"Ooooooh—"
The Alakazam's delaying had been enough, and the Suicune arrived. Something like a mirror appeared in front of Korran, and Vance's attack, meeting it, was thrown straight back at him with more force behind it than it had gone in with.
That was the Mirror Coat move.
He could only get clear first, and then, with the Mega Gyarados and the Slaking, close in round Korran and the Alakazam.
The Aerodactyl and the others had recovered somewhat as well, and helped to seal off his line of retreat.
"Gulp—"
Korran swallowed. The thing had turned about so quickly, and now he was the weaker side.
Vance above all left him without any sense of safety — even with the Suicune standing in front of him, there was none.
"Suppose we leave it here. Let's not carry on with this."
"That's very funny. You're a comedian, are you."
Once he had shown the Mega Evolution, he had set his mind on killing the man. If he did not kill him, he would have to live under another name and take himself far out of Kanto.
The matter of Mega Evolution was of the first importance. Whatever else might be said, the strong ones — the Near-Champions and the Elite-Four-class — would take a keen interest in it.
If they came looking for him, Vance would have no answer for them.
So today it was either kill the man or run far away himself.
The Slaking and the Mega Gyarados came before him together, and a fist and a tail came down at once.
The Mirror Coat appeared again. It took them and threw them back at greater force in the same moment, and drove them off.
"Gyarados, Hyper Beam. Slaking, Thunder. Aerodactyl, Rock Throw. Zweilous, double Dark Pulse."
Vance's orders came at the right moment, sending all four Pokémon in at once, and he gathered a number of Energy Balls of his own and threw them in with the rest.
"Boom, boom, boom—"
Toward the place where the Suicune stood there came one crash after another, and every one of those moves was thrown back again as before, and with them came a Blizzard.
The cutting wind and snow rolled in together, and the broken gorge turned into a field of ice, with power upon power colliding inside it and tangling on and on.
"Clunk—"
Vance slipped aside a fraction, avoided a falling rock and shifted his footing.
The Slaking crossed both arms and took a Hydro Pump; the Gyarados brought his dragon's tail forward and broke the thing apart.
Look closely and you would have found that the Slaking's two arms and the Mega Gyarados's tail were somewhat different from the rest of their bodies.
Energy wound about those parts, to the degree of the energy that runs through the body of an ordinary Elite-Four-class.
And with that, both of them being extraordinarily gifted and extremely sensitive to energy, they already had something of an Elite-Four-class's fighting strength.
That was the reason the two of them, in the state they were in, could stand against this Elite-Four-class Suicune.
There was also Vance at their side, and the Suicune had to divide its attention to protect its Trainer, which put certain limits on it.
"I can see it now. Even with a Pokémon like Suicune in your hands, this is all you come to."
Between exchanges, Vance was mocking him as well.
"That's nonsense."
That stung him.
"Nonsense or not, isn't it plain enough?"
Even as he spoke, Vance and the Pokémon were pressing him step by step.
Whatever else might be said, from the course of the fight there was something wrong with the way he commanded it, and his reactions were poor. In the ordinary way he probably leaned on the Suicune's raw strength and won by simply rolling over the other side.
Come up against an evenly matched fight, and his faults were laid bare.
To a real master's eye there were a great many openings in him.
Perhaps when Giovanni taught the head of the Godbeast Gang a lesson, he had felt much the same.
"Suicune, get me out of here, quickly."
Things were going badly and he wanted to run. The Alakazam was gone, he had no Pokémon guarding him, and it was very dangerous; if anything got close to him again he was finished on the spot.
The Suicune heard him. Something moved in its eyes, and it understood him, and made to withdraw with him.
"Run? It won't be that easy."
Power came down and the space about them thickened with resistance. Even so, it was only because the Suicune was strong enough that it could move at all; any other Pokémon could not have stirred a step. And the Gyarados and the rest were hard after them — how would they let him go?
In the sky above, two figures showed again, one ahead and one behind, just as before; only the one pursuing and the one fleeing had changed places.
"Bang—"
They had not flown far before Korran, running ahead, was brought down by their concentrated fire.
"Splooosh—"
On the rocky ground two surges of water beat at one another and wound together, and in the middle of the churn the Slaking appeared, thunder breaking from him, and struck at the Suicune.
Behind him, Vance came in as well.
An unbroken run of explosions burst out suddenly in that quiet place, and the fearful aura they gave off sent the Pokémon around them fleeing in every direction in terror.
"I have you."
Defend long enough and you must slip. In one gap Vance caught his chance, came in close and reached out to take hold of him.
That blow did not kill outright; it left him badly hurt instead.
Vance had some wish to learn about this Godbeast Gang of theirs, and if he could take the man alive, he might get no small amount of information out of him.
"Suicune."
"Boom—"
The Suicune came with him, and with it came the moves of the Gyarados and the rest; he and the Suicune fell together and crashed into the ground.
"Ha ha ha."
Sprawled on the ground, Korran laughed aloud. For all the Suicune's protection, he had broken bones in a number of places.
As he laughed, blood ran out of the corner of his mouth. He knew he was not getting away today.
"Killing men day in and day out, and I never thought I'd misjudge one here. But I'll tell you this, boy: our Sacred Order will succeed! It certainly will. Cough, cough."
"And when that day comes, the Sacred Order will avenge me. You wait. That Team Rocket of yours will be wiped out by the High Priest."
Thinking of the High Priest's face, Korran's own was full of fanaticism.
Vance watched him without expression, shifted his body and went on looking for an opening to strike.
"I'm a dead man today, but don't imagine you'll get a word about the Sacred Order out of my mouth. Don't you imagine it!"
In one hand he held something the size of a thumb, and he pressed it lightly.
"Suicune! Give your life with me for the Sacred Order!"
Korran cried it out in his fanaticism.
"Rooaar—"
The Suicune stopped. Its eyes went red, a terrible aura rose off it, and the powers of heaven and earth answered.
In that moment, from this Suicune, Vance felt a mortal danger at last, as though he had come up against a true Legendary.
Realising that something was wrong, Vance meant to fall back with his Pokémon, and found the whole place about him full of raging Water-type power. Water-type power has always been known for its gentleness; that it should turn violent now was truly not normal.
And with the coming of that power, space itself grew disordered, wound about with Water-type power that ground everything near it to pieces, so that a spatial jump became very difficult indeed.
Against that power, vast as the sea, Vance and his Pokémon were like hard stones out in the ocean, holding on grimly.
The ground roared and burst apart, and after it came a tearing down of hills and splitting of earth. Peaks crumbled. A power very near that of a natural disaster came out upon that place.
The destroying force the Suicune had set loose swept out in every direction, carrying all before it like rotten wood. Not far off, Pokémon that had not yet got clear were caught up in it too, and those with little strength died where they stood.
Several minutes went by. In one corner a stone stirred, and a hand came out of it; then a ragged figure crawled free, and it was Vance.
He looked at the five Poké Balls on his belt with a deep bitterness. Every one of them — the Gyarados and the rest — had lost the ability to fight and fallen unconscious.
He had not expected this fight to end worse than the last: all five Pokémon unconscious, and himself hurt with it.
He himself had come off better than in that business with the Dusknoir, and only because the Gyarados and the others had shielded him.
When the Suicune burst, facing that power like a driving storm, Vance had opened as much distance as he could, and then all four of them, the Gyarados and the rest, had put themselves in front of him, layer behind layer.
Vance had meant to go forward, and the energy had gone up before he could, so he had only been able to throw up a hurried guard.
That was why his own injuries were light, while every one of the Pokémon was badly hurt and had fallen unconscious.