Chương 11: Old Saffron

Old Saffron began where the city stopped repairing itself. The eastern residential quarter had once housed Silph technicians, railway workers, and the families who built the capital's first underground lines. Then a chemical fire poisoned three blocks, the Magnet Train changed routes, and investment moved west. Apartment towers remained, their windows dark and their lower floors swallowed by ivy. Rainwater filled streets where traffic lights continued cycling for no one. Rine entered shortly before dusk.

Houndour walked beside him without a muzzle. Team Rocket's route designation classified the district as abandoned territory, which meant public restraint laws were not enforced. She stayed close anyway, nose working constantly as wind moved through broken buildings. The mission gave them six hours. The stolen containment cylinder had last transmitted from a condemned research clinic.

Two scavengers intercepted the courier carrying it, unaware—or unconcerned—that the container held a Gastly deemed defective by Team Rocket. The courier was found unconscious with chemical burns inside his mouth and lungs. The scavengers disappeared. Rine had received one warning: > Do not inhale the asset. That was sound advice for any Gastly. The species was composed largely of poisonous gas and could envelop prey despite possessing little conventional substance.

In the games, Gastly had been an early Ghost-type with poor physical durability and excellent special potential. Here, breathing one could kill a person. The Identify image attached to the assignment showed more. > Species: Gastly > Level: Estimated 8–12 > Potential: Purple — Exceptional > Status before theft: Spectral instability; malnutrition > Mutation or abnormality: Cursed Smog > Ownership: Rocket Research Division > Recovery priority: High Rine disliked the word ownership more each time he read it.

His equipment was painfully modest. A filtration mask cost two hundred credits. A Silph spectral lantern cost more than three thousand, so he rented a damaged Rocket model for one hundred. It produced a frequency Ghost-types found irritating and revealed disturbances in the surrounding air. He also carried two empty Poké Balls, antidote concentrate, rope, food, and the knife Team Rocket returned after the arena. Houndour's harness contained copper grounding mesh but no muzzle.

Her current potential remained Green, her body still recovering from starvation faster than her elemental pathways recovered from neglect.

"No full discharge unless we have no choice," Rine reminded her. She looked toward a rooftop where something moved behind a broken satellite dish. Murkrow. Three of them watched from above. Their feathers blended into dusk, and their eyes tracked the supply pouch at Rine's hip. Wild Pokémon had reclaimed entire buildings here. Rattata moved beneath collapsed storefronts. A colony of Zubat slept in a subway entrance. Somewhere far off, a Hypno's pendulum chimed against metal.

The city felt alive in a way central Saffron did not. Dangerous, hungry, and indifferent, but alive. Rine's aura awareness stirred. He had never received formal instruction. Gideon's Hypno proved that his mind could resist psychic contact, while Houndour's presence taught him the texture of Dark energy. Aura was different. It did not close or intrude. It pulsed through living things as heat without temperature. Houndour was bright beside him—three currents braided imperfectly around a single stubborn life.

Murkrow flickered above. Plants registered faintly when he concentrated. Deeper in the district, something cold interrupted the pattern. Not absence. Hunger shaped like absence. Before following it, Rine circled the district. The mission map marked the clinic as the last signal location, but approaching directly would announce his priorities to anyone watching. He and Houndour moved through a ruined schoolyard, an overgrown market, and an apartment lobby where old mail still waited beneath collapsed boxes.

Wild Pokémon had established territories invisible to human maps. Rattata scent marked the market. Spinarak webs sealed several upper windows. A pair of Trubbish occupied a refuse compactor and hissed whenever Houndour approached. She responded with the rigid-legged confidence of a puppy who had recently discovered that other creatures might retreat from her.

"Leave them." Houndour looked back.

"Not everything is a fight." She sniffed the air and followed. Rine hoped the lesson reached both of them. At the schoolyard, the Murkrow flock descended. Six birds landed along a rusted climbing frame. Their leader wore a silver chain tangled around one leg, stolen jewelry hanging like a trophy. Houndour's current rose. Dark recognized Dark differently than opposing elemental energies. Rine felt territorial pressure pass between them without psychic intrusion. The Murkrow wanted food and anything shiny.

Houndour wanted them outside biting distance. Rine offered three pieces of dried meat. If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it. The largest Murkrow hopped closer and clicked its beak.

"Information for food," Rine said, feeling faintly ridiculous. He showed the containment cylinder's image. The bird stared, then flew toward the clinic and returned. It dropped a bloodied strip of blue fabric at Rine's feet. One scavenger in the mission photograph wore a blue coat.

"Good." Rine gave the flock the meat. The leader snatched two pieces and escaped before the others could object. Pokémon society, apparently, had management problems too. The detour revealed another important fact. Two streets north of the clinic, Rine found fresh boot prints with triangular heel marks—the standard sole used by Iron Talon field armor. The guild was already searching. He checked his mission timer. Four hours, twelve minutes remained. Team Rocket would expect him to compete rather than coordinate.

Contacting the hunters might save Gastly and destroy Rine's position. Avoiding them protected Mira but returned a damaged Pokémon to the organization that created the damage. Every path required betraying something. Rine crouched beside Houndour and adjusted her harness.

"If humans in metal armor appear, don't attack unless they attack first." Her ears flicked.

"That was far too complicated." He reduced it to a command they had practiced.

"Wait." Houndour sat. Rine rewarded her. Simple language for a complicated world. They passed a memorial wall before reaching the clinic. Hundreds of names had been painted across the brick after the chemical fire. Candles occupied shelves protected from rain. Gastly residue gathered faintly around the oldest names. Rine sensed no malice there. Only memory. Ghost Pokémon were not proof that every dead person remained. He knew that. Still, he searched the names for Frostfang and Vale before moving on.

Neither appeared.

"That way." Houndour followed him toward the clinic. The building's front doors were chained. Identify found recent scratches near a side entrance and blood on a rusted handle. Human blood. Inside, the clinic smelled of mold and old disinfectant. Examination rooms had been stripped of equipment. Graffiti marked the walls: gang signs, bounty-hunter notices, and warnings about Ghost Pokémon. Someone had painted a pair of red eyes over the stairwell. The spectral lantern pulsed. Houndour growled.

"Wait." Rine swept the beam across the corridor. Violet vapor clung to the ceiling, thin enough to mistake for shadow. It withdrew from the light. Gastly had been here. So had the scavengers. Boot prints crossed the dust. One person dragged the left foot. Drops of blood led toward the basement. Rine moved slowly. Every doorway concealed angles of attack. His reincarnated knowledge supplied species behavior but no instinct for clearing buildings.

The orphanage's combat drills had focused upon direct confrontation, not armed humans in ruined clinics. At the basement landing, he heard voices.

"—said it was worth twenty grand."

"It killed Niko."

"Niko was stupid."

"Niko had a mask." Rine crouched. Houndour lowered beside him without being told. Two men occupied the laboratory below. One wore scavenged police armor; the other held a pump-action net launcher. A third body lay beneath a sheet. The containment cylinder rested on a table with its glass cracked and seals reinforced by tape. Violet gas leaked continuously. Identify sharpened.

> Containment integrity: 18% > Estimated catastrophic failure: 24–47 minutes > Interior life-sign: distressed > External contamination: lethal with prolonged exposure The armored scavenger touched the cylinder.

"Buyer meets us at nine."

"Rocket?"

"Doesn't matter." It mattered to Rine. A buyer already knew the asset was here, which meant the mission might be observed from more than one direction. He could wait for the exchange and identify everyone. Gideon would reward intelligence. Gastly might not survive.

"Stay," Rine whispered. Houndour's ears flattened. He descended two steps and deliberately kicked a loose bottle. The men turned.

"Who's there?" Rine stepped into view with his hands visible. His Rocket Watch remained beneath his sleeve.

"That cylinder is failing." The net launcher rose.

"Kid, wrong building."

"The gas will fill the basement before your buyer arrives." The armored man studied Rine's filter mask and Houndour's unusual markings. Recognition entered his face.

"Rocket trainee." So much for subtlety.

"Put the weapon down," Rine said. The man laughed.

"You came alone?"

"No." Houndour used Ember from the stairs. The controlled shot struck the overhead light. Darkness swallowed the basement. Rine dropped behind a cabinet as the net launcher fired. Weighted cable struck the stairs where he had stood. Houndour moved low through darkness, her golden markings dimmed to narrow threads. The armored scavenger released a Pokémon. White light formed into a Raticate with torn ears and a metal plate bolted over one shoulder.

"Hyper Fang!" Raticate found Houndour by scent. It crossed the laboratory faster than Rine's eyes could follow.

"Right!" Houndour dodged, but the larger Pokémon adjusted mid-charge. Its teeth caught her harness and threw her against the table. The cylinder rocked. The crack widened. Gastly screamed without sound. Violet pressure swept through the room. The scavenger with the launcher tore off his mask and began clawing at his throat. The armored man staggered. Raticate abandoned the attack, squealing as poison enveloped it. Houndour's Dark typing protected her mind from the worst spectral pressure, but not the poison.

Rine felt her aura weaken.

"Back to me!" She obeyed. Rine pulled her behind the cabinet and pressed his spare filter against her muzzle. It was designed for a human face and fit poorly, but the charcoal layer reduced exposure. The cylinder split. Gastly emerged like a bruise spreading across the air. Its round core flickered between visibility and nothing. Red eyes opened within the gas, enormous and terrified. Black motes fell from it like ash, and wherever they touched, shadows twisted into images of dead things.

Tomas stood beside the laboratory table. Rine knew the hallucination immediately. That did not make it less perfect. Tomas wore the blood-soaked shirt from the arena.

"You promised Pewter." Rine's breath stopped inside the mask. Houndour barked. Dark energy struck Rine's aura and shattered the image. Tomas dissolved into poison. The armored scavenger saw something else. He fired blindly at the wall, screaming a woman's name. Gastly expanded. Rine felt its intent through Identify and aura together: no plan, no cruelty, only pain escaping in every direction. He pulled out an empty Poké Ball. Team Rocket expected him to force capture. Instead, he set the ball on the floor.

"Your choice," he said. Gastly's red eyes fixed on him. The basement doors burst open above. Boots thundered down the stairs. Not scavengers. Iron Talon badges caught the emergency light. Rine recognized their formation from public guild footage. Lead restraint specialist, airborne control, psychic support held out of sight. They were professionals entering a poisoned room, not frightened recruits improvising for Gideon's approval. That made them more dangerous.

The lead hunter's armor carried scratches repaired rather than polished away. Her launcher remained pointed low until Gastly expanded. Even then, she placed herself between the gas and the unconscious scavenger. Rine noticed the choice. Team Rocket would have used the fallen man as cover. For one treacherous second, Rine imagined surrendering. Licensed hunters, medical equipment, lawful authority—everything the orphanage taught him to seek beyond its gates. Then his watch displayed Mira's live location upstairs.

The cage tightened from kilometers away. Rine lowered his center of gravity and prepared to oppose the people most likely to help him. The irony offered no comfort. Licensed hunters represented the lawful world he had once dreamed of joining, yet surrendering to them now would place every child above the base in Gideon's hands. Rine measured the distance to the nearest cabinet, the angle of Mara's launcher, and the weakening pulse of Gastly's aura.

Whatever happened next, he would choose the living creature in front of him over the institution promising justice later.