"Hmph. Nothing to it at all."
Butch threw a Poké Ball and took in the Pokémon lying on the ground.
"With this lot the two of us should place well enough. Leave Jessie and those other good-for-nothings far behind."
Cassidy said it scornfully, filing her nails with a nail clipper.
For whatever reason, she simply did not get on with Jessie. There was a natural bad blood between them and they were forever at daggers drawn.
"Oh dear, oh dear, why think about it so much? It's nearly over anyway. Come on, let's catch a few more Pokémon."
Butch urged her along.
"All right, all right. Bu—"
Cassidy meant to call him by name, and then could not remember it.
"Miss Cassidy, my name is Butch. Your own partner. Do try to remember it."
One look at her face and Butch knew his partner had forgotten his name again, and he corrected her once more.
He did not understand it either. Was his name so very hard to remember? Why was it that this partner of his either forgot the name or got it wrong?
Not that it mattered. He was used to it.
The two of them walked on into the thick of the forest and got on with the assessment mission.
All at once there was nothing under their feet. The ground had given way, and the pair of them fell together and hit the bottom of the pit hard.
"Owww— that hurts. What is this? Why is there a trap here??"
Cassidy felt as though her backside had split in two.
"Since you ask so sincerely—"
A woman's voice came from above, answering her.
"Who's up there?"
Cassidy demanded it, but the people above went on with their own lines and paid her question no attention.
"—we shall be merciful and tell you."
Then came a man's voice.
"To keep the world from ruin."
"To guard the peace of the world."
"To carry through the evil of love and truth."
"The lovely and charming villains of the piece."
"Jessie! James!"
"We are Team Rocket, running through the galaxy!"
"A white hole — a white tomorrow is waiting for us!"
"That's how it is, meowth."
A talking Meowth sprang out and shouted the last of it.
"So it's you lot!! What is all this nonsense!"
The moment the words were out, the atmosphere the three had built up was broken by the shrill voice from below.
Cassidy and Butch were glaring furiously up at the two people and the one Pokémon above them.
All that mystery, and it turned out to be these three idiots.
"Who'd have thought it, Cassidy? Fallen into my hands, have you? Ha ha ha."
Jessie laughed wildly with her hands on her hips. Catching her old rival like this felt better than anything ever had.
"What do you want?"
Butch held the raging Cassidy back and shouted it up at them.
By his eye it was three or four metres to ground level. Down in here there was nowhere to run.
The place was plainly a trap of their designing.
"Ha ha ha, what do we want? To rob you, of course. Hand over what you've caught, meowth."
"Not a chance. You're hardly going to kill the two of us."
Cassidy would have none of it, and the pair's Pokémon came out of their balls: a Houndour and a Hitmontop.
The Houndour was a small canine Pokémon; the Hitmontop stood only about a metre and a half and was not large either, being the evolved form of a Tyrogue.
"True enough, we can't kill you. But nobody said we couldn't make you suffer."
Jessie said it coldly. Instructor Viper's rules being what they were, they did not dare use a killing hand — but a little torment was another matter.
"Damn it. Hitmontop, jump up there."
Butch would not sit and wait to be finished off. He sent his Hitmontop leaping out of the pit to win the two of them an opening.
The Hitmontop was a Fighting-type Pokémon and nimble with it, and a pit three or four metres deep was no barrier to it. It sprang off the two walls of the pit and was on its way up.
"Not so easily. Ekans, use Poison Sting. Stop it getting out."
"Ksss—"
An Ekans appeared, and a volley of Poison Sting drove the leaping Hitmontop back to where it had started.
"You come out as well, Koffing."
James called out his own Pokémon, the Koffing.
It settled beside the Ekans, keeping watch on the pit below.
"Do you two see that? That is a Koffing. And if it were to send a little gas down there... Ha ha ha."
Jessie said it with a nasty grin.
"Oh, and tell your Houndour to be careful. Fire and gas together are very dangerous."
James put in from beside her.
"I..."
"That's enough, Cassidy. We concede. As things stand, we've lost."
Butch held Cassidy back again. He had seen how things stood.
"I'll give you some, but not all of it. Take it if you want it, and leave it if you don't. We'll take our knocks and accept them — you can't kill us in any case."
With that he took out seven shrunken Poké Balls and threw them up.
James and the other two exchanged a glance, gathered up the Poké Balls and made themselves scarce.
It was as he had said: they could not kill anybody, and a haul like that was quite enough.
"I can't help feeling we could have gone on. What did you signal us to run for, James?"
The two of them and Meowth ran a long way before they stopped.
"That was about enough. Any further and it would have been hard to finish well."
"We'll let it go this time. Ha ha ha — Cassidy's nose must be crooked with rage. Revenge at last."
James and Meowth saw her and laughed along with her.
"And that opening speech wasn't bad at all. We'll do it that way from now on."
Jessie decided it.
"Mm, mm. I thought it was very good too."
"Meowth too."
James and Meowth said it in the same breath. Delivering that speech had put a good deal of spirit into them, and given them a fine air of authority.
It suited their standing as villains exactly.
...............
"Still no word?"
Vance asked it idly. The word he meant was about the Godbeast Gang's attack on Delaney.
"None. It's still being looked into."
Emery answered from beside him. Besides running the logistics he doubled on the intelligence side, and was doing well enough at it so far.
"Good. Keep at it, then. Get in touch with our people on the inside and see whether anything can be learned."
"Right."
While they were talking Vance felt something and looked up.
There was a familiar presence up there, standing still, and trying to reach him.
"Go and get on with your work. There's something I have to see to just now."
"What is it? Can I help?"
Emery asked. He might well be of no use, but he wanted to ask all the same.
"No need. It isn't an attack. I'm going out for a while."
With that Vance's figure vanished from where it stood and was away outside.
Outside, in front of an utterly unremarkable hill, the Alakazam had appeared.
"This should be the place."
The Alakazam said it to itself. Vance had given it the address before it left, which was how it came to be here.
The Alakazam had settled the few matters it had in hand. What was left to it was to watch the Ralts grow up; there was not a great deal of its life remaining.