Once he had hidden the Viridian Power away, the reception he got out in the wild took an immediate turn for the worse.
Passing one mountain peak, he did run into a suitable opponent — a foul-tempered Nidoking, and no weakling either, with the strength of level 48. The moment Vance came past, the Nidoking set on him with everything it had.
Vance dodged clear and sent out Slaking to go and take the Nidoking on.
"Boom, boom—"
The ground shook and would not stop. Cracks tore open and ran outward, a bright yellow glow welling up inside them, and then the whole thing burst, the full force of the Ground type breaking loose at once.
A Ground-type move. Earth Power.
Slaking was standing at the centre of it, and an instant before Earth Power reached him he vanished into thin air.
The Nidoking's Earth Power found nothing and spent itself on empty air.
"Nido—"
The Nidoking felt a chill at its back. Slaking had appeared behind it, that huge frame bearing down with a weight that was hard to stand under.
All it could do was wheel around, bring the horn on its head to the front and drive up at him with Megahorn.
And then it found, to its horror, that it had been caught and held. Held!
All the raw strength in a Nidoking's body, and it was not enough against this Slaking. That was a frightening thing for a Nidoking to discover.
"Bang—"
Slaking swung a Focus Punch into the left side of the Nidoking's face and sent it flying, slamming it down onto the ground.
With the Huge Power Ability in effect, Slaking's attack power had risen enormously, and he no longer dropped into a rest after every move. The fighting strength that came out of that was formidable: one punch had hammered a level 48 Nidoking off its feet, and by his own strength Slaking was only level 41.
Having seen what Slaking could do, the Nidoking grew wilder still, and with the Rivalry Ability working on it, its next attack came in a good deal stronger.
It met Slaking head-on.
Slaking handled the Nidoking's storm of attacks without any hurry, and after a good many exchanges the strengthened Nidoking had gained nothing by it. If anything, it came away with its head covered in lumps.
By its presence alone, the Slaking opposite was beneath it — well beneath it — and yet every attack Slaking landed did it serious damage.
The Nidoking did not understand it. It went at him hard again and again, and still it could not win.
The truth was that the level of force Slaking was putting out went far beyond an energy level of 41.
"Nido!"
Seeing that it could not win up close, the Nidoking went for the big one. It gathered power on the spot and brought out the strongest move the Nido line had — Hyper Beam!
Slaking made no move to stop it. He looked eager for it, in fact, and drew his strength into both fists.
"Whoooosh—"
The Hyper Beam skimmed along the ground, cutting a deep furrow as it went, straight at Slaking.
Slaking went right into it. No guard, no step back. He simply drove forward into the thing.
"Roar—"
With everything Slaking had, the Nidoking's Hyper Beam was actually held. Nor did it end there. Slaking pushed on against the beam, charging, and came right up in front of the Nidoking, where a fist went into its jaw and broke off its strongest attack on the spot.
The Nidoking went down face-first, dazed through and through. Were Pokémon these days all this savage? He had pushed through its strongest attack and then knocked it over with one punch.
Its senses came back, and it found itself spinning through the air.
Slaking had hoisted its whole body up, swung it round overhead and smashed it down into the ground.
"Boom—"
The ground gave a shudder, and the Nidoking's whole body lay buried in broken earth.
"Ni... Nido—"
The Nidoking lifted its head and looked at the Slaking in front of it, as though asking why he was this strong.
"Strong because strong. There's no reason to it."
Slaking answered it, then lifted a fist and finished the Nidoking off.
"Not bad, that Nidoking. Still didn't quite scratch the itch, though."
Slaking muttered it with the blood still surging through him, as though the fight just finished had been no more than a workout.
At a distance, Gyarados and the other two looked at one another, all of them shaken. How had Slaking got so much stronger than this?
They all trained together and ate together, so how had he suddenly become something else entirely?
If they had not been side by side the whole time, they would have thought Vance was feeding Slaking something on the side.
One evolution and he was this strong? Really?
That Nidoking had been trouble at a glance. Gyarados and Aerodactyl both reckoned that if either of them had gone in, they would not have won as easily as that.
"Damn it. My spot as boss isn't looking so safe."
Gyarados grumbled it out. He wanted to be boss in more than name; he wanted to be boss on strength.
"He's stronger again. If he'd had that kind of strength back then, and I'd drawn him again, wouldn't that have meant..."
Aerodactyl found himself picturing his own self pinned down and ground into the dirt by Slaking, and shivered.
Privately he set about working out how to sharpen his own eye for an opponent.
"Hahaha. A Slaking with Huge Power really is something."
Vance paid none of that any attention. He laughed out loud instead, delighted.
A Pokémon like Slaking had good material in it to begin with and could put out real fighting strength; it was only the Truant Ability holding it back, forcing a rest and a breather after every move.
This Slaking had no such worry. Under Huge Power he did not have to rest after a move, and on top of that the Ability gave the moves themselves a considerable boost in force.
Take the one away and add the other, and the difference came to a very large number.
And Slaking had psychic power besides. He could use Teleport, get right in an opponent's face and unload on it.
With him in your face like that, the fighting strength Slaking could bring out was frightening.
An enemy that is fast but not strong enough is nothing to worry about; one that is strong but not fast is nothing to worry about either.
But an opponent who is strong and fast at once — that is a terrifying thing.
And Slaking was exactly that: strength and speed in the same body.
Teleport took care of his speed, and the Huge Power Ability raised his strength.
"Clunk—"
The ball struck the Nidoking with a clunk and showed the catch had taken.
Combusken walked over, eager to help, picked up the ball, came to Vance and handed it to him.
Vance took it with a smile and put it in his pack.
"There it is. You don't meet your chances by staying at home."
Vance said it with a quiet laugh. If he had not come out, he would never have run into the business at Mt. Moon; Slaking would not have evolved so soon, and Gyarados and the others would not have come along this fast.
"Let's go. We'll keep on in this direction."
Vance looked at the map in his hand. That heading took them deeper into the mountains, and coming out the other side would bring them to Cerulean City. With any luck they would meet a few decent Pokémon along the way to train against.