Darkness came down, and the pitch-black returned.
Inside that black space ghostly hands crowded layer on layer, and danger past counting reached out to take hold — and what it was aimed at was Vance.
"It's over."
Auberon said it flatly. He had already settled how Vance was going to end.
Then, without warning, things turned.
A stroke of golden light rose, and out of it showed the figure of an Alakazam, solemn in its bearing, spoons in its hands.
The black space was broken open layer by layer by that golden light, and the sense of sealed space and the cold that cut to the bone vanished all at once.
"What!"
The Alakazam's appearance was more than he had bargained for.
"Zam—"
A twitch of the Alakazam's spoon, and a beam of overwhelming psychic force appeared and fired straight at where Auberon stood.
"Dusknoir, block it for me."
Auberon said it in horror.
"Roar—"
The Dusknoir came out in front alone, drove both fists down, and blew the beam apart.
"I underestimated you. I never imagined you would have a Near-Champion Alakazam!"
In that moment what was in Auberon's heart was envy and jealousy. A Near-Champion. He had clawed and scraped for years to have that much fighting strength, and this milk-mouthed boy had one. How could he? How could he be allowed to?
"Zam—"
The Alakazam cared nothing for his resentment. It broke the Dusknoir's hold and took Vance clear of it.
After days of rest and treatment the Alakazam had a good deal of its vigour back, and a high-intensity battle was no trouble to it.
Further off, the Team Rocket members did not stay to fight either, but split into a number of groups under the Division Commanders and the rest and broke outward.
Vance had made his dispositions a moment before. What had come at them this time was not something their small branch could hold.
What those dispositions came to was this: the enemy could not be met by force, so withdraw in batches.
He himself was the exception, and not the general rule.
"Dusknoir, get after him. Phantom Force!"
Seeing Vance about to leave, Auberon was certainly not having it, and set the Dusknoir on to attack.
The Dusknoir vanished from where it stood, turned into a streak of black shadow, and in the blink of an eye had caught up with Alakazam and Vance; it became a black shark rearing up out of the deep and snapped shut on the middle of them.
Vance appeared on the ground some way off. There had been the Alakazam's help behind that Teleport.
The Alakazam in mid-air was solid as bedrock, like a reef standing in the sea: however that black tide beat at it, it did not stir.
"Over there, Dusknoir!"
"Roar, roar—"
The Dusknoir heard its Trainer and made to go after Vance.
Only the Alakazam was faster still.
By some manner of technique it fixed the Dusknoir where it was, then drew six walls of light together and sealed it inside.
Both hands on its spoons, it fired a Hyper Beam.
The force of it was past all measure. The space it passed through warped, and it struck the Dusknoir square and rode it down to the ground on the shock.
It meant to show itself again and press on, and then a wave of weariness came over it, which left the Alakazam nothing to do but accept it. Old, after all. The mind kept up and the body would not.
In that gap black fist-shadows swept past, blow after blow coming down.
The Alakazam could only block first and dodge after.
A Shadow Ball came down exactly where the Alakazam had shown itself.
"Boom—"
The Alakazam gave a little ground. In a fight at this level Teleport was not the useful thing it was at Elite or Gym-class.
Within a certain range of space, Pokémon of this strength saw everything, and there were no cheap advantages to be had in a fight.
"It can keep going. With the Dusknoir holding you, you'll never get away!"
While the Dusknoir and the Alakazam traded blows, the six Elite-Four-class Pokémon had Vance ringed in on every side.
When Vance sent out his Pokémon and Auberon caught the feel of them, he liked his odds again.
This boy came from somewhere after all, it seemed, to have a Near-Champion Pokémon guarding him. Taken alive, he would be worth a great deal.
He had to be the kin of some great man in Team Rocket. Catching him could not possibly be a loss.
Or he could simply be killed, and Team Rocket's prestige struck at.
It made sense now. What was there worth fighting over in a little place like Dark City? After the Sacred Order had cleaned it out, how could there have been so much force behind the counter-stroke? It was because of this boy.
That explained it.
Here to pad out a record and get the experience in — the thing Auberon hated most of all.
On Vance's side they fought and gave ground as they went.
He had not put Kirlia or Zorua on the field.
Gyarados and the rest felt no fear either; if anything they looked eager to be at it.
They had been fretting over where to find Elite-Four-class punching bags to practise on, and here — had they not arrived? Delivered to the door, no less.
In that case they would not stand on ceremony.
Even Blaziken, who had not broken through to Gym-class yet, was not in the least afraid; and Gyarados, the strongest of them in energy level, was already at it with the Suicune across the way.
And not the Suicune alone — there was a Chandelure as well.
One against two, and it got in first.
"Roar, roar—"
Gyarados, facing the Suicune and the pitifully weak pressure coming off it, swung its great tail and knocked it flying.
"Oooo—"
The Suicune called up the north wind, and the Water-type power around them surged.
"Hah. Parlour tricks."
Gyarados could do that too.
The next second the Suicune found, to its horror, that the power around it was leaving it and turning into power used against it.
Which was to say that in the contest over Water-type power it had lost to this Gyarados — and in the Gyarados it sensed a familiar power of the same origin as its own.
Set beside its own, that power was a grade higher.
Which of us is the Legendary here. The Suicune could not help asking itself.
In point of fact neither of them counted as a Legendary Pokémon; they were only Pokémon carrying a portion of a Legendary's power.
And of the two, the "Suicune" was "incomplete" besides, nothing like as "whole" as the Gyarados.
"Whooosh—"
"Sssss—"
Steam went up across the whole sky. The Chandelure had not been idle either; with the Suicune pushed onto the back foot it came in to help and took a good deal of the force off it.
Slaking Teleported in front of the Golurk, Giga Impact came with it, and the two of them went down into the earth together.
"Whoosh—"
Then a blaze of light went up into the sky out of that ground.
Fissures past counting, like the threads of a spider's web, spread outward with that point as their source, and the raw force of it tore the place apart.
"Bang, bang, bang—"
Out of it came the sound of blows still landing; with the energies all mixed together there was no telling how the fight inside was going.
Aerodactyl, Zweilous and the others had each picked out an opponent of their own. Their showing was not up to the other two's, but it was creditable all the same — they were actually striking above their strength.
In that moment Vance came to a new understanding of his own strength as well.
Without his ever noticing, he had already become this strong.