Re: Lisa the Legend - Chapter 58 at last!
Dad shook his head sadly. “ Lisa, we won’t be safe to return to our old house for some time, maybe not ever, I can’t be sure. Once you’re discharged from Redwood Hospital, our whole family will be moving to the Guard’s safe house, it’s on a remote farmstead. We’ll be living there for as long as I can see into the future … for the duration of this war, however long it goes for …”
He fell silent again and this time he didn’t seem to have anything else to say.
Lisa wanted to say something else, talk about more, but as much as she felt like there remained so much unsaid between her and her parents, she could not for the life of her find anything new to discuss, any territory important enough to entrench her parents into as well. She begrudgingly sank into her own thoughts. Everything that had happened, everything in her life, was now centred on the new war. A war, the outcome of which would ultimately rest on her shoulders; her’s and Darius’s and Marina’s. The injustice of it all swelled up inside her, gnawing at her heart and devouring, piece by piece, the hope that had always resided within her.
“ It’s nearly twelve!”
The loud voice caught her unaware. Both Lisa and her father spun around; the loud-voiced woman with messy blonde hair who had spoken to Lisa earlier was sitting up in her bed, pointing at her watch.
“ What?” Dad said.
“ It’s almost twelve o’clock. The meeting with Lance is at noon, isn’t it?” The woman paused. “ Er – that’s what Azura told us anyway …” she added unconvincingly.
Lisa suddenly became aware that there were several members of the Guard in the surrounding beds, all of whom would have overheard every shred of the conversation between her and her parents; normally this would have made her feel as though her privacy had been invaded, and perhaps made her a little indignant, but she didn’t think there was a precedent for this kind of situation, and if she was honest with herself, she was too tired and overwhelmed to really care anyway.
Mum took her head out of her hands for the first time in minutes; her eyes were bloodshot and wet, her mouth drooping as if she were about to cry again. She exchanged a significant look with her husband.
“ We’d better go,” she croaked feebly.
Lisa turned away from her mother – she was usually such a strong, tough old bird and Lisa knew she wouldn’t want anyone seeing her so vulnerable.
“ Of course. I lost track of the time … thanks Christina,” he said to the blonde bed-ridden woman; she winked in response. Dad looked at Lisa apologetically. “ As I said, we’ve got to go to this meeting as sort some things out. We’ll come back to see you after the meeting, OK?”
“ Yeah, OK,” said Lisa stiffly. She wasn’t sure why but, despite how awkward it had been hearing all the information from her parents, she didn’t want them to leave her now.
“ When we come back you can tell us what exactly you went through tonight. And if you’ve got any questions, you can ask us, we might just have the answers to some of them.”
If I’ve got any questions, thought Lisa, piqued.
“ Maybe you can get some sleep in the meantime, eh?” added Dad kindly.
He and Mum both got to their feet. Dad put his arm around Mum and she buried her face in her shoulder for a moment for standing up on her own, wiping her eyes, smoothing her hair down and holding her head high.
“ OK,” said Lisa.
Both Lisa’s parents gave her a warm hug and a kiss before they left the room, but Lisa did not feel comforted by their embrace. She felt nothing but emptiness, as if something that used to live in her heart had left her forever. The unquestioned protected she had once felt from their presence was no more: Her parents were no longer Ryan and Maria Walters, loving father and mother; in the space of hours they had become Ryan and Maria Walters, renegade soldiers for the Guard – and for the life of her, Lisa could not reconcile herself with that truth.
*
Lisa lay very still for a long time after her parents left, listening to the beeps and whirrs of the medical equipment, her misty eyes on the bare ceiling. There was no way she could oblige her parents by sleeping – her mind had never been more crowded, her stomach never so churned up. No matter how she tried to divert her thoughts, they always circled back to the Legend, the Guard, her parents, the new war, and that fact that it all somehow came down to three people, three teenagers: Darius, Marina and her.
She fell into a stupor. It was only when the young nurse, Emma, came past her bed to check on her that she sluggishly forced herself back to reality.
“ Sorry, I thought you were asleep,” said the nurse shortly, catching Lisa’s gaze.
“ That’s OK,” said Lisa dully.
Emma tapped her pen on her chart, almost impatiently. “ Well, how do you feel? Is there much pain still?”
“ No, I feel fine,” said Lisa, though she could not help but think how terrible she really felt inside.
“ I’m going to lower the strength of your analgesics then,” said the nurse. She handed Lisa two white pills and a glass of water. “ Just take those.” Lisa did. “ You might get a bit of pain in an hour or so. That’s just your body adjusting to the less powerful drugs,” she added tersely.
Emma returned the chart to its holder with an unexpectedly loud clatter. She was about to move on to the next bed when Lisa suddenly understood her sulky manner.
“ Sorry for getting you in trouble with Matron before,” she said abruptly.
Emma turned on her heel, suddenly flushed. She surveyed Lisa intently for a moment before she gave a genuine smile; she had shiny silver braces attached to her teeth. “ Oh that - it’s OK,” she said, and it was clear that she was very pleased Lisa had apologised. She seemed to hesitate a moment before saying, “ I’m Emma.”
“ I heard – when Matron yelled at you,” said Lisa flatly. “ My name’s Lisa.”
“ Nice to meet you,” said Emma, her cheeks becoming even more scarlet all of a sudden. She reached surreptitiously for Lisa’s chart again. “ Sorry I was rude to you. It’s – it’s not really your fault I got in trouble with Matron – I’m the one who was meant to tell her you were awake and I didn’t,” she acknowledged awkwardly. She looked suddenly sheepish. “ I feel embarrassed now …” she muttered. “ I was supposed to tell you about the lost and found pokémon list before, but I didn’t because I was mad at you for getting me in trouble.”
Lisa’s indignation at the girl lasted barely a second; it suddenly hit her that she had no idea where her five pokémon had ended up after the siege last night. Anxiety began to clutch at her chest. “ Don’t worry about it,” she said quickly to Emma. “ Listen, I’ve got five pokémon, could you tell me if you know where they are?”
Emma pulled a stapled bunch of printouts from her clipboard and handed it to Lisa with a flourish. “ The pokémon that have been found by the police are being held in a safe place down the hall. They’ve documented every found pokémon right here –” She reached over and pointed her pen at the long printed list; many pokémon names had been highlighted or circled in texta. “ Have a look through for your missing pokémon, then, let me know when you find them and I’ll tell the police we found another owner.”
Lisa glanced hurriedly down the list. There was nothing at all on the first page; she flipped over frantically to the second. For a moment her heart leapt as she saw ‘Electabuzz’, but the description was of a female Electabuzz – hers was male. It wasn’t until the third page that she breathed a sigh of relief: the names, levels and descriptions of Electabuzz, Aipom, Dratini, Fiskmire and Vulpix were all there.
Relief washed over Lisa; she identified her pokémon to Emma, who smiled and said they would be ready for collection once she was discharged. Maybe it was the delight of having her pokémon found safe and sound, or perhaps it was just the pleasant distraction of being in the company of somebody who didn’t know about her past, that calmed her frayed nerves, but before she knew it, Lisa had drifted off again to a peaceful slumber.
She awoke a short while later with a heavy head and sore back. She sat up gingerly: with the weaker painkillers and the shock now worn off, the pain she had been mostly spared from earlier hit her with full force; every part of her body seemed to be aching from its ordeal.
She sat in her bed for a moment and simply stared into nothing. She felt like every iota of energy she had ever possessed, every ounce of strength and courage that got her through the ordeals of the past four months, had suddenly left her. She told herself quietly it was because she was coming down off the painkillers, but she knew in her heart this was not the case. She was coming down off a chaotic rollercoaster ride, a ride she had never expected to end like this, and the fact that the reality was as black as it was weighed upon her like a tonne of bricks.
Suddenly, she could not explain why she had not thought of it before, an idea darted into her mind. She examined it in her brain for a moment, weighing up the possibility that it might be as good as it seemed. Yes, of course, she thought. It was perfect. It was worth a try, at any rate … if there was a chance it could just make her feel better.
She gazed around the makeshift ward and spied Emma seated in a wooden chair near the door. The girl caught Lisa’s eye and hurried over to her bed.
“ How do you feel, Lisa?” she asked in earnest.
“ Horrible,” muttered Lisa honestly.
“ You should feel better soon,” said Emma gently. “ I’d put you back on the stronger analgesics, but I can’t. The drugs I gave you are really the strongest I can give someone in your situation … it’s not good to stay on them too long …”
“ That’s OK,” Lisa muttered.
“ By the way, your friend Gavin woke up briefly before,” added Emma.
“ Did he?” said Lisa, wishing she had been awake at the time.
Emma nodded. “ He came to as I redressed his bandages. He asked about you and I said you were fine. He tried to say something else but he was too exhausted, I think, he passed out again mid-sentence …”
“ Emma, am I allowed to leave the ward?” Lisa asked abruptly.
The nurse regarded her nervously. “ Oh, Lisa, I don’t know … I mean, really … you just got up. You said you weren’t feeling well …”
“ It passed,” said Lisa unconvincingly.
“ … and if Matron finds out that I let someone go …” Emma rambled on. Lisa was sure she had not even heard her.
“ Look, can’t you tell her that my Mum and Dad came and needed to see me somewhere urgently? She’d understand that, wouldn’t she? Tell her you couldn’t stop us or something …”
Emma stared exasperatedly at her. “ I wish you’d stop getting me in trouble!” she moaned.
Ignoring her conscience, Lisa said, “ Is that a yes?”
“ Go quickly!” Emma hissed, gesturing to the door frantically. Lisa didn’t need to be told twice. It took her a few steps to find her feet properly, but before long she was hobbling over the threshold and into the hall, keeping her mind off the pain in her back and firmly focused on her quarry.
Despite the broad sunlight of the early afternoon, the halls of the Fairfax Inn were in almost complete darkness. There was not a single window in sight, the only source of light being the open door of the makeshift ward. Lisa tried flicking a light switch on: a fluorescent light on the roof flickered hopefully for a few seconds before settling for a dull, useless orange glow in the extremities of the bulb. The darkness would have to do, thought Lisa, and she wobbled over to the first door she could find – a sign upon it proclaiming, ‘Wintergreen’ – and knocked.
Before long she had covered the entire first floor, copping the brunt of several angry ex-contestants, who were convalescing and told her in no uncertain terms where to go; one woman even had a Persian sit threateningly on the doormat in case Lisa returned. There was no luck to be had anywhere on the first floor: nobody knew who she was looking for.
She stopped by the staircase and checked her watch. It was covered in dried mud and the face had a devastating crack down the middle of it, but thankfully it still kept the time; the luminous glow told Lisa it was just ten minutes to one o’clock.
The obvious struck her at last. Of course – where else would he be? That was, she thought, if Lance’s meeting in the breakfast hall was still going … it was her best bet. She gingerly descended the stairs for the ground floor, from which she could hear a distant hum of activity.
Lisa opened the door and felt as though she had entered a different place entirely. The situation on the ground floor could not have been more removed from the peace and quiet on the first. Dozens of people were standing around in the sunlit halls, all conversing wildly about the events of the previous night. Hoping to be noticed as little as possible, Lisa slipped quietly into the crowded hall of what appeared to be more ex-contestants and tried to weave her way toward the breakfast hall. The throng of people were rowdy and unsettled – some of the boys were throwing a cricket ball around the place; others were simply bragging about their bravery.
“ … and then I punched out that motherfucker from Team Rocket, boosh, he went whoomp straight to the ground!” boomed a young man with short, bleached hair and a stubby in his hand. “ Didn’t get up again, neither. But by then I was taking on his mates …”
“ I thought someone on TV said they were called the Union now, but?” replied a blonde girl in a crop top, playing with her hair, pretending not to notice that the man was leaning his arm cockily against the wall beside her, virtually hemming her in.
“ That’s what they want you to think, babe,” growled the man, taking a chug of his beer. “ That’s what they want you to think. So – I had to do a flying kick on the next guy –”
Lisa scowled as she passed them. Dodging a couple of middle-aged woman who were gabbling excitedly about what they’d been through, she headed for the breakfast hall, sure that her suspicions would prove worthwhile. Narrowly avoiding a stray cricket ball to the head, she ducked into the lobby.
It was more crowded again; police and ex-contestants milled about uselessly, all chattering amongst themselves, many of the men sitting at the bar drinking pints. Lisa briefly spied Paddy behind the bar, working furiously to serve his restless patrons; she carefully avoided eye contact – Paddy’s blustering incompetence, while well-intentioned, was time wasting, and Lisa was in something of a hurry.
Or at least, she intended to be until she saw the image on the television screen. A news report was showing Joseph Sterling making an impassioned speech; the caption below read: ‘BREAKING NEWS: Ex-Team Rocket leader Joseph Sterling takes responsibility for Mountain Attack’. A moment later it became: ‘Government says new group “the Union” a terrorist threat.’ Lisa glared with hatred at the image of Sterling before her, wishing despite herself that she could hear what he was saying, but there the television’s volume was so low that it was completely drowned out by the noise around the lobby.
Pulling herself away from the TV, Lisa strode quickly down a side hallway to a sunlit vestibule. A window to her right allowed a view of the grassy grounds that led to the river and the path the contestants had taken up the mountain a day ago; it was now crawling with television cameramen and journalists interviewing the numerous ex-contestants and policemen. Trying to keep her mind off everything else, Lisa eyed the double doors before her that opened into the enormous breakfast hall. The doors were closed; Lisa had a feeling they would be locked from the inside if Lance and the Guard were still inside. She tried the handle with no luck – it seemed the Guard were still there, then. Which meant that he was, too.
She weighed up her options for a moment. The last thing she wanted to do was storm into a crowded hall filled with people who probably already knew everything about her, were maybe even discussing her right now; she didn’t think she possessed the energy to face those people yet.
If I can’t go in there, she thought, then how …
Her eyes suddenly fell on a battered grey door to the far left of the main doors. A small sign fixed upon it declared, ‘Staff Only.’ Of course, Lisa thought – the kitchen! She might be able to hear if he was there through the kitchen doors …
She stumped over to the door and tried it. It swung open at once. Her heart rising, Lisa slipped into the dim kitchen and let out a gasp: on the bench on the far side of the kitchen, sitting on the bench with his legs swinging and ear to the staff door that led to the breakfast hall, was the boy she was looking for.
“ Darius!” she exclaimed.
He wheeled around in surprise, his brown eyes falling on her in disbelief. He leapt down from the bench and rushed toward her.
“ Lisa! You’re – are you OK?” The elation seemed to fall from his face suddenly.
Lisa realised how she looked – her arms bandaged, cuts across her grubby, tearstained face as she hobbled in her hospital gown. “ I’m better than I was,” she said after a long pause.
Darius didn’t hesitate for a second; he put his arm around her shoulder and helped support her.
“ You should be in the hospital-thing they have going on,” he said seriously.
“ Oh no, it’s OK,” insisted Lisa, realising that he was trying to lead her out of the kitchen and back toward the lobby. “ The nurse said I could leave for a bit … and so here I am,” she managed, with a fake laugh. Darius didn’t look entirely convinced, but conceded with a small smile – the dimples Lisa loved so much flashed before her eyes.
“ I get it,” he said at last, arm still around her shoulders. “ You’re like me. You wanted to listen in to what they’re saying in there, didn’t you?”
This wasn’t quite true, but Lisa suddenly found that she could not bring herself to say otherwise.
“ Yeah,” she said casually.
Darius gave a wry smile. “ You can take my bench space if you want, I’ll stand at the door.” And before Lisa could agree or argue, he had bodily picked her up off the ground and placed her delicately on the bench beside the door – there were no chairs.
“ Er – thanks,” she said, smoothing her matted hair down, a little flustered after being picked up like that.
Darius put his ear to the door again, and after a confused second, Lisa followed suit, disappointed that he was not going to say anything else to her. She had barely caught a few words from a man who sounded like he could be Lance before, unexpectedly, Darius whispered, “ I’m so glad you’re OK. I was terrified.”
Lisa managed a tiny smile. “ I was too. About you, I mean – you know – in the cave,” she blundered. He grinned and returned to listening to the proceedings in the breakfast hall.
Lisa looked at him closely for a moment. The glimpse she had of him last night in the cave had been too brief, and indeed, her mind had been on other things, to notice his appearance, but now she had ample time. He seemed to have become older-looking, more mature-looking, since they had last seen each other in December. His dark brown hair was no longer short and spiked, like Gavin’s, but long and shaggy. Lisa thought his jaw looked more defined, more rugged, than it had before, too.
She had searched for him to ask a different question, but suddenly she found an older one bubbling away inside her; and without warning it burst from her lips in an unexpectedly fierce whisper.
“ Why didn’t you come back and see me?”
Darius closed his eyes suddenly, as if he were in pain, before opening them and pulling himself away from the door. “ Lisa, I wanted to, honestly – ”
“ We had such a good day together at the pool in Silver City.”
“ I know,” muttered Darius, “ but –”
“ And the next day, when we drove back from Blackthorn City … we just talked and mucked around the whole time. I thought we were getting along really well, you know.”
“ Lisa –” Darius protested, looking deeply uncomfortable now.
“ But then you didn’t show up, even though you said you would, and I was left there, just … waiting. And the whole time I was so – worried – about you …”
“ It was my Dad, Lisa! The day after I dropped you back to Ecruteak he called me and told me to come home straight away. That day he told me all about the Legend, OK?” His voice was suddenly hoarse, hurt. The dimples were nowhere to be seen. “ I was a mess, OK? I didn’t want to see anyone at all. And I knew I couldn’t see you if I had to pretend I didn’t know who you were … that you were a guardian, too … I just didn’t want to talk about it … or think about it …” His face had become ruddy.
Lisa hesitated; this was not what she had wanted to happen. But in his own way, Darius had steered the conversation around enough for her to say what she had really wanted to say.
“ Darius …” she began, and her voice was weak and watery; furious with herself though she was, however, she could not fortify it. “ I just found out about the Legend today … about you and Marina and m-me. I just – I don’t know what to think … or feel … or do. I feel like a mess, too. I wanted to talk to you ‘cause I thought you might understand what I’m feeling – you’re the only one out of everyone here … you know?”
Darius looked at her curiously, as though this thought had genuinely not dawned on him. It took him about thirty seconds to respond, and when he did it was merely with a gruff, “ S’pose that’s true.”
Lisa looked at him desperately. “ All I can think about is how Mum and Dad never told me,” she said, struggling to keep her voice to a whisper. “ I can hardly even understand the Legend right now, it’s all too much for me to handle, I can’t even process it. But Mum and Dad … being in the Guard … I just can’t believe it, I can’t bear it.” She lowered her voice more. “ I know it sounds stupid but I feel like – like they betrayed me or something.”
Darius nodded suddenly, locking eyes with her for a moment before he tore away and leaned against the door again; unlike before, though, he was not listening to the conversation in the next room, but merely giving his tired head something to rest on.
“ Yeah,” he said dully at last, not looking at her, “ I know what you mean. After I got over the shock – all I could think about was how Dad never told me. How he had this whole secret life. I was so angry. I did stupid stuff just to piss him off … trashed the training gym with my mates and started drinking every –” He caught himself suddenly and stopped short, looking embarrassed. “ I can’t believe I said that to you,” he muttered under his breath.
“ It’s OK,” whispered back Lisa.
She waited on tenterhooks for his next words. For a second it seemed like they weren’t going to come, he seemed to not want to speak any further, but eventually he went on. “ The whole thing reminded me of a movie I saw once,” he admitted; Lisa was thrown a little. “ I forget what it’s even called. But there’s a guy who lives in some city, and he works as a diplomat for his embassy. One night someone throws a brick through his window and it misses him but smashes the wall-length mirror in his apartment … and behind the glass he finds a whole room filled with listening equipment and bugging devices and all that … It turns out that a government agency was spying on him for years and pulling the strings in every aspect of his life without him ever knowing …” Darius sighed. “ That really does sound dumb. But it’s how I thought of it. It’s how I still think of it. And I just feel stupid for never realising there was another world behind the glass.”
Lisa listened in silence. She thought she knew, at least a little bit, how that felt. She felt a tension in her chest loosen a little: she still felt as troubled as before, but knowing that Darius felt the same was the greatest comfort she could possibly have asked for.
Neither of them spoke for several minutes. There seemed to be nothing else to say for the time being. Eventually Darius pressed his ear against the side of the door and resumed listening. Lisa staved off doing this for a few minutes – she wasn’t sure she wanted any more information crammed into her head. When she saw Darius’s face twist in an odd way, however, and heard a sudden burst of what sounded like applause, she let her curiosity get the better of her and mirrored Darius against the door.
The applause was just dying down. A loud male voice – Lisa was positive it was Lance’s – said, “ If we stick together now, as a united Guard, then we’ll have a chance at beating the Union. It might be fifty of us against thousands of them, but we have a full knowledge of the Legend, superior fighting ability and the three guardians in our corner. This is our chance: we can fight now, and have a chance at victory, or we can surrender, submit and lose. We all know what the right choice is!”
There was another outburst of applause; several voices roared, “ Hear, hear!”
“ So then, we have to go forward to face the future!” continued Lance fiercely. “ To find the third, fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh keys, wherever they might be! To protect the legendary dogs from further harm! And to oppose the Union at every chance we get; to engage in total war against Joseph Sterling and his army! Who’s with me?!”
And the entire room erupted in battle cries and affirmations; people clapped and shouted and whooped and even cheered, and somehow Lisa felt herself swept up in the emotion of it all. For a moment, everything else she was feeling – the exhaustion, the sorrow, the betrayal and confusion, the fear of the unknown path ahead – just slipped away from her. She felt filled with newfound pride and solidarity, with courage and hope. As bad as things were, all was not yet lost. Hope still presented itself in the form of the Guard – and her parents.
The ruckus in the breakfast hall began to die down; Lance cried, “ Let’s get on with it!” There was a scraping of chairs on the floor, an unbolting of the main door, and the members of the Guard spilled out of the hall to face the world, to face the worst that the Union could throw at them.
The war had begun.
Originally Posted by mr_pikachu
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