One day, while Vance was still at work in his office, Emery pushed the door open and came in with delight all over his face.
"What is it, Emery? What's got you so pleased? Don't tell me you've found yourself a girlfriend."
Vance looked up and said it to tease him.
"Hah, no, not that. Something better than a woman. My Pokémon has broken through to Elite. From now on I'm an Elite-class Trainer myself."
Emery laughed aloud, and his heart was light with it. At last. At last he was an Elite-class Trainer too.
"Congratulations, congratulations."
Vance smiled at that and gave him his congratulations.
An Elite-class Trainer was nothing very much in his own eyes, but for an ordinary person Elite was no easy thing to reach.
Enough to be proud of.
With as many Trainers as there were every year, there was no telling how many of them ever got that far.
You could say that reaching Elite put a man past sixty or seventy per cent of the rest.
"Thank you, Vance. Without you I might never have made the breakthrough."
Emery meant it. His Pokémon's breakthrough to Elite owed a good deal to Vance's help — a certain amount of supplies provided, and a great deal of useful guidance besides. That was what had brought him to today.
"Don't mention it. You'll be working for me for a long while yet."
Vance said it with a smile crinkling his eyes.
"Hah. From Trial Island onward this life of mine has been yours. I'll be working alongside you from here on."
The two of them bumped fists, and both of them laughed.
They sat down facing each other and fell to chatting about this and that.
"Your Machamp's aptitude is limited, so you could raise another Pokémon alongside it. Come to think of it, are you interested in a starter? If you are, make out the requisition, I'll sign it, and it will be here in a few days."
Vance said it easily. A starter Pokémon, so precious to a newcomer, so longed after, was a resource he could now call on.
Putting in a special request for a few of them for his own men was of no consequence.
Even if Giovanni saw it he would only smile and then approve it.
Starters were precious, but he was worth more.
"Really?"
Delight came over Emery's face.
"Of course really. Would I lie to you? Which one do you want? I'll ask headquarters for it when I get a moment; it shouldn't be any trouble. Tell Ambrose as well — we'll put one aside for him too."
Asking for one and asking for two came to the same thing, so Vance meant to ask for two and give his two men an upgrade in Pokémon.
As for himself, he had no need of one.
Not one of his was any weaker than a starter.
He was no longer the Team Rocket Squad Leader who would have taken risks to seize a starter, as he had once.
Emery thanked him warmly, of course. This boss of his was dependable and open-handed, a man worth following.
And Ambrose, once the news reached him, came rushing over in a great hurry and named the Pokémon he wanted.
In the end Emery asked for a Bulbasaur, and Ambrose for a starter from the Hoenn region, a Treecko.
"Boss, is it quite all right, us doing it this way? Emery and I both get one and nobody else does."
Ambrose raised the question.
"Oh? How is it not all right? Am I supposed to issue one to every man we have??"
"No, you're not."
Ambrose said it with an embarrassed laugh.
"Still, you have a point, we ought to take the rest of them into account. So we'll request a few more starters, and some other Pokémon besides, and a few move-training manuals. Yours aside, the rest can serve as incentives. Whoever earns them takes them."
Vance thought about it and decided he might as well. With what Giovanni had said before, they could start with this much.
Ambrose and Emery both thought it good, and nodded.
Inside the Dark City branch, the Team Rocket members of the branch received a notice: outstanding performance would earn starter Pokémon, move-training manuals and the like.
As for the standard of outstanding, it was to be measured by contribution on the missions they carried out.
The notice went out, and of course there was an uproar.
Their Branch Chief was handing out benefits.
And substantial benefits at that. In the past they had had to exchange for such things with their own contribution; now they did not.
There was no denying it: Vance was an open-handed man.
The Division Commanders were impressed as well. They could afford the exchange themselves, but it would have stung; it would have cost a great deal of effort and strength.
Now they did not have to, and however the Branch Chief had come by it all, it was a mark of what he could do.
It was not that they could not afford the exchange. It was that this was better value.
Once the matter had been reported up the line, Vance took a call. It was Blaine, from Cinnabar Island.
He said his research had made progress and there were some results now, and asked whether Vance would like to come over and see; there was something good waiting for him.
"Results? And something good on top of it? I'll go and have a look, then."
Vance thought it over and decided to go and see.
Handing matters over to Ambrose and the rest, Vance mounted the Aerodactyl and flew for Cinnabar Island.
Cinnabar Island is built on a volcanic island, and as he flew in he could feel the heat of it coming at him.
"Aerodactyl, over there."
"Roar, roar—"
The Aerodactyl came in above the Cinnabar Gym, and below it someone he knew was already waiting for him.
"Branch Chief Vance."
Rufus spoke first with the greeting. Envy crossed the back of his eyes as he looked at the magnificent Aerodactyl, and then his resolve settled back into place.
Vance nodded and gave a quiet grunt of acknowledgement.
"This way, please. The Gym Leader is expecting you. Oh, and Dr. Fuji is here as well."
Rufus gestured, and led the way ahead.
"Dr. Fuji is here too?"
Vance's brows drew together slightly. What was that one doing here?
He had never met the man, but he had heard a good deal about him.
This Dr. Fuji was a senior doctor of Pokémon science in his own right, and somewhat stronger in research than Blaine.
As the story went, he was to take part in the Mewtwo research as well.
"Yes. Dr. Fuji has been on Cinnabar these last few days, working through it together with Master Blaine, and that is how these results came about."
Rufus told him the plain truth of it.
"Mm."
Vance nodded slightly and went into the base with him.
The Cinnabar Gym on Cinnabar Island was under Team Rocket's covert control as well.
Inside the base there was a very large laboratory too, holding every kind of experimental apparatus, with researchers in white coats coming and going and thick layers of documents in their hands.
That was what a professional research environment looked like, not like the one back in Dark City, which was a shoestring outfit.
Not that it was surprising. There was no great figure presiding over his, and it was only a laboratory built because one was expected.
*Something good waiting for me? What sort of good thing? Don't tell me they've already worked it out. Built themselves a Suicune — is the good thing a Suicune??*
Vance thought it over as he walked. Earlier, as Blaine was leaving, he had said what sounded like a joke: once they had one developed, he would make Vance a present of a Legendary Pokémon. And now here he was, called over and told there was something good waiting for him.
Which led Vance to wonder whether the good thing might be a Legendary Pokémon.
With Rufus leading the way, Vance came to his destination. Two figures stood before a tall glass chamber.
Inside the chamber a mass of blue was floating.
The thing was like a gas and yet not a gas; it was not a liquid, and still less a solid.
Looking at it, a dense pressure rose off it as well, stirring up a haze of water vapour, and there seemed to be the howl of a north wind in it.
That presence was so familiar. It seemed to come from the Suicune.