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I had just fallen into a restless sleep when the sound of hooves outside our cell woke me. Carefully stepping over the others - including a couple of Psyrene - I groped my way to the heavily bolted wooden door and called through the speaking hole, which had conveniently been left open.
"Hey! We need help in here!"
When I heard Flarequine whinney back, I didn't know whether to be relieved that help seemed to be on the way or annoyed with him and the other Horses for going off and leaving us. But instinct told me that I had better stand back so I hurriedly flattened myself against the nearest wall - as it turned out, it was lucky I did because, seconds later, a Fire Blast from Flarequine combined with a Thunder Attack from Dynahorse burnt through the door and left it dangling on its hinges.
There, standing out in the dimly lit corridor, were the Horses of Twilight, their wings folded against their backs so that they were barely noticeable. And, flanking them, were our own Pokemon, the ones that had turned on us moments before we had wound up in this cell.
"SOPHIE!" I called, running towards my Bayleef and embracing her. "By Kanto's name, I'm glad you're all right!"
"Leef!" Sophie replied, giving my hair an affectionate nibble. It was a habit I'd scolded her for in the past, but I was so happy to see her alive and well that she could have used me as target practice for one of her Attacks and I wouldn't have objected.
After a few moments spent hugging Sophie and telling her how glad I was to see her again - I know it seems like a cliche, but it's true - I realised I'd better let the others know what was happening. Since I didn't happen to have an alarm clock on me, I decided to improvise by morphing into my Bellossom form and jumping on top of Michaela's chest. She'd always been a light sleeper so I was soon rewarded with a shout of:
"Hey! Cut that out!" But she soon calmed down when she realised it was me and I, having changed back into my human form, had explained what was going on.
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But being reunited with our Pokemon was only a small part of the job done - we still had to find Lawrence and the Orb and get the Psyrene and Po-psydron back to the sea. "First things first," Adam advised us. "Since Water Types can't last long away from water, I think we need to get the Psyrene and Po-psydron to safety first."
Jodie nodded. "OK," she said. "Xatu - Teleport the Psyrene and Po-psydron back to the sea!"
Xatu opened out her cloak-like wings and, with a brief flash, all the Psyrene and Po-psydron disappeared from the cell. Now, all we had to do was get the Orb of Twilight away from Lawrence and use it to summon the next Lugia. Only then, with all the pieces of the puzzle in place, would the world's Great Guardian be restored and the Age of Twilight finally averted. . .
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"I hope we're not too late," Milly remarked anxiously as Chilval and Dynahorse flew us through the sky in Adam's balloon basket - earlier, we'd sent the Horses to scout the area around Mount Moon and they had found Lawrence about to take off in some weird flying contraption. Hearing this, we had decided that the only hope we had of cutting him off was to fly - with the help of the Horses since there was no way we would be able to make another balloon in time.
"Xatu told me the Psyrene and Po-psydron ended up somewhere near Seafoam Island," Jodie said. "But that won't help unless we can get that Orb and that egg away from Lawrence."
"Uh oh," I said darkly as a strange flying machine shaped rather like I had always imagined a UFO to look loomed up ahead. "Speak of the devil . . ."
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Wisely, we elected not to try and use our Pokemon this time and left the battling to the Horses - between the three of them, they soon proved more than a match for Lawrence's flying machine. But the battle was by no means easy as he had experience of trying to capture Legendaries in the past and knew what the Horses' likely weaknesses would be based on his encounter with Articuno, Zapdos and Moltres.
The first thing he tried was spraying a powerful jet of water at Flarequine, a move which had us literally clinging to the sides of the basket. As Adam had said not long ago, a Fire Pokemon with flames on its body was especially vulnerable to getting wet - and Legendary Pokemon were no exception. One well-placed spraying and Flarequine would be finished . . .
"Flarequine - take evasive action!" Milly called. In response, Flarequine flew high into the sky, out of reach of Lawrence's spray, and promptly launched into the most powerful Fire Attack we had ever seen. With a loud snort, he sent a huge jet of flame directly at the flying machine, using flames so hot that even we could feel the heat despite being somewhat removed from the action. When it subsided, the machine was charred completely black and the water gun Lawrence had installed looked like it would be out of commission for the foreseeable future - a twisted lump of metal was all that remained of what had moments before been a working gun.
"Holocaust," Justine said calmly as if Flarequine had done nothing more exciting than use Ember on a Bellsprout. "It's Flarequine's Special Attack and it's the most powerful Fire Attack known."
Despite our perilous situation, we had to laugh - Justine was like a walking Pokedex when it came to Legendary Pokemon. But we weren't laughing for long because Lawrence, recovering from having one of his weapons against the Horses decommissioned, was soon in pursuit of us again.
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Beams shot out from the flying machine, forcing Chilval and Dynahorse to fly a looping path in order to evade them before letting fly with their own Attacks. An Ice Beam from Chilval quickly froze the main engines, leaving Lawrence helpless in mid-air and, judging by the (unrepeatable) yells we could hear over his tannoy system, struggling to get the secondary engine started before that too was knocked out.
We did not intend on giving him that opening, however, so we elected to try and bring the whole machine down. It was risky - one wrong move could destroy the Orb of Twilight which we had fought so hard to regain - but it looked like there was no other option.
"OK," Adam said, giving a quick thumbs up and releasing his Scizor and Noctowl. "Girls - release your Pokemon and morph! Horses - into position!"
Working as a group, we were quickly able to send Lawrence's flying machine plummetting to the ground. Michaela - along with her Jolteon and Jodie's Mareep - joined with Dynahorse to send a powerful electric charge at the contraption, a charge so powerful that it interfered with the electrics inside the machine and sent it even further out of control. Next, Flarequine helped Milly and her Flareon finish the job with powerful Fire Blasts - according to Justine, Flarequine was only ever able to use Holocaust once every hundred years or so as its power would grow out of control if it was unleashed more often.
As one, the Horses landed us on the ground and took off into the air - their role in stopping the Age of Twilight was finished and it was now up to us.
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"Hand over that Orb!" I ordered as we surrounded Lawrence, now crouching on the ground amid the wreckage of his flying machine.
"Give me one good reason why!" he shot back, clearly determined to fight on despite the fact that he was clearly beaten.
"Because . . ." I said, hesitating as I tried to think what to say next. "Because the next Lugia won't emerge until you do." With that, I folded my arms and stared at him penetratingly, daring him to argue with what I had said.
"Why should I care - it's because of the last Lugia that I lost so much out in the Orange Islands! Twenty years' worth of relics were lost to me in one day thanks to that flying freak - so I resolved that Lugia had to die, not just that Lugia but the WHOLE DARN RACE!" Lawrence was fuming visibly now, shaking his fist at the sky as if at an imaginary Lugia and yelling so loudly that a nearby Diglett popped up to see what was wrong.
"So you stole the Orb of Twilight because you knew doing so would hasten Lugia's death," Justine added. "And after you had seen for yourself how important Lugia was to the world . . ." She shook her head, too digusted to continue speaking.
Milly continued for her. "We're making a citizen's arrest!" she declared as she as Michaela pinned Lawrence down between them and bound his hands with rope. But he still looked defiant and continued to glare at us for daring to thwart his plans.
"On what charge?" he demanded as Adam dragged him upright. "Not many people believe in the Legendaries unless they've seen them with their own eyes."
"I'm sure the Officer Jenny in the nearest town will find something to nail you on," Adam informed him. "At least she should be able to hold you until we get this mess sorted once and for all."
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The nearest town just happened to be our hometown of Fuchsia City so, right after we had dropped Lawrence at the police station and he had been led away to his cell, we decided to head straight for Justine's dad's shop and tell him of our discovery. I had the Orb of Twilight in my backpack, its weight reminding me of the burden we all bore with regards to the world's future, while Justine had taken charge of the Egg which we had also retrieved.
Looking around, it was apparent that we had stopped Lawrence none too soon - on every street corner, we could see the wreckage left by rioters and, every so often, we would be waylaid by people carrying placards bearing the words "THE END IS NIGH!" or some variation on it. Shop fronts were kicked in and cars stood smouldering and burnt out near what had once been a thriving street cafe. All that remained now was a pile of shattered glass and a few upturned tables.
Were we too late? Or was there still time to stop the Age of Twilight before the world as we knew it was destroyed? It was with some trepidation that we finally located Justine's dad's shop - like many others, it had been wrecked by vandals or looters - and pushed open the door.
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Justine's dad, Peter Scully - if I forgot to mention Justine's last name at the start, I apologise - was standing near the wreckage of his window display. Glass covered all the artefacts - a stone Articuno, a medieval painting of Entei and various other objects to do with Legendary or simply very rare Pokemon - and it looked as though some of the items were wrecked beyond repair.
"I'm ruined," Mr Scully mourned as he struggled to tidy the shop up as best he could. "It took me eight years to build this business up and . . . THOSE YOBS have to wreck it all in one night!"
Without stopping to think, Justine ran towards him and flung her arms round his shoulders. "Dad!" she called. "Dad - it's me, Justine! I've been away with my friends, but we're back and we need your help."
Mr Scully looked at her and seemed briefly taken aback by her sudden appearence until he smiled and swung her up in the air.
"Justine!" he exclaimed. "Thank goodness you're safe! When you went off like that, I was afraid I'd never see you again!"
Justine quickly extracted herself and asked the question we had come to find answers to. "Dad, a few weeks ago - before all this trouble started - I found a statuette, a Psyrene," she explained. "And I've been wondering if you could shed some light on it. You see, it might be important to halting the Age of Twilight."
"Sure," Mr Scully said. "Right after you tell me what you've been doing gadding about the countryside with all this uncertainty in the air - only last night, there was talk on the news about an impending nuclear war and Lugia help us if things get THAT bad."
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Mr Scully led us down to the fallout shelter he had prepared in his cellar in case "the worst came to the worst". Once we were all crammed into the narrow space, he switched on a torch and invited us to explain.
"Aah, yes," he said when we had finished. "I know all about this Orb of Twilight - I did some research whil you were gone and it turns out that only when its powers combine with Lugia's will the Age of Twilight finally be halted."
"We know all that," Michaela cut in. "The question is, what does that statuette have to do with anything and how do we get the next Lugia to hatch?"
"Those are TWO questions, Michaela," Mr Scully said. "But I can tell you that the statuette appears to be what gave you your morphing powers - when I found it in an antiques fair over in Pallet Town, I knew at a glance that it was no ordinary artefact and that's why I kept it hidden away so people wouldn't use it foolishly. As for the next Lugia, only the tune of the Festival Maiden can help with that."
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In answer to further questions, Mr Scully explained that the Festival Maiden was a girl from Shamouti Island - located well inside the Orange Islands - who, at a local festival, played a haunting tune on a flute which had been passed through her family for generations. The origins of the Legend Festival as it was called had been shrouded in mystery for generations, but new research, combined with the appearence of Lugia during the Festival a few years ago, now led several experts to suspect that it and Lugia were inextricably linked.
"First thing tomorrow, you'll have to take a plane out to Shamouti," Mr Scully told us. "Once you're there, ask for a girl named Melody - she's the current Festival Maiden, or she was when I went there last year."
It looked as though things were finally falling into place - we had managed to stop Lawrence (for the time being at least) and free the Psyrene and Po-psydron ready to guard the Orb of Twilight for the next Lugia. All that remained now was to find Melody since, if everything worked the way we hoped it would, she was the key to releasing the next Lugia.
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As we sat in the waiting room at Viridian City Airport the next day, I mulled over everything in my mind and prayed we would not be too late to halt the Age of Twilight. Already, people were starting to develop a strained, weary look as if they knew the end was coming and nothing they said or did would make any difference.
The tannoy crackled and a perky woman's voice announced: "Flight 652 to Shamouti Island is now ready for boarding - please have all tickets and baggage ready for inspection at Departure Gate 4."
It did not take long for us to board the plane, although that was hardly surprising considering we were the only passengers - in the current climate of fear and uncertainty, hardly anyone travelled unless they really had to and my own family had cancelled our planned holiday on Seafoam Island. There was some trouble with the Orb of Twilight, but the man who stopped us seemed to accept our explanation that it was something "we had to get to Shamouti ASAP."
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As we slowly climbed into the sky, I told myself that it would all be worth it in the end, that this trip to the Orange Islands was just the next stage we had to go through in order to fulfil our quest. But would finding Melody be too little too late?
"No!" I told myself. "We've already got the Orb and the Legendary Egg and Lawrence is behind bars - all we need now is Melody so she can summon Lugia. And there's still time - as long as the world remains intact, there's time . . ."
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