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

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

Cheers!

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Chapter 82 – Last Night on Earth.


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The cone had begun to cave in.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“ALTARIA, GET US OUT OF HERE!”

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

“TAAA WOOOOOO!”

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

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

Please, God … Please … let them be okay …

“BASTARD!”

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

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

“Dad!” Lisa cried, without thinking.

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

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

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

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

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

The only one who could help.

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

Of course!

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

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

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

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

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

“AAAAARGH!”

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

Bones crunched.

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

Sadistic laughter nearby.

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

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

“Shock,” Lisa heard herself croak.

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

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

“Ta-aa … wooo …”

“Altaria?” Lisa coughed weakly.

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

“Altaria! No!”

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

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

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

The closed blue eyelids gouged Lisa’s chest.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Dark screen,” she whispered.

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

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

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

The work of one man.

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

The brown leather necklace looped over his neck.

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

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

“NO!” Sterling roared.

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

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

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

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

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

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

“LISA!” Lisa’s father cried.

Sterling stiffened as he stumbled.

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

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

“HA!” Lisa cried –

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

“AAAAARGH!”

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

“NO YOU DON’T!”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“DARK WAVE!” Lisa screamed.

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

“DAD!” Lisa shrieked.

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

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

“Dad! Dad … oh my God …”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lisa’s mouth fell open.

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

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

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

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

“Ah … take it easy, Leese …”

“Sorry, Dad …”

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

Lisa felt her gut lurch suddenly.

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

Her father’s pallid face became distressed.

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

The lump returned to Lisa’s throat.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Lisa …” Dad’s voice came presently.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dad coughed.

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

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

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

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

Lisa regarded him hopefully.

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

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

“Nobody.”

“What?”

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

He blinked and looked at her dolefully.

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

Lisa felt the bottom of her stomach disappear.

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

Dad shook his head.

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

Lisa frowned.

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

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

Lisa felt sick.

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Me too,” said Lisa weakly.

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

“Youse okay?” Donovan bellowed.

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

“Leese!”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Amen!” Natalie cheered.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

END OF BOOK III

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