The Aerodactyl's shape swept past at speed, with Vance standing on its back.
It was in remarkably good spirits. That was Pokémon for you — strength is what gives you your confidence.
These last few days it had been in fine form.
Even its flying had an extra lift to it.
In its good mood it had ridden the feeling straight through a bottleneck and into level 49.
One more step towards true Gym-class, and with a Mega Evolution to fall back on besides, the Aerodactyl felt it was ready to take off in life.
A long while later the Aerodactyl came down on the outskirts of Dark City, where a squad of Team Rocket members was already waiting.
"Branch Chief, sir."
Talbot stepped forward with the greeting, his manner respectful.
That business when Vance had gone head-on against an Elite-Four-class Suicune to buy the rest of them a chance to run had won the man over completely.
A superior who would buy his men a way out was a good superior — better than the so-called good superiors who handed out money and influence.
After all, a man only gets one life.
"Mm. You've found something this time?"
Vance dropped down off the Aerodactyl's back and said it mildly.
"Yes, sir. We found traces of the Godbeast Gang operating in the north-eastern corner of Dark City, and a covert reconnaissance turned up a base of theirs there as well."
Talbot answered, then had one of his men come forward to give Vance the details.
That man was the one who had done the scouting.
He laid out everything he had found for Vance, point by point.
Vance did not speak. There was thought in his face.
*Was this worth taking on?*
Since the last heavy round of reprisals against the Godbeast Gang they had gone quiet, and naturally they had left bases behind them.
"We don't need to move on this ourselves. Have someone leak it to the League. Deputy Mayor Delaney will go."
After a moment Vance gave his answer, and threw the thing to the League to handle.
"Sir."
Vance went on into the base and straight to his own office.
Team Rocket was a priority target for the League, and most of its bases were built underground; naturally, even a Branch Chief's office had no view out of a window to speak of.
He opened the door to find Ambrose working through paperwork. It had been some days since they had last met, and the man had taken to a pair of glasses that made him look faintly more refined.
Ambrose caught the movement and looked up, and when he saw it was Vance he broke into a grin.
The grin wiped out what little refinement there had been and left nothing but the reprobate.
"Damn it, you're finally here. I'm done, I'm not doing it any more. See this? I'm wearing glasses now."
Ambrose pointed at the glasses on his face and made a great noise about it.
"Doesn't that make you look refined, though? The grown women out there seem to like exactly that type."
Vance shrugged and said it offhandedly.
"Besides, aren't you the one who understands outsourcing? Why are you doing it all yourself? Where's your outsourcing chain?"
"Like hell. This paperwork can't be outsourced at all, and even if it could I wouldn't trust anyone else with it."
Ambrose swept up a few stacks of documents and set them down in front of him.
Vance looked, and they were genuinely important matters — the allocation of supplies, and the business of new members arriving from headquarters before long.
All of it was properly Vance's own work, but he had signed the authority over to Ambrose and Emery.
And Ambrose would not leave it to anyone else either, so he had been sitting over it himself.
If something went wrong, his boss would be the one to feel it, and that was the last thing he wanted.
"Mm, mm. Hard work, hard work."
Vance said it, and there was no denying that having people he trusted made life easy.
With Ambrose and Emery in this branch, with the two of them watching it, he could be away a long time and nothing would come of it.
Talbot counted as half of one as well.
Ambrose was still grumbling.
"Come now, isn't this a win-win?"
Vance clapped his hands once and said it with a laugh.
"?? What win-win?"
"Think about it. This way I get to go out and train in the field. That's one win."
"And then?"
"And then when I do come back to base I don't have to deal with all this troublesome business. That's two wins. Win twice and that's a double win, so it's a win-win, isn't it?"
That was Vance's idea of a win-win. Win twice, and it was a win-win.
"You're really something."
After they had gone back and forth a while, Vance dealt with the business as he went, then went to find Emery, and the three of them went out for a meal together.
After the meal Vance took a hand in training their Pokémon as well, coaching the two of them and offering a great deal of forward-looking advice.
At his present level of attainment as a Trainer, coaching two Advanced Trainers cost him no effort at all.
...............
"In the trial ahead you are to do everything in your power to pass it. You may cooperate while it lasts, you may attack one another, but there will be no killing blows. We have observation equipment set up inside the trial grounds. Is that understood?"
Viper shouted it down at the crowd below him. Their faces were young, and full of longing for the trial.
*A real fight at last. Marvellous.*
That was what they were thinking.
Because they were a special case, every one of them from a background of some standing, they did not have to go through the thousand cruelties and the outright danger to life of the trial Vance and his intake had faced.
Their training time and the content of their training were somewhat different as well.
So in the trial ahead there was only anticipation in them, and none of the tension, the weight, the fear.
Because there was no danger to their lives in their trial.
Even inside Team Rocket there were differences; enjoying better treatment simply meant clearing a certain threshold first.
"James, are we teaming up again?"
From inside the crowd, Jessie spoke to James.
"Of course we are. The two of us are the best partners going."
James said it at once. They had worked together a number of times since they had first met, and naturally they would work together again this time.
Fate, perhaps. Both of them felt they should have met years earlier.
"You'll be adding me too, meow."
A Meowth walking upright with a backpack on came out from behind them and spoke to the pair of them.
By rights, a Meowth that walked upright and spoke human speech besides ought to have drawn a great many stares.
But the people around them seemed used to it, and did not so much as glance over.
"You're not a person. You only count as a Pokémon."
James gave him a glance and fobbed him off.
There was no telling why, but besides the familiarity he felt with Jessie, he got on remarkably well with this Meowth who had barged in on them.
The two of them and the one Pokémon fell in together entirely naturally, which was a strange thing in itself.
"Meow. Field work, is it? With me, Meowth, along, I can do the talking with them for you when the time comes. There might even be a marvellous effect, meow."
Meowth said it with perfect composure, and licked a paw.
He was the Meowth that Boss Giovanni had taken a liking to, the Meowth that was a special Pokémon.
That was why he had been specially permitted to slot into this training.
*Hmph. He, Meowth, would put on a fine showing. He would make Boss Giovanni see what he had in him.*
*As for that Persian — just wait. One day he, Meowth, would be back, and the one at the Boss's side would be him, Meowth, and nobody else.*
So Meowth thought. His greatest dream at that moment was to get into Giovanni's good graces.
"Mm, mm. The three of us working together are bound to be unstoppable."
Jessie said, following on after him.
Both of them crouched down and high-fived Meowth together.
"Oho. Unstoppable, is it. I could die laughing."
The jeer came from a woman-looking figure across from them. Beside her stood a green-haired man, and as she opened her mouth he chimed in from her side.
"Cassidy, Butch, the two of you are truly tiresome. Always going on about dying of laughter — how is it I've never seen you die?"
Jessie shot back, with James and Meowth pitching in to help.
Those two had never got on with them, and the two sides were forever needling each other.
The people to either side paid no attention, and watched the two groups quarrel with amusement on their faces.
"Silence!"
Viper barked them down, then made an announcement to the several of them.
"You lot have broken discipline. Your supplies are cut by thirty per cent."
"Thirty per cent..."
Under Viper's commanding stare, James and the others could only hand over their supplies meekly, cursing their luck under their breath.
They glared at each other, and another grudge was added to the account.