Vance, for his part, had received those veiled words, and their source was the Darkrai.
"Help you... the question is how."
Vance sent a thought back along the same line when he had heard it, but no answer came.
"Darkrai is unable to battle. Gyarados wins!"
The referee announced the result, and when he had finished, the warm applause and the cheering and the rest of it did not follow. There was silence.
Nobody had taken it in. That invincible Darkrai had lost, and lost to a Gyarados, just like that.
For the moment it would not go in.
From where the Gyarados stood the scene of the battle had changed and changed again, and a very long time had passed; to the crowd, what happened out on the field happened very fast.
Out of nowhere the Gyarados attacked, the Darkrai defended, then the defence broke and it drifted off to one side.
And with that the Darkrai had lost. To tell the truth, a great many people had no idea what they had just seen.
"Clap, clap—"
It was a while before a thin scatter of applause started up, warming by degrees afterwards.
Whatever else might be said, the Gyarados had beaten the Darkrai in front of their eyes, and the win was settled.
With all those senior League people up on the platform, nothing could be fixed.
"It's a fix! How could Darkrai lose?"
"You set this up, did you? Give us our money back!"
"Impossible. Darkrai is the strongest thing under heaven. How could it be beaten by a Gyarados? It's false. It has to be false."
Some of them would not believe it, and shouted it out in their heat.
They had not only fancied it; they had staked everything they owned. They should have made a tidy sum, and instead they were ruined, and the sheer size of that gap went straight to their heads.
"Useless! I put a Darkrai in your hands and you still could not take the title. What use are you?"
Elder Vayne cursed him. The creature was past all helping.
That Darkrai had not been handed over at random. He had picked it out with care, and in its nature it was a true Darkrai, without the flaws the other Darkrai had about them to a greater or a lesser degree.
The one thing wanting in it was that it had put out too much of its own source, and its foundation was worn down by it.
But a Darkrai like that should have been enough, to his mind. How could it have come here, run into this Vance, and come to grief?
Elder Vayne's first thought was that it was this Wren who was useless. His own hand had been at work on the Darkrai as well — work that let it overdraw its life force to raise its strength, and let him control it more completely.
With all that done — so fine a set of Pokémon, and everything that could be thought of on his behalf seen to — and he could still lose. The man was useless and nothing more.
"Barring anything unforeseen, the champion of this tournament will be this Vance. Elder Vayne, I think the plan we laid before might perhaps be altered......"
Gerald Farrow, standing behind Elder Vayne with his grandson, said it deferentially.
Even Gerald Farrow, a Near-Champion master now, had lost the spirit for it after watching Vance carry off the tournament.
He could only sigh inwardly. The gifts of this young man were frightening; even a Legendary Pokémon, a Darkrai, was no match for him.
"Oh? And how would you alter it?"
Elder Vayne turned his head and answered with something that was not quite a smile.
"I think it might be settled by some more peaceable method. Anything can be talked over."
Gerald Farrow said it, and the arrogance was gone out of his voice.
"Heh. That is not for the two of you to decide. I have my own mind on it."
Elder Vayne said it with his eyes on Vance, up on the field, whose expression had not altered and who was as unruffled as ever.
Having beaten a Legendary Pokémon, a Darkrai, Vance was just as he had been before — neither proud nor restless, with a good deal of the bearing of a commander about him.
"Wren, please send out your next Pokémon and continue the match."
The referee pressed him, telling Wren to get a Pokémon out and fight.
Since the Darkrai had been beaten Wren had been in a daze, barely reacting, with none of his earlier swagger left in him.
"Wren!"
Only then did Wren stir. He took up a Poké Ball, drew the Darkrai back into it, and called out an Elite-Four-class Manectric.
"Well done, Gyarados. Come back for now."
Vance recalled the Gyarados, then took up the Zweilous's Poké Ball and threw it.
This battle would be the Zweilous's.
"Rooaar—"
Black Two could not contain himself and roared again and again. It was his turn at last. He had been shut up in that Poké Ball so long he was sick of it.
"Win the fight first, then talk."
Black One said.
An Elite-Four-class Manectric was not a difficult opponent for the Zweilous to deal with.
"Begin!"
"Zweilous, go. Dragon Breath, Dragon Pulse!"
Black One and Black Two heard him, and each of the two heads loosed its own move; the pair of them went out together.
And Wren, whether because he had lost the Darkrai or for some other reason, was in poor shape and still dazed.
There was no spirit in his commands, and they were full of holes.
That was his own affair. Vance took the opening, froze the Manectric with an Ice Beam and put a Flamethrower on top of it.
One violent crack, and the Manectric was unable to battle.
"Electivire."
With the Manectric beaten, Wren sent out another Electric-type Pokémon.
His handling of it left as much to be desired, and after a hard exchange the Zweilous found its opening there too, poured the full force of its moves into the thing, and it was unable to battle.
The match between the two of them had become Vance's, played to hold the other man down. One more Pokémon came out, and the Zweilous disposed of it as easily.
"We have him! The champion of this Indigo League Conference has been decided, and it is Vance!"
In the hall, the instant Vance beat the last of his opponent's Pokémon, the announcer's voice rang out full of excitement.
It declared Vance the winner.
"Ha ha ha, I knew the boss could do it."
Ambrose and the others clapped like madmen, celebrating for Vance.
"Bang, bang, bang—"
Bloom after bloom of brilliant fireworks went up together, very beautiful, set off for the making of this tournament's champion.
*The championship. Taken.*
Vance was rather moved by it. There had been a few twists on the way, but the title had come to him as he had expected it to.
A small wish granted, you might call it.
He looked around him. The people were all cheering, and those up on the high platform had risen as well and were applauding and smiling at him.
He was the focus of the place; all that applause, all that cheering, had him for its object.
Vance did enjoy the experience of ten thousand eyes upon him, and waved a little in answer to the cheering below.
"Applaud, then. Neither of us is a match for him. That title of his is no more than his due."
Down below, Aurelian said it with a laugh.
He had thought this tournament as good as in the bag, and who would have guessed it — he had come to grief. A Legendary Pokémon had turned up, and so had a man fierce enough to beat one.
It was fantastical.
"What I'm wondering is whether that is even his limit."
Elspeth said with a soft laugh.
"Probably not. Within three years, perhaps, he could grow as far as the Elite Four."
Aurelian nodded, and offered it as a guess.
The flashbulbs went without stopping, taking down the new champion for the reports that would be filed afterwards.
Vance's face was as usual, the excitement drawn back in, and his mind was on something else.
On those veiled words of the Darkrai's, in the middle of the battle.
It wanted his help? It must be that.
Which raised the next question. How was he to help it? And was there any need to help it at all?
He turned it over and found no suitable way.
Wren might have lost to him on this field, but behind Wren stood the Godbeast Gang.
For the time being he was no match for that organisation.
Coming by the Master-class Viridian Power had given Vance some ground to stand on.
But ground to stand on was all it was. Vance had not let it go to his head, and was not so conceited as to think he could take on the strength of a whole organisation by himself.
To say nothing of the rest, if he met so much as one Champion-class fighting force he would be beaten.
"Never mind. Let it be."
In the end Vance chose to let things take their course.