Vance watched Ambrose deliver it all at his leisure and marvelled as well at how the fat man could talk — and wondered how much of what he was saying was true.
Galaxy Pokémon Technology? When had he founded that? Why had Vance heard nothing of it? Where had this fly-by-night chief executive sprung from?
As for everything that came after, he understood still less of it, and each item sounded grander than the last.
He looked at Emery, and Emery turned to look back at that same moment and shook his head: he did not know either.
"The wretched fat man is a genuine damned talent. He's going to be a good deal more use than I thought." Vance sipped at the drink in his hand and watched Ambrose lay it all out, natural and unhurried, without a flicker of stage fright from beginning to end, and decided the man was very well suited to occasions like this.
His skill with people was good. If there were rather less heat in his eyes, it would be better still.
"That bastard fat man goes on and on introducing himself, and so well, and I get one line. Absolute dog." Emery had moved over to complain; steady as he usually was, his friend had got through his guard.
Ambrose, who had been between the two of them, had already gone over to sit beside the woman and talk to her, and his humour had her laughing until she swayed like a branch in bloom and her chest shook with it.
Which gave Ambrose beside her an eyeful and then some.
"A bit, yes." Vance nodded along. "That playboy manner of his wasn't got up in a few weeks. Look how at home he is — he's been to plenty of these."
"Absolutely he has."
"Hee. Vance, why aren't you two saying anything? Is something on your minds? Tell me about it — perhaps I can help."
Lila propped her head on one hand, swirled the glass in the other, and looked at the two of them with dark, lingering eyes.
"Nothing."
Emery answered.
"It's that you're so beautiful we don't know what to say. You two talk, I'll listen. It'll do me good to learn."
Vance raised his glass to her.
"Hee. Vance does say the nicest things."
Ambrose stuck up a thumb beside her and gave him an admiring look, then said, "Why don't you ask what's on my mind?"
"Oh? What's on your mind?"
"Winning your heart."
"Pff— you do talk well, young man. A pity you're not my type. Otherwise I might well have been moved."
"Type? I can change."
As they spoke, several glamorous women some way off were calling over to them.
"Are those friends of yours calling you?"
"They are. Why, would you like to meet them?"
"I would, I would. Naturally I would." Ambrose looked over at that cluster of beautiful women with his eyes alight.
"And Vance?"
"Let him go. He's our company's chief executive, after all."
Vance declined with a smile, and Lila said nothing more; at her friends' call she went over to them, and Ambrose followed.
Watching it, Vance understood what Ambrose had said earlier. "Now I see what he meant. When he said it wasn't about the young girls, he meant it — it's the young married women. The lad's taste is distinctive. He has the makings of a warlord."
"Married women? That Lila — a woman like that? What's good about it?" Emery did not follow it; he could not see why Ambrose liked that sort of woman.
At their age, shouldn't they like girls who were young and bright and pretty?
"Each to his own taste. I'm going to walk about a bit and see what turns up," Vance said with a smile.
"Right."
The ball was on no small scale, and the manor holding it was correspondingly large; besides the ballroom there was a Pokémon battlefield, so that the Trainers present could go out and test one another.
In the society of the Pokémon age there was no large human gathering of any kind without Pokémon in it, so it was no surprise that battles were held here.
"Good heavens, a Dragonair!"
"Who is that? He's actually caught a Dragonair."
Vance looked over as well, curious. A long, slender blue Pokémon was gliding about the field, locked in with the Gyarados opposite it.
Under the direction of a handsome young man it beat the Gyarados in no more than ten exchanges, drawing cheers from the crowd, and a good many women watched that young man with burning eyes.
On his belt, the Gyarados's Poké Ball stirred.
He had caught the scent of his own kind, and the heat of the fighting out there had roused him, so he put in a request to Vance: he wanted out, he wanted to fight.
The other ball, the one with the Vigoroth in it, began to rock as well — whatever the Gyarados was doing, he was in on it too.
Vance was about to say something when a boy came up in front of him, dark-faced from the sun.
"Are you a Trainer? Would you like a good hot-blooded battle?"
The eagerness in the boy's face put Vance in mind of the one called Ash Ketchum, who at this point in time would still be a small child.
"All right. I'll take your battle."
Vance accepted; he had nothing else to do just now, and a battle seemed no bad thing.
"Excellent!"
The boy was delighted to have his challenge taken up and hurried out onto the field, and the two of them took their places.
This was a proper arena battle, so naturally there was a referee.
Vance stood in the competitor's box at one side of the field, looked round at the shouting crowd, and felt a good deal stir in him.
A scene like this was what he had dreamed of before he transmigrated; after he transmigrated, life had been brutal and no chance to stand here had ever come, and the old fire and longing had been ground away by one unfairness after another. To be standing here now, like a Trainer out of the anime, moved him considerably.
"Are you ready? I'm sending my partner out. Go, Charmeleon!"
The ball was thrown, and a Pokémon appeared on the field: a red dinosaur standing upright, a thick flame streaming from its tail.
"Rooar—"
The Charmeleon roared at the empty air the moment it came out, to add to the effect.
"Go, Gyarados."
Vance threw his ball, and the Gyarados's shape appeared on the field.
"Rrraaah—"
Not to be outdone, the Gyarados let out a roar of his own, and with that vicious face behind it the Charmeleon started back several steps.
Seeming to realise that it had flinched, the Charmeleon lifted its head and pulled the fiercest face it had at the Gyarados, who ignored it outright. Who was fierceness of that grade supposed to frighten? A Rattata?
Did it not know that when it came to fierce faces, he, a Gyarados, gave nothing away to any Pokémon alive?
"Begin!"
"A Water-type Gyarados. He means to beat us on the type matchup, but that doesn't frighten us. Charmeleon, charge — smoke first!"
"Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh—"
A great bank of smoke rose across the field and the Charmeleon vanished into it, its whereabouts lost to anyone watching from outside.
"Teacher said Fire attacks don't do much damage to Water Pokémon, so I won't use Fire attacks. With the smoke thick like this it's perfect for a surprise attack — maybe today I can win a battle against the type chart. Charmeleon, go, Slash!"
"Wooo—"
Out of the smoke the Charmeleon sprang, one arm coming down in a slash.
But the Gyarados had been ready all along and let go a Hydro Pump on the instant. It surged out, caught the Charmeleon and carried it, with all that force behind it, down into the ground.