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

[Gavin Luper]

Brit Chris: Hell yeah, Gavin hasn't just been mourning and moping, oh no. Lol ... as for Westwood's fate, we'll see ... maybe he'll just die of old age?

Zeldafan: Yep, that's what he's been through. Unexpected? Ah well. Yeah, the Rockets are mean, but you ain't seen nothin' yet!

Chapter 45 is on the way!

Mr Pikachu: I wouldn't really call it hell, I mean it wouldn't have been easy, but at least he wasn't constantly bashed like Westwood. Still, he's safe now, isn't he?

I know, it seems like such a long time since we've seen Gavin - it's about 5 chapters since he ran away. But it's been like 6 months since I posted that chapter, so ... yeah.

Cheers guys!

[mistysakura]

Yay! chapter! I think that Gavin's story was done well, because although it was all Gavin talking, we didn't get bored or anything. (Not like we could have... pretty surprising stuff.)
I'm thinking the same as Oz about Gavin's fading powers...

[Gavin Luper]

mistysakura: Thanks! Your reply is actually a relief - I wondered if people might have got bored with that chapter as it was a lot of talking and not much else, but there you go. Thanks for that.

Interesting theory about Gavin, but I'm still not letting on.

Cheers!

[Mew Trainer Rose]

O_O poor Gavin! I hope the Rockets are broken up and have to go farther underground literally and figuratively) for a while. and that Westwood is saved. But mostly that Gavin gets better soon!

[Gavin Luper]

Mew Trainer Rose: gday! Thanks for reading and replying and all that. Lol, I'm not saying anything about the rockets or what they've had to do, or about Westwood, or Gavin. Yeah. So I guess that means you'll have to read on, right? Mwahaha ... suspense = good.

Cheers!

[GeneChildMewtwo]

So that's what happened. Gavin did go through quite a lot... But he did make it back in time to meet up with his friends from the "OzAndrew" zone. ^_^

But seriously, that must have been quite difficult. I was surprised that Gavin just killed that guy... Although after what he had been through, it was either that, or stay there and most likely die in the end. So it made sense, I just didn't expect it. And, even though the chapter was just Gavin talking, he managed to describe it in a way that we as readers could see it. I saw it in my mind as more of a flashback than just Gavin exlpaining it. So, it was very interesting even if it was just Gavin talking.

I'm wondering about the Rockets (and other stuff) as well, so it seems I'll have to get in line for the next chapter and wait to find out.

Keep it up!

[Gavin Luper]

GCM: Hey! Thanks for reading and stuff.

About the whole Gavin thing ... I hoped everyone would kind of understand that and everything. I thought after I wrote it that people might read it as he just shot the guy at random, but if you think about it (like you did obviously) there wasn't much choice in Gavin's mind. I mean, if you were held captive by a sinister organisation, who had beaten up one of your 'friends', and you were being questioned by their boss and there was a gun lying on the table, and the alternative was being beaten yourself or thrown back in a cell ... I mean ... wouldn't you? I would anyway.

Thanks for the reply anyway, it answered some of my questions.

Cheers! Chapter 45 in the works! Still ...

[Karania]

good chapter, continue. Sounds like Gavin and Lisa were being spied on........ I hope they'll be okay.......

[Gavin Luper]

Karania: Thanks for the reply! The next chapter is, as usual, on it's way. The spying idea is roughly in the right direction, but not what I think you have in mind.

Cheers!

[Karania]

at least I wasn't too far off.......

[SuperSonicMewtwo]

*shadowey figures drag SSM into an empty room*
*spotlight shines on him*
Argh.. the light.. Must.. destroy.. light..
*notices fanfic*
Hey I remember this!
*skims page one*
Oy.. How many chapters?!
44?! probably more by now.. I think I can remember up to chapter 18 but I also have little faded memories of all sorts of lil things.. I must restart my reading!

I dunno if u remember me GL, i used to be one of those to race to post first after each chapter u put up..
Well, I'm back (oh no duh) since my friends dragged me back in.. And I'll stick around for a while.
Which means, I have to reread all my old favorite fics.
I'll be starting to reread what I don't remember right about now... Knowing u GL this fic will probably rock more than it did the last time I was reading it. LtL, such a long story, Lisa's Legend must spread far and wide.

*wave* I hope you don't write TOO fast, it'll take me some time to catch up *begins reading*.
*spotlight dims*

[Gavin Luper]

SSM: Yeah, of course I remember, you used to reply all the time about a year back, but then you sort of evaporated. It's great to have you back here!

Take your time catching up ... I'm not going too fast at the moment. In fact, I only did something like 10 chapters for the entirety of 2003. There's about 13 chapters until the story of LTL ends for good, and I hope to finish it all off by June.

Cheers!

[Powarun]

Whoa, Gavin was captured, I was surprised, I thought he was just on the run for a while. And that sort of sucks for him that his psychic powers are very feeble and he may just lose them. Thank you for clearing up why Team Rocket went to Lisa's house since I thought they just went there to capture Gavin there. BUt I don't have much to say, keep up the good work,

[X-Wing]

Originally posted by Gavin Luper
SSM: Yeah, of course I remember, you used to reply all the time about a year back, but then you sort of evaporated. It's great to have you back here!

Take your time catching up ... I'm not going too fast at the moment. In fact, I only did something like 10 chapters for the entirety of 2003. There's about 13 chapters until the story of LTL ends for good, and I hope to finish it all off by June.

Cheers!

*looks around the corner*

Hi Gavin!!!!

I'll take this opportunity to say that I am back online too, I'm sorry I couldn't be here more often as I'm teaching full time now, but hey, I was missing that community here so there I am. I am aware that this thread is not necessarily the best place to announce my come back and I am not going to do it again...

I'll start catching up ASAP and it's nice to see your still there writing us such a nice fic.

*goes back in his grotto to start catching up...*

[Gavin Luper]

Powarun: Hey! I thought that Gavin's capture might surprise a few people, although I get the feeling some of you guys might have been expecting something like this to happen. Keep reading!

X-Wing: I can't believe it, everyone is just suddenly returning, it's great. Especially since LTL is slowly nearing its end, it's good to have most of the old readers returning.

I've been progressing so slowly lately, mainly because I'm apprehensive about ending the story. It sounds sappy, but I've grown close to my characters and I don't know how I can just let them evaporate after the final chapter ... anyway, that's my excuse for taking so long.

I'm still writing the second half of the second crossover with EBTV, but once that's over I hope to speed up production a bit. Yeah right ...

Oh, X-Wing, don't worry about announcing your return in this thread. It's good!

Cheers and keep reading!

[Charles Legend]

Hi GL nice fic, I read it when you first posted it but did not replytell now but yeah your fic is cool but at the moment it's a little confusing becuse I have only read a few chapters of it so far... ;o

~Ryu

[Gavin Luper]

Ryu Slayer X 2.0: Hey, thanks a lot for reading! It will be a bit confusing at the moment but once you read more it will start to make sense. Although a few readers are probably confused at the moment anyway ...

Cheers!

[Andrew]

Huzzah! I have finished this goliath chapter full of fun, mystery, action and humor. So I'll get online when Gavin is and send this 21 page baby to him Its a good read, let me tell you. Expect it soon!

It'll get us to the success moon!

[Gavin Luper]

G'day everyone!

I don't have much to say except, me and OzAndrew have finally finished the final part of the Lisa the Legend - Electric Buggy to Victory Crossover. It's an absolutely massive chapter - my biggest ever - so sit back and enjoy the chapter, broken up into three parts because of its sheer size!

EBTV counterpart link: HERE!

Cheers!

-------------------------------------

Chapter 45 – The Court Case.


Lisa stirred in her hotel bed, feeling grumpy. She hadn’t had a good sleep; dreams of Gavin running around fiery streets, shooting down every passing person like Rambo, had filled most of her night. Although she trusted him very much, she wondered, as she awoke, if he still had the gun he had stolen or not – was he changed, because he killed a man, or was he still just Gavin?

She heard the door open and raised her head to see Gavin striding through the door, walking towards the kitchenette. Apparently he had been out already this morning, even though – judging by the sun’s position outside the window – it was still very early. Gavin began making a coffee for himself, humming something quietly. Lisa watched him through her messy strands of black hair that had spread across her face during her slumber. He didn’t look too different, despite the long scar that spread across the side of his face. He had showered and shaved, and it looked like he’d even tried to make his dark hair presentable – it looked as though it had some gel in it, or maybe it was just wet. He had also changed his clothes, though they were very casual – today he wore boardies and a black tank top. As he didn’t have a backpack with him anymore, Lisa had a feeling the clothes might have been another favour from Glenys and Ripper.

Just then, Gavin turned around and saw Lisa staring at him. She hastily put her hands to her eyes, as if she had just woken up.

“ Morning,” said Gavin.

Lisa just grunted. She felt grumpy; she would rather curl up in a ball and sleep than have to help convict a crazy professor of a crime.

“ What’s the time?” she asked, flopping back into bed, then throwing her sheets off; it was quite warm and humid.

“ Twenty-seven minutes and thirteen seconds past eight o’clock,” said Gavin, smirking.

“ Why do you always have to be such a perfectionist?” Lisa snapped, rolling over face-down on her mattress. She felt annoyed at Gavin, though she didn’t know why. She punched her pillow and slowly began to get up; the trial was at eleven, and she would be late if she didn’t start getting ready now.

Gavin chuckled at her snappiness. Angrily, Lisa tried to wriggle back down to sleep, but her head felt heavy and it was becoming quite hot now. Almost angrily, she got up and threw the curtains open. Through the clear glass (the screen was still on the grass outside) she could see the gardens, and the footpath on the side of the road. The sky outside was grey and swirling with clouds, despite the humidity and heat of the day. Without a word to Gavin, Lisa began to make the bed, aware that her hair was sticking out everywhere and her eyes were sleepy. She had just fixed a very stubborn sheet on the bed when Gavin said, “ Hey, Lisa, look here!” She looked up at him and was greeted with a bright flash – he had taken a photograph of her standing there in her boxer shorts, looking half-dead.

“ You’re so immature, Gavin, you little turd! Grow up!” yelled Lisa, ignoring the fact that Gavin was older than she was. She picked up her buzzball, which sat on the bedside table, and ditched it hard at Gavin without looking, before trudging off to the shower. Judging from Gavin’s yell as Lisa closed the bathroom door, she had hit him.

Lisa gave a small, savage grin as she went to get ready for the eventful day ahead.

*

Lisa left the apartment a half-hour later, dressed in jeans and a top, which she considered much more respectable than Gavin’s clothes, which still consisted of a black tank top and boardies. She suspected he was looking forward to a swim, but if she had it her way, they wouldn’t be swimming for awhile.

They were nearly ready to leave the apartment when Gavin, who was placing a pair of binoculars on the nightstand, looked out the window and called out to Lisa.

“ What is it?” she asked, rushing to the window at once.

“ Look!” said Gavin, and she did; outside, past the tree that Lisa had seen Gavin by last night, there was a police car parked. An officer was stepping out of the car and, as they watched, walked across the vast green lawns of the resort, heading for the entrance.

“ Can you think of any other reason the police would be here than to see us?” said Gavin, and Lisa understood. The officer must have been there to tell them about the trial. “ We should probably go, then,” she suggested, and Gavin nodded. Lisa threw her pokegear around her neck, placed Aipom on her shoulder (he immediately attacked her hair) and left the apartment for the hallway.

She reached Jessica’s doorway when somebody coming the other way literally bumped into her, splashing her with salty water; Jessica, who had apparently gone for an early morning swim. Her arms and body were covered in odd blotches.

“ Oh, Jessica!” Lisa said, trying not to look at the blotches, and nervously fiddling with her pokegear instead.

“ What?” said Jessica, wringing out her smooth blonde hair.

Lisa grinned excitedly. “ Gavin’s here, and so is a police officer,” she told Jessica, who gave a nervous smile. At that moment, Gavin rounded the corner behind her, grinning at Jessica. The blonde-haired girl stopped in her tracks; she was staring at the scar on Gavin’s left cheek, apparently stunned. There was a brief silence, in which Gavin looked at Jess and snorted.

“ Hey Jess. Er – you look … blotchy …” he said, and Lisa rolled her eyes at his tact.

It was then that Jessica seemed to notice that she had a blotchy rash covering her entire body from her legs and feet right up to her arms. At Gavin’s words she began frantically checking her body over, and when she finally looked back at Lisa and Gavin her face was scarlet with embarrassment.

“ Uh, you’ll have to excuse me for a little while!” she said hastily, disappearing into her apartment and slamming the door.

Gavin began laughing loudly, but Lisa slapped his arm and told him to shut up. After all, it wasn’t Jessica’s fault that she had become blotchy, presumably from her early swim at the beach.

“ Besides, you have a huge scar on your face, everyone notices that,” Lisa told him, but he shrugged.

“ At least the scar’s only in one place.”

Lisa ignored him. They stood outside Jessica’s door for ten minutes, waiting for her so they could see the police officer, but she didn’t seem in any hurry to appear. Gavin developed an annoying habit of tapping his foot on the ground to the tune of ‘Fourth Time lucky’, which annoyed Lisa so much (it was the song she hated more than any other) that she was forced to slap him again. He didn’t looked abashed at all, just moved a few metres away where he could hum and tap his foot in comfort.

“ Jessica, do you need some help?” Lisa said at last, knocking at the mahogany door with impatience. “ It’s just that we … uh … have to see the police officer now.”

Gavin chuckled loudly, probably because his foot tapping had reached peak volume now, or because Jess was so embarrassed; either way, Lisa punched him as hard as she could on the arm, and this time she seemed to actually make some sort of headway, because he grunted with pain and stopped tapping his foot.

“ No, no I’m fine, really, I’ll be ready in a little while. You go ahead, I’ll see you in your apartment,” came Jessica’s voice, muffled through the door.

“ She said to go to our apartment and meet her there,” Lisa told Gavin, leading the way down the hallway, and prying Aipom off an expensive-looking vase that he had found. She had taken a few steps only when she saw a tall policeman striding down the hall from the other direction; he walked straight up to her and Gavin.

“ Lisa and Gavin, am I right?” he said at once in a deep voice.

“ Yes, that’s us.”

“ Ah, good. Um, could you just go in this apartment here –” he indicated Andrew’s apartment – “ I just need to check something in the lobby …”

“ Alright,” Lisa said.

She and Gavin breezed into Andrew’s apartment, and Jessica walked in straight after them. The room was clean and brightly lit, and Andrew and Olivia were already waiting – Andrew was sitting on the bench, and Olivia was on the couch, grooming a strange creature Lisa recognised as a Spoink. It was an odd, dark-grey, pig-like pokemon, with a coral-coloured orb sitting atop its head.

“ I didn’t know you had a Spoink Olivia,” said Lisa, trying to make conversation before Olivia did. She patted the Spoink gingerly; it made a funny crooning noise. Lisa sat down on the couch, along with Jessica, while Gavin found a place on a bench stool.

Andrew looked from Olivia to Gavin. “ Oh Gavin, this is our cousin, Olivia,” he said, introducing them. Lisa thought It was quite comical to watch: Gavin jerked his head in greeting and smiled, but the result was to make his scar more protuberant – meanwhile, Olivia was staring, as though in a trance, at Gavin’s disfigurement.

Finally she said, very bluntly, “ Um, did you know you have a HUGE scar on your face?”

Gavin was very straight-faced. “ Well no, I didn’t know. Thanks for telling me,” he replied sardonically; Lisa fought to keep from laughing.

There was a very stand-offish air between Gavin and Olivia right from the beginning. There was a short silence, and then Olivia tried to bring the conversation to a plane she could understand.

“ Do you like clothes?” she asked Gavin earnestly.

He rolled his eyes in her plain view. “ Not really.”

“ Oh … do you like hair?”

Andrew, Jessica and Lisa were acting like spectators in a tennis match, looking back and forth from Olivia to Gavin and back again.

Gavin snorted loudly. “ Uh, no, why should I?”

At last Andrew broke into the tense conversation. “ Olivia … guys don’t talk about clothes and hair, ok?” He looked irritated.

Lisa covered her mouth so Olivia would see her giggling, but apparently she had had enough.

“ Oh, you guys are no fun!” she stormed, standing up so quickly that her little Spoink plummeted to the carpet, the pink pearl atop its head rolling away. Olivia ignored this; she strode icily out of the room, leaving her pig pokemon to its own devices; it picked up the pearl and ran outside after Olivia just as she slammed the door.

“ You could have been nice to her, Gavin,” said Lisa, wrenching Aipom off her shoulder and sitting him on the couch where Olivia had been. He chittered loudly, but for once sat still as the door swung open, and the tall police officer walked into the room without knocking, which Lisa thought was a bit rude. Still, she didn’t have much time to think about things like that; the tension in the room was as thick as mud. Everyone waited for the man to say something. Aipom coughed and sneezed at the same time suddenly, breaking the silence, and then the policeman spoke.

“ Well kids, I have good news and bad news,” he said simply.

“ Bad news first, that way we’ve got the good to make it bittersweet,” Jessica said instantly, and Lisa nodded in agreeance.

The policeman nodded. “ Well, the bad news is that Lenina may be making another attempt to take you out of the picture,” he said, all in a rush. “ See, you’re the main witnesses to the case and without you, all we have is burnt out science equipment, a carcass or two and no hard evidence. So there’s a high chance your lives will be on the line.” He paused dramatically. “ However, if you want to –” his tone of voice made it clear that he did not want them to – “ you could always wish to withdraw – and have Lenina walk free.”

Everybody sat in silence: Andrew was staring into space, Gavin had his eyes closed and was rubbing his forehead, Jessica was looking pensive, and Lisa felt that there was no choice about it. Let Lenina walk free? After she had tried to kill them all – and Phil? No, there was only one way to go about the Court Case.”

Lisa opened her mouth to voice her opinion, but surprisingly Gavin got in first.

“ I’m not letting some reject retiree get the best of me … I’m not going to let this ***** ruin my life,” he said coldly, and Lisa saw a deadness in his eyes that she had briefly seen the previous night.

“ You’re right,” said Andrew at once. “ We can’t let her get away with what she did to us … and whoever else she came across.”

Jessica nodded and Lisa, feeling very lame, said, “ Yeah.”

The police officer nodded contently. “ Good. Also, we found out she was in contact with an unknown person, who we believe might orchestrate your downfall.”

His words threw a dark hush over the room again. But, before anyone could voice their feelings on this new spin on the case, he said cheerily, “ On the upside, you have an extra day before the trial; it’s been postponed because we believed Lenina was trying to escape custody. So … we’ll see you at the courthouse tomorrow at noon, then.”

And with that, he strolled out of the room, leaving Andrew, Gavin, Jessica and Lisa to their very confused feelings.

*

Lisa returned to her apartment to have a second shower – she felt she needed it to relax after being told that there might be someone trying to kill them all. Also, she was angry that she hadn’t thought to report the invasion of her home to the policeman – she had simply let him walk out.

When Lisa walked into the Resort’s restaurant half an hour later, it was to find Jessica, Olivia, Glenys and Ripper all seated around a table that overlooked the beach not too far away. Andrew was nowhere to be seen and Gavin sat at a small, separate table with a dusty-haired boy Lisa didn’t know. As Lisa approached the big table, everyone gave her a cheerful “ Good morning,” or something similar, except Jessica, who was on her mobile phone, and Ripper, who was immersed in a newspaper called the Coastal Courier. Now that the trial had been put off for a day, everybody seemed far more relaxed.

Gavin raised his eyebrows at Lisa as she walked past his table. “ Hey Leese, this is my mate Brent, we played soccer together when I lived in Ecruteak.”

“ Nice to meet you,” Lisa shook Brent’s hand.

“ Same to you, Lisa,” said Brent benevolently, and then, without another word, they both turned back to their own whispered conversation and ignored her. Lisa shrugged, at the same time thinking how rude they were, and she had barely taken a few steps towards the big table when Glenys stood up and came to meet her half-way between Gavin’s table and her’s.

“ What would you like for breakfast, Lisa?” asked Glenys happily. She was a kind elderly lady, though not soft by any means, and winning the lottery had not changed the amount of work she did.

“ We’ve all had ours,” chimed in Jessica, who sat beside Gavin.

“ Nothing thanks,” said Lisa, though she didn’t know why – she was hungrier than she could ever remember being.

“ Pancakes and coffee it is then,” said Glenys firmly, completely ignoring Lisa, and she bustled away to the kitchens to make them. As business had dropped off after ten, the owners were sitting around enjoying themselves.

Lisa had the misjudgement to sit beside Olivia, who at once began talking to her about the Beauty Berries she had bought the day before, and how effective they were.

“ I tasted a couple this morning and I think I look even nicer than usual,” she said, sipping at what was left of a bright pink milkshake. Lisa had a hunch that the remainder of the Beauty Berries might be blended into the milkshake, and she turned away quickly to the table where Gavin and his friend were.

They were talking about soccer, which Lisa found exceedingly dull.

“ The Blundell Bears are sure to win, hands down,” said Brent excitedly, throwing a sidelong glance at Lisa that she apparently wasn’t meant to see.

“ You’re joking!” cried Gavin vehemently. “ The Bears can’t win a game without Williamson, and he’s got a knee injury. Mark my words, it’ll be the Ducks.”

Brent snorted loudly. “ The Dervine Ducks? Yeah right …”

And so went the conversation. Jessica was still on her mobile, and Olivia was still talking rapidly to Lisa, except now it was about City Beach. Lisa muttered “ Cool” and “ Oh really?” every twenty seconds, but her gaze was now fixed on Ripper, who was reading the paper with a bemused expression. When he finished what he was reading, he put the paper down on the table and muttered to himself, “ Publicity …”

“ What’s that you’re reading?” Lisa said abruptly, interrupting Olivia in mid-sentence.

Ripper looked up and ran a hand over his grey hair. “ You see for yourself … ridiculous …” He handed the paper to Lisa, pointed to a long article and went to finish his tea. Beside the article were two photographs: one of a young woman showing an empty house, and the other of none other than Professor Oak. Lisa read the article with growing concern:

RESEARCHER’S REPEAT DISAPPEARANCE CONFOUNDS POLICE

- Olivine City.

Olivine police this morning revealed that the renowned Pokemon Researcher Professor Samuel Oak has vanished once again while on holiday with his colleague Rachel Hudson. The disappearance has police and detectives confounded, not only because of the complexity of the case, but also because this is the second time Oak has disappeared.

Miss Hudson raised the alarm early yesterday morning, claiming that Professor Oak had gone to the coastal community of Dervine the day before, but had failed to return. “ He hasn’t left a number or message, and his holiday home in Dervine is completely deserted,” said Miss Hudson yesterday. “ I’m really worried that he could have been abducted.”

There is an unfortunate lack of leads in the case, but police are baffled by the incident.

“ This is the second time he [Oak] has disappeared without notice, so we’re not overly excited,” said Sergeant Gray of Olivine City yesterday. “ In December a similar event took place, but Oak was found alive – dehydrated but alive – a week later. We will of course maintain a search for him, but it is likely that he became too involved in his research once again. The waterways will be searched, as the Professor was investigating Mudkip evolution at the time of his disappearance.”

New evidence has also come to light that Professor Oak may not in fact be truly abducted or lost. According to the Pokemon Researchers Symposium, based on Cinnabar Island, Oak’s last research papers have been of poorer standard, and almost detached in their style. “ It might be the onset of senility,” said a symposium spokesperson last week, after Oak’s Paper on Slowkings was rejected. “ For all we know, he might just be trying to draw attention to himself, getting a bit of publicity for his Research Laboratory.”

However, this statement led to outrage from Oak’s acquaintance in Olivine. “ Professor Oak is not senile, he is as sane as you or I,” an angry Miss Hudson told reporters yesterday. “ He isn’t lost, I tell you, he’s either injured or abducted, that’s why a search is so important.”

This disappearance also sheds light upon the vanishment of another prominent symposium figurehead, Professor Geoffrey Westwood. Prof. Westwood has not been seen in public since late November, and police have almost given up hope of finding any leads on his whereabouts.

People with any information on the disappearance of Professors Oak or Westwood are asked to call the police hotline on (03) 9287 2310 as soon as possible.

Lisa was stunned. The last time Professor Oak had disappeared had been when Entei, Suicune and Raikou had fought each other. And now it had happened again. Could Oak be inadvertently involved in the mystery of the legendaries, or was he senile, or even looking for publicity, as the article suggested?

“ Stupid man, eh?” said Ripper, leaning over to take the paper. Lisa nodded vacantly, and tried to catch Gavin’s eye, but he was talking boisterously to Jessica (flirting, Lisa thought; she also noticed that Brent had disappeared completely while she had been reading) and just at that moment Glenys arrived with Lisa’s pancakes and a coffee.

“ There you go Lisa,” she said cheerily. Lisa muttered her thanks and began to eat, her mind filled with possibilities about Professor Oak.

*

The man in question was a long distance away, struggling across the landscape between north of Olivine, as he had desperately done once before. This time, however, he was far more urgent, and luckily in far better condition.

The weary man stumbled through the thick forest, the tall green trees surrounding him looking like dark enemies closing in upon him. He took one step at a time, completely worn out, but forcing himself to go on. A narrow creek ran beside him, its fresh water gurgling temptingly. But he pushed on along his non-existent path, trying to hold off the moment when he would collapse at the river bank and quench his dangerously strong thirst. He began thinking to himself to force him to keep going … Got to keep going … have to get there before them … must escape … must tell someone – anyone – the truth … about the plans of the organization, about the legendaries … it was so important … especially for that girl, Lisa …

He struggled onwards, hoping against hope that he would not be seen by anyone.

*

A couple of hours later, Lisa found herself on the beautiful Valeo Beach, walking along in the cool midday breeze with Andrew, Jessica, Gavin and Olivia. The almost white sand was interspersed with huge clumps of odd-looking seaweed, which Jessica seemed eager to avoid. Lisa and Jessica were at the back of the group, talking about music, while Olivia was in the middle of the pack, no longer angry but very sulky and especially annoyed at the boys – she spent her time talking to her Spoink and Aipom, who had strangely taken a liking to her Spoink. Andrew and Gavin were up the front of the group, and suddenly Lisa noticed they were talking excitedly.

“ What’re you two doing?” Lisa called to them.

“ We’re going to have a battle!” Gavin called back. He and Andrew ran further down the beach and onto a floating pontoon in the shallower water.

“ Luck, Gavin!” Lisa yelled to him. “ And you too, Andrew.”

Gavin glared at her, only half-jokingly. Lisa, Jessica and Olivia settled down on the warm beach sand to watch the battle between Andrew and Gavin.

*

Gavin walked right to one end of the blue pontoon, while Andrew settled down at the other end. It was to be a one-on-one battle, and the pontoon/water battlefield would mean the fight would need some real skill.

“ Go Sableye!” cried Andrew, beginning the round by throwing out a pokeball. It bounced on the rubbery pontoon before exploding in a flash of light. Gavin recoiled. A pokemon he had only seen in books and on TV before was standing in front of him; a dark, ghost pokemon, that looked in some ways like a Haunter, except it had legs, and eyes that looked like massive diamonds. As the Sableye appeared, it suddenly pointed at Gavin and licked its lips.

“ What the hell?” Gavin said under his breath, completely unnerved by the weird pokemon, but nevertheless he pulled Natu’s Moon Ball from his pocket, enlarged it with a small beeping sound, and yelled, “ Go!”

His tiny green Natu fluttered out of the Moon Ball, twittering casually until it saw the Sableye it was facing.

“ Tu!!” It squawked in panic, flying up higher so that Sableye couldn’t grab it and eat it, which was exactly what it was trying to do; Gavin could see Sableye trying to get a hold of his bird.

“ Sableye, CALM DOWN!” yelled Andrew, whipping out his pokedex. Gavin looked curiously at it; he had never had a pokedex, and Andrew was one of the only people he knew who had one. After consulting his pokedex, Andrew cried out, “ Sableye, Calm Mind!”, which seemed to work to some extent, because the ghostlike pokemon sat down and its eyes glowed white.

Gavin grinned; as long as he battled well, he would be able to win. Although Psychic pokemon like Natu did have a disadvantage against ghosts, he had spent a long time teaching Natu techniques that could swing battles like this, and it looked like his training would finally pay off.

“ Featherdance!” he ordered, going back in to battle mode after a long spell from pokemon fighting.

Natu tweeted and fluttered over to Sableye, flying in circles above it and shedding its viridian feathers upon it; the feathers that connected with Sableye glowed and disappeared. Andrew was hurriedly checking his pokedex to investigate Featherdance, but Gavin grinned – Featherdance was similar to Cotton Spore; it lowered the opponent’s speed sharply.

“ Sableye, Toxic on Natu!” Andrew said loudly.

“ Safeguard!” commanded Gavin, confident that he would get in first.

Sure enough, Natu was quicker of the two, because of the lingering effects of Featherdance. Sableye began to stand up, but it was moving incredibly slowly. It began to open its mouth at the same time as Natu squawked and glowed a greenish-gold colour, safeguarding it from poison or any other status-affecting moves. Gavin smirked; Sableye shot a thick stream of toxic-looking violet globs, which headed straight for Natu but, because of the Safeguard, the toxic gush streamed uselessly off Natu’s feathery body and into the previously clean ocean.

Gavin quickly reacted. “ Quick, Natu – teleport and use quick attack!”

Natu’s eyes glowed with a fierce lilac energy that engulfed its entire feathery body before making it vanish completely. It was then that Gavin realised how stupid his last command had been; Sableye was a ghost-type pokemon, so any physical attacks like quick attack wouldn’t harm it in the least. Gavin looked up to change his orders, but Natu was too far gone; he had just appeared in a puff of light behind Sableye, and flew straight at the ghost. As Gavin had expected, the green bird passed straight through Sableye and came out the other side, looking utterly disoriented.

“ Damn, I forgot about that,” Gavin muttered meekly, feeling like an idiot in front of Andrew, who had twice as many pokemon as he did and six badges.

Andrew was grinning smugly. “ Don’t you love ghosts,” he jeered.

Gavin wasn’t listening; his mind had just closed in on another possibility; he had taught the technique to Natu a very long time ago, but never used it yet. Surely it was worth a try?

“ Well, let’s see what happens now,” he said confidently. “ Natu, Skill Swap!”

He snorted with laughter as he heard the robotic voice of Andrew’s pokedex say, “ Skill Swap – Switches the skills between pokemon.” Andrew began cursing at his pokedex as Natu swooped in at Sableye for the Skill Swap. Natu glowed with a golden light, which engulfed him like the light from the Teleport had, but this time, the golden light spread to cover Sableye also. It was a fairly anticlimactic moment when the light faded away quickly and nothing else happened, but Gavin knew the results would soon be shown.

My turn to scoff, Gavin thought. “ Hey, guess what Andrew, Natu now has the ghostly properties of Sableye,” he explained.

Andrew’s face twitched involuntarily.

“ Uh, Sableye, use um … uh … Night Shade?”

Gavin chucked again; it sounded as though Andrew didn’t even know what moves his Sableye could actually perform. He quickly commanded Natu. “ Quick, Natu, Steel Wing and finish off Sableye,” he called, and, with a smirk, noticed that featherdance had once again come in handy: Sableye hadn’t even begun to use Night Shade by the time Natu swooped in, it’s small wing shining, and delivered a deft swipe to Sableye’s head. Black goo spurted out from Sableye’s head all over the pontoon; the ghostly creature itself collapsed like a felled tree.

“ I won!” Gavin said, but as quietly as he could, so that it wouldn’t seem like bragging. Natu flew over to him happily and poised to sit on his head; unexpectedly, he slipped straight through Gavin like he didn’t exist; the Skill Swap was still in effect. “ Good job, Natu. Really good,” Gavin told it, then pulled out the Moon Ball and recalled Natu at the same time as Andrew returned Sableye. Andrew shrugged disappointedly, but shook Gavin’s hand as a sign of gracious defeat.

[Gavin Luper]

*

Jessica was anything but gracious about her brother losing to somebody that she thought was a pushover trainer; she was storming over to the pontoon, waving a huge hat in the air and yelling. “ Andrew, how could you lose? Here you are pretending you’re a great trainer and you lose to Gavin, who’s not even got a gym badge!”

Lisa watched from her spot on the beach sand a few metres away as Andrew tried to defend himself. She had been surprised how good Gavin had battled; she had always thought of him as being a rather weak trainer, despite the fact that the only time they had met on a battlefield – at the Whirlpool Cup – she had lost to him.

“ I bet if I battled Gavin I could totally kick his ***, and show you who’s the better trainer!” said Jess angrily, standing on the pontoon beside Andrew, facing Gavin as though she was about to fight him.

“ Um, all I have with me are Natu and Girafury, and this really isn’t a great place for him to battle, it’s too small, Jessica,” Gavin said, backing away off the pontoon and back onto the wet sand. “Perhaps another time, eh Jess?”

“ That’s not fair! I wanted to show Andrew up!” stormed Jessica.

A wild idea rose into Lisa’s head … maybe she could battle Jessica. After all, last time they had tried to battle, the match had been interrupted, and they had never continued. This would be the perfect opportunity to see who would have won.

Trusting that Olivia wouldn’t miss her (the girl was digging a massive hole, for what reason only she knew; Aipom and Spoink were ‘helping’) Lisa stood up, brushed the sand off her shorts and jogged over to the pontoon where the others were.

“ Tell you what Jessica, I’ll battle you,” she said quickly.

Jessica simply nodded, and walked to Andrew’s end of the pontoon while he went back to the beach with Gavin. The two boys sat down hear Olivia, Spoink and Aipom, all of whom were still digging a hole, or teetering on the edge of it. Lisa stepped onto the pontoon, wobbling slightly, and took her battle position where Gavin had been standing earlier.

“ This time we’ll see who wins, hey Lisa?” said Jessica.

Lisa just nodded, but she found herself surprisingly eager to win.

“ Go Murkrow!” cried Jessica, throwing out her pokeball to begin the fight. It burst open in midair and for a moment Lisa was taken aback by the bright white bird that appeared from the ball; she had forgotten that Jessica’s Murkrow was albino, rather that pitch black like most of them.

“ Go on Lisa, choose someone,” said Jess impatiently.

Lisa was trying to do just that. She was narrowing her pokemon down by elimination: Fiskmire wouldn’t be a wise choice, as he was likely to sink the pontoon; Electabuzz wasn’t a good mix with watery surrounds, especially since he seemed to completely detest Lisa; Dratini might work, but he wouldn’t be able to move anywhere when he was on the pontoon, and that would be a huge disadvantage against a flying pokemon. Aipom would have been the ideal choice, but he was halfway down a hole with Olivia.

That left Lisa with one choice. She threw out the pokeball and yelled, “ Go Vulpix!”

Vulpix appeared in a glittering explosion of light. Jessica looked a bit confused at Lisa’s choice – a fire type on a pontoon with ocean all around – but she didn’t hesitate more than a moment. Andrew yelled something out from the shore; Jessica pulled the finger at him, then looked at Lisa fiercely and yelled, “ Icy Wind, Murkrow!”

Vulpix wasn’t too happy with the vast stretch of water around him – he looked at Lisa for comfort. She grinned at him. “ It’s all right, just don’t fall in,” she said. He looked sceptical, but turned to the battle anyhow.

The albino Murkrow was wheeling around in the sky, then, without warning, it’s eyes glowed icily and it flapped its wings once – a moment later, a heavy barrage of Icy Wind berated Vulpix, and – inadvertently – Lisa was caught in the blast as well. Luckily for her, Vulpix stood strong; he had a type advantage, after all.

“ Stay agile, Vulpix, and use Firebomb,” commanded Lisa.

Vulpix responded swiftly. His eyes glowed with a kind of power before he opened his jaws, which had vermilion flames collecting within it, trying to escape. With a loud BANG, the ball of fire was expelled from Vulpix’s mouth and barrelled in the direction of Murkrow, who was hovering above him. It gave a loud squawk and dived out of the way, so that the fireball missed completely. However, just as Murkrow and Jessica were both looking triumphant, the ball of fire exploded with the force of a small bomb, sending out a massive wave of heat, while showering Murkrow with fiery sparks and flames. Only the blast of heat actually connected with the white Murkrow, though; it swooped away and managed to dodge every single flame.

Lisa screwed up her face in frustration. She had thought that move was more or less foolproof. She heard Gavin half-supporting her, half-mocking her with a cry of, “ You can do it!”

Something clicked in Lisa’s head. The reason she was losing so far was because Murkrow was too fast. To win, she needed to slow it down, and to slow it down, she had to –

“ Vulpix! Hypnotise Murkrow!” she ordered.

Her hopes were dashed almost instantaneously.

“ Uh, Murkrow … uh … Mirror Move!” cried Jessica, tripping over her tongue in her haste to get the words out.

Lisa was watching Jessica make the command more than she was watching Murkrow carry it out. By the time she looked back at the middle of the pontoon, she saw Vulpix’s eyes spinning as it looked into a mirror that Murkrow had produced out of thin air. A moment later, he collapsed, sound asleep on the pontoon.

“ No, wake up Vulpix!” Lisa cried uselessly.

“ Good work, Birdy,” Jess congratulated her Murkrow. “ Now use Pallid Beam!”

Lisa knew the battle was won, and not by her. She cringed as Murkrow fired off a massive beam of white light at Vulpix. The light was astonishingly bright – Lisa had to shield her eyes with her hands – and when she finally got the nerve to look back at the battle, it was to see Vulpix, eyes closed and fur ruffled, spread-eagled on the pontoon, and Murkrow soaring in a victory circle.

She sighed and returned Vulpix to his pokeball wordlessly.

“ This would’ve been different if I had’ve used Dratini, Jessica,” said Lisa, aware that she sounded like a sore loser, and felt like one too. It had been a while since she’d lost a pokemon battle, and all the wild pokemon she had beaten a couple of days ago at Ecru Lake had made her feel invincible. And now here she was, being beaten by Jessica, of all people. She tried to smile happily but her heart was definitely not in it.

Andrew and Gavin were walking over, looking impassive.

“ Congrats Jess,” Andrew said blandly, not smiling. Lisa had a feeling he hadn’t wanted her to win at all.

Jessica grinned, clearly ecstatic at her victory over Lisa. “ Thanks, I told you I was a better trainer than you, Andrew.”

“ Wow Jess, you pulled that battle off pretty well,” said Gavin, coming up to congratulate Jessica also. “ Hey Lisa, how long has it been since you actually lost a battle?”

Lisa shot him a look of pure venom as they returned to the hotel for the night.

*

The Port Valeo Courthouse was more impressive than Lisa could have imagined. It was almost ten-thirty the next morning when the police escort drove up the paved drive to the courthouse, and as the police car approached, Lisa wondered how she had never seen the courthouse before – it was the biggest building in the entire town. The courthouse was a two-level structure, made of elegant terracotta-coloured stone. It had white columns all around the lower level, making it look immensely formal and serious. The entrance was up a short series of marble steps, through a set of polished oak doors. Above the doors was carved an elaborate coat of arms, divided into four sections; Lisa couldn’t see what was engraved in any of the four sections, but she did see a sleek Dragonair – the international symbol of peace - set in the centre of the crest.

Lisa saw all this from the police car, in which rode herself, Aipom (sitting still, for a change), Gavin, Andrew and Jessica, along with Officer Rule, the police officer who was in charge of the four of them. What she didn’t see at first, though, was a gaggle of people clustered on the grassed area outside the marble steps. Lisa peered more closely at the people, her face pressed against the glass as the car drove right up to the entrance; it seemed to be a crowd of news reporters and journalists – most of them had notepads, microphones and there were two or three TV cameras. Lisa turned to the others and grinned; Jessica looked unimpressed at the newspeople, but Gavin and Andrew both looked keen at being interviewed.

Officer Rule pulled the police car up to the entrance and braked with a jolt. “ Alright, go straight inside, guys,” said Officer Rule, at once both serious and casual. Lisa saw Jessica smile in his direction as she piled out of the car, but the policeman appeared not to notice.

Lisa stepped out of the car into the bright sunlight, and before her eyes had even adjusted to the light the reporters immediately descended like seagulls upon the four of them.

“ What do you think should happen to Lenina?” shouted a man in a black suit, directly in Lisa’s face. She opened her mouth to answer, but before she could reply, a woman in a dated floral dress ambushed her with a microphone: “ Lisa, could you please give our viewers a blow-by-blow account of your ordeal?” Lisa muttered a vague, “ Um, I have to go,” to the reporters and tried to escape, but she was hemmed in on all sides by reporters and cameramen, all of them firing questions at her which all seemed to be the same.

Aipom took matters into his own hands – or tail-hand, to be exact; he bounced up and down on Lisa’s shoulder as he slapped the reporters away. Lisa watched, amused, as Aipom felled three reporters. As the third one fell, a woman with beehive-shape hair, Lisa saw a gap in the throng of reporters. She lunged through the gap and found herself free of the crowd at last.

“ Thanks Aipom,” she said. The purple monkey smiled toothily.

Lisa didn’t waste time in escaping the media – she scampered up the marble stairs and breezed through the oak doors, not even bothering to look back. She strode through a second set of doors – glass ones – and in to the lobby of the courthouse and instantly felt as though she didn’t belong. The floor was marble, like the stairs outside, and there were pillars placed throughout the room. A long mahogany counter was set on the opposite side of the lobby from the door, and to the left and right hand sides of the room were corridors that presumably led to the courtrooms.

“ There she is!”

Lisa turned, expecting to face another surge of reporters, but she was faced instead with Jessica and Gavin, who came striding over from the counter, both looking very respectable in their good clothes.

“ They’re mental, aren’t they?” said Jessica.

“ Absolutely,” Lisa said breathlessly, looking around the lobby. “ Where’s Andrew, and that policeman?”

Jessica rolled her eyes and Gavin pointed behind Lisa. Lisa turned around to see Officer Rule walk through the glass doors, Andrew in tow.

“ … supposed to be early, it makes a good impression,” Officer Rule was saying reprovingly. He glanced at the rest of them. “ OK then, this way, we have to go through registration,” he said simply, and swept off across the room and down the left corridor. Lisa, Jessica, Andrew and Gavin followed him nervously; now that the time had come, butterflies were hovering in Lisa’s stomach.

Officer Rule led them down the bright corridor to another large room, which also had a long counter with a sign saying ‘Registration’ over it. Everyone handed their pokemon in to be checked out, then had them returned. It was then that Lisa realised how much security there was now – the registration for starters, the police escort – and, now, she realised that the passage Officer Rule was about to lead them down was laced with video cameras and a metal detector.

“ Just walk through here one at a time, then,” said Officer Rule to the group at large.

Feeling guilty for no reason, Lisa took the plunge first, but the machine didn’t beep at all. The others followed through with no problems until Gavin passed through and the machine beeped loudly. Before Officer Rule said anything, Gavin had taken off both his shoes and handed them to the policeman, then he walked through again, this time with no alarm.

Officer Rule looked puzzled.

“ Steel-caps,” said Gavin, and Officer Rule nodded, returning the boots.

“ Why’ve you got steel-caps?” Lisa said sternly.

Gavin shrugged as Officer Rule swept down another corridor, this one green-carpeted. The entire group was silent now, and Lisa could feel the nervousness of the others. Officer Rule led them to a door that had ‘Courtroom Six’ emblazoned across it. Lisa handed Aipom to him, and he promised to keep him under control in the lobby. Officer Rule then tugged at the handle of the wooden door, hissed, “ Good luck,” to all of them, and left the door open for them to enter the courtroom.

[Gavin Luper]

*

“ Welcome, you four teenagers,” said the Judge in her booming voice.

Lisa felt small and insignificant in the massive courtroom. She was sitting right up the front, near the lawyer’s desk, between Jessica and Gavin. The rows of seats behind her were completely full with silent onlookers. At the front half of the courtroom were the judge’s stand, witness box, the stenographer’s desk and at the side of the room sat the twelve jurors, looking very serious. The Judge cleared her throat loudly and, as if on cue, everyone in the courtroom stood up.

“ Now that the Crown has presented their four main witnesses, I’ll allow opening statements from firstly the prosecuting Crown before the defence,” she said. Everyone sat down again. Lisa’s gaze flicked from the lawyer to the Judge, who was, oddly, chewing at a Mars bar and taking surreptitious gulps from a can of diet coke.

The Stenographer looked up at the Judge, trying to get her attention. When she finally looked down, the stenographer made violent signals to her. The Judge nodded, still stuffing her face with chocolate and caramel, and said thickly, “ Bring in the Accused!”

This was it, the moment Lisa had been both dreading and looking forward to. The doors opposite the Jury swung open and in walked Lenina. She wore a navy jumpsuit and handcuffs, which came as no surprise to Lisa, but her feet were unchained. However, Lisa didn’t have much time to ponder this: she had just noticed Lenina’s head.

The left side of her face was a dangerous-looking scarlet colour – it appeared to have been permanently damaged in the fire Lenina had been caught in two months ago. There were horrible burns covering most of her left side, most prominent on her face and neck. Lenina’s hair was mangled, thin and wispy, and most of it had not grown back. What really stood out about Lenina, though, was her face; her thin smile showed that she looked relatively happy, considering she could face life imprisonment for her crimes.

Lisa felt a small nudge at her left side – Jessica. “ What’s she so happy about?” Jessica hissed, sounding unnerved.

“ She’s up to something …” said Lisa under her breath, as Lenina was placed in the Accused area by a police officer, then left there.

Lisa watched tentatively, feeling completely powerless as the prosecution lawyer – the man who was supposedly going to convict Lenina – stood up and made his opening statement. The prosecution lawyer cleared his throat loudly, got the Judge’s attention, and stood up, half-facing the Jury, half-facing Lisa, Andrew, Gavin and Jessica.

“ Your honour, the courtroom, my esteemed colleagues and members of the public,” said the lawyer; “ We are here today to convict Professor Lenina Johnson of illegal genetic testing, kidnapping, verbal abuse, assault and Pokenapping. As you can see, our four young whippersnappers here are going to tell you what happened.” He glanced at them, and Lisa felt a tiny surge of pride. The old man now looked at the jury. “ Members of the jury, do not be fooled by this woman’s appearance. This lady has committed many serious crimes. During the course of this trial, it will be uncovered that these young men and women overcame great difficulties to defeat her in the name of self defence.

He sat down and gave a grin to the four of them. Lisa smiled back – he was old and wrinkly, but he evidently knew the ropes, which she was grateful for.

“ Will the defence please give their opening statement,” said the Judge lazily, now moving on to a packet of maltesers. She seemed unaware that she was in the middle of a very serious trial.

Lisa watched the pompous defence layer stand up and sidle over to the Jury area, leaning over the barrier and winking at a blonde woman, who flinched and looked ill. The lawyer seemed unabashed and strolled back to his desk as he gave the opening statement.

“ Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, we are here today because of a total lack of respect for the elderly,” he said. Lisa tried not to be effected by this statement, but she still felt instant indignation at the smug defence lawyer.

He continued. “ Andrew and Jessica Hall, Lisa Walters –” Lisa shuddered upon hearing her own name, “ – Phillip Steiner and Gavin Luper are nothing but DIRTY LIARS!”

Lisa felt her insides turn glacial. Liars? What was he on about? She exchanged glances with Gavin, who looked furious and apprehensive about the lawyer’s next words. All through the courtroom, nervous chattering had spread throughout those sitting in the benches behind Lisa.

“ During this trial,” the lawyer continued vehemently, “ we are going to prove that Lisa, Jessica and Phillip trespassed on Lenina’s relaxation area, physically assaulted her, performed arson on the building and LEFT HER FOR DEAD. But that wasn’t enough for them, was it? The youth of today are vicious killers!

“ Those three –” he pointed accusingly at Lisa and Jessica, however, there was no Phil to point at, “ – then got Andrew and Gavin to attack her in an alleyway when she was injured and looking for help. Can you believe this? Five people, three strapping young men and two cunning young women ATTACKED an injured pensioner in an alleyway! Can you believe what a cowardly attack that was? Not only that, we are going to have them convicted for the murder of the pokemon which died in the fire – Lenina’s beloved Steelix and Slowbro amongst them. Now she only has two harmless pokemon left, Piloswine and Flareon. And because of the LIES these children told, she has been separated from the only things in this world that care for her!”

The icy sensation in Lisa’s stomach was gone; she now felt a total fury against the defence lawyer; tears of anger and frustration formed in her eyes, but she blinked them away. She didn’t have any intentions of showing the lawyer just how much he was upsetting her. She just had to wait until she got to the witness box …

But there was still more of the defence lawyer’s tirade.

“ See how they’ve made a poor old woman cry! Look!”

Lisa shifted her gaze to Lenina who sat near the defence lawyer. She was sobbing, apparently upset, but Lisa had seen enough of Jean’s tantrums back home to know Lenina was faking it.

“ My life’s been stolen from me,” she said pitifully, sobbing into her arms.

Almost all the people in the courtroom were now looking at Lisa, Gavin and the others with disgust. Lisa felt her face flush scarlet as the furious gazes of almost everyone – including their own lawyer – bore down on them.

“ You little good for nothings!” hissed the prosecution lawyer quietly, his voice filled with mistrust.

Lisa didn’t even feel hurt from this remark; she had just noticed something odd: Lenina was standing up (all traces of tears gone), clicking a pen that she had taken off her lawyer. Abruptly, and in a loud voice, she announced: “ I do hope these horrible attackers don’t try to hurt me again.”

Instantly, there was a loud bang as the doors of the courtroom burst open. Lisa turned automatically to look. A thick wave of pewter grey smoke was pouring through the doors and into the courtroom – and so was a stream of people carrying guns and smoke bombs.

“ Get down!” cried Gavin, as a collective scream went up from the back of the room – the invaders (and Lisa had a shrewd idea who they were) had reached the people sitting in the rows and were attacking them in some way or other. Lisa felt Gavin grab her arm and pull her down to the ground, beneath the lawyer’s desk – just in time; a bang went off and a bullet went whizzing past where Lisa had been previously standing.

She didn’t thank Gavin; there wasn’t time. Beneath the desk also crouched Andrew and Jess, both looking as petrified as Lisa felt. Andrew had already released his Dragonair, which curled up at his feet.

“ We need to get out of here,” he said.

“ Well …” Jessica began, but she seemed unable to finish.

In the background, Lisa heard the Judge shriek, “ You’ll never get me! I’ve got food that’ll last a week!” Even in a moment of terror, when smoke was clouding her mind and vision, Lisa managed a small smirk.

There were cries for help from the Jury; apparently the invaders had reached them already.

“ Let’s fight, then,” said Gavin, and he stood up along with Andrew and Jessica – Lisa followed.

Lisa pulled out Electabuzz’s pokeball and was about to throw it out when a boy about her age, but evidently one of the invaders, emerged from the thick smoke, which was still blossoming from an unknown source. He held a strange box, and pressed a button on it. At once, an odd beep emitted from the box, though Lisa had no idea what it did. “ No pokemon!” said the boy strangely, before disappearing into the smoke again.

After he disappeared, more people emerged – a man appeared from the smoke, leering at them.

“ Dragonair, get them! Dragonbreath!” cried Andrew from behind Lisa, but his Dragonair was limp on the ground, it’s eyes a vermilion colour. Lisa had a feeling that had something to do with the box that the boy had held out before.

She took matters into her own hands. “ Go Electabuzz!” Lisa yelled, ditching the pokeball at the man. She watched expectantly, waiting to order Electabuzz to attack, but the ball stayed shut; it flew at the man at hit him squarely on the mouth, causing him to drop the gun he had, however, Electabuzz’s pokeball landed neatly in the man’s hands. He grinned, his teeth at funny angles, before running off into the smoke.

Lisa felt her face flush with fury. “ Get back here!” she screamed. She glanced around her to see Jessica beside her; grabbing her for back up, Lisa plunged into the thick smoke, her eyes watering and her throat feeling dry.

But the man was nowhere to be seen.

“ Come on, Jessica, we have to find him … he has my Electabuzz,” Lisa said, her teeth gritted. “ Keep an eye out for anyone …”

There were still people screaming and the sounds of several fights being undertaken in the courtroom, but Lisa couldn’t see much more than her own hand in front of her through the smoke. She inched onwards through one of the rows of benches until a figure appeared; the blonde woman, who had been in the Jury, was slumped over a bench, a tranquillizer dart in her arm. At least she hadn’t been shot.

“ Lisa, look out!” cried Jessica. Lisa turned to see a man armed with a Stun Gun standing right before her. He whipped out the Stunner, preparing to use it; Lisa dived to the ground, and at the same time she saw Jessica standing on the bench, waving her arms at the man with the Stun Gun. He turned to glance at her, and in that moment, Lisa mustered all her strength and kicked the man’s ankles; he went flying off his feet, and landed with a resounding crack on the floor. Lisa stood up, shaking, and grinned at Jessica, who said, “ No worries.”

“ Let’s keep going, then,” Lisa said to her, reaching the aisle and turning left. Together, she and Jess weaved their way through the smoke, which was as thick as ever. It was not making Lisa cough, though, which made her think it was some sort of smoke substitute.

A loud scream and a thud resounded from somewhere very close by. Lisa and Jessica exchanged nervous glances before continuing on; Lisa had a feeling they were walking towards the Jury’s area.

And then, fate stepped in at last; the man who had stolen Lisa’s Electabuzz crept past them, his gaze focused on Officer Rule, who had apparently entered the courtroom at some stage. There was, however, no sign of Aipom.

Officer Rule had his gun out, peering into the smoke, apparently unable to see the invader creeping up on him. Lisa and Jessica moved silently, as though they had rehearsed what they were about to do a million times; Jessica yelled, “ Oi!” and the Electabuzz-thief turned automatically; Lisa pulled her arm back and slammed her fist into his shoulder, causing a loud crack; as he turned around to her, his eyes pained, Jessica came charging up from behind and, with a clever, well-aimed kick, knocked him to the floor; the pokeball that was still in his hands went flying into the air and Lisa caught it.

Jessica’s face was alight with triumph as she and Lisa exchanged high-fives.

Officer Rule had seen them now, and pelted over to them, amongst the sounds of battle and fighting, and the hiss of the smoke pouring into the room. “ Stay there, girls!” he urged them seriously. There was a loud bang of gunfire a short way away, and he cringed. “ Uh … I’ll go check that out …” Without another word, he dissolved into the greyness.

Jessica stood beside Lisa as she pocketed Electabuzz’s pokeball. Jessica had quite forgotten to stare at Officer Rule like she normally did, which went to show how serious the situation was. Lisa stood beside Jess, feeling vulnerable in the smoke. The sounds of fighting were sparser now, but it appeared that there were still a number of fistfights and gun battles going on in the huge courtroom. Jessica tapped her foot almost impatiently.

“ So we just … wait?”

There was an extremely loud crack from somewhere around them and Lisa was sure she heard Gavin’s voice.

“ Gavin?” she said cautiously, taking a step in the direction of the sound.

At once, another armed man appeared (how many are there? thought Lisa). He held a stun gun and was already pointing it at her; Lisa did nothing but cry out as a jet of blue light issued from the stunner and connected with her; for a second, she thought she was dead, but a moment after she found herself lying on the floor, shaken but alive and unmarked. She at once stood up, confused. She hadn’t been stunned, or electrocuted, just knocked off her feet.

But the man had disappeared – as had Jessica.

“ Help!” Jessica shrieked out suddenly from somewhere very close; Lisa pelted through the smoke to see the stun gun man with Jessica in a bizarre headlock; Lisa threw her entire body weight at the man; he went flying into the wall with a loud crack, and Jessica – luckily – did not have a broken neck, though Lisa realised her attack had been foolish. Instead, Jessica emerged from the incident holding a hand to her tailbone and wincing.

The man was already on his feet though, facing Lisa. He was big and strong, while she was not, but nevertheless, she balled her fists, ready to fight him. But before he used his fists or the stunner, Jessica came flying from behind and jabbed him deftly in the eye. He collapsed at once to the ground.

“ We’ve got to get out of here!” screamed Lisa, feeling faint. She grabbed the stunner from the unconscious man, feeling that she might need it. With Jessica by her side, and no sign of Officer Rule, Lisa stepped into the haze of the smoke, holding the stun gun before her.

“ Look out, Rambo coming through,” joked Jessica weakly, though she was very pale.

Lisa tried to focus her stinging eyes on anything she might be able to see. The progress she made was very slow, as though she was wading through butter, but eventually a shape emerged; without thinking, Lisa pulled the trigger on the stunner – a bolt of blue light rent the air and connected with the shadow, causing whoever it was to collapse. Jessica moved up beside Lisa tentatively as they inspected their sprawled victim more closely – a slender, brown-haired woman, wearing camouflage clothing, a gun tucked into her belt.

Lisa didn’t feel odd about knocking the woman out, but an idea of what these people were doing here had come into her mind. They had to with Team Rocket, surely, and Lisa suspected they had ambushed the court case to stop some evidence coming to light – probably the evidence Lisa, Jessica and the others were going to give. But why had they gone to so much trouble? Most of the knowledge Lisa, Jessica, Gavin and Andrew had about the trial was common knowledge amongst the police, it was all known anyway.

Before Lisa could draw any conclusions, Jessica gave a small squeak and jogged her back to reality.

“ What is it?” Lisa said at once, holding the stun gun at the ready. Jessica had picked up the judge’s hammer as a weapon and she, too, was holding it poised to strike.

“ There’s someone just there …” Jessica said, advancing nervously but resolutely. Lisa followed her, noticing that the smoke was clearing finally. All at once, Jessica stopped in her tracks, and as Lisa caught up with her, an incredibly bizarre scene, almost a freeze frame, met her eyes.

Andrew was lying on the green carpet, apparently unconscious and looking worse for the wear; Officer Rule was slumped against the wooden wall, his eyes open but pained as he held a hand to a wound in his leg; most strangely, though, were the two people in the centre of the aisle. Lenina, her eyes filled with a crazed look Lisa could not really describe, was flat on her back on the ground, Gavin standing over her, legs set apart and a black pistol held in both his hands, pointing directly at Lenina’s heart.

Lisa tried to speak, but her throat was dry. Jessica drew breath sharply and looked away almost flinchingly, her fingers plugging her ears. Lisa stared at Gavin, through his eyes were locked with Lenina’s and he could not see her. Don’t do it, through Lisa earnestly. She doesn’t deserve to be killed so quickly, painlessly almost …

“ You … Team Rocket, you tried to –” Gavin was saying, almost incoherently.

Lenina actually snorted with disdain, even though she was in no position to do so, with a weapon pointed directly at her. “ There is no such thing as Team Rocket, boy,” she said.

Lisa glanced at Gavin; she thought she saw him begin to lower the gun, but in the split second before he could do so, a dark figure pelted up behind him and pushed him hard, sending Gavin forward and causing his hand to slip; a loud blast resounded from the pistol.

Lisa’s head swirled; blood, a scream, a few gurgled, incoherent last words, and that was it.

Lenina was dead.

*

The Trial of Lenina Johnson was officially cancelled. After all, there was no Lenina Johnson left to convict, and since Lisa, Jessica and Officer Rule had all witnessed that Gavin had not purposely shot her, he was not accused of anything.

A great weight was lifted from Lisa’s mind. The police wanted them to all make statements, but after that they would all free to go back to the hotel – even Andrew, who was injured but was coping after he was cleaned up by the ambulance officers who had arrived on the scene minutes after the last fight was finished. Jessica also had damaged her tailbone. Gavin was relatively unscathed, however Lisa found several bruises all over herself, which she could not recall obtaining in the heat of the moment.

After the police had finished their interviews at the police station, Lisa followed behind Gavin and Andrew, Jess at her side, when they walked past an enclosed room near the entrance to the station. Lisa glanced casually through the glass in the door; inside, ten of the people captured in the courtroom were being interrogated by four police officers. That was all that had been captured in the attack – ten men, and there had reportedly been almost forty. Lisa felt uneasy that so many were still on the run, but with the court case now out of the way, they had no reason to attack her or any of the others.

A great comfort to Lisa was that the press could not identify any names or publish any photos, just in case there were any of the Team Rocket members still lurking around.

But were they Team Rocket? Lenina’s last words, before dying, had been distinctly to tell them that there was no such thing as Team Rocket. Lisa knew that Team Rocket existed, or at least once had; they were very much an underground organization and were almost a myth in most people’s minds nowadays (Jessica and Andrew didn’t believe in them, for starters), however she had seen them before … Lucas, a member of Team Rocket, had tried to kill her once … and Lenina had apparently been a Professor of Team Rocket, according to Gavin. And the people who had invaded Lisa’s house a few nights ago had had scarlet R’s emblazoned on their uniforms, hadn’t they? And to top it all off, Gavin himself had been kidnapped by the Rockets. The only possible explanation for Lenina’s statement would be if Team Rocket had somehow disbanded in the past three days – which hardly seemed likely.

And so Lisa sat very quietly in the police car on the way back to the hotel, while the others talked to each other enthusiastically about the trial.

*

Lisa, Gavin, Andrew, Jessica, Olivia, Glenys and Ripper (plus Aipom and Olivia’s Spoink, who were playing quietly in a corner) spent the evening in the bar of the resort’s restaurant/bar after the older two returned from their short anniversary. The four of them who had been at the trial told their story rapidly to the others, who seemed completely amazed.

“ I’ll bloody tell you one thing, for a small seaside town, its never bloody peaceful,” said Ripper at the end of the story, and Lisa grinned.

It was a relaxing evening really, exactly what they needed after such an intense day. Music played in the background of the bar while everybody chatted over drinks (Ripper had smuggled them all a drink; Lisa’s was a sweet champagne that looked almost like lemonade).

Olivia floated across the room, towards where Lisa stood looking at an odd mosaic on the wall. Lisa saw her approaching and attempted an escape, but Olivia cornered her swiftly.

“ Hi Lisa, do you like being effluent?” she said at once.

Lisa snorted and champagne poured back into her crystal glass. “ What?”

“ Effluent,” said Olivia dreamily. “ You know, you have that crystal glass, and it’s expensive champagne, and you’re in a five-star resort … it’s just so effluent, isn’t it?”

A great roar of laughter arose in Lisa but she choked it down with vast difficulty. “ Um … yes, Olivia,” she managed, with a small smile. “ Very effluent.” Olivia gave an appreciative smile and hovered away again. Lisa watched her, laughing freely now that she was gone, and wondering whether she ought to tell Olivia that the right word was in fact ‘affluent’.

“ What’s so funny?” Andrew asked, walking up beside Lisa with a beer in hand.

Lisa proceeded to explain, and Andrew grinned broadly.

“ She’s like that with words,” he said, shrugging.

Lisa giggled again.

“ So, where are you heading off to now, Lisa?” asked Andrew, gazing at the mosaic. Lisa was still looking at it, too; it was oddly-shaped and difficult to interpret; depending on which way she looked at it, it was either an upside down volcano, or the sun on a hot day wearing an akubra hat.

Lisa thought about her reply to Andrew’s question; she and Gavin hadn’t yet told anyone their intentions, as they had only just finalised them back in their apartment when they were having showers. “ Well, we’re going to surf south,” she said truthfully.

“ Really? You’re not flying?”

“ No, we want to surf this time, I don’t want to act like a sponge,” she said, pointing over to Glenys and Ripper, who were holding hands and sipping drinks at the bar.

“ Fair enough,” said Andrew. “ So you’re surfing home, then?”

A direct question. Lisa shifted uncomfortably and then said, not looking at him, “ Sure … so, what about you?”

“ I’m heading on my journey again,” he said simply. “ Now that this court thingy is finished with, and that Lenina is out of the way, I can keep heading for the next town to get my seventh badge. Hopefully we can find a way to ditch Olivia on the way, though …”

Lisa giggled. “ Oh, well … she’s not all that bad …”

“ No, not bad,” Andrew agreed, “ it’s just that her brain cells drop off with each passing minute.”

Lisa hit him and looked around the room in case Olivia had heard, however she had completely disappeared. Across the room, though, Jessica and Gavin were talking happily (again, Lisa had that tiny twinge that told her they were flirting), until suddenly Jessica looked at Gavin in annoyance. “ Hey!” she said to him. “ You didn’t battle me because you didn’t have enough Pokemon!”

Lisa grinned. Gavin had presumably told Jessica about the Seel he caught yesterday; he had been oddly secretive about it even to Lisa, until she found the pokeball under his pillow a few hours ago.

She turned back to Andrew, who was again looking at the mosaic, tilting his head an odd way to look at it. Without warning, Glenys appeared at Lisa’s side and smiled warmly at both her and Andrew.

“ Do you like it?” she said eagerly. “ I made it from the spare tiles when they renovated our old house.”

Andrew didn’t reply, so Lisa took it upon herself to. “ It’s lovely,” she said as graciously as she could. “ Um … what is it, exactly?” She had a feeling that neither of her earlier guesses was right.

Glenys smiled. “ Oh, everyone asks that. You see, it’s the sun on a hot day wearing an akubra hat,” she explained, looking at it affectionately.

Lisa fought the urge to smirk, but lost the battle when she heard Andrew pipe up, “ You know, I see that now, but at first I thought it was an upside down volcano.”

At that moment, a dinging of a spoon on glass resounded through the bar – Olivia had some sort of speech to make, apparently.

“ Everyone, everyone!” she announced eagerly. “ I’ve got gifts for you all,” she continued, pulling up a massive bag from under a table, “ so close your eyes and I’ll give you one!”

Andrew’s eyes reflected Lisa’s sceptical feeling about this, however she good-naturedly closed her eyes and a moment later felt something heavy and spherical drop into her outstretched hands.

“ Open now everyone!”

Lisa opened her eyes quickly and looked down at the thing in her hands. It was an orb – like a magic eight ball – except it was a turquoise colour. Lisa wondered if Olivia was for real – but then again, the ‘effluent’ incident returned to her mind and she decided Olivia was serious.

Olivia was showing Aipom and Spoink their little friendship bands, which Lisa did think was nice, then the girl turned to Lisa.

“ It’s a magic eight ball Lisa!” she said, taking Lisa’s blank look for confusion. “ Ask it a question and it tells the truth! It’s how I answer all my tests at school!”

Oh Dear God, thought Lisa, but she still shook the ball and said, “ Is this gift useless?”

Everyone gave a small laugh, including Olivia; the ball replied with a vague ‘Ask again later’.

Lisa watched as everyone else had their presents explained by Olivia – Andrew had been given black hair dye, Gavin received a green tub of vitamin E cream, Jessica was less than amused to get a personalised doll based on herself, and finally Ripper and Glenys were handed a polaroid camera.

“ To record memories and stuff, so when you go crazy like old people do, you can look at the pictures and remain sane,” she explained to a disapproving Glenys and Ripper.

Olivia appeared unabashed; she grouped everyone together, took three snapshots, and handed one to the old couple, one to Lisa and Gavin, and kept one for herself, Jessica and Andrew. Lisa pocketed the photograph with a small smile – it was one way of remembering the extremely eventful spell in Port Valeo.

*

Unnoticed by Gavin or Aipom, Lisa slipped out of the hotel apartment very early the next morning – at about four am. She knew there would be at least one officer on duty at the Valeo Police Station, and that was all she needed.

At such an early hour, the village was remarkably quiet. Lisa passed through the main street in the semi-darkness, seeing all the places she had become used to – the Berry Boutique, a few cafés, the courthouse down a side street, the Valeo Library, the other shops. Finally, Lisa reached the modern police station and walked in through the sliding glass doors.

“ Lisa, back again?” said a blonde female officer who was behind the front desk – Lisa knew her from the interviews yesterday, her name was Officer Frost.

“ I have to … report a crime,” Lisa said quickly.

Officer Frost swept her scraggly fringe from her tired eyes. “ Sit down,” she said immediately. Lisa did. “ So, is this crime anything to do with what happened yesterday?”

“ Yes, well, I think it is … you see, it happened the other night, Tuesday night actually.” Before she knew it, Lisa had launched right into the story of how her home had been invaded a few nights ago – it seemed much longer ago, but it had been Tuesday night, and it was only Saturday morning now. Officer Frost listened, apologising for her yawns and taking notes. When Lisa finished off by saying how she had not seen Marina since, Officer Frost nodded calmly.

“ I haven’t heard from them since Tuesday,” finished Lisa. “ I haven’t even heard from my brother Tom or his girlfriend, Miki. All I know is that my parents said they had some urgent matters to attend to at work, and that’s all they said.”

Officer Frost looked extremely concerned. “ Lisa, just answer me this – how is it that you have gone over three days with this knowledge and not told any police!? You should have contacted this station as soon as you arrived here in Valeo. Why did you wait?”

“ I – well –” Lisa was cut off as the telephone rang and Officer Frost answered it. Lisa felt dense. She looked down at her hands. Now that she thought about it, she didn’t know why she had been keeping it all to herself. The logical thing, she thought, would have been to tell the police at once. That was obvious. Why hadn’t she?

When she looked up, Officer Frost had the telephone receiver to her ear and was listening to someone shouting frantically from the other end. Officer Frost’s mouth was set in a rigid line.

She slammed the phone down.

“ What is it?” Lisa said, without thinking.

“ I have to go, we have an emergency to the north of town. If you just go down that corridor there you’ll meet Officers Sanderson and West. They’ll listen to your story and keep you safe here in our custody –”

“ What?” Lisa burst out. “ In your custody?”

Officer Frost was gathering up a notebook and a baton from a locked drawer beneath the desk. “ Yes, of course, Lisa,” she said. “ Did you really think we would allow you to go back into the public when such a thing has occurred? We have to hunt down the perpetrators, and keep you safe!”

“ Um, well I think it was Team Rocket,” Lisa said.

Officer Frost glanced at her in a worried way. “ Lisa, what do you mean? Team Rocket was disbanded two months ago,” she said as if it were common knowledge. “ Officers in Dervine captured five men, who were apparently the leaders, and they officially dissolved the force.”

“ But – huh?” Lisa said, her mind bulging with what she had just been told. Team Rocket was dissolved? And Dervine … that’s almost spooky, thought Lisa.

“ I have to go, just stay in this station, ok? Down the corridor, the blue door, Officers Sanderson and West. I have to dash – stay here, Lisa.” Panting heavily, Officer Frost pelted down the corridor and Lisa heard the back door slam.

Lisa stared at the desk. “ Stay here, Lisa,” she mimicked. She grinned rebelliously. “ As if I’d stay here, when so much is happening everywhere else,” she said aloud to herself, and strode back on to the street, completely ignoring Officer Frost’s orders.

*

The ocean water was bitterly cold at five o’clock in the morning. Lisa waded out, her teeth chattering as she stared out to the horizon. A misty streak of pinkish grey was spreading across the sky, too weak to give off much light.

“ Look out for the seaweed!”

The shrill call came from the shore. Lisa turned, her boardies sopping wet and swirling in the water, to see Jessica pointing at the clumps of reddish seaweed. She grinned and gave her friend the thumbs-up; she had already said her goodbyes and exchanged email addresses and phone numbers with Andrew and Jessica.

“ Don’t worry, we will,” Gavin called back, waist-deep in the water. He was pale and looked cold, but he seemed to be fighting the urge to let his teeth chatter; he wanted to look strong in front of everyone.

Lisa looked back at the shore. “ Seeya Jess!” she called back to Jessica. “ Hopefully we’ll kick butt again!”

“ Hell yeah!” Jessica replied happily, smiling to herself as a wave came up from behind Lisa and drenched her from the chest down in icy water. She shivered and Gavin guffawed loudly.

Lisa dismally checked her backpack – it was relatively dry, except for the bottom bit. She waved one more time to Jessica and Andrew and Olivia, then turned to face the vast ocean. Fiskmire was floating in the churning water, his eyes happy to see her again. He had not carried her across the ocean for a long time; it would be fun for all of them to return to the sea. Aipom sat on Fiskmire’s azure back, propped up on one of the squishy cobalt-coloured extrusions, waving goodbye to Olivia’s Spoink on the shore, who waved back.

Gavin leapt onto the back of his newly-caught Seel – Lisa hadn’t even known about it until last night, when he told her abruptly in their apartment. That was when they decided to surf, instead of walk.

Lisa leapt onto Fiskmire’s back happily as Jessica and Andrew called out goodbyes to everyone and waved enthusiastically. Olivia had a delayed reaction. “ See you new people! Oh – and boy with scar! Three times a day! On a hot day, five times!”

Lisa laughed loudly – the first real, hearty laugh she had given in a long time, as Gavin blushed violet.

“ See you guys, travel safe! Don’t run into any more trouble!” called Andrew from the shore, but his words were being drowned out by the growing roar of the waves. Gavin and his Seel floated right alongside Lisa, Fiskmire and Aipom, ready to begin. But Andrew hadn’t finished. “ And don’t run into any more ‘Legendaries’!” he added, yelling.

Lisa and Gavin both turned and shot glares at him, and he appeared to grin, but the ocean had already taken the two of them twenty metres away, so it was difficult to see properly. With a wide, final wave, Lisa and Aipom began moving out to sea at last; Lisa felt the speedy rush of Fiskmire’s body churned quickly through the water as if her were still a Quagsire; he was still an excellent swimmer. Gavin and his ice-white Seel (who looked excited to be in water) were at her side. And they swept off through the turquoise-grey currents, still waving, not looking back.

Lisa smiled to herself. The journey ahead should be interesting, for she was not – as she had pretended to her friends on the shore – going home. She and Gavin were headed to the coastal town of Dervine, back in Johto.

They had a mystery to solve there.

[ZeldaFan20]

Wow, this was a very interesting chapter! I wonder who those people were---if not Team Rocket...

Gee...you've really gotten me on the edge of my seat...AGAIN! Congratulations, another intese cliffhanger!!!

[mistysakura]

Yay, new chapter! May I add, a new, very long chapter. And it was worth the wait.

You have the ability to make characters so infuriating. I hate that lawyer! Talk about twisting the truth... A though he was just saying what he believed to be true, it doesn't make it any better.

The only complaint was that Lenina dyuing seemed a bit like an anticlimax. Gavin didn't even kill her intentionally. But then, of course there's the mystery as to who pushed him.

Very good stuff.

[mr_pikachu]

They're heading off into trouble again?! As soon as they get out of one mess, they dive right into another! ...Then again, this is Lisa and Gavin we're talking about. I guess I shouldn't be surprised.

That was very good, and very... long. A lot of material, by all accounts. The description was good, and felt natural, even though I felt it was very direct. The dialogue was nice, too. My one complaint is that some parts seemed a little hazy - things were covered in-depth in EBTV, and only touched on here, which made a couple of points difficult to understand, from an LtL viewpoint. But that's okay, I read them both. ^_^

This was excellent, excellent work, overall. I see now why this took several months to write. Great job, Gavin! I'll definitely be waiting on the edge of my seat for this mystery, and the conclusion to the confusion of the Rockets(?)!

[Chris 2.1]

Great work! Nice to see Lisa's automatic rebellious streak (I wonder if anyone WOULD just go into custordy?) But if Officer Frost is right, then Lisa may be better off staying away...

I hope Marina's Ok!

The batttles were good, telling us Old Beats New anyday with pokemon. Spoink is too cute!

Gavin's scar...neat!

Thats all, I think, but Looking forward to the next installment!

[Karania]

good chapter, sorry I'm so late to the party. My computer's in the shop and my mom's computer is very SLOW! Never rely on a computer..... They're just plain stupid......... See ya round.

[Gavin Luper]

Hey everyone! See, I told you I'd post it one day!

ZeldaFan: I love making suspense, even though I'm not very good at it, it's still fun to keep people on the edge of their seat. It's seriously fun to be the writer who writes all the cliffhangers! Don't worry too much, all will be revealed soon ...

mistysakura: Good, it was worth the wait then! That's what I like to hear, especially when I take so damn long to get a chapter done. I have to say though that almost all the credit for the chatacters in this should go to Oz. You see, I wrote part 1, he wrote part 2, and we each added our own bits into it. He came up with the infuriating lawyer and the chocoholic jugde.

Yeah, I know Lenina's death was sudden and all that, but I suppose most of the things I do are for some purpose or other. I think.

mr_pikachu: Yeah, Lisa and Gavin seem to have a knack for going from one thing to another - but who said they were headed for trouble? Hehe, I'm not saying anything. Thanks for reading ... though it didn't really take months to write - I mean, I know it was 2 months since i posted the last chapter, but i actually sat down and wrote half the chapter on one day, then the other half on three consecutive days last week, and it was finished. So it only actually took 4 days to write, more or less.

I won't reveal anything, but you'll probably be hanging on the edge of your seat for some time yet!

Brit Chris: Thanks! Yeah, my point exactly - who would really be taken into police protective custody just when they want to journey somewhere else? It was a logical move for Lisa, I reckon.

More on Marina's fate in a few chapters ... and the same with Gavin's stuff ... it's all on the way.

Karania: Thanks for reading, as you always do. Don't worry about being late to read, I haven't been on for awhile myself, so who cares? Thanks again!

Everyone: Chapter 46 is in the works, which is a good sign. The crossover is a thing of the past now, so more will be happening with Lisa and Gavin and everything else from now on.

A week or so should see Chapter 46 up!

Cheers!

[PancaKe]

Okay, as you know, I haven't replied so i guess you can call that a "silent reader". Although knowing me, silent doesn't really suit me.

Great stuff, although it follows the same lines as Oz's, its still really different from lisa's view. REally nice work you have here. And bloodly long too!

~Mist

[Karania]

okay, thanks. I've got my computer back! *does happy dance* So things are a lot easier for me now! See ya round.

[Gavin Luper]

Tara: Wow, you replied! I didn't see that coming! Thanks. Yeah, it was the biggest chapter in the history of LTL, and probably the biggest one there'll ever be. Probably should've broken it up into 2 chapters but everyone had waited long enough. So yeah.

Karania: No worries mate.

Chapter 46 up soon! Cheers!

[Andrew]

I am so slack for not replying earlier, so drive out the evil monkeys with a spoon. But first off, THANK YOU TO GAVIN for getting your dog kidnapped so I could blackmail you into doing another Crossover

This guy, Gavin abso-frikken-lutely ****ing rocks his writing is lightyears ahead of mine (Lightyears measures like distance, not time )

I absolutely love the Kath and Kim refrence of Olivia. Made me laugh so much. I was also surprised Lisa buggered off from the Police Station, I would've expected her to stick around... Will we see Brent around again?

Seriously, I loved this chapter, one of the best I've ever read imo.

Great work mate!

[Karania]

I'm really looking forward to the next chapter. KEep it up.

[Gavin Luper]

Oz: Actually, YOUR writing is about two to three hours ahead of MINE ... after all, you live in a different time zone Anyway, thanks Oz, it was a real privilige working with you and trying to create a counterpart to your brilliant, humerous writings.

Hehe, I couldn't help slipping that 'effluent' thing in there, it was just so typically Olivia. Glad you liked it! Oh, and I wanted Lisa to be a bit defiant, after all, she needs to start getting some characterisation happening, right? Apart from leechiness. Oh, and we haven't seen the last of Brent either.

Cheers mate!

Karania: Next chapter's coming soon, but it's still in the works, so expect it soon. Much sooner than the last one anyway.

EVERYONE: I just wanted to take this opportunity to say that I have another fic just posted - The First March. It's like LTL in some ways, and completely different in others ... please take a look, guys, the link's in the sig!

Cheers!

[Chris 2.1]

Seen it, read it, liked, it, posted in it

It's great! Can I like tell everyone to read it now?

*cough*

read it now!

*Blushes, and leaves topic*

[Whisper in the Wind]

Well, I've just read chapter 1 of this. This seems to lack description, almsot relying on the reader knowing the Pokemon/location off by heart (Which I don't since I never played G/S/C, watched the Johto series) plus I have no idea what Aipom is. However, storyline wise it is good, the cliff hanger was a nice idea, its made me wanna read chapter 2, hopefully the description will improve later on.

Also on a side note your battles seem to be kinda lacking.

[Gavin Luper]

Brit Chris: Hey! yeah, sure, tell everyone lol it's good that you liked it. Sorry, I meant to post a link in the topic: there isn't actually a link in my sig yet. There might be soon. Cheers mate!
------------
Onimusha: Well well, what an interesting post for a brand new member. From your post, I'm assuming that you are too inexperienced as a reader to realise that judging an entire fic by the first chapter is an extremely foolish action; almost as foolish as judging by the title or the cover of a book. As for myself assuming that the reader automatically knows the pokemon and locations, I would consider this a fairly standard assumption, as this is in fact predominantly a Pokemon fanfiction forum.

People change, Onimusha, as do their stories. I would strongly suggest that you read a little further to really get a grasp of the storyline of Lisa the Legend.

Have a nice day.

[Gavin Luper]

New chapter! Surprise!

----------------------------

Chapter 46 - Intuition.


“ Now this is the life.”

Lisa smiled lazily to herself. She, Aipom and Gavin were sprawled out beside each other on a remote stretch of beach, soaking up the warm, lazy sunlight that was beating down upon them. She felt her eyes closing very slowly as she relaxed; it was not hot enough for her to feel uncomfortable, but rather just the right temperature to have a midday nap. She suspected Gavin was already asleep, as he would probably be even more exhausted than she after their past few days.

Three days had passed since Lisa, Gavin and Aipom had set sail from the beach at Port Valeo on the backs of Fiskmire and Seel, leaving their friends Andrew, Jessica and Olivia on a journey for Dervine in the country’s southwest. Lisa had expected the seabound journey to be easier than her earlier jaunt in the Whirl Islands, but she had been proved wrong. While there had been no whirlpools at all on the surfing journey, something equally bad had occurred. On their second day after leaving Port Valeo, a storm struck them: Seel had nearly drowned in the dumping waves and Gavin had risked his life to save it. Lisa could remember the entire incident clearly, as she had watched, helplessly, as Gavin tried to regain his position aboard Seel. It had ended well enough, though. A massive wave swept down upon them all and threw them roughly aground on the mainland. Since arriving on the mainland they had been walking south on the continued trip to Dervine.

Their mission was a voluntary one. When in Port Valeo, Lisa had learned that a renowned researcher and scientist, Professor Oak, had disappeared without a trace down in the southern village of Dervine. Whilst the police did not appear concerned, Lisa and Gavin were; the last time Oak had disappeared, he had been unexplainably mixed up with a major argument between three legendary dogs - Suicune, Entei and Raikou. Nobody knew what exactly happened between the legendaries, as Oak had no recollection of the incident, but from what Lisa could gather, the legendaries had referred to her, and Gavin, and something else ...

A wave crept up the beach and reached Lisa’s feet, immersing them in cool water. She felt a tiny twinge of guilt but pushed it away; sure, they were in a rush to get to Dervine, but even they neede a break sometime. She closed her eyes fully. Warmth pulsated onto her face from the sun. In the distance she could hear the cheep-cheep sounds of Pidgeys in the trees, the whistle of the wind, the rushing of the waves as they broke … peaceful, serene nature …

BOOM!

The explosion came out of nowhere. Lisa’s eyes flew open; she cried out in alarm, but it was drowned by the deafening blast that was sounding from somewhere behind her.

“ What the hell!” Gavin yelled abruptly, flailing his arms around as he awoke. Aipom, too, had sat up in alarm.

There was a second explosion, smaller than the first but still loud enough to make Lisa’s eardrums ache. She, Gavin and Aipom had all turned to look behind them and into the thick forest that began at the end of the beach sand. Above the canopy of trees, a column of grey smoke was blossoming into the formerly clear sky.

“ What’s going on?” Lisa screamed, unable to tell if she was speaking loud or soft.

“ I don’t know, I just –”

Gavin was cut off as a third explosion rent the air and another cloud of smoke burst into the sky. Like a shot, Aipom had sprinted for Lisa’s backpack that lay on the sand, and had delved into the safety within it, his purple ears poking out through the zipper.

“ Shouldn’t we go see what that was?” Lisa demanded, standing up. Her cheeks were flushed with shock.

Gavin gave her a confused, sarcastic look. “ Are you insane? You get out of one lot of trouble and you go straight into another one! Explosions don’t just happen, people MAKE them. And not good people either.”

“ But there could be people there, they might have been hurt!” Lisa protested loudly, as the smoke continued to spiral into the sky. “ I don’t care what you say, I’m going to see what happened!” She finished her sentence feeling uneasy. It was true, there might be people hurt somewhere, but it wasn't that that caused her to want to investigate; it was a gnawing feeling she had, something that was telling her she should go towards the noise, that she was needed there ... or something. Lisa shook her head, but the odd feeling remained.

“ It’s asking for trouble, Lisa,” Gavin said.

“ I’ll go by myself then,” she declared defiantly, frustrated with Gavin’s delays. Lisa jogged to her backpack and swung it over her shoulder; the purple ears poking out from the bag twitched nervously.

“ Bye Gavin. I hope you’re happy to be a sook and wait back here while I go investigate. Ciao!”

A huge smirk on her face, Lisa ran towards the thick, green forest and reached it in no time. As soon as she entered the trees she found her path obstructed by a wall of trees and ferns so thickly set that it was impossible to pass through them. Anxious to get to the scene of the explosions fast, Lisa began tugging at the ferns, but they were too tall and too close together.

“ I’ll help.” Gavin appeared at her side, a pokeball in his hand. He didn’t throw it, though, just said, “ Go!” and pulled the ball open manually.

The ball exploded with light and a pokemon emerged instantly. Lisa gaped. It was quite large, about human height. Two shiny, metallic wings were folded across its back; it’s sleek, silver, scythe-like hands were glinting.

“ A Skarmory!” Lisa cried. “ Since when did you – how did you – what did you – you got any other pokemon you haven’t told me about?”

“ Um, no, that’s the last one I think,” Gavin replied, putting on a mock-thoughtful look. “ Skarmory, Slash through the forest and cut us a path. Quickly.”

The next thing Lisa saw was a huge clump of forest fall to the ground. “ Really fast,” she remarked, amazed at how quickly Skarmory’s slash had been; she hadn’t even seen it move. She watched as Skarmory continued slashing through the foliage, hovering with its wings and cutting down small trees at quite a considerable pace; Lisa and Gavin actually had to jog after it to keep up. But even though Skarmory was working fast, it felt to Lisa as though time was dragging by. It had been minutes since the third explosion, and no more had come since then. The absence of any action was unnerving Lisa. And although there was silence as far as any explosions went, the strange feeling Lisa had was still present, and growing stronger. Something within her kept urging her onwards ... as if she was required for something, or had to do something, somewhere. It was some kind of intuition.

“ Skar!”

Lisa emerged from her thoughts and looked ahead; the metal pokemon had come to a standstill, and was pointing with one of its claws at something it had found on the ground. She jogged and caught up with Skarmory and Gavin, who were further ahead.

“ What is it?” she asked.

“ Skarmory found this under a tree just then …” Gavin replied, pointing to a battered brown case that lay on the ground, partially covered in sticks and leaves.

She felt a wave of frustration leap up on her. “ Who cares about that, someone lost it obviously, we have to keep going!”

“ Right … keep going Skar.”

The Skarmory resumed it’s rapid slashing. Lisa jumped over a few large bits of tree, checking her watch nervously while Gavin dawdled behind her, his thoughts probably still on the briefcase. It had been over five minutes since they had entered the forest, and it was just as thick and untrafficable as before.

“ What do you think we’ll find?” Gavin asked presently, catching up to her.

“ I dunno,” she muttered honestly, adjusting her watchband in nervousness as they jogged after Skarmory. The forest was almost spooking her; they were surrounded on all sides by emerald green ferns and trees and yet there were no signs of animal life. And her feeling of intuition was still growing: she kept saying to herself, you're needed somewhere ... you have to be there; the feeling was intensifying, and she could not explain it at all. Lisa sighed in her own confusion and answered Gavin. “We can’t really just sit back and ignore an explosion, can we?”

Gavin didn’t answer, but it was clear that he thought they could.

Seven minutes … eight minutes … this is ridiculous, thought Lisa. Whatever's happening, there should be some more action by now ... some more signs, surely?

Just as her watch read that it had been nine minutes since entering the forests, Skarmory began flapping it’s wings excitedly. Lisa squinted to see what had excited it: up ahead, on their makeshift path, a thick, silvery-grey Spinarak web was spun between two trees. The web was about two metres high, five metres wide and – from the looks of it – about half an inch thick. Skarmory was standing back from it nervously.

“ It’s just a Spinarak web,” Gavin muttered as he and Lisa reached Skarmory’s side and stood beside the massive web. It was amazing to look at; though it was thick with dozens and dozens of layers, each thread was visible and so intricately woven that the web – although it obstructed their path – looked almost beautiful. Lisa reached her hand out to touch it, but then automatically drew it back, just in case.

“ Go on, cut through it,” Gavin urged Skarmory, but it would not move. There was a strange look in its grey eyes; it reminded Lisa of the look she had seen once in Marina’s eyes, on the night Lisa’s house was invaded.

And then she understood.

“ It’s scared,” she said. “ Your Skarmory is scared of spiders.”

“ What? Yeah right,” said Gavin roughly, while his steel-winged pokemon nodded fervently in agreeance with Lisa. “ He’s made of steel, he’s tough …”

But Skarmory was backing away from the huge web now. Lisa looked more closely at the edges of the web – shadowy Spinaraks were clustering at the edges of the web, waiting to attack anything that would break down their web.

“ Come on, Skar,” Gavin cried impatiently; he had not yet seen the spiders. “ Just go, cut the web! Like this!”

“ Gavin, no!”

Lisa’s warning came just in time. Gavin had actually raised his hand to mimic slashing the web down, but at her call he had stopped.

“ What?”

“ Put your hand down and step back from the web, Gavin.” Her voice was shaking with fear of what might have happened if she hadn’t stopped him. A Spinarak sting wasn’t very poisonous; a hundred stings would be. “ There’s spiders all around the edge of the web. If you try to cut it down, they’ll attack.” A better idea had occurred to Lisa suddenly. She pulled a pokeball off her belt and opened it manually, as Gavin had done. The flash of light that illuminated the area silhouetted the spiders; there were dozens of them in the web.

Vulpix appeared from the ball, ready for a battle, it’s crimson tail standing almost on end.

“ Ember, full throttle, Vulpix,” Lisa commanded. “ Just be careful not to get stung.”

“ Good idea,” Gavin said ruefully.

“ Vul,” agreed Vulpix.

Lisa, Gavin and Skarmory each took a few paces back as Vulpix cried out its name and used the attack. A stream of scarlet flames illuminated the area as they engulfed the massive web and scorched a hole straight through it. Lisa shielded her eyes as – unexpectedly – sunlight began pouring through the gap where the web had been; they had found a way out of the dingy forest.

“ Stop!” Lisa called, and Vulpix ended the attack. The web had torn in two, and was now reduced to a cluster of burning threads at each tree that it had been suspended from. Spinaraks were trying to escape but were failing – instead, they fell from the web onto the ground in the dozens.

“ Let’s get out of here!” cried Gavin, staring at the dozens of spiders on the ground only two metres from him. Without waiting for Lisa’s reaction, he sprinted ahead through the gap in the web, his hands clasped over his head, into the sunlight, where he stood for a moment before simply disappearing from view.

“ Vulpix, return! Skarmory … run!” The moment Vulpix dematerialised Lisa lurched forwards, but before she could run through the web, a group of spiders began to approach her, their pincers clicking ominously. She didn’t think twice: she sprinted forward and, just before her feet came in contact with the spiders, launched herself into a jump. She flew into the air and passed over several clicking spiders … but no … she had miscalculated – there were more … she was about to plunge herself right into their midst … Lisa shrieked and closed her eyes tight, waiting for her legs to return to ground, and the Spinaraks to attack …

But they never got the chance to attack. Lisa felt something pick her up by the underarms, and found that she was still airborne. She opened her eyes. Sure enough, she was held about two feet from the ground by Skarmory, who was flying through the gap in the web into the outside.

The steel-winged creature dropped Lisa about three metres on the other side of the ruined web. Once her feet were firmly back on the ground, and she had thanked Skarmory several times over, she looked around at her brightly-lit surroundings.

She was standing on a rocky ledge on the edge of a shallow canyon, facing out onto what seemed to be a dried-up river’s path. Lisa looked to her left; there was bare, rocky cliff-face, stretching out about three metres down. To her right was much of the same; the forest ended very abruptly, as it had reached a cliff-face that led on to form the sides of the gorge. But spread out directly before her was a grand view: across the wide gorge, about twenty metres from where she stood, was more lush, green forest. The air was slightly smoky here, so Lisa decided that they must be close to the source of the explosions, but there was no visual confirmation yet. Lisa began to think that Gavin had been right in suggesting they ignore the explosions – it was much more trouble than it was worth, and they had already taken eighteen minutes, according to her watch. But, out here on the ledge, her feeling of requirement for something was stronger than ever ... she was close now to whatever goal it was, she could feel it somehow.

“ Um … Gavin?” she said at last, looking all around. There was no sign of him, and the rock ledge that she stood on had nowhere to go from.

“ DOWN HERE!”

Tentatively, Lisa looked over the edge of the rock platform. Sure enough, about three metres below was Gavin, surrounded by a pile of rubble and pebbles. “ The ledge collapsed,” he called up to her. “ I fell … come down here. Is Skarmory with you?”

“ Yep!” Lisa called, relieved to find Gavin alive and presumably well. “ I’ll be there in a sec.”

She jumped onto Skarmory’s back, who was more than happy to oblige. Skarmory hovered over the platform edge and slowly lowered himself down until Lisa found herself beside Gavin. They were standing on a gradual decline that sloped all the way to the bottom of the gorge.

“ Return,” Gavin said, holding out Skarmory’s pokeball, and the worn-out pokemon dissolved in a burst of scarlet light.

“ You all right?” Gavin asked.

“ Yeah, thanks for letting me escape first,” Lisa said reproachfully. “ So much for chivalry.”

Gavin’s face was bright red and Lisa realised that she had succeeded in making him uncomfortable. He cleared his throat and bravely spoke onwards.

“ Well, thanks to your brilliant idea of following those explosions – which, by the way, have stopped – we’re now stuck half-way down a gorge and have no idea how to get back to where we were, or where to go from here. Good choice, Li-”

Gavin never quite finished his sentence, because an almighty explosion burst from somewhere else in the gorge. Lisa clasped her hands to her ears and felt Aipom squirming in her backpack, but nothing could block out the explosive sound that roared through the air. A blast of light had also accompanied the explosion; it was to their left, past a bend in the gorge. Already, Lisa could see grey smoke weaving through the gorge and making its way for them.

“ Let’s go. Be on your guard,” Lisa said, and she began jogging down the decline until she reached the lowest point in the shallow gorge. She was very close to the unexplainable thing she had been called to, she was sure of it. Once she was sure she was as low as possible, Lisa began running for the bend, aware of Gavin panting along behind her. Smoke engulfed her near the bend; Lisa began coughing and her eyes prickled with tears, but she kept running. She could still see the curve in the gorge – it was only thirty metres away … twenty metres … ten … five … she was running by choice, and yet she felt that she was being pulled towards some kind of goal, some necessity, by an invisible magnet.

With a lungful of smoke, Lisa reached the bend and ran full-pelt through the hot, thick smoke that now surrounded her. Her vision was completely obscured; she kept running, almost tripping on something but correcting her balance.

All of a sudden, the smoke disappeared and the air was clear again. Coughing once more, Lisa opened her eyes to see what was ahead of her, and gaped at the sight that met her eyes.

“ No way,” said Lisa in utter disbelief.

Her intuition had been right all along.

[Master Kirby]

Wow! You sure like to leave people hanging, don't you? Lisa has a habit of finding trouble everywhere she goes. Team Rocket attacks her at home, she gets taken away to Port Valeo, and they attack there too. That was interesting how Gavin had actually been held hostage the whole time Lisa had been home waiting for him, and he just happens to find her at the hotel. I hope Gavin gets his psychic powers back sometime soon. With this new turn of events, Oak reported missing, and now they have found the source of the explosions, it would come in handy to have some superhuman powers to get them out of any trouble they will probably fall into. Plus if he has to face the ultimate psychic power like the rest of his family, he should get practicing.

As usual, your writing has great description. I could really feel the tension building up as some unexplainable force was pulling Lisa to find the source of the disturbance. Keep up the good work. I will be waiting to find what it is that Lisa's intuition had been right about all along.

[Chris 2.1]

Great work! Unexpected, and although the chapter involved a romp in the forest, it still delivered all the LTL greatness. The description was awesome, it's like when you read it you go 'hey...now THATS description' and it really inspires me....hmm...but did they not check the breifcase?

Keep it up!

[PancaKe]

That was an actionpacked chapter from you Gav, but it was also short by your standards. It wasn't one of your best chapters, it felt more like a filler with a cliffhanger, but knowing you, things from the chapter will be taken and used in other chapters. All i can say is that it was actionpacked, and rather good, but I know you can write much better.

~Mist