"Mr. Gastly, do you think I ought to let this attachment go?"
Vance had gone, but the maiden's ghost had not faded away, and she spoke to the Gastly.
"I don't know. But whatever you decide, I'll stand behind it."
The Gastly answered, and the answer made its own feeling plain enough.
It had been very small then, and the girl in front of it had looked after it. Later something happened, the girl died, it came by an ancient power, and so it had gone on until now.
With that power sustaining it, its life had been drawn out, but it could not evolve; it stayed in this Gastly form.
Fortunately, with several thousand years behind it, it was not so very weak. It could do something for this girl — that people remembered her at all was its doing.
But now the girl in front of it was fading away, and there was no telling what could be done to stop it.
The Gastly was trying to think of something.
"Mr. Gastly, thank you."
The girl said it sincerely. In these two thousand years the Gastly had done more than enough for her.
"Don't mention it. Hiss-heh."
"The cycle of rebirth, or to go on waiting... Can I wait long enough for you, or will we meet after I am born again?"
"Gastly, if I go, will you have anywhere to belong?"
What Vance had said that night had left a deep mark on her, and a decision was dimly taking shape.
"Hiss-heh??"
............
Vance went back to the room he had been in. Everything in it was as it had been, without the least change.
The Gastly's coming, and the sudden attack, were more than he had reckoned on.
Fortunately it was over now, and that was enough.
Bringing the dead back to life — he had no such power. For a thing like that you would need a Legendary Pokémon, and even then it was only a perhaps.
He was an ordinary human being. How was he to manage it?
"I've put you to trouble again."
Vance said it to the Alakazam in thanks; calling it out this time had broken into its long sleep.
"Don't mention it. The Kirlia has grown a good deal while I was sleeping."
The Alakazam looked at the Kirlia with great satisfaction. The little thing had been well looked after, and its mind was at rest.
Its own eye had not been bad — it had picked out a very good Trainer for her.
"She has, yes."
Vance nodded, and went on to talk with the Alakazam about the Kirlia, and about her raising as well.
Being a Psychic-type Pokémon of long experience, the Alakazam gave its own opinions, and Vance took them up, making a few changes from a Pokémon's point of view.
Training a Pokémon is a long business. It has to keep up with the times, and adjustments have to be made in good season.
After they had talked a while the Alakazam patted the Kirlia on the forehead, gave her a few words of encouragement, and went back into its Poké Ball to rest.
"Maiden's Peak. So I've crossed paths with it after all. No knowing what that will do to what comes later."
Vance came to the window and looked out. Even in the vast dark he could still make out the outline of that stone maiden.
"Hiss-heh-heh—"
Seeing Vance standing like that, the Haunter drifted over and settled beside him.
"What are you thinking about, boss? You're miles away."
the Haunter said.
"I'm thinking about whether you could last a thousand years. The way you're going, a hundred would be a stretch."
Seeing how idle it looked, Vance laughed, put out both hands, kneaded it about and rolled it into a ball. It felt like dough, soft in the hands.
"Heh heh, with you here, boss — you're so strong, I'm bound to live a very, very long time."
The Haunter did not take offence. It laid the flattery on instead.
"Hah. That's something new."
The Haunter looked out along with him, saw the stone maiden, and its eyes rolled round as though something had come to it.
"Oh — boss, you're wondering what you'd do if you turned into a statue yourself, is that it? Like that one, waiting for something. That's it, isn't it."
"??"
"Hiss-heh. Set your mind at rest, boss. If you turn into a statue, I, the Haunter, will stay by you the whole time. Not only that, I'll wrap you in gold leaf so you shine all over, and every human who goes by will admire how handsome you are..."
What sort of rubbish was that to come out with? Was he, Vance, ever going to come to that?
Besides, there was no woman yet worth his doing such a thing for. A thousand years of waiting — that he could not do.
"Enough. I don't need it. It's you who needs something — if you're still not at level 35 once the Conference starts, you'll be for it."
"You can't mean it. Hiss-heh—"
Vance went on talking rubbish with the Haunter, the maiden's ghost and the Gastly put out of his mind. Whatever that ghost chose, it had little to do with him.
Earlier, seeing her hold to it for two thousand years, he had felt some pity for her and been moved by it. Girls like that are rare — he had never met one among the living, and here he had met one among the dead.
So, unusually for him, he had said a word to her.
While he was still deep in thought something changed at the stone maiden. Blue starlight shot up into the sky, the figure of a girl of surpassing beauty appeared there, and strange power spilled wildly out of her in threads and wisps.
"Trainer, thank you for talking sense into me. I have decided. I shall let the attachment go and enter the cycle of rebirth."
The girl turned to face Vance, her voice back to the sweetness of any ordinary young girl's.
"Don't mention it. I'm glad you can be free of it."
Vance Teleported forward, came out facing her, and called across to her.
"Trainer, may I ask something of you?"
"Go on."
"It's the strange energy in Mr. Gastly. Could you look at it for him? Mr. Gastly can't even evolve."
Vance did not answer. He looked quietly at the Gastly.
"I beg you. You are the last human I shall ever be able to speak with, and I feel there is something hidden about you — that you are a man of real ability."
There was entreaty in the girl's eyes; her last moment had come round again.
"I can help you. I can't promise it will do any good."
Vance agreed, without promising more than he could keep.
"Thank you, young Trainer. May I ask your name?"
"Vance."
"Then Vance — thank you. With all my heart I wish you everything you hope for."
"Mm. Thank you."
The girl seemed to have let it go. She looked one last time at her home country, a home that had become nothing like the one she had known.
Her form slowly faded, turned to points of starlight and scattered away.
"Thank you, Mr. Vance. I leave the Gastly to you. The power I give off afterwards — I don't know whether you can make any use of it. If you can, I should be honoured..."
With that the girl too was gone. She had chosen the cycle of rebirth after all, to go after the man she had waited two thousand years for.
The statue lost something of its spirit as well. It looked the same as ever, and yet there was less to it.
And her passing set something moving. Thick psychic energy welled up out of the place, energy of the utmost purity without a trace of anything foul in it — the gift the girl had spoken of at the last, left behind for Vance.
It came straight at Vance.
The power entered his body, and when he had taken in the greater part of it a powerful presence broke out of him.
Elite-Four-class!!
Elite-Four-class psychic power. He had broken through!