With that sudden turn the atmosphere went tense in an instant.
"Aerodactyl, we're going."
Vance called it out at once. Any longer and it would be genuinely awkward; he might well be taken for an accomplice of Team Aqua, and getting hurt by mistake would be a heavy loss.
So getting out quickly was the right answer.
All at once a force ran through the air and sealed off the space all around them. The man who had been running, and his Pokémon with him, seemed to have been pinned in place: they stood bolt upright where they were, unable to go forward or back.
And on Vance's side too a binding came down without warning and held him where he was.
"This force — it's strong!"
"Roar, roar—"
The Aerodactyl struggled for all it was worth, and found that it could not struggle at all. The force had it held fast.
Vance did not wait for the end with his hands folded either. He could not afford the consequences of being held. The strength in him surged all at once, gathered into one point and burst out to push back against the force.
With that sudden effort he broke free.
"Hm."
A small sound of surprise, and a silver-white Metagross appeared with a handsome young man on it.
Seeing Vance blaze with everything he had was a curiosity to him.
So the man was a Psychic as well, and by the look of it no weak one, if he could break out of a Metagross's hold — even granting that he was not the main target of it.
"It may be a misunderstanding. Metagross, just take that man down."
The young man said it evenly. He sent out a Skarmory as well and stood on it, and the Metagross flashed across to the Team Aqua man and had him subdued with a single move.
That Skarmory was no ordinary thing either. It was an Elite-Four-class Pokémon.
"Is that — Steven?"
Looking from a distance, Vance found the handsome young man matched what he remembered, and then he saw the silver-white Shiny Metagross, and he had already formed a guess about who he was.
A young man of that age, a Shiny Metagross, a Skarmory that was Elite-Four-class into the bargain, and the cargo ships below belonging to the Stone family — the young man's identity all but announced itself.
"Trainer. Wait a moment."
The Skarmory was extremely fast; in the blink of an eye it was in front of the Aerodactyl, and the young man on its back called out.
With an Elite-Four-class Pokémon right in front of it, the Aerodactyl felt the pressure at once. What came off this Skarmory was stronger than the Dusknoir of a while back; simply hanging there in the air, it bore down on the Aerodactyl heavily.
"This has nothing to do with me. I'm only a Trainer passing through."
Vance explained, and felt rather helpless about it. This Skarmory alone was Elite-Four-class, and there was that Metagross as well; all he could do was make himself clear.
Then he took out his Pokédex.
"I'm from the Kanto region. I got lost at sea and blundered my way here, and I only came over when I heard your whistle, to ask the way. This is my Pokédex. You're welcome to look."
Vance sent his Pokédex across. The strength in him was still drawn and ready, not yet released.
The young man took it, opened it up, and Vance's details came up on it with nothing out of order.
With the Pokédex as proof of identity, and the man's own strength as a Gym-class Psychic besides, it was clear enough to him, and he set his doubts aside.
He had only come over to ask in the first place.
"I'm sorry. This is a misunderstanding, and I apologise. Let me introduce myself — my name is Steven Stone."
Steven made his apology and sent the Pokédex back.
*So I was right.* Vance said it to himself. The man in front of him really was the one he remembered: Steven Stone, the future Champion of the Hoenn region.
No wonder he had so many powerful Pokémon.
"It's nothing, nothing at all. As long as the misunderstanding's cleared up."
Vance put his Pokédex away and said it with a smile.
"Mr Vance, if you don't mind, you're welcome to ride on our ships. It's some distance yet to Lilycove City, which is the nearest."
Steven laughed easily and put the invitation to him.
"I'd be glad to. Thank you."
Vance thought about it for a moment and accepted.
In a reception room aboard the cargo ship, Steven entertained Vance himself, and the two of them talked with every appearance of enjoying it.
They were both young men, and both of the same order of talent, and in talking to each other they got on very well indeed.
Steven had nothing of the arrogance of the great families that Vance had imagined; he was modest and mild instead.
"Vance, are you sure you're not having me on?"
"No. What would be the point? You can go and ask in Celadon City in Kanto if you like — with your reach it would hardly be difficult."
"Ha ha, that won't be necessary."
Steven laughed heartily. They had come round to the subject of birth, and he had learned that Vance was not born into a great house at all, but was an ordinary person who had come by an extraordinary stroke of fortune, woken his psychic power, and was now a Gym-class Psychic.
A prodigy. An out-and-out prodigy.
Steven's opinion of Vance went up another step in that moment.
For all that he was born a Stone, he was still astonished by the sheer height of Vance's gift.
To be a Gym-class Psychic at that age — from one point of view it made him more of a prodigy than Steven himself.
Here was another young man of his own age, and Steven could see he was no worse than himself.
"There's luck in it too."
Vance said it modestly, and he was not wrong: his strength came from the system, which, looked at another way, was luck as well.
But to anyone outside, he was simply a prodigy of the first order.