The thought sent him scanning the area at once, and only when he had found nobody suspicious did he let it go.
*Probably I'm reading too much into it.*
Vance gave a small laugh, picked up a hamburger and bit into it.
In the afternoon a shape flew over a stretch of water somewhere, and a bombardment followed, electric light flashing, like a fighter plane at work.
The shape was of course Vigoroth, using the move far more fluently now and with a great deal more force behind it.
Vigoroth dropped down and came to a stop in front of Vance, holding two hazy blue things that looked like stones: two Intermediate-grade Water Stones.
He had taken them from the lake.
"Boss, I have an idea."
Vance took the Water Stones and turned to him. "Oh? What idea?"
"I feel that flying and bombarding still moves too slowly. If Teleport could be added to it, there would be a great deal more I could do with it."
"All right. You've about got that tactic down, so next I'll teach you Teleport. Though whether you can learn Teleport is another question."
There was something odd about this Vigoroth: his body held psychic power, and he could use it after a fashion. Since he was interested, Vance would teach him, and the ground here was open enough to practise on.
"Teleport rests on a keen sense of space. In a single instant you cross through space and arrive somewhere else..."
Vance went through his own understanding of moving through space once, let Vigoroth hear it out, waited for him to digest it, and then demonstrated it himself, teaching Teleport there in the open.
Vigoroth did not take his eyes off him, watching every movement Vance made with total concentration: how the energy was used, how the instant itself was made.
The more he watched the less he understood, and the "sense of space" in particular left him more and more at sea, and struck him as profoundly mysterious.
*It really is an unbelievable move. Even with intelligence like mine it is hard to grasp.* Vigoroth's face was serious, and he said it privately to himself.
When Vance had finished demonstrating, he had Vigoroth try.
After a few attempts, and not at all surprisingly, Vigoroth failed.
Vance explained it again, from the shallow end to the deep, then broke the whole thing down step by step and taught it in parts.
Vigoroth sat cross-legged on the ground, quite still, psychic power spreading out of him, and the power that came off him set up a faint rumbling in the space around him.
"Hoooo—"
At the critical moment his breathing went unsteady, and the psychic power on him seemed to slip its leash and go tearing about wildly. The attempt failed again.
Pain came over Vigoroth's face; it flushed red, and veins stood up on the muscles of his body.
"How has this happened." The sight took Vance by surprise. He moved at once, raising his own power to help draw Vigoroth's into line.
To his senses the power inside Vigoroth had, for no reason he could see, become very unstable; but under the pull of Vance's own it slowly quieted.
"Vigoroth, how are you."
"Grrooo—" Vigoroth's face went back to normal. He had recovered.
Vance checked him over once more, found nothing wrong and the wild power all settled again, and let himself relax.
"This Teleport is still too deep for you. Let's leave it there for the moment and come back to it later."
That was Vance's plan. It had only been an attempt; since it would not work, it could be set aside and the situation looked at again later.
Another round of training after that and the light was going, so Vance stopped the training and turned back for the city.
Before sunset he reached the Pokémon Cottage the three of them had opened, and coming in he found several members of staff whose faces he did not know.
"Hello, boss."
Two women and a man bowed and greeted him.
"Hello to you all. Work hard — if your figures are good I'll put a bonus in for you next month." Vance said it smiling, and went through to the "manager's office" they had set up inside the shop.
Ambrose was the only one in there, hunched over his phone and giggling. Seeing that it was Vance who had come in, he put the phone down.
"Boss, you're here. Any instructions?"
"Where's Emery?" Vance sat down in the executive chair opposite him and asked.
"He's gone off to train his Pokémon. It's my turn here today."
Ambrose answered honestly.
"Good. That's as it should be. Strength is what everything rests on." Vance said it with satisfaction, and took out two Poké Balls and set them down in front of Ambrose.
"Boss, what's this?"
Ambrose said, puzzled.
"They're for you. I think these two have decent potential, and their strength is about right for you — one's level 21, the other's 22, so you can tame them. Raise them properly and they'll be a good pair of fighters, and a fair bit stronger than the Pokémon you have now."
"Really?" Ambrose leaned forward at once, picked up the Poké Balls and let out what was inside.
A Weepinbell and a Quagsire appeared, both of them looking badly hurt.
These two Vance had picked out for Ambrose as well; both had good aptitude.
"A Quagsire and a Weepinbell. Thank you, boss. I'm very happy with these two." Ambrose said it gratefully. With the food held up to his mouth like that, only an idiot would refuse to eat.
"You should be able to win them over."
"Set your mind at rest, boss, no trouble at all. I did get a Beedrill up to level 21 and a Tauros up to 19, whatever else you say about me. I have some skill of my own. You watch."
"Good. Get used to working with your Beedrill and your Tauros, then, and make a fighting force of them soon. It'll make the missions ahead easier on all of us."
After that Vance went to the training room where Emery was and gave him the Beedrill Egg he had been carrying, and a Shellder as well.
Making the two of them stronger would help with his own missions later; if his two followers stayed too weak to be any use, they would be no help at all, so he gave them a hand up while he was about it.
For him it cost no more than lifting a hand.
Emery thanked him over and over, his eyes full of feeling, and sighed to himself that he had attached himself to the right patron.
Along with the thanks, Emery asked him about the raising of Pokémon. He knew that in this his boss was a very long way ahead of him, and that asking was bound to be worth something.
And Vance's answers cleared away every one of his doubts and left him with a good deal more knowledge than he had started with.
Behind him stood a Machoke, which had reached level 22.
It was close to a month now since the trip to Trial Island, and Emery still had only this one Pokémon; every resource he had went into the Machoke.
And the Machoke had not disappointed him, coming as far as it had.
Except that the Machoke looked rather small, and by the colour of its skin somewhat underfed.
That was exactly the thing Emery had been asking about.
"It has to eat well, obviously. How is it supposed to have the strength to train if it isn't full? The three of us have a decent budget now, so my advice is to buy more energy cubes, the intermediate and advanced grades for preference. Your Machoke will come on faster that way."
His own Gyarados and Vigoroth were coming on at astonishing speed, and the precondition for it was eating well and eating their fill. Without that they would not have progressed anything like as fast.
"Right. Understood."
They talked a while longer, and then Vance left.
"Raah, raah—"
Gyarados saw Vance coming and surged up to meet him in excitement, showing off to him everything his work had produced.