"The Godbeast Gang are particularly keen on studying so-called Legendary Pokémon, with a view to controlling them. To come out this brazenly now, they may have made some kind of breakthrough." Giovanni gave his reading of it, tapping the desk lightly with the pen in his hand.
Vance stood quietly to one side and said nothing.
"Go down and rest for now. Put yourself properly back together."
Seeing how tired Vance looked, Giovanni sent him off to rest.
"Sir."
Vance took his leave and went down to rest.
Whatever came next could be left to the Boss to watch over. Barring surprises, Team Rocket was not going to let the Godbeast Gang's performance pass.
"They have issued a challenge, and we have accepted it. Get hold of Archer and the rest of them. Have them make the trip."
Once Vance had gone, Giovanni turned to Matori and spoke.
"Yes, sir."
Matori answered, and put a call through to Archer, one of Team Rocket's senior officers.
A blow taken called for a blow returned.
Team Rocket had to make its position plain, or what would the other dark powers make of them?
"Pass the word down as well. Members in the area around Dark City are to go and lend support, and to pick up whatever is left of the Dark City branch. If they see Jessie and the others, they are to report it."
Giovanni said it calmly, giving a second set of instructions.
Matori nodded, a small laptop balanced on her arm, and rattled the notices out.
*The Boss does care about those three after all.*
So Matori said to herself.
Vance came out of the room, went to the treatment area and got himself a treatment room.
He let the Gyarados and the rest of them out, and began mixing medicines.
The worst hurt was the Gyarados.
It had also been the bravest of them this time: single-handed and a whole tier below them, it had gone toe to toe with two of the enemy's Elite-Four-class Pokémon.
And it had crippled the pair of them, though it had taken no light injuries itself.
"Roar, roar. Boss, boss, I did all right this time, didn't I? Didn't let you down, did I?"
The Gyarados bared its teeth and grimaced through the dressing of its wounds. There were gashes in its belly still deep enough to show bone.
On the road there had been no time to see to them.
"You did very well. I hadn't expected you to be as good as that. You genuinely took me by surprise."
"Roar, roar."
Vance's words went down very well with the Gyarados, and it lifted its head high.
"I've taken that power fully into myself now. After a fight like that one I can feel a breakthrough coming, roar, roar."
"So I see. With everything you've built up, the Elite-Four-class bottleneck was never going to hold you. Keep at it."
Vance nodded and went on applying the salve, drawing up the Viridian Power within him to work alongside the medicine and heal it.
A little later, under that double treatment, the wounds deep enough to show bone had begun to close, covered over with a layer of raw red flesh.
After that Vance went on to treat and dress the Aerodactyl, the Zweilous and the others, and kept himself busy at it.
"Doesn't look like there's anything the two of us can do to help."
Off to the side the Kirlia and the Zorua watched Vance work in silence.
"Kirlia—"
The Kirlia went and stood in front of the Blaziken, held both hands out before her, and a teardrop-shaped knot of gathered energy appeared and was pushed forward until it sank into the Blaziken's body.
Gentle and pure, it spread through the Blaziken — and then a cold, dank force swept across it and it vanished on the instant, like a small flame in a bitter wind with no way to hold out.
Naturally, it did nothing at all for the Blaziken's injuries.
"Kirlia—"
The Kirlia looked rather crestfallen. She truly could not help.
No help in a fight, and no help in healing either.
"There, there. You're still small. Once you're grown it won't be a problem."
Vance patted her on the head as he passed, and went on treating the Blaziken.
"Blaziken! Keep at it. That healing of yours just now did make me a bit better."
The Blaziken put in a word of encouragement of his own, though there was a good deal of water in that "a bit".
By the time he had dealt with his Pokémon's injuries Vance was tired himself, and nine-tenths of the Viridian Power in him was gone.
"Boss, why wouldn't you let us use that evolution today?"
Vance had found a moment to sit down when the Aerodactyl asked it, putting out the question that had been on its mind.
"There are a good many reasons. Safety, mainly — and after that, the honing it gives you. Remember this, all of you." Vance stood up and spoke to the lot of them.
"This evolution is our secret, and an important one. It must not be given away on any account. If it gets out we will have a great deal of trouble on our hands — though of course that only holds while we're safe and in no danger."
Vance said it again for emphasis. It was not yet the moment for the thing to come out; he had not yet wrung enough profit from it, and beyond that there was the question of what the risk would do to their safety.
As matters stood, using it out of sight suited him very well.
If there had not been so many of them today, and the situation so tangled, then with Mega Evolution behind him — so long as the Dusknoir could have been held — the man who came at them would certainly have died.
...............
Across a broad lake swam a "Magikarp", enormous, its eyes dull, a faint light in the pupils. They shifted slightly, turning a full circle, as though taking stock of things.
The Pokémon around it passed by and noticed nothing wrong, without so much as a glance.
"Meowth. Our Magikarp — a good thing it was made ready well beforehand, or we'd never have got away this time."
Inside the "Magikarp" the trio were working the pedal arrangement built into it, feeding power to the machine.
Meowth was watching the screen in front of him, which showed what lay outside. On the whole, everything was normal.
Their pursuers had vanished. What mattered now was surviving out in the wild.
"I do wonder whether the Chief can hold him off. That man was so strong."
James said it, thinking back to that moment in the battle — that terrifying Dusknoir.
The three of them had met it more or less head-on, and had felt very clearly how formidable the other side was.
Their own Chief was only a Gym-class Trainer, wasn't he, and at the end of it he had told them to go on ahead and stayed to hold the enemy off himself.
A leader like that was a very fine thing indeed.
"We'll get clear first, then catch plenty of rare Pokémon and build ourselves up, and after that come back and avenge the Chief, meowth."
He was not the only one moved by it; Meowth and Jessie were just as moved.
Jessie, stirred, was about to say something when she felt a sudden lurch.
"It's a shoal of Gyarados, meowth."
Meowth was appalled. The commotion a moment ago had been the "Magikarp" they were driving running into a Gyarados and being knocked flying by its tail.
Without noticing it they had come to this place, and as far as the eye could see there were dark shapes, one after another, and every one of those shapes was a Gyarados.
A moment ago they had struck one of those shapes and been swatted for it.
"Roar, roar—"
Happily the Gyarados did nothing further and paid the "Magikarp" no more attention, perhaps because it took it for one of its own kind.