Lisa the Legend - Chapter 52 up!!
Yes, after a two month wait since the last chapter, I present to you chapter 49 - enjoy!
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Chapter 49 – Golden Horizons.
A silver, lunate moon was presiding serenely over Goldenrod City. Amongst the footings that were still being laid for the construction of the new Radio Tower, two shadowy figures were hidden. Suicune stood stiffly in a dark alley near the construction site. For a change, the rippling aurora on his back that usually glowed with cobalt light was dimmed, so that it gave no illumination whatsoever. The alley was in total darkness.
Beside Suicune was Raikou, the beast of electricity. His usually stern face, which looked in some ways like an ancient mask, was drawn into an expression of triumph. His back, normally alive with yellow sparks of electricity and thunderwaves, was – like Suicune’s – dormant, in the endeavour of not bringing any attention to himself.
//At last I have something worth telling// Raikou spoke telepathically to his companion in a light tone. Suicune raised a furry azure eyebrow. Raikou went on. //It’s done … everything went to plan – as far as they’re concerned, anyway//
//They found you?// asked Suicune, deeply interested.
Raikou’s mouth curved slightly. //Yes, I made sure they – er – killed me … I have this to say, humans aren’t too bright. Even pokémon have more intelligence than they – except perhaps Magikarp//
Suicune ignored the light joke, his furry brow furrowed in deep consideration of his own thoughts. //You’re sure they are convinced?//
//Positive. Even told their boss. It’s all taken care of, at last. We can come out of hiding//
The water beast allowed a grin. //More than two months have been wasted … I don’t believe it. Still, now we can get on with it. How are the protected ones?//
//Good// noted Raikou //As good as they can be, anyhow. Two months of their lives have been effectively wasted, it’s only now that they will get back on track … hopefully no more keys have been taken …// Raikou paused, unsure of what to say next. He teetered on his next sentence, but Suicune picked up on his thoughts and replied telepathically, before he could say anything.
//Yes// Suicune noted //The return will be made immediately. Everything will go back into action … now we shall see what we shall see//
//And what about the hidden –//
//I’ll take care of it//
Raikou pushed on. //The legend? What about it … will it be found yet, or …//
A black grin stretched across Suicune’s face. //I will do what I must; it will be fine// he said firmly, almost as if he was reassuring himself of the fact. Behind his back, Raikou did not look at all convinced; in fact, he looked afraid.
//What will happen will happen// said Suicune //And it must happen now, we have waited enough// said Suicune, a tiny, glimmering tear tricking out of his eye.
With those words, the aurora on his back began to glow again; slowly it gave off an intense blue, shimmering light to the surrounding area, and then, just as gradually, the cerulean light began to converge as though it were a liquid. The light formed droplets that pooled in the aurora: droplets that were so bright that they could not be fully viewed in all their shimmering, resplendent glory. In time, the pool of droplets that was seemingly coming from the aurora itself spilled over the edge, trickling across Suicune’s body until they all made a beeline for the spot directly above Suicune’s eyes. Each droplet of energy pooled into the centre of Suicune’s forehead, casting a surreal, cobalt glow over the entire area. For a moment, Raikou’s upset face could clearly be seen in the brightness of the light on Suicune’s forehead. And then, just when the light didn’t seem able to get any brighter, there was a loud, swishing sound – a beam of white energy was fired from Suicune at last in a dazzling burst of light, shooting out into the dark night of Goldenrod.
Nine hundred kilometres away, the girl named Lisa Walters awoke with a jolt.
*********
“ AAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRGGGHHHH!!!”
Not for the first time in her life, Lisa found herself sitting up from her sleep in a state of sudden panic. The room she was in was dark and unfurnished; she scrabbled around for her Buzzball to light the room up but she couldn’t find it. Gavin’s yelling had stopped now, but he was breathing heavily and panting as though he had just been attacked by something.
“ What is it?” Lisa breathed, crawling out of her sleeping bag and over to Gavin’s. As she reached his side her eyes adjusted; Gavin was sitting up and leaning forward. His forehead was glazed with a cold sweat and he was spluttering and coughing.
Lisa patted him on the back and repeated her question. Gavin looked at her uneasily with shaky, wet eyes; Lisa could see he was sick.
With a shaky voice, he said, “ Bad dream ... really bad dream ...”
“ What? Is that all?” Lisa said sleepily. Surely a bad dream couldn't have caused such a major reaction from Gavin. There had to be something more ...
“ No, that's it ... just a really bad dream ...” muttered Gavin, almost trying to reassure himself, it seemed. Lisa tried to look at his eyes but he wouldn't look at her. Just as she was about to question him further, he turned around and looked at her with grey, wet, shaky eyes.
“ My psychic powers are back.”
For some time, Lisa had felt that some of the things Gavin told her were glossed over, not quite truthful - especially whenever he spoke of his time imprisoned by the Union. Ever since his returned she had not completely regarded him as her old friend Gavin, but rather as a stranger, a person who had to be kept in a kind of quarantine; a bad person, blemished for the things he did to escape. But now, for the first time since Gavin's return, Lisa looked at him and saw him for what he actually was: a fifteen year old boy, scared and quite alone, who was unquestionably telling the truth. His psychic powers were back, if he said so. She felt a wave of unease: Gavin had been unable to use his psychic powers at all since he teleported the two of them back to Ecruteak in December. What did the return of the powers mean?
“ How do you know?” Lisa whispered; she didn’t want to wake Marina, who was in the next room. Although Gavin’s yell had probably woken the entire roadhouse, she thought dismally.
“ Because,” breathed Gavin, still sweaty and shaken, “ I just had a dream … before I lost my powers, I used to sometimes get these weird dreams – dreams that I couldn’t see properly or understand. Well, I haven’t had one for two and a half months – until just then.”
The silence left hanging in the air was profound. Gavin shivered and lay back down on his sleeping bag, clearly troubled by what he had just seen with his psychic. Lisa hesitated. “ What did you see?”
Gavin shook his head and wiped the sweat from his brow. Apparently, that was enough of an answer as far as he was concerned; he rolled over onto his side away from Lisa without another word. Lisa frowned to herself, tempted to rebuke him for his rudeness, but stopped herself just short. The last time she had pestered him with questions about his psychic, he had exploded at her and clammed up completely. So, biting back her annoyance with Gavin’s taciturn rudeness, she crawled back to her own sleeping bag and curled up in it.
She checked her watch silently. The red digits told her it was five am. Yawning, Lisa closed her eyes, albeit reluctantly; she would have willingly talked to Gavin about his psychic abilities further. Still, as there was no chance of that, her only option was sleep – and she would need it for the next morning.
Unfortunately, she slept little: all Lisa could think about was Gavin, and how she had been more or less rejecting him lately.
*********
By this time, the old man had become accustomed to the frightening darkness of the cavern, however as he awoke suddenly it still caused him the same panic; he sat up and yelled, thinking for a moment that he was blind, before he remembered where he was. In that cave. Alone.
He groped around for a moment and located the cold object that was his water bottle. Shivering with the cold, and hearing the waves breaking somewhere distant, somewhere above, he drank a few more drops. Just enough to wet his throat. Then he set the bottle back down beneath what he assumed was a dripping stalactite and allowed it to fill with water droplets once more.
Afraid and alone, he lay down once again and began to think.
*********
“ I’d love to come, really,” Marina sighed, putting her empty milkshake glass aside with an air of discontentment. Her white-winged tiny Butterfree – only the size of a fig – was hovering gleefully above her shoulder. Marina went on. “ But I can’t come to Dervine – my family wants me back, and I think it’s fair enough that they do. I’ve been gone from home for nearly two weeks and I want to go back to Tokor. Besides, I’m going to have to explain about the kidnapping to them.”
Lisa tucked her fringe behind her ears and sighed, too. Marina had telephoned her family back home only an hour ago, and they had told her in no uncertain terms that they wanted her back home at once. Her decision to leave wasn’t met with much enthusiasm – Gavin didn’t look overly thrilled, Aipom was already clinging to her leg defiantly and Lisa, especially, didn’t want to say goodbye to Marina so soon after rescuing her.
They all sat in silence at the table. They were sitting again in the restaurant section of the roadhouse they had stopped at last night, after an uncomfortable sleep in the upstairs storage rooms, which were the only remaining accommodation the roadhouse had to offer. Their table was right beside the large glass window though which the morning light was flooding in; Lisa could glance out through it and see, below the exit lanes, the massive Dervine Expressway that was to be their way out.
“ So what’s your plan, then?” asked Gavin presently, running a finger subconsciously along his scar.
Marina patted her pocket. “ Well, the next coach that pulls in to the roadhouse is my ticket out of here, I think. I’ll see if I can pay the driver enough to take me wherever the bus is going, and from there I’ll make my way – eventually – back to Tokor.”
Tokor was the province to the far west of Johto, beyond the sea and past Cianwood Island.
“ And you still have all your money? And your pokemon?” Lisa asked. “ I thought the Union would have taken all that from you straight up.”
Marina nodded. “ That’s what I was expecting, actually, but they never took my money. Never took my pokemon, either – I was allowed to keep all my pokeballs in my pocket. I ended up putting my Guardian Butterfree in my pocket too, in case it tried to harm them and they retaliated. The only thing they ever took from me was my bag, and there was nothing really valuable in there anyway.”
“ It’s weird,” said Lisa. “ They come to my house and trash it however they like, but when they take you, they barely touch you, not even your money. You wouldn’t expect it, would you?”
Neither Marina nor Gavin answered her question, because it was just too difficult to think of an answer to.
The next two hours passed quite pleasantly for Lisa, for the first time in many days. After they finished off breakfast the three friends played a few games of chess with Gavin’s set, while they chatted about things in general – the Union, their Pokemon, their plans. Lisa found that she was much happier than she had been in some time, just talking with her best friends and with Aipom, who (it seemed to her) was becoming less hyperactive. The time passed on by until midday, when Marina glanced out the window and raised an eyebrow.
“ Oh, here’s one at last,” she said, not very enthusiastically.
Lisa and Gavin looked where she was pointing through the glass. A coach had just rolled in to the carpark and pulled to a stop. A cluster of about twenty tourists jumped off and began to walk around the picnic area beside the carpark to stretch their legs. The driver, a sturdy man with an orange cap, was walking towards the roadhouse building.
“ Well, it’s your best chance,” said Lisa, putting down the pawn she had been about to move. “ Go ask him.”
Marina flitted through the glass doors, her Butterfree and ultramarine ponytail both trailing behind her. Lisa and Gavin watched as she caught up with the driver halfway across the bitumen drive and questioned him. After a moment’s discussion, they saw Marina pull out her purse and give the driver a twenty dollar bill. He made some gestures towards the bus and walked to the toilet block.
Marina returned to the restaurant triumphantly. “ For twenty bucks he’s going to take me all the way to Redwood City. It’s north of here, on the coast,” she added, seeing Lisa and Gavin’s vague looks. “ From there I can get a ferry to Tokor, it’s only a couple of hundred k’s across the sea. So …” she paused, then held out her hand. “ I’ll see you guys around, then?”
Gavin took her hand and shook it with a smile. Marina turned and held her and to Lisa who shook her hand very firmly.
“ Keep in touch,” said Marina. “ Oh, one more thing Lisa … I thought I’d give this to you.” She dug in her pocket and produced a small red-and-white pokéball. “ For Aipom,” she said, shoving it at Lisa. “ I know you lost his poképort awhile ago so I thought you could have this, it’s one of my spares.”
“ You didn’t need to –” Lisa began.
“ Take it,” said Marina firmly, pushing the ball into Lisa’s hands and letting go. “ There.”
“ I – thanks Marina,” said Lisa.
Marina smiled. “ Thanks for telling me the truth about, well, everything.”
“ Will we see you again soon?” Lisa asked, sitting down again.
“ I don’t know about soon,” Marina replied with a flick of her hair. “ But you don’t seriously think I would just drive off and never see you guys again, do you?” She picked up her purse and fossicked around in it for a moment, before producing a battered business card. “ This is my mum’s number – it’s the same phone number as our house where I’ll be. Keep in touch.”
“ We will,” Lisa grinned, taking the card. She took a quick look at it: ‘Azura Frost, Managing Director of Frost Companies Inc. Phone – (01) 3489 2710.’
Marina took a look out the window and clicked her tongue. The tourists were getting back on the bus already.
“ I’d better go,” she said quickly. “ Bye, Gavin and Lisa. Seeya Aipom.” She ruffled the purple fur on Aipom’s head, and he gave her a wide, toothy grin in return, accompanied by a loud, “ Ai!”
“ Bye!” Lisa called finally, as Marina ran down the couple of steps, into the convenience store section of the roadhouse, and then through the glass doors into the carpark, her Guardian Butterfree hovering beside her faithfully. They watched her through the window. She jumped onto the bus just before the doors closed, and slowly the driver drove the bus back onto the exit road, and away.
Lisa sipped at her apple juice. “ Well, that’s that, I spose,” she said brightly, “ We should probably go too, really.”
“ I guess – you did tell Tom we’d meet him in four days, and this is the first one, and it’s already half-wasted. We’d better get a move on.”
Lisa smoothed the hair on Aipom’s head. “ You know, I don’t really think taking a car was a good idea. I was really tired, and desperate. I think we can do better than that – it’s not legal, or fair.”
To her mild surprise, Gavin inclined his head in agreeance. “ I was going to talk you out of it anyway,” he admitted with a smirk. “ It’s not like you to do something that mean and unfair to someone.”
“ Well, what do we do now?” she asked. “ If I catch a bird pokemon we could maybe fly, now that Marina’s not coming. Although I doubt they’d be able to fly for THAT long …”
Gavin’s chestnut eyes were not looking at her; he was staring out through the window with a mixed look of delight and astonishment. A smile was creeping up his face and as Lisa looked at his eyes she could almost see the cogs turning behind them.
“ Hello?” she said, waving her hand in front of his face wildly. “ Gavin?”
His grin was almost infectious now. He spoke excitedly. “ Remember when we entered that contest at the Moo Moo Farm?”
“ Uh … yeah …” said Lisa uncertainly. “ Are you alright?”
“ Well, do you remember the first prize at the contest?”
“ Sure, the solar-powered buggy, why?” Slowly, Lisa turned around, a tingling feeling spreading down the back of her neck as she did so. Across the carpark of the roadhouse, beyond the fuel pumps, stretched between two pine trees, was a colourful sign:
Attention All Pokémon Trainers! Do you think you know
all there is to know about how to deal with Pokémon? Well, take
the latest and greatest challenge at Mount Fairfax!
Pit your wits against other trainers and Pokémon alike!
It’s a daring contest and adventure not to be missed!
Admission is free, and the first prize is the latest model of the Solara Buggy,
complete with rear spoiler! Apply for the contest by no later than March 3
at the base of Mt Fairfax – 30 km east of here, on Fairfax Road!
“ You’re saying we enter the contest just to win the buggy?” said Lisa incredulously. Gavin nodded vehemently. She raised an eyebrow. “ Are you kidding? The chances of us winning are hugely unlikely. If we lose – which we probably will – we’ll have wasted our time for nothing. Anyway, the sign ups end by tomorrow. We don’t have time for that.”
“ 30 kilometres isn’t much,” persuaded Gavin, “ If we leave now and do five k’s an hour, we can be there by six or so tonight. That’s in plenty of time.”
“ But –” Lisa said, ready to argue with this; after all, they weren’t machines - thirty kilometres was a long hike in one day, to say the least.
Gavin opened his mouth purposefully. “ Come on, where’s your spirit of adventure? You used to have one …”
Lisa paused, fiery words tingling on the tip of her tongue. She knew he was baiting her but she couldn’t resist. If she said no, he would be teasing her about her lack of spirit for days to come, and that was something she prided herself on. Besides, the contest could be good fun – she could maybe enter Aipom, depending on what kind of contest it was. Then there was the possibility of winning, albeit remote. If they did emerge victorious, they would have a new buggy to boot, which would cut down the trip to Dervine in no time.
“ Alright,” she said, with a fleeting thought of the long walk she was going to have to make. “ Let’s go.”
*********
Lance Hudson, Champion of the Elite Four, held in his quivering hand a tattered piece of parchment. He stared blankly at the wall of his den, overcome with disbelief. Very slowly, the black-haired man lowered the parchment onto his desk and leaned over to his desk telephone. He pushed the intercom button.
“ Sarah,” he said sharply, trying to catch his breath. “ Could you please come in here?”
Lance leaned back in his cushioned, mahogany-backed chair and sighed. He tapped his fingers impatiently on the desktop, trying to orchestrate a good plan while his nerves jittered and his heart thumped heavily. After a few moments, his receptionist entered. She was quite a young girl, with wavy, light-brown hair and eyes the colour of rust. Although she was at her ‘job’, she wore simply a pair of blue jeans and a casual white top.
“ What do you need?” she asked Lance, unnerved by his sharp tone and unprecedented anxiety.
Trying to control his raging heartbeat, to no avail, Lance shifted the parchment across the desk and turned it around to face the girl. With an inquisitive look Sarah bent down to read the scribbled words spread across the paper.
She looked up at her boss with a stubborn look. “ I don’t believe it, that key was definitely secure.”
“ Well, it has happened, I trust the source,” Lance said curtly. “ Now, there is something that I need to ask of you that is of the utmost secrecy. Please sit down.”
Sarah sat down in the chair facing the desk as Lance proceeded to explain his plan.
Originally Posted by mr_pikachu
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