"A Phoenix Blood Stone, and a piece this size. Sold, it would fetch thirty or forty million, I should think. They say it has something to do with the Legendary Ho-Oh."
"You have a Wasteland Boulder in the collection as well. You'd only find this at the very heart of a mineral vein — and it's the great favourite of the pseudo-legendary Tyranitar and its line."
"And this one..."
Past one precious stone after another, Vance had something to say about every one of them.
Steven's eyes lit up as he listened. Hearing him talk like this was like finding one of his own kind. "Don't tell me you know about these stones too?"
"A little, a little. A man has to eat, after all, and if I ran into one out in the field and failed to recognise it, that would be a real loss. And besides — setting aside what they're worth in money, there's life held inside some stones, and being able to look into the mystery of that is a fine thing in itself."
Vance nodded as he said it, and pointed at another stone with the faintest trace of life energy still on it.
That one was an Anorith fossil. Revival technology could hatch it, and after it evolved it would be an Armaldo.
Revival technology already existed, and it was another of the Stone family's core technologies, held under the Devon Corporation. By now it had a rich body of theory and practice behind it and could hatch Pokémon.
Steven's Lileep had been revived by that very technology.
The technology had drawn any number of experts and scholars into research on it.
"Do you feel that way about it too?"
Steven's eyes shone brighter still. No wonder they got on so well — the man loved stones too.
That made a shared interest of it.
"More or less. Though I only look into them a bit. I don't understand them as deeply as you do. I'm poor, after all."
"Ha ha ha. It isn't often I meet a fellow lover of stones. Let's do this — pick one of the pieces here and take it."
In the pleasure of the moment Steven waved a broad hand and told Vance to choose a piece.
"Wouldn't that be too valuable?"
"It would not. Pick whatever you like, go on, any one of them."
Steven said it grandly, in a tone that showed he genuinely did not care. For all that there was so much here, it was only part of what he had collected; picking out one piece was a drop in the ocean.
Faced with such warmth, Vance began to look around in earnest.
No wonder so many people like being friends with the very rich. With open-handedness like that, who wouldn't?
Things of the Phoenix Blood Stone sort, worth tens of millions, Vance passed over for the moment. They were worth money, but they were not what he most wanted.
Vance picked through them looking thoroughly professional about it, and Steven found himself nodding, wondering privately whether he had been too stingy. Only one piece?
A good thing is only a good thing in the hands of someone who understands it; otherwise it is wasted.
Under the lamps the gems shone and glittered, a pearly light flickering across them.
"Hm? What are the odds? To find one of these here, of all places."
Vance had picked up a stone with a spiral-patterned something set inside it, glowing with a faint coloured light. This stone was a Mega Stone!
And more than that, Vance recognised it as Blaziken's Mega Stone — which was why he had called it a coincidence.
The Blaziken had only just evolved, and here was his Mega Stone delivered right in front of him. If that was not a coincidence, what was?
The system could exchange for Mega Stones too, but the price in points was higher than for a Key Stone: a full 10,000 Battle Points.
Putting a sum like that together would take a good while.
Vance kept his face still and went on around the room, and found two more Mega Stones there.
He recognised those two as well — one was Pinsir's, the other Venusaur's.
There was no telling how Steven had come by them; but for a fanatical collector of stones, having picked up a few Mega Stones was hardly surprising.
Mega Evolution had not yet been discovered by anyone, but Mega Stones did turn up here and there, and because they were rather strange, holding some kind of power that nobody had worked out, they were classed as a kind of anomalous stone.
Vance hardly had to think about it. He picked up the Blaziken's Mega Stone; there was no need to look at anything else.
"I'll take this one. I can sense a sort of power in this stone. I'll take it back and study it."
Vance held up the Blaziken's Mega Stone as he said it to Steven.
"That's fine, then."
Steven did not dither in the least; he made him a present of the Mega Stone on the spot. Between lovers of stones there was no need for any fuss about it.
And so Vance came by a Mega Stone. Later on he could find a time to try a Mega Evolution with the Blaziken!
..................
"The Zapdos stopped here. Putting that together with the last few resting places, it must have gone that way."
A group of people in strange dress had appeared on the island where Vance had been staying, each of them holding some instrument, taking readings of something.
"Move out, then, and keep up. This Zapdos is not weak, and if it grows any stronger it will be hard to handle."
A woman's voice came from among them. It was their leader who had spoken.
"Report. I've found signs of human habitation here. Is that a problem?"
One of the subordinates raised the discovery. From the traces left about the site, someone had been living here not long ago.
"No problem. The Zapdos is the urgent thing. The person was probably only passing through."
"Understood."
The group mounted their Pokémon and set off in one direction.
A day later, over a sea that had been as calm as ever, black cloud suddenly closed over the sky. Thunder flickered inside it, and several figures wove through it with a frightening weight of force about them.
"I'll say goodbye here, then. Come and look me up in Kanto some time — and thank you for looking after me these two days."
At the docks of Lilycove City, Vance was saying his farewells to Steven. He had been Steven's guest these last few days; now he was getting off at Lilycove City, with things of his own to do.
Steven, once he had restocked his supplies, would go on sailing with the cargo ships and go on with his road of collecting stones.
Steven told him to take care of himself, and they shook hands, and then Vance left. They exchanged contact details so that they could keep in touch afterwards.
"The next leg of the journey — I wonder whether I'll meet anyone else. I rather look forward to it."
Steven was a man of the world and liked making the acquaintance of talent wherever he found it, because his instinct told him that these talents he had befriended were people he would meet again.
Elsewhere, Vance had come to the Pokémon Center in Lilycove City, and when he used his Pokédex he was told that using it outside its own region meant he could not have the full range of Trainer benefits, though there were still some concessions he could use.
It turned out that the Pokédex differed from region to region, with certain limits, and a Kanto Pokédex like his only served to confirm his identity here.
Paying for things did not matter to him.
With two Gym-class powers backing him, Vance was not short of money at the moment; if he had to pay, he would pay. Then he handed all his Pokémon over to Nurse Joy to be looked after.
After those days out in the wild they were very tired indeed.