What does a pleasant surprise look like? Perhaps it looks like this.
A Pokémon had actually come to his door and asked to be caught?
The treatment left Vance dazed. Was his own charm as great as all that? A Pokémon presenting itself to him of its own accord?
"It is. I cannot look after this child any longer, so I can only leave her to you."
The Alakazam let out a sigh and said it sincerely. The wound in it was growing worse; and even without the wound, its span was nearly run.
Its kind live long — as strength grows, so does the span of years — but the day of death comes even so.
"I don't want to."
Hearing that she was to be left with Vance, the Ralts held tight to the Alakazam's hand. It had looked after her the whole way here.
Only now did Vance turn his attention to the Ralts, opening the system at the same time and scanning her for her details.
> **Name:** Ralts (female)
> **Type:** Psychic, Fairy
> **Ability:** Synchronize
> **Aptitude:** Elite-Four-class
> **Level:** 11
> **Moves:** Growl, Disarming Voice, Double Team, Hypnosis, Confusion, Misty Terrain, Ally Switch, Destiny Bond
The Ralts had a white body, and her green hair covered
most of her face, leaving her red eyes showing. Her hair was parted by two flat red horns set down through the middle of it, a larger one pointing forward and a smaller one behind.
The red horns on her head can catch the feelings of people and Pokémon, which lets her keep to what is good for her and away from what is not.
In her first form already, and Elite-Four-class in aptitude. For gifts and promise she was much on a level with the Zweilous, no worse at all; grown up, she would be a formidable thing.
And Psychic-type Pokémon are rare enough as it is; a Ralts, of all of them, is rarer still.
And here was this Alakazam entrusting the Ralts to him?
"There, now, Ralts. You remember what I said to you before, don't you? You must do as you are told, do you understand? And this Trainer — you can feel it yourself, can't you, what he is like? He even has the food you like best."
The Alakazam laid a hand on her head. Perhaps it would be better to ask this human Trainer after all.
One look at his Pokémon told you as much. There was certainly nothing wanting in the man's ability; every one of them was strong and sound in body, and able to fight above its own order, which said everything about how far he had come.
"I don't want it any more. I don't want to eat. He's very kind, but I can't bear to leave you."
The Ralts looked up at the Alakazam piteously, and then looked at Vance.
The Alakazam said helplessly, "Silly child. I cannot stay with you much longer. You truly do need a Trainer."
"Can you tell me about her?"
Vance spoke up and asked how she had come to this, without saying yet whether he was willing or not.
"Her? She is a poor creature. She had a happy life once, until a calamity out of a clear sky swept over her. Her mother and father both fell in it."
A look of memory came over the Alakazam's face as it said it.
"A calamity out of a clear sky? Can you be more particular?"
"That Godbeast Gang of yours, of the humans. Do you know of them?"
The Alakazam brought out a name he knew. The Godbeast Gang. A few months ago he might not have; now he did, and had crossed swords with them more than once.
"I know of them."
Vance nodded and answered.
"It was them. They came to Silver Moon Mountain, and for some reason began laying hands on the Pokémon round about. When I hurried there last time, I had it from several of them that what they were after was the making of the Legendary Pokémon Darkrai."
"Darkrai??"
Vance's brows drew together as well. The Godbeast Gang had grown stronger still, then, if they were studying that.
Darkrai, among the Legendaries, is a good deal stronger than Suicune or Zapdos and the rest.
Above all for the power of nightmares that is his alone.
He can put human and Pokémon alike into a nightmare, with no resisting it, as naturally as breathing. Vance had heard once of a Darkrai of the very first order that had put every living thing in a city into a sleep it could not wake from.
A formidable thing indeed.
And thinking of that, Vance naturally thought of other things too. Was it possible the Godbeast Gang was already at work on other great Legendaries? Something stronger than Darkrai, say?
It did not seem impossible.
Thinking of it, Vance made a private note to report it to headquarters when he got back.
"Will you take this child? I think you would suit her very well."
The Alakazam looked over at him, its eyes in earnest.
Psychics draw the interest of Psychic-type Pokémon, the more so when the Psychic is a genuinely gifted one.
"You trust me as easily as that? You're not afraid I'll treat her badly?"
Vance said it with a faint smile. Did he simply have an honest face?
He had made himself up, too, and altered his features — from a good-looking young man into a face wholly unremarkable.
Who goes about out of doors wearing his own face?
Even inside the base Vance made his face up, and covered it with psychic power on top of that.
The people at the strongholds knew him chiefly by his papers, and by his voice and his build and the feel of him — that was how they picked him out.
Of the members at his stronghold, only Ambrose and Emery had ever seen his real face.
His Pokémon, of course, knew him regardless. They had been together so long, and knew one another so well, that faces hardly came into it; what he carried about him, the feel of him, was the main thing.
"I do trust you. These few days I have seen how you are with your Pokémon; and besides, you are a Trainer who holds the Viridian Power, and the true heart toward Pokémon that goes with it is plain enough to see."
Choosing Vance was a decision the Alakazam had made after watching and turning it over a long while.
Beyond the psychic power, the Viridian Power was the other reason it thought so well of him.
Whoever holds the Viridian Power must be one who loves Pokémon; it is a warm heart that has had its answer from the Viridian Forest.
"I'd be glad enough to take her in, but she may not be willing."
Vance spread both hands and gestured at the Ralts beside it, who was holding its hand, her eyes red, with tears still at the corners of them.
"The little one is not used to it yet, perhaps. I am sure you can manage it."
"I won't force her."
Vance said it mildly. The Ralts was a splendid creature and he would have liked to take her in, but if she was unwilling he would not press her.
A melon pulled off the vine by force is never sweet.
"Give me a little time."
Then the Alakazam said something to her, a low run of chatter, and the Ralts let go of its hand and came slowly up in front of Vance, watching him warily.
"Hello there, Ralts."
Vance crouched down and held out a hand to her.
"H— hello."
The Ralts seemed rather shy, and put both her small hands into his.
Vance smiled faintly, and the Viridian Power spread out from him.
The Ralts felt nothing but warmth. The man in front of her was very kind, and had what looked like a coat of warm light about him, which made her less anxious than before. There was something about him that she loved, as though she had come back to that forest with its lovely country and its bright sun.
Dimly, she seemed to see her mother and father appear in front of her.
"Papa. Mama."
The Ralts murmured it with her eyes unfocused.
The scene rippled and changed, and Vance's face came out of it.
Somehow, her feeling for Vance climbed higher and higher. She felt only that he was kind, like family.