"Hydro Pump."
Out on the field a Golduck covered in wounds had no strength left to answer the Hydro Pump that came at it. It was caught up and carried along, smashing through one heap of rock after another, and did not get up again.
"Golduck is unable to battle. Zoroark wins."
A few seconds later the referee announced the result and gave the win to Zoroark.
"Whooaa—"
The "Blastoise" shifted its shape and turned back into Zoroark.
Beating that Golduck had cost it nothing but a little stamina.
Having recalled the Golduck, Ronan fell to thinking; and after he had considered a while he took up a Poké Ball and threw it out.
A powerful presence came onto the field with it: his Elite-Four-class Pokémon, Slowking.
There was no help for it. Going on as he was, he would never break the deadlock.
So there was nothing for it but to show the card in his hand and put Slowking out early.
"A level 61 Slowking, with the Oblivious Ability."
The moment it appeared, Vance knew what it was made of.
An energy level of 61, its presence still wavering a little: it had not been long past the Elite-Four-class threshold.
"In that case..."
Vance was on the point of putting Gyarados and the others out when he heard a low growl from Zoroark.
"Whooaa, whooaa—"
"Everything you have, and the Viridian Power on top of it. We can try it."
Vance answered, granting its request, and decided to let Zoroark try.
"Hm? Why isn't he recalling it this time?"
Seeing that he did not take Zoroark off, Ronan was puzzled.
He had thought the man would recall it, and he had not.
Last time he had hoped he would not recall it, and he had.
Neither time had gone as he expected.
Still, so much the better. Perhaps his chance lay just here.
Ronan held down his excitement, and once the match began he set Slowking on. He would very much like to see what other card the man had, to be confident enough to keep Zoroark out and fight his Slowking with it; Slowking, let it be remembered, was an Elite-Four-class creature, not some small fry.
"Slowking, Water Pulse."
An Elite-Four-class Water Pulse was of no ordinary force. What would usually come up as a stream of water rose as a great wave instead, and fell hard.
"Whoooosh—"
Out of the water a deep-blue Pokémon sprang, the crystal on its forehead shining bright, driving the waves away from around it.
Suicune.
The Suicune that Zoroark had turned into had taken the field.
"Hroo—"
Suicune gave a low call, and a clear wind came and bore its body up, holding it in the air.
Beyond the look of it, the pressure the Suicune that Zoroark had turned into gave off was out of the ordinary as well.
The Trainers and the Trainers about the ground all felt that presence.
"A Suicune, is it. And that pressure — how can it be so real? Take it outside and call it a Suicune and nobody would argue."
Ronan said it in a tight voice. Looking at this Suicune was like looking at that Raikou; and fighting it at close quarters, the weight of it felt heavier still than the sight of the Raikou had.
The Viridian Power, vast and strong, came down straight onto the "Suicune", and its presence began to climb notch by notch.
What showed of it rose from Elite to Gym-class, and so thickly that even among Gym-class it could not be called weak.
It stopped only at somewhere around level 57 or 58.
At that energy level, with the unfathomable, lofty, mysterious presence of a Legendary on top of it, set against the Slowking it did not look so far short.
"Whoooosh—"
In the same way the water rose in waves, and this time it was Slowking they swept towards.
"Teleport!"
Ronan was not going to sit and wait for the end, and he was certainly not to be frightened by a display.
Slowking's eyes lit up and its shape vanished from where it stood; the next second it was there inside the waves.
"Mega Punch."
The fist came up and drew the air after it; the waves around it scattered in an instant, and that bitter, cutting force had already fixed on the Zoroark in the water.
It swung, and struck.
"Whoooosh—"
One punch emptied that great wave. Slowking's Mega Punch broke through layer after layer of what held it and came right up in front of Zoroark.
"Pff—"
Zoroark's shape dissolved. The waves around it grew wilder still, and there was Water-type force in them, hindering Slowking's psychic movement.
Wave after wave broke on the defence Slowking had raised in front of it.
And then, all at once, it froze; spikes of ice filled the sky and were flung out, glinting cold in the sunlight.
What was truly happening in there nobody outside could see clearly; they felt only that the exchange between the two carried an uncommon force, as a battle with an Elite-Four-class in it should.
And the Suicune that Zoroark had turned into was no great surprise to anybody. The crowd knew by now that Zoroark could take any shape at all, and there was none of the shock there had been when the Raikou appeared.
This Suicune was only a Pokémon in a borrowed shape.
So the rest of them thought; but there were some who saw more in it.
Ronan, for one, fighting Zoroark face to face, felt a certain pressure off it, as pure as the Raikou's.
And Elder Vayne and his people down below: at the sight of Zoroark showing itself in a Suicune's shape Elder Vayne fell to thinking, and then a look of wild joy came over him.
The company up on the high stand, by contrast, took it all quite calmly and went on watching.
"I knew it."
Steven murmured it. Another pleasant surprise. This young fellow's luck ran deep; there was no knowing what strange chance he had met with, to have caught this Zoroark as well.
The Legendary's presence about it was not to be hidden from them either.
"Raikou!"
"Whooaa—"
Zoroark, in the thick of it with Slowking, changed on the instant into Raikou, gathered a savage charge of lightning and came down hard.
Caught unprepared, Slowking could not get its guard up in time and was grazed. Lightning ran thick over its body and left it scorched black, with paralysis on top of it; happily its Oblivious Ability blocked a good deal of the after-effect.
As Raikou, Zoroark simply hammered away at it in burst after burst, and the ground the two of them fought over became a field of lightning.
"Boom—"
The two broke apart for a moment. Zoroark was wet through, and arcs of electricity still crawled over Slowking.
"Whooaa—"
The Suicune form came back and the wild attack began again; with the Viridian Power and the strength of three Legendaries behind it, for a while there was nothing to choose between them.
"Slowking, hold on. Endure and the win is ours. Heal Pulse."
After exchange upon exchange Ronan had the measure of it, and came to himself. Why fight the thing head-on at all?
Raikou one moment, Suicune the next, and no end of shapes in between.
So he changed his tactics and made delay the main thing: any strengthening from outside grows weaker with time.
Heal Pulse to recover, full defence and no trading blows with it, and wait; the scales of the victory would tip his way.
Experienced as he was, he chose this way of fighting only because he had no choice.
"Whooaa—"
Zoroark went on as before, attacking with everything it had.
And was held off by a defence that did not let a drop through.
"Whooaa, whooaa—"
Zoroark looked at Vance, asking him with its eyes.
"This isn't the wild. It can't be helped. Do what you can — wear its stamina down, that's all."
Vance was out of answers too. Out in the wild, faced with tactics as shabby as these, there would have been other things to do; here on the field there were none, and there was nothing to rely on but Zoroark's strength and his own.
But the two of them together were already giving all they had, and in the short run there was no getting at this Slowking, so it had to be this way.
"Whooaa—"
Zoroark nodded, called up its power and went on hammering away.
Even if it could not win, it would win an advantage for its companions.
"Ha ha, I really am a genius. It's getting anxious. Slowking, you hold on now — the win is ours. The Onix he has left is worse than this one."
"Slowkiing—"
Slowking answered him. Of course it knew; it was only galling that it, an Elite-Four-class Pokémon, should be driven to this by an Elite-class one.
Still, for the win, it would put up with it.
By what it could feel, the force behind Zoroark's attacks was already easing off little by little. The win was in sight.
Even as its strength fell away, man and Pokémon kept to their steady, careful game.
Even when Zoroark had dropped to the level of a newly made Gym-class they did not strike; they meant to wait until it fell back to Elite before turning on it.
And at that point Vance recalled Zoroark, which counted as a loss for it.
"Don't take it hard. You did very well. Leave the rest to your companions."
Vance comforted it and put the Poké Ball away.
He looked at the broad smile on Ronan's face and shook his head.
Then he threw a Poké Ball, and Slaking's shape appeared on the field.
Slaking's powerful presence froze Ronan's smile.
"Who told you my next Pokémon was an Onix?"
Vance said it with a light laugh.