"Huh? He's evolving, just like that?"
The light of evolution in front of him left the Combusken hardly able to believe it.
So the surprise really had come — only the surprise he had promised a moment ago was not this surprise.
Did he, the Combusken, master chef, genuinely have a gift for this?
The Combusken fell to doubting himself.
The Aerodactyl, the Gyarados and the Slaking all turned to look as well. Evolution is a leap in a Pokémon's life, and a thing humans and Pokémon alike are always glad to see.
Inside the light the Deino's shape was changing: the body drawing out longer, the whole of him growing taller, and two heads forming where there had been one.
"Roar, roar—"
The light drew back and left a Pokémon of a new shape: two heads, a body mainly blue, black fur covering its front, two rows of purple stripes across its belly, and a pair of wings grown out of its back.
This was what a Deino becomes when it evolves. A Zweilous.
"Rooaar— so this is my companion? You're the one they call Brother Chick? Weak. Far too weak. A scrawny little chicken, that's all you are."
One head of the newly evolved Zweilous looked at the Combusken in front of it and sneered.
"Combusken!"
The Combusken's face was all astonishment. He had not expected the freshly evolved Zweilous to come out with anything of the kind, and then came a rush of mortified anger.
Damn it. He, the Combusken, sneered at — called a scrawny little chicken?
"Shut your mouth. Combusken is a companion worth respecting."
said the other head at once.
"Hmph. I, a Zweilous, with gifts like mine, and him as feeble as that? Not worth it, not worth it."
The other head snorted it out, arrogance in its voice. That was the pride of dragon-type Pokémon: they respect only the strong, and this Combusken in front of it did not measure up.
"Are you asking for a hiding?"
"Heh. Want a fight? Come on, then."
And the two heads set about each other on the spot, which left the Combusken and the rest entirely at a loss. How had it got into an argument with itself? And come to blows over it?
"The two heads of a Zweilous get on very badly. They fight over the same piece of food, each trying to eat more than the other so as to take control. So the stories are true."
Vance had got up from his deck chair and come over to stand in front of the Zweilous, and he said it with a faint smile as he watched it brawl with itself.
"Boss, what's all this?"
The Combusken ran over to Vance's side and asked.
"The Deino has evolved. He's called a Zweilous now. Two heads, and two minds with them. The one that said that about you is the head that came with the evolution; the one telling it to apologise will be the consciousness of the Deino as he was."
Vance explained it, so that all of them understood what was peculiar about a Zweilous.
"Right now both heads want to hold the other down and take control. With no enemy about, it's no wonder the two of them fall to quarrelling."
"Ah, I see. Then the Deino — no, the Zweilous — won't be the way he was before?"
the Combusken said in alarm. If the consciousness from the Deino days were held down, would that not make him another Pokémon altogether?
"That is what a Zweilous is. Their whole kind is like that."
At the sound of Vance's voice the Zweilous broke off the brawl, and both heads turned to look at him together.
"Boss, I've evolved."
said one head.
"So you're my Trainer. You'll do, I suppose."
said the other head, in a tone considerably more full of itself.
"Congratulations, Zweilous. You've evolved."
Vance offered it with a smile.
"Thank you, boss."
"Hmph. Isn't evolving what's supposed to happen? If it weren't for that business earlier I'd have evolved long ago. Still, thank you."
The two heads each said their own piece; but the good of it was that the Zweilous still acknowledged him as its Trainer, and the newborn head, proud as it was, accepted him too.
"Now that you've evolved, your training plan will need adjusting. From now on, when you fight, the two of you pull together. No falling out among yourselves."
Vance stepped forward, and as he raised his hand one of the Zweilous's heads came over to it quite naturally to be stroked.
"Hmph. Childish."
The other head looked thoroughly contemptuous; but when Vance put out his other hand, for some reason it came over as well and let itself be stroked.
Realising what it was doing, that head flushed, shook the hand off and held itself stiffly up.
*Hmph. It would never behave like that childish creature. That just now was only the body's old instinct — yes, instinct, and nothing it had meant to do.*
"From now on I'll call you Black One, and you Black Two."
Vance settled a name on each of the Zweilous's two heads while he was about it, so that he would not call the wrong one in training later.
"Hmph, I don't accept that. Why is he Black One and I'm Black Two? I want to be Black One. He's the Black Two."
Black Two said, refusing to have it.
"What the boss says goes. What are you objecting to?"
Black One shot back.
"Heh." Vance laughed, and said to Black Two, "You asked me why he's Black One. Because he's stronger than you. By the rules of dragons, that makes him the elder."
What Vance said was true enough. Perhaps thanks to that earlier "remnant will", which had dissolved and become nourishment for the Deino, the Deino's mental strength had grown a good deal more powerful, and evolving had not changed that.
It was only that, freshly evolved, Black One had not yet realised it. Later, with mental strength greater than Black Two's, it was sooner or later that Black One would take the initiative.
But taking the initiative did not mean Black Two would disappear. Black Two still had to be brought along and made to cooperate: only with the strength of both heads drawn together could the whole of it be brought to bear.
That was Vance's other reason for ranking them Black One and Black Two — so that Black Two would know its place from the first moment, with no need to fight for it, and no time wasted waiting for the matter to settle itself.
"Oho—"
Black One was growing excited too. Having got that far, and knowing where its advantage lay, a single turn of thought proved that it could indeed control the body and compress Black Two's consciousness.
Black Two would not have it and set about fighting back at once, only to find it could not win. Black One's mental strength was the greater.
"Black Two. By the rules of dragons the strong are honoured, so from now on I take the lead."
Black One said, in high spirits.
"Roar." Black Two plainly did not accept it and wanted to argue back, but did not know how.
That is the rule of the Zweilous family: whichever is stronger holds the body and holds the lead.
With an ordinary Zweilous the two heads start out about evenly matched, and it takes a struggle to decide which is the stronger and takes control — and that struggle takes time.
This Zweilous was spared the trouble. Because of what had gone before, the difference was there the moment it evolved: one head's strength simply outweighed the other's, with no struggle needed to settle it.
"All right, all right. Since the stronger has been decided, let it stand. The two of you cooperate in good faith, train together, fight together. You are one body, the pair of you."
Say what you like, one of the two consciousnesses was bound to lead in the end. They shared the one body.