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

[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!

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

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.