Lisa the Legend - Chapter 52 up!!
AT LAST!!!
Orion: Thanks for reading and replying, I'm glad you like this so far, although if you've only read a few chapters, you're really going to like what's coming up (I hope). Oh, and I haven't giving up on reading your fic, I'll read and catch up again ASAP. Anyways, Lisa IS the girl from the 3rd pokémon movie, but that was just the basis for her existence - her activities in the movie are really null-and-void as far as LTL is concerned. But she's cool, and Aipom is too! I'm glad I've inspired you, but I hope YOU are glad that your reply inspired me - to finish chapter 50 at last. I wrote most of it today, in the last couple of hours, and i'm really happy with it.
So, after all these months (2 or so) of waiting, I finally have got over my block - I'm like Austin Powers with his mojo back (so to speak). Without further ado, here is the squeakily-new, lemony-fresh, Chapter 50 of Lisa the Legend.
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Chapter 50 – The Informant.
“ And there it is,” Gavin said ceremoniously.
Hardly able to stay on her feet, Lisa forced her legs to keep moving until she finally reached the crest of the hill. Darkness had already settled upon the land and the long day’s walk had taken its toll on her.
“ What, that’s it?” she moaned, shuffling her bag and warding off a mosquito.
She and Gavin were looking up at what they had been constantly been walking towards for the past seven hours: the imposing Mount Fairfax, location of the contest they were about to enter. Lisa couldn’t see much more than a rough outline of the mountain – it was only visible as a jagged peak of black against a backdrop of starry sky. Maybe if she hadn’t been so exhausted, Lisa would have been more impressed by the sight of the mountain; as it was, she struggled to keep her eyes open.
“ Let’s keep going then,” said Gavin, visibly fighting the exhaustion out of his voice.
“ Ugh,” grunted Lisa, slapping another pesty mosquito as she began the descent down the slope. By her judgment, they were now scarcely more than a kilometre from the cluster of lights near the base of the mountain, that was presumably the usual set-up – a hotel or inn, a couple of shops and houses, maybe a dirt battleground. Focusing her thoughts on a clean bed, she trailed after Gavin.
It had been a very dull trip. They had talked a lot at first, but after a few kilometres they grew tired and talked less. Lisa sent Aipom to his new pokéball to make the journey easier; previously, Aipom had been chasing Butterfree up trees, which held up progress considerably.
“ Wonder what the contest is going to be like?” mused Gavin, making a stab at conversation.
Somehow Lisa found that she no longer had the energy to not speak to him. “ Dunno,” she sighed, “ With our luck it will probably be cancelled.”
Fifteen minutes later, aching and sore, they stumbled into the well-lit car park of the Fairfax Inn, which was located at the very end of their trail. The frontage left much to be desired: a garden of what appeared to be bare hedges bordered the car park, while a haphazard path zig-zagged across the bitumen to the front door. A neon sign above the double doorway proclaimed ‘Fairfax Motor Inn – est. 1962’ – at least, that was what Lisa presumed it said, as most of the letters didn’t light up.
Gavin exchanged a dubious glance with her but said nothing; his eyes suggested he didn’t like the look of the place any more than she did, but their weariness prevailed. Lisa took the lead, striding forward to the wooden doors and pushing on through them into the foyer.
Or at least, it could have been a foyer. A pungent grey haze hovered around a dingy, wood-panelled room. A counter with a refrigerator behind it signified an unattended bar, while the rest of the room was kitted out in plastic tables and tattered chairs. An embattled television set was fixed to the wall above the bar. The room was completely deserted.
“ Uh – hello?” said Lisa loudly, expecting to see a tumbleweed rolling past.
Gavin slung his backpack onto the floor and rubbed his neck with a wince. Apparently, he was leaving Lisa to find some sign of human life.
“ Is anybody here?” she called loudly, striding across to a splintery doorway that led to a narrow vestibule. It, too, was deserted, but Lisa thought she could hear some music distantly.
Without warning, a door so well camouflaged that she hadn’t even noticed it flew open, flooding the hall with light. Upbeat country music wafted in the door, as well as several cries and cheers of people. Directly in front of her, Lisa saw a dwarfish man, surely no taller than four and a half feet. He had sparse, spiky grey hair and a bewildered expression.
“ Well, you’ll be a visitor, I’m so sorry Miss, please forgive me,” he said all in a rush, in a clipped accent that Lisa couldn’t quite distinguish. “ You’ll be here for the contest then?”
“ Um, yes, I was hoping to get a suite here,” said Lisa, cloaking her sleepiness.
The tiny man led her briskly back to the bar, where Gavin was still fixing his back. Lisa stifled a giggle; the man’s legs were moving rapidly but he moved very slowly. “ A what?” he said, ducking under the counter and producing a thick leather-bound book, filled with scrawly writing.
“ A suite,” repeated Lisa.
“ Oh, sure, sure, love, forgive me hearing,” he said quickly. He ducked under the counter and produced a metal tin, filled to the brim with brightly-coloured chocolates and assorted sweets.
Lisa hesitated. “ Take any sweet you like, love,” the man said, glancing at her hopefully and sincerely.
Gavin snorted loudly as he understood the man’s mistake; Lisa was torn between bursting into laughter and feeling sorry for the man – he had genuinely misunderstood. “ I’ll take the caramel fudge, thanks,” said Lisa finally, thinking it would be unkind to point out his mistake.
“ Thanks, love,” he said, taking her money. “ Now, would you like a room for the night?”
“ Er – yes please,” said Lisa, smiling sincerely. Gavin was guffawing into the sleeve of his jumper. “ Two separate rooms please. Under the names Lisa Walters and Gavin Luper.” Gavin stopped abruptly and looked at her, apparently highly affronted.
“ No worries, love,” said the man cheerfully. He handed them two keys. “ Your room is Oakabella,” he told Lisa, giving her a key. “ And yours is Smethley. Now,” he said, efficiently dumping the book on the floor behind the counter. “ I’ve signed you up for the contest too, so there’s no worry there. Come join us in the function room when you’re ready. Watch the TV if you like,” he added in a rush, reaching up to the set and trying to push the button. He was on his third jump when Lisa reached up for him and switched channel seven on.
“ Thank you love,” he said happily. “ Well, see you soon. Oh, and the name’s Paddy, by the way,” he added, and with a wink he trotted back to the room filled with music, leaving the two of them alone in the hazy room.
“ Interesting,” remarked Gavin, still smirking.
“ You’re horrible, he can’t help it,” said Lisa, who herself couldn’t help liking Paddy. “ Well, I don’t see why we have to hang around here and watch TV really. Grab your bag and we’ll dump them in our rooms before we join the people in that room. Sounds like they’re having a hoedown.”
Gavin didn’t answer. He didn’t move an inch.
“ Gavin, I said come on,” Lisa said.
“ Look,” he said breathlessly. His eyes were fixed on the silent TV screen. “ It’s us.”
“ What?” demanded Lisa, following his gaze. At once, the wrapped caramel in her hand dropped to the floor. She was staring at a news report, with a photograph of her and Gavin on the screen behind the news presenter.
“ What the hell!” cried Lisa, forgetting her tiredness. At once, Gavin turned the volume up, and they listened with a mix of awe and confusion. A blonde presenter was talking:
Tonight there still remains no word on the whereabouts of missing teenagers Lisa Walters and Gavin Luper. The duo disappeared from the Houen village of Port Valeo last weekend, and despite a thorough manhunt for both persons, police remain baffled. Evidence has come to light that Miss Walters, the last of the duo to be sighted, was taped on a security camera leaving the Valeo Police Station on Saturday morning. Police remain concerned that the teenagers have fallen victims to foul play, as they were witnesses to a high-profile court case only last week.
As with all other evenings, we urge our viewers to contact the investigators on (04) 1800 223 if they have any information on either Lisa Walters or Gavin Luper.
The report ended with a supposedly chilling image of Lisa walking out of the police station on the security tape.
“ Oh. My. God.”
“ I know,” said Gavin, turning the TV off.
“ How did this happen?” Lisa said stupidly, her mind numb.
“ I don’t know, especially since we didn’t go to the police station on Saturday.” Lisa squirmed noticeably and began to edge away from the bar. Gavin picked this up at once. “ I didn’t anyway …” he said, suddenly accusatory.
“ I went there that morning,” Lisa confessed instantly. “ I’m sorry, I should have let you know this before.”
Gavin’s finger traced down his scar, apparently subconsciously. “ What did you go there for that you should be sorry about?” he said suspiciously.
Lisa squirmed again, but she knew she had to tell Gavin before any more confusion occurred.
“ I reported my parents disappearance, as well as Marina’s, and said that I thought Team Rocket had done the attack on my house, well … I thought it was Team Rocket back then … And then the officer told me I had to go into custody, and she left … but I couldn’t stay, because we had to find Professor Oak. So I ran for it.”
It felt much better to have that off her chest. The heavy load on her shoulders had been lightened a little, but there was so much more bogging her down that her relief was only fleeting.
“ So you’ve got us into trouble again,” sighed Gavin, sinking into one of the bar stools. “ What is it with you Lisa, you can’t help but make life harder for yourself.”
“ Me?” said Lisa quietly. “ I made my life difficult?” she murmured. All at once, she felt floodgates within her burst open. “ I’m trying to help Professor Oak out here, I’m doing my best! So what if I broke a rule or a law or whatever, I don’t care anymore! In case you hadn’t noticed, the last week has been the longest week of my life! I’ve been attacked, lost a friend, attacked again, escaped, found a dead legendary, been attacked a third time and then had to walk thirty kilometres to a place that doesn’t even deserve a name! And why? Because I’m trying to get my life back on track somehow, and get to the bottom of this Suicune, Raikou, Entei crap. And then there’s the Union coming after me, you have no idea what that’s like, Gavin … IT’S NOT EASY, YOU KNOW!” She burst out, her eyes prickling with hot, dammed-back tears.
There was a very long pause. Lisa felt her shoulders heaving and her eyes leaking tears down her cheeks; she was dimly aware that Gavin was staring at her oddly, and even more distantly aware that she had just yelled her heart out for no good reason.
“ Yes, I do know what that’s like, actually,” said Gavin stiffly.
Lisa couldn’t be bothered with being sorry for him; she had had enough. “ I’m going to bed,” she announced abruptly. She turned her back on him and stormed off to the hallway. She somehow found a door with ‘Oakabella’ written on it, turned the key and flung the door closed behind her.
She didn’t bother turning the light on or having a look at the room; she collapsed on the bed and allowed herself, for the first time since her ordeal had begun last year, to cry unrestrainedly into her pillow. Her tears carried her to sleep at last.
*
Lisa couldn’t tell how long she had been sleeping for when a loud noise awoke her. She jerked her head up and glanced around the small room for the source of the noise. It had been sharp and abrupt; a kind of clanging that had reverberated through her dreams and forced her into consciousness. But now it was gone.
For all her exhaustion, she felt oddly awake now, so she sat up slowly and attained her first view of the dark room – the Oakabella room. It was not very large but the lack of furniture gave it a spacious touch. Aside from the bed, there was only a small chest of drawers, a desk and an old television.
But no sign of where the noise had come from. Lisa looked around the room. Had she just imagined it? Perhaps the frantic, high-paced experiences of her past week had made her subconsciously nervous.
CLANG!
The sound of something metal on something else metal sounded from the hallway. Without thinking, Lisa began to gravitate toward the door, but suddenly Gavin’s words echoed in her head. “ What is it with you Lisa, you can’t help but make life harder for yourself.” She stopped in mid-step, about a metre from the door that led to the hallway. She watched as a shadow passed along the slit at the bottom of the door, but forced herself not to react. She was torn between curiosity, fear and sensability, but it seemed that finally sensability had prevailed. The shadow was replaced with the weak chink of light beneath the door. The sound of somebody moving passed.
Lisa raised her eyebrows to herself. She realised how stupid it would have been to confront the person in the hall; clearly they had nothing to do with her at all. She would only have, like Gavin said, made life harder for herself.
“ You’re paranoid,” Lisa told herself, stumbling back to bed. The curtains behind her bed rippled slightly in the breeze. She left the window open; it was a warm night. Slipping beneath the covers, she closed her eyes forcefully and tried to sleep.
Seconds later, a few things happened in quick succession. There was a loud ‘click’ sound that surely everyone in the Inn would have heard, followed at once by a massive boom of noise that shook the floorboards and rattled the windowsill; the sounds filled Lisa’s head so greatly that she could barely think. Who had turned the music up so loud at this hour?
She sat up, irritated by the noise. And just as she groped around for her bag, which held her torch, a strong arm appeared from nowhere and grabbed her in a headlock.
In the darkness she could see nothing; with the music up so loud, she could not hear anything either. But a man’s voice barked into her ear, “ Come with me, hurry up, there’s no time to waste!”
Lisa could see no weapon (which she had become somewhat accustomed to over the past week) so she tried to struggle. But the man’s grip was too strong and he began to drag her toward the window, stretching her neck until she had to stop struggling, in fear of breaking her neck.
“ Stop it, girl! Be quick! Just come with me!”
Lisa tried to look at her attacker but his grasp was too firm. Finally, the pressure on her neck became too much and she succumbed; she actually began pushing herself toward the window to help the man. Her head bumped against the windowsill loudly, but the music was still roaring; apparently nobody had turned it off yet.
Finally Lisa felt the frigid night air blowing against her face. She was placed rather roughly on the hard bitumen of what might have been the car park. She noticed broken shreds of wood panelling on the ground but had no time to think where they had come from. The man relinquished his grip around her neck and grabbed her wrist.
“ Come!” he cried, dragging her.
“ Who are you?” bellowed Lisa, finding her voice at last after freeing her throat. “ Stop it, let me go back! Help!”
The large man continued to roughly pull her along, forcing her to stumble after him, this time in fear of breaking her wrist. “ Shut up!” he snapped. “ Just be quiet!”
Lisa cried out for help, for Gavin, for Paddy and for the Police, but even in the car park, the music drowned out most of her screams. It was up painfully loud. Helpless, without even her pokémon to protect her, she could do nothing of any use.
“ Get in!” barked the man.
He gestured to a small red car that they had reached. Lisa did nothing, just stood stock-still beside the car. However, the man twisted her arm slightly, enough to force considerable pain upon her, and she once again relinquished, slumping into the back seat as the bulky man pelted to the front. Without any words, except Lisa’s progressively feeble screams for help, the car lurched down the driveway and onto Fairfax’s main street. Only when they were driving away from the centre of the tiny village did Lisa hear the heavy beat of the loud music finally come to a halt.
“ Help me! Police!” she screamed yet again, hearing her voice as though it was muffled beneath clothing.
Her captor grunted angrily. “ Keep your voice down,” he said. “ I’m not going to hurt you, nobody is, just relax.”
If I’m supposed to believe that after what’s happened to me, Lisa thought, he’s dreaming.
Lisa continued to scream for help, her voice growing hoarser all the time, but her feelings toward the driver began to soften. It was possible that he was telling the truth; perhaps he had no intention of harming her. After all, unlike the Union, he had not brandished a weapon at her, nor had he restrained her except to get her out of the Inn quickly. Lisa found that she had stopped screaming, and was about to talk to the driver rationally when she reminded herself: kidnapping someone in the middle of the night was not generally accepted human behaviour. ‘ Then again,’ she thought, ‘ Lately it seems to be perfectly normal.’
She ended up compromising; she ceased her perpetual screams but said nothing at all to the driver, who had firmly remained silent since they began driving. She would have to wait and see what the man’s motives were before she could do anything more. Despite all her recent experiences, she knew trying to physically resist the man would be futile – their earlier scuffle had proved that.
She decided to occupy her mind by watching the dark bushes flashing past the window. The car was now zooming along the winding road that Lisa and Gavin had following just a few hours before, out into the middle of the forest. The man’s attention remained fixed on the road, even when he happened to glance up at the mirror and see Lisa staring sullenly back at him.
Then, out of the silence, he said sharply, “ Nearly there.”
Lisa resisted replying to him for as long as she could, but as usual her curiosity got the better of her. “ Where are you taking me?”
“ Somewhere safe. Where you won’t be overheard.”
His answer could have been taken a number of ways; Lisa allowed the meaningless words to wash over her as she posed yet another question.
“ Why did you kidnap me?”
The man slowed the car as he rounded a bend and allowed his eyes to lock with hers in the mirror. “ I didn’t kidnap you.”
“ Yes you did!” objected Lisa, keeping her voice level.
“ No. Kidnapping would mean you didn’t want to come with me.”
“ Well, I don’t!”
“ Not now. But when you return you will be very glad that I took you.”
Before Lisa could overcome her surprise at this bold statement and defend her position, the man braked sharply and made a violent swing to the left, careering off the road onto a track that, judging by the crunching sound beneath the tyres, was carpeted with leaves.
What now? thought Lisa.
Without warning, the driver braked again in the middle of the track. “ Get out.” His voice was suddenly harsh and stern again.
“ Why?” said Lisa automatically. If he was going to harm her in any way, she wanted to feel as though she had some control over the situation.
“ Just get out. Stay off the track.”
With a rush of relief, Lisa realised that he was not coming with her outside the car. Somewhat spurred by this, she opened the door and stepped out onto a thick layer of golden leaves; a strong wind slammed the door shut for her. Then the driver, without glancing at her, floored the accelerator and left her alone in the dark forest, a biting wind swirling around her as she watched the tail lights disappear into the distance.
Her first reaction was to run for cover, but there seemed to be little to run for – there were only scores of tall, imperceptibly tall trees surrounding the narrow track. She shivered unstoppably as the chilling wind blew straight through her, freezing her bones, it seemed.
Find your way back.
Lisa glanced around, searching for some help or something to save her. She had left her backpack in the Oakabella room, so there was no assistance there: Aipom, Fiskmire, Electabuzz, Vulpix and Dratini were a long way away from her. Nor did she have her pokégear or buzzball. She was entirely on her own in the middle of the woods.
“ Help me! Somebody help me!” she yelled into the night. The surrounding trees roared in the growing wind; there was no other answer to her plea. The wind lashed at her legs, cutting them with swirling leaves.
And then, very distantly, battling to make itself heard over the roaring gale, a dull throbbing sound began to reach Lisa’s ears. It was very mechanical, low and loud, growing in volume all the time, yet Lisa could not see anything approaching.
“ Stay off the track.”
Lisa remembered the driver’s words, as the noise grew louder; she leapt off the leafy path just as a sleek black limousine pulled up right beside her. It was so black that, against the shadows of the woods, she had not seen it approaching. The lights were all off.
The back window rolled down silently. Lisa no longer cared who or what was inside, or what their intentions were; she had to do anything she could to keep out of the sub-zero wind. Without waiting for the person inside to say anything, she yanked the door open and thrust herself into the depths of the car.
*
“ Haven’t I told you enough times, he hasn’t just wandered off!” Rachel Hudson told her friend Ellie on the telephone. Aware that her temper was rising, she took a deep breath and glanced through the long glass windows that lined the conservatory at the picturesque beach setting below: terraces upon terraces, lined with sweet-smelling citrus trees, that gradually sloped down to the town square; crystalline water glittering in the morning sun as Pelippers playfully skimmed across the water; tourists lazing on the white beach sand. It was one of the most calming sights Rachel knew, which was the main reason she had chosen to base her laboratory in Dervine.
“ I’m just saying,” Ellie’s voice wafted through the phone casually, “ That he’s getting on, old age probably made him senile.”
Rachel massaged her temple. “ He isn’t senile! I’m telling you, I need your help. Every other avenue I’ve tried has been a dead end. The police have practically given up. I need you to come here and help me. With your Sandslash and Persian, if you can. Please! You’re my oldest friend.”
Her reply was just as airy. “ Why don’t you find a younger professor to work with? I hear that really good-looking one, Professor Davison, is in Olivine next week. I might go just to look at him –”
“ Augh!” Rachel fumed. “ Ellie, are you going to help me or not?”
“ Sorry, what? Oh … no, I have to dye my hair.”
Rachel slammed the phone down onto its hook in disgust. Her face red and flushed, she took a pen and crossed ‘Ellie Lambert’ off the list of people she had been calling for assistance. Professor Oak had been missing in action for a week.
“ So much for that,” Rachel sighed, slamming the notepad onto the coffee table and striding off toward the pool. She knew she needed to cool off, but, more importantly, she knew she needed somebody to help her plight.
*
A man with his eyes conveniently covered by a thick fringe peered down at Lisa. He was seated on the same warm sheepskin seat as she was, but on the left hand side of the vehicle. Lisa, meanwhile, had piled into the limousine awkwardly, planting her face into the thick carpet and her legs somehow straddled across the seat.
“ Ah, there you are Lisa, you were dropped off on time,” said the man.
At the unwelcome mention of her name, Lisa disentangled herself from her awkward position and arranged herself on the seat opposite the man who had greeted her. She could not see his eyes through his hair, but his square jaw was vaguely familiar. She looked at him for a moment, studying him. He was clothed in a dark travelling cloak and heavy boots. The lack of lighting in the limousine meant that she could not determine much else about him.
Resisting the urge to ask how he knew her name, Lisa said, “ What do you want?” Her voice was hoarse and she had noticeably lost much of her energy during her few freezing moments in the wind.
The man smiled. “ Drive,” he commanded the driver, and at once the car rolled over the leaves and began to drive away. “ Here, you’re probably cold,” he added briefly, pushing a thick cloak in Lisa’s direction. She took it gladly and furled it around her shivering body.
“ Okay, Lisa, this isn’t so much a matter of what I want – it’s what you want.”
She raised an eyebrow at him as she felt her temperature returning to normal. “ I don’t get it.”
He did not waste any time in explaining. “ Lisa, you have been under siege for four months now, no?”
“ About that, I suppose …” she said in disbelief; how did this mysterious stranger know so much about her, and the Union’s pursuit of her?
“ And can you honestly tell me that you have never wondered why?”
Lisa’s heart paused in mid-beat. His words dripped with suspense. It could not have been clearer that this man, this strange man who had apparently organised for her to be taken from her hotel room, knew the reason why her life had been in turmoil for so long. He had the knowledge.
“ What do you know?” she breathed.
“ I know why you have been attacked by the Union.” Again, he wasted no time in making his knowledge of the secret group available. “ I know why they have been following you – trying to track you down. And I know that you have had several encounters with the legendary pokémon. These two occurrences are not related.”
Her heart was racing once again. “ Why?” she breathed.
The man paused and adjusted his cloak, loosening his legs slightly as the vehicle rolled onwards. Lisa waited as he cleared his throat, agonisingly slowly. He was now drawing it out, quite cruelly, she thought.
“ Okay,” he said (At last, thought Lisa), “ The reason the Union is pursuing you is because they desperately need you. You know the story of the Union?”
“ No … not really …”
He cleared his throat once again and launched into his story. “ Well, about three years ago now, Team Rocket was defeated in Goldenrod City by a squadron of secret government police, by a group of people who had tried to revive the organisation. Joseph Sterling was the leader. When the police stormed the hideout, the result was bittersweet. They destroyed the Team’s resources and captured – and killed – many agents. But some escaped. The most famous was Sterling – he faced up to the police directly – and still, somehow, escaped from them, from right under their nose. But the police were not entirely concerned with this: they had broken Team Rocket’s central base, taken most of the agents out and broken the reign of terror that the Rockets were starting to have over the entire Johto region. Very few people know about this – it was kept as brief as possible. The papers made it sound as though Team Rocket just strolled up to the police station and surrendered their weapons and lives, which definitely could not be further from the truth.
“ The police knew that Sterling was still out there somewhere, but they believed his power to be gone – he had no base, no supporters. But they were wrong. It took him two years to finally regroup and begin setting up a secret base. He formed the group with other old friends and rebel groups that he could align himself with. They called themselves the Union – but whenever they went on a mission, they wore the old Team Rocket uniform. This was to confuse the authorities; to make them focus on tracking down any Rocket activity, when really it was setting them up on a wild goose chase. By about six months ago, the Union was getting more powerful than ever. They have acquired new weapons, new pokémon, new bases – and they have a plan.”
Lisa listened avidly. “ What is their plan?”
He drew a heavy breath. “ The Radio Tower in Goldenrod City collapsed in October last year. You and Gavin were both there; it is the event that drew you together. But the Union had a part to play in the collapse – it was their doing …”
“ No it wasn’t,” Lisa interjected. “ I should know, I saw it. The Black Beast – Lunanine – attacked us when we were in the video vault. It caused the explosion, not the Union.”
Although she could not see the man’s eyebrows, Lisa knew he had raised one. “ Very well. But has it never occurred to you where Lunanine came from?” Lisa paused for a moment, deep in thought. The man went on. “ After all, how does a legendary beast come to be in the video vault of an information centre like the Radio Tower?”
His dark gaze was boring into Lisa. “ I … don’t really know …” she said vacantly. It had never, throughout all her experiences, occurred to her what an absurdity it was to have a legendary beast in a basement – she had assumed, as it was magical, it could do what it liked. But now …
“ I’ll tell you what happened. On that day when you and Gavin went into the Video Vault, somebody from the Union was also there, with Lunanine accompanying them. I have intelligence that tells me what they were doing. They were looking for an old video, and an even older text that accompanied it. Yet this is the biggest problem I have; the question I have been unable to answer for months.”
“ What is it?” Lisa said. She was absolutely baffled by what the man was saying, and yet, piece by piece, things were slotting into place. She remembered back to that day in the Radio Tower – a shelf had toppled over just as Gavin had used Natu to identify Lunanine’s presence. Someone else had been in the vault with them: a Union member.
“ The problem is,” said the man, “ I have no idea what was on the tape, or in the text. I do not know what its contents were. However, what I do know is that, whatever the Union member found, he or she got away with it.”
Something stirred in Lisa’s memory. “ How could they have escaped? The tower collapsed a minute later – they couldn’t have got away in time, we would have seen them going up the stairs.”
Again he raised an eyebrow. “ You and Gavin escaped, didn’t you?” he said. “ That was unexpected – some people from the upper floors made it out, but anyone down in the deep basement would surely have been killed.” His voice had a thinly veiled sarcasm to it. “ But you did survive, surprising everyone.”
Lisa rubbed her forehead. The information was welcome to her, but it did not stop it from being difficult to take in all at once.
“ So – hang on – how is this all relevant to me?”
He smirked. “ I’ll tell you why. A lot more happened in the vault that day than either you or I can understand. Lunanine’s presence was not an accident – I suspect that the Union used it. How they managed to gain control over a legendary is beyond me. But the documents that the Union obtained were very relevant. They concern the legendaries. And they concern you.”
His words rang in Lisa’s ears. How could such an old text relate to her, a fourteen-year-old girl? A thousand thoughts and ideas gushed through her consciousness before she spluttered, “ You mean like a prophecy?”
The eyebrow again. “ Do you believe in prophecies? Do you think that a person six hundred years in the past can foretell exactly what is going to happen to someone in the present, or the future?”
Lisa wavered. “ Well, maybe …”
He smiled as though she was no more than a naďve child. “ No, it is not a prophecy,” he said. “ But I do not know what it is exactly. All I know is that those documents are the reason – or at least, one of many possible reasons – for the Union’s pursuit of you.”
Her head was swimming, but one bitter thought emerged. She had been there as the documents were removed. If only she could have had some way of knowing, so she could have stopped everything from unfolding!
“ So you don’t know the actual reason for the Union’s attacks on me?” Lisa asked slowly.
The man shook his head slowly. “ What I told you now is, more or less, the extent of my knowledge on this matter. But there is much more to worry about. I have told you all this for a reason. Now that you know the Union is indeed, following you, you have to help me out.”
It suddenly occurred to Lisa how odd it was to have some stranger so intensely concerned in both her and the Union. How did he know so much? “ Hang on – who are you?” she accused at once.
“ Someone who wants to help,” he said simply. “ I cannot tell you my name, that would endanger us both. But we have met before,” he added, though Lisa could not, for the life of her, find any recollection of him in her memory.
“ So, okay, assuming you are a good person … what do you want me to do?” Lisa said tentatively, feeling the lurch of the limousine for the first time in what felt like hours.
“ You have signed up for the Fairfax mountain contest, right?” said the man, and she nodded. “ Well, I need you to be on the look-out. I am not sure why yet, but there is a Union member signed up for the contest. I feel they are up to no good, and they may try to harm you. Be very careful, but monitor anyone who looks suspicious. Just don’t let anyone know who you are. I will be seeing you very soon.”
It was only then when Lisa realised they had re-entered the village of Fairfax.
“ Oh, I have a problem,” she told her new friend – if he was in fact a friend – quickly. “ Um, me and Gavin have been reported missing and we’re on the news. If we’re found out we’ll be taken back to the police. You have to help us.”
“ I will take care of it,” the man said. Then, as the limousine pulled up outside the ominously quiet Inn, he leaned over and opened her door for her. “ Do not worry about anything that happened tonight. Climb back into your room and pretend you were asleep the whole time. Just focus on what I told you to do, and don’t tell anyone – even Gavin – that you met me. Promise?”
“ I promise,” said Lisa swiftly.
All at once, the absurd meeting came to an end. The man pushed her gently out the door, and she staggered out into the gusting winds, clutching her cloak to her tighter than ever. He pulled the door closed quietly and, satisfied that everything was taken care of, the limousine purred out of the car park and away into the shadows of the blustery night.
Very tired, Lisa headed back to the Oakabella room, to sleep.
Originally Posted by mr_pikachu
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