"That has to be it," Lorelei stated, looking at the black figure as the Dragonites flew around. A walking silhouette, completely black from every direction despite the street lamps; completely unnatural. Even Gengars' bodies didn’t absorb enough light to be that dark. "If it has any elemental properties, Dark and Ghost seem the most obvious types."

        Lance nodded. "Right. Let's assume it's Ghost for now. I'll go in first and have Bahamut to distract it. Lorelei, you swing around and try to stay behind it. As soon as I've got it busy, land and let loose your Pokémon's Ice attacks. Bruno, Koga, evacuate the police officer and that Trainer from the scene."

        The other three all nodded. Out of the Elite Four, Lance and Lorelei had the best chance against Ghost types- Lance's Pokémon had energy attacks that could cause damage where physical attacks would not, and Lorelei's ice attacks would temporarily rob Ghost-types of the heat they fed upon for a similar effect. Koga's Pokémon were more reliant on status-inflicting moves to make their opponents less capable of battle before making a direct strike, and while Bruno's Pokémon's physical blows might hurt a Dark-type a lot, they would have no impact on the energy-based life forms classified as Ghost-type.

        The creature shook off the flames while Lance's Charizard, Bahamut, broke formation from the Dragonites and began turning in its direction. Clearly knowing full well what sort of creature had dared to ignite it, the shadow let out an angry roar and pulled its right arm back, then thrust it forward to release from its hand a white energy ball surrounded with a black aura, and trailing a black tail with purple electric sparks. Bahamut only barely managed to turn sideways and move to his left in time to dodge the probably-lethal ball of dark energy.

        Lance winced. "That was too close for comfort." He held on to the Charizard's shoulders, having some difficulty until the fire dragon set itself so its wings were horizontal again. "Let's try something a little tricky... Attack Pattern M-three!"

        The Charizard nodded. Pattern M-3: a single command for three separate attacks in rapid succession. Lance leaped off Bahamut and landed on the ground as the Charizard gained speed for the move trio. The attack started with a Fire Blast straight at the shadow, followed by flying in circles around the target at high speed for an extra-strong Whirlwind attack, and then finished up with Fire Spin before the Charizard broke away from its circular motion.

        The effect was not as favorable this time. The creature encased itself in a translucent black energy bubble moments before the Fire Blast hit, and just walked right through the Fire Spin once the Charizard broke off the attack. Once it had stepped out of the spinning blaze, the creature once more lifted a hand and charged a black energy sphere to fire at the Charizard. It lowered the force field as it did so- perhaps to channel the extra energy into the shot, or perhaps so the force field wouldn't knock its shot back at it..

        "Now, Lorelei!"

        The sound of a Pokéball popping open and the contents materializing preceded an immediate command for an Ice Beam, and Lorelei's Cloyster happily obliged. Before the shadowy monster could finish turning, it found itself hit by a stream of heat-converting energy. The heat in the air around the monster was quickly converted into light, and the sudden lack of heat instantly turned the moisture in the air from vapor into ice, for a much thicker and denser coat of frost than the Blizzard attack had provided earlier.

 

 

       Lance nodded. "Excellent! That should have it stopped for the moment." He looked to the Dragonites. "Everyone, land!"

 

 

        Tom stared in astonishment. The Elite Four... he'd heard the rumors of their combat skills as a team, but had never heard of them doing anything as a full team. The creature that had just a moment ago nearly killed him and the police officer... it must have taken them no longer than 30 seconds to subdue it.

        As the pink-haired figure of Lance looked over the frozen monster, Tom finally heard a beep from his Pokédex, indicating that its earlier scan of the creature had finally reached a result.

        Tom lifted his arm up to where he could see the screen on his PokéTai, expecting to see a message reading "Error 957- Pokémon not listed in database". But that error didn't show. The 'dex claimed to know what this creature was, and if it wasn't for the shape of this monster, Tom would have thought his PokéTai was malfunctioning.

        The screen showed a human shaped silhouette, filled in with various color shades showing the body heat readings. Dozens of  numbers showing vital sign information appeared on either side of the silhouette. These numbers meant absolutely nothing to Tom at all, so he pressed a button to bring up the summary of the scan results.

 

HOMO SAPIENS -HUMAN

MALE

5'9

AGE UNDETERMINED

 

HEALTH SUMMARY- Difficult to determine. Foreign energy readings high. Energy similar to various types found in Psychic and Dark attacks. Energy origins- undetermined.

 

        "H-human!" Tom shouted in surprise. Jade and Thunderblade looked up at him, with a confused "Mrowr?" and "Rai?" respectively. "Th-this can't be right... no human should be able to do stuff like that..."

        The police officer finally spoke up again. "What? What are you talking about?"

        Tom looked to him. "My Pokédex. It says that black shadow monster that blew your bike to pieces is a human!"

        The officer blinked. "Well... it is sorta shaped like one..."

        Tom shook his head "...but it was throwing Shadow Balls..."

 

        "Which may not make any difference."

 

        At this moment Tom jumped up a bit- the voice stating this last sentence was right behind him, and he had heard no sounds to indicate anyone walking up to him from behind. A quick whirl brought him face to face with a tall, thin, stern-faced figure in his mid-forties. Tom immediately jumped back and shouted in startlement from the look, and fell to the ground as the back of his leg came into contact with a large, furry rodent that uttered a "RAIII!" in surprise and pain.

        A good-natured laugh came out from a few yards away. "I don't know what scared him more, Koga, your stealth or your face!"

        Koga glared at the muscular figure who had also just dismounted a Dragonite. "You know, it's very hard to tell when or if you're taking anything seriously. If you'd been listening to what this kid was saying, you'd know his Pokédex says we just froze a human!"

        The muscular man blinked. "Is that so?" He looked back at the frozen shadow. "Yeah, it looks human all right. Lance, what do you think we oughtta do about it?"

        Lance looked to Tom. "Hey, what Pokédex program is loaded in that PokéTai?"

        "Um... the Devon PD2300 series 'PokéPedia Plus' program, I think," the trainer said as he got back up.

        Lance looked to Lorelei for a moment, who elaborated. "That program has extra functions that attempt to identify what creature a target most resembles, using a PokéTai's energy scanner to maximum effect, and points out what makes the target different from the norm. Even though it takes a few extra minutes, it's very accurate."

        Lance nodded. "I see... if that Pokédex is right, this thing we've been fighting might just be a human under a Ghost-type's influence." He turned to one of the Dragonites. "Burai, would you carry the frozen monster to the Pokémon Center for a proper examination?"

        The dragon nodded, and began to move towards the frozen form. Lance and Lorelei each recalled their other Pokémon into the Pokéballs, knowing full well that Burai was gonna need to walk while carrying this, and thus flying wasn't an option.

        Burai stepped up to the frost-covered form, took a deep breath, and then placed each of his large hands on either side of the form, then lifted it high above his head. But as he did so, he felt an uncomfortable shift in the ice. This mass of frost was thick- Burai had witnessed the power of Lorelei's Pokémon's ice attacks, and even felt it during sparring matches, so he knew that it should have been enough to hold a Machamp still for at least an hour. But it felt like the weight inside the ice shifted as he lifted it... as if it was getting almost done melting away from the inside! 

        "AOUUUU!" the Dragonite cried out in surprise as the sounds of shattering ice and water fell on his ears, and not to mention on his head. Something else landed there too, and before Burai knew it there was an uncomfortably warm humanoid form on his back, wrapping its arms around his neck as if trying to strangle him. A moment later, a sudden shock from that form hit, and Burai suddenly found that he was paralyzed, completely unable to move.

        Lance started to reach for his Pokéballs, but froze up when he realized that, for the first time in many, many years, he didn't know what Pokémon to send. Burai was his strongest Pokémon- there was nothing he couldn't fight that the other Dragonites or Bahamut or Aeleron, Lance's Aerodactyl, could, and the Gyarados, Crimson, wouldn't be able to attack without hitting both Burai and the shadow. If this thing's endurance thus far was any indication, it could take more of a beating than Burai could.

        Still, he had to do something. In desperation he pulled off both Geki and Ryouga's Pokéballs from his belt and threw them. Lorelei followed suit by releasing her Lapras Kalia, Koga his Venomoth, and Bruno his Hitmonlee. Kalia attempted to pry the shadow monster off telekinetically with Psychic, and the Venomoth attempted to put it to sleep with Sleep Powder, but the former only gave Kalia a painful wave of psychic feedback and the Sleep Powder merely combusted in the air a few feet from the target. The Hitmonlee and both Dragonites both tried to rush in and remove the offender manually, only to be deflected and tossed outwards into the surrounding buildings by a force shield. Lance gritted his teeth. There was nothing he could do now but watch the monster do whatever it was doing.

        As the Elite Four gazed on, something started to spread from the monster's hands. An inky blackness that slowly crept over Burai's skin until it covered the entire body.  The Dragonite cried out with noises that sounded more like fear than actual pain, but his cries were silenced as the black covered his head. Lance gulped and feared the worst- he'd known Burai ever since the Dragonite had been a Dratini, and now was certain that Burai would be the next to be reduced to dust by this black monster's feeding.

        A blinding white light suddenly flared up, though, distracting Lance and making him look at a Pokéball on his belt. Specifically, Burai's Pokéball. The ball had suddenly begun to glow like the sun.

        Lance blinked. He didn't know what was going on anymore. But this now showed him one last thing he could try. Quickly he plucked the Pokéball off his belt, wincing as he discovered that the shell was burning hot. Trying to ignore the pain as the metal burned his skin, he enlarged the ball and took aim at Burai, then pressed the return button.

        Instead of the usual red recall beam that usually resulted, a bright flash of orange light flared forth. And with the bright flash came a massive recoil- Lance was thrown backwards as though the Pokéball had fired a Hyper Beam. The intensity of the beam hit Burai square-on, shattering the monster's force field like it was made of a thin sheet of glass... but instead of harming the Dragonite as a Hyper Beam would, or retrieving him as a recall beam should, the raw energy instead flowed through Burai and into his attacker. The shadow screamed out an unearthly scream, and the force of the energy flung it off its intended victim, sending it in between two buildings, hurtling into the darkness of the alley.

         "Aooouuuu..." the dizzy Dragonite moaned before falling down face-first onto the ground.

         "Lance!" the remaining three members of the Elite Four shouted, seeing both their leader and his greatest Pokémon on the ground. Bruno and Koga moved to check on each of the fallen figures, while Lorelei looked around for the monster they'd been fighting.

         "Kalia, any sign of it?" she asked to her Lapras. The Pokémon shook its head- the monster was now somehow shielding itself from detection. Not surprising- now that they'd accidentally found some way to hurt it, it had a reason to hide! Lorelei frowned. "So it got away..."

         Shaking off the worry that the battle had given her, Lorelei looked to where Koga was checking on Lance and decided to join in, kneeling next to him to check.

         "Just a bump on the head, it seems." Koga said.  "Knocked him out, though. That Pokéball must have had some recoil- it looked like a miniature cannon!"

         "Burai's not in much better shape." Bruno said from elsewhere. "We gotta get him to the Pokémon Center, and it doesn't look like his Pokéball's gonna help any." He pointed to a melted metal lump next to Lance's right hand. This also called Koga and Lorelei's attention to the other injury Lance had suffered- the skin  on his hand was now a swollen mass of black and red from burns, and in some spots the burnt skin had broken, leaving his hand bleeding badly.

         Lorelei winced, and reached inside her jacket, pulling out a large handkerchief. "We better get Lance to the hospital as well," she said as she wrapped the hankie around the wounded hand.

        "I'm on it." Bruno stated before withdrawing his Hitmonlee and releasing his Machamp. "Armstrong, go help get Lance to the hospital!" he commanded, before lifting the unconscious Dragonite on his own shoulders. "I'll get Burai to the Pokémon Center, and I'll call you on the cell phones when I get there."

         Lorelei nodded. As Armstrong lifted Lance and Bruno left with Burai, Koga looked to the green-haired trainer who'd scanned the creature with his Pokédex. This trainer and the police officer, with their Pokémon unable to fend off the creature, had only been able to stand and watch as the Elite Four battled the shadowy monstrosity.

         Koga thought a moment, then turned to Lorelei again. "Hey, does that PD-whatever-number-it-was keep a log of Pokémon scans?"

         Lorelei nodded, looking at the trainer and realizing what Koga was thinking. "It should. Good call, Koga. You take him to the police station, they'll have the equipment to analyze the log data. I'll stick with Lance and Armstrong."