"All right, that's about time. Rookies, get ready."
Bloodhand, the chief instructor, rose at the front of the cabin and announced it in a voice that carried.
"Line up in order. Jump in pairs."
"Whoooosh—"
The hatch opened and the gale outside came howling in, hard enough that nobody could keep their eyes open.
Vance gripped his pack and followed the others forward.
By now the aircraft carrying them had reached a vast island. Seen from above, most of it showed green — dense jungle, wrapped in a haze of mist.
"Awooo—"
"Ooooooh—"
"Rrraaargh—"
Roars carried out of the mist, one after another, as though telling of what the strong were doing to the weak inside it.
"Whoosh—"
At the head of the line two had already gone, dropping away below, and the next two stepped up and followed them out.
"You. Back of the line."
Bloodhand said it as the line moved, pointing at Vance.
"What? Chief Instructor, that's hardly fair."
Wilder objected the instant he saw Vance sent to the back.
His group had closed around Vance and were only waiting for the jump to begin before making their move. Being told now to put him at the back of the line did not sit well with him at all.
"You can't do that, we're already lined up."
The hangers-on beside Wilder chimed in to back him.
"Hardly fair? Are you negotiating with me?"
Bloodhand said it calmly, his eyes hard on them, the scars across his face carrying their own authority without any need for anger.
The pressure came down on them all at once.
"No, no."
Wilder said it immediately, wiping the cold sweat off his forehead.
"Thank you, Chief Instructor."
Vance did not refuse either. He walked to the back of the line and stood.
Bloodhand said nothing more and moved off elsewhere. What he had just done he had done offhand; the recruit who kept taking first place had left him with a decent impression.
That was as far as it went.
"Lucky you, kid. Pray you don't run into me down there. If you do, you're in for a bad time."
One of Wilder's hangers-on said it loudly, once Bloodhand had gone.
"A bad time? I want him dead."
Wilder said it viciously, his eyes poisonous on Vance.
Because of him, he had just lost face again, badly, and been rebuked by the chief instructor on top of it. That was not something he could accept.
Vance said nothing. He answered by drawing a finger across his throat.
The minutes went by, and the aircraft emptied out.
"Be careful, Vance. They say Wilder has backing. He'll have a few Pokémon on him that aren't weak."
The young man in glasses ahead of him in the line said it once Wilder's group had jumped.
"I know. You be careful too, Emery."
Vance answered.
The man was called Emery — tall and thin, an honest sort of face behind a thick pair of glasses, another Team Rocket recruit from this intake. They had crossed paths a few times during training.
"Here's hoping we both pass. See you."
And with that he leapt from the aircraft.
*Shame the trial is mostly fighting. It won't give you a chance to use what you can do with a computer.*
What had stuck with Vance about Emery was how strong he was with computers — outstanding in that part of the training. His Pokémon was another matter: a Machop, level 14, and nothing more.
Vance walked to the hatch and jumped without hesitating. They had trained for the drop, naturally.
"Whoooosh—"
The howling wind dragged his features out of shape. A thought, and a psychic barrier gathered around him and held the gale off. It was immediately far more comfortable.
"Aaaah—"
A scream reached him from somewhere out in the fall.
Several who had jumped earlier had been set upon by a flock of Spearow.
A human hanging under a parachute is, as a rule, no match for a Spearow in the air.
It did not take long. Blood sprayed across the sky and they were swallowed by the flock, and those few screams were the last sound they left this cruel world.
They were unlucky, dead in a Spearow's beak before they had even reached the island. Three months of grinding training, and an ending as careless as that. The turnaround they had longed for and the dream they had chased so hard scattered on the wind along with them.
The trial had begun the moment they left the aircraft. Perhaps the first test was simply coming through the flying Pokémon alive.
Vance took the opening and dropped fast toward the ground.
Other people's lives mattered less to him than his own.
When you walked through Team Rocket's door hoping for a sliver of a chance, death was likely the price.
"Fwump—"
Close to the ground he opened his chute and drifted down.
"Kreee—"
Two Spearow came in from a distance as he descended, closing fast, white light gathering on their beaks. Peck.
Vance was in no hurry about it. Blue light flickered in his eyes, and in the next instant he and the parachute both vanished from where they had been, and the two Spearow struck empty air.
It was a Psychic-type move: Teleport.
As a Psychic, Vance could naturally use it, and there was no better move for staying alive.
That too he owed to the system. An ordinary Novice Psychic could not manage it to this degree.
He reappeared elsewhere, clear of the Spearow, and glided down toward the ground. The thick trees covered him, and the pair above never found him.
He carried the glide into a few running steps across the ground and came to a stop.
"Landed."
Vance said it with a small laugh. With psychic power to help, the drop had gone smoothly.
He was about to gather up the lines when the bushes not far off began to rustle, and three purple shapes and one yellow burst out and came running at him.
"Rattata. And a Raticate."
He recognised all four at once, and there was no alarm on his face. He smiled instead.
An ordinary person with no Pokémon to protect them might well have bled out on the spot under an attack like that. Unfortunately for them, today they had run into him.
Vance reached back into his spatial pack, drew out an iron bar, and with blue light in his eyes vanished from where he stood.
"Raticaaate—"
The Raticate, running flat out at the front, did not notice that the Rattata behind it had been caught and held by a blue light. All it saw was the human figure ahead flicker and disappear, and it was still wondering where its prey had gone.
"Squeak—"
It was the cry of a Rattata behind it that finally made the Raticate turn.
"The three of you. Let's gently knock those sleeping minds awake."
Vance had teleported behind the three Rattata, and while his psychic hold still had them he swung the iron bar three times in succession, each blow landing precisely on a rodent skull.
"Clang, clang, clang—"
Iron met bone. All three Rattata short-circuited on the spot, dazed, and dropped to the ground.
The iron bar had been super effective. The Rattata were all but out of the fight.