"You're joking, Chief."
Hearing Vance say it, Bram broke into a smile, and Draven smiled along with him.
Just as he had thought: when an Elite-Four-class fighter like himself spoke up, who would not do him the courtesy? Particularly a man under his own command.
"I'm afraid this is simply how I am. My scale is that narrow. It's fixed that way, and it doesn't open up."
Vance went on.
At that the smiles froze on both their faces, and their expressions darkened.
Bram narrowed his eyes and put weight behind his voice. "So you're saying, Vance, that you won't do me this courtesy?"
"Near enough." Vance rose from his chair, yielding nothing. "For anything else I would certainly show courtesy, but not for this. Chief, if you want to play the peacemaker, did you not first find out how this business began and how it ran?"
"Because this time I very nearly lost my life. Tell me — when a man's life is in it, how am I supposed to let it rest?? If I dare not pay back even a threat to my life, it would make me look weak and easy to push about!"
"Vance, I advise you to think this through. There's still room to discuss it. Peace is what counts. Why not do me, your Chief, this courtesy and let the matter drop."
"Courtesy? If I do you this courtesy, Chief, who will do me any? Why didn't you go to Grady at the time and tell him: do me the courtesy, let it drop."
Vance answered.
"Insolence. Is that how you speak to me?"
"Heh. How else? Which of my words has offended you?"
Perhaps it was having failed to deliver what he had promised a subordinate; perhaps it was being defied and talked back to like this by a new member. Bram was furious out of all proportion, and his face had flushed dark.
"Do you not know what becomes of a man in Team Rocket who fails to respect the strong, who defies them outright?"
"What's this? Does the Chief mean to lean on me with his rank?"
Vance stared at the pair of them, his face unchanged, without the least hint of yielding.
"What, does a word from me, from an Elite-Four-class man, carry so little weight? Vance, let me give you a line to keep: a young man shouldn't be so hot-headed."
"What sort of young man isn't hot-headed? I've said it: whatever happened to me happens to him. If he comes through it, the score is wiped clean! And if he dies, he had it coming."
"Good, good, good. Very good." Bram bared his teeth in a grin, clapping as he rose from his seat.
"And if I tell you I mean to protect him?"
"Chief, do you really mean to come between him and me in this??"
Vance asked it back at him.
"Naturally."
Bram nodded with a smile, and gave him his answer.
At that Vance dropped all courtesy. "Then so be it. Even with you stepping in, my position stands. Draven is a dead man, and nobody is going to stop it. I've said so!"
"Arrogance!"
Bram's temper was roused at last by his subordinate's brazen talk, and he shouted the word at him.
"And what of it?? Unless you can protect him for the rest of his life — otherwise, hmph."
If that was how it stood, and they could not come to terms, there was no point talking. Vance walked straight for the door.
"Vance! Do you really believe I can't handle you!"
Vance stopped in the doorway and looked back. "What, is my lord the Chief going to make his move here and set his own house in order? Or how else do you mean to handle me? I forgot to tell you — from now on you can't give me orders either, because I've already been transferred to headquarters."
"Headquarters?? Isn't that a bluff? What merit or ability of yours gets you transferred to headquarters? On what grounds?"
Before Bram could speak, Draven jumped in first.
"On what grounds? On the grounds that I am a Psychic."
With that, a powerful presence rose off Vance and filled the whole private room in an instant.
Two Pokémon appeared in front of the pair of them on the instant, putting the two men behind them.
A level 62 Pinsir and a level 56 Blastoise.
"A Psychic!! You're actually a Psychic!"
Draven's eyes went wide, disbelief all over his face.
Bram's expression changed as well. A Psychic — and by the feel of it that presence was no small thing, close to the very summit of Gym-class.
And more to the point, he was this young. Strength like that at his age!
It was frightening.
Looking at how impossibly young Vance's face was, Bram let nothing show, but inwardly he was badly shaken. Elite-Four-class fighter though he was, Vance's terrifying gifts had startled him.
A figure like that would not be penned in at Elite-Four-class. Elite-Four-class was only a matter of time for him.
Both of them were Elite-Four-class, but his own kind of Elite-Four-class was the kind with little potential left. Bram could feel it himself: getting this far was the end of his road, and the rest of it he would never walk.
To any organization, a Gym-class Psychic with unlimited potential was worth more than an Elite-Four-class man whose potential was all but spent.
More worth cultivating, too.
In that instant, regret rose in Bram's heart.
After that, whatever the two of them might do, Vance slammed the door and went.
To his own mind he had shown this Elite-Four-class fighter the courtesy due him, and if it still came to this, there was nothing more to say.
An Elite-Four-class man, that was all. There was nothing he could do to him now!
Give him a little more time and Elite-Four-class would mean nothing. He would go beyond Elite-Four-class!