"This terrorist attack has provisionally been established as the work of Team Rocket members. The perpetrator is no weakling — Elite-class strength, at our estimate. We are already in possession of material on him, and we will step up the pursuit and guarantee the safety of this city............"
On the television, Delaney, who had charge of the case, laid it out with a serious face.
"Well now. This Delaney has something about him, if he can guess it was us."
"Heh. Blind cat, dead mouse. There's no counting how many times Officer Delaney has used that line — go and look it up, he said the same the last several times. Team Rocket is practically his business partner by now."
Emery laughed under his breath, with a certain contempt for the Delaney holding forth on the screen.
Vance said nothing, eating his breakfast, watching the news quietly.
A weapon in the hand breeds a will to kill.
Since he had come off Trial Island with a certain amount of strength behind him, the way he thought about things had changed.
Killing was something the old him would never have dared. Now Vance found that it did not trouble him one way or the other.
As a member of Team Rocket, if you did not even dare to kill, what on earth were you doing there?
Vance kept his own position in mind too. He was a Team Rocket member, part of a dark organisation — the villain of the piece, if this were an anime — and if he went soft he would be the one to die.
Besides not going soft, he had to be forceful, he had to be cruel, and he had to climb, one step at a time.
"Rrrar, rrrar—"
A clatter of noise broke into his thinking. He looked toward it, and it was Gyarados and Vigoroth.
It was breakfast time, so everyone's Pokémon were out to eat as well, and somehow Gyarados and Vigoroth had got into it again.
Emery's and Ambrose's Pokémon kept off to one side and did not dare come forward, for fear of getting on the wrong side of the two big men.
"That's mine."
"It's mine, you mean!"
What the two of them were fighting over was a tray of energy cubes.
"Last night I beat more Pokémon than you did."
"Rubbish. I beat more. By rights those cubes are mine."
"Why, you little thing. Don't you know to show your big brother some respect?"
"Big brother, is it? You can't even beat me and you call yourself the big brother. I'm the big brother."
Vigoroth was not having it. Vance had caught him; the great oaf in front of him had nothing to do with it, and if it came to strength the oaf was the weaker of the two. How was he supposed to accept that?
"First come, first served, don't you understand that? I came first and you came after. If you're not number two, who is? Hey — the boss is calling you over there."
"Hm?"
Vigoroth turned his head to look at Vance and found that nobody had called him at all.
In the moment his head was turned, Gyarados had the energy cubes and tipped them into his mouth.
"Heh heh. They're mine now. You're too young, number two. You want to understand that life isn't all fighting and killing. Look at you, all muscle and nothing upstairs. You ought to use your head more."
"Ah — damn you! You great oaf, how dare you insult me!"
At that, and at the smug look on Gyarados, Vigoroth hopped on the spot in a rage.
He was new to the human world and had not got his head around parts of it yet, and now that great oaf Gyarados had played him for a fool.
"No, no, no. That was not an insult. That was a statement of fact."
"Damn you! A man born between heaven and earth cannot sit for ever beneath another. Aaah!"
And with that, Vigoroth's presence flared bright around him.
"Well, big oaf? Would you like to see today what I can really do?"
"You may find I'm no worse than you."
The two of them squared off, and it was about to come to blows.
"Stop, stop, stop. What is it this time? If there isn't enough to eat, say so. What's the temper for?"
Vance called a halt to it, took several boxes of energy cubes out of his spatial bracelet and set them down in front of the pair.
"Hmph."
Only then did the two of them break off, and neither touched the cubes in front of him. It had never been about eating before either; it was about which of them held the place of elder.
"Bit of a headache, this."
Seeing the childishness of the two of them, Vance knew well enough what was behind it. Gyarados had been at his side from the start and was afraid Vigoroth would take his place, while Vigoroth had only just been caught and wanted to prove what he was worth.
"If you've energy to spare, let's see whether the pair of you can get through today's training."
"Of course I can. The training has been far too light. I want it heavier, and an hour longer as well."
Gyarados roared it, with a challenge in the look he threw at Vigoroth. If they were not allowed to fight, then training would settle who was who.
"So do I. The training these last few days has been far too easy. Make mine harder still, and two hours longer."
Vigoroth came straight back with it. He was not about to back down, and he had no intention of coming second to Gyarados in training either.
"Three hours. As hard as it comes."
"Same for me."
*So we're grinding against each other now, are we?* Vance thought. "All right, all right. There's plenty for both of you. I hope you can both stick it out."
It did not worry Vance, the pair of them being like this. They had spent little time together so far; once the two of them matured a bit and had been around each other longer, it would stop.
Neither of them was old, in point of fact. They were like children, and even the voices that came through the telepathy were young ones.
Their physicals put Gyarados at two years old and Vigoroth at a year and a half — "children", by the standards of their own kinds.
He had a word with Emery and Ambrose, then took the two of them off to the training room.
As one of Team Rocket's important bases the place naturally had training rooms, and not only training rooms; there were rooms here for every purpose you could think of.
Once training began, Vance set Vigoroth to lifting weights and had Gyarados go on working on Ice Beam and the rest of his moves.
"Hmph."
Vigoroth put down the five-hundred-kilogram training weight, picked up the thousand, drew every muscle in his body tight and heaved it up to begin.
"Ho ho—"
Gyarados saw it, and the ball of freezing light in his mouth grew larger, cold spilling off it in every direction. It went out with a rush, and the area it froze over was wider than before.
The two of them exchanged a look, turned their heads away, and quietly pushed each other harder.
After a while Vigoroth sat cross-legged on the floor with eighteen ink-black spheres the size of fists around him, shifting them into one shape after another under his control.
Ordinary training used only twelve. Showing off, perhaps: today he was using eighteen.
"Splooosh—"
Gyarados raised an enormous waterspout with himself at the centre of it, driving it forward and drawing it back, working toward what Vance had described: attack and defence held together in one.
Its force looked greater than before, and it carried more weight behind it as well.
He was quietly putting more power into it too, for Vigoroth to see.
So the two of them went on measuring themselves against each other, the training heavier with every round of it.
"Do these two not know that you can overdo a thing? I'll have to knock some sense into them shortly."
Vance was some way off with a book in his hands. When he glanced over and saw the pair of them at it, he very nearly laughed.
Ever since Vigoroth had joined, the two of them had been grinding away at each other. In battle it was who beat the most; now in training it was who trained the longest and who trained the hardest.