After leaving the Pokémon Center, Vance went round to the shop the three of them had opened.
Business seemed to be going well. There were a good many customers coming and going and several assistants attending to them, and he saw Ambrose himself helping a few people who looked like Trainers choose their goods.
Vance smiled and signalled to him, then went through into the back, pulled out a chair and sat down.
A little while later Ambrose came in and took the seat opposite.
"Boss, you're back. Where have you been gallivanting off to all this time?"
Ambrose said, breezy as ever.
Vance answered briefly. "Went over Green Vine Mountain way, got some seasoning, and finished a job the League had put out while I was at it."
"Oh — that reminds me, boss. These last few days I've been looking at the jobs the League puts up, and I collected a few things. Take them and finish a job with them." As he spoke Ambrose brought out a spatial pack and took several items from it, all of it gathered by the two of them over those days.
"That was good of you. What did it cost? I'll pay you back in a moment." Vance nodded and said it with a smile.
"Oh, come now, listen to yourself. What money? If anyone's paying anyone it ought to be me paying you. You can give things to the two of us but we can't do anything for you? Honestly."
Ambrose waved it away, looking put out.
"Hahaha, my mistake for standing on ceremony. I'll take this lot, then. And you two needn't go looking for any more — my confirmation has gone through."
Vance took the batch, and explained.
"What? Already? I thought it took a thousand contribution points. What have you been up to, boss? That fast?"
Ambrose asked, full of confusion.
Vance looked entirely at ease. He picked up a glass of water, drank it off, and said unhurriedly, "On my way back I ran into that lot, what do you call them, the Blood Axe Hunters, a criminal band. They wanted to rob me, so I saw them on their way, and got the confirmation business done at the same time. The whole band together came to fifteen hundred contribution points."
"The Blood Axe Hunters? You settled them, boss? That's......"
Ambrose was too astonished to speak. It left him numb. From that alone you could tell his boss had grown stronger again — even the Blood Axe Hunters had been taken down.
They had been recruits of the same Team Rocket intake, hadn't they? How had the gap grown this wide?
The world was too fantastic for words. How could the distance between one person and another be so great?
"Which is why you need to put some work in yourself. Put more of your energy into your Pokémon, train them properly, and spend a little less time chatting to your lady friends. You can do it too."
Vance said it with a laugh, taking the chance to point out how the man usually spent his time.
He had happened to catch the fat man once, clutching his phone and grinning like an idiot, thoroughly pleased with himself — chatting, as it turned out, with a woman on the other end of it.
"Heh heh. I will."
Brought up on the subject, Ambrose gave an embarrassed laugh and then changed it.
They talked idly a while longer, and then Vance got up and went out. Outside he took a winding route through the streets down into Celadon City's underground black market, where he disposed of the goods he was carrying; then he took the money and bought a great pile of supplies he needed, and at the market's deposit house he drew out the savings of Hunter Z and his men — he had the cards and the passwords, so he could collect them directly.
The house was part of a first-rate chain, with branches in several cities across the Kanto region, existing to serve the Trainers who came through; its fees, naturally, were on the high side.
What it gave in return was security and convenience: no questions about where the money came from, no interest in anything else. It was the first choice for a great deal of money and goods that could not stand daylight.
To have grown to that size it naturally had backing of its own. Every time the League swept the black market's strongholds this house came through untouched, and what it held in keeping was handed over afterwards exactly as usual — which had done its name no end of good.
By the time it was all in and out again, Vance had a batch of supplies and more than five million Poké Dollars besides.
This trip had brought him more than any before it, and those good fellows of the Blood Axe Hunters had contributed the greater part of it. What fine people they were.
Nobody followed him out of the black market. Vance went on to the Team Rocket base under the Celadon Game Corner.
He booked two training rooms and set the Aerodactyl and the others to train two by two, while he himself went into one of the breeding rooms, full of bottles and jars, with a machine for working Berries standing in it.
Vance took the materials he had just bought out of storage, laid them out one by one, sorted them by kind, and got ready to make energy cubes.
That was what he had come for. He had the abilities of an Advanced Breeder, so naturally he could make Advanced energy cubes.
The cubes his Pokémon usually ate had been a mixture of Advanced and Intermediate, and there had been no help for it: at the time he could not make Advanced ones himself and had to buy them, and a great deal of money had gone that way.
Ever since the Vigoroth had broken through to Advanced and the system had handed him "Advanced Breeder" as a reward, Vance had had the knack of it, and from then on his Pokémon's keep had risen in a straight line: every energy cube they ate was Advanced.
"Hum, hum, hum—"
The whole room roared with machinery as Vance fed the materials in with a practised hand and set briskly to work.
With an Advanced Breeder's knowledge behind him and Advanced psychic power to help, he soon had his first batch of energy cubes, still steaming, giving off a rich smell.
"That's the job done."
Vance's face lit up. He took one of the boxes made specially for energy cubes, packed them away in it, and went on making more.
Batch after batch was quickly finished, each packed into its box and set aside ready for use.
The cubes had been made to suit what the Gyarados and the others needed.
"Right. That's enough for now."
Vance clapped his hands together and said it cheerfully, evidently in good spirits. He had been in good form today; not one mistake in the whole of it.
That batch of materials had produced twenty-four boxes in all, enough to last a great many days.
He washed his hands, brought out the rest of his things, went to the bench with the bottles and jars on it, and began mixing up a few preparations.
Fast-acting healing potions, and potions that raised aptitude a little, among others.
The aptitude potions, one bottle taken at intervals, would over months and years bring the aptitude of the Gyarados and the rest up.
The materials such a potion called for were rare, the technique difficult and the value extremely high, and as a result there was simply none of it to be had on the open market.
Only a few outstanding Breeders, or Pokémon Professors in the relevant field, could mix it; it circulated within a small circle at the top, quite out of reach of ordinary people, who for the most part did not even know it existed.
Vance was the exception.
Beyond the potions, the energy cubes Vance made did more than feed his Pokémon — they raised aptitude as well, and used together with the potions the effect was better still.
In his goggles Vance mixed one bottle after another and put each away as it was finished. The work went smoothly, and nothing went wrong.
"There. Good luck today, and everything just as I'd have it."
Vance said it happily as he tidied his things away.
Thinking it over, his luck these past days really had been remarkable: he had caught the Aerodactyl, drawn Advanced psychic power out of the system, and then the Blood Axe party had blundered into him and finished his job for him.