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

[Gavin Luper]

Hey everyone!

Master Kirby: Hi again. Thanks for the reply; I'm glad you thought this chapter fitted into the scheme of things, I certainly hoped it would be viewed as such. Thanks very, very much for your continued readership - hearing that people have enjoyed the chapters makes it very rewarding to still be writing LTL after so long. I'll keep churning out the best chapters I can so that, hopefully, we'll all still be under 50 by the time I finish Book III. Oh, and one more thing, I sometimes wonder if you might possess some kind of psychic ability ...

Sike Saner: ^^ G'day! Thanks for reading - I'm impressed that it only took you sixteen hours (Only?!) to read the whole fic, I know it would take me much longer than that to wade through all those chapters! I'm glad you like this, especially that you like the deeper twists the plot has taken as well as it's light moments - thanks for the comments on Lunanine and Issechu, too. There's going to be at least one new original pokémon coming up in Book III, hopefully you like that one as well! Hope to see you next chapter!

Everyone: Well, I'm pretty stoked at the moment. The results for the 2007 Silver Pencil Awards were just announced and Lisa the Legend took home an astounding EIGHT awards, thus earning me the Awards Award as well! The awards LTL won were:

- Best Fiction Overall
- Best Action
- Best Plot
- Most Suspenseful Moment (The Beginning of the War)
- Most Emotional Moment (Ryan and Maria revealing the Truth)
- Best Chapter (Chapter 58 – Behind the Glass)
- Best Character in a Leading Role (Lisa Walters)
- Best Villain (Joseph Sterling)

Thanks muchly to everyone who nominated and/or voted for me and LTL in the awards! I'm very grateful.



Now for a progress update: The next chapter is coming along well! I've pretty much finished it, it just needs a few things altered and a couple of problems ironed out before it's ready to post. Shouldn't be too much longer now.

On a side note, I remember someone asking a while back who was on Gavin's team now, as there have been a few changes in the past. Seeing as smilies are enabled now that we're back on the vB (though only 10 per post), I thought I'd list which pokémon are known to be on the main characters' teams as of the end of Book II to make it clear - so here goes:

Lisa Walters:
Aipom, male
Vulpix, female
Electabuzz, male
Dratini, male
Fiskmire, male [original]

Gavin Luper:
Natu, male
Skarmory, male
Seel, male
Girafury, male [original]
Staryu [Temporarily stored with Walters family.]
Lanturn, male, green [Temporarily stored with Walters family.]
Ditto [Temporarily given to Wesley Walters.]

Marina Frost:
Golduck, male
Tentacraw, male [original]
Mudkip, male
Starmie
Kingler, male
Bayleef, "Herby", female

Darius Hudson:
Dragonair, male
Stantler, male

Wesley Walters:
Omanyte
Ditto [Temporarily given to him from Gavin.]

Jean Walters:
Bulbasaur, male

I could go on ... but it would take too long; those characters should do for the time being. I hope that clears things up!

I also have a contents page that I'm still working on: titles have never been my strong point, so it might take some time before I settle on a title for each of the three books of LTL.

*phew* That was a long post ... Anyway, Chapter 60 coming soon!

Cheers!

- Gavin.

[Gavin Luper]

G'day!

Here's Chapter 60, the beginning of Revelation, the third and final book of Lisa the Legend.

NB: The chapter title used to be 'Redwood City Blues', influenced by the Blondie song 'Union City Blue', because it seemed to fit at the time; but as I keep planning, it jars uncomfortably with the mood of the rest of the fic. So it's been renamed.

I hope you enjoy the new chapter!

Cheers!

Lisa the Legend III: Revelation.

Chapter 60 – Letters.


The Richardson Ward of Redwood District Hospital had always been a place for strict routines. It was the ward designated exclusively for the care of long-term patients, and many of them liked to see a semblance of order and functionality about the place. Each morning, just as the sun crept over the low eastern hills, the kitchen ladies would bustle about the eight rooms of the ward, doling out cold toast and asking whether patients would prefer Weet-Bix or All-Bran. Each afternoon, right on one o’clock, the attending doctors could be seen gliding down the halls efficiently, slipping into each room for a minute or two and re-emerging with a sharp tap on their clipboards and a frown or a faint smile, depending on the progress of their patient. Each night, just as twilight descended upon Redwood City, a nurse would come around to the rooms to close the curtains for each patient.

Each night, without fail, seven of the patients would kindly thank the nurse and settle themselves in for a peaceful, secure night’s sleep.

And each night, without fail, the eighth patient would wait until the nurse had left the room before tossing back her covers, hobbling to her window and throwing it open again, sure that if she did not at least taste the outside world she would suffocate.

This patient was known under a number of guises by the hospital staff. The accounting staff knew her simply as patient number 03/09557. The kitchen ladies knew her as Room Four on Level Three. The attending doctors knew her as ‘the lung infection in 301-4’. Even the nurses, though they knew her real name, were more likely to refer to her amongst themselves as ‘that rude so-and-so’ or ‘that poor girl’, depending on their sentiments towards her. It was only the newest nurse of all, a young woman by the name of Emma Reid, who referred to the patient by name.

“ … so everything looks perfect, Lisa. Your phlegm is back to normal colour and your cough sounds much better. You’ll definitely be all right to leave tomorrow morning. Lisa? Lisa, are you even listening to me?”

Lisa Walters jerked her head up and glanced at her red-faced friend. Her mind had been a thousand miles away; she had been staring wistfully through the open window, down to the sweet-smelling gardens below, wishing she could leap outside and lay on the rolling lawns in the last rays of the sun. She had barely even noticed Emma enter the room, checking her specimen sample and altering dials on the bedside apparatus.

“Sorry Em, I was thinking … what’d you say?”

Emma put her hands on her hips and shook her head. A few weeks of working in a high-grade hospital had brought out her stricter side; it seemed to take her a second to overcome the urge to scold Lisa for her rudeness. “I said your phlegm is fine. There’s no sign of infection anymore.” A warm smile broke out over her freckled face. “You’re going home tomorrow!”

Out of this damn place at last!, thought Lisa. But for some reason she couldn’t get herself excited about the prospect of finally leaving the hospital. There had been so many false alarms over the past three weeks, so many delays and setbacks, that she no longer let herself become buoyed by the hope of leaving. When I’m actually outside the doors – THEN I’ll be excited.

She forced a smile for Emma. “Cool. Can’t wait.”

The auburn-haired nurse looked incredulous. “Um … calm yourself down, Lisa!” she said sardonically. She raised an eyebrow inquisitively. “Come on, you whinge to me every day how much you hate being here. You can’t pretend you’re not excited to be getting away at last!”

“If they actually let me leave tomorrow,” Lisa muttered. “If they don’t discover something else wrong with me that they need to keep me here for – again.”

Emma shrugged and rolled her eyes; she had heard Lisa’s laments many times before. “Well, whatever, Lisa. I’m not official – one of the doctors is doing rounds in about half an hour, and he or she will tell you for sure whether you’re going to be discharged. But there’s no way they can keep you here another day, you’re fine. At ten o’clock tomorrow morning you’ll be walking out those glass doors, I guarantee it.” She knelt down to adjust a lower setting on the piece of equipment by the bed. “Anyway, did your parents visit today?”

Lisa coughed. “Not today, no. Tom and Miki came but. And my friend Marina – remember, you met her last week?”

“Blue-hair-girl?”

“That’s her.”

“Right.” Emma returned to her feet and brushed her hands off. “How was your tea tonight?”

“Bleh. OK. Corned beef. It tasted like nothing. Still, better than actually having nothing.”

Emma laughed. “Well, I’m done here, Lisa.” She moved over to the window and pulled the glass panel down. “Anything else I can do for you?”

Lisa eyed the window longingly. “Um, actually, yeah. Could you leave the window open for me? I’m a bit warm, that’s all,” she lied. Though she and Emma had grown fairly close over the past weeks, she didn’t want to tell the truth about why she needed the window open at night.

Emma grinned and reopened the window. “Sure, no worries. Just remember to close it before you go to sleep, you know how people are with security at the moment.” She put on a serious voice and quoted one of the posters that had been put up all around the hospital. “All windows must be locked at night. Nobody should be in the grounds after dusk.” She frowned. “The worst thing is, they’re not overreacting … but on the third floor you should be pretty safe …” She trailed off. “Okay, I’m off, Leese. I’ll see you before you leave tomorrow, my shift starts at six. Have a good night, ay?”

“You too, Emma. Night.”

The door clicked shut behind Emma. Lisa listened out intently, her ears now well trained for hearing the disappearing footsteps of the nurses. When she was sure Emma had left the corridor, she threw the bedclothes back and crept toward the open window.

A cool autumn breeze ruffled the maroon velveteen curtains. Lisa stood at the window and placed her hands down on the wooden pane. The rush of fresh air in her face was like a drink of water on a hot summer’s day. She closed her eyes and felt her worries begin to slide away, felt her heart rate slow down to normal. She could smell something different on the air tonight, something mingled amid the strong honey scent of the golden wattles in the hospital gardens. It took her a few sniffs to realise what she could smell: it was the dewy scent of approaching rain.

She opened her eyes to inspect the world beyond the window. As always, the northern half of Redwood City was sprawled before her: a beautiful maze of tree-lined avenues and stately red brick houses. A prominent steeple in the centre of town indicated St Mark’s Cathedral; beside that lay the crystalline meanders of the Acacia River. Lisa thought this was the first big city she had seen that could rival Ecruteak in terms of beauty.

Hanging above the city, illuminated by the pinkish-blue haze of twilight, was a mess of ominous-looking clouds that did, indeed, promise rain on the horizon. Even as Lisa stood at the window, she heard a rumble or two in the sky above; barely five minutes later the first heavy drops of rain began to fall, spattering the window pane and the maroon curtains with water. She scowled at the sky before drawing the window closed in a huff.

She collapsed backwards on her bed and sighed. Just a few minutes each day, was that so much to ask? It felt like the world had been conspiring against her ever since she first set foot in the wretched place, a little over three weeks ago. As she, Gavin and the other patients had been wheeled down from the helipad, Emma had explained quite clearly that Lisa would only be kept in the hospital a few days, a week at the most. The bullet would be removed from her back immediately in a quick procedure and she would spend a few days recovering before going home. The operation itself went smoothly: Lisa had been under anaesthetic at the time and of course, remembered nothing of the operation other than a groggy, giddy sensation. But a whole host of complications had arisen post-surgery. It transpired that in the surgeon’s rush to treat all the victims of Mt Fairfax he had stitched up the wound quickly and poorly, and it had become infected, forcing Lisa to stay in the hospital for another week. Just as it seemed she was finally about to leave, the cough that had plagued her during her stay in hospital deteriorated into a lung infection, apparently as a direct result of smoke inhalation whilst she was down in the Sepulchre of Entei. It was then that she had been transferred to the Richardson Ward, where she had now spent more than a week.

As much as she hated being cooped up in her hospital bed, Lisa had to admit there were a few advantages to staying in the Richardson Ward. For one thing, it certainly had made her stay more comfortable: she had a soft bed, a colour television and the thing she most valued, her own space and privacy. The wards downstairs were white and cramped and there were constant battles with other patients to turn the volume on their television down. Here, as confined as it still was, Lisa at least had a bit of space to call her own – and she had certainly made the most of it.

She sat up on her bed and gazed around her room. It had a lived-in feel that Lisa didn’t think many hospital rooms had. The nightstand was cluttered with a mess of gifts – flowers, cards and the like – Lisa had received for her 15th birthday, which had been earlier in the week. Many of the cards and flowers, though, were accompanied not by birthday wishes but messages of ‘get well soon’, from the huge number of people who had come to see Lisa while she was in hospital. Not only did her parents drop by every second day, but also Tom, Miki, Wesley and Jean, as well as Daniel and Nova, and Lance and Darius and Azura and Marina – followed by members of the Guard Lisa barely knew, such as Jim Donovan and Derek, who she had met on Mt Fairfax, and Natalie, the woman Lisa had shared a ward with after the Union’s attack. At first Lisa had found all the attention stifling, and she grew resentful of having to retell her story time and again when she was so sick of hearing it herself. But as the weeks dragged on and the visitors slowed to a trickle, she began to despise the isolation of her hospital room. She felt her heart leap whenever one of her friends came by to wish her well. And the time between visits seemed to stretch forever – gaping chasms of loneliness where she would lay by herself, staring blankly at the television or curled up in an effort to get to sleep, so that she could dream of a world where she was not caught up in a war.

Even thinking of the war caused a whole torrent of emotions to pour over her. Fear, hopelessness, anger, terror, despair, detachment. They all blended into a horrible cocktail of cold, prickly discomfort; and the more time she spent alone, the more time she had to bathe in the horridness of it all.

It was three weeks into the war and the news was all bad. Not a single glimmer of hope had made itself known to the Guard. Not a single step of progress had been made. Lisa glanced across the room at the bench that ran the length of the far wall opposite her bed. It was almost hidden beneath the piles of old newspapers that her visitors had brought to keep her updated. With each day that passed, the war had gone from bad to worse. A glance at the headlines was all it took: March 7 – “Prof Oak Among Mountain Victims.” March 9 – “Govt Declares War on Terrorist Organisation.” March 10 – “Six Die in Hospital Attack.” March 11 – “Army To Guard All Public Institutions.” March 13 – “Battle Tower Destroyed, Union Claims Responsibility.” March 17 – “13 Dead as Army Counterattack Goes Awry.” March 25 – “18 Dead, 44 Injured in Goldenrod Bombs.” March 26 – “State of Emergency Declared Across Johto.”

Lisa stared emptily at the ceiling. The declaration of a state of emergency had come only two days ago. She hadn’t noticed much of a change at the hospital, but she had never really found the hospital to bear much resemblance to normal society. Hospitals across the province had already been given soldiers to guard them after the Union attacked Olivine’s hospital, killing six people; according to Lisa’s father, several convalescing Guard members had been targeted and killed in the attack. So for Lisa, the presence of khaki-clad soldiers patrolling the hospital was nothing new; the stories she heard from the others, however, suggested more widespread changes were taking place beyond Redwood District Hospital.

“We can’t visit you at night anymore,” Lisa’s mother had explained on Wednesday afternoon. “The Prime Minister declared a temporary state of emergency because of the Union’s attacks, and part of that is a curfew. We all have to be off the streets by eight o’clock. We’ll try to see you in the mornings instead, alright love?”

It scared Lisa how much the world had changed in the space of three short weeks. She couldn’t get her mind around the fact that the Union had wreaked so much havoc and caused such a powerful response from the government. She hadn’t heard of a ‘state of emergency’ before, but from her father’s explanations it sounded almost as scary as the threat posed by the Union themselves.

Perhaps the worst part about the state-of-emergency decree was that all non-Government approved associations had to be disbanded immediately. Dad had explained that that obviously included the Guard, and since Lance and the others had no intention of ever dissolving the Guard or giving up on their war against the Union, that meant all members of the Guard were now considered law-breakers. Lance had met with the Prime Minister’s secretary the day he declared war on the Union and tried to explain that the Guard and the government were fighting for the same thing, but to no avail. The government wanted things done their own way. They saw the Guard as an irritation, a distraction, because they had their own clandestine agenda in their pursuit of the Seven Keys. In the end, nothing had been resolved. Dad said that if the government caught a Guard member they would still imprison them for breaking the law, even though they were fighting on the same side. The whole thing made Lisa’s blood boil, but there was nothing she could do about it sitting around in her hospital room, which made her all the more frustrated with the world.

Two things had been getting her through the days. One was the time she spent alone by her open window at twilight, breathing in the cool night air and watching the beauty of the sunset. The second was her correspondence with Gavin.

He had been in the Richardson Ward since the first day they arrived in Redwood. He had suffered some internal bleeding as well as mild burns and the doctors already knew it would take him a long time to recover. When Lisa moved into the same ward she had made one disastrous attempt to visit him in room seven, three doors away, but the attending doctor had caught her out within seconds: the patients weren’t supposed to leave their rooms unless escorted by a hospital staff member.

They had instead resorted to letters to one another, delivered by their faithful pokémon, usually Natu, who could teleport from room to room, or Aipom, who was the fastest runner. Not a day passed when they didn’t write to each other. Aside from their first letters to each other, in which they had both admitted to feeling terribly lonely, worried and, in Gavin’s words, “like shit”, they had been remarkably upbeat letters. As much as she could find empathy with Darius and Marina, Lisa found that Gavin was the only one who had been through as much as she had in regards to the Union and the Legendaries – and that somehow pulled them much closer than before. Lisa knew that Gavin, like her, didn’t want to keep talking about the Legend and the war. Their letters were a little escape from what the world was becoming. They chatted about basketball and the latest trashy reality TV show that Gavin had seen that day, and how their pokémon were coping with being cooped up so much, and how bored they were, and how crap the hospital food was, and how one of the night nurses looked remarkably like Supernanny.

It was now, as Lisa lay listlessly on her bed, staring at the white ceiling and listening to the sharp rapping of the rain against the window, that she thought of writing to Gavin. With a great deal of effort she hauled herself up off the bed and plodded over to the bench. Clearing away a few old newspapers, she found a pen and the last sheet of paper she had swiped from the nurses’ station, tore it in half and began to write:

Hey Luper,

How was your day today? Did you watch Survivor: Orange Islands? I can’t believe Elaina broke the alliance, of all the people to do it! You always said she would betray them but I never believed you, spose you watch it more than I do … Anyway, I had a couple of visitors today, Marina dropped off The Lost Umbrellas’ new album, which is really really good, she lent me her discman so I could listen to it. ‘All Over’ and ‘Smoke and Fire’ and the best songs, if you want I can give the CD to you before I leave tomorrow, that is if you like that kind of music. Tom and Miki came around too, I think that thing you and me talked about might be true, but they didn’t announce anything, so I dunno. She does look a bit bigger though. Anyway, Emma was here a while ago and she told me I’m definite to go tomorrow, so hooray for that! IF I actually get out of here this time, that is … but I’m really hoping I do now. I don’t care if it’s raining tomorrow I just wanna get to the safe house that everyone keeps telling me about. Marina said it’s kind of rural which makes me think it’s huge, but Mum and Dad won’t tell me anything until we go there tomorrow. Ah well. I’ve only got this half a sheet left and I’ve almost run out of room now, stupid me for writing so big. Write back straightaway!

Lisa the Legend.

Lisa gave a devilish grin as she signed the note. She and Gavin had been signing their letters like that almost since they began. It had been Gavin who started it, mostly because of his own ego, she thought. He had seen a basketball game on TV, one of the finals between the Goldenrod Redbacks and the Cianwood Sharks, in which one of the players had pulled off an astounding three-pointer. The commentators went on and on about how great it was; Gavin had spent the next three letters trying to convince Lisa he had performed exactly the same shot thousands of times before, and it had earned him the name ‘The Great One’ with his school friends at the time. Lisa refused to believe him, saying that he was nothing special at basketball and she had much more experience, resulting in a series of fervent letters between them for a few days. Though they had both tired of the discussion long ago, Gavin still signed every letter as ‘Gavin the Great’.

Lisa mulled over her choice of name. A Legend was certainly superior to a Great. That would definitely be enough to get under Gavin’s skin. Besides, it seemed to have a bit of a ring to it.

She folded the letter in half; now for the tricky part. It was always easier when Gavin sent Natu with a letter, because they could teleport letters back and forth without being noticed by the nurses. But when she wanted to begin a correspondence she needed to send Aipom to venture forth into the hall, and that always posed a risk that they might be caught out.

“Go Aipom,” she said softly, once she had located Aipom’s pokéball beneath the pile of newspapers. The ball burst open and her purple, monkey-like pokémon bounced out, looking ecstatic to have been released from his cramped home.

“Ai ai ai ai pom!” he bellowed loudly.

“Ssssssssh!” hissed Lisa. “It’s night time, you moron! You have to be quiet!”

Aipom regarded her dubiously before fixing her with a very reproving glare. “Ai pom ai ai pom!” he said, a little more softly but with just as much indignation.

Lisa always found it odd when she met trainers who claimed they could understand every word their pokémon uttered to them, because she only heard a haphazard string of the syllables of her pokémons own name thrown at her. She was experienced at reading her pokémon’s body language and tone, not their actual words. Sure, she understood what he meant with short responses, when it came to simple things like ‘yes’, ‘no’, ‘hungry’, ‘in pain’ and the like, but complex messages had never been her thing.

Now, however, she thought she understood completely for the first time what one of her pokémon was saying to her. Aipom was yelling at her for keeping him cooped up for so long. But he was also angry that the other four pokémon – his friends – were scarcely being released at all, only once a day for feeding.

“You’re right,” said Lisa, when he finished his rant. She felt a little shocked and wondered how she could possibly have neglected her pokémon for so long. Her mind had been solely on her welfare, how hard her life was at the moment; she had been so absorbed in her own misery that she hadn’t stopped to think her pokémon might also be affected by the great battle they bore witness to. “I’m really sorry. I know how all that feels, I really do.”

Aipom surveyed her closely. “ Ai?”

“Yeah, I’ve been stuck here for three weeks, haven’t I? I didn’t care for you guys like I should have been, and I’m sorry. Look, we’re getting out of here tomorrow anyway … from then on I’ll be taking care of you like I used to, OK?”

Aipom smiled in a way that Lisa had never seen before – he was being sympathetic. “Leeeeesa …” he cooed softly.

Lisa rubbed his head affectionately. “Thanks, Aipom. Now, the reason I actually got you out wasn’t to have a deep and meaningful, I’m afraid …”

A minute later, Aipom was crouching by the slightly open door, letter to Gavin grasped in his peculiar tail. Lisa could see shadows passing by in the corridor. He waited for about five minutes until the coast was clear, before nipping around the edge of the door and disappearing in a streak of purple.

And now I wait. Lisa didn’t think Aipom would be back very quickly. Gavin always seemed to take an age to write a response, even when Lisa instructed him to write back instantly; plus, there was always the chance that there would be too many nurses around in the corridor for Aipom to make his way safely back for some time.

Lisa took a hopeful glance toward the window but rain was still fiercely pelting against it. She drew the curtains dismally and fell back on her bed once again, to stare at the ceiling.

After nine days in room four of the Richardson Ward, Lisa knew the fine details of the ceiling like Gavin knew each and every contestant on Survivor. She knew that from one wall to the other there were exactly two hundred and eighty four lines running parallel to the wall and five hundred and twelve between the other two walls. She knew exactly where Fiskmire had been sitting when she gave him too much diet coke because there was now a small patch of brown by the air conditioning duct. And she also knew exactly where to look to find her unauthorised roommate: a small, unkillable black spider.

The spider had been there since Lisa was first shuffled into the room. It always appeared in the same place, creeping silently out from a crack in the cornice before merrily making a web in the apparent hope of catching a fly. Lisa had never been a fan of spiders, but after leaping through not one but two webs of agitated Spinarak, they didn’t bother her quite as much as they used to; plus, she didn’t mind having a form of company with her during the lonely days in the hospital. For this reason, she never asked the nurses to get rid of her eight-legged roommate.

She had discovered, though, that they didn’t need asking. A spider signified a lack of perfect standards in their hospital’s hygiene. Every time one of the nurses or doctors caught sight of the black spider they would invariably leap up on one of the guest chairs, reach out with any weapon they could find and try to squash their quarry. Interestingly, the spider had bested them for a good nine days: every time someone tried to kill it, it would hastily retreat into it’s safe little nook and wait there in hiding for a few hours before gingerly stepping out once more.

Now she found her friend perched on his long web, not too far from the diet coke stain. The nurses had left him alone for a couple of days now, maybe because they hadn’t noticed him or maybe because they had finally given up. Either way, the spider seemed to have become quite emboldened by this; he was now sitting out quite a long way from his home in the cornice, drawing in a recently-caught fly and probably, Lisa thought, feeling quite relieved to no longer be under constant attack.

The door creaked suddenly and she sat upright. A second later, Aipom scampered into the room, grinning and gambolling about the place, clearly enjoying being outside of his pokéball – but he carried no letter.

“What’s going on?” asked Lisa bemusedly. “Didn’t Gavin –”

She was cut off mid-sentence: there was an enormous flash of purple light in mid-air before her. As Lisa’s eyes recovered from the brightness she realised that a small, green-plumed bird had just appeared in the room, clutching a note in its beak.

“Natu!” she said. “That took me completely by surprise – I was expecting Aipom to deliver the letter.”

“Tuuuu,” cooed Natu jovially, fluttering over to Lisa’s shoulder and rubbing up against it. When Lisa had stroked him a few times, he opened his beak and she took the small piece of paper within:

Hey Lisa,

Elaina’s been angry at Steve and the girls since they took her make-up stash away, everyone knows that. It was a matter of time before she broke their pact. Hope she goes next time. As for The Lost Umbrellas, of course I’ll listen to it! Alternative girly rock is better than the crap they play on the hospital radio channel - a bunch of old people discussing gardening and playing the greatest hits of 1874! Drop it off to me before you leave tomorrow. And yeah, you WILL be leaving tomorrow. Emma told me you’re definitely going cause they have someone else coming in to take your room and everything. Yay for you, sucks for me, cause now I won’t have anyone to write to. I get another week watching my brain slowly disintegrate from lack of stimulation, hooray! Tom and Miki came to see me again today, too. I reckon she is, you can tell just looking at her, plus I think that might be why they put the wedding back. They’ll tell us anyway eventually, if it’s true. Anyway, I did sweet fuck all today – just for a change – let the pokémon out for a while this morning before the nurses came in – Natu and Girafury are fine, Seel, Staryu, Skarmory and that BLOODY Lanturn are getting pretty aggro. Lanturn tried to kill me again. Other than that, same old same old – watched CSI: Celadon this arvo, total crap compared to the original. But hey, what do I know, I watch Survivor!

By the way – ‘Lisa the Legend’, are you kidding me? At least ‘Gavin the Great’ is accurate. The last time we played I flogged you, Miss-I-Can’t-Help-It-I-Keep-Travelling-By-Accident. Try again next time.

Gavin the GreatEST!

PS: Call me ‘Luper’ again and I’ll break your CDs.

PPS: Make sure you come and see me tomorrow morning, I have to talk to you about something.

Lisa finished the letter with a flutter of surprise. What did Gavin have to say to her that he couldn’t say in a letter? It would be just like him to say something ridiculous like, “Lisa the Loser is more like it!” before dissolving into peals of laughter. But, then again, Lisa had never really been able to pick Gavin’s moods. He could be light-hearted and jovial one minute and become serious and surly the next, especially since his uncle died. He might really have something serious to talk about – but what on earth could it be?

She didn’t get a chance to think it through much further. There was a brisk, forceful knock at the door and an efficient voice said, “Evening rounds!”

Lisa heard the door creak open as one of the night nurses entered. There was a radiant flash of bluish light and Natu teleported back to Gavin’s room; Aipom leapt courageously from the foot of the bed to the ground and swiftly rolled beneath the mattress.

A doctor wearing a white coat strode in, clutching a silver chart.

“Good evening, Miss Walters,” she said briskly, placing the chart neatly on the foot of the bed and unfurling a stethoscope from around her neck.

“Evening, Doctor Rogers,” said Lisa with forced politeness; she didn’t really like Doctor Rogers. She had been the doctor who caught Lisa out in her botched attempt to visit Gavin and ever since then she had been less than cordial toward Lisa. Lisa didn’t really have much time for her, either: even if they hadn’t had their altercation, she doubted they would have got along well – Doctor Rogers was a picky creature, with a thousand opinions and a sharp nose that reminded Lisa of a Murkrow.

Doctor Rogers got straight down to business. After five minutes of prodding and poking Lisa’s tongue, checking her lungs with her stethoscope and scribbling away on her chart, she nodded satisfactorily. “Hmmm. Well, it looks like your lungs have finally cleared up. There’s no sign of any infection now, although it would have cleared up much earlier if you had stayed away from the dairy products like you had been instructed to.” Lisa scowled openly – she had eaten a chocolate bar given her by Marina a few days ago and Doctor Rogers had caught her; she had mentioned it at every check-up since. “Nonetheless, we don’t need you here any longer, you’d just be taking up space.”

Lisa ignored her. The doctor flipped a few pages on her silver chart and, unexpectedly, held it out toward Lisa.

“What?” she asked rudely.

Doctor Rogers looked down her pointy nose reprovingly. “You need to sign this discharge form,” she said crisply, brandishing a pen impatiently before Lisa’s eyes. “You sign in this box here – your parents can countersign tomorrow morning when they pick you up. I’ve already signed it.”

Lisa took the chart and pen and signed the box in mild amazement. This had never happened before. “So I’m really going?”

Doctor Rogers scrutinised the form closely. “Your ‘W’ went outside the box … Yes, of course you’re going!”

Lisa had heard this all before, from Emma and Gavin, but somehow it had much more weight now that she had actually signed the discharge papers. A forgotten feeling fluttered gingerly back into her heart.

Doctor Rogers tapped her chart. “Well, that’s all, Miss Walters. You will need to clean this room up before you leave, though; it’s a pigsty. Good eve-” She stopped short suddenly and pursed her lips. Her eyes were fixed at a point on the ceiling, close to the air conditioning duct. “That rotten creature!”

Lisa cast her eyes up to the ceiling. Her eight-legged friend was dangling from his web, apparently unaware of his approaching enemy. Doctor Rogers removed her flat, mannish shoe and stepped up onto one of the bedside chairs. Come on, Lisa willed her roommate.

Doctor Rogers held out the sole of her shoe and swiped at the ceiling; there was a loud SMACK. She removed the shoe, a satisfied look on her face, only to see the spider scuttling frantically along his web, back to the dark nook in the wall. Screwing her face up in annoyance, she tried again and again – smack, smack, smack – but each time the spider ducked, weaved and scrambled away from his enemy. At last, the arachnid slipped skilfully into the narrow crack in the cornice, back to his home and safety.

Red-faced and panting, Doctor Rogers returned to the ground and slipped her shoe back on furiously.

Lisa couldn’t help but laugh in her face.

[mr_pikachu]

All right, it's up! Excellent!

Well, I've already given most of my comments, although I noticed you've made some small changes since then. Loved the extra description of Dr. Rogers; that part seems a little more complete now. Also, I think the ending was a little more suitable for the tone of the chapter. The original just didn't fit the lighthearted mood quite as well.

There were some small grammatical things and an occasional missing word (I wasn't aware that there was such a noun as "a deep and meaningful"), but nothing too serious. The one aesthetic point that I will comment on was the use of the word "law-breakers" when describing the Guard, as that's fairly roundabout compared to simply saying "criminals." Just a thought.

All in all, I thought this was quite strong, and the way you ended Book II is a bit easier to understand now. I was also slightly pleased to see that you kept Lisa's self-proclaimed title - I don't think that causes too much of a problem even with Ho-oh's words at the end of Book I, so it looks nice. This was a nice chapter and a good way to calm things down so that the coming plotlines will be all the more intense.

That's all I have to say, so I'll just look forward to Chapter 61. See you then!

[Master Kirby]

So, you think I'm psychic? Reading that made me laugh. I guess I was right about the "One month later" thing, though that was just an example of one of the possible scenarios that I saw. One thing that you don't need to be psychic to predict is that you'd win a few awards in the Silver Pencil. Congratulations. That wasn't a small list of awards.

You certainly put a lot of time and work into this story. As I have been reading this chapter, I've noticed how rich the description is and how well you are able to get us to feel what the characters are feeling. When Lisa went to the window and stood, taking in the feel and scent of the wind, it felt so peaceful. I could easily imagine being there, looking out over her shoulder taking in the sights of the city as the rain began to fall.