None of the other Pokémon thought anything of the Zweilous breaking through; it was an ordinary enough occurrence, after all. Even the sleeping Slaking did not open its eyes to look at it.
They all had the measure of this prodigy.
"Keep at it, and get the move under you soon. When two opposed kinds of power collide, what they set off is the most frightening thing there is. At present you are only using it shallowly; there is still some way to go before it can be taken into a real fight."
"Rooaar, rooaar—"
The Zweilous put its feelings away and went back to its training.
Vance stood at a distance, and when he saw the body of energy that the fusing water and fire formed, shaped like a lotus flower, he smiled.
It really could be done!
In that case, once the Zweilous evolved into a Hydreigon it could go a step further and put in a third kind of power, and the force it set off would surely be well worth seeing.
"What should the move be called? It looks like a lotus — Water-Fire Golden Lotus, perhaps? No, never mind. Later, later."
Vance muttered it to himself.
While Vance was hard at his training, the building of the Dark City branch was going on at full tilt, and quickly too.
Time went fast. Before he knew it a week had gone by.
Through it all Vance kept hold of the large things and let the small ones go, and the work was handled in good order.
Ambrose, pressed into hard labour by Vance, had grown cleverer as well. He had learned to "outsource".
Since Vance squeezed him, he squeezed the men under him: he parcelled the business out for his subordinates to deal with and kept an eye on the whole of it himself, making sure nothing went wrong.
So it came about that Vance watched Ambrose and Ambrose watched his subordinates, and a strange "outsourcing chain" was formed.
That way Vance had an easy time of it, and so did Ambrose.
And Ambrose's subordinates had an easy time of it too, because their boss's doing this meant he regarded them as his own men, which was why the business had been handed to them at all.
The longer Vance looked at it, the odder it felt. This was a staff council, surely. In ancient China it would have been the Grand Secretariat and the Grand Council.
So Vance grew cleverer as well, and set up a body of exactly that kind. He did not let Ambrose off, of course; the man was dragged in as second in command.
A real leader does not have to busy himself with every last detail. He has to know how to devolve authority, to hold the large things and let the small ones go, and to keep his hand on the general run of matters.
Plainly Vance had grasped that, and had something of a leader's bearing about him already.
And the squads under Ambrose felt themselves valued by the Branch Chief. Their own boss was one of the Branch Chief's own men; which, thinking it through, made them the Branch Chief's own men too, and set beside the rest that gave them a feeling of superiority.
Just as Vance was slowly building and spreading out, a letter came and broke into these quiet days of growth.
The letter was from Blaine, the man in charge at Cinnabar Island, which was not far from Dark City, and a senior officer of Team Rocket; in strength and in standing alike he stood above Vance.
That was why Giovanni had told him earlier that if he met something he could not settle, he might go to Blaine at Cinnabar Island for help.
And naturally, if he could go to Blaine for help, Blaine could come to him for it.
This message was exactly that: a request for help.
"Rufus?? How has that fellow ended up over at Cinnabar Island? And got himself tangled up with the Godbeast Gang this time??"
In the message Vance had come upon the name of an old acquaintance: Rufus.
Back when he had been called up by the League to go and wipe out a Team Rocket base, he had run into Rufus, and had let him go.
He had never thought to come across him here. The turns a life takes really are beyond describing.
He and this Rufus did seem fated to keep meeting.
How the man had managed it he did not know, but he had got himself in with the Cinnabar branch, and had become one of Blaine's men.
The task this time was to go into the mountains south of Dark City and search for Rufus. Rufus was being hunted by the Godbeast Gang, and whether he was alive or dead was not known; all that was known was that he was somewhere south of Dark City, in that stretch of mountain country.
And he was carrying material that Blaine wanted: material about the Godbeast Gang.
The message said it was intelligence Rufus had gathered while working undercover inside the Godbeast Gang.
Which was why Blaine at Cinnabar Island had sent it.
He was required to turn out with everything he had and take part in the operation.
To have Blaine take so much trouble over him, Rufus must be doing rather well for himself.
Just so: the strong never complain about their circumstances. Even a man like that could make something respectable of himself in the Cinnabar branch.
Blaine was no simple man, and anybody he thought well of would be no simple man either.
"Hoy, Fatty. Get word to every Division Commander and Squad Leader. Anyone on urgent business may be excused; everybody else is to be here without fail. There's a major operation."
Vance said it into his phone, passing the word to Ambrose.
"Yes."
Ambrose heard him out, understood that something was afoot, and at once sent word to every Division Commander and Squad Leader.
Half an hour later four Division Commanders and sixteen Squad Leaders had assembled. Only two Division Commanders and two Squad Leaders failed to come, being away on missions.
"Everyone is here, I take it, so I shall begin. This mission is to rescue a man by the name of Rufus. His height, his appearance, his Pokémon and the rest of it I have already sent to you."
"The difficulty of this mission is assessed at four stars. I want it taken seriously. The Godbeast Gang will be involved, and we cannot rule out the League making a move as well."
Vance said it gravely, looking round them all. A four-star mission is a mission at Branch Chief level.
And what he had said was true. There might well be an Elite-Four-class master lying hidden somewhere inside this one.
And against Elite, an Elite-Four-class being is not an opponent but a force of another order entirely.
Masters generally have their pride, and will not raise a hand against anyone weaker than themselves.
But not wanting to and not doing it are two different things.
"Any questions?"
Vance pressed.
"None."
They all rose together and said it loudly.
"Good. We go in three waves. I lead the first....."
In no time at all Vance had his dispositions made.
Half an hour after that a party under Vance's command, some thirty men, slipped quietly into the woods and made for the mountains south of Dark City.