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It seemed we were at a dead end, with no clue as to what we should do next. Barbara had told us that the Orb of Twilight used to be on Neptune Island, but what was the point of knowing where something was hundreds of years ago - especially something we needed to find fast.
"Gone?" I repeated. "But how could something as important as the Orb of Twilight just . . . vanish?"
"No-one knows," Barbara told us, although she clearly wished she could say otherwise. "But I can tell you that, when I was a little girl, I found something engraved on the old War Memorial on Mars Island - I just didn't give it much thought until recently. Hang on . . ."
With that, she hurried upstairs and came back moments later carrying a large hardback book - the paper cover was missing, but I could make out the title Mars Island: The Sites Of Interest in gold lettering on the spine. Barbara propped the book up between us and opened it on a page that had clearly been looked at many times.
It showed a colour photograph of the War Memorial, a stone sculpture erected in memory of all the lives - human and Pokemon - lost in the bloodshed between Mars Island and Neptune Island. At the bottom, I could just make out a faint inscription, but the exact words were unclear - luckily, they were included in the caption printed at the side:
Few men are possessed of the wisdom to control the Orb of Twilight. Thus, the Great Guardian came to claim it make and decreed that only those worthy to do so would be granted leave to return it to the surface and only then in the hour of direst need.
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"That's great, isn't it?!" Michaela sniffed. "Sending us all the way out here to look for something we haven' got a . . ."
I cut her off before she could rant any further. "Wait!" I told her, restraining her with my hand. "Psyrene wouldn't have chosen us if we weren't worthy and I THINK I know who it means by the Great Guardian."
Justine nodded to back me up. "Yeah - remember when we had all those freak storms a few years back?" she asked. "Well I found out from Dad that Lugia was sighted at around that time - or at least that's what all the rumours said. Most people thought it was just strange ocean currents . . ."
Glancing at the others, I could see that neither Barbara, Milly, Michaela nor Jodie had any idea what Justine was talking about. But she was my best friend, the daughter of an expert in the mysteries of Legendary Pokemon - she had read up on Lugia once and knew enough to know that he was more than just an ordinary Pokemon, that he would only rise out of the depths of the ocean if great danger threatened the planet. And she had always enjoyed sharing what she read with me, so I had also heard talk of Lugia - the Great Guardian.
I couldn't be bothered to go into detailed explanations, so I just rattled off Pokedex-like: "Lugia is a Legendary Pokemon, sometimes known as the Great Guardian, which only emerges in times of grave danger."
"Come again?" said Milly, leaning across the table.
"Sorry. Anyway, my guess is that the Orb of Twilight originated with Lugia - or that Lugia has something to do with its existence. Either way, I'm willing to beat that, if we find Lugia, we'll find that Orb."
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But finding Lugia looked like it would be easier said than done - the last reported sighting had been in the Orange Islands and we knew he had almost certainly moved on since then.
"Forget looking for needles in haystacks, more like looking for Pokemon in the ocean!" I said after we had spent several hours checking various Pokemon databases, only to find that there had been no sightings of Lugia since the strange and unexplained storms of a few years earlier. "And it doesn't exactly help that Lugia's choosy about coming out."
But we knew we had to keep looking. Psyrene had warned us that the fate of the world rested in our hands. And, if that meant trying to track down a Pokemon seldom seen by human eyes, that was what we would have to do.
At that moment, just as I was mulling over our options, a sudden shadow darkened the room we were in. Rushing to the window, I saw a gigantic yellow bird with flames on her wings and a flaming tail and headcrest - it was Moltres, a Pokemon I knew from Justine to be the Legendary Bird of Fire.
"Moltres!" I called, preparing to let her in. "What are you doing all the way out here?"
Moltres squawked, but, in my human form, I couldn't understand what she was saying. So I morphed into my Bellossom form and asked again, sensing in the pit of my stomach that it had to be serious for one of the Legendary Birds to leave its Island.
"Lugia sent me to find you," she said, bowing her head. "You must find the Orb of Twilight before it is too late . . ."
"But why?" I asked. "Why is Lugia prepared to yield its secrets, especially after keeping it hidden of so many centuries?"
Moltres looked me straight in the eye and I gulped - as a Fire/Flying Pokemon, she could easily make short work out of a Grass Pokemon like the Bellossom I had become. But, instead of attacking, she simply continued to talk.
"Because today's Lugia is not the same Lugia who concealed the Orb."
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It was too much for me to take in - Legendary Pokemon, Justine had told me often enough, were one-of-a-kind species. So how could there be more than one Lugia in the world? Moltres must have read my mind somehow because she continued with the words:
"We Legendary Birds are not like ordinary Pokemon - most of those live out their lives in a few decades at the most. But we can live on for centuries - millenia even - and, when the time comes for one of us to die, an Egg emerges that contains a new Bird to take our place."
"So now, the current Lugia is dying - but we have found no trace of any Egg. I've searched all over my Island, as Articuno and Zapdos have over theirs, and we've been forced to seek your help."
"What - do - you - need - us - for?" I asked, wondering if any more surprises were in store and how exactly this crisis Moltres was telling me about tied in with what Psyrene had said.
"To recover the Orb of Twilight," Moltres explained. "It is the only thing that can save Lugia from extinction."
With that, she turned and flew off into the night. It was all too much to take in - first, Psyrenehad said she needed the Orb of Twilight to restore the Po-psydron and the rest of the Psyrene and now Moltres appeared to be staking a claim too. From what I had gathered, both sides had valid reasons for wanting the Orb - it was just a question of figuring out how it would all fit together.
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"Soon as we've restocked, we'll head out to the Orange Islands," I said as we explored the harbour at Neptune Island. "After all, from what Moltres was saying last might, it sounds like Lugia could still be in that area."
"And, when we find Lugia, the Orb of Twilight can't be far behind," added Justine. "But that still doesn't help us - the Orange Islands are really vast and Lugia could be anywhere among them . . ."
"A rough idea of where to look's better than no idea at all," I retorted. "At least, if we narrow it down, there's a chance the Orb of Twilight may turn up."
A sudden cloudburst interupted my thoughts as the sea - which had been calm and blue only moments before - became a roaring monster of crashing waves and pounding surf. As we looked on in horror, we knew Psyrene's warning must be starting to come true.
The Age of Twilight was about to begin.
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Days passed with no sign of an end to the storm, which meant we were stuck on Neptune Island indefinitely. And I knew that every second we dallied precious time was wasted - time we could have spent travelling to the Orange Islands in search of Lugia and the Orb.
"If only there was some way to travel safely," I mused, staring morosely out of the window at the endlessly driving rain. "But the harbormasters have ordered that no boat leaves until this storm ceases."
But Jodie seemed to have the solution - she pulled Xatu's Poke Ball out of her pocket and told us her plan.
"We'll have to Teleport again," she explained, gesturing to us all to hold hands. "Go - Xatu!"
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"OK, Xatu," Jodie said once we were all assembled. "Teleport us to the Orange Islands - to Lugia's last known location."
There was a sudden flash and I felt as though I had become detached from my surroundings, that I was floating in space. Taking a fleeting glimpse at the others before the constant whirling forced my to close my eyes, I could tell that they felt pretty much the same way.
When I opened my eyes, I was standing in a chamber with my friends and a gigantic white Pokemon I had never seen before. It had a long neck and tail, large powerful-looking wings and a short beak - I couldn't tell if it was a bird or a reptile, but I knew there was only one Pokemon it could possibly be.
"Lugia?" I asked, kneeling down beside the creature.
"Yes - I am Lugia." His voice was rich and powerful, belying his evidently very weak condition - he was lying on the floor of what I could only assume was an undersea cave. "But I regret that I may be the last of my kind unless you unite the Orb of Twilight with its proper owner."
"But, I thought YOU were its proper owner," cut in Michaela. "At least that's what the book Barbara showed us said . . ."
Lugia gave us an enigmatic smile. "Something - something has happened to upset the balance of nature," he explained. "Last time, I rose from the sea and helped a human child quell the unrest between Articuno, Zapdos and Moltres. But they are not involved in this and only the Orb of Twilight can help the world now . . . I fear I am too weak to rise this time.
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The mystery appeared to be growing deeper - what had started out as a favour to Psyrene looked like it was affecting many other Pokemon as well.
"Lugia?" I asked. "Do you think the coming of the Age of Twilight might be why no new Lugia has emerged to replace you?"
"I do not know. All I do know is that, if you find the Collector, you will find the Orb."
"The Collector?"
"A human who tried to trap me - he was what forced me to emerge not long ago. And, only a few weeks ago, he somehow penetrated my chamber and stole the Orb - I used to keep it down here where greedy humans couldn't touch it. As he left, he said something about . . . killing me if I couldn't be part of his collection . . ."
We all stared at Lugia, completely speechless for several seconds. Clearly, whoever this Collector was had developed a grudge against Lugia after failing to capture him, a grudge strong enough to want to harm him in any way possible. Jodie was the first to break the silence.
"But - but you're a Legendary!" she told Lugia. "How could anything harm you?"
Lugia shook his head sadly. "No living thing can evade death forever," he told us. "I myself have already lived for almost eight-hundred years - and my time has come at last."
"Isn't there anything we can do?" I asked, scarcely able to take in the matter-of-fact way in which he was talking about the end of his own life. If it had been me, I would have done all I could to stay alive for as long as possible.
"For myself, nothing," Lugia replied. "But you can help by finding the Orb and my successor - so I will transport you back to the surface. I - I need some time alone . . ."
"But . . ." Jodie began to say.
But, seeing the sorrowful look on Lugia's face - a silent tear glistened in one of his eyes - we knew arguing was pointless.
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