"Young man, could you go into that in more detail? Who else isn't on there?"
Grady asked quickly.
Draven looked at the man too, the question in his eyes. He knew Sylas, of course, a Division Commander of the same branch; but as for Vance and the rest, he had no idea. Of all the recruits assigned that month he remembered the ones who came to his own division, and of those who went to the others he knew nothing.
It was not the sort of thing he paid attention to.
"I don't know them well either. I only saw them on that interception job outside the city. I know they reported in five months ago and that they're under Division Commander Sylas."
The subordinate told it straight. On the job some months back, the raid on the convoy carrying the starter Pokémon, he had seen how Vance fought in the melee, and it had stayed with him.
Draven pulled up the details of that operation. Still nothing on Vance; but going by the man's description he did turn up Ambrose and his companion.
"It's odd. Why can I find nothing? But these are the two who were with him on the job that day."
Hearing that, Grady set it against his own material and found the files on Ambrose and Emery. Those two had come to Celadon as well, recruits of the same intake; laid side by side, that put Vance's whereabouts beyond much doubt.
"Ambrose... and Emery. Then I'll start with the pair of you."
There was a dangerous light in Grady's eyes.
"Grady, does this Vance have some quarrel with you? You aren't going to..."
"Ha, ha, ha. That's right. Quarrel or no quarrel, this Vance is going to die."
Grady said it viciously. On one count alone there was bad blood between Vance and Wilder, and no small amount of it: he had made his enquiries, and this man had made his nephew lose face more than once.
Now that Wilder was dead, how could the other be allowed to live?
"This of yours... it's against the rules, surely."
Draven frowned a little. Whichever way you looked at it, he was becoming an accomplice — and an accomplice in helping another branch attack a member of his own, which would not sound well if it got out.
"Against the rules? How is it against the rules? Strength is the rule. And this favour I've asked of you — only you and I know of it, and this young man knows a little of it. How is any outsider to find out? Besides, what threat is an Advanced-strength Squad Leader? Division Commander Draven."
"There is that." Put that way, Draven's face eased.
"This high-grade Water Stone is a gift for you. Don't you have a Water-type Pokémon ready to evolve? It will come in useful."
With that, Grady produced a present: a Water Stone, crystal-clear and flawless, thick with Water-type power.
"Ha, ha, ha. Grady, you're as punctilious as ever. We're old friends. There's no need for this over a small favour."
After a show of refusing, he took the gift all the same.
Some uninvited guests arrived at the Pokémon Cottage.
"What can I do for you gentlemen?"
Ambrose, who was in the shop, saw that the men had no small presence about them and came forward to meet them.
Draven gave his subordinate a look; the man took the meaning, went forward and said something to Ambrose, and Ambrose showed them through into a room.
"What brings a Division Commander here? Is there something the matter?"
Ambrose was puzzled. The man who had come was not his own Division Commander but another, and that felt strange.
"Where has Vance gone?"
Grady came straight to the point and asked.
*Vance? So they've come asking after the boss. And in that tone — they mean no good. Brought here by another Division Commander, too.*
Quick-witted as ever, Ambrose had his guess at once, and was about to speak when Grady cut him off.
"I'll do this myself, I think. Gengar."
"Gengar—"
The words were hardly out before a Gengar appeared, a cunning smile on its face and a glow in both eyes, and in an instant Ambrose was under its control.
In so little time and so little space, Ambrose, an ordinary man, could put up no resistance at all to the control of a Gym-class Pokémon.
Sensing the danger, Ambrose's Pokémon burst out of their Poké Balls, only to lose consciousness before they had survived a single exchange with the Gengar.
A few small fry that had not even broken through to Advanced: a Gym-class Gengar settled them without effort.
"Where has Vance gone?"
Grady asked, low-voiced.
"The boss went travelling. He's resting up in Porta Vista at present." Ambrose, eyes blank, under the hypnosis, said it straight out.
"Porta Vista, is it. He does get about." Having got Vance's whereabouts, Grady laughed.
"Tell me this. Was it you people who killed Wilder?"
"I don't know."
"Hm? Don't know? Have I got it wrong, then?"
Under hypnosis what Ambrose said was of course true, and there was no doubting it.
But the guess in his mind mattered too much, so Grady questioned him in detail and made Ambrose tell him everything that touched on Vance.
Trial Island, the destruction of the Black Dragon Society and the rest of it came out one after another.
"A Rhydon! That was an Elite-tier Rhydon?"
"It was."
Ambrose said truthfully, under the hypnosis.
"Ha, ha, ha. I've found you at last, Vance!"
Grady's face was all hard edges. Setting his own guess beside what he had been told, he could be certain of it now: Wilder's death was Vance's doing.
"Gengar!"
"Wait. Better to keep him. He had nothing to do with your nephew's death — he's only a subordinate. And this Ambrose is a son of the Calder family; it would not do to have him die here."
Draven called a halt. He had looked into it afterwards, and only then learned that Ambrose too came from a great house, one of the Calder family.
And the Calder family were connected by marriage to the Quillon family, with whom Team Rocket often worked. He could not be allowed to die here.
"Hmph. Let it go, then. Draven, I am off to Porta Vista now. Until we meet again!"
Now that he knew where his enemy was, Grady could hardly contain himself. He wished he were in Porta Vista that very instant, with Vance in his hands, so that he could make him feel a thousand kinds of pain and then send him down to keep Wilder company in the grave.
"I leave him to you. Don't let word of it get out. He has a partner as well — I'll leave that to you too."
"Set your mind at rest. Leave this end to me."
For an old friend's asking Draven agreed after all: he would hold Ambrose, and let him go once the business was done.
"Search high and low and find nothing, then have it drop into your lap without any trouble at all. This time, Vance, you're a dead man."
Carrying his hatred with him, Grady left in haste for Porta Vista.
"Keep him under control."
Draven gave the order once Grady had gone.
"Commander, should we really be doing this? I have a bad feeling about it."
Put like that, Draven felt a prickle of unease himself, a sense that it was not good; and then he threw the thought off.
"You're overthinking it. He's an Advanced-strength Trainer, no more. What can he do? What we've done here bends the rules a little, but there's nothing in it. At worst Sylas's side will have a word or two to say. What is there to be afraid of?"
Draven worked calmly through it. He had heard Vance's real strength out of Ambrose's own mouth. Sylas thought well of him, certainly, but that was all it came to.
How was an Advanced-strength Trainer to escape being ambushed and killed by a Gym-class one?
Don't be absurd. This was real life, not a novel or a television drama. Where would all these upsets come from?
Was this Vance going to erupt with some hidden power and kill Grady instead?
Absurd. So far as Draven knew, Grady had three Gym-class Pokémon in hand at present. Killing an Advanced-strength Trainer would be much like crushing an ant.
Never mind three. One of them would do it comfortably.