"Rraah, rraah—"
Aerodactyl flew on through the sky, and Vance on its back was looking at the country below.
Getting to call on Professor Oak this time counted as a piece of unlooked-for luck.
He had met Ash and Gary, the protagonists of days to come, as well, and sighed a little over the workings of chance.
As for why Daisy Oak had been set upon, and the rest of it, he was not getting involved again. Coincidence or design, it was not his to manage.
With Professor Oak's connections and influence, he was sure the truth could be got at.
"If only I'd been born in Pallet Town. Would have saved me a hell of a lot of grief."
Vance looked down at Pallet Town below, thriving as it was.
A town it might be called, but the ground it covered was no small thing, it had every kind of provision, and Professor Oak sat at the heart of it.
Its safety went without saying.
The people who lived here, whichever household they belonged to, had no need to fret about a living. The town authorities of Pallet Town provided every Pallet Town citizen with all kinds of security — medicine, education, Pokémon resources and the rest.
The people born here were fortunate indeed.
It was only from up above, looking at the people below, that such thoughts came to Vance.
It really was lovely. The lives the people here led were just as they had been in the anime.
"Aerodactyl, fly this way. We'll take a look over by Mt. Hideaway and see whether that Pokémon is there."
Vance spoke and pointed in a direction — the direction of Mt. Hideaway.
Mt. Hideaway was not very far from Pallet Town, and since he had come this far he might as well go and look.
If he could run into that Pokémon, so much the better; he could catch it on the spot and add to the line-up in his hands.
In the anime there was a giant Onix at Mt. Hideaway.
Ash had run into it here during his special training, and had met Bruno of the Elite Four besides.
And afterwards Bruno had gone at the Onix with his bare body and caught it.
Naturally, a Pokémon that Bruno of the Elite Four had taken a liking to would not be a poor one.
That was what Vance was thinking, and so he had come here today, to try his luck: if he met it he would catch it, and if he did not, there was nothing to be done.
Bruno's catching of the giant Onix was still some years off; by then Ash would have set out travelling and would be competing in the Conference. There was no telling whether the giant Onix was even here yet.
Mt. Hideaway was made up of several ranges of peaks clustered together, and the peaks on the eastern side were all broken stone and bare rock, and looked quite naked.
Aerodactyl came down on a great stone platform, its face as though cut by a blade.
Vance swung himself down and landed on the rock, and looked up: there were a good many Pokémon moving about up there.
Graveler, Dugtrio and the rest.
"Shhh-shhh-shhh—"
Dry sand and soil ground together and threw up clouds of dust, a single claw appeared not far from Vance, and then an earth-yellow shape sprang out of the ground.
It was a Sandslash.
"Ooo......"
The Sandslash was about to let out a great shout when it came face to face with Aerodactyl, which had opened its mouth and bared its great teeth in a friendly smile at it.
But that ferocious face still frightened the Sandslash out of its wits, and it shook from head to foot.
How could it be so unlucky — to jump up right in front of His Lordship there. One swipe, one snap of those great jaws, and it would be gone.
"A Sandslash, level 31. Let's go this way."
Vance gave one glance at the Sandslash, which had appeared out of nowhere with terror all over its face, and set off in another direction.
A level 31 Sandslash held no interest for him.
Not unless it came and made trouble for him of its own accord.
"Rraah, rraah—"
Aerodactyl followed after Vance, flying off in that direction.
"Oooo—"
The Sandslash watched Aerodactyl go until it could no longer see it, and only then, sure it was safe, went limp and slumped to the ground.
It had been frightened to death just now. That had been real danger.
It made a decision then and there: never again. It would be careful, and make sure there was no danger before it showed its face.
That Aerodactyl had truly given it a fright.
What the Sandslash thought about it Vance paid no attention to; he was searching the surroundings for traces of the giant Onix.
"Kirl—"
Kirlia and the other two little ones came out of their Poké Balls to look with him.
Vance put out his psychic power like a human radar, probing the earth and growth around him; all he turned up were the usual sorts of Pokémon.
And so Vance searched Mt. Hideaway for two or three hours with nothing to show for it.
"Let's rest a while."
Vance found a shaded spot and rested.
"Hss-kek—"
Gastly came and settled beside Vance, bringing a cold air of its own with it, cool to be near and driving off the heat.
Not that it did Vance any good; his body was already proof against heat and cold, and a little warmth was nothing to him.
Still, Gastly's doing it pleased him. The little fellow knew how to read a situation.
"Zoroark, you remember the build of an Onix, don't you."
Vance said it to Zoroark. He had had it study a 3D model of an Onix beforehand, and had taken it to see a real one as well.
"Oo-oo. I remember."
Zoroark nodded in answer.
"Can you manage the change?"
"No trouble at all."
"Right. Give it a try in a moment — change into an Onix, and we'll go down and search underground."
Vance decided. If it was hard to find up here, then they would go below.
Whether they would find it, of course, Vance had no certainty about either.
The anime he had watched had never gone into how that Onix came to be at Mt. Hideaway. Was it a native of the place, or an incomer?
And if an incomer, when had it arrived?
He had no idea of any of it.
"Oo-oo—"
Once Zoroark had signalled that it was no trouble, Vance rested a while longer, put Kirlia and the others back into their Poké Balls, and told Zoroark to change.
"Rraah, rraah—"
Zoroark turned and changed, and an Onix appeared on the spot, near enough identical to the real thing.
"Ha. Let's go."
"Rumble, rumble, rumble—"
The ground shook. The Onix that Zoroark had become bored into the earth, using the move Dig.
Vance followed on behind, pointing out the direction.
The soil underground was somewhat damp and gave off an odd smell.
Fortunately his psychic power sealed it off, and Vance never smelled it.
Nor did the underground surroundings feel oppressive to him; he was quite used to them.
He had spent a great deal of his time in underground spaces. Apart from headquarters and the overseas training base, every Team Rocket branch in Kanto was built in an underground space, so he was used to all of it.
"Shff, shff, shff—"
Turning back the soil to open a tunnel gave Zoroark no difficulty whatever, and it led Vance searching underground.
Walking down there, Vance's wish to catch a Pokémon that could travel underground grew stronger.
An Onix, for instance.
It could have been used at a moment like this. Zoroark was here, true enough, but in a real situation he could not rely on Zoroark alone.
Besides, there might well be fighting underground in future, and it was necessary to have a Pokémon that could move and fight down there.
Among his team, Gyarados and Aerodactyl were naturally unsuited to it, Zweilous was a stretch, and Blaziken, Slaking and Kirlia would have their hands and feet bound, hemmed in by the surroundings and unable to bring out their full strength.
In this sort of place they would be at some disadvantage.
That too was part of Vance's reasoning in wanting to catch the giant Onix. It was necessary.
Zoroark dug at a pace neither slow nor fast; the soil turned back, and they had already come more than three hundred metres down.
Vance stepped round a few fragments of bone and stopped to look.
In front of him was a tunnel about a metre across, and one glance told him it was not the trail of an Onix.