Whether or not the credit belonged to Ambrose, in the days after they came back from the party people really did turn up at the door looking to do business.
Vance came out to meet them, settled several arrangements, made their acquaintance, and could be said to have made a first entry into the business circles of Celadon City.
"Mind how you go."
Vance saw a partner out, and coming back he found Ambrose hunched over his phone, giggling at something or other.
"Tell me something. Have we drifted off course? We look more like businessmen every day." Vance found a seat and poured himself a glass of water.
"That's exactly how it should be. The best place to hide is in plain sight, and the further in we get, the more we can find out." Ambrose turned from his phone to answer.
He was thoroughly pleased with life as it was now. What could be better? No fighting for his life, no danger at every turn — just slacking off and drawing a wage. Heaven.
"Right. You two mind the place. I'm going out to train the Pokémon. They haven't moved in days." Vance finished his water and said it.
Whatever else was true, the strength of his Pokémon always came first. He was not about to let a mission hold back their growth. That was putting the cart before the horse, and it did not serve his own fundamental interests.
"Fine, off you go. I can mind the shop."
"We should hire a few people. Then you two can get clear of it as well, and the three of us only need to look in now and then. Whether it makes money doesn't matter — it isn't what we live on."
Vance made the suggestion, looking at Ambrose on his phone and, further off, Emery tapping away at the television table.
"Done."
Emery stopped typing and said it happily.
"Done what?"
"Our company website, and a till system for the shop. I've entered everything into it. Didn't you say you wanted to hire people? With the computer to help it'll be easier."
Vance went over to look. The website, the trademark, all of it was finished, and put up online it looked quite the real thing.
"Not bad at all. Fast work." Vance nodded, satisfied, and thought well of his decision to save the two of them back then. Both of them had real ability.
"Hire some staff as soon as you can, and hand the odd jobs over bit by bit so you have time to train. Neither of you is to let your Pokémon training slide."
Vance said his piece and went out.
The early odds and ends were behind them, and he could get down to training.
As long as no mission came down from Team Rocket he would carry on with this intelligence-gathering job, and since he was a Squad Leader and the senior man on it, nobody supervised him. He could slack off in broad daylight and nobody would say a word.
Ten minutes or so later Vance arrived at Team Rocket's secret base, passed the identity check and went down to the lower levels.
The members coming and going all had the hurried look of people wanted somewhere else. Vance went straight to the training room, pressed his ID card to the panel and went in.
"Roar, roar—"
"Grrooo—"
"What's this? Not training properly. What are the pair of you doing?"
The moment he was through the door he found the two Pokémon glaring at each other, neither one willing to give way.
Only when they saw Vance come in did the two of them snort and go off to train separately.
"Ah, it's no easy thing being a parent. Two little terrors, and both of them stubborn as mules."
Vance pressed at his brow, turning over a solution in his mind. Neither of these two stubborn things would yield to the other, and it could not go on like this.
A competent Trainer got the Pokémon under him living in harmony, helping one another, pulling in the same direction.
"Come here, come here, both of you. I have something to announce."
Vance called them over.
Gyarados and Vigoroth were in front of him soon enough. The two of them could not stand each other, but they had genuine respect for their Trainer.
Both his strength and his skill as a Trainer had their acknowledgement.
"Is there something, boss?"
"Nothing much. I was only thinking we might hold a sparring match between the two of you. Let's set it a month from now. Over this month you both train properly, and anything you don't understand you can come and ask me. I'll adjust the training to fit how each of you is coming along, and make you stronger."
Vance laid out his plan unhurriedly. Both Pokémon agreed the moment they heard it, and the look they exchanged was pure fighting spirit.
The arrangement suited them exactly. As they were now, both of them felt strength running through every part of them, and the appetite for training had come with it.
"Boss, I have a question to raise."
Gyarados said, looking at Vance.
"What question?" Vance looked at him and answered.
"I need a training room of my own. I don't want him learning my finishing move ahead of time. Hmph. A month from now I'll cut him down where he stands."
"Yes, exactly. I need a room of my own as well. I don't want to train alongside him and let him see what I'm holding."
Vigoroth put in quickly.
"A training room each, is it? All right. Consider it arranged."
Vance agreed on the spot, went out to have a word with the facility manager and applied for another training room. The new one went to Vigoroth.
With a room each, the two of them threw themselves into training with an enthusiasm that overflowed, going at it hammer and tongs, which rather took Vance by surprise.
"At this rate the two of them are going to come on very fast inside the month."
Vance gave himself credit for a sensible plan. It would speed up how fast they both grew stronger.
It suited the moment as well. He had nothing much on, only to stay in Celadon City and gather intelligence, and he had no need of the pair of them; far better that they trained properly. Perhaps in a month they would have a surprise for him.
Day after day their enthusiasm did not slacken. They trained with everything in them, each hoping to beat the other, and the energy cubes and the rest of their supplies went down fast — far faster than before.
Fortunately Vance had deep enough reserves and good enough supply behind him to keep up with the pair of them carrying on like that.
One day Vance came into the training room that was Vigoroth's and found him reading a book the moment he stepped through the door — absorbed in it, with the air of a creature getting a great deal out of it.
A Pokémon reading a book was an absurd sight, but where Vigoroth was concerned it made sense.
Between training sessions Vigoroth also watched television, and he had seen a film: the story of a group of Pokémon helping a prince take the throne. In it an Alakazam read the way humans do, drawing knowledge out of books, and grew so uncannily clever that it produced one brilliant stratagem after another and won merit again and again.
The way it planned campaigns from behind the lines and read the enemy before the enemy moved had made an impression on Vigoroth, and set him thinking about reading and studying the way a human does.
That day Vance had been drawing up a training plan for Vigoroth when Vigoroth came over and put the idea to him.
Vance was surprised, and very much in favour, and produced a stack of books for him to read. What he had not expected was that Vigoroth understood human writing and could actually read them.