The next morning Kadabra came back with Berries right on schedule, functioning as a self-propelled alarm clock.
Nanami had, once again, flopped down on Milotic and slept the entire night that way.
"Dude, you are flat." Akiyama came out of the tent stretching. "How do you not catch a cold out here?"
Nanami's fist tightened. She ignored the first half of that entirely. "I basically never get sick."
"Impressive."
He got to work on breakfast.
Afterward, he recalled Kadabra so he could rest.
"Gen-gar."
Standing outside the front door, Gengar clearly didn't want to go.
"It's okay. We'll come back before long. And once I take the Championship and head home, I'll have my dad move this whole building onto the estate. Roots and all."
Nanami nearly blacked out.
Roots and all. Sure.
Inteleon started snickering.
"What's so funny? Get in there." Nanami had his ball out before he could compose himself, and the red light took him mid-expression.
Then she released Gyarados and settled cross-legged on top of his head.
"Hey! Move it. Greenlight City's not far now." She let Gyarados start drifting forward without waiting for a response.
"Come on, Gengar."
Akiyama picked him up and set him behind his neck, letting the little guy hold on to his shirt. Weightless, so what did it matter.
A kid who loved being free this much probably didn't want to be in a ball anyway.
He took Gardevoir's hand and started after Gyarados.
Nanami had her way of covering ground. Akiyama preferred walking. With Gardevoir next to him, he could walk as long as it took.
"What moves do you know?" he asked as they went.
Ash, inside that illusion, had said something about having trained this Gengar. Akiyama hadn't gotten to see what came out of that, but it had happened, so it was in there somewhere.
So far he'd confirmed exactly one: Shadow Ball.
"Gen-gar. Gengar, gar—gengar—"
Gengar produced a long and enthusiastic answer.
Akiyama didn't catch a syllable of it. He was reaching for Kadabra's ball to get a translation when Nanami brought Gyarados to a stop and turned around.
"Have him fight Gyarados. Then you'll know. You'll also find out how well he actually handles the moves, not just which ones he's got."
Akiyama looked up and had to admit that wasn't a bad point.
"How about it?" he asked Gengar.
Gengar thought about it, then nodded.
He liked fighting. And this was the person who'd smashed his illusion, so there was a score to settle.
The two Pokémon locked eyes, and that was that.
Both Trainers backed off without discussion. Gyarados swept his massive tail across the ground and cleared a patch of open dirt.
Clearly not their first battle out in the field.
Gengar grinned wide and started rolling a Shadow Ball between his hands.
Water wound itself around Gyarados's tail.
Boom.
Aqua Tail and Shadow Ball met in midair and threw up a wall of smoke.
Nobody could see through it, but Gyarados wasn't idle. He was already moving into the old draconic rhythm.
Dragon Dance.
The smoke cleared. Gengar was gone.
Nanami was still guessing where when he popped up behind Gyarados with another Shadow Ball forming.
Boom.
It burst against Gyarados's side, and the pain nearly broke his rhythm.
He finished the Dance anyway, and came out of it sharper and stronger. He turned toward Gengar, mouth yawning open, and roared.
Gengar wasn't remotely impressed. He cackled and sank into the ground.
"Your dragon's having some trouble catching him," Akiyama observed.
"Zip it. Don't mess with Gyarados's read." Nanami shot him a look.
"I'm just saying, it seems like—"
It was the same trick Gengar had used to dodge Hyper Beam after Hyper Beam earlier: plant an idea in the opponent's head and let them misjudge.
Akiyama was doing exactly that now, and for exactly one reason.
He wanted to watch Gyarados eat it.
Out in the clearing Gyarados went utterly still, waiting.
The instant Gengar surfaced—before he could even get a Shadow Ball started—pale light bloomed along Gyarados's whole body.
Ice Beam.
Huh?
Gengar froze, in both senses. He didn't dodge, and a second later he was a statue.
Inside the ice, he blinked.
"Huh. And here I thought your Gyarados only knew how to—" Akiyama stopped mid-sentence.
Gyarados fired Hyper Beam almost without a windup, straight into the frozen Gengar.
The ice shell blew apart, and the shards did their own damage on the way out, right before the beam landed.
That was the point. The Hyper Beam itself did nothing to a Ghost-type. The shattered ice was the whole play.
Gyarados was just extremely used to greeting people with Hyper Beam.
Gengar rode out the pain and, without any particular hurry, coated his hands in a layer of brown energy.
That thick column of light bent. It turned in the air and drove back into Gyarados.
"Did he just—redirect it?"
Akiyama came up blank. The only thing his brain could offer was that Gengar had somehow learned tai chi.
"What was that?" Nanami's composure cracked.
Gyarados had no idea what had happened to him. His own Hyper Beam blasted him back several meters.
Gengar stood where he was, breathing hard, watching Gyarados stagger. Then he closed his eyes.
He pictured himself doing what Gyarados had done. The Dragon Dance.
Psych Up.
A wave of dizziness rolled through him, and when it passed, his stats matched the post-Dance Gyarados exactly.
Then he opened his mouth, and kept opening it, and kept going, jaw stretching farther than it had any right to.
White light gathered in front of it.
Hyper Beam.
The dead, silent beam erupted outward.
You want to shoot beams? Fine. My turn.
Gyarados saw it coming and something in him snapped. He had never in his life been disrespected like this.
Beam for beam.
Two Hyper Beams collided, and the backwash shook every tree around the clearing.
Gardevoir planted herself in front of Akiyama, refusing to let a single stray gust reach him.
Nanami stood with her arms crossed, watching hard. She looked a little tense.
Gyarados had more practice and more raw power, and eventually Gengar's beam guttered out.
Gengar dropped into the ground, and the Hyper Beam carved a crater where he'd been standing.
Only then did Nanami exhale.
Gyarados roared, furious, at a patch of empty dirt. There was nothing he could do about this thing.
Gengar surfaced somewhere in the shadows, Shadow Ball already spinning up.
Boom. It burst across Gyarados's scales.
Gyarados hissed and Water energy spiraled into being, closing around Gengar in a rotating column.
Gengar tried to dive into the ground and got flung right back out.
Whirlpool.
Uh-oh, Akiyama thought. Gengar was in trouble.
Every time Gengar tried to escape, the spinning water was there first.
He simply didn't have the battle experience for this. Caught in the middle of it, he looked lost.
Gyarados wasn't about to ease up on account of that. He tipped his head back, opened his jaws at the sky, and clouds swallowed the sun.
Rain Dance.
The downpour came, and the Whirlpool—which had been losing steam—swelled larger than before.
Gyarados began drawing in a Hydro Pump.
In this weather it was going to hit like a freight train.
"That's bad," Akiyama said, and his face said worse.
"It's over." Nanami didn't even uncross her arms. The ending was already written.
Then Hydro Pump fired.
~~
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