"I've three Elite-class Pokémon in hand now. Thank you for your help."
Emery said it in thanks. That he had come so far was the fruit of Vance's backing; without it he would have been doing well to have Advanced strength by now.
Emery knew well enough what his own strength came to.
And he could only marvel at having followed the right man. From first to last Vance had given him help, and all he had paid out for it was the doing of a few small jobs.
"It's nothing at all."
Vance shook his head with a small laugh.
The Pokémon he had given the two of them, the energy cubes and the rest of the supplies — all of them, all of them, were things he "didn't want" and had "weeded out."
To Vance they were nothing; to the two of them they were high-grade goods.
On their own they could never have come by them at all.
He thought nothing of it. Vance was willing to lay out capital on backing his own trusted men. If his own people were too feeble it would not do — they would be unable to get anything done, and no use to him.
It was a thing that did both sides good; there was no question of anybody losing by it.
"Emery, you're far too polite. I keep telling you: no thanks needed, no thanks needed. We're brothers, and we've a business to build between us yet. Look at Ambrose — see how natural he is about it."
"Heh heh, that's right, that's right, look how natural I am. What's the good of standing on ceremony with the boss? Emery, keeping too much distance is your trouble."
Ambrose put in after him.
Emery smiled, and took the reproach from the two of them without embarrassment. That was how he was, quite unlike Ambrose, who cared for nothing.
"I'm a bit behind. Only two Elite-class Pokémon. But if you want a hand with anything, boss, so long as I can give it, you've only to say."
Ambrose beat his chest and said it grandly.
"There'll be occasions. Oh — take these, and give a share to Talbot and the rest of them."
Vance took out a storage bracelet with a quantity of supplies in it.
His trusted men inside Team Rocket were not only these two; there were newer ones as well, being added to the number.
Vance had looked them all over, and they were not bad.
If a man had a mind to come over, he took him in; there would be people to do the work later on. Within Team Rocket there were always small groupings of one kind or another, which was natural enough.
So Vance setting up one of his own was nothing out of the way either.
"Right."
Emery took it. The rest of it he would see to well enough.
Vance was easy in his mind about that. Emery was a steady man and thoroughly reliable; Ambrose was a flighty character, but no worse at getting a thing done.
What the two of them wanted was strength along the Trainer's road.
Though with Vance's backing there, if they were no match for the very top, they could still be called above the middle.
While they were talking there was a stir outside again.
Vance put out his psychic power and saw that the people outside were the "trio".
"Who is it?"
Ambrose asked.
"Your cousin."
"Cousin? James, then. No wonder he asked me earlier whether I knew where you were. So that's what it was."
Ambrose said it slowly.
Before long the "trio" came into the house with presents in bags large and small.
"Good day, Branch Chief, sir."
And they greeted Ambrose and Emery as well.
"Sit down. And there's no need to call me Branch Chief. I don't hold the post any more."
Vance waved the "trio" to their seats and then said it.
"The three of us, on our first mission, were following you, Branch Chief, sir, and we had your care besides. In the hearts of the three of us, you are our Branch Chief."
James and Jessie were still thinking what to say when Meowth came out with it in a ringing voice.
"This Meowth has turned into a spirit, has it? It's better at the ways of the world than a human."
Ambrose glanced over at it, astonished.
The Meowth was growing more like a person all the time. Talking was one thing, but it understood the ways of the world besides; only listen to that — better put than an ordinary human would have put it.
If he had not known otherwise, he would have thought it was a human in a Meowth suit standing there talking.
"None of that. Let it be as it comes. What brings the three of you here? That's a good stall you're keeping."
Vance waved a hand and asked about it.
"That's..."
The "trio" looked at one another, working out how to say it.
"If it's awkward you needn't tell me. I shan't press. Take it as ordinary conversation — I'm only a few years older than you, after all."
"No, it's not that. Boss Giovanni has us at liberty. There are a great many people here, a great many Trainers, a great many rare Pokémon as well, so we came."
James spoke up.
"And once we'd come we didn't know what to do, so we set up a stall to raise some funds."
Jessie added.
"Funds? Doesn't headquarters give you any funds? Who deals with you while you're at liberty? The Boss? Or one of the senior people?"
The word "funds" struck Vance as something he had heard before.
In the story the trio were forever working odd jobs to save up funds. And here they were at it still.
"It was last time. We wrecked several machines out in the field — all Meowth's fault for not checking them properly — and then the funds ran short, and no more came down to us. At present the three of us take our orders from the Boss."
James said again.
After Vance left, the three of them had been assigned over to Giovanni, who set them nothing in particular and let them do as they pleased.
With no mission assigned to them, the trio had taken it into their heads to catch rare Pokémon, and in the last operation, through mishandling, had wrecked several machines.
"You can't blame me. I did check. It was you two who didn't warn me — I asked whether it was all right and you said it was all right, so I started it up."
Meowth argued back. It was not going to be shown up in front of Vance and the others; its own good name was at stake.
"And Matori, who deals with us, is a skinflint. Not like you, Branch Chief, sir — you were generous, you backed us with everything you had."
Vance heard it out, nodded, and said nothing.
Giovanni had asked for them after all, and of course it was Matori who handled them.
And just as before, the three of them were being singled out by Matori.
In the story, as he recalled, Matori did not get on with the trio either; and in the real thing the three of them had it the same way.
"Heh heh, that goes without saying. The Branch Chief, bless him, is famous for his generosity. That Matori woman is a strange one."
Ambrose still remembered doing a handover with her last time, and the little unpleasantness it had come to.
"That's right, that's right, the woman's a strange one, and she has it in for us. She won't release another penny."
Jessie said it full of indignation, and Meowth and James both nodded.
Set beside the treatment they had under Vance, it was a great deal worse; they even had to come out and keep a stall to earn money. It really was too much.
The good of it was that they were not bad at making money, and they had caught this Conference besides; once they had earned enough and got their equipment together, they could go and catch Pokémon.
This was the Indigo League Conference, after all. There were bound to be no few rare Pokémon about.