"Hiss-heh—"
Haunter sprawled unsteadily on the ground. So tired. Truly tired.
What was tired was not the body but the soul.
That pressure from every side, that utter wringing-out — Haunter had had a good thorough taste of it.
Exquisitely awful, that was.
"Ssh-ssh—"
Looking at it lying there half dead, Sandslash came over and gave it a poke with a claw.
Was it really as frightful as all that?
"Hiss-heh-heh—"
Haunter said nothing, but gave it a grim little smile.
Which gave Sandslash the instinctive feeling that this would not turn out well.
For the ever-slippery Haunter to be reduced to that, it must really be quite frightful.
"Sandslash, come here. It's your turn."
"Ssh—"
Sandslash steeled itself and went up, with the look of one going to its death and not flinching.
"Don't worry, it's only training. Never mind the dreadful state Haunter's in — it's always been a slacker. It isn't so terrible. It's a way of tempering you, that's all, and I'll set your training out properly."
"Ssh-ssh—"
Sandslash nodded and went on nodding; what Vance said, it naturally believed.
Everything went black, and then the scene in front of Sandslash changed; and its mind was clouded at the same time, as though something had gone out of its head.
Did it have a Trainer, or did it not? It seemed that it did, and it seemed that it did not.
"Rraah, rraah—"
There was no time to think it over; a bloodthirsty, savage roar came from somewhere off in the distance.
Muddled as it was, it had come back to a familiar place.
Little to eat, less to drink, and danger on every side.
"Ssh-ssh—"
Sandslash was all wariness; the careful heart it had once had rose in it again, and it went feeling its way outward on every side.
"Nidooo—"
It broke open an earth tunnel and came face to face with a Nidoking, the four eyes meeting.
"Ssh-ssh. This is bad."
Sandslash took to its heels. The ground shook, and the power of the Ground type closed in around it.
Nidoking had attacked, and all it could do was barely hold the attack off.
Not to hold it off was to become the other's food. Out in the wild it had always been so.
Every time it came out of it alive, and every time by that little margin.
Battle techniques rose up in its head, and it used every one of them.
Vance's will rested some way off, watching it quietly and nodding now and then. Not bad at all.
Half an hour later Sandslash lay down beside Haunter, panting hard.
"Ssh-ssh — I'm tired."
"Hiss-heh-heh—"
Haunter seemed to be laughing at the look of it. Now it would know what that had felt like.
Over on the other side a black hole flashed, and Kirlia was covered over by it.
Kirlia did notice it, but her power was slight, and she fell all the same into the nightmare Darkrai wove.
"Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh—"
Fire burning through the wooded hills, and the shouting of the killing never stopping.
A mysterious company had come down on the valley where they lived, cruel in their methods, showing the Pokémon no mercy whatever.
"Kirl—"
Kirlia went out to meet them, blasted the man in front of her apart, then shifted her position to dodge those humans' Pokémon and answered with Magical Leaf, driving them back.
Then more of them came crowding round, every one of them murderous-looking.
Without thinking, Kirlia looked behind her; the figure that always set her mind at ease had not appeared.
There should have been that familiar, half-strange Trainer behind her, and now there was not, and Kirlia could not settle to it.
"Rraah, rraah—"
There was no time to think. The men were already directing their Pokémon in to surround her and kill her.
"Change the setting a little more."
Vance said to Darkrai.
"Yes."
Darkrai put its power to work unseen, altering the setting quietly while they fought.
"Raise the difficulty by degrees. There's no need to take it straight to the top."
Darkrai listened and did as it was told, weaving the dream.
A nightmare woven by its own hand was near enough to the real thing to make no difference.
"Bang—"
Inside the dream-space Kirlia met with a vicious set of battle conditions: set upon from all sides by the other side's Pokémon, she was wounded and went down.
"Kirl—"
Kirlia got up off the ground and looked at them with hatred in her eyes.
With the power she had now, against so many enemies, she was simply outmatched and could only hold on bitterly.
How was she to break out of it?
How was she to raise her power?
Evolution. The thought of evolution came up out of her body.
Evolution was the one means of raising her power open to her now.
Just as she was thinking it, outside, the figure of Kirlia sitting cross-legged on the ground lit with the light of evolution.
"Darkrai, that will do."
Vance said it in good time, telling Darkrai to release the nightmare trial so that Kirlia could come back to the state she had been in.
"Haaah—"
One movement of Darkrai's mind, and Kirlia's consciousness returned to where it belonged.
Was she about to evolve?
Kirlia looked at her own faintly glowing body and wondered at it.
As her thoughts gathered again she made out which was the real world and which the scene just past, and felt the difference between the two.
"Kirl—"
The light of evolution on her grew thicker and thicker, and Kirlia did not refuse it but gave herself deeply to the feel of it.
The light of evolution blazed up, and Kirlia went into the evolving state.
The Pokémon and Vance all gathered round to watch her evolve.
Kirlia could have evolved long since.
An ordinary Kirlia can evolve once it comes into Advanced strength.
His Kirlia was already at level 38 and had not evolved, which counted as rather late.
But Vance had examined Kirlia's body, and it was in very good health and full of energy, so he had let the matter be.
Perhaps Kirlia was exceptionally gifted, and so the force needed for evolving took rather longer to build up.
And as it happened, having her go through Darkrai's nightmare here today had touched off some turning point in her body, and so the evolution had begun.
"Garde—"
Within the light Kirlia's body drew out longer, up to a height of about 1.7 metres, and its shape was changing as well.
The voice that came out of her was clearer than before, and gentler.
"Garde—"
The light drew in, and Kirlia's evolved form, Gardevoir, stood in front of Vance.
Gardevoir's body was white, the inside of the skirt below it green; the hair had turned to a curling shape that ran all the way down below the head, and the red structures had moved to the chest and the back. Its arms were green, with no clear line between arm and hand.
The pure white of her dress gave her a slender, graceful look, and when her eyes fell on the Pokémon and on Vance they were full of a gentle, smiling warmth.
Beside her Kirlia days she was more grown, and more charming with it.
"Whooaa—"
Zoroark was the first to applaud, calling out in celebration of her evolution.
"Rraah, rraah—"
"Hiss-heh—"
"Blaziken, blaziken—"
Blaziken and the others offered their congratulations next, happy for her successful evolution.
"Garde—"
Gardevoir, all smiles, returned the courtesy gracefully.
"Evolved at last. Ralts has become a Gardevoir. I am very glad of it."
Alakazam said it with feeling, its eyes a little damp.
It had been fortunate to meet Vance and to put Ralts into his keeping, and he had not disappointed its hopes: he had raised Ralts well.
Now she had evolved into a Gardevoir, and Alakazam had the feeling of a junior of its own grown up and come to something.
A comfort to an old heart.
Now Ralts had evolved as well; and its own slide into age had been nourished by Vance's Viridian Power, so that it had a good while yet to live, and to live in health, and not as it had been before, merely waiting to die.
Everything was moving in a good direction.
As things stood, to Alakazam's mind nothing could have been better.