lisa heard Sarah mumble something indecipherable.

Lisa regarded Veronica curiously. There was something inscrutable on her face – she looked almost intrigued by Darius, more than any of the others – but a second later, the look was gone; she returned to scanning the remaining faces in the group.

“Now let me see – which ones of you am I allowed to pick off without getting fired …” Her eyes fell on Sarah. “You’re cute,” she smiled, raising the black AK-47.

“NO!”

Lisa lunged to her right, straddling Sarah from Veronica’s range. Around her, she felt Darius and his Machoke shuffle in front of Gavin, while Marina threw her arms over Jamie.

“You wouldn’t shoot a guardian!” Lisa barked at her triumphantly, aiming the Stunner at Veronica’s head and pulling the trigger swiftly.

A jet of blue light issued from the tip of the Stunner; seconds before it connected with Veronica’s gored face, however, a bubble of ethereal brown light materialised around her head, shimmering as the blue bolt struck it and then sending it flying back at Lisa’s face.

“Aaaarrgh!”

Instinctively, Lisa ducked; she heard Sarah scream as she was thrown backwards, paralysed.

“What the hell?!” Marina cried.

“Oh, we can invest in Battlemagic too, Marina Frost,” Veronica snarled. “You’ll be pleased to learn that your Guardian Butterfree’s little stunt in Goldenrod City inspired me to invest in a hundred Guardian Eevee for the Union.”

She smirked.

“They specialise in Light Screens.”

Marina scowled darkly; Lisa felt her hackles raise: a tiny, caramel-brown Eevee was perched, infuriatingly insouciant, on Veronica’s shoulder.

Sarah groaned as she returned to her feet, idling cautiously behind Lisa.

“I suppose you’ve bested me, Lisa,” Veronica sighed heavily; her tone was laced with dangerous irony. “You’re right. I won’t dare shoot at a Guardian.”

Abruptly, Gavin screamed “Electrify!”; a spear of electricity arced through the air toward Veronica and the reflective bubble kicked in again, forcing both Gavin and Darius to duck in unison as the spark sizzled past them.

From the intersecting tunnel to the right of the antechamber, Lisa heard a dull, metallic grating; aggressive male voices were shouting epithets as the sharp, regimented sound of booted footsteps grew louder and louder.

“Unfortunately, I can’t guarantee that my grunts will have the intellectual capacity to distinguish between you,” Veronica laughed, backing toward the high, rectangular metal door behind her; she slammed her fist against a large white button and the door hissed open, revealing a sleek, metallic lab within.

“Good luck!” she grinned savagely. “I might just pop into the lab and see how your lovely pokémon are coming along, Lisa!”

“BITCH!” Lisa screamed, pulling the trigger on the Stunner once more, but she was too late; the barrel of the AK-47 disappeared through the silver door as it slid shut once more; the bolt of blue light bounded uselessly off the door.

There was no room for thought: rage propelled Lisa forward; she hurtled across the antechamber, leaping over dead bodies as she rushed for the door to the lab. She threw the useless Stunner to the ground as she climbed over the body of a Union agent, substituting it with a loaded Mini-Uzi …

“Lisa!” Marina cried from behind.

“What?”

Lisa spun round to face the others in the antechamber, her hand poised over the white button beside the door.

“Get in, get your pokémon, get out!” Marina cried frantically, hurling pokéballs to the ground as the roar of booted footsteps grew louder. Her eyes fell on the Uzi. “And be careful with that!”

“I will!” Lisa said brashly. She didn’t think she possessed the guts, even in hot blood, to fire a bullet, but perhaps the threat would be enough for Veronica.

“And take Jamie and Sarah with you!” Gavin cried, bodily pushing Sarah and Jamie toward the metal door; Jamie nearly fell face-first onto a mangled corpse before recovering and deftly grabbing the dead agent’s AK-47.

“You’re not a guardian either, Gav!” Darius cried, a full team of six pokémon surrounding him. “Machoke, try heading them off before they get here, cave the tunnel in on them with Rock Slide!”

“Yeah, but I got a plan, it’s cool!” Gavin winked, Natu clinging to his shoulder as he squeezed the Buzzball.

Holding hands, Jamie and Sarah ran the gauntlet of bodies and reached the metal door beside Lisa, their faces pale.

“Go, hurry, we’ll hold them off!” Marina cried, waving her hands frantically at Lisa. “Starmie, Hydro Pump them as they come through!”

“Whaddaya waitin’ for?” Jamie shouted in Lisa’s ear, punching the white button fixed to the wall.

The silver door hissed open instantly. Lunging forward as one entity, Lisa, Jamie and Sarah tumbled through into the lab; glancing back, Lisa caught a glimpse of several beams of blue, green and yellow light arcing through the air before the silver door slid to a close.

“Uh, Lisa … maybe stand in front of us …” Sarah breathed, gripping Lisa’s shoulders and about-facing her.

The lab was enormous, almost the same size as the antechamber, except that there was no sign of roughly-hewn archways or glinting silver rocks: every surface of the lab – floors, walls, ceilings, benches, sinks, shelves – was made of smooth stainless steel.

A couple of duelling agents had clearly made their way through the door during the earlier mêlée: two bloodied bodies were sprawled, motionless and facing each other, on the steel about three feet ahead of Lisa, each with a revolver in hand. They had shot each other in the forehead at the same time.

“Mutually assured destruction,” Jamie muttered darkly, regarding the AK-47 in his hands. “How the fuck do you use this …”

Lisa levelled the sleek, black Mini-Uzi at the blonde agent at the far end of the lab. Veronica was hunting through a steel cabinet near a second metal door, glancing surreptitiously at the teenagers like a child caught sneaking into a cookie jar.

“Get out of it!” Lisa snarled, fury blossoming in her chest. “Leave my pokémon alone!”

“Ha!”

Veronica burst into a fit of almost girlish giggles as she hauled a plastic sleeve from within the cabinet. Five red-and-white pokéballs were contained within it.

“They’re MINE!” Lisa screeched, hurtling past the dead bodies and approaching Veronica. “GIVE THEM BACK!”

As she reached the bench opposite Veronica, Lisa saw the blonde woman’s battle-scarred face curve into the cruellest smile she had ever seen.

“But sweetie, I was always going to,” she said innocently, opening the plastic sleeve and hurling the five pokéballs to the ground.

As five blasts of radiant crimson light flared in the fluorescently-lit laboratory, Veronica cried, “Goodbye!” and pressed the white button on the silver door nearest her, disappearing in a flash of silver metal before Lisa could process what she had meant.

But as she watched the five globules of red light form into pokémon, Lisa knew something was wrong.

“Oh God …” she breathed, stepping back in alarm.

“You have an Electivire?” Jamie asked, his voice less urgent now that Veronica was no longer with them; from the antechamber, though, Lisa could still hear the screams and explosions of battle; she hoped Gavin and the others were holding up … but for the moment, something else was deeply amiss.

“No, I don’t,” Lisa said, slowly, regarding the other creatures. “Nor do I have a Ninetales, or …”

Five pokémon – Electivire, Dragonite, Ninetales, Fiskmire and Aipom – rested on the steel floor before Lisa, all affixing her not with looks of joy or recognition, but rage.

Their pupils glowed red.

“Lisa, get back from them, now!” Sarah cried sharply.

Lisa couldn’t. She stared in disbelief at the creatures before her, sure that, yes, they belonged to her; and yet, she had never felt more detached from them; never had she been so abjectly frightened of beings that she knew and loved. A deafening buzz rose in her ears, drowning out Sarah’s words: her nightmare – the thing she had dreaded the most – had happened.

“They’re mutated, Lisa, get back!” Sarah cried warningly.

Lisa gaped as Electivire’s behemoth form began to lumber toward her, its black-fingered hands outstretched; Ninetales advanced with a smooth, deadly gait, pearly teeth bared.

“They’re my pokémon …” Lisa breathed, a lump forming in her throat.

Dragonite lumbered closer, behind Ninetales; Fiskmire’s canine teeth were bared as he waddled toward Lisa.

All of their movements were slow, deliberate, controlled.

“Lisa, get back!” Sarah called again. “Listen to me, I know about this. The Union have used this technique before. Your pokémon won’t respond to you as their trainer.”

Lisa’s eyes fell on Aipom. The purple monkey scampered toward her, white claws appearing from its erstwhile blunt hands, its tail erect.

“Aipom … it’s me …”

Lisa stared into Aipom’s eyes, her heart cleaving.

“Aipom … it’s me … Lisa …”

Tears tumbled from her eyes as nothing but red, deadened pupils met her gaze. Aipom growled menacingly.

“Aipom … it’s me … Leeeeeeeee –” She sobbed as she imitated the way Aipom had learned to say her name. “–eeesa …”

“Appealing to them is useless!” Sarah cried hoarsely. “You’re an enemy in their eyes, Lisa … GET BACK NOW!”

Her shriek broke Lisa’s attempt to connect with Aipom; Lisa glanced up again just in time to see Electivire’s furry, black-and-yellow form descend on her. She backed up a step or two in fright, but it was too late: a massive, furry arm swung through the air.

WHACK!

Lisa’s cheekbone cracked as Electivire’s black fist slammed into the side of her face; her skull burst in renewed agony as she fell against the stainless steel floor, the Mini-Uzi spinning away …

“Rrruuuuuuu!” roared Electivire monstrously, its red, beady eyes feasting on Lisa as though she were prey.

“No!” Lisa shrieked, blinking against her tears and the silver stars before her eyes. “Electivire – it’s me – back off – OOOOOOF!”

His leg swung at her from nowhere, the clawed foot driving hard into her solar plexus and jarring the base of her rib cage; Lisa moaned but no sound came out; Electivire had winded her.

A second kick slammed into the side of her head and the world went temporarily black. Her nerves were ablaze as clawed feet slashed down her arm, her left side suddenly damp and warm …

As her vision returned, Lisa saw the maniacal red glow in Electivire’s eyes intensify as he ploughed his fist once more into her solar plexus; she retched on reflex, vomit dribbling down her chin; and already, Electivire was robotically winding his arm up again …

“NO!”

The rapid-fire of the Mini-Uzi shattered what remained intact of Lisa’s eardrums. Mid-punch, Electivire recoiled, roaring in pain.

Lisa craned her neck backwards and gaped: Jamie stood behind her, his feet apart, the Mini-Uzi held out directly before him, exploding with flashes of light as bullets ripped through the air, rapid-fire, and pierced Electivire’s body.

The electric pokémon howled as the twentieth bullet tore through his torso: he stumbled backwards in blind terror, sending Ninetales and Dragonite reeling back in turn. Electivire teetered for a millisecond, his red eyes rolling back in his head, before he gave a bloodcurdling howl and toppled over, thick squirts of blood spraying the ceiling before his body fell to the stainless steel floor.

[Gavin Luper]

The silence will not deter me like it once did!

Here is the next - enormous, climactic and emotional - chapter. We are nearly at the end of book three.

Happy reading everyone!

Cheers!

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Chapter 81 – Lance Hudson versus Joseph Sterling.


Lisa’s silent scream haunted her forever: she mouthed Electivire’s name, roared it at the top of her lungs, screamed that she loved him as his furred body fitted violently on the laboratory floor before, abruptly, falling limp.

A sweaty hand grabbed at Lisa’s arm and a searing pain coursed through her skin: her arm had been slashed by Electivire’s claws.

“Lisa, come on, get up!” Jamie cried urgently. “No, back off!” he shouted, pointing the Uzi at Ninetales’ paws and letting off a loud round of bullets, which pinged deafeningly off the steel floor.

Ninetales recoiled instinctively, before slowly advancing again.

“Electi – elec –” Lisa spluttered, breathless and winded, as Jamie repositioned his grip on her arm and dragged her away from the pokémon; her body slid smoothly over the blood-splattered metal.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry!” Jamie cried, firing off another round at Ninetales, Dragonite, Fiskmire and Aipom. “I had no choice … he was going to kill you …”

Sliding along the floor, Lisa looked up at his face: he was sprayed with deep crimson blood and his black eye was now so swollen it was almost shut, but through the battle scars, she saw devastation in his eyes for the first time, his lip spasming.

Lisa stared soullessly at Electivire’s body and felt a gaping nothingness within her. She knew, although her mind grappled desperately with the thudding reality before her, that she would not be able to feel it right then … or perhaps ever …

“Wait there!” Jamie ordered, releasing Lisa’s arm. He had dragged her behind a steel lab bench, protecting her from view of the pokémon. “Sarah, we need to get them back in their pokéballs …”

“Right …” Sarah’s voice was a panicky wisp of smoke.

“If I hold them back with the gun, reckon you can get their pokéballs and recall them?” Jamie cried.

“I – I’ll try –” Sarah spluttered anxiously, her face pallid.

The lab reverberated again with the jarring throb of gunfire. Still trying to catch her breath, Lisa stayed on her back, glazed eyes fixed on the ceiling as waves of pain rushed over her, her gut contracting with agony. When Jamie took a second to change from the Uzi to the AK-47 – he had run out of ammo – Lisa was able to hear, through the closed metal door, the chaos of battle still raging in the antechamber. Someone screamed, “TAKE HIM OUT!” and another voice bellowed, “FIGHT LIKE A MAN, COWARD!”

And then, her aching heart buoyed slightly, Lisa heard Gavin’s cocky yell:

“Better luck next time, fucktard!”

There was a tortured scream, followed by a new burst of gunfire – both within and without the lab.

Lisa tuned her throbbing ears back into the scuffle at the far end of the lab: after a final clatter of gunfire, Sarah’s voice emerged triumphantly, “RETURN!”

“YES!” Jamie cried; Lisa heard them high-five one another.

Their footsteps clattered on the metal before their pale faces swam into Lisa’s line of sight.

“Are you alright, Lisa?” Sarah asked breathlessly.

“I will be …” Lisa muttered.

Jamie’s eyes were wide, his expression sneer-free; he looked utterly devastated.

“Lisa … I don’t know how I can ever make up for what I did … I … I’m so sorry …”

Lisa couldn’t return his gaze, and yet she was not sure whether she hated him for killing Electivire or not.

“So much for pokémon rights, hey Jamie?” she said acidly, her emotions polarised. “You took one’s life.”

Jamie’s dark eyebrows bounced off his peroxide hairline; shame morphed into solemnity.

“It’s life wasn’t as important as yours,” he said simply.

“It was going to kill you, Lisa,” Sarah added fervently.

Lisa turned to her keenly.

“You said the Union had used the technique before,” she said slowly. “What have they done to my pokémon?”

Sarah retied her brown hair into a ponytail as she spoke.

“Lance and I have discovered that the Union are evoking three ancient techniques for using – or in this case, abusing – pokémon for means other than simply battling,” she said quickly, before abruptly muttering, “Oh!”

“What is it?” Jamie asked.

Sarah flicked her hand as though she had just burnt it on a hot plate.

“Stabbed myself with a bobby pin,” she muttered surreptitiously, removing her hands from her hair.

“So what are the techniques?” Lisa pressed, wincing as a residual wave of pain tumbled through her gut once more.

“One is Sentrying, where pokémon can be used as sleeper guards, their vision or knowledge tapped into by another force, usually without their knowledge. And what we just saw here is known as Puppeteering, where a pokémon’s entire conscience – its body, its mind – every function it has – is put into the enslaved service of the employer. The employer – in this case, the Union – has total mind and body control of the Puppet.

“The results I’ve read about in some of the Guard’s op debriefs have been … gruesome … to say the least,” Sarah shuddered. “Some of the Union’s enemies have been murdered in their sleep by their own pokémon. Torn limb from limb. Sometimes as their families watched.”

Lisa gaped; Jamie swore loudly.

Sarah fixed Lisa with a keen, level gaze.

“Electivire would have been programmed to kill you, Lisa,” she explained. “Jamie saved your life.”

Amid the pain in her stomach – which had now become a dull, nearly bearable ache – Lisa felt a spark of rage ignite.

“This was Veronica’s idea of a joke.”

“Seems like it,” Sarah sighed.

“What’s the third technique?” Lisa asked at length, when it became clear Sarah had finished.

“What?” Sarah asked, her brow wrinkling with mild bemusement.

“There’s Sentrying, Puppeteering, and … what’s the other technique? You said there were three.”

“Did I?” Sarah asked incredulously.

“You did,” said Jamie.

“Then this night has really mucked around with my head after all. There’s just the two,” she shrugged.

All three of them jumped suddenly: there was an ear-splitting explosion from beyond the silver door. Panicked shouts rang out. “THEY’VE CALLED FOR BACK UP!” Marina screeched.

Someone pounded on the silver door; Darius’ muffled voice came through.

“GUYS, HURRY UP, WE’RE ABOUT TO BE TOTALLY OUTNUMBERED!”

Jamie threw the empty AK-47 to the ground and stole the dead Union agent’s silver revolver.

“I’m thinking we get outta here the same way that blonde bitch did …”

Lisa let them haul her to her feet.

“Can you walk?” Sarah asked gingerly.

“More importantly, can you run?” Jamie asked, his hand raised to the white button beside the silver door that linked the lab to the antechamber.

“I’ll have to, let’s go,” Lisa said, taking a deep breath and wincing as her rib cage stuck her lungs like a needle.

“THERE’S AN EXIT THROUGH THE LAB!” Jamie roared through the silver door.

Darius’ hoarse voice rose over the chaos of gunfire and pokémon cries beyond.

“WE’RE GOING THROUGH THE LAB! GAV, GET BACK DOWN HERE; MARINA, C’MON; JIM, ROD, AMY … COME WITH US!”

“NO CHANCE!” roared a deep voice that Lisa thought sounded like Donovan’s. “YOU KIDS GO, WE’LL HOLD ‘EM OFF –”

The silver door hissed open: at once, the deafening noise of mixed close and ranged combat struck them; Lisa glimpsed a female Union agent clawing at a Guard member’s face; above them, Gavin rode atop his Skarmory, flitting rapidly above the agents below, avoiding gunfire with Agility as he rained electric fire down upon the Union agents with the Buzzball.

Darius rolled through the door, the Stunner in his hands accidentally discharging as he hit the ground; a yellow bolt of light smashed through a shelf of beakers, dusting the floor in shattered glass. Marina charged through next, a trickle of blood tainting her blue hair, a Stunner in her arms, followed by a string of pokémon belonging to her, Darius and Gavin. Just before the door slid shut, Skarmory gave an almighty battle cry and swooped down from the ceiling of the antechamber, sliding with needle-like precision through the door and landing on the steel with a spine-shredding metallic scrape.

“Woooooooo!” Gavin roared, guffawing, his face bright red as he pumped the air with his fist.

“Adrenaline junkie,” Marina shot at him pejoratively, recalling some of her more battle-scarred pokémon. She gasped. “Lisa – what happened?”

“I got my pokémon back … mostly …”

There was a hiss as the door slid open once more: everyone whirled around as a very tall, lean man entered. His bare arms were covered in tattoos; a black and white bandana held his short bleached hair back.

His jeans were draped with long metal chains; odd, rectangular plastic devices hung from them.

Lisa waited for one of them to shoot the Union agent down. She was completely thrown when Marina cried, “Rod, you’re meant to be holding the Union off!”

Rod seemed impervious to her contempt: he stroked his stubbled chin and reached for one of the plastic devices.

“Donovan and the others can take care of that,” he shrugged distractedly, eyeing up the complex-looking scientific equipment on the left wall of the lab; there was an almost hungry look in his eyes. “Mmm mmm … I’m gonna have a little party here …”

“Rod’s a demolitionist by trade,” Sarah said in response to Lisa and Jamie’s worried looks. “We brought him here to … wreak some havoc, basically.”

“And wreak I shall,” Rod muttered, chuckling as he gnawed on a toothpick he held in his mouth. “This place is gonna go sky high … I’ll be buggered if the whole fucking volcano doesn’t fall to bits.”

“He’s an optimist,” Sarah added.

“Okay, let’s move, guys, seriously!” Lisa urged; her heart was pounding. Several realities had returned to her as she recovered from Electivire’s attack: namely, the fact that her parents, and Tom and Miki, were also on the island somewhere, questing for the Fourth Key and battling the Union, too. Were they all still fighting, or …

“No,” Lisa said firmly to herself as she and the other five jogged to the far end of the lab, leaving Rod to his work; she refused to entertain the thought that anything should have happened to her family. “No, they’re still alive, they’re okay,” she muttered obsessively, ignoring Jamie’s obtuse glance.

Marina, Darius and Gavin cried out in shock at Electivire’s blood-drenched body still sprawled on the floor; Lisa did her best not to look at him. She closed her eyes and steeled herself, humming gently, and as she did so, she felt the terrible wound in her heart crust over.

“The pokéball – it wouldn’t take him back in,” Sarah whispered apologetically.

Lisa ground her teeth and said nothing.

Marina slammed the butt of the Stunner into the white button beside the silver door through which Veronica had disappeared. It hissed open. They filed through quickly and the door breathed to a close behind them.

The lab was another world away. They were once more in a poorly-hewn rock tunnel, lit only by flickering wooden torches, their iron sconces affixed to the shimmering wall.

“What?” Sarah said blankly, realising that every eye was on her.

“Well, where do we go?” Gavin demanded.

“That depends what the plan is!” Sarah cried defensively. “We’re getting out of here, right?”

Lisa and Gavin shook their heads in sync; there was no need to communicate.

“Mum and Dad and everyone else needs help …”

Sarah’s rust-coloured eyes seemed to bulge in disbelief.

“Lisa, come on … you got beaten up really bad in there … and most of your pokémon have fainted. Your arm’s still bleeding!”

“The Union have done worse to both of us before,” Gavin said resolutely, his chestnut-brown eyes ablaze. “You can all do what you want, but I’m not done giving ‘em what for yet.”

“Nor am I,” Lisa said firmly. “And the Guard needs us …” And my family needs me, too.

Sarah blinked.

“But we’ve all nearly been killed! So many times!” she cried.

“That’s why they call it a war,” Marina said sardonically.

“We’re not weak,” Darius said. “We’re not retreating now. We’re Guard members. We should stick with the rest of them.”

Sarah crossed her arms, her lip quivering apprehensively.

“You realise the odds of all six of us surviving this are astronomically bad, don’t you, Darius?”

“Not really,” Darius said seriously. “The Union still thinks Lisa, Marina and I are Guardians … and they probably know that Gavin’s somehow involved, too.”

“If you or Jamie want to leave now,” Marina said, abandoning her sarcastic nature, “and get back to the beach, and wait for us in one of the boats, then you can. None of us would think less of you for it.”

Sarah looked desperately for Jamie.

He tilted his head, wincing apologetically, and spun the barrel on the silver revolver.

“I’m in.”

“Then I’ve got no choice. We go left,” Sarah said flatly, marching past them all and stalking further up the tunnel, apparently in high dudgeon.

Marina frowned in dismay.

“Sarah, nobody’s forcing you –”

She wheeled around to face them, her hair slipping from its ponytail. Her pretty face was set in a mask of suppressed fear.

“I’m choosing to come with you,” she said through clenched teeth. “Trying to get back to the beach completely alone? Suicide mission. Let’s get this over with.”

She trudged onward, the torches silhouetting her slender form.

“I’ll lead the way,” she said. “The teams were due to rendezvous about now if possible in the cone at the centre of the volcano. I know a shortcut through the Union’s rec centre … come on!”

*

Sarah led them through a complex labyrinth of tunnels and chambers, each one deserted and silent. It was an oddly eerie feeling to be jogging along in silence when mere metres away, vicious battles were raging … people and pokémon were being murdered in hot blood …

“This is the mess hall,” Sarah cried, leading them through a drab green-and-grey hall crammed with graffitied pine tables. “We’re getting close now!”

Flanked by Darius, Stunner at the ready, she bounded through a set of double doors at the far end of the mess hall.

Lisa heard the commotion before she saw it: Sarah’s shriek prompted her to run, pushing past Jamie and throwing the double doors open, Buzzball in hand.

She ground to a halt: they had entered what looked like a high school gymnasium, except the walls were draped not with medals, honour boards or photographs, but with broad strips of black material emblazoned with a silver, runic symbol.

There was another set of double doors at the opposite side of the gym. Above the doors was another strip of black material: enormous silver letters proclaimed, “ONCE UNITED, NEVER BROKEN”. At the base of the doors, the gored body of Larry O’Brien was strewn, clearly dead.

Sarah was screaming hysterically, standing by the body and pulling at her hair in absolute terror. Darius cried out to her, tried to scream reason and calm in her ears, but to no avail.

“It’s too much!” she wailed, hyperventilating. “Too much! I used to talk to him on the phone! I pretended to be his daughter … we talked about casual stuff, stupid stuff …” She clutched at her chocolate-brown hair, tugging at her ponytail. “WE WERE SO CAREFUL!” she screamed. “HOW – HOW DID THEY KNOW IT WAS HIM?”

Darius pulled her into a forceful embrace, stroking the back of her head gently as she sobbed hysterically into his shoulder; over his back, he made an alarmed face at the others.

“He was a double agent for us,” Lisa elucidated dully. “He’s the reason I escaped the Union a week ago … It’s thanks to him that any of this happened tonight.”

“Guess someone was onto him,” Gavin observed blankly.

“Guys – what’s that?” Marina asked, pointing at a dark shape beside the body.

Lisa glanced to where she was pointing, taking in the grotesque sight of Larry’s corpse along the way, and finally she knew that she had reached saturation point: no sight could shock her anymore, not after tonight. Not even the deep red ‘X’ gashed across Larry’s chest, or the blind look of horror in his white, open eyes, or the slimy clear substance that mingled with the pool of blood nearest his gut.

Lisa surveyed the object Marina had pointed out: it was a long, rectangular box made of ebony, sitting about a metre from Larry’s left hand.

Its black velvet-lined lid hung open: the box was empty.

“That’s where the Union kept their keys,” Lisa said, her memory catching up with her optic nerve. She recalled Joseph Sterling brandishing the box – complete with the first two keys – in the caves of Mt Fairfax. She felt a sudden surge of pride in Larry. “He stole the Union’s only two keys.”

“And he was murdered for it,” Darius said, still patting Sarah, who had stopped making noise but was still shaking uncontrollably.

“And whoever killed him took the keys,” Gavin sighed, tracing his finger over the velvet lining.

“It must have been Sterling,” Lisa scowled, wincing as her solar plexus gave its regular two-second convulsion.

“I can’t take this anymore,” Marina said flatly. “Guys – we have to keep moving. I’m gonna be sick if we don’t …”

“Yeah, let’s go,” Jamie chipped in quickly.

Lisa nodded, all too keen to sterilize her brain. What better way to remove the stain left by Larry’s corpse than with a shot of adrenaline to the head?

After Darius had calmed Sarah down, she resumed her role as navigator, albeit with a significant deficiency of gusto. Indeed, the group’s morale was shot: the energy that had propelled them from the lab – the Union in hot pursuit – was now almost nothing more than a memory.

“We haven’t seen anyone for ages,” Gavin remarked, vocalising Lisa’s thoughts a second before she did. “Where the hell’s the war?”

“Sarah said this was a shortcut,” Jamie said, his tone only just falling short of accusatory.

“It is a shortcut,” Sarah sniffed, as she led them from the gymnasium to another antechamber, a second barracks, a string of offices and several adjoined supply caves, most of which were crammed with wooden crates marked either ‘AMMO’ or ‘FOOD’.

She halted in her tracks suddenly, leaning against an anomalous crate marked ‘DEFENCE’, wiping her tearstained eyes with the back of her left hand.

“I’m taking you guys through the quickest and safest route,” she said stiffly. “The Union’s barracks and offices are totally abandoned at the moment – the battles are all taking place in the entrance tunnels and in the cone of the volcano, which is where we’re heading.”

“I wasn’t having a go at you, dude,” Jamie said hastily.

“Then don’t say things with that tone!” Sarah cried hoarsely.

“Guys, let’s not fight,” Lisa said tiredly; it suddenly hit her that it must have been well into the wee hours of the morning and yet they were still preparing to charge into an armed mêlée.

“I’m not fighting with anyone. I’m not in the mood,” Sarah sighed.

She pointed at a low, wooden door at the end of the supply room, about five metres ahead.

“That door leads to a kind of baggage dock for the Union; right off that is the cone itself. Unless something huge has happened, we’ll be running into the middle of another battle.”

She swallowed with clear difficulty.

“Be ready.”

Her words – spoken in her soft, wounded voice – rang out as a battle cry. Everyone responded like clockwork, like trained soldiers: Gavin readied Skarmory’s pokéball and the Buzzball; Darius and Marina checked their Stunners; Jamie flicked the safety off his gun; and Sarah stretched her arms in an ethereal, Oriental style. Amid the scuffle, Lisa listened for the sound of battle, and heard it. There were dull thumps, the frequent rattle of gunfire … it sounded close.

A cartridge clicked in her brain: a vial of adrenaline was crushed into her bloodstream, a drug she loved and loathed. Her heart began to hammer anew, her face hot with raging blood. She was going into the fire, again, like a braindead bull charging at an electric fence time and time again. But this time, she was going into the fire for what would, hopefully, be the last time …

Setting her Stunner to immobilise, she faced the others.

“Let’s do this,” she said.

Her frightened face remarkably resolute, Sarah wrenched the door open; and at once, the sound of screams and explosions intensified. Lisa exchanged a determined look with Gavin before charging through the door after Jamie.

The metallic baggage dock was little more than a glorified vestibule: they jostled for space, Lisa jumping with fright as she felt someone’s Stunner poking into her ribs.

“Go, go, go!” Gavin roared, slamming his fist into a white button beside the silver roller door on the far side of the dock that divided them from the cone. It gave an almighty mechanical whirr and rose slowly into the ceiling, revealing, piece by piece, the chaos that raged within the cone.

No words were spoken – none coherently, at least – as Lisa and the others ducked under the ascending door and into the madness beyond.

For a second, there was utter blackness, and the melange of inky blindness and frightened screams sent a shiver through Lisa’s spine; and then, someone very close by screamed, “MAGMORTAR, USE FIRESTORM!” and in the radiance of the ensuing explosion of flame, Lisa garnered a true impression of the battlefield.

The silver-encrusted inner cone of the extinct volcano was infested with duelling agents. There was scarcely an inch of terrain that wasn’t occupied with Union and Guard agents firing off shots from Stunners, or launching their pokémon at each other in what looked like highly unethical battles: two metres before her, Lisa glimpsed a hulkish, leather-clad Union agent taking potshots with a black pistol at Azura Frost, while she used her Vaporeon to defend her and commanded her Feraligatr to battle the agent’s Machamp.

As the swirl of fire formed a tornado in the centre of the cone, Lisa saw her own parents, back-to-back, fighting off three Union agents each, their full pokémon teams spread out before them; one of the agents was Den, one of Sterling’s right-hand men.

Across the other side of the cone, Owen and Stephen were fistfighting a couple of skinheads, ducking knuckledusters before delivering swift uppercuts. Lisa chanced a quick glance upward and saw that the silver catwalks built into the walls of the cone also housed several intense battles: Veronica was locked in a fierce match with Lauren, while Anthony, the Union agent, held an AK-47 from one of the uppermost metal catwalks, picking off Guard agents at will.

Lisa’s blood boiled. She lunged into the fray, and at the same moment, something wet slammed into the side of her face. She reeled back, barely regaining her feet as she tasted something putrid and bitter in her mouth …

“Sludge that bitch again, Muk!” roared a Union agent with a throaty voice.

As Lisa wheeled around, Stunner levelled, to face him, the column of fire in the centre of the cone exploded outwards; a wave of furnace-like heat threw her off her feet and into the rocky ground, grazing her nose.

“Leese – you okay – AAAARRRRGGH!”

“MARINA?!”

Lisa struggled to her feet, hunting for Marina, but without Magmortar’s attack, there was nothing but the faint twinkle of the stars above to illuminate them. She scanned the mob of dark shadows running around her frantically.

“MARINA! MARINA, IS THAT –”

She shook the shoulders of a figure on the ground, hoping it was Marina; to her horror, a male voice screamed and grabbed hold of Lisa’s arm with a vice-like grip.

“YOU FUCKIN’ BITCH!”

“No you don’t!”

Darius emerged from nowhere; Lisa only knew it was him from his voice. A jet of blue light exploded from the tip of his stunner, striking the man squarely in the face; he cried out in shock before falling back, his grip on Lisa’s arm relinquished …

“Thanks!” Lisa cried.

“Got your back!” Darius called, disappearing instantly.

Lisa returned to scanning the ground.

“MARINA?”

At once, something slammed into the same side of her head with the force of a large rock; she reeled, again tasting bitter muck …

“HA!”

“WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU COMING FROM?” Lisa screamed, spitting a globule of mud from her mouth. Panicked and incensed, she spun in a rapid circle, firing off shots from her Stunner completely at random; jets of ultramarine light issued into the air, whizzing and hissing, before at least two male voices cried out in shock; she heard bodies crumple to the ground with loud thuds.

“Cop that!” Lisa cried, a rush of vengeance rising within her.

She scanned the ground and knew that finding Marina in the darkness – or, indeed, finding any of the others – would be an exercise in futility; she spun on her heel and bounded toward the centre of the cone, searching for some kind of clarity, some kind of information. Had the Fourth Key been located? Were the Guard ready to retreat, victorious, or had the mission failed?

“NO!”

Lisa whirled around in time to see Owen take a roundhouse kick to the face; he collapsed to the ground in a spray of blood. Without thinking, she pulled the trigger of the Stunner, firing a bolt of cobalt-blue at the silhouette who had delivered the kick; the man crumpled instantly.

“Thanks, Lisa!” Owen mumbled, staggering to his feet. He did a double-take. “Wait – LISA?!”

“We thought you might need help!” Lisa cried, ducking a stray Psybeam and leaping over a still-living Union agent who was writhing on the ground, his intestines leaking from his torn gut as he tried, feebly, to grab the heels of every passing Guard operative.

“No shit!” Owen muttered. “Heads up!”

He hurled something cricket ball-sized at her. She caught it as she jogged toward him, barely dodging a Union agent’s ill-timed kick (he received the full force of the Stunner’s business end directly to his groin) and avoiding a volley of bullets fired from above by pure luck.

“What is this?” Lisa quizzed Owen, reaching his side. The ball he had thrown her appeared to be made of black rubber and was about the same size as the Buzzball.

“Darkball!” he said, eyes illuminated by a nearby Jeep exploding into flames. “The Union use them – they’re Battlemagic items imbued with the essence of Dark energy! Bloody useful, you’ll need it!”

“Thanks, but how do I –”

“It projects Dark Screens, really good for protection and stealth, and also Dark Waves!” Owen roared distractedly, rushing to Stephen’s aid; the black boxer was fighting off a vicious attack from Mick, an agent whose kneecap Lisa had shot once before.

“What the hell is a –”

Lisa’s breath was stolen from her as something sharp struck her in the side; she fell to the ground for what felt like the millionth time that night. Her head struck something hard and her vision, already limited, blurred again, pain piercing her consciousness and dulling the cacophony so it was barely audible: it was as though she had fallen underwater, the membrane protecting her from the war. She lay on the rock floor, dazed, unable to even see who or what had struck her – they had already disappeared into the fray …

Lisa fixed her cloudy irises on the patchwork of stars above and realised with abject horror that she had nothing left in her. She had fought and fought and been knocked to the ground like a rag doll … her body had taken all it could …

If it had not happened at that moment, Lisa was not sure she could ever have gotten up from the dirt: the leather-clad Union agent appeared before her, his ugly face and thick neck illuminated by the hot flicker of the burning Jeep.

“Lisa Walters,” he said in a thick, Eastern European accent, holding a Stunner toward her. His beady eyes gleamed with reflected fire. “You have no idea what kind of commission I’ll get for being the one who took you down.”

“You won’t take me down!” Lisa spluttered, trying to stand, but he had landed a gargantuan foot on her solar plexus; she writhed in renewed agony. “I’M – TOO – IMPORTANT … YOU – NEED – ME – TO – GET – THE –” She coughed, gasping for air. “SIXTH KEY!”

The agent glowered.

“Fucking smart bitch,” he snarled. “You always got off way too easy with that one, didn’t ya?” She pressed his black boot a little harder into her gut; she screamed in agony: it was too much … she was going to retch … she was going to pass out from the pain …

“Not anymore,” the leather-clad agent continued. “The secret’s out, you lying little slut. We know you already got the key fragment – Suicune is dead …”

A tsunami of gaping terror crashed over Lisa, extinguishing the only flame of hope in her chest. There was no oxygen left in the world. The Union knew … and she had nothing more to protect her … no bargaining chip, no inherent value … she was naked, exposed …

“Why don’t you –” began the agent.

“DARK SCREEN!” Lisa screeched.

She had no idea what the attack would do – she didn’t even know if she had uttered the right words to activate it. In an instant of final, desperate defiance, she held the Darkball out between her and the agent, face clenched …

… and then he fired his Stunner at her, victorious. A bolt of toxic green light exploded in a shower of sparks from the tip of the Stunner; Lisa closed her eyes, anticipating the final delivery of utmost pain … a blow she did not think she could handle … but it did not come …

Lisa opened her eyes in astonishment to see the leather-clad Union agent reeling back in pain, his hulking form thrashing about as green sparks crackled across his arms and chest, piercing his skin; his boot lifted from her stomach as he roared, bear-like, at Lisa, his eyes wild as though he could not see her and his canines bared, before thudding to the ground and twitching erratically …

Lisa clambered to her feet, not quite sure how the Dark Screen had worked – she couldn’t even see it – but feeling a rush of gratitude toward Owen.

She whirled around: both Owen and Stephen had evaporated; Gavin and the others were nowhere to be seen. Pocketing the Darkball, Lisa took up the Stunner once more, firing it indiscriminately before her as a type of ferocious defence mechanism: she saw silhouettes collapse as she jogged painfully toward the burning Jeep, hoping that, perhaps, the light of the blaze would help her find an ally …

Just as she reached the wreckage, there was an almighty explosion from above. The eyes of every dueller seemed to arc skyward as a high-up section of the glittering volcanic cone was blasted to pieces in a burst of flame and white light, raining sparkling dust down on the battlers below …

Lisa closed her mouth instinctively, keen not to inhale the dust, but she could not tear her eyes from the sight before her.

Lance Hudson sat astride his rose-gold Dragonite, Draco, suspended in mid-air, his face lined, the aura of fury around him palpable as he glared into the sallow face of Joseph Sterling, who flew on his Murkron, a black welt spewing blood from the side of his face.

At once, everything on the volcano floor ground to a halt: there arose an almighty cheer and storm of applause from every agent, Union or Guard, each screaming his support for his leader. Lisa found herself screaming and clapping her hands in excitement; when she looked around, she saw a young Union agent in Army fatigues standing beside her, doing the exact same thing.

“FOR THE LAST TIME,” Lance bellowed, so loud that Lisa could hear him as clearly as if he were right beside her, and not suspended fifty feet in the air, “FIGHT. LIKE. A. MAN.”

Sterling’s face darkened.

“You are the coward, Lance Hudson,” he sneered. “Launching a sneak attack – trying to deceive me.” A malicious smile curled his thin lips. “You failed, of course. I caught your double agent trying to escape with my two keys. Larry died telling me how loyal he was to me. Hardly a courageous, straightbacked thing to do, is it?”

“LARRY WAS A GOOD MAN!” Lance yelled, red-faced; his clothes were torn badly and looked stained with crimson.

“Like you, he was a snake!” Sterling roared.

A jet of inky energy issued from Murkron’s mouth, forming an arrow-head in mid-air, aimed at Lance’s head; Draco cooed defiantly and breathed out a stream of sparkling, effervescent cerulean mist, neutralising the black beam of energy, which fizzled out with a hiss of smoke …

“FOR ONCE,” Lance cried, “LET’S FIGHT FAIR, JOE!” He lowered his tone to a deathly serious hush. “One-on-one. No weapons. No armies.”

Sterling’s lip curled further.

“Deal.”

Another ear-splitting roar came up from the ranks below; Lisa included; she was screaming Lance’s name as if he were a football player she particularly needed to score a goal.

One massive goal.

Murkron and Draco circled around each other threateningly, each growling as they descended slowly toward the floor of the cone. An excited grin stealing over his handsome features, Lance pulled at the golden collar of his black cape, unfurling it with a flourish and flinging it toward the ground; as it billowed down through the air, a hundred violet-and-indigo Master Balls tumbled from within the cloak, as though they had been magically suspended within it all along.

The crowd gasped and cried out in surprise; the Union agents jeered and hurled insults at Lance, some of them trying to aim their weapons at him; the Guard agents, Lisa included, cheered excitedly; it was like they were suddenly spectators at a high-stakes battle at Mt Silver – only this time Lance seemed to be holding nothing back.

As Lisa watched, transfixed, mirrored by the young Union agent beside her, the Master Balls began to pop open in luminous bursts of white energy. Suddenly, a hundred pokémon were cascading from the sky above, some of them flying types – Pidgeots, Charizards, a Gyarados, three Scizors and two other Dragonites – and some of them enormous, flightless creatures – Nidokings, Tyranitars, and two mammoth, crystalline Steelixes – who were no more than deadweights plummeting toward them all, threatening to crush whoever stood below them.

Screams erupted all around Lisa; she found herself wordlessly transfixed on the feet of the impending Nidoqueen above her … there was nowhere to move … anywhere she ran, she would be crushed …

“Ooooof!”

A flutter of caramel-coloured feathers obscured Lisa’s vision seconds before the Nidoqueen landed; two sharp talons dug into her bloody shoulders; she screamed in agony as her body was carried swiftly backwards through the air, the Nidoqueen thudding down to earth mere feet from her face.

The Pidgeot relinquished its razor grip on Lisa’s shoulders; as she crumpled to the ground, right beside a cluster of Union agents and a trio of Blastoise, Charizard and Venusaur, she realised that the flying pokémon all around the cone were picking people up one by one – human or pokémon, Guard or Union – and flinging them to the very edge of the rock ring that bordered the cone, clearing the centre circle as Lance and Sterling hovered ever-nearer to ground level.

Joseph Sterling’s face contorted into a mask of utter confusion and fury and, for the first time that Lisa had ever seen, utter fear. Lisa gazed around at the sight before her – an army of humans being forcibly relocated by an army of what were probably Level 100 pokémon – and, as the final pieces of the puzzle fell into place, she finally understood the depth of Lance’s genius; the reason why he, above all the green and weedy contestants he allowed to defeat him each season at the League Tournaments, had remained Champion of the Elite Four for so long: he was a Pokémon Master.

The final collection of flying pokémon removed the last of the agents from the centre of the cone’s glittering rock floor before fluttering above the motley group of mixed agents as if supervising them sternly. Lisa heard the Union agents nearest to her cry out her name and attempt to fire a shot from a Stunner at her; before she could even duck, a shimmering, gold-coloured Xatu flew down from above them, a bubble of glimmering yellow light encircling it and Lisa; the bolt of electric green light from the Union agent’s Stunner bounded back at the agent who had fired it, but even as he yelped out in shock, Lance’s Gardevoir flew down and shielded him, too, with a Light Screen: the jet of green light sizzled off harmlessly into the rock wall.

Lisa gaped: the pokémon had been assigned to protect them all … regardless of affiliation … Her brain knotted. How on earth had Lance managed to train his pokémon to such an advanced level? And what was he playing at, immobilising and disarming them all?

Pulling her middle finger defiantly at the Union agent who had attacked her, Lisa wheeled back to face the showdown. The two crystalline Steelix finally touched down, as though they had been enchanted to merely drift, defying the true nature of gravity. Their silver, glistening forms coiled around the edges of the cone, pressing everyone against the walls of the cone: Lisa was coerced backwards, squeezed between a stray Charmeleon and Lauren, the Guard agent, who looked rather the worse for wear: she sported a massive, bloody gash on her forehead, but still managed to nod stiffly to Lisa by way of salutation as their eyes met. Lisa could tell from the blank expression on her face that she, too, was completely blown away by what Lance was doing.

Lisa’s heart rose in her chest as she glimpsed Gavin and Sarah across the other side of the ring, their faced battered and bloody, but they were clearly in good shape; both of them waved frantically at Lisa, mirroring her.

At last, Lance’s rose-gold Dragonite and Sterling’s pitch-black Murkron landed firmly on the ground, well illuminated by the light of the still-burning Jeep. Cheers and shouts rang out from all sides of the cone; Lisa and Lauren screamed Lance’s name in a kind of melodic tune, while the Union agents seemed to be reciting some kind of gothic chant in latin. Lisa rested her aching arms against the Steelix’s body – she was just able to see over it and into the centre of the cone – and watched the scene unfold with bated breath.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Sterling snarled, his hand flinching toward the holstered revolver on his belt before he seemed to regain control over his limbs; he instead shoved the hand into his pocket and produced a Master Ball.

“I never could trust you, Joe,” Lance said coolly, disembarking from Draco and patting his resplendent back reassuringly. He took two neat steps toward Sterling, not in a threatening manner, but rather as though they were about to shake hands in the street, or engage in a friendly game of bocci.

His demeanour was inconceivably casual.

“You fight like a coward,” Sterling snarled, enlarging the Master Ball in his hand.

“Au contraire,” Lance said, rummaging in the folds of his cape, which had swirled onto the ground when he dropped it, and producing yet another blue-and-purple Master Ball. “I seem to remember being simultaneously attacked by three of your other agents the last time we battled, Joe. I should remind you that not a single Guard agent stepped in to defend me, nor should they.

“We are going to do something we should have done that day – what was it, more than a decade ago, now? We’re going to battle the old-school way. Six pokémon on six. May the best man win.”

And looking Sterling directly in the eye, he screamed, “GO, PYTHIR!”

Sterling grinned venomously and hurled the Master Ball toward Lance, “RHYDON, TAKE HIM DOWN!”

An enormous black-and-purple python coiled out from Lance’s Master Ball, its patterned head rearing back and rising into the air as a grey, rock-solid Rhydon emerged for Sterling’s team.

No commands were issued: Rhydon roared, “RHUUUUUUU!” and at once began charging at Pythir, whose tail suddenly leaped up into the air of its own accord … The purple snake was suspended in mid-air for a second, a perfect parabolic shape, before it hissed viciously and launched itself head-first toward the confused Rhydon, a hundred dripping fangs bared …

Lisa screamed: Pythir detached its jaw as it was just metres away from Rhydon; she watched in wonderful horror as Pythir swallowed Rhydon’s entire head before sinking its fangs deep into its neck; Rhydon roared with agony, its bulky grey body twitching as the poison seeped in. Still without any verbal instruction from Lance – and without ceasing its devastating bite – Pythir wound its long body around Rhydon’s gut three times before constricting tightly; it took scarcely ten seconds before the rock-type stopped moving and fell to the ground, defeated.

“GOOOOOOO LANCE!” Lisa and Lauren screamed in unison, hugging each other tightly.

A gunshot sounded from beside them; Lisa jumped, facing the commotion … the antagonising Union agent had been joined by the leather-clad agent who had attacked her before. Lisa glanced around for the Xatu that had no doubt stood in to protect her and saw a bundle of green feathers sprawled on the ground, bleeding. Nevertheless, a second, shiny Xatu had seemingly materialised from nowhere, hovering at her side with a collection of semi-automatic weapons telekinetically suspended in a green plasma above its head; it had disarmed the Union agents, who were now swearing more profusely than ever.

Lisa’s mind grappled with what was happening. She had thought, fleetingly, that Lance had somehow managed to link psychically with all his pokémon, commanding them to protect every agent … Perhaps while his attention was on the battle, the psychic link had become weaker, allowing Xatu to be killed? Then again, powerful though his pokémon might be, they were still mortal …

She turned to Lauren.

“I thought they were protecting us …”

Lauren shrugged her enormous shoulders.

“I have no idea what the fuck’s happening, Lisa …”

In addition to the second Xatu, a Nidoqueen stepped in protectively between Lisa and the agents; feeling a little more secure, Lisa turned back to the fight.

Sterling let off a string of expletives – “FUCKING COWARDLY COCKSUCKER!” – and recalled Rhydon’s motionless form before throwing out an Ultra Ball.

Lisa barely saw the cream-furred Persian; it streaked out from the Ultra Ball, still half-illuminated by white light, and raced at Pythir in a zig-zag pattern, using agility; it was almost invisible …

Pythir ducked several Slash attacks deftly, its snakish form bounding from one part of the field to another, before, in the blink of an eye, Persian pounced on its prey, grabbing the python by the throat and slitting it cleanly; a gruesome, bone-chilling sucking sound came from Pythir’s throat as it clutched helplessly for air, luminous green blood gushing from its neck as its golden eyes reeled back in its head, replaced by blank white eyeballs.

“No!” Lance screamed, his composure gone in a flash. His face was instantly pallid; he reached for the Master Ball and returned his bleeding Pythir, adjusting something on the side of the Master Ball as he thrust it back into the pocket of his black pants.

“TOO FAR, JOE!” he raged, face scarlet. “I DIDN’T MORTALLY WOUND YOUR RHYDON, I ONLY PARALYZED IT – YOU BLOODY –”

“LANCE HUDSON IS ON HIS KNEES!” Joseph Sterling roared, his oiled black eyebrow raised and his lips curved into a savage grin as he called out to his faithful. “SOON, VICTORY WILL BE OURS!”

The Union’s ranks rang out with deep, guttural cheers; the Union agents on the other side of Nidoqueen heckled Lance and shot a round of bullets into the air. A second later, Xatu’s telekinetic plasma enveloped their last gun; Lisa grinned with vicarious victory.

“You are vile,” Lance spat to Sterling; Lisa had never seen him look so murderous.

“Go ahead, get mad. For once in your life, say what’s on your mind, Hudson,” Sterling mocked, buoyed by the catcalls and jeers of his army.

Lance plunged his hand back into his pocket and held a Master Ball out before him.

“DRACO, HYPER BALL!”

Lisa did a double-take; her eyes – like Sterling’s and Persian’s – were still trained on the Master Ball in Lance’s hand when the rose-gold Dragonite beside Lance squealed, “Waaaaoooooh!” and opened its mouth, jettisoning a boulder-sized orb of crackling golden-white energy at Persian’s head.

The cat screeched “Rrrrreeeowww!” as the ball slammed into its head, hurling it into the air as sparks of Dragon energy pierced its skin and fur. When Persian’s body landed on the ground a second later, there was no sign of cognition or recovery: it was limp.

“CHEAT!” Sterling roared, recalling Persian in a blast of crimson light and lobbing another Master Ball into the arena.

“I’d never cheat, Joe,” Lance said, voice dripping with glorious sarcasm as he pocketed the Master Ball smoothly. “You shouldn’t have assumed I wouldn’t use Draco next.”

Sterling’s face purpled as a Houndoom materialised before him.

Lance’s eyes sought Draco’s and found them; without a word, Draco took flight, swiftly dodging the Fire Blasts that Houndoom sent at him from its mouth before suddenly, having risen almost twenty metres into the air, diving rapidly, his rose-gold head barrelling down and crashing with incalculable force into Houndoom’s side …

Before the dog could get back to its paws, Draco had delivered a Thunderpunch to its head before grabbing hold of its canine jaws and, wrenching its mouth wide open, opened its own mouth and delivered a Hydro Pump directly into Houndoom’s fire sac.

The drenched dog collapsed to the ground, motionless.

The crowd roared.

“NO!” Sterling cried, hurling another Ultra Ball out as he recalled Houndoom.

“ICE BLADE!” the dictator roared.

A Sneasel appeared, bounding onto the field with a blade of ice in its clawed hand; Draco shot a well-aimed Ember at Sneasel, who deftly evaporated into thin air, reappearing on Draco’s shoulder, wielding its ice blade and preparing to plunge it into Draco’s neck.

Undeterred, Draco cooed gently and opened his mouth wide, a veritable column of pure flame erupting from his mouth and enveloping both pokémon. Both Sterling and Lance leapt back from the heat; the column of flame towered into the starry sky, as high as the very top of the cone. Even Lisa, Lauren and the others were forced to crouch behind the Steelix’s protective body, shielding themselves from the wave of extreme heat.

When Lisa dared to peer back over Steelix’s crystalline vertebrae, her mouth fell open in amazement. The column of fire was gone in a wisp of smoke: in its place was Draco, still standing resolutely, his face alight and hard.

Sneasel’s shrivelled form was curled up on the ground, unconscious.

“NO!” Sterling roared; another volley of gunfire echoed around the cone from the agitated Union agents; people everywhere were swearing and screaming.

“Keep going, Lance!”

“You can finish him!”

“FLOG HIS FUCKEN ARSE!”

Lisa would have recognised Donovan’s voice anywhere; she guffawed with Lauren, her aching gut and bones all but swept away by the rush of adrenaline; she almost felt as though she, too, were fighting Sterling – and winning.

Sterling turned and regarded the dark form of his taloned Murkron, standing by in the wings. His sallow face wrinkled; he looked as though he were considering something very carefully; then, quite abruptly, he reached his hairy hand into his half-unbuttoned shirt and grabbed something on his chest, screaming, “DO YOUR WORST! REVELUM!”

A blast of gold light exploded from a charm around his neck. The radiance arced through the air, ringed by globules of vermilion light, forming a gigantic, canine creature.

The blood drained from Lisa’s face; her long-suffering stomach churned.

Two hundred people gasped in shock.

It was Entei.

“No …” Lisa heard herself mutter.

Entei stood ten feet tall, his legs as thick and rigid as tree trunks, his furry, red-and-yellow face fixed in a mask of utmost rage.

Draco cooed with apparent surprise, tensing himself; Lance, on the other hand, looked impossibly calm.

“Don’t pretend you knew, Hudson!” Sterling skited gleefully, his dark eyes flashing as the Union cheered once more. “You had no idea …”

“You’re right,” Lance said; he was almost smiling. “Certainly, I had deduced that Entei had betrayed the brotherhood … there was enough evidence to prove that. I even suspected he was loyal, in part, at least, to you. But I never imagined he would have lost so much of his dignity as to submit to you this fully.”

Lance looked Entei in the eyes; Lisa felt her own limbs lock in instinctive apprehension.

“Hello, old Guardian,” Lance said, quite casually. “You really have fallen from grace, haven’t you? Estranged from your brothers … killing innocent humans … and now you let this cad keep you in a poképort? A disgrace indeed – and a dangerous mistake, I might add.”

Entei barked sharply and spat a tongue of flame at Lance; Draco conjured up a glittering, rainbow-coloured Light Screen that not only held the fire back, but wrapped it up in a shimmering rainbow cocoon and crushed it; a fine mist drizzled to the ground where the flame had been.

To Lisa’s complete surprise, Entei turned his head sharply toward Sterling, his face hard.

//Fool// he snarled at Sterling, perplexing Lisa; she neither knew why Sterling was being called a fool, nor why she was able to hear Entei’s telepathic messages; but judging from Lauren’s face, everyone else could, too.

“Yes, Sterling is an idiot, to put it mildly,” Lance drawled laconically. “But Entei, mate – yes, look at me – believe it or not, Sterling’s been a bigger idiot than you’d think! Remember how you wanted to keep the Sepulchres sealed, at any cost? Sterling went and did it behind your back. He tried to send Lisa into the Sepulchre of Suicune a few days ago!”

Entei growled.

//Sterling obeys the Legend, unlike some// Entei spat, leering at Lance. //You have no proof for your treacherous claim//

“Suicune is dead, and his fragment of the Sixth Key is now in my possession,” Lance said smoothly. “I’ll be happy to show you the material proof, if you will consider abandoning the Union and returning to the true purpose of your guardianship.”

//YOU LIE!//

“I’m telling the truth,” Lance said, reaching into his black-and-orange vest and into a barely visible pouch.

Lisa gasped, comprehension breaking over her, as he withdrew the bloodied Sceptre of Suicune, its tip glowing with an icy azure hue.

Entei’s canine mask froze.

//No …//

“Yes!” Lance cried, brandishing the sceptre in front of him. “Lisa Walters killed Suicune! Your old defence is outmoded, Entei!”

//NO …//

“The Guardianship is broken forever!” Lance cried, now beginning to laugh. “And Raikou will see sense, too … Come back to the Legend, Entei … end this now …”

Entei spun around to face Joseph Sterling’s rigid form.

“He lies!” Sterling roared, beckoning reason from Entei with his black eyes. “Great beast, he is trying to divide us …”

//That is the Sceptre of Suicune// Entei said blackly. //It is illuminated … My brother is dead//

“It is deception, no more!” Sterling bellowed hoarsely. “Hudson seeks to lie to you again … he arranged Walters’ entrance to the Sepulchre himself …”

//Then when and how did he discover the location?// Entei demanded. //I thought only we knew of it …//

Sterling spluttered, unable to find the answer Entei sought; the fire dog was now advancing steadily on him, his back turned to Lance. But in the exact moment that Lance cried, “DRACO, DISABLE HIM!”, Sterling’s hand leapt back to his chest and he shrieked, “RETRAHERE, ENTEI!”

//NOOOOOOOOOOOO…//

Entei roared with rage as he was recalled back to the poképort against his will; Lance laughed heartily and placed the sceptre back in the compartment in his vest.

“If it helps, Joe,” he said, as Sterling buttoned his black silk shirt up and attempted to regain some composure by regarding his supporters, who rallied and cheered, “Entei would have been pretty useless against me. Guardians aren’t meant to do battle with each other. It would be like forcing two negative poles of a magnet together, you know?”

“You will not defeat me, maggot,” Sterling growled; the poképort was still shaking violently.

“We’ll see,” Lance said simply. “I have five pokémon left. You have one. Use it wisely.”

“ENTEI DOESN’T COUNT!”

“HE DOES TOO, YA DIRTY FUCK!” Donovan yelled from somewhere behind one of the Steelixes; at once, a renewed volley of insults came from the nearest Union agents.

“Yes, he does count!” Lance countered Sterling smoothly. “He launched an attack, and Draco countered it. That round ended with you recalling your fifth pokémon. You can either send Entei back out – for your own good health, I wouldn’t advise it; I doubt Entei will show as much restraint with you as I may – or you can choose your final battler.”

Sterling’s face blackened.

“It matters not what happens,” he smirked. “The other half of my force will return here, soon. I alerted them the moment I spotted your boats. You will be outnumbered – you will all perish!”

He cackled mirthlessly; his agents guffawed in turn.

“For about the millionth time tonight, you’re wrong,” Lance said brashly, his voice deep and resonant. “Having orchestrated every one of tonight’s events, I can say pretty securely that half your army is in either Guard or Police custody right now. You see, I had one of my covert teams stake out the decoy key location in that cave west of Azalea Town. You remember Clair, right?” He smirked, clearly savouring a moment that only he and Sterling seemed to fully comprehend. “She and a few other old friends of mine trapped your army in the cave – it’s a dangerous place, you know, only one way in or out – and they called the cops.”

Lance’s grin broadened.

“I think you’ll find you’re screwed.”

“LIAR!” Sterling screamed, his eyes bloodshot and his sallow face now a deep shade of pink. He whipped a Master Ball from his pocket and, at the same moment, Murkron’s mouth opened and released a ray of pure darkness: Lance’s eyes were trained on the Master Ball, as were Draco’s; the jet of black formed a spearhead and plunged with lightning speed directly through Draco’s chest.

“NO!” Lance shouted.

Draco’s eyes bulged in surprise; the jet of black energy seemed to have a consciousness of its own; the spearhead evolved into the shape of a human hand, which plunged once more, unstoppably, into Draco’s chest, pounding and piercing his lungs, grasping with murderous fingers for the beating heart …

At last, Draco seemed to regain his bearings, opening his mouth and firing a thin ice-white beam of light; the beam speared the air, slicing toward Murkron, who was forced to use Agility to avoid the ranged attack; and the moment Murkron shifted its winged form, its concentration broke, and the dark hand in Draco’s chest lost its power, sliding down to the ground before disappearing into thin air …

Draco stumbled, its chest open … rose-gold blood was leaking down his front …

“No – Draco –” Lance gasped, staggering. He seemed almost unable to control the urge to run at the Dragonite and hug him. “Draco – come on – stay with me …”

A shiver slid down Lisa’s spine: Lance was frightened.

“Murkron, Shadow Ball!” Sterling ordered, unfazed.

If Lisa had never seen it with her own eyes, she never would have believed it. As Murkron took to the air, a globe of dark violet energy forming in his beak, Draco – barely breathing – leapt into the air too, tunnelling at Murkron in what looked like a super-fast Headbutt attack, except Draco was oscillating, spinning on his vertical axis; and as he spun, beads of aquamarine light slid over his rose-gold skin, sliding into one another, coating his entire, scaly form in a liquid layer of aquamarine energy; Murkron’s Shadow Ball launched at point-blank range, as Draco was scarcely two metres away from the bird pokémon’s beak …

… the crackling violet orb struck Draco’s coated head … and then, as if it were made of water, it splashed over Draco’s body harmlessly … coating his aquamarine skin with another layer … a layer of black …

… and then Draco crashed fearlessly, headfirst, into Murkron’s underbelly, imbued with the power of the Shadow Ball; Murkron squawked in agony as sparks of violet tore through his soft underbelly; and at the same time, Draco’s retractable claws burst from his hands and he reached up a thick, muscular, scaly, black-coated arm, and slashed Murkron’s eyes to bleeding shreds …

“Krooooo!”

“Ryyuuuuu!”

Draco landed, feet-first, on the ground, its skin still glowing with a mixture of aquamarine and black coating; Murkron gave an earsplitting screech and crumpled to the ground in a feathery, bleeding mass.

Unconscious.

“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” Sterling shrieked madly.

The roar from the crowd of Guard members almost drowned him out: Lisa and Lauren screamed and embraced each other; across the other side of the cone, Gavin and Sarah high-fived with a look of sheer astonishment; curse words flooded from Donovan’s mouth like blood from an open wound; Lisa even thought she heard her father call out, amid the chaos, “Good one, Lance!”

“Enough!” Lance called to the armies trapped behind the two Steelixes.

He turned to recall Draco back into the poképort, muttering something in a gentle voice, but Draco waved a hand before him as if to say, “I’m fine.”

Apparently satisfied in his pokémon’s ability to self-diagnose, Lance faced Sterling obliquely and produced four more Master Balls from his pocket.

“I win, Joe,” he said definitively, his fingers playing casually with the Master Balls. “Fair and square. Hand me the three keys and I’ll ask the Supreme Court for leniency when they prosecute you, I promise.”

Lisa’s heart thudded. The three keys? That could only mean one thing: Sterling had got to the Fourth Key before the Guard had … or he had stolen it from them … In any case, he held the majority of the power: the first two keys, and now the fourth …

“You lose again, Hudson!” Sterling sneered, reaching for his pocket once more.

“NO!”

Lance launched a single Master Ball from his hand; the orb opened on its hinge in mid-air, a slender, glowing form emerging from the brilliance: an indigo-and-white Dragonair appeared, instantly wrapping itself around Sterling’s body and constricting him; his arms, both plunged into his pockets, were immobilised.

“COWARD!” Sterling screamed, amid shouts and screams of dismay from the Union agents trapped on the sidelines.

Lisa flinched as more bullets pinged off the walls of the cone: apparently the Union had kept at least one weapon concealed. She saw Draco suddenly lunge forward, staggering as if drunk …

“I offered you a chance, Joe,” Lance said irascibly, unaware of Draco; his eyes were rock hard, focused on Sterling. “You missed it.” He nodded his head to Dragonair. “Find the keys.”

Still constricting Sterling’s arms – though Sterling appeared to be desperately fighting to reach something on his belt – Dragonair began to wriggle over his body, using its tail to turn out the contents of Sterling’s pockets: a sheathed dagger, a few Ultra Balls, a folded square of parchment … no keys …

Its watery eyes showing nothing but determination, Dragonair flicked its beady tail over the front of Sterling’s black silk shirt, tearing the top three buttons away in one sleek movement.

“Bingo!” Lance hollered.

Lisa peered over the reflective form of the Steelix and gasped: strung along a thin band of brown leather that was tangled in the forest of thick black hair on Sterling’s broad chest, barely obscured by Entei’s poképort, were three small, shiny, glassy keys.

In a deft movement, Dragonair yanked the leather band upwards and over Sterling’s head – the dictator tried desperately to bite at the dragon’s tail with his yellowed teeth – and then, moving as swiftly as it had before, Dragonair relinquished its Constrict and lunged for the ground, slithering toward Lance; and in the same moment, Draco, still staggering, finally lost his strength, tumbling toward the ground, blood streaming from his open chest …

Freed for a split second, Sterling’s eyes flashed; his hands grabbed for the revolver in the holster on his belt.

“Nice try!” Lance grinned, grabbing the leather band from Dragonair and throwing it around his neck, still unaware of his pokémon collapsing to the ground. “Draco, block it!”

Lisa’s scream caught in her throat.

Sterling roared with triumph as he aimed the revolver and fired three times.

His body half-silhouetted against the light of the blazing Jeep, Lance Hudson staggered backwards, his strong legs crumbling as two white-hot bullets tore through his gut and one tore through his chest, blood exploding from his back in warm, beautiful geysers.

Sterling roared with maniacal laughter and fired a fourth shot at the distressed Dragonair; the bullet went straight through its petite head and indigo blood sprayed over Lance’s crumpled chest; the dragon flailed; its head slammed into the earth … dead.

“No!” Lisa screamed. Her heart had turned to black ice. Everyone was screaming. Lisa tried to scramble over the Steelix’s back – she had to help Lance … she had to save him – but the Steelix roared and shook her back, pressing them all even more firmly against the walls of the cone.

Sterling advanced on Lance’s spluttering, gasping form, the revolver held out before him – and then, gloriously, two figures burst through the gap between the two Steelixes, apparently allowed: Lisa’s father, Ryan Walters, his ruddy face alive with rage; and Marco Trippolo, Lance’s oldest friend …

“You’re fucking dead, Joe!” Lisa’s father roared. He levelled a Stunner at Sterling and pulled the trigger; Sterling dived to his left, avoiding the bolt of green light by inches. Lisa’s father shouted in blind rage and charged at Sterling, pulling the trigger again.

Marco, meanwhile, had rushed to Lance’s side.

“Ma-a-rr-!” Lance spluttered, his chest rattling. Lisa felt sick.

“I’m here, mate …” Marco cried.

“Sorry – tell – Su – Dar …” Lance gasped, unable to form full words. Shaking almost uncontrollably, he removed the leather necklace from his neck and held it out for Marco, who snatched it up swiftly and held it tightly in his left hand.

And then, Marco plunged his right hand into his pocket, whipping out a flick knife, and drew the silver blade swiftly across Lance’s throat.

The Champion’s eyes bulged wide for just a second; his mouth opened, as if in surprise, as if he were about to exclaim something; and then, without ceremony, scarlet blood gushed from his throat, flooding his lungs and mouth, drowning him before his pale, blood-splattered body arced gently backwards and fell, motionless, to the earth.

“What?!” Lisa screamed.

“What’s Marco DOING?!” Lauren shrieked, tugging at her blonde hair madly. “WHAT THE HELL IS HE DOING?!”

Marco regarded Lance’s body for just a moment before he glanced up at Joseph, who was still ducking the bolts of light from Ryan’s Stunner, while Ryan dodged the poorly-fired bullets.

“Master! I have the keys!” Marco called, running within five metres of Sterling – barely three metres before Ryan – and lobbing the jangling leather necklace across to Sterling, who, having run out of bullets, threw the revolver aside and caught the three keys with his right hand.

The Union roared with delight; Lisa couldn’t hear anything amid the cacophony and the gunfire; her eyes alone documented what happened next.

Sterling looped the keys around his neck and then, weaponless and still in the line of Ryan’s Stunner fire, he reached to his belt, producing a small, circular, metallic object, a red, digital light blinking on its surface, and hurled it in Ryan’s direction.

Lisa screamed; her father leapt back instinctively as the electronic grenade rolled toward him; Marco, however, looked temporarily confused; he glanced at the blinking bomb in apparent disbelief for just a second too long:

BOOM!

A giant flower of flame blossomed from the mine, and the man that was Marco Trippolo was silhouetted against the light for a fraction of a second before his body disintegrated, ripped into a million pieces by the blast.

Consumed by the inferno.

Sterling looked over his shoulder with mild surprise at the thick, putrid black smoke billowing from Marco’s burning corpse. He shrugged indifferently and turned away.

Bile rose in Lisa’s stomach: this was a nightmare – it couldn’t be happening …

Sterling hurled a Master Ball to the ground, revealing a jet-black Scizor. He bounded onto its back swiftly.

“It’s been fun!” he grinned through savage yellow teeth, before the Scizor flew in an agile, evasive zig-zag pattern, up toward the top of the cone and toward the star-encrusted sky.

“NO!”

Lisa’s father hurled an Ultra Ball into the air, leaping onto the regal Charizard that emerged from it and yelling, “Charizard, chase him!”

In a matter of seconds, the Scizor and Charizard were soaring into the moonlight, leaving two stunned, seething armies in the cone below.

A potent cocktail of emotions bubbled in Lisa’s chest, the strongest of which were rage, grief and terror. Without even thinking about what she was doing, she launched herself at the Steelix’s side, however her hands slid off the steel pokémon’s chunky segments as though they were slick with oil; she lost her balance and slid unceremoniously to the rocky ground, grazing her face.

“Ooof!”

“Lisa …” came Lauren’s voice.

Adrenaline still buoying her, Lisa pressed herself up and clawed at Steelix’s side once more, but it was impossible to grasp the metallic segments.

“What the HELL is wrong with these Steelixes?!” someone screamed nearby; clearly Lisa wasn’t the only one struggling to circumvent the odd, inflexible barrier the steel pokémon had created; indeed, incensed and frustrated cries were going up all across the chamber.

Lisa looked at Lauren desperately; the thought of her father battling alone against Sterling gnawed at her as the seconds pressed on. The older woman’s eyes glinted and she grabbed a Great Ball from her belt, hurling it to the ground with gusto. A Pidgeotto emerged from the ensuing radiance.

Lauren leapt aboard the Pidgeotto’s back and immediately rose into the air, making a break for it by flying over Steelix’s body; however, a hovering Magneton appeared seemingly out of nowhere and delivered a sharp thunderbolt to Pidgeotto; both the bird and it’s rider were thrown back to the ground roughly.

“What the …” Lisa muttered angrily; why were Lance’s pokémon preventing them from doing anything? “COME ON!”

Just as she thought she might explode from the force of her restrained anger, a soft, bell-like sound rang out in the hollow cone, and in an instant, the chamber was awash with the vibrant glow of a hundred-odd pokémon being mystically recalled to their erstwhile homes; the Steelixes evaporated into enormous globules of cinnabar light.

Lisa didn’t care how it had happened; she roared with detached triumph and, without wondering if Lauren’s Pidgeotto would obey her, she pounced upon its back, clung to the caramel feathers and cried, “FLY UP HIGH, PIDGEOTTO!”

Lauren, still recovering from the fall, shouted something warningly to Lisa, but Lisa’s ears were suddenly filled with the rush of wind as Pidgeotto took flight, rising high into the centre of the cone and zooming skyward.

I have to help Dad … I have to …

Lisa took a fleeting glance at the arena below, only to realise with a sinking feeling that she hadn’t been the only one to take to the skies: below her, Union and Guard agents alike were throwing pokéballs to the ground and releasing their winged companions; battle cries were reverberating across the volcanic cone.

Biting her lip against the tide of terror in her gut, Lisa delivered a hearty slap to Lauren’s Pidgeotto’s back and set her sights on the star-studded sky above – and the two airborne shapes locked in battle directly above her.

“Okay, Pidgeotto – LET’S DO THIS!”

[Chris 2.1]

Gripping chapter; when I saw Lance and Joseph would battle, with Pokemon no less, I didn't think it would feel right given that the fic has grown away from Pokemon, but the 6-6 battle was brutal, and so quick. It felt like what wild animals fighting should feel like: blood thirsty, vicious, and with each party trying to kill.

I also kind of hoped Entei would turn on Joseph and destroy him, but I loved seeing Joseph turn the tables - and in such a villainous way.

Excited for the next chapter. Excellent work as ever, some beautiful descriptions and Lisa's reaction to Electrivire was brilliant.

[Gavin Luper]

Gripping chapter; when I saw Lance and Joseph would battle, with Pokemon no less, I didn't think it would feel right given that the fic has grown away from Pokemon, but the 6-6 battle was brutal, and so quick. It felt like what wild animals fighting should feel like: blood thirsty, vicious, and with each party trying to kill.

I also kind of hoped Entei would turn on Joseph and destroy him, but I loved seeing Joseph turn the tables - and in such a villainous way.

Excited for the next chapter. Excellent work as ever, some beautiful descriptions and Lisa's reaction to Electrivire was brilliant.

Hey mate - thanks for reading and the response.

I'm glad the battle defied your expectations. I think wayyyyy back when I was still on book 2 I said something like "there will be far fewer pokemon battles, but they will be much higher stakes". Part of me thinks it was this chapter that I had in mind, but I might be retconning that, since it was only a few years ago that I really got this scene clear.

Now that you mention it, I think this was the first actual straight-up battle I've written since the second EBTV crossover (which featured Andrew vs Gavin and Jess vs Lisa) - and that was written and posted back in late 2003/early 2004 (!). Ever since then, pokemon have only featured as plot/character devices, or as fighting in war/action sequences where guns and death and real danger have also been present. I think that's why this battle had to be so brutal and lethal, as you pointed out - it made no sense to hark back to some sense of innocence and restraint: this was a duel to the death, quite literally for several players.

Also, it had to reflect the magnitude of who was fighting: Hudson and Sterling. Both are immensely powerful; it followed that they would be incredibly fierce trainers as well as fighters and leaders in their own right.

That said, Hudson owned Sterling in his own, righteous way, and Sterling owned Hudson in a far more underhanded and devious way.

Also, it felt like a good way to tie the bow on that whole era, as we close off the third book with the next chapter. Since battles and pokemon are hardly the focus of this fic and we've moved way beyond that, I don't think it's much of a spoiler to say that this was the final pokemon battle that will feature in Lisa the Legend, and as such, I wanted to make it as spectacular and as high-stakes as possible.

Thanks for the feedback, Chris. Much appreciated, as ever.

Chapter 82 will be up tomorrow morning - I'm tired and editing is always done better with fresh eyes.

Cheers!

[Gavin Luper]

Okay, well Matt's post in The Writer's Lounge triggered me to post this chapter that I've been sitting on for almost an entire year. First of all, sorry to all the readers, active and lurker alike, who have been waiting for an update. There are reasons for the wait. And I hadn't forgotten about LtL by any means. I actually had a reminder going off on my phone literally every Monday for the last year telling me to post the chapter, but I kept putting it off. I basically delayed posting more chapters because I felt like I had to announce something first, but I still don't know exactly how to say what I need to say. I'm still a bit torn about it. So no announcements or anything yet.

Instead, here's the new chapter. I hope any of you old fans still hanging around will enjoy it!

Cheers!

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

Chapter 82 – Last Night on Earth.


As Pidgeotto speared through the air, reaching the narrow upper section of the extinct volcanic cone, a fierce, heavily-accented voice caught Lisa’s ears.

“Don’t even try it on, you little bitch!”

Lisa looked down instinctively: a Union agent with platinum-blonde hair – none other than Veronica Stawell – was perched on a sleek black Fearow several metres below her – but rising rapidly.

“Pidgeotto, speed up and use a Gust attack!” Lisa cried.

A moment later she regretted her commands: Pidgeotto was all too willing to obey; it began to flap one wing ever faster in the hope of speeding up, yet at the same time it batted its left wing in sharp, deliberate bursts, sending powerful but time-consuming gusts of wind at the agent below. The bird seemed to lose its balance in mid-air; Lisa clung on in fright as she realised they were scarcely ascending – and that the Gust attack was having little effect on the sharp-beaked Fearow tunnelling toward them.

“Forget what I said – just evade it!” she screamed, not a second too soon; the Fearow had almost caught their tail and was swooping in for a Fury Attack when Pidgeotto squawked with fright and curved sharply to the right.

Dozens of flying pokémon were now both battling each other and rising rapidly within the cone beneath Lisa and Veronica. Lisa’s eyes darted around her: she and Veronica were hovering near the upper lip of the igneous cone – the diameter of the cone here was barely fifteen metres – the flying pokémon below were only seconds away from crashing right through them.

“It’s over, sweetie, dear old Lance is as dead as a doornail!” Veronica laughed, her face twisting pleasurably at Lisa’s pale mask of disgust. Lisa knew at once that Lauren’s Pidgeotto was going to be no match for Veronica’s Fearow; she plunged her hand into her jeans, scoping for the Buzzball, but her hands closed instead on what she realised was the Darkball.

“The Guard is caput, Lisa, and now, so are you! HYPER BEAM, FEAROW!”

“Dark screen,” Lisa hissed, drowned out by Veronica’s shrieked command.

Once again, it seemed that nothing had happened; a radiant orb of golden light formed out of nowhere within Fearow’s beak; Pidgeotto began – too late – to dart away; and just as the jet of light exploded from Fearow’s mouth, Veronica cried in panic, “WHAT – NO – WHERE THE HELL DID SHE GO?!”

Lisa flinched as the Hyper Beam collided with Pidgeotto’s slow-moving form; but the force of the attack never struck.

Lisa’s eyes flew open in time to see the Hyper Beam – double its previous size – reflected with a vengeance directly at Fearow and Veronica. For an instant, there was utter astonishment on both faces, followed by a screamed command by Veronica; to Lisa’s dismay, Fearow dove down into the cone, narrowly avoiding the blast of the Hyper Beam; the golden explosion of energy instead slammed into the wall of the cone, eliciting an enormous cloud of dust and debris that rained down on the battlers below; screams resounded.

Lisa’s eyes hunted for Veronica and saw the back of her head as Fearow plummeted away from the impact zone of the reflected Hyper Beam. Indeed, there was a renewed chorus of panic from the flying battlers below, and nobody seemed to be ascending anymore. Lisa searched the faces of the battlers below and realised they were looking at the wall of the cone, transfixed in terror.

Slowly, dread mounting within her chest, Lisa followed their gaze; and just as her eyes fell on the enormous crater the Hyper Beam had made in the side of the cone, there was an ominous, earth-shattering crack!

The cone had begun to cave in.

“Oh my God … NO!” Lisa screamed, holding her arms out before her as if somehow the action would prevent the chamber from falling apart; but it was too late; a massive fissure was spreading rapidly down the rock wall of the cone; any second now, the cone would crumble in a slow, terrible arc toward the Guard and Union agents below.

The battlers below screamed and dived for the edges of the cone. Amid the chaos, Lisa’s eyes darted up and down, and she knew there was only one option for her; she slapped Pidgeotto firmly on the back and bellowed, “Fly up, Pidgeotto, fly up, FLY UP!”

But the bird was having no part in heroics: with a panic-stricken flap of its wings, it wheeled around and began to descend, away from the collapsing wall but beneath its line of fire.

“No – NO!” Lisa screeched – in its panic, Pidgeotto was putting them both directly in harm’s way. “NO – GET AWAY – MOVE AWAY FROM THERE!” She dug her heels into the bird’s sides, but there was no response – they were soaring directly toward the impending cascade of boulders and rubble.

“LISA, MOVE!” screamed Gavin’s voice from somewhere beneath her.

It was this, more than anything else, that saved Lisa’s life; she released Pidgeotto’s feathers and launched herself into freefall, pressing the poképort between her thumb and forefinger and crying out, “REVELUM, ALTARIA!”

Lisa would never forget the momentary gap between the flash of radiance exploding from the poképort and the instant her hands closed in over Altaria’s fluffy wings; for those three seconds, she was in freefall, plummeting to the rock solid earth as a wall of jagged rock began to cascade from above; images flashed across her eyes like a roll of burnt film; and then, gloriously, she was clinging to Altaria’s warm back, and her own voice rang out in her ears clearer than the screams of the warriors below:

“ALTARIA, GET US OUT OF HERE!”

And the strength of the respondant coloratura warmed her to her stomach.

“TAAA WOOOOOO!”

Altaria rocketed upwards through the disintegrating cone, weaving past the first of the oncoming rock fragments before swooping up brilliantly through the collapsing lip of the cone and into the cool night air beyond.

“YES! YES! YESSSSS!” Lisa whooped, pumping her fist in the air. She turned and watched the cone as it cracked ominously and began breaking apart completely. Her exultation evaporated as quickly as it had come on, replaced by a flood of panic. How bad would the devastation be? Would Gavin and the others escape in time? How many more of them would fall before the night was over?

Please, God … Please … let them be okay …

“BASTARD!”

The roared curse word, accompanied by a flare of orange incandescence in the near distance, suddenly reminded Lisa why she had risen all this way.

As Altaria continued to rise, putting as much distance between them and the collapsing volcano shell as possible, Lisa’s eyes traced the source of the explosion of light. It didn’t take long to find it: down on the coastline, illuminated by a burning helicopter, waves breaking around their feet, were Joseph Sterling and Ryan Walters, locked in a fierce and deadly duel.

“Dad!” Lisa cried, without thinking.

Her veins iced over and she froze, stiff as a board, on Altaria’s back, waiting for Sterling to wheel around and shoot her – but no response came from either of the battlers.

“I’m too high up …” Lisa muttered to Altaria breathlessly. “Oh, thank God …”

Altaria sounded a small note of comfort and slowed its ascent; it was clearly waiting on instruction from its master.

“Okay, okay … let’s think …” Lisa chattered to herself. She glanced down at the battle below: her father’s Charizard was circling above Sterling’s Scizor, firing down a rain of flames as the steel-type used a constant Faint Attack to evade injury. At the same time, her father and Sterling seemed to be firing off blasts of light from weapons in their hands – perhaps Stunners.

More out of desperation than actual hope, Lisa wheeled back around to the cone of the volcano, but there was no movement at all, just a growing cloud of dust and ash: she had been the only one to make it through.

The only one who could help.

Lisa fished fervently in her pocket and found the Dark Ball, still warm. An incandescent bulb exploded in her mind.

Of course!

“Okay, Altaria, dive down onto the beach, right behind Joseph Sterling – the one in black!” she commanded in a sober voice. She squeezed the ball in her hand and muttered, “Dark screen!” with a mounting sense of anxiety. Owen had told her the technique was ‘great for protection and stealth’ – but had she exhausted the Dark Ball’s power? How long would the shield of invisibility last for? Long enough for her to land on the beach, sneak up behind Sterling and snatch the keys from around his neck?

The hair on the back of her neck stood on end. It was madness. Sterling would surely sense her, or hear her creeping up on him … and yet there was nothing else for it. The strongest weapon in her arsenal was the element of surprise.

Altaria slowed; they had descended to a position about ten metres above the sand and about the same distance behind Sterling’s back; the sound of waves breaking gently mingled rather chaotically with the explosions and bangs of battle. Lisa could catch snippets of curse words being exchanged between Sterling and her father; both of them were screaming in a manner that was neither controlled nor particularly masculine; the coarse shrieks sent chills through her spine: this was a battle to the death.

Lisa leaned forward, positioning her lips near Altaria’s ears to whisper her command, when, quite without ceremony, a gigantic tongue of lurid flame exploded from the battle zone and speared through the air toward them.

Lisa’s mouth moved, but no sound ever escaped it; there was no time to move; something brushed her cheek just as a wave of searing heat blasted the side of her face before a second ripple of devastating inferno gushed at her cheek. At the same time, her insides seemed to ignite as her lungs billowed with hot air …

“AAAAARGH!”

The world screamed. Everything dimmed. Lisa’s eyes rolled in her skull … distantly, she was aware of her body moving … falling …

Bones crunched.

Ice … ice water steaming her skin … gritty mud … soft, sodden seaweed beneath her …

Sadistic laughter nearby.

Lisa forced her eyes to open; she glimpsed her own body sprawled in the mud, seafoam innocently hissing over her feet. Something was wrong. She reached a hand to her cheek and, without taking requisite care, prodded at her burnt face. Something was horribly wrong. She could feel the hot skin beneath her fingers … but her cheek could not feel the digits’ touch.

Indeed, the only thing worse than the deafening pain in her cheek was the complete lack of sensation …

“Shock,” Lisa heard herself croak.

Sterling was still cackling, but not advancing on her, and in any case Lisa could not muster the strength to turn around anymore. She didn’t move for what felt like seven nauseous years, aware of only the lapping of the seafoam and the resolute beauty of the star-encrusted sky. In reality, it could have been mere seconds after she crashed onto the sand that she became aware of the fact that she was humming – a slow, guttural hum from the solar plexus – and with time she felt as though she were waking from an intoxicated dream.

It was only when she reached this point, and stopped humming, that she realised she had not been producing the noise alone – and that she was not sprawled on a bed of seaweed.

“Ta-aa … wooo …”

“Altaria?” Lisa coughed weakly.

She turned her neck slightly, enough to glimpse a cottony wing stained crimson and charred black.

“Altaria! No!”

“Taaa …” Altaria hummed mildly. It did not sound as distressed as it should have: it sounded ominously peaceful. The sodden cotton wings pressed in gently against Lisa, holding her close against Altaria’s bleeding body; a portion of the wing grazed Lisa’s cheek, leaving an unexpectedly soothing tingle, as though a relieving ointment had just been applied …

Lisa scrambled to throw Altaria’s grasp off, and even in her weak state, she succeeded; Altaria was even feebler than she, and trembling quite significantly. She faced the aquamarine pokémon with horror: Altaria’s once unblemished face was mauled by the stray flamethrower, blackened and bloodied and matted with beach sand. The creature’s underbelly was similarly wounded, and its once fluffy wings were singed and bedraggled.

Altaria’s glistening black eyes blinked sadly at Lisa and rolled back in its head; with a final, high-pitched, almost hopeful note, Altaria’s body shuddered and fell still.

The closed blue eyelids gouged Lisa’s chest.

“No,” she breathed. “No, you can’t … you can’t do this to me …”

She absently picked up one of the limp, ribbon-like blue feathers that protruded from Altaria’s head, stroking it once, twice, three times, as though it might work some kind of deep healing magic. But nothing happened.

A lump welled up in Lisa’s throat. Larry’s slashed corpse flashed before her eyes … Lance on his knees, his throat sucking uselessly for air … Electivire’s chest exploding as bullets ripped through it …

“It was him,” Lisa choked venomously, wiping her wet eyes with the back of her forearm. “It was all him.”

She tore her eyes from Altaria and wheeled her gaze for the first time in the direction of Joseph Sterling and her father. They were still deadlocked in battle: her father was positioned behind a cluster of silvery rocks, using them as a small barricade as he issued bolts of light from a Stunner toward Sterling; meanwhile, Sterling was advancing on the rocky defence, with his Murkrow using a volley of Shadow Balls to break it apart, while a mêlée of Charizard, Scizor, Feraligatr and Infernape scrapped around them.

Lisa stared at the back of Sterling’s head with a fury she had never known before in her life. A righteous tsunami of rage bore down on her heart. So many lives could not – would not – be taken in vain.

She scanned the beach sand for the Dark Ball, and found it wedged beneath Altaria’s limp left wing. Holding her breath (she didn’t know why), she lifted the saturated cotton and pulled the black, rubbery ball out, exhaling only once she was no longer touching the pokémon’s corpse. She squeezed the ball tightly. So the Dark Screen’s invisibility effect had worked, then … Sterling and her father, still duelling ten metres away, seemed completely oblivious to her arrival, spectacular though it had seemed. Perhaps they had only seen Altaria’s flaming form streaking toward the beach and imagined they had only struck a passing wild pokémon. Or, judging from the steely gleam in her father’s eyes, they were both so intensely focused on not losing concentration on their foe that neither of them had even noticed anything at all other than the battle at hand.

Lisa closed her eyes and focused her thoughts on Sterling’s vile face. The thirst for revenge – for justice – bubbled in her veins, along with a renewed surge of adrenaline.

“Dark screen,” she whispered.

She rose to her feet, emboldened by the drug pounding through her blood, and the ensuing headrush only added to her giddy rage.

Joseph Sterling was only ten metres ahead of her in the semi-darkness, completely oblivious as he waged war on her father.

Lisa took a single, deep breath and began to stride forward over the bloodstained sand, each footstep delivered more deliberately and slowly than the last so as to make as little sound as possible. One metre forward, and the Radio Tower collapsed into debris around her. Two metres: Anna’s body fell into the deadly flames at the base of a burning oak tree. Three: her own backyard was razed to the ground as Marina screamed. Four: the Port Valeo courthouse exploding with smoke and gunfire. Five: Professor Oak’s body loaded onto the helicopter beside her. Six: Emma’s body slumped in the elevator. Seven: Suicune’s bloodied corpse. Eight: Electivire’s dead body. Nine: a parade of stolen lives … Annette, Larry, Lance, Altaria … dead bodies, death everywhere …

The work of one man.

Lisa took her final, measured, deliberate step. Invisibility had emboldened her. She could smell the sweat in Sterling’s greasy black hair and the foul, flat stench of blood on his dark clothes; the Ultra Balls at his belt were within her grasp, even his second revolver, but she had eyes for only one prize.

The brown leather necklace looped over his neck.

Lisa clenched her teeth and, poising her hands like pincers either side of Sterling’s neck, she pounced.

Sterling cried out in surprise as Lisa’s hands closed over the leather band; she yanked it upwards in one fluid motion …

“NO!” Sterling roared.

The band jagged Sterling’s chin; the glass keys jangled, taunting Lisa as terror flooded her …

“Off, get OFF!” Sterling bellowed, slapping at Lisa’s left hand and moving to whirl around. In panic, Lisa squealed and lunged forward, her right hand clinging to the leather band as she threw her full body weight onto Sterling’s back, wrapping her legs around his thighs.

“BITCH!” Sterling roared, twirling around awkwardly, encumbered by her mass.

“ARSEHOLE!” Lisa screamed in his ear. “YOU – FUCKING – ARSEHOLE!”

She yanked at the leather band once again; and once again, it caught on Sterling’s sharp chin.

“COME ON – AAAAAARGH!” Lisa screamed; Sterling had sunk his yellowed teeth into her left arm in desperate rage, while lumbering around in a semi-circle, trying to shift her weight …

“LISA!” Lisa’s father cried.

Sterling stiffened as he stumbled.

“YOU!” he shrieked, turning his head to glimpse her face.

“YES, ME!” Lisa shrieked back; an animal within her roared with triumph at the look on Sterling’s face; she pulled on the leather necklace once again; Sterling’s jaw snapped shut as the band jagged on his chin for a third time and then, finally, the necklace came flying off his neck altogether …

“HA!” Lisa cried –

- prematurely; no sooner did she have the necklace in her hand than Sterling launched himself backwards, slamming his crushing bulk against her …

“AAAAARGH!”

Several bones cracked and silver stars popped into Lisa’s line of vision as Sterling landed on top of her; winded, she watched uselessly as her hands released their respective bounties; both the Dark Ball and the leather necklace launched into the air in opposite directions and landed a few metres away.

“NO YOU DON’T!”

A beam of rainbow light sizzled through the air from Feraligatr’s mouth, catching Sterling in the back of the head as he wheeled on Lisa, about to deliver a backhand; the tyrant threw his hands in the air as he was knocked back to the sand; but within a second, he was already scrambling to his knees … crawling for the necklace …

Lisa’s father bounded forward, leaning down to pick the keys up; but Sterling’s Infernape delivered an inky burst of Smokescreen directly into his eyes; he coughed violently and reeled backwards, clutching his face …

“HA!” Sterling bellowed, his hands closing on the leather band.

Still winded, her body aching, Lisa lunged for the Dark Ball as Sterling, necklace in hand, reached his Scizor’s side and leapt onto its back.

“You should never have tried this, Lisa,” he snarled darkly, surveying her with regal disdain as she crawled toward the Dark Ball. He regarded her father, still clawing at his streaming eyes, and gave a frightening, high-pitched laugh. “Even your father was no match for me – you really thought you could defeat me?”

He pressed the Ultra Balls on his belt and hissed something to Scizor; Infernape and Murkrow disappeared in blasts of semi-transparent red light. Charizard, bloodied and battle-weary, issued a weak blast of flame, but it didn’t even reach Sterling and Scizor; Feraligatr lumbered forward, ostensibly preparing for a Rage attack; Lisa felt her hand close in over the rubbery Dark Ball.

“I would consider this a pivotal mistake for you, Lisa,” Sterling continued, reaching for his revolver. “Until now, I considered you annoying, certainly, but ultimately just a naïve and unusually lucky child. Definitely, I would never have dreamed of killing your father right before your eyes. But now that you have made your arrogance abundantly clear …” His black eyes gleamed as he cocked the pistol. “… I actually take a great deal of pleasure in this.”

“DARK WAVE!” Lisa screamed.

She had no idea what to expect, if anything; as Sterling’s finger reached for the trigger, a high-pitched drone – like an overload of radio static – erupted from the Dark Ball in Lisa’s hand; a thin disc of violet light emanated in a perfect circle from the ball, blazing through the air and slicing across Scizor’s torso and Sterling’s left hand; and as blood spurted from Sterling’s palm, the Dark Wave slicing like a knife through everything in its path, a bullet exploded from the barrel of the gun with a flare of light … and as Ryan Walters attempted to clear his eyes of the toxic smog, the bullet struck him and he dropped, a deadweight, to the sand.

“DAD!” Lisa shrieked.

“Away, Scizor!” Sterling cackled mirthlessly. As Lisa scrambled toward her father, heart pounding, she glanced numbly at Sterling as Scizor rose deftly into the air, dodging Feraligatr’s clumsy Rage attack. As the alligator pokémon began to charge up an ice beam, Sterling, the leather band clutched in his hand, smirked evilly and gave Lisa a sinister parting wave before Scizor’s eyes glowed scarlet and it shot up into the atmosphere at an almost inconceiveable speed, far outstripping the jet of ice that chased them.

Suddenly, the keys meant nothing at all; the war was nothing; Lisa stumbled to her father’s side as he lay sprawled on the silver sand, blood blossomming over his left shoulder.

“Dad! Dad … oh my God …”

Ryan Walters opened his eyes slowly, his complexion waxy and coated in cold sweat.

“Lisa …” he said softly, an unexpected smile appearing on his face.

Lisa cupped his head in her hands, tears splashing down her cheeks.

“Dad … I’m so sorry … I should’ve gone for him sooner, I could’ve stopped him …”

“Lisa, it’s okay. I think he only got me in the shoulder.”

Lisa’s eyes bounded over to the wound: sure enough, had she taken the time to process it the first time, she would have realised at once; Sterling’s shot had been sent off course by the Dark Wave; the bullet had entered her father’s shoulder. While the wound was ugly and the air reeked of blood, the red liquid was not gushing anywhere; rather, it was seeping from the wound slowly.

Relief iced Lisa’s overheated brain; she clutched her thumb and forefinger to the bridge of her nose and closed her eyes, shaking with tears.

“I’m so sorry, Dad,” she spluttered. “I was so mad – I felt like I had to do something – I should’ve just let you take him and this would never have happened …”

She removed her face from her hands to find her father looking at her with inexplicable gratitude.

“Actually, Lisa, you showed up just in the nick of time. He’d overpowered me. I wouldn’t’ve lasted another five minutes in that fight if it weren’t for you. You saved my life.”

Lisa’s mouth fell open.

“All I can say is, thank God you grew up to be as stubborn and hotheaded as your old man,” he coughed, eliciting a mild giggle from Lisa. She hugged the crook of his right arm tightly before locking eyes with him soberly.

“So you’ll be okay – this …” she muttered, gesticulating at the wound.

“I’ve had worse. It’s not going to kill me … just need to apply some pressure …”

At once, Lisa began to pull at her top, but the fabric was sturdy and her hands were shaking too violently for her to tear any material off. Giggling nervously, she instead pulled her sneaker off and used her (previously white) sock to press against the wound and stem the trickle of blood.

“Ah … take it easy, Leese …”

“Sorry, Dad …”

Lisa eased the pressure off and helped her father to sit up slightly. She was suddenly aware of how much noise there was in the near distance. Others had finally escaped the caverns of Silver Rock Island and were beginning to spill out onto the long beach; a small number of silhouetted figures could be seen a few hundred metres to the north, where the motley collection of fishing boats was still moored.

Lisa felt her gut lurch suddenly.

“It didn’t make any difference,” she said heavily. “This whole thing – tonight – what happened to – to – Lance … to everyone … Sterling still got away …”

Her father’s pallid face became distressed.

“Every ounce of energy I have left is going into not thinking about that,” he said in a deadened tone.

The lump returned to Lisa’s throat.

“However,” Dad said suddenly. “At least they didn’t … they didn’t go … completely in vain.”

“How do you figure that?” Lisa said dully. “Sterling got away … and Lance and everyone is g-gone …”

“Look, Lisa, look,” Dad pressed, suddenly excitable, pointing at something behind her.

Lisa spun around, scanning the scene of the former battle: her eyes traced the nearly-fainted form of Charizard, slumped on the broken rocks, the silvery rubble and splintered driftwood, the pacing, restless Feraligatr, still sending precautionary Ice Beams into the sky, the Dark Ball, motionless …

… and, sitting lightly on the silver sand, a curved, frayed shred of leather, and three glistening glass keys.

“No …” Lisa gasped numbly, her heart gingerly resisting the surge of excitement. “No … he took them, he took them, didn’t he?”

“That Dark Wave you sent out cut the leather band – I saw the keys fall right before Sterling shot me.” Dad’s face, though pained, was alive with ecstasy. “He didn’t notice because the rest of the leather band was –”

“- STILL IN HIS HAND!” Lisa shrieked. “Oh my God – Dad … this means …”

“We have a whole bunch of keys, and the Union has none!” he grinned.

Lisa’s heart was hammering in her chest; with an apologetic look, she abandoned her father and crawled over the few metres of sand to the place where the keys were scattered loosely, having slipped off the leather band when they fell. She scooped them into her cupped hand and brushed off the excess grains of sand. Three small, silent keys in her hand; inanimate objects that hundreds had died in the name of.

Lisa furrowed her brow as the faces of some of those dead flashed before her eyes. No, now was not the time to think about any of it … if she did, the frail thread of sanity she was clinging to would surely snap. She gazed down at the keys and put every bit of energy she had left into seeing them as a symbol of their success. It almost worked.

“Lisa …” Dad’s voice came presently.

Lisa stirred from her reverie and turned to face him. He looked concerned; half a dozen silhouettes were gingerly picking their way down the coastline towards them.

“It’s okay, Dad … they’re Guard members, I think …” Lisa said, squinting in the moonlight. “I think I see Stephen and Donovan – and Marina – and Gavin!”

“Lisa, hide the keys,” Dad said sharply.

Lisa locked into his troubled gaze, shooting him a quizzical look.

“I still don’t know for sure who betrayed us tonight,” he said darkly. “I mean – Marco, obviously – it makes me sick …” He swore under his breath. “But there could have been two moles, or three. I’m not taking any chances. We reveal nothing until the moles have been outed for sure. As far as anyone else is concerned, for now, at least, Sterling took the keys with him.”

“Right,” Lisa nodded, fervently brushing off the last of the sand and tying a knot in the leather band to avoid any keys slipping off; she carefully packed the keys into her jeans pocket. She rested her hands on her haunches and gave a heavy sigh.

“He’s still out there. We didn’t end the war tonight.”

Dad coughed.

“I’m not convinced of that, Lisa,” he said slowly. “The contingent of Union agents who were tricked into the hoax mission in Azalea Town were almost all captured by the Guard and the law enforcement agents who met them there. And yes, it’s true that both sides lost a lot of troops in the battle tonight, but if I know my teammates like I think I do, what happened to Lance would’ve ignited a total and utter fury in them. Especially in people like Donovan and Azura – they usually show restraint and mercy, they do not kill if they can avoid it, of course … but I think they would have razed everything in their path tonight.

“I doubt many Union agents have survived outside of captivity; and of those that do, I wonder how many will regroup with Sterling. It would be much easier to disappear after what happened tonight – there will be no inventory of the dead – and so I expect only the most loyal survivors will respond to Sterling’s calls for a rally.”

“So in the end … you’re saying we won?” Lisa ventured; Donovan and Gavin’s excited shouts were getting closer.

“In a fashion,” Dad said bleakly, peeking morbidly at his wound before pressing the bloodied sock back over it again.

Lisa regarded him hopefully.

“Without Lance … who’s going to run the Guard?”

The response came as though he had prepared a statement in advance.

“Nobody.”

“What?”

“Nobody, Lisa. The Union as we know it crumbled tonight. Their manpower is gone. Their headquarters are destroyed. And we have lost more of our people and resources tonight than I would have dared to believe twenty-four hours ago.”

He blinked and looked at her dolefully.

“The Guard is dead, Lisa. It died with Lance.”

Lisa felt the bottom of her stomach disappear.

“But what about the Legend? Even if it’s just Sterling left by himself, we both know what he’s like. He’ll keep looking for the fifth key, he’ll come back at us and try to steal the keys that we have. It will never end until we end it!”

Dad shook his head.

“You’re still young, Lisa, and I don’t blame you for it, but you don’t see the bigger picture yet.”

Lisa frowned.

“But – I do! In a few months, or a few years, or whenever, Sterling is going to come back as big as ever! This nightmare will just start all over again … unless we fight him off, he’ll only stop once the Legend is complete.”

“And launching into another fight straight away, Lisa, means a host more lives lost on both sides. Not to mention half of what remains of the Guard would probably abandon their posts if we forced them to charge right back into battle after what we’ve all been through this year. If we can bide our time, capitalise on our successes … then we will be in a stronger position when Sterling comes at us again.”

Lisa felt sick.

“So he will still be out there – and you’re saying there’s nothing we can do about it!”

“Life isn’t fair, Lisa. It’s a bitter pill to swallow, but it’s probably high time you did swallow it. Courage and optimism are two of the most important qualities in life – and I’m so proud, as your father, that you possess them both – but an excess of either can get you killed prematurely. It’s perhaps more essential to take a step back and realise that, despite your best efforts, the world isn’t, and never will be, perfect. Sometimes the Lance Hudsons of this world die, while the Joseph Sterlings get away scot free. Sometimes winning a battle doesn’t feel like winning. Sometimes, when we want everything at once, we have to be patient and wait weeks, months, even years, until we can get what we want.”

Lisa stared at him blankly, hating him but knowing that he was right. The bitter taste of reality tainted her palate and drizzled down her throat, deep into her chest.

“It’s not all bad, love,” Dad said presently, craning his neck as much as possible to sight the shadowy figures jogging toward them. “We lived. You and me and your mother and whoever else made it. And after a war is over, if you mourn straight away, or if you stop and think for too long, you will end up wanting to kill yourself, too.”

The cries between Donovan and the others were now becoming audible: they were calling out excitedly between one another and laughing; Gavin picked up a piece of seaweed and flung it at Marina, who squealed as the slimy leaves slid over her face.

“Roll with it, Lisa,” Dad said seriously. “We will come down from the high of surviving soon enough, and all that will be left will be bitterness and mourning and pain. But until then, the celebration of being alive is glorious, and even if it’s fleeting, it will be the greatest medicine for what we are all feeling right now. I think we deserve it.”

“Me too,” said Lisa weakly.

The silhouettes finally reached them: Donovan, Stephen, Natalie, Gavin, Marina and Jamie all jogged to a halt as they reached the scene.

“Youse okay?” Donovan bellowed.

“We’re fine, we’re fine!” Dad assured the group at large; the adults rushed to his side as the teenagers all clustered around Lisa.

“Leese!”

“Lisa, you’re alive, thank fuck!” Jamie cried.

“Oh my God, you were freakin’ legendary!” Marina boomed, squeezing Lisa’s hand with a vice-like grip.

“We won! We headed the Union off on the way out of the caves … they’re all trapped, every last sodding one of ‘em!” Stephen gushed enthusiastically, apparently to the beach at large.

“What happened to your face? Are you alright?” Gavin said urgently, locking eyes with her.

“I feel okay, Gav. I got burnt pretty badly but … I think Altaria … bore the …” The lump in her throat got the better of her.

“Let’s get ‘em back to the boats!” Donovan ordered. “I wanna get the fuck off this island.”

“Amen!” Natalie cheered.

Lisa laid back as Gavin, Marina and Jamie lifted her clumsily off the sand; she responded vaguely to their euphoric chatter as they marched up the beach, but seeing Stephen and Donovan carrying Altaria’s body was too much for her. The tide of adrenaline that had kept her afloat for hours was ebbing, and the raw agony of what had happened prevented her from engaging with the oddly inappropriate spirit of excitement that had overcome the others.

The next thing she knew, there were several other pairs of hands on her, and her body was hoisted onto a hard, metal surface. It was too dark to make out too much detail, but she knew she had been placed into a dinghy; everything was rocking with the mournful ebb of the Cianwood Sea. A few other figures were in the boat with her – some of them familiar, including – to Lisa’s delight – a sleeping Professor Westwood – while others were strangers to Lisa; some were seated, helping their comrades into the vessel, while others, like Lisa, were strewn on the floor of the dinghy, wounded or weak.

“I’ll go with her, too; you go on the next boat, mate,” came Dad’s voice; Lisa lifted her neck to see him clambering aboard, Gavin and Marina reaching out to help him. He shuffled toward Lisa, but the dinghy was too crowded for him to reach her side. She smiled and nodded at him in kind understanding, and he managed a brief smile in return.

A two-stroke engine roared to life and the boat began to speed away from the shore and into the dark expanse of ocean. Lisa watched numbly as the shadowy form of Silver Rock Island, its core destroyed, slowly vanished into the distance.

The star-studded sky was streaked with a pale, timid silvery-blue as the sun’s rising approached. Lisa drifted in and out of sleep as the boat chugged along, back to Red Rock Island. There was nothing on her mind, really, just the sensation that she was still alive and that, in a manner of speaking, the war was over. She couldn’t really process more than that. Some of the more lively survivors were passing around a bottle of scotch and gabbling about the night’s events, but Lisa sensed the mood already changing: as her father had predicted, the euphoria of survival was ebbing, replaced with a tide of misery.

“How much further to Red Rock, Donovan?” came Natalie’s voice.

“Five or ten,” Donovan grunted, from the back of the dinghy; it seemed that he was the one operating the engine.

A moment later, the two-stroke engine sputtered violently; everyone started, but Donovan pulled back on the throttle and the motor roared back to life. However, one of the silent, motionless forms sprawled on the bottom of the boat had awakened at the sound, and now began to lift his head.

Lisa saw her father and Donovan exchange a glance of complete, unmitigated horror; she did not need to wait for the teenage boy to turn and face her before she knew who had awakened.

Darius Hudson blinked bleakly at his surrounds. All eyes were fixed on him; there was a palpable air of spectacle.

His pallid face surveyed comrade after comrade – he stared lifelessly at Lisa as though he barely recognised her – and then, when his exploration was complete, he faced Donovan and spoke.

“I had a nightmare. I had a nightmare, didn’t I, Jim?”

Lisa had never seen the colour drain from Jim Donovan’s face, nor his lip quiver.

“It wasn’t – it wasn’t a nightmare, Darius.”

Even after all she had been through in war, the resultant shriek from Darius Hudson would, for the rest of Lisa’s life, become the most terrible sound she had ever heard. He flung his head back against the metal floor and screamed, “DAD! DAD! DAAAAAAAD!” He writhed in agony, kicking his limbs out in rage, striking those nearest him without regard. Paralyzed, everyone watched as his cry changed to a raw scream of, “NO, NO, NO, NO, NO!” and he began to bang his head repeatedly against the metal, each time his eyes bulging a little more as he reeled in blunt trauma …

After perhaps a minute of kicking any helping hands away, Darius burned out and fell still, tears streaming down his white cheeks as he choked and spluttered with grief.

Lisa gaped at Darius as the bitter reality sank its teeth into her numbness once again. The war was not over. Neither the lives lost nor the lives saved that night meant anything at all. Not really. Lance had lived his last night on Earth, but his work was not yet finished. Not until Joseph Sterling and the Legend menaced them no more.

Lisa clenched her fist as the first rays of sunlight broke over the glittering Cianwood Sea.

The Guard may have given up. But she had not.

END OF BOOK III

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I've genuinely forgotten. Did I previously mention that I also completed book 4?