"Neither one thing nor the other? Heh. You're still too young. Where is there any getting stronger without paying something for it??"
Korran laughed when he had heard it, and thought privately how young the man was, with no idea how cruel the world could be.
Born with a high talent, no doubt, and well looked after with it, and so he knew nothing of what a Trainer at the bottom suffered.
Getting stronger. Where was there any of that without a price?
But to Vance it was an absurdity beyond words. The Pokémon had been made into that; you could say they were no longer Pokémon partners at all, but tools, his killing machines, without so much as a temper of their own.
"Now. I'll give you one more chance. Join our Sacred Order. If you won't, then today you die here — and being a Psychic won't get you away either. It would only be a pity, all that talent."
Perhaps Vance's gifts shone too brightly. Korran offered him the chance a second time.
Tormenting a genius to death was satisfying enough, but dragging a genius down this road with you had an endless charm about it.
"You're welcome to try."
"You won't take the wine when it's poured politely, then. At him! Alakazam, stay and protect me. Suicune, everything you have — finish this inside ten minutes!!"
Refused a second time, Korran was angry now.
Besides which, with the Nidoking and the Raichu joining in, the scales of the battle did begin to tip his way.
The Aerodactyl, the Zweilous and the Blaziken, three of them, went against those two, while the Gyarados and the Slaking of the team had the Suicune.
Vance directed from the middle of it, and at the same time held the Alakazam at bay on the other side.
Across the field psychic power tangled fiercely, and the surging auras swept out in every direction.
Both of the Alakazam's heads looked thoroughly worn out, and it was being held down.
Even while he held the Alakazam down, Vance could spare enough of himself to work with the Gyarados and the rest.
The Gyarados and the Slaking against the Suicune was still a stretch. Without him there, they might not have been able to stand against it at all.
That Suicune was not a true Legendary, but it had some part of a true Legendary's power all the same.
The two of them were a great deal stronger than they had been in the hard fight against the Dusknoir, and even so they were not quite its match.
This did let Vance relax a little, though. So the Godbeast Gang's Legendaries were not what he had imagined — not creatures that called down the majesty of heaven with every movement, with power without end.
This Suicune's real level was much on a par with certain pseudo-legendaries; only its shape and its aura were better than theirs.
There was still a chance of winning.
"Suicune, Confide!"
"Ooooooh—"
That melodious, finely drawn sound came from the Suicune's mouth, and mist formed in the air about them out of nothing, and a thin wind got up.
That low murmuring, on and on, left even Vance a little muddled.
Confide is a move of the speech-and-soundwave kind. It makes an opponent lose its concentration, disturbs its mental state and leaves it muddled, along with other such effects.
In the moment of muddle, a warm power appeared inside him and brought his head back to normal.
His psychic power, and the Viridian Power.
Looking out, he saw his Pokémon glassy-eyed — though the Slaking was hardly affected.
"Wake up!"
Vance's words sounded at the ear of the Gyarados and the others. The glassiness went out of their eyes and they came back to themselves.
"Blaziken—"
But just then the Blaziken was caught by one of the Nidoking's moves, and his whole body went up into the air and came down on the ground off to one side.
A pale yellow Ground-type power ran through the earth to the place where the Blaziken had landed, and looked certain to strike him.
Vance came to his aid at once and teleported the Blaziken to his side.
"Rumble, rumble—"
The earth heaved, and the Ground-type power burst out in that place.
"Blaziken—"
By now the Blaziken's eyes were going round in circles. He was out of the fight.
"Come back, Blaziken."
Vance took out a Poké Ball and recalled him.
"Raichu—"
The Raichu's lightning went up into the sky, aimed at the Aerodactyl cruising overhead.
The Aerodactyl had its wits about it and got clear quickly, but one bolt caught it on the wing, charring a patch black, and its speed fell away sharply.
"There's no dealing easily with a Psychic!"
Even with results like these, Korran was not satisfied. In the ordinary way this battle would have been over already.
To have put one out of the fight and lightly hurt another was not enough to satisfy him.
"Roar—"
And just then the Zweilous came in between the Nidoking and the Raichu, and its two heads gave out two different powers: blazing heat and bitter cold, together at once.
The next moment a mass of energy like a lotus flower appeared on the field, and with the two types crossing, hot and cold, it gave off a fearful power.
"Nidoking—"
"Raichu—"
Both Pokémon felt the danger all at once!
What filled their eyes was a terrible energy where red met blue, and it wrapped them both inside it.
"Alakazam, quickly."
Korran had seen that something was wrong too, and told the Alakazam to get them out at once — but there was resistance in the way.
"Boom—"
The power, red shot through with blue, went up to the sky, and could be seen from far off.
The wind howled, and Korran could not keep his eyes open in it. Had there not been a wall of light in front of him, gathered by the Alakazam, he would have been blown away long since.
"Rrroar, I did what I could, Boss."
The Zweilous had been teleported clear, its aura sunk low, hurt in a great many places.
That move had left it badly injured — and those two Pokémon could not get up at all.
There had been too little time to train it. To get that much power out of it, it could only be done by putting its own body in.
It still had not got that move down to the last part of it.
The Zweilous thought it worth it even so. It had had a chance to try the new move out, and as for the effect — well, not bad at all. Fire and water crossing had considerable force to it. It had been teleported out and was still badly hurt, to say nothing of what the Nidoking and the other one had got.
"Heh heh, I've avenged you, Brother Chick."
Black One said it with a grin. After that move, it seemed to have got a deeper understanding of the thing.
Under the Zweilous's blow half the whole hilltop had been sheared away, leaving a deep crater, and the Nidoking and the Raichu lay in it without a sound.
"Roar, roar—"
The Gyarados was driven into the side of the mountain, his whole body embedded in it.
Another Extrasensory came down and blew the Slaking away as well.
The crystal on the Suicune's forehead was shining brightly, giving off an aura there was no name for.
"I grant that you're strong, but it goes no further than this. Honestly, that you could hold out so long in my hands makes you a genius in ten thousand. That's enough. Today you'll die here. A Zweilous, is it... I'll be taking these Pokémon of yours. Given over to the Sacred Order, they'll have a rather different future ahead of them."
The Nidoking and the Raichu had been beaten. It did not matter. So long as the Suicune was still standing, all was well.
The thing was as good as settled, plainly. Victory was in sight.
Two Pokémon barely hanging on were a matter of a few more moves, no more.
The odd part was that Vance's expression had not changed at all. There was none of the panic of a man with disaster at his door.
What he did was recall his Pokémon quickly, and then walk away without looking back.
"After him!"
Having come this far, Korran was not about to let him run. Once he had him down, he could go and take Rufus.
By his reckoning Vance was at the end of his rope. He had only to follow, and in a few more moves it would be over.
Let him go, at a moment like this?
Two auras swept past at speed, showing and vanishing among the steep hills.
The direction he was running in was not Dark City, nor Cinnabar Island either, but further and further out into open country.
"Bang, bang, bang—"
Brilliant lights from their moves flared across the sky and came down toward Vance ahead of them; the Suicune and the Alakazam were no slower than he was, and looked certain to catch him.
"Boom—"
As though he had been hit, Vance came down in a gorge.
"Rooaar—"
Several Poké Balls opened again, and the Gyarados and the others appeared once more. After so long a fight, and after being caught by the Suicune's moves, they still had something left. It was not as he had supposed.
And it was the same with the Slaking.
Korran, coming up behind, found it deeply strange. It made no sense. Setting aside that he could not kill them outright, how could they take this much punishment?
Had he not hit the pair of them just now?
What he did not know was that in the matter of taking punishment, Vance had made a particular point of their training.
A Pokémon's defensive ability — its ability to take a blow, that is — was one of the things he trained hardest.
The ordinary man puts his attention on attack; not many give a thought to defence.
But anyone who knows the business knows that defence matters every bit as much.
Just then something changed in the Slaking. He stopped where he stood, the aura about him drifting, stirring; then it lifted sharply to a peak and drove at the barrier of Gym-class.
Under the weight of the Suicune's pressure, the Slaking was breaking through on the spot.
Vance flashed across to stand in front of the Slaking and threw up a guard, seeing the breakthrough safely through.
"Nothing else for it. Gyarados, Mega Evolve!"
At the critical moment Vance could only bring out the Key Stone and open the Gyarados's Mega Evolution.
Leaving as he had was only to see whether he could get away; and if he could not, then to find somewhere out of the way and put his last card on the table.
He had meant that if he did manage to get clear, he would not use the Mega Evolution, so as to keep that card hidden.
Now there was nothing else for it. Korran would not let him go, so out came the last card, and they would go at it head-on!