"It's taken."
Two Team Rocket members, a man and a woman, came before Blaine and the others and said it respectfully.
Blaine's own people were helping with this operation.
The two in front of them, for instance, were Division Commanders under Blaine, both of Gym-class strength, and one of them was already working towards Elite-Four-class.
Taken as a whole, Cinnabar Island was very much stronger than the Dark City branch.
"Then let's go in and have a look."
Blaine nodded and walked inside, with Vance following behind.
Inside, a good many people had been pinned to the floor, and there was blood spattered across it.
"Glug, glug—"
One large, bare room was filled with rows of experimental tanks full of various liquids, some standing upright, some laid on their sides on the floor.
Off to one side a group of people in white coats crouched on the ground with their hands over their heads, Team Rocket members standing guard around them.
Off to the side as well lay several bodies, fallen beside the equipment. Red lights burned steadily on those machines, which were smashed past use, and whatever experiment had been inside them was no longer recognisable.
"Record whatever experimental data is left. Take the materials and the personnel if you can take them. Anyone who dares resist, kill them where they stand."
Blaine gave the order.
"Yes, sir."
His people heard it and went straight off to carry it out.
As for the researchers, none of them had the fighting strength to be any threat, and besides, they would be far more use taken away with them.
The Team Rocket members set about clearing the place at once, some hauling materials, some herding people along.
The same scene had played out at the Team Rocket branch not many days earlier. Now it was the other way round.
Before long the base had been stripped bare, people and materials alike carried off.
By the time Delaney arrived with his men, what he found was a wreck.
Delaney had the feeling he had been set up. He was late again.
"Team Leader Delaney, what do we do?"
Someone had come to ask how they were to proceed.
"Go and see whether anyone's left. I'll set out the situation myself."
Delaney said it, pinching his brow.
He felt he was being used as somebody else's gun, and there was nothing he could do about it.
A short while later they brought out a few stragglers from the Godbeast Gang, along with some equipment that had been too much to carry off.
Delaney looked at it for a while and then thought: wasn't this a result??
As for how to write it up, that was his old trade.
Being used as somebody's gun did not seem like such a problem after all.
Once they had finished with that base, another of his men reported that there was something going on at a second one.
When they got there it was the same.
They ran to three in a row, and every one of them was the same.
"Boom—"
A roar of detonation went up in the sky far off, throwing the energy in the surrounding area into disorder and setting it shuddering.
One look told you how strong both sides of that fight were, if the effect carried this far.
"T—Team Leader, there seems to be something happening over there. Should we go?"
"Go? Go and do what, exactly? Do we not know what we're worth?"
Delaney hurried off to find somewhere to take cover, in terror for his life.
That presence was more frightening than the strongest Pokémon he had ever seen. It was well past Elite-Four-class. Going over there would simply be asking to die.
Nothing mattered more than his own life. Even with the Mayor standing in front of him, he would not go.
From far off, Vance watched the sky and the vast spectacle of red and blue power twisting together up there.
The one fighting was, of course, Blaine.
Old as he looked, his Charizard was a Near-Champion of a thing, and the rest of his Pokémon had strength at the peak of Elite-Four-class.
With all of them coming at once, even the Suicune that had suddenly appeared was no match; Water type or not, it was somewhat outmatched.
"Whoooosh—"
A towering wave, easily three hundred metres high, came straight at them with a terrifying weight behind it and fell with a crash directly on the spot where Vance and the others stood.
"Charizard—"
The Charizard appeared in front of that wall of water, an astonishing heat rising off it, its body glowing until it was like a small sun, and it drove into the layered waves and detonated.
The great wave in front of Vance and the others was broken apart, and what was left of it came at them in thin threads of scalding steam.
"To have raised a Charizard that far — that is Blaine for you."
Vance said it with feeling.
That Charizard was not far behind the one he had seen belonging to Lance of the Dragon Clan.
The strongest of them was being held off by Blaine; the rest were naturally left to people like them.
Once the Charizard and the Suicune had shifted position, it was their turn to move.
"Go."
Vance gave the signal, and the Slaking, the Gyarados and the rest went in.
"Roar, roar—"
The Gyarados and the others charged into the fight and tore into it.
"Wycliffe, you've come at just the right time. There's something going on up ahead — off you go and take a look."
Over on Delaney's side, Wycliffe and his party had just arrived.
The old Mayor had settled it: Delaney was in charge, Team Leader of the task force, while Wycliffe, who had uncovered the whole business, was instead made his assistant and deputy team leader, sent along with him to deal with it.
Hearing that, Wycliffe turned green.
Bloody hell. With a racket like that going on, was a Gym-class Trainer such as himself supposed to stick his nose in?
If he showed his face out there he would be the first one dead.
"Ah, well. Team Leader, I rather think we can wait — bide our time. Given the situation, my recommendation is that we request support."
Wycliffe said it with his face straightened.
"Fine. We'll do as you say and call upstairs for backup." Delaney agreed at once, and put it straight back on him.
"Well, what are you waiting for? Call for backup, then."
"You......"
It rankled with Wycliffe, and he could not find the words.
You do the work, I do the begging. Very clever of you.
But Delaney was the one in charge of this, so he really had no advantage to press; and he had felt the strength of the presence over there.
Wycliffe decided calling for backup was the better option after all. This was not something he could take part in, and his own neck came first.
"That's more like it."
Delaney said it with a chuckle. It was nothing really; he only wanted to needle the man.
Before he could even make the call, the presence over there settled, as though the battle were over.
The two of them exchanged a look. Wycliffe still had the communicator in his hand, with the number for backup keyed in and not yet dialled.
"Do I still call?"
"Wait. Let's see how it looks first."
Far off, Blaine held a Poké Ball in his hand, and inside it lay an unconscious Suicune.
"Last time you got away from me. This time you've fallen into my hands."
Blaine laughed out loud. This was a considerable haul.