He had thought Grady might have some clever card to play. This was all there was to it.
By now the Gengar was pinned by the Slaking, and the Feraligatr was held down by the Gyarados and could not get free, so its defeat was only a matter of time; in the sky the Aerodactyl had the upper hand as well, and the Zweilous and the Combusken between them had cleared away what was left.
At Vance appearing in front of him like that, he felt a mortal danger closing in, and the same look of horror came over his face that Merrow had worn.
Then his expression hardened, set itself, and he threw out a Poké Ball.
"Woooo, woooo, woooo—"
It was like the sound of weeping. A pitch-black figure came with it, and with that an immensely powerful cold, sunless presence burst outward. The instant it appeared it tore open Vance's field of force, so that a layer of Ghost-type energy lay over the whole ground.
A red light fixed on Vance, and in that instant his back went cold and the weight of the thing came at him full in the face.
Elite-Four-class!
This Pokémon that had appeared out of nowhere was Elite-Four-class, beyond any doubt.
Only something at the Elite-Four tier could press down on him like that.
And by the look of it, Vance knew what it was: the Ghost-type, Dusknoir.
It was black over almost the whole of it, with a ghostly wisp of a tail and no feet, a grey head, and a round yellow disc of an antenna on top.
Across its brow ran a yellow band, and below that a single staring eye with a yellow iris and a red pupil. Where its head joined its body there was a structure like a collar, and on it six petal-like shapes closed around its head.
It had two thick arms, two yellow bands at the black wrists, a black ring where hand met wrist, and grey palms.
This time it was Vance's turn to be shaken. How did Grady have an Elite-Four-class Pokémon? When had he ever raised one?
It made no sense. Getting from Gym-class up to Elite-Four-class was harder than getting from Elite up to Gym-class.
Had he misjudged the man? Was Grady really hiding his depth? But if he had an Elite-Four-class Pokémon, why hold it back before? Why stand and watch his own Pokémon be pounded flat by the Zweilous and the rest?
The next moment, though, the Dusknoir showed what was wrong with it. Its body looked as though it had come apart — cracks ran across it one after another — and the life in it was guttering.
Its pupil went redder, hungrier for blood, and what it did next Vance could not follow at all.
The Dusknoir raised one hand and took hold of Grady beside it.
Thread by thread, the essence of his life was drawn out of him and into the Dusknoir.
"Cough — cough — you forced this on me. If I die, I'm taking you down with me!"
Grady said it full of hatred, his eyes venomous, letting the Dusknoir take his life force as it pleased.
Even without this move he was going to die. So let the whole lot of them be finished together!
"Gengar—"
The Gengar broke free of the Slaking too and came to stand in front of Grady. Seeing him like that, a look of grief came over its face, and then it let its own life force open out and gave it up to the Dusknoir.
Back in Goldenrod City, Grady had told it this: when the Dusknoir began drawing power out of him, that would be the most desperate moment of all, and it was to go with him and give up its own life energy too, so that the Dusknoir could bring out its full Elite-Four-class strength and send their enemy down with them.
This Dusknoir was a failed piece of work and all but burned out, but it was still a powerful card to hold. He had paid a great deal to get his hands on Elite-Four-class strength, thinking he might be able to bring it to heel and then feed it life energy until it healed, and that way he would have an Elite-Four-class Pokémon of his own.
After a good many attempts he had found it would not work. All this Dusknoir had was the instinct to hunger for blood and to take in life energy; it had none of the intelligence of an ordinary Pokémon, and there was nothing whatever he could do to change that.
Grady's face aged by the second. He took out something like a remote control and shouted at it.
"Kill this man. You have to kill this man. Ha ha."
"Bzzt, bzzt, bzzt—"
Arcs of electricity ran over the Dusknoir's head. The red of its pupil flickered once, as though something had registered, and it drew the energy faster.
Feeding on the life energy of one man and one Pokémon, the cracks across the Dusknoir's body closed up almost entirely.
It raised a hand, flicked Vance's power aside and struck back, and Vance had no choice but to give ground, Teleporting once to open the distance.
"Ha ha! We all die together! Ha ha."
Grady's withered face was wild with madness, and only when he looked at the Gengar beside him did it soften a little.
"I'm sorry, old friend."
"Gengar—"
The Gengar shook its head. It had no regrets.
Whatever else Grady was, he was its Trainer, and he had raised it from small. To the Gengar, Grady was its whole world.
So no, the Gengar had no regrets. It gave up the essence of its own life of its own accord, and let the energy be drawn away into the Dusknoir.
"The man's insane."
Vance swore, and the Gyarados and the others crowded in around him.
In the sky the Honchkrow had already gone down to the Aerodactyl and the Zweilous together, and the Feraligatr could no longer hold out against the Gyarados's coils.
The opposition had been cleared away. Only the Gengar and this Dusknoir were left.
"Whooo, whooo, whooo—"
That terrible presence simply stood there, bearing down enormously on everything near it. It was the pressure of an Elite-Four-class Pokémon.
Under that pressure an ordinary low-level Pokémon would not have fought back — it would have been frightened out of any fighting strength at all.
"We're leaving. Quickly."
Vance had his Poké Balls out at once, recalled the Gyarados and the rest, and made to be off the spot.
His figure blurred as he put every scrap of strength into a Teleport, meaning to be gone from there.
"Roar—"
A vast pitch-black demon-shadow appeared and clawed, and space was stirred out of true, and Vance was forced back out into the open.
Disrupted by the stronger force, his Teleport failed and he was pushed out.
It was night by now. Everything around him was dim and thick with ghostly shapes, and even the hazy moonlight was shut out. Ghost-type power filled the whole area.
That red pupil was fixed on Vance. In the Dusknoir's mind, a voice was shouting at it to kill him.
And by instinct it was drawn to the strong life energy on him. Power that pure was excellent fodder; if it took that in, the good it would do itself would be enormous, and its body would stop hurting.
"No getting away, then."
Vance said it evenly, and then his eyes went hard. Very well. If you want a fight, you shall have one.
With his life on the line, only going all in gave him a thread of a chance.
"Roar, roar—"
The Gyarados, the Slaking and the rest of them came out of their Poké Balls together and put themselves in front of Vance. There was no fear on any of their faces; on the Gyarados and the Slaking there was nothing but the will to fight.
"Lads, we're in the worst spot we've ever been in. What comes next, we fight through together."
Vance stood out in front of them without a flicker of fear, and the whole of his Advanced Psychic power opened out of him. A green light rose — the Viridian Power coming up as well — and in his hand he held the Key Stone.
At this moment, he was holding nothing back at all.