"Mind how you go, sir. Do think of us again next time — I'll give you a good price, I promise you."
Vance came out of a shop with the owner following him to the door.
Now this was a big customer, and a free-spending one: several million in a single transaction. Well worth leaving a good impression on.
"Mm. I'll bear it in mind."
Vance nodded with a flat expression and left.
He went on to the Breeding Centre, made up the energy cubes he needed, packed them into boxes and put them away in his spatial pack.
He had made a great many of them this time, enough to keep his Pokémon supplied for a long while.
The half-month's haul out in the field had been turned into money here in Porta Vista as well. He had moved everything he was carrying, bought in another batch of supplies, and the balance on his card had risen by more than six million Poké Dollars, making good what he had spent down to nothing aboard the S.S. Anne.
He had a large sum on him again. He could afford to live a little.
On the coast of Porta Vista, under a dazzling sun and on golden sand, Vance was on holiday in a pair of shorts and a pair of sunglasses.
The weather had turned cool, but at midday the seaside was what it always had been, only a few degrees colder, and that took nothing away from a holiday.
The Combusken and the Deino and the rest were with him, gathered round a barbecue with the Combusken as head cook.
The Aerodactyl stood to one side breathing on the coals, the Slaking had given up on the world and gone to sleep nearby, the Gyarados drifted through the seawater looking thoroughly content, and the Deino wandered from one Pokémon to another. For the moment it was all very companionable.
He had booked the whole stretch of beach, so there was no sharing it with anyone else. Vance was not short of money just now; and besides, after that long in the field, was he not entitled to enjoy himself a little?
"Brother Chick, is there something not quite right about these wings you're grilling?" the Deino said from the huddle round the fire, to the Combusken turning the meat. He was a great deal stronger than the Combusken, and he still held him in high regard and called him brother more often than not.
"Eh? What's not right about it? Me, the Combusken, grilling a few chicken wings — where's the difficulty in that? When you say not right, do you mean it doesn't taste as good as the boss's? That may be a little off, yes, but through the hard struggle of my life I've got eighty per cent of the boss's skill already."
The Combusken said it with pride all over his face. He was forever at Vance's elbow watching him cook, and he had picked up genuine ability, and he said so grandly.
"If the day ever comes when we can't get by, we'll do what humans do and set up a food stall. With my cooking we'd make money for certain."
The Combusken had heard somewhere that you could make money from a stall, which was why he had taken up the craft in the first place.
"It's burning, it's burning. Combusken, bring the heat down."
Vance warned him.
"Combusken!"
The Combusken started and hurried to get the coals under control.
"Oh, come on, Aerodactyl, watch how you're fanning. Can't you see the fire's up too high? Your eye still isn't good enough. You want more practice."
Once the fire had steadied the Combusken turned round and told the Aerodactyl off, neatly passing the pan to the one doing the fanning.
"Rooaar, rooaar."
The Aerodactyl scratched his head. What did any of it have to do with him? He had been fanning at a steady rhythm the whole time. Unless his eye really had got worse, and that was what had caused it?
For a moment the Aerodactyl sank into deep thought.
"There, you see," the Combusken said to the Deino. "Once Aerodactyl fans it properly everything's fine. What did I tell you? How could I make a mistake?"
"Ah — so it really was my eye after all?"
Hearing that, the Aerodactyl wavered and began to half believe the fault was his.
And he fell to wondering how he might improve his eyesight. He had heard that humans had a thing called "glasses" which improved the eyes. He would go and ask the boss about it later, get himself a pair, and sharpen his eye up.
The Slaking, slumped asleep beside them, opened his eyes, took in the lot of them, gave a small laugh and went back to sleep.
"I told you to control the heat, not to pass the pan on. Keep it under control, remember. And Aerodactyl, you get a feel for the rhythm of the wind as well, how it rises and falls. You fly in the air — you need to be sensitive to that."
Vance spoke up and pulled the two of them back onto the right track.
Mm... this was a kind of training too. It was certainly not that Vance was lazy; it was so that they could get a little training in even at their leisure.
The Deino was close to evolving, so he left him to take it as it came and simply relax.
The Gyarados stayed in the water, cradling his orb, working his strength up little by little.
The Slaking looked as though he had given up and gone to sleep, and in fact he had gone to sleep, but his strength was rising all the same. That was the way of the Slaking's kind: given supply enough, they grow stronger lying down.
Which was why the Slaking lay down at the least excuse, and only when there was a fight to be had did he look alert and full of life. That was the Slaking's road to growth.
He, the Slaking, grew stronger lying down, and there were plenty of Pokémon who envied him that. But you cannot have one thing without giving up another: the Slaking's kind grow stronger lying down, and they are held back by their Ability as well, so that they must lie down in the middle of a fight too.
Vance's Slaking, though, had shaken that restraint off, and could take the best of both.
"Red-braised wings, I love them... a bit of honey on it, nice and sweet." Brushing honey over one of the wings, the Combusken looked over at the Deino and asked:
"What flavour do you want?"
"Spicy. Lay it on."
"Right you are." The Combusken scattered his own hot seasoning over the Deino's share, made from Razz Berries and a few other plants.
The honey he used was no ordinary honey either. It came from a colony of Beedrill somewhere in the forest, given in friendship after a friendly exchange of views with them.
"There. A chicken wing turned out by me is no ordinary thing. Eat that and you're in for a surprise." The Combusken took the fragrant wing and held it out to the Deino.
The Deino opened his mouth, took it straight in and swallowed it down. The heat of it was nothing to him; as for the taste, it was hot, and he supposed it was good enough.
"Ahem. You have to chew slowly if you want to taste anything." Seeing the Deino bolt it whole like that, the Combusken lectured him, and picked up a wing to demonstrate.
"How are you supposed to get the surprise, eating like that?"
"Surprise? What surprise? Isn't this how you eat things?" All his life, in the Valley of Dragons, he had eaten like this. Was there some art to it?
He could have eaten it raw, in fact, and spared the Combusken all the trouble; though grilled did taste a little better, and he could tell the difference.
"Well, there goes the surprise."
The Combusken shrugged, helpless.
And just then the Deino froze a little. The numb, tingling feeling in his mouth seemed to be spreading.
It carried up into his forehead, which began to tingle too, and at the same time something felt wrong with his body.
*Hsss — why does my head itch? Am I growing a brain?*
The Deino's presence began to waver and shift, and somewhere he was not aware of, inside him, a second consciousness had finished forming and had begun to stir.
"Hm? Is he about to evolve?"
From his deck chair Vance had caught the change in the Deino, and one look at him was enough to tell what it was.
Deino as a species evolve rather late, as it happens. Ninety-nine in a hundred have to reach the Elite tier before they can — that is, somewhere in the range of energy levels from 41 to 50, and more of them in the second half of that range than the first.
The Deino himself stood at level 44, so his time had come: not early, not late.
Before Vance's eyes the dazzling light of evolution rose off the Deino. He had begun to evolve!
And his presence climbed to level 45 along with it.