Chương 1: The Golden Morning

On the morning he was supposed to become a Pokémon Trainer, Rine Frostfang woke before the bell. For several quiet seconds, he remained beneath his thin blanket and listened to rain whisper against the dormitory window. No alarm. No caretaker striking the pipes with a wooden baton. No Gideon Marr reciting one of his sermons about discipline over the intercom. Only the rain, the breathing of twenty sleeping boys, and the quick, disbelieving beat of Rine's heart. Sixteen. He had made it.

The thought carried more wonder than it should have. In his first life, birthdays had become unremarkable somewhere between rent payments and twelve-hour shifts. He remembered cake from a grocery-store bakery, messages from relatives, and his mother insisting on calling no matter how old he became. Those memories belonged to another world and another version of himself, but they had never faded.

Neither had the memory of the rain-soaked mountainside where his family died, nor the strangely ordinary night, years later, when he went to sleep and never woke again. Then there had been light, a woman's exhausted voice, and a name spoken above him. Rine Frostfang. The same name. The same person, in some ways. In others, not even close. Sixteen years in Kanto had changed him as thoroughly as his remembered adulthood shaped him. He no longer thought of Earth as home.

Home was the eastern edge of Saffron City, where golden towers burned against the morning sky and Magnet Trains hummed over neighborhoods too poor to share in their light. Home was cracked concrete, iron-framed beds, watery porridge, and children learning to wrap bruised knuckles before they learned algebra. It was a miserable home. But beyond its walls waited Pokémon. Real Pokémon. Rine sat up, careful not to wake the younger boys. His long limbs had outgrown the bed two years ago.

He was tall but painfully thin, with narrow shoulders, visible ribs, and wrists that seemed too slight for his hands. A curtain of uneven grey-white hair fell into his eyes. When he pushed it back, his reflection stared at him from the dark window: red eyes, pale skin, and an expression that looked older than sixteen. Today, he thought, that changes.

At the foot of his bed lay his entire fortune: two shirts, one spare pair of trousers, a League study guide printed nine years ago, a blue canvas backpack, and a carefully folded application packet for the Indigo Trainer Licensing Bureau. The orphanage had promised to submit its oldest children for provisional licenses through the New Horizons Placement Program. Successful applicants would receive temporary lodging, travel vouchers, and placement with an approved Pokémon provider.

Rine did not trust promises easily. He had checked every public detail he could find. The program existed. The forms looked legitimate. The Bureau's seal contained the correct microprinting. Even the listed administrator was real. That did not guarantee the orphanage intended to help them. It did, however, mean there was a path out. Across the aisle, a blanket shifted.

"You're breathing too loudly," Tomas Vale mumbled.

"You're snoring too loudly."

"I don't snore."

"Three Pidgey tried to answer you through the window." Tomas raised his head, dark hair flattened across one side of his broad face. At sixteen, he already possessed the shoulders of a construction worker and the enduring confidence of someone who had never encountered a silence he could not improve by talking over it. He stared at Rine for a moment. Then his sleepy expression split into a grin.

"Today." Rine tried to remain composed. He failed and smiled back.

"Today." Within minutes, Tomas was dressed and attempting to fit four shirts into a bag designed to hold two. Rine watched him struggle until the stitching protested.

"You don't need all of them."

"What if Pewter is cold?"

"It isn't."

"You've never been there."

"I've read about weather." Tomas shoved his final shirt into the bag.

"And that is why, when we're famous, you'll handle maps and I'll handle people."

"Because maps can't walk away?"

"Because people like me." They had argued for years about where their journey should begin. Tomas wanted Pewter City because its Gym rewarded courage and straightforward strength. Rine preferred Cerulean. Water Pokémon offered broader tactical possibilities, and the route north of Saffron gave them more opportunities to train before a formal challenge. Neither possessed a Pokémon. Neither had held a modern Poké Ball outside a classroom demonstration. Their plans were therefore ridiculous.

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version. Rine treasured them. The dormitory bell rang at six. Boys and girls spilled into the central halls beneath the sharp instructions of caretakers. The Nameless Home—as the children called it—had once been a military hospital. Its old stone walls trapped winter cold and summer heat equally well, and narrow windows made every corridor feel subterranean. The bronze sign above the outer gate had weathered blank decades earlier.

Administrators occasionally promised to replace it. They never did. To Saffron City, the institution was simply Municipal Children's Residence Twelve. To Rine, it had always been the place between his life and the world. At breakfast, he and Tomas received boiled eggs with their porridge. That alone should have warned him something was wrong. Mira Fen dropped onto the bench across from them, her narrow face pinched with suspicion.

She was eleven, small for her age, and perpetually followed by a few strands of black hair that escaped every braid.

"You got eggs," she accused. Tomas covered both with his hands.

"Trainer privilege."

"You said you'd give me your desserts when you left."

"An egg isn't dessert."

"It is here." Rine slid his egg across the table. Mira snatched it before a caretaker noticed.

"Eat it slowly," he said.

"And keep the shell."

"Why?"

"You can grind it into Growlithe food." Mira glanced beneath the table. A runty Weedle poked its head from the pocket of her oversized cardigan, sniffing the air. Keeping wild Pokémon inside the orphanage was forbidden, which had never stopped Mira from nursing injured Bug-types in forgotten boiler rooms.

"He's not a Growlithe."

"Calcium is calcium."

"You had better come back knowing more than that." Rine's smile weakened.

"I'll come back." It was not an empty promise. Licensed Trainers could sponsor younger applicants after establishing a record with the League. Rine had studied the requirements. Three years without disciplinary action, proof of income, suitable lodging, and a recommendation from either a Gym or registered professor. Three years was a long time. It was not forever. Mira peeled the egg under the table.

"Bring me something from Viridian Forest."

"We're going to Pewter first," Tomas said.

"Cerulean," Rine corrected.

"Bring me a blue Venonat."

"Those don't exist." Mira looked at him with the profound disappointment reserved for adults who lacked imagination.

"Then find one." At seven, Matron Elara Halden summoned the sixteen-year-olds to the assembly hall. There were thirty-two of them, arranged in familiar pairs. The orphanage had assigned those partnerships years earlier under the stated philosophy that Trainers survived through cooperation. Children studied, exercised, and accepted punishment together. If one failed an examination, both repeated it. If one stole food, both went without dinner. Rine had once despised the arrangement.

Then Tomas took a beating rather than admit Rine had broken into the records room searching for licensing material, and partnership became friendship. Elara waited on the stage in a dark green dress. She was a spare woman in her late forties, with iron-grey hair and hands that smelled perpetually of antiseptic. She had stitched Rine's eyebrow after his first serious fight, sat beside Mira through a winter fever, and quietly added books to the library whenever Rine exhausted its meager selection.

This morning she would not meet his eyes. Behind her stood Gideon Marr. The orphanage's vocational director wore a charcoal suit cut too well for the district. Silver threaded his black hair at the temples, and an old scar pulled one corner of his mouth into a permanent suggestion of contempt. Gideon visited four times each year to inspect records and speak about the virtues of labor. Whenever he entered a room, caretakers straightened as if someone had pulled wires through their spines.

"Today," Gideon began, "you leave childhood behind." Tomas nudged Rine with an elbow.

"The world beyond these walls is magnificent," Gideon continued.

"It is also merciless. Pokémon possess power beyond ordinary human comprehension. Trainers command respect because they prove themselves capable of facing that power. You have studied for this opportunity. You have trained for it. Today, we determine what your preparation has produced." Rine felt a faint pressure gather behind his eyes. It had happened before: during examinations, fights, and the fever that nearly killed him at twelve. The world sharpened, and information seemed to hover just beyond sight.

Usually the sensation vanished when he reached for it. This time, one word emerged. Identify. Pain lanced through his temple. For a heartbeat, a translucent impression settled over Gideon. > Gideon Marr > Human — Level obscured > Condition: Healthy > Emotional State: Anticipatory > Threat Assessment: Severe > Additional information unavailable. Rine blinked. The impression vanished. He had no time to understand it. Gideon gestured toward the side doors, where caretakers waited with dark cloth bands.

"The licensing assessment is confidential. You will be blindfolded during transport. This protects the security of the examination facility and prevents outside interference." Unease moved through the room. Not panic—nothing so definite—but the rustle of bodies sensing a change in the weather. Rine looked toward Elara. She was staring at him now. There was grief in her face. His excitement cooled. Tomas leaned closer.

"Something wrong?"

"I don't know."

"You always know." That was not true. It had merely been useful for Tomas to believe it. Elara descended from the stage while cloth bands were fastened over the others' eyes. When she reached Rine, her fingers trembled against his temple.

"Matron?" he whispered. She tied the blindfold too tightly.

"I am sorry." Before he could ask what she meant, a hand settled on his shoulder and guided him away. The journey lasted seventeen minutes. Rine counted every turn. Down two flights of stairs. Right. Forty-three steps along level ground. Another descent, this one long enough to place them beneath the orphanage's foundation. The air changed as they traveled, losing the scents of soap and boiled grain.

In their place came machine oil, cold metal, and something coppery that Rine recognized before he allowed himself to name it. Blood. Tomas's shoulder brushed his. Their hands found each other briefly in the dark—not clasping, merely confirming that the other remained there. Steel doors opened with a hydraulic groan. The blindfold was removed. Rine looked down into an underground arena. Concrete walls rose around a circular floor stained in overlapping shades of brown. Observation windows lined the upper level.

Behind the glass stood men and women in black uniforms, each bearing a crimson letter across the chest. R. Team Rocket. The organization was not a trio of incompetent thieves or a collection of harmless villains waiting to be defeated by children. In this world, its name appeared in reports about missing Trainers, gutted laboratories, poisoned officials, and Pokémon found with their identification chips carved from their bodies. Rine stared at Gideon. The vocational director had removed his jacket.

Beneath it, sewn over his heart, was the same crimson R. Something fragile and carefully protected collapsed inside Rine. The forms had been real. The administrator had been real. Every promise had been constructed from enough truth to survive inspection.

"Welcome," Gideon said, "to the beginning of your useful lives." Metal partitions divided the arena into sixteen separate rings. Each pair was directed toward a different gate. Rine and Tomas stood together before the final entrance. Inside, beneath a single white light, lay one knife. Rine understood. Beside him, Tomas stopped breathing. Gideon's voice rolled from the speakers overhead.

"The League teaches that partnership is the foundation of strength. Team Rocket understands the greater truth: strength is what remains when partnership fails." The gate opened.

"One of you will leave the arena. Prove which one."