"Boom—"
A familiar beam of light shot up into the sky, and the violent energy of it churned the space around into warping and shuddering without end.
Gyarados looked back and gave it a glance of approval.
No less than you would expect of its partner. It could stand level with it.
It had been in a hard fight with two Pokémon and had still not broken the thing open. The progress was slow.
It had asked Vance why it was not being allowed to Mega Evolve and go at them with everything.
Vance had only told it to try its best for now and hold the Mega Evolution back, since that way the honing effect would be greater.
Elite-Four-class Pokémon were not easy to find.
And Vance had misgivings of his own besides. The moment for it had not come.
The field was in confusion, and there was no certainty of taking that Dusknoir down; nor were these the only people here. A few kilometres off Vance had seen the League's men, sitting up on the mountain to watch the tigers fight.
The strength in that party was unknown, and whether they had sensed anything was unclear as well.
He could hold for the present, so the card in the hole had to be kept back for whatever came after.
Seeing that familiar sight, Auberon's heart went up into his throat again. Surely this one was not going to be finished off by that Slaking too.
This Golurk was the stronger of the two, and it had made its preparations and was meeting the Slaking head-on.
Fortunately, when the dust and smoke cleared the Golurk was still holding the field and had not gone down, though the armour on it was broken in many places.
Auberon relaxed a little, and looked off at the Alakazam and the Dusknoir, still hard at it in the distance.
High in the air the wind and cloud shifted about the two of them; it was impossible to make out the contest inside, but from the power spilling out of it, it was a terrible one.
Neither had settled it yet.
That made the contest at Elite-Four-class level the important one.
If the Slaking broke this fight open it could widen the gains, and in the state Auberon was in now he would have nothing to do but withdraw.
A thread of psychic thought came to him, faint and veiled, and his face lit at it.
It had come from his Dusknoir. The Alakazam was showing signs of tiring; there was a good chance of winning.
"Stop the pursuit. Come to me at once and help me ring this man in and kill him."
Auberon took out a communicator and hurriedly got hold of the rest of his people, off chasing Team Rocket in every direction, and ordered them to come quickly and put their strength in with his and help him surround Vance and kill him.
At the very worst they would serve as cannon fodder and wear Vance's strength down.
At the same time he was disappointed in his own Pokémon. That they could not even finish off Gym-class Pokémon, and had brought him to the pass he was in now.
They might have used some outside help to break through to Elite-Four-class, but Elite-Four-class they genuinely were — and they came off worse than another man's Gym-class. It was a disgrace, and it made Auberon look like a poor breeder.
Soon enough the men who had taken the order came up to the ground, drove their Pokémon in and set about ringing Vance in and killing him, while they themselves stood well back.
The man had been at it with their own great man this long, and the great man had had to call for help — which told them he was not easy to handle.
They were wicked, not stupid.
Go up there and take one hit, and they would most likely die on the spot.
Lose a Pokémon and you could raise another. Lose the man and he was really gone.
Gym-class and Elite-class Pokémon came flooding in together, and they put pressure on Vance as well.
There was nothing to be done about that.
The Pokémon were many, seventy or eighty of them, with Auberon's there beside them and the League's people lying in wait in secret further off.
Before this he could have gone on fighting; now there was no need, and the thing might yet turn over on him.
So Vance decided to pull out first.
The other Team Rocket members would have to take their chances.
Once his mind was made up Vance set about doing it.
By telepathy he got word to all his Pokémon, and the Alakazam's own thought came back to him; its meaning was withdrawal too.
"Roar, roar—"
Gyarados's Hyper Beam struck the Suicune full on and knocked it down to the ground, and in the moment its own body was locked rigid it was forced to take the Chandelure's attack.
"Whooosh—"
The water rolled once, and a freezing air spread through it.
The current turned to ice, and sharp ice spears went flying out one after another.
"Whoomph, whoomph—"
A dim blue flame melted the ice spears before they arrived, and steam hung thick in the air.
It curled up again, and out of that tornado of water a dragon of dim blue fire rose once more into the air and broke Gyarados's hold apart.
"Roar, roar—"
Its move broken, Gyarados's face stayed calm and it made no other movement; instead it turned, faced a single spot, drew its power up and gathered it together to charge.
When the Chandelure broke free of the hold, two enormous fists came into its view, closer and closer.
Look past them, and there was Slaking.
"Boom—"
The next moment the Chandelure was falling.
Over the other way, Gyarados's beam leapt across the sky and came straight down where the Golurk lay in its crater.
Slaking came to Gyarados's side, and the two of them vanished from where they stood.
But for Vance's order they could have widened the gains; as it was, all they could do was withdraw first.
They joined up with Aerodactyl and the rest, and Vance came hurrying over to them just then.
"Don't let them go. Gengar, Mean Look."
Vance had been ready for it. He had his Pokémon back in an instant and Teleported away himself.
The Gengar's Mean Look could not fix on him, so it hurried to seal off the space around; that did not hold him either, and Vance broke it open and got quickly away.
Of everything on the field, the only thing that could have held Vance was that Dusknoir, which could have pinned him with sheer force.
The Gengar and the rest of them had not attained much in the way of spatial ability.
Not enough power, and a loose grip on the nodes of space; at the very most they could pin down an ordinary Gym-class Pokémon.
"Zam—"
The Alakazam pulled clear, swung the spoon in its hand and sent a wave of light breaking out across at them, and then with a single flicker it was gone.
The Dusknoir meant to cut it off, and could not.
Old as the Alakazam was, its ability to get away was first-rate; in attainment in space even Vance could not match it.
That was the frightening thing about Psychic-type Pokémon. If they could not beat you, they could always run first.
The stronger a Psychic-type Pokémon was, the better it ran, and the less you could stop it.
Given any warning, Psychic-type Pokémon are the hardest of all to catch.
Two kilometres away the Alakazam appeared ahead of Vance, and once he had shown himself it took him along, made another spatial jump, and Teleported away.
Auberon and the rest could only watch him go with their own eyes, and there was nothing they could do.
"Damn it. Who would have thought shallow water could breed a dragon? That there could be a man like that here."
Auberon's hands closed into fists. He had brought this much strength to bear and still could do nothing about this little Team Rocket branch.