"Gyarados, Mega Evolve!"
"Rooaar—"
A dazzling light went up, the Gyarados's Mega Evolution completed, and Mega Gyarados stood on the field and roared at the Dusknoir with fearsome menace.
In the same instant Vance laid the Viridian Power from his own body onto the Gyarados and the Slaking, adding a little to the fighting strength of each.
The main force this time would be those two and himself.
The Gyarados surged forward to meet it of its own accord, unafraid of the Dusknoir's Elite-Four-class pressure. That might work on an ordinary Pokémon; on the Gyarados and the others it did nothing at all.
"Gyarados, Dark Pulse."
"Slaking, wait for your moment."
"Zweilous, the two of you look after yourselves. We're going in."
Vance threw himself forward as well. Power boiled up around him, several huge fists took shape out of it, and they came straight down.
"Woooo—"
It was like a ghost weeping. The Dusknoir moved, feeling the threat, and sent out a Confuse Ray that broke Vance's huge fists apart, then met the Gyarados's Dark Pulse, and was cut off at last by the Slaking.
A pitch-black shadow rose out of the ground, the Dusknoir came down, and it drove into the middle of the group.
It had next to no mind, but it still had the instinct to fight.
It stamped, one blow of its foot into the earth, and the ground churned and would not settle. Out of it came a wash of ghost-fire, scorching hot.
Vance flashed aside, put out the ghost-fire in front of him, and Teleported the Combusken and the Zweilous out of the middle of it.
The Dusknoir's gaze swung toward him, and the Gyarados broke it off.
"Splooosh—"
Layer upon layer of water rolled across the field and closed over the Dusknoir. Inside the water the Gyarados was like a dragon out of a nightmare, all teeth and claws, holding the Dusknoir trapped there while move after move went into it.
The Slaking appeared inside it at the right moment, and the instant it showed itself a Shadow Punch came at its face. The Slaking was not afraid of that either; it went in alone, met the blow square, and took the Shadow Punch.
The Slaking staggered back a few steps and then held its ground, unhurt, and Mega Gyarados's attack arrived and broke off the Dusknoir's follow-up.
A Hyper Beam tore across the sky and came down, swallowing the Dusknoir inside it.
But for all its fury, the Hyper Beam was blocked off outside.
Just then Vance appeared again, both hands striking out one after another, power gathering with each and every scrap of it driven forward.
The Slaking Teleported in front of it, drew back a fist, and drove it out hard.
"Roar—"
The Dusknoir let out a rasping cry, its presence changed, and a layer of black ghost-power burst off it and flung the three of them and their combined blow away.
A giant Shadow Ball appeared and came at them, shrieking against the air as it came.
The Slaking appeared in front of Vance, every muscle standing out, and went to meet the blow, only to be carried backward with it. Vance came forward and opened up at full strength, and between the two of them they took the hit.
Under the battering of that wild ghost-power the Gyarados's Whirlpool was broken apart as well. Then a Shadow Punch drove back the Aerodactyl as it came down out of the sky, and with both hands held out flat in front of it the Dusknoir clapped the Zweilous's Dragon Pulse to pieces.
Then a Shadow Ball broke through the Combusken's flame and carried on down into the ground.
"Booom—"
It was no ordinary blow: it drove a great crater into the ground. The Combusken was unhurt, though — Vance had Teleported it elsewhere.
The Dusknoir's pupil flickered, as though it were thinking something over.
Just then Vance shouted, "Attack. Break it off."
Vance knew what that was. The Dusknoir was working out a response, and given time it would arrive at one.
This Dusknoir's mind was duller than an ordinary Dusknoir's, and it had no Trainer directing it, so it took a long while to come to any reaction at all. Vance had seized on exactly that, and broke it off directly.
The Dusknoir might have Elite-Four-class strength, but it had its flaws. It was not only slow in the mind; there was something wrong with its body as well.
Vance directed from the middle of it, going wherever he was needed, using Teleport to lift any Pokémon out of danger, while the Slaking and Mega Gyarados held the front and the Aerodactyl and the Zweilous harried from the sides.
The Dusknoir fought purely on instinct. Nothing it did was aimed at anything in particular.
All at once, Vance and his Pokémon found themselves holding the Dusknoir to a standstill.
Anywhere else that would have been unthinkable — a handful of Gym-class fighters standing up to an Elite-Four-class Pokémon. It could only happen under these particular conditions.
"It's dropping. Its presence is dropping."
Vance called the warning. After this much fighting the Dusknoir's presence had begun to fall away. It was down to level 61 now, barely inside the Elite-Four tier, and with no life energy coming in, cracks like fine threads were surfacing on its body again.
"Bang—"
Mega Gyarados was caught by the tail and slammed down into the ground, and a Shadow Punch came down after it with a roar — and Mega Gyarados was Teleported away again, and the blow found nothing.
That angered the Dusknoir more than anything. Time after time it had all but finished one of them, and time after time, by a hair, the thing was moved away. Its red eye was fixed now on Vance, the source of the power.
In its fury it seemed to hit on a move for dealing with this. A black shape shot from its eye socket, straight at Vance.
It was Mean Look. In the games the effect was to stare at the opponent without moving, with a black look that seemed to hook the soul out of it, so that it could not flee from the battle. In reality it was a powerful technique for restricting an enemy's movement, and being unable to flee covered blocking an enemy's Teleport and blocking a return into a Poké Ball as well.
How long the technique held depended on the strength of the one using it and the strength of the one it was used on.
And the move tracked its target as well.
If it landed, Vance's Teleport would stop working and his mobility would be cut. Shaking the state off would take a while, and in a fight a single second mattered.
For this move, though, Vance had an answer: as it came down he put the Combusken in the way.
Here was where the Combusken's usefulness suddenly showed. Set out in front, it took the Mean Look and kept Vance's fighting strength intact.
At Advanced level the Combusken could not honestly join in the fighting anyway. Used like this, it fitted perfectly.
Even losing its mobility made little difference to the Combusken.
And when the Dusknoir went to use it on one of the other Pokémon, Vance did the same thing again.
With his own fighting strength at the peak of Gym-class, he could just manage it — interfering with the move's tracking and fastening it onto the Combusken instead.
So his Pokémon were kept a certain measure of safety, and none of them was picked off by the Dusknoir in passing. With Mega Gyarados and the Slaking tying it up and Vance directing from the centre, in no time at all the battle had settled into deadlock.
Because Mega Gyarados and the rest were not doing the Dusknoir much damage either.
The power an Elite-Four-class creature commanded, in "quality" as much as in "quantity", was no longer anything a Gym-class Pokémon could match.
That Vance and his Pokémon could stand against an Elite-Four-class Pokémon at all owed something to luck, and something to the fact that Vance himself fought at the peak of Gym-class.
Under one exchange after another, Vance's psychic power drained fast — and not only his. It was the same for the Pokémon, above all the Gyarados and the Slaking holding the front.
There was nothing for it but to set their teeth and hold on, and the ordinary training they had put in began to tell.
The long fight was something they had trained for on purpose, and today it came into use.