They were still talking when Emery came hurrying in from outside. Seeing Vance safe and sound, his face lit up with pleasure, and then something occurred to him and his expression turned grave at once.
"Ha ha, here's Emery. What's the solemn face for? Shouldn't you be glad the boss is all right?"
Now that he knew Vance had Gym-class strength, Ambrose was in no hurry about anything; he was perfectly at his ease, and had leisure enough to tease Emery about the anxious look on his face.
"I am glad."
Emery said it, and then looked carefully outside himself, shut the door, pulled out a computer and rattled away at it; the screen came up with the camera feed from outside.
"Hoo. Nobody watching us. We're all right for the moment."
Only then did Emery let himself relax.
"Ha ha ha. Emery, you don't have to be so tense. It's fine."
Vance said it to put him at ease.
"Fatty, didn't you tell the boss? At a time like this and you're still carrying on this way?? Don't you know how serious it is?"
Emery said it to Ambrose, thinking Ambrose had not made the thing clear to Vance.
"He told me. It's already settled."
"There, you see, I told him, it's settled. The boss is a Gym-class fighter now, and that Grady has been dealt with by the boss as well. It isn't us who ought to be worrying now, it's them."
Ambrose explained from the side.
"A Gym-class fighter? That fast? Well, at least he can look after himself now."
Hearing it, Emery relaxed as well.
"Just so. We were saying a moment ago that we ought to give this Division Commander Draven something to remember. Damn the man, bringing people in to hold the two of us."
"Something to remember, is it. Boss, I think this ought to be taken slowly. Your Pokémon have only just broken through to Gym-class, and going up against an old hand like Draven, a Gym-class Trainer, right now is not a good idea. It can be worked at gradually," Emery advised. He was the careful one, and his counsel was to go slowly.
"Ha ha ha. It isn't the boss's Pokémon that broke through, it's the boss himself. That's rather a different matter."
Ambrose put in from the side.
"The boss himself broke through?"
Emery was taken aback, and looked at Vance.
Vance nodded, and the disbelief stayed on his face.
"Set your mind at rest. This Draven is no match for me now."
Vance said it with a quiet laugh.
With Vance saying so, Emery pressed the point no further. He knew Vance well enough: not a man who talked wildly.
If he said he could settle it, then he could.
"Ambrose, you're the one with the widest circle — go and make enquiries. If this Draven leaves the base, tell me. Emery, keep watch for me as well. It's my turn now; he took a hand in it, so he can bear what I give him back."
Killing intent showed in Vance's face. It was behind him now, but it had been a near thing throughout — never mind facing the Dusknoir, the sea had been more dangerous still, and if his luck had not held, if he had run into those strong and savage Pokémon out there, he really would have gone to the bottom of it.
So how could he leave a score like that unpaid??
"Right."
The two of them agreed on the spot, and said they would help.
After that the three of them went off together to a hotel to eat, and made a loud, cheerful meal of it.
In the course of it Vance learned that the pair of them were Advanced Trainers now. Over this stretch of time they had had no drill duties either, and they had the benefit of that intelligence-gathering assignment, which left them a great deal of latitude, and so more time to train their Pokémon — which was why they had come on so quickly.
"Cheers."
The three glasses touched, and they went on to other things.
"There's no telling what has become of Division Commander Sylas. He went out on an assignment, it's been a long while now, and he still hasn't come back. No knowing what's happened."
At the table, Ambrose brought the matter up out of nowhere.
"Any idea what sort of assignment he went out on?"
Vance asked it out of curiosity; he thought well enough of the Division Commander who had looked after him.
"That I don't know. A Division Commander's assignments are not the sort of thing I could go asking about."
Ambrose shook his head.
"True enough."
Vance nodded as well.
If even the rank and file knew what their superiors' superiors were doing, an outfit like that would be finished sooner or later.
Team Rocket had no trouble on that score, naturally; their secrecy was thorough.
Only the member carrying out the assignment, his superior and the leadership above that were allowed to know; and for certain special ones, even a man one rank higher had no authority to look.
The three of them ate and drank, and came out of the hotel with their arms over one another's shoulders.
Ambrose and Emery were in high spirits; the difficulty that had weighed on them had come apart at a touch.
All these days the business with Draven had sat on their hearts like a great stone, and at last it had been shifted off.
And what pleased the two of them more still was that, strong as Vance had grown, he treated them exactly as he always had, with no change in him, nothing of looking down on them.
A luxury car came past and pulled up a little way off. Draven got out of it with a woman dressed as a wife and mother, and behind them two children, a boy and a girl.
"Mm? What are those two doing here?"
Turning his head, Draven saw Ambrose and Emery, and following his glance along he found himself looking at Vance's face.
Something struck him all at once; his heart gave a lurch, and a few beads of cold sweat ran down from his forehead.
"What is it, dear? Are you unwell?"
The woman beside him leaned in to ask, and took a handkerchief out of her bag to wipe the sweat away for him.
"I'm all right."
Draven forced a smile.
Then he remembered that he had Chief Bram's promise, and his mind eased again.
"Papa, let's go in quickly, I'm hungry."
The little girl at his side called it out with her arms round his leg.
"All right, all right, in we go then."
Draven smiled, doting written all over his face.
Turning back again, he came face to face with Vance's not-quite-smile.
Vance had spotted him too. So this Division Commander Draven, a Division Commander of Team Rocket, had a wife and children here in Celadon City.
Wife, children, a warm bed at home. A life complete.
An unexpected discovery indeed.
Meeting his eye, Vance raised a hand to his throat and drew it across in the sign of a cut.
The man's life was a fine thing. Did that affect his revenge? It did not.
Run with this crowd and you know what you are in for.
Seeing that gesture, Draven's face darkened.
But with his wife and children beside him he held himself together, and took them into the hotel.
"What is it? You don't look well. Is something the matter?"
"It's nothing, don't worry. I ran into someone from a rival firm, that's all, and it put a few things in my mind."
Draven found himself a reason; he did not dare tell the truth. His wife still did not know he was Team Rocket.
On the other side, the three of them had stopped.
"Boss, was that Draven?"
"It was. Enemies always meet on a narrow road — and here he is tonight."
Vance said it with a cold laugh, and a dangerous light flickered in his eyes.