"So you've broken through to Elite as well, Blaziken. Congratulations, congratulations."
Vance came forward too and said it to the Blaziken.
"Blaziken, blaziken—"
The Blaziken was leaping and bounding about, as lively and full of spirit as ever.
He turned a handsome somersault, kindled a dazzling blaze and dropped into the stance for a diving strike.
"Blaziken—"
Legs cocked back a little, then forward in a rush like a bird of prey stooping on its kill, carrying a momentum nothing could match: Brave Bird.
"Boom, boom, boom—"
He struck through one piece of testing equipment after another, and a great figure came up on the readout. Level 46!
Which is to say that this one strike of the Blaziken's carried the force of level 46.
Worthy of his outstanding talent — newly into Elite and already fighting at that level.
"Ah, this........."
While all the other Pokémon were pleased for the Blaziken, only the Aerodactyl's mind was elsewhere, a blank look on his face.
*I, the Aerodactyl, seem to be losing my place here.*
*That Blaziken's presence is nearly up to mine.*
Just then the Aerodactyl was uncommonly flustered. He thought he could understand now how the Gyarados had felt back in those days.
After a little celebrating the Pokémon went their separate ways and got on with what they had been doing — the Slaking, for instance, lying back down to sleep and store up its strength.
The Aerodactyl watched with real envy. Lie down and grow stronger. Who would not want that?
"That's enough, Aerodactyl. Stop staring and get on with your training. Your fighting style isn't the Slaking's."
Vance pulled the Aerodactyl's mind back, and went on.
"No two Pokémon have the same constitution. What the Slaking can do, you can't."
"Then, boss." The Aerodactyl sidled over with a longing look. "Couldn't you fix me up with one of those? Boss, I want to learn that."
The Slaking's strength and the speed of its progress were there for everybody to see. If he, the Aerodactyl, had the trick of it, would he not be far out in front? Would he ever be overtaken again??
Thinking of it, the Aerodactyl could not help telling himself, "Sensible fellow, you."
Lovely just to think about. So lovely he was fizzing over with it.
"Er, er..." The corner of Vance's mouth twitched, but he told the Aerodactyl the cruel truth all the same. The answer was no. What the Aerodactyl had in mind could not be done.
The Slaking's case was a very particular one. He still could not account for the mysterious energy inside its body, even now; he knew only that it did the Slaking good.
And there was a great deal of danger in it. It could not be copied.
If it had not been for him back then, the Slaking would very likely have been finished.
It was only that he happened to have the knowledge of an Advanced Breeder, and after no end of trouble and days of careful nursing he had brought the Slaking round.
"All right, then."
The Aerodactyl was somewhat downcast, but he resigned himself to it.
"Aerodactyl. You may be a bit ugly, and a bit shabby, and a bit weak about the eyes, but you have your strong points all the same."
Vance said it by way of comfort.
"Boss, you......"
For a moment the Aerodactyl did not know what to say. His boss seemed to be insulting him, and seemed to be praising him at the same time.
Not being quite sure, he, the Aerodactyl, would wait and see.
"Have you ever heard of air superiority? You are the air power of this team, and we cannot do without it. In a fight you open an aerial attack on the enemy, and that is exactly the place I have you in. You are important. Do you understand that?"
"Rooaar, rooaar—"
Put that way, the Aerodactyl suddenly felt himself very important indeed. How could he let himself be held back by so childish a notion?
All at once the Aerodactyl felt that what he had been thinking a moment ago was terribly low.
"Rooaar, rooaar. Then, boss, how should I be training now?"
"Well. The direction now is speed, obviously, and after that the weight of your attacks. For the attacks themselves you can use what you're good at — moves like Stone Edge and Rock Slide."
"When you use a move, you want to gather it quickly, put strength behind it, and land it accurately on the target. To put it in a word: fast, accurate, hard. Those three. And the training will be built round those three."
"Have you followed all that?"
Hearing a certain haziness in the Aerodactyl's voice, Vance prompted him.
"Ah, that. More or less, more or less. Rooaar."
The Aerodactyl answered with a beat of his wings.
He looked a little flustered, rather like a pupil called on in class.
Vance looked at him suspiciously; but, meeting the Aerodactyl's wise and knowing eyes, he supposed there was nothing wrong.
It had always gone this way. The Aerodactyl ought to be used to it by now.
"Begin, then."
Vance called, with a wave of his hand.
The Aerodactyl set about his training with a roar.
He stood and watched the Aerodactyl train for a while, nodded, and went on to look at the others — the Gyarados, the Blaziken, the Slaking. There was no need to look at the Slaking. There is nothing to see in sleeping.
He was just turning to the Zweilous when something went wrong over there.
"Craaash—"
A sudden explosion, and a violent blast of air spread out in every direction.
The Pokémon were unhurt, naturally, and Vance, who was stronger than they were, was unhurt as well.
He let the psychic shield in front of him drop and looked over at the Zweilous. That racket had been the Zweilous's doing.
"Roar, roar—"
The Zweilous came up out of the ball of black smoke with both heads smudged with grime.
Their combined strike had just failed.
This was another of Vance's training ideas. The Zweilous had two heads, so let each head put out one kind of power, and then try to fuse them, for an effect where one and one came to more than two.
The training just now had been on those lines, fusing the powers of Water and Fire.
"Don't be in a hurry, Zweilous. Fusing power is difficult by nature. Better slow than rushed."
"Roar, roar—"
Black One was barking at Black Two, apparently blaming him for it, and Black Two would not have it and shouted back.
Black One blamed Black Two; Black Two blamed Black One.
"Enough, enough. We'll run through it once more. This time from far to near, and put fire and ice together."
Vance called the Zweilous to a halt and had it release the thing again.
At Vance's word the two heads stopped quarrelling, settled themselves and tried once more.
"That's it. Black Two, slower."
Vance called, and out on the floor two streams of energy drew slowly together, one cold, one hot.
"Together!"
Under the Zweilous's control the two tangled into one another and formed a body of energy shaped like a flower.
Where they met, the reaction was violent.
"Turn!"
"Roar, roar—"
The Zweilous took hold of the energy again and, at the height of the reaction, spun it where it stood.
That fused water and fire carried a dreadful pulse of power, ready to burst at any moment.
"Boom—"
A violent explosion went up in the training room again; but set beside the last one, there had been progress.
Whenever it turned unstable and got away from the Zweilous, the Zweilous steadied it again, several times over; and the explosion at the end was on Vance's order, telling it to throw the thing clear.
"Very good. Keep at it."
Vance nodded and patted the Zweilous, well pleased.
The Zweilous's talent was extremely high. A little guidance and it had the thing.
A Pokémon of high aptitude is like that — outstanding, and it grasps things extraordinarily fast.
And not only in grasping things. It was strong in every other way as well.
Just now, for instance, once the move came off and its spirits were up, the Zweilous broke through on the spot, from level 48 to 49, drawing level with the Gyarados.
A Pokémon's condition is tied to its breakthroughs as well.
There are cases too where a Pokémon cannot break through for a long while, and then at some turn of events — the Pokémon simply being in good spirits, say — it breaks through.
"Oh, come on. The Zweilous has broken through again. We've both got dragon in our names, so why is my breaking through so slow?"
Over at the far end of the room the Aerodactyl, hearing the commotion, stopped his training and scratched his head as he said it.