Vance had never taken his eyes off the Gyarados. It was unsteady now, and the trend was downward, but for the moment he still did not move; he went on watching him.
Because Vance believed the Gyarados could do it.
And even if he could not, Vance was confident he could act first, before the Darkrai got another move away, and turn the thing around himself.
"That's it. It's decided."
"One more move out of Darkrai and the Gyarados is finished."
"It really is."
The crowd below were reading the battle between the two Pokémon as it went, and seeing the Gyarados in that state they had made up their minds.
"Gyarados is strong, but up against Darkrai there's still nothing it can do."
"Darkrai is unbeatable!"
Ambrose and the others were watching just as tensely, wholly caught up in it, following every movement of the Gyarados and worrying over the position Vance was in.
"He may be about to lose, but the boss still has his other Pokémon. He's a long way ahead yet."
Ambrose said it after a pause.
"Naturally."
Emery and Cerise both nodded in agreement.
The two of them thought the same.
If that was how his own people saw it, there is no need to speak of the rest. Every one of them took the Gyarados's defeat to be one move away.
Out on the field, the Darkrai's pitch-black phantom had already appeared.
The Gyarados responded to it, and steadied by degrees.
Inside the dream, the Gyarados faced one terrifying image after another, and then all at once it stopped, frozen on a picture of himself swimming along a filthy ditch while overhead, one after another, powerful Pokémon of every shape and bearing flew past, Legendary Pokémon among them.
Set side by side like that, the two were as far apart as the clouds are from the mud.
But what the Gyarados felt was something different, because he had seen those Legendary Pokémon soaring, and as though light had broken in on him, the shape of his own Mega Evolution rose in his mind — the thing his memory held deepest, a feeling that reached all the way to the heart.
In his heart a feeling rose that had a name, and the name was "the bond"; and following it, following where his heart led him, he put down the source of the terror inside him.
"Rooaar—"
A mere dream, no more than that. The binding force scattered, and he changed out of the Magikarp shape back into Gyarados.
This dream, the one he feared most, he had seen through.
Leaping clear of illusion after illusion, he found Vance there watching him, and giving him a look of approval.
"I was never going to let you down, partner."
The Gyarados came back to himself, tore free of the nightmare, and the first thing he met was Vance's eyes.
Vance raised a hand and gave him a thumbs-up.
"It's recovered?! Darkrai — Darkrai!"
Wren called out in alarm.
"Haaah—"
The Darkrai rose out of the ground in front of him.
"What happened? How did you let it break free?"
The Darkrai did not answer. It stood there quietly.
"Useless, useless. What do we do now?"
Still the Darkrai did not answer.
"Again. Dark Void, at full power. Find its weakest point and finish it!"
This time the Darkrai responded. The Dark Void came again, covering the field, and dragged the Gyarados back into the nightmare.
"Dream Eater!"
Wren gave the order without the patience to wait, setting the Darkrai moving before the opening was ripe.
It did as it was told, of course. A smear of black shadow appeared, went at the Gyarados and passed into his body.
There it was intercepted by two forces, one of them uncommonly strong — and one that felt to the Darkrai uncommonly close, uncommonly familiar.
Inside the woven world of the nightmare, Vance's consciousness had been cast in as well, and he looked about him with a good deal of interest.
*So this is where the Magikarp used to live.*
What came towards him was the Darkrai's phantom, which hung there and did not at once attack either of them, or feed on the dream.
"Roaar—"
The Gyarados moved, roaring, and sent a Hyper Beam straight at it.
"Haaah—"
The Darkrai's eyes were numb. It let the force of the Hyper Beam wash over its phantom and kept those eyes on Vance the whole while, as though it were sending him something.
"Help me... to leave... these bonds."
Carrying the Viridian Power as he did, Vance could make out only those few words.
Then the dream in front of him collapsed, and his consciousness returned to the real world.
That was the moment Wren's composure blew apart.
*What is happening? What is happening? If this won't work either, then what am I supposed to do?*
*It even had the boost from staking its life, several times over. Why is that still not enough?*
*With my greatest support gone, how am I to fight at all?*
And it was not only his composure that had blown apart. A great many people below had gone the same way, and some of them stood there weeping openly and crying out, "It's gone, it's all gone," and "I'm ruined," and the like.
"Useless! Do you know one or two moves and nothing else? There is nothing wrong with the rest of Darkrai either. Keep your head, keep fighting. With that Dark Void of its, the Gyarados cannot break through, and there will be chances enough!"
Elder Vayne's grim words sounded at that same moment in the ear of the distracted Wren, and steadied him on the instant.
He had not lost yet. If this move would not do, then another one would.
Just as Elder Vayne said: with the Dark Void shielding it, the Gyarados could not break its defence, and he could look for an opening and go on fencing with the man.
Wren's shattered composure eased a little.
"Roaar—"
The Gyarados's attack came again.
Wren did as he had been told at once and had the Darkrai shield itself with the Dark Void.
"Boom, boom, boom—"
After a battering of it, as expected, the Gyarados could not break that defence.
"Phew—"
Wren could breathe again at last, and was setting about a counter-attack when another and far more overbearing force appeared.
With a flash of brilliant light it went straight into the Dark Void the Darkrai had gathered around itself, and blew it clean out of it.
The one who had acted was Vance, naturally. With the Master-class Viridian Power in him and Elite-Four-class psychic power besides, blasting the Darkrai out of there was no great difficulty.
He had no wish to drag it out any longer. There was little point in it.
"It's over!"
His last card broken as well, Wren's heart went to ashes. Now there really was no hope.
"Rooaar—"
The Gyarados's attack came down, and that awe-inspiring Legendary Pokémon, the Darkrai, was blown into a drift on the wind, then came down and lay where it fell.
Darkrai — defeated.