Winning the Rainbow Badge came as no surprise to Vance. At his strength, if he could not take it then nobody else stood any chance at all.
If he could take the field himself, he could hammer a Gym-class Pokémon flat for you.
Even only directing Pokémon, he could give an Elite-class one a fight.
Coming out of the Gym, Vance went back to the shop and found Ambrose and Emery both there, shooting the breeze in the office.
"Knock, knock—"
"Click—"
Vance knocked a few times, turned the handle and went in.
"Oh — back this quickly?"
Seeing Vance arrive, Ambrose was rather taken aback; it had not been long at all since he had left for the Gym.
"Ninety minutes. Not bad."
Vance glanced at the watch on his wrist and said it flatly.
He sat down in the owner's chair and took out the communicator Team Rocket made for internal use to see whether there was any word, and found one unread message.
Contact suspended for the time being. The base is closed to all movement in and out. Your squad may make its own arrangements. You will be notified if anything changes. — Sylas
Things had eased off somewhat in Celadon City, and yet the Team Rocket base had gone under lockdown — they must have got wind of something from the inside.
The damage done by those bases that had been destroyed had made the leadership at the base understand what was at stake.
"What is it, Boss? Why the grim face?"
Ambrose came forward and asked it, seeing Vance looking at his phone with a grim expression.
"The base is closed for now, and there's no reaching the people above us. We're orphans for the moment."
Vance put the phone down in front of the two of them so they could see the message on it.
"It's got that dangerous, has it? Has the crackdown reached us here in Celadon?"
Ambrose said it in surprise once he had read it.
"No idea. Be careful for a while."
Vance answered.
For days on end nothing happened. The watch over Celadon City grew slacker and slacker and went back to what it had been before, keeping only the necessary patrols and checks, like men going through the motions on an assignment handed down from the League.
Then, just as everyone had decided there was nothing to worry about, Vance felt a violent surge of energy in the north of Celadon City.
That evening Lance of the Elite Four appeared in front of the Celadon television station and announced the day's haul in that city in a loud voice: a base on the outskirts of Celadon successfully destroyed, more than a hundred personnel arrested, more than ten pieces of high-technology machinery seized, and so on.
The next day Vance was called up, put into a unit and sent to carry out assignments inside Celadon City.
A great many of the city's own fighting personnel had been moved outside it, leaving the garrison short, so "League-Certified Trainers" like Vance were called up to make up the numbers.
After that he was moved again into a patrol unit, and spent several days running on patrol work.
Alongside the crackdown, the patrol work inside the city went ahead at full tilt. A good many suspect groups were dragged out, violent clashes broke out more than once, and Vance took part in several of them himself.
Some of these people were Team Rocket moles, some were the eyes and ears of illegal traders, some were watchers for one dark organisation or another.
In a region as large as Kanto, Team Rocket was not the only dark organisation. It was only that Team Rocket was the strongest, the largest, and the one that could go arm to arm with the League.
The other dark organisations all lived underground in one city or another, running business that would not bear looking at. They had a few powerful Trainers among them, and ordinarily they knew how to behave — they cultivated League officials, sent the odd gift, and lived very comfortably from day to day.
What they had not expected was that this severe crackdown, led by Lance of the Elite Four, would catch them up in it as well, and cost them dearly.
"Move on. This one's Vance's, so naturally there's nothing wrong with it."
Idris came out of the "Pokémon Cottage" at the head of the unit, and Vance was in the unit with him.
It was a strange turn of fate, when you thought about it. After being called up, Vance had been assigned to the unit of an "old acquaintance", Idris, with Idris leading them in rooting out the city's lawbreakers.
There were times when Vance could only marvel at this "fate". It had never occurred to him that he could run into the man here, still less that he would end up thrown in with him.
That day the two of them had fought each other for their lives outside Celadon City; afterwards he had chased the man all the way, and taken the Torchic out of his hands.
There were times when this business of fate was damned hard to account for. It had never occurred to Vance that he would end up working alongside the man.
"Ha ha, thank you, Idris. It's good of you to do me the favour, much obliged."
Vance thanked him.
"It's nothing. We've been together all these days — who's standing on ceremony with whom? You were the one who pulled me clear yesterday, or I'd have been cut up."
Idris said it grandly. Searching a shop the day before, they had met fierce resistance, and at the critical moment Vance had hauled him aside so that the flying rubble missed him.
Vance knew perfectly well, though, that the man would have been fine without him. The Elite-class Pokémon he carried had not yet come out, and with that Pokémon on hand nothing at all would have happened to him.
"Come on, come on, next one. We need to pick up the pace."
Idris called them on and led everybody off to go on with the searches.
Set against the searches Delaney and his lot ran, the ones Idris and his people ran looked a great deal more professional — sources of tax revenue, goods in and out, all of it checked through clearly and precisely.
They also took no bribes, did no squeezing for favours, and were extremely good at the work.
The party came to a medium-sized shop, and once the lookouts were posted Idris took Vance and several others in through the door.
"Search team. Business is suspended. Please cooperate with the investigation."
Idris shouted it the moment he was inside, holding up the search warrant in his hand, and at the same time sent Vance and the others forward to secure the people there, in case anybody resisted violently and made trouble.
A middle-aged man in a gentleman's hat with a moustache on his face came over quickly, declaring that he was the owner of the shop and willing to cooperate with the investigation.
"Officer, officer, I'm the owner here. Ha ha, whatever you need, just say it to me."
The owner said it with an ingratiating smile, something in his hand that he slipped toward Idris without leaving a trace.
"No need for that. We're the search team. All you have to do is cooperate with the inspection."
Idris shifted back a pace and refused what was being pressed on him.
"Oh. Oh, of course. Please, gentlemen, inspect away."
The owner tucked the thing away without making anything of it and said it lightly.
"Thank you for your cooperation."
Idris nodded, then signalled the others to begin the inspection.
"Officer, your men have the inspecting in hand here. What do you say we go and have a cup of tea, wet our throats?"
"None of that. If there's nothing wrong here, we won't go out of our way to make things difficult for you."
"Yes, yes, yes." The owner nodded his agreement, then seemed to remember something, and said something into Idris's ear.
After that, Idris went with him toward the back of the shop.