The Slaking's sudden eruption caught Merrow entirely unprepared, and in one instant his Crobat was done for.
There had not even been a chance to support it. It went down cleanly and finally. This Slaking was a terrifying thing.
The ground heaved, and an Earth Power came at them.
The Zweilous sprang out and met it with an Earth Power of its own.
The two collided and tore a great fissure across the level ground.
"Rooaar, rooaar—"
The Gyarados's eyes went red, and he put a Hyper Beam straight at where Merrow stood.
"Kaboom—"
A vast blast, and the level ground was rubble in an instant. Under the protection of his remaining Pokémon, Merrow came through it more or less safe.
"Roar, roar—"
After the Hyper Beam came the Aerodactyl's Giga Impact out of the sky.
"Get in there. Alive or dead, no matter."
Vance was not going to be gentle about it. If this old dog Merrow dared attack him, then he had nobody to blame.
"Roar, roar—"
At Vance's order the Gyarados and the rest closed in and pounded away wildly at Merrow and his Pokémon in the smoke and dust.
It left the veteran Gym-class man reeling.
Merrow badly wanted to ask whether he had been swindled. This was not an Advanced-strength Trainer at all. Against an eruption like that, even he, a seasoned Gym-class fighter, could not hold.
The Slaking above all. His Nidoqueen told him that this Slaking was strong, that even she was no match for it.
Which left Merrow numb.
The Gyarados drove forward and picked out the Nidoqueen. She was the strongest here, so she was the one.
"Grave—"
The Golem had hardly begun to move before the Slaking was in front of it, with a hard-edged grin.
"I'm your opponent."
The fist came up hard, broke the Golem's Rollout apart and blasted it up into the air — and then the Slaking's shape appeared again.
"Die!"
That punch was everything the Slaking had. Under that Focus Punch the Golem's shell, hard as steel, broke in an instant and the fist drove through to the flesh beneath; the next moment it was a blur falling, and it came down with a crash, smashing an enormous crater into the soft sand.
The pain through its body was such that the Golem could not so much as stand.
The Slaking's massive shape appeared in front of it again and hauled it up.
"Grave—"
The Golem set off the power in its body on the instant, using the most destructive and the strongest move it had: Explosion.
A light flickered into being over its body as the thing built, and a violent presence rose off it.
"Tch. Out of the way, lads. Let me hand them a present!"
the Slaking roared, warning the rest of them, and then hefted the Golem up.
Seeing it, the Golem drove the charge faster. If it was going to die, it would take this terrible Slaking with it.
The Explosion finished charging, and just as it was about to go off, the Golem flew — and the direction it flew in was that of its own Trainer, Merrow.
The Golem's eyes went wide, but it was too late. The terrible destructive force filling it went off.
"Boom—"
A great mushroom cloud rose up, and Vance and his Pokémon watched coldly from one side.
Warned by the Slaking, Vance had acted too, and shifted his Pokémon to another position.
"Cough, cough."
The smoke cleared to show Merrow filthy with ash and coughing hard, and his two remaining Pokémon, the Nidoqueen and the Persian, both looking the worse for injury.
"Wait — wait."
Merrow raised a hand, about to speak.
Vance paid no attention and signalled his Pokémon straight back in.
What was the use of talk at this point? Blows had been struck and the pretence torn away; what was there to hold back for?
Not until he had the situation entirely in hand would he listen to whatever the man wanted to say.
Only the Combusken stayed, on guard at Vance's side, while the other four ringed Merrow in and closed slowly.
"Cough, cough. Damn Grady — he's led me wrong!"
Merrow cursed bitterly, then called out five more Pokémon, all of them at the Elite tier, and set them at his side.
In no time at all this Gym-class fighter had been reduced to this.
Four Gym-class Pokémon, two of them gone and the other two wounded a moment ago, leaving him nothing but Elite-tier Pokémon to hold the field.
But against the Slaking and the rest, savage as wolves and tigers, the few Pokémon he had left were nothing to look at.
The Nidoqueen, the strongest of them, was pinned to the ground by the Slaking and hammered, without even the strength to hit back.
"Xatu — get me out of here, quickly."
Merrow recalled the Golem, took up two more Poké Balls and said it to a Xatu.
The state of things was plain enough now. What he had taken for a sure thing had turned over in a moment.
In a sense it was still a sure thing — only it was Vance's side that had the sure thing, and the fight was entirely one-sided.
Merrow's nerve had broken. He had thought he was dealing with a cat, and it had turned out to be a tiger.
There was nothing for it now but to withdraw.
The Xatu called up its move and laid hold of Merrow to carry him away.
The Poké Balls in Merrow's hand were aimed at his two Gym-class Pokémon as well. If only he could get away, then once the Pokémon in his hands had recovered, his strength would still be there.
This Xatu was a Psychic-type Pokémon he had gone to great trouble to get, with high aptitude, and he had put no small quantity of resources into it and raised it as a mainstay. Now it was exactly what he needed.
"Hmph."
One cold snort, and in an instant the Xatu's power was broken apart and the bird badly hurt in the same motion, and the space around them was sealed off.
The Xatu shrieked as though it had been through some terrible assault, and dropped to the ground.
"Running away, are you? And what do you propose to run with?"
Vance came on step by step, saying it coldly, a terrible pulse of presence coming off him.
"You... you're a Psychic as well!"
At that Merrow was nearly frightened out of his wits. What kind of immortal had he provoked? By the force of it, that was Gym-class too.
He had tried to ambush a Gym-class Psychic? If he had known the truth sooner, they could have beaten him to death and he would not have done it.
A Gym-class Psychic and a Gym-class Trainer are not worth the same by a long way.