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

[Gavin Luper]

Hello readers,

Here we are on the precipice, one chapter away from a thick and fast acceleration.

Enjoy it.

Cheers!

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Chapter 72 – Lotus Lake.


“We are close.”

Joseph Sterling swirled the remains of a vodka martini and downed it swiftly, a dark grin stealing over his swarthy face.

Veronica Stawell smiled and flicked her blonde hair over her shoulder. With a cautious glance around the rest of the Red Rock Island’s exclusive Emerald Club cocktail lounge – almost completely empty in the wee hours of the morning – she turned back to her black-clothed boss.

“How much longer before you have a location, Joe? My teams are restless. Especially after what happened at the Colosseum …”

“Don’t talk to me about that little bitch getting away, I’ll only get pissed off again,” Sterling snarled, glancing at the bar. “Barman! BARMAN!”

A blond-haired man in a waistcoat timidly emerged from behind the bar.

“Another martini,” Sterling barked.

“Y-yes,” the barman muttered meekly, clattering glassware nervously.

“Well?” Veronica prodded, tapping her nails on the table in front of Sterling.

Sterling smirked.

“Patience, Ronnie. I should have an exact location by tomorrow night. And within two days, I assure you, the Third Key will be ours.”

*

It was still dark when rough hands woke Lisa. She stirred.

“What’s going on?”

“Just me, Leese,” came Jack’s gruff voice. “C’arn, we gotta get an early start back to the mainland … C’arn … follow me …”

Making sure she had her new pokéballs on her person, Lisa allowed Jack to deck her out with rubber boots and wrap her in one of his wool-lined jackets; it smelled pungently of Seaking scales. Lisa mumbled a sleepy goodbye to Jamie, who winked by way of farewell, and, Marina and Gavin by her side, allowed Jack to walk her out of the hut and down to the nearby beach, where Frank’s white fishing vessel awaited.

Despite the stench of her jacket, Lisa was glad of it when she stepped outside: at five in the morning, the sun had yet to rise, and the salty sea air was frigid against Lisa’s cheeks. Jack seemed to sense that she was still half-asleep and helped her wade out to the boat, where she climbed the ladder onto the deck and, following Jack’s instructions, crawled below deck into the warm cabin, where two double bunks awaited them.

Lisa collapsed onto the bunk and immediately returned to a deep sleep.

*

“Tu tu!”

“Hrrrrmph?”

“Tu!!”

“Ouch!”

A sharp scratch on the cheek awoke Lisa: her eyes flew open to see a small orb of green feathers perched on her chest, talon digging into her band T-shirt slightly.

“That hurt, Natu …”

“Tuuuuu,” cooed Natu, completely oblivious to Lisa’s pain. He extended his yellow beak toward her: there was a folded piece of paper within it. Rubbing crusty sleep from her eyes, Lisa took the note and opened it.

Gavin had scrawled, in his messy handwriting, a single word.

Sorry.

Lisa was not sure that Gavin was the one who ought to be apologising – she felt rather guilty after realising where his fears stemmed from – but upon reading the note, she felt what remained of her animosity toward him dissipate completely. A smile crawled over her lips, and a weight that she had not even known she was carrying seemed to lift off her heart.

“Tu?”

“What is it, Natu?” Lisa asked.

The green bird’s eyes were darting around the cabin, as if searching for something. It looked quite distressed. Suddenly, Lisa understood.

“Aipom’s not here, Natu … He – um – he’s gone for now …”

The bird’s enormous eyes suddenly filled with tears; there was a small explosion of cobalt-coloured light and it disappeared, leaving behind an array of green, feathery motes cruising calmly to the floor.

Lisa sighed. Checking the small, white clock on the curved wall of the cabin, she was surprised to find that it was almost noon; sunlight was flooding through the four portholes. Neither Gavin nor Marina were anywhere to be seen, although their belongings were strewn over their bunks. Lisa caught her reflection in a small mirror near the clock and sleepily set about trying to tie her hair back into a ponytail before realising she no longer had enough hair to do anything with – it didn’t even reach her shoulders now. She regarded her blonde hair for a moment, still oddly enamoured with the new look it gave her, before finger-combing it as best she could and climbing up to the deck to find the others.

It was possibly the most gorgeous day since summer. The sky was an impeccable cerulean blue, punctuated sparsely with cirrus clouds that looked quite as crisp as new curls of butter. A cool sea zephyr blew in Lisa’s face, but it was not too strong to be unpleasant, and the day was warm enough for it to be more than welcome.

“Evenin’, sleepyhead,” boomed Jack, trudging from the bow to the stern.

“Morning,” Lisa grinned.

There were gleeful cries and shouts from the side of the boat. Lisa spied Gavin leaning against the silver railing on the edge of the craft, calling out something to his Seel, Staryu and green Lanturn, who were in the water, surfing alongside the vessel, along with Marina’s Golduck, Tentacraw, Starmie and Mudkip and, making Lisa laugh aloud, Marina herself, who was perched atop one of Starmie’s purple arms, playing with her Guardian Butterfree.

Gavin’s Natu fluttered around her head happily.

“Hey Lisa!” Marina called, waving a tanned arm.

Gavin turned at this; apparently he had not noticed Lisa behind him.

“Hey,” he said gently.

“Hey.”

Lisa strode over to join him, leaning her bare forearms against the cool steel.

“I got your note.”

She looked up and found him looking directly into her eyes.

“I mean it,” he said slowly. “I – I shouldn’t’ve said that thing about this being ‘typically Lisa’.”

Lisa broke his gaze – it was oddly intense – and stared out at Marina and the water pokémon racing alongside the boat.

“It’s fine, it was a stupid argument anyway,” she conceded.

“It’s just – it seemed like you were – well –”

“Being ‘typically Lisa’,” Lisa finished.

“Well, yeah.”

Lisa closed her eyes and allowed the crisp sea breeze to fill her lungs.

“Gavin, I know it seems like –”

“I know,” Gavin interrupted her. He sighed. “I thought about it a lot last night … and Marina talked to me this morning … I think going straight for the Sepulchre is probably the smartest and bravest thing you could do.”

Lisa smiled.

“I don’t want to run away anymore,” she said, opening her eyes and facing Gavin again. “I wanna actually do something.”

“Me too,” said Gavin, holding his arm out for Natu, who was fluttering over to perch on him. “I’m in, Leese.”

Lisa smiled.

“Awesome …” she said. “Listen, Gav, I need to apologise too … I’m really sorry if it seems like I take you for granted or whatever.”

Lisa cringed inwardly at her hideous apology-making skills; nonetheless, Gavin smiled gratefully.

“It’s cool,” he said. “Let’s just forget the whole thing, ay?”

“Works for me,” Lisa nodded, rather glad to put the entire argument behind her.

“So what’s your plan?” Gavin prodded, removing his navy beanie and wiping the sweat off his brow with it. “I mean – have ya thought about logistics or what?”

“A bit,” said Lisa, giggling as Staryu attempted to ride alongside Gavin’s green Lanturn only to receive a surprise Spark attack. “Actually, the way I planned it initially, I was going to go on foot to wherever Lotus Lake is, you know? But like, now that you’re here … I’m thinking maybe you could … help?”

Gavin nodded slowly, comprehending. “You want me to teleport.”

“Well, think how much safer that would be …” Lisa began, but her argument died in her mouth. She could already tell from Gavin’s face that he was not going to comply.

“There’s a couple of problems with that, Leese,” he said. “Firstly, for me to be able to teleport to a place, I need to be able to visualise it. I can’t visualise a place that I’ve never been to before.

“And secondly, the main advice the Seer had for me was to stop using teleportation. It drains me way too much and saps my other abilities. He said if I resist teleportation, over time my telepathy and telekinesis and other abilities will get a lot stronger.”

“Didn’t see that coming,” Lisa sighed. “But I guess that’s fair enough.”

“We should find a map, though,” said Gavin. “At least so that we can get an idea of how long it’s going to take us to get to Lotus Lake. And how we can get there.” He glanced around the deck. “Reckon Frank has any maps lying around?”

“I’m sure he’s got loads,” said Lisa, scanning the deck; but there were only crates and boxes tied down to pallets. “Maybe up on the bridge …”

“Let’s look. I wanna find out where this lake is.”

Waving a temporary farewell to Marina, they strode up to the bow of the vessel, where Frank stood stiffly behind the wheel, white mariner’s cap on his head and a plume of putrid grey smoke issuing from the pipe in his mouth.

“Excuse me, Frank?” Lisa ventured.

Abruptly, and without turning around to see Lisa, Frank burst into a cheerful tune:

“Oh the seven old seadogs of the seven seas!
They ruled the famous oceans with tremendous ease!”

Gavin guffawed; Lisa wasn’t sure whether to giggle or be offended that the old man had ignored her.

“Um – Frank – we just wanted to ask if –”

“Leese, he can’t hear you, look!” laughed Gavin.

Lisa looked: Gavin was pointing to two white wires that led from the pocket of Frank’s white jumper, virtually camouflaged, to his ears: he was listening to an mp3 player.

Lisa giggled.

“Is it bad that all I’m wondering is who the hell would record a song like that?” Gavin laughed.

At that moment, Frank continued with his song, completely oblivious to the two laughing teenagers behind him.

“Oh the seven fine women of the seven ports!
They entertained the seadogs until they were caught!”

“It’s awful …” Lisa remarked.

“Tell me about it,” said Gavin. “Oy, look – there’s a couple of charts right there.”

Lisa followed his line of sight: posted upon the shelter wall of the bridge were a couple of maps, one which looked like a marine chart of the Whirl Islands area and the other which showed the Orange Archipelago.

“Neither of those will help us much,” said Lisa disappointedly. She cast her eyes to the shelf below the charts and located a thick lever arch file with ‘MAPS’ written on the spine in heavy black texta. “But I’m thinking this will …”

Throwing a surreptitious glance to a still-unaware Frank, she lifted the heavy folder, grasping at small pieces of paper as they slid out of the pages, and grinned at Gavin.

“Let’s take this downstairs, ay?”

*

Lisa and Gavin were clustered around the small pine table that sat by the portholes in the cabin, poring over three maps they had found of Johto and trying to make sense of a mysterious omission on the most recent one.

A clatter of footsteps on the stairwell announced Marina’s arrival in the cabin; she entered, towelling her wet blue hair and chaperoned by Mudkip and Gavin’s Staryu.

“What’s cracking, kids?” she asked breezily, throwing the towel on top of the mess of possessions she had strewn across her bunk. “Seriously, you guys should’ve come in – the water was gorgeous.” She looked over and glimpsed the charts. “Aw, you guys are starting without me?”

“Yup, it’s all Lisa’s plan. I think she’s trying to edge you out of the group,” Gavin quipped.

“You’re a loser,” Lisa sighed. She turned to Marina. “We found these in Frank’s collection of maps, but there’s something weird going on, to be honest.”

“What do you mean weird?” asked Marina, taking a sip from her bottle of mineral water and, as there were only two chairs, she perched herself unreservedly on Gavin’s lap. His eyes bulged slightly but he swiftly put an arm around Marina’s waist.

Lisa felt something stir within her as Gavin’s arm slinked around Marina, but she abruptly realised that she must be staring at them. Breaking her gaze and clearing her throat loudly, she explained the map situation to Marina.

“Okay, so we’ve found three maps of Johto, but they’re all from different eras,” she explained. “This one,” she said, smoothing out a grubby, black-and-white chart. “Is from 1974. We managed to find Lotus Lake here.”

She pointed to a tiny grey circle situated approximately twenty kilometres north-east of Goldenrod City. The circle was inscribed ‘Lotus Lake’.

“So you’ve found it then, that’s awesome,” said Marina, tapping her water bottle absent-mindedly against the leg of the chair.

“Well, yeah, it seems so, but it’s weird because – the other maps don’t show it at all.”

“Huh?”

Lisa hunted beneath the current map and produced an enormous, dog-eared fold-out map of black ink on yellowing paper.

“This one is the oldest one … nearly as old as Frank,” she grinned. “It’s from the early fifties. Now, if you look at the same place on the map … about twenty k’s from Goldenrod … there’s the same circle but it’s called ‘The Lake of Purity’.”

Marina peered at the faded chart intently.

“Hmm … okay, so they changed the name by the ‘70s. ‘The Lake of Purity’ is pretty froofy.”

Gavin snorted.

“Well, that could make sense, seriously,” Lisa said, chuckling. “But the really bizarre thing is what happens –” (She foraged beneath both maps and produced a sleek, full-colour chart.) “– on the newest map, which is from –” (She double-checked the date.) “– 1991.”

Marina’s eyes scanned the place twenty kilometres north-east of Goldenrod; after a moment, her eyes widened.

“There’s nothing there.”

“Exactly,” said Gavin.

Marina’s brow furrowed.

“But – how does that happen? Unless the lake was filled in somehow …”

“That’s all we can think of, too,” Lisa said. “But the chart I saw at the Union’s base was pretty new, and it definitely showed Lotus Lake as – well – existing.”

“That’s really weird,” remarked Marina. “But … I suppose that at least tells us where Lotus Lake should be, right? So that’s where we’re headed?”

“Yeah,” said Lisa.

Marina seemed to be crunching numbers in her mind; her eyes rolled upwards for a moment.

“Jack’s dropping us just outside of Olivine. If we walked from Olivine to Goldenrod, plus one extra day to get to the lake … it would take something like two weeks, right?”

“That’s what I figured too,” Lisa said. “And I suppose that’s going to be the best option. We can’t hire a car without the Union probably picking up on it – and flying is way too dangerous. If we hike on the back roads, we should be relatively safe.”

Marina nodded.

“We could try taking the Dunmore River system – you know, surfing our way up,” she said half-heartedly. “Although I ran into trouble with the Union following me via water once before …” she muttered.

“I’ll teleport,” Gavin said suddenly.

Both Lisa and Marina looked at him in surprise.

“But I thought you said you couldn’t,” said Lisa.

“I think I can,” Gavin countered, shrugging. “Think about it … I’ve been to Goldenrod City a million times, I used to live there. I can visualise it easily. Plus, I haven’t used my powers since the hospital, so they should be charged up. If I get Natu and the others to add their psychic energy to the mix …” An excited grin stole over his thin face. “I’m sure we could teleport, all three of us.”

“But it’ll completely drain your powers,” Lisa argued, but feebly; the thought of Gavin teleporting them excited her.

“So what?” Gavin shrugged again. “They’ll build up again over time. The more important thing is how quickly we’d get to the Sepulchre. If we land in Johto tonight, we can teleport tonight, be in Goldenrod instantly and set out for the lake tomorrow.”

Lisa and Marina exchanged excited glances. Tomorrow! It barely seemed possible.

“The upshot of that is that we’d be less exposed to the Union, too,” Gavin continued. “Instead of two weeks out in the open, we’d only be trekking for, like, a day.”

Lisa couldn’t stop smiling. This was really happening …

“And you’re sure one of us won’t be left behind this time?” Lisa said, only half-jokingly.

Gavin nodded. “I’m pretty positive, yeah. I’ll have my pokes to back me up, we’ll be right.”

“So, really, the only question will be what happens when we get to Lotus Lake,” said Marina pensively. “You know, if there’s even a lake there anymore or not.”

“And if it’s actually the location of the Sepulchre or not,” added Lisa cheerily.

They sat at the table for perhaps only half an hour more, discussing their plans and playing with their pokémon. At one point, Gavin took the psychic pokémon of the group above deck to prepare for the planned teleportation. Once he returned, Lisa released Altaria, Cubone and Kingler to mingle with Gavin and Marina’s pokémon, with mixed results. Kingler took an immediate liking to Starmie and Staryu, and the three reposed near Marina’s bunk, apparently deep in a conversation that involved a great deal of arm-waving and pincer-snapping. Altaria struck up a warm relationship with Herby, although it came over to Lisa after a few minutes for a rub. Unfortunately, Cubone had to be returned to his pokéball after five minutes after he spent the entire time sobbing melodramatically in the corner.

As Lisa, Marina and Gavin sat at the table, now talking about music, Jack gave a loud cry from above deck:

“LAND HO!”

*

It was almost four in the afternoon when Jack and Frank finally decided to depart. After they had arrived at the deserted stretch of coastline east of Olivine City, they had decided to disembark along with Lisa, Gavin and Marina for a picnic lunch, which had evolved into a picnic afternoon tea.

The three teenagers had tried not to show their impatience, especially as Jack was providing them food – and had transported them – free of charge. Nonetheless, as four o’clock approached, Gavin said, “Well, we need to get going, guys, otherwise we’ll be stuck walking in the dark.”

Thankfully, that hint had been enough to mobilise Jack and Frank. They had packed up their remaining foodstuffs and farewelled each of them in their own way: Frank had grunted mildly in each of their directions, and finished up with a particularly warm, “’Bye.” Jack, on the other hand, had shaken Gavin’s hand firmly before taking first Marina, then Lisa, and sweeping them each into his bulging arms, crushing them slightly with the force of his hug.

“Take care, buds!” he boomed. “And Leese, next time I wanna see Electabuzz again – no excuses, ay? Hahaha!”

Lisa smiled and agreed: she had lied and told Jack that Electabuzz was temporarily in the care of her younger siblings; it had seemed impossible to tell him that the Union had stolen the pokémon he had once owned.

“Thanks so much for everything, Jack,” Lisa said.

“Pleasure, Leese – like I said, we were headed to Olivine anyway, got some freight we gotta drop off,” Jack grunted. “Anyway – if yer ever on Red Rock again, don’ be a stranger, orright?”

“Deal!” said Lisa. “Take care! Bye!”

She, Gavin and Marina watched as the dusty-haired, muscular sailor and the old, wizened captain waded through the shallows and clambered aboard their boat.

“I thought they’d never leave!” said Marina exasperatedly.

“I know!” Lisa laughed, as she waved in the direction of the boat. “I mean, it was a really fun arvo with them all … but all I could think of the whole time was that we were wasting time.”

Gavin was kneeling down on the sand, riffling through his rucksack.

“Just making sure I didn’t forget anything,” he explained. “You got everything, Marina?”

Marina patted her own backpack.

“I was taught to pack by Azura Frost, which may or may not mean anything to you,” she said with a wry grin. “Suffice it to say: I’m all sorted.”

“As am I,” grinned Lisa, patting her poképort and the Buzzball and two pokéballs in the pocket of her shredded jeans. “I’ve gotta say, not having a backpack is pretty stress-free.”

Marina smirked.

“Alright, I reckon they’re far enough away now, right?” Gavin asked.

Lisa glanced out onto the crystalline shallows, off which the sun’s setting rays were beginning to shimmer. Frank’s boat was now chugging slowly out to sea.

“I reckon,” she said.

“Awesome,” Gavin said. “Alright – go Natu, Girafury and Staryu!”

“Go, Starmie and Golduck!” Marina cried.

There were five explosions of radiant light. The five psychic pokémon in the group materialised around them.

“Alright guys, now remember your instructions from the boat,” Gavin said sternly, as Natu fluttered onto his shoulder and the rest of the creatures interspersed themselves among the humans and held hands with them, creating a circle. Lisa took hold of Golduck’s slimy webbed mitt in her left hand and knitted the fingers of her right hand into Girafury’s thick mane.

“Is everybody ready?” asked Gavin loudly.

“Tu tu tu!”

“Goooold.”

“Fuuuuuuur.”

“Hi yaaah!”

“Staarr!”

“As ready as I’ll ever be,” Marina added, amid the cacophony of pokémon cries.

Lisa laughed.

“Okay then, let’s do this! Everyone power up – and on the count of three, we’ll appear at the destination point. Visualise it, everyone. Ready? One …”

Lisa took one final, sweeping glance of the deserted beach, the tranquil waters, the silhouette of the white fishing boat against the golden rays of the setting sun …

“Two …”

Lisa closed her eyes; and, all of a sudden, a nervous panic swelled up within her, blocking her throat …

“THREE!”

Instantly, Lisa felt as though she was being squeezed through a wringer as cold blasts of air whooshed against her body – and then, quite as abruptly, she fell unceremoniously against a hard, thinly-carpeted floor, her body aching, her throat still restricted, leaving her gasping for breath.

“Everyone here?” called Gavin’s voice.

Lisa heard the calls of five pokémon, and then Marina’s voice said, “I’m here … feel like death, though.”

“No shit,” said Gavin. “At least we all made it!” He let off a weary cheer that was echoed by a couple of the pokémon. “Leese – you alright over there?”

Hearing the voices around her was all Lisa needed to calm her down: her heart stopped hammering, her throat cleared and she gulped down deep breaths of stale – but welcome – air, suddenly aware that she was acutely thirsty.

“Yes, I’m okay,” she said, a little feebly. “God, teleporting really takes it out of you …” she added, trying to explain her weakness to the others. She didn’t want to admit that she had had a mild panic attack before they teleported, struck by the fear that she would be left behind again, as she had been in Redwood Hospital.

She opened her eyes gingerly and surveyed her surroundings. They were all sprawled on the dirty brown carpet of what seemed to be the combined living room, dining room and kitchen of a seedy, cramped apartment. All the curtains were drawn, giving the apartment a dreary, depressing vibe that was exacerbated by the bland décor: the walls were all painted beige, the curtains light brown. Even the kitchen bench was fawn. Oddly, there was almost no furniture in the room, aside from a small table with a teetering pile of mail by the door and a thick, chocolate-brown rug spread out before an ancient wooden TV set.

“Where are we?” Lisa wondered aloud, clambering to her feet as Marina and Gavin followed suit, returning their pokémon in flashes of translucent red light that briefly illuminated the apartment.

“This,” Gavin said ceremoniously, “is my old apartment.”

“Ritzy,” said Marina dryly.

Lisa caught Marina’s gaze and smirked. She scanned the kitchen bench and approached the sink; her throat was parched.

“It’s a heap of shit,” Gavin admitted unabashedly. “But it’s all me and my mate Dave could afford when we lived here.” He glanced through a beige-coloured door into a tiny bedroom. “Looks like he leased it out to someone else after I left …”

Lisa hovered by the sink. “Uh – is it safe to drink the water?”

“Should be fine,” Gavin smirked.

Lisa hunted in the cupboard for a glass, and eventually located a solitary china mug, coated in a thin layer of dust. Rinsing it off gingerly, she filled it up with tap water and gulped it down gratefully. The water tasted mildly chemically, but otherwise satisfied Lisa’s thirst completely.

“Man,” Gavin muttered, flipping through the stack of mail on the table near the door. “I haven’t been here for ages … not since before the trial in Port Valeo …”

“Has anyone?” Lisa quizzed. “It looks like nobody’s been here for a while.”

“Dave works up on the mines now, near Azalea Town,” explained Gavin. “He’s only here for one week out of every three. I guess his roommate does the same thing.”

“Oh right …” Lisa muttered, stealing another drink.

Marina pulled the curtains open, allowing the late afternoon sunlight to gush into the dusty flat.

“Well, that’s a bit better,” she sighed.

Hunkering down for the evening, they resorted to clustering onto the rug, leaning on Dave’s pillows and watching soap operas on the flickering TV set. When the six o’clock news came on, Lisa watched intently for any news that could relate to the Union. She wasn’t entirely disappointed – there was a short report that the Ecruteak Library had been ransacked, possibly by Union agents – but there was no news of a particularly grand scale.

As the six-thirty current affairs programs came on, Gavin slunk out of the apartment for dinner, returning with an enormous stack of oily pizzas, which both the humans and their pokémon tucked into heartily. Returning their pokémon, the teenagers passed the rest of the evening talking over bottles of cool drink and, as the night grew late, they rehashed their plans by re-examining the charts they had stolen from Frank’s boat.

When at last it came time to turn in, Lisa and Marina took Dave’s double bed, while Gavin took his old single one in the other room. As she lay down, Lisa wrinkled up her nose against the acrid smell of dirt and sweat: it seemed that Dave habitually fell asleep on his bed whilst still wearing his dirty work clothes. Trying to ignore the smell, Lisa stared up at the ceiling, and long after she whispered the words, “Night, Marina”, her eyes remained open, her mind conjuring up what was going to unfold when she finally located the Sepulchre of Suicune.

*

Lisa awoke early the next morning. Even the depressing décor of Gavin’s old apartment couldn’t dim the excitement surging through her veins: in a matter of hours, they would be arriving, hopefully, at Lotus Lake. At long last, she would be doing something constructive to fight back against the Union.

She eagerly woke Gavin and Marina, and after having some much-needed showers, they left the apartment shortly after eight o’clock. Despite the fact that she was now blonde, wore a grotty band T-shirt and face-obscuring aviators, Lisa still felt slightly on edge as they strolled down the main thoroughfares of Goldenrod City: from what she had heard, it was the city in Johto with the highest population per capita of Union agents. However, despite the statistics, she found that, at least in appearance, Goldenrod had scarcely changed from the last time she had been there: it was still a bustling metropolis, with streets packed with buses and sleek limousines and footpaths loaded with jostling tourists, businessmen, students and pokémon trainers.

After an hour of solid walking, Lisa, Gavin and Marina found themselves away from the throng of the city centre and in clearer, more open parklands, scattered with young trainers.

“If one more kid asks me to battle his Weedle, I swear I’m going to scream,” Marina said under her breath to Lisa as they strolled through a field populated by bug-catchers.

“Weedles can actually be pretty powerful,” Lisa remarked, thinking back to Hiro’s, which she had seen perform an acrobatic display to defeat Lance’s Dragonite.

“Right,” Marina drawled, swatting a fly away from her face and taking a sip of her mineral water.

They continued onwards down a route known as Armitage Road, avoiding more eager trainers and some artisan markets. As the day heated up, Lisa found herself wishing she wasn’t wearing black, as it was becoming oppressively warm; nonetheless, she soldiered on, swigging at her water, her eyes on each crest as it approached, hoping that it would reveal a sign that Lotus Lake existed, but no such sign ever appeared.

Presently, they came across a roadhouse and a turn off for the Bug-Catching Contest.

“God, I remember coming here,” Lisa said, and she nostalgically recounted the story of how she, Hiro and Kris had participated in the contest, despite the fact that both Gavin and Marina had heard it several times before.

They followed the route onwards, until encountering other trainers became first uncommon and then rare. The parkland became more heavy forest, with trees surrounding them from all angles; and the route, initially a broad bitumen path, dissipated into a track of orange gravel.

“Okay, according to the map, we’re right about where the lake should be,” said Gavin, at around noon, as they turned a corner into a deeper part of the forest.

A few minutes later, he stopped in his tracks and stared around at their environs.

“This is supposedly it,” he declared. “According to the old maps, there should be a lake right alongside this track at this point. To the right.”

Lisa did not say anything; indeed, she had fallen progressively more silent as they had walked deeper into the forest. The lack of signage for Lotus Lake had stopped worrying her. Her mind had been tingling ever since they walked past the Bug-Catching Contest.

As Marina fanned her face and sighed, Lisa walked a little further along the track, sure that she would find what she was looking for. A moment later, her heart leapt into her mouth.

Cutting into the thick maze of ferns and shrubs was a narrow, loamy track, almost overgrown completely.

“Through here!” Lisa cried out, and then, without waiting to see if Gavin and Marina were following, she charged down the path, jogging at first before breaking out into a full-scale pelt. She bounded over several Metapod and a rotting old log that crossed the path before, gloriously, the vegetation cleared, and she arrived.

Footsteps pounded on the orange dirt behind her; Gavin and Marina came running to join her, their faces alive as they, too, clapped eyes on the sight before them.

“Oh my God …” breathed Lisa, as she took in the sight before her.

The lake that geography had forgotten was sprawled out before them at the base of a stunning hundred-metre high cliff. Spanning an area the size of a soccer pitch, it was murky brown and covered in green algae, but it was undeniably a lake.

Lotus Lake.

Lisa’s mouth had fallen open. She took in the impossible details of the sight before her: the grey, rocky cliff wall framing the lake; the murky brown, almost opaque surface of the water …

Her heart was vibrating as never before; her mind spun. How could this be?

“Lisa – are you okay?” Marina ventured, a note of fear in her voice.

“I’m fine,” breathed Lisa. “I’m … I’m better than fine. I’m … fantastic.”

She felt, rather than saw, a curious look exchanged between Gavin and Marina behind her back as she approached the shoreline of the lake.

“How come?” Gavin asked seriously.

“Because I know now that the Sepulchre of Suicune is definitely here.”

There was a short silence, then Gavin said, “How can you be so sure?”

Lisa felt as though she had swallowed some kind of drug: the whirling in her head and stomach was making her slightly dizzy.

“Because …” she said, trying to contain her excitement; she spun around to face her bemused friends. “Because I’ve been here before.”

Marina blinked in disbelief; Gavin’s eyebrow edged toward the bottom of his beanie.

“When?” he asked.

Lisa revelled in the broad grin that stole over her face as she spoke.

“Last October,” she said.

“Suicune brought me here on the very first day of my journey.”