"Well done."
Vance said it quietly, taking the Poké Ball the Sandslash held out to him.
"Ssh-ssh— not at all, not at all."
The Sandslash bobbed and scraped, all humility.
Behind him Zoroark stood with its arms folded and gave the smallest smile. That was more like it.
What, was it supposed to go and fetch the thing itself? A small job like that naturally went to the Sandslash; and as for the Trainer fetching it, that was further out of the question still.
"You weren't hurt, were you, Zoroark?"
Vance asked after it.
Zoroark shook its head, to say it was fine.
"Good. We go on, then. Sandslash, keep leading — take us to those dangerous places."
Vance gave the Sandslash its orders.
"Ssh-ssh— all right."
The Sandslash took itself off to the front and began to dig, shff, shff, and a passage soon opened.
Terrifying. This black creature really was formidable — it had fought a whole battle with that Onix and come away without a scratch.
It was astonished.
They were all much of a muchness, surely, and yet it had been frightened out of its wits; if it had gone up against that Onix it would certainly have come off badly.
And the other one had disposed of the thing lightly, easily, without a mark on it.
Set side by side, it made the Sandslash feel how uneven this world was.
Could it be that a Pokémon with a Trainer got some enormous addition to its fighting strength? Like this black creature?
Or was it something else altogether.
For a moment the Sandslash's head was in something of a muddle.
"Oooo! Get on with it. What are you standing about gaping at??"
Behind it, Zoroark was chivvying it along. The Sandslash had been digging and digging and had begun to slow, with a vague look about it.
"Ssh—"
The Sandslash came to itself at once and dug industriously on.
It had actually let its mind wander just then. Not again — if that happened again it might well get a thrashing.
Next time it would be careful: think if it must, but not let the thinking hold up the work in hand.
Or there would be a thrashing.
And it did not want a thrashing. So there was nothing for it but to dig away here, in this little corner, digging its little passage so the two big fellows could walk through.
Or perhaps it was being so well fed, so full of strength — its two claws swung frightfully fast, faster even than before.
A faint stirring of power went round its body, drawing the dust the digging threw up and pressing it down in one place so that it would not drift backwards, for the greater comfort of those behind.
Vance saw that too. Very good. Thoughtful of it.
Glancing idly ahead at the Sandslash puffing away at its tunnel, a thought crossed his mind, and he opened the system and looked over its data.
> **Name:** Sandslash (male)
> **Type:** Ground
> **Ability:** Sand Attack
> **Aptitude:** Gym-class
> **Level:** 31
> **Moves:** Scratch, Crush Claw, Poison Sting, Defense Curl, Sand Attack, Rollout, Fury Cutter, Swift, Dig, Rock Slide, Headbutt, Swords Dance, Iron Tail
The Sandslash's data came up in front of him. On the whole, not bad.
Gym-class aptitude, a fair head on it, and a good many moves in hand.
"Ssh-ssh—"
Feeling Vance's eyes on it, the Sandslash looked back and felt itself quite seen through, with not a shred of privacy left, and squealed about it — and then one glare from the Zoroark behind took the wind out of it, and it went back to digging.
"Gym-class aptitude, is it. A common enough Pokémon, too. That does suit rather well. We'll see."
Vance murmured it. He thought of his own Pokémon: apart from Gyarados and one or two others they were all fairly rare Pokémon, and put that way it would not quite do; perhaps catching a commoner sort of Pokémon was no bad idea.
Who would have thought that the labourer he had picked up on a whim had Gym-class aptitude as well, and looked reasonably quick-witted into the bargain.
Look at it: every thought written on its face, and careful and cautious with it, able to swallow Zoroark's bullying.
"Shhh-shhh-shhh—"
A sound of scraping; the Sandslash in front, Vance and Zoroark behind. Some while later the Sandslash stopped.
It signalled that just ahead was one of the dangerous places.
"Boom, boom, boom—"
The moment the Sandslash stopped, the ground shook, and one Diglett after another came up, and Dugtrio with them.
Plainly this was their ground. Their nest.
At a glance there were perhaps thirty or forty of them, and the strongest among them was a Dugtrio at level 46.
The ground only shook; nothing followed from them.
"Ssh-ssh—"
At the sight of that array the Sandslash took fright and hurried behind Zoroark for shelter.
That many Diglett — it could not fight them.
"Ssh-ssh—"
On their side, the Dugtrio at their head was calling out, with no move to follow it, and Vance understood well enough what the calling meant.
It was telling them to leave. Driving them off.
"Oooo—"
Zoroark looked to Vance for his instructions.
"We'll go. What we're looking for isn't here."
Vance said it mildly, and set off into the distance with Zoroark, and the Sandslash, seeing it, came trotting eagerly along behind.
This lot of Diglett were mild-tempered as such things go; they had not attacked out of alarm, but driven them off with words instead.
Vance, seeing that what he was after was not here, did not press the matter, and turned and left.
If they had come to blows, he would simply have let Zoroark have the practice.
"Sandslash, on you go. This place is no good, that's proved."
"Ssh!"
There was no help for it. The Sandslash walked in front and went on cutting.
"Shhh-shhh-shhh—"
A while later Vance had it stop, and threw over several energy cubes and a great slab of meat as well.
The Sandslash set about enjoying them thoroughly. As tired as this, and oppressed by Zoroark on top of it, only food like this could soothe its wounded spirit.
This human seemed all right. The things he gave were very good to eat.
So the Sandslash felt.
"Kirlia—"
"Hiss-heh—"
Zoroark and Gastly came out of their Poké Balls too.
The Kirlia was a little uncomfortable; Gastly looked thoroughly interested — it rather liked a dark place like this.
After they had stayed a while Vance had the Kirlia go back into her Poké Ball and left Gastly outside.
"Hiss-heh—"
Gastly drifted over beside the Sandslash, which was lying down, and blew on it gently.
A wave of chill came over the Sandslash, and it opened its eyes to see a small black ball floating there, two great eyes, two fangs, grim and gloomy — and it gave it a fright.
"Hiss-heh—"
Seeing it frightened suited Gastly very well; the faint power of that fear was being drawn in by it.
"Ssh! Blast it, the nerve — frightening me. Do you take a Sandslash for... sorry, sorry. Only playing."
The Sandslash had been on the point of doing something about it when a chilly look came from Zoroark over there, and it changed course in good time.
"Hiss-heh-heh—"
Gastly thought it good fun, and gave it another fright afterwards, and found it could not frighten it at all, which was no use, so it flew back.
"Awake, are you. Awake, so let's go on. Start."
Vance's voice came, and the Sandslash could only set to digging again.
Down on its luck, and any little creature could push it about. That it, a Sandslash, should live to see this day — frightened by a Gastly, and not able to do a thing about it.
Outrageous. The more it thought about it the angrier it grew.
"Faster."
"Ssh-ssh, yes, yes."
The Sandslash answered, its claws striking sparks.
"Scratch, scratch, scratch. That's better."
It could not get its own back on the fellow behind, but it could scratch at this soil, could it not?
So it took some of the soil for the fellow behind it, and scratching the soil came to the same thing as scratching them, and thinking of it that way made it feel better.
Sure enough, thought of that way, its heart was not so full of anger.
That was another move of its own: mental transference.
It dug faster than ever, and this was it venting its rage, not the chivvying of the Zoroark behind — so the Sandslash told itself.
At that speed the Sandslash came to another of the dangerous places, and put its head out on nothing at all.
There were no Pokémon in that open space, but there were traces of Pokémon having been about; it looked like a place where something of the Onix sort lived.
"Up above."
Vance said it, and then had the Sandslash dig upward. There were ripples of power up there. There were Pokémon.
Only there was no telling whether the giant Onix he was after was there.
Still, having come this far, they might as well go up and look. What if it was?