Vance searched for a long while, but perhaps his luck had run out; he turned up only a few ordinary treasures and came across nothing else like the Mega Stone.
"A pity. The luck's used up."
Vance said it with a faint smile. He had thought there might be more to be had, but running into a Mega Stone at all left him well enough satisfied.
"Hey, there you are at last, Vance. Are you all right?"
Just then Nolan found his way over and stopped in front of Vance, with Lt. Surge beside him.
Some way off the official parties had arrived and were working together, beginning to dredge the things out of the sea.
"I'm fine. Still looking for things. See, I found a few treasures — a million-odd, I'd guess."
Vance said with a smile.
"Ha, then your luck isn't bad at all. A pity none of that is what they want, or you could have traded it for something good. What they most want to find is a combination case, with a great deal of experimental data in it, from the academy of sciences over in Kalos."
Nolan glanced over them — all ordinary treasures — and explained.
"Nothing to be done about it, then."
After that Vance searched no further, and went with Nolan back aboard the S.S. Anne, where he even drew a sum in compensation.
"Found it, found it! The experimental data's been found!"
The crowd in the distance broke into cheers all at once. One of the International Police took a combination case from a man's hands and opened it: inside it was packed with papers, along with several storage machines, all of them holding data.
"Hm. So what matters is the data, not the Mega Stone?" Seeing how delighted they all looked, Vance guessed at it.
And his guess was right. Beyond taking Ryder and the rest, what the International Police wanted this time was to recover that data.
Now that they had it back, half the objective was met.
To an ordinary person the data was only strings of useless figures and code, but to the Pokémon Professors it was beyond price, data they had got out of who knew how many days and nights of work.
It had been asked for by Kalos's well-known Pokémon Professor, Professor Sycamore, who said a great deal hung on it and that it bore on a major advance for the whole Pokémon field; that, together with the several rare Pokémon Ryder and his people had stolen, was why the International Police had turned out this time and worked their way here.
"Everyone, if you find anything else you may bring it to us to be checked. If it is what we want we will certainly exchange it at a high price."
They were still calling out over there, but Vance paid no attention. Perhaps the Mega Stone in his hand was exactly what they wanted.
After Lt. Surge arrived, the League's other people came into position one after another, and they found a portion of the things as well.
..................
But none of that had anything to do with Vance any more. By now he had gone back to Vermilion City with Nolan, and the cruise, which had begun so grandly, had fizzled out to nothing.
The two of them were lucky to have come back safe, to have come through that hair-raising Elite-Four-class battle alive.
And Vance was the luckiest of the lucky: not only had he lived, he had somehow acquired a pseudo-legendary Pokémon, and in the end had picked up a Mega Stone belonging to who knew which Pokémon.
Now, in a training room, Vance and the Deino stood looking each other in the eye.
Vance had his medicine mixed and everything else ready. In front of him a great bronze cauldron stood over a roaring fire, with the Combusken at its side feeding the flames.
The cauldron was full of medicinal broth, a blue-green colour, steaming hard; a great many herbs had been put into it, and the scent drifting off it was pleasant, very good to breathe.
"In you go. Your constitution has to be strengthened first, or the rest of the treatment can't follow." Vance pointed at the bubbling, steaming pot as he said it.
"You're not about to boil me, are you?"
Looking at the broth boiling in the pot, the Deino hesitated, fear showing on his face; he suspected Vance meant to boil him, and his meat could not possibly taste good.
Because off to the side the Gyarados and the other two were watching him with burning eyes, and, crucially, a large platter had been set out in front of them, while under the cauldron the Combusken was blowing the flames up with a will. Look at the scene how you liked, there was something not right about it.
"Boil you? Boil you for what? Eat dragon meat? I haven't the stomach for it." Vance said it, bewildered, then turned his head and saw the state of the Gyarados and the other two rascals, found it funny, and shouted at the three of them.
"Put that platter away. What are the three of you playing at, you good-for-nothings?"
"Roar, roar—"
Only then did the Gyarados and the other two put the thing away and straighten their faces. Er, er, er — they very much wanted to say that all that had been a misunderstanding.
"It's a medicine bath. That temperature is just right for you. You'll be fine."
Having got the three rascals to put the thing away, Vance told the Deino to get down into the bath.
Seeing how meekly he hung back, Vance laughed as well. This Deino really did have an imagination on him. Boil him, indeed. And what would that even be? Deino stewed in an iron cauldron? Were they living as extravagantly as all that?
Worthy of a dragon with a head on him.
By the time he evolved into a Hydreigon he would have three heads, two more than an ordinary Pokémon; and if all three were clever, that would be three times the brains.
"You can take that temperature. You're not a human — it won't cook you through. In you go."
"Rooaar, rooaar—"
Under Vance's patient coaxing the Deino got into the iron pot after all, and once he was in he found it bearable enough.
A temperature scalding to a human was just right for a Deino; Vance had not lied to him about that. And after soaking a while the Deino felt something change: his body seemed to be growing stronger.
The Deino was close to tears. The taste of growing stronger was something he had not known for a long time, and he could not help trusting Vance the more for it.
"Combusken, more heat."
Vance said to the Combusken beside him.
"Combusken—"
The Combusken put out more fire, and the already scalding broth grew hotter still.
Even at that temperature, though, the Deino could still manage.
Vance stood at the side, adding a few things now and then.
The Gyarados and the other two gathered round to watch with curiosity. The three of them understood well enough that this little black younger brother was most likely a new companion, and with their own boss doing the work, how could anything go wrong?
The constitutions of humans and Pokémon cannot be spoken of in the same breath. A Pokémon might take a Flamethrower and be none the worse for it, still leaping about; but let a human take one without proper protection, and you may as well start laying the table.
The broth boiled and bubbled away. It looked scalding, and scalding it truly was.
But it was exactly the temperature that suited the Deino's frame best.
Judging the time about right, Vance used his psychic power to move the medicine in his hand across to the Deino.
"That's about it. Drink this down."
"Rooaar, rooaar."
The Deino obediently swallowed the medicine, and then felt a hot force spreading through his whole body, working with the medicine around him into some sort of reaction.