In that same instant Zoroark shifted its form, became an Electivire, and the blinding electricity over its body burst out all at once.
The Blastoise in front of it could not dodge at all, and took the whole of the blow.
"Booom—"
The Blastoise flew out trailing black smoke and slammed into the ground, scorched black from end to end, thin threads of arcing current scurrying over it.
It happened so fast that even the opposing Blastoise's Trainer could not react to it.
His head at that moment was in a complete fog. How, in the middle of a fight, did a thing like that suddenly arrive?
Where was the Blastoise he had been promised?
How had an Electivire come popping up out of nowhere?
What was going on here?
"Blas... Blastoise, are you all right?"
He asked after his Blastoise's condition too late, and in any case it was a question that did no good whatever.
Scorched black all over, the Blastoise shuddered a few times as the current ran through it and had no strength to answer.
It needed a moment. It was numb all over now, and not only its body — its head as well.
A black shadow cut off its view, and it found itself looking at an Electivire's face.
It might want a moment, but Zoroark was not about to give it one.
The tails at its back pinned the Blastoise down, points of starlight showed in front of it, and the power of dread was gathering.
Hyper Beam was brewing in its hands.
"Ka... Ka-mee—"
The Blastoise's eyes went wide. It wanted to fight back and could not; it was paralysed from head to foot and held fast by Zoroark besides.
The aura of ruin before it grew thicker and thicker, and it could already feel the pain of the move slamming into its body.
Its Trainer at the side was jabbering something it could not make out.
The next second that smothering aura of ruin scattered instead; Zoroark let the power go, released its hold at the same time, and walked off to one side.
"Ka-mee?"
That performance left it at a loss. Why had the thing backed off?
It looked back at its own Trainer and saw him shouting and waving, though what he was saying it had no idea — its ears were still numb.
"Stop, stop, stop, I forfeit, I forfeit!!"
Over there the Blastoise's Trainer said it at the top of his voice, conceding outright.
At the referee's signal Vance had Zoroark break off the attack as well. The other side had conceded; there was no need for him to go on. Making sure of the win was enough.
This bout with the Blastoise had given Zoroark its first showing as well.
With that, every member of the new first team had now been seen at the Conference.
And they had done him proud, every one of them, all of them bringing Vance wins; defeats had been very few.
Judging by the progress so far, Vance reckoned that with the new first team fighting this Indigo League Conference, another round would put him into the last 16 without trouble.
Zoroark had not gone all out in this match, and Onix had not been used at all — a good two Gym-class fighters between them.
How was he not to reach the last 16?
"The last 16. I believe that's as far as Ash got."
Coming down off the ground, Vance thought back over Ash Ketchum's record.
He still remembered that the first tournament the boy had entered was the Indigo League Conference too, and that he had finished in the last 16.
Set side by side like that, Ash had come on rather quickly.
Faster than most people, at any rate.
"That's Vance, is it, the little fellow you crossed?"
Off at one side of the arena Gerald Farrow and his party stood watching Vance walk down off the field.
"Yes, that's him!"
Kai Farrow nodded, affirming it.
"The young man has something to him after all. A real hand at raising Pokémon, and his luck is not bad either — fancy his catching a Pokémon like a Zoroark."
"He comes of ordinary stock, but he has made himself a force already. Unless there is no help for it one had better not cross men of that kind; but since you have crossed him, the only thing now is to find a way to finish it."
Gerald Farrow said it as though turning it over.
On his showing at present, even if Vance went no further than this, he was very well worth cultivating.
In days to come he stood a chance of becoming an Elite-Four-class master as well.
As for Near-Champion, that would depend on what fortune came his way.
Just how hard it was to break through to Near-Champion, he could speak to with some authority; he had faced that question in the most immediate way, and he knew in his bones how hard that breakthrough was.
If it had been like that for him, there was no need to speak of the other.
Breaking through to Near-Champion was out of the question. Elite-Four-class, now, there was a chance of.
And so Gerald Farrow, being already a Near-Champion-class Trainer, felt a particular sense of his own advantage.
"That Zoroark is rather interesting, too."
Elder Vayne stroked his chin, thinking who knew what.
What other people saw was how strong this Zoroark was. What he saw was something else.
In his eyes, Zoroark was excellent experimental material.
Inside the Sacred Order there were experiments of just that kind, and this Zoroark would suit them very well.
Its powers held together so well, so finely balanced — it would be a waste not to make experimental material of it.
That branch had been destroyed, he seemed to recall, and the experimental material lost with it; this looked as though it could fill the gap, and who was to say the results might not be better still?
What he did not know was that even if this Zoroark were the lost one he was imagining, it had evolved since, and under Vance's careful keeping every trace of the experiments had long since been wiped away.
Add to that the fact that he was not the man in charge of that line of research, and he could not have told that this Zoroark was the Zorua that had got loose.
The way Zoroark looked now, even the people from the experimental group would not have dared to be certain.
"Elder Vayne is looking over that way. Have you noticed something?"
Gerald Farrow said it with a smile, his tone deferential.
"Heh heh. Nothing at all. That man's Zoroark is a fine one, and as it happens there is a quarrel between you and him, is there not? Let us say this, then: you settle it, and that Zoroark comes to me. I shan't let you be out of pocket over it — I can pay for it."
"Come, Elder Vayne, what talk is this? Payment, indeed. Only give me a little time; I shall look for the opening later on. You know how it is inside the League's system — doing anything is a nuisance, and there are things to be careful of."
Gerald Farrow answered at once, already turning a method over in his mind.
He had been considering other methods before, but now that this Elder Vayne had spoken, there was only the one to be used.
Beside them Kai Farrow listened to the two of them talk with delight written all over his face. Heaven itself was helping him.
So this honoured guest his grandfather had brought along could not stand the man either?
With two such great men in it, what was there to fear?
Nothing at all, to be sure. He was overjoyed, and could hardly wait to see the man begging for mercy.