Not far from a small hill of bare rock overgrown with weeds, column after column of men appeared.
In the sky above, more than ten of them rode Pokémon and looked down from the air.
"Ha ha, we have you to thank this time, Lance. Without you we would never have found this Team Rocket base, and if they had made trouble later we would have been hard pressed to meet it."
Up in the air, Xander, Chief Investigator of Celadon City, said it to Lance with an ingratiating look all over his face.
They both belonged to the investigator system, but Lance's post stood above his and his strength was greater as well, so the command and disposition of this operation naturally fell to Lance.
"It's as well that Chief Investigator Xander understands the danger. I don't know what is the matter with you people. This base is no great distance from Celadon and you still had not found it. Do you not run sweeps and patrols as a matter of course?"
Lance answered without any courtesy at all, his face cold.
"That... there are patrols, of course. Team Rocket really are too cunning; repeated sweeps produced nothing, which is why..."
"Enough. That is exactly what I came for this time. We have the location now. In a little while I shall see how much fighting ability you people still have, and if you do not measure up, then step aside and make way for better men."
"I shall do my utmost."
Xander's face tightened, and not his alone — the many senior figures of Celadon around him did the same, telling themselves privately that when the fighting started they had better put out everything they had and make a good showing of it.
Otherwise this Lance of the Elite Four in front of them really would strip them of their posts. He held the honour of both Elite Four member and investigator, and he had every right to do it.
In this recent stretch a good many men had been stripped of office, and however unwilling they were about it there was nothing to be done: strength, backing, reputation — they fell short of his on every count. What was there to do?
Nothing but take the loss, and hope that by performing well in the fighting and meeting his requirements they might come through it after all.
"Boom, boom, boom—"
Without warning, from the front of the column came burst after burst of explosions, and thick smoke rolled up.
Bombs!
And powerful bombs at that, and well hidden.
The men in the front ranks were scattered every which way and went down in numbers; a few of the unluckiest died where they stood.
"Damn it, are you people good for nothing? Did it not occur to you to have Psychic-type Pokémon sweep the ground first?"
Lance, seeing it from above, held in his anger and rebuked them.
"That... we did send them. Only we were careful not to give ourselves away and stayed alert for any stir, so they may not have searched too thoroughly."
Faced with Lance's reproach, Xander hurried to explain.
"You people...... Quickly, have them pull back some distance. I shall do it myself. Come out — Aerodactyl, Charizard, Gyarados."
In an instant Lance sent out the ace Pokémon he held, and one powerful Pokémon after another took the field.
"Dragonite, aim there. Aerodactyl, your side. Gyarados, Charizard, you two this side. Level the lot of it!"
Lance patted his old comrade and gave the order.
"Ready... go!"
"Roar, roar, roar—"
The Dragonite nodded. Power gathered in him, starlight glittered at his mouth, a terrible presence spread outward, and a Hyper Beam of frightful force came pouring out.
The Gyarados, the Charizard and the rest loosed their most powerful attacks at the same moment, and with the several Pokémon working together the small hill ahead was flattened to level ground in an instant; every scrap of earth, timber, sand and stone, and everything buried in the ground with them, was reduced to ash and smoke under those attacks.
In the middle of the cleared ground, the Team Rocket base was laid bare, running down through several levels below the surface.
Power like that — to call it reshaping the landscape would be no exaggeration.
Vance, who had pulled back some distance with the rest, felt only a roar ahead of him and a sudden burst of an extremely powerful surge of energy; then the ground shook and the hills swayed, and the earthen hill vanished into a sky full of dust and smoke.
When the dust had cleared the small hill was gone, and even the rough, uneven mountain track had been flattened under that force.
Even at a distance Vance had felt a force appear ahead of him fit to destroy heaven and earth, and the sight that followed, fit to be compared with remaking a whole stretch of the world, left him astonished. The strength of the Elite Four was terrible as that — the power they commanded could wipe a small hill off the face of the land out of nothing at all.
Just then Vance happened to look up at the sky as Lance's Charizard flew past, and the system caught it in a scan.
> **Name:** Charizard (male)
> **Type:** Fire, Flying
> **Ability:** Solar Power
> **Aptitude:** Champion-class
> **Strength:** 75 (Near-Champion)
> **Moves:** Heat Wave, Smokescreen, Dragon Claw, Dragon Breath, Fire Fang, Flamethrower, Slash, Fire Spin, Flare Blitz, Substitute, Fire Blast, Protect, Outrage, Sunny Day, Fire Punch, Fly, Seismic Toss...............
The data of that Charizard flying past appeared on Vance's system panel.
Lavish. Extremely lavish.
Going by the data, this Charizard's aptitude and every figure on the sheet were right at the top. Raised by a member of the Elite Four, and it showed — it truly was out of the common run.
It was also the finest Pokémon of all the ones Vance had looked at.
Vance looked across again at the Dragonite Lance was riding. By the presence it gave off, that Dragonite was plainly stronger than the Charizard; it must have entered the Champion tier, or come close to that level.
As a pseudo-legendary, the Dragonite's aptitude figures were a great deal better across the board than the Charizard's.
*Money is a fine thing. No — money alone wouldn't get you a pseudo-legendary that good. Money, position and backing, that's what it takes.*
Vance sighed it inwardly.
Lance, who held a seat among the Elite Four, came from no ordinary family either, but from the Dragon Clan; he could also be called Lance of the Dragon Clan, the finest representative of the clan's present younger generation and the public face of the Dragon Clan itself.
That he should have so many outstanding Pokémon was hardly surprising, then.
Lance of the Dragon Clan was himself enormously gifted as well. Since making his name he had rarely known defeat, he had grown at great speed, and young as he still was he already held a seat among the Elite Four of the Kanto region.
"Right, Lance of the Elite Four has cleared the obstacles. We can go in. Don't let Team Rocket get away — charge, all of you!!"
While Vance was still following his own train of thought, one of the unit leaders was already shouting the charge and the order to take Team Rocket.
"I'm getting ahead of myself. One day I'll raise Pokémon like those too."
Vance said it to himself, then went with the crowd, charging toward the Team Rocket stronghold with the rest.
He did not want to, but there was no help for it; all he could do was make a show of it.
"Boom, boom, boom—"
The crowd ahead had already come to blows. Moves of every kind tangled together, lights of every colour flashed past, and a general melee broke out across the place.
"Why aren't they pulling out? Didn't they leave themselves a way back, ready to run at any moment?"
Vance, mixed in with the crowd, muttered it.
He had the Combusken and the Vigoroth in front of him, and was coasting along doing as little as he could get away with.
He was a member of Team Rocket himself, and had little wish to lay hands on them.
These people... most of them were poor wretches too, though there were some among them who were hateful and vile enough.