Not far from the villa, Emery and Ambrose sat waiting in a car.
Emery had a laptop cradled in his hands and was working it, light flickering red and green across his face.
"Squad Leader, the station has moved out. Five minutes to the scene, at my estimate."
"Understood."
Vance's voice came back through the earpiece with screaming and the thunder of colliding moves behind it.
Less than a minute later Vance was standing outside the car. He pulled the door open and got in.
"Ambrose. Drive."
"Bloody hell, that fast?"
He had it in gear and his foot down smartly, and they were away from the scene.
Following Emery's directions, he took a particular road.
"You've finished it already, boss? That fast? Did you only kill Ulric and leave the rest of them?"
Ambrose said it from the driver's seat. He had worked it out: from the moment of that great explosion to Vance getting back into the car was under two minutes. In that little time he could only have killed one or two.
"Everyone who was in there. I killed all of them."
With that Vance shut his eyes and settled down to rest.
"You're joking!"
That shook Ambrose. His boss was more mysterious than he had imagined, and stronger with it.
Still, the stronger the better. This was his big brother.
"Squad Leader, a few of the Black Dragon Gang were out of the building. I've found where they are. How do you want them handled?"
Emery asked it.
"Leave them. The ones I wanted dead are dealt with, and that few can't get in my way. Besides, who's to know it was me tonight?"
"All right."
Emery let it go at that, moved the mouse and closed the file.
"So what did they do, boss, that you had to wipe them out?"
Ambrose could not help asking, and even Emery, poking at the laptop beside him, looked over.
"Beat me half to death for years. A few times I nearly died of it."
Vance said it flatly, with nothing moving in his voice.
To be exact, one of those beatings had killed him. Then Vance had transmigrated into the body, and the bullying and the beatings had simply carried on.
"Good. That's how a man should be."
Ambrose said it with real feeling.
Vance sat with his eyes closed again. With the Black Dragon Gang dealt with — with the revenge done, perhaps — something in him had opened out. His mind was clear, clearer than it had ever been.
*It's over. Nobody bullies me again.*
Vance said it inside himself.
The car carrying the four of them did not head out of the city but toward the middle of it, and after an hour and more it came to a large Game Corner.
By then the villa in the East District was a wreck, ringed with tape, a dozen or so people in police uniform going over it for something.
"This was a revenge killing. The killer is no weakling — every strike a kill, and not one of them had it in him to fight back."
"The energy across the site is disordered, so there was a battle between Pokémon here as well, and the killer still came out of it the winner. Ulric was an Advanced Trainer, no weakling himself, and he lost all the same. Which tells us the killer is Advanced at the least. Elite, at my estimate."
An older policeman delivered his judgement to the young man in front of him — because this young officer was his superior. Young as he was, he already headed a Major Crimes unit, and he had charge of this case.
"Ahem. Officer Hale, your analysis is perfectly sound, but I think we should keep searching and try for more in the way of leads. This is hardly a small case; the effect on the public is very bad."
Delaney cleared his throat, his hands clasped behind his back, giving his orders.
Once the others had gone back to work, he walked about the site with his little belly out in front of him, looking things over.
*Hale's analysis is rarely wrong. An Elite-class revenge killing. Nothing to be done for it, old Ulric. Go and rest easy.*
Delaney said it to himself. He had no wish to provoke anyone of Elite strength, and yet here was this troublesome case, landed in his hands.
*I'll have to think of something. There's no hiding a mess this loud; the reporters are probably on their way already. And if I can't make sense of it, how am I ever to get promoted?*
"Chief Delaney, still nothing found. Should we request support from above? This can fairly be called an Elite-class incident, and it's beyond what our unit can do."
"Nothing else has turned up?"
Delaney did not answer, and raised something else instead.
"Nothing."
"There it is, then. You've been at this more than twenty years and you can't turn anything up, so the others are unlikely to do better. Manpower upstairs is stretched thin at the moment, and this business is neither large nor small. It really is awkward."
*And if I send it up the line, doesn't that make me look incompetent?* That last part Delaney kept quietly to himself.
"Then what do you mean to do, Chief?"
"Team Rocket. In all my years of experience, it is certainly Team Rocket."
He said it with great certainty, as though he had seen it happen with his own eyes.
Never mind the rest of it. Any case that went badly could be hung on Team Rocket, and that never failed. That, too, was his years of experience.
Yes. It was all Team Rocket's fault.
"Ah. Team Rocket."
"Yes, Team Rocket. The case will read: on our arrival the killer had already done his work and was about to flee; we cut him off; we fought him through dozens of exchanges; Unit Chief Delaney and others were wounded; the killer got away."
"But..."
"That is how it's settled. Investigation established the killer as Team Rocket. Yes. Just so."
Delaney gave himself a quiet pat on the back. That would do nicely. No work to be done and the credit for it all the same.
In any case that so-called Black Dragon Group, or whatever it called itself, had been no good to anyone.
It was not that he did not want to investigate. He simply could not turn anything up, could he.
Manpower in the city was tight as it was, and he had plenty to keep him busy.
"We'll go with that line. There's really nothing else for it — this killer was clever, he's left us not a trace. Investigate with what? Our heads? Not unless we get an Elite-Four-class investigator down here, and do you imagine one would come?"
"So the line is the better option. It builds up a bit of a record for the lads, and nobody has to risk his neck. What could be better? Oh — put out a wanted notice afterwards for this mysterious killer. That's all."
In no time at all Delaney had the whole procedure settled.
"But you're not wounded, Chief."
"Wounded? Easily done. I'll see to that in a moment. What's difficult about being wounded?"
Delaney said it lightly.
"My respects."
Hale was left blinking, with nothing to offer but that. No wonder the man headed a Major Crimes unit so young — there was a nimble mind at work there.
If he had that kind of quickness himself, he would certainly be a chief of some sort by now.
"In the early hours of this morning, a serious terrorist attack took place in the East District of our city........."
That morning, Vance and the other two were eating breakfast in the underground base below the Game Corner and watching the news, and the news was the attack Vance had made on the Black Dragon Gang's villa.
The Game Corner in Celadon City was another of Team Rocket's important bases, and the place Vance was to report for duty was in this base as well.
So the three of them had come here, reported in successfully, and become members of one of this branch's squads.