"Click, click—"
Over on one side, the cameras were rolling too.
Fame and fortune.
No wonder so many people wanted to enter the Conference.
Once you placed in it, the road ahead was smooth for life, and it served you wherever you went.
Vance even shook hands with the mayor of Celadon City, and for all that the man ran a whole city he treated Vance with great courtesy.
He could hardly do otherwise. Within the League's system Vance's post now ranked a shade above a mayor's, and he came out of League Headquarters besides, and held an inspection post at that.
Inspection did not mean Gyms alone. There was a great deal he could put his hand into; vetting the League's administrative personnel was one of his duties as well.
Hemmed in by the crowd, Vance walked toward the Gym with flattery filling his ears the whole way.
"That's enough now. I have business to see to, so we'll leave it there."
"Ha ha, of course, of course, you go on."
"Yes, yes, we'll call on you another day."
After a while Vance found it uncomfortable and told the rest of them to go. They were shrewd people, all of them, and took his meaning at once and left, until only Erika and her Gym staff remained.
"These are the Celadon Gym's financial records, these are the battle records for Gym challenges, and this is the Gym's property......"
"At present the Gym has thirty-two apprentices in all, of whom one is a Gym-class Trainer, six are Elite-class Trainers, and eleven are Advanced Trainers......"
Inside the Gym, one set of records after another was laid before Vance for his inspection.
Vance glanced over each and put it away; back at headquarters it would all go into the archive.
"These are the Pokémon the Gym raises. At present the Gym has 2 Elite-Four-class Pokémon, 23 Gym-class Pokémon, and Elite-class......."
Afterward Erika took Vance round to look over the Pokémon the Gym was raising.
All in all, the Celadon Gym did its reputation no discredit.
It had strength enough, and was quite fit to stand as a Gym.
"We'll have a battle, then. It's been a long while since I last matched myself against you, Gym Leader Erika."
Having looked over most of what there was to look over, Vance said it with a smile. This too was part of the inspection procedure: assessing the Gym Leader by battle performance.
Vance had no mind to make things difficult, and went about it in the simplest way available.
"Ha ha, after you, then."
Erika gave a frank laugh, and the two of them went out onto the battlefield.
"Venusaur."
"Blaziken."
The two Pokémon appeared at the same moment.
Venusaur was an Elite-Four-class Pokémon, and the Celadon Gym's strongest.
Blaziken, by contrast, was only of Gym-class strength and had not yet entered Elite-Four-class; and yet once it was out it showed not the least fear, and had all the look of a creature itching to begin.
His impression of Venusaur came down to one thing: it could take a hit.
A few minutes later, Venusaur went down with a crash.
The winner was Blaziken.
Blaziken had won, but had taken some damage doing it.
Erika's command was respectable enough.
"Well, I've lost. I wonder whether I can still pass this assessment."
Recalling Venusaur, Erika said it with a smile.
"Of course you can."
Vance nodded as he answered. From any angle you cared to look at it, the Celadon Gym was up to standard.
Venusaur losing to Blaziken was not going to drag the assessment down.
The inspection done, Vance politely declined Erika's invitation and left the Gym.
Since he had nothing pressing, he stayed a day in Celadon, wandering about, treating it as a holiday for himself.
Rested, he set out again on his round of Gym inspections.
He came to Pewter City, along the very road he had travelled when he was challenging for Badges — except that this time he was not the challenger but the examiner, and the one being assessed was the Gym Leader who had once assessed him.
The positions had been reversed.
Arriving in Pewter City, he naturally found a great crowd waiting for him.
The Gym Leader of the Pewter Gym was still Flint, that dark-skinned, narrow-eyed middle-aged man.
The same man Vance had run into back when he was newly out in the world and had drawn a dangerous mission.
On that occasion, the Team Rocket member named Percival had made a deep impression on him.
His entrance had been enormously showy, he had just broken through to Elite-Four-class, and he had been riding high indeed.
It was only the end of it that had gone badly. Somehow he came up against Flint and the rest, and then he was simply gone, and Vance had had to run for it in the night.
*?? Didn't he run off? How is he back again? It's a bit different from the anime.*
His thoughts came back to him, and Vance shook hands with the Flint standing in front of him all the same.
"A pleasure, a pleasure."
Vance said it with a smile.
"A pleasure indeed."
Flint laughed out loud as he said it.
"You look very like Brock."
The same dark skin, the same narrow eyes. It would be hard to argue they were anything but father and son.
"Ha ha ha, do I? A great many people say so."
Flint seemed a thoroughly hearty sort, laughing loudly again as he ushered Vance into the Gym.
The only thing was, Vance did not know whether that ability of his to tell Officer Jenny and Nurse Joy apart had awakened yet.
Vance himself could not tell them apart without resorting to his psychic powers, and yet Brock there in front of him could.
Genuinely uncanny.
Because it was an inspection, none of Brock's many younger brothers and sisters came out.
Having inspected the whole of the Pewter Gym, Vance proposed the last item, the battle with the Gym Leader.
"Ha ha ha, it makes no odds to me, no odds at all. Have as many rounds as you like, we're well within the assessment standard."
Flint went on laughing and agreed to it with a will.
It was a matter of strength: it meant he had nothing to fear from these assessments. He did not cut corners either, so there was nothing to be afraid of.
To the challenge Vance had proposed, Flint agreed with a laugh.
He soon stopped laughing.
Because every last one of his Pokémon was knocked over by Vance, first team and second team alike, not one of them spared.
His ace Pokémon in particular was beaten about in every style Vance could think of.
The hearty fellow was battered into silence.
There seemed to be nothing wrong with it; it was all within the rules of the assessment. And yet he felt something was not right. Search his memory as he might, he could not recall ever having given the young man offence.
It felt as though he was being singled out.
But it was all perfectly proper and by the book, and he could not find a thing to complain of.
Having given the man's Pokémon a sound beating, Vance felt rather pleased with himself. It settled the account for that undignified flight of his, more or less.