Chương 16: Incense at the North Gate

The North Gate controlled freight entering Saffron from Cerulean and the northern routes. Warehouses surrounded six inspection lanes beneath elevated rail lines. League customs officers worked beside trained Growlithe, Machoke labor crews, and scanning systems manufactured by Silph. The Saffron Gym maintained its own receiving station within the secure zone. Rine studied the operation from a rooftop across the avenue. Rain silvered the concrete.

Houndour lay beside him beneath a waterproof cover, golden markings hidden. Gastly occupied the shadow beneath an air-conditioning unit. Cassian waited two buildings east with Ekans. Iona and Zubat controlled the service tunnel below. The plan came from Gideon: disable a signal relay, divert the transport into an inspection lane marked closed, incapacitate the psychic escorts, and escape through storm drains. Simple in the way plans became simple after omitting everything likely to fail.

"Transport approaching," Iona said through the encrypted channel. A white van bearing the Saffron Gym's golden eye symbol entered the freight district. Two people in yellow-and-black field robes traveled beside it on motorcycles. Rine's Identify could not pierce the van's shielding. The escorts were clearer. > Gym Acolyte — Level 18 > Psychic sensitivity: High > Partner: Kadabra, Level 20 The second carried a Mr. Mime registered as municipal barrier support. Rine's previous-life knowledge supplied useful facts.

Houndour's Dark type gave her immunity to direct Psychic-type damage, but that did not prevent Kadabra from lifting debris, altering terrain, or attacking Rine. Gastly was weak to Psychic and vulnerable if exposed.

"Relay," Cassian ordered. Iona's Zubat used Supersonic inside the conduit. The vibration disrupted a sensor panel. Rine inserted the stolen maintenance code. The traffic signal changed. The van entered the closed lane. Steel barriers rose behind it. Cassian moved first. Ekans slipped beneath the transport and used Acid on the rear axle. Tires sagged as rubber dissolved. The escorts reacted immediately. Mr. Mime spread both hands. A transparent barrier sealed the lane.

Kadabra teleported onto the van roof, spoon glowing.

"Identify yourselves," the first acolyte called. Cassian released a smoke grenade. Ekans struck through it with Poison Sting. Kadabra stopped every barb in midair. Psychic pressure swept the lane. Rine's Dark veil held around his mind. Houndour remained unaffected by the direct scan. Gastly compressed deeper into shadow. Iona gasped over the channel.

"They found me." Mr. Mime turned toward the service tunnel.

"Houndour, Ember—overhead pipe." Fire struck a sprinkler line. Water exploded across the lane. Smoke collapsed. The sudden rain revealed outlines against Mr. Mime's invisible barriers. Rine saw the enclosure.

"Left edge, low!" Houndour sprinted through the narrow gap beneath the barrier while Mr. Mime adjusted. She reached the first motorcycle and bit through its control cable—not a formal move, merely sharp teeth applied precisely. The acolyte dismounted. Kadabra raised its spoon.

"Kinesis," she commanded. The pavement around Houndour warped. Metal signs, bolts, and broken concrete rose into the air. Dark typing could not protect her from objects thrown by Psychic force.

"Back!" Houndour retreated as debris struck the lane. Cassian used the opening. Ekans wrapped around Mr. Mime's legs and pulled the Pokémon off balance. Its barrier flickered.

"Gastly, Mean Look." Red eyes opened inside Kadabra's own shadow. The Psychic-type froze. Mean Look prevented retreat, not movement, but the shock disrupted Teleport.

"Now Smog—thin!" Gastly released a controlled violet veil around Kadabra's face. Not enough to kill. Enough to blind and force concentration toward breathing. The acolyte turned toward Rine. Their eyes met. Psychic energy struck him directly. The probe was stronger than Hypno's exercises and more precise. It slipped around his first barrier, searching for identity, command structure, intent. Rine drew Dark energy across his mind. He did not empty himself.

He held Houndour's warmth, Gastly's cold humor, Tomas's memory, and Mira's stubborn face behind the veil. The probe failed. The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement. Blood ran from Rine's nose. The acolyte staggered in equal surprise.

"Dark adept," she whispered. Rine threw the Black-Out grenade. Darkness filled the lane.

"Cargo!" Cassian shouted. Iona emerged from the tunnel. Zubat used Wing Attack on the van's weakened rear door. Metal tore open. Inside were twelve sealed jars of Pure Mind Incense, medical herbs, and a black case surrounded by psychic warning seals. The mission listed only incense. Cassian reached for the case. Rine caught his wrist.

"Not in the brief."

"That means it's valuable."

"It means it may be trapped." Cassian shoved him away. The moment his fingers touched the case, every psychic seal opened. A signal passed through the lane—not loud, not visible, but powerful enough that Rine felt it cross Saffron. The case contained no item. Only a tracker.

"Move!" Rine shouted. Sirens began in three directions. Iona loaded the incense into waterproof packs. Cassian swore and threw the case aside. The acolytes recovered faster than expected. Mr. Mime rebuilt the barrier around the storm-drain exit. Kadabra emerged from Smog with eyes blazing. Psychic force seized Iona. She rose from the ground, choking. Cassian ran toward the drain. Rine could leave her. The mission cargo was secure. Iona's capture might delay pursuit. Team Rocket would consider the loss acceptable.

Rine turned back.

"Houndour, Thunder Shock—water!" She looked toward the flooded lane. The technique risked feedback. It also provided the broadest disruption.

"Small. Ground path." Houndour released. Electricity traveled through the sprinkler water. Mr. Mime's muscles seized. Kadabra's concentration broke. Iona hit the pavement. Houndour cried out and collapsed to one knee. Rine carried her. Gastly spread Cursed Smog behind them, shaping violet gas into towering figures that confused the arriving security teams. Iona's Zubat used Supersonic against the weakened barrier. It cracked. They escaped into the storm drain.

Cassian waited thirty meters ahead—not to help, but because the extraction gate required three credentials.

"You risked the mission for her," he said. Iona leaned against the wall, one hand at her bruised throat.

"We have the cargo," Rine answered.

"And now the Gym has your psychic signature." Rine looked back toward the tracker's distant pulse. That had been Gideon's purpose. The incense was valuable, but the mission had tested Saffron Gym security, exposed the recruits, and planted a traceable signal among Team Rocket's cargo. Someone in the Gym had wanted the shipment stolen. Above them, psychic attention spread through the city like an opening eye. Rine felt it follow them all the way beneath the river channel. Not a single mind, but a network.

Saffron's psychics communicated through impressions too subtle for ordinary senses. Alarm traveled from acolyte to Gym, from Gym to patrols, and perhaps from Sabrina herself into the city's defensive web. Gastly compressed until barely visible. Houndour's Dark aura thickened around the group. It did not hide Iona or Zubat, but it made their emotional outlines less distinct within the drain.

"Can you extend that?" Rine whispered. Houndour looked at him without understanding. Rine lowered his aura toward hers. He did not pull. He matched the boundary she created and guided its edge outward. For three seconds, darkness covered Iona. The psychic attention passed overhead. Houndour staggered. Rine released the technique immediately. Identify marked it as cooperative aura masking—not a move, not yet, and too exhausting for routine use.

"What did you do?" Iona asked.

"Borrowed her example."

"Can you do it again?"

"Not safely." Cassian scoffed.

"Then it's useless."

"So is a knife after it breaks. That doesn't make knives useless." Rine lifted Houndour again. The experiment had lasted seconds, but it revealed a future application: not merely defending his own mind, but helping others cross Psychic surveillance. Like every useful discovery, it created another demand upon Houndour's recovering body. He recorded the principle and prohibited further practice for seven days. Power could wait. That decision, more than the technique, separated his training from Gideon's.

They traveled through the storm drain for almost a kilometer before stopping. Iona collapsed first. Bruising darkened her throat where Psychic force had held her. Zubat clung protectively to her shoulder. Rine set Houndour down and examined the electrical pathways along her spine. > Elemental feedback: Moderate > Cardiac rhythm: Stable > Recommended recovery: Minimum seventy-two hours without Electric output"I'm sorry," he said. Houndour licked his wrist once, then growled at the inspection tunnel behind them.

Cassian stared at the stolen incense packs.

"We lost three jars."

"We retained nine," Iona rasped.

"The brief specified twelve." Rine looked at him.

"You opened the tracker."

"You're welcome to explain that to Gideon."

"I intend to." Cassian stepped closer. Ekans moved behind him, exhausted and burned along the belly where sprinkler current reached it.

"You think carrying people out makes you a leader?"

"No."

"Good."

"Leaving them makes you predictable." Iona gave a hoarse laugh. Cassian's face tightened. He did not attack. Three credentials opened the extraction gate, but all three were also logged. If one Grunt disappeared in the drains, Gideon would know which two emerged. They returned together. Gideon received the cargo in Sub-Level Two. He showed no surprise when Rine placed the empty tracker case beside it.

"A signal device," Rine said.

"Obviously."

"You knew."

"I suspected."

"You sent us anyway."

"And now we know the Gym's response time, field personnel, barrier strength, and surveillance reach." Iona touched her bruised throat.

"We nearly died."

"Nearly is an educational distance." Cassian reported the three lost jars and blamed Rine's decision to retrieve Iona. Gideon reviewed mission footage.

"Frostfang preserved an operative and cargo while denying capture," he said.

"Voss triggered an unidentified device against instruction."

"There was no instruction—""Exactly." Cassian fell silent. Reward distribution reflected the judgment. Rine received three hundred credits. Iona received two hundred. Cassian received fifty after deductions. Money mattered less than Gideon's next statement.

"The Saffron Gym will respond. All personnel begin raid preparation tonight." Not defense. Raid. Team Rocket intended to attack before the Gym could act on the tracker. Rine carried Houndour back to the cell. Gastly followed without appearing, subdued by the density of psychic attention lingering around them. At the door, Iona stopped Rine.

"Why did you come back?"

"You were part of the mission."

"Cassian was too." Rine considered lying.

"Because leaving you would have been easy." Iona understood the answer.

"And?"

"Easy is becoming dangerous." She touched Zubat's folded wing.

"My brother used to say strange things like that."

"Used to?"

"Still alive. Different orphanage." Before Rine could ask, she walked away. The information remained, another thin crack in Team Rocket's walls. Rine searched the internal roster for Iona's surname. Her younger brother, Milo Kreel, was assigned to a municipal residence outside Vermilion. His file showed suppression medication and a pairing designation beginning three years earlier. Rine copied the address into his encrypted archive.

One orphanage had become two, and two implied routes, suppliers, and children Team Rocket expected no one to count. The coming conflict could not free them all. He wrote Milo's name onto the long-term objective list anyway. Escaping Saffron would not end the work. It would merely give him a chance to begin it.

"One cage at a time," he told Houndour. The phrase sounded inadequate. It was still better than pretending only his cage existed. The base entered lockdown after their return. Steel shutters divided the residential levels, and every Grunt submitted to psychic screening. Rine passed by allowing genuine anger at the mission to occupy the surface while concealing his conclusion about the tracker. Houndour spent the night on her grounding mat.

Gastly refused to leave the ceiling, disturbed by psychic residue clinging to Rine's aura. Rine cleaned Iona's throat bruises with the remaining medical supplies. She watched him work without comment.

"You could have left," she said eventually.

"We covered that."

"I mean afterward. The drain reached the river."

"Mira." Iona nodded. One name explained the cage.

"Milo," she said. Her brother's name. Rine added it to memory rather than his watch. Some records were safer inside a guarded mind. Rine returned his supplies to the medical kit and gave Iona the remainder of the Pecha concentrate.

"For Zubat," he said.

"She wasn't poisoned."

"For later." In Team Rocket, there was always a later. Iona accepted it. Rine sat beside Houndour until her breathing deepened into sleep. His watch continued filling with raid-preparation orders, equipment requests, and security changes. He copied each one before acknowledging it. The Gym would come. Gideon would be waiting. Somewhere between them slept children who had never heard either side's plan. Rine began mapping the western corridors from memory. He did not yet call it an escape route.